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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/14338-0.txt b/14338-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d1dd428 --- /dev/null +++ b/14338-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8277 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14338 *** + +BOOKS AND HABITS + +_from the lectures of_ + +LAFCADIO HEARN + + + +_Selected and Edited with an Introduction by_ + +JOHN ERSKINE + +_Professor of English Columbia University_ + + + +1922 + +London: William Heinemann + + + + + [Transcriber's note: Contents moved to precede the Introduction.] + +CONTENTS + + INTRODUCTION + I THE INSUPERABLE DIFFICULTY + II ON LOVE IN ENGLISH POETRY + III THE IDEAL WOMAN IN ENGLISH POETRY + IV NOTE UPON THE SHORTEST FORMS OF ENGLISH POETRY + V SOME FOREIGN POEMS ON JAPANESE SUBJECTS + VI THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE + VII THE "HAVAMAL" + VIII BEYOND MAN + IX THE NEW ETHICS + X SOME POEMS ABOUT INSECTS + XI SOME FRENCH POEMS ABOUT INSECTS + XII NOTE ON THE INFLUENCE OF FINNISH POETRY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE + XIII THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ROMANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES + XIV "IONICA" + XV OLD GREEK FRAGMENTS + INDEX + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +These chapters, for the most part, are reprinted from Lafcadio Hearn's +"Interpretations of Literature," 1915, from his "Life and Literature," +1916, and from his "Appreciations of Poetry," 1917. Three chapters appear +here for the first time. They are all taken from the student notes of +Hearn's lectures at the University of Tokyo, 1896-1902, sufficiently +described in the earlier volumes just mentioned. They are now published in +this regrouping in response to a demand for a further selection of the +lectures, in a less expensive volume and with emphasis upon those papers +which illustrate Hearn's extraordinary ability to interpret the exotic in +life and in books. + +It should be remembered that these lectures were delivered to Japanese +students, and that Hearn's purpose was not only to impart the information +about Western literature usually to be found in our histories and +text-books, but much more to explain to the Oriental mind those +peculiarities of our civilization which might be hard to understand on the +further side of the Pacific Ocean. The lectures are therefore unique, in +that they are the first large attempt by a Western critic to interpret us +to the East. That we shall be deeply concerned in the near future to +continue this interpretation on an even larger scale, no one of us doubts. +We wish we might hope for another genius like Hearn to carry on the work. + +The merit of the chapters printed or reprinted in the present volume seems +to me their power to teach us to imagine our familiar traditions as +foreign and exotic in the eyes of other peoples. We are accustomed, like +every one else, to think of our literature as the final product of other +literatures--as a terminal in itself, rather than as a channel through +which great potentialities might flow. Like other men, we are accustomed +to think of ourselves as native, under all circumstances, and of other +people at all times as foreign. While we were staying in their country, +did we not think of the French as foreigners? In these chapters, not +originally intended for us, we have the piquant and salutary experience of +seeing what we look like on at least one occasion when we are the +foreigners; we catch at least a glimpse of what to the Orient seems exotic +in us, and it does us no harm to observe that the peculiarly Western +aspects of our culture are not self-justifying nor always justifiable when +looked at through eyes not already disposed in their favour. Hearn was one +of the most loyal advocates the West could possibly have sent to the East, +but he was an honest artist, and he never tried to improve his case by +trimming a fact. His interpretation of us, therefore, touches our +sensitiveness in regions--and in a degree--which perhaps his Japanese +students were unconscious of; we too marvel as well as they at his skill +in explaining, but we are sensitive to what he found necessary to explain. +We read less for the explanation than for the inventory of ourselves. + +Any interpretation of life which looks closely to the facts will probably +increase our sense of mystery and of strangeness in common things. If on +the other hand it is a theory of experience which chiefly interests us, we +may divert our attention somewhat from the experience to the theory, +leaving the world as humdrum as it was before we explained it. In that +case we must seek the exotic in remote places and in exceptional +conditions, if we are to observe it at all. But Lafcadio Hearn cultivated +in himself and taught his students to cultivate a quick alertness to those +qualities of life to which we are usually dulled by habit. Education as he +conceived of it had for its purpose what Pater says is the end of +philosophy, to rouse the human spirit, to startle it into sharp and eager +observation. It is a sign that dulness is already spreading in us, if we +must go far afield for the stimulating, the wondrous, the miraculous. The +growing sensitiveness of a sound education would help us to distinguish +these qualities of romance in the very heart of our daily life. To have so +distinguished them is in my opinion the felicity of Hearn in these +chapters. When he was writing of Japan for European or American readers, +we caught easily enough the exotic atmosphere of the island +kingdom--easily enough, since it was the essence of a world far removed +from ours. The exotic note is quite as strong in these chapters. We shall +begin to appreciate Hearn's genius when we reflect that here he finds for +us the exotic in ourselves. + +The first three chapters deal from different standpoints with the same +subject--the characteristic of Western civilization which to the East is +most puzzling, our attitude toward women. Hearn attempted in other essays +also to do full justice to this fascinating theme, but these illustrations +are typical of his method. To the Oriental it is strange to discover a +civilization in which the love of husband and wife altogether supersedes +the love of children for their parents, yet this is the civilization he +will meet in English and in most Western literatures. He can understand +the love of individual women, as we understand the love of individual men, +but he will not easily understand our worship of women as a sex, our +esteem of womankind, our chivalry, our way of taking woman as a religion. +How difficult, then, will he find such a poem as Tennyson's "Princess," or +most English novels. He will wonder why the majority of all Western +stories are love stories, and why in English literature the love story +takes place before marriage, whereas in French and other Continental +literatures it usually follows marriage. In Japan marriages are the +concern of the parents; with us they are the concern of the lovers, who +must choose their mates in competition more or less open with other +suitors. No wonder the rivalries and the precarious technique of +love-making are with us an obsession quite exotic to the Eastern mind. But +the Japanese reader, if he would understand us, must also learn how it is +that we have two ways of reckoning with love--a realistic way, which +occupies itself in portraying sex, the roots of the tree, as Hearn says, +and the idealistic way, which tries to fix and reproduce the beautiful +illusion of either happy or unhappy passion. And if the Japanese reader +has learned enough of our world to understand all this, he must yet +visualize our social system more clearly perhaps than most of us see it, +if he would know why so many of our love poems are addressed to the woman +we have not yet met. When we begin to sympathize with him in his efforts +to grasp the meaning of our literature, we are at last awakened ourselves +to some notion of what our civilization means, and as Hearn guides us +through the discipline, we realize an exotic quality in things which +formerly we took for granted. + +Lecturing before the days of Imagism, before the attention of many +American poets had been turned to Japanese art, Hearn recognized the +scarcity in our literature of those short forms of verse in which the +Greeks as well as the Japanese excel. The epigram with us is--or was until +recently--a classical tradition, based on the brief inscriptions of the +Greek anthology or on the sharp satires of Roman poetry; we had no native +turn for the form as an expression of our contemporary life. Since Hearn +gave his very significant lecture we have discovered for ourselves an +American kind of short poem, witty rather than poetic, and few verse-forms +are now practised more widely among us. Hearn spoke as a prophet or as a +shrewd observer--which is the same thing--when he pointed out the +possibility of development in this field of brevity. He saw that Japan was +closer to the Greek world in this practice than we were, and that our +indifference to the shorter forms constituted a peculiarity which we could +hardly defend. He saw, also, in the work of Heredia, how great an +influence Japanese painting might have on Western literature, even on +those poets who had no other acquaintance with Japan. In this point also +his observation has proved prophetic; the new poets in America have +adopted Japan, as they have adopted Greece, as a literary theme, and it is +somewhat exclusively from the fine arts of either country that they draw +their idea of its life. + +The next chapters which are brought together here, consider the origin and +the nature of English and European ethics. Hearn was an artist to the +core, and as a writer he pursued with undivided purpose that beauty which, +as Keats reminded us, is truth. In his creative moments he was a +beauty-lover, not a moralist. But when he turned critic he at once +stressed the cardinal importance of ethics in the study of literature. The +art which strives to end in beauty will reveal even more clearly than more +complex forms of expression the personality of the artist, and personality +is a matter of character, and character both governs the choice of an +ethical system and is modified by it. Literary criticism as Hearn +practised it is little interested in theology or in the system of morals +publicly professed; it is, however, profoundly concerned with the ethical +principles upon which the artist actually proceeds, the directions in +which his impulses assert themselves, the verdicts of right and wrong +which his temperament pronounces unconsciously, it may be. Here is the +true revelation of character, Hearn thinks, even though our habitual and +instinctive ethics may differ widely from the ethics we quite sincerely +profess. Whether we know it or not, we are in such matters the children of +some educational or philosophical system, which, preached at our ancestors +long ago, has come at last to envelop us with the apparent naturalness of +the air we breathe. It is a spiritual liberation of the first order, to +envisage such an atmosphere as what it truly is, only a system of ethics +effectively inculcated, and to compare the principles we live by with +those we thought we lived by. Hearn was contriving illumination for the +Japanese when he made his great lecture on the "Havamal," identifying in +the ancient Northern poem those precepts which laid down later qualities +of English character; for the Oriental reader it would be easier to +identify the English traits in Thackeray or Dickens or Meredith if he +could first consider them in a dogmatic precept. But the lecture gives us, +I think, an extraordinary insight into ourselves, a power of +self-criticism almost disconcerting as we realize not only the persistence +of ethical ideals in the past, but also the possible career of new ethical +systems as they may permeate the books written to-day. To what standard +will the reader of our contemporary literature be unconsciously moulded? +What account will be given of literature a thousand years from now, when a +later critic informs himself of our ethics in order to understand more +vitally the pages in which he has been brought up? + +Partly to inform his Japanese students still further as to our ethical +tendencies in literature, and partly I think to indulge his own +speculation as to the morality that will be found in the literature of the +future, Hearn gave his remarkable lectures on the ant-world, following +Fabre and other European investigators, and his lecture on "The New +Ethics." When he spoke, over twenty years ago, the socialistic ideal had +not gripped us so effectually as it has done in the last decade, but he +had no difficulty in observing the tendency. Civilization in some later +cycle may wonder at our ambition to abandon individual liberty and +responsibility and to subside into the social instincts of the ant; and +even as it wonders, that far-off civilization may detect in itself +ant-like reactions which we cultivated for it. With this description of +the ant-world it is illuminating to read the two brilliant chapters on +English and French poems about insects. Against this whole background of +ethical theory, I have ventured to set Hearn's singularly objective +account of the Bible. + +In the remaining four chapters Hearn speaks of the "Kalevala," of the +mediƦval romance "Amis and Amile," of William Cory's "Ionica," and of +Theocritus. These chapters deal obviously with literary influences which +have become part and parcel of English poetry, yet which remain exotic to +it, if we keep in mind the Northern stock which still gives character, +ethical and otherwise, to the English tradition. The "Kalevala," which +otherwise should seem nearest to the basic qualities of our poetry, is +almost unique, as Hearn points out, in the extent of its preoccupation +with enchantments and charms, with the magic of words. "Amis and Amile," +which otherwise ought to seem more foreign to us, is strangely close in +its glorification of friendship; for chivalry left with us at least this +one great ethical feeling, that to keep faith in friendship is a holy +thing. No wonder Amicus and Amelius were popular saints. The story implies +also, as it falls here in the book, some illustration of those unconscious +or unconsidered ethical reactions which, as we saw in the chapter on the +"Havamal," have a lasting influence on our ideals and on our conduct. + +Romanticist though he was, Hearn constantly sought the romance in the +highway of life, the aspects of experience which seem to perpetuate +themselves from age to age, compelling literature to reassert them under +whatever changes of form. To one who has followed the large mass of his +lectures it is not surprising that he emphasized those ethical positions +which are likely to remain constant, in spite of much new philosophy, nor +that he constantly recurred to such books as Cory's "Ionica," or Lang's +translation of Theocritus, in which he found statements of enduring human +attitudes. To him the Greek mind made a double appeal. Not only did it +represent to him the best that has yet been thought or said in the world, +but by its fineness and its maturity it seemed kindred to the spirit he +found in ancient Japan. Lecturing to Japanese students on Greek poetry as +it filters through English paraphrases and translations, he must have felt +sometimes as we now feel in reading his lectures, that in his teaching the +long migration of the world's culture was approaching the end of the +circuit, and that the earliest apparition of the East known to most of us +was once more arriving at its starting place, mystery returning to +mystery, and its path at all points mysterious if we rightly observe the +miracle of the human spirit. + + + + + +BOOKS AND HABITS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE INSUPERABLE DIFFICULTY + + +I wish to speak of the greatest difficulty with which the Japanese +students of English literature, or of almost any Western literature, have +to contend. I do not think that it ever has been properly spoken about. A +foreign teacher might well hesitate to speak about, it--because, if he +should try to explain it merely from the Western point of view, he could +not hope to be understood; and if he should try to speak about it from the +Japanese point of view, he would be certain to make various mistakes and +to utter various extravagances. The proper explanation might be given by a +Japanese professor only, who should have so intimate an acquaintance with +Western life as to sympathize with it. Yet I fear that it would be +difficult to find such a Japanese professor for this reason, that just in +proportion as he should find himself in sympathy with Western life, in +that proportion he would become less and less able to communicate that +sympathy to his students. The difficulties are so great that it has taken +me many years even to partly guess how great they are. That they can be +removed at the present day is utterly out of the question. But something +may be gained by stating them even imperfectly. At the risk of making +blunders and uttering extravagances, I shall make the attempt. I am +impelled to do so by a recent conversation with one of the cleverest +students that I ever had, who acknowledged his total inability to +understand some of the commonest facts in Western life,--all those facts +relating, directly or indirectly, to the position of woman in Western +literature as reflecting Western life. + +Let us clear the ground it once by putting down some facts in the plainest +and lowest terms possible. You must try to imagine a country in which the +place of the highest virtue is occupied, so to speak, by the devotion of +sex to sex. The highest duty of the man is not to his father, but to his +wife; and for the sake of that woman he abandons all other earthly ties, +should any of these happen to interfere with that relation. The first duty +of the wife may be, indeed, must be, to her child, when she has one; but +otherwise her husband is her divinity and king. In that country it would +be thought unnatural or strange to have one's parents living in the same +house with wife or husband. You know all this. But it does not explain for +you other things, much more difficult to understand, especially the +influence of the abstract idea of woman upon society at large as well as +upon the conduct of the individual. The devotion of man to woman does not +mean at all only the devotion of husband to wife. It means actually +this,--that every man is bound by conviction and by opinion to put all +women before himself, simply because they are women. I do not mean that +any man is likely to think of any woman as being his intellectual and +physical superior; but I do mean that he is bound to think of her as +something deserving and needing the help of every man. In time of danger +the woman must be saved first. In time of pleasure, the woman must be +given the best place. In time of hardship the woman's share of the common +pain must be taken voluntarily by the man as much as possible. This is not +with any view to recognition of the kindness shown. The man who assists a +woman in danger is not supposed to have any claim upon her for that +reason. He has done his duty only, not to her, the individual, but to +womankind at large. So we have arrived at this general fact, that the +first place in all things, except rule, is given to woman in Western +countries, and that it is given almost religiously. + +Is woman a religion? Well, perhaps you will have the chance of judging for +yourselves if you go to America. There you will find men treating women +with just the same respect formerly accorded only to religious dignitaries +or to great nobles. Everywhere they are saluted and helped to the best +places; everywhere they are treated as superior beings. Now if we find +reverence, loyalty and all kinds of sacrifices devoted either to a human +being or to an image, we are inclined to think of worship. And worship it +is. If a Western man should hear me tell you this, he would want the +statement qualified, unless he happened to be a philosopher. But I am +trying to put the facts before you in the way in which you can best +understand them. Let me say, then, that the all-important thing for the +student of English literature to try to understand, is that in Western +countries woman is a cult, a religion, or if you like still plainer +language, I shall say that in Western countries woman is a god. + +So much for the abstract idea of woman. Probably you will not find that +particularly strange; the idea is not altogether foreign to Eastern +thought, and there are very extensive systems of feminine pantheism in +India. Of course the Western idea is only in the romantic sense a feminine +pantheism; but the Oriental idea may serve to render it more +comprehensive. The ideas of divine Mother and divine Creator may be +studied in a thousand forms; I am now referring rather to the sentiment, +to the feeling, than to the philosophical conception. + +You may ask, if the idea or sentiment of divinity attaches to woman in the +abstract, what about woman in the concrete--individual woman? Are women +individually considered as gods? Well, that depends on how you define the +word god. The following definition would cover the ground, I think:--"Gods +are beings superior to man, capable of assisting or injuring him, and to +be placated by sacrifice and prayer." Now according to this definition, I +think that the attitude of man towards woman in Western countries might be +very well characterized as a sort of worship. In the upper classes of +society, and in the middle classes also, great reverence towards women is +exacted. Men bow down before them, make all kinds of sacrifices to please +them, beg for their good will and their assistance. It does not matter +that this sacrifice is not in the shape of incense burning or of temple +offerings; nor does it matter that the prayers are of a different kind +from those pronounced in churches. There is sacrifice and worship. And no +saying is more common, no truth better known, than that the man who hopes +to succeed in life must be able to please the women. Every young man who +goes into any kind of society knows this. It is one of the first lessons +that he has to learn. Well, am I very wrong in saying that the attitude of +men towards women in the West is much like the attitude of men towards +gods? + +But you may answer at once,--How comes it, if women are thus reverenced as +you say, that men of the lower classes beat and ill-treat their wives in +those countries? I must reply, for the same reason that Italian and +Spanish sailors will beat and abuse the images of the saints and virgins +to whom they pray, when their prayer is not granted. It is quite possible +to worship an image sincerely and to seek vengeance upon it in a moment of +anger. The one feeling does not exclude the other. What in the higher +classes may be a religion, in the lower classes may be only a +superstition, and strange contradictions exist, side by side, in all forms +of superstition. Certainly the Western working man or peasant does not +think about his wife or his neighbour's wife in the reverential way that +the man of the superior class does. But you will find, if you talk to +them, that something of the reverential idea is there; it is there at +least during their best moments. + +Now there is a certain exaggeration in what I have said. But that is only +because of the somewhat narrow way in which I have tried to express a +truth. I am anxious to give you the idea that throughout the West there +exists, though with a difference according to class and culture, a +sentiment about women quite as reverential as a sentiment of religion. +This is true; and not to understand it, is not to understand Western +literature. + +How did it come into existence? Through many causes, some of which are so +old that we can not know anything about them. This feeling did not belong +to the Greek and Roman civilization but it belonged to the life of the old +Northern races who have since spread over the world, planting their ideas +everywhere. In the oldest Scandinavian literature you will find that women +were thought of and treated by the men of the North very much as they are +thought of and treated by Englishmen of to-day. You will find what their +power was in the old sagas, such as the Njal-Saga, or "The Story of Burnt +Njal." But we must go much further than the written literature to get a +full knowledge of the origin of such a sentiment. The idea seems to have +existed that woman was semi-divine, because she was the mother, the +creator of man. And we know that she was credited among the Norsemen with +supernatural powers. But upon this Northern foundation there was built up +a highly complex fabric of romantic and artistic sentiment. The Christian +worship of the Virgin Mary harmonized with the Northern belief. The +sentiment of chivalry reinforced it. Then came the artistic resurrection +of the Renaissance, and the new reverence for the beauty of the old Greek +gods, and the Greek traditions of female divinities; these also coloured +and lightened the old feeling about womankind. Think also of the effect +with which literature, poetry and the arts have since been cultivating and +developing the sentiment. Consider how the great mass of Western poetry is +love poetry, and the greater part of Western fiction love stories. + +Of course the foregoing is only the vaguest suggestion of a truth. Really +my object is not to trouble you at all about the evolutional history of +the sentiment, but only to ask you to think what this sentiment means in +literature. I am not asking you to sympathize with it, but if you could +sympathize with it you would understand a thousand things in Western books +which otherwise must remain dim and strange. I am not expecting that you +can sympathize with it. But it is absolutely necessary that you should +understand its relation to language and literature. Therefore I have to +tell you that you should try to think of it as a kind of religion, a +secular, social, artistic religion, not to be confounded with any national +religion. It is a kind of race feeling or race creed. It has not +originated in any sensuous idea, but in some very ancient superstitious +idea. Nearly all forms of the highest sentiment and the highest faith and +the highest art have had their beginnings in equally humble soil. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ON LOVE IN ENGLISH POETRY + + +I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the +Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance +given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry. Indeed, by +this time I have begun to feel a little astonished at it myself. Of +course, before I came to this country it seemed to me quite natural that +love should be the chief subject of literature; because I did not know +anything about any other kind of society except Western society. But +to-day it really seems to me a little strange. If it seems strange to me, +how much more ought it to seem strange to you! Of course, the simple +explanation of the fact is that marriage is the most important act of +man's life in Europe or America, and that everything depends upon it. It +is quite different on this side of the world. But the simple explanation +of the difference is not enough. There are many things to be explained. +Why should not only the novel writers but all the poets make love the +principal subject of their work? I never knew, because I never thought, +how much English literature was saturated with the subject of love until I +attempted to make selections of poetry and prose for class use--naturally +endeavouring to select such pages or poems as related to other subjects +than passion. Instead of finding a good deal of what I was looking for, I +could find scarcely anything. The great prose writers, outside of the +essay or history, are nearly all famous as tellers of love stories. And it +is almost impossible to select half a dozen stanzas of classic verse from +Tennyson or Rossetti or Browning or Shelley or Byron, which do not contain +anything about kissing, embracing, or longing for some imaginary or real +beloved. Wordsworth, indeed, is something of an exception; and Coleridge +is most famous for a poem which contains nothing at all about love. But +exceptions do not affect the general rule that love is the theme of +English poetry, as it is also of French, Italian, Spanish, or German +poetry. It is the dominant motive. + +So with the English novelists. There have been here also a few +exceptions--such as the late Robert Louis Stevenson, most of whose novels +contain little about women; they are chiefly novels or romances of +adventure. But the exceptions are very few. At the present time there are +produced almost every year in England about a thousand new novels, and all +of these or nearly all are love stories. To write a novel without a woman +in it would be a dangerous undertaking; in ninety-nine cases out of a +hundred the book would not sell. + +Of course all this means that the English people throughout the world, as +readers, are chiefly interested in the subject under discussion. When you +find a whole race interested more in one thing than in anything else, you +may be sure that it is so because the subject is of paramount importance +in the life of the average person. You must try to imagine then, a society +in which every man must choose his wife, and every woman must choose her +husband, independent of all outside help, and not only choose but obtain +if possible. The great principle of Western society is that competition +rules here as it rules in everything else. The best man--that is to say, +the strongest and cleverest--is likely to get the best woman, in the sense +of the most beautiful person. The weak, the feeble, the poor, and the ugly +have little chance of being able to marry at all. Tens of thousands of men +and women can not possibly marry. I am speaking of the upper and middle +classes. The working people, the peasants, the labourers, these marry +young; but the competition there is just the same--just as difficult, and +only a little rougher. So it may be said that every man has a struggle of +some kind in order to marry, and that there is a kind of fight or contest +for the possession of every woman worth having. Taking this view of +Western society not only in England but throughout all Europe, you will +easily be able to see why the Western public have reason to be more +interested in literature which treats of love than in any other kind of +literature. + +But although the conditions that I have been describing are about the same +in all Western countries, the tone of the literature which deals with love +is not at all the same. There are very great differences. In prose they +are much more serious than in poetry; because in all countries a man is +allowed, by public opinion, more freedom in verse than in prose. Now these +differences in the way of treating the subject in different countries +really indicate national differences of character. Northern love stories +and Northern poetry about love are very serious; and these authors are +kept within fixed limits. Certain subjects are generally forbidden. For +example, the English public wants novels about love, but the love must be +the love of a girl who is to become somebody's wife. The rule in the +English novel is to describe the pains, fears, and struggles of the period +before marriage--the contest in the world for the right of marriage. A man +must not write a novel about any other point of love. Of course there are +plenty of authors who have broken this rule but the rule still exists. A +man may represent a contest between two women, one good and one bad, but +if the bad woman is allowed to conquer in the story, the public will +growl. This English fashion has existed since the eighteenth century. +since the time of Richardson, and is likely to last for generations to +come. + +Now this is not the rule at all which governs making of novels in France. +French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and +to lovers, after marriage; consequently there is a great deal in French +novels about adultery, about improper relations between the sexes, about +many things which the English public would not allow. This does not mean +that the English are morally a better people than the French or other +Southern races. But it does mean that there are great differences in the +social conditions. One such difference can be very briefly expressed. An +English girl, an American girl, a Norwegian, a Dane, a Swede, is allowed +all possible liberty before marriage. The girl is told, "You must be able +to take care of yourself, and not do wrong." After marriage there is no +more such liberty. After marriage in all Northern countries a woman's +conduct is strictly watched. But in France, and in Southern countries, the +young girl has no liberty before marriage. She is always under the guard +of her brother, her father, her mother, or some experienced relation. She +is accompanied wherever she walks. She is not allowed to see her betrothed +except in the presence of witnesses. But after marriage her liberty +begins. Then she is told for the first time that she must take care of +herself. Well, you will see that the conditions which inspire the novels, +in treating of the subjects of love and marriage, are very different in +Northern and in Southern Europe. For this reason alone the character of +the novel produced in England could not be the same. + +You must remember, however, that there are many other reasons for this +difference--reasons of literary sentiment. The Southern or Latin races +have been civilized for a much longer time than the Northern races; they +have inherited the feelings of the ancient world, the old Greek and Roman +world, and they think still about the relation of the sexes in very much +the same way that the ancient poets and romance writers used to think. And +they can do things which English writers can not do, because their +language has power of more delicate expression. + +We may say that the Latin writers still speak of love in very much the +same way that it was considered before Christianity. But when I speak of +Christianity I am only referring to an historical date. Before +Christianity the Northern races also thought about love very much in the +same way that their best poets do at this day. The ancient Scandinavian +literature would show this. The Viking, the old sea-pirate, felt very much +as Tennyson or as Meredith would feel upon this subject; he thought of +only one kind of love as real--that which ends in marriage, the affection +between husband and wife. Anything else was to him mere folly and +weakness. Christianity did not change his sentiment on this subject. The +modern Englishman, Swede, Dane, Norwegian, or German regards love in +exactly that deep, serious, noble way that his pagan ancestors did. I +think we can say that different races have differences of feeling on +sexual relations, which differences are very much older than any written +history. They are in the blood and soul of a people, and neither religion +nor civilization can utterly change them. + +So far I have been speaking particularly about the differences in English +and French novels; and a novel is especially a reflection of national +life, a kind of dramatic narration of truth, in the form of a story. But +in poetry, which is the highest form of literature, the difference is much +more observable. We find the Latin poets of to-day writing just as freely +on the subject of love as the old Latin poets of the age of Augustus, +while Northern poets observe with few exceptions great restraint when +treating of this theme. Now where is the line to be drawn? Are the Latins +right? Are the English right? How are we to make a sharp distinction +between what is moral and good and what is immoral and bad in treating +love-subjects? + +Some definition must be attempted. + +What is meant by love? As used by Latin writers the word has a range of +meanings, from that of the sexual relation between insects or animals up +to the highest form of religious emotion, called "The love of God." I need +scarcely say that this definition is too loose for our use. The English +word, by general consent, means both sexual passion and deep friendship. +This again is a meaning too wide for our purpose. By putting the adjective +"true" before love, some definition is attempted in ordinary conversation. +When an Englishman speaks of "true love," he usually means something that +has no passion at all; he means a perfect friendship which grows up +between man and wife and which has nothing to do with the passion which +brought the pair together. But when the English poet speaks of love, he +generally means passion, not friendship. I am only stating very general +rules. You see how confusing the subject is, how difficult to define the +matter. Let us leave the definition alone for a moment, and consider the +matter philosophically. + +Some very foolish persons have attempted even within recent years to make +a classification of different kinds of love--love between the sexes. They +talk about romantic love, and other such things. All that is utter +nonsense. In the meaning of sexual affection there is only one kind of +love, the natural attraction of one sex for them other; and the only +difference in the highest for of this attraction and the lowest is this, +that in the nobler nature a vast number of moral, aesthetic, and ethical +sentiments are related to the passion, and that in lower natures those +sentiments are absent. Therefore we may say that even in the highest forms +of the sentiment there is only one dominant feeling, complex though it be, +the desire for possession. What follows the possession we may call love if +we please; but it might better be called perfect friendship and sympathy. +It is altogether a different thing. The love that is the theme of poets in +all countries is really love, not the friendship that grows out of it. + +I suppose you know that the etymological meaning of "passion" is "a state +of suffering." In regard to love, the word has particular significance to +the Western mind, for it refers to the time of struggle and doubt and +longing before the object is attained. Now how much of this passion is a +legitimate subject of literary art? + +The difficulty may, I think, be met by remembering the extraordinary +character of the mental phenomena which manifest themselves in the time of +passion. There is during that time a strange illusion, an illusion so +wonderful that it has engaged the attention of great philosophers for +thousands of years; Plato, you know, tried to explain it in a very famous +theory. I mean the illusion that seems to charm, or rather, actually does +charm the senses of a man at a certain time. To his eye a certain face has +suddenly become the most beautiful object in the world. To his ears the +accents of one voice become the sweetest of all music. Reason has nothing +to do with this, and reason has no power against the enchantment. Out of +Nature's mystery, somehow or other, this strange magic suddenly +illuminates the senses of a man; then vanishes again, as noiselessly as it +came. It is a very ghostly thing, and can not be explained by any theory +not of a very ghostly kind. Even Herbert Spencer has devoted his reasoning +to a new theory about it. I need not go further in this particular than to +tell you that in a certain way passion is now thought to have something to +do with other lives than the present; in short, it is a kind of organic +memory of relations that existed in thousands and tens of thousands of +former states of being. Right or wrong though the theories may be, this +mysterious moment of love, the period of this illusion, is properly the +subject of high poetry, simply because it is the most beautiful and the +most wonderful experience of a human life. And why? + +Because in the brief time of such passion the very highest and finest +emotions of which human nature is capable are brought into play. In that +time more than at any other hour in life do men become unselfish, +unselfish at least toward one human being. Not only unselfishness but +self-sacrifice is a desire peculiar to the period. The young man in love +is not merely willing to give away everything that he possesses to the +person beloved; he wishes to suffer pain, to meet danger, to risk his life +for her sake. Therefore Tennyson, in speaking of that time, beautifully +said: + + Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might, + Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. + +Unselfishness is, of course, a very noble feeling, independently of the +cause. But this is only one of the emotions of a higher class when +powerfully aroused. There is pity, tenderness--the same kind of tenderness +that one feels toward a child--the love of the helpless, the desire to +protect. And a third sentiment felt at such a time more strongly than at +any other, is the sentiment of duty; responsibilities moral and social are +then comprehended in a totally new way. Surely none can dispute these +facts nor the beauty of them. + +Moral sentiments are the highest of all; but next to them the sentiment of +beauty in itself, the artistic feeling, is also a very high form of +intellectual and even of secondary moral experience. Scientifically there +is a relation between the beautiful and the good, between the physically +perfect and the ethically perfect. Of course it is not absolute. There is +nothing absolute in this world. But the relation exists. Whoever can +comprehend the highest form of one kind of beauty must be able to +comprehend something of the other. I know very well that the ideal of the +love-season is an illusion; in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of +the thousand the beauty of the woman is only imagined. But does that make +any possible difference? I do not think that it does. To imagine beauty is +really to see it--not objectively, perhaps, but subjectively beyond all +possibility of doubt. Though you see the beauty only in your mind, in your +mind it is; and in your mind its ethical influence must operate. During +the time that a man worships even imaginary bodily beauty, he receives +some secret glimpse of a higher kind of beauty--beauty of heart and mind. +Was there ever in this world a real lover who did not believe the woman of +his choice to be not only the most beautiful of mortals, but also the best +in a moral sense? I do not think that there ever was. + +The moral and the ethical sentiments of a being thus aroused call into +sudden action all the finer energies of the man--the capacities for +effort, for heroism, for high-pressure work of any sort, mental or +physical, for all that requires quickness in thought and exactitude in +act. There is for the time being a sense of new power. Anything that makes +strong appeal to the best exercise of one's faculties is beneficent and, +in most cases, worthy of reverence. Indeed, it is in the short season of +which I am speaking that we always discover the best of everything in the +character of woman or of man. In that period the evil qualities, the +ungenerous side, is usually kept as much out of sight as possible. + +Now for all these suggested reasons, as for many others which might be +suggested, the period of illusion in love is really the period which poets +and writers of romance are naturally justified in describing. Can they go +beyond it with safety, with propriety? That depends very much upon whether +they go up or down. By going up I mean keeping within the region of moral +idealism. By going down I mean descending to the level of merely animal +realism. In this realism there is nothing deserving the highest effort of +art of any sort. + +What is the object of art? Is it not, or should it not be, to make us +imagine better conditions than that which at present exist in the world, +and by so imagining to prepare the way for the coming of such conditions? +I think that all great art has done this. Do you remember the old story +about Greek mothers keeping in their rooms the statue of a god or a man, +more beautiful than anything real, so that their imagination might be +constantly influenced by the sight of beauty, and that they might perhaps +be able to bring more beautiful children into the world? Among the Arabs, +mothers also do something of this kind, only, as they have no art of +imagery, they go to Nature herself for the living image. Black luminous +eyes are beautiful, and wives keep in their tents a little deer, the +gazelle, which is famous for the brilliancy and beauty of its eyes. By +constantly looking at this charming pet the Arab wife hopes to bring into +the world some day a child with eyes as beautiful as the eyes of the +gazelle. Well, the highest function of art ought to do for us, or at least +for the world, what the statue and the gazelle were expected to do for +Grecian and Arab mothers--to make possible higher conditions than the +existing ones. + +So much being said, consider again the place and the meaning of the +passion of love in any human life. It is essentially a period of idealism, +of imagining better things and conditions than are possible in this world. +For everybody who has been in love has imagined something higher than the +possible and the present. Any idealism is a proper subject for art. It is +not at all the same in the case of realism. Grant that all this passion, +imagination, and fine sentiment is based upon a very simple animal +impulse. That does not make the least difference in the value of the +highest results of that passion. We might say the very same thing about +any human emotion; every emotion can be evolutionally traced back to +simple and selfish impulses shared by man with the lower animals. But, +because an apple tree or a pear tree happens to have its roots in the +ground, does that mean that its fruits are not beautiful and wholesome? +Most assuredly we must not judge the fruit of the tree from the unseen +roots; but what about turning up the ground to look at the roots? What +becomes of the beauty of the tree when you do that? The realist--at least +the French realist--likes to do that. He likes to bring back the attention +of his reader to the lowest rather than to the highest, to that which +should be kept hidden, for the very same reason that the roots of a tree +should be kept underground if the tree is to live. + +The time of illusion, then, is the beautiful moment of passion; it +represents the artistic zone in which the poet or romance writer ought to +be free to do the very best that he can. He may go beyond that zone; but +then he has only two directions in which he can travel. Above it there is +religion, and an artist may, like Dante, succeed in transforming love into +a sentiment of religious ecstasy. I do not think that any artist could do +that to-day; this is not an age of religious ecstasy. But upwards there is +no other way to go. Downwards the artist may travel until he finds himself +in hell. Between the zone of idealism and the brutality of realism there +are no doubt many gradations. I am only indicating what I think to be an +absolute truth, that in treating of love the literary master should keep +to the period of illusion, and that to go below it is a dangerous +undertaking. And now, having tried to make what are believed to be proper +distinctions between great literature on this subject and all that is not +great, we may begin to study a few examples. I am going to select at +random passages from English poets and others, illustrating my meaning. + +Tennyson is perhaps the most familiar to you among poets of our own time; +and he has given a few exquisite examples of the ideal sentiment in +passion. One is a concluding verse in the beautiful song that occurs in +the monodrama of "Maud," where the lover, listening in the garden, hears +the steps of his beloved approaching. + + She is coming, my own, my sweet, + Were it ever so airy a tread, + My heart would hear her and beat, + Were it earth in an earthy bed; + My dust would hear her and beat, + Had I lain for a century dead; + Would start and tremble under her feet, + And blossom in purple and red. + +This is a very fine instance of the purely idea emotion--extravagant, if +you like, in the force of the imagery used, but absolutely sincere and +true; for the imagination of love is necessarily extravagant. It would be +quite useless to ask whether the sound of a girl's footsteps could really +waken a dead man; we know that love can fancy such things quite naturally, +not in one country only but everywhere. An Arabian poem written long +before the time of Mohammed contains exactly the same thought in simpler +words; and I think that there are some old Japanese songs containing +something similar. All that the statement really means is that the voice, +the look, the touch, even the footstep of the woman beloved have come to +possess for the lover a significance as great as life and death. For the +moment he knows no other divinity; she is his god, in the sense that her +power over him has become infinite and irresistible. + +The second example may be furnished from another part of the same +composition--the little song of exaltation after the promise to marry has +been given. + + O let the solid ground + Not fail beneath my feet + Before my life has found + What some have found so sweet; + Then let come what come may, + What matter if I go mad, + I shall have had my day. + + Let the sweet heavens endure, + Not close and darken above me + Before I am quite, quite sure + That there is one to love me; + Then let come what come may + To a life that has been so sad, + I shall have had my day. + +The feeling of the lover is that no matter what happens afterwards, the +winning of the woman is enough to pay for life, death, pain, or anything +else. One of the most remarkable phenomena of the illusion is the supreme +indifference to consequences--at least to any consequences which would not +signify moral shame or loss of honour, Of course the poet is supposed to +consider the emotion only in generous natures. But the subject of this +splendid indifference has been more wonderfully treated by Victor Hugo +than by Tennyson--as we shall see later on, when considering another phase +of the emotion. Before doing that, I want to call your attention to a very +charming treatment of love's romance by an American. It is one of the most +delicate of modern compositions, and it is likely to become a classic, as +it has already been printed in four or five different anthologies. The +title is "Atalanta's Race." + +First let me tell you the story of Atalanta, so that you will be better +able to see the fine symbolism of the poem. Atalanta, the daughter of a +Greek king, was not only the most beautiful of maidens, but the swiftest +runner in the world. She passed her time in hunting, and did not wish to +marry. But as many men wanted to marry her, a law was passed that any one +who desired to win her must run a race with her. If he could beat her in +running, then she promised to marry him, but if he lost the race, he was +to be killed. Some say that the man was allowed to run first, and that the +girl followed with a spear in her hand and killed him when she overtook +him. There are different accounts of the contest. Many suitors lost the +race and were killed. But finally young man called Hippomenes obtained +from the Goddess of Love three golden apples, and he was told that if he +dropped these apples while running, the girl would stop to pick them up, +and that in this way he might be able to win the race. So he ran, and when +he found himself about to be beaten, he dropped one apple. She stopped to +pick it up and thus he gained a little. In this way he won the race and +married Atalanta. Greek mythology says that afterwards she and her husband +were turned into lions because they offended the gods; however, that need +not concern us here. There is a very beautiful moral in the old Greek +story, and the merit of the American composition is that its author, +Maurice Thompson, perceived this moral and used it to illustrate a great +philosophical truth. + + When Spring grows old, and sleepy winds + Set from the South with odours sweet, + I see my love, in green, cool groves, + Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet. + She throws a kiss and bids me run, + In whispers sweet as roses' breath; + I know I cannot win the race, + And at the end, I know, is death. + + But joyfully I bare my limbs, + Anoint me with the tropic breeze, + And feel through every sinew run + The vigour of Hippomenes. + + O race of love! we all have run + Thy happy course through groves of Spring, + And cared not, when at last we lost, + For life or death, or anything! + +There are a few thoughts here requiring a little comment. You know that +the Greek games and athletic contests were held in the fairest season, and +that the contestants were stripped. They were also anointed with oil, +partly to protect the skin against sun and temperature and partly to make +the body more supple. The poet speaks of the young man as being anointed +by the warm wind of Spring, the tropic season of life. It is a very pretty +fancy. What he is really telling us is this: + +"There are no more Greek games, but the race of love is still run to-day +as in times gone by; youth is the season, and the atmosphere of youth is +the anointing of the contestant." + +But the moral of the piece is its great charm, the poetical statement of a +beautiful and a wonderful fact. In almost every life there is a time when +we care for only one person, and suffer much for that person's sake; yet +in that period we do not care whether we suffer or die, and in after life, +when we look back at those hours of youth, we wonder at the way in which +we then felt. In European life of to-day the old Greek fable is still +true; almost everybody must run Atalanta's race and abide by the result. + +One of the delightful phases of the illusion of love is the sense of old +acquaintance, the feeling as if the person loved had been known and loved +long ago in some time and place forgotten. I think you must have observed, +many of you, that when the senses of sight and hearing happen to be +strongly stirred by some new and most pleasurable experience, the feeling +of novelty is absent, or almost absent. You do not feel as if you were +seeing or hearing something new, but as if you saw or heard something that +you knew all about very long ago. I remember once travelling with a +Japanese boy into a charming little country town in Shikoku--and scarcely +had we entered the main street, than he cried out: "Oh, I have seen this +place before!" Of course he had not seen it before; he was from Osaka and +had never left the great city until then. But the pleasure of his new +experience had given him this feeling of familiarity with the unfamiliar. +I do not pretend to explain this familiarity with the new--it is a great +mystery still, just as it was a great mystery to the Roman Cicero. But +almost everybody that has been in love has probably had the same feeling +during a moment or two--the feeling "I have known that woman before," +though the where and the when are mysteries. Some of the modern poets have +beautifully treated this feeling. The best example that I can give you is +the exquisite lyric by Rossetti entitled "Sudden Light." + + I have been here before, + But when or how I cannot tell: + I know the grass beyond the door, + The sweet keen smell, + The sighing sound, the lights around the shore. + + You have been mine before,-- + How long ago I may not know: + But just when at that swallow's soar + Your neck turn'd so, + Some veil did fall,--I knew it all of yore. + + Has this been thus before? + And shall not thus time's eddying flight + Still with our lives our loves restore + In death's despite, + And day and night yield one delight once more? + +I think you will acknowledge that this is very pretty; and the same poet +has treated the idea equally well in other poems of a more complicated +kind. But another poet of the period was haunted even more than Rossetti +by this idea--Arthur O'Shaughnessy. Like Rossetti he was a great lover, +and very unfortunate in his love; and he wrote his poems, now famous, out +of the pain and regret that was in his heart, much as singing birds born +in cages are said to sing better when their eyes are put out. Here is one +example: + + Along the garden ways just now + I heard the flowers speak; + The white rose told me of your brow, + The red rose of your cheek; + The lily of your bended head, + The bindweed of your hair: + Each looked its loveliest and said + You were more fair. + + I went into the woods anon, + And heard the wild birds sing + How sweet you were; they warbled on, + Piped, trill'd the self-same thing. + Thrush, blackbird, linnet, without pause + The burden did repeat, + And still began again because + You were more sweet. + + And then I went down to the sea, + And heard it murmuring too, + Part of an ancient mystery, + All made of me and you: + How many a thousand years ago + I loved, and you were sweet-- + Longer I could not stay, and so + I fled back to your feet. + +The last stanza especially expresses the idea that I have been telling you +about; but in a poem entitled "Greater Memory" the idea is much more fully +expressed. By "greater memory" you must understand the memory beyond this +life into past stages of existence. This piece has become a part of the +nineteenth century poetry that will live; and a few of the best stanzas +deserve to be quoted, + + In the heart there lay buried for years + Love's story of passion and tears; + Of the heaven that two had begun + And the horror that tore them apart; + When one was love's slayer, but one + Made a grave for the love in his heart. + + The long years pass'd weary and lone + And it lay there and changed there unknown; + Then one day from its innermost place, + In the shamed and ruin'd love's stead, + Love arose with a glorified face, + Like an angel that comes from the dead. + + It uplifted the stone that was set + On that tomb which the heart held yet; + But the sorrow had moulder'd within + And there came from the long closed door + A dear image, that was not the sin + Or the grief that lay buried before. + + * * * * * + + There was never the stain of a tear + On the face that was ever so dear; + 'Twas the same in each lovelier way; + 'Twas old love's holier part, + And the dream of the earliest day + Brought back to the desolate heart. + + It was knowledge of all that had been + In the thought, in the soul unseen; + 'Twas the word which the lips could not say + To redeem or recover the past. + It was more than was taken away + Which the heart got back at the last. + + The passion that lost its spell, + The rose that died where it fell, + The look that was look'd in vain, + The prayer that seemed lost evermore, + They were found in the heart again, + With all that the heart would restore. + +Put into less mystical language the legend is this: A young man and a +young woman loved each other for a time; then they were separated by some +great wrong--we may suppose the woman was untrue. The man always loved her +memory, in spite of this wrong which she had done. The two died and were +buried; hundreds and hundreds of years they remained buried, and the dust +of them mixed with the dust of the earth. But in the perpetual order of +things, a pure love never can die, though bodies may die and pass away. So +after many generations the pure love which this man had for a bad woman +was born again in the heart of another man--the same, yet not the same. +And the spirit of the woman that long ago had done the wrong, also found +incarnation again; and the two meeting, are drawn to each other by what +people call love, but what is really Greater Memory, the recollection of +past lives. But now all is happiness for them, because the weaker and +worse part of each has really died and has been left hundreds of years +behind, and only the higher nature has been born again. All that ought not +to have been is not; but all that ought to be now is. This is really an +evolutionary teaching, but it is also poetical license, for the immoral +side of mankind does not by any means die so quickly as the poet supposes. +It is perhaps a question of many tens of thousands of years to get rid of +a few of our simpler faults. Anyway, the fancy charms us and tempts us +really to hope that these things might be so. + +While the poets of our time so extend the history of a love backwards +beyond this life, we might expect them to do the very same thing in the +other direction. I do not refer to reunion in heaven, or anything of that +sort, but simply to affection continued after death. There are some very +pretty fancies of the kind. But they can not prove to you quite so +interesting as the poems which treat the recollection of past life. When +we consider the past imaginatively, we have some ground to stand on. The +past has been--there is no doubt about that. The fact that we are at this +moment alive makes it seem sufficiently true that we were alive thousands +or millions of years ago. But when we turn to the future for poetical +inspiration, the case is very different. There we must imagine without +having anything to stand upon in the way of experience. Of course if born +again into a body we could imagine many things; but there is the ghostly +interval between death and birth which nobody is able to tell us about. +Here the poet depends upon dream experiences, and it is of such an +experience that Christina Rossetti speaks in her beautiful poem entitled +"A Pause." + + They made the chamber sweet with flowers and leaves, + And the bed sweet with flowers on which I lay, + While my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way. + I did not hear the birds about the eaves, + Nor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves: + Only my soul kept watch from day to day, + My thirsty soul kept watch for one away:-- + Perhaps he loves, I thought, remembers, grieves. + + At length there came the step upon the stair, + Upon the lock the old familiar hand: + Then first my spirit seemed to scent the air + Of Paradise; then first the tardy sand + Of time ran golden; and I felt my hair + Put on a glory, and my soul expand. + +The woman is dead. In the room where her body died, flowers have been +placed, offerings to the dead. Also there are flowers upon the bed. The +ghost of the woman observes all this, but she does not feel either glad or +sad because of it; she is thinking only of the living lover, who was not +there when she died, but far away. She wants to know whether he really +loved her, whether he will really be sorry to hear that she is dead. +Outside the room of death the birds are singing; in the fields beyond the +windows peasants are working, and talking as they work. But the ghost does +not listen to these sounds. The ghost remains in the room only for love's +sake; she can not go away until the lover comes. At last she hears him +coming. She knows the sound of the step; she knows the touch of the hand +upon the lock of the door. And instantly, before she sees him at all, she +first feels delight. Already it seems to her that she can smell the +perfume of the flowers of heaven; it then seems to her that about her +head, as about the head of an angel, a circle of glory is shaping itself, +and the real heaven, the Heaven of Love, is at hand. + +How very beautiful this is. There is still one line which requires a +separate explanation--I mean the sentence about the sands of time running +golden. Perhaps you may remember the same simile in Tennyson's "Locksley +Hall": + + Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in His glowing hands; + Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. + +Here time is identified with the sand of the hour glass, and the verb "to +run" is used because this verb commonly expresses the trickling of the +sand from the upper part of the glass into the lower. In other words, fine +sand "runs" just like water. To say that the sands of time run golden, or +become changed into gold, is only a poetical way of stating that the time +becomes more than happy--almost heavenly or divine. And now you will see +how very beautiful the comparison becomes in this little poem about the +ghost of the woman waiting for the coming step of her lover. + +Several other aspects of the emotion may now be considered separately. One +of these, an especially beautiful one, is memory. Of course, there are +many aspects of love's memories, some all happiness, others intensely +sorrowful--the memory of a walk, a meeting, a moment of good-bye. Such +memories occupy a very large place in the treasure house of English love +poems. I am going to give three examples only, but each of a different +kind. The first poet that I am going to mention is Coventry Patmore. He +wrote two curious books of poetry, respectively called "The Angel in the +House" and "The Unknown Eros." In the first of these books he wrote the +whole history of his courtship and marriage--a very dangerous thing for a +poet to do, but he did it successfully. The second volume is +miscellaneous, and contains some very beautiful things. I am going to +quote only a few lines from the piece called "Amelia." This piece is the +story of an evening spent with a sweetheart, and the lines which I am +quoting refer to the moment of taking the girl home. They are now rather +famous: + + ... To the dim street + I led her sacred feet; + And so the Daughter gave, + Soft, moth-like, sweet, + Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk, + Back to her Mother, anxious in the dusk. + And now "Good Night!" + +Why should the poet speak of the girl in this way? Why does he call her +feet sacred? She has just promised to marry him; and now she seems to him +quite divine. But he discovers very plain words with which to communicate +his finer feelings to the reader. The street is "dim" because it is night; +and in the night the beautifully dressed maiden seems like a splendid +moth--the name given to night butterflies in England. In England the moths +are much more beautiful than the true butterflies; they have wings of +scarlet and purple and brown and gold. So the comparison, though +peculiarly English, is very fine. Also there is a suggestion of the +soundlessness of the moth's flight. Now "showy as damask rose" is a +striking simile only because the damask-rose is a wonderfully splendid +flower--richest in colour of all roses in English gardens. "Shy as musk" +is rather a daring simile. "Musk" is a perfume used by English as well as +Japanese ladies, but there is no perfume which must be used with more +discretion, carefulness. If you use ever so little too much, the effect is +not pleasant. But if you use exactly the proper quantity, and no more, +there is no perfume which is more lovely. "Shy as musk" thus refers to +that kind of girlish modesty which never commits a fault even by the +measure of a grain--beautiful shyness incapable of being anything but +beautiful. Nevertheless the comparison must be confessed one which should +be felt rather than explained. + +The second of the three promised quotations shall be from Robert Browning. +There is one feeling, not often touched upon by poets, yet peculiar to +lovers, that is here treated--the desire when you are very happy or when +you are looking at anything attractive to share the pleasure of the moment +with the beloved. But it seldom happens that the wish and the conditions +really meet. Referring to this longing Browning made a short lyric that is +now a classic; it is among the most dainty things of the century. + + Never the time and the place + And the loved one all together! + This path--how soft to pace! + This May--what magic weather! + Where is the loved one's face? + In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, + But the house is narrow, the place is bleak + Where, outside, rain and wind combine + With a furtive ear, if I try to speak, + With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, + With a malice that marks each word, each sign! + +Never can we have things the way we wish in this world--a beautiful day, a +beautiful place, and the presence of the beloved all at the same time. +Something is always missing; if the place be beautiful, the weather +perhaps is bad. Or if the weather and the place both happen to be perfect, +the woman is absent. So the poet finding himself in some very beautiful +place, and remembering this, remembers also the last time that he met the +woman beloved. It was a small dark house and chilly; outside there was +rain and storm; and the sounds of the wind and of the rain were as the +sounds of people secretly listening, or sounds of people trying to look in +secretly through the windows. Evidently it was necessary that the meeting +should be secret, and it was not altogether as happy as could have been +wished. + +The third example is a very beautiful poem; we must content ourselves with +an extract from it. It is the memory of a betrothal day, and the poet is +Frederick Tennyson. I suppose you know that there were three Tennysons, +and although Alfred happened to be the greatest, all of them were good +poets. + + It is a golden morning of the spring, + My cheek is pale, and hers is warm with bloom, + And we are left in that old carven room, + And she begins to sing; + + The open casement quivers in the breeze, + And one large musk-rose leans its dewy grace + Into the chamber, like a happy face, + And round it swim the bees; + + * * * * * + + I know not what I said--what she replied + Lives, like eternal sunshine, in my heart; + And then I murmured, Oh! we never part, + My love, my life, my bride! + + * * * * * + + And silence o'er us, after that great bliss, + Fell like a welcome shadow--and I heard + The far woods sighing, and a summer bird + Singing amid the trees; + + The sweet bird's happy song, that streamed around, + The murmur of the woods, the azure skies, + Were graven on my heart, though ears and eyes + Marked neither sight nor sound. + + She sleeps in peace beneath the chancel stone, + But ah! so clearly is the vision seen, + The dead seem raised, or Death has never been, + Were I not here alone. + +This is great art in its power of picturing a memory of the heart. Let us +notice some of the beauties. The lover is pale because he is afraid, +anxious; he is going to ask a question and he does not know how she may +answer him. All this was long ago, years and years ago, but the strong +emotions of that morning leave their every detail painted in remembrance, +with strange vividness After all those years the man still recollects the +appearance of the room, the sunshine entering and the crimson rose looking +into the room from the garden, with bees humming round it. Then after the +question had been asked and happily answered, neither could speak for joy; +and because of the silence all the sounds of nature outside became almost +painfully distinct. Now he remembers how he heard in that room the sound +of the wind in far-away trees, the singing of a bird--he also remembers +all the colours and the lights of the day. But it was very, very long ago, +and she is dead. Still, the memory is so clear and bright in his heart +that it is as if time had stood still, or as if she had come back from the +grave. Only one thing assures him that it is but a memory--he is alone. + +Returning now to the subject of love's illusion in itself, let me remind +you that the illusion does not always pass away--not at all. It passes +away in every case of happy union, when it has become no longer necessary +to the great purposes of nature. But in case of disappointment, loss, +failure to win the maiden desired, it often happens that the ideal image +never fades away, but persistently haunts the mind through life, and is +capable thus of making even the most successful life unhappy. Sometimes +the result of such disappointment may be to change all a man's ideas about +the world, about life, about religion; and everything remains darkened for +him. Many a young person disappointed in love begins to lose religious +feeling from that moment, for it seems to him, simply because he happens +to be unfortunate, that the universe is all wrong. On the other hand the +successful lover thinks that the universe is all right; he utters his +thanks to the gods, and feels his faith in religion and human nature +greater than before. I do not at this moment remember any striking English +poem illustrating this fact; but there is a pretty little poem in French +by Victor Hugo showing well the relation between successful love and +religious feeling in simple minds. Here is an English translation of it. +The subject is simply a walk at night, the girl-bride leaning upon the arm +of her husband; and his memory of the evening is thus expressed: + + The trembling arm I pressed + Fondly; our thoughts confessed + Love's conquest tender; + God filled the vast sweet night, + Love filled our hearts; the light + Of stars made splendour. + + Even as we walked and dreamed, + 'Twixt heaven and earth, it seemed + Our souls were speaking; + The stars looked on thy face; + Thine eyes through violet space + The stars were seeking. + + And from the astral light + Feeling the soft sweet night + Thrill to thy soul, + Thou saidst: "O God of Bliss, + Lord of the Blue Abyss, + Thou madest the whole!" + + And the stars whispered low + To the God of Space, "We know, + God of Eternity, + Dear Lord, all Love is Thine, + Even by Love's Light we shine! + Thou madest Beauty!" + +Of course here the religious feeling itself is part of the illusion, but +it serves to give great depth and beauty to simple feeling. Besides, the +poem illustrates one truth very forcibly--namely, that when we are +perfectly happy all the universe appears to be divine and divinely +beautiful; in other words, we are in heaven. On the contrary, when we are +very unhappy the universe appears to be a kind of hell, in which there is +no hope, no joy, and no gods to pray to. + +But the special reason I wished to call attention to Victor Hugo's lyric +is that it has that particular quality called by philosophical critics +"cosmic emotion." Cosmic emotion means the highest quality of human +emotion. The word "cosmos" signifies the universe--not simply this world, +but all the hundred millions of suns and worlds in the known heaven. And +the adjective "cosmic" means, of course, "related to the whole universe." +Ordinary emotion may be more than individual in its relations. I mean that +your feelings may be moved by the thought or the perception of something +relating not only to your own life but also to the lives of many others. +The largest form of such ordinary emotion is what would be called national +feeling, the feeling of your own relation to the whole nation or the whole +race. But there is higher emotion even than that. When you think of +yourself emotionally not only in relation to your own country, your own +nation, but in relation to all humanity, then you have a cosmic emotion of +the third or second order. I say "third or second," because whether the +emotion be second or third rate depends very much upon your conception of +humanity as One. But if you think of yourself in relation not to this +world only but to the whole universe of hundreds of millions of stars and +planets--in relation to the whole mystery of existence--then you have a +cosmic emotion of the highest order. Of course there are degrees even in +this; the philosopher or the metaphysician will probably have a finer +quality of cosmic emotion than the poet or the artist is able to have. But +lovers very often, according to their degree of intellectual culture, +experience a kind of cosmic emotion; and Victor Hugo's little poem +illustrates this. Night and the stars and the abyss of the sky all seem to +be thrilling with love and beauty to the lover's eyes, because he himself +is in a state of loving happiness; and then he begins to think about his +relation to the universal life, to the supreme mystery beyond all Form and +Name. + +A third or fourth class of such emotion may be illustrated by the +beautiful sonnet of Keats, written not long before his death. Only a very +young man could have written this, because only a very young man loves in +this way--but how delightful it is! It has no title. + + Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art-- + Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night + And watching, with eternal lids apart, + Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, + The moving waters at their priest-like task + Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, + Or gazing on new soft-fallen mask + Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-- + + No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, + Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, + To feel forever its soft fall and swell, + Awake forever in a sweet unrest, + Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, + And so live ever--or else swoon to death. + +Tennyson has charmingly represented a lover wishing that he were a +necklace of his beloved, or her girdle, or her earring; but that is not a +cosmic emotion at all. Indeed, the idea of Tennyson's pretty song was +taken from old French and English love songs of the peasants--popular +ballads. But in this beautiful sonnet of Keats, where the lover wishes to +be endowed with the immortality and likeness of a star only to be forever +with the beloved, there is something of the old Greek thought which +inspired the beautiful lines written between two and three thousand years +ago, and translated by J.A. Symonds: + + Gazing on stars, my Star? Would that I were the welkin, + Starry with myriad eyes, ever to gave upon thee! + +But there is more than the Greek beauty of thought in Keats's sonnet, for +we find the poet speaking of the exterior universe in the largest +relation, thinking of the stars watching forever the rising and the +falling of the sea tides, thinking of the sea tides themselves as +continually purifying the world, even as a priest purifies a temple. The +fancy of the boy expands to the fancy of philosophy; it is a blending of +poetry, philosophy, and sincere emotion. + +You will have seen by the examples which we have been reading together +that English love poetry, like Japanese love poetry, may be divided into +many branches and classified according to the range of subject from the +very simplest utterance of feeling up to that highest class expressing +cosmic emotion. Very rich the subject is; the student is only puzzled +where to choose. I should again suggest to you to observe the value of the +theme of illusion, especially as illustrated in our examples. There are +indeed multitudes of Western love poems that would probably appear to you +very strange, perhaps very foolish. But you will certainly acknowledge +that there are some varieties of English love poetry which are neither +strange nor foolish, and which are well worth studying, not only in +themselves but in their relation to the higher forms of emotional +expression in all literature. Out of love poetry belonging to the highest +class, much can be drawn that would serve to enrich and to give a new +colour to your own literature of emotion. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE IDEAL WOMAN IN ENGLISH POETRY + + +As I gave already in this class a lecture on the subject of love poetry, +you will easily understand that the subject of the present lecture is not +exactly love. It is rather about love's imagining of perfect character and +perfect beauty. The part of it to which I think your attention could be +deservedly given is that relating to the imagined wife of the future, for +this is a subject little treated of in Eastern poetry. It is a very pretty +subject. But in Japan and other countries of the East almost every young +man knows beforehand whom he is likely to marry. Marriage is arranged by +the family: it is a family matter, indeed a family duty and not a romantic +pursuit. At one time, very long ago, in Europe, marriages were arranged in +much the same way. But nowadays it may be said in general that no young +man in England or America can even imagine whom he will marry. He has to +find his wife for himself; and he has nobody to help him; and if he makes +a mistake, so much the worse for him. So to Western imagination the wife +of the future is a mystery, a romance, an anxiety--something to dream +about and to write poetry about. + +This little book that I hold in my hand is now very rare. It is out of +print, but it is worth mentioning to you because it is the composition of +an exquisite man of letters, Frederick Locker-Lampson, best of all +nineteenth century writers of society verse. It is called "Patchwork." +Many years ago the author kept a kind of journal in which he wrote down or +copied all the most beautiful or most curious things which he had heard or +which he had found in books. Only the best things remained, so the value +of the book is his taste in selection. Whatever Locker-Lampson pronounced +good, the world now knows to have been exactly what he pronounced, for his +taste was very fine. And in this book I find a little poem quoted from Mr. +Edwin Arnold, now Sir Edwin. Sir Edwin Arnold is now old and blind, and he +has not been thought of kindly enough in Japan, because his work has not +been sufficiently known. Some people have even said his writings did harm +to Japan, but I want to assure you that such statements are stupid lies. +On the contrary, he did for Japan whatever good the best of his talent as +a poet and the best of his influence as a great journalist could enable +him to do. But to come back to our subject: when Sir Edwin was a young +student he had his dreams about marriage like other young English +students, and he put one of them into verse, and that verse was at once +picked out by Frederick Locker-Lampson for his little book of gems. Half a +century has passed since then; but Locker-Lampson's judgment remains good, +and I am going to put this little poem first because it so well +illustrates the subject of the lecture. It is entitled "A Ma Future." + + Where waitest thou, + Lady, I am to love? Thou comest not, + Thou knowest of my sad and lonely lot-- + I looked for thee ere now! + + It is the May, + And each sweet sister soul hath found its brother, + Only we two seek fondly each the other, + And seeking still delay. + + Where art thou, sweet? + I long for thee as thirsty lips for streams, + O gentle promised angel of my dreams, + Why do we never meet? + + Thou art as I, + Thy soul doth wait for mine as mine for thee; + We cannot live apart, must meeting be + Never before we die? + + Dear Soul, not so, + For time doth keep for us some happy years, + And God hath portioned us our smiles and tears, + Thou knowest, and I know. + + Therefore I bear + This winter-tide as bravely as I may, + Patiently waiting for the bright spring day + That cometh with thee, Dear. + + 'Tis the May light + That crimsons all the quiet college gloom, + May it shine softly in thy sleeping room, + And so, dear wife, good night! + +This is, of course, addressed to the spirit of the unknown future wife. It +is pretty, though it is only the work of a young student. But some one +hundred years before, another student--a very great student, Richard +Crashaw,--had a fancy of the same kind, and made verses about it which are +famous. You will find parts of his poem about the imaginary wife in the +ordinary anthologies, but not all of it, for it is very long. I will quote +those verses which seem to me the best. + + +WISHES + + Whoe'er she be, + That not impossible She, + That shall command my heart and me; + + Where'er she lie, + Locked up from mortal eye, + In shady leaves of Destiny; + + Till that ripe birth + Of studied Fate stand forth, + And teach her fair steps to our earth; + + Till that divine + Idea take a shrine + Of crystal flesh, through which to shine; + + Meet you her, my wishes, + Bespeak her to my blisses, + And be ye called my absent kisses. + +The poet is supposing that the girl whom he is to marry may not as yet +even have been born, for though men in the world of scholarship can marry +only late in life, the wife is generally quite young. Marriage is far away +in the future for the student, therefore these fancies. What he means to +say in short is about like this: + +"Oh, my wishes, go out of my heart and look for the being whom I am +destined to marry--find the soul of her, whether born or yet unborn, and +tell that soul of the love that is waiting for it." Then he tries to +describe the imagined woman he hopes to find: + + I wish her beauty + That owes not all its duty + To gaudy 'tire or glist'ring shoe-tie. + + Something more than + Taffeta or tissue can; + Or rampant feather, or rich fan. + + More than the spoil + Of shop or silk worm's toil, + Or a bought blush, or a set smile. + + A face that's best + By its own beauty drest + And can alone command the rest. + + A face made up + Out of no other shop + Than what nature's white hand sets ope. + + A cheek where grows + More than a morning rose + Which to no box his being owes. + + * * * * * + + Eyes that displace + The neighbor diamond and outface + That sunshine by their own sweet grace. + + Tresses that wear + Jewels, but to declare + How much themselves more precious are. + + Smiles, that can warm + The blood, yet teach a charm + That chastity shall take no harm. + + * * * * * + + Life, that dares send + A challenge to his end, + And when it comes, say "Welcome, friend!" + +There is much more, but the best of the thoughts are here. They are not +exactly new thoughts, nor strange thoughts, but they are finely expressed +in a strong and simple way. + +There is another composition on the same subject--the imaginary spouse, +the destined one. But this is written by a woman, Christina Rossetti. + + +SOMEWHERE OR OTHER + + Somewhere or other there must surely be + The face not seen, the voice not heard, + The heart that not yet--never yet--ah me! + Made answer to my word. + + Somewhere or other, may be near or far; + Past land and sea, clean out of sight; + Beyond the wondering moon, beyond the star + That tracks her night by night. + + Somewhere or other, may be far or near; + With just a wall, a hedge between; + With just the last leaves of the dying year, + Fallen on a turf grown green. + +And that turf means of course the turf of a grave in the churchyard. This +poem expresses fear that the destined one never can be met, because death +may come before the meeting time. All through the poem there is the +suggestion of an old belief that for every man and for every woman there +must be a mate, yet that it is a chance whether the mate will ever be +found. + +You observe that all of these are ghostly poems, whether prospective or +retrospective. Here is another prospective poem: + + +AMATURUS + + Somewhere beneath the sun, + These quivering heart-strings prove it, + Somewhere there must be one + Made for this soul, to move it; + Someone that hides her sweetness + From neighbors whom she slights, + Nor can attain completeness, + Nor give her heart its rights; + Someone whom I could court + With no great change of manner, + Still holding reason's fort + Though waving fancy's banner; + A lady, not so queenly + As to disdain my hand, + Yet born to smile serenely + Like those that rule the land; + Noble, but not too proud; + With soft hair simply folded, + And bright face crescent-browed + And throat by Muses moulded; + + Keen lips, that shape soft sayings + Like crystals of the snow, + With pretty half-betrayings + Of things one may not know; + Fair hand, whose touches thrill, + Like golden rod of wonder, + Which Hermes wields at will + Spirit and flesh to sunder. + Forth, Love, and find this maid, + Wherever she be hidden; + Speak, Love, be not afraid, + But plead as thou art bidden; + And say, that he who taught thee + His yearning want and pain, + Too dearly dearly bought thee + To part with thee in vain. + +These lines are by the author of that exquisite little book "Ionica"--a +book about which I hope to talk to you in another lecture. His real name +was William Cory, and he was long the head-master of an English public +school, during which time he composed and published anonymously the +charming verses which have made him famous--modelling his best work in +close imitation of the Greek poets. A few expressions in these lines need +explanation. For instance, the allusion to Hermes and his rod. I think you +know that Hermes is the Greek name of the same god whom the Romans called +Mercury,--commonly represented as a beautiful young man, naked and running +quickly, having wings attached to the sandals upon his feet. Runners used +to pray to him for skill in winning foot races. But this god had many +forms and many attributes, and one of his supposed duties was to bring the +souls of the dead into the presence of the king of Hades. So you will see +some pictures of him standing before the throne of the king of the Dead, +and behind him a long procession of shuddering ghosts. He is nearly always +pictured as holding in his hands a strange sceptre called the _caduceus_, +a short staff about which two little serpents are coiled, and at the top +of which is a tiny pair of wings. This is the golden rod referred to by +the poet; when Hermes touched anybody with it, the soul of the person +touched was obliged immediately to leave the body and follow after him. So +it is a very beautiful stroke of art in this poem to represent the touch +of the hand of great love as having the magical power of the golden rod of +Hermes. It is as if the poet were to say: "Should she but touch me, I know +that my spirit would leap out of my body and follow after her." Then there +is the expression "crescent-browed." It means only having beautifully +curved eyebrows--arched eyebrows being considered particularly beautiful +in Western countries. + +Now we will consider another poem of the ideal. What we have been reading +referred to ghostly ideals, to memories, or to hopes. Let us now see how +the poets have talked about realities. Here is a pretty thing by Thomas +Ashe. It is entitled "Pansie"; and this flower name is really a corruption +of a French word "Penser," meaning a thought. The flower is very +beautiful, and its name is sometimes given to girls, as in the present +case. + + +MEET WE NO ANGELS, PANSIE? + + Came, on a Sabbath noon, my sweet, + In white, to find her lover; + The grass grew proud beneath her feet, + The green elm-leaves above her:-- + Meet we no angels, Pansie? + + She said, "We meet no angels now;" + And soft lights stream'd upon her; + And with white hand she touch'd a bough; + She did it that great honour:-- + What! meet no angels, Pansie? + + O sweet brown hat, brown hair, brown eyes, + Down-dropp'd brown eyes, so tender! + Then what said I? Gallant replies + Seem flattery, and offend her:-- + But--meet no angels, Pansie? + +The suggestion is obvious, that the maiden realizes to the lover's eye the +ideal of an angel. As she comes he asks her slyly,--for she has been to +the church--"Is it true that nobody ever sees real angels?" She answers +innocently, thinking him to be in earnest, "No--long ago people used to +see angels, but in these times no one ever sees them." He does not dare +tell her how beautiful she seems to him; but he suggests much more than +admiration by the tone of his protesting response to her answer: "What! +You cannot mean to say that there are no angels now?" Of course that is +the same as to say, "I see an angel now"--but the girl is much too +innocent to take the real and flattering meaning. + +Wordsworth's portrait of the ideal woman is very famous; it was written +about his own wife though that fact would not be guessed from the poem. +The last stanza is the most famous, but we had better quote them all. + + She was a phantom of delight + When first she gleamed upon my sight; + A lovely apparition, sent + To be a moment's ornament; + Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; + Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair; + But all things else about her drawn + From May-time and the cheerful dawn; + A dancing shape, an image gay, + To haunt, to startle, and waylay. + + I saw her upon nearer view, + A Spirit, yet a Woman too! + Her household motions light and free, + And steps of virgin liberty; + A countenance in which did meet + Sweet records, promises as sweet; + A creature not too bright or good + For human nature's daily food; + For transient sorrows, simple wiles, + Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles. + + And now I see with eye serene + The very pulse of the machine; + A being breathing thoughtful breath, + A traveller betwixt life and death; + The reason firm, the temperate will, + Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; + A perfect woman, nobly plann'd, + To warn, to comfort and command; + And yet a Spirit still, and bright + With something of angelic light. + +I quoted this after the Pansie poem to show you how much more deeply +Wordsworth could touch the same subject. To him, too, the first apparition +of the ideal maiden seemed angelic; like Ashe he could perceive the +mingled attraction of innocence and of youth. But innocence and youth are +by no means all that make up the best attributes of woman; character is +more than innocence and more than youth, and it is character that +Wordsworth studies. But in the last verse he tells us that the angel is +always there, nevertheless, even when the good woman becomes old. The +angel is the Mother-soul. + +Wordsworth's idea that character is the supreme charm was expressed very +long before him by other English poets, notably by Thomas Carew. + + He that loves a rosy cheek, + Or a coral lip admires, + Or from star-like eyes doth seek + Fuel to maintain his fires: + As old Time makes these decay, + So his flames must waste away. + + But a smooth and steadfast mind, + Gentle thoughts and calm desires, + Hearts with equal love combined, + Kindle never-dying fires. + Where these, are not, I despise + Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes. + +For about three hundred years in English literature it was the fashion--a +fashion borrowed from the Latin poets--to speak of love as a fire or +flame, and you must understand the image in these verses in that +signification. To-day the fashion is not quite dead, but very few poets +now follow it. + +Byron himself, with all his passion and his affected scorn of ethical +convention, could and did, when he pleased, draw beautiful portraits of +moral as well as physical attraction. These stanzas are famous; they paint +for us a person with equal attraction of body and mind. + + She walks in beauty, like the night + Of cloudless climes and starry skies; + And all that's best of dark and bright + Meet in her aspect and her eyes: + Thus mellow'd to that tender light + Which heaven to gaudy day denies. + + One shade the more, one ray the less, + Had half impair'd the nameless grace + Which waves in every raven tress, + Or softly lightens o'er her face; + Where thoughts serenely sweet express + How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. + + And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, + So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, + The smiles that win, the tints that glow, + But tell of days in goodness spent, + A mind at peace with all below, + A heart whose love is innocent! + +It is worth noticing that in each of the last three poems, the physical +beauty described is that of dark eyes and hair. This may serve to remind +you that there are two distinct types, opposite types, of beauty +celebrated by English poets; and the next poem which I am going to quote, +the beautiful "Ruth" of Thomas Hood, also describes a dark woman. + + She stood breast-high amid the corn, + Clasp'd by the golden light of morn, + Like the sweetheart of the sun, + Who many a glowing kiss had won. + + On her cheek an autumn flush, + Deeply ripen'd;--such a blush + In the midst of brown was born, + Like red poppies grown with corn. + + Round her eyes her tresses fell, + Which were blackest none could tell, + But long lashes veil'd a light, + That had else been all too bright. + + And her hat, with shady brim, + Made her tressy forehead dim; + Thus she stood among the stooks, + Praising God with sweetest looks:-- + + Sure, I said, Heav'n did not mean, + Where I reap thou shouldst but glean, + Lay thy sheaf adown and come, + Share my harvest and my home. + +We might call this the ideal of a peasant girl whose poverty appeals to +the sympathy of all who behold her. The name of the poem is suggested +indeed by the Bible story of Ruth the gleaner, but the story in the poem +is only that of a rich farmer who marries a very poor girl, because of her +beauty and her goodness. It is just a charming picture--a picture of the +dark beauty which is so much admired in Northern countries, where it is +less common than in Southern Europe. There are beautiful brown-skinned +types; and the flush of youth on the cheeks of such a brown girl has been +compared to the red upon a ripe peach or a russet apple--a hard kind of +apple, very sweet and juicy, which is brown instead of yellow, or reddish +brown. But the poet makes the comparison with poppy flowers and wheat. +That, of course, means golden yellow and red; in English wheat fields red +poppy flowers grow in abundance. The expression "tressy forehead" in the +second line of the fourth stanza means a forehead half covered with +falling, loose hair. + +The foregoing pretty picture may be offset by charming poem of Browning's +describing a lover's pride in his illusion. It is simply entitled "Song," +and to appreciate it you must try to understand the mood of a young man +who believes that he has actually realized his ideal, and that the woman +that he loves is the most beautiful person in the whole world. The fact +that this is simply imagination on his part does not make the poem less +beautiful--on the contrary, the false imagining is just what makes it +beautiful, the youthful emotion of a moment being so humanly and frankly +described. Such a youth must imagine that every one else sees and thinks +about the girl just as he does, and he expects them to confess it. + + Nay but you, who do not love her, + Is she not pure gold, my mistress? + Holds earth aught--speak truth--above her? + Aught like this tress, see, and this tress, + And this last fairest tress of all, + So fair, see, ere I let it fall? + + Because you spend your lives in praising; + To praise, you search the wide world over; + Then why not witness, calmly gazing, + If earth holds aught--speak truth--above her? + Above this tress, and this, I touch + But cannot praise, I love so much! + +You see the picture, I think,--probably some artist's studio for a +background. She sits or stands there with her long hair loosely flowing +down to her feet like a river of gold; and her lover, lifting up some of +the long tresses in his hand, asks his friend, who stands by, to notice +how beautiful such hair is. Perhaps the girl was having her picture +painted. One would think so from the question, "Since your business is to +look for beautiful things, why can you not honestly acknowledge that this +woman is the most beautiful thing in the whole world?" Or we might imagine +the questioned person to be a critic by profession as well as an artist. +Like the preceding poem this also is a picture. But the next poem, also by +Browning, is much more than a picture--it is very profound indeed, simple +as it looks. An old man is sitting by the dead body of a young girl of +about sixteen. He tells us how he secretly loved her, as a father might +love a daughter, as a brother might love a sister. But he would have +wished, if he had not been so old, and she so young, to love her as a +husband. He never could have her in this world, but why should he not hope +for it in the future world? He whispers into her dead ear his wish, and he +puts a flower into her dead hand, thinking, "When she wakes up, in another +life, she will see that flower, and remember what I said to her, and how +much I loved her." That is the mere story. But we must understand that the +greatness of the love expressed in the poem is awakened by an ideal of +innocence and sweetness and goodness, and the affection is of the +soul--that is to say, it is the love of beautiful character, not the love +of a beautiful face only, that is expressed. + + +EVELYN HOPE + + Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! + Sit and watch by her side an hour. + That is her book-shelf, this her bed; + She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, + Beginning to die too, in the glass; + Little has yet been changed, I think: + The shutters are shut, no light can pass + Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. + + Sixteen years old when she died! + Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; + It was not her time to love; beside, + Her life had many a hope and aim, + Duties enough and little cares, + And now was quiet, now astir, + Till God's hand beckoned unawares,-- + And the sweet white brow is all of her. + + Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope? + What, your soul was pure and true, + The good stars met in your horoscope, + Made you of spirit, fire and dew-- + And just because I was thrice as old + And our paths in the world diverged so wide, + Each was naught to each, must I be told? + We were fellow mortals, naught beside? + + No, indeed! for God above, + Is great to grant, as mighty to make, + And creates the love to reward the love: + I claim you still, for my own love's sake! + Delayed it may be for more lives yet, + Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few: + Much is to learn, much to forget, + Ere the time be come for taking you. + + But the time will come,--at last it will, + When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) + In the lower earth, in the years long still, + That body and soul so pure and gay? + Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, + And your mouth of your own geranium's red-- + And what you would do with me, in fine, + In the new life come in the old one's stead. + + I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, + Given up myself so many times, + Gained me the gains of various men, + Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; + Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, + Either I missed or itself missed me: + And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! + What is the issue? let us see! + + I loved you, Evelyn, all the while! + My heart seemed full as it could hold; + There was space and to spare for the frank young smile, + And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. + So, hush,--I will give you this leaf to keep: + See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand! + There, that is our secret: go to sleep! + You will wake, and remember, and understand. + +No other poet has written so many different kinds of poems on this subject +as Browning; and although I can not quote all of them, I must not neglect +to make a just representation of the variety. Here is another example: the +chief idea is again the beauty of truthfulness and fidelity, but the +artistic impression is quite different. + + A simple ring with a single stone, + To the vulgar eye no stone of price: + Whisper the right word, that alone-- + Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice. + And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll) + Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole + Through the power in a pearl. + + A woman ('tis I this time that say) + With little the world counts worthy praise: + Utter the true word--out and away + Escapes her soul; I am wrapt in blaze, + Creation's lord, of heaven and earth + Lord whole and sole--by a minute's birth-- + Through the love in a girl! + +Paraphrased, the meaning will not prove as simple as the verses: Here is a +finger ring set with one small stone, one jewel. It is a very +cheap-looking stone to common eyes. But if you know a certain magical +word, and, after putting the ring on your finger, you whisper that magical +word over the cheap-looking stone, suddenly a spirit, a demon or a genie, +springs from that gem like a flash of fire miraculously issuing from a +lump of ice. And that spirit or genie has power to make you king of the +whole world and of the sky above the world, lord of the spirits of heaven +and earth and air and fire. Yet the stone is only--a pearl--and it can +make you lord of the universe. That is the old Arabian story. The word +scroll here means a manuscript, an Arabian manuscript. + +But what is after all the happiness of mere power? There is a greater +happiness possible than to be lord of heaven and earth; that is the +happiness of being truly loved. Here is a woman; to the eye of the world, +to the sight of other men, she is not very beautiful nor at all remarkable +in any way. She is just an ordinary woman, as the pearl in the ring is to +all appearances just a common pearl. But let the right word be said, let +the soul of that woman be once really touched by the magic of love, and +what a revelation! As the spirit in the Arabian story sprang from the +stone of the magical ring, when the word was spoken, so from the heart of +this woman suddenly her soul displays itself in shining light. And the man +who loves, instantly becomes, in the splendour of that light, verily the +lord of heaven and earth; to the eyes of the being who loves him he is a +god. + +The legend is the legend of Solomon--not the Solomon of the Bible, but the +much more wonderful Solomon of the Arabian story-teller. His power is said +to have been in a certain seal ring, upon which the mystical name of +Allah, or at least one of the ninety and nine mystical names, was +engraved. When he chose to use this ring, all the spirits of air, the +spirits of earth, the spirits of water and the spirits of fire were +obliged to obey him. The name of such a ring is usually "Talisman." + +Here is another of Browning's jewels, one of the last poems written +shortly before his death. It is entitled "Summum Bonum,"--signifying "the +highest good." The subject is a kiss; we may understand that the first +betrothal kiss is the mark of affection described. When the promise of +marriage has been made, that promise is sealed or confirmed by the first +kiss. But this refers only to the refined classes of society. Among the +English people proper, especially the country folk, kissing the girls is +only a form of showing mere good will, and has no serious meaning at all. + + All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee: + All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem: + In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea: + Breath and bloom, shade and shine,--wonder, wealth, and--how far + above them-- + Truth, that's brighter than gem, + Trust, that's purer than pearl,-- + Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe--all were for me + In the kiss of one girl. + +There is in this a suggestion of Ben Jonson, who uses almost exactly the +same simile without any moral significance. The advantage of Browning is +that he has used the sensuous imagery for ethical symbolism; here he +greatly surpasses Jonson, though it would be hard to improve upon the +beauty of Jonson's verses, as merely describing visual beauty. Here are +Jonson's stanzas: + + +THE TRIUMPH + + See the Chariot at hand here of Love, + Wherein my Lady rideth! + Each that draws is a swan or a dove, + And well the car Love guideth. + As she goes, all hearts do duty + Unto her beauty; + And enamoured do wish, so they might + But enjoy such a sight, + That they still were to run by her side, + Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride. + + Do but look on her eyes, they do light + All that Love's world compriseth! + Do but look on her hair, it is bright + As love's star when it riseth! + Do but mark, her forehead's smoother + Than words that soothe her; + And from her arch'd brows such a grace + Sheds itself through the face, + As alone there triumphs to the life + All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife. + + Have you seen but a bright lily grow + Before rude hands have touched it? + Have you mark'd but the fall of the snow + Before the soil hath smutch'd it? + Have you felt the wool of beaver + Or swan's down ever? + Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier, + Or the nard in the fire? + Or have tasted the bag of the bee? + O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she! + +The first of the above stanzas is a study after the Roman poets; but the +last stanza is Jonson's own and is very famous. You will see that Browning +was probably inspired by him, but I think that his verses are much more +beautiful in thought and feeling. + +There is one type of ideal woman very seldom described in poetry--the old +maid, the woman whom sorrow or misfortune prevents from fulfilling her +natural destiny. Commonly the woman who never marries is said to become +cross, bad tempered, unpleasant in character. She could not be blamed for +this, I think; but there are old maids who always remain as unselfish and +frank and kind as a girl, and who keep the charm of girlhood even when +their hair is white. Hartley Coleridge, son of the great Samuel, attempted +to describe such a one, and his picture is both touching and beautiful. + + +THE SOLITARY-HEARTED + + She was a queen of noble Nature's crowning, + A smile of hers was like an act of grace; + She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning, + Like daily beauties of the vulgar race: + But if she smiled, a light was on her face, + A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam + Of peaceful radiance, silvering o'er the stream + Of human thought with unabiding glory; + Not quite a waking truth, not quite a dream, + A visitation, bright and transitory. + + But she is changed,--hath felt the touch of sorrow, + No love hath she, no understanding friend; + O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow + What the poor niggard earth has not to lend; + But when the stalk is snapt, the rose must bend. + The tallest flower that skyward rears its head + Grows from the common ground, and there must shed + Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely + That they should find so base a bridal bed, + Who lived in virgin pride, so sweet and purely. + + She had a brother, and a tender father, + And she was loved, but not as others are + From whom we ask return of love,--but rather + As one might love a dream; a phantom fair + Of something exquisitely strange and rare, + Which all were glad to look on, men and maids, + Yet no one claimed--as oft, in dewy glades, + The peering primrose, like a sudden gladness, + Gleams on the soul, yet unregarded fades;-- + The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness. + + 'Tis vain to say--her worst of grief is only + The common lot, which all the world have known + To her 'tis more, because her heart is lonely, + And yet she hath no strength to stand alone,-- + Once she had playmates, fancies of her own, + And she did love them. They are past away + As fairies vanish at the break of day; + And like a spectre of an age departed, + Or unsphered angel woefully astray, + She glides along--the solitary-hearted. + +Perhaps it is scarcely possible for you to imagine that a woman finds it +impossible to marry because of being too beautiful, too wise, and too +good. In Western countries it is not impossible at all. You must try to +imagine entirely different social conditions--conditions in which marriage +depends much more upon the person than upon the parents, much more upon +inclination than upon anything else. A woman's chances of marriage depend +very much upon herself, upon her power of pleasing and charming. Thousands +and tens of thousands can never get married. Now there are cases in which +a woman can please too much. Men become afraid of her. They think, "She +knows too much, I dare not be frank with her"--or, "She is too beautiful, +she never would accept a common person like me"--or, "She is too formal +and correct, she would never forgive a mistake, and I could never be happy +with her." Not only is this possible, but it frequently happens. Too much +excellence makes a misfortune. I think you can understand it best by the +reference to the very natural prejudice against over-educated women, a +prejudice founded upon experience and existing in all countries, even in +Japan. Men are not attracted to a woman because she is excellent at +mathematics, because she knows eight or nine different languages, because +she has acquired all the conventions of high-pressure training. Men do not +care about that. They want love and trust and kindliness and ability to +make a home beautiful and happy. Well, the poem we have been reading is +very pathetic because it describes a woman who can not fulfil her natural +destiny, can not be loved--this through no fault of her own, but quite the +reverse. To be too much advanced beyond one's time and environment is even +a worse misfortune than to be too much behind. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +NOTE UPON THE SHORTEST FORMS OF ENGLISH POETRY + + +Perhaps there is an idea among Japanese students that one general +difference between Japanese and Western poetry is that the former +cultivates short forms and the latter longer ones, gut this is only in +part true. It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in +the Far East more than in modern Europe; but in all European literature +short forms of poetry are to be found--indeed quite as short as anything +in Japanese. Like the Japanese, the old Greeks, who carried poetry to the +highest perfection that it has ever attained, delighted in short forms; +and the Greek Anthology is full of compositions containing only two or +three lines. You will find beautiful translations of these in Symonds's +"Studies of Greek Poets," in the second volume. Following Greek taste, the +Roman poets afterwards cultivated short forms of verse, but they chiefly +used such verse for satirical purposes, unfortunately; I say, +unfortunately, because the first great English poets who imitated the +ancients were chiefly influenced by the Latin writers, and they also used +the short forms for epigrammatic satire rarely for a purely esthetic +object. Ben Jonson both wrote and translated a great number of very short +stanzas--two lines and four lines; but Jonson was a satirist in these +forms. Herrick, as you know, delighted in very short poems; but he was +greatly influenced by Jonson, and many of his couplets and of his +quatrains are worthless satires or worthless jests. However, you will find +some short verses in Herrick that almost make you think of a certain class +of Japanese poems. After the Elizabethan Age, also, the miniature poems +were still used in the fashion set by the Roman writers,--then the +eighteenth century deluged us with ill-natured witty epigrams of the like +brief form. It was not until comparatively modern times that our Western +world fully recognized the value of the distich, triplet or quatrain for +the expression of beautiful thoughts, rather than for the expression of +ill-natured ones. But now that the recognition has come, it has been +discovered that nothing is harder than to write a beautiful poem of two or +four lines. Only great masters have been truly successful at it. Goethe, +you know, made a quatrain that has become a part of world-literature: + + Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,-- + Who ne'er the lonely midnight hours, + Weeping upon his bed has sate, + He knows ye not, ye Heavenly Powers! + +--meaning, of course, that inspiration and wisdom come to us only through +sorrow, and that those who have never suffered never can be wise. But in +the universities of England a great deal of short work of a most excellent +kind has been done in Greek and Latin; and there is the celebrated case of +an English student who won a prize by a poem of a single line. The subject +given had been the miracle of Christ's turning water into wine at the +marriage feast; and while other scholars attempted elaborate composition +on the theme, this student wrote but one verse, of which the English +translation is + + The modest water saw its Lord, and blushed. + +Of course the force of the idea depends upon the popular conception of +wine being red. The Latin and Greek model, however, did not seem to +encourage much esthetic effort in short poems of English verse until the +time of the romantic movement. Then, both in France and England, many +brief forms of poetry made their appearance. In France, Victor Hugo +attempted composition in astonishingly varied forms of verse--some forms +actually consisting of only two syllables to a line. With this +surprisingly short measure begins one of Hugo's most remarkably early +poems, "Les Djins," representing the coming of evil spirits with a storm, +their passing over the house where a man is at prayer, and departing into +the distance again. Beginning with only two syllables to the line, the +measure of the poem gradually widens as the spirits approach, becomes very +wide, very long and sonorous as they reach the house, and again shrinks +back to lines of two syllables as the sound of them dies away. In England +a like variety of experiments has been made; but neither in France nor in +England has the short form yet been as successfully cultivated as it was +among the Greeks. We have some fine examples; but, as an eminent English +editor observed a few years ago, not enough examples to make a book. And +of course this means that there are very few; for you can make a book of +poetry very well with as little as fifty pages of largely and widely +printed text. However, we may cite a few modern instances. + +I think that about the most perfect quatrains we have are those of the +extraordinary man, Walter Savage Landor, who, you know, was a rare Greek +scholar, all his splendid English work being very closely based upon the +Greek models. He made a little epitaph upon himself, which is matchless of +its kind: + + I strove with none, for none was worth my strife; + Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; + I warmed both hands before the fire of life: + It sinks; and I am ready to depart. + +You know that Greeks used the short form a great deal for their exquisite +epitaphs, and that a considerable part of the anthology consists of +epitaphic literature. But the quatrain has a much wider range than this +funereal limitation, and one such example of epitaph will suffice. + +Only one English poet of our own day, and that a minor one, has attempted +to make the poem of four lines a specialty--that is William Watson. He has +written a whole volume of such little poems, but very few of them are +successful. As I said before, we have not enough good poems of this sort +for a book; and the reason is not because English poets despise the short +form, but because it is supremely difficult. The Greeks succeeded in it, +but we are still far behind the Greeks in the shaping of any kind of +verse. The best of Watson's pieces take the form of philosophical +suggestions; and this kind of verse is particularly well adapted to +philosophical utterance. + + Think not thy wisdom can illume away + The ancient tanglement of night and day. + Enough to acknowledge both, and both revere; + They see not clearliest who see all things clear. + +That is to say, do not think that any human knowledge will ever be able to +make you understand the mystery of the universe with its darkness and +light, its joy and pain. It is best to revere the powers that make both +good and evil, and to remember that the keenest, worldly, practical minds +are not the minds that best perceive the great truths and mysteries of +existence. Here is another little bit, reminding us somewhat of Goethe's +quatrain, already quoted. + + Lives there whom pain hath evermore passed by + And sorrow shunned with an averted eye? + Him do thou pity,--him above the rest, + Him, of all hapless mortals most unblessed. + +That needs no commentary, and it contains a large truth in small space. +Here is a little bit on the subject of the artist's ambition, which is +also good. + + The thousand painful steps at last are trod, + At last the temple's difficult door we win, + But perfect on his pedestal, the God + Freezes us hopeless when we enter in. + +The higher that the artist climbs by effort, the nearer his approach to +the loftier truth, the more he understands how little his very best can +achieve. It is the greatest artist, he who veritably enters the presence +of God--that most feels his own weakness; the perception of beauty that +other men can not see, terrifies him, freezes him motionless, as the poet +says. + +Out of all of Watson's epigrams I believe these are the best. The rest +with the possible exception of those on the subject of love seem to me +altogether failures. Emerson and various American poets also attempted the +quatrain--but Emerson's verse is nearly always bad, even when his thought +is sublime. One example of Emerson will suffice. + + Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, + Or dip thy paddle in the lake, + But it carves the bow of beauty there, + And the ripples in rhyme the oar forsake. + +The form is atrociously bad; but the reflection is grand--it is another +way of expressing the beautiful old Greek thought that "God _geometrizes_ +everywhere"--that is, that all motion is in geometrical lines, and full of +beauty. You can pick hundreds of fine things in very short verse out of +Emerson, but the verse is nearly always shapeless; the composition of the +man invariably makes us think of diamonds in the rough, jewels uncut. So +far as form goes a much better master of quatrain is the American poet +Aldrich, who wrote the following little thing, entitled "Popularity." + + Such kings of shreds have wooed and won her, + Such crafty knaves her laurel owned, + It has become almost an honour + Not to be crowned. + +This is good verse. The reference to "a king of shreds and patches"--that +is, a beggar king--you will recognize as Shakespearean. But although this +pretty verse has in it more philosophy than satire, it approaches the +satiric class of epigrams. Neither America nor England has been able to do +very much in the sort of verse that we have been talking about. Now this +is a very remarkable thing,--because at the English universities beautiful +work has been done in Greek or Latin--in poems of a single line, of two +lines, of three lines and other very brief measures. Why can it not be +done in English? I suspect that it is because our English language has not +yet become sufficiently perfect, sufficiently flexible, sufficiently +melodious to allow of great effect with a very few words. We can do the +thing in Greek or in Latin because either Greek or Latin is a more perfect +language. + +So much for theory. I should like to suggest, however, that it is very +probable many attempts at these difficult forms of poetry will be +attempted by English poets within the next few years. There is now a +tendency in that direction. I do not know whether such attempts will be +successful; but I should like you to understand that for Western poets +they are extremely difficult and that you ought to obtain from the +recognition of this fact a new sense of the real value of your own short +forms of verse in the hands of a master. Effects can be produced in +Japanese which the Greeks could produce with few syllables, but which the +English can not. Now it strikes me that, instead of even thinking of +throwing away old forms of verse in order to invent new ones, the future +Japanese poets ought rather to develop and cultivate and prize the forms +already existing, which belong to the genius of the language, and which +have proved themselves capable of much that no English verse or even +French verse could accomplish. Perhaps only the Italian is really +comparable to Japanese in some respects; you can perform miracles with +Italian verse. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SOME FOREIGN POEMS ON JAPANESE SUBJECTS + + +The Western poet and writer of romance has exactly the same kind of +difficulty in comprehending Eastern subjects as you have in comprehending +Western subjects. You will commonly find references to Japanese love poems +of the popular kind made in such a way as to indicate the writer's belief +that such poems refer to married life or at least to a courtship relation. +No Western writer who has not lived for many years in the East, could +write correctly about anything on this subject; and even after a long stay +in the country he might be unable to understand. Therefore a great deal of +Western poetry written about Japan must seem to you all wrong, and I can +not hope to offer you many specimens of work in this direction that could +deserve your praise. Yet there is some poetry so fine on the subject of +Japan that I think you would admire it and I am sure that you should know +it. A proof of really great art is that it is generally true--it seldom +falls into the misapprehensions to which minor art is liable. What do you +think of the fact that the finest poetry ever written upon a Japanese +subject by any Western poet, has been written by a man who never saw the +land? But he is a member of the French Academy, a great and true lover of +art, and without a living superior in that most difficult form of poetry, +the sonnet. In the time of thirty years he produced only one very small +volume of sonnets, but so fine are these that they were lifted to the very +highest place in poetical distinction. I may say that there are now only +three really great French poets--survivals of the grand romantic school. +These are Leconte de Lisle, Sully-Prudhomme, and JosĆ© Maria de Heredia. It +is the last of whom I am speaking. As you can tell by his name, he is not +a Frenchman either by birth or blood, but a Spaniard, or rather a Spanish +Creole, born in Cuba. Heredia knows Japan only through pictures, armour, +objects of art in museums, paintings and carvings. Remembering this, I +think that you will find that he does wonderfully well. It is true that he +puts a woman in one of his pictures, but I think that his management of +his subject is very much nearer the truth than that of almost any writer +who has attempted to describe old Japan. And you must understand that the +following sonnet is essentially intended to be a picture--to produce upon +the mind exactly the same effect that a picture does, with the addition of +such life as poetry can give. + + +LE SAMOURAI + + D'un doigt distrait frĆ“lant la sonore bĆ®va, + A travers les bambous tressĆ©s en fine latte, + Elle a vu, par la plage Ć©blouissante et plate, + S'avancer le vainqueur que son amour rĆŖva. + + C'est lui. Sabres au flanc, l'Ć©ventail haut, il va. + La cordeliĆØre rouge et le gland Ć©carlate + Coupent l'armure sombre, et, sur l'Ć©paule, Ć©clate + Le blazon de Hizen ou de Tokungawa. + + Ce beau guerrier vĆŖtu de lames et de plaques, + Sous le bronze, la soie et les brillantes laques, + Semble un crustace noir, gigantesque et vermeil. + + Il l'a vue. Il sourit dans la barbe du masque, + Et son pas plus hĆ¢tif fait reluire au soleil + Les deux antennes d'or qui tremblent Ć son casque. + +"Lightly touching her _biva_ with heedless finger, she has perceived, +through the finely woven bamboo screen, the conqueror, lovingly thought +of, approach over the dazzling level of the beach. + +"It is he. With his swords at his side he advances, holding up his fan. +The red girdle and the scarlet tassel appear in sharply cut relief against +the dark armour; and upon his shoulder glitters a crest of Hizen or of +Tokungawa. + +"This handsome warrior sheathed with his scales and plates of metal, under +his bronze, his silk and glimmering lacquer, seems a crustacean, gigantic, +black and vermilion. + +"He has caught sight of her. Under the beaver of the war mask he smiles, +and his quickened step makes to glitter in the sun the two antennƦ of gold +that quiver upon his helmet." + +The comparison of a warrior in full armour to a gigantic crab or lobster, +especially lobster, is not exactly new. Victor Hugo has used it before in +French literature, just as Carlyle has used it in English literature; +indeed the image could not fail to occur to the artist in any country +where the study of armour has been carried on. But here the poet does not +speak of any particular creature; he uses only the generic term, +crustacean, the vagueness of which makes the comparison much more +effective. I think you can see the whole picture at once. It is a Japanese +colour-print,--some ancient interior, lighted by the sun of a great summer +day; and a woman looking through a bamboo blind toward the seashore, where +she sees a warrior approaching. He divines that he is seen; but if he +smiles, it is only because the smile is hidden by his iron mask. The only +sign of any sentiment on his part is that he walks a little quicker. Still +more amazing is a companion picture, containing only a solitary figure: + + +LE DAIMIO (Matin de bataille) + + Sous le noir fouet de guerre Ć quadruple pompon, + L'Ć©talon belliqueux en hennissant se cabre, + Et fait bruire, avec de cliquetis de sabre, + La cuirasse de bronze aux lames du jupon. + + Le Chef vĆŖtu d'airain, de laque et de crĆ©pon, + Otant le masque Ć poils de son visage glabre, + Regarde le volcan sur un ciel de cinabre + Dresser la neige oĆ¹ rit l'aurore du Nippon. + + Mais il a vu, vers l'Est Ć©claboussĆ© d'or, l'astre, + Glorieux d'Ć©clairer ce matin de dĆ©sastre, + Poindre, orbe Ć©blouissant, au-dessus de la mer; + + Et pour couvrir ses yeux dont pas un cil ne bouge, + Il ouvre d'un seul coup son Ć©ventail de fer, + OĆ¹ dans le satin blanc se lĆØve un Soleil rouge. + +"Under the black war whip with its quadruple pompon the fierce stallion, +whinnying, curvets, and makes the rider's bronze cuirass ring against the +plates of his shirt of mail, with a sound like the clashing of sword +blades. + +"The Chief, clad in bronze and lacquer and silken crape, removing the +bearded masque from his beardless face, turns his gaze to the great +volcano, lifting its snows into the cinnabar sky where the dawn of Nippon +begins to smile. + +"Nay! he has already seen the gold-spattered day star, gloriously +illuminating the morning of disaster, rise, a blinding disk, above the +seas. And to shade his eyes, on both of which not even a single eyelash +stirs, he opens with one quick movement his iron fan, wherein upon a field +of white satin there rises a crimson sun." + +Of course this hasty translation is very poor; and you can only get from +it the signification and colour of the picture--the beautiful sonority and +luminosity of the French is all gone. Nevertheless, I am sure that the +more you study the original the more you will see how fine it is. Here +also is a Japanese colour print. We see the figure of the horseman on the +shore, in the light of dawn; behind him the still dark sky of night; +before him the crimson dawn, and Fuji white against the red sky. And in +the open fan, with its red sun, we have a grim suggestion of the day of +blood that is about to be; that is all. But whoever reads that sonnet will +never forget it; it burns into the memory. So, indeed, does everything +that Heredia writes. Unfortunately he has not yet written anything more +about Japan. + +I have quoted Heredia because I think that no other poet has even +approached him in the attempt to make a Japanese picture--though many +others have tried; and the French, nearly always, have done much better +than the English, because they are more naturally artists. Indeed one must +be something of an artist to write anything in the way of good poetry on a +Japanese subject. If you look at the collection "Poems of Places," in the +library, you will see how poorly Japan is there represented; the only +respectable piece of foreign work being by Longfellow, and that is only +about Japanese vases. But since then some English poems have appeared +which are at least worthy of Japanese notice. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE + + +It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to +Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it will +have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the written and spoken +language of the English race. For this reason, to study English literature +without some general knowledge of the relation of the Bible to that +literature would be to leave one's literary education very incomplete. It +is not necessary to consider the work from a religious point of view at +all; indeed, to so consider it would be rather a hindrance to the +understanding of its literary excellence. Some persons have ventured to +say that it is only since Englishmen ceased to believe in the Bible that +they began to discover how beautiful it was. This is not altogether true; +but it is partly true. For it is one thing to consider every word of a +book as the word of God or gods, and another thing to consider it simply +as the work of men like ourselves. Naturally we should think it our duty +to suppose the work of a divine being perfect in itself, and to imagine +beauty and truth where neither really exists. The wonder of the English +Bible can really be best appreciated by those who, knowing it to be the +work of men much less educated and cultivated than the scholars of the +nineteenth century, nevertheless perceive that those men were able to do +in literature what no man of our own day could possibly do. + +Of course in considering the work of the translators, we must remember the +magnificence of the original. I should not like to say that the Bible is +the greatest of all religious books. From the moral point of view it +contains very much that we can not to-day approve of; and what is good in +it can be found in the sacred books of other nations. Its ethics can not +even claim to be absolutely original. The ancient Egyptian scriptures +contain beauties almost superior in moral exaltation to anything contained +in the Old Testament; and the sacred books of other Eastern nations, +notably the sacred books of India, surpass the Hebrew scriptures in the +highest qualities of imagination and of profound thought. It is only of +late years that Europe, through the labour of Sanskrit and Pali scholars, +has become acquainted with the astonishing beauty of thought and feeling +which Indian scholars enshrined in scriptures much more voluminous than +the Hebrew Bible; and it is not impossible that this far-off literature +will some day influence European thought quite as much as the Jewish +Bible. Everywhere to-day in Europe and America the study of Buddhist and +Sanskrit literature is being pursued not only with eagerness but with +enthusiasm--an enthusiasm which sometimes reaches to curious extremes. I +might mention, in example, the case of a rich man who recently visited +Japan on his way from India. He had in New Zealand a valuable property; he +was a man of high culture, and of considerable social influence. One day +he happened to read an English translation of the "Bhagavad-Gita." Almost +immediately he resolved to devote the rest of his life to religious study +in India, in a monastery among the mountains; and he gave up wealth, +friends, society, everything that Western civilization could offer him, in +order to seek truth in a strange country. Certainly this is not the only +instance of the kind; and while such incidents can happen, we may feel +sure that the influence of religious literature is not likely to die for +centuries to come. + +But every great scripture, whether Hebrew, Indian, Persian, or Chinese, +apart from its religious value will be found to have some rare and special +beauty of its own; and in this respect the original Bible stands very high +as a monument of sublime poetry and of artistic prose. If it is not the +greatest of religious books as a literary creation, it is at all events +one of the greatest; and the proof is to be found in the inspiration which +millions and hundreds of millions, dead and living, have obtained from its +utterances. The Semitic races have always possessed in a very high degree +the genius of poetry, especially poetry in which imagination plays a great +part; and the Bible is the monument of Semitic genius in this regard. +Something in the serious, stern, and reverential spirit of the genius +referred to made a particular appeal to Western races having certain +characteristics of the same kind. Themselves uncultivated in the time that +the Bible was first made known to them, they found in it almost everything +that they thought and felt, expressed in a much better way than they could +have expressed it. Accordingly the Northern races of Europe found their +inspiration in the Bible; and the enthusiasm for it has not yet quite +faded away. + +But the value of the original, be it observed, did not make the value of +the English Bible. Certainly it was an inspiring force; but it was nothing +more. The English Bible is perhaps a much greater piece of fine +literature, altogether considered, than the Hebrew Bible. It was so for a +particular reason which it is very necessary for the student to +understand. The English Bible is a product of literary evolution. + +In studying English criticisms upon different authors, I think that you +must have sometimes felt impatient with the critics who told you, for +example, that Tennyson was partly inspired by Wordsworth and partly by +Keats and partly by Coleridge; and that Coleridge was partly inspired by +Blake and Blake by the Elizabethans, and so on. You may have been tempted +to say, as I used very often myself to say, "What does it matter where the +man got his ideas from? I care only for the beauty that is in his work, +not for a history of his literary education." But to-day the value of the +study of such relations appears in quite a new light. Evolutional +philosophy, applied to the study of literature as to everything else, has +shown us conclusively that man is not a god who can make something out of +nothing, and that every great work of genius must depend even less upon +the man of genius himself than upon the labours of those who lived before +him. Every great author must draw his thoughts and his knowledge in part +from other great authors, and these again from previous authors, and so on +back, till we come to that far time in which there was no written +literature, but only verses learned by heart and memorized by all the +people of some one tribe or place, and taught by them to their children +and to their grandchildren. It is only in Greek mythology that the +divinity of Wisdom leaps out of a god's head, in full armour. In the world +of reality the more beautiful a work of art, the longer, we may be sure, +was the time required to make it, and the greater the number of different +minds which assisted in its development. + +So with the English Bible. No one man could have made the translation of +1611. No one generation of men could have done it. It was not the labour +of a single century. It represented the work of hundreds of translators +working through hundreds of years, each succeeding generation improving a +little upon the work of the previous generation, until in the seventeenth +century the best had been done of which the English brain and the English +language was capable. In no other way can the surprising beauties of style +and expression be explained. No subsequent effort could improve the Bible +of King James. Every attempt made since the seventeenth century has only +resulted in spoiling and deforming the strength and the beauty of the +authorized text. + +Now you will understand why, from the purely literary point of view, the +English Bible is of the utmost importance for study. Suppose we glance for +a moment at the principal events in the history of this evolution. + +The first translation of the Bible into a Western tongue was that made by +Jerome (commonly called Saint Jerome) in the fourth century; he translated +directly from the Hebrew and other Arabic languages into Latin, then the +language of the Empire. This translation into Latin was called the +Vulgate,--from _vulgare_, "to make generally known." The Vulgate is still +used in the Roman church. The first English translations which have been +preserved to us were made from the Vulgate, not from the original tongues. +First of all, John Wycliffe's Bible may be called the foundation of the +seventeenth century Bible. Wycliffe's translation, in which he was helped +by many others, was published between 1380 and 1388. So we may say that +the foundation of the English Bible dates from the fourteenth century, one +thousand years after Jerome's Latin translation. But Wycliffe's version, +excellent as it was, could not serve very long: the English language was +changing too quickly. Accordingly, in the time of Henry VIII Tyndale and +Coverdale, with many others, made a new translation, this time not from +the Vulgate, but from the Greek text of the great scholar Erasmus. This +was the most important literary event of the time, for "it coloured the +entire complexion of subsequent English prose,"--to use the words of +Professor Gosse. This means that all prose in English written since Henry +VIII has been influenced, directly or indirectly, by the prose of +Tyndale's Bible, which was completed about 1535. Almost at the same time a +number of English divines, under the superintendence of Archbishop +Cramner, gave to the English language a literary treasure scarcely +inferior to the Bible itself, and containing wonderful translations from +the Scriptures,--the "Book of Common Prayer." No English surpasses the +English of this book, still used by the Church; and many translators have +since found new inspiration from it. + +A revision of this famous Bible was made in 1565, entitled "The Bishops' +Bible." The cause of the revision was largely doctrinal, and we need not +trouble ourselves about this translation farther than to remark that +Protestantism was reshaping the Scriptures to suit the new state religion. +Perhaps this edition may have had something to do with the determination +of the Roman Catholics to make an English Bible of their own. The Jesuits +began the work in 1582 at Rheims, and by 1610 the Roman Catholic version +known as the Douay (or Douai) version--because of its having been made +chiefly at the Catholic College of Douai in France--was completed. This +version has many merits; next to the wonderful King James version, it is +certainly the most poetical; and it has the further advantage of including +a number of books which Protestantism has thrown out of the authorized +version, but which have been used in the Roman church since its +foundation. But I am speaking of the book only as a literary English +production. It was not made with the help of original sources; its merits +are simply those of a melodious translation from the Latin Vulgate. + +At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous +King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English +language. It was the work of many learned men; but the chief worker and +supervisor was the Bishop of Winchester, Lancelot Andrews, perhaps the +most eloquent English preacher that ever lived. He was a natural-born +orator, with an exquisite ear for the cadences of language. To this +natural faculty of the Bishop's can be attributed much of the musical +charm of the English in which the Bible was written. Still, it must not be +supposed that he himself did all the work, or even more than a small +proportion of it. What he did was to tone it; he overlooked and corrected +all the text submitted to him, and suffered only the best forms to +survive. Yet what magnificent material he had to choose from! All the +translations of the Bible that had been made before his time were +carefully studied with a view to the conservation of the best phrases, +both for sound and for form. We must consider the result not merely as a +study of literature in itself, but also as a study of eloquence; for every +attention was given to those effects to be expected from an oratorical +recitation of the text in public. + +This marks the end of the literary evolution of the Bible. Everything that +has since been done has only been in the direction of retrogression, of +injury to the text. We have now a great many later versions, much more +scholarly, so far as correct scholarship is concerned, than the King James +version, but none having any claim to literary importance. Unfortunately, +exact scholars are very seldom men of literary ability; the two faculties +are rarely united. The Bible of 1870, known as the Oxford Bible, and now +used in the Anglican state-church, evoked a great protest from the true +men of letters, the poets and critics who had found their inspirations in +the useful study of the old version. The new version was the work of +fourteen years; it was made by the united labour of the greatest scholars +in the English-speaking world; and it is far the most exact translation +that we have. Nevertheless the literary quality has been injured to such +an extent that no one will ever turn to the new revision for poetical +study. Even among the churches there was a decided condemnation of this +scholarly treatment of the old text; and many of the churches refused to +use the book. In this case, conservatism is doing the literary world a +service, keeping the old King James version in circulation, and insisting +especially upon its use in Sunday schools. + +We may now take a few examples of the differences between the revised +version and the Bible of King James. Professor Saintsbury, in an essay +upon English prose, published some years ago, said that the most perfect +piece of English prose in the language was that comprised in the sixth and +seventh verses of the eighth chapter of the Song of Songs: + + Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine + arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave; + the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement + flame. + + Many waters can not quench love, neither can the floods drown it: + if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it + would utterly be condemned. + +I should not like to say that the Professor is certainly right in calling +this the finest prose in the English language; but he is a very great +critic, whose opinion must be respected and considered, and the passage is +certainly very fine. But in the revised version, how tame the same text +has become in the hands of the scholarly translators! + + The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very flame of the Lord. + +Now as a description of jealousy, not to speak of the literary execution +at all, which is the best? What, we may ask, has been gained by calling +jealousy "a flame of the Lord" or by substituting the word "flashes" for +"coals of fire"? All through the new version are things of this kind. For +example, in the same Song of Songs there is a beautiful description of +eyes, like "doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly +set." By substituting "rivers" only for "rivers of waters" the text may +have gained in exactness, but it has lost immeasurably, both in poetry and +in sound. Far more poetical is the verse as given in the Douai version: +"His eyes are as doves upon brooks of waters, which are washed with milk, +and sit beside the beautiful streams." + +It may even be said without any question that the mistakes of the old +translators were often much more beautiful than the original. A splendid +example is given in the verse of Job, chapter twenty-six, verse thirteen: +"By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the +crooked serpent." By the crooked serpent was supposed to be signified the +grand constellation called _Draco_, or the Dragon. And the figure is +sublime. It is still more sublime in the Douai translation. "His obstetric +hand hath brought forth the Winding Serpent." This is certainly a grand +imagination--the hand of God, like the hand of a midwife, bringing forth a +constellation out of the womb of the eternal night. But in the revised +version, which is exact, we have only "His hand hath pierced the Swift +Serpent!" All the poetry is dead. + +There are two methods for the literary study of any book--the first being +the study of its thought and emotion; the second only that of its +workmanship. A student of literature should study some of the Bible from +both points of view. In attempting the former method he will do well to +consider many works of criticism, but for the study of the text as +literature, his duty is very plain--the King James version is the only one +that ought to form the basis of his study, though he should look at the +Douai version occasionally. Also he should have a book of references, such +as Cruden's Concordance, by help of which he can collect together in a few +moments all the texts upon any particular subject, such as the sea, the +wind, the sky, human life, the shadows of evening. The study of the Bible +is not one which I should recommend to very young Japanese students, +because of the quaintness of the English. Before a good knowledge of +English forms is obtained, the archaisms are apt to affect the students' +mode of expression. But for the advanced student of literature, I should +say that some knowledge of the finest books in the Bible is simply +indispensable. The important books to read are not many. But one should +read at least the books of Genesis, Exodus, Ruth, Esther, the Song of +Songs, Proverbs,--and, above all, Job. Job is certainly the grandest book +in the Bible; but all of those which I have named are books that have +inspired poets and writers in all departments of English literature to +such an extent that you can scarcely read a masterpiece in which there is +not some conscious or unconscious reference to them. Another book of +philosophical importance is Ecclesiastes, where, in addition to much +proverbial wisdom, you will find some admirable world-poetry--that is, +poetry which contains universal truth about human life in all times and +all ages. Of the historical books and the law books I do not think that it +is important to read much; the literary element in these is not so +pronounced. It is otherwise with the prophetic books, but here in order to +obtain a few jewels of expression, you have to read a great deal that is +of little value. Of the New Testament there is very little equal to the +Old in literary value; indeed, I should recommend the reading only of the +closing book--the book called the Revelation, or the Apocalypse, from +which we have derived a literary adjective "apocalyptic," to describe +something at once very terrible and very grand. Whether one understands +the meaning of this mysterious text makes very little difference; the +sonority and the beauty of its sentences, together with the tremendous +character of its imagery, can not but powerfully influence mind and ear, +and thus stimulate literary taste. At least two of the great prose writers +of the nineteenth century, Carlyle and Ruskin, have been vividly +influenced by the book of the Revelation. Every period of English +literature shows some influence of Bible study, even from the old +Anglo-Saxon days; and during the present year, the study has so little +slackened that one constantly sees announcements of new works upon the +literary elements of the Bible. Perhaps one of the best is Professor +Moulton's "Modern Reader's Bible," in which the literary side of the +subject receives better consideration than in any other work of the kind +published for general use. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE "HAVAMAL" + +OLD NORTHERN ETHICS OF LIFE + + Then from his lips in music rolled + The Havamal of Odin old, + With sounds mysterious as the roar + Of billows on a distant shore. + + +Perhaps many of you who read this little verse in Longfellow's "Saga of +King Olaf" have wished to know what was this wonderful song that the ghost +of the god sang to the king. I am afraid that you would be very +disappointed in some respects by the "Havamal." There is indeed a magical +song in it; and it is this magical song especially that Longfellow refers +to, a song of charms. But most of the "Havamal" is a collection of ethical +teaching. All that has been preserved by it has been published and +translated by Professors Vigfusson and Powell. It is very old--perhaps the +oldest Northern literature that we have. I am going to attempt a short +lecture upon it, because it is very closely related to the subject of +Northern character, and will help us, perhaps better than almost anything +else, to understand how the ancestors of the English felt and thought +before they became Christians. Nor is this all. I venture to say that the +character of the modern English people still retains much more of the +quality indicated by the "Havamal" than of the quality implied by +Christianity. The old Northern gods are not dead; they rule a very great +part of the world to-day. + +The proverbial philosophy of a people helps us to understand more about +them than any other kind of literature. And this sort of literature is +certainly among the oldest. It represents only the result of human +experience in society, the wisdom that men get by contact with each other, +the results of familiarity with right and wrong. By studying the proverbs +of a people, you can always make a very good guess as to whether you could +live comfortably among them or not. + +Froude, in one of his sketches of travel in Norway, made the excellent +observation that if we could suddenly go back to the time of the terrible +sea-kings, if we could revisit to-day the homes of the old Northern +pirates, and find them exactly as they were one thousand or fifteen +hundred years ago, we should find them very much like the modern +Englishmen--big, simple, silent men, concealing a great deal of shrewdness +under an aspect of simplicity. The teachings of the "Havamal" give great +force to this supposition. The book must have been known in some form to +the early English--or at least the verses composing it (it is all written +in verse); and as I have already said, the morals of the old English, as +well as their character, differed very little from those of the men of the +still further North, with whom they mingled and intermarried freely, both +before and after the Danish conquest, when for one moment England and +Sweden were one kingdom. + +Of course you must remember that Northern society was a very terrible +thing in some ways. Every man carried his life in his hands; every farmer +kept sword and spear at his side even in his own fields; and every man +expected to die fighting. In fact, among the men of the more savage +North--the men of Norway in especial--it was considered a great disgrace +to die of sickness, to die on one's bed. That was not to die like a man. +Men would go out and get themselves killed, when they felt old age or +sickness coming on. But these facts must not blind us to the other fact +that there was even in that society a great force of moral cohesion, and +sound principles of morality. If there had not been, it could not have +existed; much less could the people who lived under it have become the +masters of a great part of the world, which they are at the present day. +There was, in spite of all that fierceness, much kindness and good nature +among them; there were rules of conduct such as no man could find fault +with--rules which still govern English society to some extent. And there +was opportunity enough for social amusement, social enjoyment, and the +winning of public esteem by a noble life. + +Still, even in the "Havamal," one is occasionally startled by teachings +which show the darker side of Northern life, a life of perpetual vendetta. +As in old Japan, no man could live under the same heaven with the murderer +of his brother or father; vengeance was a duty even in the case of a +friend. On the subject of enemies the "Havamal" gives not a little curious +advice: + + A man should never step a foot beyond his weapons; for he can + never tell where, on his path without, he may need his spear. + + A man, before he goes into a house, should look to and espy all + the doorways (_so that he can find his way out quickly again_), + for he can never know where foes may be sitting in another man's + house. + +Does not this remind us of the Japanese proverb that everybody has three +enemies outside of his own door? But the meaning of the "Havamal" teaching +is much more sinister. And when the man goes into the house, he is still +told to be extremely watchful--to keep his ears and eyes open so that he +may not be taken by surprise: + + The wary guest keeps watchful silence; he listens with his ears + and peers about with his eyes; thus does every wise man look about + him. + +One would think that men must have had very strong nerves to take comfort +under such circumstances, but the poet tells us that the man who can enjoy +nothing must be both a coward and a fool. Although a man was to keep watch +to protect his life, that was not a reason why he should be afraid of +losing it. There were but three things of which a man should be +particularly afraid. The first was drink--because drink often caused a man +to lose control of his temper; the second was another man's +wife--repeatedly the reader is warned never to make love to another man's +wife; and the third was thieves--men who would pretend friendship for the +purpose of killing and stealing, The man who could keep constant watch +over himself and his surroundings was, of course, likely to have the +longest life. + +Now in all countries there is a great deal of ethical teaching, and always +has been, on the subject of speech. The "Havamal" is full of teaching on +this subject--the necessity of silence, the danger and the folly of +reckless talk. You all know the Japanese proverb that "the mouth is the +front gate of all misfortune." The Norse poet puts the same truth into a +grimmer shape: "The tongue works death to the head." Here are a number of +sayings on this subject: + + He that is never silent talks much folly; a glib tongue, unless it + be bridled, will often talk a man into trouble. + + Do not speak three angry words with a worse man; for often the + better man falls by the worse man's sword. + + Smile thou in the face of the man thou trusteth not, and speak + against thy mind. + +This is of course a teaching of cunning; but it is the teaching, however +immoral, that rules in English society to-day. In the old Norse, however, +there were many reasons for avoiding a quarrel whenever possible--reasons +which must have existed also in feudal Japan. A man might not care about +losing his own life; but he had to be careful not to stir up a feud that +might go on for a hundred years. Although there was a great deal of +killing, killing always remained a serious matter, because for every +killing there had to be a vengeance. It is true that the law exonerated +the man who killed another, if he paid a certain blood-price; murder was +not legally considered an unpardonable crime. But the family of the dead +man would very seldom be satisfied with a payment; they would want blood +for blood. Accordingly men had to be very cautious about quarreling, +however brave they might personally be. + +But all this caution about silence and about watchfulness did not mean +that a man should be unable to speak to the purpose when speech was +required. "A wise man," says the "Havamal," "should be able both to ask +and to answer." There is a proverb which you know, to the effect that you +can not shut the door upon another man's mouth. So says the Norse poet: +"The sons of men can keep silence about nothing that passes among men; +therefore a man should be able to take his own part, prudently and +strongly." Says the "Havamal": "A fool thinks he knows everything if he +sits snug in his little corner; but he is at a loss for words if the +people put to him a question." Elsewhere it is said: "Arch dunce is he who +can speak nought, for that is the mark of a fool." And the sum of all this +teaching about the tongue is that men should never speak without good +reason, and then should speak to the point strongly and wisely. + +On the subject of fools there is a great deal in the "Havamal"; but you +must understand always by the word fool, in the Northern sense, a man of +weak character who knows not what to do in time of difficulty. That was a +fool among those men, and a dangerous fool; for in such a state of society +mistakes in act or in speech might reach to terrible consequences. See +these little observations about fools: + + Open-handed, bold-hearted men live most happily, they never feel + care; but a fool troubles himself about everything. The niggard + pines for gifts. + + A fool is awake all night, worrying about everything; when the + morning comes he is worn out, and all his troubles are just the + same as before. + + A fool thinks that all who smile upon him are his friends, not + knowing, when he is with wise men, who there may be plotting + against him. + + If a fool gets a drink, all his mind is immediately displayed. + +But it was not considered right for a man not to drink, although drink was +a dangerous thing. On the contrary, not to drink would have been thought a +mark of cowardice and of incapacity for self-control. A man was expected +even to get drunk if necessary, and to keep his tongue and his temper no +matter how much he drank. The strong character would only become more +cautious and more silent under the influence of drink; the weak man would +immediately show his weakness. I am told the curious fact that in the +English army at the present day officers are expected to act very much +after the teaching of the old Norse poet; a man is expected to be able on +occasion to drink a considerable amount of wine or spirits without showing +the effects of it, either in his conduct or in his speech. "Drink thy +share of mead; speak fair or not at all"--that was the old text, and a +very sensible one in its way. + +Laughter was also condemned, if indulged in without very good cause. "The +miserable man whose mind is warped laughs at everything, not knowing what +he ought to know, that he himself has no lack of faults." I need scarcely +tell you that the English are still a very serious people, not disposed to +laugh nearly so much as are the men of the more sympathetic Latin races. +You will remember perhaps Lord Chesterfield's saying that since he became +a man no man had ever seen him laugh. I remember about twenty years ago +that there was published by some Englishman a very learned and very +interesting little book, called "The Philosophy of Laughter," in which it +was gravely asserted that all laughter was foolish. I must acknowledge, +however, that no book ever made me laugh more than the volume in question. + +The great virtue of the men of the North, according to the "Havamal," was +indeed the virtue which has given to the English race its present great +position among nations,--the simplest of all virtues, common sense. But +common sense means much more than the words might imply to the Japanese +students, or to any one unfamiliar with English idioms. Common sense, or +mother-wit, means natural intelligence, as opposed to, and independent of, +cultivated or educated intelligence. It means inherited knowledge; and +inherited knowledge may take even the form of genius. It means foresight. +It means intuitive knowledge of other people's character. It means cunning +as well as broad comprehension. And the modern Englishman, in all times +and in all countries, trusts especially to this faculty, which is very +largely developed in the race to which he belongs. No Englishman believes +in working from book learning. He suspects all theories, philosophical or +other. He suspects everything new, and dislikes it, unless he can be +compelled by the force of circumstances to see that this new thing has +advantages over the old. Race-experience is what he invariably depends +upon, whenever he can, whether in India, in Egypt, or in Australia. His +statesmen do not consult historical precedents in order to decide what to +do: they first learn the facts as they are; then they depend upon their +own common sense, not at all upon their university learning or upon +philosophical theories. And in the case of the English nation, it must be +acknowledged that this instinctive method has been eminently successful. +When the "Havamal" speaks of wisdom it means mother-wit, and nothing else; +indeed, there was no reading or writing to speak of in those times: + + No man can carry better baggage on his journey than wisdom. + + There is no better friend than great common sense. + +But the wise man should not show himself to be wise without occasion. He +should remember that the majority of men are not wise, and he should be +careful not to show his superiority over them unnecessarily. Neither +should be despise men who do not happen to be as wise as himself: + + No man is so good but there is a flaw in him, nor so bad as to be + good for nothing. + + Middling wise should every man be; never overwise. Those who know + many things rarely lead the happiest life. + + Middling wise should every man be; never overwise. No man should + know his fate beforehand; so shall he live freest from care. + + Middling wise should every man be, never too wise. A wise man's + heart is seldom glad, if its owner be a true sage. + +This is the ancient wisdom also of Solomon "He that increases wisdom +increases sorrow." But how very true as worldly wisdom these little +Northern sentences are. That a man who knows a little of many things, and +no one thing perfectly, is the happiest man--this certainly is even more +true to-day than it was a thousand years ago. Spencer has well observed +that the man who can influence his generation, is never the man greatly in +advance of his time, but only the man who is very slightly better than his +fellows. The man who is very superior is likely to be ignored or disliked. +Mediocrity can not help disliking superiority; and as the old Northern +sage declared, "the average of men is but moiety." Moiety does not mean +necessarily mediocrity, but also that which is below mediocrity. What we +call in England to-day, as Matthew Arnold called it, the Philistine +element, continues to prove in our own time, to almost every superior man, +the danger of being too wise. + +Interesting in another way, and altogether more agreeable, are the old +sayings about friendship: "Know this, if thou hast a trusty friend, go and +see him often; because a road which is seldom trod gets choked with +brambles and high grass." + + Be not thou the first to break off from thy friend. Sorrow will + eat thy heart if thou lackest the friend to open thy heart to. + + Anything is better than to be false; he is no friend who + only speaks to please. + +Which means, of course, that a true friend is not afraid to find fault +with his friend's course; indeed, that is his solemn duty. But these +teachings about friendship are accompanied with many cautions; for one +must be very careful in the making friends. The ancient Greeks had a +terrible proverb: "Treat your friend as if he should become some day your +enemy; and treat your enemy as if he might some day become your friend." +This proverb seems to me to indicate a certain amount of doubt in human +nature. We do not find this doubt in the Norse teaching, but on the +contrary, some very excellent advice. The first thing to remember is that +friendship is sacred: "He that opens his heart to another mixes blood with +him." Therefore one should be very careful either about forming or about +breaking a friendship. + + A man should be a friend to his friend's friend. But no man should + be a friend of his friend's foe, nor of his foe's friend. + + A man should be a friend with his friend, and pay back gift with + gift; give back laughter for laughter (to his enemies), and lesing + for lies. + + Give and give back makes the longest friend. Give not overmuch at + one time. Gift always looks for return. + +The poet also tells us how trifling gifts are quite sufficient to make +friends and to keep them, if wisely given. A costly gift may seem like a +bribe; a little gift is only the sign of kindly feeling. And as a mere +matter of justice, a costly gift may be unkind, for it puts the friend +under an obligation which he may not be rich enough to repay. Repeatedly +we are told also that too much should not be expected of friendship. The +value of a friend is his affection, his sympathy; but favours that cost +must always be returned. + + I never met a man so open-hearted and free with his food, but that + boon was boon to him--nor so generous as not to look for return if + he had a chance. + +Emerson says almost precisely the same thing in his essay on +friendship--showing how little human wisdom has changed in all the +centuries. Here is another good bit of advice concerning visits: + + It is far away to an ill friend, even though he live on one's + road; but to a good friend there is a short cut, even though he + live far out. + + Go on, be not a guest ever in the same house. The welcome becomes + wearisome if he sits too long at another's table. + +This means that we must not impose on our friends; but there is a further +caution on the subject of eating at a friend's house. You must not go to +your friend's house hungry, when you can help it. + + A man should take his meal betimes, before he goes to his + neighbour--or he will sit and seem hungered like one starving, and + have no power to talk. + +That is the main point to remember in dining at another's house, that you +are not there only for your own pleasure, but for that of other people. +You are expected to talk; and you can not talk if you are very hungry. At +this very day a gentleman makes it the rule to do the same thing. +Accordingly we see that these rough men of the North must have had a good +deal of social refinement--refinement not of dress or of speech, but of +feeling. Still, says the poet, one's own home is the best, though it be +but a cottage. "A man is a man in his own house." + +Now we come to some sentences teaching caution, which are noteworthy in a +certain way: + + Tell one man thy secret, but not two. What three men know, all the + world knows. + + Never let a bad man know thy mishaps; for from a bad man thou + shalt never get reward for thy sincerity. + +I shall presently give you some modern examples in regard to the advice +concerning bad men. Another thing to be cautious about is praise. If you +have to be careful about blame, you must be very cautious also about +praise. + + Praise the day at even-tide; a woman at her burying; a sword when + it has been tried; a maid when she is married; ice when + you have crossed over it; ale when it is drunk. + +If there is anything noteworthy in English character to-day it is the +exemplification of this very kind of teaching. This is essentially +Northern. The last people from whom praise can be expected, even for what +is worthy of all praise, are the English. A new friendship, a new ideal, a +reform, a noble action, a wonderful poet, an exquisite painting--any of +these things will be admired and praised by every other people in Europe +long before you can get Englishmen to praise. The Englishman all this time +is studying, considering, trying to find fault. Why should he try to find +fault? So that he will not make any mistakes at a later day. He has +inherited the terrible caution of his ancestors in regard to mistakes. It +must be granted that his caution has saved him from a number of very +serious mistakes that other nations have made. It must also be +acknowledged that he exercises a fair amount of moderation in the opposite +direction--this modern Englishman; he has learned caution of another kind, +which his ancestors taught him. "Power," says the "Havamal," "should be +used with moderation; for whoever finds himself among valiant men will +discover that no man is peerless." And this is a very important thing for +the strong man to know--that however strong, he can not be the strongest; +his match will be found when occasion demands it. Not only Scandinavian +but English rulers have often discovered this fact to their cost. Another +matter to be very anxious about is public opinion. + + Chattels die; kinsmen pass away; one dies oneself; but I know + something that never dies--the name of the man, for good or bad. + +Do not think that this means anything religious. It means only that the +reputation of a man goes to influence the good or ill fortune of his +descendants. It is something to be proud of, to be the son of a good man; +it helps to success in life. On the other hand, to have had a father of +ill reputation is a very serious obstacle to success of any kind in +countries where the influence of heredity is strongly recognized. + +I have nearly exhausted the examples of this Northern wisdom which I +selected for you; but there are two subjects which remain to be +considered. One is the law of conduct in regard to misfortune; and the +other is the rule of conduct in regard to women. A man was expected to +keep up a brave heart under any circumstances. These old Northmen seldom +committed suicide; and I must tell you that all the talk about +Christianity having checked the practice of suicide to some extent, can +not be fairly accepted as truth. In modern England to-day the suicides +average nearly three thousand a year; but making allowance for +extraordinary circumstances, it is certainly true that the Northern races +consider suicide in an entirely different way from what the Latin races +do. There was very little suicide among the men of the North, because +every man considered it his duty to get killed, not to kill himself; and +to kill himself would have seemed cowardly, as implying fear of being +killed by others. In modern ethical training, quite apart from religious +considerations a man is taught that suicide is only excusable in case of +shame, or under such exceptional circumstances as have occurred in the +history of the Indian mutiny. At all events, we have the feeling still +strongly manifested in England that suicide is not quite manly; and this +is certainly due much more to ancestral habits of thinking, which date +back to pagan days, than to Christian doctrine. As I have said, the pagan +English would not commit suicide to escape mere pain. But the Northern +people knew how to die to escape shame. There is an awful story in Roman +history about the wives and daughters of the conquered German tribes, +thousands in number, asking to be promised that their virtue should be +respected, and all killing themselves when the Roman general refused the +request. No Southern people of Europe in that time would have shown such +heroism upon such a matter. Leaving honour aside, however, the old book +tells us that a man should never despair. + + Fire, the sight of the sun, good health, and a blameless + life these are the goodliest things in this world. + + Yet a man is not utterly wretched, though he have bad health, or + be maimed. + + The halt may ride a horse; the handless may drive a herd; the deaf + can fight and do well; better be blind than buried. A corpse is + good for naught. + +On the subject of women there is not very much in the book beyond the +usual caution in regard to wicked women; but there is this little +observation: + + Never blame a woman for what is all man's weakness. Hues charming + and fair may move the wise and not the dullard. Mighty love turns + the son of men from wise to fool. + +This is shrewd, and it contains a very remarkable bit of esthetic truth, +that it requires a wise man to see certain kinds of beauty, which a stupid +man could never be made to understand. And, leaving aside the subject of +love, what very good advice it is never to laugh at a person for what can +be considered a common failure. In the same way an intelligent man should +learn to be patient with the unintelligent, as the same poem elsewhere +insists. + +Now what is the general result of this little study, the general +impression that it leaves upon the mind? Certainly we feel that the life +reflected in these sentences was a life in which caution was above all +things necessary--caution in thought and speech and act, never ceasing, by +night or day, during the whole of a man's life. Caution implies +moderation. Moderation inevitably develops a certain habit of justice--a +justice that might not extend outside of the race, but a justice that +would be exercised between man and man of the same blood. Very much of +English character and of English history is explained by the life that the +"Havamal" portrays. Very much that is good; also very much that is +bad--not bad in one sense, so far as the future of the race is concerned, +but in a social way certainly not good. The judgment of the Englishman by +all other European peoples is that he is the most suspicious, the most +reserved, the most unreceptive, the most unfriendly, the coldest hearted, +and the most domineering of all Western peoples. Ask a Frenchman, an +Italian, a German, a Spaniard, even an American, what he thinks about +Englishmen; and every one of them will tell you the very same thing. This +is precisely what the character of men would become who had lived for +thousands of years in the conditions of Northern society. But you would +find upon the other hand that nearly all nations would speak highly of +certain other English qualities--energy, courage, honour, justice (between +themselves). They would say that although no man is so difficult to make +friends with, the friendship of an Englishman once gained is more strong +and true than any other. And as the battle of life still continues, and +must continue for thousands of years to come, it must be acknowledged that +the English character is especially well fitted for the struggle. Its +reserves, its cautions, its doubts, its suspicions, its brutality--these +have been for it in the past, and are still in the present, the best +social armour and panoply of war. It is not a lovable nor an amiable +character; it is not even kindly. The Englishman of the best type is much +more inclined to be just than he is to be kind, for kindness is an +emotional impulse, and the Englishman is on his guard against every kind +of emotional impulse. But with all this, the character is a grand one, and +its success has been the best proof of its value. + +Now you will have observed in the reading of this ancient code of social +morals that, while none of the teaching is religious, some of it is +absolutely immoral from any religious standpoint. No great religion +permits us to speak what is not true, and to smile in the face of an enemy +while pretending to be his friend. No religion teaches that we should "pay +back lesing for lies." Neither does a religion tell us that we should +expect a return for every kindness done; that we should regard friendship +as being actuated by selfish motives; that we should never praise when +praise seems to be deserved. In fact, when Sir Walter Scott long ago made +a partial translation of the "Havamal," he thought himself obliged to +leave out a number of sentences which seemed to him highly immoral, and to +apologize for others. He thought that they would shock English readers too +much. + +We are not quite so squeamish to-day; and a thinker of our own time would +scarcely deny that English society is very largely governed at this moment +by the same kind of rules that Sir Walter Scott thought to be so bad. But +here we need not condemn English society in particular. All European +society has been for hundreds of years conducting itself upon very much +the same principles; for the reason that human social experience has been +the same in all Western countries. I should say that the only difference +between English society and other societies is that the hardness of +character is very much greater. Let us go back even to the most Christian +times of Western societies in the most Christian country of Europe, and +observe whether the social code was then and there so very different from +the social code of the old "Havamal." Mr. Spencer observes in his "Ethics" +that, so far as the conduct of life is concerned, religion is almost +nothing and practice is everything. We find this wonderfully exemplified +in a most remarkable book of social precepts written in the seventeenth +century, in Spain, under the title of the "Oraculo Manual." It was +composed by a Spanish priest, named Baltasar Gracian, who was born in the +year 1601 and died in 1658; and it has been translated into nearly all +languages. The best English translation, published by Macmillan, is called +"The Art of Worldly Wisdom." It is even more admired to-day than in the +seventeenth century; and what it teaches as to social conduct holds as +good to-day of modern society as it did of society two hundred years ago. +It is one of the most unpleasant and yet interesting books ever +published--unpleasant because of the malicious cunning which it often +displays--interesting because of the frightful perspicacity of the author. +The man who wrote that book understood the hearts of men, especially the +bad side. He was a gentleman of high rank before he became a priest, and +his instinctive shrewdness must have been hereditary. Religion, this man +would have said, teaches the best possible morals; but the world is not +governed by religion altogether, and to mix with it, we must act according +to its dictates. + +These dictates remind us in many ways of the cautions and the cunning of +the "Havamal." The first thing enjoined upon a man both by the Norse +writer and by the Spanish author is the art of silence. Probably this has +been the result of social experience in all countries. "Cautious silence +is the holy of holies of worldly wisdom," says Gracian. And he gives many +elaborate reasons for this statement, not the least of which is the +following: "If you do not declare yourself immediately, you arouse +expectation, especially when the importance of your position makes you the +object of general attention. Mix a little mystery with everything, and the +very mystery arouses veneration." A little further on he gives us exactly +the same advice as did the "Havamal" writer, in regard to being frank with +enemies. "Do not," he says, "show your wounded finger, for everything will +knock up against it; nor complain about it, for malice always aims where +weakness can be injured.... Never disclose the source of mortification or +of joy, if you wish the one to cease, the other to endure." About secrets +the Spaniard is quite as cautious as the Norseman. He says, "Especially +dangerous are secrets entrusted to friends. He that communicates his +secret to another makes himself that other man's slave." But after a great +many such cautions in regard to silence and secrecy, he tells us also that +we must learn how to fight with the world. You remember the advice of the +"Havamal" on this subject, how it condemns as a fool the man who can not +answer a reproach. The Spaniard is, however, much more malicious in his +suggestions. He tells as that we must "learn to know every man's +thumbscrew." I suppose you know that a thumbscrew was an instrument of +torture used in old times to force confessions from criminals. This advice +means nothing less than that we should learn how to be be able to hurt +other men's feelings, or to flatter other men's weaknesses. "First guess +every man's ruling passion, appeal to it by a word, set it in motion by +temptation, and you will infallibly give checkmate to his freedom of +will." The term "give checkmate" is taken from the game of chess, and must +here be understood as meaning to overcome, to conquer. A kindred piece of +advice is "keep a store of sarcasms, and know how to use them." Indeed he +tells us that this is the point of greatest tact in human intercourse. +"Struck by the slightest word of this kind, many fall away from the +closest intimacy with superiors or inferiors, which intimacy could not be +in the slightest shaken by a whole conspiracy of popular insinuation or +private malevolence." In other words, you can more quickly destroy a man's +friendship by one word of sarcasm than by any amount of intrigue. Does not +this read very much like sheer wickedness? Certainly it does; but the +author would have told you that you must fight the wicked with their own +weapons. In the "Havamal" you will not find anything quite so openly +wicked as that; but we must suppose that the Norsemen knew the secret, +though they might not have put it into words. As for the social teaching, +you will find it very subtly expressed even in the modern English novels +of George Meredith, who, by the way, has written a poem in praise of +sarcasm and ridicule. But let us now see what the Spanish author has to +tell us about friendship and unselfishness. + +The shrewd man knows that others when they seek him do not seek "him," but +"their advantage in him and by him." That is to say, a shrewd man does not +believe in disinterested friendship. This is much worse than anything in +the "Havamal." And it is diabolically elaborated. What are we to say about +such teaching as the following: "A wise man would rather see men needing +him than thanking him. To keep them on the threshold of hope is +diplomatic; to trust to their gratitude is boorish; hope has a good +memory, gratitude a bad one"? There is much more of this kind; but after +the assurance that only a boorish person (that is to say, an ignorant and +vulgar man) can believe in gratitude, the author's opinion of human nature +needs no further elucidation. The old Norseman would have been shocked at +such a statement. But he might have approved the following: "When you hear +anything favourable, keep a tight rein upon your credulity; if +unfavourable, give it the spur." That is to say, when you hear anything +good about another man, do not be ready to believe it; but if you hear +anything bad about him, believe as much of it as you can. + +I notice also many other points of resemblance between the Northern and +the Spanish teaching in regard to caution. The "Havamal" says that you +must not pick a quarrel with a worse man than yourself; "because the +better man often falls by the worse man's sword." The Spanish priest gives +a still shrewder reason for the same policy. "Never contend," he says, +"with a man who has nothing to lose; for thereby you enter into an unequal +conflict. The other enters without anxiety; having lost everything, +including shame, he has no further loss to fear." I think that this is an +immoral teaching, though a very prudent one; but I need scarcely to tell +you that it is still a principle in modern society not to contend with a +man who has no reputation to lose. I think it is immoral, because it is +purely selfish, and because a good man ought not to be afraid to denounce +a wrong because of making enemies. Another point, however, on which the +"Havamal" and the priest agree, is more commendable and interesting. "We +do not think much of a man who never contradicts us; that is no sign he +loves us, but rather a sign that he loves himself. Original and +out-of-the-way views are signs of superior ability." + +I should not like you to suppose, however, that the whole of the book from +which I have been quoting is of the same character as the quotations. +There is excellent advice in it; and much kindly teaching on the subject +of generous acts. It is a book both good and bad, and never stupid. The +same man who tells you that friendship is seldom unselfish, also declares +that life would be a desert without friends, and that there is no magic +like a good turn--that is, a kind act. He teaches the importance of +getting good will by honest means, although he advises us also to learn +how to injure. I am sure that nobody could read the book without benefit. +And I may close these quotations from it with the following paragraph, +which is the very best bit of counsel that could be given to a literary +student: + + Be slow and sure. Quickly done can be quickly undone. To last an + eternity requires an eternity of preparation. Only excellence + counts. Profound intelligence is the only foundation for + immortality. Worth much costs much. The precious metals are the + heaviest. + +But so far as the question of human conduct is concerned, the book of +Gracian is no more of a religious book than is the "Havamal" of the +heathen North. You would find, were such a book published to-day and +brought up to the present time by any shrewd writer, that Western morality +has not improved in the least since the time before Christianity was +established, so far as the rules of society go. Society is not, and can +not be, religious, because it is a state of continual warfare. Every +person in it has to fight, and the battle is not less cruel now because it +is not fought with swords. Indeed, I should think that the time when every +man carried his sword in society was a time when men were quite as kindly +and much more honest than they are now. The object of this little lecture +was to show you that the principles of the ancient Norse are really the +principles ruling English society to-day; but I think you will be able to +take from it a still larger meaning. It is that not only one form of +society, but all forms of society, represent the warfare of man and man. +That is why thinkers, poets, philosophers, in all ages, have tried to find +solitude, to keep out of the contest, to devote themselves only to study +of the beautiful and the true. But the prizes of life are not to be +obtained in solitude, although the prizes of thought can only there be +won. After all, whatever we may think about the cruelty and treachery of +the social world, it does great things in the end. It quickens judgment, +deepens intelligence, enforces the acquisition of self-control, creates +forms of mental and moral strength that can not fail to be sometimes of +vast importance to mankind. But if you should ask me whether it increases +human happiness, I should certainly say "no." The "Havamal" said the same +thing,--the truly wise man can not be happy. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +BEYOND MAN + + +It seems to me a lecturer's duty to speak to you about any remarkable +thought at this moment engaging the attention of Western philosophers and +men of science,--partly because any such new ideas are certain, sooner or +later, to be reflected in literature, and partly because without a +knowledge of them you might form incorrect ideas in relation to utterances +of any important philosophic character. I am not going to discourse about +Nietzsche, though the title of this lecture is taken from one of his +books; the ideas about which I am going to tell you, you will not find in +his books. It is most extraordinary, to my thinking, that these ideas +never occurred to him, for he was an eminent man of science before writing +his probably insane books. I have not the slightest sympathy with most of +his ideas; they seem to me misinterpretations of evolutional teachings; +and if not misinterpretations, they are simply undeveloped and +ill-balanced thinking. But the title of one of his books, and the idea +which he tries always unsuccessfully to explain,--that of a state above +mankind, a moral condition "beyond man," as he calls it,--that is worth +talking about. It is not nonsense at all, but fact, and I think that I can +give you a correct idea of the realities in the case. Leaving Nietzsche +entirely alone, then, let us ask if it is possible to suppose a condition +of human existence above morality,--that is to say, more moral than the +most moral ideal which a human brain can conceive? We may answer, it is +quite possible, and it is not only possible, but it has actually been +predicted by many great thinkers, including Herbert Spencer. + +We have been brought up to think that there can be nothing better than +virtue, than duty, than strictly following the precepts of a good +religion. However, our ideas of goodness and of virtue necessarily imply +the existence of the opposite qualities. To do a good thing because it is +our duty to do it, implies a certain amount of resolve, a struggle against +difficulty. The virtue of honesty is a term implying the difficulty of +being perfectly honest. When we think of any virtuous or great deed, we +can not help thinking of the pain and obstacles that have to be met with +in performing that deed. All our active morality is a struggle against +immorality. And I think that, as every religion teaches, it must be +granted that no human being has a perfectly moral nature. + +Could a world exist in which the nature of all the inhabitants would be so +moral that the mere idea of what is immoral could not exist? Let me +explain my question more in detail. Imagine a society in which the idea of +dishonesty would not exist, because no person could be dishonest, a +society in which the idea of unchastity could not exist, because no person +could possibly be unchaste, a world in which no one could have any idea of +envy, ambition or anger, because such passions could not exist, a world in +which there would be no idea of duty, filial or parental, because not to +be filial, not to be loving, not to do everything which we human beings +now call duty, would be impossible. In such a world ideas of duty would be +quite useless; for every action of existence would represent the constant +and faultless performance of what we term duty. Moreover, there would be +no difficulty, no pain in such performance; it would be the constant and +unfailing pleasure of life. With us, unfortunately, what is wrong often +gives pleasure; and what is good to do, commonly causes pain. But in the +world which I am asking you to imagine there could not be any wrong, nor +any pleasure in wrong-doing; all the pleasure would be in right-doing. To +give a very simple illustration--one of the commonest and most pardonable +faults of young people is eating, drinking, or sleeping too much. But in +our imaginary world to eat or to drink or to sleep in even the least +degree more than is necessary could not be done; the constitution of the +race would not permit it. One more illustration. Our children have to be +educated carefully in regard to what is right or wrong; in the world of +which I am speaking, no time would be wasted in any such education, for +every child would be born with full knowledge of what is right and wrong. +Or to state the case in psychological language--I mean the language of +scientific, not of metaphysical, psychology--we should have a world in +which morality would have been transmuted into inherited instinct. Now +again let me put the question: can we imagine such a world? Perhaps you +will answer, Yes, in heaven--nowhere else. But I answer you that such a +world actually exists, and that it can be studied in almost any part of +the East or of Europe by a person of scientific training. The world of +insects actually furnishes examples of such a moral transformation. It is +for this reason that such writers as Sir John Lubbock and Herbert Spencer +have not hesitated to say that certain kinds of social insects have +immensely surpassed men, both in social and in ethical progress. + +But that is not all that it is necessary to say here. You might think that +I am only repeating a kind of parable. The important thing is the opinion +of scientific men that humanity will at last, in the course of millions of +years, reach the ethical conditions of the ants. It is only five or six +years ago that some of these conditions were established by scientific +evidence, and I want to speak of them. They have a direct bearing upon +important ethical questions; and they have startled the whole moral world, +and set men thinking in entirely new directions. + +In order to explain how the study of social insects has set moralists of +recent years thinking in a new direction, it will be necessary to +generalize a great deal in the course of so short a lecture. It is +especially the social conditions of the ants which has inspired these new +ideas; but you must not think that any one species of ants furnishes us +with all the facts. The facts have been arrived at only through the study +of hundreds of different kinds of ants by hundreds of scientific men; and +it is only by the consensus of their evidence that we get the ethical +picture which I shall try to outline for you. Altogether there are +probably about five thousand different species of ants, and these +different species represent many different stages of social evolution, +from the most primitive and savage up to the most highly civilized and +moral. The details of the following picture are furnished by a number of +the highest species only; that must not be forgotten. Also, I must remind +you that the morality of the ant, by the necessity of circumstance, does +not extend beyond the limits of its own species. Impeccably ethical within +the community, ants carry on war outside their own borders; were it not +for this, we might call them morally perfect creatures. + +Although the mind of an ant can not be at all like to the mind of the +human being, it is so intelligent that we are justified in trying to +describe its existence by a kind of allegorical comparison with human +life. Imagine, then, a world full of women, working night and +day,--building, tunnelling, bridging,--also engaged in agriculture, in +horticulture, and in taking care of many kinds of domestic animals. (I may +remark that ants have domesticated no fewer than five hundred and +eighty-four different kinds of creatures.) This world of women is +scrupulously clean; busy as they are, all of them carry combs and brushes +about them, and arrange themselves several times a day. In addition to +this constant work, these women have to take care of myriads of +children,--children so delicate that the slightest change in the weather +may kill them. So the children have to be carried constantly from one +place to another in order to keep them warm. + +Though this multitude of workers are always gathering food, no one of them +would eat or drink a single atom more than is necessary; and none of them +would sleep for one second longer than is necessary. Now comes a +surprising fact, about which a great deal must be said later on. These +women have no sex. They are women, for they sometimes actually give birth, +as virgins, to children; but they are incapable of wedlock. They are more +than vestals. Sex is practically suppressed. + +This world of workers is protected by an army of soldiers. The soldiers +are very large, very strong, and shaped so differently from the working +females that they do not seem at first to belong to the same race. They +help in the work, though they are not able to help in some delicate kinds +of work--they are too clumsy and strong. Now comes the second astonishing +fact: these soldiers are all women--amazons, we might call them; but they +are sexless women. In these also sex has been suppressed. + +You ask, where do the children come from? Most of the children are born of +special mothers--females chosen for the purpose of bearing offspring, and +not allowed to do anything else. They are treated almost like empresses, +being constantly fed and attended and served, and being lodged in the best +way possible. Only these can eat and drink at all times--they must do so +for the sake of their offspring. They are not suffered to go out, unless +strongly attended, and they are not allowed to run any risk of danger or +of injury The life of the whole race circles about them and about their +children, but they are very few. + +Last of all are the males, the men. One naturally asks why females should +have been specialized into soldiers instead of men. It appears that the +females have more reserve force, and all the force that might have been +utilized in the giving of life has been diverted to the making of +aggressive powers. The real males are very small and weak. They appear to +be treated with indifference and contempt. They are suffered to become the +bridegrooms of one night, after which they die very quickly. By contrast, +the lives of the rest are very long. Ants live for at least three or four +years, but the males live only long enough to perform their solitary +function. + +In the foregoing little fantasy, the one thing that should have most +impressed you is the fact of the suppression of sex. But now comes the +last and most astonishing fact of all: this suppression of sex is not +natural, but artificial--I mean that it is voluntary. It has been +discovered that ants are able, by a systematic method of nourishment, to +suppress or develop sex as they please. The race has decided that sex +shall not be allowed to exist except in just so far as it is absolutely +necessary to the existence of the race. Individuals with sex are tolerated +only as necessary evils. Here is an instance of the most powerful of all +passions voluntarily suppressed for the benefit of the community at large. +It vanishes whenever unnecessary; when necessary after a war or a calamity +of some kind, it is called into existence again. Certainly it is not +wonderful that such a fact should have set moralists thinking. Of course +if a human community could discover some secret way of effecting the same +object, and could have the courage to do it, or rather the unselfishness +to do it, the result would simply be that sexual immorality of any kind +would become practically impossible The very idea of such immorality would +cease to exist. + +But that is only one fact of self-suppression and the ant-world furnishes +hundreds. To state the whole thing in the simplest possible way, let me +say the race has entirely got rid of everything that we call a selfish +impulse. Even hunger and thirst allow of no selfish gratification. The +entire life of the community is devoted to the common good and to mutual +help and to the care of the young. Spencer says it is impossible to +imagine that an ant has a sense of duty like our own,--a religion, if you +like. But it does not need a sense of duty, it does not need religion. Its +life is religion in the practical sense. Probably millions of years ago +the ant had feelings much more like our own than it has now. At that time, +to perform altruistic actions may have been painful to the ant; to perform +them now has become the one pleasure of its existence. In order to bring +up children and serve the state more efficiently these insects have +sacrificed their sex and every appetite that we call by the name of animal +passion. Moreover they have a perfect community, a society in which nobody +could think of property, except as a state affair, a public thing, or as +the Romans would say a _res publica_. In a human community so organized, +there could not be ambition, any jealousy, any selfish conduct of any +sort--indeed, no selfishness at all. The individual is said to be +practically sacrificed for the sake of the race; but such a supposition +means the highest moral altruism. Therefore thinkers have to ask, "Will +man ever rise to something like the condition of ants?" + +Herbert Spencer says that such is the evident tendency. He does not say, +nor is it at all probable, that there will be in future humanity such +physiological specialization as would correspond to the suppression of sex +among ants, or to the bringing of women to the dominant place in the human +world, and the masculine sex to an inferior position. That is not likely +ever to happen, for reasons which it would take very much too long to +speak of now. But there is evidence that the most selfish of all human +passions will eventually be brought under control--under such control that +the present cause of wellnigh all human suffering, the pressure of +population, will be practically removed. And there is psychological +evidence that the human mind will undergo such changes that wrong-doing, +in the sense of unkindly action, will become almost impossible, and that +the highest pleasure will be found not in selfishness but in +unselfishness. Of course there are thousands of things to think about, +suggested by this discovery of the life of ants. I am only telling the +more important ones. What I have told you ought at least to suggest that +the idea of a moral condition much higher than all our moral conditions of +today is quite possible,--that it is not an idea to be laughed at. But it +was not Nietzsche who ever conceived this possibility. His "Beyond Man" +and the real and much to be hoped for "beyond man," are absolutely +antagonistic conceptions. When the ancient Hebrew writer said, thousands +of years ago, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways," he could +not have imagined how good his advice would prove in the light of +twentieth century science. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE NEW ETHICS + + +Before leaving the subject of these latter-day intellectual changes, a +word must be said concerning the ethical questions involved. Of course +when a religious faith has been shaken to its foundation, it is natural to +suppose that morals must have been simultaneously affected. The relation +of morals to literature is very intimate; and we must expect that any +change of ideas in the direction of ethics would show themselves in +literature. The drama, poetry, romance, the novel, all these are +reflections of moral emotion in especial, of the eternal struggle between +good and evil, as well as of the temporary sentiments concerning right and +wrong. And every period of transition is necessarily accompanied by +certain tendencies to disintegration. Contemporary literature in the West +has shown some signs of ethical change. These caused many thinkers to +predict a coming period of demoralization in literature. But the alarm was +really quite needless. These vagaries of literature, such as books +questioning the morality of the marriage relation, for example, were only +repetitions of older vagaries, and represented nothing more than the +temporary agitation of thought upon all questions. The fact seems to be +that in spite of everything, moral feeling was never higher at any time in +Western social history than it is at present. The changes of thought have +indeed been very great, but the moral experience of mankind remains +exactly as valuable as it was before, and new perceptions of that value +have been given to us by the new philosophy. + +It has been wisely observed by the greatest of modern thinkers that +mankind has progressed more rapidly in every other respect than in +morality. Moral progress has not been rapid simply because the moral ideal +has always been kept a little in advance of the humanly possible. +Thousands of years ago the principles of morality were exactly the same as +those which rule our lives to-day. We can not improve upon them; we can +not even improve upon the language which expressed them. The most learned +of our poets could not make a more beautiful prayer than the prayer which +Egyptian mothers taught to their little children in ages when all Europe +was still a land of savages. The best of the moral philosophy of the +nineteenth century is very little of improvement upon the moral philosophy +of ancient India or China. If there is any improvement at all, it is +simply in the direction of knowledge of causes and effects. And that is +why in all countries the common sense of mankind universally condemns any +attempt to interfere with moral ideas. These represent the social +experience of man for thousands and thousands of years; and it is not +likely that the wisdom of any one individual can ever better them. If +bettered at all it can not be through theory. The amelioration must be +effected by future experience of a universal kind. We may improve every +branch of science, every branch of art, everything else relating to the +work of human heads and hands; but we can not improve morals by invention +or by hypothesis. Morals are not made, but grow. + +Yet, as I have said, there is what may be called a new system of ethics. +But this new system of ethics means nothing more than a new way of +understanding the old system of ethics. By the application of evolutional +science to the study of morals, we have been enabled to trace back the +whole history of moral ideas to the time of their earliest inception,--to +understand the reasons of them, and to explain them without the help of +any supernatural theory. And the result, so far from diminishing our +respect for the wisdom of our ancestors, has immensely increased that +respect. There is no single moral teaching common to different +civilizations and different religions of an advanced stage of development +which we do not find to be eternally true. Let us try to study this view +of the case by the help of a few examples. + +In early times, of course, men obeyed moral instruction through religious +motives. If asked why they thought it was wrong to perform certain actions +and right to perform others, they could have answered only that such was +ancestral custom and that the gods will it so. Not until we could +understand the laws governing the evolution of society could we understand +the reason of many ethical regulations. But now we can understand very +plainly that the will of the gods, as our ancestors might have termed it, +represents divine laws indeed, for the laws of ethical evolution are +certainly the unknown laws shaping all things--suns, worlds, and human +societies. All that opposes itself to the operation of those universal +laws is what we have been accustomed to call bad, and everything which +aids the operation of those laws is what we have been accustomed to think +of as good. The common crimes condemned by all religions, such as theft, +murder, adultery, bearing false witness, disloyalty, all these are +practices which directly interfere with the natural process of evolution; +and without understanding why, men have from the earliest times of real +civilisation united all their power to suppress them. I think that we need +not dwell upon the simple facts; they will at once suggest to you all that +is necessary to know. I shall select for illustration only one less +familiar topic, that of the ascetic ideal. + +A great many things which in times of lesser knowledge we imagined to be +superstitious or useless, prove to-day on examination to have been of +immense value to mankind. Probably no superstition ever existed which did +not have some social value; and the most seemingly repulsive or cruel +sometimes turn out to have been the most precious. To choose one of these +for illustration, we must take one not confined to any particular +civilization or religion, but common to all human societies at a certain +period of their existence; and the ascetic ideal best fits our purpose. +From very early times, even from a time long preceding any civilization, +we find men acting under the idea that by depriving themselves of certain +pleasures and by subjecting themselves to certain pains they could please +the divine powers and thereby obtain strength. Probably there is no people +in the world among whom this belief has not had at some one time or +another a very great influence. At a later time, in the early +civilizations, this idea would seem to have obtained much larger sway, and +to have affected national life more and more extensively. In the age of +the great religions the idea reaches its acme, an acme often represented +by extravagances of the most painful kind and sacrifices which strike +modern imagination as ferocious and terrible. In Europe asceticism reached +its great extremes as you know during the Middle Ages, and especially took +the direction of antagonism to the natural sex-relation. Looking back +to-day to the centuries in which celibacy was considered the most moral +condition, and marriage was counted as little better than weakness, when +Europe was covered with thousands of monasteries, and when the best +intellects of the age deemed it the highest duty to sacrifice everything +pleasurable for the sake of an imaginary reward after death, we can not +but recognize that we are contemplating a period of religious insanity. +Even in the architecture of the time, the architecture that Ruskin devoted +his splendid talent to praise, there is a grim and terrible something that +suggests madness. Again, the cruelties of the age have an insane +character, the burning alive of myriads of people who refused to believe +or could not believe in the faith of their time; the tortures used to +extort confessions from the innocent; the immolation of thousands charged +with being wizards or witches; the extinction of little centres of +civilization in the South of France and elsewhere by brutal +crusades--contemplating all this, we seem to be contemplating not only +madness but furious madness. I need not speak to you of the Crusades, +which also belonged to this period. Compared with the Roman and Greek +civilizations before it, what a horrible Europe it was! And yet the +thinker must recognize that it had a strength of its own, a strength of a +larger kind than that of the preceding civilizations. It may seem +monstrous to assert that all this cruelty and superstition and contempt of +learning were absolutely necessary for the progress of mankind; and yet we +must so accept them in the light of modern knowledge. The checking of +intellectual development for hundreds of years is certainly a fact that +must shock us; but the true question is whether such a checking had not +become necessary. Intellectual strength, unless supported by moral +strength, leads a people into the ways of destruction. Compared with the +men of the Middle Ages, the Greeks and Romans were incomparably superior +intellectually; compared with them morally they were very weak. They had +conquered the world and developed all the arts, these Greeks and Romans; +they had achieved things such as mankind has never since been able to +accomplish, and then, losing their moral ideal, losing their simplicity, +losing their faith, they were utterly crushed by inferior races in whom +the principles of self-denial had been intensely developed. And the old +instinctive hatred of the Church for the arts and the letters and the +sciences of the Greek and Roman civilizations was not quite so much of a +folly as we might be apt to suppose. The priests recognized in a vague way +that anything like a revival of the older civilizations would signify +moral ruin. The Renaissance proves that the priests were not wrong. Had +the movement occurred a few hundred years earlier, the result would +probably have been a universal corruption I do not mean to say that the +Church at any time was exactly conscious of what she was doing; she acted +blindly under the influence of an instinctive fear. But the result of all +that she did has now proved unfortunate. What the Roman and Greek +civilizations had lost in moral power was given back to the world by the +frightful discipline of the Middle Ages. For a long series of generations +the ascetic idea was triumphant; and it became feeble only in proportion +as men became strong enough to do without it. Especially it remodelled +that of which it first seemed the enemy, the family relation. It created a +new basis for society, founded upon a new sense of the importance to +society of family morals. Because this idea, this morality, came through +superstition, its value is not thereby in the least diminished. +Superstitions often represent correct guesses at eternal truth. To-day we +know that all social progress, all national strength, all national vigour, +intellectual as well as physical, depend essentially upon the family, upon +the morality of the household, upon the relation of parents to children. +It was this fact which the Greeks and Romans forgot, and lost themselves +by forgetting. It was this fact which the superstitious tyranny of the +Middle Ages had to teach the West over again, and after such a fashion +that it is not likely ever to become forgotten. So much for the mental +history of the question. Let us say a word about the physical aspects of +it. + +No doubt you have read that the result of macerating the body, of +depriving oneself of all comfort, and even of nourishing food, is not an +increase of intellectual vigour or moral power of any kind. And in one +sense this is true. The individual who passes his life in +self-mortification is not apt to improve under that regime. For this +reason the founder of the greatest of Oriental religions condemned +asceticism on the part of his followers, except within certain fixed +limits. But the history of the changes produced by a universal idea is not +a history of changes in the individual, but of changes brought about by +the successive efforts of millions of individuals in the course of many +generations. Not in one lifetime can we perceive the measure of ethical +force obtained by self-control; but in the course of several hundreds of +years we find that the result obtained is so large as to astonish us. This +result, imperceptibly obtained, signifies a great increase of that nervous +power upon which moral power depends; it means an augmentation in strength +of every kind; and this augmentation again represents what we might call +economy. Just as there is a science of political economy, there is a +science of ethical economy; and it is in relation to such a science that +we should rationally consider the influence of all religions teaching +self-suppression. So studying, we find that self-suppression does not mean +the destruction of any power, but only the economical storage of that +power for the benefit of the race As a result, the highly civilized man +can endure incomparably more than the savage, whether of moral or physical +strain. Being better able to control himself under all circumstances, he +has a great advantage over the savage. + +That which is going on in the new teaching of ethics is really the +substitution of a rational for an emotional morality. But this does not +mean that the value of the emotional element in morality is not +recognized. Not only is it recognized, but it is even being +enlarged--enlarged, however, in a rational way. For example, let us take +the very emotional virtue of loyalty. Loyalty, in a rational form, could +not exist among an uneducated people; it could only exist as a feeling, a +sentiment. In the primitive state of society this sentiment takes the +force and the depth of a religion. And the ruler, regarded as divine, +really has in relation to his people the power of a god. Once that people +becomes educated in the modern sense, their ideas regarding their ruler +and their duties to their ruler necessarily undergo modification. But does +this mean that the sentiment is weakened in the educated class? I should +say that this depends very much upon the quality of the individual mind. +In a mind of small capacity, incapable of receiving the higher forms of +thought, it is very likely that the sentiment may be weakened and almost +destroyed. But in the mind of a real thinker, a man of true culture, the +sense of loyalty, although changed, is at the same time immensely +expanded. In order to give a strong example, I should take the example not +from a monarchical country but from a republican one. What does the +President of the United States of America, for example, represent to the +American of the highest culture? He appears to him in two entirely +different capacities. First he appears to him merely as a man, an ordinary +man, with faults and weaknesses like other ordinary men. His private life +is apt to be discussed in the newspapers. He is expected to shake hands +with anybody and with everybody whom he meets at Washington; and when he +ceases to hold office, he has no longer any particular distinction from +other Americans. But as the President of the United States, he is also +much more than a man. He represents one hundred millions of people; he +represents the American Constitution; he represents the great principles +of human freedom laid down by that Constitution; he represents also the +idea of America, of everything American, of all the hopes, interests, and +glories of the nation. Officially he is quite as sacred as a divinity +could be. Millions would give their lives for him at an instant's notice; +and thousands capable of making vulgar jokes about the man would hotly +resent the least word spoken about the President as the representative of +America. The very same thing exists in other Western countries, +notwithstanding the fact that the lives of rulers are sometimes attempted. +England is a striking example. The Queen has really scarcely any power; +her rule is little more than nominal. Every Englishman knows that England +is a monarchy only in name. But the Queen represents to every Englishman +more than a woman and more than a queen: she represents England, English +race feeling, English love of country, English power, English dignity; she +is a symbol, and as a symbol sacred. The soldier jokingly calls her "the +Widow"; he makes songs about her; all this is well and good. But a soldier +who cursed her a few years ago was promptly sent to prison for twenty +years. To sing a merry song about the sovereign as a woman is a right +which English freedom claims; but to speak disrespectfully of the Queen, +as England, as the government, is properly regarded as a crime; because it +proves the man capable of it indifferent to all his duties as an +Englishman, as a citizen, as a soldier. The spirit of loyalty is far from +being lost in Western countries; it has only changed in character, and it +is likely to strengthen as time goes on. + +Broad tolerance in the matter of beliefs is necessarily a part of the new +ethics. It is quite impossible in the present state of mankind that all +persons should be well educated, or that the great masses of a nation +should attain to the higher forms of culture. For the uneducated a +rational system of ethics must long remain out of the question and it is +proper that they should cling to the old emotional forms of moral +teaching. The observation of Huxley that he would like to see every +unbeliever who could not get a reason for his unbelief publicly put to +shame, was an observation of sound common sense. It is only those whose +knowledge obliges them to see things from another standpoint than that of +the masses who can safely claim to base their rule of life upon +philosophical morality. The value of the philosophical morality happens to +be only in those directions where it recognizes and supports the truth +taught by common morality, which, after all, is the safest guide. +Therefore the philosophical moralist will never mock or oppose a belief +which he knows to exercise a good influence upon human conduct. He will +recognize even the value of many superstitions as being very great; and he +will understand that any attempt to suddenly change the beliefs of man in +any ethical direction must be mischievous. Such changes as he might desire +will come; but they should come gradually and gently, in exact proportion +to the expanding capacity of the national mind. Recognizing this +probability, several Western countries, notably America, have attempted to +introduce into education an entirely new system of ethical +teaching--ethical teaching in the broadest sense, and in harmony with the +new philosophy. But the result there and elsewhere can only be that which +I have said at the beginning of this lecture,--namely, the enlargement of +the old moral ideas, and the deeper comprehension of their value in all +relations of life. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +SOME POEMS ABOUT INSECTS + + +One of the great defects of English books printed in the last century is +the want of an index. The importance of being able to refer at once to any +subject treated of in a book was not recognized until the days when exact +scholarship necessitated indexing of the most elaborate kind. But even now +we constantly find good books severely criticized because of this +deficiency. All that I have said tends to show that even to-day in Western +countries the immense importance of systematic arrangement in literary +collections is not sufficiently recognized. We have, of course, a great +many English anthologies,--that is to say, collections of the best typical +compositions of a certain epoch in poetry or in prose. But you must have +observed that, in Western countries, nearly all such anthologies are +compiled chronologically--not according to the subject of the poems. To +this general rule there are indeed a few exceptions. There is a collection +of love poetry by Watson, which is famous; a collection of child poetry by +Patmore; a collection of "society verse" by Locker-Lampson; and several +things of that sort. But even here the arrangement is not of a special +kind; nor is it ever divided according to the subject of each particular +poem. I know that some books have been published of late years with such +titles as "Poems of the Sea," "Poems of Nature"--but these are of no +literary importance at all and they are not compiled by competent critics. +Besides, the subject-heads are always of much too general a kind. The +French are far in advance of the English in the art of making anthologies; +but even in such splendid anthologies as those of CrĆ©pet and of Lemerre +the arrangement is of the most general kind,--chronological, and little +more. + +I was reminded to tell you this, because of several questions recently +asked me, which I found it impossible to answer. Many a Japanese student +might suppose that Western poetry has its classified arrangements +corresponding in some sort to those of Japanese poetry. Perhaps the +Germans have something of the kind, but the English and French have not. +Any authority upon the subject of Japanese literature can, I have been +told, inform himself almost immediately as to all that has been written in +poetry upon a particular subject. Japanese poetry has been classified and +sub-classified and double-indexed or even quadruple-indexed after a manner +incomparably more exact than anything English anthologies can show. I am +aware that this fact is chiefly owing to the ancient rules about subjects, +seasons, contrasts, and harmonies, after which the old poets used to +write. But whatever be said about such rules, there can be no doubt at all +of the excellence of the arrangements which the rules produced. It is +greatly to be regretted that we have not in English a system of +arrangement enabling the student to discover quickly all that has been +written upon a particular subject--such as roses, for example, or pine +trees, or doves, or the beauties of the autumn season. There is nobody to +tell you where to find such things; and as the whole range of English +poetry is so great that it takes a great many years even to glance through +it, a memorized knowledge of the subjects is impossible for the average +man. I believe that Macaulay would have been able to remember almost any +reference in the poetry then accessible to scholars,--just as the +wonderful Greek scholar Porson could remember the exact place of any text +in the whole of Greek literature, and even all the variations of that +text. But such men are born only once in hundreds of years; the common +memory can not attempt to emulate their feats. And it is very difficult at +the present time for the ordinary student of poetry to tell you just how +much has been written upon any particular subject by the best English +poets. + +Now you will recognize some difficulties in the way of a lecturer in +attempting to make classifications of English poetry after the same manner +that Japanese classification can be made of Japanese poetry. One must read +enormously merely to obtain one's materials, and even then the result is +not to be thought of as exhaustive. I am going to try to give you a few +lectures upon English poetry thus classified, but we must not expect that +the lectures will be authoritatively complete. Indeed, we have no time for +lectures of so thorough a sort. All that I can attempt will be to give you +an idea of the best things that English poets have thought and expressed +upon certain subjects. + +You know that the old Greeks wrote a great deal of beautiful poetry about +insects,--especially about musical insects, crickets, cicadas, and other +insects such as those the Japanese poets have been writing about for so +many hundreds of years. But in modern Western poetry there is very little, +comparatively speaking, about insects. The English poets have all written +a great deal about birds, and especially about singing birds; but very +little has been written upon the subject of insects--singing insects. One +reason is probably that the number of musical insects in England is very +small, perhaps owing to the climate. American poets have written more +about insects than English poets have done, though their work is of a much +less finished kind. But this is because musical insects in America are +very numerous. On the whole, we may say that neither in English nor in +French poetry will you find much about the Voices of rickets, locusts, or +cicadƦ. I could not even give you a special lecture upon that subject. We +must take the subject "insect" in a rather general signification; and if +we do that we can edit together a nice little collection of poetical +examples. + +The butterfly was regarded by the Greeks especially as the emblem of the +soul and therefore of immortality. We have several Greek remains, +picturing the butterfly as perched upon a skull, thus symbolizing life +beyond death. And the metamorphosis of the insect is, you know, very often +referred to in Greek philosophy. We might expect that English poets would +have considered the butterfly especially from this point of view; and we +do have a few examples. Perhaps the best known is that of Coleridge. + + The butterfly the ancient Grecians made + The soul's fair emblem, and its only name-- + But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade + Of earthly life! For in this mortal frame + Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, + Manifold motions making little speed, + And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed. + +The allusion to the "name" is of course to the Greek word, _psyche_, which +signifies both soul and butterfly. Psyche, as the soul, was pictured by +the Greeks as a beautiful girl, with a somewhat sad face, and butterfly +wings springing from her shoulders. Coleridge tells us here that although +the Greeks likened the soul to the butterfly, we must remember what the +butterfly really is,--the last and highest state of insect-being--"escaped +the slavish trade of earthly life." What is this so-called slavish trade? +It is the necessity of working and struggling in order to live--in order +to obtain food. The butterfly is not much of an eater; some varieties, +indeed, do not eat at all. All the necessity for eating ended with the +life of the larva. In the same manner religion teaches that the soul +represents the changed state of man. In this life a man is only like a +caterpillar; death changes him into a chrysalis, and out of the chrysalis +issues the winged soul which does not have to trouble itself about such +matters as eating and drinking. By the word "reptile" in this verse, you +must understand caterpillar. Therefore the poet speaks of all our human +work as manifold motions making little speed; you have seen how many +motions a caterpillar must make in order to go even a little distance, and +you must have noticed the manner in which it spoils the appearance of the +plant upon which it feeds. There is here an allusion to the strange and +terrible fact, that all life--and particularly the life of man--is +maintained only by the destruction of other life. In order to live we must +kill--perhaps only plants, but in any case we must kill. + +Wordsworth has several poems on butterflies, but only one of them is +really fine. It is fine, not because it suggests any deep problem, but +because with absolute simplicity it pictures the charming difference of +character in a little boy and a little girl playing together in the +fields. The poem is addressed to the butterfly. + + Stay near me--do not take thy flight! + A little longer stay in sight! + Much converse do I find in thee, + Historian of my infancy! + Float near me; do not yet depart! + Dead times revive in thee: + Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art! + A solemn image to my heart, + My father's family. + + Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days, + The time, when, in our childish plays, + My sister Emmeline and I + Together chased the butterfly! + A very hunter did I rush + Upon the prey: with leaps and springs + I followed on from brake to bush; + But she, God love her, feared to brush + The dust from off its wings. + +What we call and what looks like dust on the wings of a butterfly, English +children are now taught to know as really beautiful scales or featherlets, +but in Wordsworth's time the real structure of the insect was not so well +known as now to little people. Therefore to the boy the coloured matter +brushed from the wings would only have seemed so much dust. But the little +girl, with the instinctive tenderness of the future mother-soul in her, +dreads to touch those strangely delicate wings; she fears, not only to +spoil, but also to hurt. + +Deeper thoughts than memory may still be suggested to English poets by the +sight of a butterfly, and probably will be for hundreds of years to come. +Perhaps the best poem of a half-metaphorical, half-philosophical thought +about butterflies is the beautiful prologue to Browning's "Fifine at the +Fair," which prologue is curiously entitled "Amphibian"--implying that we +are about to have a reference to creatures capable of living in two +distinctive elements, yet absolutely belonging neither to the one nor to +the other. The poet swims out far into the sea on a beautiful day; and, +suddenly, looking up, perceives a beautiful butterfly flying over his +head, as if watching him. The sight of the insect at once suggests to him +its relation to Greek fancy as a name for the soul; then he begins to +wonder whether it might not really be the soul, or be the symbol of the +soul, of a dead woman who loved him. From that point of the poem begins a +little metaphysical fantasy about the possible condition of souls. + + The fancy I had to-day, + Fancy which turned a fear! + I swam far out in the bay, + Since waves laughed warm and clear. + + I lay and looked at the sun, + The noon-sun looked at me: + Between us two, no one + Live creature, that I could see. + + Yes! There came floating by + Me, who lay floating too, + Such a strange butterfly! + Creature as dear as new: + + Because the membraned wings + So wonderful, so wide, + So sun-suffused, were things + Like soul and nought beside. + +So much for the conditions of the poet's revery. He is swimming in the +sea; above his face, only a few inches away, the beautiful butterfly is +hovering. Its apparition makes him think of many things--perhaps first +about the dangerous position of the butterfly, for if it should only touch +the water, it is certain to be drowned. But it does not touch the water; +and he begins to think how clumsy is the man who moves in water compared +with the insect that moves in air, and how ugly a man is by comparison +with the exquisite creature which the Greeks likened to the soul or ghost +of the man. Thinking about ghosts leads him at once to the memory of a +certain very dear ghost about which he forthwith begins to dream. + + What if a certain soul + Which early slipped its sheath, + And has for its home the whole + Of heaven, thus look beneath, + + Thus watch one who, in the world, + Both lives and likes life's way, + Nor wishes the wings unfurled + That sleep in the worm, they say? + + But sometimes when the weather + Is blue, and warm waves tempt + To free oneself of tether, + And try a life exempt + + From worldly noise and dust, + In the sphere which overbrims + With passion and thought,--why, just + Unable to fly, one swims! + +This is better understood by paraphrase: "I wonder if the soul of a +certain person, who lately died, slipped so gently out of the hard sheath +of the perishable body--I wonder if she does not look down from her home +in the sky upon me, just as that little butterfly is doing at this moment. +And I wonder if she laughs at the clumsiness of this poor swimmer, who +finds it so much labour even to move through the water, while she can move +through whatever she pleases by the simple act of wishing. And this man, +strangely enough, does not want to die, and to become a ghost. He likes to +live very much; he does not yet desire those soul-wings which are supposed +to be growing within the shell of his body, just as the wings of the +butterfly begin to grow in the chrysalis. He does not want to die at all. +But sometimes he wants to get away from the struggle and the dust of the +city, and to be alone with nature; and then, in order to be perfectly +alone, he swims. He would like to fly much better; but he can not. +However, swimming is very much like flying, only the element of water is +thicker than air." + +However, more than the poet's words is suggested here. We are really told +that what a fine mind desires is spiritual life, pure intellectual +life--free from all the trammels of bodily necessity. Is not the swimmer +really a symbol of the superior mind in its present condition? Your best +swimmer can not live under the water, neither can he rise into the +beautiful blue air. He can only keep his head in the air; his body must +remain in the grosser element. Well, a great thinker and poet is ever +thus--floating between the universe of spirit and the universe of matter. +By his mind he belongs to the region of pure mind,--the ethereal state; +but the hard necessity of living keeps him down in the world of sense and +grossness and struggle. On the other hand the butterfly, freely moving in +a finer element, better represents the state of spirit or soul. + +What is the use of being dissatisfied with nature? The best we can do is +to enjoy in the imagination those things which it is not possible for us +to enjoy in fact. + + Emancipate through passion + And thought, with sea for sky, + We substitute, in a fashion, + For heaven--poetry: + + Which sea, to all intent, + Gives flesh such noon-disport, + As a finer element + Affords the spirit-sort. + +Now you see where the poet's vision of a beautiful butterfly has been +leading his imagination. The nearest approach which we can make to the act +of flying, in the body, is the act of swimming. The nearest approach that +we can make to the heavenly condition, mentally, is in poetry. Poetry, +imagination, the pleasure of emotional expression--these represent our +nearest approach to paradise. Poetry is the sea in which the soul of man +can swim even as butterflies can swim in the air, or happy ghosts swim in +the finer element of the infinite ether. The last three stanzas of the +poem are very suggestive: + + And meantime, yonder streak + Meets the horizon's verge; + That is the land, to seek + If we tire or dread the surge: + + Land the solid and safe-- + To welcome again (confess!) + When, high and dry, we chafe + The body, and don the dress. + + Does she look, pity, wonder + At one who mimics flight, + Swims--heaven above, sea under, + Yet always earth in sight? + +"Streak," meaning an indistinct line, here refers to the coast far away, +as it appears to the swimmer. It is just such a word as a good Japanese +painter ought to appreciate in such a relation. In suggesting that the +swimmer is glad to return to shore again and get warm, the poet is telling +us that however much we may talk about the happiness of spirits in +heaven--however much we may praise heaven in poetry--the truth is that we +are very fond of this world, we like comfort, we like company, we like +human love and human pleasures. There is a good deal of nonsense in +pretending that we think heaven is a better place than the world to which +we belong. Perhaps it is a better place, but, as a matter of fact, we do +not know anything about it; and we should be frightened if we could go +beyond a certain distance from the real world which we do know. As he +tells us this, the poet begins again to think about the spirit of the dead +woman. Is she happy? Is she looking at him--and pitying him as he swims, +taking good care not to go too far away from the land? Or is she laughing +at him, because in his secret thoughts he confesses that he likes to +live--that he does not want to become a pure ghost at the present time? + +Evidently a butterfly was quite enough, not only to make Browning's mind +think very seriously, but to make that mind teach us the truth and +seriousness which may attach to very small things--incidents, happenings +of daily life, in any hour and place. I believe that is the greatest +English poem we have on the subject of the butterfly. + +The idea that a butterfly might be, not merely the symbol of the soul, but +in very fact the spirit of a dead person, is somewhat foreign to English +thought; and whatever exists in poetry on the subject must necessarily be +quite new. The idea of a relation between insects, birds, or other living +creatures, and the spirits of the dead, is enormously old in Oriental +literature;--we find it in Sanskrit texts thousands of years ago. But the +Western mind has not been accustomed to think of spiritual life as outside +of man; and much of natural poetry has consequently remained undeveloped +in Western countries. A strange little poem, "The White Moth," is an +exception to the general rule that I have indicated; but I am almost +certain that its author, A.T. Quiller-Couch, must have read Oriental +books, or obtained his fancy from some Eastern source. As the knowledge of +Indian literature becomes more general in England, we may expect to find +poetry much influenced by Oriental ideas. At the present time, such a +composition as this is quite a strange anomaly. + + _If a leaf rustled, she would start: + And yet she died, a year ago. + How had so frail a thing the heart + To journey where she trembled so? + And do they turn and turn in fright, + Those little feet, in so much night?_ + + The light above the poet's head + Streamed on the page and on the cloth, + And twice and thrice there buffeted + On the black pane a white-winged moth: + 'Twas Annie's soul that beat outside, + And "Open, open, open!" cried: + + "I could not find the way to God; + There were too many flaming suns + For signposts, and the fearful road + Led over wastes where millions + Of tangled comets hissed and burned-- + I was bewildered and I turned. + + "Oh, it was easy then! I knew + Your window and no star beside. + Look up and take me back to you!" + --He rose and thrust the window wide. + 'Twas but because his brain was hot + With rhyming; for he heard her not. + + But poets polishing a phrase + Show anger over trivial things; + And as she blundered in the blaze + Towards him, on ecstatic wings, + He raised a hand and smote her dead; + Then wrote "_That I had died instead!_" + +The lover, or bereaved husband, is writing a poem of which a part is given +in the first stanza--which is therefore put in italics. The action proper +begins with the second stanza. The soul of the dead woman taps at the +window in the shape of a night-butterfly or moth--imagining, perhaps, that +she has still a voice and can make herself heard by the man that she +loves. She tells the story of her wandering in space--privileged to pass +to heaven, yet afraid of the journey. Now the subject of the poem which +the lover happens to be writing inside the room is a memory of the dead +woman--mourning for her, describing her in exquisite ways. He can not hear +her at all; he does not hear even the beating of the little wings at the +window, but he stands up and opens the window--because he happens to feel +hot and tired. The moth thinks that he has heard her, that he knows; and +she flies toward him in great delight. But he, thinking that it is only a +troublesome insect, kills her with a blow of his hand; and then sits down +to continue his poem with the words, "Oh, how I wish I could have died +instead of that dear woman!" Altogether this is a queer poem in English +literature, and I believe almost alone of its kind. But it is queer only +because of its rarity of subject. As for construction, it is very good +indeed. + +I do not know that it is necessary to quote any more poems upon +butterflies or moths. There are several others; but the workmanship and +the thought are not good enough or original enough to justify their use +here as class texts. So I shall now turn to the subject of dragon-flies. +Here we must again be very brief. References to dragon-flies are common +throughout English poetry, but the references signify little more than a +mere colourless mention of the passing of the insect. However, it so +happens that the finest modern lines of pure description written about any +insect, are about dragon-flies. And they also happen to be by Tennyson. +Naturalists and men of science have greatly praised these lines, because +of their truth to nature and the accuracy of observation which they show. +You will find them in the poem entitled "The Two Voices." + + To-day I saw the dragon-fly + Come from the wells where he did lie. + + An inner impulse rent the veil + Of his old husk; from head to tail + Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. + + He dried his wings; like gauze they grew; + Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew + A living rush of light he flew. + +There are very few real poems, however, upon the dragon-fly in English, +and considering the extraordinary beauty and grace of the insect, this may +appear strange to you. But I think that you can explain the strangeness at +a later time. The silence of English poets on the subject of insects as +compared with Japanese poets is due to general causes that we shall +consider at the close of the lecture. + +Common flies could scarcely seem to be a subject for poetry--disgusting +and annoying creatures as they are. But there are more poems about the +house-fly than about the dragon-fly. Last year I quoted for you a +remarkable and rather mystical composition by the poet Blake about +accidentally killing a fly. Blake represents his own thoughts about the +brevity of human life which had been aroused by the incident. It is +charming little poem; but it does not describe the fly at all. I shall not +quote it here again, because we shall have many other things to talk +about; but I shall give you the text of a famous little composition by +Oldys on the same topic. It has almost the simplicity of Blake,--and +certainly something of the same kind of philosophy. + + Busy, curious, thirsty fly, + Drink with me and drink as I; + Freely welcome to my cup, + Couldst thou sip and sip it up: + Make the most of life you may, + Life is short and wears away. + + Both alike are mine and thine + Hastening quick to their decline: + Thine's a summer, mine's no more, + Though repeated to threescore. + Threescore summers, when they're gone, + Will appear as short as one! + +The suggestion is that, after all, time is only a very relative affair in +the cosmic order of things. The life of the man of sixty years is not much +longer than the life of the insect which lives but a few hours, days, or +months. Had Oldys, who belongs to the eighteenth century, lived in our own +time, he might have been able to write something very much more curious on +this subject. It is now known that time, to the mind of an insect, must +appear immensely longer than it appears to the mind of a man. It has been +calculated that a mosquito or a gnat moves its wings between four and five +hundred times a second. Now the scientific dissection of such an insect, +under the microscope, justifies the opinion that the insect must be +conscious of each beat of the wings--just as a man feels that he lifts his +arm or bends his head every time that the action is performed. A man can +not even imagine the consciousness of so short an interval of time as the +five-hundredth part of one second. But insect consciousness can be aware +of such intervals; and a single day of life might well appear to the gnat +as long as the period of a month to a man. Indeed, we have reason to +suppose that to even the shortest-lived insect life does not appear short +at all; and that the ephemeral may actually, so far as felling is +concerned, live as long as a man--although its birth and death does occur +between the rising and the setting of the sun. + +We might suppose that bees would form a favourite subject of poetry, +especially in countries where agriculture is practised upon such a scale +as in England. But such is not really the case. Nearly every English poet +makes some reference to bees, as Tennyson does in the famous couplet-- + + The moan of doves in immemorial elms, + And murmuring of innumerable bees. + +But the only really remarkable poem addressed to a bee is by the American +philosopher Emerson. The poem in question can not be compared as to mere +workmanship with some others which I have cited; but as to thinking, it is +very interesting, and you must remember that the philosopher who writes +poetry should be judged for his thought rather than for the measure of his +verse. The whole is not equally good, nor is it short enough to quote +entire; I shall only give the best parts. + + Burly, dozing humble-bee, + Where thou art is clime for me. + + * * * * * + + Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, + Let me chase thy waving lines; + Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, + Singing over shrubs and vines. + + Insect lover of the sun, + Joy of thy dominion! + Sailor of the atmosphere; + Swimmer through the waves of air; + Voyager of light and noon; + Epicurean of June; + Wait, I prithee, till I come + Within earshot of thy hum,-- + All without is martyrdom. + + * * * * * + + Thou, in sunny solitudes, + Rover of the underwoods, + The green silence dost displace + With thy mellow, breezy bass. + + * * * * * + + Aught unsavory or unclean + Hath my insect never seen; + + * * * * * + + Wiser far than human seer, + Yellow-breeched philosopher! + Seeing only what is fair, + Sipping only what is sweet, + Thou dost mock at fate and care, + Leave the chaff, and take the wheat. + +This is really the poetry of the bee--visiting only beautiful flowers, and +sucking from them their perfumed juices--always healthy, happy, and +surrounded by beautiful things. A great rover, a constant wanderer is the +bee--visiting many different places, seeing many different things, but +stopping only to enjoy what is beautiful to the sight and sweet to the +taste. Now Emerson tells us that a wise man should act like the bee--never +stopping to look at what is bad, or what is morally ugly, but seeking only +what is beautiful and nourishing for the mind. It is a very fine thought; +and the manner of expressing it is greatly helped by Emerson's use of +curious and forcible words--such as "burly," "zigzag," and the famous +expression "yellow-breeched philosopher"--which has passed almost into an +American household phrase. The allusion of course is to the thighs of the +bee, covered with the yellow pollen of flowers so as to make them seem +covered with yellow breeches, or trousers reaching only to the knees. + +I do not of course include in the lecture such child songs about insects +as that famous one beginning with the words, "How doth the little busy bee +improve each shining hour." This is no doubt didactically very good; but I +wish to offer you only examples of really fine poetry on the topic. +Therefore leaving the subject of bees for the time, let us turn to the +subject of musical insects--the singers of the fields and +woods--grasshoppers and crickets. + +In Japanese poetry there are thousands of verses upon such insects. +Therefore it seems very strange that we have scarcely anything on the +subject in English. And the little that we do have is best represented by +the poem of Keats on the night cricket. The reference is probably to what +we call in England the hearth cricket, an insect which hides in houses, +making itself at home in some chink of the brickwork or stonework about a +fireplace, for it loves the warmth. I suppose that the small number of +poems in English about crickets can be partly explained by the scarcity of +night singers. Only the house cricket seems to be very well known. But on +the other hand, we can not so well explain the rarity of composition in +regard to the day-singers--the grasshoppers and locusts which can be +heard, though somewhat faintly, in any English country place after sunset +during the warm season. Another queer thing is that the example set by +Keats has not been imitated or at least followed even up to the present +time. + + The poetry of earth is never dead: + When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, etc. + +In this charming composition you will have noticed the word "stove"; but +you must remember that this is not a stove as we understand the term now, +and signifies only an old-fashioned fireplace of brick or tile. In Keats's +day there were no iron stoves. Another word which I want to notice is the +word "poetry" in the first line. By the poetry of nature the poet means +the voices of nature--the musical sounds made by its idle life in woods +and fields. So the word "poetry" here has especially the meaning of song, +and corresponds very closely to the Japanese word which signifies either +poem or song, but perhaps more especially the latter. The general meaning +of the sonnet is that at no time, either in winter or in summer, is nature +silent. When the birds do not sing, the grasshoppers make music for us; +and when the cold has killed or banished all other life, then the house +cricket begins with its thin sweet song to make us think of the dead +voices of the summer. + +There is not much else of note about the grasshopper and the cricket in +the works of the great English poets. But perhaps you do not know that +Tennyson in his youth took up the subject and made a long poem upon the +grasshopper, but suppressed it after the edition of 1842. He did not think +it good enough to rank with his other work. But a few months ago the poems +which Tennyson suppressed in the final edition of his works have been +published and carefully edited by an eminent scholar, and among these +poems we find "The Grasshopper." I will quote some of this poem, because +it is beautiful, and because the fact of its suppression will serve to +show you how very exact and careful Tennyson was to preserve only the very +best things that he wrote. + + Voice of the summer wind, + Joy of the summer plain, + Life of the summer hours, + Carol clearly, bound along, + No Tithon thou as poets feign + (Shame fall 'em, they are deaf and blind), + But an insect lithe and strong + Bowing the seeded summer flowers. + Prove their falsehood and thy quarrel, + Vaulting on thine airy feet + Clap thy shielded sides and carol, + Carol clearly, chirrups sweet. + Thou art a mailĆ©d warrior in youth and strength complete; + Armed cap-Ć -pie, + Full fair to see; + Unknowing fear, + Undreading loss, + A gallant cavalier, + _Sans peur et sans reproche_. + In sunlight and in shadow, + The Bayard of the meadow. + +The reference to Tithonus is a reference of course to a subject afterwards +beautifully elaborated in another poem by Tennyson, the great poem of +"Tithonus." The Bayard here referred to was the great French model of +perfect chivalry, and is sometimes called the last of the feudal knights. +He was said to be without fear and without blame. You may remember that he +was killed by a ball from a gun--it was soon after the use of artillery in +war had been introduced; and his dying words were to the effect that he +feared there was now an end of great deeds, because men had begun to fight +from a distance with machines instead of fighting in the old knightly and +noble way with sword and spear. The grasshopper, covered with green plates +and bearing so many little sharp spines upon its long limbs, seems to have +suggested to Tennyson the idea of a fairy knight in green armour. + +As I said before, England is poor in singing insects, while America is +rich in them--almost, perhaps, as rich as Japan, although you will not +find as many different kinds of singing insects in any one state or +district. The singing insects of America are peculiar to particular +localities. But the Eastern states have perhaps the most curious insect of +this kind. It is called the Katydid. This name is spelt either Katydid, or +Catydid--though the former spelling is preferable. Katy, or Katie, is the +abbreviation of the name Catherine; very few girls are called by the full +name Catherine, also spelt Katherine; because the name is long and +unmusical, their friends address them usually as Katy, and their +acquaintances, as Kate. Well, the insect of which I am speaking, a kind of +_semi_, makes a sound resembling the sound of the words "Katie did!" Hence +the name--one of the few corresponding to the names given to the Japanese +_semi_, such as _tsuku-tsuku-boshi_, or _minmin-semi_. The most +interesting composition upon this cicada is by Oliver Wendell Holmes, but +it is of the lighter sort of verse, with a touch of humour in it. I shall +quote a few verses only, as the piece contains some allusions that would +require explanation at considerable length. + + I love to hear thine earnest voice, + Wherever thou art hid, + Thou testy little dogmatist, + Thou pretty Katydid! + Thou mindest me of gentlefolks,-- + Old gentlefolks are they,-- + Thou say'st an undisputed thing + In such a solemn way. + + * * * * * + + Oh tell me where did Katy live, + And what did Katy do? + And was she very fair and young, + And yet so wicked, too? + Did Katy love a naughty man, + Or kiss more cheeks than one? + I warrant Katy did no more + Than many a Kate has done. + + * * * * * + + Ah, no! The living oak shall crash, + That stood for ages still, + The rock shall rend its mossy base + And thunder down the hill, + Before the little Katydid + Shall add one word, to tell + The mystic story of the maid + Whose name she knows so well. + +The word "testy" may be a little unfamiliar to some of you; it is a good +old-fashioned English term for "cross," "irritable." The reference to the +"old gentlefolks" implies the well-known fact that in argument old persons +are inclined to be much more obstinate than young people. And there is +also a hint in the poem of the tendency among old ladies to blame the +conduct of young girls even more severely than may be necessary. There is +nothing else to recommend the poem except its wit and the curiousness of +the subject. There are several other verses about the same creature, by +different American poets; but none of them is quite so good as the +composition of Holmes. However, I may cite a few verses from one of the +earlier American poets, Philip Freneau, who flourished in the eighteenth +century and the early part of the nineteenth. He long anticipated the +fancy of Holmes; but he spells the word Catydid. + + In a branch of willow hid + Sings the evening Catydid: + From the lofty locust bough + Feeding on a drop of dew, + In her suit of green arrayed + Hear her singing in the shade-- + Catydid, Catydid, Catydid! + + While upon a leaf you tread, + Or repose your little head + On your sheet of shadows laid, + All the day you nothing said; + Half the night your cheery tongue + Revelled out its little song,-- + Nothing else but Catydid. + + * * * * * + + Tell me, what did Caty do? + Did she mean to trouble you? + Why was Caty not forbid + To trouble little Catydid? + Wrong, indeed, at you to fling, + Hurting no one while you sing,-- + Catydid! Catydid! Catydid! + +To Dr. Holmes the voice of the cicada seemed like the voice of an old +obstinate woman, an old prude, accusing a young girl of some fault,--but +to Freneau the cry of the little creature seemed rather to be like the cry +of a little child complaining--a little girl, perhaps, complaining that +somebody had been throwing stones at her, or had hurt her in some way. +And, of course, the unfinished character of the phrase allows equally well +either supposition. + +Before going back to more serious poetry, I want--while we are speaking of +American poets--to make one reference to the ironical or satirical poetry +which insects have inspired in some minds, taking for example the poem by +Charlotte Perkins Stetson about a butterfly. This author is rather a +person of note, being a prominent figure in educational reforms and the +author of a volume of poems of a remarkably strong kind in the didactic +sense. In other words, she is especially a moral poet; and unless moral +poetry be really very well executed, it is scarcely worth while classing +it as literature. I think, however, that the symbolism in the following +verses will interest you--especially when we comment upon them. The +composition from which they are taken is entitled "A Conservative." + +The poet, walking in the garden one morning, sees a butterfly, very +unhappy, and gifted with power to express the reason of its unhappiness. +The butterfly says, complaining of its wings, + + "My legs are thin and few + Where once I had a swarm! + Soft fuzzy fur--a joy to view-- + Once kept my body warm, + Before these flapping wing-things grew, + To hamper and deform!" + + At that outrageous bug I shot + The fury of mine eye; + Said I, in scorn all burning hot, + In rage and anger high, + "You ignominious idiot! + Those wings are made to fly!" + + "I do not want to fly," said he, + "I only want to squirm!" + And he drooped his wings dejectedly, + But still his voice was firm: + "I do not want to be a fly! + I want to be a worm!" + + O yesterday of unknown lack! + To-day of unknown bliss! + I left my fool in red and black, + The last I saw was this,-- + The creature madly climbing back + Into his chrysalis. + +Of course the wings here represent the powers of the mind--knowledge, +reason, will. Men ought to use these in order to reach still nobler and +higher states of life. But there are men who refuse to use their best +faculties for this end. Such men are like butterflies who do not want to +take the trouble to fly, but prefer the former condition of the +caterpillar which does nothing but eat and sleep. As applied to certain +forms of conservatism the satire is strong. + +Something may now be said as to poems about spiders. But let me remind you +that a spider is not an insect. Scientifically it has no relation to the +great family of true insects; it belongs to the very distinct family of +the arthropoda or "joint-footed" animals. But as it is still popularly +called an insect in most European countries, we may be excused for +including it in the subject of the present lecture. I suppose you know +that one of the scientific names for this whole class of creatures is +Arachnida,--a name derived from the Greek name Arachne. The story of +Arachne is interesting, and everybody studying natural history ought to +know it. Arachne was a young girl, according to the Greek story, who was +very skilful at weaving. She wove cloths of many different colours and +beautiful patterns, and everybody admired her work. This made her vain--so +vain that at last she said that even the goddess of weaving could not +weave better than she. Immediately after she had said that, the terrible +goddess herself--Pallas Athena--entered the room. Pallas Athena was not +only the goddess of wisdom, you know, but especially the goddess of young +girls, presiding over the chastity, the filial piety, and the domestic +occupations of virgins; and she was very angry at the conceit of this +girl. So she said to her, "You have boasted that you can weave as well as +I can; now let me see you weave!" So Arachne was obliged to sit down at +her loom and weave in the presence of the goddess; and the goddess also +wove, far surpassing the weaving of Arachne. When the weaving was done, +the goddess asked the girl, "Now see! which is the better, my work or +yours?" And Arachne was obliged to confess that she had been defeated and +put to shame. But the goddess was not thoroughly satisfied; to punish +Arachne, she touched her lightly with the distaff, saying, "Spin forever!" +and thereupon Arachne was changed into a spider, which forever spins and +weaves perishable films of perishable shiny thread. Poetically we still +may call a spider Arachne. + +I have here a little poem of a touching character entitled "Arachne," by +Rose Terry Cooke,--one of the symbolic poems which are becoming so +numerous in these days of newer and deeper philosophy. I think that you +will like it: a spinster, that is, a maiden passed the age of girlhood, is +the speaker. + + I watch her in the corner there, + As, restless, bold, and unafraid, + She slips and floats along the air + Till all her subtile house is made. + + Her home, her bed, her daily food, + All from that hidden store she draws; + She fashions it and knows it good, + By instinct's strong and sacred laws. + + No tenuous threads to weave her nest, + She seeks and gathers there or here; + But spins it from her faithful breast, + Renewing still, till leaves are sere. + + Then, worn with toil, and tired of life, + In vain her shining traps are set. + Her frost hath hushed the insect strife + And gilded flies her charm forget. + + But swinging in the snares she spun, + She sways to every wintry wind: + Her joy, her toil, her errand done, + Her corse the sport of storms unkind. + +The symbolism of these verses will appear to you more significant when I +tell you that it refers especially to conditions in New England in the +present period. The finest American population--perhaps the finest +Anglo-Saxons ever produced--were the New Englanders of the early part of +the century. But with the growth of the new century, the men found +themselves attracted elsewhere, especially westward; their shrewdness, +their energies, their inventiveness, were needed in newer regions. And +they wandered away by thousands and thousands, never to come back again, +and leaving the women behind them. Gradually the place of these men was +taken by immigrants of inferior development--but the New England women had +nothing to hope for from these strangers. The bravest of them also went +away to other states; but myriads who could not go were condemned by +circumstances to stay and earn their living by hard work without any +prospect of happy marriage. The difficulty which a girl of culture may +experience in trying to live by the work of her hands in New England is +something not easily imagined. But it is getting to be the same in most +Western countries. Such a girl is watching a spider weaving in the corner +of the same room where she herself is weaving; and she thinks, "Am I not +like that spider, obliged to supply my every need by the work of my own +hands, without sympathy, without friends? The spider will spin and catch +flies until the autumn comes; then she will die. Perhaps I too must +continue to spin until the autumn of my own life--until I become too old +to work hard, and die of cold and of exhaustion." + + Poor sister of the spinster clan! + I too from out my store within + My daily life and living plan, + My home, my rest, my pleasure spin. + + I know thy heart when heartless hands + Sweep all that hard-earned web away; + Destroy its pearled and glittering bands, + And leave thee homeless by the way. + + I know thy peace when all is done. + Each anchored thread, each tiny knot, + Soft shining in the autumn sun; + A sheltered, silent, tranquil lot. + + I know what thou hast never known,-- + Sad presage to a soul allowed-- + That not for life I spin, alone, + But day by day I spin my shroud. + +The reference to the sweeping away of the spider's web, of course, implies +the pain often caused to such hardworking girls by the meanness of men who +employ them only to cheat them--shopkeepers or manufacturers who take +their work without justly paying for it, and who criticize it as bad in +order to force the owner to accept less money than it is worth. Again a +reference may be intended to the destruction of the home by some legal +trick--some unscrupulous method of cheating the daughter out of the +property bequeathed to her by her parents. + +Notice a few pretty words here. The "pearled" as applied to the spider's +thread gives an intimation of the effect produced by dew on the thread, +but there is also the suggestion of tears upon the thread work woven by +the hands of the girl. The participle "anchored" is very pretty in its use +here as an adjective, because this word is now especially used for +rope-fastening, whether the rope be steel or hemp; and particularly for +the fastening of the cables of a bridge. The last stanza might be +paraphrased thus: "Sister Spider, I know more than you--and that knowledge +makes me unhappy. You do not know, when you are spinning your little web, +that you are really weaving your own shroud. But I know this, my work is +slowly but surely killing me. And I know it because I have a soul--at +least a mind made otherwise than yours." + +The use of the word "soul" in the last stanza of this poem, brings me back +to the question put forth in an earlier part of the lecture--why European +poets, during the last two thousand years, have written so little upon the +subject of insects? Three thousand, four thousand years ago, the most +beautiful Greek poetry--poetry more perfect than anything of English +poetry--was written upon insects. In old Japanese literature poems upon +insects are to be found by thousands. What is the signification of the +great modern silence in Western countries upon this delightful topic? I +believe that Christianity, as dogma, accounts for the long silence. The +opinions of the early Church refused soul, ghost, intelligence of any sort +to other creatures than man. All animals were considered as automata--that +is, as self-acting machines, moved by a something called instinct, for +want of a better name. To talk about the souls of animals or the spirits +of animals would have been very dangerous in the Middle Ages, when the +Church had supreme power; it would indeed have been to risk or to invite +an accusation of witchcraft, for demons were then thought to take the +shape of animals at certain times. To discuss the _mind_ of an animal +would have been for the Christian faith to throw doubt upon the existence +of human souls as taught by the Church; for if you grant that animals are +able to think, then you must acknowledge that man is able to think without +a soul, or you must acknowledge that the soul is not the essential +principle of thought and action. Until after the time of Descartes, who +later argued philosophically that animals were only machines, it was +scarcely possible to argue rationally about the matter in Europe. + +Nevertheless, we shall soon perceive that this explanation will not cover +all the facts. You will naturally ask how it happens that, if the question +be a question of animal souls, birds, horses, dogs, cats, and many other +animals have been made the subject of Western poems from ancient times. +The silence is only upon the subject of insects. And, again, Christianity +has one saint--the most beautiful character in all Christian +hagiography--who thought of all nature in a manner that, at first sight, +strangely resembles Buddhism. This saint was Francis of Assisi, born in +the latter part of the twelfth century, so that he may be said to belong +to the very heart of the Middle Ages,--the most superstitious epoch of +Christianity. Now this saint used to talk to trees and stones as if they +were animated beings. He addressed the sun as "my brother sun"; and he +spoke of the moon as his sister. He preached not only to human beings, but +also to the birds and the fishes; and he made a great many poems on these +subjects, full of a strange and childish beauty. For example, his sermon +to the doves, beginning, "My little sisters, the doves," in which he +reminds them that their form is the emblem or symbol of the Holy Ghost, is +a beautiful poem; and has been, with many others, translated into nearly +all modern languages. But observe that neither St. Francis nor any other +saint has anything to say on the subject of insects. + +Perhaps we must go back further than Christianity to guess the meaning of +these distinctions. Among the ancient races of Asia, where the Jewish +faith arose, there were strange and sinister beliefs about insects--old +Assyrian superstitions, old Babylonian beliefs. Insects seemed to those +early peoples very mysterious creatures (which they really are); and it +appears to have been thought that they had a close relation to the world +of demons and evil spirits. I suppose you know that the name of one of +their gods, Beelzebub, signifies the Lord of Flies. The Jews, as is shown +by their Talmudic literature, inherited some of these ideas; and it is +quite probable that they were passed on to the days of Christianity. +Again, in the early times of Christianity in Northern Africa the Church +had to fight against superstitions of an equally strange sort derived from +old Egyptian beliefs. Among the Egyptians, certain insects were sacred and +became symbols of divinity,--such as the beetle. Now I imagine that for +these reasons the subject of insects became at an early time a subject +which Christianity thought dangerous, and that thereafter a kind of +hostile opinion prevailed regarding any literature upon this topic. + +However, to-day things are very different. With the development of +scientific studies--especially of microscopic study--it has been found +that insects, far from being the lowliest of creatures, are the most +highly organized of all beings; that their special senses are incomparably +superior to our own; and that in natural history, from the evolutional +standpoint, they have to be given first place. This of course renders it +impossible any longer to consider the insect as a trifling subject. +Moreover, the new philosophy is teaching the thinking classes in all +Western countries the great truth of the unity of life. With the +recognition of such unity, an insect must interest the philosophers--even +the man of ordinary culture--quite as much as the bird or any other +animal. + +Nearly all the poems which I have quoted to you have been poems of very +modern date--from which we may infer that interest in the subject of +insects has been developing of late years only. In this connection it is +interesting to note that a very religious poet, Whittier, gave us in the +last days of his life a poem upon ants. This would have seemed strange +enough in a former age; it does not seem strange to-day, and it is +beautiful. The subject is taken from old Jewish literature. + + +KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS + + Out from Jerusalem + The King rode with his great + War chiefs and lords of state, + And Sheba's queen with them; + + Comely, but black withal, + To whom, perchance, belongs + That wondrous Song of Songs, + Sensuous and mystical, + + Whereto devout souls turn + In fond, ecstatic dream, + And through its earth-born theme + The Love of Loves discern. + + Proud in the Syrian sun, + In gold and purple sheen, + The dusky Ethiop queen + Smiled on King Solomon. + + Wisest of men, he knew + The languages of all + The creatures great or small + That trod the earth or flew. + + Across an ant-hill led + The king's path, and he heard + Its small folk, and their word + He thus interpreted: + + "Here comes the king men greet + As wise and good and just, + To crush us in the dust + Under his heedless feet." + +The king, understanding the language of insects, turns to the queen and +explains to her what the ants have just said. She advises him to pay no +attention to the sarcasm of the ants--how dare such vile creatures speak +thus about a king! But Solomon thinks otherwise: + + "Nay," Solomon replied, + "The wise and strong should seek + The welfare of the weak," + And turned his horse aside. + + His train, with quick alarm, + Curved with their leader round + The ant-hill's peopled mound, + And left it free from harm. + + The jewelled head bent low; + "Oh, king!" she said, "henceforth + The secret of thy worth + And wisdom well I know. + + "Happy must be the State + Whose ruler heedeth more + The murmurs of the poor + Than flatteries of the great." + +The reference to the Song of Songs--also the Song of Solomon and Canticle +of Canticles--may require a little explanation. The line "Comely but black +withal," is borrowed from a verse of this song--"I am black but beautiful, +oh, ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of +Solomon." In another part of the song the reason of this blackness is +given: "I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me." From which we +can see that the word black only means dark, brown, tanned by the sun. +Perhaps you do not know that as late as the middle of the eighteenth +century it was still the custom in England to speak of a person with black +hair and eyes as "a black man"--a custom which Charles Lamb had reason to +complain of even at a later day. The tents referred to in the text were +probably tents made of camel-skin, such as the Arabs still make, and the +colour of these is not black but brown. Whether Solomon wrote the +so-called song or not we do not know; but the poet refers to a legend that +it was written in praise of the beauty of the dark queen who came from +Sheba to visit the wisest man of the world. Such is not, however, the +opinion of modern scholars. The composition is really dramatic, although +thrown into lyrical form, and as arranged by Renan and others it becomes a +beautiful little play, of which each act is a monologue. "Sensuous" the +poet correctly calls it; for it is a form of praise of woman's beauty in +all its details, as appears in such famous verses as these: "How beautiful +are thy feet in shoes, O prince's daughter; the joints of thy thighs are +like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy two breasts +are like two young roes that are twins which feed among the lilies." But +Christianity, instead of dismissing this part of the Bible, interpreted +the song mystically--insisting that the woman described meant the Church, +and the lover, Christ. Of course only very pious people continue to +believe this; even the good Whittier preferred the legend that it was +written about the Queen of Sheba. + +I suppose that I ought to end this lecture upon insect poetry by some +quotation to which a moral or philosophical meaning can be attached. I +shall end it therefore with a quotation from the poet Gray. The poetry of +insects may be said to have first appeared in English literature during +the second half of the eighteenth century, so that it is only, at the +most, one hundred and fifty years old. But the first really fine poem of +the eighteenth century relating to the subject is quite as good as +anything since composed by Englishmen upon insect life in general. Perhaps +Gray referred especially to what we call May-flies--those delicate ghostly +insects which hover above water surfaces in fine weather, but which die on +the same day that they are born. He does not specify May-flies, however, +and we may consider the moral of the poem quite apart from any particular +kind of insect. You will find this reference in the piece entitled "Ode on +the Spring," in the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas. + + Still is the toiling hand of care: + The panting herds repose: + Yet hark, how through the peopled air + The busy murmur glows! + The insect youth are on the wing, + Eager to taste the honied spring, + And float amid the liquid noon: + Some lightly o'er the current skim, + Some show their gaily-gilded trim + Quick-glancing to the sun. + + To Contemplation's sober eye + Such is the race of man: + And they that creep, and they that fly, + Shall end where they began. + Alike the Busy and the Gay + But flutter through life's little day, + In fortune's varying colours dressed: + Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance, + Or chilled by Age, their airy dance + They leave, in dust to rest. + + Methinks I hear in accents low + The sportive kind reply: + Poor moralist! and what art thou? + A solitary fly! + Thy joys no glittering female meets, + No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets, + No painted plumage to display: + On hasty wings thy youth is flown; + Thy sun is set; thy spring is gone-- + We frolic, while 'tis May. + +The poet Gray was never married, and the last stanza which I have quoted +refers jocosely to himself. It is an artistic device to set off the moral +by a little mockery, so that it may not appear too melancholy. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SOME FRENCH POEMS ABOUT INSECTS + + +Last year I gave a lecture on the subject of English poems about insects, +with some reference to the old Greek poems on the same subject. But I did +not then have an opportunity to make any reference to French poems upon +the same subject, and I think that it would be a pity not to give you a +few examples. + +Just as in the case of English poems about insects, nearly all the French +literature upon this subject is new. Insect poetry belongs to the newer +and larger age of thought, to the age that begins to perceive the great +truth of the unity of life. We no longer find, even in natural histories, +the insect treated as a mere machine and unthinking organism; on the +contrary its habits, its customs and its manifestation both of +intelligence and instinct are being very carefully studied in these times, +and a certain sympathy, as well as a certain feeling of respect or +admiration, may be found in the scientific treatises of the greatest men +who write about insect life. So, naturally, Europe is slowly returning to +the poetical standpoint of the old Greeks in this respect. It is not +improbable that keeping caged insects as pets may again become a Western +custom, as it was in Greek times, when cages were made of rushes or straw +for the little creatures. I suppose you have heard that the Japanese +custom is very likely to become a fashion in America. If that should +really happen, the fact would certainly have an effect upon poetry. I +think that it is very likely to happen. + +The French poets who have written pretty things about insects are nearly +all poets of our own times. Some of them treat the subject from the old +Greek standpoint--indeed the beautiful poem of Heredia upon the tomb of a +grasshopper is perfectly Greek, and reads almost like a translation from +the Greek. Other poets try to express the romance of insects in the form +of a monologue, full of the thought of our own age. Others again touch the +subject of insects only in connection with the subject of love. I will +give one example of each method, keeping the best piece for the last, and +beginning with a pretty fancy about a dragonfly. + + +MA LIBELLULE + + En te voyant, toute mignonne, + Blanche dans ta robe d'azure, + Je pensais Ć quelque madone + DrapĆ©e en un pen de ciel pur. + + Je songeais Ć ces belles saintes + Que l'on voyait au temps jadis + Sourire sur les vitres peintes, + Montrant d'un doigt le paradis: + + Et j'aurais voulu, loin du monde + Qui passait frivole entre nous, + Dans quelque retraite profonde + T'adorer seul Ć deux genoux. + +This first part of the poem is addressed of course to a beautiful child, +some girl between the age of childhood and womanhood: + +"Beholding thee, Oh darling one, all white in thy azure dress, I thought +of some figure of the Madonna robed in a shred of pure blue sky. + +"I dreamed of those beautiful figures of saints whom one used to see in +olden times smiling in the stained glass of church windows, and pointing +upward to Paradise. + +"And I could have wished to adore you alone upon my bended knees in some +far hidden retreat, away from the frivolous world that passed between us." + +This little bit of ecstasy over the beauty and purity of a child is +pretty, but not particularly original. However, it is only an +introduction. Now comes the pretty part of the poem: + + Soudain un caprice bizarre + Change la scĆØne et le dĆ©cor, + Et mon esprit au loin s'Ć©gare + Sur des grands prĆ©s d'azure et d'or + + OĆ¹, prĆØs de ruisseaux muscules + Gazouillants comme des oiseaux, + Se poursuivent les libellules, + Ces fleurs vivantes des roseaux. + + Enfant, n'es tu pas l'une d'elles + Qui me poursuit pour consoler? + Vainement tu caches tes ailes; + Tu marches, mais tu sais voler. + + Petite fĆ©e au bleu corsage, + Que j'ai connu dĆØs mon berceau, + En revoyant ton doux visage, + Je pense aux joncs de mon ruisseau! + + Veux-tu qu'en amoureux fidĆØles + Nous revenions dans ces prĆ©s verts? + Libellule, reprends tes ailes; + Moi, je brulerai tous mes vers! + + Et nous irons, sous la lumiĆØre, + D'un ciel plus frais et plus lĆ©ger + Chacun dans sa forme premiĆØre, + Moi courir, et toi voltiger. + +"Suddenly a strange fancy changes for me the scene and the scenery; and my +mind wanders far away over great meadows of azure and gold. + +"Where, hard by tiny streams that murmur with a sound like voices of +little birds, the dragon-flies, those living flowers of the reeds, chase +each other at play. + +"Child, art thou not one of those dragon-flies, following after me to +console me? Ah, it is in vain that thou tryest to hide thy wings; thou +dost walk, indeed, but well thou knowest how to fly! + +"O little fairy with the blue corsage whom I knew even from the time I was +a baby in the cradle; seeing again thy sweet face, I think of the rushes +that border the little stream of my native village! + +"Dost thou not wish that even now as faithful lovers we return to those +green fields? O dragon-fly, take thy wings again, and I--I will burn all +my poetry, + +"And we shall go back, under the light of the sky more fresh and pure than +this, each of us in the original form--I to run about, and thou to hover +in the air as of yore." + +The sight of a child's face has revived for the poet very suddenly and +vividly, the recollection of the village home, the green fields of +childhood, the little stream where he used to play with the same little +girl, sometimes running after the dragon-fly. And now the queer fancy +comes to him that she herself is so like a dragon-fly--so light, graceful, +spiritual! Perhaps really she is a dragon-fly following him into the great +city, where he struggles to live as a poet, just in order to console him. +She hides her wings, but that is only to prevent other people knowing. Why +not return once more to the home of childhood, back to the green fields +and the sun? "Little dragon-fly," he says to her, "let us go back! do you +return to your beautiful summer shape, be a dragon-fly again, expand your +wings of gauze; and I shall stop trying to write poetry. I shall burn my +verses; I shall go back to the streams where we played as children; I +shall run about again with the joy of a child, and with you beautifully +flitting hither and thither as a dragon-fly." + +Victor Hugo also has a little poem about a dragon-fly, symbolic only, but +quite pretty. It is entitled "La Demoiselle"; and the other poem was +entitled, as you remember, "Ma Libellule." Both words mean a dragon-fly, +but not the same kind of dragon-fly. The French word "demoiselle," which +might be adequately rendered into Japanese by the term _ojosan_, refers +only to those exquisitely slender, graceful, slow-flitting dragon-flies +known to the scientist by the name of Calopteryx. Of course you know the +difference by sight, and the reason of the French name will be poetically +apparent to you. + + Quand la demoiselle dorĆ©e + S'envole au dĆ©part des hivers, + Souvent sa robe diaprĆ©e, + Souvent son aile est dĆ©chirĆ©e + Aux mille dards des buissons verts. + + Ainsi, jeunesse vive et frĆŖle, + Qui, t'Ć©garant de tous cĆ“tĆ©s, + Voles ou ton instinct t'appele, + Souvent tu dĆ©chires ton aile + Aux Ć©pines des voluptes. + +"When, at the departure of winter, the gilded dragon-fly begins to soar, +often her many-coloured robe, often her wing, is torn by the thousand +thorns of the verdant shrubs. + +"Even so, O frail and joyous Youth, who, wandering hither and thither, in +every direction, flyest wherever thy instinct calls thee--even so thou +dost often tear thy wings upon the thorns of pleasure." + +You must understand that pleasure is compared to a rose-bush, whose +beautiful and fragrant flowers attract the insects, but whose thorns are +dangerous to the visitors. However, Victor Hugo does not use the word for +rose-bush, for obvious reasons; nor does he qualify the plants which are +said to tear the wings of the dragon-fly. I need hardly tell you that the +comparison would not hold good in reference to the attraction of flowers, +because dragon-flies do not care in the least about flowers, and if they +happen to tear their wings among thorn bushes, it is much more likely to +be in their attempt to capture and devour other insects. The merit of the +poem is chiefly in its music and colour; as natural history it would not +bear criticism. The most beautiful modern French poem about insects, +beautiful because of its classical perfection, is I think a sonnet by +Heredia, entitled "Ćpigramme FunĆ©raire"--that is to say, "Inscription for +a Tombstone." This is an exact imitation of Greek sentiment and +expression, carefully studied after the poets of the anthology. Several +such Greek poems are extant, recounting how children mourned for pet +insects which had died in spite of all their care. The most celebrated one +among these I quoted in a former lecture--the poem about the little Greek +girl Myro who made a tomb for her grasshopper and cried over it. Heredia +has very well copied the Greek feeling in this fine sonnet: + + Ici gĆ®t, Etranger, la verte sauterelle + Que durant deux saisons nourrit la jeune HellĆ©, + Et dont l'aile vibrant sous le pied dentelĆ©. + Bruissait dans le pin, le cytise, ou l'airelle. + + Elle s'est tue, hĆ©las! la lyre naturelle, + La muse des guĆ©rets, des sillons et du blĆ©; + De peur que son lĆ©ger sommeil ne soit troublĆ©, + Ah, passe vite, ami, ne pĆØse point sur elle. + + C'est lĆ . Blanche, au milieu d'une touffe de thym, + Sa pierre funĆ©raire est fraĆ®chement poseĆ©. + Que d'hommes n'ont pas eu ce suprĆŖme destin! + + Des larmes d'un enfant la tombe est arrosĆ©e, + Et l'Aurore pieuse y fait chaque matin + Une libation de gouttes de rosĆ©e. + +"Stranger, here reposes the green grasshopper that the young girl Helle +cared for during two seasons,--the grasshopper whose wings, vibrating +under the strokes of its serrated feet, used to resound in the pine, the +trefoil and the whortleberry. + +"She is silent now, alas! that natural lyre, muse of the unsown fields, of +the furrows, and of the wheat. Lest her light sleep should be disturbed, +ah! pass quickly, friend! do not be heavy upon her. + +"It is there. All white, in the midst of a tuft of thyme, her funeral +monument is placed, in cool shadow; how many men have not been able to +have this supremely happy end! + +"By the tears of a child the insect's tomb is watered; and the pious +goddess of dawn each morning there makes a libation of drops of dew." + +This reads very imperfectly in a hasty translation; the original charm is +due to the perfect art of the form. But the whole thing, as I have said +before, is really Greek, and based upon a close study of several little +Greek poems on the same kind of subject. Little Greek girls thousands of +years ago used to keep singing insects as pets, every day feeding them +with slices of leek and with fresh water, putting in their little cages +sprigs of the plants which they liked. The sorrow of the child for the +inevitable death of her insect pets at the approach of winter, seems to +have inspired many Greek poets. With all tenderness, the child would make +a small grave for the insect, bury it solemnly, and put a little white +stone above the place to imitate a grave-stone. But of course she would +want an inscription for this tombstone--perhaps would ask some of her +grown-up friends to compose one for her. Sometimes the grown-up friend +might be a poet, in which case he would compose an epitaph for all time. + +I suppose you perceive that the solemnity of this imitation of the Greek +poems on the subject is only a tender mockery, a playful sympathy with the +real grief of the child. The expression, "pass, friend," is often found in +Greek funeral inscriptions together with the injunction to tread lightly +upon the dust of the dead. There is one French word to which I will call +attention,--the word "guĆ©rets." We have no English equivalent for this +term, said to be a corruption of the Latin word "veractum," and meaning +fields which have been ploughed but not sown. + +Not to dwell longer upon the phase of art indicated by this poem, I may +turn to the subject of crickets. There are many French poems about +crickets. One by Lamartine is known to almost every French child. + + Grillon solitaire, + Ici comme moi, + Voix qui sors de terre, + Ah! rĆ©veille-toi! + J'attise la flamme, + C'est pour t'Ć©gayer; + Mais il manque une Ć¢me, + Une Ć¢me au foyer. + + Grillon solitaire, + Voix qui sors de terre, + Ah! rĆ©veille-toi + Pour moi. + + Quand j'Ć©tais petite + Comme ce berceau, + Et que Marguerite + Filait son fuseau, + Quand le vent d'automne + Faisait tout gĆ©mir, + Ton cri monotone + M'aidait Ć dormir. + + Grillon solitaire, + Voix qui sors de terre, + Ah! rĆ©veille-toi + Pour moi. + + Seize fois l'annĆ©e + A comptĆ© mes jours; + Dans la cheminĆ©e + Tu niches toujours. + Je t'Ć©coute encore + Aux froides saisons. + Souvenir sonore + Des vieilles maisons. + + Grillon solitaire, + Voix qui sors de terre, + Ah! rĆ©veille-toi + Pour moi. + +It is a young girl who thus addresses the cricket of the hearth, the house +cricket. It is very common in country houses in Europe. This is what she +says: + +"Little solitary cricket, all alone here just like myself, little voice +that comes up out of the ground, ah, awake for my sake! I am stirring up +the fires, that is just to make you comfortable; but there lacks a +presence by the hearth; a soul to keep me company. + +"When I was a very little girl, as little as that cradle in the corner of +the room, then, while Margaret our servant sat there spinning, and while +the autumn wind made everything moan outside, your monotonous cry used to +help me to fall asleep. + +"Solitary cricket, voice that issues from the ground, awaken, for my sake. + +"Now I am sixteen years of age and you are still nestling in the chimneys +as of old. I can hear you still in the cold season,--like a +sound--memory,--a sonorous memory of old houses. + +"Solitary cricket, voice that issues from the ground, awaken, O awaken for +my sake." + +I do not think this pretty little song needs any explanation; I would only +call your attention to the natural truth of the fancy and the feeling. +Sitting alone by the fire in the night, the maiden wants to hear the +cricket sing, because it makes her think of her childhood, and she finds +happiness in remembering it. + +So far as mere art goes, the poem of Gautier on the cricket is very much +finer than the poem of Lamartine, though not so natural and pleasing. But +as Gautier was the greatest master of French verse in the nineteenth +century, not excepting Victor Hugo, I think that one example of his poetry +on insects may be of interest. He was very poor, compared with Victor +Hugo; and he had to make his living by writing for newspapers, so that he +had no time to become the great poet that nature intended him to be. +However, he did find time to produce one volume of highly finished poetry, +which is probably the most perfect verse of the nineteenth century, if not +the most perfect verse ever made by a French poet; I mean the "Emaux et +CamĆ©es." But the little poem which I am going to read to you is not from +the "Emaux et CamĆ©es." + + Souffle, bise! Tombe Ć flots, pluie! + Dans mon palais tout noir de suie, + Je ris de la pluie et du vent; + En attendant que l'hiver fuie, + Je reste au coin du feu, rĆŖvant. + + C'est moi qui suis l'esprit de l'Ć¢tre! + Le gaz, de sa langue bleuĆ tre, + LĆØche plus doucement le bois; + La fumĆ©e en filet d'albĆ tre, + Monte et se contourne Ć ma voix. + + La bouilloire rit et babille; + La flamme aux pieds d'argent sautille + En accompagnant ma chanson; + La bĆ»che de duvet s'habille; + La sĆØve bout dans le tison. + + * * * * * + + Pendant la nuit et la journĆ©e + Je chante sous la cheminĆ©e; + Dans mon langage de grillon + J'ai, des rebuts de son aĆ®nĆ©e, + Souvent console Cendrillon. + + * * * * * + + Quel plaisir? Prolonger sa veille, + Regarder la flamme vermeille + Prenant Ć deux bras le tison, + A tous les bruits prĆŖter l'oreille, + Entendre vivre la maison. + + Tapi dans sa niche bien chaude, + Sentir l'hiver qui pleure et rĆ“de, + Tout blĆŖme, et le nez violet, + Tachant de s'introduire en fraude + Par quelque fente du volet! + +This poem is especially picturesque, and is intended to give us the +comfortable sensations of a winter night by the fire, and the amusement of +watching the wood burn and of hearing the kettle boiling. You will find +that the French has a particular quality of lucid expression; it is full +of clearness and colour. + +"Blow on, cold wind! pour down, O rain. I, in my soot-black palace, laugh +at both rain and wind; and while waiting for winter to pass I remain in my +corner by the fire dreaming. + +"It is I that am really the spirit of the hearth! The gaseous flame licks +the wood more softly with its bluish tongue when it hears me; and the +smoke rises up like an alabaster thread, and curls itself about (or +twists) at the sound of my voice. + +"The kettle chuckles and chatters; the golden-footed flame leaps, dancing +to the accompaniment of my song (or in accompaniment to my song); the +great log covers itself with down, the sap boils in the wooden embers +("duvet," meaning "down," refers to the soft fluffy white ash that forms +upon the surface of burning wood). + +"All night and all day I sing below the chimney. Often in my +cricket-language, I have consoled Cinderella for the snubs of her elder +sister. + +"Ah, what pleasure to sit up at night, and watch the crimson flames +embracing the wood (or hugging the wood) with both arms at once, and to +listen to all the sounds and to hear the life of the house! + +"Nestling in one's good warm nook, how pleasant to hear Winter, who weeps +and prowls round about the house outside, all wan and blue-nosed with +cold, trying to smuggle itself inside some chink in the shutter!" + +Of course this does not give us much about the insect itself, which +remains invisible in the poem, just as it really remains invisible in the +house where the voice is heard. Rather does the poem express the feelings +of the person who hears the cricket. + +When we come to the subject of grasshoppers, I think that the French poets +have done much better than the English. There are many poems on the field +grasshopper; I scarcely know which to quote first. But I think you would +be pleased with a little composition by the celebrated French painter, +Jules Breton. Like Rossetti he was both painter and poet; and in both arts +he took for his subjects by preference things from country life. This +little poem is entitled "Les Cigales." The word "cigales," though really +identical with our word "cicala," seldom means the same thing. Indeed the +French word may mean several different kinds of insects, and it is only by +studying the text that we can feel quite sure what sort of insect is +meant. + + Lorsque dans l'herbe mĆ»re ancun Ć©pi ne bouge, + Qu'Ć l'ardeur des rayons crĆ©pite le frement, + Que le coquelicot tombe languissament + Sous le faible fardeau de sa corolle rouge, + + Tous les oiseaux de l'air out fait taire leur chants; + Les ramiers paresseux, au plus noir des ramures, + Somnolents, dans les bois, out cessĆ© leurs murmures + Loin du soleil muet incendiant les champs. + + Dans le blĆ©, cependant, d'intrĆ©pides cigales + Jetant leurs mille bruits, fanfare de l'Ć©tĆ©, + Out frĆ©nĆ©tiquement et sans trĆØve agitĆ© + Leurs ailes sur l'airaine de leurs folles cymbales. + + TrĆ©moussantes, deboutes sur les longs Ć©pis d'or, + Virtuoses qui vont s'eteindre avant l'automne, + Elles poussent au del leur hymne monotone + Que dans I'ombre des nuits retentisse encore. + + Et rien n'arrĆŖtera leurs cris intarissables; + Quand on les chassera de l'avoine et des blĆ©s. + Elles Ć©migreront sur les buissons brulĆ©s + Qui se meurent de soif dans les deserts de sable. + + Sur l'arbuste effeuillĆ©, sur les chardons flĆ©tris + Qui laissent s'envoler leur blanche chevelure, + On reverra l'insecte Ć la forte encolure, + Pleine d'ivresse, toujours s'exalter dans ses cris. + + Jusqu'Ć ce qu'ouvrant l'aile en lambeaux arrachĆ©e, + ExasperĆ©, brulant d'un feu toujours plus pur, + Son oeil de bronze fixe et tendu vers l'azur, + II expire en chantant sur la tige sĆ©chĆ©e. + +For the word "encolure" we have no English equivalent; it means the line +of the neck and shoulder--sometimes the general appearance of shape of the +body. + +"When in the ripening grain field not a single ear of wheat moves; when in +the beaming heat the corn seems to crackle; when the poppy languishes and +bends down under the feeble burden of its scarlet corolla, + +"Then all the birds of the air have hushed their songs; even the indolent +doves, seeking the darkest part of the foliage in the tree, have become +drowsy in the woods, and have ceased their cooing, far from the fields, +which the silent sun is burning. + +"Nevertheless, in the wheat, the brave grasshoppers uttering their +thousand sounds, a trumpet flourish of summer, have continued furiously +and unceasingly to smite their wings upon the brass of their wild cymbal. + +"Quivering as they stand upon the long gold ears of the grain, master +musicians who must die before the coming of Fall, they sound to heaven +their monotonous hymn, which re-echoes even in the darkness of the night. + +"And nothing will check their inexhaustible shrilling. When chased away +from the oats and from the wheat, they will migrate to the scorched bushes +which die of thirst in the wastes of sand. + +"Upon the leafless shrubs, upon the dried up thistles, which let their +white hair fall and float away, there the sturdily-built insect can be +seen again, filled with enthusiasm, even more and more excited as he +cries, + +"Until, at last, opening his wings, now rent into shreds, exasperated, +burning more and more fiercely in the frenzy of his excitement, and with +his eyes of bronze always fixed motionlessly upon the azure sky, he dies +in his song upon the withered grain." + +This is difficult to translate at all satisfactorily, owing to the +multitude of images compressed together. But the idea expressed is a fine +one--the courage of the insect challenging the sun, and only chanting more +and more as the heat and the thirst increase. The poem has, if you like, +the fault of exaggeration, but the colour and music are very fine; and +even the exaggeration itself has the merit of making the images more +vivid. + +It will not be necessary to quote another text; we shall scarcely have the +time; but I want to translate to you something of another poem upon the +same insect by the modern French poet Jean Aicard. In this poem, as in the +little poem by Gautier, which I quoted to you, the writer puts his thought +in the mouth of the insect, so to say--that is, makes the insect tell its +own story. + +"I am the impassive and noble insect that sings in the summer solstice +from the dazzling dawn all the day long in the fragrant pine-wood. And my +song is always the same, regular as the equal course of the season and of +the sun. I am the speech of the hot and beaming sun, and when the reapers, +weary of heaping the sheaves together, lie down in the lukewarm shade, and +sleep and pant in the ardour of noonday--then more than at any other time +do I utter freely and joyously that double-echoing strophe with which my +whole body vibrates. And when nothing else moves in all the land round +about, I palpitate and loudly sound my little drum. Otherwise the sunlight +triumphs; and in the whole landscape nothing is heard but my cry,--like +the joy of the light itself. + +"Like a butterfly I take up from the hearts of the flowers that pure water +which the night lets fall into them like tears. I am inspired only by the +almighty sun. Socrates listened to me; Virgil made mention of me. I am the +insect especially beloved by the poets and by the bards. The ardent sun +reflects himself in the globes of my eyes. My ruddy bed, which seems to be +powdered like the surface of fine ripe fruit, resembles some exquisite +key-board of silver and gold, all quivering with music. My four wings, +with their delicate net-work of nerves, allow the bright down upon my +black back to be seen through their transparency. And like a star upon the +forehead of some divinely inspired poet, three exquisitely mounted rubies +glitter upon my head." + +These are fair examples of the French manner of treating the interesting +subject of insects in poetry. If you should ask me whether the French +poets are better than the English, I should answer, "In point of feeling, +no." The real value of such examples to the student should be emotional, +not descriptive. I think that the Japanese poems on insects, though not +comparable in point of mere form with some of the foreign poems which I +have quoted, are better in another way--they come nearer to the true +essence of poetry. For the Japanese poets have taken the subject of +insects chiefly for the purpose of suggesting human emotion; and that is +certainly the way in which such a subject should be used. Remember that +this is an age in which we are beginning to learn things about insects +which could not have been even imagined fifty years ago, and the more that +we learn about these miraculous creatures, the more difficult does it +become for us to write poetically about their lives, or about their +possible ways of thinking and feeling. Probably no mortal man will ever be +able to imagine how insects think or feel or hear or even see. Not only +are their senses totally different from those of animals, but they appear +to have a variety of special senses about which we can not know anything +at all. As for their existence, it is full of facts so atrocious and so +horrible as to realize most of the imaginations of old about the torments +of hell. Now, for these reasons to make an insect speak in poetry--to put +one's thoughts, so to speak, into the mouth of an insect--is no longer +consistent with poetical good judgment. No; we must think of insects +either in relation to the mystery of their marvellous lives, or in +relation to the emotion which their sweet and melancholy music makes +within our minds. The impressions produced by hearing the shrilling of +crickets at night or by hearing the storm of cicadƦ in summer woods--those +impressions indeed are admirable subjects for poetry, and will continue to +be for all time. + +When I lectured to you long ago about Greek and English poems on insects, +I told you that nearly all the English poems on the subject were quite +modern. I still believe that I was right in this statement, as a general +assertion; but I have found one quaint poem about a grasshopper, which +must have been written about the middle of the seventeenth century or, +perhaps, a little earlier. The date of the author's birth and death are +respectively 1618 and 1658. His name, I think, you are familiar +with--Richard Lovelace, author of many amatory poems, and of one +especially famous song, "To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars"--containing the +celebrated stanza-- + + Yet this inconstancy is such + As you too shall adore; + I could not love thee, Dear, so much, + Loved I not honour more. + +Well, as I said, this man wrote one pretty little poem on a grasshopper, +which antedates most of the English poems on insects, if not all of them. + + +THE GRASSHOPPER + + O Thou that swing'st upon the waving ear + Of some well-filled oaten beard, + Drunk every night with a delicious tear + Dropt thee from heaven, where now th'art rear'd! + + The joys of earth and air are thine entire, + That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly; + And when thy poppy works, thou dost retire + To thy carved acorn-bed to lie. + + Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom'st then, + Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams, + And all these merry days mak'st merry men + Thyself, and melancholy streams. + +A little artificial, this poem written at least two hundred and fifty +years ago; but it is pretty in spite of its artifice. Some of the conceits +are so quaint that they must be explained. By the term "oaten beard," the +poet means an ear of oats; and you know that the grain of this plant is +furnished with very long hair, so that many poets have spoken of the +bearded oats. You may remember in this connection Tennyson's phrase "the +bearded barley" in the "Lady of Shalott," and Longfellow's term "bearded +grain" in his famous poem about the Reaper Death. When a person's beard is +very thick, we say in England to-day "a full beard," but in the time of +Shakespeare they used to say "a well filled beard"--hence the phrase in +the second line of the first stanza. + +In the third line the term "delicious tear" means dew,--which the Greeks +called the tears of the night, and sometimes the tears of the dawn; and +the phrase "drunk with dew" is quite Greek--so we may suspect that the +author of this poem had been reading the Greek Anthology. In the third +line of the second stanza the word "poppy" is used for sleep--a very +common simile in Elizabethan times, because from the poppy flower was +extracted the opiate which enables sick persons to sleep. The Greek +authors spoke of poppy sleep. "And when thy poppy works," means, when the +essence of sleep begins to operate upon you, or more simply, when you +sleep. Perhaps the phrase about the "carved acorn-bed" may puzzle you; it +is borrowed from the fairy-lore of Shakespeare's time, when fairies were +said to sleep in little beds carved out of acorn shells; the simile is +used only by way of calling the insect a fairy creature. In the second +line of the third stanza you may notice the curious expression about the +"gilt plaits" of the sun's beams. It was the custom in those days, as it +still is in these, for young girls to plait their long hair; and the +expression "gilt plaits" only means braided or plaited golden hair. This +is perhaps a Greek conceit; for classic poets spoke of the golden hair of +the Sun God as illuminating the world. I have said that the poem is a +little artificial, but I think you will find it pretty, and even the +whimsical similes are "precious" in the best sense. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +NOTE ON THE INFLUENCE OF FINNISH POETRY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE + + +The subject of Finnish poetry ought to have a special interest for the +Japanese student, if only for the reason that Finnish poetry comes more +closely in many respects to Japanese poetry than any other form of Western +poetry. Indeed it is supposed that the Finnish race is more akin to the +Tartar races, and therefore probably to the Japanese, than the races of +Europe proper. Again, through Longfellow, the value of Finnish poetry to +English poetry was first suggested, and I think you know that Longfellow's +Indian epic, "The Song of Hiawatha," was modelled entirely upon the +Finnish "Kalevala." + +But a word about the "Kalevala," which has a very interesting history. I +believe you know that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the +"Kalevala" was not known to exist. During the first half of the century, +Finnish scholars in the University of Helsingfors (where there is now a +great and flourishing university) began to take literary interest in the +popular songs of Finland. For years the people had been singing +extraordinary songs full of a strange beauty and weirdness quite unlike +any other popular songs of Europe; and for centuries professional singers +had been wandering about the country teaching these songs to the +accompaniment of a kind of _biwa_ called Kantela. The scholars of the +University began to collect these songs from the mouths of the peasants +and musicians--at first with great difficulty, afterwards with much +success. The difficulty was a very curious one. In Finland the ancient +pagan religion had really never died; the songs of the peasants were full +of allusions to the old faith and the old gods, and the orthodox church +had often attempted in vain to prevent the singing of these songs, because +they were not Christian. So the peasants at first thought that the +scholars who wanted to copy the songs were government spies or church +spies who wanted evidence to justify punishments. When the fears of the +people had been removed and when they came to understand that the +questioners were only scholars interested in literary beauty, all the +secret stores of songs were generously opened, and an immense collection +of oral literature was amassed in the University at Helsingfors. + +The greatest of the scholars engaged in the subsequent work of arranging +and classifying was Doctor Lƶnnrot. While examining the manuscript of +these poems he was struck by the fact that, put together in a particular +order, they naturally made one great continuous story or epic. Was it +possible that the Finnish people had had during all these centuries an +epic unknown to the world of literature? Many persons would have ridiculed +the idea. But Lƶnnrot followed up that idea, and after some years' study +he disengaged from all that mass of song something in the shape of a +wonderful epic, the epic of the "Kalevala." Lƶnnrot was probably, almost +certainly, the only one who had even understood the idea of an epic of +this kind. The peasants did not know. They only had the fragments of the +whole; parts of the poem existed in one province, parts in another; no +Finnish musician had ever known the whole. The whole may have been made +first by Lƶnnrot. At all events he was the Homer of the "Kalevala," and it +was fortunate for Finland that he happened to be himself both a scholar +and a poet--qualifications seldom united in the same person. + +What is the "Kalevala" as we now possess it? It is an epic, but not like +any other epic in the world, for the subject of it is Magic. We might call +it the Epic of Magic. It is the story of how the world and the heaven and +the sun and the moon and the stars, the elements and the races of living +creatures and all other things were created by magic; also how the first +inhabitants of the world lived, and loved, and fought. But there is +another thing to be said in a general was about this magic. The magic of +"Kalevala" is not like anything else known by that name in European +literature. The magic of "Kalevala" is entirely the magic of words. These +ancient people believed in the existence of words, by the utterance of +which anything might be accomplished. Instead of buying wood and hiring +carpenters, you might build a house by uttering certain magical words. If +you had no horse and wanted to travel rapidly, you could make a horse for +yourself out of bits of bark and old sticks by uttering over them certain +magical words. But this was not all. Beings of intellect, men and women, +whole armies of men, in fact, might be created in a moment by the +utterance of these mystical words. There is the real subject of the +"Kalevala." + +I told you that the epic is not like anything else in European literature +and not like anything else in the world as to the subject. But this is not +the case as regards the verse. The verse is not like Japanese verse, +indeed, but it comes nearer to it than any other European verse does. Of +course even in Finnish verse, accents mean a great deal, and accent means +nothing at all in Japanese verse. But I imagine something very much like +Finnish verse might be written in Japanese, provided that in reciting it a +slight stress is thrown on certain syllables. Of course you know something +about Longfellow's "Hiawatha"--such lines as these: + + And the evening sun descending + Set the clouds on fire with redness, + Burned the broad sky like a prairie, + Left upon the level water + One long track and trail of splendour, + Down whose stream, as down a river, + Westward, westward Hiawatha + Sailed into the fiery sunset, + Sailed into the purple vapours, + Sailed into the dusk of evening. + +You will observe this is verse of eight syllables with four trochees to a +line. Now it is perhaps as near to Finnish verse as English verse can be +made. But the Finnish verse is more musical, and it is much more flexible, +and the rules of it can be better carried out than in English. There is +much more to be thought about than the placing of four trochaic feet to a +line. Not only must the verse be trochaic, it must also be alliterative, +and it must also be, to some extent, rhymed verse--a matter which +Longfellow did not take into consideration. That would have doubled his +difficulty. To make verse trochaic, alliterative and rhymed, is very +difficult indeed--that is, to do it well. Only one liberty is allowed; it +is not necessary that the rhyme shall be regular and constant; it is +necessary only that it should be occasional. But the interest of Finnish +verse does not end here. I have not yet mentioned the most important law +of Finnish poetry--the law of parallelism or repetition. Parallelism is +the better word. It means the repetition of a thought in a slightly +modified way. It is parallelism especially that makes so splendid the +English translation of the Bible, and the majesty of such passages in the +Book of Common Prayer as the Funeral Service. So that Finnish poetry is +anything but very simple. We may now sum it up thus--trochaic verse of +eight syllables, with alliteration and rhyme, a caesura in the same part +of every line, and every line reiterated in parallelism. + +A little above I mentioned the English of the Bible. Long ago I explained +why that English is so beautiful and so strong. But remember that much of +the best of the Bible, in the original Hebrew, was not prose but verse, +and that the fine effects have been produced by translating the verse into +musical prose. The very effect can be produced by translating the +"Kalevala" into prose. Occasionally the passages are of surprising beauty, +and they are always of surprising strangeness. + +It is in parallelism especially that Finnish poetry offers a contrast to +Japanese, but there is no reason whatever why, in the longer poems of +Japanese poetry, parallelism could not be used. All things have value +according to place and time, and this has value--provided that it has a +special effect on a special occasion. All through the "Kalevala," all +through five hundred pages, large pages, the parallelism is carried on, +and yet one never gets tired. It is not monotonous. But that is because +the subject is so well adapted to this form of poetry. See how the poem +opens, when the poet begins to talk about what he is going to sing: + +"Anciently my father sang me these words in hewing the handle of his ax; +anciently my mother taught me these words as she turned her spindle. In +that time I was only a child, a little child at the breast,--a useless +little being creeping upon the floor at the feet of its nurse, its cheek +bedaubed with milk. And there are other words which I drew from the spring +of knowledge, which I found by the wayside, which I snatched from the +heart of the thickets, which I detached from the branches of the trees, +which I gathered at the edges of the pastures--when, In my infancy, I used +to go to guard the flocks, in the midst of the honey-streaming meadows, +upon the gold-shining hills, behind the black Murikki, behind the spotted +Kimmo, my favourite cows. + +"Also the cold sang the songs, the rain sang me verses, the winds of +heaven, the waves of the sea made me hear their poems, the birds +instructed me with their melodies, the long-haired trees invited me to +their concerts. And all the songs I gathered together, I rolled them up in +a skin, I carried them away in my beautiful little holiday sledge, I +deposited them in the bottom of a chest of brass, upon the highest shelf +of my treasure house." + +Now when a poem opens that way we may be sure that there are great things +in it; and some of these great things we shall read about presently. The +"Kalevala" is full of wonderful stories, But in the above quotation, I +want you to see how multiple it is, and yet it is beautiful. Now there is +a very interesting thing yet to tell you about this parallelism. Such +poems as those of the "Kalevala" have always to be sung not by one singer +but by two. The two singers straddle a bench facing each other and hold +each other's hands. Then they sing alternately, each chanting one line, +rocking back and forward, pulling each other to and fro as they sing--so +that it is like the motion of rowing. One chants a line and pulls +backward, then the other chants the next line and pulls in the opposite +direction. Not to be able to answer at once would be considered a great +disgrace; and every singer has to be able to improvise as well as to sing. +And that is the signification of the following verse: + +"Put thy hand to my hand--place thy fingers between my fingers--that we +may sing of the things which are." + +The most beautiful story in this wonderful book is the story of Kullervo. +It was after reading this story that Longfellow imagined his story of the +Strong Man Kwasind. Kullervo is born so strong that as an infant he breaks +his cradle to pieces, and as a boy he can not do any work, for all the +tools and instruments break in his grasp. Therefore he gives a great deal +of trouble at home and has to go out into the world to seek his fortune. +In the world, of course, he has just the same trouble; for nobody will +employ him very long. However, the story of Kullervo's feats of strength, +though interesting, need not now concern us. The great charm of this +composition is in the description of a mother's love which it contains. +Kullervo brought misfortune everywhere simply by his strength and by his +great passions--at last committing a terrible crime, causing the death of +his own sister, whom he does not recognize. He goes back home in +desperation and remorse; and there everybody regards him with horror, +except only his mother. She alone tries to console him; she alone tells +him that repentance may bring him rest. He then proposes to go away and +amend his wrong-doing in solitude. But first he bids them all goodbye, and +the episode is characteristic. + +Kullervo, the son of Kalervo, gets him ready to depart; he goes to his old +father and says: "Farewell now, O my dear father. Wilt thou regret me +bitterly, when thou shalt learn that I am dead?--that I have disappeared +from among the multitude of the living?--that I no longer am one of the +members of thy family?" The father answered: "No, certainly I will not +regret thee when I shall hear that thou art dead. Another son perchance +will be born to me--a son who will grow up better and wiser than thou." + +Kullervo, son of Kalervo, answered: "And I also will not be sorry if I +hear that thou art dead. Without any trouble I can find me such a father +as thou--a stone-hearted father, a clay-mouthed father, a berry-eyed +father, a straw-bearded father, a father whose feet are made of the roots +of the willow tree, a father whose flesh is decaying wood." Why does +Kullervo use these extraordinary terms? It is a reference to magic--out of +stone and clay and straw, a phantom man can be made, and Kullervo means to +say that his father is no more to him than a phantom father, an unreal +father, a father who has no fatherly feeling. His brothers and sisters all +questioned in turn if they will be sorry to hear that he is dead, make the +same cruel answer; and he replies to them with the same angry words. But +it is very different when he speaks to his mother. + +For to his mother he said--"Oh my sweet mother, my beautiful nurse, my +loved protectress, wilt thou regret me bitterly when thou shalt learn that +I am dead, that I have disappeared from the multitude of the living, that +I am no longer one of the members of thy family?" + +The mother made answer: "Thou does not comprehend the soul of the +mother--thou canst not understand the heart of the mother. Assuredly will +I regret thee most bitterly when I shall learn that thou art dead, that +thou hast disappeared, from among the multitude of the living, that thou +hast ceased to be one of the members of my family. Floods of tears shall I +weep in my chamber. The waves of tears will overflow on the floor. And +upon the stairway lamentably shall I weep; and in the stable loudly shall +I sorrow. Upon the icy ways the snow shall melt under my tears--under my +tears the earth of the roads shall melt away; under my tears new meadow +grass shall grow up, green sprouting, and through that grass little +streams shall murmur away." To this mother, naturally, Kullervo says no +unkind words. He goes away, able at least to feel that there is one person +in the world who loves him and one person in the world whom he loves. But +how much his mother really loves him he does not yet know; he will know +that later--it forms the most beautiful part of the poem. + +"Kullervo directed his steps once more to the home of his fathers. +Desolate he found it, desolate and deserted; no person advanced to salute +him, no person came to press his hand, to give him welcome. + +"He drew near to the hearth: the embers were extinguished. By that he knew +that his mother had ceased to be. + +"He drew near to the fire-place, and the stones of the fire-place were +cold. By that he knew that his father had ceased to be. + +"He turned his eyes upon the floor of his home; the planks of the floor +were covered with dirt and rubbish. By that he knew that his sister had +ceased to be. + +"To the shore of the sea he went; the boat that used to be there was there +no longer. By that he knew that his brother had ceased to be. + +"Then he began to weep. For a whole day he wept, for two whole days he +wept; then he cried aloud: 'O my mother, O my sweet mother, what didst +thou leave thy son yet in the world? Alas! now thou canst hear me no +longer; and it is in vain that I stand above thy tomb, that I sob over the +place of thine eyebrows, over the place of thy temples; it is in vain that +I cry out my grief above thy dead forehead.' + +"The mother of Kullervo awakened in her tomb, and out of the depth of the +dust she spake to him: 'I have left the dog Mastif, in order that thou +mayst go with him to the chase. Take therefore the faithful dog, and go +with him into the wild forest, into the dark wilderness, even to the +dwelling place, far away, of the blue-robed Virgins of the wood, and there +thou wilt seek thy nourishment, thou wilt ask for the game that is +necessary to thy existence.'" + +It was believed that there was a particular forest god, who protected the +trees and the wild things of the wood. The hunter could be successful in +the chase only upon condition of obtaining his favour and permission to +hunt. This explains the reference to the abode of the forest god. But +Kullervo can not go far; his remorse takes him by the throat. + +"Kullervo, son of Kalervo, took his faithful dog, and directed his steps +toward the wild forest, toward the dark wilderness. But when he had gone +only a little way he found himself at the very place where he had outraged +the young girl, where he had dishonoured the child of his mother. And all +things there mourned for her--all things; the soft grass and the tender +foliage, and the little plants, and the sorrowful briars. The grass was no +longer green, the briars no longer blossomed, the leaves and the plants +hung withered and dry about the spot where the virgin had been +dishonoured, where the brother had dishonoured his sister. + +"Kullervo drew forth his sword, his sharpedged sword; a long time he +looked at it, turning it in his hand, and asking it whether it would feel +no pleasure in eating the flesh of the man thus loaded with infamy, in +drinking the blood of the man thus covered with crime. + +"And the sword knew the heart of the man: it understood the question of +the hero. And it made answer to him saying: 'Why indeed should I not +gladly devour the flesh of the man who is loaded with infamy? Why indeed +should I not drink with pleasure the blood of the man who is burdened with +crime? For well I devoured even the flesh of the innocent man, well can I +drink even the blood of the man who is free from crime.' + +"Then Kullervo fixed his sword in the earth, with the handle downwards and +the point upwards, and he threw himself upon the point, and the point +passed through all the depth of his breast. + +"This was the end of all, this was the cruel destiny of Kullervo, the +irrevocable end of the son of the heroes--the death of the 'Man of +Misfortune.'" + +You can see how very much unlike other Western poetry this poetry is. The +imagination indeed is of another race and another time than those to whose +literary productions we have become accustomed. But there is beauty here; +and the strangeness of it indicates a possible literary value by which any +literature may be more or less enriched. Many are the particular episodes +which rival the beauty and strangeness of the episode of Kullervo; and I +wish that we could have time to quote them. But I can only refer to them. +There is, for example, the legend of the invention of music, when the hero +Wainamoinen (supposed to represent the Spirit of the Wind, and the sound +of the name indicates the wailing of the wind) invents the first musical +instrument. In no other literature is there anything quite like this +except in the Greek story of Orpheus. Even as the trees bent down their +heads to listen to the song of Orpheus, and as the wild beasts became +tamed at the sound, and as the very stones of the road followed to the +steps of the musician, so is it in the "Kalevala." But the Finnish Orpheus +is the greater magician. To hear him, the sun and moon come nearer to the +earth, the waves of the sea stop short, bending their heads; the cataracts +of the rivers hang motionless and silent; the fish raise their heads above +the water. And when he plays a sad melody, all nature weeps with him, even +the trees and the stones and the little plants by the wayside. And his own +tears in falling become splendid pearls for the crowns of kings. + +Then very wonderful too is the story of the eternal smith, Ilmarinen, who +forged the foundations of the world, forged the mountains, forged the blue +sky, so well forging them that nowhere can be seen the marks of the +pincer, the marks of the hammer, the heads of the nails. Working in his +smithy we see him all grime and black; upon his head there is one yard +deep of iron firing, upon his shoulders there is one fathom deep of +soot--the soot of the forge; for he seldom has time to bathe himself. But +when the notion takes him to get married, for the first time he bathes +himself, and dresses himself handsomely, then he becomes the most +beautiful of men. In order to win his wife he is obliged to perform +miracles of work; yet after he wins her she is killed by wild beasts. Then +he sets to work to forge himself a wife, a wife of silver, a bride of +gold. Very beautiful she is, but she has no heart, and she is always cold, +and there is no comfort in her; even all the magic of the world-maker can +not give her a warm heart. But the work is so beautiful that he does not +like to destroy it. So he takes the wife of silver, the bride of gold, to +the wisest of heroes, Wainamoinen, and offers her to him as a gift. But +the hero will have no such gift, "Throw her back into your forged fire, O +Ilmarinen," the hero makes answer--"What greater folly, what greater +sorrow can come upon man than to love a wife of silver, a bride of gold?" + +This pretty story needs no explanation; the moral is simply "Never marry +for money." + +Then there is the story of Lemminkainen (this personality suggested the +Pau-puk-keewis of Longfellow)--the joyous, reckless, handsome, mischievous +pleasure-lover,--always falling into trouble, because he will not follow +his mother's advice, but always loved by her in spite of his follies. The +mother of Lemminkainen is a more wonderful person than the mother of +Kullervo. Her son has been murdered, thrown into a river--the deepest of +all rivers, the river of the dead, the river of hell. And his mother goes +out to find him. She asks the trees in the forest to tell her where her +son is, and she obliges them to answer. But they do not know. She asks the +grass, the plants, the animals, the birds; she obliges even the road upon +which he walked to talk to her, she talks to the stars and the moon and +the sun. Only the sun knows, because he sees everything and he answers, +"Your son is dead, torn to pieces; he has been thrown into the river of +Tuoni, the river of hell, the river of the dead." But the mother does not +despair. Umarinen, the eternal smith, must make for her a rake of brass +with teeth long enough to reach into the world of the dead, into the +bottom of the abyss; and out of the abyss she brings up the parts of the +torn body of her son; she puts them together; she sings over them a magic +song; she brings her son to life again, and takes him home. But for a long +time he is not able to remember, because he has been dead. After a long +time he gets back his memory--only to get into new mischief out of which +his mother must help him afresh. + +The names of the three heroes quoted to you represent also the names of +three great stories, out of the many stories contained in the epics. But +in this epic, as in the Indian epics (I mean the Sanskrit epic), there is +much more than stories. There are also chapters of moral instruction of a +very curious kind--chapters about conduct, the conduct of the parents, the +conduct of the children, the conduct of the husband, the conduct of the +bride. The instructions to the bride are contained in the twenty-third +Rune; there are altogether fifty Runes in the book. This appears to me +likely to interest you, for it is written in relation to a family system +not at all like the family system of the rest of Europe. I think you will +find in it not a little that may remind you of Chinese teaching on the +same subject--the conduct of the daughter-in-law. But there are of course +many differences, and the most pleasing difference is the tone of great +tenderness in which the instructions are given. Let us quote some of them: + +"O young bride, O my young sister, O my well beloved and beautiful young +flower, listen to the words which I am going to speak to you, harken to +the lesson which I am going to teach you. You are going now very far away +from us, O beautiful flower!--you are going to take a long journey, O my +wild-strawberry fruit! you are about to fly away from us, O most delicate +down! you are about to leave us forever, O velvet tissue--far away from +this habitation you must go, far away from this beautiful house, to enter +another house, to enter into a strange family. And in that strange house +your position will be very different. There you will have to walk about +with care, to conduct yourself with prudence, to conduct yourself with +thoughtfulness. There you will not be able, as in the house of your +father, as in the dwelling of your mother, to run about where you please, +to run singing through the valleys, to warhle out your songs upon the +roadway. + +"New habits you must now learn, and forget all the old. You must abandon +the love of your father and content yourself with the love of your +father-in-law; you must bow very low, you must learn to be generous in the +use of courteous words. You must give up old habits and form new ones; you +must resign the love of your mother and content yourself with the love of +your step-mother: lower must you bow, and you must learn to be lavish in +the use of kindly words. + +"New habits you must learn and forget the old: you must leave behind you +the friendship of your brother, and content yourself with the friendship +of your brother-in-law; you must bow lower than you do now; you must learn +to be lavish of kindly words. + +"New habits you must acquire and forget the old ones; you must leave +behind you the friendship of your sister, and be satisfied with the +friendship of your sister-in-law; you must learn to make humble reverence, +to bow low, to be generous in kindly words. + +"If the old man in the corner be to you even like a wolf, if the old woman +in her corner be to you even as a she-bear in the house, if the +brother-in-law be to you even as a serpent upon the threshold, if the +sister-in-law be to you even as a sharp nail, none the less you must show +them each and all exactly the same respect and the same obedience that you +have been accustomed to display to your father, to display to your mother, +under the roof of your childhood home." + +Then follows a really terrible list of the duties that she must perform +every day from early morning until late at night; to mention them all +would take too long. I quote only a few, enough to show that the position +of a Finnish wife was by no means an easy one. + +"So soon as the cock crows in the morning you must be quick to rise; you +must keep your ears awake to hear the cry of the cock. And if there be no +cock, or the cock does not crow, then let the moon be as a cock for you, +let the constellation of the great Bear tell you when it is time to rise. +Then you must quickly make the fire, skilfully removing the ashes, without +sprinkling them upon the floor. Then quickly go to the stable, clean the +stable, take food to the cattle, feed all the animals on the farm. For +already the cow of your mother-in-law will be lowing for food; the horse +of your father-in-law will be whinnying; the milch cow of your +sister-in-law will be straining at her tether; the calf of your +brother-in-law will be bleating; for all will be waiting for her whose +duty it is to give them hay, whose duty it is to give them food." + +Like instructions are given about feeding the younger animals and the +fowls and the little pigs. But she must not forget the children of the +house at the same time: + +"When you have fed the animals and cleaned the stables come back quickly, +quickly as a snow-storm. For in the chamber the little child has awakened +and has begun to cry in his cradle. He cannot speak, poor little one; he +cannot tell you, if he be hungry or if he be cold, or if anything +extraordinary has happened to him, before someone that he knows has come +to care for him, before he hears the voice of his own mother." + +After enumerating and inculcating in the same manner all the duties of the +day, the conduct to be observed toward every member of the +family--father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister, and brother-in-law, and the +children of them--we find a very minute code of conduct set forth in +regard to neighbours and acquaintances. The young wife is especially +warned against gossip, against listening to any stories about what happens +in other people's houses, and against telling anybody what goes on within +her own. One piece of advice is memorable. If the young wife is asked +whether she is well fed, she should reply always that she has the best of +everything which a house can afford, this even if she should have been +left without any proper nourishment for several days. Evidently the +condition of submission to which Finnish women were reduced by custom was +something much less merciful than has ever been known in Eastern +countries. Only a very generous nature could bear such discipline; and we +have many glimpses in the poem of charming natures of this kind. + +You have seen that merely as a collection of wonderful stories the +Kalevala is of extraordinary interest, that it is also of interest as +describing the social ethics of a little known people--finally that it is +of interest, of very remarkable interest, merely as natural poetry--poetry +treating of wild nature, especially rivers and forests and mountains, of +the life of the fisher and hunter and wood-cutter. Indeed, so far as this +kind of poetry is concerned, the "Kalevala" stands alone among the older +productions of European poetry. You do not find this love of nature in +Scandinavian poetry, nor in Anglo-Saxon poetry, nor in old German poetry, +much less in the earlier form of French, Italian, or Spanish poetry. The +old Northern poetry comes nearest to it; for in Anglo-Saxon composition we +can find at least wonderful descriptions of the sea, of stones, of the +hard life of sailors. But the dominant tone in Northern poetry is war; it +is in descriptions of battle, or in accounts of the death of heroes, that +the ancient English or ancient Scandinavian poets excelled In Finnish +poetry, on the other hand, there is little or nothing about war. These +peaceful people never had any warlike history; their life was agricultural +for the most part, with little or no violence except such as the +excitement of hunting and fishing could produce. Therefore they had plenty +of time to think about nature, to love nature and to describe it as no +other people of the same period described it. Striking comparisons have +been made between the Anglo-Saxon Runes, or charm songs, and Finnish songs +of the same kind, which fully illustrate this difference. Like the Finns, +the early English had magical songs to the gods of nature--songs for the +healing of wounds and the banishing of sickness. But these are very +commonplace. Not one of them can compare as poetry with the verses of the +Finnish on the same subject. Here are examples in evidence. The first is a +prayer said when offering food to the Spirit of the forest, that he might +aid the hunter in his hunting. + +"Look, O Kuntar, a fat cake, a cake with honey, that I may propitiate the +forest, that I may propitiate the forest, that I may entice the thick +forest for the day of my hunting, when I go in search of prey. Accept my +salt, O wood, accept my porridge, O Tapio, dear king of the wood with the +hat of leaves, with the beard of moss." + +And here is a little prayer to the goddess of water repeated by a sick man +taking water as a medicine. + +"O pure water, O Lady of the Water, now do thou make me whole, lovely as +before! for this beg thee dearly, and in offering I give thee blood to +appease thee, salt to propitiate thee!" + +Or this: + +"Goddess of the Sea, mistress of waters, Queen of a hundred caves, arouse +the scaly flocks, urge on the fishy-crowds forth from their hiding places, +forth from the muddy shrine, forth from the net-hauling, to the nets of a +hundred fishers! Take now thy beauteous shield, shake the golden water, +with which thou frightenest the fish, and direct them toward the net +beneath the dark level, above the borders black." + +Yet another: + +"O vigorous mistress of the wild beasts, sweet lady of the earth, come +with me, be with me, where I go. Come thou and good luck bring me, to +happy fortune help me. Make thou to move the foliage, the fruit tree to be +shaken, and the wild beasts drive thither, the largest and the smallest, +with their snouts of every kind, with their paws of fur of all kinds!" + +Now when you look at these little prayers, when you read them over and +observe how pretty they are, you will also observe that they make little +pictures in the mind. Can not you see the fish gliding over the black +border under the dark level of the water, to the net of a hundred fishers? +Can you not see the "dear king of the wood," with his hat of leaves and +his beard of moss? Can you not also see in imagination the wild creatures +of the forest with their snouts of many shapes, with their fur of all +kinds? But in Anglo-Saxon poetry you will not find anything like that. +Anglo-Saxon Rune songs create no images. It is this picturesqueness, this +actuality of imagery that is distinctive in Finnish poetry. + +In the foregoing part of the lecture I have chiefly tried to interest you +in the "Kalevala." But aside from interesting you in the book itself as a +story, as a poem, I hope to direct your attention to a particular feature +in Finnish poetry which is most remote from Japanese poetry. I have spoken +of resemblances as to structure and method; but it is just in that part of +the method most opposed to Japanese tradition that the greatest interest +lies. I do not mean only the use of natural imagery; I mean much more the +use of parallelism to reinforce that imagery. That is the thing especially +worthy of literary study. Indeed, I think that such study might greatly +help towards a new development, a totally new departure in Japanese verse. +In another lecture I spoke as sincerely as I could of the very high merit +in the epigrammatic forms of Japanese poetry. These brief forms of poetry +have been developed in Japan to perfection not equalled elsewhere in +modern poetry, perhaps not surpassed, in some respects, even by Greek +poetry of the same kind. But there can be no doubt of this fact, that a +national literature requires many other forms of expression than the +epigrammatic form. Nothing that is good should ever be despised or cast +aside; but because of its excellences, we should not be blind to the +possibility of other excellences. Now Japanese literature has other forms +of poetry--forms in which it is possible to produce poems of immense +length, but the spirit of epigrammatic poetry has really been controlling +even these to a great degree. + +I mean that so far as I am able to understand the subject, the tendency of +all Japanese poetry is to terse expression. Were it not well therefore to +consider at least the possible result of a totally opposite +tendency,--expansion of fancy, luxuriance of expression? Terseness of +expression, pithiness, condensation, are of vast importance in prose, but +poetry has other methods, and the "Kalevala" is one of the best possible +object lessons in the study of such methods, because of the very +simplicity and naturalness with which they are followed. + +Of course there was parallelism in Western poetry, and all arts of +repetition, before anybody knew anything about the "Kalevala." The most +poetical part of Bible English, as I said, whether in the Bible itself or +in the Book of Common Prayer, depends almost entirely for its literary +effect upon parallelism, because the old Hebrews, like the old Finns, +practised this art of expression. Loosely and vaguely it was practised +also by many poets almost unconsciously, who had been particularly +influenced by the splendour of the scriptural translation. It had figured +in prose-poetry as early as the time of Sir Thomas Browne. It had +established quite a new idea of poetry even in America, where the great +American poet Poe introduced it into his compositions before Longfellow +studied the "Kalevala." I told you that the work of Poe, small as it is, +had influenced almost every poet of the great epoch, including Tennyson +and the Victorian masters. But the work even of Poe was rather instinctive +than the result of any systematic idea. The systematic idea was best +illustrated when the study of the "Kalevala" began. + +Let us see how Longfellow used the suggestion; but remember that he was +only a beginner, dealing with something entirely new--that he did not have +the strength of Tennyson nor the magical genius of Swinburne to help him. +He worked very simply, and probably very rapidly. There is a good deal of +his song of "Hiawatha" that is scarcely worthy of praise, and it is +difficult to quote effectively from it, because the charm of the thing +depends chiefly upon its reading as a whole. Nevertheless there are parts +which so well show or imitate the Finnish spirit, that I must try to quote +them. Take for instance the teaching of the little Indian child by his +grandmother--such verses as these, where she talks to the little boy about +the milky way in the sky: + + Many things Nokomis taught him + Of the stars that shine in heaven; + Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet, + Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses; + Showed the Death-Dance of the spirits, + Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs, + Flaring far away to northward + In the frosty nights of Winter; + Showed the broad, white road in heaven, + Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows, + Running straight across the heavens, + Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows. + +Or take again the story of the origin of the flower commonly called +"Dandelion": + + In his life he had one shadow, + In his heart one sorrow had he. + Once, as he was gazing northward, + Far away upon a prairie + He beheld a maiden standing, + Saw a tall and slender maiden + All alone upon a prairie; + Brightest green were all her garments + And her hair was like the sunshine. + Day by day he gazed upon her, + Day by day he sighed with passion, + Day by day his heart within him + Grew more hot with love and longing + For the maid with yellow tresses. + +Observe how the repetition served to represent the growing of the lover's +admiration. The same repetition can be used much more effectively in +describing weariness and pain, as In the lines about the winter famine: + + Oh, the long and dreary Winter! + Oh, the cold and cruel Winter! + Ever thicker, thicker, thicker + Froze the ice on lake and river, + Ever deeper, deeper, deeper + Fell the snow o'er all the landscape, + Fell the covering snow, and drifted + Through the forest, round the village. + Hardly from his buried wigwam + Could the hunter force a passage; + With his mittens and his snow-shoes + Vainly walked he through the forest, + Sought for bird or beast and found none, + Saw no track of deer or rabbit, + In the snow beheld no footprints, + In the ghastly, gleaming forest + Fell, and could not rise from weakness, + Perished there from cold and hunger. + Oh, the famine and the fever! + Oh, the wasting of the famine! + Oh, the blasting of the fever! + Oh, the wailing of the children! + Oh, the anguish of the women! + All the earth was sick and famished; + Hungry was the air around them, + Hungry was the sky above them, + And the hungry stars in heaven + Like the eyes of wolves glared at them! + +This is strong, emotionally strong, though it is not great poetry; but it +makes the emotional effect of great poetry by the use of the same means +which the Finnish poets used. The best part of the poem is the famine +chapter, and the next best is the part entitled "The Ghosts." However, the +charm of a composition can be fully felt only by those who understand +something of the American Indian's life and the wild northwestern country +described. That is not the immediate matter to be considered, +notwithstanding. The matter to be considered is whether this method of +using parallelism and repetition and alliteration can give new and great +results. I believe that it can, and that a greater Longfellow would have +brought such results into existence long ago. Of course, the form is +primitive; it does not follow that an English poet or a Japanese poet +should attempt only a return to primitive methods of poetry in detail. The +detail is of small moment; the spirit is everything. Parallelism means +simply the wish to present the same idea under a variety of aspects, +instead of attempting to put it forward in one aspect only. Everything +great in the way of thought, everything beautiful in the way of idea, has +many sides. It is merely the superficial which we can see from the front +only; the solid can be perceived from every possible direction, and +changes shape according to the direction looked at. + +The great master of English verse, Swinburne is also a poet much given to +parallelism; for he has found it of incomparable use to him in managing +new forms of verse. He uses it in an immense variety of ways--ways +impossible to Japanese poets or to Finnish poets; and the splendour of the +results can not be imitated in another language. But his case is +interesting. The most primitive methods of Finnish poetry, and of ancient +poetry in general, coming into his hands, are reproduced into music. I +propose to make a few quotations, in illustration. Here are some lines +from "Atalanta in Calydon"; they are only parallelisms, but how +magnificent they are! + + When thou dravest the men + Of the chosen of Thrace, + None turned him again, + Nor endured he thy face + Close round with the blush of the battle, with light from a + terrible place. + +Look again at the following lines from "A Song in Time of Revolution": + + There is none of them all that is whole; their lips gape open for + breath; + They are clothed with sickness of soul, and the shape of the shadow + of death. + + The wind is thwart in their feet; it is full of the shouting of mirth; + As one shaketh the sides of a sheet, so it shaketh the ends of the earth. + + The sword, the sword is made keen; the iron has opened its mouth; + The corn is red that was green; it is bound for the sheaves of the south. + + The sound of a word was shed, the sound of the wind as a breath, + In the ears of the souls that were dead, in the dust of the deepness + of death. + + Where the face of the moon is taken, the ways of the stars undone, + The light of the whole sky shaken, the light of the face of the sun. + + * * * * * + + Where the sword was covered and hidden, and dust had grown in its side, + A word came forth which was bidden, the crying of one that cried: + + The sides of the two-edged sword shall be bare, and its mouth shall + be red, + For the breath of the face of the Lord that is felt in the bones of + the dead. + +All this is indeed very grand compared with anything in the "Kalevala" or +in Longfellow's rendering; but do you not see that the grandeur is also +the grandeur of parallelism? Here is proof of what a master can do with a +method older than Western civilization. But what is the inference? Is it +not that the old primitive poetry contains something of eternal value, a +value ranging from the lowest even to the highest, a value that can lend +beauty equally to the song of a little child or to the thunder of the +grandest epic verse? + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ROMANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES + + +The value of romantic literature, which has been, so far as the Middle +Ages are concerned, unjustly depreciated, does not depend upon beauty of +words or beauty of fact. To-day the immense debt of modern literature to +the literature of the Middle Ages is better understood; and we are +generally beginning to recognize what we owe to the imagination of the +Middle Ages, in spite of the ignorance, the superstition and the cruelty +of that time. If the evils of the Middle Ages had really been universal, +those ages could not have imparted to us lessons of beauty and lessons of +nobility having nothing to do with literary form in themselves, yet +profoundly affecting modern poetry of the highest class. No; there was +very much of moral goodness as well as of moral badness in the Middle +Ages; and what was good happened to be very good indeed. Commonly it used +to be said (though I do not think any good critic would say it now) that +the fervid faith of the time made the moral beauty. Unless we modify this +statement a great deal, we can not now accept it at all. There was indeed +a religious beauty, particularly mediƦval, but it was not that which +created the romance of the period. Indeed, that romantic literature was +something of a reaction against the religious restraint upon imagination. +But if we mean by mediƦval faith only that which is very much older than +any European civilization, and which does not belong to the West any more +than to the East--the profound belief in human moral experience--then I +think that the statement is true enough. At no time in European history +were men more sincere believers in the value of certain virtues than +during the Middle Ages--and the very best of the romances are just those +romances which illustrate that belief, though not written for a merely +ethical purpose. + +But I can not better illustrate what I mean than by telling a story, which +has nothing to do with Europe, or the Middle Ages, or any particular form +of religious belief. It is not a Christian story at all; and it could not +be told you exactly as written, for there are some very curious pages in +it. But it is a good example of the worth that may lie in a mere product +of imagination. + +There was a king once, in Persia or Arabia, who, at the time of his +accession to power, discovered a wonderful subterranean hall under the +garden of his palace. In one chamber of that hall stood six marvellous +statues of young girls, each statue being made out of a single diamond. +The beauty as well as the cost of the work was beyond imagination. But in +the midst of the statues, which stood in a circle, there was an empty +pedestal, and on that pedestal was a precious casket containing a letter +from the dead father of the king. The letter said: + +"O my son, though these statues of girls are indeed beyond all praise, +there is yet a seventh statue incomparably more precious and beautiful +which I could not obtain before I died. It is now your duty, O my son, to +obtain that statue, that it may be placed upon the seventh pedestal. Go, +therefore, and ask my favourite slave, who is still alive, how you are to +obtain it." Then the young king went in all haste to that old slave, who +had been his father's confidant, and showed him the letter. And the old +man said, "Even now, O master, I will go with you to find that statue. But +it is in one of the three islands in which the genii dwell; and it is +necessary, above all things, that you do not fear, and that you obey my +instructions in all things. Also, remember that if you make a promise to +the Spirits of that land, the promise must be kept." + +And they proceeded upon their journey through a great wilderness, in which +"nothing existed but grass and the presence of God." I can not try now to +tell you about the wonderful things that happened to them, nor about the +marvellous boat, rowed by a boatman having upon his shoulders the head of +an elephant. Suffice it to say that at last they reached the palace of the +king of the Spirits; and the king came to meet them in the form of a +beautiful old man with a long white beard. And he said to the young king, +"My son, I will gladly help you, as I helped your father; and I will give +you that seventh statue of diamond which you desire. But I must ask for a +gift in return. You must bring to me here a young girl of about sixteen +years old; and she must be very intelligent; and she must be a true +maiden, not only as to her body, but as to her soul, and heart, and all +her thoughts." The young king thought that was a very easy thing to find, +but the king of the Spirits assured him that it was not, and further told +him this, "My son, no mortal man is wise enough to know by his own wisdom +the purity that is in the heart of a young girl. Only by the help of this +magical mirror, which I now lend you, will you be able to know. Look at +the reflection of any maiden in this mirror, and then, if her heart is +perfectly good and pure, the mirror will remain bright. But if there be +any fault in her, the mirror will grow dim. Go now, and do my bidding." + +You can imagine, of course, what happened next. Returning to his kingdom, +the young king had brought before him many beautiful girls, the daughters +of the noblest and highest in all the cities of the land. But in no case +did the mirror remain perfectly clear when the ghostly test was applied. +For three years in vain the king sought; then in despair he for the first +time turned his attention to the common people. And there came before him +on the very first day a rude man of the desert, who said, "I know of just +such a girl as you want." Then he went forth and presently returned with a +simple girl from the desert, who had been brought up in the care of her +father only, and had lived with no other companion than the members of her +own family and the camels and horses of the encampment. And as she stood +in her poor dress before the king, he saw that she was much more beautiful +than any one whom he had seen before; and he questioned her, only to find +that she was very intelligent; and she was not at all afraid or ashamed of +standing before the king, but looked about her with large wondering eyes, +like the eyes of a child; and whoever met that innocent gaze, felt a great +joy in his heart, and could not tell why. And when the king had the mirror +brought, and the reflection of the girl was thrown upon it, the mirror +became much brighter than before, and shone like a great moon. + +There was the maid whom the Spirit-king wished for. The king easily +obtained her from her parents; but he did not tell her what he intended to +do with her. Now it was his duty to give her to the Spirits; but there was +a condition he found very hard to fulfil. By the terms of his promise he +was not allowed to kiss her, to caress her, or even to see her, except +veiled after the manner of the country. Only by the mirror had he been +able to know how fair she was. And the voyage was long; and on the way, +the girl, who thought she was going to be this king's bride, became +sincerely attached to him, after the manner of a child with a brother; and +he also in his heart became much attached to her. But it was his duty to +give her up. At last they reached the palace of the Spirit-king; and the +figure of the old man came forth and said, "My son, you have done well and +kept your promise. This maiden is all that I could have wished for; and I +accept her. Now when you go back to your palace, you will find on the +seventh pedestal the statue of the diamond which your father desired you +to obtain." And, with these words, the Spirit-king vanished, taking with +him the girl, who uttered a great and piercing cry to heaven at having +been thus deceived. Very sorrowfully the young king then began his journey +home. All along the way he kept regretting that girl, and regretting the +cruelty which he had practised in deceiving her and her parents. And he +began to say to himself, "Accursed be the gift of the king of the Spirits! +Of what worth to me is a woman of diamond any more than a woman of stone? +What is there in all the world half so beautiful or half so precious as a +living girl such as I discovered? Fool that I was to give her up for the +sake of a statue!" But he tried to console himself by remembering that he +had obeyed his dead father's wish. + +Still, he could not console himself. Reaching his palace, he went to his +secret chamber to weep alone, and he wept night and day, in spite of the +efforts of his ministers to comfort him. But at last one of them said, "O +my king, in the hall beneath your garden there has appeared a wonderful +statue upon the seventh pedestal; perchance if you go to see it, your +heart will become more joyful." + +Then with great reluctance the king properly dressed himself, and went to +the subterranean hall. + +There indeed was the statue, the gift of the Spirit-king; and very +beautiful it was. But it was not made of diamond, and it looked so +strangely like the girl whom he had lost, that the king's heart leapt in +his breast for astonishment. He put out his hand and touched the statue, +and found it warm with life and youth. And a sweet voice said to him, +"Yes, it is really I--have you forgotten?" + +Thus she was given back to him; and the Spirit-king came to their wedding, +and thus addressed the bridegroom, "O my son, for your dead father's sake +I did this thing. For it was meant to teach you that the worth of a really +pure and perfect woman is more than the price of any diamond or any +treasure that the earth can yield." + +Now you can see at once the beauty of this story; and the moral of it is +exactly the same as that of the famous verse, in the Book of Proverbs, +"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies." But it +is simply a story from the "Arabian Nights"--one of those stories which +you will not find in the ordinary European translations, because it is +written in such a way that no English translator except Burton would have +dared to translate it quite literally. The obscenity of parts of the +original does not really detract in the least from the beauty and +tenderness of the motive of the story; and we must remember that what we +call moral or immoral in style depends very much upon the fashion of an +age and time. + +Now it is exactly the same kind of moral charm that distinguishes the best +of the old English romances--a charm which has nothing to do with the +style, but everything to do with the feeling and suggestion of the +composition. But in some of the old romances, the style too has a very +great charm of quaintness and simplicity and sincerity not to be imitated +to-day. In this respect the older French romances, from which the English +made their renderings, are much the best. And the best of all is said to +be "Amis and Amile," which the English rendered as "Amicus and Amelius." +Something of the story ought to interest you. + +The whole subject of this romance is the virtue of friendship, though this +of course involves a number of other virtues quite as distinguished. Amis +and Amile, that is to say Amicus and Amelius, are two young knights who at +the beginning of their career become profoundly attached to each other. +Not content with the duties of this natural affection, they imposed upon +themselves all the duties which chivalry also attached to the office of +friend. The romance tells of how they triumphed over every conceivable +test to which their friendship was subjected. Often and often the +witchcraft of woman worked to separate them, but could not. Both married, +yet after marriage their friendship was just as strong as before. Each has +to fight many times on account of the other, and suffer all things which +it is most hard for a proud and brave man to bear. But everything is +suffered cheerfully, and the friends are such true knights that, in all +their trials, neither does anything wrong, or commits the slightest fault +against truth--until a certain sad day. On that day it is the duty of Amis +to fight in a trial by battle. But he is sick, and can not fight; then to +save his honour his friend Amile puts on the armour and helmet of Amis, +and so pretending to be Amis, goes to the meeting place, and wins the +fight gloriously. But this was an act of untruthfulness; he had gone into +battle under a false name, and to do anything false even for a good motive +is bad. So heaven punishes him by afflicting him with the horrible disease +of leprosy. + +The conditions of leprosy in the Middle Ages were of a peculiar kind. The +disease seems to have been introduced into Europe from Asia--perhaps by +the Crusaders. Michelet suggests that it may have resulted from the +European want of cleanliness, brought about by ascetic teachings--for the +old Greek and Roman public bath-houses were held in horror by the mediƦval +Church. But this is not at all certain. What is certain is that in the +thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries leprosy became very +prevalent. The disease was not then at all understood; it was supposed to +be extremely contagious, and the man afflicted by it was immediately +separated from society, and not allowed to live in any community under +such conditions as could bring him into contact with other inhabitants. +His wife or children could accompany him only on the terrible condition of +being considered lepers. Every leper wore a kind of monk's dress, with a +hood covering the face; and he had to carry a bell and ring it constantly +to give notice of his approach. Special leper-houses were built near every +town, where such unfortunates might obtain accommodation. They were +allowed to beg, but it was considered dangerous to go very near them, so +that in most cases alms or food would be thrown to them only, instead of +being put into their hands. + +Now when the victim of leprosy in this romance is first afflicted by the +disease, he happens to be far away from his good friend. And none of his +own family is willing to help him; he is regarded with superstitious as +well as with physical horror. There is nothing left for him to do but to +yield up his knighthood and his welfare and his family, to put on the +leper's robe, and to go begging along the roads, carrying a leper's bell. +And this he does. For long, long months he goes begging from town to town, +till at last, by mere chance, he finds his way to the gate of the great +castle where his good friend is living--now a great prince, and married to +the daughter of the king. And he asks at the castle gate for charity and +for food. + +Now the porter at the gate observes that the leper has a very beautiful +cup, exactly resembling a drinking cup belonging to his master, and he +thinks it his duty to tell these things to the lord of the castle. And the +lord of the castle remembers that very long ago he and his friend each had +a cup of this kind, given to them by the bishop of Rome. So, hearing the +porter's story, he knew that the leper at the gate was the friend who "had +delivered him from death, and won for him the daughter of the King of +France to be his wife." Here I had better quote from the French version of +the story, in which the names of the friends are changed, but without +changing the beauty of the tale itself: + +"And straightway he fell upon him, and began to weep greatly, and kissed +him. And when his wife heard that, she ran out with her hair in disarray, +weeping and distressed exceedingly--for she remembered that it was he who +had slain the false Ardres. And thereupon they placed him in a fair bed, +and said to him, 'Abide with us until God's will be accomplished in thee, +for all that we have is at thy service.' So he abode with them." + +You must understand, by the allusion to "God's will," that leprosy was in +the Middle Ages really considered to be a punishment from heaven--so that +in taking a leper into his castle, the good friend was not only offending +against the law of the land, but risking celestial punishment as well, +according to the notions of that age. His charity, therefore, was true +charity indeed, and his friendship without fear. But it was going to be +put to a test more terrible than any ever endured before. To comprehend +what followed, you must know that there was one horrible superstition of +the Middle Ages--the belief that by bathing in human blood the disease of +leprosy might be cured. Murders were often committed under the influence +of that superstition. I believe you will remember that the "Golden Legend" +of Longfellow is founded upon a mediƦval story in which a young girl +voluntarily offers up her life in order that her blood may cure the +leprosy of her king. In the present romance there is much more tragedy. +One night while sleeping in his friend's castle, the leper was awakened by +an angel from God--Raphael--who said to him: + +"I am Raphael, the angel of the Lord, and I am come to tell thee how thou +mayst be healed. Thou shalt bid Amile thy comrade that he slay his two +children and wash thee in their blood, and so thy body shall be made +whole." And Amis said to him, "Let not this thing be, that my comrade +should become a murderer for my sake." But the angel said, "It is +convenient that he do this." And thereupon the angel departed. + +The phrase, "it is convenient," must be understood as meaning, "it is +ordered." For the mediƦval lord used such gentle expressions when issuing +his commands; and the angel talked like a feudal messenger. But in spite +of the command, the sick man does not tell his friend about the angel's +visit, until Amile, who has overheard the voice, forces him to acknowledge +whom he had been talking with during the night. And the emotion of the +lord may be imagined, though he utters it only in the following gentle +words--"I would have given to thee my man servants and my maid servants +and all my goods--and thou feignest that an angel hath spoken to thee that +I should slay my two children. But I conjure thee by the faith which there +is between me and thee and by our comradeship, and by the baptism we +received together, that thou tell me whether it was man or angel said that +to thee." + +Amis declares that it was really an angel, and Amile never thinks of +doubting his friend's word. It would be a pity to tell you the sequel in +my own words; let me quote again from the text, translated by Walter +Pater. I think you will find it beautiful and touching: + +"Then Amile began to weep in secret, and thought within himself, 'If this +man was ready to die before the King for me, shall I not for him slay my +children? Shall I not keep faith with him who was faithful to me even unto +death?' And Amile tarried no longer, but departed to the chamber of his +wife, and bade her go to hear the Sacred Office. And he took a sword, and +went to the bed where the children were lying, and found them asleep. And +he lay down over them and began to weep bitterly and said, 'Has any man +yet heard of a father who of his own will slew his children? Alas, my +children! I am no longer your father, but your cruel murderer.' + +"And the children awoke at the tears of their father, which fell upon +them; and they looked up into his face and began to laugh. And as they +were of age about three years, he said, 'Your laughing will be turned into +tears, for your innocent blood must now be shed'; and therewith he cut off +their heads. Then he laid them back in the bed, and put the heads upon the +bodies, and covered them as though they slept; and with the blood which he +had taken he washed his comrade, and said, 'Lord Jesus Christ! who hast +commanded men to keep faith on earth, and didst heal the leper by Thy +word! cleanse now my comrade, for whose love I have shed the blood of my +children.'" And of course the leper is immediately and completely cured. +But the mother did not know anything about the killing of the children; we +have to hear something about her share in the tragedy. Let me again quote, +this time giving the real and very beautiful conclusion-- + +"Now neither the father nor the mother had yet entered where the children +were, but the father sighed heavily because they were dead, and the mother +asked for them, that they might rejoice together; but Amile said, 'Dame! +let the children sleep.' And it was already the hour of Tierce. And going +in alone to the children to weep over them, he found them at play in the +bed; only, in the place of the sword-cuts about their throats was, as it +were, a thread of crimson. And he took them in his arms and carried them +to his wife and said, 'Rejoice greatly! For thy children whom I had slain +by the commandment of the angel, are alive, and by their blood is Amis +healed.'" + +I think you will all see how fine a story this is, and feel the emotional +force of the grand moral idea behind it. There is nothing more to tell +you, except the curious fact that during the Middle Ages, when it was +believed that the story was really true, Amis and Amile--or Amicus and +Amelius--were actually considered by the Church as saints, and people used +to pray to them. When anybody was anxious for his friend, or feared that +he might lose the love of his friend, or was afraid that he might not have +strength to perform his duty as friend--then he would go to church to +implore help from the good saints Amicus and Amelius. But of course it was +all a mistake--a mistake which lasted until the end of the seventeenth +century! Then somebody called the attention of the Church to the +unmistakable fact that Amicus and Amelius were merely inventions of some +mediƦval romancer. Then the Church made investigation, and greatly +shocked, withdrew from the list of its saints those long-loved names of +Amicus and Amelius--a reform in which I cannot help thinking the Church +made a very serious mistake. What matter whether those shadowy figures +represented original human lives or only human dreams? They were +beautiful, and belief in them made men think beautiful thoughts, and the +imagined help from them had comforted many thousands of hearts. It would +have been better to have left them alone; for that matter, how many of the +existent lives of saints are really true? Nevertheless the friends are not +dead, though expelled from the heaven of the Church. They still live in +romance; and everybody who reads about them feels a little better for +their acquaintance. + +What I read to you was from the French version--that is much the more +beautiful of the two. You will find some extracts from the English version +in the pages of Ten Brink. But as that great German scholar pointed out, +the English story is much rougher than the French. For example, in the +English story, the knight rushes out of his castle to beat the leper at +the gate, and to accuse him of having stolen the cup. And he does beat him +ferociously, and abuses him with very violent terms. In fact, the English +writer reflected too much of mediƦval English character, in trying to +cover, or to improve upon, the French story, which was the first. In the +French story all is knightly smooth, refined as well as simple and strong. +And where did the mediƦval imagination get its material for the story? +Partly, perhaps, from the story of Joseph in the Bible, partly from the +story of Abraham; but the scriptural material is so admirably worked over +that the whole thing appears deliciously original. That was the great art +of the Middle Ages--to make old, old things quite new by the magic of +spiritual imagination. Men then lived in a world of dreams. And that world +still attracts us, for the simple reason that happiness chiefly consists +in dreams. Exact science may help us a great deal no doubt, but +mathematics do not make us any happier. Dreams do, if we can believe them. +The Middle Ages could believe them; we, at the best, can only try. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +"IONICA" + + +I am going now to talk about a very rare kind of poetry in a very rare +little book, like fine wine in a small and precious flask. The author +never put his name to the book--indeed for many years it was not known who +wrote the volume. We now know that the author was a school teacher called +William Johnson who, later in life, coming into a small fortune, changed +his name to William Cory. He was born sometime about 1823, and died in +1892. He was, I believe, an Oxford man and was assistant master of Eton +College for a number of years. Judging from his poems, he must have found +pleasure in his profession as well as pain. There is a strange sadness +nearly always, but this sadness is mixed with expressions of love for the +educational establishment which he directed, and for the students whose +minds he helped to form. He must have been otherwise a very shy man. +Scarcely anything seems to be known about him after his departure from +educational circles, although everybody of taste now knows his poems. I +wish to speak of them because I think that literary graduates of this +university ought to be at least familiar with the name "Ionica." At all +events you should know something about the man and about the best of his +poems. If you should ask why so little has yet been said about him in +books on English literature, I would answer that in the first place he was +a very small poet writing in the time of giants, having for competitors +Tennyson, Browning and others. He could scarcely make his small pipe heard +in the thunder of those great organ tones. In the second place his verses +were never written to please the public at all. They were written only for +fine scholars, and even the titles of many of them cannot be explained by +a person devoid of some Greek culture. So the little book, which appeared +quite early in the Victorian Age, was soon forgotten. Being forgotten it +ran out of print and disappeared. Then somebody remembered that it had +existed. I have told you that it was like the tone of a little pipe or +flute as compared with the organ music of the larger poets. But the little +pipe happened to be a Greek pipe--the melody was very sweet and very +strange and old, and people who had heard it once soon wanted to hear it +again. But they could not get it. Copies of the first edition fetched +extraordinary sums. Some few years ago a new edition appeared, but this +too is now out of print and is fetching fancy prices. However, you must +not expect anything too wonderful from this way of introducing the +subject. The facts only show that the poems are liked by persons of +refinement and wealth. I hope to make you like some of them, but the +difficulties of so doing are considerable, because of the extremely +English character of some pieces and the extremely Greek tone of others. +There is also some uneven work. The poet is not in all cases successful. +Sometimes he tried to write society verse, and his society verse must be +considered a failure. The best pieces are his Greek pieces and some +compositions on love subjects of a most delicate and bewitching kind. + +Of course the very name "Ionica" suggests Greek work, a collection of +pieces in Ionic style. But you must not think that this means only +repetitions of ancient subjects. This author brings the Greek feeling back +again into the very heart of English life sometimes, or makes an English +fact illustrate a Greek fable. Some delightful translations from the Greek +there are, but less than half a dozen in all. + +I scarcely know how to begin--what piece to quote first. But perhaps the +little fancy called "Mimnermus in Church" is the best known, and the one +which will best serve to introduce us to the character of Cory. Before +quoting it, however, I must explain the title briefly. Mimnermus was an +old Greek philosopher and poet who thought that all things in the world +are temporary, that all hope of a future life is vain, that there is +nothing worth existing for except love, and that without affection one +were better dead. There are, no doubt, various modern thinkers who tell +you much the same thing, and this little poem exhibits such modern feeling +in a Greek dress. I mean that we have here a picture of a young man, a +young English scholar, listening in church to Christian teaching, but +answering that teaching with the thought of the old Greeks. There is of +course one slight difference; the modern conception of love is perhaps a +little wider in range than that of the old Greeks. There is more of the +ideal in it. + + +MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH + + You promise heavens free from strife, + Pure truth, and perfect change of will; + But sweet, sweet is this human life, + So sweet, I fain would breathe it still; + Your chilly stars I can forego, + This warm kind world is all I know. + + You say there is no substance here, + One great reality above: + Back from that void I shrink in fear + And child-like hide myself in love; + Show me what angels feel. Till then + I cling, a mere weak man, to men. + + You bid me lift my mean desires + From faltering lips and fitful veins + To sexless souls, ideal choirs, + Unwearied voices, wordless strains; + My mind with fonder welcome owns + One dear dead friend's remembered tones. + + Forsooth the present we must give + To that which cannot pass away; + All beauteous things for which we live + By laws of time and space decay. + But oh, the very reason why + I clasp them, is because they die. + +The preacher has been talking to his congregation about the joys of +Heaven. There, he says, there will be no quarrelling, no contest, no +falsehood, and all evil dispositions will be entirely changed to good. The +poet answers, "This world and this life are full of beauty and of joy for +me. I do not want to die, I want to live. I do not wish to go to that cold +region of stars about which you teach. I only know this world and I find +in it warm hearts and precious affection. You say that this world is a +phantom, unsubstantial, unreal, and that the only reality is above, in +Heaven. To me that Heaven appears but as an awful emptiness. I shrink from +it in terror, and like a child seek for consolation in human love. It is +no use to talk to me about angels until you can prove to me that angels +can feel happier than men. I prefer to remain with human beings. You say +that I ought to wish for higher things than this world can give, that here +minds are unsteady and weak, hearts fickle and selfish, and you talk of +souls without sex, imaginary concerts of perfect music, tireless singing +in Heaven, and the pleasure of conversation without speech. But all the +happiness that we know is received from our fellow beings. I remember the +voice of one dead friend with deeper love and pleasure than any images of +Heaven could ever excite in my mind." + +The last stanza needs no paraphrasing, but it deserves some comment, for +it is the expression of one great difference between the old Greek feeling +in regard to life and death, and all modern religious feeling on the same +subject. You can read through hundreds of beautiful inscriptions which +were placed over the Greek tombs. They are contained in the Greek +Anthology. You will find there almost nothing about hope of a future life, +or about Heaven. They are not for the most part sad; they are actually +joyous in many cases. You would say that the Greek mind thought thus about +death--"I have had my share of the beauty and the love of this world, and +I am grateful for this enjoyment, and now it is time to go to sleep." +There is actually an inscription to the effect, "I have supped well of the +banquet of life." The Eastern religions, including Christianity, taught +that because everything in the world is uncertain, impermanent, +perishable, therefore we ought not to allow our minds to love worldly +things. But the Greek mind, as expressed by the old epigraphy in the +cemeteries, not less than by the teaching of Mimnermus, took exactly the +opposite view. "O children of men, it is because beauty and pleasure and +love and light can last only for a little while, it is exactly because of +this that you should love them. Why refuse to enjoy the present because it +can not last for ever?" And at a much later day the Persian poet Omar +took, you will remember, precisely the same view. You need not think that +it would be wise to accept such teaching for a rule of life, but it has a +certain value as a balance to the other extreme view, that we should make +ourselves miserable in this world with the idea of being rewarded in +another, concerning which we have no positive knowledge. The lines with +which the poem concludes at least deserve to be thought about-- + + But oh, the very reason why + I clasp them, is because they die. + +We shall later on take some of the purely Greek work of Cory for study, +but I want now to interest you in the more modern part of it. The charm of +the following passage you will better feel by remembering that the writer +was then a schoolmaster at Eton, and that the verses particularly express +the love which he felt for his students--a love the more profound, +perhaps, because the circumstances of the teacher's position obliged him +to appear cold and severe, obliged him to suppress natural impulses of +affection and generosity. The discipline of the masters in English public +schools is much more severe than the discipline to which the students are +subjected. The boys enjoy a great deal of liberty. The masters may be said +to have none. Yet there are men so constituted that they learn to greatly +love the profession. The title of this poem is "Reparabo," which means "I +will atone." + + The world will rob me of my friends, + For time with her conspires; + But they shall both, to make amends, + Relight my slumbering fires. + + For while my comrades pass away + To bow and smirk and gloze, + Come others, for as short a stay; + And dear are these as those. + + And who was this? they ask; and then + The loved and lost I praise: + "Like you they frolicked; they are men; + Bless ye my later days." + + Why fret? The hawks I trained are flown; + 'Twas nature bade them range; + I could not keep their wings half-grown, + I could not bar the change. + + With lattice opened wide I stand + To watch their eager flight; + With broken jesses in my hand + I muse on their delight. + + And oh! if one with sullied plume + Should droop in mid career, + My love makes signals,--"There is room, + O bleeding wanderer, here." + +This comparison of the educator to a falconer, and of the students to +young hawks eager to break their jesses seems to an Englishman +particularly happy in reference to Eton, from which so many youths pass +into the ranks of the army and navy. The line about bowing, smirking and +glozing, refers to the comparative insincerity of the higher society into +which so many of the scholars must eventually pass. "Smirking" suggests +insincere smiles, "glozing" implies tolerating or lightly passing over +faults or wrongs or serious matters that should not be considered lightly. +Society is essentially insincere and artificial in all countries, but +especially so in England. The old Eton master thinks, however, that he +knows the moral character of the boys, the strong principles which make +its foundation, and he trusts that they will be able in a general way to +do only what is right, in spite of conventions and humbug. + +As I told you before, we know very little about the personal life of Cory, +who must have been a very reserved man; but a poet puts his heart into his +verses as a general rule, and there are many little poems in this book +that suggest to us an unhappy love episode. These are extremely pretty and +touching, the writer in most cases confessing himself unworthy of the +person who charmed him; but the finest thing of the kind is a composition +which he suggestively entitled "A Fable"--that is to say, a fable in the +Greek sense, an emblem or symbol of truth. + + An eager girl, whose father buys + Some ruined thane's forsaken hall, + Explores the new domain and tries + Before the rest to view it all. + +I think you have often noted the fact here related; when a family moves to +a new house, it is the child, or the youngest daughter, who is the first +to explore all the secrets of the new residence, and whose young eyes +discover things which the older folks had not noticed. + + Alone she lifts the latch, and glides, + Through many a sadly curtained room, + As daylight through the doorway slides + And struggles with the muffled gloom. + + With mimicries of dance she wakes + The lordly gallery's silent floor, + And climbing up on tiptoe, makes + The old-world mirror smile once more. + + With tankards dry she chills her lips, + With yellowing laces veils the head, + And leaps in pride of ownership + Upon the faded marriage bed. + + A harp in some dark nook she sees + Long left a prey to heat and frost, + She smites it; can such tinklings please? + Is not all worth, all beauty, lost? + + Ah, who'd have thought such sweetness clung + To loose neglected strings like those? + They answered to whate'er was sung, + And sounded as a lady chose. + + Her pitying finger hurried by + Each vacant space, each slackened chord; + Nor would her wayward zeal let die + The music-spirit she restored. + + The fashion quaint, the timeworn flaws, + The narrow range, the doubtful tone, + All was excused awhile, because + It seemed a creature of her own. + + Perfection tires; the new in old, + The mended wrecks that need her skill, + Amuse her. If the truth be told, + She loves the triumph of her will. + + With this, she dares herself persuade, + She'll be for many a month content, + Quite sure no duchess ever played + Upon a sweeter instrument. + + And thus in sooth she can beguile + Girlhood's romantic hours, but soon + She yields to taste and mood and style, + A siren of the gay saloon. + + And wonders how she once could like + Those drooping wires, those failing notes, + And leaves her toy for bats to strike + Amongst the cobwebs and the motes. + + But enter in, thou freezing wind, + And snap the harp-strings, one by one; + It was a maiden blithe and kind: + They felt her touch; their task is done. + +In this charming little study we know that the harp described is not a +harp; it is the loving heart of an old man, at least of a man beyond the +usual age of lovers. He has described and perhaps adored some beautiful +person who seemed to care for him, and who played upon his heart, with her +whims, caresses, smiles, much as one would play upon the strings of a +harp. She did not mean to be cruel at all, nor even insincere. It is even +probable that she really in those times thought that she loved the man, +and under the charms of the girl the man became a different being; the +old-fashioned mind brightened, the old-fashioned heart exposed its hidden +treasures of tenderness and wisdom and sympathy. Very much like playing +upon a long forgotten instrument, was the relation between the maiden and +the man--not only because he resembled such an instrument in the fact of +belonging emotionally and intellectually to another generation, but also +because his was a heart whose true music had long been silent, unheard by +the world. Undoubtedly the maiden meant no harm, but she caused a great +deal of pain, for at a later day, becoming a great lady of society, she +forgot all about this old friendship, or perhaps wondered why she ever +wasted her time in talking to such a strange old-fashioned professor. Then +the affectionate heart is condemned to silence again, to silence and +oblivion, like the harp thrown away in some garret to be covered with +cobwebs and visited only by bats. "Is it not time," the old man thinks, +"that the strings should be broken, the strings of the heart? Let the cold +wind of death now come and snap them." Yet, after all, why should he +complain? Did he not have the beautiful experience of loving, and was she +not in that time at least well worthy of the love that she called forth +like music? + +There are several other poems referring to what would seem to be the same +experience, and all are beautiful, but one seems to me nobler than the +rest, expressing as it does a generous resignation. It is called +"Deteriora," a Latin word signifying lesser, inferior, or deteriorated +things--not easy to translate. Nor would you find the poem easy to +understand, referring as it does to conditions of society foreign to +anything in Japanese experience. But some verses which I may quote you +will like. + + If fate and nature screen from me + The sovran front I bowed before, + And set the glorious creature free, + Whom I would clasp, detain, adore,-- + If I forego that strange delight, + Must all be lost? Not quite, not quite. + + _Die, Little Love, without complaint, + Whom honour standeth by to shrive: + AssoilĆØd from all selfish taint, + Die, Love, whom Friendship will survive. + Not hate nor folly gave thee birth; + And briefness does but raise thy worth._ + +This is the same thought which Tennyson expressed in his famous lines, + + 'Tis better to have loved and lost + Than never to have loved at all. + +But it is still more finely expressed to meet a particular personal mood. +One must not think the world lost because a woman has been lost, he says, +and such a love is not a thing for any man to be ashamed of, in spite of +the fact that it has been disappointed. It was honourable, unselfish, not +inspired by any passion or any folly, and the very brevity of the +experience only serves to make it more precious. Observe the use of the +words "shrive" and "assoiled." These refer to the old religious custom of +confession; to "shrive" signifies to forgive, to free from sin, as a +priest is supposed to do, and "assoiled" means "purified." + +If this was a personal experience, it must have been an experience of +advanced life. Elsewhere the story of a boyish love is told very prettily, +under the title of "Two Fragments of Childhood." This is the first +fragment: + + When these locks were yellow as gold, + When past days were easily told, + Well I knew the voice of the sea, + Once he spake as a friend to me. + Thunder-rollings carelessly heard, + Once that poor little heart they stirred, + Why, Oh, why? + Memory, memory! + She that I wished to be with was by. + + Sick was I in those misanthrope days + Of soft caresses, womanly ways; + Once that maid on the stair I met + Lip on brow she suddenly set. + Then flushed up my chivalrous blood, + Like Swiss streams in a mid-summer flood. + Then, Oh, then, + Imogen, Imogen! + Hadst thou a lover, whose years were ten. + +This is evidently the charming memory of a little sick boy sent to the +seaside for his health, according to the English custom, and unhappy +there, unable to play about like stronger children, and obliged to remain +under the constant care of nurses and female relatives. But in the same +house there is another family with a beautiful young daughter, probably +sixteen or eighteen years old. The little boy wishes, wishes so much that +the beautiful lady would speak to him and play with him, but he is shy, +afraid to approach her--only looks at her with great admiring loving eyes. +But one day she meets him on the stairs, and stoops down and kisses him on +the forehead. Then he is in Heaven. Afterward no doubt she played with +him, and they walked up and down by the shore of the sea together, and +now, though an old man, whenever he hears the roar of the sea he remembers +the beautiful lady who played with him and caressed him, when he was a +little sick child. How much he loved her! But she was a woman, and he was +only ten years old. The reference to "chivalrous blood" signifies just +this, that at the moment when she kissed him he would have given his life +for her, would have dared anything or done anything to show his devotion +to her. No prettier memory of a child could be told. + +We can learn a good deal about even the shyest of the poets through a +close understanding of his poetry. From the foregoing we know that Cory +must have been a sickly child; and from other poems referring to school +life we can not escape the supposition that he was not a strong lad. In +one of his verses he speaks of being unable to join in the hearty play of +his comrades; and in the poem which touches on the life of the mature man +we find him acknowledging that he believed his life a failure--a failure +through want of strength. I am going to quote this poem for other reasons. +It is a beautiful address either to some favourite student or to a beloved +son--it is impossible to decide which. But that does not matter. The title +is "A New Year's Day." + + Our planet runs through liquid space, + And sweeps us with her in the race; + And wrinkles gather on my face, + And Hebe bloom on thine: + Our sun with his encircling spheres + Around the central sun careers; + And unto thee with mustering years + Come hopes which I resign. + + 'Twere sweet for me to keep thee still + Reclining halfway up the hill; + But time will not obey the will, + And onward thou must climb: + 'Twere sweet to pause on this descent, + To wait for thee and pitch my tent, + But march I must with shoulders bent, + Yet further from my prime. + + _I shall not tread thy battlefield, + Nor see the blazon on thy shield; + Take thou the sword I could not wield, + And leave me, and forget. + Be fairer, braver, more admired; + So win what feeble hearts desired; + Then leave thine arms, when thou art tired, + To some one nobler yet._ + +How beautiful this is, and how profoundly sad! + +I shall return to the personal poetry of Cory later on, but I want now to +give you some examples of his Greek work. Perhaps the best of this is +little more than a rendering of Greek into English; some of the work is +pure translation. But it is the translation of a very great master, the +perfect rendering of Greek feeling as well as of Greek thought. Here is an +example of pure translation: + + They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, + They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. + I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I + Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. + And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, + A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest, + Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake; + For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take. + +What are "thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales"? They are the songs which +the dear dead poet made, still sung in his native country, though his body +was burned to ashes long ago--has been changed into a mere handful of grey +ashes, which, doubtless, have been placed in an urn, as is done with such +ashes to-day in Japan. Death takes away all things from man, but not his +poems, his songs, the beautiful thoughts which he puts into musical verse. +These will always be heard like nightingales. The fourth line in the first +stanza contains an idiom which may not be familiar to you. It means only +that the two friends talked all day until the sun set in the West, and +still talked on after that. Tennyson has used the same Greek thought in a +verse of his poem, "A Dream of Fair Women," where Cleopatra says, + + "We drank the Libyan sun to sleep." + +The Greek author of the above poem was the great poet Callimachus, and the +English translator does not think it necessary even to give the name, as +he wrote only for folk well acquainted with the classics. He has another +short translation which he accompanies with the original Greek text; it is +very pretty, but of an entirely different kind, a kind that may remind you +of some Japanese poems. It is only about a cicada and a peasant girl, and +perhaps it is twenty-four or twenty-five hundred years old. + + A dry cicale chirps to a lass making hay, + "Why creak'st thou, Tithonus?" quoth she. "I don't play; + It doubles my toil, your importunate lay, + I've earned a sweet pillow, lo! Hesper is nigh; + I clasp a good wisp and in fragrance I lie; + But thou art unwearied, and empty, and dry." + +How very human this little thing is--how actually it brings before us the +figure of the girl, who must have become dust some time between two and +three thousand years ago! She is working hard in the field, and the +constant singing of the insect prompts her to make a comical protest. "Oh, +Tithonus, what are you making that creaking noise for? You old dry thing, +I have no time to play with you, or to idle in any way, but you do nothing +but complain. Why don't you work, as I do? Soon I shall have leave to +sleep, because I have worked well. There is the evening star, and I shall +have a good bed of hay, sweet-smelling fresh hay, to lie upon. How well I +shall sleep. But you, you idle noisy thing, you do not deserve to sleep. +You have done nothing to tire you. And you are empty, dry and thirsty. +Serves you right!" Of course you recognize the allusion to the story of +Tithonus, so beautifully told by Tennyson. The girl's jest has a double +meaning. The word "importunate" has the signification of a wearisome +repetition of a request, a constant asking, impossible to satisfy. +Tithonus was supposed to complain because he was obliged to live although +he wanted to die. That young girl does not want to die at all. And she +says that the noise of the insect, supposed to repeat the complaint of +Tithonus, only makes it more tiresome for her to work. She was feeling, no +doubt, much as a Japanese student would feel when troubled by the singing +of _semi_ on some very hot afternoon while he is trying to master some +difficult problem. + +That is pure Greek--pure as another mingling of the Greek feeling with the +modern scholarly spirit, entitled "An Invocation." Before quoting from it +I must explain somewhat; otherwise you might not be able to imagine what +it means, because it was written to be read by those only who are +acquainted with Theocritus and the Greek idylists. Perhaps I had better +say something too, about the word idyl, for the use of the word by +Tennyson is not the Greek use at all, except in the mere fact that the +word signifies a picturing, a shadowing or an imagining of things. +Tennyson's pictures are of a purely imaginative kind in the "Idyls of the +King." But the Greek poets who first invented the poetry called idyllic +did not attempt the heroic works of imagination at all; they only +endeavoured to make perfectly true pictures of the common life of peasants +in the country. They wrote about the young men and young girls working on +the farms, about the way they quarrelled or rejoiced or made love, about +their dances and their songs, about their religious festivals and their +sacrifices to the gods at the parish temple. Imagine a Japanese scholar of +to-day who, after leaving the university, instead of busying himself with +the fashionable studies of the time, should go out into the remoter +districts or islands of Japan, and devote his life to studying the +existence of the commoner people there, and making poems about it. This +was exactly what the Greek idylists did,--that is, the best of them. They +were great scholars and became friends of kings, but they wrote poetry +chiefly about peasant life, and they gave all their genius to the work. +The result was so beautiful that everybody is still charmed by the +pictures or idyls which they made. + +Well, after this disgression, to return to the subject of Theocritus, the +greatest of the idylists. He has often introduced into his idyls the name +of Comatas. Who was Comatas? Comatas was a Greek shepherd boy, or more +strictly speaking a goatherd, who kept the flocks of a rich man. It was +his duty to sacrifice to the gods none of his master's animals, without +permission; but as his master was a very avaricious person, Comatas knew +that it would be of little use to ask him. Now this Comatas was a very +good singer of peasant songs, and he made many beautiful poems for the +people to sing, and he believed that it was the gods who had given him +power to make the songs, and the Muses had inspired him with the capacity +to make good verse. In spite of his master's will, Comatas therefore +thought it was not very bad to take the young kids and sacrifice to the +gods and the Muses. When his master found out what had been done with the +animals, naturally he became very angry, and he put Comatas into a great +box of cedar-wood in order to starve him to death--saying, as he closed +and locked the lid, "Now, Comatas, let us see whether the gods will feed +you!" In that box Comatas was left for a year without food or drink, and +when the master, at the end of the year, opened the box, he expected to +find nothing but the bones of the goatherd. But Comatas was alive and +well, singing sweet songs, because during the year the Muses had sent bees +to feed him with honey. The bees had been able to enter the box through a +very little hole. I suppose you know that bees were held sacred to the +Muses, and that there is in Greek legend a symbolic relation between bees +and poetry. + +If you want to know what kind of songs Comatas sang and what kind of life +he represented, you will find all this exquisitely told by Theocritus; and +there is a beautiful little translation in prose of Theocritus, Bion and +Moschus, made by Andrew Lang, which should delight you to read. Another +day I shall give you examples of such translations. Then you will see what +true idyllic poetry originally signified. These Greeks, although trained +scholars and philosophers, understood not only that human nature in itself +is a beautiful thing, but also that the best way to study human nature is +to study the life of the peasants and the common people. It is not to the +rich and leisurely, not to rank and society, that a poet must go for +inspiration. He will not find it there. What is called society is a world +in which nobody is happy, and in which pure human nature is afraid to show +itself. Life among the higher classes in all countries is formal, +artificial, theatrical; poetry is not there. Of course no kind of human +community is perfectly happy, but it is among the simple folk, the country +folk, who do not know much about evil and deceit, that the greater +proportion of happiness can be found. Among the youths of the country +especially, combining the charm of childhood with the strength of adult +maturity, the best possible subjects for fine pure studies of human nature +can be found. May I not here express the hope that some young Japanese +poet, some graduate of this very university, will eventually attempt to do +in Japan what Theocritus and Bion did in ancient Sicily? A great deal of +the very same kind of poetry exists in our own rural districts, and +parallels can be found in the daily life of the Japanese peasants for +everything beautifully described in Theocritus. At all events I am quite +sure of one thing, that no great new literature can possibly arise in this +country until some scholarly minds discover that the real force and truth +and beauty and poetry of life is to be found only in studies of the common +people--not in the life of the rich and the noble, not in the shadowy life +of books. + +Well, our English poet felt with the Greek idylists, and in the poem +called "An Invocation" he beautifully expresses this sympathy. All of us, +he says, should like to see and hear something of the ancient past if it +were possible. We should like, some of us, to call back the vanished gods +and goddesses of the beautiful Greek world, or to talk to the great souls +of that world who had the experience of life as men--to Socrates, for +example, to Plato, to Phidias the sculptor, to Pericles the statesman. +But, as a poet, my wish would not be for the return of the old gods nor of +the old heroes so much as for the return to us of some common men who +lived in the Greek world. It is Comatas, he says, that he would most like +to see, and to see in some English park--in the neighbourhood of Cambridge +University, or of Eton College. And thus he addresses the spirit of +Comatas: + + O dear divine Comatas, I would that thou and I + Beneath this broken sunlight this leisure day might lie; + Where trees from distant forests, whose names were strange to thee, + Should bend their amorous branches within thy reach to be, + And flowers thine Hellas knew not, which art hath made more fair, + Should shed their shining petals upon thy fragrant hair. + + Then thou shouldst calmly listen with ever-changing looks + To songs of younger minstrels and plots of modern books, + And wonder at the daring of poets later born, + Whose thoughts are unto thy thoughts as noontide is to morn; + And little shouldst them grudge them their greater strength of soul, + Thy partners in the torch-race, though nearer to the goal. + + * * * * * + + Or in thy cedarn prison thou waitest for the bee: + Ah, leave that simple honey and take thy food from me. + My sun is stooping westward. Entranced dreamer, haste; + There's fruitage in my garden that I would have thee taste. + Now lift the lid a moment; now, Dorian shepherd, speak; + Two minds shall flow together, the English and the Greek. + +A few phrases of these beautiful stanzas need explanation. "Broken +sunlight" refers, of course, to the imperfect shade thrown by the trees +under which the poet is lying. The shadow is broken by the light passing +through leaves, or conversely, the light is broken by the interposition of +the leaves. The reference to trees from distant forests no doubt intimates +that the poet is in some botanical garden, a private park, in which +foreign trees are carefully cultivated. The "torch race" is a simile for +the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Greek thinkers compare the +transmission of knowledge from one generation to another, to the passing +of a lighted torch from hand to hand, as in the case of messengers +carrying signals or athletes running a mighty race. As a runner runs until +he is tired, or until he reaches the next station, and then passes the +torch which he has been carrying to another runner waiting to receive it, +so does each generation pass on its wisdom to the succeeding generation, +and disappear. "My sun is stooping westward" is only a beautiful way of +saying, "I am becoming very old; be quick, so that we may see each other +before I die." And the poet suggests that it is because of his age and his +experience and his wisdom that he could hope to be of service to the dear +divine Comatas. The expression, "there is fruitage in my garden," refers +to no material garden, but to the cultivated mind of the scholar; he is +only saying, "I have strange knowledge that I should like to impart to +you." How delightful, indeed, it would be, could some university scholar +really converse with a living Greek of the old days! + +There is another little Greek study of great and simple beauty entitled +"The Daughter of Cleomenes." It is only an historical incident, but it is +so related for the pleasure of suggesting a profound truth about the +instinct of childhood. Long ago, when the Persians were about to make an +attack upon the Greeks, there was an attempt to buy off the Spartan +resistance, and the messenger to the Spartan general found him playing +with his little daughter, a child of six or seven. The conference was +carried on in whispers, and the child could not hear what was being said; +but she broke up the whole plot by a single word. I shall quote a few +lines from the close of the poem, which contain its moral lessons. The +emissary has tried to tempt him with promises of wealth and power. + + He falters; for the waves he fears, + The roads he cannot measure; + But rates full high the gleam of spears + And dreams of yellow treasure. + He listens; he is yielding now; + Outspoke the fearless child: + "Oh, Father, come away, lest thou + Be by this man beguiled." + Her lowly judgment barred the plea, + So low, it could not reach her. + _The man knows more of land and sea, + But she's the truer teacher._ + +All the little girl could know about the matter was instinctive; she only +saw the cunning face of the stranger, and felt sure that he was trying to +deceive her father for a bad purpose--so she cried out, "Father, come away +with me, or else that man will deceive you." And she spoke truth, as her +father immediately recognized. + +There are several more classical studies of extraordinary beauty; but your +interest in them would depend upon something more than interest in Greek +and Roman history, and we can not study all the poems. So I prefer to go +back to the meditative lyrics, and to give a few splendid examples of +these more personal compositions. The following stanzas are from a poem +whose Latin title signifies that Love conquers death. In this poem the +author becomes the equal of Tennyson as a master of language. + + The plunging rocks, whose ravenous throats + The sea in wrath and mockery fills, + The smoke that up the valley floats, + The girlhood of the growing hills; + + The thunderings from the miners' ledge, + The wild assaults on nature's hoard, + The peak that stormward bares an edge + Ground sharp in days when Titans warred; + + Grim heights, by wandering clouds embraced + Where lightning's ministers conspire, + Grey glens, with tarns and streamlet laced, + Stark forgeries of primeval fire. + + These scenes may gladden many a mind + Awhile from homelier thoughts released, + And here my fellow men may find + A Sabbath and a vision-feast. + + _I bless them in the good they feel; + And yet I bless them with a sigh; + On me this grandeur stamps the seal + Of tyrannous mortality._ + + _The pitiless mountain stands so sure. + The human breast so weakly heaves, + That brains decay while rocks endure. + At this the insatiate spirit grieves._ + + But hither, oh ideal bride! + For whom this heart in silence aches, + Love is unwearied as the tide, + Love is perennial as the lakes. + + Come thou. The spiky crags will seem + One harvest of one heavenly year, + And fear of death, like childish dream, + Will pass and flee, when thou art here. + +Very possibly this charming meditation was written on the Welsh coast; +there is just such scenery as the poem describes, and the grand peak of +Snowdon would well realize the imagination of the line about the girlhood +of the growing hills. The melancholy of the latter part of the composition +is the same melancholy to be found in "Mimnermus in Church," the first of +Cory's poems which we read together. It is the Greek teaching that there +is nothing to console us for the great doubt and mystery of existence +except unselfish affection. All through the book we find the same +philosophy, even in the beautiful studies of student life and the memories +of childhood. So it is quite a melancholy book, though the sadness be +beautiful. I have given you examples of the sadness of doubt and of the +sadness of love; but there is yet a third kind of sadness--the sadness of +a childless man, wishing that he could have a child of his own. It is a +very pretty thing, simply entitled "Scheveningen Avenue"--probably the +name of the avenue where the incident occurred. The poet does not tell us +how it occurred, but we can very well guess. He was riding in a street +car, probably, and a little girl next to him, while sitting upon her +nurse's lap, fell asleep, and as she slept let her head fall upon his +shoulder. This is a very simple thing to make a poem about, but what a +poem it is! + + Oh, that the road were longer + A mile, or two, or three! + So might the thought grow stronger + That flows from touch of thee. + + _Oh little slumbering maid, + If thou wert five years older, + Thine head would not be laid + So simply on my shoulder!_ + + _Oh, would that I were younger, + Oh, were I more like thee, + I should not faintly hunger + For love that cannot be._ + + A girl might be caressed + Beside me freely sitting; + A child on knee might rest, + And not like thee, unwitting. + + Such honour is thy mother's, + Who smileth on thy sleep, + Or for the nurse who smothers + Thy cheek in kisses deep. + + And but for parting day, + And but for forest shady, + From me they'd take away + The burden of their lady. + + Ah thus to feel thee leaning + Above the nursemaid's hand, + Is like a stranger's gleaning + Where rich men own the land; + + Chance gains, and humble thrift, + With shyness much like thieving, + No notice with the gift, + No thanks with the receiving. + + Oh peasant, when thou starvest + Outside the fair domain, + Imagine there's a harvest + In every treasured grain. + + Make with thy thoughts high cheer, + Say grace for others dining, + And keep thy pittance clear + From poison of repining. + +There is an almost intolerable acuity of sadness in the last two mocking +verses, but how pretty and how tender the whole thing is, and how +gentle-hearted must have been the man who wrote it! The same tenderness +reappears in references to children of a larger growth, the boys of his +school. Sometimes he very much regrets the necessity of discipline, and +advocates a wiser method of dealing with the young. How very pretty is +this little verse about the boy he loves. + + Sweet eyes, that aim a level shaft, + At pleasure flying from afar, + Sweet lips, just parted for a draught + Of Hebe's nectar, shall I mar + By stress of disciplinal craft + The joys that in your freedom are? + +But a little reflection further on in the same poem reminds us how +necessary the discipline must be for the battle of life, inasmuch as each +of those charming boys will have to fight against evil-- + + yet shall ye cope + With worlding wrapped in silken lies, + With pedant, hypocrite, and pope. + +One might easily lecture about this little volume for many more days, so +beautiful are the things which fill it. But enough has been cited to +exemplify its unique value. If you reread these quotations, I think you +will find each time new beauty in them. And the beauty is quite peculiar. +Such poetry could have been written only under two conditions. The first +is that the poet be a consummate scholar. The second is that he must have +suffered, as only a great mind and heart could suffer, from want of +affection. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +OLD GREEK FRAGMENTS + + +The other day when we were reading some of the poems in "Ionica," I +promised to speak in another short essay of Theocritus and his songs or +idyls of Greek peasant life, but in speaking of him it will be well also +to speak of others who equally illustrate the fact that everywhere there +is truth and beauty for the mind that can see. I spoke last week about +what I thought the highest possible kind of literary art might become. But +the possible becoming is yet far away; and in speaking of some old Greek +writers I want only to emphasize the fact that modern literary art as well +as ancient literary art produced their best results from a close study of +human nature. + +Although Theocritus and others who wrote idyls found their chief +inspiration in the life of the peasants, they sometimes also wrote about +the life of cities. Human nature may be studied in the city as well as in +the country, provided that a man knows how to look for it. It is not in +the courts of princes nor the houses of nobles nor the residences of the +wealthy that such study can be made. These superior classes have found it +necessary to show themselves to the world very cautiously; they live by +rule, they conceal their emotions, they move theatrically. But the +ordinary, everyday people of cities are very different; they speak their +thoughts, they keep their hearts open, and they let us see, just as +children do, the good or the evil side of their characters. So a good poet +and a good observer can find in the life of cities subjects of study +almost as easily as in the country. Theocritus has done this in his +fifteenth idyl. This idyl is very famous, and it has been translated +hundreds of times into various languages. Perhaps you may have seen one +version of it which was made by Matthew Arnold. But I think that the +version made by Lang is even better. + +The scene is laid in Alexandria, probably some two thousand years ago, and +the occasion is a religious holiday--a _matsuri_, as we call it in Japan. +Two women have made an appointment to go together to the temple, to see +the festival and to see the people. The poet begins his study by +introducing us to the chamber of one of the women. + +GORGO. "Is Praxinoe at home?" + +PRAXINOE. "Dear Gorgo, how long is it since you have been here! She is at +home. The wonder is that you have got here at last! Eunoe, come and see +that she has a chair and put a cushion on it!" + +G. "It does most charmingly as it is." + +P. "Do sit down." + +How natural this is. There is nothing Greek about it any more than there +is Japanese; it is simply human. It is something that happens in Tokyo +every day, certainly in houses where there are chairs and where it is a +custom to put a cushion on the chair for the visitor. But remember, this +was two thousand years ago. Now listen to what the visitor has to say. + +"I have scarcely got to you at all, Praxinoe! What a huge crowd, what +hosts of carriages! Everywhere cavalry boots, everywhere men in uniform! +And the road is endless; yes, you really live too far away!" + +Praxinoe answers: + +"It is all for that mad man of mine. Here he came to the ends of the earth +and took a hall, not a house, and all that we might not be neighbours. The +jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite." + +She is speaking half in jest, half in earnest; but she forgets that her +little boy is present, and the visitor reminds her of the fact: + +"Don't talk of your husband like that, my dear girl, before the little +boy,--look how he is staring at you!--Never mind, Zaphyrion, sweet child, +she is not speaking about papa." + +P. "Our Lady! (Persephone) The child takes notice!" + +Then the visitor to comfort the child says "Nice papa," and the +conversation proceeds. The two talk about their husbands, about their +dresses, about the cost of things in the shops; but in order to see the +festival Praxinoe must dress herself quickly, and woman, two thousand +years ago, just as now, takes a long time to dress. Hear Praxinoe talking +to her maid-servant while she hurries to get ready: + +"Eunoe, bring the water and put it down in the middle of the room,--lazy +creature that you are. Cat-like, always trying to sleep soft! Come, +bustle, bring the water; quicker! I want water first,--and how she carries +it! Give it me all the same;--don't pour out so much, you extravagant +thing! Stupid girl! Why are you wetting my dress? There, stop, I have +washed my hands as heaven would have it. Where is the key of the big +chest? Bring it here." + +This is life, natural and true; we can see those three together, the +girlish young wife hurrying and scolding and chattering naturally and half +childishly, the patient servant girl smiling at the hurry of her mistress, +and the visitor looking at her friend's new dress, wondering how much it +cost and presently asking her the price. At last all is ready. But the +little boy sees his mother go out and he wants to go out too, though it +has been decided not to take him, because the crowd is too rough and he +might be hurt. Here the mother first explains, then speaks firmly: + +"No, child, I don't mean to take you. Boo! Bogies! There is a horse that +bites! Cry as much as you please, but I cannot have you maimed." + +They go out, Praxinoe and Gorgo and the maid-servant Eunoe. The crowd is +tremendous, and they find it very hard to advance. Sometimes there are +horses in the way, sometimes wagons, occasionally a legion of cavalry. We +know all this, because we hear the chatter of the women as they make their +way through the press. + +"Give me your hand, and you, Eunoe, catch hold of Eutychis,--for fear lest +you get lost.... Here come the kings on horses! My dear man, don't trample +on me. Eunoe, you fool-hardy girl, will you never keep out of the way? Oh! +How tiresome, Gorgo, my muslin veil is torn in two already.... For +heaven's sake, sir, if you ever wish to be fortunate, take care of my +shawl!" + +STRANGER. "I can hardly help myself, but for all that I will be as helpful +as I can." + +The strange man helps the women and children through the pushing crowd, +and they thank him very prettily, praying that he may have good fortune +all his life. But not all the strangers who come in contact with them +happen to be so kind. They come at last into that part of the temple +ground where the image of Adonis is displayed; the beauty of the statue +moves them, and they utter exclamations of delight. This does not please +some of the male spectators, one of whom exclaims, "You tiresome women, do +cease your endless cooing talk! They bore one to death with their eternal +broad vowels!" + +They are country women, and their critic is probably a purist--somebody +who has studied Greek as it is pronounced and spoken in Athens. But the +women bravely resent this interference with their rights. + +GORGO. "Indeed! And where may this person come from? What is it to you if +we are chatterboxes? Give orders to your own servants, sir. Do you pretend +to command the ladies of Syracuse? If you must know, we are Corinthians by +descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak Peloponnesian. Dorian +women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume." + +This is enough to silence the critic, but the other young woman also turns +upon him, and we may suppose that he is glad to escape from their tongues. +And then everybody becomes silent, for the religious services begin. The +priestess, a comely girl, chants the psalm of Adonis, the beautiful old +pagan hymn, more beautiful and more sensuous than anything uttered by the +later religious poets of the West; and all listen in delighted stillness. +As the hymn ends, Gorgo bursts out in exclamation of praise: + +"Praxinoe! The woman is cleverer than we fancied! Happy woman to know so +much!--Thrice happy to have so sweet a voice! Well, all the same, it is +time to be making for home; Diocleides has not had his dinner, and the man +is all vinegar,--don't venture near him when he is kept waiting for +dinner. Farewell, beloved Adonis--may you find us glad at your next +coming." + +And with this natural mingling of the sentimental and the commonplace the +little composition ends. It is as though we were looking through some +window into the life of two thousand years ago. Read the whole thing over +to yourselves when you have time to find the book in the library, and see +how true to human nature it is. There is nothing in it except the +wonderful hymn, which does not belong to to-day as much as to the long +ago, to modern Tokyo as much as to ancient Greece. That is what makes the +immortality of any literary production--not simply truth to the life of +one time, but truth to the life of every time and place. + +Not many years ago there was discovered a book by Herodas, a Greek writer +of about the same period. It is called the "Mimes," a series of little +dramatic studies picturing the life of the time. One of these is well +worthy of rank with the idyl of Theocritus above mentioned. It is the +study of a conversation between a young woman and an old woman. The young +woman has a husband, who left her to join a military expedition and has +not been heard of for several years. The old woman is a go-between, and +she comes to see the young person on behalf of another young man, who +admires her. But as soon as she states the nature of her errand, the young +lady becomes very angry and feigns much virtuous indignation. There is a +quarrel. Then the two become friends, and we know that the old woman's +coming is likely to bring about the result desired. Now the wonder of this +little study also is the play of emotion which it reveals. Such emotions +are common to all ages of humanity; we feel the freshness of this +reflection as we read, to such a degree that we cannot think of the matter +as having happened long ago. Yet even the city in which these episodes +took place has vanished from the face of the earth. + +In the case of the studies of peasant life, there is also value of another +kind. Here we have not only studies of human nature, but studies of +particular social conditions. The quarrels of peasants, half good natured +and nearly always happily ending; their account of their sorrows; their +gossip about their work in the fields--all this might happen almost +anywhere and at almost any time. But the song contest, the prize given for +the best composition upon a chosen subject, this is particularly Greek, +and has never perhaps existed outside of some place among the peasant +folk. It was the poetical side of this Greek life of the peasants, as +recorded by Theocritus, which so much influenced the literatures of the +seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in France and in England. But neither +in France nor in England has there ever really been, at any time, any life +resembling that portrayed by Theocritus; to-day nothing appears to us more +absurd than the eighteenth century habit of picturing the Greek shepherd +life in English or French landscapes. What really may have existed among +the shepherds of the antique world could not possibly exist in modern +times. But how pretty it is! I think that the tenth idyl of Theocritus is +perhaps the prettiest example of the whole series, thirty in number, which +have been preserved for us. The plan is of the simplest. Two young +peasants, respectively named Battus and Milon, meeting together in the +field, talk about their sweethearts. One of them works lazily and is +jeered by the other in consequence. The subject of the jeering +acknowledges that he works badly because his mind is disturbed--he has +fallen in love. Then the other expresses sympathy for him, and tells him +that the best thing he can do to cheer himself up will be to make a song +about the girl, and to sing it as he works. Then he makes a song, which +has been the admiration of the world for twenty centuries and lifts been +translated into almost every language possessing a literature. + +"They all call thee a gipsy, gracious Bombyca, and lean, and +sunburnt;--'tis only I that call thee honey-pale. + +"Yea, and the violet is swart and swart the lettered hyacinth; but yet +these flowers are chosen the first in garlands. + +"The goat runs after cytisus, the wolf pursues the goat, the crane follows +the plough,--but I am wild for love of thee. + +"Would it were mine, all the wealth whereof Croesus was lord, as men tell! +Then images of us, all in gold, should be dedicated to Aphrodite, thou +with thy flute, and a rose, yea, or an apple, and I in fair attire and new +shoon of Amyclae on both my feet. + +"Ah, gracious Bombyca, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice +is drowsy sweet, and thy ways--I can not tell of them." + +Even through the disguise of an English prose translation, you will see +how pretty and how simple this little song must have been in the Greek, +and how very natural is the language of it. Our young peasant has fallen +in love with the girl who is employed to play the flute for the reapers, +as the peasants like to work to the sound of music. His comrades do not +much admire Bombyca; one calls her "a long grasshopper of a girl"; another +finds her too thin; a third calls her a gipsy, such a dark brown her skin +has become by constant exposure to the summer sun. And the lover, looking +at her, is obliged to acknowledge in his own mind that she is long and +lean and dark and like a gipsy; but he finds beauty in all these +characteristics, nevertheless. What if she is dark? The sweetest honey is +darkish, like amber, and so are beautiful flowers, the best of all +flowers, flowers given to Aphrodite; and the sacred hyacinth on whose +leaves appear the letters of the word of lamentation "Ai! Ai!"--that is +also dark like Bombyca. Her darkness is that of honey and flowers. What a +charming apology! He cannot deny that she is long and lean, and he remains +silent on these points, but here we must all sympathize with him. He shows +good taste. It is the tall slender girl that is really the most beautiful +and the most graceful, not the large-limbed, strong-bodied peasant type +that his companions would prefer. Without knowing it, he has fallen in +love like an artist. And he is not blind to the, grace of slenderness and +of form, though he cannot express it in artistic language. He can only +compare the shape of the girl's feet to the ivory feet of the divinities +in the temples--perhaps he is thinking of some ivory image of Aphrodite +which he has seen. But how charming an image does he make to arise before +us! Beautiful is the description of the girl's voice as "drowsy sweet." +But the most exquisite thing in the whole song is the final despairing +admission that he can not describe her at all--"and thy ways, I can not +tell of them"! This is one of the most beautiful expressions in any poem +ancient or modern, because of its supreme truth. What mortal ever could +describe the charm of manner, voice, smile, address, in mere words? Such +things are felt, they can not be described; and the peasant boy reaches +the highest height of true lyrical poetry when he cries out "I can not +tell of them." The great French critic Sainte-Beuve attempted to render +this line as follows--"_Quant Ć ta maniĆØre, je ne puis la rendre!"_ This +is very good; and you can take your choice between it and any English +translation. But good judges say that nothing in English of French equals +the charm of the original. + +You will find three different classes of idyls in Theocritus; the idyl +which is a simple song of peasant life, a pure lyric expressing only a +single emotion; the idyl which is a little story, usually a story about +the gods or heroes; and lastly, the idyl which is presented in the form of +a dialogue, or even of a conversation between three or four persons. All +these forms of idyl, but especially the first and the third, were +afterward beautifully imitated by the Roman poets; then very imperfectly +imitated by modern poets. The imitation still goes on, but the very best +English poets have never really been able to give us anything worthy of +Theocritus himself. + +However, this study of the Greek model has given some terms to English +literature which every student ought to know. One of these terms is +amoebƦan,--amoebƦan poetry being dialogue poetry composed in the form of +question and reply. The original Greek signification was that of alternate +speaking. Please do not forget the word. You may often find it in critical +studies in essays upon contemporary literature; and when you see it again, +remember Theocritus and the school of Greek poets who first introduced the +charm of amoebƦan poetry. I hope that this little lecture will interest +some of you in Theocritus sufficiently to induce you to read him carefully +through and through. But remember that you can not get the value of even a +single poem of his at a single reading. We have become so much accustomed +to conventional forms of literature that the simple art of poetry like +this quite escapes us at first sight. We have to read it over and over +again many times, and to think about it; then only we feel the wonderful +charm. + + + + +INDEX + + [Transcriber's note: Page numbers have been converted to chapter + numbers in this index.] + + "A dry cicale chirps to a lass making hay," 14 + Aicard, Jean, 11 + Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 4 + "Along the garden ways just now," 2 + "Amaturus," 3 + "A Ma Future," 3 + "Amelia," 2 + "Amis and Amile," Introduction, 13 + "Amphibian," 10 + Andrews, Bishop Lancelot, 6 + "Angel in the House, The," 2 + "An Invocation," 14 + "Appreciations of Poetry," Introduction + "Arabian Nights, The," 13 + "Arachne," 10 + Arnold, Sir Edwin, 3 + Arnold, Matthew, 7, 15 + "Art of Worldly Wisdom, The," 7 + Ashe, Thomas, 3 + "A simple ring with a simple stone," 3 + "Atalanta in Calydon," 12 + "Atalanta's Race," 2 + + "Bhagavad-Gita, The," 6 + Bible, The, Introduction, 3, 6, 12, 13 + Bion, 14 + Blake, William, 6, 10 + Book of Common Prayer, The, 12 + Breton, Jules, 11 + "Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art," 2 + Browning, Robert, 2, 3, 10, 14 + "Burly, dozing humble bee," 10 + "Busy, curious thirsty fly," 10 + Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 2, 3 + + Carew, Thomas, 3 + Carlyle, Thomas, 5, 6 + Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Fourth Earl of, 7 + Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 2 + Coleridge, Hartley, 3 + Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 2, 6, 10 + "Conservative, A," 10 + Cooke, Rose Terry, 10 + Cory, William, Introduction, 3, 14 + Crashaw, Richard, 3 + + Dante Alighieri, 2 + "Daughter of Cleomenes, The," 14 + Descartes, Rene, 10 + "Deteriora," 14 + Dickens, Charles, Introduction + "Djins, Les," 4 + "Dream of Fair Women, A," 14 + + "Emaux et CamĆ©es," 11 + Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 4, 10 + "Epigramme Funeraire," 11 + "Evelyn Hope," 3 + + "Fable, A," 14 + "Fifine at the Fair," 10 + Francis of Assisi, Saint, 10 + Freneau, Philip, 10 + + Gautier, ThĆ©ophile, 11 + "Gazing on stars, my star?" 2 + Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 4 + "Golden Legend, The," 13 + Gracian, Baltasar, 7 + "Grasshopper, The," 11 + Gray, Thomas, 10 + "Greater Memory," 2 + Greek Anthology, Introduction, 4, 14 + "Grillon solitaire," 11 + + "Havamal, The," Introduction, 6 + Hearn, Lafcadio, Introduction + Heredia, JosĆ©, Maria de, Introduction, 5, 11 + Herodas, 15 + Herrick, Robert, 4 + "He that loves a rosy cheek," 3 + Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 10 + Hood, Thomas, 3 + Hugo, Victor, 2, 2, 4, 5, 11 + + "Idyls of the King," 14 + "I love to hear thine earnest voice," 10 + "In a branch of willow hid," 10 + "Interpretations of Literature," Introduction + "Ionica," Introduction, 3 + "I strove with none, for none was worth my strife," 4 + "It is a golden morning of the spring," 2 + + Jonson, Ben, 3, 4 + + "Kalevala, The," Introduction, 12 + Keats, John, Introduction, 2, 6, 10 + "King Solomon and the Ants," 10 + + "La Demoiselle," 11 + "Lady of Shalott, The," 11 + Landor, Walter Savage, 4 + Lang, Andrew, Introduction, 15 + Lamartine, 11 + Lamb, Charles, 10 + "Le Daimio," 5 + Lemerre, Alphonse, 10 + "Le Samourai," 5 + "Les Cigales," 11 + "Life and Literature," Introduction + de Lisle, Leconte, 87 + "Lives there whom pain has evermore passed by," 4 + Locker-Lampson, Frederic, 3, 10 + "Locksley Hall," 2 + Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 5, 7, 11, 12, 13 + Lƶnnrot, 12 + Lovelace, Richard, 11 + Lubbock, Sir John, 8 + + Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 10 + "Ma Libellule," 11 + "Maud," 2 + Meredith, George, Introduction, 7 + "Mimes," 15 + "Mimnermus in church," 14 + Moschus, 14 + + "Nay but you, who do not love her," 3 + "Never the time and the place," 2 + "New Ethics, The," Introduction + "New Year's Day, A," 14 + Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 8 + "Njal-Saga, The." 1 + + "Ode on the Spring," 10 + Oldys, William, 10 + O'Shaughnessy, Arthur, 2 + + "Pansie," 3 + "Patchwork," 3 + Pater, Walter, Introduction, 13 + Patmore, Coventry, 2, 10 + "Pause, A," 2 + Plato, 2 + Poe, Edgar Allan, 12 + "Poems of Places," 5 + Porson, Richard, 10 + Powell, Frederick York, 7 + "Princess, The," Introduction + + Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur Thomas, 10 + + "Reparabo," 14 + Rossetti, Christina, 2, 3 + Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 2, 11 + Ruskin, John, 6, 9 + "Ruth," 3 + + "Saga of King Olaf, The," 7 + Sainte-Beuve, 15 + Saintsbury, Professor George, 6 + "Scheveningen Avenue," 14 + Scott, Sir Walter, 7 + Shakespeare, William, 11 + Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 2 + "She walks in beauty, like the night," 3 + "She was a phantom of delight," 3 + "Solitary-Hearted, The," 3 + "Somewhere or other," 3 + "Song in time of Revolution, A," 12 + "Song of Hiawatha, The," 12 + "Song of Songs," 10 + Spencer, Herbert, 2, 7, 8 + "Stay near me, do not take thy flight" 10 + Stetson, Charlotte Perkins, 10 + Stevenson, Robert Louis, 2 + "Story of Burnt Njal, The," 1 + "Studies in Greek Poets," 4 + "Such Kings of shreds have wooed and won her," 4 + "Sudden Light," 2 + Sully-Prudhomme, RenĆ©, FranƧois Armande, 5 + "Summum Bonum," 3 + Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 12 + Symonds, John Addington, 2, 4 + + Ten Brink, Bernhard Egidius Konrad, 13 + Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, Introduction, 2, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14 + Tennyson, Frederick, 2 + Thackeray, William Makepeace, Introduction + "The butterfly the ancient Grecians made," 10 + Theocritus, Introduction, 14, 15 + "The poetry of earth is never dead," 10 + "The thousand painful steps at last are trod," 4 + "The trembling arm I pressed," 2 + "They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead," 14 + "Think not thy wisdom can illume away," 4 + Thompson, Maurice, 2 + "Thou canst not wave thy staff in air," 4 + "To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars," 11 + "Two Fragments of Childhood," 14 + "Two Voices, The," 10 + + "Unknown Eros, The," 2 + + Vigfusson, Gudbrandt, 7 + "Voice of the summer wind," 10 + + Watson, William, 4, 10 + "When spring grows old," 2 + "White Moth, The," 10 + Whittier, John Greenleaf, 10 + "Wishes to the Supposed Mistress + Wordsworth, William, 2, 3, 6, 10 + Wycliffe, John, 6 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Books and Habits from the Lectures of +Lafcadio Hearn, by Lafcadio Hearn + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14338 *** diff --git a/14338-h/14338-h.htm b/14338-h/14338-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a7f56f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/14338-h/14338-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9656 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content= +"HTML Tidy for Mac OS X (vers 1st August 2004), see www.w3.org" /> +<meta http-equiv="content-type" content= +"text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> +<title>Books and Habits, by Lafcadio Hearn.</title> + +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[*/ + <!-- + body {font-family:Georgia,serif;margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%;} + p {text-align: justify;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center;font-variant:small-caps;} + pre {font-family:Courier,monospaced;font-size: 0.8em;} + sup {font-size:0.7em;} + hr {width: 50%;} + hr.full 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text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + --> +/*]]>*/ +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14338 ***</div> + +<h1>Books and Habits</h1> +<h3><em>from the lectures of</em></h3> +<h2>Lafcadio Hearn</h2> +<h4><em>Selected and Edited with an Introduction by</em></h4> +<h3>John Erskine</h3> +<h4><em>Professor of English Columbia University</em></h4> +<h3>1922</h3> +<h5>London: William Heinemann</h5> +<hr class="full" /> +<!-- Transcriber's Note: Moved Contents to top of file for easier navigation --> +<h2><a id="Contents" name="Contents">Contents</a></h2> +<table summary="Contents" style="margin:auto;"> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td><a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">I</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_1">The Insuperable Difficulty</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">II</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_2">On Love in English Poetry</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">III</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_3">The Ideal Woman in English Poetry</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">IV</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_4">Note Upon the Shortest Forms of English +Poetry</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">V</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_5">Some Foreign Poems on Japanese +Subjects</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">VI</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_6">The Bible in English Literature</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">VII</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_7">The “Havamal”</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">VIII</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_8">Beyond Man</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">IX</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_9">The New Ethics</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">X</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_10">Some Poems about Insects</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">XI</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_11">Some French Poems about Insects</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">XII</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_12">Note on the Influence of Finnish Poetry in +English Literature</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">XIII</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_13">The Most Beautiful Romance of the Middle +Ages</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">XIV</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_14">“Ionica”</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">XV</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_15">Old Greek Fragments</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td><a href="#Index">Index</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a id="Introduction" name="Introduction">Introduction</a></h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>These chapters, for the most part, are reprinted from Lafcadio +Hearn’s “Interpretations of Literature,” 1915, +from his “Life and Literature,” 1916, and from his +“Appreciations of Poetry,” 1917. Three chapters appear +here for the first time. They are all taken from the student notes +of Hearn’s lectures at the University of Tokyo, 1896-1902, +sufficiently described in the earlier volumes just mentioned. They +are now published in this regrouping in response to a demand for a +further selection of the lectures, in a less expensive volume and +with emphasis upon those papers which illustrate Hearn’s +extraordinary ability to interpret the exotic in life and in +books.</p> +<p>It should be remembered that these lectures were delivered to +Japanese students, and that Hearn’s purpose was not only to +impart the information about Western literature usually to be found +in our histories and text-books, but much more to explain to the +Oriental mind those peculiarities of our civilization which might +be hard to understand on the further side of the Pacific Ocean. The +lectures are therefore unique, in that they are the first large +attempt by a Western critic to interpret us to the East. That we +shall be deeply concerned in the near future to continue this +interpretation on an even larger scale, no one of us doubts. We +wish we might hope for another genius like Hearn to carry on the +work.</p> +<p>The merit of the chapters printed or reprinted in the present +volume seems to me their power to teach us to imagine our familiar +traditions as foreign and exotic in the eyes of other peoples. We +are accustomed, like every one else, to think of our literature as +the final product of other literatures—as a terminal in +itself, rather than as a channel through which great potentialities +might flow. Like other men, we are accustomed to think of ourselves +as native, under all circumstances, and of other people at all +times as foreign. While we were staying in their country, did we +not think of the French as foreigners? In these chapters, not +originally intended for us, we have the piquant and salutary +experience of seeing what we look like on at least one occasion +when we are the foreigners; we catch at least a glimpse of what to +the Orient seems exotic in us, and it does us no harm to observe +that the peculiarly Western aspects of our culture are not +self-justifying nor always justifiable when looked at through eyes +not already disposed in their favour. Hearn was one of the most +loyal advocates the West could possibly have sent to the East, but +he was an honest artist, and he never tried to improve his case by +trimming a fact. His interpretation of us, therefore, touches our +sensitiveness in regions—and in a degree—which perhaps +his Japanese students were unconscious of; we too marvel as well as +they at his skill in explaining, but we are sensitive to what he +found necessary to explain. We read less for the explanation than +for the inventory of ourselves.</p> +<p>Any interpretation of life which looks closely to the facts will +probably increase our sense of mystery and of strangeness in common +things. If on the other hand it is a theory of experience which +chiefly interests us, we may divert our attention somewhat from the +experience to the theory, leaving the world as humdrum as it was +before we explained it. In that case we must seek the exotic in +remote places and in exceptional conditions, if we are to observe +it at all. But Lafcadio Hearn cultivated in himself and taught his +students to cultivate a quick alertness to those qualities of life +to which we are usually dulled by habit. Education as he conceived +of it had for its purpose what Pater says is the end of philosophy, +to rouse the human spirit, to startle it into sharp and eager +observation. It is a sign that dulness is already spreading in us, +if we must go far afield for the stimulating, the wondrous, the +miraculous. The growing sensitiveness of a sound education would +help us to distinguish these qualities of romance in the very heart +of our daily life. To have so distinguished them is in my opinion +the felicity of Hearn in these chapters. When he was writing of +Japan for European or American readers, we caught easily enough the +exotic atmosphere of the island kingdom—easily enough, since +it was the essence of a world far removed from ours. The exotic +note is quite as strong in these chapters. We shall begin to +appreciate Hearn’s genius when we reflect that here he finds +for us the exotic in ourselves.</p> +<p>The first three chapters deal from different standpoints with +the same subject—the characteristic of Western civilization +which to the East is most puzzling, our attitude toward women. +Hearn attempted in other essays also to do full justice to this +fascinating theme, but these illustrations are typical of his +method. To the Oriental it is strange to discover a civilization in +which the love of husband and wife altogether supersedes the love +of children for their parents, yet this is the civilization he will +meet in English and in most Western literatures. He can understand +the love of individual women, as we understand the love of +individual men, but he will not easily understand our worship of +women as a sex, our esteem of womankind, our chivalry, our way of +taking woman as a religion. How difficult, then, will he find such +a poem as Tennyson’s “Princess,” or most English +novels. He will wonder why the majority of all Western stories are +love stories, and why in English literature the love story takes +place before marriage, whereas in French and other Continental +literatures it usually follows marriage. In Japan marriages are the +concern of the parents; with us they are the concern of the lovers, +who must choose their mates in competition more or less open with +other suitors. No wonder the rivalries and the precarious technique +of love-making are with us an obsession quite exotic to the Eastern +mind. But the Japanese reader, if he would understand us, must also +learn how it is that we have two ways of reckoning with +love—a realistic way, which occupies itself in portraying +sex, the roots of the tree, as Hearn says, and the idealistic way, +which tries to fix and reproduce the beautiful illusion of either +happy or unhappy passion. And if the Japanese reader has learned +enough of our world to understand all this, he must yet visualize +our social system more clearly perhaps than most of us see it, if +he would know why so many of our love poems are addressed to the +woman we have not yet met. When we begin to sympathize with him in +his efforts to grasp the meaning of our literature, we are at last +awakened ourselves to some notion of what our civilization means, +and as Hearn guides us through the discipline, we realize an exotic +quality in things which formerly we took for granted.</p> +<p>Lecturing before the days of Imagism, before the attention of +many American poets had been turned to Japanese art, Hearn +recognized the scarcity in our literature of those short forms of +verse in which the Greeks as well as the Japanese excel. The +epigram with us is—or was until recently—a classical +tradition, based on the brief inscriptions of the Greek anthology +or on the sharp satires of Roman poetry; we had no native turn for +the form as an expression of our contemporary life. Since Hearn +gave his very significant lecture we have discovered for ourselves +an American kind of short poem, witty rather than poetic, and few +verse-forms are now practised more widely among us. Hearn spoke as +a prophet or as a shrewd observer—which is the same +thing—when he pointed out the possibility of development in +this field of brevity. He saw that Japan was closer to the Greek +world in this practice than we were, and that our indifference to +the shorter forms constituted a peculiarity which we could hardly +defend. He saw, also, in the work of Heredia, how great an +influence Japanese painting might have on Western literature, even +on those poets who had no other acquaintance with Japan. In this +point also his observation has proved prophetic; the new poets in +America have adopted Japan, as they have adopted Greece, as a +literary theme, and it is somewhat exclusively from the fine arts +of either country that they draw their idea of its life.</p> +<p>The next chapters which are brought together here, consider the +origin and the nature of English and European ethics. Hearn was an +artist to the core, and as a writer he pursued with undivided +purpose that beauty which, as Keats reminded us, is truth. In his +creative moments he was a beauty-lover, not a moralist. But when he +turned critic he at once stressed the cardinal importance of ethics +in the study of literature. The art which strives to end in beauty +will reveal even more clearly than more complex forms of expression +the personality of the artist, and personality is a matter of +character, and character both governs the choice of an ethical +system and is modified by it. Literary criticism as Hearn practised +it is little interested in theology or in the system of morals +publicly professed; it is, however, profoundly concerned with the +ethical principles upon which the artist actually proceeds, the +directions in which his impulses assert themselves, the verdicts of +right and wrong which his temperament pronounces unconsciously, it +may be. Here is the true revelation of character, Hearn thinks, +even though our habitual and instinctive ethics may differ widely +from the ethics we quite sincerely profess. Whether we know it or +not, we are in such matters the children of some educational or +philosophical system, which, preached at our ancestors long ago, +has come at last to envelop us with the apparent naturalness of the +air we breathe. It is a spiritual liberation of the first order, to +envisage such an atmosphere as what it truly is, only a system of +ethics effectively inculcated, and to compare the principles we +live by with those we thought we lived by. Hearn was contriving +illumination for the Japanese when he made his great lecture on the +“Havamal,” identifying in the ancient Northern poem +those precepts which laid down later qualities of English +character; for the Oriental reader it would be easier to identify +the English traits in Thackeray or Dickens or Meredith if he could +first consider them in a dogmatic precept. But the lecture gives +us, I think, an extraordinary insight into ourselves, a power of +self-criticism almost disconcerting as we realize not only the +persistence of ethical ideals in the past, but also the possible +career of new ethical systems as they may permeate the books +written to-day. To what standard will the reader of our +contemporary literature be unconsciously moulded? What account will +be given of literature a thousand years from now, when a later +critic informs himself of our ethics in order to understand more +vitally the pages in which he has been brought up?</p> +<p>Partly to inform his Japanese students still further as to our +ethical tendencies in literature, and partly I think to indulge his +own speculation as to the morality that will be found in the +literature of the future, Hearn gave his remarkable lectures on the +ant-world, following Fabre and other European investigators, and +his lecture on “The New Ethics.” When he spoke, over +twenty years ago, the socialistic ideal had not gripped us so +effectually as it has done in the last decade, but he had no +difficulty in observing the tendency. Civilization in some later +cycle may wonder at our ambition to abandon individual liberty and +responsibility and to subside into the social instincts of the ant; +and even as it wonders, that far-off civilization may detect in +itself ant-like reactions which we cultivated for it. With this +description of the ant-world it is illuminating to read the two +brilliant chapters on English and French poems about insects. +Against this whole background of ethical theory, I have ventured to +set Hearn’s singularly objective account of the Bible.</p> +<p>In the remaining four chapters Hearn speaks of the +“Kalevala,” of the mediæval romance “Amis +and Amile,” of William Cory’s “Ionica,” and +of Theocritus. These chapters deal obviously with literary +influences which have become part and parcel of English poetry, yet +which remain exotic to it, if we keep in mind the Northern stock +which still gives character, ethical and otherwise, to the English +tradition. The “Kalevala,” which otherwise should seem +nearest to the basic qualities of our poetry, is almost unique, as +Hearn points out, in the extent of its preoccupation with +enchantments and charms, with the magic of words. “Amis and +Amile,” which otherwise ought to seem more foreign to us, is +strangely close in its glorification of friendship; for chivalry +left with us at least this one great ethical feeling, that to keep +faith in friendship is a holy thing. No wonder Amicus and Amelius +were popular saints. The story implies also, as it falls here in +the book, some illustration of those unconscious or unconsidered +ethical reactions which, as we saw in the chapter on the +“Havamal,” have a lasting influence on our ideals and +on our conduct.</p> +<p>Romanticist though he was, Hearn constantly sought the romance +in the highway of life, the aspects of experience which seem to +perpetuate themselves from age to age, compelling literature to +reassert them under whatever changes of form. To one who has +followed the large mass of his lectures it is not surprising that +he emphasized those ethical positions which are likely to remain +constant, in spite of much new philosophy, nor that he constantly +recurred to such books as Cory’s “Ionica,” or +Lang’s translation of Theocritus, in which he found +statements of enduring human attitudes. To him the Greek mind made +a double appeal. Not only did it represent to him the best that has +yet been thought or said in the world, but by its fineness and its +maturity it seemed kindred to the spirit he found in ancient Japan. +Lecturing to Japanese students on Greek poetry as it filters +through English paraphrases and translations, he must have felt +sometimes as we now feel in reading his lectures, that in his +teaching the long migration of the world’s culture was +approaching the end of the circuit, and that the earliest +apparition of the East known to most of us was once more arriving +at its starting place, mystery returning to mystery, and its path +at all points mysterious if we rightly observe the miracle of the +human spirit.</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>BOOKS AND HABITS</h2> +<hr class="short" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page1" name= +"page1">[1]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_1" name="Ch_1">Chapter I</a></h3> +<h2>The Insuperable Difficulty</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>I wish to speak of the greatest difficulty with which the +Japanese students of English literature, or of almost any Western +literature, have to contend. I do not think that it ever has been +properly spoken about. A foreign teacher might well hesitate to +speak about, it—because, if he should try to explain it +merely from the Western point of view, he could not hope to be +understood; and if he should try to speak about it from the +Japanese point of view, he would be certain to make various +mistakes and to utter various extravagances. The proper explanation +might be given by a Japanese professor only, who should have so +intimate an acquaintance with Western life as to sympathize with +it. Yet I fear that it would be difficult to find such a Japanese +professor for this reason, that just in proportion as he should +find himself in sympathy with Western life, in that proportion he +would become less and less able to communicate that sympathy to his +students. The difficulties are so great that it has taken me many +years even to partly guess how great they are. <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page2" name="page2">[2]</a></span>That they can be +removed at the present day is utterly out of the question. But +something may be gained by stating them even imperfectly. At the +risk of making blunders and uttering extravagances, I shall make +the attempt. I am impelled to do so by a recent conversation with +one of the cleverest students that I ever had, who acknowledged his +total inability to understand some of the commonest facts in +Western life,—all those facts relating, directly or +indirectly, to the position of woman in Western literature as +reflecting Western life.</p> +<p>Let us clear the ground it once by putting down some facts in +the plainest and lowest terms possible. You must try to imagine a +country in which the place of the highest virtue is occupied, so to +speak, by the devotion of sex to sex. The highest duty of the man +is not to his father, but to his wife; and for the sake of that +woman he abandons all other earthly ties, should any of these +happen to interfere with that relation. The first duty of the wife +may be, indeed, must be, to her child, when she has one; but +otherwise her husband is her divinity and king. In that country it +would be thought unnatural or strange to have one’s parents +living in the same house with wife or husband. You know all this. +But it does not explain for you other things, much more difficult +to understand, especially the influence of the abstract idea of +woman upon society at large as well as upon <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page3" name="page3">[3]</a></span>the conduct of +the individual. The devotion of man to woman does not mean at all +only the devotion of husband to wife. It means actually +this,—that every man is bound by conviction and by opinion to +put all women before himself, simply because they are women. I do +not mean that any man is likely to think of any woman as being his +intellectual and physical superior; but I do mean that he is bound +to think of her as something deserving and needing the help of +every man. In time of danger the woman must be saved first. In time +of pleasure, the woman must be given the best place. In time of +hardship the woman’s share of the common pain must be taken +voluntarily by the man as much as possible. This is not with any +view to recognition of the kindness shown. The man who assists a +woman in danger is not supposed to have any claim upon her for that +reason. He has done his duty only, not to her, the individual, but +to womankind at large. So we have arrived at this general fact, +that the first place in all things, except rule, is given to woman +in Western countries, and that it is given almost religiously.</p> +<p>Is woman a religion? Well, perhaps you will have the chance of +judging for yourselves if you go to America. There you will find +men treating women with just the same respect formerly accorded +only to religious dignitaries or to great nobles. Everywhere they +are saluted and helped <span class="pagenum"><a id="page4" name= +"page4">[4]</a></span>to the best places; everywhere they are +treated as superior beings. Now if we find reverence, loyalty and +all kinds of sacrifices devoted either to a human being or to an +image, we are inclined to think of worship. And worship it is. If a +Western man should hear me tell you this, he would want the +statement qualified, unless he happened to be a philosopher. But I +am trying to put the facts before you in the way in which you can +best understand them. Let me say, then, that the all-important +thing for the student of English literature to try to understand, +is that in Western countries woman is a cult, a religion, or if you +like still plainer language, I shall say that in Western countries +woman is a god.</p> +<p>So much for the abstract idea of woman. Probably you will not +find that particularly strange; the idea is not altogether foreign +to Eastern thought, and there are very extensive systems of +feminine pantheism in India. Of course the Western idea is only in +the romantic sense a feminine pantheism; but the Oriental idea may +serve to render it more comprehensive. The ideas of divine Mother +and divine Creator may be studied in a thousand forms; I am now +referring rather to the sentiment, to the feeling, than to the +philosophical conception.</p> +<p>You may ask, if the idea or sentiment of divinity attaches to +woman in the abstract, what about woman in the +concrete—individual woman? <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page5" name="page5">[5]</a></span>Are women individually +considered as gods? Well, that depends on how you define the word +god. The following definition would cover the ground, I +think:—“Gods are beings superior to man, capable of +assisting or injuring him, and to be placated by sacrifice and +prayer.” Now according to this definition, I think that the +attitude of man towards woman in Western countries might be very +well characterized as a sort of worship. In the upper classes of +society, and in the middle classes also, great reverence towards +women is exacted. Men bow down before them, make all kinds of +sacrifices to please them, beg for their good will and their +assistance. It does not matter that this sacrifice is not in the +shape of incense burning or of temple offerings; nor does it matter +that the prayers are of a different kind from those pronounced in +churches. There is sacrifice and worship. And no saying is more +common, no truth better known, than that the man who hopes to +succeed in life must be able to please the women. Every young man +who goes into any kind of society knows this. It is one of the +first lessons that he has to learn. Well, am I very wrong in saying +that the attitude of men towards women in the West is much like the +attitude of men towards gods?</p> +<p>But you may answer at once,—How comes it, if women are +thus reverenced as you say, that men of the lower classes beat and +ill-treat their wives <span class="pagenum"><a id="page6" name= +"page6">[6]</a></span>in those countries? I must reply, for the +same reason that Italian and Spanish sailors will beat and abuse +the images of the saints and virgins to whom they pray, when their +prayer is not granted. It is quite possible to worship an image +sincerely and to seek vengeance upon it in a moment of anger. The +one feeling does not exclude the other. What in the higher classes +may be a religion, in the lower classes may be only a superstition, +and strange contradictions exist, side by side, in all forms of +superstition. Certainly the Western working man or peasant does not +think about his wife or his neighbour’s wife in the +reverential way that the man of the superior class does. But you +will find, if you talk to them, that something of the reverential +idea is there; it is there at least during their best moments.</p> +<p>Now there is a certain exaggeration in what I have said. But +that is only because of the somewhat narrow way in which I have +tried to express a truth. I am anxious to give you the idea that +throughout the West there exists, though with a difference +according to class and culture, a sentiment about women quite as +reverential as a sentiment of religion. This is true; and not to +understand it, is not to understand Western literature.</p> +<p>How did it come into existence? Through many causes, some of +which are so old that we can not know anything about them. This +feeling did not belong to the Greek and Roman civilization +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page7" name="page7">[7]</a></span>but +it belonged to the life of the old Northern races who have since +spread over the world, planting their ideas everywhere. In the +oldest Scandinavian literature you will find that women were +thought of and treated by the men of the North very much as they +are thought of and treated by Englishmen of to-day. You will find +what their power was in the old sagas, such as the Njal-Saga, or +“The Story of Burnt Njal.” But we must go much further +than the written literature to get a full knowledge of the origin +of such a sentiment. The idea seems to have existed that woman was +semi-divine, because she was the mother, the creator of man. And we +know that she was credited among the Norsemen with supernatural +powers. But upon this Northern foundation there was built up a +highly complex fabric of romantic and artistic sentiment. The +Christian worship of the Virgin Mary harmonized with the Northern +belief. The sentiment of chivalry reinforced it. Then came the +artistic resurrection of the Renaissance, and the new reverence for +the beauty of the old Greek gods, and the Greek traditions of +female divinities; these also coloured and lightened the old +feeling about womankind. Think also of the effect with which +literature, poetry and the arts have since been cultivating and +developing the sentiment. Consider how the great mass of Western +poetry is love poetry, and the greater part of Western fiction love +stories.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page8" name= +"page8">[8]</a></span>Of course the foregoing is only the vaguest +suggestion of a truth. Really my object is not to trouble you at +all about the evolutional history of the sentiment, but only to ask +you to think what this sentiment means in literature. I am not +asking you to sympathize with it, but if you could sympathize with +it you would understand a thousand things in Western books which +otherwise must remain dim and strange. I am not expecting that you +can sympathize with it. But it is absolutely necessary that you +should understand its relation to language and literature. +Therefore I have to tell you that you should try to think of it as +a kind of religion, a secular, social, artistic religion, not to be +confounded with any national religion. It is a kind of race feeling +or race creed. It has not originated in any sensuous idea, but in +some very ancient superstitious idea. Nearly all forms of the +highest sentiment and the highest faith and the highest art have +had their beginnings in equally humble soil.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page9" name= +"page9">[9]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_2" name="Ch_2">Chapter II</a></h3> +<h2>On Love in English Poetry</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature +the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the +extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in +fiction and in poetry. Indeed, by this time I have begun to feel a +little astonished at it myself. Of course, before I came to this +country it seemed to me quite natural that love should be the chief +subject of literature; because I did not know anything about any +other kind of society except Western society. But to-day it really +seems to me a little strange. If it seems strange to me, how much +more ought it to seem strange to you! Of course, the simple +explanation of the fact is that marriage is the most important act +of man’s life in Europe or America, and that everything +depends upon it. It is quite different on this side of the world. +But the simple explanation of the difference is not enough. There +are many things to be explained. Why should not only the novel +writers but all the poets make love the principal subject of their +work? I never knew, because I never thought, how much English +literature was saturated with the subject of love <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page10" name="page10">[10]</a></span>until I +attempted to make selections of poetry and prose for class +use—naturally endeavouring to select such pages or poems as +related to other subjects than passion. Instead of finding a good +deal of what I was looking for, I could find scarcely anything. The +great prose writers, outside of the essay or history, are nearly +all famous as tellers of love stories. And it is almost impossible +to select half a dozen stanzas of classic verse from Tennyson or +Rossetti or Browning or Shelley or Byron, which do not contain +anything about kissing, embracing, or longing for some imaginary or +real beloved. Wordsworth, indeed, is something of an exception; and +Coleridge is most famous for a poem which contains nothing at all +about love. But exceptions do not affect the general rule that love +is the theme of English poetry, as it is also of French, Italian, +Spanish, or German poetry. It is the dominant motive.</p> +<p>So with the English novelists. There have been here also a few +exceptions—such as the late Robert Louis Stevenson, most of +whose novels contain little about women; they are chiefly novels or +romances of adventure. But the exceptions are very few. At the +present time there are produced almost every year in England about +a thousand new novels, and all of these or nearly all are love +stories. To write a novel without a woman in it would be a +dangerous undertaking; in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the +book would not sell.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page11" name= +"page11">[11]</a></span>Of course all this means that the English +people throughout the world, as readers, are chiefly interested in +the subject under discussion. When you find a whole race interested +more in one thing than in anything else, you may be sure that it is +so because the subject is of paramount importance in the life of +the average person. You must try to imagine then, a society in +which every man must choose his wife, and every woman must choose +her husband, independent of all outside help, and not only choose +but obtain if possible. The great principle of Western society is +that competition rules here as it rules in everything else. The +best man—that is to say, the strongest and cleverest—is +likely to get the best woman, in the sense of the most beautiful +person. The weak, the feeble, the poor, and the ugly have little +chance of being able to marry at all. Tens of thousands of men and +women can not possibly marry. I am speaking of the upper and middle +classes. The working people, the peasants, the labourers, these +marry young; but the competition there is just the same—just +as difficult, and only a little rougher. So it may be said that +every man has a struggle of some kind in order to marry, and that +there is a kind of fight or contest for the possession of every +woman worth having. Taking this view of Western society not only in +England but throughout all Europe, you will easily be able to see +why the Western public have reason to be more interested +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page12" name= +"page12">[12]</a></span>in literature which treats of love than in +any other kind of literature.</p> +<p>But although the conditions that I have been describing are +about the same in all Western countries, the tone of the literature +which deals with love is not at all the same. There are very great +differences. In prose they are much more serious than in poetry; +because in all countries a man is allowed, by public opinion, more +freedom in verse than in prose. Now these differences in the way of +treating the subject in different countries really indicate +national differences of character. Northern love stories and +Northern poetry about love are very serious; and these authors are +kept within fixed limits. Certain subjects are generally forbidden. +For example, the English public wants novels about love, but the +love must be the love of a girl who is to become somebody’s +wife. The rule in the English novel is to describe the pains, +fears, and struggles of the period before marriage—the +contest in the world for the right of marriage. A man must not +write a novel about any other point of love. Of course there are +plenty of authors who have broken this rule but the rule still +exists. A man may represent a contest between two women, one good +and one bad, but if the bad woman is allowed to conquer in the +story, the public will growl. This English fashion has existed +since the eighteenth century. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page13" +name="page13">[13]</a></span>since the time of Richardson, and is +likely to last for generations to come.</p> +<p>Now this is not the rule at all which governs making of novels +in France. French novels generally treat of the relations of women +to the world and to lovers, after marriage; consequently there is a +great deal in French novels about adultery, about improper +relations between the sexes, about many things which the English +public would not allow. This does not mean that the English are +morally a better people than the French or other Southern races. +But it does mean that there are great differences in the social +conditions. One such difference can be very briefly expressed. An +English girl, an American girl, a Norwegian, a Dane, a Swede, is +allowed all possible liberty before marriage. The girl is told, +“You must be able to take care of yourself, and not do +wrong.” After marriage there is no more such liberty. After +marriage in all Northern countries a woman’s conduct is +strictly watched. But in France, and in Southern countries, the +young girl has no liberty before marriage. She is always under the +guard of her brother, her father, her mother, or some experienced +relation. She is accompanied wherever she walks. She is not allowed +to see her betrothed except in the presence of witnesses. But after +marriage her liberty begins. Then she is told for the first time +that she must take care of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page14" +name="page14">[14]</a></span>herself. Well, you will see that the +conditions which inspire the novels, in treating of the subjects of +love and marriage, are very different in Northern and in Southern +Europe. For this reason alone the character of the novel produced +in England could not be the same.</p> +<p>You must remember, however, that there are many other reasons +for this difference—reasons of literary sentiment. The +Southern or Latin races have been civilized for a much longer time +than the Northern races; they have inherited the feelings of the +ancient world, the old Greek and Roman world, and they think still +about the relation of the sexes in very much the same way that the +ancient poets and romance writers used to think. And they can do +things which English writers can not do, because their language has +power of more delicate expression.</p> +<p>We may say that the Latin writers still speak of love in very +much the same way that it was considered before Christianity. But +when I speak of Christianity I am only referring to an historical +date. Before Christianity the Northern races also thought about +love very much in the same way that their best poets do at this +day. The ancient Scandinavian literature would show this. The +Viking, the old sea-pirate, felt very much as Tennyson or as +Meredith would feel upon this subject; he thought of only one kind +of love as real—that which ends in marriage, the affection +between <span class="pagenum"><a id="page15" name= +"page15">[15]</a></span>husband and wife. Anything else was to him +mere folly and weakness. Christianity did not change his sentiment +on this subject. The modern Englishman, Swede, Dane, Norwegian, or +German regards love in exactly that deep, serious, noble way that +his pagan ancestors did. I think we can say that different races +have differences of feeling on sexual relations, which differences +are very much older than any written history. They are in the blood +and soul of a people, and neither religion nor civilization can +utterly change them.</p> +<p>So far I have been speaking particularly about the differences +in English and French novels; and a novel is especially a +reflection of national life, a kind of dramatic narration of truth, +in the form of a story. But in poetry, which is the highest form of +literature, the difference is much more observable. We find the +Latin poets of to-day writing just as freely on the subject of love +as the old Latin poets of the age of Augustus, while Northern poets +observe with few exceptions great restraint when treating of this +theme. Now where is the line to be drawn? Are the Latins right? Are +the English right? How are we to make a sharp distinction between +what is moral and good and what is immoral and bad in treating +love-subjects?</p> +<p>Some definition must be attempted.</p> +<p>What is meant by love? As used by Latin writers the word has a +range of meanings, from <span class="pagenum"><a id="page16" name= +"page16">[16]</a></span>that of the sexual relation between insects +or animals up to the highest form of religious emotion, called +“The love of God.” I need scarcely say that this +definition is too loose for our use. The English word, by general +consent, means both sexual passion and deep friendship. This again +is a meaning too wide for our purpose. By putting the adjective +“true” before love, some definition is attempted in +ordinary conversation. When an Englishman speaks of “true +love,” he usually means something that has no passion at all; +he means a perfect friendship which grows up between man and wife +and which has nothing to do with the passion which brought the pair +together. But when the English poet speaks of love, he generally +means passion, not friendship. I am only stating very general +rules. You see how confusing the subject is, how difficult to +define the matter. Let us leave the definition alone for a moment, +and consider the matter philosophically.</p> +<p>Some very foolish persons have attempted even within recent +years to make a classification of different kinds of +love—love between the sexes. They talk about romantic love, +and other such things. All that is utter nonsense. In the meaning +of sexual affection there is only one kind of love, the natural +attraction of one sex for them other; and the only difference in +the highest for of this attraction and the lowest is this, that in +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page17" name= +"page17">[17]</a></span>the nobler nature a vast number of moral, +aesthetic, and ethical sentiments are related to the passion, and +that in lower natures those sentiments are absent. Therefore we may +say that even in the highest forms of the sentiment there is only +one dominant feeling, complex though it be, the desire for +possession. What follows the possession we may call love if we +please; but it might better be called perfect friendship and +sympathy. It is altogether a different thing. The love that is the +theme of poets in all countries is really love, not the friendship +that grows out of it.</p> +<p>I suppose you know that the etymological meaning of +“passion” is “a state of suffering.” In +regard to love, the word has particular significance to the Western +mind, for it refers to the time of struggle and doubt and longing +before the object is attained. Now how much of this passion is a +legitimate subject of literary art?</p> +<p>The difficulty may, I think, be met by remembering the +extraordinary character of the mental phenomena which manifest +themselves in the time of passion. There is during that time a +strange illusion, an illusion so wonderful that it has engaged the +attention of great philosophers for thousands of years; Plato, you +know, tried to explain it in a very famous theory. I mean the +illusion that seems to charm, or rather, actually does charm the +senses of a man at a certain time. <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page18" name="page18">[18]</a></span>To his eye a certain face has +suddenly become the most beautiful object in the world. To his ears +the accents of one voice become the sweetest of all music. Reason +has nothing to do with this, and reason has no power against the +enchantment. Out of Nature’s mystery, somehow or other, this +strange magic suddenly illuminates the senses of a man; then +vanishes again, as noiselessly as it came. It is a very ghostly +thing, and can not be explained by any theory not of a very ghostly +kind. Even Herbert Spencer has devoted his reasoning to a new +theory about it. I need not go further in this particular than to +tell you that in a certain way passion is now thought to have +something to do with other lives than the present; in short, it is +a kind of organic memory of relations that existed in thousands and +tens of thousands of former states of being. Right or wrong though +the theories may be, this mysterious moment of love, the period of +this illusion, is properly the subject of high poetry, simply +because it is the most beautiful and the most wonderful experience +of a human life. And why?</p> +<p>Because in the brief time of such passion the very highest and +finest emotions of which human nature is capable are brought into +play. In that time more than at any other hour in life do men +become unselfish, unselfish at least toward one human being. Not +only unselfishness but self-sacrifice is a desire peculiar to the +period. The <span class="pagenum"><a id="page19" name= +"page19">[19]</a></span>young man in love is not merely willing to +give away everything that he possesses to the person beloved; he +wishes to suffer pain, to meet danger, to risk his life for her +sake. Therefore Tennyson, in speaking of that time, beautifully +said:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with +might,</p> +<p>Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass’d in music +out of sight.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Unselfishness is, of course, a very noble feeling, independently +of the cause. But this is only one of the emotions of a higher +class when powerfully aroused. There is pity, tenderness—the +same kind of tenderness that one feels toward a child—the +love of the helpless, the desire to protect. And a third sentiment +felt at such a time more strongly than at any other, is the +sentiment of duty; responsibilities moral and social are then +comprehended in a totally new way. Surely none can dispute these +facts nor the beauty of them.</p> +<p>Moral sentiments are the highest of all; but next to them the +sentiment of beauty in itself, the artistic feeling, is also a very +high form of intellectual and even of secondary moral experience. +Scientifically there is a relation between the beautiful and the +good, between the physically perfect and the ethically perfect. Of +course it is not absolute. There is nothing absolute in this world. +But the relation exists. Whoever can comprehend <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page20" name="page20">[20]</a></span>the highest +form of one kind of beauty must be able to comprehend something of +the other. I know very well that the ideal of the love-season is an +illusion; in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of the thousand +the beauty of the woman is only imagined. But does that make any +possible difference? I do not think that it does. To imagine beauty +is really to see it—not objectively, perhaps, but +subjectively beyond all possibility of doubt. Though you see the +beauty only in your mind, in your mind it is; and in your mind its +ethical influence must operate. During the time that a man worships +even imaginary bodily beauty, he receives some secret glimpse of a +higher kind of beauty—beauty of heart and mind. Was there +ever in this world a real lover who did not believe the woman of +his choice to be not only the most beautiful of mortals, but also +the best in a moral sense? I do not think that there ever was.</p> +<p>The moral and the ethical sentiments of a being thus aroused +call into sudden action all the finer energies of the man—the +capacities for effort, for heroism, for high-pressure work of any +sort, mental or physical, for all that requires quickness in +thought and exactitude in act. There is for the time being a sense +of new power. Anything that makes strong appeal to the best +exercise of one’s faculties is beneficent and, in most cases, +worthy of reverence. Indeed, it is in the short season of +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page21" name= +"page21">[21]</a></span>which I am speaking that we always discover +the best of everything in the character of woman or of man. In that +period the evil qualities, the ungenerous side, is usually kept as +much out of sight as possible.</p> +<p>Now for all these suggested reasons, as for many others which +might be suggested, the period of illusion in love is really the +period which poets and writers of romance are naturally justified +in describing. Can they go beyond it with safety, with propriety? +That depends very much upon whether they go up or down. By going up +I mean keeping within the region of moral idealism. By going down I +mean descending to the level of merely animal realism. In this +realism there is nothing deserving the highest effort of art of any +sort.</p> +<p>What is the object of art? Is it not, or should it not be, to +make us imagine better conditions than that which at present exist +in the world, and by so imagining to prepare the way for the coming +of such conditions? I think that all great art has done this. Do +you remember the old story about Greek mothers keeping in their +rooms the statue of a god or a man, more beautiful than anything +real, so that their imagination might be constantly influenced by +the sight of beauty, and that they might perhaps be able to bring +more beautiful children into the world? Among the Arabs, mothers +also do something of this kind, only, as <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page22" name="page22">[22]</a></span>they have no +art of imagery, they go to Nature herself for the living image. +Black luminous eyes are beautiful, and wives keep in their tents a +little deer, the gazelle, which is famous for the brilliancy and +beauty of its eyes. By constantly looking at this charming pet the +Arab wife hopes to bring into the world some day a child with eyes +as beautiful as the eyes of the gazelle. Well, the highest function +of art ought to do for us, or at least for the world, what the +statue and the gazelle were expected to do for Grecian and Arab +mothers—to make possible higher conditions than the existing +ones.</p> +<p>So much being said, consider again the place and the meaning of +the passion of love in any human life. It is essentially a period +of idealism, of imagining better things and conditions than are +possible in this world. For everybody who has been in love has +imagined something higher than the possible and the present. Any +idealism is a proper subject for art. It is not at all the same in +the case of realism. Grant that all this passion, imagination, and +fine sentiment is based upon a very simple animal impulse. That +does not make the least difference in the value of the highest +results of that passion. We might say the very same thing about any +human emotion; every emotion can be evolutionally traced back to +simple and selfish impulses shared by man with the lower animals. +But, because an apple tree or a pear tree <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page23" name="page23">[23]</a></span>happens to +have its roots in the ground, does that mean that its fruits are +not beautiful and wholesome? Most assuredly we must not judge the +fruit of the tree from the unseen roots; but what about turning up +the ground to look at the roots? What becomes of the beauty of the +tree when you do that? The realist—at least the French +realist—likes to do that. He likes to bring back the +attention of his reader to the lowest rather than to the highest, +to that which should be kept hidden, for the very same reason that +the roots of a tree should be kept underground if the tree is to +live.</p> +<p>The time of illusion, then, is the beautiful moment of passion; +it represents the artistic zone in which the poet or romance writer +ought to be free to do the very best that he can. He may go beyond +that zone; but then he has only two directions in which he can +travel. Above it there is religion, and an artist may, like Dante, +succeed in transforming love into a sentiment of religious ecstasy. +I do not think that any artist could do that to-day; this is not an +age of religious ecstasy. But upwards there is no other way to go. +Downwards the artist may travel until he finds himself in hell. +Between the zone of idealism and the brutality of realism there are +no doubt many gradations. I am only indicating what I think to be +an absolute truth, that in treating of love the literary master +should keep to the period of illusion, <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page24" name="page24">[24]</a></span>and that to go below it is a +dangerous undertaking. And now, having tried to make what are +believed to be proper distinctions between great literature on this +subject and all that is not great, we may begin to study a few +examples. I am going to select at random passages from English +poets and others, illustrating my meaning.</p> +<p>Tennyson is perhaps the most familiar to you among poets of our +own time; and he has given a few exquisite examples of the ideal +sentiment in passion. One is a concluding verse in the beautiful +song that occurs in the monodrama of “Maud,” where the +lover, listening in the garden, hears the steps of his beloved +approaching.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She is coming, my own, my sweet,</p> +<p class="i2">Were it ever so airy a tread,</p> +<p>My heart would hear her and beat,</p> +<p class="i2">Were it earth in an earthy bed;</p> +<p>My dust would hear her and beat,</p> +<p class="i2">Had I lain for a century dead;</p> +<p>Would start and tremble under her feet,</p> +<p class="i2">And blossom in purple and red.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is a very fine instance of the purely idea +emotion—extravagant, if you like, in the force of the imagery +used, but absolutely sincere and true; for the imagination of love +is necessarily extravagant. It would be quite useless to ask +whether the sound of a girl’s footsteps could really waken a +dead man; we know that love can fancy such things quite naturally, +not in one country only but <span class="pagenum"><a id="page25" +name="page25">[25]</a></span>everywhere. An Arabian poem written +long before the time of Mohammed contains exactly the same thought +in simpler words; and I think that there are some old Japanese +songs containing something similar. All that the statement really +means is that the voice, the look, the touch, even the footstep of +the woman beloved have come to possess for the lover a significance +as great as life and death. For the moment he knows no other +divinity; she is his god, in the sense that her power over him has +become infinite and irresistible.</p> +<p>The second example may be furnished from another part of the +same composition—the little song of exaltation after the +promise to marry has been given.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O let the solid ground</p> +<p class="i2">Not fail beneath my feet</p> +<p>Before my life has found</p> +<p class="i2">What some have found so sweet;</p> +<p>Then let come what come may,</p> +<p>What matter if I go mad,</p> +<p>I shall have had my day.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Let the sweet heavens endure,</p> +<p class="i2">Not close and darken above me</p> +<p>Before I am quite, quite sure</p> +<p class="i2">That there is one to love me;</p> +<p>Then let come what come may</p> +<p>To a life that has been so sad,</p> +<p>I shall have had my day.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page26" name= +"page26">[26]</a></span>The feeling of the lover is that no matter +what happens afterwards, the winning of the woman is enough to pay +for life, death, pain, or anything else. One of the most remarkable +phenomena of the illusion is the supreme indifference to +consequences—at least to any consequences which would not +signify moral shame or loss of honour, Of course the poet is +supposed to consider the emotion only in generous natures. But the +subject of this splendid indifference has been more wonderfully +treated by Victor Hugo than by Tennyson—as we shall see later +on, when considering another phase of the emotion. Before doing +that, I want to call your attention to a very charming treatment of +love’s romance by an American. It is one of the most delicate +of modern compositions, and it is likely to become a classic, as it +has already been printed in four or five different anthologies. The +title is “Atalanta’s Race.”</p> +<p>First let me tell you the story of Atalanta, so that you will be +better able to see the fine symbolism of the poem. Atalanta, the +daughter of a Greek king, was not only the most beautiful of +maidens, but the swiftest runner in the world. She passed her time +in hunting, and did not wish to marry. But as many men wanted to +marry her, a law was passed that any one who desired to win her +must run a race with her. If he could beat her in running, then she +promised to marry him, but if he lost the race, he was to be +killed. Some <span class="pagenum"><a id="page27" name= +"page27">[27]</a></span>say that the man was allowed to run first, +and that the girl followed with a spear in her hand and killed him +when she overtook him. There are different accounts of the contest. +Many suitors lost the race and were killed. But finally young man +called Hippomenes obtained from the Goddess of Love three golden +apples, and he was told that if he dropped these apples while +running, the girl would stop to pick them up, and that in this way +he might be able to win the race. So he ran, and when he found +himself about to be beaten, he dropped one apple. She stopped to +pick it up and thus he gained a little. In this way he won the race +and married Atalanta. Greek mythology says that afterwards she and +her husband were turned into lions because they offended the gods; +however, that need not concern us here. There is a very beautiful +moral in the old Greek story, and the merit of the American +composition is that its author, Maurice Thompson, perceived this +moral and used it to illustrate a great philosophical truth.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>When Spring grows old, and sleepy winds</p> +<p class="i2">Set from the South with odours sweet,</p> +<p>I see my love, in green, cool groves,</p> +<p class="i2">Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet.</p> +<p>She throws a kiss and bids me run,</p> +<p class="i2">In whispers sweet as roses’ breath;</p> +<p>I know I cannot win the race,</p> +<p>And at the end, I know, is death.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page28" name= +"page28">[28]</a></span> +<p>But joyfully I bare my limbs,</p> +<p class="i2">Anoint me with the tropic breeze,</p> +<p>And feel through every sinew run</p> +<p class="i2">The vigour of Hippomenes.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O race of love! we all have run</p> +<p class="i2">Thy happy course through groves of Spring,</p> +<p>And cared not, when at last we lost,</p> +<p class="i2">For life or death, or anything!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>There are a few thoughts here requiring a little comment. You +know that the Greek games and athletic contests were held in the +fairest season, and that the contestants were stripped. They were +also anointed with oil, partly to protect the skin against sun and +temperature and partly to make the body more supple. The poet +speaks of the young man as being anointed by the warm wind of +Spring, the tropic season of life. It is a very pretty fancy. What +he is really telling us is this:</p> +<p>“There are no more Greek games, but the race of love is +still run to-day as in times gone by; youth is the season, and the +atmosphere of youth is the anointing of the contestant.”</p> +<p>But the moral of the piece is its great charm, the poetical +statement of a beautiful and a wonderful fact. In almost every life +there is a time when we care for only one person, and suffer much +for that person’s sake; yet in that period we do not care +whether we suffer or die, and in after life, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page29" name="page29">[29]</a></span>when we look +back at those hours of youth, we wonder at the way in which we then +felt. In European life of to-day the old Greek fable is still true; +almost everybody must run Atalanta’s race and abide by the +result.</p> +<p>One of the delightful phases of the illusion of love is the +sense of old acquaintance, the feeling as if the person loved had +been known and loved long ago in some time and place forgotten. I +think you must have observed, many of you, that when the senses of +sight and hearing happen to be strongly stirred by some new and +most pleasurable experience, the feeling of novelty is absent, or +almost absent. You do not feel as if you were seeing or hearing +something new, but as if you saw or heard something that you knew +all about very long ago. I remember once travelling with a Japanese +boy into a charming little country town in Shikoku—and +scarcely had we entered the main street, than he cried out: +“Oh, I have seen this place before!” Of course he had +not seen it before; he was from Osaka and had never left the great +city until then. But the pleasure of his new experience had given +him this feeling of familiarity with the unfamiliar. I do not +pretend to explain this familiarity with the new—it is a +great mystery still, just as it was a great mystery to the Roman +Cicero. But almost everybody that has been in love has probably had +the same feeling during a moment or two—the feeling “I +have <span class="pagenum"><a id="page30" name= +"page30">[30]</a></span>known that woman before,” though the +where and the when are mysteries. Some of the modern poets have +beautifully treated this feeling. The best example that I can give +you is the exquisite lyric by Rossetti entitled “Sudden +Light.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I have been here before,</p> +<p class="i2">But when or how I cannot tell:</p> +<p>I know the grass beyond the door,</p> +<p class="i2">The sweet keen smell,</p> +<p>The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>You have been mine before,—</p> +<p class="i2">How long ago I may not know:</p> +<p>But just when at that swallow’s soar</p> +<p class="i2">Your neck turn’d so,</p> +<p>Some veil did fall,—I knew it all of yore.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Has this been thus before?</p> +<p class="i2">And shall not thus time’s eddying flight</p> +<p>Still with our lives our loves restore</p> +<p class="i2">In death’s despite,</p> +<p>And day and night yield one delight once more?</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>I think you will acknowledge that this is very pretty; and the +same poet has treated the idea equally well in other poems of a +more complicated kind. But another poet of the period was haunted +even more than Rossetti by this idea—Arthur +O’Shaughnessy. Like Rossetti he was a great lover, and very +unfortunate in his love; and he wrote his poems, now famous, out of +the pain and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page31" name= +"page31">[31]</a></span>regret that was in his heart, much as +singing birds born in cages are said to sing better when their eyes +are put out. Here is one example:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Along the garden ways just now</p> +<p class="i2">I heard the flowers speak;</p> +<p>The white rose told me of your brow,</p> +<p class="i2">The red rose of your cheek;</p> +<p>The lily of your bended head,</p> +<p class="i2">The bindweed of your hair:</p> +<p>Each looked its loveliest and said</p> +<p class="i2">You were more fair.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I went into the woods anon,</p> +<p class="i2">And heard the wild birds sing</p> +<p>How sweet you were; they warbled on,</p> +<p class="i2">Piped, trill’d the self-same thing.</p> +<p>Thrush, blackbird, linnet, without pause</p> +<p class="i2">The burden did repeat,</p> +<p>And still began again because</p> +<p class="i2">You were more sweet.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And then I went down to the sea,</p> +<p class="i2">And heard it murmuring too,</p> +<p>Part of an ancient mystery,</p> +<p class="i2">All made of me and you:</p> +<p>How many a thousand years ago</p> +<p class="i2">I loved, and you were sweet—</p> +<p>Longer I could not stay, and so</p> +<p class="i2">I fled back to your feet.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The last stanza especially expresses the idea that I have been +telling you about; but in a poem <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page32" name="page32">[32]</a></span>entitled “Greater +Memory” the idea is much more fully expressed. By +“greater memory” you must understand the memory beyond +this life into past stages of existence. This piece has become a +part of the nineteenth century poetry that will live; and a few of +the best stanzas deserve to be quoted,</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>In the heart there lay buried for years</p> +<p>Love’s story of passion and tears;</p> +<p>Of the heaven that two had begun</p> +<p class="i2">And the horror that tore them apart;</p> +<p>When one was love’s slayer, but one</p> +<p class="i2">Made a grave for the love in his heart.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The long years pass’d weary and lone</p> +<p>And it lay there and changed there unknown;</p> +<p>Then one day from its innermost place,</p> +<p class="i2">In the shamed and ruin’d love’s +stead,</p> +<p>Love arose with a glorified face,</p> +<p class="i2">Like an angel that comes from the dead.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>It uplifted the stone that was set</p> +<p>On that tomb which the heart held yet;</p> +<p>But the sorrow had moulder’d within</p> +<p class="i2">And there came from the long closed door</p> +<p>A dear image, that was not the sin</p> +<p class="i2">Or the grief that lay buried before.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>There was never the stain of a tear</p> +<p>On the face that was ever so dear;</p> +<p>’Twas the same in each lovelier way;</p> +<p class="i2">’Twas old love’s holier part,</p> +<p>And the dream of the earliest day</p> +<p class="i2">Brought back to the desolate heart.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page33" name= +"page33">[33]</a></span> +<p>It was knowledge of all that had been</p> +<p>In the thought, in the soul unseen;</p> +<p>’Twas the word which the lips could not say</p> +<p class="i2">To redeem or recover the past.</p> +<p>It was more than was taken away</p> +<p class="i2">Which the heart got back at the last.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The passion that lost its spell,</p> +<p>The rose that died where it fell,</p> +<p>The look that was look’d in vain,</p> +<p class="i2">The prayer that seemed lost evermore,</p> +<p>They were found in the heart again,</p> +<p class="i2">With all that the heart would restore.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Put into less mystical language the legend is this: A young man +and a young woman loved each other for a time; then they were +separated by some great wrong—we may suppose the woman was +untrue. The man always loved her memory, in spite of this wrong +which she had done. The two died and were buried; hundreds and +hundreds of years they remained buried, and the dust of them mixed +with the dust of the earth. But in the perpetual order of things, a +pure love never can die, though bodies may die and pass away. So +after many generations the pure love which this man had for a bad +woman was born again in the heart of another man—the same, +yet not the same. And the spirit of the woman that long ago had +done the wrong, also found incarnation again; and the two meeting, +are drawn to each other by what people call love, but what +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page34" name= +"page34">[34]</a></span>is really Greater Memory, the recollection +of past lives. But now all is happiness for them, because the +weaker and worse part of each has really died and has been left +hundreds of years behind, and only the higher nature has been born +again. All that ought not to have been is not; but all that ought +to be now is. This is really an evolutionary teaching, but it is +also poetical license, for the immoral side of mankind does not by +any means die so quickly as the poet supposes. It is perhaps a +question of many tens of thousands of years to get rid of a few of +our simpler faults. Anyway, the fancy charms us and tempts us +really to hope that these things might be so.</p> +<p>While the poets of our time so extend the history of a love +backwards beyond this life, we might expect them to do the very +same thing in the other direction. I do not refer to reunion in +heaven, or anything of that sort, but simply to affection continued +after death. There are some very pretty fancies of the kind. But +they can not prove to you quite so interesting as the poems which +treat the recollection of past life. When we consider the past +imaginatively, we have some ground to stand on. The past has +been—there is no doubt about that. The fact that we are at +this moment alive makes it seem sufficiently true that we were +alive thousands or millions of years ago. But when we turn to the +future for poetical inspiration, the case is very different. There +we <span class="pagenum"><a id="page35" name= +"page35">[35]</a></span>must imagine without having anything to +stand upon in the way of experience. Of course if born again into a +body we could imagine many things; but there is the ghostly +interval between death and birth which nobody is able to tell us +about. Here the poet depends upon dream experiences, and it is of +such an experience that Christina Rossetti speaks in her beautiful +poem entitled “A Pause.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>They made the chamber sweet with flowers and leaves,</p> +<p class="i2">And the bed sweet with flowers on which I lay,</p> +<p class="i2">While my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way.</p> +<p>I did not hear the birds about the eaves,</p> +<p>Nor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves:</p> +<p>Only my soul kept watch from day to day,</p> +<p class="i2">My thirsty soul kept watch for one away:—</p> +<p>Perhaps he loves, I thought, remembers, grieves.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>At length there came the step upon the stair,</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the lock the old familiar hand:</p> +<p>Then first my spirit seemed to scent the air</p> +<p class="i2">Of Paradise; then first the tardy sand</p> +<p>Of time ran golden; and I felt my hair</p> +<p class="i2">Put on a glory, and my soul expand.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The woman is dead. In the room where her body died, flowers have +been placed, offerings to the dead. Also there are flowers upon the +bed. The ghost of the woman observes all this, but she does not +feel either glad or sad because of it; she is thinking only of the +living lover, who was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page36" name= +"page36">[36]</a></span>not there when she died, but far away. She +wants to know whether he really loved her, whether he will really +be sorry to hear that she is dead. Outside the room of death the +birds are singing; in the fields beyond the windows peasants are +working, and talking as they work. But the ghost does not listen to +these sounds. The ghost remains in the room only for love’s +sake; she can not go away until the lover comes. At last she hears +him coming. She knows the sound of the step; she knows the touch of +the hand upon the lock of the door. And instantly, before she sees +him at all, she first feels delight. Already it seems to her that +she can smell the perfume of the flowers of heaven; it then seems +to her that about her head, as about the head of an angel, a circle +of glory is shaping itself, and the real heaven, the Heaven of +Love, is at hand.</p> +<p>How very beautiful this is. There is still one line which +requires a separate explanation—I mean the sentence about the +sands of time running golden. Perhaps you may remember the same +simile in Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall”:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in His glowing +hands;</p> +<p>Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Here time is identified with the sand of the hour glass, and the +verb “to run” is used because this verb commonly +expresses the trickling of the sand <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page37" name="page37">[37]</a></span>from the upper part of the +glass into the lower. In other words, fine sand “runs” +just like water. To say that the sands of time run golden, or +become changed into gold, is only a poetical way of stating that +the time becomes more than happy—almost heavenly or divine. +And now you will see how very beautiful the comparison becomes in +this little poem about the ghost of the woman waiting for the +coming step of her lover.</p> +<p>Several other aspects of the emotion may now be considered +separately. One of these, an especially beautiful one, is memory. +Of course, there are many aspects of love’s memories, some +all happiness, others intensely sorrowful—the memory of a +walk, a meeting, a moment of good-bye. Such memories occupy a very +large place in the treasure house of English love poems. I am going +to give three examples only, but each of a different kind. The +first poet that I am going to mention is Coventry Patmore. He wrote +two curious books of poetry, respectively called “The Angel +in the House” and “The Unknown Eros.” In the +first of these books he wrote the whole history of his courtship +and marriage—a very dangerous thing for a poet to do, but he +did it successfully. The second volume is miscellaneous, and +contains some very beautiful things. I am going to quote only a few +lines from the piece called “Amelia.” This piece is the +story of an evening spent with a sweetheart, and the lines +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page38" name= +"page38">[38]</a></span>which I am quoting refer to the moment of +taking the girl home. They are now rather famous:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>… To the dim street</p> +<p>I led her sacred feet;</p> +<p>And so the Daughter gave,</p> +<p>Soft, moth-like, sweet,</p> +<p>Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk,</p> +<p>Back to her Mother, anxious in the dusk.</p> +<p>And now “Good Night!”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Why should the poet speak of the girl in this way? Why does he +call her feet sacred? She has just promised to marry him; and now +she seems to him quite divine. But he discovers very plain words +with which to communicate his finer feelings to the reader. The +street is “dim” because it is night; and in the night +the beautifully dressed maiden seems like a splendid moth—the +name given to night butterflies in England. In England the moths +are much more beautiful than the true butterflies; they have wings +of scarlet and purple and brown and gold. So the comparison, though +peculiarly English, is very fine. Also there is a suggestion of the +soundlessness of the moth’s flight. Now “showy as +damask rose” is a striking simile only because the +damask-rose is a wonderfully splendid flower—richest in +colour of all roses in English gardens. “Shy as musk” +is rather a daring simile. “Musk” is a perfume used by +English as well as Japanese ladies, but there is no <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page39" name="page39">[39]</a></span>perfume which +must be used with more discretion, carefulness. If you use ever so +little too much, the effect is not pleasant. But if you use exactly +the proper quantity, and no more, there is no perfume which is more +lovely. “Shy as musk” thus refers to that kind of +girlish modesty which never commits a fault even by the measure of +a grain—beautiful shyness incapable of being anything but +beautiful. Nevertheless the comparison must be confessed one which +should be felt rather than explained.</p> +<p>The second of the three promised quotations shall be from Robert +Browning. There is one feeling, not often touched upon by poets, +yet peculiar to lovers, that is here treated—the desire when +you are very happy or when you are looking at anything attractive +to share the pleasure of the moment with the beloved. But it seldom +happens that the wish and the conditions really meet. Referring to +this longing Browning made a short lyric that is now a classic; it +is among the most dainty things of the century.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Never the time and the place</p> +<p class="i2">And the loved one all together!</p> +<p>This path—how soft to pace!</p> +<p class="i2">This May—what magic weather!</p> +<p>Where is the loved one’s face?</p> +<p>In a dream that loved one’s face meets mine,</p> +<p>But the house is narrow, the place is bleak</p> +<p>Where, outside, rain and wind combine</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page40" name="page40">[40]</a></span> +<p>With a furtive ear, if I try to speak,</p> +<p>With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,</p> +<p>With a malice that marks each word, each sign!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Never can we have things the way we wish in this world—a +beautiful day, a beautiful place, and the presence of the beloved +all at the same time. Something is always missing; if the place be +beautiful, the weather perhaps is bad. Or if the weather and the +place both happen to be perfect, the woman is absent. So the poet +finding himself in some very beautiful place, and remembering this, +remembers also the last time that he met the woman beloved. It was +a small dark house and chilly; outside there was rain and storm; +and the sounds of the wind and of the rain were as the sounds of +people secretly listening, or sounds of people trying to look in +secretly through the windows. Evidently it was necessary that the +meeting should be secret, and it was not altogether as happy as +could have been wished.</p> +<p>The third example is a very beautiful poem; we must content +ourselves with an extract from it. It is the memory of a betrothal +day, and the poet is Frederick Tennyson. I suppose you know that +there were three Tennysons, and although Alfred happened to be the +greatest, all of them were good poets.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>It is a golden morning of the spring,</p> +<p class="i2">My cheek is pale, and hers is warm with bloom,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page41" name="page41">[41]</a></span> +<p class="i2">And we are left in that old carven room,</p> +<p>And she begins to sing;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The open casement quivers in the breeze,</p> +<p class="i2">And one large musk-rose leans its dewy grace</p> +<p class="i2">Into the chamber, like a happy face,</p> +<p>And round it swim the bees;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<hr class="short" /></div> +<div class="stanza">I know not what I said—what she replied +<p class="i2">Lives, like eternal sunshine, in my heart;</p> +<p class="i2">And then I murmured, Oh! we never part,</p> +<p>My love, my life, my bride!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<hr class="short" /></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And silence o’er us, after that great bliss,</p> +<p class="i2">Fell like a welcome shadow—and I heard</p> +<p class="i2">The far woods sighing, and a summer bird</p> +<p>Singing amid the trees;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The sweet bird’s happy song, that streamed around,</p> +<p class="i2">The murmur of the woods, the azure skies,</p> +<p class="i2">Were graven on my heart, though ears and eyes</p> +<p>Marked neither sight nor sound.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She sleeps in peace beneath the chancel stone,</p> +<p class="i2">But ah! so clearly is the vision seen,</p> +<p class="i2">The dead seem raised, or Death has never been,</p> +<p>Were I not here alone.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is great art in its power of picturing a memory of the +heart. Let us notice some of the beauties. The lover is pale +because he is afraid, anxious; he is going to ask a question and he +does not know how she may answer him. All this was <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page42" name="page42">[42]</a></span>long ago, +years and years ago, but the strong emotions of that morning leave +their every detail painted in remembrance, with strange vividness +After all those years the man still recollects the appearance of +the room, the sunshine entering and the crimson rose looking into +the room from the garden, with bees humming round it. Then after +the question had been asked and happily answered, neither could +speak for joy; and because of the silence all the sounds of nature +outside became almost painfully distinct. Now he remembers how he +heard in that room the sound of the wind in far-away trees, the +singing of a bird—he also remembers all the colours and the +lights of the day. But it was very, very long ago, and she is dead. +Still, the memory is so clear and bright in his heart that it is as +if time had stood still, or as if she had come back from the grave. +Only one thing assures him that it is but a memory—he is +alone.</p> +<p>Returning now to the subject of love’s illusion in itself, +let me remind you that the illusion does not always pass +away—not at all. It passes away in every case of happy union, +when it has become no longer necessary to the great purposes of +nature. But in case of disappointment, loss, failure to win the +maiden desired, it often happens that the ideal image never fades +away, but persistently haunts the mind through life, and is capable +thus of making even the most successful life unhappy. <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page43" name="page43">[43]</a></span>Sometimes the +result of such disappointment may be to change all a man’s +ideas about the world, about life, about religion; and everything +remains darkened for him. Many a young person disappointed in love +begins to lose religious feeling from that moment, for it seems to +him, simply because he happens to be unfortunate, that the universe +is all wrong. On the other hand the successful lover thinks that +the universe is all right; he utters his thanks to the gods, and +feels his faith in religion and human nature greater than before. I +do not at this moment remember any striking English poem +illustrating this fact; but there is a pretty little poem in French +by Victor Hugo showing well the relation between successful love +and religious feeling in simple minds. Here is an English +translation of it. The subject is simply a walk at night, the +girl-bride leaning upon the arm of her husband; and his memory of +the evening is thus expressed:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The trembling arm I pressed</p> +<p>Fondly; our thoughts confessed</p> +<p class="i2">Love’s conquest tender;</p> +<p>God filled the vast sweet night,</p> +<p>Love filled our hearts; the light</p> +<p class="i2">Of stars made splendour.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Even as we walked and dreamed,</p> +<p>’Twixt heaven and earth, it seemed</p> +<p class="i2">Our souls were speaking;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page44" name="page44">[44]</a></span> +<p>The stars looked on thy face;</p> +<p>Thine eyes through violet space</p> +<p class="i2">The stars were seeking.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And from the astral light</p> +<p>Feeling the soft sweet night</p> +<p class="i2">Thrill to thy soul,</p> +<p>Thou saidst: “O God of Bliss,</p> +<p>Lord of the Blue Abyss,</p> +<p class="i2">Thou madest the whole!”</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And the stars whispered low</p> +<p>To the God of Space, “We know,</p> +<p class="i2">God of Eternity,</p> +<p>Dear Lord, all Love is Thine,</p> +<p>Even by Love’s Light we shine!</p> +<p class="i2">Thou madest Beauty!”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Of course here the religious feeling itself is part of the +illusion, but it serves to give great depth and beauty to simple +feeling. Besides, the poem illustrates one truth very +forcibly—namely, that when we are perfectly happy all the +universe appears to be divine and divinely beautiful; in other +words, we are in heaven. On the contrary, when we are very unhappy +the universe appears to be a kind of hell, in which there is no +hope, no joy, and no gods to pray to.</p> +<p>But the special reason I wished to call attention to Victor +Hugo’s lyric is that it has that particular quality called by +philosophical critics “cosmic emotion.” Cosmic emotion +means the highest quality <span class="pagenum"><a id="page45" +name="page45">[45]</a></span>of human emotion. The word +“cosmos” signifies the universe—not simply this +world, but all the hundred millions of suns and worlds in the known +heaven. And the adjective “cosmic” means, of course, +“related to the whole universe.” Ordinary emotion may +be more than individual in its relations. I mean that your feelings +may be moved by the thought or the perception of something relating +not only to your own life but also to the lives of many others. The +largest form of such ordinary emotion is what would be called +national feeling, the feeling of your own relation to the whole +nation or the whole race. But there is higher emotion even than +that. When you think of yourself emotionally not only in relation +to your own country, your own nation, but in relation to all +humanity, then you have a cosmic emotion of the third or second +order. I say “third or second,” because whether the +emotion be second or third rate depends very much upon your +conception of humanity as One. But if you think of yourself in +relation not to this world only but to the whole universe of +hundreds of millions of stars and planets—in relation to the +whole mystery of existence—then you have a cosmic emotion of +the highest order. Of course there are degrees even in this; the +philosopher or the metaphysician will probably have a finer quality +of cosmic emotion than the poet or the artist is able to have. But +lovers very often, according to their degree <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page46" name="page46">[46]</a></span>of +intellectual culture, experience a kind of cosmic emotion; and +Victor Hugo’s little poem illustrates this. Night and the +stars and the abyss of the sky all seem to be thrilling with love +and beauty to the lover’s eyes, because he himself is in a +state of loving happiness; and then he begins to think about his +relation to the universal life, to the supreme mystery beyond all +Form and Name.</p> +<p>A third or fourth class of such emotion may be illustrated by +the beautiful sonnet of Keats, written not long before his death. +Only a very young man could have written this, because only a very +young man loves in this way—but how delightful it is! It has +no title.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—</p> +<p class="i2">Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night</p> +<p>And watching, with eternal lids apart,</p> +<p class="i2">Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,</p> +<p>The moving waters at their priest-like task</p> +<p class="i2">Of pure ablution round earth’s human +shores,</p> +<p>Or gazing on new soft-fallen mask</p> +<p class="i2">Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,</p> +<p class="i2">Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening +breast,</p> +<p>To feel forever its soft fall and swell,</p> +<p class="i2">Awake forever in a sweet unrest,</p> +<p>Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,</p> +<p>And so live ever—or else swoon to death.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Tennyson has charmingly represented a lover <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page47" name="page47">[47]</a></span>wishing that +he were a necklace of his beloved, or her girdle, or her earring; +but that is not a cosmic emotion at all. Indeed, the idea of +Tennyson’s pretty song was taken from old French and English +love songs of the peasants—popular ballads. But in this +beautiful sonnet of Keats, where the lover wishes to be endowed +with the immortality and likeness of a star only to be forever with +the beloved, there is something of the old Greek thought which +inspired the beautiful lines written between two and three thousand +years ago, and translated by J.A. Symonds:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Gazing on stars, my Star? Would that I were the welkin,</p> +<p>Starry with myriad eyes, ever to gave upon thee!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>But there is more than the Greek beauty of thought in +Keats’s sonnet, for we find the poet speaking of the exterior +universe in the largest relation, thinking of the stars watching +forever the rising and the falling of the sea tides, thinking of +the sea tides themselves as continually purifying the world, even +as a priest purifies a temple. The fancy of the boy expands to the +fancy of philosophy; it is a blending of poetry, philosophy, and +sincere emotion.</p> +<p>You will have seen by the examples which we have been reading +together that English love poetry, like Japanese love poetry, may +be divided into many branches and classified according to the range +of subject from the very simplest utterance <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page48" name="page48">[48]</a></span>of feeling up +to that highest class expressing cosmic emotion. Very rich the +subject is; the student is only puzzled where to choose. I should +again suggest to you to observe the value of the theme of illusion, +especially as illustrated in our examples. There are indeed +multitudes of Western love poems that would probably appear to you +very strange, perhaps very foolish. But you will certainly +acknowledge that there are some varieties of English love poetry +which are neither strange nor foolish, and which are well worth +studying, not only in themselves but in their relation to the +higher forms of emotional expression in all literature. Out of love +poetry belonging to the highest class, much can be drawn that would +serve to enrich and to give a new colour to your own literature of +emotion.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page49" name= +"page49">[49]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_3" name="Ch_3">Chapter III</a></h3> +<h2>The Ideal Woman in English Poetry</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>As I gave already in this class a lecture on the subject of love +poetry, you will easily understand that the subject of the present +lecture is not exactly love. It is rather about love’s +imagining of perfect character and perfect beauty. The part of it +to which I think your attention could be deservedly given is that +relating to the imagined wife of the future, for this is a subject +little treated of in Eastern poetry. It is a very pretty subject. +But in Japan and other countries of the East almost every young man +knows beforehand whom he is likely to marry. Marriage is arranged +by the family: it is a family matter, indeed a family duty and not +a romantic pursuit. At one time, very long ago, in Europe, +marriages were arranged in much the same way. But nowadays it may +be said in general that no young man in England or America can even +imagine whom he will marry. He has to find his wife for himself; +and he has nobody to help him; and if he makes a mistake, so much +the worse for him. So to Western imagination the wife of the future +is a mystery, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page50" name= +"page50">[50]</a></span>a romance, an anxiety—something to +dream about and to write poetry about.</p> +<p>This little book that I hold in my hand is now very rare. It is +out of print, but it is worth mentioning to you because it is the +composition of an exquisite man of letters, Frederick +Locker-Lampson, best of all nineteenth century writers of society +verse. It is called “Patchwork.” Many years ago the +author kept a kind of journal in which he wrote down or copied all +the most beautiful or most curious things which he had heard or +which he had found in books. Only the best things remained, so the +value of the book is his taste in selection. Whatever +Locker-Lampson pronounced good, the world now knows to have been +exactly what he pronounced, for his taste was very fine. And in +this book I find a little poem quoted from Mr. Edwin Arnold, now +Sir Edwin. Sir Edwin Arnold is now old and blind, and he has not +been thought of kindly enough in Japan, because his work has not +been sufficiently known. Some people have even said his writings +did harm to Japan, but I want to assure you that such statements +are stupid lies. On the contrary, he did for Japan whatever good +the best of his talent as a poet and the best of his influence as a +great journalist could enable him to do. But to come back to our +subject: when Sir Edwin was a young student he had his dreams about +marriage like other young English students, and he put one +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page51" name= +"page51">[51]</a></span>of them into verse, and that verse was at +once picked out by Frederick Locker-Lampson for his little book of +gems. Half a century has passed since then; but +Locker-Lampson’s judgment remains good, and I am going to put +this little poem first because it so well illustrates the subject +of the lecture. It is entitled “A Ma Future.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Where waitest thou,</p> +<p class="i2">Lady, I am to love? Thou comest not,</p> +<p class="i2">Thou knowest of my sad and lonely lot—</p> +<p>I looked for thee ere now!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>It is the May,</p> +<p class="i2">And each sweet sister soul hath found its +brother,</p> +<p class="i2">Only we two seek fondly each the other,</p> +<p>And seeking still delay.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Where art thou, sweet?</p> +<p class="i2">I long for thee as thirsty lips for streams,</p> +<p class="i2">O gentle promised angel of my dreams,</p> +<p>Why do we never meet?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou art as I,</p> +<p class="i2">Thy soul doth wait for mine as mine for thee;</p> +<p class="i2">We cannot live apart, must meeting be</p> +<p>Never before we die?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Dear Soul, not so,</p> +<p class="i2">For time doth keep for us some happy years,</p> +<p class="i2">And God hath portioned us our smiles and tears,</p> +<p>Thou knowest, and I know.</p> +</div> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page52" name="page52">[52]</a></span> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Therefore I bear</p> +<p class="i2">This winter-tide as bravely as I may,</p> +<p class="i2">Patiently waiting for the bright spring day</p> +<p>That cometh with thee, Dear.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>’Tis the May light</p> +<p class="i2">That crimsons all the quiet college gloom,</p> +<p class="i2">May it shine softly in thy sleeping room,</p> +<p>And so, dear wife, good night!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is, of course, addressed to the spirit of the unknown +future wife. It is pretty, though it is only the work of a young +student. But some one hundred years before, another student—a +very great student, Richard Crashaw,—had a fancy of the same +kind, and made verses about it which are famous. You will find +parts of his poem about the imaginary wife in the ordinary +anthologies, but not all of it, for it is very long. I will quote +those verses which seem to me the best.</p> +<h4>Wishes</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Whoe’er she be,</p> +<p>That not impossible She,</p> +<p>That shall command my heart and me;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Where’er she lie,</p> +<p>Locked up from mortal eye,</p> +<p>In shady leaves of Destiny;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Till that ripe birth</p> +<p>Of studied Fate stand forth,</p> +<p>And teach her fair steps to our earth;</p> +</div> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page53" name="page53">[53]</a></span> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Till that divine</p> +<p>Idea take a shrine</p> +<p>Of crystal flesh, through which to shine;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Meet you her, my wishes,</p> +<p>Bespeak her to my blisses,</p> +<p>And be ye called my absent kisses.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The poet is supposing that the girl whom he is to marry may not +as yet even have been born, for though men in the world of +scholarship can marry only late in life, the wife is generally +quite young. Marriage is far away in the future for the student, +therefore these fancies. What he means to say in short is about +like this:</p> +<p>“Oh, my wishes, go out of my heart and look for the being +whom I am destined to marry—find the soul of her, whether +born or yet unborn, and tell that soul of the love that is waiting +for it.” Then he tries to describe the imagined woman he +hopes to find:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I wish her beauty</p> +<p>That owes not all its duty</p> +<p>To gaudy ’tire or glist’ring shoe-tie.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Something more than</p> +<p>Taffeta or tissue can;</p> +<p>Or rampant feather, or rich fan.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>More than the spoil</p> +<p>Of shop or silk worm’s toil,</p> +<p>Or a bought blush, or a set smile.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page54" name= +"page54">[54]</a></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A face that’s best</p> +<p>By its own beauty drest</p> +<p>And can alone command the rest.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A face made up</p> +<p>Out of no other shop</p> +<p>Than what nature’s white hand sets ope.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A cheek where grows</p> +<p>More than a morning rose</p> +<p>Which to no box his being owes.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<hr class="short" /></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Eyes that displace</p> +<p>The neighbor diamond and outface</p> +<p>That sunshine by their own sweet grace.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Tresses that wear</p> +<p>Jewels, but to declare</p> +<p>How much themselves more precious are.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Smiles, that can warm</p> +<p>The blood, yet teach a charm</p> +<p>That chastity shall take no harm.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<hr class="short" /></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Life, that dares send</p> +<p>A challenge to his end,</p> +<p>And when it comes, say “Welcome, friend!”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>There is much more, but the best of the thoughts are here. They +are not exactly new thoughts, nor strange thoughts, but they are +finely expressed in a strong and simple way.</p> +<p>There is another composition on the same +subject—<span class="pagenum"><a id="page55" name= +"page55">[55]</a></span>the imaginary spouse, the destined one. But +this is written by a woman, Christina Rossetti.</p> +<h4>Somewhere or Other</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Somewhere or other there must surely be</p> +<p class="i2">The face not seen, the voice not heard,</p> +<p>The heart that not yet—never yet—ah me!</p> +<p class="i2">Made answer to my word.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Somewhere or other, may be near or far;</p> +<p class="i2">Past land and sea, clean out of sight;</p> +<p>Beyond the wondering moon, beyond the star</p> +<p class="i2">That tracks her night by night.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Somewhere or other, may be far or near;</p> +<p class="i2">With just a wall, a hedge between;</p> +<p>With just the last leaves of the dying year,</p> +<p class="i2">Fallen on a turf grown green.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>And that turf means of course the turf of a grave in the +churchyard. This poem expresses fear that the destined one never +can be met, because death may come before the meeting time. All +through the poem there is the suggestion of an old belief that for +every man and for every woman there must be a mate, yet that it is +a chance whether the mate will ever be found.</p> +<p>You observe that all of these are ghostly poems, whether +prospective or retrospective. Here is another prospective poem: +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page56" name= +"page56">[56]</a></span></p> +<h4>Amaturus</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Somewhere beneath the sun,</p> +<p class="i2">These quivering heart-strings prove it,</p> +<p>Somewhere there must be one</p> +<p class="i2">Made for this soul, to move it;</p> +<p>Someone that hides her sweetness</p> +<p class="i2">From neighbors whom she slights,</p> +<p>Nor can attain completeness,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor give her heart its rights;</p> +<p>Someone whom I could court</p> +<p class="i2">With no great change of manner,</p> +<p>Still holding reason’s fort</p> +<p class="i2">Though waving fancy’s banner;</p> +<p>A lady, not so queenly</p> +<p class="i2">As to disdain my hand,</p> +<p>Yet born to smile serenely</p> +<p class="i2">Like those that rule the land;</p> +<p>Noble, but not too proud;</p> +<p class="i2">With soft hair simply folded,</p> +<p>And bright face crescent-browed</p> +<p class="i2">And throat by Muses moulded;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Keen lips, that shape soft sayings</p> +<p class="i2">Like crystals of the snow,</p> +<p>With pretty half-betrayings</p> +<p class="i2">Of things one may not know;</p> +<p>Fair hand, whose touches thrill,</p> +<p class="i2">Like golden rod of wonder,</p> +<p>Which Hermes wields at will</p> +<p class="i2">Spirit and flesh to sunder.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page57" name="page57">[57]</a></span> +<p>Forth, Love, and find this maid,</p> +<p class="i2">Wherever she be hidden;</p> +<p>Speak, Love, be not afraid,</p> +<p class="i2">But plead as thou art bidden;</p> +<p>And say, that he who taught thee</p> +<p class="i2">His yearning want and pain,</p> +<p>Too dearly dearly bought thee</p> +<p class="i2">To part with thee in vain.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>These lines are by the author of that exquisite little book +“Ionica”—a book about which I hope to talk to you +in another lecture. His real name was William Cory, and he was long +the head-master of an English public school, during which time he +composed and published anonymously the charming verses which have +made him famous—modelling his best work in close imitation of +the Greek poets. A few expressions in these lines need explanation. +For instance, the allusion to Hermes and his rod. I think you know +that Hermes is the Greek name of the same god whom the Romans +called Mercury,—commonly represented as a beautiful young +man, naked and running quickly, having wings attached to the +sandals upon his feet. Runners used to pray to him for skill in +winning foot races. But this god had many forms and many +attributes, and one of his supposed duties was to bring the souls +of the dead into the presence of the king of Hades. So you will see +some pictures of him standing before the throne of the king of the +Dead, and behind him <span class="pagenum"><a id="page58" name= +"page58">[58]</a></span>a long procession of shuddering ghosts. He +is nearly always pictured as holding in his hands a strange sceptre +called the <em>caduceus</em>, a short staff about which two little +serpents are coiled, and at the top of which is a tiny pair of +wings. This is the golden rod referred to by the poet; when Hermes +touched anybody with it, the soul of the person touched was obliged +immediately to leave the body and follow after him. So it is a very +beautiful stroke of art in this poem to represent the touch of the +hand of great love as having the magical power of the golden rod of +Hermes. It is as if the poet were to say: “Should she but +touch me, I know that my spirit would leap out of my body and +follow after her.” Then there is the expression +“crescent-browed.” It means only having beautifully +curved eyebrows—arched eyebrows being considered particularly +beautiful in Western countries.</p> +<p>Now we will consider another poem of the ideal. What we have +been reading referred to ghostly ideals, to memories, or to hopes. +Let us now see how the poets have talked about realities. Here is a +pretty thing by Thomas Ashe. It is entitled “Pansie”; +and this flower name is really a corruption of a French word +“Penser,” meaning a thought. The flower is very +beautiful, and its name is sometimes given to girls, as in the +present case.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page59" name="page59">[59]</a></span> +<h4>Meet We No Angels, Pansie?</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Came, on a Sabbath noon, my sweet,</p> +<p class="i2">In white, to find her lover;</p> +<p>The grass grew proud beneath her feet,</p> +<p class="i2">The green elm-leaves above her:—</p> +<p class="i4">Meet we no angels, Pansie?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She said, “We meet no angels now;”</p> +<p class="i2">And soft lights stream’d upon her;</p> +<p>And with white hand she touch’d a bough;</p> +<p class="i2">She did it that great honour:—</p> +<p class="i4">What! meet no angels, Pansie?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O sweet brown hat, brown hair, brown eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">Down-dropp’d brown eyes, so tender!</p> +<p>Then what said I? Gallant replies</p> +<p class="i2">Seem flattery, and offend her:—</p> +<p class="i4">But—meet no angels, Pansie?</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The suggestion is obvious, that the maiden realizes to the +lover’s eye the ideal of an angel. As she comes he asks her +slyly,—for she has been to the church—“Is it true +that nobody ever sees real angels?” She answers innocently, +thinking him to be in earnest, “No—long ago people used +to see angels, but in these times no one ever sees them.” He +does not dare tell her how beautiful she seems to him; but he +suggests much more than admiration by the tone of his protesting +response to her answer: “What! You cannot mean to say that +there are no angels now?” Of course that is the same as to +say, “I see an angel now”—but the <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page60" name="page60">[60]</a></span>girl is much +too innocent to take the real and flattering meaning.</p> +<p>Wordsworth’s portrait of the ideal woman is very famous; +it was written about his own wife though that fact would not be +guessed from the poem. The last stanza is the most famous, but we +had better quote them all.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She was a phantom of delight</p> +<p>When first she gleamed upon my sight;</p> +<p>A lovely apparition, sent</p> +<p>To be a moment’s ornament;</p> +<p>Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;</p> +<p>Like twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;</p> +<p>But all things else about her drawn</p> +<p>From May-time and the cheerful dawn;</p> +<p>A dancing shape, an image gay,</p> +<p>To haunt, to startle, and waylay.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I saw her upon nearer view,</p> +<p>A Spirit, yet a Woman too!</p> +<p>Her household motions light and free,</p> +<p>And steps of virgin liberty;</p> +<p>A countenance in which did meet</p> +<p>Sweet records, promises as sweet;</p> +<p>A creature not too bright or good</p> +<p>For human nature’s daily food;</p> +<p>For transient sorrows, simple wiles,</p> +<p>Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And now I see with eye serene</p> +<p>The very pulse of the machine;</p> +<p>A being breathing thoughtful breath,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page61" name="page61">[61]</a></span> +<p>A traveller betwixt life and death;</p> +<p>The reason firm, the temperate will,</p> +<p>Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;</p> +<p>A perfect woman, nobly plann’d,</p> +<p>To warn, to comfort and command;</p> +<p>And yet a Spirit still, and bright</p> +<p>With something of angelic light.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>I quoted this after the Pansie poem to show you how much more +deeply Wordsworth could touch the same subject. To him, too, the +first apparition of the ideal maiden seemed angelic; like Ashe he +could perceive the mingled attraction of innocence and of youth. +But innocence and youth are by no means all that make up the best +attributes of woman; character is more than innocence and more than +youth, and it is character that Wordsworth studies. But in the last +verse he tells us that the angel is always there, nevertheless, +even when the good woman becomes old. The angel is the +Mother-soul.</p> +<p>Wordsworth’s idea that character is the supreme charm was +expressed very long before him by other English poets, notably by +Thomas Carew.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>He that loves a rosy cheek,</p> +<p class="i2">Or a coral lip admires,</p> +<p>Or from star-like eyes doth seek</p> +<p class="i2">Fuel to maintain his fires:</p> +<p>As old Time makes these decay,</p> +<p class="i2">So his flames must waste away.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page62" name= +"page62">[62]</a></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But a smooth and steadfast mind,</p> +<p class="i2">Gentle thoughts and calm desires,</p> +<p>Hearts with equal love combined,</p> +<p class="i2">Kindle never-dying fires.</p> +<p>Where these, are not, I despise</p> +<p class="i2">Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"></div> +</div> +<p>For about three hundred years in English literature it was the +fashion—a fashion borrowed from the Latin poets—to +speak of love as a fire or flame, and you must understand the image +in these verses in that signification. To-day the fashion is not +quite dead, but very few poets now follow it.</p> +<p>Byron himself, with all his passion and his affected scorn of +ethical convention, could and did, when he pleased, draw beautiful +portraits of moral as well as physical attraction. These stanzas +are famous; they paint for us a person with equal attraction of +body and mind.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She walks in beauty, like the night</p> +<p class="i2">Of cloudless climes and starry skies;</p> +<p>And all that’s best of dark and bright</p> +<p class="i2">Meet in her aspect and her eyes:</p> +<p>Thus mellow’d to that tender light</p> +<p class="i2">Which heaven to gaudy day denies.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>One shade the more, one ray the less,</p> +<p class="i2">Had half impair’d the nameless grace</p> +<p>Which waves in every raven tress,</p> +<p class="i2">Or softly lightens o’er her face;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page63" name="page63">[63]</a></span> +<p>Where thoughts serenely sweet express</p> +<p class="i2">How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,</p> +<p class="i2">So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,</p> +<p>The smiles that win, the tints that glow,</p> +<p class="i2">But tell of days in goodness spent,</p> +<p>A mind at peace with all below,</p> +<p class="i2">A heart whose love is innocent!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>It is worth noticing that in each of the last three poems, the +physical beauty described is that of dark eyes and hair. This may +serve to remind you that there are two distinct types, opposite +types, of beauty celebrated by English poets; and the next poem +which I am going to quote, the beautiful “Ruth” of +Thomas Hood, also describes a dark woman.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She stood breast-high amid the corn,</p> +<p>Clasp’d by the golden light of morn,</p> +<p>Like the sweetheart of the sun,</p> +<p>Who many a glowing kiss had won.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>On her cheek an autumn flush,</p> +<p>Deeply ripen’d;—such a blush</p> +<p>In the midst of brown was born,</p> +<p>Like red poppies grown with corn.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Round her eyes her tresses fell,</p> +<p>Which were blackest none could tell,</p> +<p>But long lashes veil’d a light,</p> +<p>That had else been all too bright.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page64" name= +"page64">[64]</a></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And her hat, with shady brim,</p> +<p>Made her tressy forehead dim;</p> +<p>Thus she stood among the stooks,</p> +<p>Praising God with sweetest looks:—</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Sure, I said, Heav’n did not mean,</p> +<p>Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,</p> +<p>Lay thy sheaf adown and come,</p> +<p>Share my harvest and my home.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>We might call this the ideal of a peasant girl whose poverty +appeals to the sympathy of all who behold her. The name of the poem +is suggested indeed by the Bible story of Ruth the gleaner, but the +story in the poem is only that of a rich farmer who marries a very +poor girl, because of her beauty and her goodness. It is just a +charming picture—a picture of the dark beauty which is so +much admired in Northern countries, where it is less common than in +Southern Europe. There are beautiful brown-skinned types; and the +flush of youth on the cheeks of such a brown girl has been compared +to the red upon a ripe peach or a russet apple—a hard kind of +apple, very sweet and juicy, which is brown instead of yellow, or +reddish brown. But the poet makes the comparison with poppy flowers +and wheat. That, of course, means golden yellow and red; in English +wheat fields red poppy flowers grow in abundance. The expression +“tressy forehead” in the second line of the fourth +stanza means a forehead half covered with falling, loose hair.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page65" name= +"page65">[65]</a></span>The foregoing pretty picture may be offset +by charming poem of Browning’s describing a lover’s +pride in his illusion. It is simply entitled “Song,” +and to appreciate it you must try to understand the mood of a young +man who believes that he has actually realized his ideal, and that +the woman that he loves is the most beautiful person in the whole +world. The fact that this is simply imagination on his part does +not make the poem less beautiful—on the contrary, the false +imagining is just what makes it beautiful, the youthful emotion of +a moment being so humanly and frankly described. Such a youth must +imagine that every one else sees and thinks about the girl just as +he does, and he expects them to confess it.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Nay but you, who do not love her,</p> +<p class="i2">Is she not pure gold, my mistress?</p> +<p>Holds earth aught—speak truth—above her?</p> +<p class="i2">Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,</p> +<p>And this last fairest tress of all,</p> +<p>So fair, see, ere I let it fall?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Because you spend your lives in praising;</p> +<p class="i2">To praise, you search the wide world over;</p> +<p>Then why not witness, calmly gazing,</p> +<p class="i2">If earth holds aught—speak truth—above +her?</p> +<p>Above this tress, and this, I touch</p> +<p>But cannot praise, I love so much!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>You see the picture, I think,—probably some <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page66" name= +"page66">[66]</a></span>artist’s studio for a background. She +sits or stands there with her long hair loosely flowing down to her +feet like a river of gold; and her lover, lifting up some of the +long tresses in his hand, asks his friend, who stands by, to notice +how beautiful such hair is. Perhaps the girl was having her picture +painted. One would think so from the question, “Since your +business is to look for beautiful things, why can you not honestly +acknowledge that this woman is the most beautiful thing in the +whole world?” Or we might imagine the questioned person to be +a critic by profession as well as an artist. Like the preceding +poem this also is a picture. But the next poem, also by Browning, +is much more than a picture—it is very profound indeed, +simple as it looks. An old man is sitting by the dead body of a +young girl of about sixteen. He tells us how he secretly loved her, +as a father might love a daughter, as a brother might love a +sister. But he would have wished, if he had not been so old, and +she so young, to love her as a husband. He never could have her in +this world, but why should he not hope for it in the future world? +He whispers into her dead ear his wish, and he puts a flower into +her dead hand, thinking, “When she wakes up, in another life, +she will see that flower, and remember what I said to her, and how +much I loved her.” That is the mere story. But we must +understand that the greatness of the love <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page67" name="page67">[67]</a></span>expressed in +the poem is awakened by an ideal of innocence and sweetness and +goodness, and the affection is of the soul—that is to say, it +is the love of beautiful character, not the love of a beautiful +face only, that is expressed.</p> +<h4>Evelyn Hope</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!</p> +<p class="i2">Sit and watch by her side an hour.</p> +<p>That is her book-shelf, this her bed;</p> +<p class="i2">She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,</p> +<p>Beginning to die too, in the glass;</p> +<p class="i2">Little has yet been changed, I think:</p> +<p>The shutters are shut, no light can pass</p> +<p class="i2">Save two long rays through the hinge’s +chink.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Sixteen years old when she died!</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;</p> +<p>It was not her time to love; beside,</p> +<p class="i2">Her life had many a hope and aim,</p> +<p>Duties enough and little cares,</p> +<p class="i2">And now was quiet, now astir,</p> +<p>Till God’s hand beckoned unawares,—</p> +<p class="i2">And the sweet white brow is all of her.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope?</p> +<p class="i2">What, your soul was pure and true,</p> +<p>The good stars met in your horoscope,</p> +<p class="i2">Made you of spirit, fire and dew—</p> +<p>And just because I was thrice as old</p> +<p class="i2">And our paths in the world diverged so wide,</p> +<p>Each was naught to each, must I be told?</p> +<p class="i2">We were fellow mortals, naught beside?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page68" name= +"page68">[68]</a></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>No, indeed! for God above,</p> +<p class="i2">Is great to grant, as mighty to make,</p> +<p>And creates the love to reward the love:</p> +<p class="i2">I claim you still, for my own love’s sake!</p> +<p>Delayed it may be for more lives yet,</p> +<p class="i2">Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:</p> +<p>Much is to learn, much to forget,</p> +<p class="i2">Ere the time be come for taking you.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But the time will come,—at last it will,</p> +<p class="i2">When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)</p> +<p>In the lower earth, in the years long still,</p> +<p class="i2">That body and soul so pure and gay?</p> +<p>Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,</p> +<p class="i2">And your mouth of your own geranium’s +red—</p> +<p>And what you would do with me, in fine,</p> +<p class="i2">In the new life come in the old one’s +stead.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,</p> +<p class="i2">Given up myself so many times,</p> +<p>Gained me the gains of various men,</p> +<p class="i2">Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;</p> +<p>Yet one thing, one, in my soul’s full scope,</p> +<p class="i2">Either I missed or itself missed me:</p> +<p>And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!</p> +<p class="i2">What is the issue? let us see!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!</p> +<p class="i2">My heart seemed full as it could hold;</p> +<p>There was space and to spare for the frank young smile,</p> +<p class="i2">And the red young mouth, and the hair’s young +gold.</p> +<p>So, hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep:</p> +<p class="i2">See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page69" name="page69">[69]</a></span> +<p>There, that is our secret: go to sleep!</p> +<p class="i2">You will wake, and remember, and understand.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>No other poet has written so many different kinds of poems on +this subject as Browning; and although I can not quote all of them, +I must not neglect to make a just representation of the variety. +Here is another example: the chief idea is again the beauty of +truthfulness and fidelity, but the artistic impression is quite +different.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A simple ring with a single stone,</p> +<p class="i2">To the vulgar eye no stone of price:</p> +<p>Whisper the right word, that alone—</p> +<p class="i2">Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice.</p> +<p>And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll)</p> +<p>Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole</p> +<p class="i4">Through the power in a pearl.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A woman (’tis I this time that say)</p> +<p class="i2">With little the world counts worthy praise:</p> +<p>Utter the true word—out and away</p> +<p class="i2">Escapes her soul; I am wrapt in blaze,</p> +<p>Creation’s lord, of heaven and earth</p> +<p>Lord whole and sole—by a minute’s birth—</p> +<p class="i4">Through the love in a girl!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Paraphrased, the meaning will not prove as simple as the verses: +Here is a finger ring set with one small stone, one jewel. It is a +very cheap-looking stone to common eyes. But if you know a certain +magical word, and, after putting the ring on your finger, you +whisper that magical <span class="pagenum"><a id="page70" name= +"page70">[70]</a></span>word over the cheap-looking stone, suddenly +a spirit, a demon or a genie, springs from that gem like a flash of +fire miraculously issuing from a lump of ice. And that spirit or +genie has power to make you king of the whole world and of the sky +above the world, lord of the spirits of heaven and earth and air +and fire. Yet the stone is only—a pearl—and it can make +you lord of the universe. That is the old Arabian story. The word +scroll here means a manuscript, an Arabian manuscript.</p> +<p>But what is after all the happiness of mere power? There is a +greater happiness possible than to be lord of heaven and earth; +that is the happiness of being truly loved. Here is a woman; to the +eye of the world, to the sight of other men, she is not very +beautiful nor at all remarkable in any way. She is just an ordinary +woman, as the pearl in the ring is to all appearances just a common +pearl. But let the right word be said, let the soul of that woman +be once really touched by the magic of love, and what a revelation! +As the spirit in the Arabian story sprang from the stone of the +magical ring, when the word was spoken, so from the heart of this +woman suddenly her soul displays itself in shining light. And the +man who loves, instantly becomes, in the splendour of that light, +verily the lord of heaven and earth; to the eyes of the being who +loves him he is a god.</p> +<p>The legend is the legend of Solomon—not the Solomon of the +Bible, but the much more wonderful <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page71" name="page71">[71]</a></span>Solomon of the Arabian +story-teller. His power is said to have been in a certain seal +ring, upon which the mystical name of Allah, or at least one of the +ninety and nine mystical names, was engraved. When he chose to use +this ring, all the spirits of air, the spirits of earth, the +spirits of water and the spirits of fire were obliged to obey him. +The name of such a ring is usually “Talisman.”</p> +<p>Here is another of Browning’s jewels, one of the last +poems written shortly before his death. It is entitled +“Summum Bonum,”—signifying “the highest +good.” The subject is a kiss; we may understand that the +first betrothal kiss is the mark of affection described. When the +promise of marriage has been made, that promise is sealed or +confirmed by the first kiss. But this refers only to the refined +classes of society. Among the English people proper, especially the +country folk, kissing the girls is only a form of showing mere good +will, and has no serious meaning at all.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one +bee:</p> +<p class="i2">All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of +one gem:</p> +<p>In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the +sea:</p> +<p class="i2">Breath and bloom, shade and shine,—wonder, +wealth, and—how far above them—</p> +<p>Truth, that’s brighter than gem,</p> +<p class="i2">Trust, that’s purer than pearl,—</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page72" name="page72">[72]</a></span> +<p>Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe—all were for +me</p> +<p class="i2">In the kiss of one girl.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>There is in this a suggestion of Ben Jonson, who uses almost +exactly the same simile without any moral significance. The +advantage of Browning is that he has used the sensuous imagery for +ethical symbolism; here he greatly surpasses Jonson, though it +would be hard to improve upon the beauty of Jonson’s verses, +as merely describing visual beauty. Here are Jonson’s +stanzas:</p> +<h4>The Triumph</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>See the Chariot at hand here of Love,</p> +<p class="i2">Wherein my Lady rideth!</p> +<p>Each that draws is a swan or a dove,</p> +<p class="i2">And well the car Love guideth.</p> +<p>As she goes, all hearts do duty</p> +<p class="i2">Unto her beauty;</p> +<p>And enamoured do wish, so they might</p> +<p class="i2">But enjoy such a sight,</p> +<p>That they still were to run by her side,</p> +<p>Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Do but look on her eyes, they do light</p> +<p class="i2">All that Love’s world compriseth!</p> +<p>Do but look on her hair, it is bright</p> +<p class="i2">As love’s star when it riseth!</p> +<p>Do but mark, her forehead’s smoother</p> +<p class="i2">Than words that soothe her;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page73" name="page73">[73]</a></span> +<p>And from her arch’d brows such a grace</p> +<p class="i2">Sheds itself through the face,</p> +<p>As alone there triumphs to the life</p> +<p>All the gain, all the good, of the elements’ strife.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Have you seen but a bright lily grow</p> +<p class="i2">Before rude hands have touched it?</p> +<p>Have you mark’d but the fall of the snow</p> +<p class="i2">Before the soil hath smutch’d it?</p> +<p>Have you felt the wool of beaver</p> +<p class="i2">Or swan’s down ever?</p> +<p>Or have smelt o’ the bud o’ the brier,</p> +<p class="i2">Or the nard in the fire?</p> +<p>Or have tasted the bag of the bee?</p> +<p>O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The first of the above stanzas is a study after the Roman poets; +but the last stanza is Jonson’s own and is very famous. You +will see that Browning was probably inspired by him, but I think +that his verses are much more beautiful in thought and feeling.</p> +<p>There is one type of ideal woman very seldom described in +poetry—the old maid, the woman whom sorrow or misfortune +prevents from fulfilling her natural destiny. Commonly the woman +who never marries is said to become cross, bad tempered, unpleasant +in character. She could not be blamed for this, I think; but there +are old maids who always remain as unselfish and frank and kind as +a girl, and who keep the charm of girlhood even when their hair is +white. Hartley <span class="pagenum"><a id="page74" name= +"page74">[74]</a></span>Coleridge, son of the great Samuel, +attempted to describe such a one, and his picture is both touching +and beautiful.</p> +<h4>The Solitary-Hearted</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She was a queen of noble Nature’s crowning,</p> +<p class="i2">A smile of hers was like an act of grace;</p> +<p>She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning,</p> +<p class="i2">Like daily beauties of the vulgar race:</p> +<p>But if she smiled, a light was on her face,</p> +<p class="i2">A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam</p> +<p>Of peaceful radiance, silvering o’er the stream</p> +<p class="i2">Of human thought with unabiding glory;</p> +<p>Not quite a waking truth, not quite a dream,</p> +<p class="i2">A visitation, bright and transitory.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But she is changed,—hath felt the touch of sorrow,</p> +<p class="i2">No love hath she, no understanding friend;</p> +<p>O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow</p> +<p class="i2">What the poor niggard earth has not to lend;</p> +<p>But when the stalk is snapt, the rose must bend.</p> +<p class="i2">The tallest flower that skyward rears its head</p> +<p>Grows from the common ground, and there must shed</p> +<p class="i2">Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely</p> +<p>That they should find so base a bridal bed,</p> +<p class="i2">Who lived in virgin pride, so sweet and purely.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She had a brother, and a tender father,</p> +<p class="i2">And she was loved, but not as others are</p> +<p>From whom we ask return of love,—but rather</p> +<p class="i2">As one might love a dream; a phantom fair</p> +<p>Of something exquisitely strange and rare,</p> +<p class="i2">Which all were glad to look on, men and maids,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page75" name="page75">[75]</a></span> +<p>Yet no one claimed—as oft, in dewy glades,</p> +<p class="i2">The peering primrose, like a sudden gladness,</p> +<p>Gleams on the soul, yet unregarded fades;—</p> +<p class="i2">The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>’Tis vain to say—her worst of grief is only</p> +<p class="i2">The common lot, which all the world have known</p> +<p>To her ‘tis more, because her heart is lonely,</p> +<p class="i2">And yet she hath no strength to stand +alone,—</p> +<p>Once she had playmates, fancies of her own,</p> +<p class="i2">And she did love them. They are past away</p> +<p>As fairies vanish at the break of day;</p> +<p class="i2">And like a spectre of an age departed,</p> +<p>Or unsphered angel woefully astray,</p> +<p class="i2">She glides along—the solitary-hearted.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Perhaps it is scarcely possible for you to imagine that a woman +finds it impossible to marry because of being too beautiful, too +wise, and too good. In Western countries it is not impossible at +all. You must try to imagine entirely different social +conditions—conditions in which marriage depends much more +upon the person than upon the parents, much more upon inclination +than upon anything else. A woman’s chances of marriage depend +very much upon herself, upon her power of pleasing and charming. +Thousands and tens of thousands can never get married. Now there +are cases in which a woman can please too much. Men become afraid +of her. They think, “She knows too much, I dare not be frank +with her”—or, “She is too beautiful, she never +would accept <span class="pagenum"><a id="page76" name= +"page76">[76]</a></span>a common person like me”—or, +“She is too formal and correct, she would never forgive a +mistake, and I could never be happy with her.” Not only is +this possible, but it frequently happens. Too much excellence makes +a misfortune. I think you can understand it best by the reference +to the very natural prejudice against over-educated women, a +prejudice founded upon experience and existing in all countries, +even in Japan. Men are not attracted to a woman because she is +excellent at mathematics, because she knows eight or nine different +languages, because she has acquired all the conventions of +high-pressure training. Men do not care about that. They want love +and trust and kindliness and ability to make a home beautiful and +happy. Well, the poem we have been reading is very pathetic because +it describes a woman who can not fulfil her natural destiny, can +not be loved—this through no fault of her own, but quite the +reverse. To be too much advanced beyond one’s time and +environment is even a worse misfortune than to be too much +behind.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page77" name= +"page77">[77]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_4" name="Ch_4">Chapter IV</a></h3> +<h2>Note Upon the Shortest Forms of English Poetry</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Perhaps there is an idea among Japanese students that one +general difference between Japanese and Western poetry is that the +former cultivates short forms and the latter longer ones, gut this +is only in part true. It is true that short forms of poetry have +been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe; but in +all European literature short forms of poetry are to be +found—indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese. Like the +Japanese, the old Greeks, who carried poetry to the highest +perfection that it has ever attained, delighted in short forms; and +the Greek Anthology is full of compositions containing only two or +three lines. You will find beautiful translations of these in +Symonds’s “Studies of Greek Poets,” in the second +volume. Following Greek taste, the Roman poets afterwards +cultivated short forms of verse, but they chiefly used such verse +for satirical purposes, unfortunately; I say, unfortunately, +because the first great English poets who imitated the ancients +were chiefly influenced by the Latin writers, and they <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page78" name="page78">[78]</a></span>also used the +short forms for epigrammatic satire rarely for a purely esthetic +object. Ben Jonson both wrote and translated a great number of very +short stanzas—two lines and four lines; but Jonson was a +satirist in these forms. Herrick, as you know, delighted in very +short poems; but he was greatly influenced by Jonson, and many of +his couplets and of his quatrains are worthless satires or +worthless jests. However, you will find some short verses in +Herrick that almost make you think of a certain class of Japanese +poems. After the Elizabethan Age, also, the miniature poems were +still used in the fashion set by the Roman writers,—then the +eighteenth century deluged us with ill-natured witty epigrams of +the like brief form. It was not until comparatively modern times +that our Western world fully recognized the value of the distich, +triplet or quatrain for the expression of beautiful thoughts, +rather than for the expression of ill-natured ones. But now that +the recognition has come, it has been discovered that nothing is +harder than to write a beautiful poem of two or four lines. Only +great masters have been truly successful at it. Goethe, you know, +made a quatrain that has become a part of world-literature:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Who ne’er his bread in sorrow ate,—</p> +<p class="i2">Who ne’er the lonely midnight hours,</p> +<p>Weeping upon his bed has sate,</p> +<p class="i2">He knows ye not, ye Heavenly Powers!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page79" name= +"page79">[79]</a></span>—meaning, of course, that inspiration +and wisdom come to us only through sorrow, and that those who have +never suffered never can be wise. But in the universities of +England a great deal of short work of a most excellent kind has +been done in Greek and Latin; and there is the celebrated case of +an English student who won a prize by a poem of a single line. The +subject given had been the miracle of Christ’s turning water +into wine at the marriage feast; and while other scholars attempted +elaborate composition on the theme, this student wrote but one +verse, of which the English translation is</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The modest water saw its Lord, and blushed.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Of course the force of the idea depends upon the popular +conception of wine being red. The Latin and Greek model, however, +did not seem to encourage much esthetic effort in short poems of +English verse until the time of the romantic movement. Then, both +in France and England, many brief forms of poetry made their +appearance. In France, Victor Hugo attempted composition in +astonishingly varied forms of verse—some forms actually +consisting of only two syllables to a line. With this surprisingly +short measure begins one of Hugo’s most remarkably early +poems, “Les Djins,” representing the coming of evil +spirits with a storm, their passing over the house where a man is +at prayer, and departing <span class="pagenum"><a id="page80" name= +"page80">[80]</a></span>into the distance again. Beginning with +only two syllables to the line, the measure of the poem gradually +widens as the spirits approach, becomes very wide, very long and +sonorous as they reach the house, and again shrinks back to lines +of two syllables as the sound of them dies away. In England a like +variety of experiments has been made; but neither in France nor in +England has the short form yet been as successfully cultivated as +it was among the Greeks. We have some fine examples; but, as an +eminent English editor observed a few years ago, not enough +examples to make a book. And of course this means that there are +very few; for you can make a book of poetry very well with as +little as fifty pages of largely and widely printed text. However, +we may cite a few modern instances.</p> +<p>I think that about the most perfect quatrains we have are those +of the extraordinary man, Walter Savage Landor, who, you know, was +a rare Greek scholar, all his splendid English work being very +closely based upon the Greek models. He made a little epitaph upon +himself, which is matchless of its kind:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;</p> +<p class="i2">Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;</p> +<p>I warmed both hands before the fire of life:</p> +<p class="i2">It sinks; and I am ready to depart.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>You know that Greeks used the short form a <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page81" name="page81">[81]</a></span>great deal +for their exquisite epitaphs, and that a considerable part of the +anthology consists of epitaphic literature. But the quatrain has a +much wider range than this funereal limitation, and one such +example of epitaph will suffice.</p> +<p>Only one English poet of our own day, and that a minor one, has +attempted to make the poem of four lines a specialty—that is +William Watson. He has written a whole volume of such little poems, +but very few of them are successful. As I said before, we have not +enough good poems of this sort for a book; and the reason is not +because English poets despise the short form, but because it is +supremely difficult. The Greeks succeeded in it, but we are still +far behind the Greeks in the shaping of any kind of verse. The best +of Watson’s pieces take the form of philosophical +suggestions; and this kind of verse is particularly well adapted to +philosophical utterance.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Think not thy wisdom can illume away</p> +<p>The ancient tanglement of night and day.</p> +<p>Enough to acknowledge both, and both revere;</p> +<p>They see not clearliest who see all things clear.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>That is to say, do not think that any human knowledge will ever +be able to make you understand the mystery of the universe with its +darkness and light, its joy and pain. It is best to revere the +powers that make both good and evil, and to remember that the +keenest, worldly, practical minds <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page82" name="page82">[82]</a></span>are not the minds that best +perceive the great truths and mysteries of existence. Here is +another little bit, reminding us somewhat of Goethe’s +quatrain, already quoted.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Lives there whom pain hath evermore passed by</p> +<p>And sorrow shunned with an averted eye?</p> +<p>Him do thou pity,—him above the rest,</p> +<p>Him, of all hapless mortals most unblessed.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>That needs no commentary, and it contains a large truth in small +space. Here is a little bit on the subject of the artist’s +ambition, which is also good.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The thousand painful steps at last are trod,</p> +<p class="i2">At last the temple’s difficult door we win,</p> +<p>But perfect on his pedestal, the God</p> +<p class="i2">Freezes us hopeless when we enter in.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The higher that the artist climbs by effort, the nearer his +approach to the loftier truth, the more he understands how little +his very best can achieve. It is the greatest artist, he who +veritably enters the presence of God—that most feels his own +weakness; the perception of beauty that other men can not see, +terrifies him, freezes him motionless, as the poet says.</p> +<p>Out of all of Watson’s epigrams I believe these are the +best. The rest with the possible exception of those on the subject +of love seem to me altogether failures. Emerson and various +American <span class="pagenum"><a id="page83" name= +"page83">[83]</a></span>poets also attempted the quatrain—but +Emerson’s verse is nearly always bad, even when his thought +is sublime. One example of Emerson will suffice.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou canst not wave thy staff in air,</p> +<p class="i2">Or dip thy paddle in the lake,</p> +<p>But it carves the bow of beauty there,</p> +<p class="i2">And the ripples in rhyme the oar forsake.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The form is atrociously bad; but the reflection is +grand—it is another way of expressing the beautiful old Greek +thought that “God <em>geometrizes</em> +everywhere”—that is, that all motion is in geometrical +lines, and full of beauty. You can pick hundreds of fine things in +very short verse out of Emerson, but the verse is nearly always +shapeless; the composition of the man invariably makes us think of +diamonds in the rough, jewels uncut. So far as form goes a much +better master of quatrain is the American poet Aldrich, who wrote +the following little thing, entitled “Popularity.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Such kings of shreds have wooed and won her,</p> +<p class="i2">Such crafty knaves her laurel owned,</p> +<p>It has become almost an honour</p> +<p class="i2">Not to be crowned.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is good verse. The reference to “a king of shreds and +patches”—that is, a beggar king—you will +recognize as Shakespearean. But although this pretty verse has in +it more philosophy than satire, it approaches the satiric class of +epigrams. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page84" name= +"page84">[84]</a></span>Neither America nor England has been able +to do very much in the sort of verse that we have been talking +about. Now this is a very remarkable thing,—because at the +English universities beautiful work has been done in Greek or +Latin—in poems of a single line, of two lines, of three lines +and other very brief measures. Why can it not be done in English? I +suspect that it is because our English language has not yet become +sufficiently perfect, sufficiently flexible, sufficiently melodious +to allow of great effect with a very few words. We can do the thing +in Greek or in Latin because either Greek or Latin is a more +perfect language.</p> +<p>So much for theory. I should like to suggest, however, that it +is very probable many attempts at these difficult forms of poetry +will be attempted by English poets within the next few years. There +is now a tendency in that direction. I do not know whether such +attempts will be successful; but I should like you to understand +that for Western poets they are extremely difficult and that you +ought to obtain from the recognition of this fact a new sense of +the real value of your own short forms of verse in the hands of a +master. Effects can be produced in Japanese which the Greeks could +produce with few syllables, but which the English can not. Now it +strikes me that, instead of even thinking of throwing away old +forms of verse in order to invent new ones, the future Japanese +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page85" name= +"page85">[85]</a></span>poets ought rather to develop and cultivate +and prize the forms already existing, which belong to the genius of +the language, and which have proved themselves capable of much that +no English verse or even French verse could accomplish. Perhaps +only the Italian is really comparable to Japanese in some respects; +you can perform miracles with Italian verse.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page86" name= +"page86">[86]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_5" name="Ch_5">Chapter V</a></h3> +<h2>Some Foreign Poems on Japanese Subjects</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>The Western poet and writer of romance has exactly the same kind +of difficulty in comprehending Eastern subjects as you have in +comprehending Western subjects. You will commonly find references +to Japanese love poems of the popular kind made in such a way as to +indicate the writer’s belief that such poems refer to married +life or at least to a courtship relation. No Western writer who has +not lived for many years in the East, could write correctly about +anything on this subject; and even after a long stay in the country +he might be unable to understand. Therefore a great deal of Western +poetry written about Japan must seem to you all wrong, and I can +not hope to offer you many specimens of work in this direction that +could deserve your praise. Yet there is some poetry so fine on the +subject of Japan that I think you would admire it and I am sure +that you should know it. A proof of really great art is that it is +generally true—it seldom falls into the misapprehensions to +which minor art is liable. What do you think of the fact that the +finest poetry ever written upon a Japanese subject by any Western +poet, has been written by a man who never saw <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page87" name="page87">[87]</a></span>the land? But +he is a member of the French Academy, a great and true lover of +art, and without a living superior in that most difficult form of +poetry, the sonnet. In the time of thirty years he produced only +one very small volume of sonnets, but so fine are these that they +were lifted to the very highest place in poetical distinction. I +may say that there are now only three really great French +poets—survivals of the grand romantic school. These are +Leconte de Lisle, Sully-Prudhomme, and José Maria de +Heredia. It is the last of whom I am speaking. As you can tell by +his name, he is not a Frenchman either by birth or blood, but a +Spaniard, or rather a Spanish Creole, born in Cuba. Heredia knows +Japan only through pictures, armour, objects of art in museums, +paintings and carvings. Remembering this, I think that you will +find that he does wonderfully well. It is true that he puts a woman +in one of his pictures, but I think that his management of his +subject is very much nearer the truth than that of almost any +writer who has attempted to describe old Japan. And you must +understand that the following sonnet is essentially intended to be +a picture—to produce upon the mind exactly the same effect +that a picture does, with the addition of such life as poetry can +give.</p> +<h3>Le Samourai</h3> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>D’un doigt distrait frôlant la sonore +bîva,</p> +<p>A travers les bambous tressés en fine latte,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page88" name="page88">[88]</a></span> +<p>Elle a vu, par la plage éblouissante et plate,</p> +<p>S’avancer le vainqueur que son amour rêva.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>C’est lui. Sabres au flanc, l’éventail haut, +il va.</p> +<p>La cordelière rouge et le gland écarlate</p> +<p>Coupent l’armure sombre, et, sur l’épaule, +éclate</p> +<p>Le blazon de Hizen ou de Tokungawa.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ce beau guerrier vêtu de lames et de plaques,</p> +<p>Sous le bronze, la soie et les brillantes laques,</p> +<p>Semble un crustace noir, gigantesque et vermeil.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Il l’a vue. Il sourit dans la barbe du masque,</p> +<p>Et son pas plus hâtif fait reluire au soleil</p> +<p>Les deux antennes d’or qui tremblent à son +casque.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>“Lightly touching her <em>biva</em> with heedless finger, +she has perceived, through the finely woven bamboo screen, the +conqueror, lovingly thought of, approach over the dazzling level of +the beach.</p> +<p>“It is he. With his swords at his side he advances, +holding up his fan. The red girdle and the scarlet tassel appear in +sharply cut relief against the dark armour; and upon his shoulder +glitters a crest of Hizen or of Tokungawa.</p> +<p>“This handsome warrior sheathed with his scales and plates +of metal, under his bronze, his silk and glimmering lacquer, seems +a crustacean, gigantic, black and vermilion.</p> +<p>“He has caught sight of her. Under the beaver of the war +mask he smiles, and his quickened step <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page89" name="page89">[89]</a></span>makes to glitter in the sun +the two antennæ of gold that quiver upon his +helmet.”</p> +<p>The comparison of a warrior in full armour to a gigantic crab or +lobster, especially lobster, is not exactly new. Victor Hugo has +used it before in French literature, just as Carlyle has used it in +English literature; indeed the image could not fail to occur to the +artist in any country where the study of armour has been carried +on. But here the poet does not speak of any particular creature; he +uses only the generic term, crustacean, the vagueness of which +makes the comparison much more effective. I think you can see the +whole picture at once. It is a Japanese colour-print,—some +ancient interior, lighted by the sun of a great summer day; and a +woman looking through a bamboo blind toward the seashore, where she +sees a warrior approaching. He divines that he is seen; but if he +smiles, it is only because the smile is hidden by his iron mask. +The only sign of any sentiment on his part is that he walks a +little quicker. Still more amazing is a companion picture, +containing only a solitary figure:</p> +<h3>Le Daimio (Matin de bataille)</h3> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Sous le noir fouet de guerre à quadruple pompon,</p> +<p>L’étalon belliqueux en hennissant se cabre,</p> +<p>Et fait bruire, avec de cliquetis de sabre,</p> +<p>La cuirasse de bronze aux lames du jupon.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page90" name= +"page90">[90]</a></span> +<p>Le Chef vêtu d’airain, de laque et de +crépon,</p> +<p>Otant le masque à poils de son visage glabre,</p> +<p>Regarde le volcan sur un ciel de cinabre</p> +<p>Dresser la neige où rit l’aurore du Nippon.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Mais il a vu, vers l’Est éclaboussé +d’or, l’astre,</p> +<p>Glorieux d’éclairer ce matin de +désastre,</p> +<p>Poindre, orbe éblouissant, au-dessus de la mer;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Et pour couvrir ses yeux dont pas un cil ne bouge,</p> +<p>Il ouvre d’un seul coup son éventail de fer,</p> +<p>Où dans le satin blanc se lève un Soleil +rouge.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>“Under the black war whip with its quadruple pompon the +fierce stallion, whinnying, curvets, and makes the rider’s +bronze cuirass ring against the plates of his shirt of mail, with a +sound like the clashing of sword blades.</p> +<p>“The Chief, clad in bronze and lacquer and silken crape, +removing the bearded masque from his beardless face, turns his gaze +to the great volcano, lifting its snows into the cinnabar sky where +the dawn of Nippon begins to smile.</p> +<p>“Nay! he has already seen the gold-spattered day star, +gloriously illuminating the morning of disaster, rise, a blinding +disk, above the seas. And to shade his eyes, on both of which not +even a single eyelash stirs, he opens with one quick movement his +iron fan, wherein upon a field of white satin there rises a crimson +sun.”</p> +<p>Of course this hasty translation is very poor; and you can only +get from it the signification and <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page91" name="page91">[91]</a></span>colour of the +picture—the beautiful sonority and luminosity of the French +is all gone. Nevertheless, I am sure that the more you study the +original the more you will see how fine it is. Here also is a +Japanese colour print. We see the figure of the horseman on the +shore, in the light of dawn; behind him the still dark sky of +night; before him the crimson dawn, and Fuji white against the red +sky. And in the open fan, with its red sun, we have a grim +suggestion of the day of blood that is about to be; that is all. +But whoever reads that sonnet will never forget it; it burns into +the memory. So, indeed, does everything that Heredia writes. +Unfortunately he has not yet written anything more about Japan.</p> +<p>I have quoted Heredia because I think that no other poet has +even approached him in the attempt to make a Japanese +picture—though many others have tried; and the French, nearly +always, have done much better than the English, because they are +more naturally artists. Indeed one must be something of an artist +to write anything in the way of good poetry on a Japanese subject. +If you look at the collection “Poems of Places,” in the +library, you will see how poorly Japan is there represented; the +only respectable piece of foreign work being by Longfellow, and +that is only about Japanese vases. But since then some English +poems have appeared which are at least worthy of Japanese +notice.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page92" name= +"page92">[92]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_6" name="Ch_6">Chapter VI</a></h3> +<h2>The Bible in English Literature</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to +Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it +will have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the +written and spoken language of the English race. For this reason, +to study English literature without some general knowledge of the +relation of the Bible to that literature would be to leave +one’s literary education very incomplete. It is not necessary +to consider the work from a religious point of view at all; indeed, +to so consider it would be rather a hindrance to the understanding +of its literary excellence. Some persons have ventured to say that +it is only since Englishmen ceased to believe in the Bible that +they began to discover how beautiful it was. This is not altogether +true; but it is partly true. For it is one thing to consider every +word of a book as the word of God or gods, and another thing to +consider it simply as the work of men like ourselves. Naturally we +should think it our duty to suppose the work of a divine being +perfect in itself, and to imagine beauty and truth where neither +really exists. The wonder of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page93" +name="page93">[93]</a></span>the English Bible can really be best +appreciated by those who, knowing it to be the work of men much +less educated and cultivated than the scholars of the nineteenth +century, nevertheless perceive that those men were able to do in +literature what no man of our own day could possibly do.</p> +<p>Of course in considering the work of the translators, we must +remember the magnificence of the original. I should not like to say +that the Bible is the greatest of all religious books. From the +moral point of view it contains very much that we can not to-day +approve of; and what is good in it can be found in the sacred books +of other nations. Its ethics can not even claim to be absolutely +original. The ancient Egyptian scriptures contain beauties almost +superior in moral exaltation to anything contained in the Old +Testament; and the sacred books of other Eastern nations, notably +the sacred books of India, surpass the Hebrew scriptures in the +highest qualities of imagination and of profound thought. It is +only of late years that Europe, through the labour of Sanskrit and +Pali scholars, has become acquainted with the astonishing beauty of +thought and feeling which Indian scholars enshrined in scriptures +much more voluminous than the Hebrew Bible; and it is not +impossible that this far-off literature will some day influence +European thought quite as much as the Jewish Bible. Everywhere +to-day in Europe and America the study of <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page94" name="page94">[94]</a></span>Buddhist and +Sanskrit literature is being pursued not only with eagerness but +with enthusiasm—an enthusiasm which sometimes reaches to +curious extremes. I might mention, in example, the case of a rich +man who recently visited Japan on his way from India. He had in New +Zealand a valuable property; he was a man of high culture, and of +considerable social influence. One day he happened to read an +English translation of the “Bhagavad-Gita.” Almost +immediately he resolved to devote the rest of his life to religious +study in India, in a monastery among the mountains; and he gave up +wealth, friends, society, everything that Western civilization +could offer him, in order to seek truth in a strange country. +Certainly this is not the only instance of the kind; and while such +incidents can happen, we may feel sure that the influence of +religious literature is not likely to die for centuries to +come.</p> +<p>But every great scripture, whether Hebrew, Indian, Persian, or +Chinese, apart from its religious value will be found to have some +rare and special beauty of its own; and in this respect the +original Bible stands very high as a monument of sublime poetry and +of artistic prose. If it is not the greatest of religious books as +a literary creation, it is at all events one of the greatest; and +the proof is to be found in the inspiration which millions and +hundreds of millions, dead and living, have obtained from its +utterances. The Semitic <span class="pagenum"><a id="page95" name= +"page95">[95]</a></span>races have always possessed in a very high +degree the genius of poetry, especially poetry in which imagination +plays a great part; and the Bible is the monument of Semitic genius +in this regard. Something in the serious, stern, and reverential +spirit of the genius referred to made a particular appeal to +Western races having certain characteristics of the same kind. +Themselves uncultivated in the time that the Bible was first made +known to them, they found in it almost everything that they thought +and felt, expressed in a much better way than they could have +expressed it. Accordingly the Northern races of Europe found their +inspiration in the Bible; and the enthusiasm for it has not yet +quite faded away.</p> +<p>But the value of the original, be it observed, did not make the +value of the English Bible. Certainly it was an inspiring force; +but it was nothing more. The English Bible is perhaps a much +greater piece of fine literature, altogether considered, than the +Hebrew Bible. It was so for a particular reason which it is very +necessary for the student to understand. The English Bible is a +product of literary evolution.</p> +<p>In studying English criticisms upon different authors, I think +that you must have sometimes felt impatient with the critics who +told you, for example, that Tennyson was partly inspired by +Wordsworth and partly by Keats and partly by Coleridge; and that +Coleridge was partly inspired <span class="pagenum"><a id="page96" +name="page96">[96]</a></span>by Blake and Blake by the +Elizabethans, and so on. You may have been tempted to say, as I +used very often myself to say, “What does it matter where the +man got his ideas from? I care only for the beauty that is in his +work, not for a history of his literary education.” But +to-day the value of the study of such relations appears in quite a +new light. Evolutional philosophy, applied to the study of +literature as to everything else, has shown us conclusively that +man is not a god who can make something out of nothing, and that +every great work of genius must depend even less upon the man of +genius himself than upon the labours of those who lived before him. +Every great author must draw his thoughts and his knowledge in part +from other great authors, and these again from previous authors, +and so on back, till we come to that far time in which there was no +written literature, but only verses learned by heart and memorized +by all the people of some one tribe or place, and taught by them to +their children and to their grandchildren. It is only in Greek +mythology that the divinity of Wisdom leaps out of a god’s +head, in full armour. In the world of reality the more beautiful a +work of art, the longer, we may be sure, was the time required to +make it, and the greater the number of different minds which +assisted in its development.</p> +<p>So with the English Bible. No one man could have made the +translation of 1611. No one generation <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page97" name="page97">[97]</a></span>of men could have done it. It +was not the labour of a single century. It represented the work of +hundreds of translators working through hundreds of years, each +succeeding generation improving a little upon the work of the +previous generation, until in the seventeenth century the best had +been done of which the English brain and the English language was +capable. In no other way can the surprising beauties of style and +expression be explained. No subsequent effort could improve the +Bible of King James. Every attempt made since the seventeenth +century has only resulted in spoiling and deforming the strength +and the beauty of the authorized text.</p> +<p>Now you will understand why, from the purely literary point of +view, the English Bible is of the utmost importance for study. +Suppose we glance for a moment at the principal events in the +history of this evolution.</p> +<p>The first translation of the Bible into a Western tongue was +that made by Jerome (commonly called Saint Jerome) in the fourth +century; he translated directly from the Hebrew and other Arabic +languages into Latin, then the language of the Empire. This +translation into Latin was called the Vulgate,—from +<em>vulgare</em>, “to make generally known.” The +Vulgate is still used in the Roman church. The first English +translations which have been preserved to us were made from the +Vulgate, not from the original tongues. <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page98" name="page98">[98]</a></span> First of +all, John Wycliffe’s Bible may be called the foundation of +the seventeenth century Bible. Wycliffe’s translation, in +which he was helped by many others, was published between 1380 and +1388. So we may say that the foundation of the English Bible dates +from the fourteenth century, one thousand years after +Jerome’s Latin translation. But Wycliffe’s version, +excellent as it was, could not serve very long: the English +language was changing too quickly. Accordingly, in the time of +Henry VIII Tyndale and Coverdale, with many others, made a new +translation, this time not from the Vulgate, but from the Greek +text of the great scholar Erasmus. This was the most important +literary event of the time, for “it coloured the entire +complexion of subsequent English prose,”—to use the +words of Professor Gosse. This means that all prose in English +written since Henry VIII has been influenced, directly or +indirectly, by the prose of Tyndale’s Bible, which was +completed about 1535. Almost at the same time a number of English +divines, under the superintendence of Archbishop Cramner, gave to +the English language a literary treasure scarcely inferior to the +Bible itself, and containing wonderful translations from the +Scriptures,—the “Book of Common Prayer.” No +English surpasses the English of this book, still used by the +Church; and many translators have since found new inspiration from +it.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page99" name= +"page99">[99]</a></span>A revision of this famous Bible was made in +1565, entitled “The Bishops’ Bible.” The cause of +the revision was largely doctrinal, and we need not trouble +ourselves about this translation farther than to remark that +Protestantism was reshaping the Scriptures to suit the new state +religion. Perhaps this edition may have had something to do with +the determination of the Roman Catholics to make an English Bible +of their own. The Jesuits began the work in 1582 at Rheims, and by +1610 the Roman Catholic version known as the Douay (or Douai) +version—because of its having been made chiefly at the +Catholic College of Douai in France—was completed. This +version has many merits; next to the wonderful King James version, +it is certainly the most poetical; and it has the further advantage +of including a number of books which Protestantism has thrown out +of the authorized version, but which have been used in the Roman +church since its foundation. But I am speaking of the book only as +a literary English production. It was not made with the help of +original sources; its merits are simply those of a melodious +translation from the Latin Vulgate.</p> +<p>At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, +the famous King James version; and this is the great literary +monument of the English language. It was the work of many learned +men; but the chief worker and supervisor <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page100" name="page100">[100]</a></span>was the +Bishop of Winchester, Lancelot Andrews, perhaps the most eloquent +English preacher that ever lived. He was a natural-born orator, +with an exquisite ear for the cadences of language. To this natural +faculty of the Bishop’s can be attributed much of the musical +charm of the English in which the Bible was written. Still, it must +not be supposed that he himself did all the work, or even more than +a small proportion of it. What he did was to tone it; he overlooked +and corrected all the text submitted to him, and suffered only the +best forms to survive. Yet what magnificent material he had to +choose from! All the translations of the Bible that had been made +before his time were carefully studied with a view to the +conservation of the best phrases, both for sound and for form. We +must consider the result not merely as a study of literature in +itself, but also as a study of eloquence; for every attention was +given to those effects to be expected from an oratorical recitation +of the text in public.</p> +<p>This marks the end of the literary evolution of the Bible. +Everything that has since been done has only been in the direction +of retrogression, of injury to the text. We have now a great many +later versions, much more scholarly, so far as correct scholarship +is concerned, than the King James version, but none having any +claim to literary importance. Unfortunately, exact scholars are +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page101" name= +"page101">[101]</a></span>very seldom men of literary ability; the +two faculties are rarely united. The Bible of 1870, known as the +Oxford Bible, and now used in the Anglican state-church, evoked a +great protest from the true men of letters, the poets and critics +who had found their inspirations in the useful study of the old +version. The new version was the work of fourteen years; it was +made by the united labour of the greatest scholars in the +English-speaking world; and it is far the most exact translation +that we have. Nevertheless the literary quality has been injured to +such an extent that no one will ever turn to the new revision for +poetical study. Even among the churches there was a decided +condemnation of this scholarly treatment of the old text; and many +of the churches refused to use the book. In this case, conservatism +is doing the literary world a service, keeping the old King James +version in circulation, and insisting especially upon its use in +Sunday schools.</p> +<p>We may now take a few examples of the differences between the +revised version and the Bible of King James. Professor Saintsbury, +in an essay upon English prose, published some years ago, said that +the most perfect piece of English prose in the language was that +comprised in the sixth and seventh verses of the eighth chapter of +the Song of Songs:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page102" name="page102">[pg +102]</a></span>Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon +thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the +grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most +vehement flame.</p> +<p>Many waters can not quench love, neither can the floods drown +it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it +would utterly be condemned.</p> +</div> +<p>I should not like to say that the Professor is certainly right +in calling this the finest prose in the English language; but he is +a very great critic, whose opinion must be respected and +considered, and the passage is certainly very fine. But in the +revised version, how tame the same text has become in the hands of +the scholarly translators!</p> +<div class="quote">The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very +flame of the Lord.</div> +<p>Now as a description of jealousy, not to speak of the literary +execution at all, which is the best? What, we may ask, has been +gained by calling jealousy “a flame of the Lord” or by +substituting the word “flashes” for “coals of +fire”? All through the new version are things of this kind. +For example, in the same Song of Songs there is a beautiful +description of eyes, like “doves by the rivers of waters, +washed with milk, and fitly set.” By substituting +“rivers” only for “rivers of waters” the +text may have gained in exactness, but it has lost immeasurably, +both in poetry and in sound. Far more poetical is the verse as +given in the Douai version: “His eyes are as doves upon +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page103" name= +"page103">[103]</a></span>brooks of waters, which are washed with +milk, and sit beside the beautiful streams.”</p> +<p>It may even be said without any question that the mistakes of +the old translators were often much more beautiful than the +original. A splendid example is given in the verse of Job, chapter +twenty-six, verse thirteen: “By his spirit he hath garnished +the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.” By +the crooked serpent was supposed to be signified the grand +constellation called <em>Draco</em>, or the Dragon. And the figure +is sublime. It is still more sublime in the Douai translation. +“His obstetric hand hath brought forth the Winding +Serpent.” This is certainly a grand imagination—the +hand of God, like the hand of a midwife, bringing forth a +constellation out of the womb of the eternal night. But in the +revised version, which is exact, we have only “His hand hath +pierced the Swift Serpent!” All the poetry is dead.</p> +<p>There are two methods for the literary study of any +book—the first being the study of its thought and emotion; +the second only that of its workmanship. A student of literature +should study some of the Bible from both points of view. In +attempting the former method he will do well to consider many works +of criticism, but for the study of the text as literature, his duty +is very plain—the King James version is the only one that +ought to form the basis of his study, though he <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page104" name="page104">[104]</a></span>should +look at the Douai version occasionally. Also he should have a book +of references, such as Cruden’s Concordance, by help of which +he can collect together in a few moments all the texts upon any +particular subject, such as the sea, the wind, the sky, human life, +the shadows of evening. The study of the Bible is not one which I +should recommend to very young Japanese students, because of the +quaintness of the English. Before a good knowledge of English forms +is obtained, the archaisms are apt to affect the students’ +mode of expression. But for the advanced student of literature, I +should say that some knowledge of the finest books in the Bible is +simply indispensable. The important books to read are not many. But +one should read at least the books of Genesis, Exodus, Ruth, +Esther, the Song of Songs, Proverbs,—and, above all, Job. Job +is certainly the grandest book in the Bible; but all of those which +I have named are books that have inspired poets and writers in all +departments of English literature to such an extent that you can +scarcely read a masterpiece in which there is not some conscious or +unconscious reference to them. Another book of philosophical +importance is Ecclesiastes, where, in addition to much proverbial +wisdom, you will find some admirable world-poetry—that is, +poetry which contains universal truth about human life in all times +and all ages. Of the historical books and the law books I do not +think that it is <span class="pagenum"><a id="page105" name= +"page105">[105]</a></span>important to read much; the literary +element in these is not so pronounced. It is otherwise with the +prophetic books, but here in order to obtain a few jewels of +expression, you have to read a great deal that is of little value. +Of the New Testament there is very little equal to the Old in +literary value; indeed, I should recommend the reading only of the +closing book—the book called the Revelation, or the +Apocalypse, from which we have derived a literary adjective +“apocalyptic,” to describe something at once very +terrible and very grand. Whether one understands the meaning of +this mysterious text makes very little difference; the sonority and +the beauty of its sentences, together with the tremendous character +of its imagery, can not but powerfully influence mind and ear, and +thus stimulate literary taste. At least two of the great prose +writers of the nineteenth century, Carlyle and Ruskin, have been +vividly influenced by the book of the Revelation. Every period of +English literature shows some influence of Bible study, even from +the old Anglo-Saxon days; and during the present year, the study +has so little slackened that one constantly sees announcements of +new works upon the literary elements of the Bible. Perhaps one of +the best is Professor Moulton’s “Modern Reader’s +Bible,” in which the literary side of the subject receives +better consideration than in any other work of the kind published +for general use.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page106" name= +"page106">[106]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_7" name="Ch_7">Chapter VII</a></h3> +<h2>The “Havamal”</h2> +<h3>Old Northern Ethics of Life</h3> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Then from his lips in music rolled</p> +<p>The Havamal of Odin old,</p> +<p>With sounds mysterious as the roar</p> +<p>Of billows on a distant shore.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Perhaps many of you who read this little verse in +Longfellow’s “Saga of King Olaf” have wished to +know what was this wonderful song that the ghost of the god sang to +the king. I am afraid that you would be very disappointed in some +respects by the “Havamal.” There is indeed a magical +song in it; and it is this magical song especially that Longfellow +refers to, a song of charms. But most of the “Havamal” +is a collection of ethical teaching. All that has been preserved by +it has been published and translated by Professors Vigfusson and +Powell. It is very old—perhaps the oldest Northern literature +that we have. I am going to attempt a short lecture upon it, +because it is very closely related to the subject of Northern +character, and will help us, perhaps better than almost anything +else, to understand how the ancestors of the English felt +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page107" name= +"page107">[107]</a></span>and thought before they became +Christians. Nor is this all. I venture to say that the character of +the modern English people still retains much more of the quality +indicated by the “Havamal” than of the quality implied +by Christianity. The old Northern gods are not dead; they rule a +very great part of the world to-day.</p> +<p>The proverbial philosophy of a people helps us to understand +more about them than any other kind of literature. And this sort of +literature is certainly among the oldest. It represents only the +result of human experience in society, the wisdom that men get by +contact with each other, the results of familiarity with right and +wrong. By studying the proverbs of a people, you can always make a +very good guess as to whether you could live comfortably among them +or not.</p> +<p>Froude, in one of his sketches of travel in Norway, made the +excellent observation that if we could suddenly go back to the time +of the terrible sea-kings, if we could revisit to-day the homes of +the old Northern pirates, and find them exactly as they were one +thousand or fifteen hundred years ago, we should find them very +much like the modern Englishmen—big, simple, silent men, +concealing a great deal of shrewdness under an aspect of +simplicity. The teachings of the “Havamal” give great +force to this supposition. The book must have been known in some +form to the early English—or at least the verses composing it +(it is all <span class="pagenum"><a id="page108" name= +"page108">[108]</a></span>written in verse); and as I have already +said, the morals of the old English, as well as their character, +differed very little from those of the men of the still further +North, with whom they mingled and intermarried freely, both before +and after the Danish conquest, when for one moment England and +Sweden were one kingdom.</p> +<p>Of course you must remember that Northern society was a very +terrible thing in some ways. Every man carried his life in his +hands; every farmer kept sword and spear at his side even in his +own fields; and every man expected to die fighting. In fact, among +the men of the more savage North—the men of Norway in +especial—it was considered a great disgrace to die of +sickness, to die on one’s bed. That was not to die like a +man. Men would go out and get themselves killed, when they felt old +age or sickness coming on. But these facts must not blind us to the +other fact that there was even in that society a great force of +moral cohesion, and sound principles of morality. If there had not +been, it could not have existed; much less could the people who +lived under it have become the masters of a great part of the +world, which they are at the present day. There was, in spite of +all that fierceness, much kindness and good nature among them; +there were rules of conduct such as no man could find fault +with—rules which still govern English society to some extent. +And there was opportunity enough <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page109" name="page109">[109]</a></span>for social amusement, +social enjoyment, and the winning of public esteem by a noble +life.</p> +<p>Still, even in the “Havamal,” one is occasionally +startled by teachings which show the darker side of Northern life, +a life of perpetual vendetta. As in old Japan, no man could live +under the same heaven with the murderer of his brother or father; +vengeance was a duty even in the case of a friend. On the subject +of enemies the “Havamal” gives not a little curious +advice:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>A man should never step a foot beyond his weapons; for he can +never tell where, on his path without, he may need his spear.</p> +<p>A man, before he goes into a house, should look to and espy all +the doorways (<em>so that he can find his way out quickly +again</em>), for he can never know where foes may be sitting in +another man’s house.</p> +</div> +<p>Does not this remind us of the Japanese proverb that everybody +has three enemies outside of his own door? But the meaning of the +“Havamal” teaching is much more sinister. And when the +man goes into the house, he is still told to be extremely +watchful—to keep his ears and eyes open so that he may not be +taken by surprise:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>The wary guest keeps watchful silence; he listens with his ears +and peers about with his eyes; thus does every wise man look about +him.</p> +</div> +<p>One would think that men must have had very strong nerves to +take comfort under such circumstances, <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page110" name="page110">[110]</a></span>but the poet tells us that +the man who can enjoy nothing must be both a coward and a fool. +Although a man was to keep watch to protect his life, that was not +a reason why he should be afraid of losing it. There were but three +things of which a man should be particularly afraid. The first was +drink—because drink often caused a man to lose control of his +temper; the second was another man’s wife—repeatedly +the reader is warned never to make love to another man’s +wife; and the third was thieves—men who would pretend +friendship for the purpose of killing and stealing, The man who +could keep constant watch over himself and his surroundings was, of +course, likely to have the longest life.</p> +<p>Now in all countries there is a great deal of ethical teaching, +and always has been, on the subject of speech. The +“Havamal” is full of teaching on this subject—the +necessity of silence, the danger and the folly of reckless talk. +You all know the Japanese proverb that “the mouth is the +front gate of all misfortune.” The Norse poet puts the same +truth into a grimmer shape: “The tongue works death to the +head.” Here are a number of sayings on this subject:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>He that is never silent talks much folly; a glib tongue, unless +it be bridled, will often talk a man into trouble.</p> +<p>Do not speak three angry words with a worse man; for often the +better man falls by the worse man’s sword.</p> +<p>Smile thou in the face of the man thou trusteth not, and speak +against thy mind.</p> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page111" name= +"page111">[111]</a></span>This is of course a teaching of cunning; +but it is the teaching, however immoral, that rules in English +society to-day. In the old Norse, however, there were many reasons +for avoiding a quarrel whenever possible—reasons which must +have existed also in feudal Japan. A man might not care about +losing his own life; but he had to be careful not to stir up a feud +that might go on for a hundred years. Although there was a great +deal of killing, killing always remained a serious matter, because +for every killing there had to be a vengeance. It is true that the +law exonerated the man who killed another, if he paid a certain +blood-price; murder was not legally considered an unpardonable +crime. But the family of the dead man would very seldom be +satisfied with a payment; they would want blood for blood. +Accordingly men had to be very cautious about quarreling, however +brave they might personally be.</p> +<p>But all this caution about silence and about watchfulness did +not mean that a man should be unable to speak to the purpose when +speech was required. “A wise man,” says the +“Havamal,” “should be able both to ask and to +answer.” There is a proverb which you know, to the effect +that you can not shut the door upon another man’s mouth. So +says the Norse poet: “The sons of men can keep silence about +nothing that passes among men; therefore a man should be able to +take his own part, prudently and strongly.” Says <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page112" name="page112">[112]</a></span>the +“Havamal”: “A fool thinks he knows everything if +he sits snug in his little corner; but he is at a loss for words if +the people put to him a question.” Elsewhere it is said: +“Arch dunce is he who can speak nought, for that is the mark +of a fool.” And the sum of all this teaching about the tongue +is that men should never speak without good reason, and then should +speak to the point strongly and wisely.</p> +<p>On the subject of fools there is a great deal in the +“Havamal”; but you must understand always by the word +fool, in the Northern sense, a man of weak character who knows not +what to do in time of difficulty. That was a fool among those men, +and a dangerous fool; for in such a state of society mistakes in +act or in speech might reach to terrible consequences. See these +little observations about fools:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Open-handed, bold-hearted men live most happily, they never feel +care; but a fool troubles himself about everything. The niggard +pines for gifts.</p> +<p>A fool is awake all night, worrying about everything; when the +morning comes he is worn out, and all his troubles are just the +same as before.</p> +<p>A fool thinks that all who smile upon him are his friends, not +knowing, when he is with wise men, who there may be plotting +against him.</p> +<p>If a fool gets a drink, all his mind is immediately +displayed.</p> +</div> +<p>But it was not considered right for a man not <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page113" name="page113">[113]</a></span>to drink, +although drink was a dangerous thing. On the contrary, not to drink +would have been thought a mark of cowardice and of incapacity for +self-control. A man was expected even to get drunk if necessary, +and to keep his tongue and his temper no matter how much he drank. +The strong character would only become more cautious and more +silent under the influence of drink; the weak man would immediately +show his weakness. I am told the curious fact that in the English +army at the present day officers are expected to act very much +after the teaching of the old Norse poet; a man is expected to be +able on occasion to drink a considerable amount of wine or spirits +without showing the effects of it, either in his conduct or in his +speech. “Drink thy share of mead; speak fair or not at +all”—that was the old text, and a very sensible one in +its way.</p> +<p>Laughter was also condemned, if indulged in without very good +cause. “The miserable man whose mind is warped laughs at +everything, not knowing what he ought to know, that he himself has +no lack of faults.” I need scarcely tell you that the English +are still a very serious people, not disposed to laugh nearly so +much as are the men of the more sympathetic Latin races. You will +remember perhaps Lord Chesterfield’s saying that since he +became a man no man had ever seen him laugh. I remember about +twenty years ago that there was published by some Englishman a very +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page114" name= +"page114">[114]</a></span>learned and very interesting little book, +called “The Philosophy of Laughter,” in which it was +gravely asserted that all laughter was foolish. I must acknowledge, +however, that no book ever made me laugh more than the volume in +question.</p> +<p>The great virtue of the men of the North, according to the +“Havamal,” was indeed the virtue which has given to the +English race its present great position among nations,—the +simplest of all virtues, common sense. But common sense means much +more than the words might imply to the Japanese students, or to any +one unfamiliar with English idioms. Common sense, or mother-wit, +means natural intelligence, as opposed to, and independent of, +cultivated or educated intelligence. It means inherited knowledge; +and inherited knowledge may take even the form of genius. It means +foresight. It means intuitive knowledge of other people’s +character. It means cunning as well as broad comprehension. And the +modern Englishman, in all times and in all countries, trusts +especially to this faculty, which is very largely developed in the +race to which he belongs. No Englishman believes in working from +book learning. He suspects all theories, philosophical or other. He +suspects everything new, and dislikes it, unless he can be +compelled by the force of circumstances to see that this new thing +has advantages over the old. Race-experience is what he invariably +depends upon, whenever he can, whether in India, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page115" name="page115">[115]</a></span>in Egypt, +or in Australia. His statesmen do not consult historical precedents +in order to decide what to do: they first learn the facts as they +are; then they depend upon their own common sense, not at all upon +their university learning or upon philosophical theories. And in +the case of the English nation, it must be acknowledged that this +instinctive method has been eminently successful. When the +“Havamal” speaks of wisdom it means mother-wit, and +nothing else; indeed, there was no reading or writing to speak of +in those times:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>No man can carry better baggage on his journey than wisdom.</p> +<p>There is no better friend than great common sense.</p> +</div> +<p>But the wise man should not show himself to be wise without +occasion. He should remember that the majority of men are not wise, +and he should be careful not to show his superiority over them +unnecessarily. Neither should be despise men who do not happen to +be as wise as himself:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>No man is so good but there is a flaw in him, nor so bad as to +be good for nothing.</p> +<p>Middling wise should every man be; never overwise. Those who +know many things rarely lead the happiest life.</p> +<p>Middling wise should every man be; never overwise. No man should +know his fate beforehand; so shall he live freest from care.</p> +<p>Middling wise should every man be, never too wise. A wise +man’s heart is seldom glad, if its owner be a true sage.</p> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page116" name= +"page116">[116]</a></span>This is the ancient wisdom also of +Solomon “He that increases wisdom increases sorrow.” +But how very true as worldly wisdom these little Northern sentences +are. That a man who knows a little of many things, and no one thing +perfectly, is the happiest man—this certainly is even more +true to-day than it was a thousand years ago. Spencer has well +observed that the man who can influence his generation, is never +the man greatly in advance of his time, but only the man who is +very slightly better than his fellows. The man who is very superior +is likely to be ignored or disliked. Mediocrity can not help +disliking superiority; and as the old Northern sage declared, +“the average of men is but moiety.” Moiety does not +mean necessarily mediocrity, but also that which is below +mediocrity. What we call in England to-day, as Matthew Arnold +called it, the Philistine element, continues to prove in our own +time, to almost every superior man, the danger of being too +wise.</p> +<p>Interesting in another way, and altogether more agreeable, are +the old sayings about friendship: “Know this, if thou hast a +trusty friend, go and see him often; because a road which is seldom +trod gets choked with brambles and high grass.”</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Be not thou the first to break off from thy friend. Sorrow will +eat thy heart if thou lackest the friend to open thy heart to.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page117" name= +"page117">[117]</a></span>Anything is better than to be false; he +is no friend who only speaks to please.</p> +</div> +<p>Which means, of course, that a true friend is not afraid to find +fault with his friend’s course; indeed, that is his solemn +duty. But these teachings about friendship are accompanied with +many cautions; for one must be very careful in the making friends. +The ancient Greeks had a terrible proverb: “Treat your friend +as if he should become some day your enemy; and treat your enemy as +if he might some day become your friend.” This proverb seems +to me to indicate a certain amount of doubt in human nature. We do +not find this doubt in the Norse teaching, but on the contrary, +some very excellent advice. The first thing to remember is that +friendship is sacred: “He that opens his heart to another +mixes blood with him.” Therefore one should be very careful +either about forming or about breaking a friendship.</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>A man should be a friend to his friend’s friend. But no +man should be a friend of his friend’s foe, nor of his +foe’s friend.</p> +<p>A man should be a friend with his friend, and pay back gift with +gift; give back laughter for laughter (to his enemies), and lesing +for lies.</p> +<p>Give and give back makes the longest friend. Give not overmuch +at one time. Gift always looks for return.</p> +</div> +<p>The poet also tells us how trifling gifts are quite <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page118" name="page118">[118]</a></span>sufficient +to make friends and to keep them, if wisely given. A costly gift +may seem like a bribe; a little gift is only the sign of kindly +feeling. And as a mere matter of justice, a costly gift may be +unkind, for it puts the friend under an obligation which he may not +be rich enough to repay. Repeatedly we are told also that too much +should not be expected of friendship. The value of a friend is his +affection, his sympathy; but favours that cost must always be +returned.</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>I never met a man so open-hearted and free with his food, but +that boon was boon to him—nor so generous as not to look for +return if he had a chance.</p> +</div> +<p>Emerson says almost precisely the same thing in his essay on +friendship—showing how little human wisdom has changed in all +the centuries. Here is another good bit of advice concerning +visits:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>It is far away to an ill friend, even though he live on +one’s road; but to a good friend there is a short cut, even +though he live far out.</p> +<p>Go on, be not a guest ever in the same house. The welcome +becomes wearisome if he sits too long at another’s table.</p> +</div> +<p>This means that we must not impose on our friends; but there is +a further caution on the subject of eating at a friend’s +house. You must not go to your friend’s house hungry, when +you can help it.</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page119" name= +"page119">[119]</a></span>A man should take his meal betimes, +before he goes to his neighbour—or he will sit and seem +hungered like one starving, and have no power to talk.</p> +</div> +<p>That is the main point to remember in dining at another’s +house, that you are not there only for your own pleasure, but for +that of other people. You are expected to talk; and you can not +talk if you are very hungry. At this very day a gentleman makes it +the rule to do the same thing. Accordingly we see that these rough +men of the North must have had a good deal of social +refinement—refinement not of dress or of speech, but of +feeling. Still, says the poet, one’s own home is the best, +though it be but a cottage. “A man is a man in his own +house.”</p> +<p>Now we come to some sentences teaching caution, which are +noteworthy in a certain way:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Tell one man thy secret, but not two. What three men know, all +the world knows.</p> +<p>Never let a bad man know thy mishaps; for from a bad man thou +shalt never get reward for thy sincerity.</p> +</div> +<p>I shall presently give you some modern examples in regard to the +advice concerning bad men. Another thing to be cautious about is +praise. If you have to be careful about blame, you must be very +cautious also about praise.</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Praise the day at even-tide; a woman at her burying; a sword +when it has been tried; a maid when she is married; <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page120" name="page120">[120]</a></span>ice when +you have crossed over it; ale when it is drunk.</p> +</div> +<p>If there is anything noteworthy in English character to-day it +is the exemplification of this very kind of teaching. This is +essentially Northern. The last people from whom praise can be +expected, even for what is worthy of all praise, are the English. A +new friendship, a new ideal, a reform, a noble action, a wonderful +poet, an exquisite painting—any of these things will be +admired and praised by every other people in Europe long before you +can get Englishmen to praise. The Englishman all this time is +studying, considering, trying to find fault. Why should he try to +find fault? So that he will not make any mistakes at a later day. +He has inherited the terrible caution of his ancestors in regard to +mistakes. It must be granted that his caution has saved him from a +number of very serious mistakes that other nations have made. It +must also be acknowledged that he exercises a fair amount of +moderation in the opposite direction—this modern Englishman; +he has learned caution of another kind, which his ancestors taught +him. “Power,” says the “Havamal,” +“should be used with moderation; for whoever finds himself +among valiant men will discover that no man is peerless.” And +this is a very important thing for the strong man to +know—that however strong, he can not be the strongest; his +match will be found when occasion demands it. <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page121" name="page121">[121]</a></span>Not only +Scandinavian but English rulers have often discovered this fact to +their cost. Another matter to be very anxious about is public +opinion.</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Chattels die; kinsmen pass away; one dies oneself; but I know +something that never dies—the name of the man, for good or +bad.</p> +</div> +<p>Do not think that this means anything religious. It means only +that the reputation of a man goes to influence the good or ill +fortune of his descendants. It is something to be proud of, to be +the son of a good man; it helps to success in life. On the other +hand, to have had a father of ill reputation is a very serious +obstacle to success of any kind in countries where the influence of +heredity is strongly recognized.</p> +<p>I have nearly exhausted the examples of this Northern wisdom +which I selected for you; but there are two subjects which remain +to be considered. One is the law of conduct in regard to +misfortune; and the other is the rule of conduct in regard to +women. A man was expected to keep up a brave heart under any +circumstances. These old Northmen seldom committed suicide; and I +must tell you that all the talk about Christianity having checked +the practice of suicide to some extent, can not be fairly accepted +as truth. In modern England to-day the suicides average nearly +three thousand a year; but making allowance for extraordinary +circumstances, it is certainly true <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page122" name="page122">[122]</a></span>that the Northern races +consider suicide in an entirely different way from what the Latin +races do. There was very little suicide among the men of the North, +because every man considered it his duty to get killed, not to kill +himself; and to kill himself would have seemed cowardly, as +implying fear of being killed by others. In modern ethical +training, quite apart from religious considerations a man is taught +that suicide is only excusable in case of shame, or under such +exceptional circumstances as have occurred in the history of the +Indian mutiny. At all events, we have the feeling still strongly +manifested in England that suicide is not quite manly; and this is +certainly due much more to ancestral habits of thinking, which date +back to pagan days, than to Christian doctrine. As I have said, the +pagan English would not commit suicide to escape mere pain. But the +Northern people knew how to die to escape shame. There is an awful +story in Roman history about the wives and daughters of the +conquered German tribes, thousands in number, asking to be promised +that their virtue should be respected, and all killing themselves +when the Roman general refused the request. No Southern people of +Europe in that time would have shown such heroism upon such a +matter. Leaving honour aside, however, the old book tells us that a +man should never despair.</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page123" name= +"page123">[123]</a></span>Fire, the sight of the sun, good health, +and a blameless life these are the goodliest things in this +world.</p> +<p>Yet a man is not utterly wretched, though he have bad health, or +be maimed.</p> +<p>The halt may ride a horse; the handless may drive a herd; the +deaf can fight and do well; better be blind than buried. A corpse +is good for naught.</p> +</div> +<p>On the subject of women there is not very much in the book +beyond the usual caution in regard to wicked women; but there is +this little observation:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Never blame a woman for what is all man’s weakness. Hues +charming and fair may move the wise and not the dullard. Mighty +love turns the son of men from wise to fool.</p> +</div> +<p>This is shrewd, and it contains a very remarkable bit of +esthetic truth, that it requires a wise man to see certain kinds of +beauty, which a stupid man could never be made to understand. And, +leaving aside the subject of love, what very good advice it is +never to laugh at a person for what can be considered a common +failure. In the same way an intelligent man should learn to be +patient with the unintelligent, as the same poem elsewhere +insists.</p> +<p>Now what is the general result of this little study, the general +impression that it leaves upon the mind? Certainly we feel that the +life reflected in these sentences was a life in which caution +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page124" name= +"page124">[124]</a></span>was above all things +necessary—caution in thought and speech and act, never +ceasing, by night or day, during the whole of a man’s life. +Caution implies moderation. Moderation inevitably develops a +certain habit of justice—a justice that might not extend +outside of the race, but a justice that would be exercised between +man and man of the same blood. Very much of English character and +of English history is explained by the life that the +“Havamal” portrays. Very much that is good; also very +much that is bad—not bad in one sense, so far as the future +of the race is concerned, but in a social way certainly not good. +The judgment of the Englishman by all other European peoples is +that he is the most suspicious, the most reserved, the most +unreceptive, the most unfriendly, the coldest hearted, and the most +domineering of all Western peoples. Ask a Frenchman, an Italian, a +German, a Spaniard, even an American, what he thinks about +Englishmen; and every one of them will tell you the very same +thing. This is precisely what the character of men would become who +had lived for thousands of years in the conditions of Northern +society. But you would find upon the other hand that nearly all +nations would speak highly of certain other English +qualities—energy, courage, honour, justice (between +themselves). They would say that although no man is so difficult to +make friends with, the friendship of an <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page125" name="page125">[125]</a></span>Englishman +once gained is more strong and true than any other. And as the +battle of life still continues, and must continue for thousands of +years to come, it must be acknowledged that the English character +is especially well fitted for the struggle. Its reserves, its +cautions, its doubts, its suspicions, its brutality—these +have been for it in the past, and are still in the present, the +best social armour and panoply of war. It is not a lovable nor an +amiable character; it is not even kindly. The Englishman of the +best type is much more inclined to be just than he is to be kind, +for kindness is an emotional impulse, and the Englishman is on his +guard against every kind of emotional impulse. But with all this, +the character is a grand one, and its success has been the best +proof of its value.</p> +<p>Now you will have observed in the reading of this ancient code +of social morals that, while none of the teaching is religious, +some of it is absolutely immoral from any religious standpoint. No +great religion permits us to speak what is not true, and to smile +in the face of an enemy while pretending to be his friend. No +religion teaches that we should “pay back lesing for +lies.” Neither does a religion tell us that we should expect +a return for every kindness done; that we should regard friendship +as being actuated by selfish motives; that we should never praise +when praise seems to be deserved. In fact, when Sir Walter Scott +long <span class="pagenum"><a id="page126" name= +"page126">[126]</a></span>ago made a partial translation of the +“Havamal,” he thought himself obliged to leave out a +number of sentences which seemed to him highly immoral, and to +apologize for others. He thought that they would shock English +readers too much.</p> +<p>We are not quite so squeamish to-day; and a thinker of our own +time would scarcely deny that English society is very largely +governed at this moment by the same kind of rules that Sir Walter +Scott thought to be so bad. But here we need not condemn English +society in particular. All European society has been for hundreds +of years conducting itself upon very much the same principles; for +the reason that human social experience has been the same in all +Western countries. I should say that the only difference between +English society and other societies is that the hardness of +character is very much greater. Let us go back even to the most +Christian times of Western societies in the most Christian country +of Europe, and observe whether the social code was then and there +so very different from the social code of the old +“Havamal.” Mr. Spencer observes in his +“Ethics” that, so far as the conduct of life is +concerned, religion is almost nothing and practice is everything. +We find this wonderfully exemplified in a most remarkable book of +social precepts written in the seventeenth century, in Spain, under +the title of the “Oraculo Manual.” It was composed by a +Spanish priest, named Baltasar Gracian, who <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page127" name="page127">[127]</a></span>was born +in the year 1601 and died in 1658; and it has been translated into +nearly all languages. The best English translation, published by +Macmillan, is called “The Art of Worldly Wisdom.” It is +even more admired to-day than in the seventeenth century; and what +it teaches as to social conduct holds as good to-day of modern +society as it did of society two hundred years ago. It is one of +the most unpleasant and yet interesting books ever +published—unpleasant because of the malicious cunning which +it often displays—interesting because of the frightful +perspicacity of the author. The man who wrote that book understood +the hearts of men, especially the bad side. He was a gentleman of +high rank before he became a priest, and his instinctive shrewdness +must have been hereditary. Religion, this man would have said, +teaches the best possible morals; but the world is not governed by +religion altogether, and to mix with it, we must act according to +its dictates.</p> +<p>These dictates remind us in many ways of the cautions and the +cunning of the “Havamal.” The first thing enjoined upon +a man both by the Norse writer and by the Spanish author is the art +of silence. Probably this has been the result of social experience +in all countries. “Cautious silence is the holy of holies of +worldly wisdom,” says Gracian. And he gives many elaborate +reasons for this statement, not the least of which is the +following: “If you do not declare yourself immediately, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page128" name= +"page128">[128]</a></span>you arouse expectation, especially when +the importance of your position makes you the object of general +attention. Mix a little mystery with everything, and the very +mystery arouses veneration.” A little further on he gives us +exactly the same advice as did the “Havamal” writer, in +regard to being frank with enemies. “Do not,” he says, +“show your wounded finger, for everything will knock up +against it; nor complain about it, for malice always aims where +weakness can be injured…. Never disclose the source of +mortification or of joy, if you wish the one to cease, the other to +endure.” About secrets the Spaniard is quite as cautious as +the Norseman. He says, “Especially dangerous are secrets +entrusted to friends. He that communicates his secret to another +makes himself that other man’s slave.” But after a +great many such cautions in regard to silence and secrecy, he tells +us also that we must learn how to fight with the world. You +remember the advice of the “Havamal” on this subject, +how it condemns as a fool the man who can not answer a reproach. +The Spaniard is, however, much more malicious in his suggestions. +He tells as that we must “learn to know every man’s +thumbscrew.” I suppose you know that a thumbscrew was an +instrument of torture used in old times to force confessions from +criminals. This advice means nothing less than that we should learn +how <span class="pagenum"><a id="page129" name= +"page129">[129]</a></span>to be be able to hurt other men’s +feelings, or to flatter other men’s weaknesses. “First +guess every man’s ruling passion, appeal to it by a word, set +it in motion by temptation, and you will infallibly give checkmate +to his freedom of will.” The term “give +checkmate” is taken from the game of chess, and must here be +understood as meaning to overcome, to conquer. A kindred piece of +advice is “keep a store of sarcasms, and know how to use +them.” Indeed he tells us that this is the point of greatest +tact in human intercourse. “Struck by the slightest word of +this kind, many fall away from the closest intimacy with superiors +or inferiors, which intimacy could not be in the slightest shaken +by a whole conspiracy of popular insinuation or private +malevolence.” In other words, you can more quickly destroy a +man’s friendship by one word of sarcasm than by any amount of +intrigue. Does not this read very much like sheer wickedness? +Certainly it does; but the author would have told you that you must +fight the wicked with their own weapons. In the +“Havamal” you will not find anything quite so openly +wicked as that; but we must suppose that the Norsemen knew the +secret, though they might not have put it into words. As for the +social teaching, you will find it very subtly expressed even in the +modern English novels of George Meredith, who, by the way, has +written a poem in praise of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page130" +name="page130">[130]</a></span>sarcasm and ridicule. But let us now +see what the Spanish author has to tell us about friendship and +unselfishness.</p> +<p>The shrewd man knows that others when they seek him do not seek +“him,” but “their advantage in him and by +him.” That is to say, a shrewd man does not believe in +disinterested friendship. This is much worse than anything in the +“Havamal.” And it is diabolically elaborated. What are +we to say about such teaching as the following: “A wise man +would rather see men needing him than thanking him. To keep them on +the threshold of hope is diplomatic; to trust to their gratitude is +boorish; hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one”? There +is much more of this kind; but after the assurance that only a +boorish person (that is to say, an ignorant and vulgar man) can +believe in gratitude, the author’s opinion of human nature +needs no further elucidation. The old Norseman would have been +shocked at such a statement. But he might have approved the +following: “When you hear anything favourable, keep a tight +rein upon your credulity; if unfavourable, give it the spur.” +That is to say, when you hear anything good about another man, do +not be ready to believe it; but if you hear anything bad about him, +believe as much of it as you can.</p> +<p>I notice also many other points of resemblance between the +Northern and the Spanish teaching in regard to caution. The +“Havamal” says that you <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page131" name="page131">[131]</a></span>must not pick a quarrel +with a worse man than yourself; “because the better man often +falls by the worse man’s sword.” The Spanish priest +gives a still shrewder reason for the same policy. “Never +contend,” he says, “with a man who has nothing to lose; +for thereby you enter into an unequal conflict. The other enters +without anxiety; having lost everything, including shame, he has no +further loss to fear.” I think that this is an immoral +teaching, though a very prudent one; but I need scarcely to tell +you that it is still a principle in modern society not to contend +with a man who has no reputation to lose. I think it is immoral, +because it is purely selfish, and because a good man ought not to +be afraid to denounce a wrong because of making enemies. Another +point, however, on which the “Havamal” and the priest +agree, is more commendable and interesting. “We do not think +much of a man who never contradicts us; that is no sign he loves +us, but rather a sign that he loves himself. Original and +out-of-the-way views are signs of superior ability.”</p> +<p>I should not like you to suppose, however, that the whole of the +book from which I have been quoting is of the same character as the +quotations. There is excellent advice in it; and much kindly +teaching on the subject of generous acts. It is a book both good +and bad, and never stupid. The same man who tells you that +friendship is seldom unselfish, also declares that life would be a +desert <span class="pagenum"><a id="page132" name= +"page132">[132]</a></span>without friends, and that there is no +magic like a good turn—that is, a kind act. He teaches the +importance of getting good will by honest means, although he +advises us also to learn how to injure. I am sure that nobody could +read the book without benefit. And I may close these quotations +from it with the following paragraph, which is the very best bit of +counsel that could be given to a literary student:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Be slow and sure. Quickly done can be quickly undone. To last an +eternity requires an eternity of preparation. Only excellence +counts. Profound intelligence is the only foundation for +immortality. Worth much costs much. The precious metals are the +heaviest.</p> +</div> +<p>But so far as the question of human conduct is concerned, the +book of Gracian is no more of a religious book than is the +“Havamal” of the heathen North. You would find, were +such a book published to-day and brought up to the present time by +any shrewd writer, that Western morality has not improved in the +least since the time before Christianity was established, so far as +the rules of society go. Society is not, and can not be, religious, +because it is a state of continual warfare. Every person in it has +to fight, and the battle is not less cruel now because it is not +fought with swords. Indeed, I should think that the time when every +man carried his sword in society was a time when men were quite as +kindly and much more <span class="pagenum"><a id="page133" name= +"page133">[133]</a></span>honest than they are now. The object of +this little lecture was to show you that the principles of the +ancient Norse are really the principles ruling English society +to-day; but I think you will be able to take from it a still larger +meaning. It is that not only one form of society, but all forms of +society, represent the warfare of man and man. That is why +thinkers, poets, philosophers, in all ages, have tried to find +solitude, to keep out of the contest, to devote themselves only to +study of the beautiful and the true. But the prizes of life are not +to be obtained in solitude, although the prizes of thought can only +there be won. After all, whatever we may think about the cruelty +and treachery of the social world, it does great things in the end. +It quickens judgment, deepens intelligence, enforces the +acquisition of self-control, creates forms of mental and moral +strength that can not fail to be sometimes of vast importance to +mankind. But if you should ask me whether it increases human +happiness, I should certainly say “no.” The +“Havamal” said the same thing,—the truly wise man +can not be happy.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page134" name= +"page134">[134]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_8" name="Ch_8">Chapter VIII</a></h3> +<h2>Beyond Man</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>It seems to me a lecturer’s duty to speak to you about any +remarkable thought at this moment engaging the attention of Western +philosophers and men of science,—partly because any such new +ideas are certain, sooner or later, to be reflected in literature, +and partly because without a knowledge of them you might form +incorrect ideas in relation to utterances of any important +philosophic character. I am not going to discourse about Nietzsche, +though the title of this lecture is taken from one of his books; +the ideas about which I am going to tell you, you will not find in +his books. It is most extraordinary, to my thinking, that these +ideas never occurred to him, for he was an eminent man of science +before writing his probably insane books. I have not the slightest +sympathy with most of his ideas; they seem to me misinterpretations +of evolutional teachings; and if not misinterpretations, they are +simply undeveloped and ill-balanced thinking. But the title of one +of his books, and the idea which he tries always unsuccessfully to +explain,—that of a state above mankind, a moral condition +“beyond man,” as he <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page135" name="page135">[135]</a></span>calls it,—that is +worth talking about. It is not nonsense at all, but fact, and I +think that I can give you a correct idea of the realities in the +case. Leaving Nietzsche entirely alone, then, let us ask if it is +possible to suppose a condition of human existence above +morality,—that is to say, more moral than the most moral +ideal which a human brain can conceive? We may answer, it is quite +possible, and it is not only possible, but it has actually been +predicted by many great thinkers, including Herbert Spencer.</p> +<p>We have been brought up to think that there can be nothing +better than virtue, than duty, than strictly following the precepts +of a good religion. However, our ideas of goodness and of virtue +necessarily imply the existence of the opposite qualities. To do a +good thing because it is our duty to do it, implies a certain +amount of resolve, a struggle against difficulty. The virtue of +honesty is a term implying the difficulty of being perfectly +honest. When we think of any virtuous or great deed, we can not +help thinking of the pain and obstacles that have to be met with in +performing that deed. All our active morality is a struggle against +immorality. And I think that, as every religion teaches, it must be +granted that no human being has a perfectly moral nature.</p> +<p>Could a world exist in which the nature of all the inhabitants +would be so moral that the mere idea of what is immoral could not +exist? Let me <span class="pagenum"><a id="page136" name= +"page136">[136]</a></span>explain my question more in detail. +Imagine a society in which the idea of dishonesty would not exist, +because no person could be dishonest, a society in which the idea +of unchastity could not exist, because no person could possibly be +unchaste, a world in which no one could have any idea of envy, +ambition or anger, because such passions could not exist, a world +in which there would be no idea of duty, filial or parental, +because not to be filial, not to be loving, not to do everything +which we human beings now call duty, would be impossible. In such a +world ideas of duty would be quite useless; for every action of +existence would represent the constant and faultless performance of +what we term duty. Moreover, there would be no difficulty, no pain +in such performance; it would be the constant and unfailing +pleasure of life. With us, unfortunately, what is wrong often gives +pleasure; and what is good to do, commonly causes pain. But in the +world which I am asking you to imagine there could not be any +wrong, nor any pleasure in wrong-doing; all the pleasure would be +in right-doing. To give a very simple illustration—one of the +commonest and most pardonable faults of young people is eating, +drinking, or sleeping too much. But in our imaginary world to eat +or to drink or to sleep in even the least degree more than is +necessary could not be done; the constitution of the race would not +permit it. One more illustration. Our children <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page137" name="page137">[137]</a></span>have to be +educated carefully in regard to what is right or wrong; in the +world of which I am speaking, no time would be wasted in any such +education, for every child would be born with full knowledge of +what is right and wrong. Or to state the case in psychological +language—I mean the language of scientific, not of +metaphysical, psychology—we should have a world in which +morality would have been transmuted into inherited instinct. Now +again let me put the question: can we imagine such a world? Perhaps +you will answer, Yes, in heaven—nowhere else. But I answer +you that such a world actually exists, and that it can be studied +in almost any part of the East or of Europe by a person of +scientific training. The world of insects actually furnishes +examples of such a moral transformation. It is for this reason that +such writers as Sir John Lubbock and Herbert Spencer have not +hesitated to say that certain kinds of social insects have +immensely surpassed men, both in social and in ethical +progress.</p> +<p>But that is not all that it is necessary to say here. You might +think that I am only repeating a kind of parable. The important +thing is the opinion of scientific men that humanity will at last, +in the course of millions of years, reach the ethical conditions of +the ants. It is only five or six years ago that some of these +conditions were established by scientific evidence, and I want to +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page138" name= +"page138">[138]</a></span>speak of them. They have a direct bearing +upon important ethical questions; and they have startled the whole +moral world, and set men thinking in entirely new directions.</p> +<p>In order to explain how the study of social insects has set +moralists of recent years thinking in a new direction, it will be +necessary to generalize a great deal in the course of so short a +lecture. It is especially the social conditions of the ants which +has inspired these new ideas; but you must not think that any one +species of ants furnishes us with all the facts. The facts have +been arrived at only through the study of hundreds of different +kinds of ants by hundreds of scientific men; and it is only by the +consensus of their evidence that we get the ethical picture which I +shall try to outline for you. Altogether there are probably about +five thousand different species of ants, and these different +species represent many different stages of social evolution, from +the most primitive and savage up to the most highly civilized and +moral. The details of the following picture are furnished by a +number of the highest species only; that must not be forgotten. +Also, I must remind you that the morality of the ant, by the +necessity of circumstance, does not extend beyond the limits of its +own species. Impeccably ethical within the community, ants carry on +war outside their own borders; were it not for this, we might call +them morally perfect creatures.</p> +<p>Although the mind of an ant can not be at all <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page139" name="page139">[139]</a></span>like to +the mind of the human being, it is so intelligent that we are +justified in trying to describe its existence by a kind of +allegorical comparison with human life. Imagine, then, a world full +of women, working night and day,—building, tunnelling, +bridging,—also engaged in agriculture, in horticulture, and +in taking care of many kinds of domestic animals. (I may remark +that ants have domesticated no fewer than five hundred and +eighty-four different kinds of creatures.) This world of women is +scrupulously clean; busy as they are, all of them carry combs and +brushes about them, and arrange themselves several times a day. In +addition to this constant work, these women have to take care of +myriads of children,—children so delicate that the slightest +change in the weather may kill them. So the children have to be +carried constantly from one place to another in order to keep them +warm.</p> +<p>Though this multitude of workers are always gathering food, no +one of them would eat or drink a single atom more than is +necessary; and none of them would sleep for one second longer than +is necessary. Now comes a surprising fact, about which a great deal +must be said later on. These women have no sex. They are women, for +they sometimes actually give birth, as virgins, to children; but +they are incapable of wedlock. They are more than vestals. Sex is +practically suppressed.</p> +<p>This world of workers is protected by an army <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page140" name="page140">[140]</a></span>of +soldiers. The soldiers are very large, very strong, and shaped so +differently from the working females that they do not seem at first +to belong to the same race. They help in the work, though they are +not able to help in some delicate kinds of work—they are too +clumsy and strong. Now comes the second astonishing fact: these +soldiers are all women—amazons, we might call them; but they +are sexless women. In these also sex has been suppressed.</p> +<p>You ask, where do the children come from? Most of the children +are born of special mothers—females chosen for the purpose of +bearing offspring, and not allowed to do anything else. They are +treated almost like empresses, being constantly fed and attended +and served, and being lodged in the best way possible. Only these +can eat and drink at all times—they must do so for the sake +of their offspring. They are not suffered to go out, unless +strongly attended, and they are not allowed to run any risk of +danger or of injury The life of the whole race circles about them +and about their children, but they are very few.</p> +<p>Last of all are the males, the men. One naturally asks why +females should have been specialized into soldiers instead of men. +It appears that the females have more reserve force, and all the +force that might have been utilized in the giving of life has been +diverted to the making of aggressive <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page141" name="page141">[141]</a></span>powers. The real males are +very small and weak. They appear to be treated with indifference +and contempt. They are suffered to become the bridegrooms of one +night, after which they die very quickly. By contrast, the lives of +the rest are very long. Ants live for at least three or four years, +but the males live only long enough to perform their solitary +function.</p> +<p>In the foregoing little fantasy, the one thing that should have +most impressed you is the fact of the suppression of sex. But now +comes the last and most astonishing fact of all: this suppression +of sex is not natural, but artificial—I mean that it is +voluntary. It has been discovered that ants are able, by a +systematic method of nourishment, to suppress or develop sex as +they please. The race has decided that sex shall not be allowed to +exist except in just so far as it is absolutely necessary to the +existence of the race. Individuals with sex are tolerated only as +necessary evils. Here is an instance of the most powerful of all +passions voluntarily suppressed for the benefit of the community at +large. It vanishes whenever unnecessary; when necessary after a war +or a calamity of some kind, it is called into existence again. +Certainly it is not wonderful that such a fact should have set +moralists thinking. Of course if a human community could discover +some secret way of effecting the same object, and could have the +courage to do it, or rather the unselfishness to do it, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page142" name= +"page142">[142]</a></span>the result would simply be that sexual +immorality of any kind would become practically impossible The very +idea of such immorality would cease to exist.</p> +<p>But that is only one fact of self-suppression and the ant-world +furnishes hundreds. To state the whole thing in the simplest +possible way, let me say the race has entirely got rid of +everything that we call a selfish impulse. Even hunger and thirst +allow of no selfish gratification. The entire life of the community +is devoted to the common good and to mutual help and to the care of +the young. Spencer says it is impossible to imagine that an ant has +a sense of duty like our own,—a religion, if you like. But it +does not need a sense of duty, it does not need religion. Its life +is religion in the practical sense. Probably millions of years ago +the ant had feelings much more like our own than it has now. At +that time, to perform altruistic actions may have been painful to +the ant; to perform them now has become the one pleasure of its +existence. In order to bring up children and serve the state more +efficiently these insects have sacrificed their sex and every +appetite that we call by the name of animal passion. Moreover they +have a perfect community, a society in which nobody could think of +property, except as a state affair, a public thing, or as the +Romans would say a <em>res publica</em>. In a human community so +organized, there could not be ambition, any jealousy, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page143" name="page143">[143]</a></span>any +selfish conduct of any sort—indeed, no selfishness at all. +The individual is said to be practically sacrificed for the sake of +the race; but such a supposition means the highest moral altruism. +Therefore thinkers have to ask, “Will man ever rise to +something like the condition of ants?”</p> +<p>Herbert Spencer says that such is the evident tendency. He does +not say, nor is it at all probable, that there will be in future +humanity such physiological specialization as would correspond to +the suppression of sex among ants, or to the bringing of women to +the dominant place in the human world, and the masculine sex to an +inferior position. That is not likely ever to happen, for reasons +which it would take very much too long to speak of now. But there +is evidence that the most selfish of all human passions will +eventually be brought under control—under such control that +the present cause of wellnigh all human suffering, the pressure of +population, will be practically removed. And there is psychological +evidence that the human mind will undergo such changes that +wrong-doing, in the sense of unkindly action, will become almost +impossible, and that the highest pleasure will be found not in +selfishness but in unselfishness. Of course there are thousands of +things to think about, suggested by this discovery of the life of +ants. I am only telling the more important ones. What I have told +you ought at least to suggest that the idea of a moral condition +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page144" name= +"page144">[144]</a></span>much higher than all our moral conditions +of today is quite possible,—that it is not an idea to be +laughed at. But it was not Nietzsche who ever conceived this +possibility. His “Beyond Man” and the real and much to +be hoped for “beyond man,” are absolutely antagonistic +conceptions. When the ancient Hebrew writer said, thousands of +years ago, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her +ways,” he could not have imagined how good his advice would +prove in the light of twentieth century science.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page145" name= +"page145">[145]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_9" name="Ch_9">Chapter IX</a></h3> +<h2>The New Ethics</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Before leaving the subject of these latter-day intellectual +changes, a word must be said concerning the ethical questions +involved. Of course when a religious faith has been shaken to its +foundation, it is natural to suppose that morals must have been +simultaneously affected. The relation of morals to literature is +very intimate; and we must expect that any change of ideas in the +direction of ethics would show themselves in literature. The drama, +poetry, romance, the novel, all these are reflections of moral +emotion in especial, of the eternal struggle between good and evil, +as well as of the temporary sentiments concerning right and wrong. +And every period of transition is necessarily accompanied by +certain tendencies to disintegration. Contemporary literature in +the West has shown some signs of ethical change. These caused many +thinkers to predict a coming period of demoralization in +literature. But the alarm was really quite needless. These vagaries +of literature, such as books questioning the morality of the +marriage relation, for example, were only repetitions of older +vagaries, and represented <span class="pagenum"><a id="page146" +name="page146">[146]</a></span>nothing more than the temporary +agitation of thought upon all questions. The fact seems to be that +in spite of everything, moral feeling was never higher at any time +in Western social history than it is at present. The changes of +thought have indeed been very great, but the moral experience of +mankind remains exactly as valuable as it was before, and new +perceptions of that value have been given to us by the new +philosophy.</p> +<p>It has been wisely observed by the greatest of modern thinkers +that mankind has progressed more rapidly in every other respect +than in morality. Moral progress has not been rapid simply because +the moral ideal has always been kept a little in advance of the +humanly possible. Thousands of years ago the principles of morality +were exactly the same as those which rule our lives to-day. We can +not improve upon them; we can not even improve upon the language +which expressed them. The most learned of our poets could not make +a more beautiful prayer than the prayer which Egyptian mothers +taught to their little children in ages when all Europe was still a +land of savages. The best of the moral philosophy of the nineteenth +century is very little of improvement upon the moral philosophy of +ancient India or China. If there is any improvement at all, it is +simply in the direction of knowledge of causes and effects. And +that is why in all countries <span class="pagenum"><a id="page147" +name="page147">[147]</a></span>the common sense of mankind +universally condemns any attempt to interfere with moral ideas. +These represent the social experience of man for thousands and +thousands of years; and it is not likely that the wisdom of any one +individual can ever better them. If bettered at all it can not be +through theory. The amelioration must be effected by future +experience of a universal kind. We may improve every branch of +science, every branch of art, everything else relating to the work +of human heads and hands; but we can not improve morals by +invention or by hypothesis. Morals are not made, but grow.</p> +<p>Yet, as I have said, there is what may be called a new system of +ethics. But this new system of ethics means nothing more than a new +way of understanding the old system of ethics. By the application +of evolutional science to the study of morals, we have been enabled +to trace back the whole history of moral ideas to the time of their +earliest inception,—to understand the reasons of them, and to +explain them without the help of any supernatural theory. And the +result, so far from diminishing our respect for the wisdom of our +ancestors, has immensely increased that respect. There is no single +moral teaching common to different civilizations and different +religions of an advanced stage of development which we do not find +to be eternally true. Let us try to study this view of the case by +the help of a few examples.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page148" name= +"page148">[148]</a></span>In early times, of course, men obeyed +moral instruction through religious motives. If asked why they +thought it was wrong to perform certain actions and right to +perform others, they could have answered only that such was +ancestral custom and that the gods will it so. Not until we could +understand the laws governing the evolution of society could we +understand the reason of many ethical regulations. But now we can +understand very plainly that the will of the gods, as our ancestors +might have termed it, represents divine laws indeed, for the laws +of ethical evolution are certainly the unknown laws shaping all +things—suns, worlds, and human societies. All that opposes +itself to the operation of those universal laws is what we have +been accustomed to call bad, and everything which aids the +operation of those laws is what we have been accustomed to think of +as good. The common crimes condemned by all religions, such as +theft, murder, adultery, bearing false witness, disloyalty, all +these are practices which directly interfere with the natural +process of evolution; and without understanding why, men have from +the earliest times of real civilisation united all their power to +suppress them. I think that we need not dwell upon the simple +facts; they will at once suggest to you all that is necessary to +know. I shall select for illustration only one less familiar topic, +that of the ascetic ideal.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page149" name= +"page149">[149]</a></span>A great many things which in times of +lesser knowledge we imagined to be superstitious or useless, prove +to-day on examination to have been of immense value to mankind. +Probably no superstition ever existed which did not have some +social value; and the most seemingly repulsive or cruel sometimes +turn out to have been the most precious. To choose one of these for +illustration, we must take one not confined to any particular +civilization or religion, but common to all human societies at a +certain period of their existence; and the ascetic ideal best fits +our purpose. From very early times, even from a time long preceding +any civilization, we find men acting under the idea that by +depriving themselves of certain pleasures and by subjecting +themselves to certain pains they could please the divine powers and +thereby obtain strength. Probably there is no people in the world +among whom this belief has not had at some one time or another a +very great influence. At a later time, in the early civilizations, +this idea would seem to have obtained much larger sway, and to have +affected national life more and more extensively. In the age of the +great religions the idea reaches its acme, an acme often +represented by extravagances of the most painful kind and +sacrifices which strike modern imagination as ferocious and +terrible. In Europe asceticism reached its great extremes as you +know during the Middle Ages, and especially took the direction of +antagonism <span class="pagenum"><a id="page150" name= +"page150">[150]</a></span>to the natural sex-relation. Looking back +to-day to the centuries in which celibacy was considered the most +moral condition, and marriage was counted as little better than +weakness, when Europe was covered with thousands of monasteries, +and when the best intellects of the age deemed it the highest duty +to sacrifice everything pleasurable for the sake of an imaginary +reward after death, we can not but recognize that we are +contemplating a period of religious insanity. Even in the +architecture of the time, the architecture that Ruskin devoted his +splendid talent to praise, there is a grim and terrible something +that suggests madness. Again, the cruelties of the age have an +insane character, the burning alive of myriads of people who +refused to believe or could not believe in the faith of their time; +the tortures used to extort confessions from the innocent; the +immolation of thousands charged with being wizards or witches; the +extinction of little centres of civilization in the South of France +and elsewhere by brutal crusades—contemplating all this, we +seem to be contemplating not only madness but furious madness. I +need not speak to you of the Crusades, which also belonged to this +period. Compared with the Roman and Greek civilizations before it, +what a horrible Europe it was! And yet the thinker must recognize +that it had a strength of its own, a strength of a larger kind than +that of the preceding civilizations. It may seem monstrous +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page151" name= +"page151">[151]</a></span>to assert that all this cruelty and +superstition and contempt of learning were absolutely necessary for +the progress of mankind; and yet we must so accept them in the +light of modern knowledge. The checking of intellectual development +for hundreds of years is certainly a fact that must shock us; but +the true question is whether such a checking had not become +necessary. Intellectual strength, unless supported by moral +strength, leads a people into the ways of destruction. Compared +with the men of the Middle Ages, the Greeks and Romans were +incomparably superior intellectually; compared with them morally +they were very weak. They had conquered the world and developed all +the arts, these Greeks and Romans; they had achieved things such as +mankind has never since been able to accomplish, and then, losing +their moral ideal, losing their simplicity, losing their faith, +they were utterly crushed by inferior races in whom the principles +of self-denial had been intensely developed. And the old +instinctive hatred of the Church for the arts and the letters and +the sciences of the Greek and Roman civilizations was not quite so +much of a folly as we might be apt to suppose. The priests +recognized in a vague way that anything like a revival of the older +civilizations would signify moral ruin. The Renaissance proves that +the priests were not wrong. Had the movement occurred a few hundred +years earlier, the result <span class="pagenum"><a id="page152" +name="page152">[152]</a></span>would probably have been a universal +corruption I do not mean to say that the Church at any time was +exactly conscious of what she was doing; she acted blindly under +the influence of an instinctive fear. But the result of all that +she did has now proved unfortunate. What the Roman and Greek +civilizations had lost in moral power was given back to the world +by the frightful discipline of the Middle Ages. For a long series +of generations the ascetic idea was triumphant; and it became +feeble only in proportion as men became strong enough to do without +it. Especially it remodelled that of which it first seemed the +enemy, the family relation. It created a new basis for society, +founded upon a new sense of the importance to society of family +morals. Because this idea, this morality, came through +superstition, its value is not thereby in the least diminished. +Superstitions often represent correct guesses at eternal truth. +To-day we know that all social progress, all national strength, all +national vigour, intellectual as well as physical, depend +essentially upon the family, upon the morality of the household, +upon the relation of parents to children. It was this fact which +the Greeks and Romans forgot, and lost themselves by forgetting. It +was this fact which the superstitious tyranny of the Middle Ages +had to teach the West over again, and after such a fashion that it +is not likely ever to become forgotten. So much for the mental +history of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page153" name= +"page153">[153]</a></span>question. Let us say a word about the +physical aspects of it.</p> +<p>No doubt you have read that the result of macerating the body, +of depriving oneself of all comfort, and even of nourishing food, +is not an increase of intellectual vigour or moral power of any +kind. And in one sense this is true. The individual who passes his +life in self-mortification is not apt to improve under that regime. +For this reason the founder of the greatest of Oriental religions +condemned asceticism on the part of his followers, except within +certain fixed limits. But the history of the changes produced by a +universal idea is not a history of changes in the individual, but +of changes brought about by the successive efforts of millions of +individuals in the course of many generations. Not in one lifetime +can we perceive the measure of ethical force obtained by +self-control; but in the course of several hundreds of years we +find that the result obtained is so large as to astonish us. This +result, imperceptibly obtained, signifies a great increase of that +nervous power upon which moral power depends; it means an +augmentation in strength of every kind; and this augmentation again +represents what we might call economy. Just as there is a science +of political economy, there is a science of ethical economy; and it +is in relation to such a science that we should rationally consider +the influence of all religions teaching self-suppression. So +studying, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page154" name= +"page154">[154]</a></span>we find that self-suppression does not +mean the destruction of any power, but only the economical storage +of that power for the benefit of the race As a result, the highly +civilized man can endure incomparably more than the savage, whether +of moral or physical strain. Being better able to control himself +under all circumstances, he has a great advantage over the +savage.</p> +<p>That which is going on in the new teaching of ethics is really +the substitution of a rational for an emotional morality. But this +does not mean that the value of the emotional element in morality +is not recognized. Not only is it recognized, but it is even being +enlarged—enlarged, however, in a rational way. For example, +let us take the very emotional virtue of loyalty. Loyalty, in a +rational form, could not exist among an uneducated people; it could +only exist as a feeling, a sentiment. In the primitive state of +society this sentiment takes the force and the depth of a religion. +And the ruler, regarded as divine, really has in relation to his +people the power of a god. Once that people becomes educated in the +modern sense, their ideas regarding their ruler and their duties to +their ruler necessarily undergo modification. But does this mean +that the sentiment is weakened in the educated class? I should say +that this depends very much upon the quality of the individual +mind. In a mind of small capacity, incapable of receiving the +higher forms of thought, it is very <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page155" name="page155">[155]</a></span>likely that the sentiment +may be weakened and almost destroyed. But in the mind of a real +thinker, a man of true culture, the sense of loyalty, although +changed, is at the same time immensely expanded. In order to give a +strong example, I should take the example not from a monarchical +country but from a republican one. What does the President of the +United States of America, for example, represent to the American of +the highest culture? He appears to him in two entirely different +capacities. First he appears to him merely as a man, an ordinary +man, with faults and weaknesses like other ordinary men. His +private life is apt to be discussed in the newspapers. He is +expected to shake hands with anybody and with everybody whom he +meets at Washington; and when he ceases to hold office, he has no +longer any particular distinction from other Americans. But as the +President of the United States, he is also much more than a man. He +represents one hundred millions of people; he represents the +American Constitution; he represents the great principles of human +freedom laid down by that Constitution; he represents also the idea +of America, of everything American, of all the hopes, interests, +and glories of the nation. Officially he is quite as sacred as a +divinity could be. Millions would give their lives for him at an +instant’s notice; and thousands capable of making vulgar +jokes about the man would hotly resent the least <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page156" name="page156">[156]</a></span>word +spoken about the President as the representative of America. The +very same thing exists in other Western countries, notwithstanding +the fact that the lives of rulers are sometimes attempted. England +is a striking example. The Queen has really scarcely any power; her +rule is little more than nominal. Every Englishman knows that +England is a monarchy only in name. But the Queen represents to +every Englishman more than a woman and more than a queen: she +represents England, English race feeling, English love of country, +English power, English dignity; she is a symbol, and as a symbol +sacred. The soldier jokingly calls her “the Widow”; he +makes songs about her; all this is well and good. But a soldier who +cursed her a few years ago was promptly sent to prison for twenty +years. To sing a merry song about the sovereign as a woman is a +right which English freedom claims; but to speak disrespectfully of +the Queen, as England, as the government, is properly regarded as a +crime; because it proves the man capable of it indifferent to all +his duties as an Englishman, as a citizen, as a soldier. The spirit +of loyalty is far from being lost in Western countries; it has only +changed in character, and it is likely to strengthen as time goes +on.</p> +<p>Broad tolerance in the matter of beliefs is necessarily a part +of the new ethics. It is quite impossible in the present state of +mankind that all <span class="pagenum"><a id="page157" name= +"page157">[157]</a></span>persons should be well educated, or that +the great masses of a nation should attain to the higher forms of +culture. For the uneducated a rational system of ethics must long +remain out of the question and it is proper that they should cling +to the old emotional forms of moral teaching. The observation of +Huxley that he would like to see every unbeliever who could not get +a reason for his unbelief publicly put to shame, was an observation +of sound common sense. It is only those whose knowledge obliges +them to see things from another standpoint than that of the masses +who can safely claim to base their rule of life upon philosophical +morality. The value of the philosophical morality happens to be +only in those directions where it recognizes and supports the truth +taught by common morality, which, after all, is the safest guide. +Therefore the philosophical moralist will never mock or oppose a +belief which he knows to exercise a good influence upon human +conduct. He will recognize even the value of many superstitions as +being very great; and he will understand that any attempt to +suddenly change the beliefs of man in any ethical direction must be +mischievous. Such changes as he might desire will come; but they +should come gradually and gently, in exact proportion to the +expanding capacity of the national mind. Recognizing this +probability, several Western countries, notably America, have +attempted to introduce into education an entirely new system +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page158" name= +"page158">[158]</a></span>of ethical teaching—ethical +teaching in the broadest sense, and in harmony with the new +philosophy. But the result there and elsewhere can only be that +which I have said at the beginning of this lecture,—namely, +the enlargement of the old moral ideas, and the deeper +comprehension of their value in all relations of life.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page159" name= +"page159">[159]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_10" name="Ch_10">Chapter X</a></h3> +<h2>Some Poems about Insects</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>One of the great defects of English books printed in the last +century is the want of an index. The importance of being able to +refer at once to any subject treated of in a book was not +recognized until the days when exact scholarship necessitated +indexing of the most elaborate kind. But even now we constantly +find good books severely criticized because of this deficiency. All +that I have said tends to show that even to-day in Western +countries the immense importance of systematic arrangement in +literary collections is not sufficiently recognized. We have, of +course, a great many English anthologies,—that is to say, +collections of the best typical compositions of a certain epoch in +poetry or in prose. But you must have observed that, in Western +countries, nearly all such anthologies are compiled +chronologically—not according to the subject of the poems. To +this general rule there are indeed a few exceptions. There is a +collection of love poetry by Watson, which is famous; a collection +of child poetry by Patmore; a collection of “society +verse” by Locker-Lampson; and several things of that sort. +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page160" name= +"page160">[160]</a></span>But even here the arrangement is not of a +special kind; nor is it ever divided according to the subject of +each particular poem. I know that some books have been published of +late years with such titles as “Poems of the Sea,” +“Poems of Nature”—but these are of no literary +importance at all and they are not compiled by competent critics. +Besides, the subject-heads are always of much too general a kind. +The French are far in advance of the English in the art of making +anthologies; but even in such splendid anthologies as those of +Crépet and of Lemerre the arrangement is of the most general +kind,—chronological, and little more.</p> +<p>I was reminded to tell you this, because of several questions +recently asked me, which I found it impossible to answer. Many a +Japanese student might suppose that Western poetry has its +classified arrangements corresponding in some sort to those of +Japanese poetry. Perhaps the Germans have something of the kind, +but the English and French have not. Any authority upon the subject +of Japanese literature can, I have been told, inform himself almost +immediately as to all that has been written in poetry upon a +particular subject. Japanese poetry has been classified and +sub-classified and double-indexed or even quadruple-indexed after a +manner incomparably more exact than anything English anthologies +can show. I am aware that this fact is chiefly owing to the ancient +rules <span class="pagenum"><a id="page161" name= +"page161">[161]</a></span>about subjects, seasons, contrasts, and +harmonies, after which the old poets used to write. But whatever be +said about such rules, there can be no doubt at all of the +excellence of the arrangements which the rules produced. It is +greatly to be regretted that we have not in English a system of +arrangement enabling the student to discover quickly all that has +been written upon a particular subject—such as roses, for +example, or pine trees, or doves, or the beauties of the autumn +season. There is nobody to tell you where to find such things; and +as the whole range of English poetry is so great that it takes a +great many years even to glance through it, a memorized knowledge +of the subjects is impossible for the average man. I believe that +Macaulay would have been able to remember almost any reference in +the poetry then accessible to scholars,—just as the wonderful +Greek scholar Porson could remember the exact place of any text in +the whole of Greek literature, and even all the variations of that +text. But such men are born only once in hundreds of years; the +common memory can not attempt to emulate their feats. And it is +very difficult at the present time for the ordinary student of +poetry to tell you just how much has been written upon any +particular subject by the best English poets.</p> +<p>Now you will recognize some difficulties in the way of a +lecturer in attempting to make classifications of English poetry +after the same manner <span class="pagenum"><a id="page162" name= +"page162">[162]</a></span>that Japanese classification can be made +of Japanese poetry. One must read enormously merely to obtain +one’s materials, and even then the result is not to be +thought of as exhaustive. I am going to try to give you a few +lectures upon English poetry thus classified, but we must not +expect that the lectures will be authoritatively complete. Indeed, +we have no time for lectures of so thorough a sort. All that I can +attempt will be to give you an idea of the best things that English +poets have thought and expressed upon certain subjects.</p> +<p>You know that the old Greeks wrote a great deal of beautiful +poetry about insects,—especially about musical insects, +crickets, cicadas, and other insects such as those the Japanese +poets have been writing about for so many hundreds of years. But in +modern Western poetry there is very little, comparatively speaking, +about insects. The English poets have all written a great deal +about birds, and especially about singing birds; but very little +has been written upon the subject of insects—singing insects. +One reason is probably that the number of musical insects in +England is very small, perhaps owing to the climate. American poets +have written more about insects than English poets have done, +though their work is of a much less finished kind. But this is +because musical insects in America are very numerous. On the whole, +we may say that neither in English nor in French poetry will you +find much about the Voices of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page163" +name="page163">[163]</a></span>rickets, locusts, or cicadæ. I +could not even give you a special lecture upon that subject. We +must take the subject “insect” in a rather general +signification; and if we do that we can edit together a nice little +collection of poetical examples.</p> +<p>The butterfly was regarded by the Greeks especially as the +emblem of the soul and therefore of immortality. We have several +Greek remains, picturing the butterfly as perched upon a skull, +thus symbolizing life beyond death. And the metamorphosis of the +insect is, you know, very often referred to in Greek philosophy. We +might expect that English poets would have considered the butterfly +especially from this point of view; and we do have a few examples. +Perhaps the best known is that of Coleridge.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">The butterfly the ancient Grecians made</p> +<p>The soul’s fair emblem, and its only name—</p> +<p>But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade</p> +<p>Of earthly life! For in this mortal frame</p> +<p>Ours is the reptile’s lot, much toil, much blame,</p> +<p>Manifold motions making little speed,</p> +<p>And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The allusion to the “name” is of course to the Greek +word, <em>psyche</em>, which signifies both soul and butterfly. +Psyche, as the soul, was pictured by the Greeks as a beautiful +girl, with a somewhat sad face, and butterfly wings springing from +her shoulders. Coleridge tells us here that although the Greeks +likened the soul to the butterfly, we <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page164" name="page164">[164]</a></span>must remember what the +butterfly really is,—the last and highest state of +insect-being—“escaped the slavish trade of earthly +life.” What is this so-called slavish trade? It is the +necessity of working and struggling in order to live—in order +to obtain food. The butterfly is not much of an eater; some +varieties, indeed, do not eat at all. All the necessity for eating +ended with the life of the larva. In the same manner religion +teaches that the soul represents the changed state of man. In this +life a man is only like a caterpillar; death changes him into a +chrysalis, and out of the chrysalis issues the winged soul which +does not have to trouble itself about such matters as eating and +drinking. By the word “reptile” in this verse, you must +understand caterpillar. Therefore the poet speaks of all our human +work as manifold motions making little speed; you have seen how +many motions a caterpillar must make in order to go even a little +distance, and you must have noticed the manner in which it spoils +the appearance of the plant upon which it feeds. There is here an +allusion to the strange and terrible fact, that all life—and +particularly the life of man—is maintained only by the +destruction of other life. In order to live we must +kill—perhaps only plants, but in any case we must kill.</p> +<p>Wordsworth has several poems on butterflies, but only one of +them is really fine. It is fine, not because it suggests any deep +problem, but because <span class="pagenum"><a id="page165" name= +"page165">[165]</a></span>with absolute simplicity it pictures the +charming difference of character in a little boy and a little girl +playing together in the fields. The poem is addressed to the +butterfly.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Stay near me—do not take thy flight!</p> +<p>A little longer stay in sight!</p> +<p>Much converse do I find in thee,</p> +<p>Historian of my infancy!</p> +<p>Float near me; do not yet depart!</p> +<p>Dead times revive in thee:</p> +<p>Thou bring’st, gay creature as thou art!</p> +<p>A solemn image to my heart,</p> +<p class="i2">My father’s family.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,</p> +<p>The time, when, in our childish plays,</p> +<p>My sister Emmeline and I</p> +<p>Together chased the butterfly!</p> +<p>A very hunter did I rush</p> +<p>Upon the prey: with leaps and springs</p> +<p>I followed on from brake to bush;</p> +<p>But she, God love her, feared to brush</p> +<p>The dust from off its wings.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>What we call and what looks like dust on the wings of a +butterfly, English children are now taught to know as really +beautiful scales or featherlets, but in Wordsworth’s time the +real structure of the insect was not so well known as now to little +people. Therefore to the boy the coloured matter brushed from the +wings would only have seemed so much dust. But the little girl, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page166" name= +"page166">[166]</a></span>with the instinctive tenderness of the +future mother-soul in her, dreads to touch those strangely delicate +wings; she fears, not only to spoil, but also to hurt.</p> +<p>Deeper thoughts than memory may still be suggested to English +poets by the sight of a butterfly, and probably will be for +hundreds of years to come. Perhaps the best poem of a +half-metaphorical, half-philosophical thought about butterflies is +the beautiful prologue to Browning’s “Fifine at the +Fair,” which prologue is curiously entitled +“Amphibian”—implying that we are about to have a +reference to creatures capable of living in two distinctive +elements, yet absolutely belonging neither to the one nor to the +other. The poet swims out far into the sea on a beautiful day; and, +suddenly, looking up, perceives a beautiful butterfly flying over +his head, as if watching him. The sight of the insect at once +suggests to him its relation to Greek fancy as a name for the soul; +then he begins to wonder whether it might not really be the soul, +or be the symbol of the soul, of a dead woman who loved him. From +that point of the poem begins a little metaphysical fantasy about +the possible condition of souls.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The fancy I had to-day,</p> +<p>Fancy which turned a fear!</p> +<p>I swam far out in the bay,</p> +<p>Since waves laughed warm and clear.</p> +</div> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page167" name= +"page167">[167]</a></span> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I lay and looked at the sun,</p> +<p>The noon-sun looked at me:</p> +<p>Between us two, no one</p> +<p>Live creature, that I could see.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Yes! There came floating by</p> +<p>Me, who lay floating too,</p> +<p>Such a strange butterfly!</p> +<p>Creature as dear as new:</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Because the membraned wings</p> +<p>So wonderful, so wide,</p> +<p>So sun-suffused, were things</p> +<p>Like soul and nought beside.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>So much for the conditions of the poet’s revery. He is +swimming in the sea; above his face, only a few inches away, the +beautiful butterfly is hovering. Its apparition makes him think of +many things—perhaps first about the dangerous position of the +butterfly, for if it should only touch the water, it is certain to +be drowned. But it does not touch the water; and he begins to think +how clumsy is the man who moves in water compared with the insect +that moves in air, and how ugly a man is by comparison with the +exquisite creature which the Greeks likened to the soul or ghost of +the man. Thinking about ghosts leads him at once to the memory of a +certain very dear ghost about which he forthwith begins to +dream.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>What if a certain soul</p> +<p>Which early slipped its sheath,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page168" name= +"page168">[168]</a></span> +<p>And has for its home the whole</p> +<p>Of heaven, thus look beneath,</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus watch one who, in the world,</p> +<p>Both lives and likes life’s way,</p> +<p>Nor wishes the wings unfurled</p> +<p>That sleep in the worm, they say?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But sometimes when the weather</p> +<p>Is blue, and warm waves tempt</p> +<p>To free oneself of tether,</p> +<p>And try a life exempt</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>From worldly noise and dust,</p> +<p>In the sphere which overbrims</p> +<p>With passion and thought,—why, just</p> +<p>Unable to fly, one swims!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is better understood by paraphrase: “I wonder if the +soul of a certain person, who lately died, slipped so gently out of +the hard sheath of the perishable body—I wonder if she does +not look down from her home in the sky upon me, just as that little +butterfly is doing at this moment. And I wonder if she laughs at +the clumsiness of this poor swimmer, who finds it so much labour +even to move through the water, while she can move through whatever +she pleases by the simple act of wishing. And this man, strangely +enough, does not want to die, and to become a ghost. He likes to +live very much; he does not yet desire those soul-wings which are +supposed to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page169" name= +"page169">[169]</a></span>be growing within the shell of his body, +just as the wings of the butterfly begin to grow in the chrysalis. +He does not want to die at all. But sometimes he wants to get away +from the struggle and the dust of the city, and to be alone with +nature; and then, in order to be perfectly alone, he swims. He +would like to fly much better; but he can not. However, swimming is +very much like flying, only the element of water is thicker than +air.”</p> +<p>However, more than the poet’s words is suggested here. We +are really told that what a fine mind desires is spiritual life, +pure intellectual life—free from all the trammels of bodily +necessity. Is not the swimmer really a symbol of the superior mind +in its present condition? Your best swimmer can not live under the +water, neither can he rise into the beautiful blue air. He can only +keep his head in the air; his body must remain in the grosser +element. Well, a great thinker and poet is ever thus—floating +between the universe of spirit and the universe of matter. By his +mind he belongs to the region of pure mind,—the ethereal +state; but the hard necessity of living keeps him down in the world +of sense and grossness and struggle. On the other hand the +butterfly, freely moving in a finer element, better represents the +state of spirit or soul.</p> +<p>What is the use of being dissatisfied with nature? The best we +can do is to enjoy in the imagination <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page170" name="page170">[170]</a></span>those things which it is +not possible for us to enjoy in fact.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Emancipate through passion</p> +<p>And thought, with sea for sky,</p> +<p>We substitute, in a fashion,</p> +<p>For heaven—poetry:</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Which sea, to all intent,</p> +<p>Gives flesh such noon-disport,</p> +<p>As a finer element</p> +<p>Affords the spirit-sort.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Now you see where the poet’s vision of a beautiful +butterfly has been leading his imagination. The nearest approach +which we can make to the act of flying, in the body, is the act of +swimming. The nearest approach that we can make to the heavenly +condition, mentally, is in poetry. Poetry, imagination, the +pleasure of emotional expression—these represent our nearest +approach to paradise. Poetry is the sea in which the soul of man +can swim even as butterflies can swim in the air, or happy ghosts +swim in the finer element of the infinite ether. The last three +stanzas of the poem are very suggestive:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And meantime, yonder streak</p> +<p>Meets the horizon’s verge;</p> +<p>That is the land, to seek</p> +<p>If we tire or dread the surge:</p> +</div> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page171" name= +"page171">[171]</a></span> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Land the solid and safe—</p> +<p>To welcome again (confess!)</p> +<p>When, high and dry, we chafe</p> +<p>The body, and don the dress.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Does she look, pity, wonder</p> +<p>At one who mimics flight,</p> +<p>Swims—heaven above, sea under,</p> +<p>Yet always earth in sight?</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>“Streak,” meaning an indistinct line, here refers to +the coast far away, as it appears to the swimmer. It is just such a +word as a good Japanese painter ought to appreciate in such a +relation. In suggesting that the swimmer is glad to return to shore +again and get warm, the poet is telling us that however much we may +talk about the happiness of spirits in heaven—however much we +may praise heaven in poetry—the truth is that we are very +fond of this world, we like comfort, we like company, we like human +love and human pleasures. There is a good deal of nonsense in +pretending that we think heaven is a better place than the world to +which we belong. Perhaps it is a better place, but, as a matter of +fact, we do not know anything about it; and we should be frightened +if we could go beyond a certain distance from the real world which +we do know. As he tells us this, the poet begins again to think +about the spirit of the dead woman. Is she happy? Is she looking at +him—and pitying him as he <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page172" name="page172">[172]</a></span>swims, taking good care +not to go too far away from the land? Or is she laughing at him, +because in his secret thoughts he confesses that he likes to +live—that he does not want to become a pure ghost at the +present time?</p> +<p>Evidently a butterfly was quite enough, not only to make +Browning’s mind think very seriously, but to make that mind +teach us the truth and seriousness which may attach to very small +things—incidents, happenings of daily life, in any hour and +place. I believe that is the greatest English poem we have on the +subject of the butterfly.</p> +<p>The idea that a butterfly might be, not merely the symbol of the +soul, but in very fact the spirit of a dead person, is somewhat +foreign to English thought; and whatever exists in poetry on the +subject must necessarily be quite new. The idea of a relation +between insects, birds, or other living creatures, and the spirits +of the dead, is enormously old in Oriental literature;—we +find it in Sanskrit texts thousands of years ago. But the Western +mind has not been accustomed to think of spiritual life as outside +of man; and much of natural poetry has consequently remained +undeveloped in Western countries. A strange little poem, “The +White Moth,” is an exception to the general rule that I have +indicated; but I am almost certain that its author, A.T. +Quiller-Couch, must have read Oriental books, or obtained his fancy +from some Eastern source. As the knowledge of <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page173" name="page173">[173]</a></span>Indian +literature becomes more general in England, we may expect to find +poetry much influenced by Oriental ideas. At the present time, such +a composition as this is quite a strange anomaly.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>If a leaf rustled, she would start:</em></p> +<p><em>And yet she died, a year ago.</em></p> +<p><em>How had so frail a thing the heart</em></p> +<p><em>To journey where she trembled so?</em></p> +<p><em>And do they turn and turn in fright,</em></p> +<p><em>Those little feet, in so much night?</em></p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The light above the poet’s head</p> +<p>Streamed on the page and on the cloth,</p> +<p>And twice and thrice there buffeted</p> +<p>On the black pane a white-winged moth:</p> +<p>‘Twas Annie’s soul that beat outside,</p> +<p>And “Open, open, open!” cried:</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“I could not find the way to God;</p> +<p>There were too many flaming suns</p> +<p>For signposts, and the fearful road</p> +<p>Led over wastes where millions</p> +<p>Of tangled comets hissed and burned—</p> +<p>I was bewildered and I turned.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“Oh, it was easy then! I knew</p> +<p>Your window and no star beside.</p> +<p>Look up and take me back to you!”</p> +<p>—He rose and thrust the window wide.</p> +<p>‘Twas but because his brain was hot</p> +<p>With rhyming; for he heard her not.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page174" name= +"page174">[174]</a></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But poets polishing a phrase</p> +<p>Show anger over trivial things;</p> +<p>And as she blundered in the blaze</p> +<p>Towards him, on ecstatic wings,</p> +<p>He raised a hand and smote her dead;</p> +<p>Then wrote “<em>That I had died instead!</em>”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The lover, or bereaved husband, is writing a poem of which a +part is given in the first stanza—which is therefore put in +italics. The action proper begins with the second stanza. The soul +of the dead woman taps at the window in the shape of a +night-butterfly or moth—imagining, perhaps, that she has +still a voice and can make herself heard by the man that she loves. +She tells the story of her wandering in space—privileged to +pass to heaven, yet afraid of the journey. Now the subject of the +poem which the lover happens to be writing inside the room is a +memory of the dead woman—mourning for her, describing her in +exquisite ways. He can not hear her at all; he does not hear even +the beating of the little wings at the window, but he stands up and +opens the window—because he happens to feel hot and tired. +The moth thinks that he has heard her, that he knows; and she flies +toward him in great delight. But he, thinking that it is only a +troublesome insect, kills her with a blow of his hand; and then +sits down to continue his poem with the words, “Oh, how I +wish I could have died instead <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page175" name="page175">[175]</a></span>of that dear woman!” +Altogether this is a queer poem in English literature, and I +believe almost alone of its kind. But it is queer only because of +its rarity of subject. As for construction, it is very good +indeed.</p> +<p>I do not know that it is necessary to quote any more poems upon +butterflies or moths. There are several others; but the workmanship +and the thought are not good enough or original enough to justify +their use here as class texts. So I shall now turn to the subject +of dragon-flies. Here we must again be very brief. References to +dragon-flies are common throughout English poetry, but the +references signify little more than a mere colourless mention of +the passing of the insect. However, it so happens that the finest +modern lines of pure description written about any insect, are +about dragon-flies. And they also happen to be by Tennyson. +Naturalists and men of science have greatly praised these lines, +because of their truth to nature and the accuracy of observation +which they show. You will find them in the poem entitled “The +Two Voices.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>To-day I saw the dragon-fly</p> +<p>Come from the wells where he did lie.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>An inner impulse rent the veil</p> +<p>Of his old husk; from head to tail</p> +<p>Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page176" name= +"page176">[176]</a></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>He dried his wings; like gauze they grew;</p> +<p>Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew</p> +<p>A living rush of light he flew.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>There are very few real poems, however, upon the dragon-fly in +English, and considering the extraordinary beauty and grace of the +insect, this may appear strange to you. But I think that you can +explain the strangeness at a later time. The silence of English +poets on the subject of insects as compared with Japanese poets is +due to general causes that we shall consider at the close of the +lecture.</p> +<p>Common flies could scarcely seem to be a subject for +poetry—disgusting and annoying creatures as they are. But +there are more poems about the house-fly than about the dragon-fly. +Last year I quoted for you a remarkable and rather mystical +composition by the poet Blake about accidentally killing a fly. +Blake represents his own thoughts about the brevity of human life +which had been aroused by the incident. It is charming little poem; +but it does not describe the fly at all. I shall not quote it here +again, because we shall have many other things to talk about; but I +shall give you the text of a famous little composition by Oldys on +the same topic. It has almost the simplicity of Blake,—and +certainly something of the same kind of philosophy.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Busy, curious, thirsty fly,</p> +<p>Drink with me and drink as I;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page177" name= +"page177">[177]</a></span> +<p>Freely welcome to my cup,</p> +<p>Couldst thou sip and sip it up:</p> +<p>Make the most of life you may,</p> +<p>Life is short and wears away.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Both alike are mine and thine</p> +<p>Hastening quick to their decline:</p> +<p>Thine’s a summer, mine’s no more,</p> +<p>Though repeated to threescore.</p> +<p>Threescore summers, when they’re gone,</p> +<p>Will appear as short as one!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The suggestion is that, after all, time is only a very relative +affair in the cosmic order of things. The life of the man of sixty +years is not much longer than the life of the insect which lives +but a few hours, days, or months. Had Oldys, who belongs to the +eighteenth century, lived in our own time, he might have been able +to write something very much more curious on this subject. It is +now known that time, to the mind of an insect, must appear +immensely longer than it appears to the mind of a man. It has been +calculated that a mosquito or a gnat moves its wings between four +and five hundred times a second. Now the scientific dissection of +such an insect, under the microscope, justifies the opinion that +the insect must be conscious of each beat of the wings—just +as a man feels that he lifts his arm or bends his head every time +that the action is performed. A man can not even imagine the +consciousness of so short an interval of time as the five-hundredth +part of one <span class="pagenum"><a id="page178" name= +"page178">[178]</a></span>second. But insect consciousness can be +aware of such intervals; and a single day of life might well appear +to the gnat as long as the period of a month to a man. Indeed, we +have reason to suppose that to even the shortest-lived insect life +does not appear short at all; and that the ephemeral may actually, +so far as felling is concerned, live as long as a +man—although its birth and death does occur between the +rising and the setting of the sun.</p> +<p>We might suppose that bees would form a favourite subject of +poetry, especially in countries where agriculture is practised upon +such a scale as in England. But such is not really the case. Nearly +every English poet makes some reference to bees, as Tennyson does +in the famous couplet—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The moan of doves in immemorial elms,</p> +<p>And murmuring of innumerable bees.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>But the only really remarkable poem addressed to a bee is by the +American philosopher Emerson. The poem in question can not be +compared as to mere workmanship with some others which I have +cited; but as to thinking, it is very interesting, and you must +remember that the philosopher who writes poetry should be judged +for his thought rather than for the measure of his verse. The whole +is not equally good, nor is it short enough to quote entire; I +shall only give the best parts.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page179" name= +"page179">[179]</a></span> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Burly, dozing humble-bee,</p> +<p>Where thou art is clime for me.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,</p> +<p>Let me chase thy waving lines;</p> +<p>Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,</p> +<p>Singing over shrubs and vines.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Insect lover of the sun,</p> +<p>Joy of thy dominion!</p> +<p>Sailor of the atmosphere;</p> +<p>Swimmer through the waves of air;</p> +<p>Voyager of light and noon;</p> +<p>Epicurean of June;</p> +<p>Wait, I prithee, till I come</p> +<p>Within earshot of thy hum,—</p> +<p>All without is martyrdom.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou, in sunny solitudes,</p> +<p>Rover of the underwoods,</p> +<p>The green silence dost displace</p> +<p>With thy mellow, breezy bass.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Aught unsavory or unclean</p> +<p>Hath my insect never seen;</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Wiser far than human seer,</p> +<p>Yellow-breeched philosopher!</p> +<p>Seeing only what is fair,</p> +<p>Sipping only what is sweet,</p> +<p>Thou dost mock at fate and care,</p> +<p>Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page180" name= +"page180">[180]</a></span>This is really the poetry of the +bee—visiting only beautiful flowers, and sucking from them +their perfumed juices—always healthy, happy, and surrounded +by beautiful things. A great rover, a constant wanderer is the +bee—visiting many different places, seeing many different +things, but stopping only to enjoy what is beautiful to the sight +and sweet to the taste. Now Emerson tells us that a wise man should +act like the bee—never stopping to look at what is bad, or +what is morally ugly, but seeking only what is beautiful and +nourishing for the mind. It is a very fine thought; and the manner +of expressing it is greatly helped by Emerson’s use of +curious and forcible words—such as “burly,” +“zigzag,” and the famous expression +“yellow-breeched philosopher”—which has passed +almost into an American household phrase. The allusion of course is +to the thighs of the bee, covered with the yellow pollen of flowers +so as to make them seem covered with yellow breeches, or trousers +reaching only to the knees.</p> +<p>I do not of course include in the lecture such child songs about +insects as that famous one beginning with the words, “How +doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour.” This is +no doubt didactically very good; but I wish to offer you only +examples of really fine poetry on the topic. Therefore leaving the +subject of bees for the time, let us turn to the subject of musical +insects<span class="pagenum"><a id="page181" name= +"page181">[181]</a></span>—the singers of the fields and +woods—grasshoppers and crickets.</p> +<p>In Japanese poetry there are thousands of verses upon such +insects. Therefore it seems very strange that we have scarcely +anything on the subject in English. And the little that we do have +is best represented by the poem of Keats on the night cricket. The +reference is probably to what we call in England the hearth +cricket, an insect which hides in houses, making itself at home in +some chink of the brickwork or stonework about a fireplace, for it +loves the warmth. I suppose that the small number of poems in +English about crickets can be partly explained by the scarcity of +night singers. Only the house cricket seems to be very well known. +But on the other hand, we can not so well explain the rarity of +composition in regard to the day-singers—the grasshoppers and +locusts which can be heard, though somewhat faintly, in any English +country place after sunset during the warm season. Another queer +thing is that the example set by Keats has not been imitated or at +least followed even up to the present time.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The poetry of earth is never dead:</p> +<p>When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, etc.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>In this charming composition you will have noticed the word +“stove”; but you must remember that this is not a stove +as we understand the term now, and signifies only an old-fashioned +fireplace <span class="pagenum"><a id="page182" name= +"page182">[182]</a></span>of brick or tile. In Keats’s day +there were no iron stoves. Another word which I want to notice is +the word “poetry” in the first line. By the poetry of +nature the poet means the voices of nature—the musical sounds +made by its idle life in woods and fields. So the word +“poetry” here has especially the meaning of song, and +corresponds very closely to the Japanese word which signifies +either poem or song, but perhaps more especially the latter. The +general meaning of the sonnet is that at no time, either in winter +or in summer, is nature silent. When the birds do not sing, the +grasshoppers make music for us; and when the cold has killed or +banished all other life, then the house cricket begins with its +thin sweet song to make us think of the dead voices of the +summer.</p> +<p>There is not much else of note about the grasshopper and the +cricket in the works of the great English poets. But perhaps you do +not know that Tennyson in his youth took up the subject and made a +long poem upon the grasshopper, but suppressed it after the edition +of 1842. He did not think it good enough to rank with his other +work. But a few months ago the poems which Tennyson suppressed in +the final edition of his works have been published and carefully +edited by an eminent scholar, and among these poems we find +“The Grasshopper.” I will quote some of this poem, +because it is beautiful, and because the fact of its suppression +will serve to show you how very exact <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page183" name="page183">[183]</a></span>and careful Tennyson was +to preserve only the very best things that he wrote.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Voice of the summer wind,</p> +<p>Joy of the summer plain,</p> +<p>Life of the summer hours,</p> +<p>Carol clearly, bound along,</p> +<p>No Tithon thou as poets feign</p> +<p>(Shame fall ’em, they are deaf and blind),</p> +<p>But an insect lithe and strong</p> +<p>Bowing the seeded summer flowers.</p> +<p>Prove their falsehood and thy quarrel,</p> +<p>Vaulting on thine airy feet</p> +<p>Clap thy shielded sides and carol,</p> +<p>Carol clearly, chirrups sweet.</p> +<p>Thou art a mailéd warrior in youth and strength +complete;</p> +<p class="i2">Armed cap-à-pie,</p> +<p class="i2">Full fair to see;</p> +<p class="i2">Unknowing fear,</p> +<p class="i2">Undreading loss,</p> +<p class="i2">A gallant cavalier,</p> +<p class="i2"><em>Sans peur et sans reproche</em>.</p> +<p class="i2">In sunlight and in shadow,</p> +<p class="i2">The Bayard of the meadow.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The reference to Tithonus is a reference of course to a subject +afterwards beautifully elaborated in another poem by Tennyson, the +great poem of “Tithonus.” The Bayard here referred to +was the great French model of perfect chivalry, and is sometimes +called the last of the feudal knights. He was said to be without +fear and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page184" name= +"page184">[184]</a></span>without blame. You may remember that he +was killed by a ball from a gun—it was soon after the use of +artillery in war had been introduced; and his dying words were to +the effect that he feared there was now an end of great deeds, +because men had begun to fight from a distance with machines +instead of fighting in the old knightly and noble way with sword +and spear. The grasshopper, covered with green plates and bearing +so many little sharp spines upon its long limbs, seems to have +suggested to Tennyson the idea of a fairy knight in green +armour.</p> +<p>As I said before, England is poor in singing insects, while +America is rich in them—almost, perhaps, as rich as Japan, +although you will not find as many different kinds of singing +insects in any one state or district. The singing insects of +America are peculiar to particular localities. But the Eastern +states have perhaps the most curious insect of this kind. It is +called the Katydid. This name is spelt either Katydid, or +Catydid—though the former spelling is preferable. Katy, or +Katie, is the abbreviation of the name Catherine; very few girls +are called by the full name Catherine, also spelt Katherine; +because the name is long and unmusical, their friends address them +usually as Katy, and their acquaintances, as Kate. Well, the insect +of which I am speaking, a kind of <em>semi</em>, makes a sound +resembling the sound of the words “Katie did!” Hence +the name—one of the few <span class="pagenum"><a id="page185" +name="page185">[185]</a></span>corresponding to the names given to +the Japanese <em>semi</em>, such as <em>tsuku-tsuku-boshi</em>, or +<em>minmin-semi</em>. The most interesting composition upon this +cicada is by Oliver Wendell Holmes, but it is of the lighter sort +of verse, with a touch of humour in it. I shall quote a few verses +only, as the piece contains some allusions that would require +explanation at considerable length.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I love to hear thine earnest voice,</p> +<p class="i2">Wherever thou art hid,</p> +<p>Thou testy little dogmatist,</p> +<p class="i2">Thou pretty Katydid!</p> +<p>Thou mindest me of gentlefolks,—</p> +<p class="i2">Old gentlefolks are they,—</p> +<p>Thou say’st an undisputed thing</p> +<p class="i2">In such a solemn way.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh tell me where did Katy live,</p> +<p class="i2">And what did Katy do?</p> +<p>And was she very fair and young,</p> +<p class="i2">And yet so wicked, too?</p> +<p>Did Katy love a naughty man,</p> +<p class="i2">Or kiss more cheeks than one?</p> +<p>I warrant Katy did no more</p> +<p class="i2">Than many a Kate has done.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ah, no! The living oak shall crash,</p> +<p class="i2">That stood for ages still,</p> +<p>The rock shall rend its mossy base</p> +<p class="i2">And thunder down the hill,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page186" name= +"page186">[186]</a></span> +<p>Before the little Katydid</p> +<p class="i2">Shall add one word, to tell</p> +<p>The mystic story of the maid</p> +<p class="i2">Whose name she knows so well.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The word “testy” may be a little unfamiliar to some +of you; it is a good old-fashioned English term for +“cross,” “irritable.” The reference to the +“old gentlefolks” implies the well-known fact that in +argument old persons are inclined to be much more obstinate than +young people. And there is also a hint in the poem of the tendency +among old ladies to blame the conduct of young girls even more +severely than may be necessary. There is nothing else to recommend +the poem except its wit and the curiousness of the subject. There +are several other verses about the same creature, by different +American poets; but none of them is quite so good as the +composition of Holmes. However, I may cite a few verses from one of +the earlier American poets, Philip Freneau, who flourished in the +eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth. He long +anticipated the fancy of Holmes; but he spells the word +Catydid.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>In a branch of willow hid</p> +<p>Sings the evening Catydid:</p> +<p>From the lofty locust bough</p> +<p>Feeding on a drop of dew,</p> +<p>In her suit of green arrayed</p> +<p>Hear her singing in the shade—</p> +<p class="i2">Catydid, Catydid, Catydid!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page187" name= +"page187">[187]</a></span> +<p>While upon a leaf you tread,</p> +<p>Or repose your little head</p> +<p>On your sheet of shadows laid,</p> +<p>All the day you nothing said;</p> +<p>Half the night your cheery tongue</p> +<p>Revelled out its little song,—</p> +<p class="i2">Nothing else but Catydid.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Tell me, what did Caty do?</p> +<p>Did she mean to trouble you?</p> +<p>Why was Caty not forbid</p> +<p>To trouble little Catydid?</p> +<p>Wrong, indeed, at you to fling,</p> +<p>Hurting no one while you sing,—</p> +<p class="i2">Catydid! Catydid! Catydid!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>To Dr. Holmes the voice of the cicada seemed like the voice of +an old obstinate woman, an old prude, accusing a young girl of some +fault,—but to Freneau the cry of the little creature seemed +rather to be like the cry of a little child complaining—a +little girl, perhaps, complaining that somebody had been throwing +stones at her, or had hurt her in some way. And, of course, the +unfinished character of the phrase allows equally well either +supposition.</p> +<p>Before going back to more serious poetry, I want—while we +are speaking of American poets—to make one reference to the +ironical or satirical poetry which insects have inspired in some +minds, taking for example the poem by Charlotte Perkins Stetson +about a butterfly. This author is <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page188" name="page188">[188]</a></span>rather a person of note, +being a prominent figure in educational reforms and the author of a +volume of poems of a remarkably strong kind in the didactic sense. +In other words, she is especially a moral poet; and unless moral +poetry be really very well executed, it is scarcely worth while +classing it as literature. I think, however, that the symbolism in +the following verses will interest you—especially when we +comment upon them. The composition from which they are taken is +entitled “A Conservative.”</p> +<p>The poet, walking in the garden one morning, sees a butterfly, +very unhappy, and gifted with power to express the reason of its +unhappiness. The butterfly says, complaining of its wings,</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“My legs are thin and few</p> +<p>Where once I had a swarm!</p> +<p>Soft fuzzy fur—a joy to view—</p> +<p>Once kept my body warm,</p> +<p>Before these flapping wing-things grew,</p> +<p>To hamper and deform!”</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>At that outrageous bug I shot</p> +<p>The fury of mine eye;</p> +<p>Said I, in scorn all burning hot,</p> +<p>In rage and anger high,</p> +<p>“You ignominious idiot!</p> +<p>Those wings are made to fly!”</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“I do not want to fly,” said he,</p> +<p>“I only want to squirm!”</p> +<p>And he drooped his wings dejectedly,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page189" name= +"page189">[189]</a></span> +<p>But still his voice was firm:</p> +<p>“I do not want to be a fly!</p> +<p>I want to be a worm!”</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O yesterday of unknown lack!</p> +<p>To-day of unknown bliss!</p> +<p>I left my fool in red and black,</p> +<p>The last I saw was this,—</p> +<p>The creature madly climbing back</p> +<p>Into his chrysalis.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Of course the wings here represent the powers of the +mind—knowledge, reason, will. Men ought to use these in order +to reach still nobler and higher states of life. But there are men +who refuse to use their best faculties for this end. Such men are +like butterflies who do not want to take the trouble to fly, but +prefer the former condition of the caterpillar which does nothing +but eat and sleep. As applied to certain forms of conservatism the +satire is strong.</p> +<p>Something may now be said as to poems about spiders. But let me +remind you that a spider is not an insect. Scientifically it has no +relation to the great family of true insects; it belongs to the +very distinct family of the arthropoda or +“joint-footed” animals. But as it is still popularly +called an insect in most European countries, we may be excused for +including it in the subject of the present lecture. I suppose you +know that one of the scientific names for this whole class of +creatures is Arachnida,—a name derived from the Greek +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page190" name= +"page190">[190]</a></span>name Arachne. The story of Arachne is +interesting, and everybody studying natural history ought to know +it. Arachne was a young girl, according to the Greek story, who was +very skilful at weaving. She wove cloths of many different colours +and beautiful patterns, and everybody admired her work. This made +her vain—so vain that at last she said that even the goddess +of weaving could not weave better than she. Immediately after she +had said that, the terrible goddess herself—Pallas +Athena—entered the room. Pallas Athena was not only the +goddess of wisdom, you know, but especially the goddess of young +girls, presiding over the chastity, the filial piety, and the +domestic occupations of virgins; and she was very angry at the +conceit of this girl. So she said to her, “You have boasted +that you can weave as well as I can; now let me see you +weave!” So Arachne was obliged to sit down at her loom and +weave in the presence of the goddess; and the goddess also wove, +far surpassing the weaving of Arachne. When the weaving was done, +the goddess asked the girl, “Now see! which is the better, my +work or yours?” And Arachne was obliged to confess that she +had been defeated and put to shame. But the goddess was not +thoroughly satisfied; to punish Arachne, she touched her lightly +with the distaff, saying, “Spin forever!” and thereupon +Arachne was changed into a spider, which forever spins and weaves +perishable films of perishable <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page191" name="page191">[191]</a></span>shiny thread. Poetically +we still may call a spider Arachne.</p> +<p>I have here a little poem of a touching character entitled +“Arachne,” by Rose Terry Cooke,—one of the +symbolic poems which are becoming so numerous in these days of +newer and deeper philosophy. I think that you will like it: a +spinster, that is, a maiden passed the age of girlhood, is the +speaker.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I watch her in the corner there,</p> +<p>As, restless, bold, and unafraid,</p> +<p>She slips and floats along the air</p> +<p>Till all her subtile house is made.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Her home, her bed, her daily food,</p> +<p>All from that hidden store she draws;</p> +<p>She fashions it and knows it good,</p> +<p>By instinct’s strong and sacred laws.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>No tenuous threads to weave her nest,</p> +<p>She seeks and gathers there or here;</p> +<p>But spins it from her faithful breast,</p> +<p>Renewing still, till leaves are sere.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Then, worn with toil, and tired of life,</p> +<p>In vain her shining traps are set.</p> +<p>Her frost hath hushed the insect strife</p> +<p>And gilded flies her charm forget.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But swinging in the snares she spun,</p> +<p>She sways to every wintry wind:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page192" name= +"page192">[192]</a></span> +<p>Her joy, her toil, her errand done,</p> +<p>Her corse the sport of storms unkind.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The symbolism of these verses will appear to you more +significant when I tell you that it refers especially to conditions +in New England in the present period. The finest American +population—perhaps the finest Anglo-Saxons ever +produced—were the New Englanders of the early part of the +century. But with the growth of the new century, the men found +themselves attracted elsewhere, especially westward; their +shrewdness, their energies, their inventiveness, were needed in +newer regions. And they wandered away by thousands and thousands, +never to come back again, and leaving the women behind them. +Gradually the place of these men was taken by immigrants of +inferior development—but the New England women had nothing to +hope for from these strangers. The bravest of them also went away +to other states; but myriads who could not go were condemned by +circumstances to stay and earn their living by hard work without +any prospect of happy marriage. The difficulty which a girl of +culture may experience in trying to live by the work of her hands +in New England is something not easily imagined. But it is getting +to be the same in most Western countries. Such a girl is watching a +spider weaving in the corner of the same room where she herself is +weaving; and she thinks, “Am I not like that spider, obliged +to supply <span class="pagenum"><a id="page193" name= +"page193">[193]</a></span>my every need by the work of my own +hands, without sympathy, without friends? The spider will spin and +catch flies until the autumn comes; then she will die. Perhaps I +too must continue to spin until the autumn of my own +life—until I become too old to work hard, and die of cold and +of exhaustion.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Poor sister of the spinster clan!</p> +<p>I too from out my store within</p> +<p>My daily life and living plan,</p> +<p>My home, my rest, my pleasure spin.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I know thy heart when heartless hands</p> +<p>Sweep all that hard-earned web away;</p> +<p>Destroy its pearled and glittering bands,</p> +<p>And leave thee homeless by the way.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I know thy peace when all is done.</p> +<p>Each anchored thread, each tiny knot,</p> +<p>Soft shining in the autumn sun;</p> +<p>A sheltered, silent, tranquil lot.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I know what thou hast never known,—</p> +<p>Sad presage to a soul allowed—</p> +<p>That not for life I spin, alone,</p> +<p>But day by day I spin my shroud.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The reference to the sweeping away of the spider’s web, of +course, implies the pain often caused to such hardworking girls by +the meanness of men who employ them only to cheat +them—<span class="pagenum"><a id="page194" name= +"page194">[194]</a></span>shopkeepers or manufacturers who take +their work without justly paying for it, and who criticize it as +bad in order to force the owner to accept less money than it is +worth. Again a reference may be intended to the destruction of the +home by some legal trick—some unscrupulous method of cheating +the daughter out of the property bequeathed to her by her +parents.</p> +<p>Notice a few pretty words here. The “pearled” as +applied to the spider’s thread gives an intimation of the +effect produced by dew on the thread, but there is also the +suggestion of tears upon the thread work woven by the hands of the +girl. The participle “anchored” is very pretty in its +use here as an adjective, because this word is now especially used +for rope-fastening, whether the rope be steel or hemp; and +particularly for the fastening of the cables of a bridge. The last +stanza might be paraphrased thus: “Sister Spider, I know more +than you—and that knowledge makes me unhappy. You do not +know, when you are spinning your little web, that you are really +weaving your own shroud. But I know this, my work is slowly but +surely killing me. And I know it because I have a soul—at +least a mind made otherwise than yours.”</p> +<p>The use of the word “soul” in the last stanza of +this poem, brings me back to the question put forth in an earlier +part of the lecture—why European poets, during the last two +thousand years, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page195" name= +"page195">[195]</a></span>have written so little upon the subject +of insects? Three thousand, four thousand years ago, the most +beautiful Greek poetry—poetry more perfect than anything of +English poetry—was written upon insects. In old Japanese +literature poems upon insects are to be found by thousands. What is +the signification of the great modern silence in Western countries +upon this delightful topic? I believe that Christianity, as dogma, +accounts for the long silence. The opinions of the early Church +refused soul, ghost, intelligence of any sort to other creatures +than man. All animals were considered as automata—that is, as +self-acting machines, moved by a something called instinct, for +want of a better name. To talk about the souls of animals or the +spirits of animals would have been very dangerous in the Middle +Ages, when the Church had supreme power; it would indeed have been +to risk or to invite an accusation of witchcraft, for demons were +then thought to take the shape of animals at certain times. To +discuss the <em>mind</em> of an animal would have been for the +Christian faith to throw doubt upon the existence of human souls as +taught by the Church; for if you grant that animals are able to +think, then you must acknowledge that man is able to think without +a soul, or you must acknowledge that the soul is not the essential +principle of thought and action. Until after the time of Descartes, +who later argued philosophically that animals were only machines, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page196" name= +"page196">[196]</a></span>it was scarcely possible to argue +rationally about the matter in Europe.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, we shall soon perceive that this explanation will +not cover all the facts. You will naturally ask how it happens +that, if the question be a question of animal souls, birds, horses, +dogs, cats, and many other animals have been made the subject of +Western poems from ancient times. The silence is only upon the +subject of insects. And, again, Christianity has one +saint—the most beautiful character in all Christian +hagiography—who thought of all nature in a manner that, at +first sight, strangely resembles Buddhism. This saint was Francis +of Assisi, born in the latter part of the twelfth century, so that +he may be said to belong to the very heart of the Middle +Ages,—the most superstitious epoch of Christianity. Now this +saint used to talk to trees and stones as if they were animated +beings. He addressed the sun as “my brother sun”; and +he spoke of the moon as his sister. He preached not only to human +beings, but also to the birds and the fishes; and he made a great +many poems on these subjects, full of a strange and childish +beauty. For example, his sermon to the doves, beginning, “My +little sisters, the doves,” in which he reminds them that +their form is the emblem or symbol of the Holy Ghost, is a +beautiful poem; and has been, with many others, translated into +nearly all modern languages. But observe that neither St. Francis +nor <span class="pagenum"><a id="page197" name= +"page197">[197]</a></span>any other saint has anything to say on +the subject of insects.</p> +<p>Perhaps we must go back further than Christianity to guess the +meaning of these distinctions. Among the ancient races of Asia, +where the Jewish faith arose, there were strange and sinister +beliefs about insects—old Assyrian superstitions, old +Babylonian beliefs. Insects seemed to those early peoples very +mysterious creatures (which they really are); and it appears to +have been thought that they had a close relation to the world of +demons and evil spirits. I suppose you know that the name of one of +their gods, Beelzebub, signifies the Lord of Flies. The Jews, as is +shown by their Talmudic literature, inherited some of these ideas; +and it is quite probable that they were passed on to the days of +Christianity. Again, in the early times of Christianity in Northern +Africa the Church had to fight against superstitions of an equally +strange sort derived from old Egyptian beliefs. Among the +Egyptians, certain insects were sacred and became symbols of +divinity,—such as the beetle. Now I imagine that for these +reasons the subject of insects became at an early time a subject +which Christianity thought dangerous, and that thereafter a kind of +hostile opinion prevailed regarding any literature upon this +topic.</p> +<p>However, to-day things are very different. With the development +of scientific studies—especially of microscopic +study—it has been found that <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page198" name="page198">[198]</a></span>insects, far from being +the lowliest of creatures, are the most highly organized of all +beings; that their special senses are incomparably superior to our +own; and that in natural history, from the evolutional standpoint, +they have to be given first place. This of course renders it +impossible any longer to consider the insect as a trifling subject. +Moreover, the new philosophy is teaching the thinking classes in +all Western countries the great truth of the unity of life. With +the recognition of such unity, an insect must interest the +philosophers—even the man of ordinary culture—quite as +much as the bird or any other animal.</p> +<p>Nearly all the poems which I have quoted to you have been poems +of very modern date—from which we may infer that interest in +the subject of insects has been developing of late years only. In +this connection it is interesting to note that a very religious +poet, Whittier, gave us in the last days of his life a poem upon +ants. This would have seemed strange enough in a former age; it +does not seem strange to-day, and it is beautiful. The subject is +taken from old Jewish literature.</p> +<h4>KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Out from Jerusalem</p> +<p class="i2">The King rode with his great</p> +<p class="i2">War chiefs and lords of state,</p> +<p>And Sheba’s queen with them;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page199" name= +"page199">[199]</a></span> +<p>Comely, but black withal,</p> +<p class="i2">To whom, perchance, belongs</p> +<p class="i2">That wondrous Song of Songs,</p> +<p>Sensuous and mystical,</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Whereto devout souls turn</p> +<p class="i2">In fond, ecstatic dream,</p> +<p class="i2">And through its earth-born theme</p> +<p>The Love of Loves discern.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Proud in the Syrian sun,</p> +<p class="i2">In gold and purple sheen,</p> +<p class="i2">The dusky Ethiop queen</p> +<p>Smiled on King Solomon.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Wisest of men, he knew</p> +<p class="i2">The languages of all</p> +<p class="i2">The creatures great or small</p> +<p>That trod the earth or flew.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Across an ant-hill led</p> +<p class="i2">The king’s path, and he heard</p> +<p class="i2">Its small folk, and their word</p> +<p>He thus interpreted:</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“Here comes the king men greet</p> +<p class="i2">As wise and good and just,</p> +<p class="i2">To crush us in the dust</p> +<p>Under his heedless feet.”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The king, understanding the language of insects, turns to the +queen and explains to her what the ants have just said. She advises +him to pay no <span class="pagenum"><a id="page200" name= +"page200">[200]</a></span>attention to the sarcasm of the +ants—how dare such vile creatures speak thus about a king! +But Solomon thinks otherwise:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“Nay,” Solomon replied,</p> +<p class="i2">“The wise and strong should seek</p> +<p class="i2">The welfare of the weak,”</p> +<p>And turned his horse aside.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>His train, with quick alarm,</p> +<p class="i2">Curved with their leader round</p> +<p class="i2">The ant-hill’s peopled mound,</p> +<p>And left it free from harm.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The jewelled head bent low;</p> +<p class="i2">“Oh, king!” she said, +“henceforth</p> +<p class="i2">The secret of thy worth</p> +<p>And wisdom well I know.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“Happy must be the State</p> +<p class="i2">Whose ruler heedeth more</p> +<p class="i2">The murmurs of the poor</p> +<p>Than flatteries of the great.”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The reference to the Song of Songs—also the Song of +Solomon and Canticle of Canticles—may require a little +explanation. The line “Comely but black withal,” is +borrowed from a verse of this song—“I am black but +beautiful, oh, ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as +the curtains of Solomon.” In another part of the song the +reason of this blackness is given: “I am black, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page201" name="page201">[201]</a></span>because +the sun hath looked upon me.” From which we can see that the +word black only means dark, brown, tanned by the sun. Perhaps you +do not know that as late as the middle of the eighteenth century it +was still the custom in England to speak of a person with black +hair and eyes as “a black man”—a custom which +Charles Lamb had reason to complain of even at a later day. The +tents referred to in the text were probably tents made of +camel-skin, such as the Arabs still make, and the colour of these +is not black but brown. Whether Solomon wrote the so-called song or +not we do not know; but the poet refers to a legend that it was +written in praise of the beauty of the dark queen who came from +Sheba to visit the wisest man of the world. Such is not, however, +the opinion of modern scholars. The composition is really dramatic, +although thrown into lyrical form, and as arranged by Renan and +others it becomes a beautiful little play, of which each act is a +monologue. “Sensuous” the poet correctly calls it; for +it is a form of praise of woman’s beauty in all its details, +as appears in such famous verses as these: “How beautiful are +thy feet in shoes, O prince’s daughter; the joints of thy +thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. +Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins which feed +among the lilies.” But Christianity, instead of dismissing +this part of the Bible, interpreted the song <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page202" name= +"page202">[202]</a></span>mystically—insisting that the woman +described meant the Church, and the lover, Christ. Of course only +very pious people continue to believe this; even the good Whittier +preferred the legend that it was written about the Queen of +Sheba.</p> +<p>I suppose that I ought to end this lecture upon insect poetry by +some quotation to which a moral or philosophical meaning can be +attached. I shall end it therefore with a quotation from the poet +Gray. The poetry of insects may be said to have first appeared in +English literature during the second half of the eighteenth +century, so that it is only, at the most, one hundred and fifty +years old. But the first really fine poem of the eighteenth century +relating to the subject is quite as good as anything since composed +by Englishmen upon insect life in general. Perhaps Gray referred +especially to what we call May-flies—those delicate ghostly +insects which hover above water surfaces in fine weather, but which +die on the same day that they are born. He does not specify +May-flies, however, and we may consider the moral of the poem quite +apart from any particular kind of insect. You will find this +reference in the piece entitled “Ode on the Spring,” in +the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Still is the toiling hand of care:</p> +<p class="i2">The panting herds repose:</p> +<p>Yet hark, how through the peopled air</p> +<p>The busy murmur glows!</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page203" name= +"page203">[203]</a></span> +<p>The insect youth are on the wing,</p> +<p>Eager to taste the honied spring,</p> +<p>And float amid the liquid noon:</p> +<p>Some lightly o’er the current skim,</p> +<p>Some show their gaily-gilded trim</p> +<p class="i2">Quick-glancing to the sun.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>To Contemplation’s sober eye</p> +<p class="i2">Such is the race of man:</p> +<p>And they that creep, and they that fly,</p> +<p class="i2">Shall end where they began.</p> +<p>Alike the Busy and the Gay</p> +<p>But flutter through life’s little day,</p> +<p>In fortune’s varying colours dressed:</p> +<p>Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,</p> +<p>Or chilled by Age, their airy dance</p> +<p class="i2">They leave, in dust to rest.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Methinks I hear in accents low</p> +<p class="i2">The sportive kind reply:</p> +<p>Poor moralist! and what art thou?</p> +<p class="i2">A solitary fly!</p> +<p>Thy joys no glittering female meets,</p> +<p>No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,</p> +<p>No painted plumage to display:</p> +<p>On hasty wings thy youth is flown;</p> +<p>Thy sun is set; thy spring is gone—</p> +<p class="i2">We frolic, while ’tis May.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The poet Gray was never married, and the last stanza which I +have quoted refers jocosely to himself. It is an artistic device to +set off the moral by a little mockery, so that it may not appear +too melancholy.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page204" name= +"page204">[204]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_11" name="Ch_11">Chapter XI</a></h3> +<h2>Some French Poems about Insects</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Last year I gave a lecture on the subject of English poems about +insects, with some reference to the old Greek poems on the same +subject. But I did not then have an opportunity to make any +reference to French poems upon the same subject, and I think that +it would be a pity not to give you a few examples.</p> +<p>Just as in the case of English poems about insects, nearly all +the French literature upon this subject is new. Insect poetry +belongs to the newer and larger age of thought, to the age that +begins to perceive the great truth of the unity of life. We no +longer find, even in natural histories, the insect treated as a +mere machine and unthinking organism; on the contrary its habits, +its customs and its manifestation both of intelligence and instinct +are being very carefully studied in these times, and a certain +sympathy, as well as a certain feeling of respect or admiration, +may be found in the scientific treatises of the greatest men who +write about insect life. So, naturally, Europe is slowly returning +to the poetical standpoint of the old Greeks in this respect. It is +not improbable that <span class="pagenum"><a id="page205" name= +"page205">[205]</a></span>keeping caged insects as pets may again +become a Western custom, as it was in Greek times, when cages were +made of rushes or straw for the little creatures. I suppose you +have heard that the Japanese custom is very likely to become a +fashion in America. If that should really happen, the fact would +certainly have an effect upon poetry. I think that it is very +likely to happen.</p> +<p>The French poets who have written pretty things about insects +are nearly all poets of our own times. Some of them treat the +subject from the old Greek standpoint—indeed the beautiful +poem of Heredia upon the tomb of a grasshopper is perfectly Greek, +and reads almost like a translation from the Greek. Other poets try +to express the romance of insects in the form of a monologue, full +of the thought of our own age. Others again touch the subject of +insects only in connection with the subject of love. I will give +one example of each method, keeping the best piece for the last, +and beginning with a pretty fancy about a dragonfly.</p> +<h4>MA LIBELLULE</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>En te voyant, toute mignonne,</p> +<p>Blanche dans ta robe d’azure,</p> +<p>Je pensais à quelque madone</p> +<p>Drapée en un pen de ciel pur.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Je songeais à ces belles saintes</p> +<p>Que l’on voyait au temps jadis</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page206" name= +"page206">[206]</a></span> +<p>Sourire sur les vitres peintes,</p> +<p>Montrant d’un doigt le paradis:</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Et j’aurais voulu, loin du monde</p> +<p>Qui passait frivole entre nous,</p> +<p>Dans quelque retraite profonde</p> +<p>T’adorer seul à deux genoux.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This first part of the poem is addressed of course to a +beautiful child, some girl between the age of childhood and +womanhood:</p> +<p>“Beholding thee, Oh darling one, all white in thy azure +dress, I thought of some figure of the Madonna robed in a shred of +pure blue sky.</p> +<p>“I dreamed of those beautiful figures of saints whom one +used to see in olden times smiling in the stained glass of church +windows, and pointing upward to Paradise.</p> +<p>“And I could have wished to adore you alone upon my bended +knees in some far hidden retreat, away from the frivolous world +that passed between us.”</p> +<p>This little bit of ecstasy over the beauty and purity of a child +is pretty, but not particularly original. However, it is only an +introduction. Now comes the pretty part of the poem:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Soudain un caprice bizarre</p> +<p>Change la scène et le décor,</p> +<p>Et mon esprit au loin s’égare</p> +<p>Sur des grands prés d’azure et d’or</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page207" name= +"page207">[207]</a></span> +<p>Où, près de ruisseaux muscules</p> +<p>Gazouillants comme des oiseaux,</p> +<p>Se poursuivent les libellules,</p> +<p>Ces fleurs vivantes des roseaux.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Enfant, n’es tu pas l’une d’elles</p> +<p>Qui me poursuit pour consoler?</p> +<p>Vainement tu caches tes ailes;</p> +<p>Tu marches, mais tu sais voler.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Petite fée au bleu corsage,</p> +<p>Que j’ai connu dès mon berceau,</p> +<p>En revoyant ton doux visage,</p> +<p>Je pense aux joncs de mon ruisseau!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Veux-tu qu’en amoureux fidèles</p> +<p>Nous revenions dans ces prés verts?</p> +<p>Libellule, reprends tes ailes;</p> +<p>Moi, je brulerai tous mes vers!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Et nous irons, sous la lumière,</p> +<p>D’un ciel plus frais et plus léger</p> +<p>Chacun dans sa forme première,</p> +<p>Moi courir, et toi voltiger.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>“Suddenly a strange fancy changes for me the scene and the +scenery; and my mind wanders far away over great meadows of azure +and gold.</p> +<p>“Where, hard by tiny streams that murmur with a sound like +voices of little birds, the dragon-flies, those living flowers of +the reeds, chase each other at play.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page208" name= +"page208">[208]</a></span>”Child, art thou not one of those +dragon-flies, following after me to console me? Ah, it is in vain +that thou tryest to hide thy wings; thou dost walk, indeed, but +well thou knowest how to fly!</p> +<p>“O little fairy with the blue corsage whom I knew even +from the time I was a baby in the cradle; seeing again thy sweet +face, I think of the rushes that border the little stream of my +native village!</p> +<p>“Dost thou not wish that even now as faithful lovers we +return to those green fields? O dragon-fly, take thy wings again, +and I—I will burn all my poetry,</p> +<p>“And we shall go back, under the light of the sky more +fresh and pure than this, each of us in the original form—I +to run about, and thou to hover in the air as of yore.”</p> +<p>The sight of a child’s face has revived for the poet very +suddenly and vividly, the recollection of the village home, the +green fields of childhood, the little stream where he used to play +with the same little girl, sometimes running after the dragon-fly. +And now the queer fancy comes to him that she herself is so like a +dragon-fly—so light, graceful, spiritual! Perhaps really she +is a dragon-fly following him into the great city, where he +struggles to live as a poet, just in order to console him. She +hides her wings, but that is only to prevent other people knowing. +Why not return once more to the home of childhood, back to the +green fields <span class="pagenum"><a id="page209" name= +"page209">[209]</a></span>and the sun? “Little +dragon-fly,” he says to her, “let us go back! do you +return to your beautiful summer shape, be a dragon-fly again, +expand your wings of gauze; and I shall stop trying to write +poetry. I shall burn my verses; I shall go back to the streams +where we played as children; I shall run about again with the joy +of a child, and with you beautifully flitting hither and thither as +a dragon-fly.”</p> +<p>Victor Hugo also has a little poem about a dragon-fly, symbolic +only, but quite pretty. It is entitled “La Demoiselle”; +and the other poem was entitled, as you remember, “Ma +Libellule.” Both words mean a dragon-fly, but not the same +kind of dragon-fly. The French word “demoiselle,” which +might be adequately rendered into Japanese by the term +<em>ojosan</em>, refers only to those exquisitely slender, +graceful, slow-flitting dragon-flies known to the scientist by the +name of Calopteryx. Of course you know the difference by sight, and +the reason of the French name will be poetically apparent to +you.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Quand la demoiselle dorée</p> +<p>S’envole au départ des hivers,</p> +<p>Souvent sa robe diaprée,</p> +<p>Souvent son aile est déchirée</p> +<p>Aux mille dards des buissons verts.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ainsi, jeunesse vive et frêle,</p> +<p>Qui, t’égarant de tous côtés,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page210" name= +"page210">[210]</a></span> +<p>Voles ou ton instinct t’appele,</p> +<p>Souvent tu déchires ton aile</p> +<p>Aux épines des voluptes.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>“When, at the departure of winter, the gilded dragon-fly +begins to soar, often her many-coloured robe, often her wing, is +torn by the thousand thorns of the verdant shrubs.</p> +<p>“Even so, O frail and joyous Youth, who, wandering hither +and thither, in every direction, flyest wherever thy instinct calls +thee—even so thou dost often tear thy wings upon the thorns +of pleasure.”</p> +<p>You must understand that pleasure is compared to a rose-bush, +whose beautiful and fragrant flowers attract the insects, but whose +thorns are dangerous to the visitors. However, Victor Hugo does not +use the word for rose-bush, for obvious reasons; nor does he +qualify the plants which are said to tear the wings of the +dragon-fly. I need hardly tell you that the comparison would not +hold good in reference to the attraction of flowers, because +dragon-flies do not care in the least about flowers, and if they +happen to tear their wings among thorn bushes, it is much more +likely to be in their attempt to capture and devour other insects. +The merit of the poem is chiefly in its music and colour; as +natural history it would not bear criticism. The most beautiful +modern French poem about insects, beautiful because of its +classical perfection, is I think a sonnet by Heredia, entitled +“Épigramme Funéraire”—that is +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page211" name= +"page211">[211]</a></span>to say, “Inscription for a +Tombstone.” This is an exact imitation of Greek sentiment and +expression, carefully studied after the poets of the anthology. +Several such Greek poems are extant, recounting how children +mourned for pet insects which had died in spite of all their care. +The most celebrated one among these I quoted in a former +lecture—the poem about the little Greek girl Myro who made a +tomb for her grasshopper and cried over it. Heredia has very well +copied the Greek feeling in this fine sonnet:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ici gît, Etranger, la verte sauterelle</p> +<p>Que durant deux saisons nourrit la jeune Hellé,</p> +<p>Et dont l’aile vibrant sous le pied dentelé.</p> +<p>Bruissait dans le pin, le cytise, ou l’airelle.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Elle s’est tue, hélas! la lyre naturelle,</p> +<p>La muse des guérets, des sillons et du blé;</p> +<p>De peur que son léger sommeil ne soit troublé,</p> +<p>Ah, passe vite, ami, ne pèse point sur elle.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>C’est là. Blanche, au milieu d’une touffe de +thym,</p> +<p>Sa pierre funéraire est fraîchement +poseé.</p> +<p>Que d’hommes n’ont pas eu ce suprême +destin!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Des larmes d’un enfant la tombe est arrosée,</p> +<p>Et l’Aurore pieuse y fait chaque matin</p> +<p>Une libation de gouttes de rosée.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>“Stranger, here reposes the green grasshopper that the +young girl Helle cared for during two <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page212" name="page212">[212]</a></span>seasons,—the +grasshopper whose wings, vibrating under the strokes of its +serrated feet, used to resound in the pine, the trefoil and the +whortleberry.</p> +<p>“She is silent now, alas! that natural lyre, muse of the +unsown fields, of the furrows, and of the wheat. Lest her light +sleep should be disturbed, ah! pass quickly, friend! do not be +heavy upon her.</p> +<p>“It is there. All white, in the midst of a tuft of thyme, +her funeral monument is placed, in cool shadow; how many men have +not been able to have this supremely happy end!</p> +<p>“By the tears of a child the insect’s tomb is +watered; and the pious goddess of dawn each morning there makes a +libation of drops of dew.”</p> +<p>This reads very imperfectly in a hasty translation; the original +charm is due to the perfect art of the form. But the whole thing, +as I have said before, is really Greek, and based upon a close +study of several little Greek poems on the same kind of subject. +Little Greek girls thousands of years ago used to keep singing +insects as pets, every day feeding them with slices of leek and +with fresh water, putting in their little cages sprigs of the +plants which they liked. The sorrow of the child for the inevitable +death of her insect pets at the approach of winter, seems to have +inspired many Greek poets. With all tenderness, the child would +make a small grave for the insect, bury it solemnly, and put a +little white stone above the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page213" +name="page213">[213]</a></span>place to imitate a grave-stone. But +of course she would want an inscription for this +tombstone—perhaps would ask some of her grown-up friends to +compose one for her. Sometimes the grown-up friend might be a poet, +in which case he would compose an epitaph for all time.</p> +<p>I suppose you perceive that the solemnity of this imitation of +the Greek poems on the subject is only a tender mockery, a playful +sympathy with the real grief of the child. The expression, +“pass, friend,” is often found in Greek funeral +inscriptions together with the injunction to tread lightly upon the +dust of the dead. There is one French word to which I will call +attention,—the word “guérets.” We have no +English equivalent for this term, said to be a corruption of the +Latin word “veractum,” and meaning fields which have +been ploughed but not sown.</p> +<p>Not to dwell longer upon the phase of art indicated by this +poem, I may turn to the subject of crickets. There are many French +poems about crickets. One by Lamartine is known to almost every +French child.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Grillon solitaire,</p> +<p>Ici comme moi,</p> +<p>Voix qui sors de terre,</p> +<p>Ah! réveille-toi!</p> +<p>J’attise la flamme,</p> +<p>C’est pour t’égayer;</p> +<p>Mais il manque une âme,</p> +<p>Une âme au foyer.</p> +</div> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page214" name= +"page214">[214]</a></span> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Grillon solitaire,</p> +<p>Voix qui sors de terre,</p> +<p>Ah! réveille-toi</p> +<p class="i2">Pour moi.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Quand j’étais petite</p> +<p>Comme ce berceau,</p> +<p>Et que Marguerite</p> +<p>Filait son fuseau,</p> +<p>Quand le vent d’automne</p> +<p>Faisait tout gémir,</p> +<p>Ton cri monotone</p> +<p>M’aidait à dormir.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Grillon solitaire,</p> +<p>Voix qui sors de terre,</p> +<p>Ah! réveille-toi</p> +<p class="i2">Pour moi.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Seize fois l’année</p> +<p>A compté mes jours;</p> +<p>Dans la cheminée</p> +<p>Tu niches toujours.</p> +<p>Je t’écoute encore</p> +<p>Aux froides saisons.</p> +<p>Souvenir sonore</p> +<p>Des vieilles maisons.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Grillon solitaire,</p> +<p>Voix qui sors de terre,</p> +<p>Ah! réveille-toi</p> +<p class="i2">Pour moi.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>It is a young girl who thus addresses the cricket <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page215" name="page215">[215]</a></span>of the +hearth, the house cricket. It is very common in country houses in +Europe. This is what she says:</p> +<p>“Little solitary cricket, all alone here just like myself, +little voice that comes up out of the ground, ah, awake for my +sake! I am stirring up the fires, that is just to make you +comfortable; but there lacks a presence by the hearth; a soul to +keep me company.</p> +<p>“When I was a very little girl, as little as that cradle +in the corner of the room, then, while Margaret our servant sat +there spinning, and while the autumn wind made everything moan +outside, your monotonous cry used to help me to fall asleep.</p> +<p>“Solitary cricket, voice that issues from the ground, +awaken, for my sake.</p> +<p>“Now I am sixteen years of age and you are still nestling +in the chimneys as of old. I can hear you still in the cold +season,—like a sound—memory,—a sonorous memory of +old houses.</p> +<p>“Solitary cricket, voice that issues from the ground, +awaken, O awaken for my sake.”</p> +<p>I do not think this pretty little song needs any explanation; I +would only call your attention to the natural truth of the fancy +and the feeling. Sitting alone by the fire in the night, the maiden +wants to hear the cricket sing, because it makes her think of her +childhood, and she finds happiness in remembering it.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page216" name= +"page216">[216]</a></span>So far as mere art goes, the poem of +Gautier on the cricket is very much finer than the poem of +Lamartine, though not so natural and pleasing. But as Gautier was +the greatest master of French verse in the nineteenth century, not +excepting Victor Hugo, I think that one example of his poetry on +insects may be of interest. He was very poor, compared with Victor +Hugo; and he had to make his living by writing for newspapers, so +that he had no time to become the great poet that nature intended +him to be. However, he did find time to produce one volume of +highly finished poetry, which is probably the most perfect verse of +the nineteenth century, if not the most perfect verse ever made by +a French poet; I mean the “Emaux et Camées.” But +the little poem which I am going to read to you is not from the +“Emaux et Camées.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Souffle, bise! Tombe à flots, pluie!</p> +<p>Dans mon palais tout noir de suie,</p> +<p>Je ris de la pluie et du vent;</p> +<p>En attendant que l’hiver fuie,</p> +<p>Je reste au coin du feu, rêvant.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>C’est moi qui suis l’esprit de +l’âtre!</p> +<p>Le gaz, de sa langue bleuàtre,</p> +<p>Lèche plus doucement le bois;</p> +<p>La fumée en filet d’albàtre,</p> +<p>Monte et se contourne à ma voix.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page217" name= +"page217">[217]</a></span> +<p>La bouilloire rit et babille;</p> +<p>La flamme aux pieds d’argent sautille</p> +<p>En accompagnant ma chanson;</p> +<p>La bûche de duvet s’habille;</p> +<p>La sève bout dans le tison.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Pendant la nuit et la journée</p> +<p>Je chante sous la cheminée;</p> +<p>Dans mon langage de grillon</p> +<p>J’ai, des rebuts de son aînée,</p> +<p>Souvent console Cendrillon.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Quel plaisir? Prolonger sa veille,</p> +<p>Regarder la flamme vermeille</p> +<p>Prenant à deux bras le tison,</p> +<p>A tous les bruits prêter l’oreille,</p> +<p>Entendre vivre la maison.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Tapi dans sa niche bien chaude,</p> +<p>Sentir l’hiver qui pleure et rôde,</p> +<p>Tout blême, et le nez violet,</p> +<p>Tachant de s’introduire en fraude</p> +<p>Par quelque fente du volet!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This poem is especially picturesque, and is intended to give us +the comfortable sensations of a winter night by the fire, and the +amusement of watching the wood burn and of hearing the kettle +boiling. You will find that the French has a particular quality of +lucid expression; it is full of clearness and colour.</p> +<p>“Blow on, cold wind! pour down, O rain. I, in <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page218" name="page218">[218]</a></span>my +soot-black palace, laugh at both rain and wind; and while waiting +for winter to pass I remain in my corner by the fire dreaming.</p> +<p>“It is I that am really the spirit of the hearth! The +gaseous flame licks the wood more softly with its bluish tongue +when it hears me; and the smoke rises up like an alabaster thread, +and curls itself about (or twists) at the sound of my voice.</p> +<p>“The kettle chuckles and chatters; the golden-footed flame +leaps, dancing to the accompaniment of my song (or in accompaniment +to my song); the great log covers itself with down, the sap boils +in the wooden embers (“duvet,” meaning +“down,” refers to the soft fluffy white ash that forms +upon the surface of burning wood).</p> +<p>“All night and all day I sing below the chimney. Often in +my cricket-language, I have consoled Cinderella for the snubs of +her elder sister.</p> +<p>“Ah, what pleasure to sit up at night, and watch the +crimson flames embracing the wood (or hugging the wood) with both +arms at once, and to listen to all the sounds and to hear the life +of the house!</p> +<p>“Nestling in one’s good warm nook, how pleasant to +hear Winter, who weeps and prowls round about the house outside, +all wan and blue-nosed with cold, trying to smuggle itself inside +some chink in the shutter!”</p> +<p>Of course this does not give us much about the insect itself, +which remains invisible in the poem, <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page219" name="page219">[219]</a></span>just as it really remains +invisible in the house where the voice is heard. Rather does the +poem express the feelings of the person who hears the cricket.</p> +<p>When we come to the subject of grasshoppers, I think that the +French poets have done much better than the English. There are many +poems on the field grasshopper; I scarcely know which to quote +first. But I think you would be pleased with a little composition +by the celebrated French painter, Jules Breton. Like Rossetti he +was both painter and poet; and in both arts he took for his +subjects by preference things from country life. This little poem +is entitled “Les Cigales.” The word +“cigales,” though really identical with our word +“cicala,” seldom means the same thing. Indeed the +French word may mean several different kinds of insects, and it is +only by studying the text that we can feel quite sure what sort of +insect is meant.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Lorsque dans l’herbe mûre ancun épi ne +bouge,</p> +<p>Qu’à l’ardeur des rayons crépite le +frement,</p> +<p>Que le coquelicot tombe languissament</p> +<p>Sous le faible fardeau de sa corolle rouge,</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Tous les oiseaux de l’air out fait taire leur chants;</p> +<p>Les ramiers paresseux, au plus noir des ramures,</p> +<p>Somnolents, dans les bois, out cessé leurs murmures</p> +<p>Loin du soleil muet incendiant les champs.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page220" name= +"page220">[220]</a></span> +<p>Dans le blé, cependant, d’intrépides +cigales</p> +<p>Jetant leurs mille bruits, fanfare de +l’été,</p> +<p>Out frénétiquement et sans trève +agité</p> +<p>Leurs ailes sur l’airaine de leurs folles cymbales.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Trémoussantes, deboutes sur les longs épis +d’or,</p> +<p>Virtuoses qui vont s’eteindre avant l’automne,</p> +<p>Elles poussent au del leur hymne monotone</p> +<p>Que dans I’ombre des nuits retentisse encore.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Et rien n’arrêtera leurs cris intarissables;</p> +<p>Quand on les chassera de l’avoine et des blés.</p> +<p>Elles émigreront sur les buissons brulés</p> +<p>Qui se meurent de soif dans les deserts de sable.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Sur l’arbuste effeuillé, sur les chardons +flétris</p> +<p>Qui laissent s’envoler leur blanche chevelure,</p> +<p>On reverra l’insecte à la forte encolure,</p> +<p>Pleine d’ivresse, toujours s’exalter dans ses +cris.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Jusqu’à ce qu’ouvrant l’aile en +lambeaux arrachée,</p> +<p>Exasperé, brulant d’un feu toujours plus pur,</p> +<p>Son oeil de bronze fixe et tendu vers l’azur,</p> +<p>II expire en chantant sur la tige séchée.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>For the word “encolure” we have no English +equivalent; it means the line of the neck and +shoulder—sometimes the general appearance of shape of the +body.</p> +<p>“When in the ripening grain field not a single ear of +wheat moves; when in the beaming heat the corn seems to crackle; +when the poppy languishes <span class="pagenum"><a id="page221" +name="page221">[221]</a></span>and bends down under the feeble +burden of its scarlet corolla,</p> +<p>“Then all the birds of the air have hushed their songs; +even the indolent doves, seeking the darkest part of the foliage in +the tree, have become drowsy in the woods, and have ceased their +cooing, far from the fields, which the silent sun is burning.</p> +<p>“Nevertheless, in the wheat, the brave grasshoppers +uttering their thousand sounds, a trumpet flourish of summer, have +continued furiously and unceasingly to smite their wings upon the +brass of their wild cymbal.</p> +<p>“Quivering as they stand upon the long gold ears of the +grain, master musicians who must die before the coming of Fall, +they sound to heaven their monotonous hymn, which re-echoes even in +the darkness of the night.</p> +<p>“And nothing will check their inexhaustible shrilling. +When chased away from the oats and from the wheat, they will +migrate to the scorched bushes which die of thirst in the wastes of +sand.</p> +<p>“Upon the leafless shrubs, upon the dried up thistles, +which let their white hair fall and float away, there the +sturdily-built insect can be seen again, filled with enthusiasm, +even more and more excited as he cries,</p> +<p>“Until, at last, opening his wings, now rent into shreds, +exasperated, burning more and more <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page222" name="page222">[222]</a></span>fiercely in the frenzy of +his excitement, and with his eyes of bronze always fixed +motionlessly upon the azure sky, he dies in his song upon the +withered grain.”</p> +<p>This is difficult to translate at all satisfactorily, owing to +the multitude of images compressed together. But the idea expressed +is a fine one—the courage of the insect challenging the sun, +and only chanting more and more as the heat and the thirst +increase. The poem has, if you like, the fault of exaggeration, but +the colour and music are very fine; and even the exaggeration +itself has the merit of making the images more vivid.</p> +<p>It will not be necessary to quote another text; we shall +scarcely have the time; but I want to translate to you something of +another poem upon the same insect by the modern French poet Jean +Aicard. In this poem, as in the little poem by Gautier, which I +quoted to you, the writer puts his thought in the mouth of the +insect, so to say—that is, makes the insect tell its own +story.</p> +<p>“I am the impassive and noble insect that sings in the +summer solstice from the dazzling dawn all the day long in the +fragrant pine-wood. And my song is always the same, regular as the +equal course of the season and of the sun. I am the speech of the +hot and beaming sun, and when the reapers, weary of heaping the +sheaves together, lie down in the lukewarm shade, and sleep and +pant in the ardour of noonday—then more <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page223" name="page223">[223]</a></span>than at +any other time do I utter freely and joyously that double-echoing +strophe with which my whole body vibrates. And when nothing else +moves in all the land round about, I palpitate and loudly sound my +little drum. Otherwise the sunlight triumphs; and in the whole +landscape nothing is heard but my cry,—like the joy of the +light itself.</p> +<p>“Like a butterfly I take up from the hearts of the flowers +that pure water which the night lets fall into them like tears. I +am inspired only by the almighty sun. Socrates listened to me; +Virgil made mention of me. I am the insect especially beloved by +the poets and by the bards. The ardent sun reflects himself in the +globes of my eyes. My ruddy bed, which seems to be powdered like +the surface of fine ripe fruit, resembles some exquisite key-board +of silver and gold, all quivering with music. My four wings, with +their delicate net-work of nerves, allow the bright down upon my +black back to be seen through their transparency. And like a star +upon the forehead of some divinely inspired poet, three exquisitely +mounted rubies glitter upon my head.”</p> +<p>These are fair examples of the French manner of treating the +interesting subject of insects in poetry. If you should ask me +whether the French poets are better than the English, I should +answer, “In point of feeling, no.” The real value of +such examples to the student should be emotional, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page224" name="page224">[224]</a></span>not +descriptive. I think that the Japanese poems on insects, though not +comparable in point of mere form with some of the foreign poems +which I have quoted, are better in another way—they come +nearer to the true essence of poetry. For the Japanese poets have +taken the subject of insects chiefly for the purpose of suggesting +human emotion; and that is certainly the way in which such a +subject should be used. Remember that this is an age in which we +are beginning to learn things about insects which could not have +been even imagined fifty years ago, and the more that we learn +about these miraculous creatures, the more difficult does it become +for us to write poetically about their lives, or about their +possible ways of thinking and feeling. Probably no mortal man will +ever be able to imagine how insects think or feel or hear or even +see. Not only are their senses totally different from those of +animals, but they appear to have a variety of special senses about +which we can not know anything at all. As for their existence, it +is full of facts so atrocious and so horrible as to realize most of +the imaginations of old about the torments of hell. Now, for these +reasons to make an insect speak in poetry—to put one’s +thoughts, so to speak, into the mouth of an insect—is no +longer consistent with poetical good judgment. No; we must think of +insects either in relation to the mystery of their marvellous +lives, or in relation to the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page225" +name="page225">[225]</a></span>emotion which their sweet and +melancholy music makes within our minds. The impressions produced +by hearing the shrilling of crickets at night or by hearing the +storm of cicadæ in summer woods—those impressions +indeed are admirable subjects for poetry, and will continue to be +for all time.</p> +<p>When I lectured to you long ago about Greek and English poems on +insects, I told you that nearly all the English poems on the +subject were quite modern. I still believe that I was right in this +statement, as a general assertion; but I have found one quaint poem +about a grasshopper, which must have been written about the middle +of the seventeenth century or, perhaps, a little earlier. The date +of the author’s birth and death are respectively 1618 and +1658. His name, I think, you are familiar with—Richard +Lovelace, author of many amatory poems, and of one especially +famous song, “To Lucasta, on Going to the +Wars”—containing the celebrated stanza—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Yet this inconstancy is such</p> +<p class="i2">As you too shall adore;</p> +<p>I could not love thee, Dear, so much,</p> +<p class="i2">Loved I not honour more.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Well, as I said, this man wrote one pretty little poem on a +grasshopper, which antedates most of the English poems on insects, +if not all of them.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page226" name= +"page226">[226]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE GRASSHOPPER</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O Thou that swing’st upon the waving ear</p> +<p class="i2">Of some well-filled oaten beard,</p> +<p>Drunk every night with a delicious tear</p> +<p class="i2">Dropt thee from heaven, where now th’art +rear’d!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The joys of earth and air are thine entire,</p> +<p class="i2">That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;</p> +<p>And when thy poppy works, thou dost retire</p> +<p class="i2">To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom’st then,</p> +<p class="i2">Sport’st in the gilt plaits of his beams,</p> +<p>And all these merry days mak’st merry men</p> +<p class="i2">Thyself, and melancholy streams.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>A little artificial, this poem written at least two hundred and +fifty years ago; but it is pretty in spite of its artifice. Some of +the conceits are so quaint that they must be explained. By the term +“oaten beard,” the poet means an ear of oats; and you +know that the grain of this plant is furnished with very long hair, +so that many poets have spoken of the bearded oats. You may +remember in this connection Tennyson’s phrase “the +bearded barley” in the “Lady of Shalott,” and +Longfellow’s term “bearded grain” in his famous +poem about the Reaper Death. When a person’s beard is very +thick, we say in England to-day “a full beard,” but in +the time of Shakespeare they used to say “a well filled +beard”—hence the phrase in the second line of the first +stanza.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page227" name= +"page227">[227]</a></span>In the third line the term +“delicious tear” means dew,—which the Greeks +called the tears of the night, and sometimes the tears of the dawn; +and the phrase “drunk with dew” is quite Greek—so +we may suspect that the author of this poem had been reading the +Greek Anthology. In the third line of the second stanza the word +“poppy” is used for sleep—a very common simile in +Elizabethan times, because from the poppy flower was extracted the +opiate which enables sick persons to sleep. The Greek authors spoke +of poppy sleep. “And when thy poppy works,” means, when +the essence of sleep begins to operate upon you, or more simply, +when you sleep. Perhaps the phrase about the “carved +acorn-bed” may puzzle you; it is borrowed from the fairy-lore +of Shakespeare’s time, when fairies were said to sleep in +little beds carved out of acorn shells; the simile is used only by +way of calling the insect a fairy creature. In the second line of +the third stanza you may notice the curious expression about the +“gilt plaits” of the sun’s beams. It was the +custom in those days, as it still is in these, for young girls to +plait their long hair; and the expression “gilt plaits” +only means braided or plaited golden hair. This is perhaps a Greek +conceit; for classic poets spoke of the golden hair of the Sun God +as illuminating the world. I have said that the poem is a little +artificial, but I think you will find it pretty, and even the +whimsical similes are “precious” in the best sense.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page228" name= +"page228">[228]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_12" name="Ch_12">Chapter XII</a></h3> +<h2>Note on the Influence of Finnish Poetry in English +Literature</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>The subject of Finnish poetry ought to have a special interest +for the Japanese student, if only for the reason that Finnish +poetry comes more closely in many respects to Japanese poetry than +any other form of Western poetry. Indeed it is supposed that the +Finnish race is more akin to the Tartar races, and therefore +probably to the Japanese, than the races of Europe proper. Again, +through Longfellow, the value of Finnish poetry to English poetry +was first suggested, and I think you know that Longfellow’s +Indian epic, “The Song of Hiawatha,” was modelled +entirely upon the Finnish “Kalevala.”</p> +<p>But a word about the “Kalevala,” which has a very +interesting history. I believe you know that at the beginning of +the nineteenth century, the “Kalevala” was not known to +exist. During the first half of the century, Finnish scholars in +the University of Helsingfors (where there is now a great and +flourishing university) began to take literary interest in the +popular songs of Finland. For years the people had been singing +extraordinary <span class="pagenum"><a id="page229" name= +"page229">[229]</a></span>songs full of a strange beauty and +weirdness quite unlike any other popular songs of Europe; and for +centuries professional singers had been wandering about the country +teaching these songs to the accompaniment of a kind of +<em>biwa</em> called Kantela. The scholars of the University began +to collect these songs from the mouths of the peasants and +musicians—at first with great difficulty, afterwards with +much success. The difficulty was a very curious one. In Finland the +ancient pagan religion had really never died; the songs of the +peasants were full of allusions to the old faith and the old gods, +and the orthodox church had often attempted in vain to prevent the +singing of these songs, because they were not Christian. So the +peasants at first thought that the scholars who wanted to copy the +songs were government spies or church spies who wanted evidence to +justify punishments. When the fears of the people had been removed +and when they came to understand that the questioners were only +scholars interested in literary beauty, all the secret stores of +songs were generously opened, and an immense collection of oral +literature was amassed in the University at Helsingfors.</p> +<p>The greatest of the scholars engaged in the subsequent work of +arranging and classifying was Doctor Lönnrot. While examining +the manuscript of these poems he was struck by the fact that, put +together in a particular order, they naturally <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page230" name="page230">[230]</a></span>made one +great continuous story or epic. Was it possible that the Finnish +people had had during all these centuries an epic unknown to the +world of literature? Many persons would have ridiculed the idea. +But Lönnrot followed up that idea, and after some years’ +study he disengaged from all that mass of song something in the +shape of a wonderful epic, the epic of the “Kalevala.” +Lönnrot was probably, almost certainly, the only one who had +even understood the idea of an epic of this kind. The peasants did +not know. They only had the fragments of the whole; parts of the +poem existed in one province, parts in another; no Finnish musician +had ever known the whole. The whole may have been made first by +Lönnrot. At all events he was the Homer of the +“Kalevala,” and it was fortunate for Finland that he +happened to be himself both a scholar and a +poet—qualifications seldom united in the same person.</p> +<p>What is the “Kalevala” as we now possess it? It is +an epic, but not like any other epic in the world, for the subject +of it is Magic. We might call it the Epic of Magic. It is the story +of how the world and the heaven and the sun and the moon and the +stars, the elements and the races of living creatures and all other +things were created by magic; also how the first inhabitants of the +world lived, and loved, and fought. But there is another thing to +be said in a general was about <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page231" name="page231">[231]</a></span>this magic. The magic of +“Kalevala” is not like anything else known by that name +in European literature. The magic of “Kalevala” is +entirely the magic of words. These ancient people believed in the +existence of words, by the utterance of which anything might be +accomplished. Instead of buying wood and hiring carpenters, you +might build a house by uttering certain magical words. If you had +no horse and wanted to travel rapidly, you could make a horse for +yourself out of bits of bark and old sticks by uttering over them +certain magical words. But this was not all. Beings of intellect, +men and women, whole armies of men, in fact, might be created in a +moment by the utterance of these mystical words. There is the real +subject of the “Kalevala.”</p> +<p>I told you that the epic is not like anything else in European +literature and not like anything else in the world as to the +subject. But this is not the case as regards the verse. The verse +is not like Japanese verse, indeed, but it comes nearer to it than +any other European verse does. Of course even in Finnish verse, +accents mean a great deal, and accent means nothing at all in +Japanese verse. But I imagine something very much like Finnish +verse might be written in Japanese, provided that in reciting it a +slight stress is thrown on certain syllables. Of course you know +something about Longfellow’s +“Hiawatha”—such lines as these:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page232" name= +"page232">[232]</a></span> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And the evening sun descending</p> +<p>Set the clouds on fire with redness,</p> +<p>Burned the broad sky like a prairie,</p> +<p>Left upon the level water</p> +<p>One long track and trail of splendour,</p> +<p>Down whose stream, as down a river,</p> +<p>Westward, westward Hiawatha</p> +<p>Sailed into the fiery sunset,</p> +<p>Sailed into the purple vapours,</p> +<p>Sailed into the dusk of evening.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>You will observe this is verse of eight syllables with four +trochees to a line. Now it is perhaps as near to Finnish verse as +English verse can be made. But the Finnish verse is more musical, +and it is much more flexible, and the rules of it can be better +carried out than in English. There is much more to be thought about +than the placing of four trochaic feet to a line. Not only must the +verse be trochaic, it must also be alliterative, and it must also +be, to some extent, rhymed verse—a matter which Longfellow +did not take into consideration. That would have doubled his +difficulty. To make verse trochaic, alliterative and rhymed, is +very difficult indeed—that is, to do it well. Only one +liberty is allowed; it is not necessary that the rhyme shall be +regular and constant; it is necessary only that it should be +occasional. But the interest of Finnish verse does not end here. I +have not yet mentioned the most important law of Finnish +poetry—the law of parallelism <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page233" name="page233">[233]</a></span>or repetition. Parallelism +is the better word. It means the repetition of a thought in a +slightly modified way. It is parallelism especially that makes so +splendid the English translation of the Bible, and the majesty of +such passages in the Book of Common Prayer as the Funeral Service. +So that Finnish poetry is anything but very simple. We may now sum +it up thus—trochaic verse of eight syllables, with +alliteration and rhyme, a caesura in the same part of every line, +and every line reiterated in parallelism.</p> +<p>A little above I mentioned the English of the Bible. Long ago I +explained why that English is so beautiful and so strong. But +remember that much of the best of the Bible, in the original +Hebrew, was not prose but verse, and that the fine effects have +been produced by translating the verse into musical prose. The very +effect can be produced by translating the “Kalevala” +into prose. Occasionally the passages are of surprising beauty, and +they are always of surprising strangeness.</p> +<p>It is in parallelism especially that Finnish poetry offers a +contrast to Japanese, but there is no reason whatever why, in the +longer poems of Japanese poetry, parallelism could not be used. All +things have value according to place and time, and this has +value—provided that it has a special effect on a special +occasion. All through the “Kalevala,” all through five +hundred pages, large <span class="pagenum"><a id="page234" name= +"page234">[234]</a></span>pages, the parallelism is carried on, and +yet one never gets tired. It is not monotonous. But that is because +the subject is so well adapted to this form of poetry. See how the +poem opens, when the poet begins to talk about what he is going to +sing:</p> +<p>“Anciently my father sang me these words in hewing the +handle of his ax; anciently my mother taught me these words as she +turned her spindle. In that time I was only a child, a little child +at the breast,—a useless little being creeping upon the floor +at the feet of its nurse, its cheek bedaubed with milk. And there +are other words which I drew from the spring of knowledge, which I +found by the wayside, which I snatched from the heart of the +thickets, which I detached from the branches of the trees, which I +gathered at the edges of the pastures—when, In my infancy, I +used to go to guard the flocks, in the midst of the honey-streaming +meadows, upon the gold-shining hills, behind the black Murikki, +behind the spotted Kimmo, my favourite cows.</p> +<p>“Also the cold sang the songs, the rain sang me verses, +the winds of heaven, the waves of the sea made me hear their poems, +the birds instructed me with their melodies, the long-haired trees +invited me to their concerts. And all the songs I gathered +together, I rolled them up in a skin, I carried them away in my +beautiful little holiday <span class="pagenum"><a id="page235" +name="page235">[235]</a></span>sledge, I deposited them in the +bottom of a chest of brass, upon the highest shelf of my treasure +house.”</p> +<p>Now when a poem opens that way we may be sure that there are +great things in it; and some of these great things we shall read +about presently. The “Kalevala” is full of wonderful +stories, But in the above quotation, I want you to see how multiple +it is, and yet it is beautiful. Now there is a very interesting +thing yet to tell you about this parallelism. Such poems as those +of the “Kalevala” have always to be sung not by one +singer but by two. The two singers straddle a bench facing each +other and hold each other’s hands. Then they sing +alternately, each chanting one line, rocking back and forward, +pulling each other to and fro as they sing—so that it is like +the motion of rowing. One chants a line and pulls backward, then +the other chants the next line and pulls in the opposite direction. +Not to be able to answer at once would be considered a great +disgrace; and every singer has to be able to improvise as well as +to sing. And that is the signification of the following verse:</p> +<p>“Put thy hand to my hand—place thy fingers between +my fingers—that we may sing of the things which +are.”</p> +<p>The most beautiful story in this wonderful book is the story of +Kullervo. It was after reading this <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page236" name="page236">[236]</a></span>story that Longfellow +imagined his story of the Strong Man Kwasind. Kullervo is born so +strong that as an infant he breaks his cradle to pieces, and as a +boy he can not do any work, for all the tools and instruments break +in his grasp. Therefore he gives a great deal of trouble at home +and has to go out into the world to seek his fortune. In the world, +of course, he has just the same trouble; for nobody will employ him +very long. However, the story of Kullervo’s feats of +strength, though interesting, need not now concern us. The great +charm of this composition is in the description of a mother’s +love which it contains. Kullervo brought misfortune everywhere +simply by his strength and by his great passions—at last +committing a terrible crime, causing the death of his own sister, +whom he does not recognize. He goes back home in desperation and +remorse; and there everybody regards him with horror, except only +his mother. She alone tries to console him; she alone tells him +that repentance may bring him rest. He then proposes to go away and +amend his wrong-doing in solitude. But first he bids them all +goodbye, and the episode is characteristic.</p> +<p>Kullervo, the son of Kalervo, gets him ready to depart; he goes +to his old father and says: “Farewell now, O my dear father. +Wilt thou regret me bitterly, when thou shalt learn that I am +dead?—that I have disappeared from among the multitude of the +living?—that I no longer am <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page237" name="page237">[237]</a></span>one of the members of thy +family?” The father answered: “No, certainly I will not +regret thee when I shall hear that thou art dead. Another son +perchance will be born to me—a son who will grow up better +and wiser than thou.”</p> +<p>Kullervo, son of Kalervo, answered: “And I also will not +be sorry if I hear that thou art dead. Without any trouble I can +find me such a father as thou—a stone-hearted father, a +clay-mouthed father, a berry-eyed father, a straw-bearded father, a +father whose feet are made of the roots of the willow tree, a +father whose flesh is decaying wood.” Why does Kullervo use +these extraordinary terms? It is a reference to magic—out of +stone and clay and straw, a phantom man can be made, and Kullervo +means to say that his father is no more to him than a phantom +father, an unreal father, a father who has no fatherly feeling. His +brothers and sisters all questioned in turn if they will be sorry +to hear that he is dead, make the same cruel answer; and he replies +to them with the same angry words. But it is very different when he +speaks to his mother.</p> +<p>For to his mother he said—“Oh my sweet mother, my +beautiful nurse, my loved protectress, wilt thou regret me bitterly +when thou shalt learn that I am dead, that I have disappeared from +the multitude of the living, that I am no longer one of the members +of thy family?”</p> +<p>The mother made answer: “Thou does not <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page238" name="page238">[238]</a></span>comprehend +the soul of the mother—thou canst not understand the heart of +the mother. Assuredly will I regret thee most bitterly when I shall +learn that thou art dead, that thou hast disappeared, from among +the multitude of the living, that thou hast ceased to be one of the +members of my family. Floods of tears shall I weep in my chamber. +The waves of tears will overflow on the floor. And upon the +stairway lamentably shall I weep; and in the stable loudly shall I +sorrow. Upon the icy ways the snow shall melt under my +tears—under my tears the earth of the roads shall melt away; +under my tears new meadow grass shall grow up, green sprouting, and +through that grass little streams shall murmur away.” To this +mother, naturally, Kullervo says no unkind words. He goes away, +able at least to feel that there is one person in the world who +loves him and one person in the world whom he loves. But how much +his mother really loves him he does not yet know; he will know that +later—it forms the most beautiful part of the poem.</p> +<p>“Kullervo directed his steps once more to the home of his +fathers. Desolate he found it, desolate and deserted; no person +advanced to salute him, no person came to press his hand, to give +him welcome.</p> +<p>“He drew near to the hearth: the embers were extinguished. +By that he knew that his mother had ceased to be.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page239" name= +"page239">[239]</a></span>”He drew near to the fire-place, +and the stones of the fire-place were cold. By that he knew that +his father had ceased to be.</p> +<p>“He turned his eyes upon the floor of his home; the planks +of the floor were covered with dirt and rubbish. By that he knew +that his sister had ceased to be.</p> +<p>“To the shore of the sea he went; the boat that used to be +there was there no longer. By that he knew that his brother had +ceased to be.</p> +<p>“Then he began to weep. For a whole day he wept, for two +whole days he wept; then he cried aloud: ‘O my mother, O my +sweet mother, what didst thou leave thy son yet in the world? Alas! +now thou canst hear me no longer; and it is in vain that I stand +above thy tomb, that I sob over the place of thine eyebrows, over +the place of thy temples; it is in vain that I cry out my grief +above thy dead forehead.’</p> +<p>“The mother of Kullervo awakened in her tomb, and out of +the depth of the dust she spake to him: ‘I have left the dog +Mastif, in order that thou mayst go with him to the chase. Take +therefore the faithful dog, and go with him into the wild forest, +into the dark wilderness, even to the dwelling place, far away, of +the blue-robed Virgins of the wood, and there thou wilt seek thy +nourishment, thou wilt ask for the game that is necessary to thy +existence.’”</p> +<p>It was believed that there was a particular forest <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page240" name="page240">[240]</a></span>god, who +protected the trees and the wild things of the wood. The hunter +could be successful in the chase only upon condition of obtaining +his favour and permission to hunt. This explains the reference to +the abode of the forest god. But Kullervo can not go far; his +remorse takes him by the throat.</p> +<p>“Kullervo, son of Kalervo, took his faithful dog, and +directed his steps toward the wild forest, toward the dark +wilderness. But when he had gone only a little way he found himself +at the very place where he had outraged the young girl, where he +had dishonoured the child of his mother. And all things there +mourned for her—all things; the soft grass and the tender +foliage, and the little plants, and the sorrowful briars. The grass +was no longer green, the briars no longer blossomed, the leaves and +the plants hung withered and dry about the spot where the virgin +had been dishonoured, where the brother had dishonoured his +sister.</p> +<p>“Kullervo drew forth his sword, his sharpedged sword; a +long time he looked at it, turning it in his hand, and asking it +whether it would feel no pleasure in eating the flesh of the man +thus loaded with infamy, in drinking the blood of the man thus +covered with crime.</p> +<p>“And the sword knew the heart of the man: it understood +the question of the hero. And it made answer to him saying: +‘Why indeed should I not <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page241" name="page241">[241]</a></span>gladly devour the flesh of +the man who is loaded with infamy? Why indeed should I not drink +with pleasure the blood of the man who is burdened with crime? For +well I devoured even the flesh of the innocent man, well can I +drink even the blood of the man who is free from crime.’</p> +<p>“Then Kullervo fixed his sword in the earth, with the +handle downwards and the point upwards, and he threw himself upon +the point, and the point passed through all the depth of his +breast.</p> +<p>“This was the end of all, this was the cruel destiny of +Kullervo, the irrevocable end of the son of the heroes—the +death of the ‘Man of Misfortune.’”</p> +<p>You can see how very much unlike other Western poetry this +poetry is. The imagination indeed is of another race and another +time than those to whose literary productions we have become +accustomed. But there is beauty here; and the strangeness of it +indicates a possible literary value by which any literature may be +more or less enriched. Many are the particular episodes which rival +the beauty and strangeness of the episode of Kullervo; and I wish +that we could have time to quote them. But I can only refer to +them. There is, for example, the legend of the invention of music, +when the hero Wainamoinen (supposed to represent the Spirit of the +Wind, and the sound of the name indicates the wailing of the wind) +invents <span class="pagenum"><a id="page242" name= +"page242">[242]</a></span>the first musical instrument. In no other +literature is there anything quite like this except in the Greek +story of Orpheus. Even as the trees bent down their heads to listen +to the song of Orpheus, and as the wild beasts became tamed at the +sound, and as the very stones of the road followed to the steps of +the musician, so is it in the “Kalevala.” But the +Finnish Orpheus is the greater magician. To hear him, the sun and +moon come nearer to the earth, the waves of the sea stop short, +bending their heads; the cataracts of the rivers hang motionless +and silent; the fish raise their heads above the water. And when he +plays a sad melody, all nature weeps with him, even the trees and +the stones and the little plants by the wayside. And his own tears +in falling become splendid pearls for the crowns of kings.</p> +<p>Then very wonderful too is the story of the eternal smith, +Ilmarinen, who forged the foundations of the world, forged the +mountains, forged the blue sky, so well forging them that nowhere +can be seen the marks of the pincer, the marks of the hammer, the +heads of the nails. Working in his smithy we see him all grime and +black; upon his head there is one yard deep of iron firing, upon +his shoulders there is one fathom deep of soot—the soot of +the forge; for he seldom has time to bathe himself. But when the +notion takes him to get married, for the first time he bathes +himself, and dresses himself handsomely, then he becomes +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page243" name= +"page243">[243]</a></span>the most beautiful of men. In order to +win his wife he is obliged to perform miracles of work; yet after +he wins her she is killed by wild beasts. Then he sets to work to +forge himself a wife, a wife of silver, a bride of gold. Very +beautiful she is, but she has no heart, and she is always cold, and +there is no comfort in her; even all the magic of the world-maker +can not give her a warm heart. But the work is so beautiful that he +does not like to destroy it. So he takes the wife of silver, the +bride of gold, to the wisest of heroes, Wainamoinen, and offers her +to him as a gift. But the hero will have no such gift, “Throw +her back into your forged fire, O Ilmarinen,” the hero makes +answer—“What greater folly, what greater sorrow can +come upon man than to love a wife of silver, a bride of +gold?”</p> +<p>This pretty story needs no explanation; the moral is simply +“Never marry for money.”</p> +<p>Then there is the story of Lemminkainen (this personality +suggested the Pau-puk-keewis of Longfellow)—the joyous, +reckless, handsome, mischievous pleasure-lover,—always +falling into trouble, because he will not follow his mother’s +advice, but always loved by her in spite of his follies. The mother +of Lemminkainen is a more wonderful person than the mother of +Kullervo. Her son has been murdered, thrown into a river—the +deepest of all rivers, the river of the dead, the river of hell. +And his mother goes out to find <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page244" name="page244">[244]</a></span>him. She asks the trees in +the forest to tell her where her son is, and she obliges them to +answer. But they do not know. She asks the grass, the plants, the +animals, the birds; she obliges even the road upon which he walked +to talk to her, she talks to the stars and the moon and the sun. +Only the sun knows, because he sees everything and he answers, +“Your son is dead, torn to pieces; he has been thrown into +the river of Tuoni, the river of hell, the river of the +dead.” But the mother does not despair. Umarinen, the eternal +smith, must make for her a rake of brass with teeth long enough to +reach into the world of the dead, into the bottom of the abyss; and +out of the abyss she brings up the parts of the torn body of her +son; she puts them together; she sings over them a magic song; she +brings her son to life again, and takes him home. But for a long +time he is not able to remember, because he has been dead. After a +long time he gets back his memory—only to get into new +mischief out of which his mother must help him afresh.</p> +<p>The names of the three heroes quoted to you represent also the +names of three great stories, out of the many stories contained in +the epics. But in this epic, as in the Indian epics (I mean the +Sanskrit epic), there is much more than stories. There are also +chapters of moral instruction of a very curious kind—chapters +about conduct, the conduct of the parents, the conduct of the +children, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page245" name= +"page245">[245]</a></span>the conduct of the husband, the conduct +of the bride. The instructions to the bride are contained in the +twenty-third Rune; there are altogether fifty Runes in the book. +This appears to me likely to interest you, for it is written in +relation to a family system not at all like the family system of +the rest of Europe. I think you will find in it not a little that +may remind you of Chinese teaching on the same subject—the +conduct of the daughter-in-law. But there are of course many +differences, and the most pleasing difference is the tone of great +tenderness in which the instructions are given. Let us quote some +of them:</p> +<p>“O young bride, O my young sister, O my well beloved and +beautiful young flower, listen to the words which I am going to +speak to you, harken to the lesson which I am going to teach you. +You are going now very far away from us, O beautiful +flower!—you are going to take a long journey, O my +wild-strawberry fruit! you are about to fly away from us, O most +delicate down! you are about to leave us forever, O velvet +tissue—far away from this habitation you must go, far away +from this beautiful house, to enter another house, to enter into a +strange family. And in that strange house your position will be +very different. There you will have to walk about with care, to +conduct yourself with prudence, to conduct yourself with +thoughtfulness. There you will not be able, as in the house of your +father, as in the dwelling of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page246" +name="page246">[246]</a></span>your mother, to run about where you +please, to run singing through the valleys, to warhle out your +songs upon the roadway.</p> +<p>“New habits you must now learn, and forget all the old. +You must abandon the love of your father and content yourself with +the love of your father-in-law; you must bow very low, you must +learn to be generous in the use of courteous words. You must give +up old habits and form new ones; you must resign the love of your +mother and content yourself with the love of your step-mother: +lower must you bow, and you must learn to be lavish in the use of +kindly words.</p> +<p>“New habits you must learn and forget the old: you must +leave behind you the friendship of your brother, and content +yourself with the friendship of your brother-in-law; you must bow +lower than you do now; you must learn to be lavish of kindly +words.</p> +<p>“New habits you must acquire and forget the old ones; you +must leave behind you the friendship of your sister, and be +satisfied with the friendship of your sister-in-law; you must learn +to make humble reverence, to bow low, to be generous in kindly +words.</p> +<p>“If the old man in the corner be to you even like a wolf, +if the old woman in her corner be to you even as a she-bear in the +house, if the brother-in-law be to you even as a serpent upon the +threshold, if the sister-in-law be to you even as a sharp nail, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page247" name= +"page247">[247]</a></span>none the less you must show them each and +all exactly the same respect and the same obedience that you have +been accustomed to display to your father, to display to your +mother, under the roof of your childhood home.”</p> +<p>Then follows a really terrible list of the duties that she must +perform every day from early morning until late at night; to +mention them all would take too long. I quote only a few, enough to +show that the position of a Finnish wife was by no means an easy +one.</p> +<p>“So soon as the cock crows in the morning you must be +quick to rise; you must keep your ears awake to hear the cry of the +cock. And if there be no cock, or the cock does not crow, then let +the moon be as a cock for you, let the constellation of the great +Bear tell you when it is time to rise. Then you must quickly make +the fire, skilfully removing the ashes, without sprinkling them +upon the floor. Then quickly go to the stable, clean the stable, +take food to the cattle, feed all the animals on the farm. For +already the cow of your mother-in-law will be lowing for food; the +horse of your father-in-law will be whinnying; the milch cow of +your sister-in-law will be straining at her tether; the calf of +your brother-in-law will be bleating; for all will be waiting for +her whose duty it is to give them hay, whose duty it is to give +them food.”</p> +<p>Like instructions are given about feeding the <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page248" name="page248">[248]</a></span>younger +animals and the fowls and the little pigs. But she must not forget +the children of the house at the same time:</p> +<p>“When you have fed the animals and cleaned the stables +come back quickly, quickly as a snow-storm. For in the chamber the +little child has awakened and has begun to cry in his cradle. He +cannot speak, poor little one; he cannot tell you, if he be hungry +or if he be cold, or if anything extraordinary has happened to him, +before someone that he knows has come to care for him, before he +hears the voice of his own mother.”</p> +<p>After enumerating and inculcating in the same manner all the +duties of the day, the conduct to be observed toward every member +of the family—father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister, and +brother-in-law, and the children of them—we find a very +minute code of conduct set forth in regard to neighbours and +acquaintances. The young wife is especially warned against gossip, +against listening to any stories about what happens in other +people’s houses, and against telling anybody what goes on +within her own. One piece of advice is memorable. If the young wife +is asked whether she is well fed, she should reply always that she +has the best of everything which a house can afford, this even if +she should have been left without any proper nourishment for +several days. Evidently the condition of submission to which +Finnish women were reduced by custom was something <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page249" name="page249">[249]</a></span>much less +merciful than has ever been known in Eastern countries. Only a very +generous nature could bear such discipline; and we have many +glimpses in the poem of charming natures of this kind.</p> +<p>You have seen that merely as a collection of wonderful stories +the Kalevala is of extraordinary interest, that it is also of +interest as describing the social ethics of a little known +people—finally that it is of interest, of very remarkable +interest, merely as natural poetry—poetry treating of wild +nature, especially rivers and forests and mountains, of the life of +the fisher and hunter and wood-cutter. Indeed, so far as this kind +of poetry is concerned, the “Kalevala” stands alone +among the older productions of European poetry. You do not find +this love of nature in Scandinavian poetry, nor in Anglo-Saxon +poetry, nor in old German poetry, much less in the earlier form of +French, Italian, or Spanish poetry. The old Northern poetry comes +nearest to it; for in Anglo-Saxon composition we can find at least +wonderful descriptions of the sea, of stones, of the hard life of +sailors. But the dominant tone in Northern poetry is war; it is in +descriptions of battle, or in accounts of the death of heroes, that +the ancient English or ancient Scandinavian poets excelled In +Finnish poetry, on the other hand, there is little or nothing about +war. These peaceful people never had any warlike history; their +life was agricultural <span class="pagenum"><a id="page250" name= +"page250">[250]</a></span>for the most part, with little or no +violence except such as the excitement of hunting and fishing could +produce. Therefore they had plenty of time to think about nature, +to love nature and to describe it as no other people of the same +period described it. Striking comparisons have been made between +the Anglo-Saxon Runes, or charm songs, and Finnish songs of the +same kind, which fully illustrate this difference. Like the Finns, +the early English had magical songs to the gods of +nature—songs for the healing of wounds and the banishing of +sickness. But these are very commonplace. Not one of them can +compare as poetry with the verses of the Finnish on the same +subject. Here are examples in evidence. The first is a prayer said +when offering food to the Spirit of the forest, that he might aid +the hunter in his hunting.</p> +<p>“Look, O Kuntar, a fat cake, a cake with honey, that I may +propitiate the forest, that I may propitiate the forest, that I may +entice the thick forest for the day of my hunting, when I go in +search of prey. Accept my salt, O wood, accept my porridge, O +Tapio, dear king of the wood with the hat of leaves, with the beard +of moss.”</p> +<p>And here is a little prayer to the goddess of water repeated by +a sick man taking water as a medicine.</p> +<p>“O pure water, O Lady of the Water, now do thou make me +whole, lovely as before! for this <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page251" name="page251">[251]</a></span>beg thee dearly, and in +offering I give thee blood to appease thee, salt to propitiate +thee!”</p> +<p>Or this:</p> +<p>“Goddess of the Sea, mistress of waters, Queen of a +hundred caves, arouse the scaly flocks, urge on the fishy-crowds +forth from their hiding places, forth from the muddy shrine, forth +from the net-hauling, to the nets of a hundred fishers! Take now +thy beauteous shield, shake the golden water, with which thou +frightenest the fish, and direct them toward the net beneath the +dark level, above the borders black.”</p> +<p>Yet another:</p> +<p>“O vigorous mistress of the wild beasts, sweet lady of the +earth, come with me, be with me, where I go. Come thou and good +luck bring me, to happy fortune help me. Make thou to move the +foliage, the fruit tree to be shaken, and the wild beasts drive +thither, the largest and the smallest, with their snouts of every +kind, with their paws of fur of all kinds!”</p> +<p>Now when you look at these little prayers, when you read them +over and observe how pretty they are, you will also observe that +they make little pictures in the mind. Can not you see the fish +gliding over the black border under the dark level of the water, to +the net of a hundred fishers? Can you not see the “dear king +of the wood,” with his hat of leaves and his beard of moss? +Can you not also see in imagination the wild creatures of +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page252" name= +"page252">[252]</a></span>the forest with their snouts of many +shapes, with their fur of all kinds? But in Anglo-Saxon poetry you +will not find anything like that. Anglo-Saxon Rune songs create no +images. It is this picturesqueness, this actuality of imagery that +is distinctive in Finnish poetry.</p> +<p>In the foregoing part of the lecture I have chiefly tried to +interest you in the “Kalevala.” But aside from +interesting you in the book itself as a story, as a poem, I hope to +direct your attention to a particular feature in Finnish poetry +which is most remote from Japanese poetry. I have spoken of +resemblances as to structure and method; but it is just in that +part of the method most opposed to Japanese tradition that the +greatest interest lies. I do not mean only the use of natural +imagery; I mean much more the use of parallelism to reinforce that +imagery. That is the thing especially worthy of literary study. +Indeed, I think that such study might greatly help towards a new +development, a totally new departure in Japanese verse. In another +lecture I spoke as sincerely as I could of the very high merit in +the epigrammatic forms of Japanese poetry. These brief forms of +poetry have been developed in Japan to perfection not equalled +elsewhere in modern poetry, perhaps not surpassed, in some +respects, even by Greek poetry of the same kind. But there can be +no doubt of this fact, that a national literature requires many +other forms of expression <span class="pagenum"><a id="page253" +name="page253">[253]</a></span>than the epigrammatic form. Nothing +that is good should ever be despised or cast aside; but because of +its excellences, we should not be blind to the possibility of other +excellences. Now Japanese literature has other forms of +poetry—forms in which it is possible to produce poems of +immense length, but the spirit of epigrammatic poetry has really +been controlling even these to a great degree.</p> +<p>I mean that so far as I am able to understand the subject, the +tendency of all Japanese poetry is to terse expression. Were it not +well therefore to consider at least the possible result of a +totally opposite tendency,—expansion of fancy, luxuriance of +expression? Terseness of expression, pithiness, condensation, are +of vast importance in prose, but poetry has other methods, and the +“Kalevala” is one of the best possible object lessons +in the study of such methods, because of the very simplicity and +naturalness with which they are followed.</p> +<p>Of course there was parallelism in Western poetry, and all arts +of repetition, before anybody knew anything about the +“Kalevala.” The most poetical part of Bible English, as +I said, whether in the Bible itself or in the Book of Common +Prayer, depends almost entirely for its literary effect upon +parallelism, because the old Hebrews, like the old Finns, practised +this art of expression. Loosely and vaguely it was practised also +by many <span class="pagenum"><a id="page254" name= +"page254">[254]</a></span>poets almost unconsciously, who had been +particularly influenced by the splendour of the scriptural +translation. It had figured in prose-poetry as early as the time of +Sir Thomas Browne. It had established quite a new idea of poetry +even in America, where the great American poet Poe introduced it +into his compositions before Longfellow studied the +“Kalevala.” I told you that the work of Poe, small as +it is, had influenced almost every poet of the great epoch, +including Tennyson and the Victorian masters. But the work even of +Poe was rather instinctive than the result of any systematic idea. +The systematic idea was best illustrated when the study of the +“Kalevala” began.</p> +<p>Let us see how Longfellow used the suggestion; but remember that +he was only a beginner, dealing with something entirely +new—that he did not have the strength of Tennyson nor the +magical genius of Swinburne to help him. He worked very simply, and +probably very rapidly. There is a good deal of his song of +“Hiawatha” that is scarcely worthy of praise, and it is +difficult to quote effectively from it, because the charm of the +thing depends chiefly upon its reading as a whole. Nevertheless +there are parts which so well show or imitate the Finnish spirit, +that I must try to quote them. Take for instance the teaching of +the little Indian child by his grandmother—such <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page255" name="page255">[255]</a></span>verses as +these, where she talks to the little boy about the milky way in the +sky:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Many things Nokomis taught him</p> +<p>Of the stars that shine in heaven;</p> +<p>Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet,</p> +<p>Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses;</p> +<p>Showed the Death-Dance of the spirits,</p> +<p>Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs,</p> +<p>Flaring far away to northward</p> +<p>In the frosty nights of Winter;</p> +<p>Showed the broad, white road in heaven,</p> +<p>Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows,</p> +<p>Running straight across the heavens,</p> +<p>Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Or take again the story of the origin of the flower commonly +called “Dandelion”:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>In his life he had one shadow,</p> +<p>In his heart one sorrow had he.</p> +<p>Once, as he was gazing northward,</p> +<p>Far away upon a prairie</p> +<p>He beheld a maiden standing,</p> +<p>Saw a tall and slender maiden</p> +<p>All alone upon a prairie;</p> +<p>Brightest green were all her garments</p> +<p>And her hair was like the sunshine.</p> +<p>Day by day he gazed upon her,</p> +<p>Day by day he sighed with passion,</p> +<p>Day by day his heart within him</p> +<p>Grew more hot with love and longing</p> +<p>For the maid with yellow tresses.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page256" name= +"page256">[256]</a></span>Observe how the repetition served to +represent the growing of the lover’s admiration. The same +repetition can be used much more effectively in describing +weariness and pain, as In the lines about the winter famine:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, the long and dreary Winter!</p> +<p>Oh, the cold and cruel Winter!</p> +<p>Ever thicker, thicker, thicker</p> +<p>Froze the ice on lake and river,</p> +<p>Ever deeper, deeper, deeper</p> +<p>Fell the snow o’er all the landscape,</p> +<p>Fell the covering snow, and drifted</p> +<p>Through the forest, round the village.</p> +<p>Hardly from his buried wigwam</p> +<p>Could the hunter force a passage;</p> +<p>With his mittens and his snow-shoes</p> +<p>Vainly walked he through the forest,</p> +<p>Sought for bird or beast and found none,</p> +<p>Saw no track of deer or rabbit,</p> +<p>In the snow beheld no footprints,</p> +<p>In the ghastly, gleaming forest</p> +<p>Fell, and could not rise from weakness,</p> +<p>Perished there from cold and hunger.</p> +<p>Oh, the famine and the fever!</p> +<p>Oh, the wasting of the famine!</p> +<p>Oh, the blasting of the fever!</p> +<p>Oh, the wailing of the children!</p> +<p>Oh, the anguish of the women!</p> +<p>All the earth was sick and famished;</p> +<p>Hungry was the air around them,</p> +<p>Hungry was the sky above them,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page257" name= +"page257">[257]</a></span> +<p>And the hungry stars in heaven</p> +<p>Like the eyes of wolves glared at them!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is strong, emotionally strong, though it is not great +poetry; but it makes the emotional effect of great poetry by the +use of the same means which the Finnish poets used. The best part +of the poem is the famine chapter, and the next best is the part +entitled “The Ghosts.” However, the charm of a +composition can be fully felt only by those who understand +something of the American Indian’s life and the wild +northwestern country described. That is not the immediate matter to +be considered, notwithstanding. The matter to be considered is +whether this method of using parallelism and repetition and +alliteration can give new and great results. I believe that it can, +and that a greater Longfellow would have brought such results into +existence long ago. Of course, the form is primitive; it does not +follow that an English poet or a Japanese poet should attempt only +a return to primitive methods of poetry in detail. The detail is of +small moment; the spirit is everything. Parallelism means simply +the wish to present the same idea under a variety of aspects, +instead of attempting to put it forward in one aspect only. +Everything great in the way of thought, everything beautiful in the +way of idea, has many sides. It is merely the superficial which we +can see from the front only; the solid can be perceived from every +possible direction, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page258" name= +"page258">[258]</a></span>and changes shape according to the +direction looked at.</p> +<p>The great master of English verse, Swinburne is also a poet much +given to parallelism; for he has found it of incomparable use to +him in managing new forms of verse. He uses it in an immense +variety of ways—ways impossible to Japanese poets or to +Finnish poets; and the splendour of the results can not be imitated +in another language. But his case is interesting. The most +primitive methods of Finnish poetry, and of ancient poetry in +general, coming into his hands, are reproduced into music. I +propose to make a few quotations, in illustration. Here are some +lines from “Atalanta in Calydon”; they are only +parallelisms, but how magnificent they are!</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>When thou dravest the men</p> +<p class="i2">Of the chosen of Thrace,</p> +<p>None turned him again,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor endured he thy face</p> +<p>Close round with the blush of the battle, with light from a +terrible place.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Look again at the following lines from “A Song in Time of +Revolution”:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>There is none of them all that is whole; their lips gape open +for breath;</p> +<p>They are clothed with sickness of soul, and the shape of the +shadow of death.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page259" name= +"page259">[259]</a></span> +<p>The wind is thwart in their feet; it is full of the shouting of +mirth;</p> +<p>As one shaketh the sides of a sheet, so it shaketh the ends of +the earth.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The sword, the sword is made keen; the iron has opened its +mouth;</p> +<p>The corn is red that was green; it is bound for the sheaves of +the south.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The sound of a word was shed, the sound of the wind as a +breath,</p> +<p>In the ears of the souls that were dead, in the dust of the +deepness of death.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Where the face of the moon is taken, the ways of the stars +undone,</p> +<p>The light of the whole sky shaken, the light of the face of the +sun.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Where the sword was covered and hidden, and dust had grown in +its side,</p> +<p>A word came forth which was bidden, the crying of one that +cried:</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The sides of the two-edged sword shall be bare, and its mouth +shall be red,</p> +<p>For the breath of the face of the Lord that is felt in the bones +of the dead.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>All this is indeed very grand compared with anything in the +“Kalevala” or in Longfellow’s rendering; but do +you not see that the grandeur is <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page260" name="page260">[260]</a></span>also the grandeur of +parallelism? Here is proof of what a master can do with a method +older than Western civilization. But what is the inference? Is it +not that the old primitive poetry contains something of eternal +value, a value ranging from the lowest even to the highest, a value +that can lend beauty equally to the song of a little child or to +the thunder of the grandest epic verse?</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page261" name= +"page261">[261]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_13" name="Ch_13">Chapter XIII</a></h3> +<h2>The Most Beautiful Romance of the Middle Ages</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>The value of romantic literature, which has been, so far as the +Middle Ages are concerned, unjustly depreciated, does not depend +upon beauty of words or beauty of fact. To-day the immense debt of +modern literature to the literature of the Middle Ages is better +understood; and we are generally beginning to recognize what we owe +to the imagination of the Middle Ages, in spite of the ignorance, +the superstition and the cruelty of that time. If the evils of the +Middle Ages had really been universal, those ages could not have +imparted to us lessons of beauty and lessons of nobility having +nothing to do with literary form in themselves, yet profoundly +affecting modern poetry of the highest class. No; there was very +much of moral goodness as well as of moral badness in the Middle +Ages; and what was good happened to be very good indeed. Commonly +it used to be said (though I do not think any good critic would say +it now) that the fervid faith of the time made the moral beauty. +Unless we modify <span class="pagenum"><a id="page262" name= +"page262">[262]</a></span>this statement a great deal, we can not +now accept it at all. There was indeed a religious beauty, +particularly mediæval, but it was not that which created the +romance of the period. Indeed, that romantic literature was +something of a reaction against the religious restraint upon +imagination. But if we mean by mediæval faith only that which +is very much older than any European civilization, and which does +not belong to the West any more than to the East—the profound +belief in human moral experience—then I think that the +statement is true enough. At no time in European history were men +more sincere believers in the value of certain virtues than during +the Middle Ages—and the very best of the romances are just +those romances which illustrate that belief, though not written for +a merely ethical purpose.</p> +<p>But I can not better illustrate what I mean than by telling a +story, which has nothing to do with Europe, or the Middle Ages, or +any particular form of religious belief. It is not a Christian +story at all; and it could not be told you exactly as written, for +there are some very curious pages in it. But it is a good example +of the worth that may lie in a mere product of imagination.</p> +<p>There was a king once, in Persia or Arabia, who, at the time of +his accession to power, discovered a wonderful subterranean hall +under the garden of his palace. In one chamber of that hall stood +six marvellous statues of young girls, <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page263" name="page263">[263]</a></span>each statue being made out +of a single diamond. The beauty as well as the cost of the work was +beyond imagination. But in the midst of the statues, which stood in +a circle, there was an empty pedestal, and on that pedestal was a +precious casket containing a letter from the dead father of the +king. The letter said:</p> +<p>“O my son, though these statues of girls are indeed beyond +all praise, there is yet a seventh statue incomparably more +precious and beautiful which I could not obtain before I died. It +is now your duty, O my son, to obtain that statue, that it may be +placed upon the seventh pedestal. Go, therefore, and ask my +favourite slave, who is still alive, how you are to obtain +it.” Then the young king went in all haste to that old slave, +who had been his father’s confidant, and showed him the +letter. And the old man said, “Even now, O master, I will go +with you to find that statue. But it is in one of the three islands +in which the genii dwell; and it is necessary, above all things, +that you do not fear, and that you obey my instructions in all +things. Also, remember that if you make a promise to the Spirits of +that land, the promise must be kept.”</p> +<p>And they proceeded upon their journey through a great +wilderness, in which “nothing existed but grass and the +presence of God.” I can not try now to tell you about the +wonderful things that happened to them, nor about the marvellous +boat, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page264" name= +"page264">[264]</a></span>rowed by a boatman having upon his +shoulders the head of an elephant. Suffice it to say that at last +they reached the palace of the king of the Spirits; and the king +came to meet them in the form of a beautiful old man with a long +white beard. And he said to the young king, “My son, I will +gladly help you, as I helped your father; and I will give you that +seventh statue of diamond which you desire. But I must ask for a +gift in return. You must bring to me here a young girl of about +sixteen years old; and she must be very intelligent; and she must +be a true maiden, not only as to her body, but as to her soul, and +heart, and all her thoughts.” The young king thought that was +a very easy thing to find, but the king of the Spirits assured him +that it was not, and further told him this, “My son, no +mortal man is wise enough to know by his own wisdom the purity that +is in the heart of a young girl. Only by the help of this magical +mirror, which I now lend you, will you be able to know. Look at the +reflection of any maiden in this mirror, and then, if her heart is +perfectly good and pure, the mirror will remain bright. But if +there be any fault in her, the mirror will grow dim. Go now, and do +my bidding.”</p> +<p>You can imagine, of course, what happened next. Returning to his +kingdom, the young king had brought before him many beautiful +girls, the daughters of the noblest and highest in all the cities +of the land. But in no case did the mirror <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page265" name="page265">[265]</a></span>remain +perfectly clear when the ghostly test was applied. For three years +in vain the king sought; then in despair he for the first time +turned his attention to the common people. And there came before +him on the very first day a rude man of the desert, who said, +“I know of just such a girl as you want.” Then he went +forth and presently returned with a simple girl from the desert, +who had been brought up in the care of her father only, and had +lived with no other companion than the members of her own family +and the camels and horses of the encampment. And as she stood in +her poor dress before the king, he saw that she was much more +beautiful than any one whom he had seen before; and he questioned +her, only to find that she was very intelligent; and she was not at +all afraid or ashamed of standing before the king, but looked about +her with large wondering eyes, like the eyes of a child; and +whoever met that innocent gaze, felt a great joy in his heart, and +could not tell why. And when the king had the mirror brought, and +the reflection of the girl was thrown upon it, the mirror became +much brighter than before, and shone like a great moon.</p> +<p>There was the maid whom the Spirit-king wished for. The king +easily obtained her from her parents; but he did not tell her what +he intended to do with her. Now it was his duty to give her to the +Spirits; but there was a condition he found very hard to fulfil. By +the terms of his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page266" name= +"page266">[266]</a></span>promise he was not allowed to kiss her, +to caress her, or even to see her, except veiled after the manner +of the country. Only by the mirror had he been able to know how +fair she was. And the voyage was long; and on the way, the girl, +who thought she was going to be this king’s bride, became +sincerely attached to him, after the manner of a child with a +brother; and he also in his heart became much attached to her. But +it was his duty to give her up. At last they reached the palace of +the Spirit-king; and the figure of the old man came forth and said, +“My son, you have done well and kept your promise. This +maiden is all that I could have wished for; and I accept her. Now +when you go back to your palace, you will find on the seventh +pedestal the statue of the diamond which your father desired you to +obtain.” And, with these words, the Spirit-king vanished, +taking with him the girl, who uttered a great and piercing cry to +heaven at having been thus deceived. Very sorrowfully the young +king then began his journey home. All along the way he kept +regretting that girl, and regretting the cruelty which he had +practised in deceiving her and her parents. And he began to say to +himself, “Accursed be the gift of the king of the Spirits! Of +what worth to me is a woman of diamond any more than a woman of +stone? What is there in all the world half so beautiful or half so +precious <span class="pagenum"><a id="page267" name= +"page267">[267]</a></span>as a living girl such as I discovered? +Fool that I was to give her up for the sake of a statue!” But +he tried to console himself by remembering that he had obeyed his +dead father’s wish.</p> +<p>Still, he could not console himself. Reaching his palace, he +went to his secret chamber to weep alone, and he wept night and +day, in spite of the efforts of his ministers to comfort him. But +at last one of them said, “O my king, in the hall beneath +your garden there has appeared a wonderful statue upon the seventh +pedestal; perchance if you go to see it, your heart will become +more joyful.”</p> +<p>Then with great reluctance the king properly dressed himself, +and went to the subterranean hall.</p> +<p>There indeed was the statue, the gift of the Spirit-king; and +very beautiful it was. But it was not made of diamond, and it +looked so strangely like the girl whom he had lost, that the +king’s heart leapt in his breast for astonishment. He put out +his hand and touched the statue, and found it warm with life and +youth. And a sweet voice said to him, “Yes, it is really +I—have you forgotten?”</p> +<p>Thus she was given back to him; and the Spirit-king came to +their wedding, and thus addressed the bridegroom, “O my son, +for your dead father’s sake I did this thing. For it was +meant to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page268" name= +"page268">[268]</a></span>teach you that the worth of a really pure +and perfect woman is more than the price of any diamond or any +treasure that the earth can yield.”</p> +<p>Now you can see at once the beauty of this story; and the moral +of it is exactly the same as that of the famous verse, in the Book +of Proverbs, “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is +far above rubies.” But it is simply a story from the +“Arabian Nights”—one of those stories which you +will not find in the ordinary European translations, because it is +written in such a way that no English translator except Burton +would have dared to translate it quite literally. The obscenity of +parts of the original does not really detract in the least from the +beauty and tenderness of the motive of the story; and we must +remember that what we call moral or immoral in style depends very +much upon the fashion of an age and time.</p> +<p>Now it is exactly the same kind of moral charm that +distinguishes the best of the old English romances—a charm +which has nothing to do with the style, but everything to do with +the feeling and suggestion of the composition. But in some of the +old romances, the style too has a very great charm of quaintness +and simplicity and sincerity not to be imitated to-day. In this +respect the older French romances, from which the English made +their renderings, are much the best. And the best of all is said to +be “Amis and Amile,” which the <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page269" name="page269">[269]</a></span>English +rendered as “Amicus and Amelius.” Something of the +story ought to interest you.</p> +<p>The whole subject of this romance is the virtue of friendship, +though this of course involves a number of other virtues quite as +distinguished. Amis and Amile, that is to say Amicus and Amelius, +are two young knights who at the beginning of their career become +profoundly attached to each other. Not content with the duties of +this natural affection, they imposed upon themselves all the duties +which chivalry also attached to the office of friend. The romance +tells of how they triumphed over every conceivable test to which +their friendship was subjected. Often and often the witchcraft of +woman worked to separate them, but could not. Both married, yet +after marriage their friendship was just as strong as before. Each +has to fight many times on account of the other, and suffer all +things which it is most hard for a proud and brave man to bear. But +everything is suffered cheerfully, and the friends are such true +knights that, in all their trials, neither does anything wrong, or +commits the slightest fault against truth—until a certain sad +day. On that day it is the duty of Amis to fight in a trial by +battle. But he is sick, and can not fight; then to save his honour +his friend Amile puts on the armour and helmet of Amis, and so +pretending to be Amis, goes to the meeting place, and wins the +fight gloriously. But this was an act of untruthfulness; +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page270" name= +"page270">[270]</a></span>he had gone into battle under a false +name, and to do anything false even for a good motive is bad. So +heaven punishes him by afflicting him with the horrible disease of +leprosy.</p> +<p>The conditions of leprosy in the Middle Ages were of a peculiar +kind. The disease seems to have been introduced into Europe from +Asia—perhaps by the Crusaders. Michelet suggests that it may +have resulted from the European want of cleanliness, brought about +by ascetic teachings—for the old Greek and Roman public +bath-houses were held in horror by the mediæval Church. But +this is not at all certain. What is certain is that in the +thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries leprosy became very +prevalent. The disease was not then at all understood; it was +supposed to be extremely contagious, and the man afflicted by it +was immediately separated from society, and not allowed to live in +any community under such conditions as could bring him into contact +with other inhabitants. His wife or children could accompany him +only on the terrible condition of being considered lepers. Every +leper wore a kind of monk’s dress, with a hood covering the +face; and he had to carry a bell and ring it constantly to give +notice of his approach. Special leper-houses were built near every +town, where such unfortunates might obtain accommodation. They were +allowed to beg, but it was considered dangerous to go very near +them, so that in most cases <span class="pagenum"><a id="page271" +name="page271">[271]</a></span>alms or food would be thrown to them +only, instead of being put into their hands.</p> +<p>Now when the victim of leprosy in this romance is first +afflicted by the disease, he happens to be far away from his good +friend. And none of his own family is willing to help him; he is +regarded with superstitious as well as with physical horror. There +is nothing left for him to do but to yield up his knighthood and +his welfare and his family, to put on the leper’s robe, and +to go begging along the roads, carrying a leper’s bell. And +this he does. For long, long months he goes begging from town to +town, till at last, by mere chance, he finds his way to the gate of +the great castle where his good friend is living—now a great +prince, and married to the daughter of the king. And he asks at the +castle gate for charity and for food.</p> +<p>Now the porter at the gate observes that the leper has a very +beautiful cup, exactly resembling a drinking cup belonging to his +master, and he thinks it his duty to tell these things to the lord +of the castle. And the lord of the castle remembers that very long +ago he and his friend each had a cup of this kind, given to them by +the bishop of Rome. So, hearing the porter’s story, he knew +that the leper at the gate was the friend who “had delivered +him from death, and won for him the daughter of the King of France +to be his wife.” Here I had better quote from the French +version <span class="pagenum"><a id="page272" name= +"page272">[272]</a></span>of the story, in which the names of the +friends are changed, but without changing the beauty of the tale +itself:</p> +<p>“And straightway he fell upon him, and began to weep +greatly, and kissed him. And when his wife heard that, she ran out +with her hair in disarray, weeping and distressed +exceedingly—for she remembered that it was he who had slain +the false Ardres. And thereupon they placed him in a fair bed, and +said to him, ‘Abide with us until God’s will be +accomplished in thee, for all that we have is at thy +service.’ So he abode with them.”</p> +<p>You must understand, by the allusion to “God’s +will,” that leprosy was in the Middle Ages really considered +to be a punishment from heaven—so that in taking a leper into +his castle, the good friend was not only offending against the law +of the land, but risking celestial punishment as well, according to +the notions of that age. His charity, therefore, was true charity +indeed, and his friendship without fear. But it was going to be put +to a test more terrible than any ever endured before. To comprehend +what followed, you must know that there was one horrible +superstition of the Middle Ages—the belief that by bathing in +human blood the disease of leprosy might be cured. Murders were +often committed under the influence of that superstition. I believe +you will remember that the “Golden Legend” of +Longfellow is <span class="pagenum"><a id="page273" name= +"page273">[273]</a></span>founded upon a mediæval story in +which a young girl voluntarily offers up her life in order that her +blood may cure the leprosy of her king. In the present romance +there is much more tragedy. One night while sleeping in his +friend’s castle, the leper was awakened by an angel from +God—Raphael—who said to him:</p> +<p>“I am Raphael, the angel of the Lord, and I am come to +tell thee how thou mayst be healed. Thou shalt bid Amile thy +comrade that he slay his two children and wash thee in their blood, +and so thy body shall be made whole.” And Amis said to him, +“Let not this thing be, that my comrade should become a +murderer for my sake.” But the angel said, “It is +convenient that he do this.” And thereupon the angel +departed.</p> +<p>The phrase, “it is convenient,” must be understood +as meaning, “it is ordered.” For the mediæval +lord used such gentle expressions when issuing his commands; and +the angel talked like a feudal messenger. But in spite of the +command, the sick man does not tell his friend about the +angel’s visit, until Amile, who has overheard the voice, +forces him to acknowledge whom he had been talking with during the +night. And the emotion of the lord may be imagined, though he +utters it only in the following gentle words—“I would +have given to thee my man servants and my maid servants and all my +goods—and thou feignest that an angel hath spoken to thee +that I <span class="pagenum"><a id="page274" name= +"page274">[274]</a></span>should slay my two children. But I +conjure thee by the faith which there is between me and thee and by +our comradeship, and by the baptism we received together, that thou +tell me whether it was man or angel said that to thee.”</p> +<p>Amis declares that it was really an angel, and Amile never +thinks of doubting his friend’s word. It would be a pity to +tell you the sequel in my own words; let me quote again from the +text, translated by Walter Pater. I think you will find it +beautiful and touching:</p> +<p>“Then Amile began to weep in secret, and thought within +himself, ‘If this man was ready to die before the King for +me, shall I not for him slay my children? Shall I not keep faith +with him who was faithful to me even unto death?’ And Amile +tarried no longer, but departed to the chamber of his wife, and +bade her go to hear the Sacred Office. And he took a sword, and +went to the bed where the children were lying, and found them +asleep. And he lay down over them and began to weep bitterly and +said, ‘Has any man yet heard of a father who of his own will +slew his children? Alas, my children! I am no longer your father, +but your cruel murderer.’</p> +<p>“And the children awoke at the tears of their father, +which fell upon them; and they looked up into his face and began to +laugh. And as they were of age about three years, he said, +‘Your laughing will be turned into tears, for your innocent +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page275" name= +"page275">[275]</a></span>blood must now be shed’; and +therewith he cut off their heads. Then he laid them back in the +bed, and put the heads upon the bodies, and covered them as though +they slept; and with the blood which he had taken he washed his +comrade, and said, ‘Lord Jesus Christ! who hast commanded men +to keep faith on earth, and didst heal the leper by Thy word! +cleanse now my comrade, for whose love I have shed the blood of my +children.’” And of course the leper is immediately and +completely cured. But the mother did not know anything about the +killing of the children; we have to hear something about her share +in the tragedy. Let me again quote, this time giving the real and +very beautiful conclusion—</p> +<p>“Now neither the father nor the mother had yet entered +where the children were, but the father sighed heavily because they +were dead, and the mother asked for them, that they might rejoice +together; but Amile said, ‘Dame! let the children +sleep.’ And it was already the hour of Tierce. And going in +alone to the children to weep over them, he found them at play in +the bed; only, in the place of the sword-cuts about their throats +was, as it were, a thread of crimson. And he took them in his arms +and carried them to his wife and said, ‘Rejoice greatly! For +thy children whom I had slain by the commandment of the angel, are +alive, and by their blood is Amis healed.’”</p> +<p>I think you will all see how fine a story this is, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page276" name="page276">[276]</a></span>and feel +the emotional force of the grand moral idea behind it. There is +nothing more to tell you, except the curious fact that during the +Middle Ages, when it was believed that the story was really true, +Amis and Amile—or Amicus and Amelius—were actually +considered by the Church as saints, and people used to pray to +them. When anybody was anxious for his friend, or feared that he +might lose the love of his friend, or was afraid that he might not +have strength to perform his duty as friend—then he would go +to church to implore help from the good saints Amicus and Amelius. +But of course it was all a mistake—a mistake which lasted +until the end of the seventeenth century! Then somebody called the +attention of the Church to the unmistakable fact that Amicus and +Amelius were merely inventions of some mediæval romancer. +Then the Church made investigation, and greatly shocked, withdrew +from the list of its saints those long-loved names of Amicus and +Amelius—a reform in which I cannot help thinking the Church +made a very serious mistake. What matter whether those shadowy +figures represented original human lives or only human dreams? They +were beautiful, and belief in them made men think beautiful +thoughts, and the imagined help from them had comforted many +thousands of hearts. It would have been better to have left them +alone; for that matter, how many of the existent lives of saints +are really true? <span class="pagenum"><a id="page277" name= +"page277">[277]</a></span>Nevertheless the friends are not dead, +though expelled from the heaven of the Church. They still live in +romance; and everybody who reads about them feels a little better +for their acquaintance.</p> +<p>What I read to you was from the French version—that is +much the more beautiful of the two. You will find some extracts +from the English version in the pages of Ten Brink. But as that +great German scholar pointed out, the English story is much rougher +than the French. For example, in the English story, the knight +rushes out of his castle to beat the leper at the gate, and to +accuse him of having stolen the cup. And he does beat him +ferociously, and abuses him with very violent terms. In fact, the +English writer reflected too much of mediæval English +character, in trying to cover, or to improve upon, the French +story, which was the first. In the French story all is knightly +smooth, refined as well as simple and strong. And where did the +mediæval imagination get its material for the story? Partly, +perhaps, from the story of Joseph in the Bible, partly from the +story of Abraham; but the scriptural material is so admirably +worked over that the whole thing appears deliciously original. That +was the great art of the Middle Ages—to make old, old things +quite new by the magic of spiritual imagination. Men then lived in +a world of dreams. And that world still attracts us, for the simple +reason that happiness chiefly consists in <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page278" name="page278">[278]</a></span>dreams. +Exact science may help us a great deal no doubt, but mathematics do +not make us any happier. Dreams do, if we can believe them. The +Middle Ages could believe them; we, at the best, can only try.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page279" name= +"page279">[279]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_14" name="Ch_14">Chapter XIV</a></h3> +<h2>“Ionica”</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>I am going now to talk about a very rare kind of poetry in a +very rare little book, like fine wine in a small and precious +flask. The author never put his name to the book—indeed for +many years it was not known who wrote the volume. We now know that +the author was a school teacher called William Johnson who, later +in life, coming into a small fortune, changed his name to William +Cory. He was born sometime about 1823, and died in 1892. He was, I +believe, an Oxford man and was assistant master of Eton College for +a number of years. Judging from his poems, he must have found +pleasure in his profession as well as pain. There is a strange +sadness nearly always, but this sadness is mixed with expressions +of love for the educational establishment which he directed, and +for the students whose minds he helped to form. He must have been +otherwise a very shy man. Scarcely anything seems to be known about +him after his departure from educational circles, although +everybody of taste now knows his poems. I wish to speak of them +because I think that literary graduates of this university +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page280" name= +"page280">[280]</a></span>ought to be at least familiar with the +name “Ionica.” At all events you should know something +about the man and about the best of his poems. If you should ask +why so little has yet been said about him in books on English +literature, I would answer that in the first place he was a very +small poet writing in the time of giants, having for competitors +Tennyson, Browning and others. He could scarcely make his small +pipe heard in the thunder of those great organ tones. In the second +place his verses were never written to please the public at all. +They were written only for fine scholars, and even the titles of +many of them cannot be explained by a person devoid of some Greek +culture. So the little book, which appeared quite early in the +Victorian Age, was soon forgotten. Being forgotten it ran out of +print and disappeared. Then somebody remembered that it had +existed. I have told you that it was like the tone of a little pipe +or flute as compared with the organ music of the larger poets. But +the little pipe happened to be a Greek pipe—the melody was +very sweet and very strange and old, and people who had heard it +once soon wanted to hear it again. But they could not get it. +Copies of the first edition fetched extraordinary sums. Some few +years ago a new edition appeared, but this too is now out of print +and is fetching fancy prices. However, you must not expect anything +too wonderful from this way <span class="pagenum"><a id="page281" +name="page281">[281]</a></span>of introducing the subject. The +facts only show that the poems are liked by persons of refinement +and wealth. I hope to make you like some of them, but the +difficulties of so doing are considerable, because of the extremely +English character of some pieces and the extremely Greek tone of +others. There is also some uneven work. The poet is not in all +cases successful. Sometimes he tried to write society verse, and +his society verse must be considered a failure. The best pieces are +his Greek pieces and some compositions on love subjects of a most +delicate and bewitching kind.</p> +<p>Of course the very name “Ionica” suggests Greek +work, a collection of pieces in Ionic style. But you must not think +that this means only repetitions of ancient subjects. This author +brings the Greek feeling back again into the very heart of English +life sometimes, or makes an English fact illustrate a Greek fable. +Some delightful translations from the Greek there are, but less +than half a dozen in all.</p> +<p>I scarcely know how to begin—what piece to quote first. +But perhaps the little fancy called “Mimnermus in +Church” is the best known, and the one which will best serve +to introduce us to the character of Cory. Before quoting it, +however, I must explain the title briefly. Mimnermus was an old +Greek philosopher and poet who thought that all things in the world +are temporary, that all hope of a future life is vain, that +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page282" name= +"page282">[282]</a></span>there is nothing worth existing for +except love, and that without affection one were better dead. There +are, no doubt, various modern thinkers who tell you much the same +thing, and this little poem exhibits such modern feeling in a Greek +dress. I mean that we have here a picture of a young man, a young +English scholar, listening in church to Christian teaching, but +answering that teaching with the thought of the old Greeks. There +is of course one slight difference; the modern conception of love +is perhaps a little wider in range than that of the old Greeks. +There is more of the ideal in it.</p> +<h4>MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>You promise heavens free from strife,</p> +<p class="i2">Pure truth, and perfect change of will;</p> +<p>But sweet, sweet is this human life,</p> +<p class="i2">So sweet, I fain would breathe it still;</p> +<p>Your chilly stars I can forego,</p> +<p>This warm kind world is all I know.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>You say there is no substance here,</p> +<p class="i2">One great reality above:</p> +<p>Back from that void I shrink in fear</p> +<p class="i2">And child-like hide myself in love;</p> +<p>Show me what angels feel. Till then</p> +<p>I cling, a mere weak man, to men.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>You bid me lift my mean desires</p> +<p class="i2">From faltering lips and fitful veins</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page283" name= +"page283">[283]</a></span> +<p>To sexless souls, ideal choirs,</p> +<p class="i2">Unwearied voices, wordless strains;</p> +<p>My mind with fonder welcome owns</p> +<p>One dear dead friend’s remembered tones.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Forsooth the present we must give</p> +<p class="i2">To that which cannot pass away;</p> +<p>All beauteous things for which we live</p> +<p class="i2">By laws of time and space decay.</p> +<p>But oh, the very reason why</p> +<p>I clasp them, is because they die.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The preacher has been talking to his congregation about the joys +of Heaven. There, he says, there will be no quarrelling, no +contest, no falsehood, and all evil dispositions will be entirely +changed to good. The poet answers, “This world and this life +are full of beauty and of joy for me. I do not want to die, I want +to live. I do not wish to go to that cold region of stars about +which you teach. I only know this world and I find in it warm +hearts and precious affection. You say that this world is a +phantom, unsubstantial, unreal, and that the only reality is above, +in Heaven. To me that Heaven appears but as an awful emptiness. I +shrink from it in terror, and like a child seek for consolation in +human love. It is no use to talk to me about angels until you can +prove to me that angels can feel happier than men. I prefer to +remain with human beings. You say that I ought to wish for higher +things than this world can give, that here minds are unsteady and +weak, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page284" name= +"page284">[284]</a></span>hearts fickle and selfish, and you talk +of souls without sex, imaginary concerts of perfect music, tireless +singing in Heaven, and the pleasure of conversation without speech. +But all the happiness that we know is received from our fellow +beings. I remember the voice of one dead friend with deeper love +and pleasure than any images of Heaven could ever excite in my +mind.”</p> +<p>The last stanza needs no paraphrasing, but it deserves some +comment, for it is the expression of one great difference between +the old Greek feeling in regard to life and death, and all modern +religious feeling on the same subject. You can read through +hundreds of beautiful inscriptions which were placed over the Greek +tombs. They are contained in the Greek Anthology. You will find +there almost nothing about hope of a future life, or about Heaven. +They are not for the most part sad; they are actually joyous in +many cases. You would say that the Greek mind thought thus about +death—“I have had my share of the beauty and the love +of this world, and I am grateful for this enjoyment, and now it is +time to go to sleep.” There is actually an inscription to the +effect, “I have supped well of the banquet of life.” +The Eastern religions, including Christianity, taught that because +everything in the world is uncertain, impermanent, perishable, +therefore we ought not to allow our minds to love worldly things. +But the Greek mind, as expressed by the old epigraphy <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page285" name="page285">[285]</a></span>in the +cemeteries, not less than by the teaching of Mimnermus, took +exactly the opposite view. “O children of men, it is because +beauty and pleasure and love and light can last only for a little +while, it is exactly because of this that you should love them. Why +refuse to enjoy the present because it can not last for +ever?” And at a much later day the Persian poet Omar took, +you will remember, precisely the same view. You need not think that +it would be wise to accept such teaching for a rule of life, but it +has a certain value as a balance to the other extreme view, that we +should make ourselves miserable in this world with the idea of +being rewarded in another, concerning which we have no positive +knowledge. The lines with which the poem concludes at least deserve +to be thought about—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But oh, the very reason why</p> +<p>I clasp them, is because they die.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>We shall later on take some of the purely Greek work of Cory for +study, but I want now to interest you in the more modern part of +it. The charm of the following passage you will better feel by +remembering that the writer was then a schoolmaster at Eton, and +that the verses particularly express the love which he felt for his +students—a love the more profound, perhaps, because the +circumstances of the teacher’s position obliged him to appear +cold and severe, obliged <span class="pagenum"><a id="page286" +name="page286">[286]</a></span>him to suppress natural impulses of +affection and generosity. The discipline of the masters in English +public schools is much more severe than the discipline to which the +students are subjected. The boys enjoy a great deal of liberty. The +masters may be said to have none. Yet there are men so constituted +that they learn to greatly love the profession. The title of this +poem is “Reparabo,” which means “I will +atone.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The world will rob me of my friends,</p> +<p class="i2">For time with her conspires;</p> +<p>But they shall both, to make amends,</p> +<p class="i2">Relight my slumbering fires.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>For while my comrades pass away</p> +<p class="i2">To bow and smirk and gloze,</p> +<p>Come others, for as short a stay;</p> +<p class="i2">And dear are these as those.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And who was this? they ask; and then</p> +<p class="i2">The loved and lost I praise:</p> +<p>“Like you they frolicked; they are men;</p> +<p class="i2">Bless ye my later days.”</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Why fret? The hawks I trained are flown;</p> +<p class="i2">’Twas nature bade them range;</p> +<p>I could not keep their wings half-grown,</p> +<p class="i2">I could not bar the change.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>With lattice opened wide I stand</p> +<p class="i2">To watch their eager flight;</p> +<p>With broken jesses in my hand</p> +<p class="i2">I muse on their delight.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page287" name= +"page287">[287]</a></span> +<p>And oh! if one with sullied plume</p> +<p class="i2">Should droop in mid career,</p> +<p>My love makes signals,—“There is room,</p> +<p class="i2">O bleeding wanderer, here.”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This comparison of the educator to a falconer, and of the +students to young hawks eager to break their jesses seems to an +Englishman particularly happy in reference to Eton, from which so +many youths pass into the ranks of the army and navy. The line +about bowing, smirking and glozing, refers to the comparative +insincerity of the higher society into which so many of the +scholars must eventually pass. “Smirking” suggests +insincere smiles, “glozing” implies tolerating or +lightly passing over faults or wrongs or serious matters that +should not be considered lightly. Society is essentially insincere +and artificial in all countries, but especially so in England. The +old Eton master thinks, however, that he knows the moral character +of the boys, the strong principles which make its foundation, and +he trusts that they will be able in a general way to do only what +is right, in spite of conventions and humbug.</p> +<p>As I told you before, we know very little about the personal +life of Cory, who must have been a very reserved man; but a poet +puts his heart into his verses as a general rule, and there are +many little poems in this book that suggest to us an unhappy love +episode. These are extremely pretty and touching, the writer in +most cases confessing <span class="pagenum"><a id="page288" name= +"page288">[288]</a></span>himself unworthy of the person who +charmed him; but the finest thing of the kind is a composition +which he suggestively entitled “A Fable”—that is +to say, a fable in the Greek sense, an emblem or symbol of +truth.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>An eager girl, whose father buys</p> +<p class="i2">Some ruined thane’s forsaken hall,</p> +<p>Explores the new domain and tries</p> +<p class="i2">Before the rest to view it all.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>I think you have often noted the fact here related; when a +family moves to a new house, it is the child, or the youngest +daughter, who is the first to explore all the secrets of the new +residence, and whose young eyes discover things which the older +folks had not noticed.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Alone she lifts the latch, and glides,</p> +<p class="i2">Through many a sadly curtained room,</p> +<p>As daylight through the doorway slides</p> +<p class="i2">And struggles with the muffled gloom.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>With mimicries of dance she wakes</p> +<p class="i2">The lordly gallery’s silent floor,</p> +<p>And climbing up on tiptoe, makes</p> +<p class="i2">The old-world mirror smile once more.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>With tankards dry she chills her lips,</p> +<p class="i2">With yellowing laces veils the head,</p> +<p>And leaps in pride of ownership</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the faded marriage bed.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page289" name= +"page289">[289]</a></span> +<p>A harp in some dark nook she sees</p> +<p class="i2">Long left a prey to heat and frost,</p> +<p>She smites it; can such tinklings please?</p> +<p class="i2">Is not all worth, all beauty, lost?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ah, who’d have thought such sweetness clung</p> +<p class="i2">To loose neglected strings like those?</p> +<p>They answered to whate’er was sung,</p> +<p class="i2">And sounded as a lady chose.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Her pitying finger hurried by</p> +<p class="i2">Each vacant space, each slackened chord;</p> +<p>Nor would her wayward zeal let die</p> +<p class="i2">The music-spirit she restored.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The fashion quaint, the timeworn flaws,</p> +<p class="i2">The narrow range, the doubtful tone,</p> +<p>All was excused awhile, because</p> +<p class="i2">It seemed a creature of her own.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Perfection tires; the new in old,</p> +<p class="i2">The mended wrecks that need her skill,</p> +<p>Amuse her. If the truth be told,</p> +<p class="i2">She loves the triumph of her will.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>With this, she dares herself persuade,</p> +<p class="i2">She’ll be for many a month content,</p> +<p>Quite sure no duchess ever played</p> +<p class="i2">Upon a sweeter instrument.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus in sooth she can beguile</p> +<p class="i2">Girlhood’s romantic hours, but soon</p> +<p>She yields to taste and mood and style,</p> +<p class="i2">A siren of the gay saloon.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page290" name= +"page290">[290]</a></span> +<p>And wonders how she once could like</p> +<p class="i2">Those drooping wires, those failing notes,</p> +<p>And leaves her toy for bats to strike</p> +<p class="i2">Amongst the cobwebs and the motes.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But enter in, thou freezing wind,</p> +<p class="i2">And snap the harp-strings, one by one;</p> +<p>It was a maiden blithe and kind:</p> +<p class="i2">They felt her touch; their task is done.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>In this charming little study we know that the harp described is +not a harp; it is the loving heart of an old man, at least of a man +beyond the usual age of lovers. He has described and perhaps adored +some beautiful person who seemed to care for him, and who played +upon his heart, with her whims, caresses, smiles, much as one would +play upon the strings of a harp. She did not mean to be cruel at +all, nor even insincere. It is even probable that she really in +those times thought that she loved the man, and under the charms of +the girl the man became a different being; the old-fashioned mind +brightened, the old-fashioned heart exposed its hidden treasures of +tenderness and wisdom and sympathy. Very much like playing upon a +long forgotten instrument, was the relation between the maiden and +the man—not only because he resembled such an instrument in +the fact of belonging emotionally and intellectually to another +generation, but also because his was a <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page291" name="page291">[291]</a></span>heart whose true music had +long been silent, unheard by the world. Undoubtedly the maiden +meant no harm, but she caused a great deal of pain, for at a later +day, becoming a great lady of society, she forgot all about this +old friendship, or perhaps wondered why she ever wasted her time in +talking to such a strange old-fashioned professor. Then the +affectionate heart is condemned to silence again, to silence and +oblivion, like the harp thrown away in some garret to be covered +with cobwebs and visited only by bats. “Is it not +time,” the old man thinks, “that the strings should be +broken, the strings of the heart? Let the cold wind of death now +come and snap them.” Yet, after all, why should he complain? +Did he not have the beautiful experience of loving, and was she not +in that time at least well worthy of the love that she called forth +like music?</p> +<p>There are several other poems referring to what would seem to be +the same experience, and all are beautiful, but one seems to me +nobler than the rest, expressing as it does a generous resignation. +It is called “Deteriora,” a Latin word signifying +lesser, inferior, or deteriorated things—not easy to +translate. Nor would you find the poem easy to understand, +referring as it does to conditions of society foreign to anything +in Japanese experience. But some verses which I may quote you will +like.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page292" name= +"page292">[292]</a></span> +<p>If fate and nature screen from me</p> +<p class="i2">The sovran front I bowed before,</p> +<p>And set the glorious creature free,</p> +<p class="i2">Whom I would clasp, detain, adore,—</p> +<p>If I forego that strange delight,</p> +<p>Must all be lost? Not quite, not quite.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>Die, Little Love, without complaint,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>Whom honour standeth by to shrive:</em></p> +<p><em>Assoilèd from all selfish taint,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>Die, Love, whom Friendship will survive.</em></p> +<p><em>Not hate nor folly gave thee birth;</em></p> +<p><em>And briefness does but raise thy worth.</em></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is the same thought which Tennyson expressed in his famous +lines,</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>’Tis better to have loved and lost</p> +<p>Than never to have loved at all.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>But it is still more finely expressed to meet a particular +personal mood. One must not think the world lost because a woman +has been lost, he says, and such a love is not a thing for any man +to be ashamed of, in spite of the fact that it has been +disappointed. It was honourable, unselfish, not inspired by any +passion or any folly, and the very brevity of the experience only +serves to make it more precious. Observe the use of the words +“shrive” and “assoiled.” These refer to the +old religious custom of confession; to “shrive” +signifies to forgive, to free from sin, as a priest is supposed to +do, and “assoiled” means “purified.”</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page293" name= +"page293">[293]</a></span>If this was a personal experience, it +must have been an experience of advanced life. Elsewhere the story +of a boyish love is told very prettily, under the title of +“Two Fragments of Childhood.” This is the first +fragment:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>When these locks were yellow as gold,</p> +<p>When past days were easily told,</p> +<p>Well I knew the voice of the sea,</p> +<p>Once he spake as a friend to me.</p> +<p>Thunder-rollings carelessly heard,</p> +<p>Once that poor little heart they stirred,</p> +<p class="i2">Why, Oh, why?</p> +<p class="i2">Memory, memory!</p> +<p>She that I wished to be with was by.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Sick was I in those misanthrope days</p> +<p>Of soft caresses, womanly ways;</p> +<p>Once that maid on the stair I met</p> +<p>Lip on brow she suddenly set.</p> +<p>Then flushed up my chivalrous blood,</p> +<p>Like Swiss streams in a mid-summer flood.</p> +<p class="i2">Then, Oh, then,</p> +<p class="i2">Imogen, Imogen!</p> +<p>Hadst thou a lover, whose years were ten.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is evidently the charming memory of a little sick boy sent +to the seaside for his health, according to the English custom, and +unhappy there, unable to play about like stronger children, and +obliged to remain under the constant care of nurses and female +relatives. But in the same house there is another family with a +beautiful <span class="pagenum"><a id="page294" name= +"page294">[294]</a></span>young daughter, probably sixteen or +eighteen years old. The little boy wishes, wishes so much that the +beautiful lady would speak to him and play with him, but he is shy, +afraid to approach her—only looks at her with great admiring +loving eyes. But one day she meets him on the stairs, and stoops +down and kisses him on the forehead. Then he is in Heaven. +Afterward no doubt she played with him, and they walked up and down +by the shore of the sea together, and now, though an old man, +whenever he hears the roar of the sea he remembers the beautiful +lady who played with him and caressed him, when he was a little +sick child. How much he loved her! But she was a woman, and he was +only ten years old. The reference to “chivalrous blood” +signifies just this, that at the moment when she kissed him he +would have given his life for her, would have dared anything or +done anything to show his devotion to her. No prettier memory of a +child could be told.</p> +<p>We can learn a good deal about even the shyest of the poets +through a close understanding of his poetry. From the foregoing we +know that Cory must have been a sickly child; and from other poems +referring to school life we can not escape the supposition that he +was not a strong lad. In one of his verses he speaks of being +unable to join in the hearty play of his comrades; and in the poem +which touches on the life of the mature man we find him +acknowledging that he believed his <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page295" name="page295">[295]</a></span>life a failure—a +failure through want of strength. I am going to quote this poem for +other reasons. It is a beautiful address either to some favourite +student or to a beloved son—it is impossible to decide which. +But that does not matter. The title is “A New Year’s +Day.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Our planet runs through liquid space,</p> +<p>And sweeps us with her in the race;</p> +<p>And wrinkles gather on my face,</p> +<p class="i2">And Hebe bloom on thine:</p> +<p>Our sun with his encircling spheres</p> +<p>Around the central sun careers;</p> +<p>And unto thee with mustering years</p> +<p class="i2">Come hopes which I resign.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>’Twere sweet for me to keep thee still</p> +<p>Reclining halfway up the hill;</p> +<p>But time will not obey the will,</p> +<p class="i2">And onward thou must climb:</p> +<p>’Twere sweet to pause on this descent,</p> +<p>To wait for thee and pitch my tent,</p> +<p>But march I must with shoulders bent,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet further from my prime.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>I shall not tread thy battlefield,</em></p> +<p><em>Nor see the blazon on thy shield;</em></p> +<p><em>Take thou the sword I could not wield,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>And leave me, and forget.</em></p> +<p><em>Be fairer, braver, more admired;</em></p> +<p><em>So win what feeble hearts desired;</em></p> +<p><em>Then leave thine arms, when thou art tired,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>To some one nobler yet.</em></p> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page296" name= +"page296">[296]</a></span>How beautiful this is, and how profoundly +sad!</p> +<p>I shall return to the personal poetry of Cory later on, but I +want now to give you some examples of his Greek work. Perhaps the +best of this is little more than a rendering of Greek into English; +some of the work is pure translation. But it is the translation of +a very great master, the perfect rendering of Greek feeling as well +as of Greek thought. Here is an example of pure translation:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,</p> +<p>They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to +shed.</p> +<p>I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I</p> +<p>Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.</p> +<p>And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,</p> +<p>A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,</p> +<p>Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;</p> +<p>For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>What are “thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales”? +They are the songs which the dear dead poet made, still sung in his +native country, though his body was burned to ashes long +ago—has been changed into a mere handful of grey ashes, +which, doubtless, have been placed in an urn, as is done with such +ashes to-day in Japan. Death takes away all things from man, but +not his poems, his songs, the beautiful thoughts which he puts into +musical verse. These will always be heard like <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page297" name= +"page297">[297]</a></span>nightingales. The fourth line in the +first stanza contains an idiom which may not be familiar to you. It +means only that the two friends talked all day until the sun set in +the West, and still talked on after that. Tennyson has used the +same Greek thought in a verse of his poem, “A Dream of Fair +Women,” where Cleopatra says,</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“We drank the Libyan sun to sleep.”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The Greek author of the above poem was the great poet +Callimachus, and the English translator does not think it necessary +even to give the name, as he wrote only for folk well acquainted +with the classics. He has another short translation which he +accompanies with the original Greek text; it is very pretty, but of +an entirely different kind, a kind that may remind you of some +Japanese poems. It is only about a cicada and a peasant girl, and +perhaps it is twenty-four or twenty-five hundred years old.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A dry cicale chirps to a lass making hay,</p> +<p>“Why creak’st thou, Tithonus?” quoth she. +“I don’t play;</p> +<p>It doubles my toil, your importunate lay,</p> +<p>I’ve earned a sweet pillow, lo! Hesper is nigh;</p> +<p>I clasp a good wisp and in fragrance I lie;</p> +<p>But thou art unwearied, and empty, and dry.”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>How very human this little thing is—how actually it brings +before us the figure of the girl, who must <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page298" name="page298">[298]</a></span>have +become dust some time between two and three thousand years ago! She +is working hard in the field, and the constant singing of the +insect prompts her to make a comical protest. “Oh, Tithonus, +what are you making that creaking noise for? You old dry thing, I +have no time to play with you, or to idle in any way, but you do +nothing but complain. Why don’t you work, as I do? Soon I +shall have leave to sleep, because I have worked well. There is the +evening star, and I shall have a good bed of hay, sweet-smelling +fresh hay, to lie upon. How well I shall sleep. But you, you idle +noisy thing, you do not deserve to sleep. You have done nothing to +tire you. And you are empty, dry and thirsty. Serves you +right!” Of course you recognize the allusion to the story of +Tithonus, so beautifully told by Tennyson. The girl’s jest +has a double meaning. The word “importunate” has the +signification of a wearisome repetition of a request, a constant +asking, impossible to satisfy. Tithonus was supposed to complain +because he was obliged to live although he wanted to die. That +young girl does not want to die at all. And she says that the noise +of the insect, supposed to repeat the complaint of Tithonus, only +makes it more tiresome for her to work. She was feeling, no doubt, +much as a Japanese student would feel when troubled by the singing +of <em>semi</em> on some very hot afternoon while he is trying to +master some difficult problem.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page299" name= +"page299">[299]</a></span>That is pure Greek—pure as another +mingling of the Greek feeling with the modern scholarly spirit, +entitled “An Invocation.” Before quoting from it I must +explain somewhat; otherwise you might not be able to imagine what +it means, because it was written to be read by those only who are +acquainted with Theocritus and the Greek idylists. Perhaps I had +better say something too, about the word idyl, for the use of the +word by Tennyson is not the Greek use at all, except in the mere +fact that the word signifies a picturing, a shadowing or an +imagining of things. Tennyson’s pictures are of a purely +imaginative kind in the “Idyls of the King.” But the +Greek poets who first invented the poetry called idyllic did not +attempt the heroic works of imagination at all; they only +endeavoured to make perfectly true pictures of the common life of +peasants in the country. They wrote about the young men and young +girls working on the farms, about the way they quarrelled or +rejoiced or made love, about their dances and their songs, about +their religious festivals and their sacrifices to the gods at the +parish temple. Imagine a Japanese scholar of to-day who, after +leaving the university, instead of busying himself with the +fashionable studies of the time, should go out into the remoter +districts or islands of Japan, and devote his life to studying the +existence of the commoner people there, and making poems about it. +This was exactly what <span class="pagenum"><a id="page300" name= +"page300">[300]</a></span>the Greek idylists did,—that is, +the best of them. They were great scholars and became friends of +kings, but they wrote poetry chiefly about peasant life, and they +gave all their genius to the work. The result was so beautiful that +everybody is still charmed by the pictures or idyls which they +made.</p> +<p>Well, after this disgression, to return to the subject of +Theocritus, the greatest of the idylists. He has often introduced +into his idyls the name of Comatas. Who was Comatas? Comatas was a +Greek shepherd boy, or more strictly speaking a goatherd, who kept +the flocks of a rich man. It was his duty to sacrifice to the gods +none of his master’s animals, without permission; but as his +master was a very avaricious person, Comatas knew that it would be +of little use to ask him. Now this Comatas was a very good singer +of peasant songs, and he made many beautiful poems for the people +to sing, and he believed that it was the gods who had given him +power to make the songs, and the Muses had inspired him with the +capacity to make good verse. In spite of his master’s will, +Comatas therefore thought it was not very bad to take the young +kids and sacrifice to the gods and the Muses. When his master found +out what had been done with the animals, naturally he became very +angry, and he put Comatas into a great box of cedar-wood in order +to starve him to death—saying, as he closed and locked the +lid, “Now, Comatas, let us see whether the gods <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page301" name="page301">[301]</a></span>will feed +you!” In that box Comatas was left for a year without food or +drink, and when the master, at the end of the year, opened the box, +he expected to find nothing but the bones of the goatherd. But +Comatas was alive and well, singing sweet songs, because during the +year the Muses had sent bees to feed him with honey. The bees had +been able to enter the box through a very little hole. I suppose +you know that bees were held sacred to the Muses, and that there is +in Greek legend a symbolic relation between bees and poetry.</p> +<p>If you want to know what kind of songs Comatas sang and what +kind of life he represented, you will find all this exquisitely +told by Theocritus; and there is a beautiful little translation in +prose of Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, made by Andrew Lang, which +should delight you to read. Another day I shall give you examples +of such translations. Then you will see what true idyllic poetry +originally signified. These Greeks, although trained scholars and +philosophers, understood not only that human nature in itself is a +beautiful thing, but also that the best way to study human nature +is to study the life of the peasants and the common people. It is +not to the rich and leisurely, not to rank and society, that a poet +must go for inspiration. He will not find it there. What is called +society is a world in which nobody is happy, and in which pure +human nature is afraid <span class="pagenum"><a id="page302" name= +"page302">[302]</a></span>to show itself. Life among the higher +classes in all countries is formal, artificial, theatrical; poetry +is not there. Of course no kind of human community is perfectly +happy, but it is among the simple folk, the country folk, who do +not know much about evil and deceit, that the greater proportion of +happiness can be found. Among the youths of the country especially, +combining the charm of childhood with the strength of adult +maturity, the best possible subjects for fine pure studies of human +nature can be found. May I not here express the hope that some +young Japanese poet, some graduate of this very university, will +eventually attempt to do in Japan what Theocritus and Bion did in +ancient Sicily? A great deal of the very same kind of poetry exists +in our own rural districts, and parallels can be found in the daily +life of the Japanese peasants for everything beautifully described +in Theocritus. At all events I am quite sure of one thing, that no +great new literature can possibly arise in this country until some +scholarly minds discover that the real force and truth and beauty +and poetry of life is to be found only in studies of the common +people—not in the life of the rich and the noble, not in the +shadowy life of books.</p> +<p>Well, our English poet felt with the Greek idylists, and in the +poem called “An Invocation” he beautifully expresses +this sympathy. All of us, he says, should like to see and hear +something of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page303" name= +"page303">[303]</a></span>the ancient past if it were possible. We +should like, some of us, to call back the vanished gods and +goddesses of the beautiful Greek world, or to talk to the great +souls of that world who had the experience of life as men—to +Socrates, for example, to Plato, to Phidias the sculptor, to +Pericles the statesman. But, as a poet, my wish would not be for +the return of the old gods nor of the old heroes so much as for the +return to us of some common men who lived in the Greek world. It is +Comatas, he says, that he would most like to see, and to see in +some English park—in the neighbourhood of Cambridge +University, or of Eton College. And thus he addresses the spirit of +Comatas:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O dear divine Comatas, I would that thou and I</p> +<p>Beneath this broken sunlight this leisure day might lie;</p> +<p>Where trees from distant forests, whose names were strange to +thee,</p> +<p>Should bend their amorous branches within thy reach to be,</p> +<p>And flowers thine Hellas knew not, which art hath made more +fair,</p> +<p>Should shed their shining petals upon thy fragrant hair.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Then thou shouldst calmly listen with ever-changing looks</p> +<p>To songs of younger minstrels and plots of modern books,</p> +<p>And wonder at the daring of poets later born,</p> +<p>Whose thoughts are unto thy thoughts as noontide is to morn;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page304" name= +"page304">[304]</a></span> +<p>And little shouldst them grudge them their greater strength of +soul,</p> +<p>Thy partners in the torch-race, though nearer to the goal.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Or in thy cedarn prison thou waitest for the bee:</p> +<p>Ah, leave that simple honey and take thy food from me.</p> +<p>My sun is stooping westward. Entranced dreamer, haste;</p> +<p>There’s fruitage in my garden that I would have thee +taste.</p> +<p>Now lift the lid a moment; now, Dorian shepherd, speak;</p> +<p>Two minds shall flow together, the English and the Greek.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>A few phrases of these beautiful stanzas need explanation. +“Broken sunlight” refers, of course, to the imperfect +shade thrown by the trees under which the poet is lying. The shadow +is broken by the light passing through leaves, or conversely, the +light is broken by the interposition of the leaves. The reference +to trees from distant forests no doubt intimates that the poet is +in some botanical garden, a private park, in which foreign trees +are carefully cultivated. The “torch race” is a simile +for the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Greek thinkers compare the +transmission of knowledge from one generation to another, to the +passing of a lighted torch from hand to hand, as in the case of +messengers carrying signals or athletes running a mighty race. As a +runner runs until he is tired, or until he reaches the next +station, and then passes the torch which he has been <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page305" name="page305">[305]</a></span>carrying +to another runner waiting to receive it, so does each generation +pass on its wisdom to the succeeding generation, and disappear. +“My sun is stooping westward” is only a beautiful way +of saying, “I am becoming very old; be quick, so that we may +see each other before I die.” And the poet suggests that it +is because of his age and his experience and his wisdom that he +could hope to be of service to the dear divine Comatas. The +expression, “there is fruitage in my garden,” refers to +no material garden, but to the cultivated mind of the scholar; he +is only saying, “I have strange knowledge that I should like +to impart to you.” How delightful, indeed, it would be, could +some university scholar really converse with a living Greek of the +old days!</p> +<p>There is another little Greek study of great and simple beauty +entitled “The Daughter of Cleomenes.” It is only an +historical incident, but it is so related for the pleasure of +suggesting a profound truth about the instinct of childhood. Long +ago, when the Persians were about to make an attack upon the +Greeks, there was an attempt to buy off the Spartan resistance, and +the messenger to the Spartan general found him playing with his +little daughter, a child of six or seven. The conference was +carried on in whispers, and the child could not hear what was being +said; but she broke up the whole plot by a single word. I shall +quote a few lines from the close of the poem, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page306" name="page306">[306]</a></span>which +contain its moral lessons. The emissary has tried to tempt him with +promises of wealth and power.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>He falters; for the waves he fears,</p> +<p class="i2">The roads he cannot measure;</p> +<p>But rates full high the gleam of spears</p> +<p class="i2">And dreams of yellow treasure.</p> +<p>He listens; he is yielding now;</p> +<p class="i2">Outspoke the fearless child:</p> +<p>“Oh, Father, come away, lest thou</p> +<p class="i2">Be by this man beguiled.”</p> +<p>Her lowly judgment barred the plea,</p> +<p class="i2">So low, it could not reach her.</p> +<p><em>The man knows more of land and sea,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>But she’s the truer teacher.</em></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>All the little girl could know about the matter was instinctive; +she only saw the cunning face of the stranger, and felt sure that +he was trying to deceive her father for a bad purpose—so she +cried out, “Father, come away with me, or else that man will +deceive you.” And she spoke truth, as her father immediately +recognized.</p> +<p>There are several more classical studies of extraordinary +beauty; but your interest in them would depend upon something more +than interest in Greek and Roman history, and we can not study all +the poems. So I prefer to go back to the meditative lyrics, and to +give a few splendid examples of these more personal compositions. +The following stanzas are from a poem whose Latin <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page307" name="page307">[307]</a></span>title +signifies that Love conquers death. In this poem the author becomes +the equal of Tennyson as a master of language.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The plunging rocks, whose ravenous throats</p> +<p class="i2">The sea in wrath and mockery fills,</p> +<p>The smoke that up the valley floats,</p> +<p class="i2">The girlhood of the growing hills;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The thunderings from the miners’ ledge,</p> +<p class="i2">The wild assaults on nature’s hoard,</p> +<p>The peak that stormward bares an edge</p> +<p class="i2">Ground sharp in days when Titans warred;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Grim heights, by wandering clouds embraced</p> +<p class="i2">Where lightning’s ministers conspire,</p> +<p>Grey glens, with tarns and streamlet laced,</p> +<p class="i2">Stark forgeries of primeval fire.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>These scenes may gladden many a mind</p> +<p class="i2">Awhile from homelier thoughts released,</p> +<p>And here my fellow men may find</p> +<p class="i2">A Sabbath and a vision-feast.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>I bless them in the good they feel;</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>And yet I bless them with a sigh;</em></p> +<p><em>On me this grandeur stamps the seal</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>Of tyrannous mortality.</em></p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>The pitiless mountain stands so sure.</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>The human breast so weakly heaves,</em></p> +<p><em>That brains decay while rocks endure.</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>At this the insatiate spirit grieves.</em></p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page308" name= +"page308">[308]</a></span> +<p>But hither, oh ideal bride!</p> +<p class="i2">For whom this heart in silence aches,</p> +<p>Love is unwearied as the tide,</p> +<p class="i2">Love is perennial as the lakes.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Come thou. The spiky crags will seem</p> +<p class="i2">One harvest of one heavenly year,</p> +<p>And fear of death, like childish dream,</p> +<p class="i2">Will pass and flee, when thou art here.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Very possibly this charming meditation was written on the Welsh +coast; there is just such scenery as the poem describes, and the +grand peak of Snowdon would well realize the imagination of the +line about the girlhood of the growing hills. The melancholy of the +latter part of the composition is the same melancholy to be found +in “Mimnermus in Church,” the first of Cory’s +poems which we read together. It is the Greek teaching that there +is nothing to console us for the great doubt and mystery of +existence except unselfish affection. All through the book we find +the same philosophy, even in the beautiful studies of student life +and the memories of childhood. So it is quite a melancholy book, +though the sadness be beautiful. I have given you examples of the +sadness of doubt and of the sadness of love; but there is yet a +third kind of sadness—the sadness of a childless man, wishing +that he could have a child of his own. It is a very pretty thing, +simply entitled “Scheveningen Avenue”—probably +the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page309" name= +"page309">[309]</a></span>name of the avenue where the incident +occurred. The poet does not tell us how it occurred, but we can +very well guess. He was riding in a street car, probably, and a +little girl next to him, while sitting upon her nurse’s lap, +fell asleep, and as she slept let her head fall upon his shoulder. +This is a very simple thing to make a poem about, but what a poem +it is!</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, that the road were longer</p> +<p class="i2">A mile, or two, or three!</p> +<p>So might the thought grow stronger</p> +<p class="i2">That flows from touch of thee.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>Oh little slumbering maid,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>If thou wert five years older,</em></p> +<p><em>Thine head would not be laid</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>So simply on my shoulder!</em></p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>Oh, would that I were younger,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>Oh, were I more like thee,</em></p> +<p><em>I should not faintly hunger</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>For love that cannot be.</em></p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A girl might be caressed</p> +<p class="i2">Beside me freely sitting;</p> +<p>A child on knee might rest,</p> +<p class="i2">And not like thee, unwitting.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Such honour is thy mother’s,</p> +<p class="i2">Who smileth on thy sleep,</p> +<p>Or for the nurse who smothers</p> +<p class="i2">Thy cheek in kisses deep.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page310" name= +"page310">[310]</a></span> +<p>And but for parting day,</p> +<p class="i2">And but for forest shady,</p> +<p>From me they’d take away</p> +<p class="i2">The burden of their lady.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ah thus to feel thee leaning</p> +<p class="i2">Above the nursemaid’s hand,</p> +<p>Is like a stranger’s gleaning</p> +<p class="i2">Where rich men own the land;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Chance gains, and humble thrift,</p> +<p class="i2">With shyness much like thieving,</p> +<p>No notice with the gift,</p> +<p class="i2">No thanks with the receiving.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh peasant, when thou starvest</p> +<p class="i2">Outside the fair domain,</p> +<p>Imagine there’s a harvest</p> +<p class="i2">In every treasured grain.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Make with thy thoughts high cheer,</p> +<p class="i2">Say grace for others dining,</p> +<p>And keep thy pittance clear</p> +<p class="i2">From poison of repining.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>There is an almost intolerable acuity of sadness in the last two +mocking verses, but how pretty and how tender the whole thing is, +and how gentle-hearted must have been the man who wrote it! The +same tenderness reappears in references to children of a larger +growth, the boys of his school. Sometimes he very much regrets the +necessity of discipline, and advocates a wiser method of dealing +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page311" name= +"page311">[311]</a></span>with the young. How very pretty is this +little verse about the boy he loves.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Sweet eyes, that aim a level shaft,</p> +<p class="i2">At pleasure flying from afar,</p> +<p>Sweet lips, just parted for a draught</p> +<p class="i2">Of Hebe’s nectar, shall I mar</p> +<p>By stress of disciplinal craft</p> +<p class="i2">The joys that in your freedom are?</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>But a little reflection further on in the same poem reminds us +how necessary the discipline must be for the battle of life, +inasmuch as each of those charming boys will have to fight against +evil—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8">yet shall ye cope</p> +<p>With worlding wrapped in silken lies,</p> +<p class="i2">With pedant, hypocrite, and pope.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>One might easily lecture about this little volume for many more +days, so beautiful are the things which fill it. But enough has +been cited to exemplify its unique value. If you reread these +quotations, I think you will find each time new beauty in them. And +the beauty is quite peculiar. Such poetry could have been written +only under two conditions. The first is that the poet be a +consummate scholar. The second is that he must have suffered, as +only a great mind and heart could suffer, from want of +affection.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page312" name= +"page312">[312]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_15" name="Ch_15">Chapter XV</a></h3> +<h2>Old Greek Fragments</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>The other day when we were reading some of the poems in +“Ionica,” I promised to speak in another short essay of +Theocritus and his songs or idyls of Greek peasant life, but in +speaking of him it will be well also to speak of others who equally +illustrate the fact that everywhere there is truth and beauty for +the mind that can see. I spoke last week about what I thought the +highest possible kind of literary art might become. But the +possible becoming is yet far away; and in speaking of some old +Greek writers I want only to emphasize the fact that modern +literary art as well as ancient literary art produced their best +results from a close study of human nature.</p> +<p>Although Theocritus and others who wrote idyls found their chief +inspiration in the life of the peasants, they sometimes also wrote +about the life of cities. Human nature may be studied in the city +as well as in the country, provided that a man knows how to look +for it. It is not in the courts of princes nor the houses of nobles +nor the residences of the wealthy that such study can be made. +These superior classes have found it necessary <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page313" name="page313">[313]</a></span>to show +themselves to the world very cautiously; they live by rule, they +conceal their emotions, they move theatrically. But the ordinary, +everyday people of cities are very different; they speak their +thoughts, they keep their hearts open, and they let us see, just as +children do, the good or the evil side of their characters. So a +good poet and a good observer can find in the life of cities +subjects of study almost as easily as in the country. Theocritus +has done this in his fifteenth idyl. This idyl is very famous, and +it has been translated hundreds of times into various languages. +Perhaps you may have seen one version of it which was made by +Matthew Arnold. But I think that the version made by Lang is even +better.</p> +<p>The scene is laid in Alexandria, probably some two thousand +years ago, and the occasion is a religious holiday—a +<em>matsuri</em>, as we call it in Japan. Two women have made an +appointment to go together to the temple, to see the festival and +to see the people. The poet begins his study by introducing us to +the chamber of one of the women.</p> +<p><span class="sc">Gorgo.</span> “Is Praxinoe at +home?”</p> +<p><span class="sc">Praxinoe.</span> “Dear Gorgo, how long is +it since you have been here! She is at home. The wonder is that you +have got here at last! Eunoe, come and see that she has a chair and +put a cushion on it!”</p> +<p>G. “It does most charmingly as it is.”</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page314" name= +"page314">[314]</a></span> P. “Do sit down.”</p> +<p>How natural this is. There is nothing Greek about it any more +than there is Japanese; it is simply human. It is something that +happens in Tokyo every day, certainly in houses where there are +chairs and where it is a custom to put a cushion on the chair for +the visitor. But remember, this was two thousand years ago. Now +listen to what the visitor has to say.</p> +<p>“I have scarcely got to you at all, Praxinoe! What a huge +crowd, what hosts of carriages! Everywhere cavalry boots, +everywhere men in uniform! And the road is endless; yes, you really +live too far away!”</p> +<p>Praxinoe answers:</p> +<p>“It is all for that mad man of mine. Here he came to the +ends of the earth and took a hall, not a house, and all that we +might not be neighbours. The jealous wretch, always the same, ever +for spite.”</p> +<p>She is speaking half in jest, half in earnest; but she forgets +that her little boy is present, and the visitor reminds her of the +fact:</p> +<p>“Don’t talk of your husband like that, my dear girl, +before the little boy,—look how he is staring at +you!—Never mind, Zaphyrion, sweet child, she is not speaking +about papa.”</p> +<p>P. “Our Lady! (Persephone) The child takes +notice!”</p> +<p>Then the visitor to comfort the child says “Nice +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page315" name= +"page315">[315]</a></span>papa,” and the conversation +proceeds. The two talk about their husbands, about their dresses, +about the cost of things in the shops; but in order to see the +festival Praxinoe must dress herself quickly, and woman, two +thousand years ago, just as now, takes a long time to dress. Hear +Praxinoe talking to her maid-servant while she hurries to get +ready:</p> +<p>“Eunoe, bring the water and put it down in the middle of +the room,—lazy creature that you are. Cat-like, always trying +to sleep soft! Come, bustle, bring the water; quicker! I want water +first,—and how she carries it! Give it me all the +same;—don’t pour out so much, you extravagant thing! +Stupid girl! Why are you wetting my dress? There, stop, I have +washed my hands as heaven would have it. Where is the key of the +big chest? Bring it here.”</p> +<p>This is life, natural and true; we can see those three together, +the girlish young wife hurrying and scolding and chattering +naturally and half childishly, the patient servant girl smiling at +the hurry of her mistress, and the visitor looking at her +friend’s new dress, wondering how much it cost and presently +asking her the price. At last all is ready. But the little boy sees +his mother go out and he wants to go out too, though it has been +decided not to take him, because the crowd is too rough and he +might be hurt. Here the mother first explains, then speaks +firmly:</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page316" name= +"page316">[316]</a></span>“No, child, I don’t mean to +take you. Boo! Bogies! There is a horse that bites! Cry as much as +you please, but I cannot have you maimed.”</p> +<p>They go out, Praxinoe and Gorgo and the maid-servant Eunoe. The +crowd is tremendous, and they find it very hard to advance. +Sometimes there are horses in the way, sometimes wagons, +occasionally a legion of cavalry. We know all this, because we hear +the chatter of the women as they make their way through the +press.</p> +<p>“Give me your hand, and you, Eunoe, catch hold of +Eutychis,—for fear lest you get lost…. Here come the +kings on horses! My dear man, don’t trample on me. Eunoe, you +fool-hardy girl, will you never keep out of the way? Oh! How +tiresome, Gorgo, my muslin veil is torn in two already…. For +heaven’s sake, sir, if you ever wish to be fortunate, take +care of my shawl!”</p> +<p><span class="sc">Stranger.</span> “I can hardly help +myself, but for all that I will be as helpful as I can.”</p> +<p>The strange man helps the women and children through the pushing +crowd, and they thank him very prettily, praying that he may have +good fortune all his life. But not all the strangers who come in +contact with them happen to be so kind. They come at last into that +part of the temple ground where the image of Adonis is displayed; +the beauty of the statue moves them, and they <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page317" name="page317">[317]</a></span>utter +exclamations of delight. This does not please some of the male +spectators, one of whom exclaims, “You tiresome women, do +cease your endless cooing talk! They bore one to death with their +eternal broad vowels!”</p> +<p>They are country women, and their critic is probably a +purist—somebody who has studied Greek as it is pronounced and +spoken in Athens. But the women bravely resent this interference +with their rights.</p> +<p><span class="sc">Gorgo.</span> “Indeed! And where may this +person come from? What is it to you if we are chatterboxes? Give +orders to your own servants, sir. Do you pretend to command the +ladies of Syracuse? If you must know, we are Corinthians by +descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak Peloponnesian. +Dorian women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume.”</p> +<p>This is enough to silence the critic, but the other young woman +also turns upon him, and we may suppose that he is glad to escape +from their tongues. And then everybody becomes silent, for the +religious services begin. The priestess, a comely girl, chants the +psalm of Adonis, the beautiful old pagan hymn, more beautiful and +more sensuous than anything uttered by the later religious poets of +the West; and all listen in delighted stillness. As the hymn ends, +Gorgo bursts out in exclamation of praise:</p> +<p>“Praxinoe! The woman is cleverer than we <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page318" name="page318">[318]</a></span>fancied! +Happy woman to know so much!—Thrice happy to have so sweet a +voice! Well, all the same, it is time to be making for home; +Diocleides has not had his dinner, and the man is all +vinegar,—don’t venture near him when he is kept waiting +for dinner. Farewell, beloved Adonis—may you find us glad at +your next coming.”</p> +<p>And with this natural mingling of the sentimental and the +commonplace the little composition ends. It is as though we were +looking through some window into the life of two thousand years +ago. Read the whole thing over to yourselves when you have time to +find the book in the library, and see how true to human nature it +is. There is nothing in it except the wonderful hymn, which does +not belong to to-day as much as to the long ago, to modern Tokyo as +much as to ancient Greece. That is what makes the immortality of +any literary production—not simply truth to the life of one +time, but truth to the life of every time and place.</p> +<p>Not many years ago there was discovered a book by Herodas, a +Greek writer of about the same period. It is called the +“Mimes,” a series of little dramatic studies picturing +the life of the time. One of these is well worthy of rank with the +idyl of Theocritus above mentioned. It is the study of a +conversation between a young woman and an old woman. The young +woman has a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page319" name= +"page319">[319]</a></span>husband, who left her to join a military +expedition and has not been heard of for several years. The old +woman is a go-between, and she comes to see the young person on +behalf of another young man, who admires her. But as soon as she +states the nature of her errand, the young lady becomes very angry +and feigns much virtuous indignation. There is a quarrel. Then the +two become friends, and we know that the old woman’s coming +is likely to bring about the result desired. Now the wonder of this +little study also is the play of emotion which it reveals. Such +emotions are common to all ages of humanity; we feel the freshness +of this reflection as we read, to such a degree that we cannot +think of the matter as having happened long ago. Yet even the city +in which these episodes took place has vanished from the face of +the earth.</p> +<p>In the case of the studies of peasant life, there is also value +of another kind. Here we have not only studies of human nature, but +studies of particular social conditions. The quarrels of peasants, +half good natured and nearly always happily ending; their account +of their sorrows; their gossip about their work in the +fields—all this might happen almost anywhere and at almost +any time. But the song contest, the prize given for the best +composition upon a chosen subject, this is particularly Greek, and +has never perhaps existed outside of some place among the peasant +folk. It was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page320" name= +"page320">[320]</a></span>the poetical side of this Greek life of +the peasants, as recorded by Theocritus, which so much influenced +the literatures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in +France and in England. But neither in France nor in England has +there ever really been, at any time, any life resembling that +portrayed by Theocritus; to-day nothing appears to us more absurd +than the eighteenth century habit of picturing the Greek shepherd +life in English or French landscapes. What really may have existed +among the shepherds of the antique world could not possibly exist +in modern times. But how pretty it is! I think that the tenth idyl +of Theocritus is perhaps the prettiest example of the whole series, +thirty in number, which have been preserved for us. The plan is of +the simplest. Two young peasants, respectively named Battus and +Milon, meeting together in the field, talk about their sweethearts. +One of them works lazily and is jeered by the other in consequence. +The subject of the jeering acknowledges that he works badly because +his mind is disturbed—he has fallen in love. Then the other +expresses sympathy for him, and tells him that the best thing he +can do to cheer himself up will be to make a song about the girl, +and to sing it as he works. Then he makes a song, which has been +the admiration of the world for twenty centuries and lifts been +translated into almost every language possessing a literature.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page321" name= +"page321">[321]</a></span>“They all call thee a gipsy, +gracious Bombyca, and lean, and sunburnt;—’tis only I +that call thee honey-pale.</p> +<p>“Yea, and the violet is swart and swart the lettered +hyacinth; but yet these flowers are chosen the first in +garlands.</p> +<p>“The goat runs after cytisus, the wolf pursues the goat, +the crane follows the plough,—but I am wild for love of +thee.</p> +<p>“Would it were mine, all the wealth whereof Croesus was +lord, as men tell! Then images of us, all in gold, should be +dedicated to Aphrodite, thou with thy flute, and a rose, yea, or an +apple, and I in fair attire and new shoon of Amyclae on both my +feet.</p> +<p>“Ah, gracious Bombyca, thy feet are fashioned like carven +ivory, thy voice is drowsy sweet, and thy ways—I can not tell +of them.”</p> +<p>Even through the disguise of an English prose translation, you +will see how pretty and how simple this little song must have been +in the Greek, and how very natural is the language of it. Our young +peasant has fallen in love with the girl who is employed to play +the flute for the reapers, as the peasants like to work to the +sound of music. His comrades do not much admire Bombyca; one calls +her “a long grasshopper of a girl”; another finds her +too thin; a third calls her a gipsy, such a dark brown her skin has +become by constant exposure to the summer sun. And the lover, +looking <span class="pagenum"><a id="page322" name= +"page322">[322]</a></span>at her, is obliged to acknowledge in his +own mind that she is long and lean and dark and like a gipsy; but +he finds beauty in all these characteristics, nevertheless. What if +she is dark? The sweetest honey is darkish, like amber, and so are +beautiful flowers, the best of all flowers, flowers given to +Aphrodite; and the sacred hyacinth on whose leaves appear the +letters of the word of lamentation “Ai! Ai!”—that +is also dark like Bombyca. Her darkness is that of honey and +flowers. What a charming apology! He cannot deny that she is long +and lean, and he remains silent on these points, but here we must +all sympathize with him. He shows good taste. It is the tall +slender girl that is really the most beautiful and the most +graceful, not the large-limbed, strong-bodied peasant type that his +companions would prefer. Without knowing it, he has fallen in love +like an artist. And he is not blind to the, grace of slenderness +and of form, though he cannot express it in artistic language. He +can only compare the shape of the girl’s feet to the ivory +feet of the divinities in the temples—perhaps he is thinking +of some ivory image of Aphrodite which he has seen. But how +charming an image does he make to arise before us! Beautiful is the +description of the girl’s voice as “drowsy +sweet.” But the most exquisite thing in the whole song is the +final despairing admission that he can not describe her at +all—“and thy ways, I can not tell of <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page323" name= +"page323">[323]</a></span>them”! This is one of the most +beautiful expressions in any poem ancient or modern, because of its +supreme truth. What mortal ever could describe the charm of manner, +voice, smile, address, in mere words? Such things are felt, they +can not be described; and the peasant boy reaches the highest +height of true lyrical poetry when he cries out “I can not +tell of them.” The great French critic Sainte-Beuve attempted +to render this line as follows—“<em>Quant à ta +manière, je ne puis la rendre!”</em> This is very +good; and you can take your choice between it and any English +translation. But good judges say that nothing in English of French +equals the charm of the original.</p> +<p>You will find three different classes of idyls in Theocritus; +the idyl which is a simple song of peasant life, a pure lyric +expressing only a single emotion; the idyl which is a little story, +usually a story about the gods or heroes; and lastly, the idyl +which is presented in the form of a dialogue, or even of a +conversation between three or four persons. All these forms of +idyl, but especially the first and the third, were afterward +beautifully imitated by the Roman poets; then very imperfectly +imitated by modern poets. The imitation still goes on, but the very +best English poets have never really been able to give us anything +worthy of Theocritus himself.</p> +<p>However, this study of the Greek model has given some terms to +English literature which every <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page324" name="page324">[324]</a></span>student ought to know. One +of these terms is amoebæan,—amoebæan poetry being +dialogue poetry composed in the form of question and reply. The +original Greek signification was that of alternate speaking. Please +do not forget the word. You may often find it in critical studies +in essays upon contemporary literature; and when you see it again, +remember Theocritus and the school of Greek poets who first +introduced the charm of amoebæan poetry. I hope that this +little lecture will interest some of you in Theocritus sufficiently +to induce you to read him carefully through and through. But +remember that you can not get the value of even a single poem of +his at a single reading. We have become so much accustomed to +conventional forms of literature that the simple art of poetry like +this quite escapes us at first sight. We have to read it over and +over again many times, and to think about it; then only we feel the +wonderful charm.</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a id="Index" name="Index">INDEX</a></h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<ul> +<li class="first">“A dry cicale chirps to a lass making +hay,” <a href="#page297">297</a></li> +<li>Aicard, Jean, <a href="#page222">222</a></li> +<li>Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, <a href="#page83">83</a></li> +<li>“Along the garden ways just now,” <a href= +"#page31">31</a></li> +<li>“Amaturus,” <a href="#page56">56</a></li> +<li>“A Ma Future,” <a href="#page51">51</a></li> +<li>“Amelia,” <a href="#page37">37</a></li> +<li>“Amis and Amile,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href= +"#page268">268</a>-<a href="#page278">278</a></li> +<li>“Amphibian,” <a href="#page166">166</a>-<a href= +"#page172">172</a></li> +<li>Andrews, Bishop Lancelot, <a href="#page101">101</a></li> +<li>“Angel in the House, The,” <a href= +"#page37">37</a></li> +<li>“An Invocation,” <a href="#page299">299</a>, +<a href="#page302">302</a></li> +<li>“Appreciations of Poetry,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>“Arabian Nights, The,” <a href= +"#page268">268</a></li> +<li>“Arachne,” <a href="#page191">191</a></li> +<li>Arnold, Sir Edwin, <a href="#page50">50</a>, <a href= +"#page51">51</a></li> +<li>Arnold, Matthew, <a href="#page116">116</a>, <a href= +"#page313">313</a></li> +<li>“Art of Worldly Wisdom, The,” <a href= +"#page127">127</a></li> +<li>Ashe, Thomas, <a href="#page58">58</a></li> +<li>“A simple ring with a simple stone,” <a href= +"#page69">69</a></li> +<li>“Atalanta in Calydon,” <a href= +"#page258">258</a></li> +<li>“Atalanta’s Race,” <a href= +"#page26">26</a></li> +<li class="first">“Bhagavad-Gita, The,” <a href= +"#page94">94</a></li> +<li>Bible, The, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href= +"#page64">64</a>, <a href="#page92">92</a>-<a href= +"#page105">105</a>, <a href="#page233">233</a>, <a href= +"#page253">253</a>, <a href="#page277">277</a></li> +<li>Bion, <a href="#page301">301</a>, <a href= +"#page302">302</a></li> +<li>Blake, William, <a href="#page96">96</a>, <a href= +"#page176">176</a></li> +<li>Book of Common Prayer, The, <a href="#page233">233</a>, +<a href="#page253">253</a></li> +<li>Breton, Jules, <a href="#page219">219</a></li> +<li>“Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art,” +<a href="#page46">46</a></li> +<li>Browning, Robert, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href= +"#page39">39</a>, <a href="#page65">65</a>-<a href= +"#page69">69</a>, <a href="#page71">71</a>, <a href= +"#page73">73</a>, <a href="#page166">166</a>-<a href= +"#page172">172</a>, <a href="#page280">280</a></li> +<li>“Burly, dozing humble bee,” <a href= +"#page179">179</a></li> +<li>“Busy, curious thirsty fly,” <a href= +"#page176">176</a></li> +<li>Byron, George Gordon, Lord, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href= +"#page62">62</a></li> +<li class="first">Carew, Thomas, <a href="#page61">61</a></li> +<li>Carlyle, Thomas, <a href="#page89">89</a>, <a href= +"#page105">105</a></li> +<li>Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Fourth Earl of, <a href= +"#page113">113</a></li> +<li>Cicero, Marcus Tullius, <a href="#page29">29</a></li> +<li>Coleridge, Hartley, <a href="#page74">74</a></li> +<li>Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href= +"#page95">95</a>, <a href="#page163">163</a></li> +<li>“Conservative, A,” <a href="#page188">188</a></li> +<li>Cooke, Rose Terry, <a href="#page191">191</a></li> +<li>Cory, William, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, +<a href="#page57">57</a>, <a href="#page279">279</a></li> +<li>Crashaw, Richard, <a href="#page52">52</a></li> +<li class="first">Dante Alighieri, <a href="#page23">23</a></li> +<li>“Daughter of Cleomenes, The,” <a href= +"#page305">305</a></li> +<li>Descartes, Rene, <a href="#page195">195</a></li> +<li>“Deteriora,” <a href="#page291">291</a></li> +<li>Dickens, Charles, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>“Djins, Les,” <a href="#page79">79</a></li> +<li>“Dream of Fair Women, A,” <a href= +"#page297">297</a></li> +<li class="first">“Emaux et Camées,” <a href= +"#page216">216</a></li> +<li>Emerson, Ralph Waldo, <a href="#page82">82</a>, <a href= +"#page178">178</a></li> +<li>“Epigramme Funeraire,” <a href="#page210">210</a>, +<a href="#page211">211</a></li> +<li>“Evelyn Hope,” <a href="#page67">67</a></li> +<li class="first">“Fable, A,” <a href= +"#page288">288</a></li> +<li>“Fifine at the Fair,” <a href= +"#page166">166</a></li> +<li>Francis of Assisi, Saint, <a href="#page196">196</a></li> +<li>Freneau, Philip, <a href="#page186">186</a></li> +<li class="first">Gautier, Théophile, <a href= +"#page216">216</a></li> +<li>“Gazing on stars, my star?” <a href= +"#page47">47</a></li> +<li>Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, <a href="#page78">78</a>, <a href= +"#page82">82</a></li> +<li>“Golden Legend, The,” <a href= +"#page272">272</a></li> +<li>Gracian, Baltasar, <a href="#page126">126</a></li> +<li>“Grasshopper, The,” <a href="#page226">226</a></li> +<li>Gray, Thomas, <a href="#page202">202</a></li> +<li>“Greater Memory,” <a href="#page32">32</a></li> +<li>Greek Anthology, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, +<a href="#page77">77</a>, <a href="#page284">284</a></li> +<li>“Grillon solitaire,” <a href= +"#page213">213</a></li> +<li class="first">“Havamal, The,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href= +"#page105">105</a>-<a href="#page133">133</a></li> +<li>Hearn, Lafcadio, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>Heredia, José, Maria de, <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href="#page87">87</a>-<a href= +"#page91">91</a>, <a href="#page205">205</a>, <a href= +"#page209">209</a>-<a href="#page211">211</a></li> +<li>Herodas, <a href="#page318">318</a></li> +<li>Herrick, Robert, <a href="#page78">78</a></li> +<li>“He that loves a rosy cheek,” <a href= +"#page61">61</a></li> +<li>Holmes, Oliver Wendell, <a href="#page185">185</a></li> +<li>Hood, Thomas, <a href="#page62">62</a></li> +<li>Hugo, Victor, <a href="#page26">26</a>, <a href= +"#page43">43</a>, <a href="#page79">79</a>, <a href= +"#page89">89</a>, <a href="#page209">209</a></li> +<li class="first">“Idyls of the King,” <a href= +"#page299">299</a></li> +<li>“I love to hear thine earnest voice,” <a href= +"#page185">185</a></li> +<li>“In a branch of willow hid,” <a href= +"#page186">186</a></li> +<li>“Interpretations of Literature,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>“Ionica,” <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, +<a href="#page56">56</a>, <a href="#page57">57</a></li> +<li>“I strove with none, for none was worth my strife,” +<a href="#page80">80</a></li> +<li>“It is a golden morning of the spring,” <a href= +"#page40">40</a></li> +<li class="first">Jonson, Ben, <a href="#page72">72</a>, <a href= +"#page78">78</a></li> +<li class="first">“Kalevala, The,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href= +"#page228">228</a>-<a href="#page260">260</a></li> +<li>Keats, John, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href= +"#page46">46</a>, <a href="#page47">47</a>, <a href= +"#page95">95</a>, <a href="#page181">181</a></li> +<li>“King Solomon and the Ants,” <a href= +"#page198">198</a></li> +<li class="first">“La Demoiselle,” <a href= +"#page209">209</a></li> +<li>“Lady of Shalott, The,” <a href= +"#page226">226</a></li> +<li>Landor, Walter Savage, <a href="#page80">80</a></li> +<li>Lang, Andrew, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, +<a href="#page313">313</a></li> +<li>Lamartine, <a href="#page213">213</a>, <a href= +"#page216">216</a></li> +<li>Lamb, Charles, <a href="#page201">201</a></li> +<li>“Le Daimio,” <a href="#page89">89</a></li> +<li>Lemerre, Alphonse, <a href="#page160">160</a></li> +<li>“Le Samourai,” <a href="#page87">87</a></li> +<li>“Les Cigales,” <a href="#page219">219</a></li> +<li>“Life and Literature,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>de Lisle, Leconte, <a href="#page87">87</a></li> +<li>“Lives there whom pain has evermore passed by,” +<a href="#page82">82</a></li> +<li>Locker-Lampson, Frederic, <a href="#page50">50</a>, <a href= +"#page51">51</a>, <a href="#page159">159</a></li> +<li>“Locksley Hall,” <a href="#page36">36</a></li> +<li>Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, <a href="#page91">91</a>, <a href= +"#page106">106</a>, <a href="#page226">226</a>, <a href= +"#page228">228</a>, <a href="#page231">231</a>, <a href= +"#page254">254</a>, <a href="#page255">255</a>, <a href= +"#page272">272</a></li> +<li>Lönnrot, <a href="#page229">229</a>, <a href= +"#page230">230</a>, <a href="#page231">231</a></li> +<li>Lovelace, Richard, <a href="#page225">225</a></li> +<li>Lubbock, Sir John, <a href="#page137">137</a></li> +<li class="first">Macaulay, Thomas Babington, <a href= +"#page161">161</a></li> +<li>“Ma Libellule,” <a href="#page205">205</a>-<a href= +"#page209">209</a></li> +<li>“Maud,” <a href="#page24">24</a>, <a href= +"#page25">25</a></li> +<li>Meredith, George, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, +<a href="#page129">129</a></li> +<li>“Mimes,” <a href="#page318">318</a></li> +<li>“Mimnermus in church,” <a href="#page281">281</a>, +<a href="#page308">308</a></li> +<li>Moschus, <a href="#page301">301</a></li> +<li class="first">“Nay but you, who do not love her,” +<a href="#page65">65</a></li> +<li>“Never the time and the place,” <a href= +"#page39">39</a></li> +<li>“New Ethics, The,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>“New Year’s Day, A,” <a href= +"#page295">295</a></li> +<li>Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, <a href="#page135">135</a>, +<a href="#page144">144</a></li> +<li>“Njal-Saga, The.” <a href="#page7">7</a></li> +<li class="first">“Ode on the Spring,” <a href= +"#page202">202</a></li> +<li>Oldys, William, <a href="#page176">176</a>, <a href= +"#page177">177</a></li> +<li>O’Shaughnessy, Arthur, <a href="#page30">30</a></li> +<li class="first">“Pansie,” <a href= +"#page58">58</a></li> +<li>“Patchwork,” <a href="#page50">50</a></li> +<li>Pater, Walter, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, +<a href="#page274">274</a></li> +<li>Patmore, Coventry, <a href="#page37">37</a>, <a href= +"#page159">159</a></li> +<li>“Pause, A,” <a href="#page35">35</a></li> +<li>Plato, <a href="#page17">17</a></li> +<li>Poe, Edgar Allan, <a href="#page254">254</a></li> +<li>“Poems of Places,” <a href="#page91">91</a></li> +<li>Porson, Richard, <a href="#page161">161</a></li> +<li>Powell, Frederick York, <a href="#page106">106</a></li> +<li>“Princess, The,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li class="first">Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur Thomas, <a href= +"#page172">172</a></li> +<li class="first">“Reparabo,” <a href= +"#page286">286</a></li> +<li>Rossetti, Christina, <a href="#page35">35</a>, <a href= +"#page36">36</a>, <a href="#page55">55</a></li> +<li>Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href= +"#page30">30</a>, <a href="#page219">219</a></li> +<li>Ruskin, John, <a href="#page105">105</a>, <a href= +"#page150">150</a></li> +<li>“Ruth,” <a href="#page63">63</a>, <a href= +"#page64">64</a></li> +<li class="first">“Saga of King Olaf, The,” <a href= +"#page106">106</a></li> +<li>Sainte-Beuve, <a href="#page323">323</a></li> +<li>Saintsbury, Professor George, <a href="#page101">101</a></li> +<li>“Scheveningen Avenue,” <a href= +"#page308">308</a></li> +<li>Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#page125">125</a>, <a href= +"#page126">126</a></li> +<li>Shakespeare, William, <a href="#page226">226</a></li> +<li>Shelley, Percy Bysshe, <a href="#page10">10</a></li> +<li>“She walks in beauty, like the night,” <a href= +"#page62">62</a></li> +<li>“She was a phantom of delight,” <a href= +"#page60">60</a>, <a href="#page61">61</a></li> +<li>“Solitary-Hearted, The,” <a href= +"#page74">74</a></li> +<li>“Somewhere or other,” <a href="#page55">55</a></li> +<li>“Song in time of Revolution, A,” <a href= +"#page258">258</a>, <a href="#page259">259</a></li> +<li>“Song of Hiawatha, The,” <a href= +"#page228">228</a>, <a href="#page231">231</a>, <a href= +"#page254">254</a>-<a href="#page257">257</a></li> +<li>“Song of Songs,” <a href="#page200">200</a></li> +<li>Spencer, Herbert, <a href="#page18">18</a>, <a href= +"#page116">116</a>, <a href="#page126">126</a>, <a href= +"#page135">135</a>, <a href="#page137">137</a>, <a href= +"#page142">142</a>, <a href="#page143">143</a></li> +<li>“Stay near me, do not take thy flight” <a href= +"#page165">165</a></li> +<li>Stetson, Charlotte Perkins, <a href="#page187">187</a></li> +<li>Stevenson, Robert Louis, <a href="#page10">10</a></li> +<li>“Story of Burnt Njal, The,” <a href= +"#page7">7</a></li> +<li>“Studies in Greek Poets,” <a href= +"#page77">77</a></li> +<li>“Such Kings of shreds have wooed and won her,” +<a href="#page83">83</a></li> +<li>“Sudden Light,” <a href="#page30">30</a></li> +<li>Sully-Prudhomme, René, François Armande, <a href= +"#page87">87</a></li> +<li>“Summum Bonum,” <a href="#page71">71</a></li> +<li>Swinburne, Algernon Charles, <a href="#page254">254</a>, +<a href="#page258">258</a>, <a href="#page259">259</a></li> +<li>Symonds, John Addington, <a href="#page47">47</a>, <a href= +"#page77">77</a></li> +<li class="first">Ten Brink, Bernhard Egidius Konrad, <a href= +"#page277">277</a></li> +<li>Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href="#page10">10</a>, +<a href="#page19">19</a>, <a href="#page24">24</a>, <a href= +"#page25">25</a>, <a href="#page36">36</a>, <a href= +"#page47">47</a>, <a href="#page95">95</a>, <a href= +"#page175">175</a>, <a href="#page178">178</a>, <a href= +"#page182">182</a>-<a href="#page184">184</a>, <a href= +"#page226">226</a>, <a href="#page254">254</a>, <a href= +"#page280">280</a>, <a href="#page297">297</a>, <a href= +"#page299">299</a></li> +<li>Tennyson, Frederick, <a href="#page40">40</a>, <a href= +"#page41">41</a></li> +<li>Thackeray, William Makepeace, <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>“The butterfly the ancient Grecians made,” <a href= +"#page163">163</a></li> +<li>Theocritus, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href= +"#page300">300</a>-<a href="#page302">302</a>, <a href= +"#page312">312</a>-<a href="#page324">324</a></li> +<li>“The poetry of earth is never dead,” <a href= +"#page181">181</a></li> +<li>“The thousand painful steps at last are trod,” +<a href="#page82">82</a></li> +<li>“The trembling arm I pressed,” <a href= +"#page43">43</a></li> +<li>“They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were +dead,” <a href="#page296">296</a></li> +<li>“Think not thy wisdom can illume away,” <a href= +"#page81">81</a></li> +<li>Thompson, Maurice, <a href="#page27">27</a>, <a href= +"#page28">28</a></li> +<li>“Thou canst not wave thy staff in air,” <a href= +"#page83">83</a></li> +<li>“To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars,” <a href= +"#page225">225</a></li> +<li>“Two Fragments of Childhood,” <a href= +"#page293">293</a></li> +<li>“Two Voices, The,” <a href="#page175">175</a></li> +<li class="first">“Unknown Eros, The,” <a href= +"#page37">37</a></li> +<li class="first">Vigfusson, Gudbrandt, <a href= +"#page106">106</a></li> +<li>“Voice of the summer wind,” <a href= +"#page183">183</a></li> +<li class="first">Watson, William, <a href="#page81">81</a>, +<a href="#page159">159</a></li> +<li>“When spring grows old,” <a href= +"#page27">27</a></li> +<li>“White Moth, The,” <a href="#page172">172</a></li> +<li>Whittier, John Greenleaf, <a href="#page198">198</a></li> +<li>“Wishes to the Supposed Mistress, <a href= +"#page52">52</a></li> +<li>Wordsworth, William, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href= +"#page60">60</a>, <a href="#page61">61</a>, <a href= +"#page95">95</a>, <a href="#page164">164</a>, <a href= +"#page165">165</a></li> +<li>Wycliffe, John, <a href="#page98">98</a></li> +</ul> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14338 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + 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. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a99db5a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14338 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14338) diff --git a/old/14338-8.txt b/old/14338-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5d597a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14338-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8667 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Books and Habits from the Lectures of +Lafcadio Hearn, by Lafcadio Hearn + +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: Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn + +Author: Lafcadio Hearn + +Release Date: December 13, 2004 [EBook #14338] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOOKS AND HABITS *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Barbara Tozier and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +BOOKS AND HABITS + +_from the lectures of_ + +LAFCADIO HEARN + + + +_Selected and Edited with an Introduction by_ + +JOHN ERSKINE + +_Professor of English Columbia University_ + + + +1922 + +London: William Heinemann + + + + + [Transcriber's note: Contents moved to precede the Introduction.] + +CONTENTS + + INTRODUCTION + I THE INSUPERABLE DIFFICULTY + II ON LOVE IN ENGLISH POETRY + III THE IDEAL WOMAN IN ENGLISH POETRY + IV NOTE UPON THE SHORTEST FORMS OF ENGLISH POETRY + V SOME FOREIGN POEMS ON JAPANESE SUBJECTS + VI THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE + VII THE "HAVAMAL" + VIII BEYOND MAN + IX THE NEW ETHICS + X SOME POEMS ABOUT INSECTS + XI SOME FRENCH POEMS ABOUT INSECTS + XII NOTE ON THE INFLUENCE OF FINNISH POETRY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE + XIII THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ROMANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES + XIV "IONICA" + XV OLD GREEK FRAGMENTS + INDEX + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +These chapters, for the most part, are reprinted from Lafcadio Hearn's +"Interpretations of Literature," 1915, from his "Life and Literature," +1916, and from his "Appreciations of Poetry," 1917. Three chapters appear +here for the first time. They are all taken from the student notes of +Hearn's lectures at the University of Tokyo, 1896-1902, sufficiently +described in the earlier volumes just mentioned. They are now published in +this regrouping in response to a demand for a further selection of the +lectures, in a less expensive volume and with emphasis upon those papers +which illustrate Hearn's extraordinary ability to interpret the exotic in +life and in books. + +It should be remembered that these lectures were delivered to Japanese +students, and that Hearn's purpose was not only to impart the information +about Western literature usually to be found in our histories and +text-books, but much more to explain to the Oriental mind those +peculiarities of our civilization which might be hard to understand on the +further side of the Pacific Ocean. The lectures are therefore unique, in +that they are the first large attempt by a Western critic to interpret us +to the East. That we shall be deeply concerned in the near future to +continue this interpretation on an even larger scale, no one of us doubts. +We wish we might hope for another genius like Hearn to carry on the work. + +The merit of the chapters printed or reprinted in the present volume seems +to me their power to teach us to imagine our familiar traditions as +foreign and exotic in the eyes of other peoples. We are accustomed, like +every one else, to think of our literature as the final product of other +literatures--as a terminal in itself, rather than as a channel through +which great potentialities might flow. Like other men, we are accustomed +to think of ourselves as native, under all circumstances, and of other +people at all times as foreign. While we were staying in their country, +did we not think of the French as foreigners? In these chapters, not +originally intended for us, we have the piquant and salutary experience of +seeing what we look like on at least one occasion when we are the +foreigners; we catch at least a glimpse of what to the Orient seems exotic +in us, and it does us no harm to observe that the peculiarly Western +aspects of our culture are not self-justifying nor always justifiable when +looked at through eyes not already disposed in their favour. Hearn was one +of the most loyal advocates the West could possibly have sent to the East, +but he was an honest artist, and he never tried to improve his case by +trimming a fact. His interpretation of us, therefore, touches our +sensitiveness in regions--and in a degree--which perhaps his Japanese +students were unconscious of; we too marvel as well as they at his skill +in explaining, but we are sensitive to what he found necessary to explain. +We read less for the explanation than for the inventory of ourselves. + +Any interpretation of life which looks closely to the facts will probably +increase our sense of mystery and of strangeness in common things. If on +the other hand it is a theory of experience which chiefly interests us, we +may divert our attention somewhat from the experience to the theory, +leaving the world as humdrum as it was before we explained it. In that +case we must seek the exotic in remote places and in exceptional +conditions, if we are to observe it at all. But Lafcadio Hearn cultivated +in himself and taught his students to cultivate a quick alertness to those +qualities of life to which we are usually dulled by habit. Education as he +conceived of it had for its purpose what Pater says is the end of +philosophy, to rouse the human spirit, to startle it into sharp and eager +observation. It is a sign that dulness is already spreading in us, if we +must go far afield for the stimulating, the wondrous, the miraculous. The +growing sensitiveness of a sound education would help us to distinguish +these qualities of romance in the very heart of our daily life. To have so +distinguished them is in my opinion the felicity of Hearn in these +chapters. When he was writing of Japan for European or American readers, +we caught easily enough the exotic atmosphere of the island +kingdom--easily enough, since it was the essence of a world far removed +from ours. The exotic note is quite as strong in these chapters. We shall +begin to appreciate Hearn's genius when we reflect that here he finds for +us the exotic in ourselves. + +The first three chapters deal from different standpoints with the same +subject--the characteristic of Western civilization which to the East is +most puzzling, our attitude toward women. Hearn attempted in other essays +also to do full justice to this fascinating theme, but these illustrations +are typical of his method. To the Oriental it is strange to discover a +civilization in which the love of husband and wife altogether supersedes +the love of children for their parents, yet this is the civilization he +will meet in English and in most Western literatures. He can understand +the love of individual women, as we understand the love of individual men, +but he will not easily understand our worship of women as a sex, our +esteem of womankind, our chivalry, our way of taking woman as a religion. +How difficult, then, will he find such a poem as Tennyson's "Princess," or +most English novels. He will wonder why the majority of all Western +stories are love stories, and why in English literature the love story +takes place before marriage, whereas in French and other Continental +literatures it usually follows marriage. In Japan marriages are the +concern of the parents; with us they are the concern of the lovers, who +must choose their mates in competition more or less open with other +suitors. No wonder the rivalries and the precarious technique of +love-making are with us an obsession quite exotic to the Eastern mind. But +the Japanese reader, if he would understand us, must also learn how it is +that we have two ways of reckoning with love--a realistic way, which +occupies itself in portraying sex, the roots of the tree, as Hearn says, +and the idealistic way, which tries to fix and reproduce the beautiful +illusion of either happy or unhappy passion. And if the Japanese reader +has learned enough of our world to understand all this, he must yet +visualize our social system more clearly perhaps than most of us see it, +if he would know why so many of our love poems are addressed to the woman +we have not yet met. When we begin to sympathize with him in his efforts +to grasp the meaning of our literature, we are at last awakened ourselves +to some notion of what our civilization means, and as Hearn guides us +through the discipline, we realize an exotic quality in things which +formerly we took for granted. + +Lecturing before the days of Imagism, before the attention of many +American poets had been turned to Japanese art, Hearn recognized the +scarcity in our literature of those short forms of verse in which the +Greeks as well as the Japanese excel. The epigram with us is--or was until +recently--a classical tradition, based on the brief inscriptions of the +Greek anthology or on the sharp satires of Roman poetry; we had no native +turn for the form as an expression of our contemporary life. Since Hearn +gave his very significant lecture we have discovered for ourselves an +American kind of short poem, witty rather than poetic, and few verse-forms +are now practised more widely among us. Hearn spoke as a prophet or as a +shrewd observer--which is the same thing--when he pointed out the +possibility of development in this field of brevity. He saw that Japan was +closer to the Greek world in this practice than we were, and that our +indifference to the shorter forms constituted a peculiarity which we could +hardly defend. He saw, also, in the work of Heredia, how great an +influence Japanese painting might have on Western literature, even on +those poets who had no other acquaintance with Japan. In this point also +his observation has proved prophetic; the new poets in America have +adopted Japan, as they have adopted Greece, as a literary theme, and it is +somewhat exclusively from the fine arts of either country that they draw +their idea of its life. + +The next chapters which are brought together here, consider the origin and +the nature of English and European ethics. Hearn was an artist to the +core, and as a writer he pursued with undivided purpose that beauty which, +as Keats reminded us, is truth. In his creative moments he was a +beauty-lover, not a moralist. But when he turned critic he at once +stressed the cardinal importance of ethics in the study of literature. The +art which strives to end in beauty will reveal even more clearly than more +complex forms of expression the personality of the artist, and personality +is a matter of character, and character both governs the choice of an +ethical system and is modified by it. Literary criticism as Hearn +practised it is little interested in theology or in the system of morals +publicly professed; it is, however, profoundly concerned with the ethical +principles upon which the artist actually proceeds, the directions in +which his impulses assert themselves, the verdicts of right and wrong +which his temperament pronounces unconsciously, it may be. Here is the +true revelation of character, Hearn thinks, even though our habitual and +instinctive ethics may differ widely from the ethics we quite sincerely +profess. Whether we know it or not, we are in such matters the children of +some educational or philosophical system, which, preached at our ancestors +long ago, has come at last to envelop us with the apparent naturalness of +the air we breathe. It is a spiritual liberation of the first order, to +envisage such an atmosphere as what it truly is, only a system of ethics +effectively inculcated, and to compare the principles we live by with +those we thought we lived by. Hearn was contriving illumination for the +Japanese when he made his great lecture on the "Havamal," identifying in +the ancient Northern poem those precepts which laid down later qualities +of English character; for the Oriental reader it would be easier to +identify the English traits in Thackeray or Dickens or Meredith if he +could first consider them in a dogmatic precept. But the lecture gives us, +I think, an extraordinary insight into ourselves, a power of +self-criticism almost disconcerting as we realize not only the persistence +of ethical ideals in the past, but also the possible career of new ethical +systems as they may permeate the books written to-day. To what standard +will the reader of our contemporary literature be unconsciously moulded? +What account will be given of literature a thousand years from now, when a +later critic informs himself of our ethics in order to understand more +vitally the pages in which he has been brought up? + +Partly to inform his Japanese students still further as to our ethical +tendencies in literature, and partly I think to indulge his own +speculation as to the morality that will be found in the literature of the +future, Hearn gave his remarkable lectures on the ant-world, following +Fabre and other European investigators, and his lecture on "The New +Ethics." When he spoke, over twenty years ago, the socialistic ideal had +not gripped us so effectually as it has done in the last decade, but he +had no difficulty in observing the tendency. Civilization in some later +cycle may wonder at our ambition to abandon individual liberty and +responsibility and to subside into the social instincts of the ant; and +even as it wonders, that far-off civilization may detect in itself +ant-like reactions which we cultivated for it. With this description of +the ant-world it is illuminating to read the two brilliant chapters on +English and French poems about insects. Against this whole background of +ethical theory, I have ventured to set Hearn's singularly objective +account of the Bible. + +In the remaining four chapters Hearn speaks of the "Kalevala," of the +medięval romance "Amis and Amile," of William Cory's "Ionica," and of +Theocritus. These chapters deal obviously with literary influences which +have become part and parcel of English poetry, yet which remain exotic to +it, if we keep in mind the Northern stock which still gives character, +ethical and otherwise, to the English tradition. The "Kalevala," which +otherwise should seem nearest to the basic qualities of our poetry, is +almost unique, as Hearn points out, in the extent of its preoccupation +with enchantments and charms, with the magic of words. "Amis and Amile," +which otherwise ought to seem more foreign to us, is strangely close in +its glorification of friendship; for chivalry left with us at least this +one great ethical feeling, that to keep faith in friendship is a holy +thing. No wonder Amicus and Amelius were popular saints. The story implies +also, as it falls here in the book, some illustration of those unconscious +or unconsidered ethical reactions which, as we saw in the chapter on the +"Havamal," have a lasting influence on our ideals and on our conduct. + +Romanticist though he was, Hearn constantly sought the romance in the +highway of life, the aspects of experience which seem to perpetuate +themselves from age to age, compelling literature to reassert them under +whatever changes of form. To one who has followed the large mass of his +lectures it is not surprising that he emphasized those ethical positions +which are likely to remain constant, in spite of much new philosophy, nor +that he constantly recurred to such books as Cory's "Ionica," or Lang's +translation of Theocritus, in which he found statements of enduring human +attitudes. To him the Greek mind made a double appeal. Not only did it +represent to him the best that has yet been thought or said in the world, +but by its fineness and its maturity it seemed kindred to the spirit he +found in ancient Japan. Lecturing to Japanese students on Greek poetry as +it filters through English paraphrases and translations, he must have felt +sometimes as we now feel in reading his lectures, that in his teaching the +long migration of the world's culture was approaching the end of the +circuit, and that the earliest apparition of the East known to most of us +was once more arriving at its starting place, mystery returning to +mystery, and its path at all points mysterious if we rightly observe the +miracle of the human spirit. + + + + + +BOOKS AND HABITS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE INSUPERABLE DIFFICULTY + + +I wish to speak of the greatest difficulty with which the Japanese +students of English literature, or of almost any Western literature, have +to contend. I do not think that it ever has been properly spoken about. A +foreign teacher might well hesitate to speak about, it--because, if he +should try to explain it merely from the Western point of view, he could +not hope to be understood; and if he should try to speak about it from the +Japanese point of view, he would be certain to make various mistakes and +to utter various extravagances. The proper explanation might be given by a +Japanese professor only, who should have so intimate an acquaintance with +Western life as to sympathize with it. Yet I fear that it would be +difficult to find such a Japanese professor for this reason, that just in +proportion as he should find himself in sympathy with Western life, in +that proportion he would become less and less able to communicate that +sympathy to his students. The difficulties are so great that it has taken +me many years even to partly guess how great they are. That they can be +removed at the present day is utterly out of the question. But something +may be gained by stating them even imperfectly. At the risk of making +blunders and uttering extravagances, I shall make the attempt. I am +impelled to do so by a recent conversation with one of the cleverest +students that I ever had, who acknowledged his total inability to +understand some of the commonest facts in Western life,--all those facts +relating, directly or indirectly, to the position of woman in Western +literature as reflecting Western life. + +Let us clear the ground it once by putting down some facts in the plainest +and lowest terms possible. You must try to imagine a country in which the +place of the highest virtue is occupied, so to speak, by the devotion of +sex to sex. The highest duty of the man is not to his father, but to his +wife; and for the sake of that woman he abandons all other earthly ties, +should any of these happen to interfere with that relation. The first duty +of the wife may be, indeed, must be, to her child, when she has one; but +otherwise her husband is her divinity and king. In that country it would +be thought unnatural or strange to have one's parents living in the same +house with wife or husband. You know all this. But it does not explain for +you other things, much more difficult to understand, especially the +influence of the abstract idea of woman upon society at large as well as +upon the conduct of the individual. The devotion of man to woman does not +mean at all only the devotion of husband to wife. It means actually +this,--that every man is bound by conviction and by opinion to put all +women before himself, simply because they are women. I do not mean that +any man is likely to think of any woman as being his intellectual and +physical superior; but I do mean that he is bound to think of her as +something deserving and needing the help of every man. In time of danger +the woman must be saved first. In time of pleasure, the woman must be +given the best place. In time of hardship the woman's share of the common +pain must be taken voluntarily by the man as much as possible. This is not +with any view to recognition of the kindness shown. The man who assists a +woman in danger is not supposed to have any claim upon her for that +reason. He has done his duty only, not to her, the individual, but to +womankind at large. So we have arrived at this general fact, that the +first place in all things, except rule, is given to woman in Western +countries, and that it is given almost religiously. + +Is woman a religion? Well, perhaps you will have the chance of judging for +yourselves if you go to America. There you will find men treating women +with just the same respect formerly accorded only to religious dignitaries +or to great nobles. Everywhere they are saluted and helped to the best +places; everywhere they are treated as superior beings. Now if we find +reverence, loyalty and all kinds of sacrifices devoted either to a human +being or to an image, we are inclined to think of worship. And worship it +is. If a Western man should hear me tell you this, he would want the +statement qualified, unless he happened to be a philosopher. But I am +trying to put the facts before you in the way in which you can best +understand them. Let me say, then, that the all-important thing for the +student of English literature to try to understand, is that in Western +countries woman is a cult, a religion, or if you like still plainer +language, I shall say that in Western countries woman is a god. + +So much for the abstract idea of woman. Probably you will not find that +particularly strange; the idea is not altogether foreign to Eastern +thought, and there are very extensive systems of feminine pantheism in +India. Of course the Western idea is only in the romantic sense a feminine +pantheism; but the Oriental idea may serve to render it more +comprehensive. The ideas of divine Mother and divine Creator may be +studied in a thousand forms; I am now referring rather to the sentiment, +to the feeling, than to the philosophical conception. + +You may ask, if the idea or sentiment of divinity attaches to woman in the +abstract, what about woman in the concrete--individual woman? Are women +individually considered as gods? Well, that depends on how you define the +word god. The following definition would cover the ground, I think:--"Gods +are beings superior to man, capable of assisting or injuring him, and to +be placated by sacrifice and prayer." Now according to this definition, I +think that the attitude of man towards woman in Western countries might be +very well characterized as a sort of worship. In the upper classes of +society, and in the middle classes also, great reverence towards women is +exacted. Men bow down before them, make all kinds of sacrifices to please +them, beg for their good will and their assistance. It does not matter +that this sacrifice is not in the shape of incense burning or of temple +offerings; nor does it matter that the prayers are of a different kind +from those pronounced in churches. There is sacrifice and worship. And no +saying is more common, no truth better known, than that the man who hopes +to succeed in life must be able to please the women. Every young man who +goes into any kind of society knows this. It is one of the first lessons +that he has to learn. Well, am I very wrong in saying that the attitude of +men towards women in the West is much like the attitude of men towards +gods? + +But you may answer at once,--How comes it, if women are thus reverenced as +you say, that men of the lower classes beat and ill-treat their wives in +those countries? I must reply, for the same reason that Italian and +Spanish sailors will beat and abuse the images of the saints and virgins +to whom they pray, when their prayer is not granted. It is quite possible +to worship an image sincerely and to seek vengeance upon it in a moment of +anger. The one feeling does not exclude the other. What in the higher +classes may be a religion, in the lower classes may be only a +superstition, and strange contradictions exist, side by side, in all forms +of superstition. Certainly the Western working man or peasant does not +think about his wife or his neighbour's wife in the reverential way that +the man of the superior class does. But you will find, if you talk to +them, that something of the reverential idea is there; it is there at +least during their best moments. + +Now there is a certain exaggeration in what I have said. But that is only +because of the somewhat narrow way in which I have tried to express a +truth. I am anxious to give you the idea that throughout the West there +exists, though with a difference according to class and culture, a +sentiment about women quite as reverential as a sentiment of religion. +This is true; and not to understand it, is not to understand Western +literature. + +How did it come into existence? Through many causes, some of which are so +old that we can not know anything about them. This feeling did not belong +to the Greek and Roman civilization but it belonged to the life of the old +Northern races who have since spread over the world, planting their ideas +everywhere. In the oldest Scandinavian literature you will find that women +were thought of and treated by the men of the North very much as they are +thought of and treated by Englishmen of to-day. You will find what their +power was in the old sagas, such as the Njal-Saga, or "The Story of Burnt +Njal." But we must go much further than the written literature to get a +full knowledge of the origin of such a sentiment. The idea seems to have +existed that woman was semi-divine, because she was the mother, the +creator of man. And we know that she was credited among the Norsemen with +supernatural powers. But upon this Northern foundation there was built up +a highly complex fabric of romantic and artistic sentiment. The Christian +worship of the Virgin Mary harmonized with the Northern belief. The +sentiment of chivalry reinforced it. Then came the artistic resurrection +of the Renaissance, and the new reverence for the beauty of the old Greek +gods, and the Greek traditions of female divinities; these also coloured +and lightened the old feeling about womankind. Think also of the effect +with which literature, poetry and the arts have since been cultivating and +developing the sentiment. Consider how the great mass of Western poetry is +love poetry, and the greater part of Western fiction love stories. + +Of course the foregoing is only the vaguest suggestion of a truth. Really +my object is not to trouble you at all about the evolutional history of +the sentiment, but only to ask you to think what this sentiment means in +literature. I am not asking you to sympathize with it, but if you could +sympathize with it you would understand a thousand things in Western books +which otherwise must remain dim and strange. I am not expecting that you +can sympathize with it. But it is absolutely necessary that you should +understand its relation to language and literature. Therefore I have to +tell you that you should try to think of it as a kind of religion, a +secular, social, artistic religion, not to be confounded with any national +religion. It is a kind of race feeling or race creed. It has not +originated in any sensuous idea, but in some very ancient superstitious +idea. Nearly all forms of the highest sentiment and the highest faith and +the highest art have had their beginnings in equally humble soil. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ON LOVE IN ENGLISH POETRY + + +I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the +Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance +given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry. Indeed, by +this time I have begun to feel a little astonished at it myself. Of +course, before I came to this country it seemed to me quite natural that +love should be the chief subject of literature; because I did not know +anything about any other kind of society except Western society. But +to-day it really seems to me a little strange. If it seems strange to me, +how much more ought it to seem strange to you! Of course, the simple +explanation of the fact is that marriage is the most important act of +man's life in Europe or America, and that everything depends upon it. It +is quite different on this side of the world. But the simple explanation +of the difference is not enough. There are many things to be explained. +Why should not only the novel writers but all the poets make love the +principal subject of their work? I never knew, because I never thought, +how much English literature was saturated with the subject of love until I +attempted to make selections of poetry and prose for class use--naturally +endeavouring to select such pages or poems as related to other subjects +than passion. Instead of finding a good deal of what I was looking for, I +could find scarcely anything. The great prose writers, outside of the +essay or history, are nearly all famous as tellers of love stories. And it +is almost impossible to select half a dozen stanzas of classic verse from +Tennyson or Rossetti or Browning or Shelley or Byron, which do not contain +anything about kissing, embracing, or longing for some imaginary or real +beloved. Wordsworth, indeed, is something of an exception; and Coleridge +is most famous for a poem which contains nothing at all about love. But +exceptions do not affect the general rule that love is the theme of +English poetry, as it is also of French, Italian, Spanish, or German +poetry. It is the dominant motive. + +So with the English novelists. There have been here also a few +exceptions--such as the late Robert Louis Stevenson, most of whose novels +contain little about women; they are chiefly novels or romances of +adventure. But the exceptions are very few. At the present time there are +produced almost every year in England about a thousand new novels, and all +of these or nearly all are love stories. To write a novel without a woman +in it would be a dangerous undertaking; in ninety-nine cases out of a +hundred the book would not sell. + +Of course all this means that the English people throughout the world, as +readers, are chiefly interested in the subject under discussion. When you +find a whole race interested more in one thing than in anything else, you +may be sure that it is so because the subject is of paramount importance +in the life of the average person. You must try to imagine then, a society +in which every man must choose his wife, and every woman must choose her +husband, independent of all outside help, and not only choose but obtain +if possible. The great principle of Western society is that competition +rules here as it rules in everything else. The best man--that is to say, +the strongest and cleverest--is likely to get the best woman, in the sense +of the most beautiful person. The weak, the feeble, the poor, and the ugly +have little chance of being able to marry at all. Tens of thousands of men +and women can not possibly marry. I am speaking of the upper and middle +classes. The working people, the peasants, the labourers, these marry +young; but the competition there is just the same--just as difficult, and +only a little rougher. So it may be said that every man has a struggle of +some kind in order to marry, and that there is a kind of fight or contest +for the possession of every woman worth having. Taking this view of +Western society not only in England but throughout all Europe, you will +easily be able to see why the Western public have reason to be more +interested in literature which treats of love than in any other kind of +literature. + +But although the conditions that I have been describing are about the same +in all Western countries, the tone of the literature which deals with love +is not at all the same. There are very great differences. In prose they +are much more serious than in poetry; because in all countries a man is +allowed, by public opinion, more freedom in verse than in prose. Now these +differences in the way of treating the subject in different countries +really indicate national differences of character. Northern love stories +and Northern poetry about love are very serious; and these authors are +kept within fixed limits. Certain subjects are generally forbidden. For +example, the English public wants novels about love, but the love must be +the love of a girl who is to become somebody's wife. The rule in the +English novel is to describe the pains, fears, and struggles of the period +before marriage--the contest in the world for the right of marriage. A man +must not write a novel about any other point of love. Of course there are +plenty of authors who have broken this rule but the rule still exists. A +man may represent a contest between two women, one good and one bad, but +if the bad woman is allowed to conquer in the story, the public will +growl. This English fashion has existed since the eighteenth century. +since the time of Richardson, and is likely to last for generations to +come. + +Now this is not the rule at all which governs making of novels in France. +French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and +to lovers, after marriage; consequently there is a great deal in French +novels about adultery, about improper relations between the sexes, about +many things which the English public would not allow. This does not mean +that the English are morally a better people than the French or other +Southern races. But it does mean that there are great differences in the +social conditions. One such difference can be very briefly expressed. An +English girl, an American girl, a Norwegian, a Dane, a Swede, is allowed +all possible liberty before marriage. The girl is told, "You must be able +to take care of yourself, and not do wrong." After marriage there is no +more such liberty. After marriage in all Northern countries a woman's +conduct is strictly watched. But in France, and in Southern countries, the +young girl has no liberty before marriage. She is always under the guard +of her brother, her father, her mother, or some experienced relation. She +is accompanied wherever she walks. She is not allowed to see her betrothed +except in the presence of witnesses. But after marriage her liberty +begins. Then she is told for the first time that she must take care of +herself. Well, you will see that the conditions which inspire the novels, +in treating of the subjects of love and marriage, are very different in +Northern and in Southern Europe. For this reason alone the character of +the novel produced in England could not be the same. + +You must remember, however, that there are many other reasons for this +difference--reasons of literary sentiment. The Southern or Latin races +have been civilized for a much longer time than the Northern races; they +have inherited the feelings of the ancient world, the old Greek and Roman +world, and they think still about the relation of the sexes in very much +the same way that the ancient poets and romance writers used to think. And +they can do things which English writers can not do, because their +language has power of more delicate expression. + +We may say that the Latin writers still speak of love in very much the +same way that it was considered before Christianity. But when I speak of +Christianity I am only referring to an historical date. Before +Christianity the Northern races also thought about love very much in the +same way that their best poets do at this day. The ancient Scandinavian +literature would show this. The Viking, the old sea-pirate, felt very much +as Tennyson or as Meredith would feel upon this subject; he thought of +only one kind of love as real--that which ends in marriage, the affection +between husband and wife. Anything else was to him mere folly and +weakness. Christianity did not change his sentiment on this subject. The +modern Englishman, Swede, Dane, Norwegian, or German regards love in +exactly that deep, serious, noble way that his pagan ancestors did. I +think we can say that different races have differences of feeling on +sexual relations, which differences are very much older than any written +history. They are in the blood and soul of a people, and neither religion +nor civilization can utterly change them. + +So far I have been speaking particularly about the differences in English +and French novels; and a novel is especially a reflection of national +life, a kind of dramatic narration of truth, in the form of a story. But +in poetry, which is the highest form of literature, the difference is much +more observable. We find the Latin poets of to-day writing just as freely +on the subject of love as the old Latin poets of the age of Augustus, +while Northern poets observe with few exceptions great restraint when +treating of this theme. Now where is the line to be drawn? Are the Latins +right? Are the English right? How are we to make a sharp distinction +between what is moral and good and what is immoral and bad in treating +love-subjects? + +Some definition must be attempted. + +What is meant by love? As used by Latin writers the word has a range of +meanings, from that of the sexual relation between insects or animals up +to the highest form of religious emotion, called "The love of God." I need +scarcely say that this definition is too loose for our use. The English +word, by general consent, means both sexual passion and deep friendship. +This again is a meaning too wide for our purpose. By putting the adjective +"true" before love, some definition is attempted in ordinary conversation. +When an Englishman speaks of "true love," he usually means something that +has no passion at all; he means a perfect friendship which grows up +between man and wife and which has nothing to do with the passion which +brought the pair together. But when the English poet speaks of love, he +generally means passion, not friendship. I am only stating very general +rules. You see how confusing the subject is, how difficult to define the +matter. Let us leave the definition alone for a moment, and consider the +matter philosophically. + +Some very foolish persons have attempted even within recent years to make +a classification of different kinds of love--love between the sexes. They +talk about romantic love, and other such things. All that is utter +nonsense. In the meaning of sexual affection there is only one kind of +love, the natural attraction of one sex for them other; and the only +difference in the highest for of this attraction and the lowest is this, +that in the nobler nature a vast number of moral, aesthetic, and ethical +sentiments are related to the passion, and that in lower natures those +sentiments are absent. Therefore we may say that even in the highest forms +of the sentiment there is only one dominant feeling, complex though it be, +the desire for possession. What follows the possession we may call love if +we please; but it might better be called perfect friendship and sympathy. +It is altogether a different thing. The love that is the theme of poets in +all countries is really love, not the friendship that grows out of it. + +I suppose you know that the etymological meaning of "passion" is "a state +of suffering." In regard to love, the word has particular significance to +the Western mind, for it refers to the time of struggle and doubt and +longing before the object is attained. Now how much of this passion is a +legitimate subject of literary art? + +The difficulty may, I think, be met by remembering the extraordinary +character of the mental phenomena which manifest themselves in the time of +passion. There is during that time a strange illusion, an illusion so +wonderful that it has engaged the attention of great philosophers for +thousands of years; Plato, you know, tried to explain it in a very famous +theory. I mean the illusion that seems to charm, or rather, actually does +charm the senses of a man at a certain time. To his eye a certain face has +suddenly become the most beautiful object in the world. To his ears the +accents of one voice become the sweetest of all music. Reason has nothing +to do with this, and reason has no power against the enchantment. Out of +Nature's mystery, somehow or other, this strange magic suddenly +illuminates the senses of a man; then vanishes again, as noiselessly as it +came. It is a very ghostly thing, and can not be explained by any theory +not of a very ghostly kind. Even Herbert Spencer has devoted his reasoning +to a new theory about it. I need not go further in this particular than to +tell you that in a certain way passion is now thought to have something to +do with other lives than the present; in short, it is a kind of organic +memory of relations that existed in thousands and tens of thousands of +former states of being. Right or wrong though the theories may be, this +mysterious moment of love, the period of this illusion, is properly the +subject of high poetry, simply because it is the most beautiful and the +most wonderful experience of a human life. And why? + +Because in the brief time of such passion the very highest and finest +emotions of which human nature is capable are brought into play. In that +time more than at any other hour in life do men become unselfish, +unselfish at least toward one human being. Not only unselfishness but +self-sacrifice is a desire peculiar to the period. The young man in love +is not merely willing to give away everything that he possesses to the +person beloved; he wishes to suffer pain, to meet danger, to risk his life +for her sake. Therefore Tennyson, in speaking of that time, beautifully +said: + + Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might, + Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. + +Unselfishness is, of course, a very noble feeling, independently of the +cause. But this is only one of the emotions of a higher class when +powerfully aroused. There is pity, tenderness--the same kind of tenderness +that one feels toward a child--the love of the helpless, the desire to +protect. And a third sentiment felt at such a time more strongly than at +any other, is the sentiment of duty; responsibilities moral and social are +then comprehended in a totally new way. Surely none can dispute these +facts nor the beauty of them. + +Moral sentiments are the highest of all; but next to them the sentiment of +beauty in itself, the artistic feeling, is also a very high form of +intellectual and even of secondary moral experience. Scientifically there +is a relation between the beautiful and the good, between the physically +perfect and the ethically perfect. Of course it is not absolute. There is +nothing absolute in this world. But the relation exists. Whoever can +comprehend the highest form of one kind of beauty must be able to +comprehend something of the other. I know very well that the ideal of the +love-season is an illusion; in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of +the thousand the beauty of the woman is only imagined. But does that make +any possible difference? I do not think that it does. To imagine beauty is +really to see it--not objectively, perhaps, but subjectively beyond all +possibility of doubt. Though you see the beauty only in your mind, in your +mind it is; and in your mind its ethical influence must operate. During +the time that a man worships even imaginary bodily beauty, he receives +some secret glimpse of a higher kind of beauty--beauty of heart and mind. +Was there ever in this world a real lover who did not believe the woman of +his choice to be not only the most beautiful of mortals, but also the best +in a moral sense? I do not think that there ever was. + +The moral and the ethical sentiments of a being thus aroused call into +sudden action all the finer energies of the man--the capacities for +effort, for heroism, for high-pressure work of any sort, mental or +physical, for all that requires quickness in thought and exactitude in +act. There is for the time being a sense of new power. Anything that makes +strong appeal to the best exercise of one's faculties is beneficent and, +in most cases, worthy of reverence. Indeed, it is in the short season of +which I am speaking that we always discover the best of everything in the +character of woman or of man. In that period the evil qualities, the +ungenerous side, is usually kept as much out of sight as possible. + +Now for all these suggested reasons, as for many others which might be +suggested, the period of illusion in love is really the period which poets +and writers of romance are naturally justified in describing. Can they go +beyond it with safety, with propriety? That depends very much upon whether +they go up or down. By going up I mean keeping within the region of moral +idealism. By going down I mean descending to the level of merely animal +realism. In this realism there is nothing deserving the highest effort of +art of any sort. + +What is the object of art? Is it not, or should it not be, to make us +imagine better conditions than that which at present exist in the world, +and by so imagining to prepare the way for the coming of such conditions? +I think that all great art has done this. Do you remember the old story +about Greek mothers keeping in their rooms the statue of a god or a man, +more beautiful than anything real, so that their imagination might be +constantly influenced by the sight of beauty, and that they might perhaps +be able to bring more beautiful children into the world? Among the Arabs, +mothers also do something of this kind, only, as they have no art of +imagery, they go to Nature herself for the living image. Black luminous +eyes are beautiful, and wives keep in their tents a little deer, the +gazelle, which is famous for the brilliancy and beauty of its eyes. By +constantly looking at this charming pet the Arab wife hopes to bring into +the world some day a child with eyes as beautiful as the eyes of the +gazelle. Well, the highest function of art ought to do for us, or at least +for the world, what the statue and the gazelle were expected to do for +Grecian and Arab mothers--to make possible higher conditions than the +existing ones. + +So much being said, consider again the place and the meaning of the +passion of love in any human life. It is essentially a period of idealism, +of imagining better things and conditions than are possible in this world. +For everybody who has been in love has imagined something higher than the +possible and the present. Any idealism is a proper subject for art. It is +not at all the same in the case of realism. Grant that all this passion, +imagination, and fine sentiment is based upon a very simple animal +impulse. That does not make the least difference in the value of the +highest results of that passion. We might say the very same thing about +any human emotion; every emotion can be evolutionally traced back to +simple and selfish impulses shared by man with the lower animals. But, +because an apple tree or a pear tree happens to have its roots in the +ground, does that mean that its fruits are not beautiful and wholesome? +Most assuredly we must not judge the fruit of the tree from the unseen +roots; but what about turning up the ground to look at the roots? What +becomes of the beauty of the tree when you do that? The realist--at least +the French realist--likes to do that. He likes to bring back the attention +of his reader to the lowest rather than to the highest, to that which +should be kept hidden, for the very same reason that the roots of a tree +should be kept underground if the tree is to live. + +The time of illusion, then, is the beautiful moment of passion; it +represents the artistic zone in which the poet or romance writer ought to +be free to do the very best that he can. He may go beyond that zone; but +then he has only two directions in which he can travel. Above it there is +religion, and an artist may, like Dante, succeed in transforming love into +a sentiment of religious ecstasy. I do not think that any artist could do +that to-day; this is not an age of religious ecstasy. But upwards there is +no other way to go. Downwards the artist may travel until he finds himself +in hell. Between the zone of idealism and the brutality of realism there +are no doubt many gradations. I am only indicating what I think to be an +absolute truth, that in treating of love the literary master should keep +to the period of illusion, and that to go below it is a dangerous +undertaking. And now, having tried to make what are believed to be proper +distinctions between great literature on this subject and all that is not +great, we may begin to study a few examples. I am going to select at +random passages from English poets and others, illustrating my meaning. + +Tennyson is perhaps the most familiar to you among poets of our own time; +and he has given a few exquisite examples of the ideal sentiment in +passion. One is a concluding verse in the beautiful song that occurs in +the monodrama of "Maud," where the lover, listening in the garden, hears +the steps of his beloved approaching. + + She is coming, my own, my sweet, + Were it ever so airy a tread, + My heart would hear her and beat, + Were it earth in an earthy bed; + My dust would hear her and beat, + Had I lain for a century dead; + Would start and tremble under her feet, + And blossom in purple and red. + +This is a very fine instance of the purely idea emotion--extravagant, if +you like, in the force of the imagery used, but absolutely sincere and +true; for the imagination of love is necessarily extravagant. It would be +quite useless to ask whether the sound of a girl's footsteps could really +waken a dead man; we know that love can fancy such things quite naturally, +not in one country only but everywhere. An Arabian poem written long +before the time of Mohammed contains exactly the same thought in simpler +words; and I think that there are some old Japanese songs containing +something similar. All that the statement really means is that the voice, +the look, the touch, even the footstep of the woman beloved have come to +possess for the lover a significance as great as life and death. For the +moment he knows no other divinity; she is his god, in the sense that her +power over him has become infinite and irresistible. + +The second example may be furnished from another part of the same +composition--the little song of exaltation after the promise to marry has +been given. + + O let the solid ground + Not fail beneath my feet + Before my life has found + What some have found so sweet; + Then let come what come may, + What matter if I go mad, + I shall have had my day. + + Let the sweet heavens endure, + Not close and darken above me + Before I am quite, quite sure + That there is one to love me; + Then let come what come may + To a life that has been so sad, + I shall have had my day. + +The feeling of the lover is that no matter what happens afterwards, the +winning of the woman is enough to pay for life, death, pain, or anything +else. One of the most remarkable phenomena of the illusion is the supreme +indifference to consequences--at least to any consequences which would not +signify moral shame or loss of honour, Of course the poet is supposed to +consider the emotion only in generous natures. But the subject of this +splendid indifference has been more wonderfully treated by Victor Hugo +than by Tennyson--as we shall see later on, when considering another phase +of the emotion. Before doing that, I want to call your attention to a very +charming treatment of love's romance by an American. It is one of the most +delicate of modern compositions, and it is likely to become a classic, as +it has already been printed in four or five different anthologies. The +title is "Atalanta's Race." + +First let me tell you the story of Atalanta, so that you will be better +able to see the fine symbolism of the poem. Atalanta, the daughter of a +Greek king, was not only the most beautiful of maidens, but the swiftest +runner in the world. She passed her time in hunting, and did not wish to +marry. But as many men wanted to marry her, a law was passed that any one +who desired to win her must run a race with her. If he could beat her in +running, then she promised to marry him, but if he lost the race, he was +to be killed. Some say that the man was allowed to run first, and that the +girl followed with a spear in her hand and killed him when she overtook +him. There are different accounts of the contest. Many suitors lost the +race and were killed. But finally young man called Hippomenes obtained +from the Goddess of Love three golden apples, and he was told that if he +dropped these apples while running, the girl would stop to pick them up, +and that in this way he might be able to win the race. So he ran, and when +he found himself about to be beaten, he dropped one apple. She stopped to +pick it up and thus he gained a little. In this way he won the race and +married Atalanta. Greek mythology says that afterwards she and her husband +were turned into lions because they offended the gods; however, that need +not concern us here. There is a very beautiful moral in the old Greek +story, and the merit of the American composition is that its author, +Maurice Thompson, perceived this moral and used it to illustrate a great +philosophical truth. + + When Spring grows old, and sleepy winds + Set from the South with odours sweet, + I see my love, in green, cool groves, + Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet. + She throws a kiss and bids me run, + In whispers sweet as roses' breath; + I know I cannot win the race, + And at the end, I know, is death. + + But joyfully I bare my limbs, + Anoint me with the tropic breeze, + And feel through every sinew run + The vigour of Hippomenes. + + O race of love! we all have run + Thy happy course through groves of Spring, + And cared not, when at last we lost, + For life or death, or anything! + +There are a few thoughts here requiring a little comment. You know that +the Greek games and athletic contests were held in the fairest season, and +that the contestants were stripped. They were also anointed with oil, +partly to protect the skin against sun and temperature and partly to make +the body more supple. The poet speaks of the young man as being anointed +by the warm wind of Spring, the tropic season of life. It is a very pretty +fancy. What he is really telling us is this: + +"There are no more Greek games, but the race of love is still run to-day +as in times gone by; youth is the season, and the atmosphere of youth is +the anointing of the contestant." + +But the moral of the piece is its great charm, the poetical statement of a +beautiful and a wonderful fact. In almost every life there is a time when +we care for only one person, and suffer much for that person's sake; yet +in that period we do not care whether we suffer or die, and in after life, +when we look back at those hours of youth, we wonder at the way in which +we then felt. In European life of to-day the old Greek fable is still +true; almost everybody must run Atalanta's race and abide by the result. + +One of the delightful phases of the illusion of love is the sense of old +acquaintance, the feeling as if the person loved had been known and loved +long ago in some time and place forgotten. I think you must have observed, +many of you, that when the senses of sight and hearing happen to be +strongly stirred by some new and most pleasurable experience, the feeling +of novelty is absent, or almost absent. You do not feel as if you were +seeing or hearing something new, but as if you saw or heard something that +you knew all about very long ago. I remember once travelling with a +Japanese boy into a charming little country town in Shikoku--and scarcely +had we entered the main street, than he cried out: "Oh, I have seen this +place before!" Of course he had not seen it before; he was from Osaka and +had never left the great city until then. But the pleasure of his new +experience had given him this feeling of familiarity with the unfamiliar. +I do not pretend to explain this familiarity with the new--it is a great +mystery still, just as it was a great mystery to the Roman Cicero. But +almost everybody that has been in love has probably had the same feeling +during a moment or two--the feeling "I have known that woman before," +though the where and the when are mysteries. Some of the modern poets have +beautifully treated this feeling. The best example that I can give you is +the exquisite lyric by Rossetti entitled "Sudden Light." + + I have been here before, + But when or how I cannot tell: + I know the grass beyond the door, + The sweet keen smell, + The sighing sound, the lights around the shore. + + You have been mine before,-- + How long ago I may not know: + But just when at that swallow's soar + Your neck turn'd so, + Some veil did fall,--I knew it all of yore. + + Has this been thus before? + And shall not thus time's eddying flight + Still with our lives our loves restore + In death's despite, + And day and night yield one delight once more? + +I think you will acknowledge that this is very pretty; and the same poet +has treated the idea equally well in other poems of a more complicated +kind. But another poet of the period was haunted even more than Rossetti +by this idea--Arthur O'Shaughnessy. Like Rossetti he was a great lover, +and very unfortunate in his love; and he wrote his poems, now famous, out +of the pain and regret that was in his heart, much as singing birds born +in cages are said to sing better when their eyes are put out. Here is one +example: + + Along the garden ways just now + I heard the flowers speak; + The white rose told me of your brow, + The red rose of your cheek; + The lily of your bended head, + The bindweed of your hair: + Each looked its loveliest and said + You were more fair. + + I went into the woods anon, + And heard the wild birds sing + How sweet you were; they warbled on, + Piped, trill'd the self-same thing. + Thrush, blackbird, linnet, without pause + The burden did repeat, + And still began again because + You were more sweet. + + And then I went down to the sea, + And heard it murmuring too, + Part of an ancient mystery, + All made of me and you: + How many a thousand years ago + I loved, and you were sweet-- + Longer I could not stay, and so + I fled back to your feet. + +The last stanza especially expresses the idea that I have been telling you +about; but in a poem entitled "Greater Memory" the idea is much more fully +expressed. By "greater memory" you must understand the memory beyond this +life into past stages of existence. This piece has become a part of the +nineteenth century poetry that will live; and a few of the best stanzas +deserve to be quoted, + + In the heart there lay buried for years + Love's story of passion and tears; + Of the heaven that two had begun + And the horror that tore them apart; + When one was love's slayer, but one + Made a grave for the love in his heart. + + The long years pass'd weary and lone + And it lay there and changed there unknown; + Then one day from its innermost place, + In the shamed and ruin'd love's stead, + Love arose with a glorified face, + Like an angel that comes from the dead. + + It uplifted the stone that was set + On that tomb which the heart held yet; + But the sorrow had moulder'd within + And there came from the long closed door + A dear image, that was not the sin + Or the grief that lay buried before. + + * * * * * + + There was never the stain of a tear + On the face that was ever so dear; + 'Twas the same in each lovelier way; + 'Twas old love's holier part, + And the dream of the earliest day + Brought back to the desolate heart. + + It was knowledge of all that had been + In the thought, in the soul unseen; + 'Twas the word which the lips could not say + To redeem or recover the past. + It was more than was taken away + Which the heart got back at the last. + + The passion that lost its spell, + The rose that died where it fell, + The look that was look'd in vain, + The prayer that seemed lost evermore, + They were found in the heart again, + With all that the heart would restore. + +Put into less mystical language the legend is this: A young man and a +young woman loved each other for a time; then they were separated by some +great wrong--we may suppose the woman was untrue. The man always loved her +memory, in spite of this wrong which she had done. The two died and were +buried; hundreds and hundreds of years they remained buried, and the dust +of them mixed with the dust of the earth. But in the perpetual order of +things, a pure love never can die, though bodies may die and pass away. So +after many generations the pure love which this man had for a bad woman +was born again in the heart of another man--the same, yet not the same. +And the spirit of the woman that long ago had done the wrong, also found +incarnation again; and the two meeting, are drawn to each other by what +people call love, but what is really Greater Memory, the recollection of +past lives. But now all is happiness for them, because the weaker and +worse part of each has really died and has been left hundreds of years +behind, and only the higher nature has been born again. All that ought not +to have been is not; but all that ought to be now is. This is really an +evolutionary teaching, but it is also poetical license, for the immoral +side of mankind does not by any means die so quickly as the poet supposes. +It is perhaps a question of many tens of thousands of years to get rid of +a few of our simpler faults. Anyway, the fancy charms us and tempts us +really to hope that these things might be so. + +While the poets of our time so extend the history of a love backwards +beyond this life, we might expect them to do the very same thing in the +other direction. I do not refer to reunion in heaven, or anything of that +sort, but simply to affection continued after death. There are some very +pretty fancies of the kind. But they can not prove to you quite so +interesting as the poems which treat the recollection of past life. When +we consider the past imaginatively, we have some ground to stand on. The +past has been--there is no doubt about that. The fact that we are at this +moment alive makes it seem sufficiently true that we were alive thousands +or millions of years ago. But when we turn to the future for poetical +inspiration, the case is very different. There we must imagine without +having anything to stand upon in the way of experience. Of course if born +again into a body we could imagine many things; but there is the ghostly +interval between death and birth which nobody is able to tell us about. +Here the poet depends upon dream experiences, and it is of such an +experience that Christina Rossetti speaks in her beautiful poem entitled +"A Pause." + + They made the chamber sweet with flowers and leaves, + And the bed sweet with flowers on which I lay, + While my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way. + I did not hear the birds about the eaves, + Nor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves: + Only my soul kept watch from day to day, + My thirsty soul kept watch for one away:-- + Perhaps he loves, I thought, remembers, grieves. + + At length there came the step upon the stair, + Upon the lock the old familiar hand: + Then first my spirit seemed to scent the air + Of Paradise; then first the tardy sand + Of time ran golden; and I felt my hair + Put on a glory, and my soul expand. + +The woman is dead. In the room where her body died, flowers have been +placed, offerings to the dead. Also there are flowers upon the bed. The +ghost of the woman observes all this, but she does not feel either glad or +sad because of it; she is thinking only of the living lover, who was not +there when she died, but far away. She wants to know whether he really +loved her, whether he will really be sorry to hear that she is dead. +Outside the room of death the birds are singing; in the fields beyond the +windows peasants are working, and talking as they work. But the ghost does +not listen to these sounds. The ghost remains in the room only for love's +sake; she can not go away until the lover comes. At last she hears him +coming. She knows the sound of the step; she knows the touch of the hand +upon the lock of the door. And instantly, before she sees him at all, she +first feels delight. Already it seems to her that she can smell the +perfume of the flowers of heaven; it then seems to her that about her +head, as about the head of an angel, a circle of glory is shaping itself, +and the real heaven, the Heaven of Love, is at hand. + +How very beautiful this is. There is still one line which requires a +separate explanation--I mean the sentence about the sands of time running +golden. Perhaps you may remember the same simile in Tennyson's "Locksley +Hall": + + Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in His glowing hands; + Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. + +Here time is identified with the sand of the hour glass, and the verb "to +run" is used because this verb commonly expresses the trickling of the +sand from the upper part of the glass into the lower. In other words, fine +sand "runs" just like water. To say that the sands of time run golden, or +become changed into gold, is only a poetical way of stating that the time +becomes more than happy--almost heavenly or divine. And now you will see +how very beautiful the comparison becomes in this little poem about the +ghost of the woman waiting for the coming step of her lover. + +Several other aspects of the emotion may now be considered separately. One +of these, an especially beautiful one, is memory. Of course, there are +many aspects of love's memories, some all happiness, others intensely +sorrowful--the memory of a walk, a meeting, a moment of good-bye. Such +memories occupy a very large place in the treasure house of English love +poems. I am going to give three examples only, but each of a different +kind. The first poet that I am going to mention is Coventry Patmore. He +wrote two curious books of poetry, respectively called "The Angel in the +House" and "The Unknown Eros." In the first of these books he wrote the +whole history of his courtship and marriage--a very dangerous thing for a +poet to do, but he did it successfully. The second volume is +miscellaneous, and contains some very beautiful things. I am going to +quote only a few lines from the piece called "Amelia." This piece is the +story of an evening spent with a sweetheart, and the lines which I am +quoting refer to the moment of taking the girl home. They are now rather +famous: + + ... To the dim street + I led her sacred feet; + And so the Daughter gave, + Soft, moth-like, sweet, + Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk, + Back to her Mother, anxious in the dusk. + And now "Good Night!" + +Why should the poet speak of the girl in this way? Why does he call her +feet sacred? She has just promised to marry him; and now she seems to him +quite divine. But he discovers very plain words with which to communicate +his finer feelings to the reader. The street is "dim" because it is night; +and in the night the beautifully dressed maiden seems like a splendid +moth--the name given to night butterflies in England. In England the moths +are much more beautiful than the true butterflies; they have wings of +scarlet and purple and brown and gold. So the comparison, though +peculiarly English, is very fine. Also there is a suggestion of the +soundlessness of the moth's flight. Now "showy as damask rose" is a +striking simile only because the damask-rose is a wonderfully splendid +flower--richest in colour of all roses in English gardens. "Shy as musk" +is rather a daring simile. "Musk" is a perfume used by English as well as +Japanese ladies, but there is no perfume which must be used with more +discretion, carefulness. If you use ever so little too much, the effect is +not pleasant. But if you use exactly the proper quantity, and no more, +there is no perfume which is more lovely. "Shy as musk" thus refers to +that kind of girlish modesty which never commits a fault even by the +measure of a grain--beautiful shyness incapable of being anything but +beautiful. Nevertheless the comparison must be confessed one which should +be felt rather than explained. + +The second of the three promised quotations shall be from Robert Browning. +There is one feeling, not often touched upon by poets, yet peculiar to +lovers, that is here treated--the desire when you are very happy or when +you are looking at anything attractive to share the pleasure of the moment +with the beloved. But it seldom happens that the wish and the conditions +really meet. Referring to this longing Browning made a short lyric that is +now a classic; it is among the most dainty things of the century. + + Never the time and the place + And the loved one all together! + This path--how soft to pace! + This May--what magic weather! + Where is the loved one's face? + In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, + But the house is narrow, the place is bleak + Where, outside, rain and wind combine + With a furtive ear, if I try to speak, + With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, + With a malice that marks each word, each sign! + +Never can we have things the way we wish in this world--a beautiful day, a +beautiful place, and the presence of the beloved all at the same time. +Something is always missing; if the place be beautiful, the weather +perhaps is bad. Or if the weather and the place both happen to be perfect, +the woman is absent. So the poet finding himself in some very beautiful +place, and remembering this, remembers also the last time that he met the +woman beloved. It was a small dark house and chilly; outside there was +rain and storm; and the sounds of the wind and of the rain were as the +sounds of people secretly listening, or sounds of people trying to look in +secretly through the windows. Evidently it was necessary that the meeting +should be secret, and it was not altogether as happy as could have been +wished. + +The third example is a very beautiful poem; we must content ourselves with +an extract from it. It is the memory of a betrothal day, and the poet is +Frederick Tennyson. I suppose you know that there were three Tennysons, +and although Alfred happened to be the greatest, all of them were good +poets. + + It is a golden morning of the spring, + My cheek is pale, and hers is warm with bloom, + And we are left in that old carven room, + And she begins to sing; + + The open casement quivers in the breeze, + And one large musk-rose leans its dewy grace + Into the chamber, like a happy face, + And round it swim the bees; + + * * * * * + + I know not what I said--what she replied + Lives, like eternal sunshine, in my heart; + And then I murmured, Oh! we never part, + My love, my life, my bride! + + * * * * * + + And silence o'er us, after that great bliss, + Fell like a welcome shadow--and I heard + The far woods sighing, and a summer bird + Singing amid the trees; + + The sweet bird's happy song, that streamed around, + The murmur of the woods, the azure skies, + Were graven on my heart, though ears and eyes + Marked neither sight nor sound. + + She sleeps in peace beneath the chancel stone, + But ah! so clearly is the vision seen, + The dead seem raised, or Death has never been, + Were I not here alone. + +This is great art in its power of picturing a memory of the heart. Let us +notice some of the beauties. The lover is pale because he is afraid, +anxious; he is going to ask a question and he does not know how she may +answer him. All this was long ago, years and years ago, but the strong +emotions of that morning leave their every detail painted in remembrance, +with strange vividness After all those years the man still recollects the +appearance of the room, the sunshine entering and the crimson rose looking +into the room from the garden, with bees humming round it. Then after the +question had been asked and happily answered, neither could speak for joy; +and because of the silence all the sounds of nature outside became almost +painfully distinct. Now he remembers how he heard in that room the sound +of the wind in far-away trees, the singing of a bird--he also remembers +all the colours and the lights of the day. But it was very, very long ago, +and she is dead. Still, the memory is so clear and bright in his heart +that it is as if time had stood still, or as if she had come back from the +grave. Only one thing assures him that it is but a memory--he is alone. + +Returning now to the subject of love's illusion in itself, let me remind +you that the illusion does not always pass away--not at all. It passes +away in every case of happy union, when it has become no longer necessary +to the great purposes of nature. But in case of disappointment, loss, +failure to win the maiden desired, it often happens that the ideal image +never fades away, but persistently haunts the mind through life, and is +capable thus of making even the most successful life unhappy. Sometimes +the result of such disappointment may be to change all a man's ideas about +the world, about life, about religion; and everything remains darkened for +him. Many a young person disappointed in love begins to lose religious +feeling from that moment, for it seems to him, simply because he happens +to be unfortunate, that the universe is all wrong. On the other hand the +successful lover thinks that the universe is all right; he utters his +thanks to the gods, and feels his faith in religion and human nature +greater than before. I do not at this moment remember any striking English +poem illustrating this fact; but there is a pretty little poem in French +by Victor Hugo showing well the relation between successful love and +religious feeling in simple minds. Here is an English translation of it. +The subject is simply a walk at night, the girl-bride leaning upon the arm +of her husband; and his memory of the evening is thus expressed: + + The trembling arm I pressed + Fondly; our thoughts confessed + Love's conquest tender; + God filled the vast sweet night, + Love filled our hearts; the light + Of stars made splendour. + + Even as we walked and dreamed, + 'Twixt heaven and earth, it seemed + Our souls were speaking; + The stars looked on thy face; + Thine eyes through violet space + The stars were seeking. + + And from the astral light + Feeling the soft sweet night + Thrill to thy soul, + Thou saidst: "O God of Bliss, + Lord of the Blue Abyss, + Thou madest the whole!" + + And the stars whispered low + To the God of Space, "We know, + God of Eternity, + Dear Lord, all Love is Thine, + Even by Love's Light we shine! + Thou madest Beauty!" + +Of course here the religious feeling itself is part of the illusion, but +it serves to give great depth and beauty to simple feeling. Besides, the +poem illustrates one truth very forcibly--namely, that when we are +perfectly happy all the universe appears to be divine and divinely +beautiful; in other words, we are in heaven. On the contrary, when we are +very unhappy the universe appears to be a kind of hell, in which there is +no hope, no joy, and no gods to pray to. + +But the special reason I wished to call attention to Victor Hugo's lyric +is that it has that particular quality called by philosophical critics +"cosmic emotion." Cosmic emotion means the highest quality of human +emotion. The word "cosmos" signifies the universe--not simply this world, +but all the hundred millions of suns and worlds in the known heaven. And +the adjective "cosmic" means, of course, "related to the whole universe." +Ordinary emotion may be more than individual in its relations. I mean that +your feelings may be moved by the thought or the perception of something +relating not only to your own life but also to the lives of many others. +The largest form of such ordinary emotion is what would be called national +feeling, the feeling of your own relation to the whole nation or the whole +race. But there is higher emotion even than that. When you think of +yourself emotionally not only in relation to your own country, your own +nation, but in relation to all humanity, then you have a cosmic emotion of +the third or second order. I say "third or second," because whether the +emotion be second or third rate depends very much upon your conception of +humanity as One. But if you think of yourself in relation not to this +world only but to the whole universe of hundreds of millions of stars and +planets--in relation to the whole mystery of existence--then you have a +cosmic emotion of the highest order. Of course there are degrees even in +this; the philosopher or the metaphysician will probably have a finer +quality of cosmic emotion than the poet or the artist is able to have. But +lovers very often, according to their degree of intellectual culture, +experience a kind of cosmic emotion; and Victor Hugo's little poem +illustrates this. Night and the stars and the abyss of the sky all seem to +be thrilling with love and beauty to the lover's eyes, because he himself +is in a state of loving happiness; and then he begins to think about his +relation to the universal life, to the supreme mystery beyond all Form and +Name. + +A third or fourth class of such emotion may be illustrated by the +beautiful sonnet of Keats, written not long before his death. Only a very +young man could have written this, because only a very young man loves in +this way--but how delightful it is! It has no title. + + Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art-- + Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night + And watching, with eternal lids apart, + Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, + The moving waters at their priest-like task + Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, + Or gazing on new soft-fallen mask + Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-- + + No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, + Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, + To feel forever its soft fall and swell, + Awake forever in a sweet unrest, + Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, + And so live ever--or else swoon to death. + +Tennyson has charmingly represented a lover wishing that he were a +necklace of his beloved, or her girdle, or her earring; but that is not a +cosmic emotion at all. Indeed, the idea of Tennyson's pretty song was +taken from old French and English love songs of the peasants--popular +ballads. But in this beautiful sonnet of Keats, where the lover wishes to +be endowed with the immortality and likeness of a star only to be forever +with the beloved, there is something of the old Greek thought which +inspired the beautiful lines written between two and three thousand years +ago, and translated by J.A. Symonds: + + Gazing on stars, my Star? Would that I were the welkin, + Starry with myriad eyes, ever to gave upon thee! + +But there is more than the Greek beauty of thought in Keats's sonnet, for +we find the poet speaking of the exterior universe in the largest +relation, thinking of the stars watching forever the rising and the +falling of the sea tides, thinking of the sea tides themselves as +continually purifying the world, even as a priest purifies a temple. The +fancy of the boy expands to the fancy of philosophy; it is a blending of +poetry, philosophy, and sincere emotion. + +You will have seen by the examples which we have been reading together +that English love poetry, like Japanese love poetry, may be divided into +many branches and classified according to the range of subject from the +very simplest utterance of feeling up to that highest class expressing +cosmic emotion. Very rich the subject is; the student is only puzzled +where to choose. I should again suggest to you to observe the value of the +theme of illusion, especially as illustrated in our examples. There are +indeed multitudes of Western love poems that would probably appear to you +very strange, perhaps very foolish. But you will certainly acknowledge +that there are some varieties of English love poetry which are neither +strange nor foolish, and which are well worth studying, not only in +themselves but in their relation to the higher forms of emotional +expression in all literature. Out of love poetry belonging to the highest +class, much can be drawn that would serve to enrich and to give a new +colour to your own literature of emotion. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE IDEAL WOMAN IN ENGLISH POETRY + + +As I gave already in this class a lecture on the subject of love poetry, +you will easily understand that the subject of the present lecture is not +exactly love. It is rather about love's imagining of perfect character and +perfect beauty. The part of it to which I think your attention could be +deservedly given is that relating to the imagined wife of the future, for +this is a subject little treated of in Eastern poetry. It is a very pretty +subject. But in Japan and other countries of the East almost every young +man knows beforehand whom he is likely to marry. Marriage is arranged by +the family: it is a family matter, indeed a family duty and not a romantic +pursuit. At one time, very long ago, in Europe, marriages were arranged in +much the same way. But nowadays it may be said in general that no young +man in England or America can even imagine whom he will marry. He has to +find his wife for himself; and he has nobody to help him; and if he makes +a mistake, so much the worse for him. So to Western imagination the wife +of the future is a mystery, a romance, an anxiety--something to dream +about and to write poetry about. + +This little book that I hold in my hand is now very rare. It is out of +print, but it is worth mentioning to you because it is the composition of +an exquisite man of letters, Frederick Locker-Lampson, best of all +nineteenth century writers of society verse. It is called "Patchwork." +Many years ago the author kept a kind of journal in which he wrote down or +copied all the most beautiful or most curious things which he had heard or +which he had found in books. Only the best things remained, so the value +of the book is his taste in selection. Whatever Locker-Lampson pronounced +good, the world now knows to have been exactly what he pronounced, for his +taste was very fine. And in this book I find a little poem quoted from Mr. +Edwin Arnold, now Sir Edwin. Sir Edwin Arnold is now old and blind, and he +has not been thought of kindly enough in Japan, because his work has not +been sufficiently known. Some people have even said his writings did harm +to Japan, but I want to assure you that such statements are stupid lies. +On the contrary, he did for Japan whatever good the best of his talent as +a poet and the best of his influence as a great journalist could enable +him to do. But to come back to our subject: when Sir Edwin was a young +student he had his dreams about marriage like other young English +students, and he put one of them into verse, and that verse was at once +picked out by Frederick Locker-Lampson for his little book of gems. Half a +century has passed since then; but Locker-Lampson's judgment remains good, +and I am going to put this little poem first because it so well +illustrates the subject of the lecture. It is entitled "A Ma Future." + + Where waitest thou, + Lady, I am to love? Thou comest not, + Thou knowest of my sad and lonely lot-- + I looked for thee ere now! + + It is the May, + And each sweet sister soul hath found its brother, + Only we two seek fondly each the other, + And seeking still delay. + + Where art thou, sweet? + I long for thee as thirsty lips for streams, + O gentle promised angel of my dreams, + Why do we never meet? + + Thou art as I, + Thy soul doth wait for mine as mine for thee; + We cannot live apart, must meeting be + Never before we die? + + Dear Soul, not so, + For time doth keep for us some happy years, + And God hath portioned us our smiles and tears, + Thou knowest, and I know. + + Therefore I bear + This winter-tide as bravely as I may, + Patiently waiting for the bright spring day + That cometh with thee, Dear. + + 'Tis the May light + That crimsons all the quiet college gloom, + May it shine softly in thy sleeping room, + And so, dear wife, good night! + +This is, of course, addressed to the spirit of the unknown future wife. It +is pretty, though it is only the work of a young student. But some one +hundred years before, another student--a very great student, Richard +Crashaw,--had a fancy of the same kind, and made verses about it which are +famous. You will find parts of his poem about the imaginary wife in the +ordinary anthologies, but not all of it, for it is very long. I will quote +those verses which seem to me the best. + + +WISHES + + Whoe'er she be, + That not impossible She, + That shall command my heart and me; + + Where'er she lie, + Locked up from mortal eye, + In shady leaves of Destiny; + + Till that ripe birth + Of studied Fate stand forth, + And teach her fair steps to our earth; + + Till that divine + Idea take a shrine + Of crystal flesh, through which to shine; + + Meet you her, my wishes, + Bespeak her to my blisses, + And be ye called my absent kisses. + +The poet is supposing that the girl whom he is to marry may not as yet +even have been born, for though men in the world of scholarship can marry +only late in life, the wife is generally quite young. Marriage is far away +in the future for the student, therefore these fancies. What he means to +say in short is about like this: + +"Oh, my wishes, go out of my heart and look for the being whom I am +destined to marry--find the soul of her, whether born or yet unborn, and +tell that soul of the love that is waiting for it." Then he tries to +describe the imagined woman he hopes to find: + + I wish her beauty + That owes not all its duty + To gaudy 'tire or glist'ring shoe-tie. + + Something more than + Taffeta or tissue can; + Or rampant feather, or rich fan. + + More than the spoil + Of shop or silk worm's toil, + Or a bought blush, or a set smile. + + A face that's best + By its own beauty drest + And can alone command the rest. + + A face made up + Out of no other shop + Than what nature's white hand sets ope. + + A cheek where grows + More than a morning rose + Which to no box his being owes. + + * * * * * + + Eyes that displace + The neighbor diamond and outface + That sunshine by their own sweet grace. + + Tresses that wear + Jewels, but to declare + How much themselves more precious are. + + Smiles, that can warm + The blood, yet teach a charm + That chastity shall take no harm. + + * * * * * + + Life, that dares send + A challenge to his end, + And when it comes, say "Welcome, friend!" + +There is much more, but the best of the thoughts are here. They are not +exactly new thoughts, nor strange thoughts, but they are finely expressed +in a strong and simple way. + +There is another composition on the same subject--the imaginary spouse, +the destined one. But this is written by a woman, Christina Rossetti. + + +SOMEWHERE OR OTHER + + Somewhere or other there must surely be + The face not seen, the voice not heard, + The heart that not yet--never yet--ah me! + Made answer to my word. + + Somewhere or other, may be near or far; + Past land and sea, clean out of sight; + Beyond the wondering moon, beyond the star + That tracks her night by night. + + Somewhere or other, may be far or near; + With just a wall, a hedge between; + With just the last leaves of the dying year, + Fallen on a turf grown green. + +And that turf means of course the turf of a grave in the churchyard. This +poem expresses fear that the destined one never can be met, because death +may come before the meeting time. All through the poem there is the +suggestion of an old belief that for every man and for every woman there +must be a mate, yet that it is a chance whether the mate will ever be +found. + +You observe that all of these are ghostly poems, whether prospective or +retrospective. Here is another prospective poem: + + +AMATURUS + + Somewhere beneath the sun, + These quivering heart-strings prove it, + Somewhere there must be one + Made for this soul, to move it; + Someone that hides her sweetness + From neighbors whom she slights, + Nor can attain completeness, + Nor give her heart its rights; + Someone whom I could court + With no great change of manner, + Still holding reason's fort + Though waving fancy's banner; + A lady, not so queenly + As to disdain my hand, + Yet born to smile serenely + Like those that rule the land; + Noble, but not too proud; + With soft hair simply folded, + And bright face crescent-browed + And throat by Muses moulded; + + Keen lips, that shape soft sayings + Like crystals of the snow, + With pretty half-betrayings + Of things one may not know; + Fair hand, whose touches thrill, + Like golden rod of wonder, + Which Hermes wields at will + Spirit and flesh to sunder. + Forth, Love, and find this maid, + Wherever she be hidden; + Speak, Love, be not afraid, + But plead as thou art bidden; + And say, that he who taught thee + His yearning want and pain, + Too dearly dearly bought thee + To part with thee in vain. + +These lines are by the author of that exquisite little book "Ionica"--a +book about which I hope to talk to you in another lecture. His real name +was William Cory, and he was long the head-master of an English public +school, during which time he composed and published anonymously the +charming verses which have made him famous--modelling his best work in +close imitation of the Greek poets. A few expressions in these lines need +explanation. For instance, the allusion to Hermes and his rod. I think you +know that Hermes is the Greek name of the same god whom the Romans called +Mercury,--commonly represented as a beautiful young man, naked and running +quickly, having wings attached to the sandals upon his feet. Runners used +to pray to him for skill in winning foot races. But this god had many +forms and many attributes, and one of his supposed duties was to bring the +souls of the dead into the presence of the king of Hades. So you will see +some pictures of him standing before the throne of the king of the Dead, +and behind him a long procession of shuddering ghosts. He is nearly always +pictured as holding in his hands a strange sceptre called the _caduceus_, +a short staff about which two little serpents are coiled, and at the top +of which is a tiny pair of wings. This is the golden rod referred to by +the poet; when Hermes touched anybody with it, the soul of the person +touched was obliged immediately to leave the body and follow after him. So +it is a very beautiful stroke of art in this poem to represent the touch +of the hand of great love as having the magical power of the golden rod of +Hermes. It is as if the poet were to say: "Should she but touch me, I know +that my spirit would leap out of my body and follow after her." Then there +is the expression "crescent-browed." It means only having beautifully +curved eyebrows--arched eyebrows being considered particularly beautiful +in Western countries. + +Now we will consider another poem of the ideal. What we have been reading +referred to ghostly ideals, to memories, or to hopes. Let us now see how +the poets have talked about realities. Here is a pretty thing by Thomas +Ashe. It is entitled "Pansie"; and this flower name is really a corruption +of a French word "Penser," meaning a thought. The flower is very +beautiful, and its name is sometimes given to girls, as in the present +case. + + +MEET WE NO ANGELS, PANSIE? + + Came, on a Sabbath noon, my sweet, + In white, to find her lover; + The grass grew proud beneath her feet, + The green elm-leaves above her:-- + Meet we no angels, Pansie? + + She said, "We meet no angels now;" + And soft lights stream'd upon her; + And with white hand she touch'd a bough; + She did it that great honour:-- + What! meet no angels, Pansie? + + O sweet brown hat, brown hair, brown eyes, + Down-dropp'd brown eyes, so tender! + Then what said I? Gallant replies + Seem flattery, and offend her:-- + But--meet no angels, Pansie? + +The suggestion is obvious, that the maiden realizes to the lover's eye the +ideal of an angel. As she comes he asks her slyly,--for she has been to +the church--"Is it true that nobody ever sees real angels?" She answers +innocently, thinking him to be in earnest, "No--long ago people used to +see angels, but in these times no one ever sees them." He does not dare +tell her how beautiful she seems to him; but he suggests much more than +admiration by the tone of his protesting response to her answer: "What! +You cannot mean to say that there are no angels now?" Of course that is +the same as to say, "I see an angel now"--but the girl is much too +innocent to take the real and flattering meaning. + +Wordsworth's portrait of the ideal woman is very famous; it was written +about his own wife though that fact would not be guessed from the poem. +The last stanza is the most famous, but we had better quote them all. + + She was a phantom of delight + When first she gleamed upon my sight; + A lovely apparition, sent + To be a moment's ornament; + Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; + Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair; + But all things else about her drawn + From May-time and the cheerful dawn; + A dancing shape, an image gay, + To haunt, to startle, and waylay. + + I saw her upon nearer view, + A Spirit, yet a Woman too! + Her household motions light and free, + And steps of virgin liberty; + A countenance in which did meet + Sweet records, promises as sweet; + A creature not too bright or good + For human nature's daily food; + For transient sorrows, simple wiles, + Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles. + + And now I see with eye serene + The very pulse of the machine; + A being breathing thoughtful breath, + A traveller betwixt life and death; + The reason firm, the temperate will, + Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; + A perfect woman, nobly plann'd, + To warn, to comfort and command; + And yet a Spirit still, and bright + With something of angelic light. + +I quoted this after the Pansie poem to show you how much more deeply +Wordsworth could touch the same subject. To him, too, the first apparition +of the ideal maiden seemed angelic; like Ashe he could perceive the +mingled attraction of innocence and of youth. But innocence and youth are +by no means all that make up the best attributes of woman; character is +more than innocence and more than youth, and it is character that +Wordsworth studies. But in the last verse he tells us that the angel is +always there, nevertheless, even when the good woman becomes old. The +angel is the Mother-soul. + +Wordsworth's idea that character is the supreme charm was expressed very +long before him by other English poets, notably by Thomas Carew. + + He that loves a rosy cheek, + Or a coral lip admires, + Or from star-like eyes doth seek + Fuel to maintain his fires: + As old Time makes these decay, + So his flames must waste away. + + But a smooth and steadfast mind, + Gentle thoughts and calm desires, + Hearts with equal love combined, + Kindle never-dying fires. + Where these, are not, I despise + Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes. + +For about three hundred years in English literature it was the fashion--a +fashion borrowed from the Latin poets--to speak of love as a fire or +flame, and you must understand the image in these verses in that +signification. To-day the fashion is not quite dead, but very few poets +now follow it. + +Byron himself, with all his passion and his affected scorn of ethical +convention, could and did, when he pleased, draw beautiful portraits of +moral as well as physical attraction. These stanzas are famous; they paint +for us a person with equal attraction of body and mind. + + She walks in beauty, like the night + Of cloudless climes and starry skies; + And all that's best of dark and bright + Meet in her aspect and her eyes: + Thus mellow'd to that tender light + Which heaven to gaudy day denies. + + One shade the more, one ray the less, + Had half impair'd the nameless grace + Which waves in every raven tress, + Or softly lightens o'er her face; + Where thoughts serenely sweet express + How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. + + And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, + So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, + The smiles that win, the tints that glow, + But tell of days in goodness spent, + A mind at peace with all below, + A heart whose love is innocent! + +It is worth noticing that in each of the last three poems, the physical +beauty described is that of dark eyes and hair. This may serve to remind +you that there are two distinct types, opposite types, of beauty +celebrated by English poets; and the next poem which I am going to quote, +the beautiful "Ruth" of Thomas Hood, also describes a dark woman. + + She stood breast-high amid the corn, + Clasp'd by the golden light of morn, + Like the sweetheart of the sun, + Who many a glowing kiss had won. + + On her cheek an autumn flush, + Deeply ripen'd;--such a blush + In the midst of brown was born, + Like red poppies grown with corn. + + Round her eyes her tresses fell, + Which were blackest none could tell, + But long lashes veil'd a light, + That had else been all too bright. + + And her hat, with shady brim, + Made her tressy forehead dim; + Thus she stood among the stooks, + Praising God with sweetest looks:-- + + Sure, I said, Heav'n did not mean, + Where I reap thou shouldst but glean, + Lay thy sheaf adown and come, + Share my harvest and my home. + +We might call this the ideal of a peasant girl whose poverty appeals to +the sympathy of all who behold her. The name of the poem is suggested +indeed by the Bible story of Ruth the gleaner, but the story in the poem +is only that of a rich farmer who marries a very poor girl, because of her +beauty and her goodness. It is just a charming picture--a picture of the +dark beauty which is so much admired in Northern countries, where it is +less common than in Southern Europe. There are beautiful brown-skinned +types; and the flush of youth on the cheeks of such a brown girl has been +compared to the red upon a ripe peach or a russet apple--a hard kind of +apple, very sweet and juicy, which is brown instead of yellow, or reddish +brown. But the poet makes the comparison with poppy flowers and wheat. +That, of course, means golden yellow and red; in English wheat fields red +poppy flowers grow in abundance. The expression "tressy forehead" in the +second line of the fourth stanza means a forehead half covered with +falling, loose hair. + +The foregoing pretty picture may be offset by charming poem of Browning's +describing a lover's pride in his illusion. It is simply entitled "Song," +and to appreciate it you must try to understand the mood of a young man +who believes that he has actually realized his ideal, and that the woman +that he loves is the most beautiful person in the whole world. The fact +that this is simply imagination on his part does not make the poem less +beautiful--on the contrary, the false imagining is just what makes it +beautiful, the youthful emotion of a moment being so humanly and frankly +described. Such a youth must imagine that every one else sees and thinks +about the girl just as he does, and he expects them to confess it. + + Nay but you, who do not love her, + Is she not pure gold, my mistress? + Holds earth aught--speak truth--above her? + Aught like this tress, see, and this tress, + And this last fairest tress of all, + So fair, see, ere I let it fall? + + Because you spend your lives in praising; + To praise, you search the wide world over; + Then why not witness, calmly gazing, + If earth holds aught--speak truth--above her? + Above this tress, and this, I touch + But cannot praise, I love so much! + +You see the picture, I think,--probably some artist's studio for a +background. She sits or stands there with her long hair loosely flowing +down to her feet like a river of gold; and her lover, lifting up some of +the long tresses in his hand, asks his friend, who stands by, to notice +how beautiful such hair is. Perhaps the girl was having her picture +painted. One would think so from the question, "Since your business is to +look for beautiful things, why can you not honestly acknowledge that this +woman is the most beautiful thing in the whole world?" Or we might imagine +the questioned person to be a critic by profession as well as an artist. +Like the preceding poem this also is a picture. But the next poem, also by +Browning, is much more than a picture--it is very profound indeed, simple +as it looks. An old man is sitting by the dead body of a young girl of +about sixteen. He tells us how he secretly loved her, as a father might +love a daughter, as a brother might love a sister. But he would have +wished, if he had not been so old, and she so young, to love her as a +husband. He never could have her in this world, but why should he not hope +for it in the future world? He whispers into her dead ear his wish, and he +puts a flower into her dead hand, thinking, "When she wakes up, in another +life, she will see that flower, and remember what I said to her, and how +much I loved her." That is the mere story. But we must understand that the +greatness of the love expressed in the poem is awakened by an ideal of +innocence and sweetness and goodness, and the affection is of the +soul--that is to say, it is the love of beautiful character, not the love +of a beautiful face only, that is expressed. + + +EVELYN HOPE + + Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! + Sit and watch by her side an hour. + That is her book-shelf, this her bed; + She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, + Beginning to die too, in the glass; + Little has yet been changed, I think: + The shutters are shut, no light can pass + Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. + + Sixteen years old when she died! + Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; + It was not her time to love; beside, + Her life had many a hope and aim, + Duties enough and little cares, + And now was quiet, now astir, + Till God's hand beckoned unawares,-- + And the sweet white brow is all of her. + + Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope? + What, your soul was pure and true, + The good stars met in your horoscope, + Made you of spirit, fire and dew-- + And just because I was thrice as old + And our paths in the world diverged so wide, + Each was naught to each, must I be told? + We were fellow mortals, naught beside? + + No, indeed! for God above, + Is great to grant, as mighty to make, + And creates the love to reward the love: + I claim you still, for my own love's sake! + Delayed it may be for more lives yet, + Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few: + Much is to learn, much to forget, + Ere the time be come for taking you. + + But the time will come,--at last it will, + When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) + In the lower earth, in the years long still, + That body and soul so pure and gay? + Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, + And your mouth of your own geranium's red-- + And what you would do with me, in fine, + In the new life come in the old one's stead. + + I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, + Given up myself so many times, + Gained me the gains of various men, + Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; + Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, + Either I missed or itself missed me: + And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! + What is the issue? let us see! + + I loved you, Evelyn, all the while! + My heart seemed full as it could hold; + There was space and to spare for the frank young smile, + And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. + So, hush,--I will give you this leaf to keep: + See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand! + There, that is our secret: go to sleep! + You will wake, and remember, and understand. + +No other poet has written so many different kinds of poems on this subject +as Browning; and although I can not quote all of them, I must not neglect +to make a just representation of the variety. Here is another example: the +chief idea is again the beauty of truthfulness and fidelity, but the +artistic impression is quite different. + + A simple ring with a single stone, + To the vulgar eye no stone of price: + Whisper the right word, that alone-- + Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice. + And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll) + Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole + Through the power in a pearl. + + A woman ('tis I this time that say) + With little the world counts worthy praise: + Utter the true word--out and away + Escapes her soul; I am wrapt in blaze, + Creation's lord, of heaven and earth + Lord whole and sole--by a minute's birth-- + Through the love in a girl! + +Paraphrased, the meaning will not prove as simple as the verses: Here is a +finger ring set with one small stone, one jewel. It is a very +cheap-looking stone to common eyes. But if you know a certain magical +word, and, after putting the ring on your finger, you whisper that magical +word over the cheap-looking stone, suddenly a spirit, a demon or a genie, +springs from that gem like a flash of fire miraculously issuing from a +lump of ice. And that spirit or genie has power to make you king of the +whole world and of the sky above the world, lord of the spirits of heaven +and earth and air and fire. Yet the stone is only--a pearl--and it can +make you lord of the universe. That is the old Arabian story. The word +scroll here means a manuscript, an Arabian manuscript. + +But what is after all the happiness of mere power? There is a greater +happiness possible than to be lord of heaven and earth; that is the +happiness of being truly loved. Here is a woman; to the eye of the world, +to the sight of other men, she is not very beautiful nor at all remarkable +in any way. She is just an ordinary woman, as the pearl in the ring is to +all appearances just a common pearl. But let the right word be said, let +the soul of that woman be once really touched by the magic of love, and +what a revelation! As the spirit in the Arabian story sprang from the +stone of the magical ring, when the word was spoken, so from the heart of +this woman suddenly her soul displays itself in shining light. And the man +who loves, instantly becomes, in the splendour of that light, verily the +lord of heaven and earth; to the eyes of the being who loves him he is a +god. + +The legend is the legend of Solomon--not the Solomon of the Bible, but the +much more wonderful Solomon of the Arabian story-teller. His power is said +to have been in a certain seal ring, upon which the mystical name of +Allah, or at least one of the ninety and nine mystical names, was +engraved. When he chose to use this ring, all the spirits of air, the +spirits of earth, the spirits of water and the spirits of fire were +obliged to obey him. The name of such a ring is usually "Talisman." + +Here is another of Browning's jewels, one of the last poems written +shortly before his death. It is entitled "Summum Bonum,"--signifying "the +highest good." The subject is a kiss; we may understand that the first +betrothal kiss is the mark of affection described. When the promise of +marriage has been made, that promise is sealed or confirmed by the first +kiss. But this refers only to the refined classes of society. Among the +English people proper, especially the country folk, kissing the girls is +only a form of showing mere good will, and has no serious meaning at all. + + All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee: + All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem: + In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea: + Breath and bloom, shade and shine,--wonder, wealth, and--how far + above them-- + Truth, that's brighter than gem, + Trust, that's purer than pearl,-- + Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe--all were for me + In the kiss of one girl. + +There is in this a suggestion of Ben Jonson, who uses almost exactly the +same simile without any moral significance. The advantage of Browning is +that he has used the sensuous imagery for ethical symbolism; here he +greatly surpasses Jonson, though it would be hard to improve upon the +beauty of Jonson's verses, as merely describing visual beauty. Here are +Jonson's stanzas: + + +THE TRIUMPH + + See the Chariot at hand here of Love, + Wherein my Lady rideth! + Each that draws is a swan or a dove, + And well the car Love guideth. + As she goes, all hearts do duty + Unto her beauty; + And enamoured do wish, so they might + But enjoy such a sight, + That they still were to run by her side, + Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride. + + Do but look on her eyes, they do light + All that Love's world compriseth! + Do but look on her hair, it is bright + As love's star when it riseth! + Do but mark, her forehead's smoother + Than words that soothe her; + And from her arch'd brows such a grace + Sheds itself through the face, + As alone there triumphs to the life + All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife. + + Have you seen but a bright lily grow + Before rude hands have touched it? + Have you mark'd but the fall of the snow + Before the soil hath smutch'd it? + Have you felt the wool of beaver + Or swan's down ever? + Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier, + Or the nard in the fire? + Or have tasted the bag of the bee? + O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she! + +The first of the above stanzas is a study after the Roman poets; but the +last stanza is Jonson's own and is very famous. You will see that Browning +was probably inspired by him, but I think that his verses are much more +beautiful in thought and feeling. + +There is one type of ideal woman very seldom described in poetry--the old +maid, the woman whom sorrow or misfortune prevents from fulfilling her +natural destiny. Commonly the woman who never marries is said to become +cross, bad tempered, unpleasant in character. She could not be blamed for +this, I think; but there are old maids who always remain as unselfish and +frank and kind as a girl, and who keep the charm of girlhood even when +their hair is white. Hartley Coleridge, son of the great Samuel, attempted +to describe such a one, and his picture is both touching and beautiful. + + +THE SOLITARY-HEARTED + + She was a queen of noble Nature's crowning, + A smile of hers was like an act of grace; + She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning, + Like daily beauties of the vulgar race: + But if she smiled, a light was on her face, + A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam + Of peaceful radiance, silvering o'er the stream + Of human thought with unabiding glory; + Not quite a waking truth, not quite a dream, + A visitation, bright and transitory. + + But she is changed,--hath felt the touch of sorrow, + No love hath she, no understanding friend; + O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow + What the poor niggard earth has not to lend; + But when the stalk is snapt, the rose must bend. + The tallest flower that skyward rears its head + Grows from the common ground, and there must shed + Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely + That they should find so base a bridal bed, + Who lived in virgin pride, so sweet and purely. + + She had a brother, and a tender father, + And she was loved, but not as others are + From whom we ask return of love,--but rather + As one might love a dream; a phantom fair + Of something exquisitely strange and rare, + Which all were glad to look on, men and maids, + Yet no one claimed--as oft, in dewy glades, + The peering primrose, like a sudden gladness, + Gleams on the soul, yet unregarded fades;-- + The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness. + + 'Tis vain to say--her worst of grief is only + The common lot, which all the world have known + To her 'tis more, because her heart is lonely, + And yet she hath no strength to stand alone,-- + Once she had playmates, fancies of her own, + And she did love them. They are past away + As fairies vanish at the break of day; + And like a spectre of an age departed, + Or unsphered angel woefully astray, + She glides along--the solitary-hearted. + +Perhaps it is scarcely possible for you to imagine that a woman finds it +impossible to marry because of being too beautiful, too wise, and too +good. In Western countries it is not impossible at all. You must try to +imagine entirely different social conditions--conditions in which marriage +depends much more upon the person than upon the parents, much more upon +inclination than upon anything else. A woman's chances of marriage depend +very much upon herself, upon her power of pleasing and charming. Thousands +and tens of thousands can never get married. Now there are cases in which +a woman can please too much. Men become afraid of her. They think, "She +knows too much, I dare not be frank with her"--or, "She is too beautiful, +she never would accept a common person like me"--or, "She is too formal +and correct, she would never forgive a mistake, and I could never be happy +with her." Not only is this possible, but it frequently happens. Too much +excellence makes a misfortune. I think you can understand it best by the +reference to the very natural prejudice against over-educated women, a +prejudice founded upon experience and existing in all countries, even in +Japan. Men are not attracted to a woman because she is excellent at +mathematics, because she knows eight or nine different languages, because +she has acquired all the conventions of high-pressure training. Men do not +care about that. They want love and trust and kindliness and ability to +make a home beautiful and happy. Well, the poem we have been reading is +very pathetic because it describes a woman who can not fulfil her natural +destiny, can not be loved--this through no fault of her own, but quite the +reverse. To be too much advanced beyond one's time and environment is even +a worse misfortune than to be too much behind. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +NOTE UPON THE SHORTEST FORMS OF ENGLISH POETRY + + +Perhaps there is an idea among Japanese students that one general +difference between Japanese and Western poetry is that the former +cultivates short forms and the latter longer ones, gut this is only in +part true. It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in +the Far East more than in modern Europe; but in all European literature +short forms of poetry are to be found--indeed quite as short as anything +in Japanese. Like the Japanese, the old Greeks, who carried poetry to the +highest perfection that it has ever attained, delighted in short forms; +and the Greek Anthology is full of compositions containing only two or +three lines. You will find beautiful translations of these in Symonds's +"Studies of Greek Poets," in the second volume. Following Greek taste, the +Roman poets afterwards cultivated short forms of verse, but they chiefly +used such verse for satirical purposes, unfortunately; I say, +unfortunately, because the first great English poets who imitated the +ancients were chiefly influenced by the Latin writers, and they also used +the short forms for epigrammatic satire rarely for a purely esthetic +object. Ben Jonson both wrote and translated a great number of very short +stanzas--two lines and four lines; but Jonson was a satirist in these +forms. Herrick, as you know, delighted in very short poems; but he was +greatly influenced by Jonson, and many of his couplets and of his +quatrains are worthless satires or worthless jests. However, you will find +some short verses in Herrick that almost make you think of a certain class +of Japanese poems. After the Elizabethan Age, also, the miniature poems +were still used in the fashion set by the Roman writers,--then the +eighteenth century deluged us with ill-natured witty epigrams of the like +brief form. It was not until comparatively modern times that our Western +world fully recognized the value of the distich, triplet or quatrain for +the expression of beautiful thoughts, rather than for the expression of +ill-natured ones. But now that the recognition has come, it has been +discovered that nothing is harder than to write a beautiful poem of two or +four lines. Only great masters have been truly successful at it. Goethe, +you know, made a quatrain that has become a part of world-literature: + + Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,-- + Who ne'er the lonely midnight hours, + Weeping upon his bed has sate, + He knows ye not, ye Heavenly Powers! + +--meaning, of course, that inspiration and wisdom come to us only through +sorrow, and that those who have never suffered never can be wise. But in +the universities of England a great deal of short work of a most excellent +kind has been done in Greek and Latin; and there is the celebrated case of +an English student who won a prize by a poem of a single line. The subject +given had been the miracle of Christ's turning water into wine at the +marriage feast; and while other scholars attempted elaborate composition +on the theme, this student wrote but one verse, of which the English +translation is + + The modest water saw its Lord, and blushed. + +Of course the force of the idea depends upon the popular conception of +wine being red. The Latin and Greek model, however, did not seem to +encourage much esthetic effort in short poems of English verse until the +time of the romantic movement. Then, both in France and England, many +brief forms of poetry made their appearance. In France, Victor Hugo +attempted composition in astonishingly varied forms of verse--some forms +actually consisting of only two syllables to a line. With this +surprisingly short measure begins one of Hugo's most remarkably early +poems, "Les Djins," representing the coming of evil spirits with a storm, +their passing over the house where a man is at prayer, and departing into +the distance again. Beginning with only two syllables to the line, the +measure of the poem gradually widens as the spirits approach, becomes very +wide, very long and sonorous as they reach the house, and again shrinks +back to lines of two syllables as the sound of them dies away. In England +a like variety of experiments has been made; but neither in France nor in +England has the short form yet been as successfully cultivated as it was +among the Greeks. We have some fine examples; but, as an eminent English +editor observed a few years ago, not enough examples to make a book. And +of course this means that there are very few; for you can make a book of +poetry very well with as little as fifty pages of largely and widely +printed text. However, we may cite a few modern instances. + +I think that about the most perfect quatrains we have are those of the +extraordinary man, Walter Savage Landor, who, you know, was a rare Greek +scholar, all his splendid English work being very closely based upon the +Greek models. He made a little epitaph upon himself, which is matchless of +its kind: + + I strove with none, for none was worth my strife; + Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; + I warmed both hands before the fire of life: + It sinks; and I am ready to depart. + +You know that Greeks used the short form a great deal for their exquisite +epitaphs, and that a considerable part of the anthology consists of +epitaphic literature. But the quatrain has a much wider range than this +funereal limitation, and one such example of epitaph will suffice. + +Only one English poet of our own day, and that a minor one, has attempted +to make the poem of four lines a specialty--that is William Watson. He has +written a whole volume of such little poems, but very few of them are +successful. As I said before, we have not enough good poems of this sort +for a book; and the reason is not because English poets despise the short +form, but because it is supremely difficult. The Greeks succeeded in it, +but we are still far behind the Greeks in the shaping of any kind of +verse. The best of Watson's pieces take the form of philosophical +suggestions; and this kind of verse is particularly well adapted to +philosophical utterance. + + Think not thy wisdom can illume away + The ancient tanglement of night and day. + Enough to acknowledge both, and both revere; + They see not clearliest who see all things clear. + +That is to say, do not think that any human knowledge will ever be able to +make you understand the mystery of the universe with its darkness and +light, its joy and pain. It is best to revere the powers that make both +good and evil, and to remember that the keenest, worldly, practical minds +are not the minds that best perceive the great truths and mysteries of +existence. Here is another little bit, reminding us somewhat of Goethe's +quatrain, already quoted. + + Lives there whom pain hath evermore passed by + And sorrow shunned with an averted eye? + Him do thou pity,--him above the rest, + Him, of all hapless mortals most unblessed. + +That needs no commentary, and it contains a large truth in small space. +Here is a little bit on the subject of the artist's ambition, which is +also good. + + The thousand painful steps at last are trod, + At last the temple's difficult door we win, + But perfect on his pedestal, the God + Freezes us hopeless when we enter in. + +The higher that the artist climbs by effort, the nearer his approach to +the loftier truth, the more he understands how little his very best can +achieve. It is the greatest artist, he who veritably enters the presence +of God--that most feels his own weakness; the perception of beauty that +other men can not see, terrifies him, freezes him motionless, as the poet +says. + +Out of all of Watson's epigrams I believe these are the best. The rest +with the possible exception of those on the subject of love seem to me +altogether failures. Emerson and various American poets also attempted the +quatrain--but Emerson's verse is nearly always bad, even when his thought +is sublime. One example of Emerson will suffice. + + Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, + Or dip thy paddle in the lake, + But it carves the bow of beauty there, + And the ripples in rhyme the oar forsake. + +The form is atrociously bad; but the reflection is grand--it is another +way of expressing the beautiful old Greek thought that "God _geometrizes_ +everywhere"--that is, that all motion is in geometrical lines, and full of +beauty. You can pick hundreds of fine things in very short verse out of +Emerson, but the verse is nearly always shapeless; the composition of the +man invariably makes us think of diamonds in the rough, jewels uncut. So +far as form goes a much better master of quatrain is the American poet +Aldrich, who wrote the following little thing, entitled "Popularity." + + Such kings of shreds have wooed and won her, + Such crafty knaves her laurel owned, + It has become almost an honour + Not to be crowned. + +This is good verse. The reference to "a king of shreds and patches"--that +is, a beggar king--you will recognize as Shakespearean. But although this +pretty verse has in it more philosophy than satire, it approaches the +satiric class of epigrams. Neither America nor England has been able to do +very much in the sort of verse that we have been talking about. Now this +is a very remarkable thing,--because at the English universities beautiful +work has been done in Greek or Latin--in poems of a single line, of two +lines, of three lines and other very brief measures. Why can it not be +done in English? I suspect that it is because our English language has not +yet become sufficiently perfect, sufficiently flexible, sufficiently +melodious to allow of great effect with a very few words. We can do the +thing in Greek or in Latin because either Greek or Latin is a more perfect +language. + +So much for theory. I should like to suggest, however, that it is very +probable many attempts at these difficult forms of poetry will be +attempted by English poets within the next few years. There is now a +tendency in that direction. I do not know whether such attempts will be +successful; but I should like you to understand that for Western poets +they are extremely difficult and that you ought to obtain from the +recognition of this fact a new sense of the real value of your own short +forms of verse in the hands of a master. Effects can be produced in +Japanese which the Greeks could produce with few syllables, but which the +English can not. Now it strikes me that, instead of even thinking of +throwing away old forms of verse in order to invent new ones, the future +Japanese poets ought rather to develop and cultivate and prize the forms +already existing, which belong to the genius of the language, and which +have proved themselves capable of much that no English verse or even +French verse could accomplish. Perhaps only the Italian is really +comparable to Japanese in some respects; you can perform miracles with +Italian verse. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SOME FOREIGN POEMS ON JAPANESE SUBJECTS + + +The Western poet and writer of romance has exactly the same kind of +difficulty in comprehending Eastern subjects as you have in comprehending +Western subjects. You will commonly find references to Japanese love poems +of the popular kind made in such a way as to indicate the writer's belief +that such poems refer to married life or at least to a courtship relation. +No Western writer who has not lived for many years in the East, could +write correctly about anything on this subject; and even after a long stay +in the country he might be unable to understand. Therefore a great deal of +Western poetry written about Japan must seem to you all wrong, and I can +not hope to offer you many specimens of work in this direction that could +deserve your praise. Yet there is some poetry so fine on the subject of +Japan that I think you would admire it and I am sure that you should know +it. A proof of really great art is that it is generally true--it seldom +falls into the misapprehensions to which minor art is liable. What do you +think of the fact that the finest poetry ever written upon a Japanese +subject by any Western poet, has been written by a man who never saw the +land? But he is a member of the French Academy, a great and true lover of +art, and without a living superior in that most difficult form of poetry, +the sonnet. In the time of thirty years he produced only one very small +volume of sonnets, but so fine are these that they were lifted to the very +highest place in poetical distinction. I may say that there are now only +three really great French poets--survivals of the grand romantic school. +These are Leconte de Lisle, Sully-Prudhomme, and José Maria de Heredia. It +is the last of whom I am speaking. As you can tell by his name, he is not +a Frenchman either by birth or blood, but a Spaniard, or rather a Spanish +Creole, born in Cuba. Heredia knows Japan only through pictures, armour, +objects of art in museums, paintings and carvings. Remembering this, I +think that you will find that he does wonderfully well. It is true that he +puts a woman in one of his pictures, but I think that his management of +his subject is very much nearer the truth than that of almost any writer +who has attempted to describe old Japan. And you must understand that the +following sonnet is essentially intended to be a picture--to produce upon +the mind exactly the same effect that a picture does, with the addition of +such life as poetry can give. + + +LE SAMOURAI + + D'un doigt distrait frōlant la sonore bīva, + A travers les bambous tressés en fine latte, + Elle a vu, par la plage éblouissante et plate, + S'avancer le vainqueur que son amour rźva. + + C'est lui. Sabres au flanc, l'éventail haut, il va. + La cordeličre rouge et le gland écarlate + Coupent l'armure sombre, et, sur l'épaule, éclate + Le blazon de Hizen ou de Tokungawa. + + Ce beau guerrier vźtu de lames et de plaques, + Sous le bronze, la soie et les brillantes laques, + Semble un crustace noir, gigantesque et vermeil. + + Il l'a vue. Il sourit dans la barbe du masque, + Et son pas plus hātif fait reluire au soleil + Les deux antennes d'or qui tremblent ą son casque. + +"Lightly touching her _biva_ with heedless finger, she has perceived, +through the finely woven bamboo screen, the conqueror, lovingly thought +of, approach over the dazzling level of the beach. + +"It is he. With his swords at his side he advances, holding up his fan. +The red girdle and the scarlet tassel appear in sharply cut relief against +the dark armour; and upon his shoulder glitters a crest of Hizen or of +Tokungawa. + +"This handsome warrior sheathed with his scales and plates of metal, under +his bronze, his silk and glimmering lacquer, seems a crustacean, gigantic, +black and vermilion. + +"He has caught sight of her. Under the beaver of the war mask he smiles, +and his quickened step makes to glitter in the sun the two antennę of gold +that quiver upon his helmet." + +The comparison of a warrior in full armour to a gigantic crab or lobster, +especially lobster, is not exactly new. Victor Hugo has used it before in +French literature, just as Carlyle has used it in English literature; +indeed the image could not fail to occur to the artist in any country +where the study of armour has been carried on. But here the poet does not +speak of any particular creature; he uses only the generic term, +crustacean, the vagueness of which makes the comparison much more +effective. I think you can see the whole picture at once. It is a Japanese +colour-print,--some ancient interior, lighted by the sun of a great summer +day; and a woman looking through a bamboo blind toward the seashore, where +she sees a warrior approaching. He divines that he is seen; but if he +smiles, it is only because the smile is hidden by his iron mask. The only +sign of any sentiment on his part is that he walks a little quicker. Still +more amazing is a companion picture, containing only a solitary figure: + + +LE DAIMIO (Matin de bataille) + + Sous le noir fouet de guerre ą quadruple pompon, + L'étalon belliqueux en hennissant se cabre, + Et fait bruire, avec de cliquetis de sabre, + La cuirasse de bronze aux lames du jupon. + + Le Chef vźtu d'airain, de laque et de crépon, + Otant le masque ą poils de son visage glabre, + Regarde le volcan sur un ciel de cinabre + Dresser la neige oł rit l'aurore du Nippon. + + Mais il a vu, vers l'Est éclaboussé d'or, l'astre, + Glorieux d'éclairer ce matin de désastre, + Poindre, orbe éblouissant, au-dessus de la mer; + + Et pour couvrir ses yeux dont pas un cil ne bouge, + Il ouvre d'un seul coup son éventail de fer, + Oł dans le satin blanc se lčve un Soleil rouge. + +"Under the black war whip with its quadruple pompon the fierce stallion, +whinnying, curvets, and makes the rider's bronze cuirass ring against the +plates of his shirt of mail, with a sound like the clashing of sword +blades. + +"The Chief, clad in bronze and lacquer and silken crape, removing the +bearded masque from his beardless face, turns his gaze to the great +volcano, lifting its snows into the cinnabar sky where the dawn of Nippon +begins to smile. + +"Nay! he has already seen the gold-spattered day star, gloriously +illuminating the morning of disaster, rise, a blinding disk, above the +seas. And to shade his eyes, on both of which not even a single eyelash +stirs, he opens with one quick movement his iron fan, wherein upon a field +of white satin there rises a crimson sun." + +Of course this hasty translation is very poor; and you can only get from +it the signification and colour of the picture--the beautiful sonority and +luminosity of the French is all gone. Nevertheless, I am sure that the +more you study the original the more you will see how fine it is. Here +also is a Japanese colour print. We see the figure of the horseman on the +shore, in the light of dawn; behind him the still dark sky of night; +before him the crimson dawn, and Fuji white against the red sky. And in +the open fan, with its red sun, we have a grim suggestion of the day of +blood that is about to be; that is all. But whoever reads that sonnet will +never forget it; it burns into the memory. So, indeed, does everything +that Heredia writes. Unfortunately he has not yet written anything more +about Japan. + +I have quoted Heredia because I think that no other poet has even +approached him in the attempt to make a Japanese picture--though many +others have tried; and the French, nearly always, have done much better +than the English, because they are more naturally artists. Indeed one must +be something of an artist to write anything in the way of good poetry on a +Japanese subject. If you look at the collection "Poems of Places," in the +library, you will see how poorly Japan is there represented; the only +respectable piece of foreign work being by Longfellow, and that is only +about Japanese vases. But since then some English poems have appeared +which are at least worthy of Japanese notice. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE + + +It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to +Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it will +have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the written and spoken +language of the English race. For this reason, to study English literature +without some general knowledge of the relation of the Bible to that +literature would be to leave one's literary education very incomplete. It +is not necessary to consider the work from a religious point of view at +all; indeed, to so consider it would be rather a hindrance to the +understanding of its literary excellence. Some persons have ventured to +say that it is only since Englishmen ceased to believe in the Bible that +they began to discover how beautiful it was. This is not altogether true; +but it is partly true. For it is one thing to consider every word of a +book as the word of God or gods, and another thing to consider it simply +as the work of men like ourselves. Naturally we should think it our duty +to suppose the work of a divine being perfect in itself, and to imagine +beauty and truth where neither really exists. The wonder of the English +Bible can really be best appreciated by those who, knowing it to be the +work of men much less educated and cultivated than the scholars of the +nineteenth century, nevertheless perceive that those men were able to do +in literature what no man of our own day could possibly do. + +Of course in considering the work of the translators, we must remember the +magnificence of the original. I should not like to say that the Bible is +the greatest of all religious books. From the moral point of view it +contains very much that we can not to-day approve of; and what is good in +it can be found in the sacred books of other nations. Its ethics can not +even claim to be absolutely original. The ancient Egyptian scriptures +contain beauties almost superior in moral exaltation to anything contained +in the Old Testament; and the sacred books of other Eastern nations, +notably the sacred books of India, surpass the Hebrew scriptures in the +highest qualities of imagination and of profound thought. It is only of +late years that Europe, through the labour of Sanskrit and Pali scholars, +has become acquainted with the astonishing beauty of thought and feeling +which Indian scholars enshrined in scriptures much more voluminous than +the Hebrew Bible; and it is not impossible that this far-off literature +will some day influence European thought quite as much as the Jewish +Bible. Everywhere to-day in Europe and America the study of Buddhist and +Sanskrit literature is being pursued not only with eagerness but with +enthusiasm--an enthusiasm which sometimes reaches to curious extremes. I +might mention, in example, the case of a rich man who recently visited +Japan on his way from India. He had in New Zealand a valuable property; he +was a man of high culture, and of considerable social influence. One day +he happened to read an English translation of the "Bhagavad-Gita." Almost +immediately he resolved to devote the rest of his life to religious study +in India, in a monastery among the mountains; and he gave up wealth, +friends, society, everything that Western civilization could offer him, in +order to seek truth in a strange country. Certainly this is not the only +instance of the kind; and while such incidents can happen, we may feel +sure that the influence of religious literature is not likely to die for +centuries to come. + +But every great scripture, whether Hebrew, Indian, Persian, or Chinese, +apart from its religious value will be found to have some rare and special +beauty of its own; and in this respect the original Bible stands very high +as a monument of sublime poetry and of artistic prose. If it is not the +greatest of religious books as a literary creation, it is at all events +one of the greatest; and the proof is to be found in the inspiration which +millions and hundreds of millions, dead and living, have obtained from its +utterances. The Semitic races have always possessed in a very high degree +the genius of poetry, especially poetry in which imagination plays a great +part; and the Bible is the monument of Semitic genius in this regard. +Something in the serious, stern, and reverential spirit of the genius +referred to made a particular appeal to Western races having certain +characteristics of the same kind. Themselves uncultivated in the time that +the Bible was first made known to them, they found in it almost everything +that they thought and felt, expressed in a much better way than they could +have expressed it. Accordingly the Northern races of Europe found their +inspiration in the Bible; and the enthusiasm for it has not yet quite +faded away. + +But the value of the original, be it observed, did not make the value of +the English Bible. Certainly it was an inspiring force; but it was nothing +more. The English Bible is perhaps a much greater piece of fine +literature, altogether considered, than the Hebrew Bible. It was so for a +particular reason which it is very necessary for the student to +understand. The English Bible is a product of literary evolution. + +In studying English criticisms upon different authors, I think that you +must have sometimes felt impatient with the critics who told you, for +example, that Tennyson was partly inspired by Wordsworth and partly by +Keats and partly by Coleridge; and that Coleridge was partly inspired by +Blake and Blake by the Elizabethans, and so on. You may have been tempted +to say, as I used very often myself to say, "What does it matter where the +man got his ideas from? I care only for the beauty that is in his work, +not for a history of his literary education." But to-day the value of the +study of such relations appears in quite a new light. Evolutional +philosophy, applied to the study of literature as to everything else, has +shown us conclusively that man is not a god who can make something out of +nothing, and that every great work of genius must depend even less upon +the man of genius himself than upon the labours of those who lived before +him. Every great author must draw his thoughts and his knowledge in part +from other great authors, and these again from previous authors, and so on +back, till we come to that far time in which there was no written +literature, but only verses learned by heart and memorized by all the +people of some one tribe or place, and taught by them to their children +and to their grandchildren. It is only in Greek mythology that the +divinity of Wisdom leaps out of a god's head, in full armour. In the world +of reality the more beautiful a work of art, the longer, we may be sure, +was the time required to make it, and the greater the number of different +minds which assisted in its development. + +So with the English Bible. No one man could have made the translation of +1611. No one generation of men could have done it. It was not the labour +of a single century. It represented the work of hundreds of translators +working through hundreds of years, each succeeding generation improving a +little upon the work of the previous generation, until in the seventeenth +century the best had been done of which the English brain and the English +language was capable. In no other way can the surprising beauties of style +and expression be explained. No subsequent effort could improve the Bible +of King James. Every attempt made since the seventeenth century has only +resulted in spoiling and deforming the strength and the beauty of the +authorized text. + +Now you will understand why, from the purely literary point of view, the +English Bible is of the utmost importance for study. Suppose we glance for +a moment at the principal events in the history of this evolution. + +The first translation of the Bible into a Western tongue was that made by +Jerome (commonly called Saint Jerome) in the fourth century; he translated +directly from the Hebrew and other Arabic languages into Latin, then the +language of the Empire. This translation into Latin was called the +Vulgate,--from _vulgare_, "to make generally known." The Vulgate is still +used in the Roman church. The first English translations which have been +preserved to us were made from the Vulgate, not from the original tongues. +First of all, John Wycliffe's Bible may be called the foundation of the +seventeenth century Bible. Wycliffe's translation, in which he was helped +by many others, was published between 1380 and 1388. So we may say that +the foundation of the English Bible dates from the fourteenth century, one +thousand years after Jerome's Latin translation. But Wycliffe's version, +excellent as it was, could not serve very long: the English language was +changing too quickly. Accordingly, in the time of Henry VIII Tyndale and +Coverdale, with many others, made a new translation, this time not from +the Vulgate, but from the Greek text of the great scholar Erasmus. This +was the most important literary event of the time, for "it coloured the +entire complexion of subsequent English prose,"--to use the words of +Professor Gosse. This means that all prose in English written since Henry +VIII has been influenced, directly or indirectly, by the prose of +Tyndale's Bible, which was completed about 1535. Almost at the same time a +number of English divines, under the superintendence of Archbishop +Cramner, gave to the English language a literary treasure scarcely +inferior to the Bible itself, and containing wonderful translations from +the Scriptures,--the "Book of Common Prayer." No English surpasses the +English of this book, still used by the Church; and many translators have +since found new inspiration from it. + +A revision of this famous Bible was made in 1565, entitled "The Bishops' +Bible." The cause of the revision was largely doctrinal, and we need not +trouble ourselves about this translation farther than to remark that +Protestantism was reshaping the Scriptures to suit the new state religion. +Perhaps this edition may have had something to do with the determination +of the Roman Catholics to make an English Bible of their own. The Jesuits +began the work in 1582 at Rheims, and by 1610 the Roman Catholic version +known as the Douay (or Douai) version--because of its having been made +chiefly at the Catholic College of Douai in France--was completed. This +version has many merits; next to the wonderful King James version, it is +certainly the most poetical; and it has the further advantage of including +a number of books which Protestantism has thrown out of the authorized +version, but which have been used in the Roman church since its +foundation. But I am speaking of the book only as a literary English +production. It was not made with the help of original sources; its merits +are simply those of a melodious translation from the Latin Vulgate. + +At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous +King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English +language. It was the work of many learned men; but the chief worker and +supervisor was the Bishop of Winchester, Lancelot Andrews, perhaps the +most eloquent English preacher that ever lived. He was a natural-born +orator, with an exquisite ear for the cadences of language. To this +natural faculty of the Bishop's can be attributed much of the musical +charm of the English in which the Bible was written. Still, it must not be +supposed that he himself did all the work, or even more than a small +proportion of it. What he did was to tone it; he overlooked and corrected +all the text submitted to him, and suffered only the best forms to +survive. Yet what magnificent material he had to choose from! All the +translations of the Bible that had been made before his time were +carefully studied with a view to the conservation of the best phrases, +both for sound and for form. We must consider the result not merely as a +study of literature in itself, but also as a study of eloquence; for every +attention was given to those effects to be expected from an oratorical +recitation of the text in public. + +This marks the end of the literary evolution of the Bible. Everything that +has since been done has only been in the direction of retrogression, of +injury to the text. We have now a great many later versions, much more +scholarly, so far as correct scholarship is concerned, than the King James +version, but none having any claim to literary importance. Unfortunately, +exact scholars are very seldom men of literary ability; the two faculties +are rarely united. The Bible of 1870, known as the Oxford Bible, and now +used in the Anglican state-church, evoked a great protest from the true +men of letters, the poets and critics who had found their inspirations in +the useful study of the old version. The new version was the work of +fourteen years; it was made by the united labour of the greatest scholars +in the English-speaking world; and it is far the most exact translation +that we have. Nevertheless the literary quality has been injured to such +an extent that no one will ever turn to the new revision for poetical +study. Even among the churches there was a decided condemnation of this +scholarly treatment of the old text; and many of the churches refused to +use the book. In this case, conservatism is doing the literary world a +service, keeping the old King James version in circulation, and insisting +especially upon its use in Sunday schools. + +We may now take a few examples of the differences between the revised +version and the Bible of King James. Professor Saintsbury, in an essay +upon English prose, published some years ago, said that the most perfect +piece of English prose in the language was that comprised in the sixth and +seventh verses of the eighth chapter of the Song of Songs: + + Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine + arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave; + the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement + flame. + + Many waters can not quench love, neither can the floods drown it: + if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it + would utterly be condemned. + +I should not like to say that the Professor is certainly right in calling +this the finest prose in the English language; but he is a very great +critic, whose opinion must be respected and considered, and the passage is +certainly very fine. But in the revised version, how tame the same text +has become in the hands of the scholarly translators! + + The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very flame of the Lord. + +Now as a description of jealousy, not to speak of the literary execution +at all, which is the best? What, we may ask, has been gained by calling +jealousy "a flame of the Lord" or by substituting the word "flashes" for +"coals of fire"? All through the new version are things of this kind. For +example, in the same Song of Songs there is a beautiful description of +eyes, like "doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly +set." By substituting "rivers" only for "rivers of waters" the text may +have gained in exactness, but it has lost immeasurably, both in poetry and +in sound. Far more poetical is the verse as given in the Douai version: +"His eyes are as doves upon brooks of waters, which are washed with milk, +and sit beside the beautiful streams." + +It may even be said without any question that the mistakes of the old +translators were often much more beautiful than the original. A splendid +example is given in the verse of Job, chapter twenty-six, verse thirteen: +"By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the +crooked serpent." By the crooked serpent was supposed to be signified the +grand constellation called _Draco_, or the Dragon. And the figure is +sublime. It is still more sublime in the Douai translation. "His obstetric +hand hath brought forth the Winding Serpent." This is certainly a grand +imagination--the hand of God, like the hand of a midwife, bringing forth a +constellation out of the womb of the eternal night. But in the revised +version, which is exact, we have only "His hand hath pierced the Swift +Serpent!" All the poetry is dead. + +There are two methods for the literary study of any book--the first being +the study of its thought and emotion; the second only that of its +workmanship. A student of literature should study some of the Bible from +both points of view. In attempting the former method he will do well to +consider many works of criticism, but for the study of the text as +literature, his duty is very plain--the King James version is the only one +that ought to form the basis of his study, though he should look at the +Douai version occasionally. Also he should have a book of references, such +as Cruden's Concordance, by help of which he can collect together in a few +moments all the texts upon any particular subject, such as the sea, the +wind, the sky, human life, the shadows of evening. The study of the Bible +is not one which I should recommend to very young Japanese students, +because of the quaintness of the English. Before a good knowledge of +English forms is obtained, the archaisms are apt to affect the students' +mode of expression. But for the advanced student of literature, I should +say that some knowledge of the finest books in the Bible is simply +indispensable. The important books to read are not many. But one should +read at least the books of Genesis, Exodus, Ruth, Esther, the Song of +Songs, Proverbs,--and, above all, Job. Job is certainly the grandest book +in the Bible; but all of those which I have named are books that have +inspired poets and writers in all departments of English literature to +such an extent that you can scarcely read a masterpiece in which there is +not some conscious or unconscious reference to them. Another book of +philosophical importance is Ecclesiastes, where, in addition to much +proverbial wisdom, you will find some admirable world-poetry--that is, +poetry which contains universal truth about human life in all times and +all ages. Of the historical books and the law books I do not think that it +is important to read much; the literary element in these is not so +pronounced. It is otherwise with the prophetic books, but here in order to +obtain a few jewels of expression, you have to read a great deal that is +of little value. Of the New Testament there is very little equal to the +Old in literary value; indeed, I should recommend the reading only of the +closing book--the book called the Revelation, or the Apocalypse, from +which we have derived a literary adjective "apocalyptic," to describe +something at once very terrible and very grand. Whether one understands +the meaning of this mysterious text makes very little difference; the +sonority and the beauty of its sentences, together with the tremendous +character of its imagery, can not but powerfully influence mind and ear, +and thus stimulate literary taste. At least two of the great prose writers +of the nineteenth century, Carlyle and Ruskin, have been vividly +influenced by the book of the Revelation. Every period of English +literature shows some influence of Bible study, even from the old +Anglo-Saxon days; and during the present year, the study has so little +slackened that one constantly sees announcements of new works upon the +literary elements of the Bible. Perhaps one of the best is Professor +Moulton's "Modern Reader's Bible," in which the literary side of the +subject receives better consideration than in any other work of the kind +published for general use. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE "HAVAMAL" + +OLD NORTHERN ETHICS OF LIFE + + Then from his lips in music rolled + The Havamal of Odin old, + With sounds mysterious as the roar + Of billows on a distant shore. + + +Perhaps many of you who read this little verse in Longfellow's "Saga of +King Olaf" have wished to know what was this wonderful song that the ghost +of the god sang to the king. I am afraid that you would be very +disappointed in some respects by the "Havamal." There is indeed a magical +song in it; and it is this magical song especially that Longfellow refers +to, a song of charms. But most of the "Havamal" is a collection of ethical +teaching. All that has been preserved by it has been published and +translated by Professors Vigfusson and Powell. It is very old--perhaps the +oldest Northern literature that we have. I am going to attempt a short +lecture upon it, because it is very closely related to the subject of +Northern character, and will help us, perhaps better than almost anything +else, to understand how the ancestors of the English felt and thought +before they became Christians. Nor is this all. I venture to say that the +character of the modern English people still retains much more of the +quality indicated by the "Havamal" than of the quality implied by +Christianity. The old Northern gods are not dead; they rule a very great +part of the world to-day. + +The proverbial philosophy of a people helps us to understand more about +them than any other kind of literature. And this sort of literature is +certainly among the oldest. It represents only the result of human +experience in society, the wisdom that men get by contact with each other, +the results of familiarity with right and wrong. By studying the proverbs +of a people, you can always make a very good guess as to whether you could +live comfortably among them or not. + +Froude, in one of his sketches of travel in Norway, made the excellent +observation that if we could suddenly go back to the time of the terrible +sea-kings, if we could revisit to-day the homes of the old Northern +pirates, and find them exactly as they were one thousand or fifteen +hundred years ago, we should find them very much like the modern +Englishmen--big, simple, silent men, concealing a great deal of shrewdness +under an aspect of simplicity. The teachings of the "Havamal" give great +force to this supposition. The book must have been known in some form to +the early English--or at least the verses composing it (it is all written +in verse); and as I have already said, the morals of the old English, as +well as their character, differed very little from those of the men of the +still further North, with whom they mingled and intermarried freely, both +before and after the Danish conquest, when for one moment England and +Sweden were one kingdom. + +Of course you must remember that Northern society was a very terrible +thing in some ways. Every man carried his life in his hands; every farmer +kept sword and spear at his side even in his own fields; and every man +expected to die fighting. In fact, among the men of the more savage +North--the men of Norway in especial--it was considered a great disgrace +to die of sickness, to die on one's bed. That was not to die like a man. +Men would go out and get themselves killed, when they felt old age or +sickness coming on. But these facts must not blind us to the other fact +that there was even in that society a great force of moral cohesion, and +sound principles of morality. If there had not been, it could not have +existed; much less could the people who lived under it have become the +masters of a great part of the world, which they are at the present day. +There was, in spite of all that fierceness, much kindness and good nature +among them; there were rules of conduct such as no man could find fault +with--rules which still govern English society to some extent. And there +was opportunity enough for social amusement, social enjoyment, and the +winning of public esteem by a noble life. + +Still, even in the "Havamal," one is occasionally startled by teachings +which show the darker side of Northern life, a life of perpetual vendetta. +As in old Japan, no man could live under the same heaven with the murderer +of his brother or father; vengeance was a duty even in the case of a +friend. On the subject of enemies the "Havamal" gives not a little curious +advice: + + A man should never step a foot beyond his weapons; for he can + never tell where, on his path without, he may need his spear. + + A man, before he goes into a house, should look to and espy all + the doorways (_so that he can find his way out quickly again_), + for he can never know where foes may be sitting in another man's + house. + +Does not this remind us of the Japanese proverb that everybody has three +enemies outside of his own door? But the meaning of the "Havamal" teaching +is much more sinister. And when the man goes into the house, he is still +told to be extremely watchful--to keep his ears and eyes open so that he +may not be taken by surprise: + + The wary guest keeps watchful silence; he listens with his ears + and peers about with his eyes; thus does every wise man look about + him. + +One would think that men must have had very strong nerves to take comfort +under such circumstances, but the poet tells us that the man who can enjoy +nothing must be both a coward and a fool. Although a man was to keep watch +to protect his life, that was not a reason why he should be afraid of +losing it. There were but three things of which a man should be +particularly afraid. The first was drink--because drink often caused a man +to lose control of his temper; the second was another man's +wife--repeatedly the reader is warned never to make love to another man's +wife; and the third was thieves--men who would pretend friendship for the +purpose of killing and stealing, The man who could keep constant watch +over himself and his surroundings was, of course, likely to have the +longest life. + +Now in all countries there is a great deal of ethical teaching, and always +has been, on the subject of speech. The "Havamal" is full of teaching on +this subject--the necessity of silence, the danger and the folly of +reckless talk. You all know the Japanese proverb that "the mouth is the +front gate of all misfortune." The Norse poet puts the same truth into a +grimmer shape: "The tongue works death to the head." Here are a number of +sayings on this subject: + + He that is never silent talks much folly; a glib tongue, unless it + be bridled, will often talk a man into trouble. + + Do not speak three angry words with a worse man; for often the + better man falls by the worse man's sword. + + Smile thou in the face of the man thou trusteth not, and speak + against thy mind. + +This is of course a teaching of cunning; but it is the teaching, however +immoral, that rules in English society to-day. In the old Norse, however, +there were many reasons for avoiding a quarrel whenever possible--reasons +which must have existed also in feudal Japan. A man might not care about +losing his own life; but he had to be careful not to stir up a feud that +might go on for a hundred years. Although there was a great deal of +killing, killing always remained a serious matter, because for every +killing there had to be a vengeance. It is true that the law exonerated +the man who killed another, if he paid a certain blood-price; murder was +not legally considered an unpardonable crime. But the family of the dead +man would very seldom be satisfied with a payment; they would want blood +for blood. Accordingly men had to be very cautious about quarreling, +however brave they might personally be. + +But all this caution about silence and about watchfulness did not mean +that a man should be unable to speak to the purpose when speech was +required. "A wise man," says the "Havamal," "should be able both to ask +and to answer." There is a proverb which you know, to the effect that you +can not shut the door upon another man's mouth. So says the Norse poet: +"The sons of men can keep silence about nothing that passes among men; +therefore a man should be able to take his own part, prudently and +strongly." Says the "Havamal": "A fool thinks he knows everything if he +sits snug in his little corner; but he is at a loss for words if the +people put to him a question." Elsewhere it is said: "Arch dunce is he who +can speak nought, for that is the mark of a fool." And the sum of all this +teaching about the tongue is that men should never speak without good +reason, and then should speak to the point strongly and wisely. + +On the subject of fools there is a great deal in the "Havamal"; but you +must understand always by the word fool, in the Northern sense, a man of +weak character who knows not what to do in time of difficulty. That was a +fool among those men, and a dangerous fool; for in such a state of society +mistakes in act or in speech might reach to terrible consequences. See +these little observations about fools: + + Open-handed, bold-hearted men live most happily, they never feel + care; but a fool troubles himself about everything. The niggard + pines for gifts. + + A fool is awake all night, worrying about everything; when the + morning comes he is worn out, and all his troubles are just the + same as before. + + A fool thinks that all who smile upon him are his friends, not + knowing, when he is with wise men, who there may be plotting + against him. + + If a fool gets a drink, all his mind is immediately displayed. + +But it was not considered right for a man not to drink, although drink was +a dangerous thing. On the contrary, not to drink would have been thought a +mark of cowardice and of incapacity for self-control. A man was expected +even to get drunk if necessary, and to keep his tongue and his temper no +matter how much he drank. The strong character would only become more +cautious and more silent under the influence of drink; the weak man would +immediately show his weakness. I am told the curious fact that in the +English army at the present day officers are expected to act very much +after the teaching of the old Norse poet; a man is expected to be able on +occasion to drink a considerable amount of wine or spirits without showing +the effects of it, either in his conduct or in his speech. "Drink thy +share of mead; speak fair or not at all"--that was the old text, and a +very sensible one in its way. + +Laughter was also condemned, if indulged in without very good cause. "The +miserable man whose mind is warped laughs at everything, not knowing what +he ought to know, that he himself has no lack of faults." I need scarcely +tell you that the English are still a very serious people, not disposed to +laugh nearly so much as are the men of the more sympathetic Latin races. +You will remember perhaps Lord Chesterfield's saying that since he became +a man no man had ever seen him laugh. I remember about twenty years ago +that there was published by some Englishman a very learned and very +interesting little book, called "The Philosophy of Laughter," in which it +was gravely asserted that all laughter was foolish. I must acknowledge, +however, that no book ever made me laugh more than the volume in question. + +The great virtue of the men of the North, according to the "Havamal," was +indeed the virtue which has given to the English race its present great +position among nations,--the simplest of all virtues, common sense. But +common sense means much more than the words might imply to the Japanese +students, or to any one unfamiliar with English idioms. Common sense, or +mother-wit, means natural intelligence, as opposed to, and independent of, +cultivated or educated intelligence. It means inherited knowledge; and +inherited knowledge may take even the form of genius. It means foresight. +It means intuitive knowledge of other people's character. It means cunning +as well as broad comprehension. And the modern Englishman, in all times +and in all countries, trusts especially to this faculty, which is very +largely developed in the race to which he belongs. No Englishman believes +in working from book learning. He suspects all theories, philosophical or +other. He suspects everything new, and dislikes it, unless he can be +compelled by the force of circumstances to see that this new thing has +advantages over the old. Race-experience is what he invariably depends +upon, whenever he can, whether in India, in Egypt, or in Australia. His +statesmen do not consult historical precedents in order to decide what to +do: they first learn the facts as they are; then they depend upon their +own common sense, not at all upon their university learning or upon +philosophical theories. And in the case of the English nation, it must be +acknowledged that this instinctive method has been eminently successful. +When the "Havamal" speaks of wisdom it means mother-wit, and nothing else; +indeed, there was no reading or writing to speak of in those times: + + No man can carry better baggage on his journey than wisdom. + + There is no better friend than great common sense. + +But the wise man should not show himself to be wise without occasion. He +should remember that the majority of men are not wise, and he should be +careful not to show his superiority over them unnecessarily. Neither +should be despise men who do not happen to be as wise as himself: + + No man is so good but there is a flaw in him, nor so bad as to be + good for nothing. + + Middling wise should every man be; never overwise. Those who know + many things rarely lead the happiest life. + + Middling wise should every man be; never overwise. No man should + know his fate beforehand; so shall he live freest from care. + + Middling wise should every man be, never too wise. A wise man's + heart is seldom glad, if its owner be a true sage. + +This is the ancient wisdom also of Solomon "He that increases wisdom +increases sorrow." But how very true as worldly wisdom these little +Northern sentences are. That a man who knows a little of many things, and +no one thing perfectly, is the happiest man--this certainly is even more +true to-day than it was a thousand years ago. Spencer has well observed +that the man who can influence his generation, is never the man greatly in +advance of his time, but only the man who is very slightly better than his +fellows. The man who is very superior is likely to be ignored or disliked. +Mediocrity can not help disliking superiority; and as the old Northern +sage declared, "the average of men is but moiety." Moiety does not mean +necessarily mediocrity, but also that which is below mediocrity. What we +call in England to-day, as Matthew Arnold called it, the Philistine +element, continues to prove in our own time, to almost every superior man, +the danger of being too wise. + +Interesting in another way, and altogether more agreeable, are the old +sayings about friendship: "Know this, if thou hast a trusty friend, go and +see him often; because a road which is seldom trod gets choked with +brambles and high grass." + + Be not thou the first to break off from thy friend. Sorrow will + eat thy heart if thou lackest the friend to open thy heart to. + + Anything is better than to be false; he is no friend who + only speaks to please. + +Which means, of course, that a true friend is not afraid to find fault +with his friend's course; indeed, that is his solemn duty. But these +teachings about friendship are accompanied with many cautions; for one +must be very careful in the making friends. The ancient Greeks had a +terrible proverb: "Treat your friend as if he should become some day your +enemy; and treat your enemy as if he might some day become your friend." +This proverb seems to me to indicate a certain amount of doubt in human +nature. We do not find this doubt in the Norse teaching, but on the +contrary, some very excellent advice. The first thing to remember is that +friendship is sacred: "He that opens his heart to another mixes blood with +him." Therefore one should be very careful either about forming or about +breaking a friendship. + + A man should be a friend to his friend's friend. But no man should + be a friend of his friend's foe, nor of his foe's friend. + + A man should be a friend with his friend, and pay back gift with + gift; give back laughter for laughter (to his enemies), and lesing + for lies. + + Give and give back makes the longest friend. Give not overmuch at + one time. Gift always looks for return. + +The poet also tells us how trifling gifts are quite sufficient to make +friends and to keep them, if wisely given. A costly gift may seem like a +bribe; a little gift is only the sign of kindly feeling. And as a mere +matter of justice, a costly gift may be unkind, for it puts the friend +under an obligation which he may not be rich enough to repay. Repeatedly +we are told also that too much should not be expected of friendship. The +value of a friend is his affection, his sympathy; but favours that cost +must always be returned. + + I never met a man so open-hearted and free with his food, but that + boon was boon to him--nor so generous as not to look for return if + he had a chance. + +Emerson says almost precisely the same thing in his essay on +friendship--showing how little human wisdom has changed in all the +centuries. Here is another good bit of advice concerning visits: + + It is far away to an ill friend, even though he live on one's + road; but to a good friend there is a short cut, even though he + live far out. + + Go on, be not a guest ever in the same house. The welcome becomes + wearisome if he sits too long at another's table. + +This means that we must not impose on our friends; but there is a further +caution on the subject of eating at a friend's house. You must not go to +your friend's house hungry, when you can help it. + + A man should take his meal betimes, before he goes to his + neighbour--or he will sit and seem hungered like one starving, and + have no power to talk. + +That is the main point to remember in dining at another's house, that you +are not there only for your own pleasure, but for that of other people. +You are expected to talk; and you can not talk if you are very hungry. At +this very day a gentleman makes it the rule to do the same thing. +Accordingly we see that these rough men of the North must have had a good +deal of social refinement--refinement not of dress or of speech, but of +feeling. Still, says the poet, one's own home is the best, though it be +but a cottage. "A man is a man in his own house." + +Now we come to some sentences teaching caution, which are noteworthy in a +certain way: + + Tell one man thy secret, but not two. What three men know, all the + world knows. + + Never let a bad man know thy mishaps; for from a bad man thou + shalt never get reward for thy sincerity. + +I shall presently give you some modern examples in regard to the advice +concerning bad men. Another thing to be cautious about is praise. If you +have to be careful about blame, you must be very cautious also about +praise. + + Praise the day at even-tide; a woman at her burying; a sword when + it has been tried; a maid when she is married; ice when + you have crossed over it; ale when it is drunk. + +If there is anything noteworthy in English character to-day it is the +exemplification of this very kind of teaching. This is essentially +Northern. The last people from whom praise can be expected, even for what +is worthy of all praise, are the English. A new friendship, a new ideal, a +reform, a noble action, a wonderful poet, an exquisite painting--any of +these things will be admired and praised by every other people in Europe +long before you can get Englishmen to praise. The Englishman all this time +is studying, considering, trying to find fault. Why should he try to find +fault? So that he will not make any mistakes at a later day. He has +inherited the terrible caution of his ancestors in regard to mistakes. It +must be granted that his caution has saved him from a number of very +serious mistakes that other nations have made. It must also be +acknowledged that he exercises a fair amount of moderation in the opposite +direction--this modern Englishman; he has learned caution of another kind, +which his ancestors taught him. "Power," says the "Havamal," "should be +used with moderation; for whoever finds himself among valiant men will +discover that no man is peerless." And this is a very important thing for +the strong man to know--that however strong, he can not be the strongest; +his match will be found when occasion demands it. Not only Scandinavian +but English rulers have often discovered this fact to their cost. Another +matter to be very anxious about is public opinion. + + Chattels die; kinsmen pass away; one dies oneself; but I know + something that never dies--the name of the man, for good or bad. + +Do not think that this means anything religious. It means only that the +reputation of a man goes to influence the good or ill fortune of his +descendants. It is something to be proud of, to be the son of a good man; +it helps to success in life. On the other hand, to have had a father of +ill reputation is a very serious obstacle to success of any kind in +countries where the influence of heredity is strongly recognized. + +I have nearly exhausted the examples of this Northern wisdom which I +selected for you; but there are two subjects which remain to be +considered. One is the law of conduct in regard to misfortune; and the +other is the rule of conduct in regard to women. A man was expected to +keep up a brave heart under any circumstances. These old Northmen seldom +committed suicide; and I must tell you that all the talk about +Christianity having checked the practice of suicide to some extent, can +not be fairly accepted as truth. In modern England to-day the suicides +average nearly three thousand a year; but making allowance for +extraordinary circumstances, it is certainly true that the Northern races +consider suicide in an entirely different way from what the Latin races +do. There was very little suicide among the men of the North, because +every man considered it his duty to get killed, not to kill himself; and +to kill himself would have seemed cowardly, as implying fear of being +killed by others. In modern ethical training, quite apart from religious +considerations a man is taught that suicide is only excusable in case of +shame, or under such exceptional circumstances as have occurred in the +history of the Indian mutiny. At all events, we have the feeling still +strongly manifested in England that suicide is not quite manly; and this +is certainly due much more to ancestral habits of thinking, which date +back to pagan days, than to Christian doctrine. As I have said, the pagan +English would not commit suicide to escape mere pain. But the Northern +people knew how to die to escape shame. There is an awful story in Roman +history about the wives and daughters of the conquered German tribes, +thousands in number, asking to be promised that their virtue should be +respected, and all killing themselves when the Roman general refused the +request. No Southern people of Europe in that time would have shown such +heroism upon such a matter. Leaving honour aside, however, the old book +tells us that a man should never despair. + + Fire, the sight of the sun, good health, and a blameless + life these are the goodliest things in this world. + + Yet a man is not utterly wretched, though he have bad health, or + be maimed. + + The halt may ride a horse; the handless may drive a herd; the deaf + can fight and do well; better be blind than buried. A corpse is + good for naught. + +On the subject of women there is not very much in the book beyond the +usual caution in regard to wicked women; but there is this little +observation: + + Never blame a woman for what is all man's weakness. Hues charming + and fair may move the wise and not the dullard. Mighty love turns + the son of men from wise to fool. + +This is shrewd, and it contains a very remarkable bit of esthetic truth, +that it requires a wise man to see certain kinds of beauty, which a stupid +man could never be made to understand. And, leaving aside the subject of +love, what very good advice it is never to laugh at a person for what can +be considered a common failure. In the same way an intelligent man should +learn to be patient with the unintelligent, as the same poem elsewhere +insists. + +Now what is the general result of this little study, the general +impression that it leaves upon the mind? Certainly we feel that the life +reflected in these sentences was a life in which caution was above all +things necessary--caution in thought and speech and act, never ceasing, by +night or day, during the whole of a man's life. Caution implies +moderation. Moderation inevitably develops a certain habit of justice--a +justice that might not extend outside of the race, but a justice that +would be exercised between man and man of the same blood. Very much of +English character and of English history is explained by the life that the +"Havamal" portrays. Very much that is good; also very much that is +bad--not bad in one sense, so far as the future of the race is concerned, +but in a social way certainly not good. The judgment of the Englishman by +all other European peoples is that he is the most suspicious, the most +reserved, the most unreceptive, the most unfriendly, the coldest hearted, +and the most domineering of all Western peoples. Ask a Frenchman, an +Italian, a German, a Spaniard, even an American, what he thinks about +Englishmen; and every one of them will tell you the very same thing. This +is precisely what the character of men would become who had lived for +thousands of years in the conditions of Northern society. But you would +find upon the other hand that nearly all nations would speak highly of +certain other English qualities--energy, courage, honour, justice (between +themselves). They would say that although no man is so difficult to make +friends with, the friendship of an Englishman once gained is more strong +and true than any other. And as the battle of life still continues, and +must continue for thousands of years to come, it must be acknowledged that +the English character is especially well fitted for the struggle. Its +reserves, its cautions, its doubts, its suspicions, its brutality--these +have been for it in the past, and are still in the present, the best +social armour and panoply of war. It is not a lovable nor an amiable +character; it is not even kindly. The Englishman of the best type is much +more inclined to be just than he is to be kind, for kindness is an +emotional impulse, and the Englishman is on his guard against every kind +of emotional impulse. But with all this, the character is a grand one, and +its success has been the best proof of its value. + +Now you will have observed in the reading of this ancient code of social +morals that, while none of the teaching is religious, some of it is +absolutely immoral from any religious standpoint. No great religion +permits us to speak what is not true, and to smile in the face of an enemy +while pretending to be his friend. No religion teaches that we should "pay +back lesing for lies." Neither does a religion tell us that we should +expect a return for every kindness done; that we should regard friendship +as being actuated by selfish motives; that we should never praise when +praise seems to be deserved. In fact, when Sir Walter Scott long ago made +a partial translation of the "Havamal," he thought himself obliged to +leave out a number of sentences which seemed to him highly immoral, and to +apologize for others. He thought that they would shock English readers too +much. + +We are not quite so squeamish to-day; and a thinker of our own time would +scarcely deny that English society is very largely governed at this moment +by the same kind of rules that Sir Walter Scott thought to be so bad. But +here we need not condemn English society in particular. All European +society has been for hundreds of years conducting itself upon very much +the same principles; for the reason that human social experience has been +the same in all Western countries. I should say that the only difference +between English society and other societies is that the hardness of +character is very much greater. Let us go back even to the most Christian +times of Western societies in the most Christian country of Europe, and +observe whether the social code was then and there so very different from +the social code of the old "Havamal." Mr. Spencer observes in his "Ethics" +that, so far as the conduct of life is concerned, religion is almost +nothing and practice is everything. We find this wonderfully exemplified +in a most remarkable book of social precepts written in the seventeenth +century, in Spain, under the title of the "Oraculo Manual." It was +composed by a Spanish priest, named Baltasar Gracian, who was born in the +year 1601 and died in 1658; and it has been translated into nearly all +languages. The best English translation, published by Macmillan, is called +"The Art of Worldly Wisdom." It is even more admired to-day than in the +seventeenth century; and what it teaches as to social conduct holds as +good to-day of modern society as it did of society two hundred years ago. +It is one of the most unpleasant and yet interesting books ever +published--unpleasant because of the malicious cunning which it often +displays--interesting because of the frightful perspicacity of the author. +The man who wrote that book understood the hearts of men, especially the +bad side. He was a gentleman of high rank before he became a priest, and +his instinctive shrewdness must have been hereditary. Religion, this man +would have said, teaches the best possible morals; but the world is not +governed by religion altogether, and to mix with it, we must act according +to its dictates. + +These dictates remind us in many ways of the cautions and the cunning of +the "Havamal." The first thing enjoined upon a man both by the Norse +writer and by the Spanish author is the art of silence. Probably this has +been the result of social experience in all countries. "Cautious silence +is the holy of holies of worldly wisdom," says Gracian. And he gives many +elaborate reasons for this statement, not the least of which is the +following: "If you do not declare yourself immediately, you arouse +expectation, especially when the importance of your position makes you the +object of general attention. Mix a little mystery with everything, and the +very mystery arouses veneration." A little further on he gives us exactly +the same advice as did the "Havamal" writer, in regard to being frank with +enemies. "Do not," he says, "show your wounded finger, for everything will +knock up against it; nor complain about it, for malice always aims where +weakness can be injured.... Never disclose the source of mortification or +of joy, if you wish the one to cease, the other to endure." About secrets +the Spaniard is quite as cautious as the Norseman. He says, "Especially +dangerous are secrets entrusted to friends. He that communicates his +secret to another makes himself that other man's slave." But after a great +many such cautions in regard to silence and secrecy, he tells us also that +we must learn how to fight with the world. You remember the advice of the +"Havamal" on this subject, how it condemns as a fool the man who can not +answer a reproach. The Spaniard is, however, much more malicious in his +suggestions. He tells as that we must "learn to know every man's +thumbscrew." I suppose you know that a thumbscrew was an instrument of +torture used in old times to force confessions from criminals. This advice +means nothing less than that we should learn how to be be able to hurt +other men's feelings, or to flatter other men's weaknesses. "First guess +every man's ruling passion, appeal to it by a word, set it in motion by +temptation, and you will infallibly give checkmate to his freedom of +will." The term "give checkmate" is taken from the game of chess, and must +here be understood as meaning to overcome, to conquer. A kindred piece of +advice is "keep a store of sarcasms, and know how to use them." Indeed he +tells us that this is the point of greatest tact in human intercourse. +"Struck by the slightest word of this kind, many fall away from the +closest intimacy with superiors or inferiors, which intimacy could not be +in the slightest shaken by a whole conspiracy of popular insinuation or +private malevolence." In other words, you can more quickly destroy a man's +friendship by one word of sarcasm than by any amount of intrigue. Does not +this read very much like sheer wickedness? Certainly it does; but the +author would have told you that you must fight the wicked with their own +weapons. In the "Havamal" you will not find anything quite so openly +wicked as that; but we must suppose that the Norsemen knew the secret, +though they might not have put it into words. As for the social teaching, +you will find it very subtly expressed even in the modern English novels +of George Meredith, who, by the way, has written a poem in praise of +sarcasm and ridicule. But let us now see what the Spanish author has to +tell us about friendship and unselfishness. + +The shrewd man knows that others when they seek him do not seek "him," but +"their advantage in him and by him." That is to say, a shrewd man does not +believe in disinterested friendship. This is much worse than anything in +the "Havamal." And it is diabolically elaborated. What are we to say about +such teaching as the following: "A wise man would rather see men needing +him than thanking him. To keep them on the threshold of hope is +diplomatic; to trust to their gratitude is boorish; hope has a good +memory, gratitude a bad one"? There is much more of this kind; but after +the assurance that only a boorish person (that is to say, an ignorant and +vulgar man) can believe in gratitude, the author's opinion of human nature +needs no further elucidation. The old Norseman would have been shocked at +such a statement. But he might have approved the following: "When you hear +anything favourable, keep a tight rein upon your credulity; if +unfavourable, give it the spur." That is to say, when you hear anything +good about another man, do not be ready to believe it; but if you hear +anything bad about him, believe as much of it as you can. + +I notice also many other points of resemblance between the Northern and +the Spanish teaching in regard to caution. The "Havamal" says that you +must not pick a quarrel with a worse man than yourself; "because the +better man often falls by the worse man's sword." The Spanish priest gives +a still shrewder reason for the same policy. "Never contend," he says, +"with a man who has nothing to lose; for thereby you enter into an unequal +conflict. The other enters without anxiety; having lost everything, +including shame, he has no further loss to fear." I think that this is an +immoral teaching, though a very prudent one; but I need scarcely to tell +you that it is still a principle in modern society not to contend with a +man who has no reputation to lose. I think it is immoral, because it is +purely selfish, and because a good man ought not to be afraid to denounce +a wrong because of making enemies. Another point, however, on which the +"Havamal" and the priest agree, is more commendable and interesting. "We +do not think much of a man who never contradicts us; that is no sign he +loves us, but rather a sign that he loves himself. Original and +out-of-the-way views are signs of superior ability." + +I should not like you to suppose, however, that the whole of the book from +which I have been quoting is of the same character as the quotations. +There is excellent advice in it; and much kindly teaching on the subject +of generous acts. It is a book both good and bad, and never stupid. The +same man who tells you that friendship is seldom unselfish, also declares +that life would be a desert without friends, and that there is no magic +like a good turn--that is, a kind act. He teaches the importance of +getting good will by honest means, although he advises us also to learn +how to injure. I am sure that nobody could read the book without benefit. +And I may close these quotations from it with the following paragraph, +which is the very best bit of counsel that could be given to a literary +student: + + Be slow and sure. Quickly done can be quickly undone. To last an + eternity requires an eternity of preparation. Only excellence + counts. Profound intelligence is the only foundation for + immortality. Worth much costs much. The precious metals are the + heaviest. + +But so far as the question of human conduct is concerned, the book of +Gracian is no more of a religious book than is the "Havamal" of the +heathen North. You would find, were such a book published to-day and +brought up to the present time by any shrewd writer, that Western morality +has not improved in the least since the time before Christianity was +established, so far as the rules of society go. Society is not, and can +not be, religious, because it is a state of continual warfare. Every +person in it has to fight, and the battle is not less cruel now because it +is not fought with swords. Indeed, I should think that the time when every +man carried his sword in society was a time when men were quite as kindly +and much more honest than they are now. The object of this little lecture +was to show you that the principles of the ancient Norse are really the +principles ruling English society to-day; but I think you will be able to +take from it a still larger meaning. It is that not only one form of +society, but all forms of society, represent the warfare of man and man. +That is why thinkers, poets, philosophers, in all ages, have tried to find +solitude, to keep out of the contest, to devote themselves only to study +of the beautiful and the true. But the prizes of life are not to be +obtained in solitude, although the prizes of thought can only there be +won. After all, whatever we may think about the cruelty and treachery of +the social world, it does great things in the end. It quickens judgment, +deepens intelligence, enforces the acquisition of self-control, creates +forms of mental and moral strength that can not fail to be sometimes of +vast importance to mankind. But if you should ask me whether it increases +human happiness, I should certainly say "no." The "Havamal" said the same +thing,--the truly wise man can not be happy. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +BEYOND MAN + + +It seems to me a lecturer's duty to speak to you about any remarkable +thought at this moment engaging the attention of Western philosophers and +men of science,--partly because any such new ideas are certain, sooner or +later, to be reflected in literature, and partly because without a +knowledge of them you might form incorrect ideas in relation to utterances +of any important philosophic character. I am not going to discourse about +Nietzsche, though the title of this lecture is taken from one of his +books; the ideas about which I am going to tell you, you will not find in +his books. It is most extraordinary, to my thinking, that these ideas +never occurred to him, for he was an eminent man of science before writing +his probably insane books. I have not the slightest sympathy with most of +his ideas; they seem to me misinterpretations of evolutional teachings; +and if not misinterpretations, they are simply undeveloped and +ill-balanced thinking. But the title of one of his books, and the idea +which he tries always unsuccessfully to explain,--that of a state above +mankind, a moral condition "beyond man," as he calls it,--that is worth +talking about. It is not nonsense at all, but fact, and I think that I can +give you a correct idea of the realities in the case. Leaving Nietzsche +entirely alone, then, let us ask if it is possible to suppose a condition +of human existence above morality,--that is to say, more moral than the +most moral ideal which a human brain can conceive? We may answer, it is +quite possible, and it is not only possible, but it has actually been +predicted by many great thinkers, including Herbert Spencer. + +We have been brought up to think that there can be nothing better than +virtue, than duty, than strictly following the precepts of a good +religion. However, our ideas of goodness and of virtue necessarily imply +the existence of the opposite qualities. To do a good thing because it is +our duty to do it, implies a certain amount of resolve, a struggle against +difficulty. The virtue of honesty is a term implying the difficulty of +being perfectly honest. When we think of any virtuous or great deed, we +can not help thinking of the pain and obstacles that have to be met with +in performing that deed. All our active morality is a struggle against +immorality. And I think that, as every religion teaches, it must be +granted that no human being has a perfectly moral nature. + +Could a world exist in which the nature of all the inhabitants would be so +moral that the mere idea of what is immoral could not exist? Let me +explain my question more in detail. Imagine a society in which the idea of +dishonesty would not exist, because no person could be dishonest, a +society in which the idea of unchastity could not exist, because no person +could possibly be unchaste, a world in which no one could have any idea of +envy, ambition or anger, because such passions could not exist, a world in +which there would be no idea of duty, filial or parental, because not to +be filial, not to be loving, not to do everything which we human beings +now call duty, would be impossible. In such a world ideas of duty would be +quite useless; for every action of existence would represent the constant +and faultless performance of what we term duty. Moreover, there would be +no difficulty, no pain in such performance; it would be the constant and +unfailing pleasure of life. With us, unfortunately, what is wrong often +gives pleasure; and what is good to do, commonly causes pain. But in the +world which I am asking you to imagine there could not be any wrong, nor +any pleasure in wrong-doing; all the pleasure would be in right-doing. To +give a very simple illustration--one of the commonest and most pardonable +faults of young people is eating, drinking, or sleeping too much. But in +our imaginary world to eat or to drink or to sleep in even the least +degree more than is necessary could not be done; the constitution of the +race would not permit it. One more illustration. Our children have to be +educated carefully in regard to what is right or wrong; in the world of +which I am speaking, no time would be wasted in any such education, for +every child would be born with full knowledge of what is right and wrong. +Or to state the case in psychological language--I mean the language of +scientific, not of metaphysical, psychology--we should have a world in +which morality would have been transmuted into inherited instinct. Now +again let me put the question: can we imagine such a world? Perhaps you +will answer, Yes, in heaven--nowhere else. But I answer you that such a +world actually exists, and that it can be studied in almost any part of +the East or of Europe by a person of scientific training. The world of +insects actually furnishes examples of such a moral transformation. It is +for this reason that such writers as Sir John Lubbock and Herbert Spencer +have not hesitated to say that certain kinds of social insects have +immensely surpassed men, both in social and in ethical progress. + +But that is not all that it is necessary to say here. You might think that +I am only repeating a kind of parable. The important thing is the opinion +of scientific men that humanity will at last, in the course of millions of +years, reach the ethical conditions of the ants. It is only five or six +years ago that some of these conditions were established by scientific +evidence, and I want to speak of them. They have a direct bearing upon +important ethical questions; and they have startled the whole moral world, +and set men thinking in entirely new directions. + +In order to explain how the study of social insects has set moralists of +recent years thinking in a new direction, it will be necessary to +generalize a great deal in the course of so short a lecture. It is +especially the social conditions of the ants which has inspired these new +ideas; but you must not think that any one species of ants furnishes us +with all the facts. The facts have been arrived at only through the study +of hundreds of different kinds of ants by hundreds of scientific men; and +it is only by the consensus of their evidence that we get the ethical +picture which I shall try to outline for you. Altogether there are +probably about five thousand different species of ants, and these +different species represent many different stages of social evolution, +from the most primitive and savage up to the most highly civilized and +moral. The details of the following picture are furnished by a number of +the highest species only; that must not be forgotten. Also, I must remind +you that the morality of the ant, by the necessity of circumstance, does +not extend beyond the limits of its own species. Impeccably ethical within +the community, ants carry on war outside their own borders; were it not +for this, we might call them morally perfect creatures. + +Although the mind of an ant can not be at all like to the mind of the +human being, it is so intelligent that we are justified in trying to +describe its existence by a kind of allegorical comparison with human +life. Imagine, then, a world full of women, working night and +day,--building, tunnelling, bridging,--also engaged in agriculture, in +horticulture, and in taking care of many kinds of domestic animals. (I may +remark that ants have domesticated no fewer than five hundred and +eighty-four different kinds of creatures.) This world of women is +scrupulously clean; busy as they are, all of them carry combs and brushes +about them, and arrange themselves several times a day. In addition to +this constant work, these women have to take care of myriads of +children,--children so delicate that the slightest change in the weather +may kill them. So the children have to be carried constantly from one +place to another in order to keep them warm. + +Though this multitude of workers are always gathering food, no one of them +would eat or drink a single atom more than is necessary; and none of them +would sleep for one second longer than is necessary. Now comes a +surprising fact, about which a great deal must be said later on. These +women have no sex. They are women, for they sometimes actually give birth, +as virgins, to children; but they are incapable of wedlock. They are more +than vestals. Sex is practically suppressed. + +This world of workers is protected by an army of soldiers. The soldiers +are very large, very strong, and shaped so differently from the working +females that they do not seem at first to belong to the same race. They +help in the work, though they are not able to help in some delicate kinds +of work--they are too clumsy and strong. Now comes the second astonishing +fact: these soldiers are all women--amazons, we might call them; but they +are sexless women. In these also sex has been suppressed. + +You ask, where do the children come from? Most of the children are born of +special mothers--females chosen for the purpose of bearing offspring, and +not allowed to do anything else. They are treated almost like empresses, +being constantly fed and attended and served, and being lodged in the best +way possible. Only these can eat and drink at all times--they must do so +for the sake of their offspring. They are not suffered to go out, unless +strongly attended, and they are not allowed to run any risk of danger or +of injury The life of the whole race circles about them and about their +children, but they are very few. + +Last of all are the males, the men. One naturally asks why females should +have been specialized into soldiers instead of men. It appears that the +females have more reserve force, and all the force that might have been +utilized in the giving of life has been diverted to the making of +aggressive powers. The real males are very small and weak. They appear to +be treated with indifference and contempt. They are suffered to become the +bridegrooms of one night, after which they die very quickly. By contrast, +the lives of the rest are very long. Ants live for at least three or four +years, but the males live only long enough to perform their solitary +function. + +In the foregoing little fantasy, the one thing that should have most +impressed you is the fact of the suppression of sex. But now comes the +last and most astonishing fact of all: this suppression of sex is not +natural, but artificial--I mean that it is voluntary. It has been +discovered that ants are able, by a systematic method of nourishment, to +suppress or develop sex as they please. The race has decided that sex +shall not be allowed to exist except in just so far as it is absolutely +necessary to the existence of the race. Individuals with sex are tolerated +only as necessary evils. Here is an instance of the most powerful of all +passions voluntarily suppressed for the benefit of the community at large. +It vanishes whenever unnecessary; when necessary after a war or a calamity +of some kind, it is called into existence again. Certainly it is not +wonderful that such a fact should have set moralists thinking. Of course +if a human community could discover some secret way of effecting the same +object, and could have the courage to do it, or rather the unselfishness +to do it, the result would simply be that sexual immorality of any kind +would become practically impossible The very idea of such immorality would +cease to exist. + +But that is only one fact of self-suppression and the ant-world furnishes +hundreds. To state the whole thing in the simplest possible way, let me +say the race has entirely got rid of everything that we call a selfish +impulse. Even hunger and thirst allow of no selfish gratification. The +entire life of the community is devoted to the common good and to mutual +help and to the care of the young. Spencer says it is impossible to +imagine that an ant has a sense of duty like our own,--a religion, if you +like. But it does not need a sense of duty, it does not need religion. Its +life is religion in the practical sense. Probably millions of years ago +the ant had feelings much more like our own than it has now. At that time, +to perform altruistic actions may have been painful to the ant; to perform +them now has become the one pleasure of its existence. In order to bring +up children and serve the state more efficiently these insects have +sacrificed their sex and every appetite that we call by the name of animal +passion. Moreover they have a perfect community, a society in which nobody +could think of property, except as a state affair, a public thing, or as +the Romans would say a _res publica_. In a human community so organized, +there could not be ambition, any jealousy, any selfish conduct of any +sort--indeed, no selfishness at all. The individual is said to be +practically sacrificed for the sake of the race; but such a supposition +means the highest moral altruism. Therefore thinkers have to ask, "Will +man ever rise to something like the condition of ants?" + +Herbert Spencer says that such is the evident tendency. He does not say, +nor is it at all probable, that there will be in future humanity such +physiological specialization as would correspond to the suppression of sex +among ants, or to the bringing of women to the dominant place in the human +world, and the masculine sex to an inferior position. That is not likely +ever to happen, for reasons which it would take very much too long to +speak of now. But there is evidence that the most selfish of all human +passions will eventually be brought under control--under such control that +the present cause of wellnigh all human suffering, the pressure of +population, will be practically removed. And there is psychological +evidence that the human mind will undergo such changes that wrong-doing, +in the sense of unkindly action, will become almost impossible, and that +the highest pleasure will be found not in selfishness but in +unselfishness. Of course there are thousands of things to think about, +suggested by this discovery of the life of ants. I am only telling the +more important ones. What I have told you ought at least to suggest that +the idea of a moral condition much higher than all our moral conditions of +today is quite possible,--that it is not an idea to be laughed at. But it +was not Nietzsche who ever conceived this possibility. His "Beyond Man" +and the real and much to be hoped for "beyond man," are absolutely +antagonistic conceptions. When the ancient Hebrew writer said, thousands +of years ago, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways," he could +not have imagined how good his advice would prove in the light of +twentieth century science. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE NEW ETHICS + + +Before leaving the subject of these latter-day intellectual changes, a +word must be said concerning the ethical questions involved. Of course +when a religious faith has been shaken to its foundation, it is natural to +suppose that morals must have been simultaneously affected. The relation +of morals to literature is very intimate; and we must expect that any +change of ideas in the direction of ethics would show themselves in +literature. The drama, poetry, romance, the novel, all these are +reflections of moral emotion in especial, of the eternal struggle between +good and evil, as well as of the temporary sentiments concerning right and +wrong. And every period of transition is necessarily accompanied by +certain tendencies to disintegration. Contemporary literature in the West +has shown some signs of ethical change. These caused many thinkers to +predict a coming period of demoralization in literature. But the alarm was +really quite needless. These vagaries of literature, such as books +questioning the morality of the marriage relation, for example, were only +repetitions of older vagaries, and represented nothing more than the +temporary agitation of thought upon all questions. The fact seems to be +that in spite of everything, moral feeling was never higher at any time in +Western social history than it is at present. The changes of thought have +indeed been very great, but the moral experience of mankind remains +exactly as valuable as it was before, and new perceptions of that value +have been given to us by the new philosophy. + +It has been wisely observed by the greatest of modern thinkers that +mankind has progressed more rapidly in every other respect than in +morality. Moral progress has not been rapid simply because the moral ideal +has always been kept a little in advance of the humanly possible. +Thousands of years ago the principles of morality were exactly the same as +those which rule our lives to-day. We can not improve upon them; we can +not even improve upon the language which expressed them. The most learned +of our poets could not make a more beautiful prayer than the prayer which +Egyptian mothers taught to their little children in ages when all Europe +was still a land of savages. The best of the moral philosophy of the +nineteenth century is very little of improvement upon the moral philosophy +of ancient India or China. If there is any improvement at all, it is +simply in the direction of knowledge of causes and effects. And that is +why in all countries the common sense of mankind universally condemns any +attempt to interfere with moral ideas. These represent the social +experience of man for thousands and thousands of years; and it is not +likely that the wisdom of any one individual can ever better them. If +bettered at all it can not be through theory. The amelioration must be +effected by future experience of a universal kind. We may improve every +branch of science, every branch of art, everything else relating to the +work of human heads and hands; but we can not improve morals by invention +or by hypothesis. Morals are not made, but grow. + +Yet, as I have said, there is what may be called a new system of ethics. +But this new system of ethics means nothing more than a new way of +understanding the old system of ethics. By the application of evolutional +science to the study of morals, we have been enabled to trace back the +whole history of moral ideas to the time of their earliest inception,--to +understand the reasons of them, and to explain them without the help of +any supernatural theory. And the result, so far from diminishing our +respect for the wisdom of our ancestors, has immensely increased that +respect. There is no single moral teaching common to different +civilizations and different religions of an advanced stage of development +which we do not find to be eternally true. Let us try to study this view +of the case by the help of a few examples. + +In early times, of course, men obeyed moral instruction through religious +motives. If asked why they thought it was wrong to perform certain actions +and right to perform others, they could have answered only that such was +ancestral custom and that the gods will it so. Not until we could +understand the laws governing the evolution of society could we understand +the reason of many ethical regulations. But now we can understand very +plainly that the will of the gods, as our ancestors might have termed it, +represents divine laws indeed, for the laws of ethical evolution are +certainly the unknown laws shaping all things--suns, worlds, and human +societies. All that opposes itself to the operation of those universal +laws is what we have been accustomed to call bad, and everything which +aids the operation of those laws is what we have been accustomed to think +of as good. The common crimes condemned by all religions, such as theft, +murder, adultery, bearing false witness, disloyalty, all these are +practices which directly interfere with the natural process of evolution; +and without understanding why, men have from the earliest times of real +civilisation united all their power to suppress them. I think that we need +not dwell upon the simple facts; they will at once suggest to you all that +is necessary to know. I shall select for illustration only one less +familiar topic, that of the ascetic ideal. + +A great many things which in times of lesser knowledge we imagined to be +superstitious or useless, prove to-day on examination to have been of +immense value to mankind. Probably no superstition ever existed which did +not have some social value; and the most seemingly repulsive or cruel +sometimes turn out to have been the most precious. To choose one of these +for illustration, we must take one not confined to any particular +civilization or religion, but common to all human societies at a certain +period of their existence; and the ascetic ideal best fits our purpose. +From very early times, even from a time long preceding any civilization, +we find men acting under the idea that by depriving themselves of certain +pleasures and by subjecting themselves to certain pains they could please +the divine powers and thereby obtain strength. Probably there is no people +in the world among whom this belief has not had at some one time or +another a very great influence. At a later time, in the early +civilizations, this idea would seem to have obtained much larger sway, and +to have affected national life more and more extensively. In the age of +the great religions the idea reaches its acme, an acme often represented +by extravagances of the most painful kind and sacrifices which strike +modern imagination as ferocious and terrible. In Europe asceticism reached +its great extremes as you know during the Middle Ages, and especially took +the direction of antagonism to the natural sex-relation. Looking back +to-day to the centuries in which celibacy was considered the most moral +condition, and marriage was counted as little better than weakness, when +Europe was covered with thousands of monasteries, and when the best +intellects of the age deemed it the highest duty to sacrifice everything +pleasurable for the sake of an imaginary reward after death, we can not +but recognize that we are contemplating a period of religious insanity. +Even in the architecture of the time, the architecture that Ruskin devoted +his splendid talent to praise, there is a grim and terrible something that +suggests madness. Again, the cruelties of the age have an insane +character, the burning alive of myriads of people who refused to believe +or could not believe in the faith of their time; the tortures used to +extort confessions from the innocent; the immolation of thousands charged +with being wizards or witches; the extinction of little centres of +civilization in the South of France and elsewhere by brutal +crusades--contemplating all this, we seem to be contemplating not only +madness but furious madness. I need not speak to you of the Crusades, +which also belonged to this period. Compared with the Roman and Greek +civilizations before it, what a horrible Europe it was! And yet the +thinker must recognize that it had a strength of its own, a strength of a +larger kind than that of the preceding civilizations. It may seem +monstrous to assert that all this cruelty and superstition and contempt of +learning were absolutely necessary for the progress of mankind; and yet we +must so accept them in the light of modern knowledge. The checking of +intellectual development for hundreds of years is certainly a fact that +must shock us; but the true question is whether such a checking had not +become necessary. Intellectual strength, unless supported by moral +strength, leads a people into the ways of destruction. Compared with the +men of the Middle Ages, the Greeks and Romans were incomparably superior +intellectually; compared with them morally they were very weak. They had +conquered the world and developed all the arts, these Greeks and Romans; +they had achieved things such as mankind has never since been able to +accomplish, and then, losing their moral ideal, losing their simplicity, +losing their faith, they were utterly crushed by inferior races in whom +the principles of self-denial had been intensely developed. And the old +instinctive hatred of the Church for the arts and the letters and the +sciences of the Greek and Roman civilizations was not quite so much of a +folly as we might be apt to suppose. The priests recognized in a vague way +that anything like a revival of the older civilizations would signify +moral ruin. The Renaissance proves that the priests were not wrong. Had +the movement occurred a few hundred years earlier, the result would +probably have been a universal corruption I do not mean to say that the +Church at any time was exactly conscious of what she was doing; she acted +blindly under the influence of an instinctive fear. But the result of all +that she did has now proved unfortunate. What the Roman and Greek +civilizations had lost in moral power was given back to the world by the +frightful discipline of the Middle Ages. For a long series of generations +the ascetic idea was triumphant; and it became feeble only in proportion +as men became strong enough to do without it. Especially it remodelled +that of which it first seemed the enemy, the family relation. It created a +new basis for society, founded upon a new sense of the importance to +society of family morals. Because this idea, this morality, came through +superstition, its value is not thereby in the least diminished. +Superstitions often represent correct guesses at eternal truth. To-day we +know that all social progress, all national strength, all national vigour, +intellectual as well as physical, depend essentially upon the family, upon +the morality of the household, upon the relation of parents to children. +It was this fact which the Greeks and Romans forgot, and lost themselves +by forgetting. It was this fact which the superstitious tyranny of the +Middle Ages had to teach the West over again, and after such a fashion +that it is not likely ever to become forgotten. So much for the mental +history of the question. Let us say a word about the physical aspects of +it. + +No doubt you have read that the result of macerating the body, of +depriving oneself of all comfort, and even of nourishing food, is not an +increase of intellectual vigour or moral power of any kind. And in one +sense this is true. The individual who passes his life in +self-mortification is not apt to improve under that regime. For this +reason the founder of the greatest of Oriental religions condemned +asceticism on the part of his followers, except within certain fixed +limits. But the history of the changes produced by a universal idea is not +a history of changes in the individual, but of changes brought about by +the successive efforts of millions of individuals in the course of many +generations. Not in one lifetime can we perceive the measure of ethical +force obtained by self-control; but in the course of several hundreds of +years we find that the result obtained is so large as to astonish us. This +result, imperceptibly obtained, signifies a great increase of that nervous +power upon which moral power depends; it means an augmentation in strength +of every kind; and this augmentation again represents what we might call +economy. Just as there is a science of political economy, there is a +science of ethical economy; and it is in relation to such a science that +we should rationally consider the influence of all religions teaching +self-suppression. So studying, we find that self-suppression does not mean +the destruction of any power, but only the economical storage of that +power for the benefit of the race As a result, the highly civilized man +can endure incomparably more than the savage, whether of moral or physical +strain. Being better able to control himself under all circumstances, he +has a great advantage over the savage. + +That which is going on in the new teaching of ethics is really the +substitution of a rational for an emotional morality. But this does not +mean that the value of the emotional element in morality is not +recognized. Not only is it recognized, but it is even being +enlarged--enlarged, however, in a rational way. For example, let us take +the very emotional virtue of loyalty. Loyalty, in a rational form, could +not exist among an uneducated people; it could only exist as a feeling, a +sentiment. In the primitive state of society this sentiment takes the +force and the depth of a religion. And the ruler, regarded as divine, +really has in relation to his people the power of a god. Once that people +becomes educated in the modern sense, their ideas regarding their ruler +and their duties to their ruler necessarily undergo modification. But does +this mean that the sentiment is weakened in the educated class? I should +say that this depends very much upon the quality of the individual mind. +In a mind of small capacity, incapable of receiving the higher forms of +thought, it is very likely that the sentiment may be weakened and almost +destroyed. But in the mind of a real thinker, a man of true culture, the +sense of loyalty, although changed, is at the same time immensely +expanded. In order to give a strong example, I should take the example not +from a monarchical country but from a republican one. What does the +President of the United States of America, for example, represent to the +American of the highest culture? He appears to him in two entirely +different capacities. First he appears to him merely as a man, an ordinary +man, with faults and weaknesses like other ordinary men. His private life +is apt to be discussed in the newspapers. He is expected to shake hands +with anybody and with everybody whom he meets at Washington; and when he +ceases to hold office, he has no longer any particular distinction from +other Americans. But as the President of the United States, he is also +much more than a man. He represents one hundred millions of people; he +represents the American Constitution; he represents the great principles +of human freedom laid down by that Constitution; he represents also the +idea of America, of everything American, of all the hopes, interests, and +glories of the nation. Officially he is quite as sacred as a divinity +could be. Millions would give their lives for him at an instant's notice; +and thousands capable of making vulgar jokes about the man would hotly +resent the least word spoken about the President as the representative of +America. The very same thing exists in other Western countries, +notwithstanding the fact that the lives of rulers are sometimes attempted. +England is a striking example. The Queen has really scarcely any power; +her rule is little more than nominal. Every Englishman knows that England +is a monarchy only in name. But the Queen represents to every Englishman +more than a woman and more than a queen: she represents England, English +race feeling, English love of country, English power, English dignity; she +is a symbol, and as a symbol sacred. The soldier jokingly calls her "the +Widow"; he makes songs about her; all this is well and good. But a soldier +who cursed her a few years ago was promptly sent to prison for twenty +years. To sing a merry song about the sovereign as a woman is a right +which English freedom claims; but to speak disrespectfully of the Queen, +as England, as the government, is properly regarded as a crime; because it +proves the man capable of it indifferent to all his duties as an +Englishman, as a citizen, as a soldier. The spirit of loyalty is far from +being lost in Western countries; it has only changed in character, and it +is likely to strengthen as time goes on. + +Broad tolerance in the matter of beliefs is necessarily a part of the new +ethics. It is quite impossible in the present state of mankind that all +persons should be well educated, or that the great masses of a nation +should attain to the higher forms of culture. For the uneducated a +rational system of ethics must long remain out of the question and it is +proper that they should cling to the old emotional forms of moral +teaching. The observation of Huxley that he would like to see every +unbeliever who could not get a reason for his unbelief publicly put to +shame, was an observation of sound common sense. It is only those whose +knowledge obliges them to see things from another standpoint than that of +the masses who can safely claim to base their rule of life upon +philosophical morality. The value of the philosophical morality happens to +be only in those directions where it recognizes and supports the truth +taught by common morality, which, after all, is the safest guide. +Therefore the philosophical moralist will never mock or oppose a belief +which he knows to exercise a good influence upon human conduct. He will +recognize even the value of many superstitions as being very great; and he +will understand that any attempt to suddenly change the beliefs of man in +any ethical direction must be mischievous. Such changes as he might desire +will come; but they should come gradually and gently, in exact proportion +to the expanding capacity of the national mind. Recognizing this +probability, several Western countries, notably America, have attempted to +introduce into education an entirely new system of ethical +teaching--ethical teaching in the broadest sense, and in harmony with the +new philosophy. But the result there and elsewhere can only be that which +I have said at the beginning of this lecture,--namely, the enlargement of +the old moral ideas, and the deeper comprehension of their value in all +relations of life. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +SOME POEMS ABOUT INSECTS + + +One of the great defects of English books printed in the last century is +the want of an index. The importance of being able to refer at once to any +subject treated of in a book was not recognized until the days when exact +scholarship necessitated indexing of the most elaborate kind. But even now +we constantly find good books severely criticized because of this +deficiency. All that I have said tends to show that even to-day in Western +countries the immense importance of systematic arrangement in literary +collections is not sufficiently recognized. We have, of course, a great +many English anthologies,--that is to say, collections of the best typical +compositions of a certain epoch in poetry or in prose. But you must have +observed that, in Western countries, nearly all such anthologies are +compiled chronologically--not according to the subject of the poems. To +this general rule there are indeed a few exceptions. There is a collection +of love poetry by Watson, which is famous; a collection of child poetry by +Patmore; a collection of "society verse" by Locker-Lampson; and several +things of that sort. But even here the arrangement is not of a special +kind; nor is it ever divided according to the subject of each particular +poem. I know that some books have been published of late years with such +titles as "Poems of the Sea," "Poems of Nature"--but these are of no +literary importance at all and they are not compiled by competent critics. +Besides, the subject-heads are always of much too general a kind. The +French are far in advance of the English in the art of making anthologies; +but even in such splendid anthologies as those of Crépet and of Lemerre +the arrangement is of the most general kind,--chronological, and little +more. + +I was reminded to tell you this, because of several questions recently +asked me, which I found it impossible to answer. Many a Japanese student +might suppose that Western poetry has its classified arrangements +corresponding in some sort to those of Japanese poetry. Perhaps the +Germans have something of the kind, but the English and French have not. +Any authority upon the subject of Japanese literature can, I have been +told, inform himself almost immediately as to all that has been written in +poetry upon a particular subject. Japanese poetry has been classified and +sub-classified and double-indexed or even quadruple-indexed after a manner +incomparably more exact than anything English anthologies can show. I am +aware that this fact is chiefly owing to the ancient rules about subjects, +seasons, contrasts, and harmonies, after which the old poets used to +write. But whatever be said about such rules, there can be no doubt at all +of the excellence of the arrangements which the rules produced. It is +greatly to be regretted that we have not in English a system of +arrangement enabling the student to discover quickly all that has been +written upon a particular subject--such as roses, for example, or pine +trees, or doves, or the beauties of the autumn season. There is nobody to +tell you where to find such things; and as the whole range of English +poetry is so great that it takes a great many years even to glance through +it, a memorized knowledge of the subjects is impossible for the average +man. I believe that Macaulay would have been able to remember almost any +reference in the poetry then accessible to scholars,--just as the +wonderful Greek scholar Porson could remember the exact place of any text +in the whole of Greek literature, and even all the variations of that +text. But such men are born only once in hundreds of years; the common +memory can not attempt to emulate their feats. And it is very difficult at +the present time for the ordinary student of poetry to tell you just how +much has been written upon any particular subject by the best English +poets. + +Now you will recognize some difficulties in the way of a lecturer in +attempting to make classifications of English poetry after the same manner +that Japanese classification can be made of Japanese poetry. One must read +enormously merely to obtain one's materials, and even then the result is +not to be thought of as exhaustive. I am going to try to give you a few +lectures upon English poetry thus classified, but we must not expect that +the lectures will be authoritatively complete. Indeed, we have no time for +lectures of so thorough a sort. All that I can attempt will be to give you +an idea of the best things that English poets have thought and expressed +upon certain subjects. + +You know that the old Greeks wrote a great deal of beautiful poetry about +insects,--especially about musical insects, crickets, cicadas, and other +insects such as those the Japanese poets have been writing about for so +many hundreds of years. But in modern Western poetry there is very little, +comparatively speaking, about insects. The English poets have all written +a great deal about birds, and especially about singing birds; but very +little has been written upon the subject of insects--singing insects. One +reason is probably that the number of musical insects in England is very +small, perhaps owing to the climate. American poets have written more +about insects than English poets have done, though their work is of a much +less finished kind. But this is because musical insects in America are +very numerous. On the whole, we may say that neither in English nor in +French poetry will you find much about the Voices of rickets, locusts, or +cicadę. I could not even give you a special lecture upon that subject. We +must take the subject "insect" in a rather general signification; and if +we do that we can edit together a nice little collection of poetical +examples. + +The butterfly was regarded by the Greeks especially as the emblem of the +soul and therefore of immortality. We have several Greek remains, +picturing the butterfly as perched upon a skull, thus symbolizing life +beyond death. And the metamorphosis of the insect is, you know, very often +referred to in Greek philosophy. We might expect that English poets would +have considered the butterfly especially from this point of view; and we +do have a few examples. Perhaps the best known is that of Coleridge. + + The butterfly the ancient Grecians made + The soul's fair emblem, and its only name-- + But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade + Of earthly life! For in this mortal frame + Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, + Manifold motions making little speed, + And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed. + +The allusion to the "name" is of course to the Greek word, _psyche_, which +signifies both soul and butterfly. Psyche, as the soul, was pictured by +the Greeks as a beautiful girl, with a somewhat sad face, and butterfly +wings springing from her shoulders. Coleridge tells us here that although +the Greeks likened the soul to the butterfly, we must remember what the +butterfly really is,--the last and highest state of insect-being--"escaped +the slavish trade of earthly life." What is this so-called slavish trade? +It is the necessity of working and struggling in order to live--in order +to obtain food. The butterfly is not much of an eater; some varieties, +indeed, do not eat at all. All the necessity for eating ended with the +life of the larva. In the same manner religion teaches that the soul +represents the changed state of man. In this life a man is only like a +caterpillar; death changes him into a chrysalis, and out of the chrysalis +issues the winged soul which does not have to trouble itself about such +matters as eating and drinking. By the word "reptile" in this verse, you +must understand caterpillar. Therefore the poet speaks of all our human +work as manifold motions making little speed; you have seen how many +motions a caterpillar must make in order to go even a little distance, and +you must have noticed the manner in which it spoils the appearance of the +plant upon which it feeds. There is here an allusion to the strange and +terrible fact, that all life--and particularly the life of man--is +maintained only by the destruction of other life. In order to live we must +kill--perhaps only plants, but in any case we must kill. + +Wordsworth has several poems on butterflies, but only one of them is +really fine. It is fine, not because it suggests any deep problem, but +because with absolute simplicity it pictures the charming difference of +character in a little boy and a little girl playing together in the +fields. The poem is addressed to the butterfly. + + Stay near me--do not take thy flight! + A little longer stay in sight! + Much converse do I find in thee, + Historian of my infancy! + Float near me; do not yet depart! + Dead times revive in thee: + Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art! + A solemn image to my heart, + My father's family. + + Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days, + The time, when, in our childish plays, + My sister Emmeline and I + Together chased the butterfly! + A very hunter did I rush + Upon the prey: with leaps and springs + I followed on from brake to bush; + But she, God love her, feared to brush + The dust from off its wings. + +What we call and what looks like dust on the wings of a butterfly, English +children are now taught to know as really beautiful scales or featherlets, +but in Wordsworth's time the real structure of the insect was not so well +known as now to little people. Therefore to the boy the coloured matter +brushed from the wings would only have seemed so much dust. But the little +girl, with the instinctive tenderness of the future mother-soul in her, +dreads to touch those strangely delicate wings; she fears, not only to +spoil, but also to hurt. + +Deeper thoughts than memory may still be suggested to English poets by the +sight of a butterfly, and probably will be for hundreds of years to come. +Perhaps the best poem of a half-metaphorical, half-philosophical thought +about butterflies is the beautiful prologue to Browning's "Fifine at the +Fair," which prologue is curiously entitled "Amphibian"--implying that we +are about to have a reference to creatures capable of living in two +distinctive elements, yet absolutely belonging neither to the one nor to +the other. The poet swims out far into the sea on a beautiful day; and, +suddenly, looking up, perceives a beautiful butterfly flying over his +head, as if watching him. The sight of the insect at once suggests to him +its relation to Greek fancy as a name for the soul; then he begins to +wonder whether it might not really be the soul, or be the symbol of the +soul, of a dead woman who loved him. From that point of the poem begins a +little metaphysical fantasy about the possible condition of souls. + + The fancy I had to-day, + Fancy which turned a fear! + I swam far out in the bay, + Since waves laughed warm and clear. + + I lay and looked at the sun, + The noon-sun looked at me: + Between us two, no one + Live creature, that I could see. + + Yes! There came floating by + Me, who lay floating too, + Such a strange butterfly! + Creature as dear as new: + + Because the membraned wings + So wonderful, so wide, + So sun-suffused, were things + Like soul and nought beside. + +So much for the conditions of the poet's revery. He is swimming in the +sea; above his face, only a few inches away, the beautiful butterfly is +hovering. Its apparition makes him think of many things--perhaps first +about the dangerous position of the butterfly, for if it should only touch +the water, it is certain to be drowned. But it does not touch the water; +and he begins to think how clumsy is the man who moves in water compared +with the insect that moves in air, and how ugly a man is by comparison +with the exquisite creature which the Greeks likened to the soul or ghost +of the man. Thinking about ghosts leads him at once to the memory of a +certain very dear ghost about which he forthwith begins to dream. + + What if a certain soul + Which early slipped its sheath, + And has for its home the whole + Of heaven, thus look beneath, + + Thus watch one who, in the world, + Both lives and likes life's way, + Nor wishes the wings unfurled + That sleep in the worm, they say? + + But sometimes when the weather + Is blue, and warm waves tempt + To free oneself of tether, + And try a life exempt + + From worldly noise and dust, + In the sphere which overbrims + With passion and thought,--why, just + Unable to fly, one swims! + +This is better understood by paraphrase: "I wonder if the soul of a +certain person, who lately died, slipped so gently out of the hard sheath +of the perishable body--I wonder if she does not look down from her home +in the sky upon me, just as that little butterfly is doing at this moment. +And I wonder if she laughs at the clumsiness of this poor swimmer, who +finds it so much labour even to move through the water, while she can move +through whatever she pleases by the simple act of wishing. And this man, +strangely enough, does not want to die, and to become a ghost. He likes to +live very much; he does not yet desire those soul-wings which are supposed +to be growing within the shell of his body, just as the wings of the +butterfly begin to grow in the chrysalis. He does not want to die at all. +But sometimes he wants to get away from the struggle and the dust of the +city, and to be alone with nature; and then, in order to be perfectly +alone, he swims. He would like to fly much better; but he can not. +However, swimming is very much like flying, only the element of water is +thicker than air." + +However, more than the poet's words is suggested here. We are really told +that what a fine mind desires is spiritual life, pure intellectual +life--free from all the trammels of bodily necessity. Is not the swimmer +really a symbol of the superior mind in its present condition? Your best +swimmer can not live under the water, neither can he rise into the +beautiful blue air. He can only keep his head in the air; his body must +remain in the grosser element. Well, a great thinker and poet is ever +thus--floating between the universe of spirit and the universe of matter. +By his mind he belongs to the region of pure mind,--the ethereal state; +but the hard necessity of living keeps him down in the world of sense and +grossness and struggle. On the other hand the butterfly, freely moving in +a finer element, better represents the state of spirit or soul. + +What is the use of being dissatisfied with nature? The best we can do is +to enjoy in the imagination those things which it is not possible for us +to enjoy in fact. + + Emancipate through passion + And thought, with sea for sky, + We substitute, in a fashion, + For heaven--poetry: + + Which sea, to all intent, + Gives flesh such noon-disport, + As a finer element + Affords the spirit-sort. + +Now you see where the poet's vision of a beautiful butterfly has been +leading his imagination. The nearest approach which we can make to the act +of flying, in the body, is the act of swimming. The nearest approach that +we can make to the heavenly condition, mentally, is in poetry. Poetry, +imagination, the pleasure of emotional expression--these represent our +nearest approach to paradise. Poetry is the sea in which the soul of man +can swim even as butterflies can swim in the air, or happy ghosts swim in +the finer element of the infinite ether. The last three stanzas of the +poem are very suggestive: + + And meantime, yonder streak + Meets the horizon's verge; + That is the land, to seek + If we tire or dread the surge: + + Land the solid and safe-- + To welcome again (confess!) + When, high and dry, we chafe + The body, and don the dress. + + Does she look, pity, wonder + At one who mimics flight, + Swims--heaven above, sea under, + Yet always earth in sight? + +"Streak," meaning an indistinct line, here refers to the coast far away, +as it appears to the swimmer. It is just such a word as a good Japanese +painter ought to appreciate in such a relation. In suggesting that the +swimmer is glad to return to shore again and get warm, the poet is telling +us that however much we may talk about the happiness of spirits in +heaven--however much we may praise heaven in poetry--the truth is that we +are very fond of this world, we like comfort, we like company, we like +human love and human pleasures. There is a good deal of nonsense in +pretending that we think heaven is a better place than the world to which +we belong. Perhaps it is a better place, but, as a matter of fact, we do +not know anything about it; and we should be frightened if we could go +beyond a certain distance from the real world which we do know. As he +tells us this, the poet begins again to think about the spirit of the dead +woman. Is she happy? Is she looking at him--and pitying him as he swims, +taking good care not to go too far away from the land? Or is she laughing +at him, because in his secret thoughts he confesses that he likes to +live--that he does not want to become a pure ghost at the present time? + +Evidently a butterfly was quite enough, not only to make Browning's mind +think very seriously, but to make that mind teach us the truth and +seriousness which may attach to very small things--incidents, happenings +of daily life, in any hour and place. I believe that is the greatest +English poem we have on the subject of the butterfly. + +The idea that a butterfly might be, not merely the symbol of the soul, but +in very fact the spirit of a dead person, is somewhat foreign to English +thought; and whatever exists in poetry on the subject must necessarily be +quite new. The idea of a relation between insects, birds, or other living +creatures, and the spirits of the dead, is enormously old in Oriental +literature;--we find it in Sanskrit texts thousands of years ago. But the +Western mind has not been accustomed to think of spiritual life as outside +of man; and much of natural poetry has consequently remained undeveloped +in Western countries. A strange little poem, "The White Moth," is an +exception to the general rule that I have indicated; but I am almost +certain that its author, A.T. Quiller-Couch, must have read Oriental +books, or obtained his fancy from some Eastern source. As the knowledge of +Indian literature becomes more general in England, we may expect to find +poetry much influenced by Oriental ideas. At the present time, such a +composition as this is quite a strange anomaly. + + _If a leaf rustled, she would start: + And yet she died, a year ago. + How had so frail a thing the heart + To journey where she trembled so? + And do they turn and turn in fright, + Those little feet, in so much night?_ + + The light above the poet's head + Streamed on the page and on the cloth, + And twice and thrice there buffeted + On the black pane a white-winged moth: + 'Twas Annie's soul that beat outside, + And "Open, open, open!" cried: + + "I could not find the way to God; + There were too many flaming suns + For signposts, and the fearful road + Led over wastes where millions + Of tangled comets hissed and burned-- + I was bewildered and I turned. + + "Oh, it was easy then! I knew + Your window and no star beside. + Look up and take me back to you!" + --He rose and thrust the window wide. + 'Twas but because his brain was hot + With rhyming; for he heard her not. + + But poets polishing a phrase + Show anger over trivial things; + And as she blundered in the blaze + Towards him, on ecstatic wings, + He raised a hand and smote her dead; + Then wrote "_That I had died instead!_" + +The lover, or bereaved husband, is writing a poem of which a part is given +in the first stanza--which is therefore put in italics. The action proper +begins with the second stanza. The soul of the dead woman taps at the +window in the shape of a night-butterfly or moth--imagining, perhaps, that +she has still a voice and can make herself heard by the man that she +loves. She tells the story of her wandering in space--privileged to pass +to heaven, yet afraid of the journey. Now the subject of the poem which +the lover happens to be writing inside the room is a memory of the dead +woman--mourning for her, describing her in exquisite ways. He can not hear +her at all; he does not hear even the beating of the little wings at the +window, but he stands up and opens the window--because he happens to feel +hot and tired. The moth thinks that he has heard her, that he knows; and +she flies toward him in great delight. But he, thinking that it is only a +troublesome insect, kills her with a blow of his hand; and then sits down +to continue his poem with the words, "Oh, how I wish I could have died +instead of that dear woman!" Altogether this is a queer poem in English +literature, and I believe almost alone of its kind. But it is queer only +because of its rarity of subject. As for construction, it is very good +indeed. + +I do not know that it is necessary to quote any more poems upon +butterflies or moths. There are several others; but the workmanship and +the thought are not good enough or original enough to justify their use +here as class texts. So I shall now turn to the subject of dragon-flies. +Here we must again be very brief. References to dragon-flies are common +throughout English poetry, but the references signify little more than a +mere colourless mention of the passing of the insect. However, it so +happens that the finest modern lines of pure description written about any +insect, are about dragon-flies. And they also happen to be by Tennyson. +Naturalists and men of science have greatly praised these lines, because +of their truth to nature and the accuracy of observation which they show. +You will find them in the poem entitled "The Two Voices." + + To-day I saw the dragon-fly + Come from the wells where he did lie. + + An inner impulse rent the veil + Of his old husk; from head to tail + Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. + + He dried his wings; like gauze they grew; + Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew + A living rush of light he flew. + +There are very few real poems, however, upon the dragon-fly in English, +and considering the extraordinary beauty and grace of the insect, this may +appear strange to you. But I think that you can explain the strangeness at +a later time. The silence of English poets on the subject of insects as +compared with Japanese poets is due to general causes that we shall +consider at the close of the lecture. + +Common flies could scarcely seem to be a subject for poetry--disgusting +and annoying creatures as they are. But there are more poems about the +house-fly than about the dragon-fly. Last year I quoted for you a +remarkable and rather mystical composition by the poet Blake about +accidentally killing a fly. Blake represents his own thoughts about the +brevity of human life which had been aroused by the incident. It is +charming little poem; but it does not describe the fly at all. I shall not +quote it here again, because we shall have many other things to talk +about; but I shall give you the text of a famous little composition by +Oldys on the same topic. It has almost the simplicity of Blake,--and +certainly something of the same kind of philosophy. + + Busy, curious, thirsty fly, + Drink with me and drink as I; + Freely welcome to my cup, + Couldst thou sip and sip it up: + Make the most of life you may, + Life is short and wears away. + + Both alike are mine and thine + Hastening quick to their decline: + Thine's a summer, mine's no more, + Though repeated to threescore. + Threescore summers, when they're gone, + Will appear as short as one! + +The suggestion is that, after all, time is only a very relative affair in +the cosmic order of things. The life of the man of sixty years is not much +longer than the life of the insect which lives but a few hours, days, or +months. Had Oldys, who belongs to the eighteenth century, lived in our own +time, he might have been able to write something very much more curious on +this subject. It is now known that time, to the mind of an insect, must +appear immensely longer than it appears to the mind of a man. It has been +calculated that a mosquito or a gnat moves its wings between four and five +hundred times a second. Now the scientific dissection of such an insect, +under the microscope, justifies the opinion that the insect must be +conscious of each beat of the wings--just as a man feels that he lifts his +arm or bends his head every time that the action is performed. A man can +not even imagine the consciousness of so short an interval of time as the +five-hundredth part of one second. But insect consciousness can be aware +of such intervals; and a single day of life might well appear to the gnat +as long as the period of a month to a man. Indeed, we have reason to +suppose that to even the shortest-lived insect life does not appear short +at all; and that the ephemeral may actually, so far as felling is +concerned, live as long as a man--although its birth and death does occur +between the rising and the setting of the sun. + +We might suppose that bees would form a favourite subject of poetry, +especially in countries where agriculture is practised upon such a scale +as in England. But such is not really the case. Nearly every English poet +makes some reference to bees, as Tennyson does in the famous couplet-- + + The moan of doves in immemorial elms, + And murmuring of innumerable bees. + +But the only really remarkable poem addressed to a bee is by the American +philosopher Emerson. The poem in question can not be compared as to mere +workmanship with some others which I have cited; but as to thinking, it is +very interesting, and you must remember that the philosopher who writes +poetry should be judged for his thought rather than for the measure of his +verse. The whole is not equally good, nor is it short enough to quote +entire; I shall only give the best parts. + + Burly, dozing humble-bee, + Where thou art is clime for me. + + * * * * * + + Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, + Let me chase thy waving lines; + Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, + Singing over shrubs and vines. + + Insect lover of the sun, + Joy of thy dominion! + Sailor of the atmosphere; + Swimmer through the waves of air; + Voyager of light and noon; + Epicurean of June; + Wait, I prithee, till I come + Within earshot of thy hum,-- + All without is martyrdom. + + * * * * * + + Thou, in sunny solitudes, + Rover of the underwoods, + The green silence dost displace + With thy mellow, breezy bass. + + * * * * * + + Aught unsavory or unclean + Hath my insect never seen; + + * * * * * + + Wiser far than human seer, + Yellow-breeched philosopher! + Seeing only what is fair, + Sipping only what is sweet, + Thou dost mock at fate and care, + Leave the chaff, and take the wheat. + +This is really the poetry of the bee--visiting only beautiful flowers, and +sucking from them their perfumed juices--always healthy, happy, and +surrounded by beautiful things. A great rover, a constant wanderer is the +bee--visiting many different places, seeing many different things, but +stopping only to enjoy what is beautiful to the sight and sweet to the +taste. Now Emerson tells us that a wise man should act like the bee--never +stopping to look at what is bad, or what is morally ugly, but seeking only +what is beautiful and nourishing for the mind. It is a very fine thought; +and the manner of expressing it is greatly helped by Emerson's use of +curious and forcible words--such as "burly," "zigzag," and the famous +expression "yellow-breeched philosopher"--which has passed almost into an +American household phrase. The allusion of course is to the thighs of the +bee, covered with the yellow pollen of flowers so as to make them seem +covered with yellow breeches, or trousers reaching only to the knees. + +I do not of course include in the lecture such child songs about insects +as that famous one beginning with the words, "How doth the little busy bee +improve each shining hour." This is no doubt didactically very good; but I +wish to offer you only examples of really fine poetry on the topic. +Therefore leaving the subject of bees for the time, let us turn to the +subject of musical insects--the singers of the fields and +woods--grasshoppers and crickets. + +In Japanese poetry there are thousands of verses upon such insects. +Therefore it seems very strange that we have scarcely anything on the +subject in English. And the little that we do have is best represented by +the poem of Keats on the night cricket. The reference is probably to what +we call in England the hearth cricket, an insect which hides in houses, +making itself at home in some chink of the brickwork or stonework about a +fireplace, for it loves the warmth. I suppose that the small number of +poems in English about crickets can be partly explained by the scarcity of +night singers. Only the house cricket seems to be very well known. But on +the other hand, we can not so well explain the rarity of composition in +regard to the day-singers--the grasshoppers and locusts which can be +heard, though somewhat faintly, in any English country place after sunset +during the warm season. Another queer thing is that the example set by +Keats has not been imitated or at least followed even up to the present +time. + + The poetry of earth is never dead: + When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, etc. + +In this charming composition you will have noticed the word "stove"; but +you must remember that this is not a stove as we understand the term now, +and signifies only an old-fashioned fireplace of brick or tile. In Keats's +day there were no iron stoves. Another word which I want to notice is the +word "poetry" in the first line. By the poetry of nature the poet means +the voices of nature--the musical sounds made by its idle life in woods +and fields. So the word "poetry" here has especially the meaning of song, +and corresponds very closely to the Japanese word which signifies either +poem or song, but perhaps more especially the latter. The general meaning +of the sonnet is that at no time, either in winter or in summer, is nature +silent. When the birds do not sing, the grasshoppers make music for us; +and when the cold has killed or banished all other life, then the house +cricket begins with its thin sweet song to make us think of the dead +voices of the summer. + +There is not much else of note about the grasshopper and the cricket in +the works of the great English poets. But perhaps you do not know that +Tennyson in his youth took up the subject and made a long poem upon the +grasshopper, but suppressed it after the edition of 1842. He did not think +it good enough to rank with his other work. But a few months ago the poems +which Tennyson suppressed in the final edition of his works have been +published and carefully edited by an eminent scholar, and among these +poems we find "The Grasshopper." I will quote some of this poem, because +it is beautiful, and because the fact of its suppression will serve to +show you how very exact and careful Tennyson was to preserve only the very +best things that he wrote. + + Voice of the summer wind, + Joy of the summer plain, + Life of the summer hours, + Carol clearly, bound along, + No Tithon thou as poets feign + (Shame fall 'em, they are deaf and blind), + But an insect lithe and strong + Bowing the seeded summer flowers. + Prove their falsehood and thy quarrel, + Vaulting on thine airy feet + Clap thy shielded sides and carol, + Carol clearly, chirrups sweet. + Thou art a mailéd warrior in youth and strength complete; + Armed cap-ą-pie, + Full fair to see; + Unknowing fear, + Undreading loss, + A gallant cavalier, + _Sans peur et sans reproche_. + In sunlight and in shadow, + The Bayard of the meadow. + +The reference to Tithonus is a reference of course to a subject afterwards +beautifully elaborated in another poem by Tennyson, the great poem of +"Tithonus." The Bayard here referred to was the great French model of +perfect chivalry, and is sometimes called the last of the feudal knights. +He was said to be without fear and without blame. You may remember that he +was killed by a ball from a gun--it was soon after the use of artillery in +war had been introduced; and his dying words were to the effect that he +feared there was now an end of great deeds, because men had begun to fight +from a distance with machines instead of fighting in the old knightly and +noble way with sword and spear. The grasshopper, covered with green plates +and bearing so many little sharp spines upon its long limbs, seems to have +suggested to Tennyson the idea of a fairy knight in green armour. + +As I said before, England is poor in singing insects, while America is +rich in them--almost, perhaps, as rich as Japan, although you will not +find as many different kinds of singing insects in any one state or +district. The singing insects of America are peculiar to particular +localities. But the Eastern states have perhaps the most curious insect of +this kind. It is called the Katydid. This name is spelt either Katydid, or +Catydid--though the former spelling is preferable. Katy, or Katie, is the +abbreviation of the name Catherine; very few girls are called by the full +name Catherine, also spelt Katherine; because the name is long and +unmusical, their friends address them usually as Katy, and their +acquaintances, as Kate. Well, the insect of which I am speaking, a kind of +_semi_, makes a sound resembling the sound of the words "Katie did!" Hence +the name--one of the few corresponding to the names given to the Japanese +_semi_, such as _tsuku-tsuku-boshi_, or _minmin-semi_. The most +interesting composition upon this cicada is by Oliver Wendell Holmes, but +it is of the lighter sort of verse, with a touch of humour in it. I shall +quote a few verses only, as the piece contains some allusions that would +require explanation at considerable length. + + I love to hear thine earnest voice, + Wherever thou art hid, + Thou testy little dogmatist, + Thou pretty Katydid! + Thou mindest me of gentlefolks,-- + Old gentlefolks are they,-- + Thou say'st an undisputed thing + In such a solemn way. + + * * * * * + + Oh tell me where did Katy live, + And what did Katy do? + And was she very fair and young, + And yet so wicked, too? + Did Katy love a naughty man, + Or kiss more cheeks than one? + I warrant Katy did no more + Than many a Kate has done. + + * * * * * + + Ah, no! The living oak shall crash, + That stood for ages still, + The rock shall rend its mossy base + And thunder down the hill, + Before the little Katydid + Shall add one word, to tell + The mystic story of the maid + Whose name she knows so well. + +The word "testy" may be a little unfamiliar to some of you; it is a good +old-fashioned English term for "cross," "irritable." The reference to the +"old gentlefolks" implies the well-known fact that in argument old persons +are inclined to be much more obstinate than young people. And there is +also a hint in the poem of the tendency among old ladies to blame the +conduct of young girls even more severely than may be necessary. There is +nothing else to recommend the poem except its wit and the curiousness of +the subject. There are several other verses about the same creature, by +different American poets; but none of them is quite so good as the +composition of Holmes. However, I may cite a few verses from one of the +earlier American poets, Philip Freneau, who flourished in the eighteenth +century and the early part of the nineteenth. He long anticipated the +fancy of Holmes; but he spells the word Catydid. + + In a branch of willow hid + Sings the evening Catydid: + From the lofty locust bough + Feeding on a drop of dew, + In her suit of green arrayed + Hear her singing in the shade-- + Catydid, Catydid, Catydid! + + While upon a leaf you tread, + Or repose your little head + On your sheet of shadows laid, + All the day you nothing said; + Half the night your cheery tongue + Revelled out its little song,-- + Nothing else but Catydid. + + * * * * * + + Tell me, what did Caty do? + Did she mean to trouble you? + Why was Caty not forbid + To trouble little Catydid? + Wrong, indeed, at you to fling, + Hurting no one while you sing,-- + Catydid! Catydid! Catydid! + +To Dr. Holmes the voice of the cicada seemed like the voice of an old +obstinate woman, an old prude, accusing a young girl of some fault,--but +to Freneau the cry of the little creature seemed rather to be like the cry +of a little child complaining--a little girl, perhaps, complaining that +somebody had been throwing stones at her, or had hurt her in some way. +And, of course, the unfinished character of the phrase allows equally well +either supposition. + +Before going back to more serious poetry, I want--while we are speaking of +American poets--to make one reference to the ironical or satirical poetry +which insects have inspired in some minds, taking for example the poem by +Charlotte Perkins Stetson about a butterfly. This author is rather a +person of note, being a prominent figure in educational reforms and the +author of a volume of poems of a remarkably strong kind in the didactic +sense. In other words, she is especially a moral poet; and unless moral +poetry be really very well executed, it is scarcely worth while classing +it as literature. I think, however, that the symbolism in the following +verses will interest you--especially when we comment upon them. The +composition from which they are taken is entitled "A Conservative." + +The poet, walking in the garden one morning, sees a butterfly, very +unhappy, and gifted with power to express the reason of its unhappiness. +The butterfly says, complaining of its wings, + + "My legs are thin and few + Where once I had a swarm! + Soft fuzzy fur--a joy to view-- + Once kept my body warm, + Before these flapping wing-things grew, + To hamper and deform!" + + At that outrageous bug I shot + The fury of mine eye; + Said I, in scorn all burning hot, + In rage and anger high, + "You ignominious idiot! + Those wings are made to fly!" + + "I do not want to fly," said he, + "I only want to squirm!" + And he drooped his wings dejectedly, + But still his voice was firm: + "I do not want to be a fly! + I want to be a worm!" + + O yesterday of unknown lack! + To-day of unknown bliss! + I left my fool in red and black, + The last I saw was this,-- + The creature madly climbing back + Into his chrysalis. + +Of course the wings here represent the powers of the mind--knowledge, +reason, will. Men ought to use these in order to reach still nobler and +higher states of life. But there are men who refuse to use their best +faculties for this end. Such men are like butterflies who do not want to +take the trouble to fly, but prefer the former condition of the +caterpillar which does nothing but eat and sleep. As applied to certain +forms of conservatism the satire is strong. + +Something may now be said as to poems about spiders. But let me remind you +that a spider is not an insect. Scientifically it has no relation to the +great family of true insects; it belongs to the very distinct family of +the arthropoda or "joint-footed" animals. But as it is still popularly +called an insect in most European countries, we may be excused for +including it in the subject of the present lecture. I suppose you know +that one of the scientific names for this whole class of creatures is +Arachnida,--a name derived from the Greek name Arachne. The story of +Arachne is interesting, and everybody studying natural history ought to +know it. Arachne was a young girl, according to the Greek story, who was +very skilful at weaving. She wove cloths of many different colours and +beautiful patterns, and everybody admired her work. This made her vain--so +vain that at last she said that even the goddess of weaving could not +weave better than she. Immediately after she had said that, the terrible +goddess herself--Pallas Athena--entered the room. Pallas Athena was not +only the goddess of wisdom, you know, but especially the goddess of young +girls, presiding over the chastity, the filial piety, and the domestic +occupations of virgins; and she was very angry at the conceit of this +girl. So she said to her, "You have boasted that you can weave as well as +I can; now let me see you weave!" So Arachne was obliged to sit down at +her loom and weave in the presence of the goddess; and the goddess also +wove, far surpassing the weaving of Arachne. When the weaving was done, +the goddess asked the girl, "Now see! which is the better, my work or +yours?" And Arachne was obliged to confess that she had been defeated and +put to shame. But the goddess was not thoroughly satisfied; to punish +Arachne, she touched her lightly with the distaff, saying, "Spin forever!" +and thereupon Arachne was changed into a spider, which forever spins and +weaves perishable films of perishable shiny thread. Poetically we still +may call a spider Arachne. + +I have here a little poem of a touching character entitled "Arachne," by +Rose Terry Cooke,--one of the symbolic poems which are becoming so +numerous in these days of newer and deeper philosophy. I think that you +will like it: a spinster, that is, a maiden passed the age of girlhood, is +the speaker. + + I watch her in the corner there, + As, restless, bold, and unafraid, + She slips and floats along the air + Till all her subtile house is made. + + Her home, her bed, her daily food, + All from that hidden store she draws; + She fashions it and knows it good, + By instinct's strong and sacred laws. + + No tenuous threads to weave her nest, + She seeks and gathers there or here; + But spins it from her faithful breast, + Renewing still, till leaves are sere. + + Then, worn with toil, and tired of life, + In vain her shining traps are set. + Her frost hath hushed the insect strife + And gilded flies her charm forget. + + But swinging in the snares she spun, + She sways to every wintry wind: + Her joy, her toil, her errand done, + Her corse the sport of storms unkind. + +The symbolism of these verses will appear to you more significant when I +tell you that it refers especially to conditions in New England in the +present period. The finest American population--perhaps the finest +Anglo-Saxons ever produced--were the New Englanders of the early part of +the century. But with the growth of the new century, the men found +themselves attracted elsewhere, especially westward; their shrewdness, +their energies, their inventiveness, were needed in newer regions. And +they wandered away by thousands and thousands, never to come back again, +and leaving the women behind them. Gradually the place of these men was +taken by immigrants of inferior development--but the New England women had +nothing to hope for from these strangers. The bravest of them also went +away to other states; but myriads who could not go were condemned by +circumstances to stay and earn their living by hard work without any +prospect of happy marriage. The difficulty which a girl of culture may +experience in trying to live by the work of her hands in New England is +something not easily imagined. But it is getting to be the same in most +Western countries. Such a girl is watching a spider weaving in the corner +of the same room where she herself is weaving; and she thinks, "Am I not +like that spider, obliged to supply my every need by the work of my own +hands, without sympathy, without friends? The spider will spin and catch +flies until the autumn comes; then she will die. Perhaps I too must +continue to spin until the autumn of my own life--until I become too old +to work hard, and die of cold and of exhaustion." + + Poor sister of the spinster clan! + I too from out my store within + My daily life and living plan, + My home, my rest, my pleasure spin. + + I know thy heart when heartless hands + Sweep all that hard-earned web away; + Destroy its pearled and glittering bands, + And leave thee homeless by the way. + + I know thy peace when all is done. + Each anchored thread, each tiny knot, + Soft shining in the autumn sun; + A sheltered, silent, tranquil lot. + + I know what thou hast never known,-- + Sad presage to a soul allowed-- + That not for life I spin, alone, + But day by day I spin my shroud. + +The reference to the sweeping away of the spider's web, of course, implies +the pain often caused to such hardworking girls by the meanness of men who +employ them only to cheat them--shopkeepers or manufacturers who take +their work without justly paying for it, and who criticize it as bad in +order to force the owner to accept less money than it is worth. Again a +reference may be intended to the destruction of the home by some legal +trick--some unscrupulous method of cheating the daughter out of the +property bequeathed to her by her parents. + +Notice a few pretty words here. The "pearled" as applied to the spider's +thread gives an intimation of the effect produced by dew on the thread, +but there is also the suggestion of tears upon the thread work woven by +the hands of the girl. The participle "anchored" is very pretty in its use +here as an adjective, because this word is now especially used for +rope-fastening, whether the rope be steel or hemp; and particularly for +the fastening of the cables of a bridge. The last stanza might be +paraphrased thus: "Sister Spider, I know more than you--and that knowledge +makes me unhappy. You do not know, when you are spinning your little web, +that you are really weaving your own shroud. But I know this, my work is +slowly but surely killing me. And I know it because I have a soul--at +least a mind made otherwise than yours." + +The use of the word "soul" in the last stanza of this poem, brings me back +to the question put forth in an earlier part of the lecture--why European +poets, during the last two thousand years, have written so little upon the +subject of insects? Three thousand, four thousand years ago, the most +beautiful Greek poetry--poetry more perfect than anything of English +poetry--was written upon insects. In old Japanese literature poems upon +insects are to be found by thousands. What is the signification of the +great modern silence in Western countries upon this delightful topic? I +believe that Christianity, as dogma, accounts for the long silence. The +opinions of the early Church refused soul, ghost, intelligence of any sort +to other creatures than man. All animals were considered as automata--that +is, as self-acting machines, moved by a something called instinct, for +want of a better name. To talk about the souls of animals or the spirits +of animals would have been very dangerous in the Middle Ages, when the +Church had supreme power; it would indeed have been to risk or to invite +an accusation of witchcraft, for demons were then thought to take the +shape of animals at certain times. To discuss the _mind_ of an animal +would have been for the Christian faith to throw doubt upon the existence +of human souls as taught by the Church; for if you grant that animals are +able to think, then you must acknowledge that man is able to think without +a soul, or you must acknowledge that the soul is not the essential +principle of thought and action. Until after the time of Descartes, who +later argued philosophically that animals were only machines, it was +scarcely possible to argue rationally about the matter in Europe. + +Nevertheless, we shall soon perceive that this explanation will not cover +all the facts. You will naturally ask how it happens that, if the question +be a question of animal souls, birds, horses, dogs, cats, and many other +animals have been made the subject of Western poems from ancient times. +The silence is only upon the subject of insects. And, again, Christianity +has one saint--the most beautiful character in all Christian +hagiography--who thought of all nature in a manner that, at first sight, +strangely resembles Buddhism. This saint was Francis of Assisi, born in +the latter part of the twelfth century, so that he may be said to belong +to the very heart of the Middle Ages,--the most superstitious epoch of +Christianity. Now this saint used to talk to trees and stones as if they +were animated beings. He addressed the sun as "my brother sun"; and he +spoke of the moon as his sister. He preached not only to human beings, but +also to the birds and the fishes; and he made a great many poems on these +subjects, full of a strange and childish beauty. For example, his sermon +to the doves, beginning, "My little sisters, the doves," in which he +reminds them that their form is the emblem or symbol of the Holy Ghost, is +a beautiful poem; and has been, with many others, translated into nearly +all modern languages. But observe that neither St. Francis nor any other +saint has anything to say on the subject of insects. + +Perhaps we must go back further than Christianity to guess the meaning of +these distinctions. Among the ancient races of Asia, where the Jewish +faith arose, there were strange and sinister beliefs about insects--old +Assyrian superstitions, old Babylonian beliefs. Insects seemed to those +early peoples very mysterious creatures (which they really are); and it +appears to have been thought that they had a close relation to the world +of demons and evil spirits. I suppose you know that the name of one of +their gods, Beelzebub, signifies the Lord of Flies. The Jews, as is shown +by their Talmudic literature, inherited some of these ideas; and it is +quite probable that they were passed on to the days of Christianity. +Again, in the early times of Christianity in Northern Africa the Church +had to fight against superstitions of an equally strange sort derived from +old Egyptian beliefs. Among the Egyptians, certain insects were sacred and +became symbols of divinity,--such as the beetle. Now I imagine that for +these reasons the subject of insects became at an early time a subject +which Christianity thought dangerous, and that thereafter a kind of +hostile opinion prevailed regarding any literature upon this topic. + +However, to-day things are very different. With the development of +scientific studies--especially of microscopic study--it has been found +that insects, far from being the lowliest of creatures, are the most +highly organized of all beings; that their special senses are incomparably +superior to our own; and that in natural history, from the evolutional +standpoint, they have to be given first place. This of course renders it +impossible any longer to consider the insect as a trifling subject. +Moreover, the new philosophy is teaching the thinking classes in all +Western countries the great truth of the unity of life. With the +recognition of such unity, an insect must interest the philosophers--even +the man of ordinary culture--quite as much as the bird or any other +animal. + +Nearly all the poems which I have quoted to you have been poems of very +modern date--from which we may infer that interest in the subject of +insects has been developing of late years only. In this connection it is +interesting to note that a very religious poet, Whittier, gave us in the +last days of his life a poem upon ants. This would have seemed strange +enough in a former age; it does not seem strange to-day, and it is +beautiful. The subject is taken from old Jewish literature. + + +KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS + + Out from Jerusalem + The King rode with his great + War chiefs and lords of state, + And Sheba's queen with them; + + Comely, but black withal, + To whom, perchance, belongs + That wondrous Song of Songs, + Sensuous and mystical, + + Whereto devout souls turn + In fond, ecstatic dream, + And through its earth-born theme + The Love of Loves discern. + + Proud in the Syrian sun, + In gold and purple sheen, + The dusky Ethiop queen + Smiled on King Solomon. + + Wisest of men, he knew + The languages of all + The creatures great or small + That trod the earth or flew. + + Across an ant-hill led + The king's path, and he heard + Its small folk, and their word + He thus interpreted: + + "Here comes the king men greet + As wise and good and just, + To crush us in the dust + Under his heedless feet." + +The king, understanding the language of insects, turns to the queen and +explains to her what the ants have just said. She advises him to pay no +attention to the sarcasm of the ants--how dare such vile creatures speak +thus about a king! But Solomon thinks otherwise: + + "Nay," Solomon replied, + "The wise and strong should seek + The welfare of the weak," + And turned his horse aside. + + His train, with quick alarm, + Curved with their leader round + The ant-hill's peopled mound, + And left it free from harm. + + The jewelled head bent low; + "Oh, king!" she said, "henceforth + The secret of thy worth + And wisdom well I know. + + "Happy must be the State + Whose ruler heedeth more + The murmurs of the poor + Than flatteries of the great." + +The reference to the Song of Songs--also the Song of Solomon and Canticle +of Canticles--may require a little explanation. The line "Comely but black +withal," is borrowed from a verse of this song--"I am black but beautiful, +oh, ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of +Solomon." In another part of the song the reason of this blackness is +given: "I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me." From which we +can see that the word black only means dark, brown, tanned by the sun. +Perhaps you do not know that as late as the middle of the eighteenth +century it was still the custom in England to speak of a person with black +hair and eyes as "a black man"--a custom which Charles Lamb had reason to +complain of even at a later day. The tents referred to in the text were +probably tents made of camel-skin, such as the Arabs still make, and the +colour of these is not black but brown. Whether Solomon wrote the +so-called song or not we do not know; but the poet refers to a legend that +it was written in praise of the beauty of the dark queen who came from +Sheba to visit the wisest man of the world. Such is not, however, the +opinion of modern scholars. The composition is really dramatic, although +thrown into lyrical form, and as arranged by Renan and others it becomes a +beautiful little play, of which each act is a monologue. "Sensuous" the +poet correctly calls it; for it is a form of praise of woman's beauty in +all its details, as appears in such famous verses as these: "How beautiful +are thy feet in shoes, O prince's daughter; the joints of thy thighs are +like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy two breasts +are like two young roes that are twins which feed among the lilies." But +Christianity, instead of dismissing this part of the Bible, interpreted +the song mystically--insisting that the woman described meant the Church, +and the lover, Christ. Of course only very pious people continue to +believe this; even the good Whittier preferred the legend that it was +written about the Queen of Sheba. + +I suppose that I ought to end this lecture upon insect poetry by some +quotation to which a moral or philosophical meaning can be attached. I +shall end it therefore with a quotation from the poet Gray. The poetry of +insects may be said to have first appeared in English literature during +the second half of the eighteenth century, so that it is only, at the +most, one hundred and fifty years old. But the first really fine poem of +the eighteenth century relating to the subject is quite as good as +anything since composed by Englishmen upon insect life in general. Perhaps +Gray referred especially to what we call May-flies--those delicate ghostly +insects which hover above water surfaces in fine weather, but which die on +the same day that they are born. He does not specify May-flies, however, +and we may consider the moral of the poem quite apart from any particular +kind of insect. You will find this reference in the piece entitled "Ode on +the Spring," in the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas. + + Still is the toiling hand of care: + The panting herds repose: + Yet hark, how through the peopled air + The busy murmur glows! + The insect youth are on the wing, + Eager to taste the honied spring, + And float amid the liquid noon: + Some lightly o'er the current skim, + Some show their gaily-gilded trim + Quick-glancing to the sun. + + To Contemplation's sober eye + Such is the race of man: + And they that creep, and they that fly, + Shall end where they began. + Alike the Busy and the Gay + But flutter through life's little day, + In fortune's varying colours dressed: + Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance, + Or chilled by Age, their airy dance + They leave, in dust to rest. + + Methinks I hear in accents low + The sportive kind reply: + Poor moralist! and what art thou? + A solitary fly! + Thy joys no glittering female meets, + No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets, + No painted plumage to display: + On hasty wings thy youth is flown; + Thy sun is set; thy spring is gone-- + We frolic, while 'tis May. + +The poet Gray was never married, and the last stanza which I have quoted +refers jocosely to himself. It is an artistic device to set off the moral +by a little mockery, so that it may not appear too melancholy. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SOME FRENCH POEMS ABOUT INSECTS + + +Last year I gave a lecture on the subject of English poems about insects, +with some reference to the old Greek poems on the same subject. But I did +not then have an opportunity to make any reference to French poems upon +the same subject, and I think that it would be a pity not to give you a +few examples. + +Just as in the case of English poems about insects, nearly all the French +literature upon this subject is new. Insect poetry belongs to the newer +and larger age of thought, to the age that begins to perceive the great +truth of the unity of life. We no longer find, even in natural histories, +the insect treated as a mere machine and unthinking organism; on the +contrary its habits, its customs and its manifestation both of +intelligence and instinct are being very carefully studied in these times, +and a certain sympathy, as well as a certain feeling of respect or +admiration, may be found in the scientific treatises of the greatest men +who write about insect life. So, naturally, Europe is slowly returning to +the poetical standpoint of the old Greeks in this respect. It is not +improbable that keeping caged insects as pets may again become a Western +custom, as it was in Greek times, when cages were made of rushes or straw +for the little creatures. I suppose you have heard that the Japanese +custom is very likely to become a fashion in America. If that should +really happen, the fact would certainly have an effect upon poetry. I +think that it is very likely to happen. + +The French poets who have written pretty things about insects are nearly +all poets of our own times. Some of them treat the subject from the old +Greek standpoint--indeed the beautiful poem of Heredia upon the tomb of a +grasshopper is perfectly Greek, and reads almost like a translation from +the Greek. Other poets try to express the romance of insects in the form +of a monologue, full of the thought of our own age. Others again touch the +subject of insects only in connection with the subject of love. I will +give one example of each method, keeping the best piece for the last, and +beginning with a pretty fancy about a dragonfly. + + +MA LIBELLULE + + En te voyant, toute mignonne, + Blanche dans ta robe d'azure, + Je pensais ą quelque madone + Drapée en un pen de ciel pur. + + Je songeais ą ces belles saintes + Que l'on voyait au temps jadis + Sourire sur les vitres peintes, + Montrant d'un doigt le paradis: + + Et j'aurais voulu, loin du monde + Qui passait frivole entre nous, + Dans quelque retraite profonde + T'adorer seul ą deux genoux. + +This first part of the poem is addressed of course to a beautiful child, +some girl between the age of childhood and womanhood: + +"Beholding thee, Oh darling one, all white in thy azure dress, I thought +of some figure of the Madonna robed in a shred of pure blue sky. + +"I dreamed of those beautiful figures of saints whom one used to see in +olden times smiling in the stained glass of church windows, and pointing +upward to Paradise. + +"And I could have wished to adore you alone upon my bended knees in some +far hidden retreat, away from the frivolous world that passed between us." + +This little bit of ecstasy over the beauty and purity of a child is +pretty, but not particularly original. However, it is only an +introduction. Now comes the pretty part of the poem: + + Soudain un caprice bizarre + Change la scčne et le décor, + Et mon esprit au loin s'égare + Sur des grands prés d'azure et d'or + + Oł, prčs de ruisseaux muscules + Gazouillants comme des oiseaux, + Se poursuivent les libellules, + Ces fleurs vivantes des roseaux. + + Enfant, n'es tu pas l'une d'elles + Qui me poursuit pour consoler? + Vainement tu caches tes ailes; + Tu marches, mais tu sais voler. + + Petite fée au bleu corsage, + Que j'ai connu dčs mon berceau, + En revoyant ton doux visage, + Je pense aux joncs de mon ruisseau! + + Veux-tu qu'en amoureux fidčles + Nous revenions dans ces prés verts? + Libellule, reprends tes ailes; + Moi, je brulerai tous mes vers! + + Et nous irons, sous la lumičre, + D'un ciel plus frais et plus léger + Chacun dans sa forme premičre, + Moi courir, et toi voltiger. + +"Suddenly a strange fancy changes for me the scene and the scenery; and my +mind wanders far away over great meadows of azure and gold. + +"Where, hard by tiny streams that murmur with a sound like voices of +little birds, the dragon-flies, those living flowers of the reeds, chase +each other at play. + +"Child, art thou not one of those dragon-flies, following after me to +console me? Ah, it is in vain that thou tryest to hide thy wings; thou +dost walk, indeed, but well thou knowest how to fly! + +"O little fairy with the blue corsage whom I knew even from the time I was +a baby in the cradle; seeing again thy sweet face, I think of the rushes +that border the little stream of my native village! + +"Dost thou not wish that even now as faithful lovers we return to those +green fields? O dragon-fly, take thy wings again, and I--I will burn all +my poetry, + +"And we shall go back, under the light of the sky more fresh and pure than +this, each of us in the original form--I to run about, and thou to hover +in the air as of yore." + +The sight of a child's face has revived for the poet very suddenly and +vividly, the recollection of the village home, the green fields of +childhood, the little stream where he used to play with the same little +girl, sometimes running after the dragon-fly. And now the queer fancy +comes to him that she herself is so like a dragon-fly--so light, graceful, +spiritual! Perhaps really she is a dragon-fly following him into the great +city, where he struggles to live as a poet, just in order to console him. +She hides her wings, but that is only to prevent other people knowing. Why +not return once more to the home of childhood, back to the green fields +and the sun? "Little dragon-fly," he says to her, "let us go back! do you +return to your beautiful summer shape, be a dragon-fly again, expand your +wings of gauze; and I shall stop trying to write poetry. I shall burn my +verses; I shall go back to the streams where we played as children; I +shall run about again with the joy of a child, and with you beautifully +flitting hither and thither as a dragon-fly." + +Victor Hugo also has a little poem about a dragon-fly, symbolic only, but +quite pretty. It is entitled "La Demoiselle"; and the other poem was +entitled, as you remember, "Ma Libellule." Both words mean a dragon-fly, +but not the same kind of dragon-fly. The French word "demoiselle," which +might be adequately rendered into Japanese by the term _ojosan_, refers +only to those exquisitely slender, graceful, slow-flitting dragon-flies +known to the scientist by the name of Calopteryx. Of course you know the +difference by sight, and the reason of the French name will be poetically +apparent to you. + + Quand la demoiselle dorée + S'envole au départ des hivers, + Souvent sa robe diaprée, + Souvent son aile est déchirée + Aux mille dards des buissons verts. + + Ainsi, jeunesse vive et frźle, + Qui, t'égarant de tous cōtés, + Voles ou ton instinct t'appele, + Souvent tu déchires ton aile + Aux épines des voluptes. + +"When, at the departure of winter, the gilded dragon-fly begins to soar, +often her many-coloured robe, often her wing, is torn by the thousand +thorns of the verdant shrubs. + +"Even so, O frail and joyous Youth, who, wandering hither and thither, in +every direction, flyest wherever thy instinct calls thee--even so thou +dost often tear thy wings upon the thorns of pleasure." + +You must understand that pleasure is compared to a rose-bush, whose +beautiful and fragrant flowers attract the insects, but whose thorns are +dangerous to the visitors. However, Victor Hugo does not use the word for +rose-bush, for obvious reasons; nor does he qualify the plants which are +said to tear the wings of the dragon-fly. I need hardly tell you that the +comparison would not hold good in reference to the attraction of flowers, +because dragon-flies do not care in the least about flowers, and if they +happen to tear their wings among thorn bushes, it is much more likely to +be in their attempt to capture and devour other insects. The merit of the +poem is chiefly in its music and colour; as natural history it would not +bear criticism. The most beautiful modern French poem about insects, +beautiful because of its classical perfection, is I think a sonnet by +Heredia, entitled "Épigramme Funéraire"--that is to say, "Inscription for +a Tombstone." This is an exact imitation of Greek sentiment and +expression, carefully studied after the poets of the anthology. Several +such Greek poems are extant, recounting how children mourned for pet +insects which had died in spite of all their care. The most celebrated one +among these I quoted in a former lecture--the poem about the little Greek +girl Myro who made a tomb for her grasshopper and cried over it. Heredia +has very well copied the Greek feeling in this fine sonnet: + + Ici gīt, Etranger, la verte sauterelle + Que durant deux saisons nourrit la jeune Hellé, + Et dont l'aile vibrant sous le pied dentelé. + Bruissait dans le pin, le cytise, ou l'airelle. + + Elle s'est tue, hélas! la lyre naturelle, + La muse des guérets, des sillons et du blé; + De peur que son léger sommeil ne soit troublé, + Ah, passe vite, ami, ne pčse point sur elle. + + C'est lą. Blanche, au milieu d'une touffe de thym, + Sa pierre funéraire est fraīchement poseé. + Que d'hommes n'ont pas eu ce suprźme destin! + + Des larmes d'un enfant la tombe est arrosée, + Et l'Aurore pieuse y fait chaque matin + Une libation de gouttes de rosée. + +"Stranger, here reposes the green grasshopper that the young girl Helle +cared for during two seasons,--the grasshopper whose wings, vibrating +under the strokes of its serrated feet, used to resound in the pine, the +trefoil and the whortleberry. + +"She is silent now, alas! that natural lyre, muse of the unsown fields, of +the furrows, and of the wheat. Lest her light sleep should be disturbed, +ah! pass quickly, friend! do not be heavy upon her. + +"It is there. All white, in the midst of a tuft of thyme, her funeral +monument is placed, in cool shadow; how many men have not been able to +have this supremely happy end! + +"By the tears of a child the insect's tomb is watered; and the pious +goddess of dawn each morning there makes a libation of drops of dew." + +This reads very imperfectly in a hasty translation; the original charm is +due to the perfect art of the form. But the whole thing, as I have said +before, is really Greek, and based upon a close study of several little +Greek poems on the same kind of subject. Little Greek girls thousands of +years ago used to keep singing insects as pets, every day feeding them +with slices of leek and with fresh water, putting in their little cages +sprigs of the plants which they liked. The sorrow of the child for the +inevitable death of her insect pets at the approach of winter, seems to +have inspired many Greek poets. With all tenderness, the child would make +a small grave for the insect, bury it solemnly, and put a little white +stone above the place to imitate a grave-stone. But of course she would +want an inscription for this tombstone--perhaps would ask some of her +grown-up friends to compose one for her. Sometimes the grown-up friend +might be a poet, in which case he would compose an epitaph for all time. + +I suppose you perceive that the solemnity of this imitation of the Greek +poems on the subject is only a tender mockery, a playful sympathy with the +real grief of the child. The expression, "pass, friend," is often found in +Greek funeral inscriptions together with the injunction to tread lightly +upon the dust of the dead. There is one French word to which I will call +attention,--the word "guérets." We have no English equivalent for this +term, said to be a corruption of the Latin word "veractum," and meaning +fields which have been ploughed but not sown. + +Not to dwell longer upon the phase of art indicated by this poem, I may +turn to the subject of crickets. There are many French poems about +crickets. One by Lamartine is known to almost every French child. + + Grillon solitaire, + Ici comme moi, + Voix qui sors de terre, + Ah! réveille-toi! + J'attise la flamme, + C'est pour t'égayer; + Mais il manque une āme, + Une āme au foyer. + + Grillon solitaire, + Voix qui sors de terre, + Ah! réveille-toi + Pour moi. + + Quand j'étais petite + Comme ce berceau, + Et que Marguerite + Filait son fuseau, + Quand le vent d'automne + Faisait tout gémir, + Ton cri monotone + M'aidait ą dormir. + + Grillon solitaire, + Voix qui sors de terre, + Ah! réveille-toi + Pour moi. + + Seize fois l'année + A compté mes jours; + Dans la cheminée + Tu niches toujours. + Je t'écoute encore + Aux froides saisons. + Souvenir sonore + Des vieilles maisons. + + Grillon solitaire, + Voix qui sors de terre, + Ah! réveille-toi + Pour moi. + +It is a young girl who thus addresses the cricket of the hearth, the house +cricket. It is very common in country houses in Europe. This is what she +says: + +"Little solitary cricket, all alone here just like myself, little voice +that comes up out of the ground, ah, awake for my sake! I am stirring up +the fires, that is just to make you comfortable; but there lacks a +presence by the hearth; a soul to keep me company. + +"When I was a very little girl, as little as that cradle in the corner of +the room, then, while Margaret our servant sat there spinning, and while +the autumn wind made everything moan outside, your monotonous cry used to +help me to fall asleep. + +"Solitary cricket, voice that issues from the ground, awaken, for my sake. + +"Now I am sixteen years of age and you are still nestling in the chimneys +as of old. I can hear you still in the cold season,--like a +sound--memory,--a sonorous memory of old houses. + +"Solitary cricket, voice that issues from the ground, awaken, O awaken for +my sake." + +I do not think this pretty little song needs any explanation; I would only +call your attention to the natural truth of the fancy and the feeling. +Sitting alone by the fire in the night, the maiden wants to hear the +cricket sing, because it makes her think of her childhood, and she finds +happiness in remembering it. + +So far as mere art goes, the poem of Gautier on the cricket is very much +finer than the poem of Lamartine, though not so natural and pleasing. But +as Gautier was the greatest master of French verse in the nineteenth +century, not excepting Victor Hugo, I think that one example of his poetry +on insects may be of interest. He was very poor, compared with Victor +Hugo; and he had to make his living by writing for newspapers, so that he +had no time to become the great poet that nature intended him to be. +However, he did find time to produce one volume of highly finished poetry, +which is probably the most perfect verse of the nineteenth century, if not +the most perfect verse ever made by a French poet; I mean the "Emaux et +Camées." But the little poem which I am going to read to you is not from +the "Emaux et Camées." + + Souffle, bise! Tombe ą flots, pluie! + Dans mon palais tout noir de suie, + Je ris de la pluie et du vent; + En attendant que l'hiver fuie, + Je reste au coin du feu, rźvant. + + C'est moi qui suis l'esprit de l'ātre! + Le gaz, de sa langue bleuątre, + Lčche plus doucement le bois; + La fumée en filet d'albątre, + Monte et se contourne ą ma voix. + + La bouilloire rit et babille; + La flamme aux pieds d'argent sautille + En accompagnant ma chanson; + La būche de duvet s'habille; + La sčve bout dans le tison. + + * * * * * + + Pendant la nuit et la journée + Je chante sous la cheminée; + Dans mon langage de grillon + J'ai, des rebuts de son aīnée, + Souvent console Cendrillon. + + * * * * * + + Quel plaisir? Prolonger sa veille, + Regarder la flamme vermeille + Prenant ą deux bras le tison, + A tous les bruits prźter l'oreille, + Entendre vivre la maison. + + Tapi dans sa niche bien chaude, + Sentir l'hiver qui pleure et rōde, + Tout blźme, et le nez violet, + Tachant de s'introduire en fraude + Par quelque fente du volet! + +This poem is especially picturesque, and is intended to give us the +comfortable sensations of a winter night by the fire, and the amusement of +watching the wood burn and of hearing the kettle boiling. You will find +that the French has a particular quality of lucid expression; it is full +of clearness and colour. + +"Blow on, cold wind! pour down, O rain. I, in my soot-black palace, laugh +at both rain and wind; and while waiting for winter to pass I remain in my +corner by the fire dreaming. + +"It is I that am really the spirit of the hearth! The gaseous flame licks +the wood more softly with its bluish tongue when it hears me; and the +smoke rises up like an alabaster thread, and curls itself about (or +twists) at the sound of my voice. + +"The kettle chuckles and chatters; the golden-footed flame leaps, dancing +to the accompaniment of my song (or in accompaniment to my song); the +great log covers itself with down, the sap boils in the wooden embers +("duvet," meaning "down," refers to the soft fluffy white ash that forms +upon the surface of burning wood). + +"All night and all day I sing below the chimney. Often in my +cricket-language, I have consoled Cinderella for the snubs of her elder +sister. + +"Ah, what pleasure to sit up at night, and watch the crimson flames +embracing the wood (or hugging the wood) with both arms at once, and to +listen to all the sounds and to hear the life of the house! + +"Nestling in one's good warm nook, how pleasant to hear Winter, who weeps +and prowls round about the house outside, all wan and blue-nosed with +cold, trying to smuggle itself inside some chink in the shutter!" + +Of course this does not give us much about the insect itself, which +remains invisible in the poem, just as it really remains invisible in the +house where the voice is heard. Rather does the poem express the feelings +of the person who hears the cricket. + +When we come to the subject of grasshoppers, I think that the French poets +have done much better than the English. There are many poems on the field +grasshopper; I scarcely know which to quote first. But I think you would +be pleased with a little composition by the celebrated French painter, +Jules Breton. Like Rossetti he was both painter and poet; and in both arts +he took for his subjects by preference things from country life. This +little poem is entitled "Les Cigales." The word "cigales," though really +identical with our word "cicala," seldom means the same thing. Indeed the +French word may mean several different kinds of insects, and it is only by +studying the text that we can feel quite sure what sort of insect is +meant. + + Lorsque dans l'herbe mūre ancun épi ne bouge, + Qu'ą l'ardeur des rayons crépite le frement, + Que le coquelicot tombe languissament + Sous le faible fardeau de sa corolle rouge, + + Tous les oiseaux de l'air out fait taire leur chants; + Les ramiers paresseux, au plus noir des ramures, + Somnolents, dans les bois, out cessé leurs murmures + Loin du soleil muet incendiant les champs. + + Dans le blé, cependant, d'intrépides cigales + Jetant leurs mille bruits, fanfare de l'été, + Out frénétiquement et sans trčve agité + Leurs ailes sur l'airaine de leurs folles cymbales. + + Trémoussantes, deboutes sur les longs épis d'or, + Virtuoses qui vont s'eteindre avant l'automne, + Elles poussent au del leur hymne monotone + Que dans I'ombre des nuits retentisse encore. + + Et rien n'arrźtera leurs cris intarissables; + Quand on les chassera de l'avoine et des blés. + Elles émigreront sur les buissons brulés + Qui se meurent de soif dans les deserts de sable. + + Sur l'arbuste effeuillé, sur les chardons flétris + Qui laissent s'envoler leur blanche chevelure, + On reverra l'insecte ą la forte encolure, + Pleine d'ivresse, toujours s'exalter dans ses cris. + + Jusqu'ą ce qu'ouvrant l'aile en lambeaux arrachée, + Exasperé, brulant d'un feu toujours plus pur, + Son oeil de bronze fixe et tendu vers l'azur, + II expire en chantant sur la tige séchée. + +For the word "encolure" we have no English equivalent; it means the line +of the neck and shoulder--sometimes the general appearance of shape of the +body. + +"When in the ripening grain field not a single ear of wheat moves; when in +the beaming heat the corn seems to crackle; when the poppy languishes and +bends down under the feeble burden of its scarlet corolla, + +"Then all the birds of the air have hushed their songs; even the indolent +doves, seeking the darkest part of the foliage in the tree, have become +drowsy in the woods, and have ceased their cooing, far from the fields, +which the silent sun is burning. + +"Nevertheless, in the wheat, the brave grasshoppers uttering their +thousand sounds, a trumpet flourish of summer, have continued furiously +and unceasingly to smite their wings upon the brass of their wild cymbal. + +"Quivering as they stand upon the long gold ears of the grain, master +musicians who must die before the coming of Fall, they sound to heaven +their monotonous hymn, which re-echoes even in the darkness of the night. + +"And nothing will check their inexhaustible shrilling. When chased away +from the oats and from the wheat, they will migrate to the scorched bushes +which die of thirst in the wastes of sand. + +"Upon the leafless shrubs, upon the dried up thistles, which let their +white hair fall and float away, there the sturdily-built insect can be +seen again, filled with enthusiasm, even more and more excited as he +cries, + +"Until, at last, opening his wings, now rent into shreds, exasperated, +burning more and more fiercely in the frenzy of his excitement, and with +his eyes of bronze always fixed motionlessly upon the azure sky, he dies +in his song upon the withered grain." + +This is difficult to translate at all satisfactorily, owing to the +multitude of images compressed together. But the idea expressed is a fine +one--the courage of the insect challenging the sun, and only chanting more +and more as the heat and the thirst increase. The poem has, if you like, +the fault of exaggeration, but the colour and music are very fine; and +even the exaggeration itself has the merit of making the images more +vivid. + +It will not be necessary to quote another text; we shall scarcely have the +time; but I want to translate to you something of another poem upon the +same insect by the modern French poet Jean Aicard. In this poem, as in the +little poem by Gautier, which I quoted to you, the writer puts his thought +in the mouth of the insect, so to say--that is, makes the insect tell its +own story. + +"I am the impassive and noble insect that sings in the summer solstice +from the dazzling dawn all the day long in the fragrant pine-wood. And my +song is always the same, regular as the equal course of the season and of +the sun. I am the speech of the hot and beaming sun, and when the reapers, +weary of heaping the sheaves together, lie down in the lukewarm shade, and +sleep and pant in the ardour of noonday--then more than at any other time +do I utter freely and joyously that double-echoing strophe with which my +whole body vibrates. And when nothing else moves in all the land round +about, I palpitate and loudly sound my little drum. Otherwise the sunlight +triumphs; and in the whole landscape nothing is heard but my cry,--like +the joy of the light itself. + +"Like a butterfly I take up from the hearts of the flowers that pure water +which the night lets fall into them like tears. I am inspired only by the +almighty sun. Socrates listened to me; Virgil made mention of me. I am the +insect especially beloved by the poets and by the bards. The ardent sun +reflects himself in the globes of my eyes. My ruddy bed, which seems to be +powdered like the surface of fine ripe fruit, resembles some exquisite +key-board of silver and gold, all quivering with music. My four wings, +with their delicate net-work of nerves, allow the bright down upon my +black back to be seen through their transparency. And like a star upon the +forehead of some divinely inspired poet, three exquisitely mounted rubies +glitter upon my head." + +These are fair examples of the French manner of treating the interesting +subject of insects in poetry. If you should ask me whether the French +poets are better than the English, I should answer, "In point of feeling, +no." The real value of such examples to the student should be emotional, +not descriptive. I think that the Japanese poems on insects, though not +comparable in point of mere form with some of the foreign poems which I +have quoted, are better in another way--they come nearer to the true +essence of poetry. For the Japanese poets have taken the subject of +insects chiefly for the purpose of suggesting human emotion; and that is +certainly the way in which such a subject should be used. Remember that +this is an age in which we are beginning to learn things about insects +which could not have been even imagined fifty years ago, and the more that +we learn about these miraculous creatures, the more difficult does it +become for us to write poetically about their lives, or about their +possible ways of thinking and feeling. Probably no mortal man will ever be +able to imagine how insects think or feel or hear or even see. Not only +are their senses totally different from those of animals, but they appear +to have a variety of special senses about which we can not know anything +at all. As for their existence, it is full of facts so atrocious and so +horrible as to realize most of the imaginations of old about the torments +of hell. Now, for these reasons to make an insect speak in poetry--to put +one's thoughts, so to speak, into the mouth of an insect--is no longer +consistent with poetical good judgment. No; we must think of insects +either in relation to the mystery of their marvellous lives, or in +relation to the emotion which their sweet and melancholy music makes +within our minds. The impressions produced by hearing the shrilling of +crickets at night or by hearing the storm of cicadę in summer woods--those +impressions indeed are admirable subjects for poetry, and will continue to +be for all time. + +When I lectured to you long ago about Greek and English poems on insects, +I told you that nearly all the English poems on the subject were quite +modern. I still believe that I was right in this statement, as a general +assertion; but I have found one quaint poem about a grasshopper, which +must have been written about the middle of the seventeenth century or, +perhaps, a little earlier. The date of the author's birth and death are +respectively 1618 and 1658. His name, I think, you are familiar +with--Richard Lovelace, author of many amatory poems, and of one +especially famous song, "To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars"--containing the +celebrated stanza-- + + Yet this inconstancy is such + As you too shall adore; + I could not love thee, Dear, so much, + Loved I not honour more. + +Well, as I said, this man wrote one pretty little poem on a grasshopper, +which antedates most of the English poems on insects, if not all of them. + + +THE GRASSHOPPER + + O Thou that swing'st upon the waving ear + Of some well-filled oaten beard, + Drunk every night with a delicious tear + Dropt thee from heaven, where now th'art rear'd! + + The joys of earth and air are thine entire, + That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly; + And when thy poppy works, thou dost retire + To thy carved acorn-bed to lie. + + Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom'st then, + Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams, + And all these merry days mak'st merry men + Thyself, and melancholy streams. + +A little artificial, this poem written at least two hundred and fifty +years ago; but it is pretty in spite of its artifice. Some of the conceits +are so quaint that they must be explained. By the term "oaten beard," the +poet means an ear of oats; and you know that the grain of this plant is +furnished with very long hair, so that many poets have spoken of the +bearded oats. You may remember in this connection Tennyson's phrase "the +bearded barley" in the "Lady of Shalott," and Longfellow's term "bearded +grain" in his famous poem about the Reaper Death. When a person's beard is +very thick, we say in England to-day "a full beard," but in the time of +Shakespeare they used to say "a well filled beard"--hence the phrase in +the second line of the first stanza. + +In the third line the term "delicious tear" means dew,--which the Greeks +called the tears of the night, and sometimes the tears of the dawn; and +the phrase "drunk with dew" is quite Greek--so we may suspect that the +author of this poem had been reading the Greek Anthology. In the third +line of the second stanza the word "poppy" is used for sleep--a very +common simile in Elizabethan times, because from the poppy flower was +extracted the opiate which enables sick persons to sleep. The Greek +authors spoke of poppy sleep. "And when thy poppy works," means, when the +essence of sleep begins to operate upon you, or more simply, when you +sleep. Perhaps the phrase about the "carved acorn-bed" may puzzle you; it +is borrowed from the fairy-lore of Shakespeare's time, when fairies were +said to sleep in little beds carved out of acorn shells; the simile is +used only by way of calling the insect a fairy creature. In the second +line of the third stanza you may notice the curious expression about the +"gilt plaits" of the sun's beams. It was the custom in those days, as it +still is in these, for young girls to plait their long hair; and the +expression "gilt plaits" only means braided or plaited golden hair. This +is perhaps a Greek conceit; for classic poets spoke of the golden hair of +the Sun God as illuminating the world. I have said that the poem is a +little artificial, but I think you will find it pretty, and even the +whimsical similes are "precious" in the best sense. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +NOTE ON THE INFLUENCE OF FINNISH POETRY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE + + +The subject of Finnish poetry ought to have a special interest for the +Japanese student, if only for the reason that Finnish poetry comes more +closely in many respects to Japanese poetry than any other form of Western +poetry. Indeed it is supposed that the Finnish race is more akin to the +Tartar races, and therefore probably to the Japanese, than the races of +Europe proper. Again, through Longfellow, the value of Finnish poetry to +English poetry was first suggested, and I think you know that Longfellow's +Indian epic, "The Song of Hiawatha," was modelled entirely upon the +Finnish "Kalevala." + +But a word about the "Kalevala," which has a very interesting history. I +believe you know that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the +"Kalevala" was not known to exist. During the first half of the century, +Finnish scholars in the University of Helsingfors (where there is now a +great and flourishing university) began to take literary interest in the +popular songs of Finland. For years the people had been singing +extraordinary songs full of a strange beauty and weirdness quite unlike +any other popular songs of Europe; and for centuries professional singers +had been wandering about the country teaching these songs to the +accompaniment of a kind of _biwa_ called Kantela. The scholars of the +University began to collect these songs from the mouths of the peasants +and musicians--at first with great difficulty, afterwards with much +success. The difficulty was a very curious one. In Finland the ancient +pagan religion had really never died; the songs of the peasants were full +of allusions to the old faith and the old gods, and the orthodox church +had often attempted in vain to prevent the singing of these songs, because +they were not Christian. So the peasants at first thought that the +scholars who wanted to copy the songs were government spies or church +spies who wanted evidence to justify punishments. When the fears of the +people had been removed and when they came to understand that the +questioners were only scholars interested in literary beauty, all the +secret stores of songs were generously opened, and an immense collection +of oral literature was amassed in the University at Helsingfors. + +The greatest of the scholars engaged in the subsequent work of arranging +and classifying was Doctor Lönnrot. While examining the manuscript of +these poems he was struck by the fact that, put together in a particular +order, they naturally made one great continuous story or epic. Was it +possible that the Finnish people had had during all these centuries an +epic unknown to the world of literature? Many persons would have ridiculed +the idea. But Lönnrot followed up that idea, and after some years' study +he disengaged from all that mass of song something in the shape of a +wonderful epic, the epic of the "Kalevala." Lönnrot was probably, almost +certainly, the only one who had even understood the idea of an epic of +this kind. The peasants did not know. They only had the fragments of the +whole; parts of the poem existed in one province, parts in another; no +Finnish musician had ever known the whole. The whole may have been made +first by Lönnrot. At all events he was the Homer of the "Kalevala," and it +was fortunate for Finland that he happened to be himself both a scholar +and a poet--qualifications seldom united in the same person. + +What is the "Kalevala" as we now possess it? It is an epic, but not like +any other epic in the world, for the subject of it is Magic. We might call +it the Epic of Magic. It is the story of how the world and the heaven and +the sun and the moon and the stars, the elements and the races of living +creatures and all other things were created by magic; also how the first +inhabitants of the world lived, and loved, and fought. But there is +another thing to be said in a general was about this magic. The magic of +"Kalevala" is not like anything else known by that name in European +literature. The magic of "Kalevala" is entirely the magic of words. These +ancient people believed in the existence of words, by the utterance of +which anything might be accomplished. Instead of buying wood and hiring +carpenters, you might build a house by uttering certain magical words. If +you had no horse and wanted to travel rapidly, you could make a horse for +yourself out of bits of bark and old sticks by uttering over them certain +magical words. But this was not all. Beings of intellect, men and women, +whole armies of men, in fact, might be created in a moment by the +utterance of these mystical words. There is the real subject of the +"Kalevala." + +I told you that the epic is not like anything else in European literature +and not like anything else in the world as to the subject. But this is not +the case as regards the verse. The verse is not like Japanese verse, +indeed, but it comes nearer to it than any other European verse does. Of +course even in Finnish verse, accents mean a great deal, and accent means +nothing at all in Japanese verse. But I imagine something very much like +Finnish verse might be written in Japanese, provided that in reciting it a +slight stress is thrown on certain syllables. Of course you know something +about Longfellow's "Hiawatha"--such lines as these: + + And the evening sun descending + Set the clouds on fire with redness, + Burned the broad sky like a prairie, + Left upon the level water + One long track and trail of splendour, + Down whose stream, as down a river, + Westward, westward Hiawatha + Sailed into the fiery sunset, + Sailed into the purple vapours, + Sailed into the dusk of evening. + +You will observe this is verse of eight syllables with four trochees to a +line. Now it is perhaps as near to Finnish verse as English verse can be +made. But the Finnish verse is more musical, and it is much more flexible, +and the rules of it can be better carried out than in English. There is +much more to be thought about than the placing of four trochaic feet to a +line. Not only must the verse be trochaic, it must also be alliterative, +and it must also be, to some extent, rhymed verse--a matter which +Longfellow did not take into consideration. That would have doubled his +difficulty. To make verse trochaic, alliterative and rhymed, is very +difficult indeed--that is, to do it well. Only one liberty is allowed; it +is not necessary that the rhyme shall be regular and constant; it is +necessary only that it should be occasional. But the interest of Finnish +verse does not end here. I have not yet mentioned the most important law +of Finnish poetry--the law of parallelism or repetition. Parallelism is +the better word. It means the repetition of a thought in a slightly +modified way. It is parallelism especially that makes so splendid the +English translation of the Bible, and the majesty of such passages in the +Book of Common Prayer as the Funeral Service. So that Finnish poetry is +anything but very simple. We may now sum it up thus--trochaic verse of +eight syllables, with alliteration and rhyme, a caesura in the same part +of every line, and every line reiterated in parallelism. + +A little above I mentioned the English of the Bible. Long ago I explained +why that English is so beautiful and so strong. But remember that much of +the best of the Bible, in the original Hebrew, was not prose but verse, +and that the fine effects have been produced by translating the verse into +musical prose. The very effect can be produced by translating the +"Kalevala" into prose. Occasionally the passages are of surprising beauty, +and they are always of surprising strangeness. + +It is in parallelism especially that Finnish poetry offers a contrast to +Japanese, but there is no reason whatever why, in the longer poems of +Japanese poetry, parallelism could not be used. All things have value +according to place and time, and this has value--provided that it has a +special effect on a special occasion. All through the "Kalevala," all +through five hundred pages, large pages, the parallelism is carried on, +and yet one never gets tired. It is not monotonous. But that is because +the subject is so well adapted to this form of poetry. See how the poem +opens, when the poet begins to talk about what he is going to sing: + +"Anciently my father sang me these words in hewing the handle of his ax; +anciently my mother taught me these words as she turned her spindle. In +that time I was only a child, a little child at the breast,--a useless +little being creeping upon the floor at the feet of its nurse, its cheek +bedaubed with milk. And there are other words which I drew from the spring +of knowledge, which I found by the wayside, which I snatched from the +heart of the thickets, which I detached from the branches of the trees, +which I gathered at the edges of the pastures--when, In my infancy, I used +to go to guard the flocks, in the midst of the honey-streaming meadows, +upon the gold-shining hills, behind the black Murikki, behind the spotted +Kimmo, my favourite cows. + +"Also the cold sang the songs, the rain sang me verses, the winds of +heaven, the waves of the sea made me hear their poems, the birds +instructed me with their melodies, the long-haired trees invited me to +their concerts. And all the songs I gathered together, I rolled them up in +a skin, I carried them away in my beautiful little holiday sledge, I +deposited them in the bottom of a chest of brass, upon the highest shelf +of my treasure house." + +Now when a poem opens that way we may be sure that there are great things +in it; and some of these great things we shall read about presently. The +"Kalevala" is full of wonderful stories, But in the above quotation, I +want you to see how multiple it is, and yet it is beautiful. Now there is +a very interesting thing yet to tell you about this parallelism. Such +poems as those of the "Kalevala" have always to be sung not by one singer +but by two. The two singers straddle a bench facing each other and hold +each other's hands. Then they sing alternately, each chanting one line, +rocking back and forward, pulling each other to and fro as they sing--so +that it is like the motion of rowing. One chants a line and pulls +backward, then the other chants the next line and pulls in the opposite +direction. Not to be able to answer at once would be considered a great +disgrace; and every singer has to be able to improvise as well as to sing. +And that is the signification of the following verse: + +"Put thy hand to my hand--place thy fingers between my fingers--that we +may sing of the things which are." + +The most beautiful story in this wonderful book is the story of Kullervo. +It was after reading this story that Longfellow imagined his story of the +Strong Man Kwasind. Kullervo is born so strong that as an infant he breaks +his cradle to pieces, and as a boy he can not do any work, for all the +tools and instruments break in his grasp. Therefore he gives a great deal +of trouble at home and has to go out into the world to seek his fortune. +In the world, of course, he has just the same trouble; for nobody will +employ him very long. However, the story of Kullervo's feats of strength, +though interesting, need not now concern us. The great charm of this +composition is in the description of a mother's love which it contains. +Kullervo brought misfortune everywhere simply by his strength and by his +great passions--at last committing a terrible crime, causing the death of +his own sister, whom he does not recognize. He goes back home in +desperation and remorse; and there everybody regards him with horror, +except only his mother. She alone tries to console him; she alone tells +him that repentance may bring him rest. He then proposes to go away and +amend his wrong-doing in solitude. But first he bids them all goodbye, and +the episode is characteristic. + +Kullervo, the son of Kalervo, gets him ready to depart; he goes to his old +father and says: "Farewell now, O my dear father. Wilt thou regret me +bitterly, when thou shalt learn that I am dead?--that I have disappeared +from among the multitude of the living?--that I no longer am one of the +members of thy family?" The father answered: "No, certainly I will not +regret thee when I shall hear that thou art dead. Another son perchance +will be born to me--a son who will grow up better and wiser than thou." + +Kullervo, son of Kalervo, answered: "And I also will not be sorry if I +hear that thou art dead. Without any trouble I can find me such a father +as thou--a stone-hearted father, a clay-mouthed father, a berry-eyed +father, a straw-bearded father, a father whose feet are made of the roots +of the willow tree, a father whose flesh is decaying wood." Why does +Kullervo use these extraordinary terms? It is a reference to magic--out of +stone and clay and straw, a phantom man can be made, and Kullervo means to +say that his father is no more to him than a phantom father, an unreal +father, a father who has no fatherly feeling. His brothers and sisters all +questioned in turn if they will be sorry to hear that he is dead, make the +same cruel answer; and he replies to them with the same angry words. But +it is very different when he speaks to his mother. + +For to his mother he said--"Oh my sweet mother, my beautiful nurse, my +loved protectress, wilt thou regret me bitterly when thou shalt learn that +I am dead, that I have disappeared from the multitude of the living, that +I am no longer one of the members of thy family?" + +The mother made answer: "Thou does not comprehend the soul of the +mother--thou canst not understand the heart of the mother. Assuredly will +I regret thee most bitterly when I shall learn that thou art dead, that +thou hast disappeared, from among the multitude of the living, that thou +hast ceased to be one of the members of my family. Floods of tears shall I +weep in my chamber. The waves of tears will overflow on the floor. And +upon the stairway lamentably shall I weep; and in the stable loudly shall +I sorrow. Upon the icy ways the snow shall melt under my tears--under my +tears the earth of the roads shall melt away; under my tears new meadow +grass shall grow up, green sprouting, and through that grass little +streams shall murmur away." To this mother, naturally, Kullervo says no +unkind words. He goes away, able at least to feel that there is one person +in the world who loves him and one person in the world whom he loves. But +how much his mother really loves him he does not yet know; he will know +that later--it forms the most beautiful part of the poem. + +"Kullervo directed his steps once more to the home of his fathers. +Desolate he found it, desolate and deserted; no person advanced to salute +him, no person came to press his hand, to give him welcome. + +"He drew near to the hearth: the embers were extinguished. By that he knew +that his mother had ceased to be. + +"He drew near to the fire-place, and the stones of the fire-place were +cold. By that he knew that his father had ceased to be. + +"He turned his eyes upon the floor of his home; the planks of the floor +were covered with dirt and rubbish. By that he knew that his sister had +ceased to be. + +"To the shore of the sea he went; the boat that used to be there was there +no longer. By that he knew that his brother had ceased to be. + +"Then he began to weep. For a whole day he wept, for two whole days he +wept; then he cried aloud: 'O my mother, O my sweet mother, what didst +thou leave thy son yet in the world? Alas! now thou canst hear me no +longer; and it is in vain that I stand above thy tomb, that I sob over the +place of thine eyebrows, over the place of thy temples; it is in vain that +I cry out my grief above thy dead forehead.' + +"The mother of Kullervo awakened in her tomb, and out of the depth of the +dust she spake to him: 'I have left the dog Mastif, in order that thou +mayst go with him to the chase. Take therefore the faithful dog, and go +with him into the wild forest, into the dark wilderness, even to the +dwelling place, far away, of the blue-robed Virgins of the wood, and there +thou wilt seek thy nourishment, thou wilt ask for the game that is +necessary to thy existence.'" + +It was believed that there was a particular forest god, who protected the +trees and the wild things of the wood. The hunter could be successful in +the chase only upon condition of obtaining his favour and permission to +hunt. This explains the reference to the abode of the forest god. But +Kullervo can not go far; his remorse takes him by the throat. + +"Kullervo, son of Kalervo, took his faithful dog, and directed his steps +toward the wild forest, toward the dark wilderness. But when he had gone +only a little way he found himself at the very place where he had outraged +the young girl, where he had dishonoured the child of his mother. And all +things there mourned for her--all things; the soft grass and the tender +foliage, and the little plants, and the sorrowful briars. The grass was no +longer green, the briars no longer blossomed, the leaves and the plants +hung withered and dry about the spot where the virgin had been +dishonoured, where the brother had dishonoured his sister. + +"Kullervo drew forth his sword, his sharpedged sword; a long time he +looked at it, turning it in his hand, and asking it whether it would feel +no pleasure in eating the flesh of the man thus loaded with infamy, in +drinking the blood of the man thus covered with crime. + +"And the sword knew the heart of the man: it understood the question of +the hero. And it made answer to him saying: 'Why indeed should I not +gladly devour the flesh of the man who is loaded with infamy? Why indeed +should I not drink with pleasure the blood of the man who is burdened with +crime? For well I devoured even the flesh of the innocent man, well can I +drink even the blood of the man who is free from crime.' + +"Then Kullervo fixed his sword in the earth, with the handle downwards and +the point upwards, and he threw himself upon the point, and the point +passed through all the depth of his breast. + +"This was the end of all, this was the cruel destiny of Kullervo, the +irrevocable end of the son of the heroes--the death of the 'Man of +Misfortune.'" + +You can see how very much unlike other Western poetry this poetry is. The +imagination indeed is of another race and another time than those to whose +literary productions we have become accustomed. But there is beauty here; +and the strangeness of it indicates a possible literary value by which any +literature may be more or less enriched. Many are the particular episodes +which rival the beauty and strangeness of the episode of Kullervo; and I +wish that we could have time to quote them. But I can only refer to them. +There is, for example, the legend of the invention of music, when the hero +Wainamoinen (supposed to represent the Spirit of the Wind, and the sound +of the name indicates the wailing of the wind) invents the first musical +instrument. In no other literature is there anything quite like this +except in the Greek story of Orpheus. Even as the trees bent down their +heads to listen to the song of Orpheus, and as the wild beasts became +tamed at the sound, and as the very stones of the road followed to the +steps of the musician, so is it in the "Kalevala." But the Finnish Orpheus +is the greater magician. To hear him, the sun and moon come nearer to the +earth, the waves of the sea stop short, bending their heads; the cataracts +of the rivers hang motionless and silent; the fish raise their heads above +the water. And when he plays a sad melody, all nature weeps with him, even +the trees and the stones and the little plants by the wayside. And his own +tears in falling become splendid pearls for the crowns of kings. + +Then very wonderful too is the story of the eternal smith, Ilmarinen, who +forged the foundations of the world, forged the mountains, forged the blue +sky, so well forging them that nowhere can be seen the marks of the +pincer, the marks of the hammer, the heads of the nails. Working in his +smithy we see him all grime and black; upon his head there is one yard +deep of iron firing, upon his shoulders there is one fathom deep of +soot--the soot of the forge; for he seldom has time to bathe himself. But +when the notion takes him to get married, for the first time he bathes +himself, and dresses himself handsomely, then he becomes the most +beautiful of men. In order to win his wife he is obliged to perform +miracles of work; yet after he wins her she is killed by wild beasts. Then +he sets to work to forge himself a wife, a wife of silver, a bride of +gold. Very beautiful she is, but she has no heart, and she is always cold, +and there is no comfort in her; even all the magic of the world-maker can +not give her a warm heart. But the work is so beautiful that he does not +like to destroy it. So he takes the wife of silver, the bride of gold, to +the wisest of heroes, Wainamoinen, and offers her to him as a gift. But +the hero will have no such gift, "Throw her back into your forged fire, O +Ilmarinen," the hero makes answer--"What greater folly, what greater +sorrow can come upon man than to love a wife of silver, a bride of gold?" + +This pretty story needs no explanation; the moral is simply "Never marry +for money." + +Then there is the story of Lemminkainen (this personality suggested the +Pau-puk-keewis of Longfellow)--the joyous, reckless, handsome, mischievous +pleasure-lover,--always falling into trouble, because he will not follow +his mother's advice, but always loved by her in spite of his follies. The +mother of Lemminkainen is a more wonderful person than the mother of +Kullervo. Her son has been murdered, thrown into a river--the deepest of +all rivers, the river of the dead, the river of hell. And his mother goes +out to find him. She asks the trees in the forest to tell her where her +son is, and she obliges them to answer. But they do not know. She asks the +grass, the plants, the animals, the birds; she obliges even the road upon +which he walked to talk to her, she talks to the stars and the moon and +the sun. Only the sun knows, because he sees everything and he answers, +"Your son is dead, torn to pieces; he has been thrown into the river of +Tuoni, the river of hell, the river of the dead." But the mother does not +despair. Umarinen, the eternal smith, must make for her a rake of brass +with teeth long enough to reach into the world of the dead, into the +bottom of the abyss; and out of the abyss she brings up the parts of the +torn body of her son; she puts them together; she sings over them a magic +song; she brings her son to life again, and takes him home. But for a long +time he is not able to remember, because he has been dead. After a long +time he gets back his memory--only to get into new mischief out of which +his mother must help him afresh. + +The names of the three heroes quoted to you represent also the names of +three great stories, out of the many stories contained in the epics. But +in this epic, as in the Indian epics (I mean the Sanskrit epic), there is +much more than stories. There are also chapters of moral instruction of a +very curious kind--chapters about conduct, the conduct of the parents, the +conduct of the children, the conduct of the husband, the conduct of the +bride. The instructions to the bride are contained in the twenty-third +Rune; there are altogether fifty Runes in the book. This appears to me +likely to interest you, for it is written in relation to a family system +not at all like the family system of the rest of Europe. I think you will +find in it not a little that may remind you of Chinese teaching on the +same subject--the conduct of the daughter-in-law. But there are of course +many differences, and the most pleasing difference is the tone of great +tenderness in which the instructions are given. Let us quote some of them: + +"O young bride, O my young sister, O my well beloved and beautiful young +flower, listen to the words which I am going to speak to you, harken to +the lesson which I am going to teach you. You are going now very far away +from us, O beautiful flower!--you are going to take a long journey, O my +wild-strawberry fruit! you are about to fly away from us, O most delicate +down! you are about to leave us forever, O velvet tissue--far away from +this habitation you must go, far away from this beautiful house, to enter +another house, to enter into a strange family. And in that strange house +your position will be very different. There you will have to walk about +with care, to conduct yourself with prudence, to conduct yourself with +thoughtfulness. There you will not be able, as in the house of your +father, as in the dwelling of your mother, to run about where you please, +to run singing through the valleys, to warhle out your songs upon the +roadway. + +"New habits you must now learn, and forget all the old. You must abandon +the love of your father and content yourself with the love of your +father-in-law; you must bow very low, you must learn to be generous in the +use of courteous words. You must give up old habits and form new ones; you +must resign the love of your mother and content yourself with the love of +your step-mother: lower must you bow, and you must learn to be lavish in +the use of kindly words. + +"New habits you must learn and forget the old: you must leave behind you +the friendship of your brother, and content yourself with the friendship +of your brother-in-law; you must bow lower than you do now; you must learn +to be lavish of kindly words. + +"New habits you must acquire and forget the old ones; you must leave +behind you the friendship of your sister, and be satisfied with the +friendship of your sister-in-law; you must learn to make humble reverence, +to bow low, to be generous in kindly words. + +"If the old man in the corner be to you even like a wolf, if the old woman +in her corner be to you even as a she-bear in the house, if the +brother-in-law be to you even as a serpent upon the threshold, if the +sister-in-law be to you even as a sharp nail, none the less you must show +them each and all exactly the same respect and the same obedience that you +have been accustomed to display to your father, to display to your mother, +under the roof of your childhood home." + +Then follows a really terrible list of the duties that she must perform +every day from early morning until late at night; to mention them all +would take too long. I quote only a few, enough to show that the position +of a Finnish wife was by no means an easy one. + +"So soon as the cock crows in the morning you must be quick to rise; you +must keep your ears awake to hear the cry of the cock. And if there be no +cock, or the cock does not crow, then let the moon be as a cock for you, +let the constellation of the great Bear tell you when it is time to rise. +Then you must quickly make the fire, skilfully removing the ashes, without +sprinkling them upon the floor. Then quickly go to the stable, clean the +stable, take food to the cattle, feed all the animals on the farm. For +already the cow of your mother-in-law will be lowing for food; the horse +of your father-in-law will be whinnying; the milch cow of your +sister-in-law will be straining at her tether; the calf of your +brother-in-law will be bleating; for all will be waiting for her whose +duty it is to give them hay, whose duty it is to give them food." + +Like instructions are given about feeding the younger animals and the +fowls and the little pigs. But she must not forget the children of the +house at the same time: + +"When you have fed the animals and cleaned the stables come back quickly, +quickly as a snow-storm. For in the chamber the little child has awakened +and has begun to cry in his cradle. He cannot speak, poor little one; he +cannot tell you, if he be hungry or if he be cold, or if anything +extraordinary has happened to him, before someone that he knows has come +to care for him, before he hears the voice of his own mother." + +After enumerating and inculcating in the same manner all the duties of the +day, the conduct to be observed toward every member of the +family--father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister, and brother-in-law, and the +children of them--we find a very minute code of conduct set forth in +regard to neighbours and acquaintances. The young wife is especially +warned against gossip, against listening to any stories about what happens +in other people's houses, and against telling anybody what goes on within +her own. One piece of advice is memorable. If the young wife is asked +whether she is well fed, she should reply always that she has the best of +everything which a house can afford, this even if she should have been +left without any proper nourishment for several days. Evidently the +condition of submission to which Finnish women were reduced by custom was +something much less merciful than has ever been known in Eastern +countries. Only a very generous nature could bear such discipline; and we +have many glimpses in the poem of charming natures of this kind. + +You have seen that merely as a collection of wonderful stories the +Kalevala is of extraordinary interest, that it is also of interest as +describing the social ethics of a little known people--finally that it is +of interest, of very remarkable interest, merely as natural poetry--poetry +treating of wild nature, especially rivers and forests and mountains, of +the life of the fisher and hunter and wood-cutter. Indeed, so far as this +kind of poetry is concerned, the "Kalevala" stands alone among the older +productions of European poetry. You do not find this love of nature in +Scandinavian poetry, nor in Anglo-Saxon poetry, nor in old German poetry, +much less in the earlier form of French, Italian, or Spanish poetry. The +old Northern poetry comes nearest to it; for in Anglo-Saxon composition we +can find at least wonderful descriptions of the sea, of stones, of the +hard life of sailors. But the dominant tone in Northern poetry is war; it +is in descriptions of battle, or in accounts of the death of heroes, that +the ancient English or ancient Scandinavian poets excelled In Finnish +poetry, on the other hand, there is little or nothing about war. These +peaceful people never had any warlike history; their life was agricultural +for the most part, with little or no violence except such as the +excitement of hunting and fishing could produce. Therefore they had plenty +of time to think about nature, to love nature and to describe it as no +other people of the same period described it. Striking comparisons have +been made between the Anglo-Saxon Runes, or charm songs, and Finnish songs +of the same kind, which fully illustrate this difference. Like the Finns, +the early English had magical songs to the gods of nature--songs for the +healing of wounds and the banishing of sickness. But these are very +commonplace. Not one of them can compare as poetry with the verses of the +Finnish on the same subject. Here are examples in evidence. The first is a +prayer said when offering food to the Spirit of the forest, that he might +aid the hunter in his hunting. + +"Look, O Kuntar, a fat cake, a cake with honey, that I may propitiate the +forest, that I may propitiate the forest, that I may entice the thick +forest for the day of my hunting, when I go in search of prey. Accept my +salt, O wood, accept my porridge, O Tapio, dear king of the wood with the +hat of leaves, with the beard of moss." + +And here is a little prayer to the goddess of water repeated by a sick man +taking water as a medicine. + +"O pure water, O Lady of the Water, now do thou make me whole, lovely as +before! for this beg thee dearly, and in offering I give thee blood to +appease thee, salt to propitiate thee!" + +Or this: + +"Goddess of the Sea, mistress of waters, Queen of a hundred caves, arouse +the scaly flocks, urge on the fishy-crowds forth from their hiding places, +forth from the muddy shrine, forth from the net-hauling, to the nets of a +hundred fishers! Take now thy beauteous shield, shake the golden water, +with which thou frightenest the fish, and direct them toward the net +beneath the dark level, above the borders black." + +Yet another: + +"O vigorous mistress of the wild beasts, sweet lady of the earth, come +with me, be with me, where I go. Come thou and good luck bring me, to +happy fortune help me. Make thou to move the foliage, the fruit tree to be +shaken, and the wild beasts drive thither, the largest and the smallest, +with their snouts of every kind, with their paws of fur of all kinds!" + +Now when you look at these little prayers, when you read them over and +observe how pretty they are, you will also observe that they make little +pictures in the mind. Can not you see the fish gliding over the black +border under the dark level of the water, to the net of a hundred fishers? +Can you not see the "dear king of the wood," with his hat of leaves and +his beard of moss? Can you not also see in imagination the wild creatures +of the forest with their snouts of many shapes, with their fur of all +kinds? But in Anglo-Saxon poetry you will not find anything like that. +Anglo-Saxon Rune songs create no images. It is this picturesqueness, this +actuality of imagery that is distinctive in Finnish poetry. + +In the foregoing part of the lecture I have chiefly tried to interest you +in the "Kalevala." But aside from interesting you in the book itself as a +story, as a poem, I hope to direct your attention to a particular feature +in Finnish poetry which is most remote from Japanese poetry. I have spoken +of resemblances as to structure and method; but it is just in that part of +the method most opposed to Japanese tradition that the greatest interest +lies. I do not mean only the use of natural imagery; I mean much more the +use of parallelism to reinforce that imagery. That is the thing especially +worthy of literary study. Indeed, I think that such study might greatly +help towards a new development, a totally new departure in Japanese verse. +In another lecture I spoke as sincerely as I could of the very high merit +in the epigrammatic forms of Japanese poetry. These brief forms of poetry +have been developed in Japan to perfection not equalled elsewhere in +modern poetry, perhaps not surpassed, in some respects, even by Greek +poetry of the same kind. But there can be no doubt of this fact, that a +national literature requires many other forms of expression than the +epigrammatic form. Nothing that is good should ever be despised or cast +aside; but because of its excellences, we should not be blind to the +possibility of other excellences. Now Japanese literature has other forms +of poetry--forms in which it is possible to produce poems of immense +length, but the spirit of epigrammatic poetry has really been controlling +even these to a great degree. + +I mean that so far as I am able to understand the subject, the tendency of +all Japanese poetry is to terse expression. Were it not well therefore to +consider at least the possible result of a totally opposite +tendency,--expansion of fancy, luxuriance of expression? Terseness of +expression, pithiness, condensation, are of vast importance in prose, but +poetry has other methods, and the "Kalevala" is one of the best possible +object lessons in the study of such methods, because of the very +simplicity and naturalness with which they are followed. + +Of course there was parallelism in Western poetry, and all arts of +repetition, before anybody knew anything about the "Kalevala." The most +poetical part of Bible English, as I said, whether in the Bible itself or +in the Book of Common Prayer, depends almost entirely for its literary +effect upon parallelism, because the old Hebrews, like the old Finns, +practised this art of expression. Loosely and vaguely it was practised +also by many poets almost unconsciously, who had been particularly +influenced by the splendour of the scriptural translation. It had figured +in prose-poetry as early as the time of Sir Thomas Browne. It had +established quite a new idea of poetry even in America, where the great +American poet Poe introduced it into his compositions before Longfellow +studied the "Kalevala." I told you that the work of Poe, small as it is, +had influenced almost every poet of the great epoch, including Tennyson +and the Victorian masters. But the work even of Poe was rather instinctive +than the result of any systematic idea. The systematic idea was best +illustrated when the study of the "Kalevala" began. + +Let us see how Longfellow used the suggestion; but remember that he was +only a beginner, dealing with something entirely new--that he did not have +the strength of Tennyson nor the magical genius of Swinburne to help him. +He worked very simply, and probably very rapidly. There is a good deal of +his song of "Hiawatha" that is scarcely worthy of praise, and it is +difficult to quote effectively from it, because the charm of the thing +depends chiefly upon its reading as a whole. Nevertheless there are parts +which so well show or imitate the Finnish spirit, that I must try to quote +them. Take for instance the teaching of the little Indian child by his +grandmother--such verses as these, where she talks to the little boy about +the milky way in the sky: + + Many things Nokomis taught him + Of the stars that shine in heaven; + Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet, + Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses; + Showed the Death-Dance of the spirits, + Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs, + Flaring far away to northward + In the frosty nights of Winter; + Showed the broad, white road in heaven, + Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows, + Running straight across the heavens, + Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows. + +Or take again the story of the origin of the flower commonly called +"Dandelion": + + In his life he had one shadow, + In his heart one sorrow had he. + Once, as he was gazing northward, + Far away upon a prairie + He beheld a maiden standing, + Saw a tall and slender maiden + All alone upon a prairie; + Brightest green were all her garments + And her hair was like the sunshine. + Day by day he gazed upon her, + Day by day he sighed with passion, + Day by day his heart within him + Grew more hot with love and longing + For the maid with yellow tresses. + +Observe how the repetition served to represent the growing of the lover's +admiration. The same repetition can be used much more effectively in +describing weariness and pain, as In the lines about the winter famine: + + Oh, the long and dreary Winter! + Oh, the cold and cruel Winter! + Ever thicker, thicker, thicker + Froze the ice on lake and river, + Ever deeper, deeper, deeper + Fell the snow o'er all the landscape, + Fell the covering snow, and drifted + Through the forest, round the village. + Hardly from his buried wigwam + Could the hunter force a passage; + With his mittens and his snow-shoes + Vainly walked he through the forest, + Sought for bird or beast and found none, + Saw no track of deer or rabbit, + In the snow beheld no footprints, + In the ghastly, gleaming forest + Fell, and could not rise from weakness, + Perished there from cold and hunger. + Oh, the famine and the fever! + Oh, the wasting of the famine! + Oh, the blasting of the fever! + Oh, the wailing of the children! + Oh, the anguish of the women! + All the earth was sick and famished; + Hungry was the air around them, + Hungry was the sky above them, + And the hungry stars in heaven + Like the eyes of wolves glared at them! + +This is strong, emotionally strong, though it is not great poetry; but it +makes the emotional effect of great poetry by the use of the same means +which the Finnish poets used. The best part of the poem is the famine +chapter, and the next best is the part entitled "The Ghosts." However, the +charm of a composition can be fully felt only by those who understand +something of the American Indian's life and the wild northwestern country +described. That is not the immediate matter to be considered, +notwithstanding. The matter to be considered is whether this method of +using parallelism and repetition and alliteration can give new and great +results. I believe that it can, and that a greater Longfellow would have +brought such results into existence long ago. Of course, the form is +primitive; it does not follow that an English poet or a Japanese poet +should attempt only a return to primitive methods of poetry in detail. The +detail is of small moment; the spirit is everything. Parallelism means +simply the wish to present the same idea under a variety of aspects, +instead of attempting to put it forward in one aspect only. Everything +great in the way of thought, everything beautiful in the way of idea, has +many sides. It is merely the superficial which we can see from the front +only; the solid can be perceived from every possible direction, and +changes shape according to the direction looked at. + +The great master of English verse, Swinburne is also a poet much given to +parallelism; for he has found it of incomparable use to him in managing +new forms of verse. He uses it in an immense variety of ways--ways +impossible to Japanese poets or to Finnish poets; and the splendour of the +results can not be imitated in another language. But his case is +interesting. The most primitive methods of Finnish poetry, and of ancient +poetry in general, coming into his hands, are reproduced into music. I +propose to make a few quotations, in illustration. Here are some lines +from "Atalanta in Calydon"; they are only parallelisms, but how +magnificent they are! + + When thou dravest the men + Of the chosen of Thrace, + None turned him again, + Nor endured he thy face + Close round with the blush of the battle, with light from a + terrible place. + +Look again at the following lines from "A Song in Time of Revolution": + + There is none of them all that is whole; their lips gape open for + breath; + They are clothed with sickness of soul, and the shape of the shadow + of death. + + The wind is thwart in their feet; it is full of the shouting of mirth; + As one shaketh the sides of a sheet, so it shaketh the ends of the earth. + + The sword, the sword is made keen; the iron has opened its mouth; + The corn is red that was green; it is bound for the sheaves of the south. + + The sound of a word was shed, the sound of the wind as a breath, + In the ears of the souls that were dead, in the dust of the deepness + of death. + + Where the face of the moon is taken, the ways of the stars undone, + The light of the whole sky shaken, the light of the face of the sun. + + * * * * * + + Where the sword was covered and hidden, and dust had grown in its side, + A word came forth which was bidden, the crying of one that cried: + + The sides of the two-edged sword shall be bare, and its mouth shall + be red, + For the breath of the face of the Lord that is felt in the bones of + the dead. + +All this is indeed very grand compared with anything in the "Kalevala" or +in Longfellow's rendering; but do you not see that the grandeur is also +the grandeur of parallelism? Here is proof of what a master can do with a +method older than Western civilization. But what is the inference? Is it +not that the old primitive poetry contains something of eternal value, a +value ranging from the lowest even to the highest, a value that can lend +beauty equally to the song of a little child or to the thunder of the +grandest epic verse? + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ROMANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES + + +The value of romantic literature, which has been, so far as the Middle +Ages are concerned, unjustly depreciated, does not depend upon beauty of +words or beauty of fact. To-day the immense debt of modern literature to +the literature of the Middle Ages is better understood; and we are +generally beginning to recognize what we owe to the imagination of the +Middle Ages, in spite of the ignorance, the superstition and the cruelty +of that time. If the evils of the Middle Ages had really been universal, +those ages could not have imparted to us lessons of beauty and lessons of +nobility having nothing to do with literary form in themselves, yet +profoundly affecting modern poetry of the highest class. No; there was +very much of moral goodness as well as of moral badness in the Middle +Ages; and what was good happened to be very good indeed. Commonly it used +to be said (though I do not think any good critic would say it now) that +the fervid faith of the time made the moral beauty. Unless we modify this +statement a great deal, we can not now accept it at all. There was indeed +a religious beauty, particularly medięval, but it was not that which +created the romance of the period. Indeed, that romantic literature was +something of a reaction against the religious restraint upon imagination. +But if we mean by medięval faith only that which is very much older than +any European civilization, and which does not belong to the West any more +than to the East--the profound belief in human moral experience--then I +think that the statement is true enough. At no time in European history +were men more sincere believers in the value of certain virtues than +during the Middle Ages--and the very best of the romances are just those +romances which illustrate that belief, though not written for a merely +ethical purpose. + +But I can not better illustrate what I mean than by telling a story, which +has nothing to do with Europe, or the Middle Ages, or any particular form +of religious belief. It is not a Christian story at all; and it could not +be told you exactly as written, for there are some very curious pages in +it. But it is a good example of the worth that may lie in a mere product +of imagination. + +There was a king once, in Persia or Arabia, who, at the time of his +accession to power, discovered a wonderful subterranean hall under the +garden of his palace. In one chamber of that hall stood six marvellous +statues of young girls, each statue being made out of a single diamond. +The beauty as well as the cost of the work was beyond imagination. But in +the midst of the statues, which stood in a circle, there was an empty +pedestal, and on that pedestal was a precious casket containing a letter +from the dead father of the king. The letter said: + +"O my son, though these statues of girls are indeed beyond all praise, +there is yet a seventh statue incomparably more precious and beautiful +which I could not obtain before I died. It is now your duty, O my son, to +obtain that statue, that it may be placed upon the seventh pedestal. Go, +therefore, and ask my favourite slave, who is still alive, how you are to +obtain it." Then the young king went in all haste to that old slave, who +had been his father's confidant, and showed him the letter. And the old +man said, "Even now, O master, I will go with you to find that statue. But +it is in one of the three islands in which the genii dwell; and it is +necessary, above all things, that you do not fear, and that you obey my +instructions in all things. Also, remember that if you make a promise to +the Spirits of that land, the promise must be kept." + +And they proceeded upon their journey through a great wilderness, in which +"nothing existed but grass and the presence of God." I can not try now to +tell you about the wonderful things that happened to them, nor about the +marvellous boat, rowed by a boatman having upon his shoulders the head of +an elephant. Suffice it to say that at last they reached the palace of the +king of the Spirits; and the king came to meet them in the form of a +beautiful old man with a long white beard. And he said to the young king, +"My son, I will gladly help you, as I helped your father; and I will give +you that seventh statue of diamond which you desire. But I must ask for a +gift in return. You must bring to me here a young girl of about sixteen +years old; and she must be very intelligent; and she must be a true +maiden, not only as to her body, but as to her soul, and heart, and all +her thoughts." The young king thought that was a very easy thing to find, +but the king of the Spirits assured him that it was not, and further told +him this, "My son, no mortal man is wise enough to know by his own wisdom +the purity that is in the heart of a young girl. Only by the help of this +magical mirror, which I now lend you, will you be able to know. Look at +the reflection of any maiden in this mirror, and then, if her heart is +perfectly good and pure, the mirror will remain bright. But if there be +any fault in her, the mirror will grow dim. Go now, and do my bidding." + +You can imagine, of course, what happened next. Returning to his kingdom, +the young king had brought before him many beautiful girls, the daughters +of the noblest and highest in all the cities of the land. But in no case +did the mirror remain perfectly clear when the ghostly test was applied. +For three years in vain the king sought; then in despair he for the first +time turned his attention to the common people. And there came before him +on the very first day a rude man of the desert, who said, "I know of just +such a girl as you want." Then he went forth and presently returned with a +simple girl from the desert, who had been brought up in the care of her +father only, and had lived with no other companion than the members of her +own family and the camels and horses of the encampment. And as she stood +in her poor dress before the king, he saw that she was much more beautiful +than any one whom he had seen before; and he questioned her, only to find +that she was very intelligent; and she was not at all afraid or ashamed of +standing before the king, but looked about her with large wondering eyes, +like the eyes of a child; and whoever met that innocent gaze, felt a great +joy in his heart, and could not tell why. And when the king had the mirror +brought, and the reflection of the girl was thrown upon it, the mirror +became much brighter than before, and shone like a great moon. + +There was the maid whom the Spirit-king wished for. The king easily +obtained her from her parents; but he did not tell her what he intended to +do with her. Now it was his duty to give her to the Spirits; but there was +a condition he found very hard to fulfil. By the terms of his promise he +was not allowed to kiss her, to caress her, or even to see her, except +veiled after the manner of the country. Only by the mirror had he been +able to know how fair she was. And the voyage was long; and on the way, +the girl, who thought she was going to be this king's bride, became +sincerely attached to him, after the manner of a child with a brother; and +he also in his heart became much attached to her. But it was his duty to +give her up. At last they reached the palace of the Spirit-king; and the +figure of the old man came forth and said, "My son, you have done well and +kept your promise. This maiden is all that I could have wished for; and I +accept her. Now when you go back to your palace, you will find on the +seventh pedestal the statue of the diamond which your father desired you +to obtain." And, with these words, the Spirit-king vanished, taking with +him the girl, who uttered a great and piercing cry to heaven at having +been thus deceived. Very sorrowfully the young king then began his journey +home. All along the way he kept regretting that girl, and regretting the +cruelty which he had practised in deceiving her and her parents. And he +began to say to himself, "Accursed be the gift of the king of the Spirits! +Of what worth to me is a woman of diamond any more than a woman of stone? +What is there in all the world half so beautiful or half so precious as a +living girl such as I discovered? Fool that I was to give her up for the +sake of a statue!" But he tried to console himself by remembering that he +had obeyed his dead father's wish. + +Still, he could not console himself. Reaching his palace, he went to his +secret chamber to weep alone, and he wept night and day, in spite of the +efforts of his ministers to comfort him. But at last one of them said, "O +my king, in the hall beneath your garden there has appeared a wonderful +statue upon the seventh pedestal; perchance if you go to see it, your +heart will become more joyful." + +Then with great reluctance the king properly dressed himself, and went to +the subterranean hall. + +There indeed was the statue, the gift of the Spirit-king; and very +beautiful it was. But it was not made of diamond, and it looked so +strangely like the girl whom he had lost, that the king's heart leapt in +his breast for astonishment. He put out his hand and touched the statue, +and found it warm with life and youth. And a sweet voice said to him, +"Yes, it is really I--have you forgotten?" + +Thus she was given back to him; and the Spirit-king came to their wedding, +and thus addressed the bridegroom, "O my son, for your dead father's sake +I did this thing. For it was meant to teach you that the worth of a really +pure and perfect woman is more than the price of any diamond or any +treasure that the earth can yield." + +Now you can see at once the beauty of this story; and the moral of it is +exactly the same as that of the famous verse, in the Book of Proverbs, +"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies." But it +is simply a story from the "Arabian Nights"--one of those stories which +you will not find in the ordinary European translations, because it is +written in such a way that no English translator except Burton would have +dared to translate it quite literally. The obscenity of parts of the +original does not really detract in the least from the beauty and +tenderness of the motive of the story; and we must remember that what we +call moral or immoral in style depends very much upon the fashion of an +age and time. + +Now it is exactly the same kind of moral charm that distinguishes the best +of the old English romances--a charm which has nothing to do with the +style, but everything to do with the feeling and suggestion of the +composition. But in some of the old romances, the style too has a very +great charm of quaintness and simplicity and sincerity not to be imitated +to-day. In this respect the older French romances, from which the English +made their renderings, are much the best. And the best of all is said to +be "Amis and Amile," which the English rendered as "Amicus and Amelius." +Something of the story ought to interest you. + +The whole subject of this romance is the virtue of friendship, though this +of course involves a number of other virtues quite as distinguished. Amis +and Amile, that is to say Amicus and Amelius, are two young knights who at +the beginning of their career become profoundly attached to each other. +Not content with the duties of this natural affection, they imposed upon +themselves all the duties which chivalry also attached to the office of +friend. The romance tells of how they triumphed over every conceivable +test to which their friendship was subjected. Often and often the +witchcraft of woman worked to separate them, but could not. Both married, +yet after marriage their friendship was just as strong as before. Each has +to fight many times on account of the other, and suffer all things which +it is most hard for a proud and brave man to bear. But everything is +suffered cheerfully, and the friends are such true knights that, in all +their trials, neither does anything wrong, or commits the slightest fault +against truth--until a certain sad day. On that day it is the duty of Amis +to fight in a trial by battle. But he is sick, and can not fight; then to +save his honour his friend Amile puts on the armour and helmet of Amis, +and so pretending to be Amis, goes to the meeting place, and wins the +fight gloriously. But this was an act of untruthfulness; he had gone into +battle under a false name, and to do anything false even for a good motive +is bad. So heaven punishes him by afflicting him with the horrible disease +of leprosy. + +The conditions of leprosy in the Middle Ages were of a peculiar kind. The +disease seems to have been introduced into Europe from Asia--perhaps by +the Crusaders. Michelet suggests that it may have resulted from the +European want of cleanliness, brought about by ascetic teachings--for the +old Greek and Roman public bath-houses were held in horror by the medięval +Church. But this is not at all certain. What is certain is that in the +thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries leprosy became very +prevalent. The disease was not then at all understood; it was supposed to +be extremely contagious, and the man afflicted by it was immediately +separated from society, and not allowed to live in any community under +such conditions as could bring him into contact with other inhabitants. +His wife or children could accompany him only on the terrible condition of +being considered lepers. Every leper wore a kind of monk's dress, with a +hood covering the face; and he had to carry a bell and ring it constantly +to give notice of his approach. Special leper-houses were built near every +town, where such unfortunates might obtain accommodation. They were +allowed to beg, but it was considered dangerous to go very near them, so +that in most cases alms or food would be thrown to them only, instead of +being put into their hands. + +Now when the victim of leprosy in this romance is first afflicted by the +disease, he happens to be far away from his good friend. And none of his +own family is willing to help him; he is regarded with superstitious as +well as with physical horror. There is nothing left for him to do but to +yield up his knighthood and his welfare and his family, to put on the +leper's robe, and to go begging along the roads, carrying a leper's bell. +And this he does. For long, long months he goes begging from town to town, +till at last, by mere chance, he finds his way to the gate of the great +castle where his good friend is living--now a great prince, and married to +the daughter of the king. And he asks at the castle gate for charity and +for food. + +Now the porter at the gate observes that the leper has a very beautiful +cup, exactly resembling a drinking cup belonging to his master, and he +thinks it his duty to tell these things to the lord of the castle. And the +lord of the castle remembers that very long ago he and his friend each had +a cup of this kind, given to them by the bishop of Rome. So, hearing the +porter's story, he knew that the leper at the gate was the friend who "had +delivered him from death, and won for him the daughter of the King of +France to be his wife." Here I had better quote from the French version of +the story, in which the names of the friends are changed, but without +changing the beauty of the tale itself: + +"And straightway he fell upon him, and began to weep greatly, and kissed +him. And when his wife heard that, she ran out with her hair in disarray, +weeping and distressed exceedingly--for she remembered that it was he who +had slain the false Ardres. And thereupon they placed him in a fair bed, +and said to him, 'Abide with us until God's will be accomplished in thee, +for all that we have is at thy service.' So he abode with them." + +You must understand, by the allusion to "God's will," that leprosy was in +the Middle Ages really considered to be a punishment from heaven--so that +in taking a leper into his castle, the good friend was not only offending +against the law of the land, but risking celestial punishment as well, +according to the notions of that age. His charity, therefore, was true +charity indeed, and his friendship without fear. But it was going to be +put to a test more terrible than any ever endured before. To comprehend +what followed, you must know that there was one horrible superstition of +the Middle Ages--the belief that by bathing in human blood the disease of +leprosy might be cured. Murders were often committed under the influence +of that superstition. I believe you will remember that the "Golden Legend" +of Longfellow is founded upon a medięval story in which a young girl +voluntarily offers up her life in order that her blood may cure the +leprosy of her king. In the present romance there is much more tragedy. +One night while sleeping in his friend's castle, the leper was awakened by +an angel from God--Raphael--who said to him: + +"I am Raphael, the angel of the Lord, and I am come to tell thee how thou +mayst be healed. Thou shalt bid Amile thy comrade that he slay his two +children and wash thee in their blood, and so thy body shall be made +whole." And Amis said to him, "Let not this thing be, that my comrade +should become a murderer for my sake." But the angel said, "It is +convenient that he do this." And thereupon the angel departed. + +The phrase, "it is convenient," must be understood as meaning, "it is +ordered." For the medięval lord used such gentle expressions when issuing +his commands; and the angel talked like a feudal messenger. But in spite +of the command, the sick man does not tell his friend about the angel's +visit, until Amile, who has overheard the voice, forces him to acknowledge +whom he had been talking with during the night. And the emotion of the +lord may be imagined, though he utters it only in the following gentle +words--"I would have given to thee my man servants and my maid servants +and all my goods--and thou feignest that an angel hath spoken to thee that +I should slay my two children. But I conjure thee by the faith which there +is between me and thee and by our comradeship, and by the baptism we +received together, that thou tell me whether it was man or angel said that +to thee." + +Amis declares that it was really an angel, and Amile never thinks of +doubting his friend's word. It would be a pity to tell you the sequel in +my own words; let me quote again from the text, translated by Walter +Pater. I think you will find it beautiful and touching: + +"Then Amile began to weep in secret, and thought within himself, 'If this +man was ready to die before the King for me, shall I not for him slay my +children? Shall I not keep faith with him who was faithful to me even unto +death?' And Amile tarried no longer, but departed to the chamber of his +wife, and bade her go to hear the Sacred Office. And he took a sword, and +went to the bed where the children were lying, and found them asleep. And +he lay down over them and began to weep bitterly and said, 'Has any man +yet heard of a father who of his own will slew his children? Alas, my +children! I am no longer your father, but your cruel murderer.' + +"And the children awoke at the tears of their father, which fell upon +them; and they looked up into his face and began to laugh. And as they +were of age about three years, he said, 'Your laughing will be turned into +tears, for your innocent blood must now be shed'; and therewith he cut off +their heads. Then he laid them back in the bed, and put the heads upon the +bodies, and covered them as though they slept; and with the blood which he +had taken he washed his comrade, and said, 'Lord Jesus Christ! who hast +commanded men to keep faith on earth, and didst heal the leper by Thy +word! cleanse now my comrade, for whose love I have shed the blood of my +children.'" And of course the leper is immediately and completely cured. +But the mother did not know anything about the killing of the children; we +have to hear something about her share in the tragedy. Let me again quote, +this time giving the real and very beautiful conclusion-- + +"Now neither the father nor the mother had yet entered where the children +were, but the father sighed heavily because they were dead, and the mother +asked for them, that they might rejoice together; but Amile said, 'Dame! +let the children sleep.' And it was already the hour of Tierce. And going +in alone to the children to weep over them, he found them at play in the +bed; only, in the place of the sword-cuts about their throats was, as it +were, a thread of crimson. And he took them in his arms and carried them +to his wife and said, 'Rejoice greatly! For thy children whom I had slain +by the commandment of the angel, are alive, and by their blood is Amis +healed.'" + +I think you will all see how fine a story this is, and feel the emotional +force of the grand moral idea behind it. There is nothing more to tell +you, except the curious fact that during the Middle Ages, when it was +believed that the story was really true, Amis and Amile--or Amicus and +Amelius--were actually considered by the Church as saints, and people used +to pray to them. When anybody was anxious for his friend, or feared that +he might lose the love of his friend, or was afraid that he might not have +strength to perform his duty as friend--then he would go to church to +implore help from the good saints Amicus and Amelius. But of course it was +all a mistake--a mistake which lasted until the end of the seventeenth +century! Then somebody called the attention of the Church to the +unmistakable fact that Amicus and Amelius were merely inventions of some +medięval romancer. Then the Church made investigation, and greatly +shocked, withdrew from the list of its saints those long-loved names of +Amicus and Amelius--a reform in which I cannot help thinking the Church +made a very serious mistake. What matter whether those shadowy figures +represented original human lives or only human dreams? They were +beautiful, and belief in them made men think beautiful thoughts, and the +imagined help from them had comforted many thousands of hearts. It would +have been better to have left them alone; for that matter, how many of the +existent lives of saints are really true? Nevertheless the friends are not +dead, though expelled from the heaven of the Church. They still live in +romance; and everybody who reads about them feels a little better for +their acquaintance. + +What I read to you was from the French version--that is much the more +beautiful of the two. You will find some extracts from the English version +in the pages of Ten Brink. But as that great German scholar pointed out, +the English story is much rougher than the French. For example, in the +English story, the knight rushes out of his castle to beat the leper at +the gate, and to accuse him of having stolen the cup. And he does beat him +ferociously, and abuses him with very violent terms. In fact, the English +writer reflected too much of medięval English character, in trying to +cover, or to improve upon, the French story, which was the first. In the +French story all is knightly smooth, refined as well as simple and strong. +And where did the medięval imagination get its material for the story? +Partly, perhaps, from the story of Joseph in the Bible, partly from the +story of Abraham; but the scriptural material is so admirably worked over +that the whole thing appears deliciously original. That was the great art +of the Middle Ages--to make old, old things quite new by the magic of +spiritual imagination. Men then lived in a world of dreams. And that world +still attracts us, for the simple reason that happiness chiefly consists +in dreams. Exact science may help us a great deal no doubt, but +mathematics do not make us any happier. Dreams do, if we can believe them. +The Middle Ages could believe them; we, at the best, can only try. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +"IONICA" + + +I am going now to talk about a very rare kind of poetry in a very rare +little book, like fine wine in a small and precious flask. The author +never put his name to the book--indeed for many years it was not known who +wrote the volume. We now know that the author was a school teacher called +William Johnson who, later in life, coming into a small fortune, changed +his name to William Cory. He was born sometime about 1823, and died in +1892. He was, I believe, an Oxford man and was assistant master of Eton +College for a number of years. Judging from his poems, he must have found +pleasure in his profession as well as pain. There is a strange sadness +nearly always, but this sadness is mixed with expressions of love for the +educational establishment which he directed, and for the students whose +minds he helped to form. He must have been otherwise a very shy man. +Scarcely anything seems to be known about him after his departure from +educational circles, although everybody of taste now knows his poems. I +wish to speak of them because I think that literary graduates of this +university ought to be at least familiar with the name "Ionica." At all +events you should know something about the man and about the best of his +poems. If you should ask why so little has yet been said about him in +books on English literature, I would answer that in the first place he was +a very small poet writing in the time of giants, having for competitors +Tennyson, Browning and others. He could scarcely make his small pipe heard +in the thunder of those great organ tones. In the second place his verses +were never written to please the public at all. They were written only for +fine scholars, and even the titles of many of them cannot be explained by +a person devoid of some Greek culture. So the little book, which appeared +quite early in the Victorian Age, was soon forgotten. Being forgotten it +ran out of print and disappeared. Then somebody remembered that it had +existed. I have told you that it was like the tone of a little pipe or +flute as compared with the organ music of the larger poets. But the little +pipe happened to be a Greek pipe--the melody was very sweet and very +strange and old, and people who had heard it once soon wanted to hear it +again. But they could not get it. Copies of the first edition fetched +extraordinary sums. Some few years ago a new edition appeared, but this +too is now out of print and is fetching fancy prices. However, you must +not expect anything too wonderful from this way of introducing the +subject. The facts only show that the poems are liked by persons of +refinement and wealth. I hope to make you like some of them, but the +difficulties of so doing are considerable, because of the extremely +English character of some pieces and the extremely Greek tone of others. +There is also some uneven work. The poet is not in all cases successful. +Sometimes he tried to write society verse, and his society verse must be +considered a failure. The best pieces are his Greek pieces and some +compositions on love subjects of a most delicate and bewitching kind. + +Of course the very name "Ionica" suggests Greek work, a collection of +pieces in Ionic style. But you must not think that this means only +repetitions of ancient subjects. This author brings the Greek feeling back +again into the very heart of English life sometimes, or makes an English +fact illustrate a Greek fable. Some delightful translations from the Greek +there are, but less than half a dozen in all. + +I scarcely know how to begin--what piece to quote first. But perhaps the +little fancy called "Mimnermus in Church" is the best known, and the one +which will best serve to introduce us to the character of Cory. Before +quoting it, however, I must explain the title briefly. Mimnermus was an +old Greek philosopher and poet who thought that all things in the world +are temporary, that all hope of a future life is vain, that there is +nothing worth existing for except love, and that without affection one +were better dead. There are, no doubt, various modern thinkers who tell +you much the same thing, and this little poem exhibits such modern feeling +in a Greek dress. I mean that we have here a picture of a young man, a +young English scholar, listening in church to Christian teaching, but +answering that teaching with the thought of the old Greeks. There is of +course one slight difference; the modern conception of love is perhaps a +little wider in range than that of the old Greeks. There is more of the +ideal in it. + + +MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH + + You promise heavens free from strife, + Pure truth, and perfect change of will; + But sweet, sweet is this human life, + So sweet, I fain would breathe it still; + Your chilly stars I can forego, + This warm kind world is all I know. + + You say there is no substance here, + One great reality above: + Back from that void I shrink in fear + And child-like hide myself in love; + Show me what angels feel. Till then + I cling, a mere weak man, to men. + + You bid me lift my mean desires + From faltering lips and fitful veins + To sexless souls, ideal choirs, + Unwearied voices, wordless strains; + My mind with fonder welcome owns + One dear dead friend's remembered tones. + + Forsooth the present we must give + To that which cannot pass away; + All beauteous things for which we live + By laws of time and space decay. + But oh, the very reason why + I clasp them, is because they die. + +The preacher has been talking to his congregation about the joys of +Heaven. There, he says, there will be no quarrelling, no contest, no +falsehood, and all evil dispositions will be entirely changed to good. The +poet answers, "This world and this life are full of beauty and of joy for +me. I do not want to die, I want to live. I do not wish to go to that cold +region of stars about which you teach. I only know this world and I find +in it warm hearts and precious affection. You say that this world is a +phantom, unsubstantial, unreal, and that the only reality is above, in +Heaven. To me that Heaven appears but as an awful emptiness. I shrink from +it in terror, and like a child seek for consolation in human love. It is +no use to talk to me about angels until you can prove to me that angels +can feel happier than men. I prefer to remain with human beings. You say +that I ought to wish for higher things than this world can give, that here +minds are unsteady and weak, hearts fickle and selfish, and you talk of +souls without sex, imaginary concerts of perfect music, tireless singing +in Heaven, and the pleasure of conversation without speech. But all the +happiness that we know is received from our fellow beings. I remember the +voice of one dead friend with deeper love and pleasure than any images of +Heaven could ever excite in my mind." + +The last stanza needs no paraphrasing, but it deserves some comment, for +it is the expression of one great difference between the old Greek feeling +in regard to life and death, and all modern religious feeling on the same +subject. You can read through hundreds of beautiful inscriptions which +were placed over the Greek tombs. They are contained in the Greek +Anthology. You will find there almost nothing about hope of a future life, +or about Heaven. They are not for the most part sad; they are actually +joyous in many cases. You would say that the Greek mind thought thus about +death--"I have had my share of the beauty and the love of this world, and +I am grateful for this enjoyment, and now it is time to go to sleep." +There is actually an inscription to the effect, "I have supped well of the +banquet of life." The Eastern religions, including Christianity, taught +that because everything in the world is uncertain, impermanent, +perishable, therefore we ought not to allow our minds to love worldly +things. But the Greek mind, as expressed by the old epigraphy in the +cemeteries, not less than by the teaching of Mimnermus, took exactly the +opposite view. "O children of men, it is because beauty and pleasure and +love and light can last only for a little while, it is exactly because of +this that you should love them. Why refuse to enjoy the present because it +can not last for ever?" And at a much later day the Persian poet Omar +took, you will remember, precisely the same view. You need not think that +it would be wise to accept such teaching for a rule of life, but it has a +certain value as a balance to the other extreme view, that we should make +ourselves miserable in this world with the idea of being rewarded in +another, concerning which we have no positive knowledge. The lines with +which the poem concludes at least deserve to be thought about-- + + But oh, the very reason why + I clasp them, is because they die. + +We shall later on take some of the purely Greek work of Cory for study, +but I want now to interest you in the more modern part of it. The charm of +the following passage you will better feel by remembering that the writer +was then a schoolmaster at Eton, and that the verses particularly express +the love which he felt for his students--a love the more profound, +perhaps, because the circumstances of the teacher's position obliged him +to appear cold and severe, obliged him to suppress natural impulses of +affection and generosity. The discipline of the masters in English public +schools is much more severe than the discipline to which the students are +subjected. The boys enjoy a great deal of liberty. The masters may be said +to have none. Yet there are men so constituted that they learn to greatly +love the profession. The title of this poem is "Reparabo," which means "I +will atone." + + The world will rob me of my friends, + For time with her conspires; + But they shall both, to make amends, + Relight my slumbering fires. + + For while my comrades pass away + To bow and smirk and gloze, + Come others, for as short a stay; + And dear are these as those. + + And who was this? they ask; and then + The loved and lost I praise: + "Like you they frolicked; they are men; + Bless ye my later days." + + Why fret? The hawks I trained are flown; + 'Twas nature bade them range; + I could not keep their wings half-grown, + I could not bar the change. + + With lattice opened wide I stand + To watch their eager flight; + With broken jesses in my hand + I muse on their delight. + + And oh! if one with sullied plume + Should droop in mid career, + My love makes signals,--"There is room, + O bleeding wanderer, here." + +This comparison of the educator to a falconer, and of the students to +young hawks eager to break their jesses seems to an Englishman +particularly happy in reference to Eton, from which so many youths pass +into the ranks of the army and navy. The line about bowing, smirking and +glozing, refers to the comparative insincerity of the higher society into +which so many of the scholars must eventually pass. "Smirking" suggests +insincere smiles, "glozing" implies tolerating or lightly passing over +faults or wrongs or serious matters that should not be considered lightly. +Society is essentially insincere and artificial in all countries, but +especially so in England. The old Eton master thinks, however, that he +knows the moral character of the boys, the strong principles which make +its foundation, and he trusts that they will be able in a general way to +do only what is right, in spite of conventions and humbug. + +As I told you before, we know very little about the personal life of Cory, +who must have been a very reserved man; but a poet puts his heart into his +verses as a general rule, and there are many little poems in this book +that suggest to us an unhappy love episode. These are extremely pretty and +touching, the writer in most cases confessing himself unworthy of the +person who charmed him; but the finest thing of the kind is a composition +which he suggestively entitled "A Fable"--that is to say, a fable in the +Greek sense, an emblem or symbol of truth. + + An eager girl, whose father buys + Some ruined thane's forsaken hall, + Explores the new domain and tries + Before the rest to view it all. + +I think you have often noted the fact here related; when a family moves to +a new house, it is the child, or the youngest daughter, who is the first +to explore all the secrets of the new residence, and whose young eyes +discover things which the older folks had not noticed. + + Alone she lifts the latch, and glides, + Through many a sadly curtained room, + As daylight through the doorway slides + And struggles with the muffled gloom. + + With mimicries of dance she wakes + The lordly gallery's silent floor, + And climbing up on tiptoe, makes + The old-world mirror smile once more. + + With tankards dry she chills her lips, + With yellowing laces veils the head, + And leaps in pride of ownership + Upon the faded marriage bed. + + A harp in some dark nook she sees + Long left a prey to heat and frost, + She smites it; can such tinklings please? + Is not all worth, all beauty, lost? + + Ah, who'd have thought such sweetness clung + To loose neglected strings like those? + They answered to whate'er was sung, + And sounded as a lady chose. + + Her pitying finger hurried by + Each vacant space, each slackened chord; + Nor would her wayward zeal let die + The music-spirit she restored. + + The fashion quaint, the timeworn flaws, + The narrow range, the doubtful tone, + All was excused awhile, because + It seemed a creature of her own. + + Perfection tires; the new in old, + The mended wrecks that need her skill, + Amuse her. If the truth be told, + She loves the triumph of her will. + + With this, she dares herself persuade, + She'll be for many a month content, + Quite sure no duchess ever played + Upon a sweeter instrument. + + And thus in sooth she can beguile + Girlhood's romantic hours, but soon + She yields to taste and mood and style, + A siren of the gay saloon. + + And wonders how she once could like + Those drooping wires, those failing notes, + And leaves her toy for bats to strike + Amongst the cobwebs and the motes. + + But enter in, thou freezing wind, + And snap the harp-strings, one by one; + It was a maiden blithe and kind: + They felt her touch; their task is done. + +In this charming little study we know that the harp described is not a +harp; it is the loving heart of an old man, at least of a man beyond the +usual age of lovers. He has described and perhaps adored some beautiful +person who seemed to care for him, and who played upon his heart, with her +whims, caresses, smiles, much as one would play upon the strings of a +harp. She did not mean to be cruel at all, nor even insincere. It is even +probable that she really in those times thought that she loved the man, +and under the charms of the girl the man became a different being; the +old-fashioned mind brightened, the old-fashioned heart exposed its hidden +treasures of tenderness and wisdom and sympathy. Very much like playing +upon a long forgotten instrument, was the relation between the maiden and +the man--not only because he resembled such an instrument in the fact of +belonging emotionally and intellectually to another generation, but also +because his was a heart whose true music had long been silent, unheard by +the world. Undoubtedly the maiden meant no harm, but she caused a great +deal of pain, for at a later day, becoming a great lady of society, she +forgot all about this old friendship, or perhaps wondered why she ever +wasted her time in talking to such a strange old-fashioned professor. Then +the affectionate heart is condemned to silence again, to silence and +oblivion, like the harp thrown away in some garret to be covered with +cobwebs and visited only by bats. "Is it not time," the old man thinks, +"that the strings should be broken, the strings of the heart? Let the cold +wind of death now come and snap them." Yet, after all, why should he +complain? Did he not have the beautiful experience of loving, and was she +not in that time at least well worthy of the love that she called forth +like music? + +There are several other poems referring to what would seem to be the same +experience, and all are beautiful, but one seems to me nobler than the +rest, expressing as it does a generous resignation. It is called +"Deteriora," a Latin word signifying lesser, inferior, or deteriorated +things--not easy to translate. Nor would you find the poem easy to +understand, referring as it does to conditions of society foreign to +anything in Japanese experience. But some verses which I may quote you +will like. + + If fate and nature screen from me + The sovran front I bowed before, + And set the glorious creature free, + Whom I would clasp, detain, adore,-- + If I forego that strange delight, + Must all be lost? Not quite, not quite. + + _Die, Little Love, without complaint, + Whom honour standeth by to shrive: + Assoilčd from all selfish taint, + Die, Love, whom Friendship will survive. + Not hate nor folly gave thee birth; + And briefness does but raise thy worth._ + +This is the same thought which Tennyson expressed in his famous lines, + + 'Tis better to have loved and lost + Than never to have loved at all. + +But it is still more finely expressed to meet a particular personal mood. +One must not think the world lost because a woman has been lost, he says, +and such a love is not a thing for any man to be ashamed of, in spite of +the fact that it has been disappointed. It was honourable, unselfish, not +inspired by any passion or any folly, and the very brevity of the +experience only serves to make it more precious. Observe the use of the +words "shrive" and "assoiled." These refer to the old religious custom of +confession; to "shrive" signifies to forgive, to free from sin, as a +priest is supposed to do, and "assoiled" means "purified." + +If this was a personal experience, it must have been an experience of +advanced life. Elsewhere the story of a boyish love is told very prettily, +under the title of "Two Fragments of Childhood." This is the first +fragment: + + When these locks were yellow as gold, + When past days were easily told, + Well I knew the voice of the sea, + Once he spake as a friend to me. + Thunder-rollings carelessly heard, + Once that poor little heart they stirred, + Why, Oh, why? + Memory, memory! + She that I wished to be with was by. + + Sick was I in those misanthrope days + Of soft caresses, womanly ways; + Once that maid on the stair I met + Lip on brow she suddenly set. + Then flushed up my chivalrous blood, + Like Swiss streams in a mid-summer flood. + Then, Oh, then, + Imogen, Imogen! + Hadst thou a lover, whose years were ten. + +This is evidently the charming memory of a little sick boy sent to the +seaside for his health, according to the English custom, and unhappy +there, unable to play about like stronger children, and obliged to remain +under the constant care of nurses and female relatives. But in the same +house there is another family with a beautiful young daughter, probably +sixteen or eighteen years old. The little boy wishes, wishes so much that +the beautiful lady would speak to him and play with him, but he is shy, +afraid to approach her--only looks at her with great admiring loving eyes. +But one day she meets him on the stairs, and stoops down and kisses him on +the forehead. Then he is in Heaven. Afterward no doubt she played with +him, and they walked up and down by the shore of the sea together, and +now, though an old man, whenever he hears the roar of the sea he remembers +the beautiful lady who played with him and caressed him, when he was a +little sick child. How much he loved her! But she was a woman, and he was +only ten years old. The reference to "chivalrous blood" signifies just +this, that at the moment when she kissed him he would have given his life +for her, would have dared anything or done anything to show his devotion +to her. No prettier memory of a child could be told. + +We can learn a good deal about even the shyest of the poets through a +close understanding of his poetry. From the foregoing we know that Cory +must have been a sickly child; and from other poems referring to school +life we can not escape the supposition that he was not a strong lad. In +one of his verses he speaks of being unable to join in the hearty play of +his comrades; and in the poem which touches on the life of the mature man +we find him acknowledging that he believed his life a failure--a failure +through want of strength. I am going to quote this poem for other reasons. +It is a beautiful address either to some favourite student or to a beloved +son--it is impossible to decide which. But that does not matter. The title +is "A New Year's Day." + + Our planet runs through liquid space, + And sweeps us with her in the race; + And wrinkles gather on my face, + And Hebe bloom on thine: + Our sun with his encircling spheres + Around the central sun careers; + And unto thee with mustering years + Come hopes which I resign. + + 'Twere sweet for me to keep thee still + Reclining halfway up the hill; + But time will not obey the will, + And onward thou must climb: + 'Twere sweet to pause on this descent, + To wait for thee and pitch my tent, + But march I must with shoulders bent, + Yet further from my prime. + + _I shall not tread thy battlefield, + Nor see the blazon on thy shield; + Take thou the sword I could not wield, + And leave me, and forget. + Be fairer, braver, more admired; + So win what feeble hearts desired; + Then leave thine arms, when thou art tired, + To some one nobler yet._ + +How beautiful this is, and how profoundly sad! + +I shall return to the personal poetry of Cory later on, but I want now to +give you some examples of his Greek work. Perhaps the best of this is +little more than a rendering of Greek into English; some of the work is +pure translation. But it is the translation of a very great master, the +perfect rendering of Greek feeling as well as of Greek thought. Here is an +example of pure translation: + + They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, + They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. + I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I + Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. + And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, + A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest, + Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake; + For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take. + +What are "thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales"? They are the songs which +the dear dead poet made, still sung in his native country, though his body +was burned to ashes long ago--has been changed into a mere handful of grey +ashes, which, doubtless, have been placed in an urn, as is done with such +ashes to-day in Japan. Death takes away all things from man, but not his +poems, his songs, the beautiful thoughts which he puts into musical verse. +These will always be heard like nightingales. The fourth line in the first +stanza contains an idiom which may not be familiar to you. It means only +that the two friends talked all day until the sun set in the West, and +still talked on after that. Tennyson has used the same Greek thought in a +verse of his poem, "A Dream of Fair Women," where Cleopatra says, + + "We drank the Libyan sun to sleep." + +The Greek author of the above poem was the great poet Callimachus, and the +English translator does not think it necessary even to give the name, as +he wrote only for folk well acquainted with the classics. He has another +short translation which he accompanies with the original Greek text; it is +very pretty, but of an entirely different kind, a kind that may remind you +of some Japanese poems. It is only about a cicada and a peasant girl, and +perhaps it is twenty-four or twenty-five hundred years old. + + A dry cicale chirps to a lass making hay, + "Why creak'st thou, Tithonus?" quoth she. "I don't play; + It doubles my toil, your importunate lay, + I've earned a sweet pillow, lo! Hesper is nigh; + I clasp a good wisp and in fragrance I lie; + But thou art unwearied, and empty, and dry." + +How very human this little thing is--how actually it brings before us the +figure of the girl, who must have become dust some time between two and +three thousand years ago! She is working hard in the field, and the +constant singing of the insect prompts her to make a comical protest. "Oh, +Tithonus, what are you making that creaking noise for? You old dry thing, +I have no time to play with you, or to idle in any way, but you do nothing +but complain. Why don't you work, as I do? Soon I shall have leave to +sleep, because I have worked well. There is the evening star, and I shall +have a good bed of hay, sweet-smelling fresh hay, to lie upon. How well I +shall sleep. But you, you idle noisy thing, you do not deserve to sleep. +You have done nothing to tire you. And you are empty, dry and thirsty. +Serves you right!" Of course you recognize the allusion to the story of +Tithonus, so beautifully told by Tennyson. The girl's jest has a double +meaning. The word "importunate" has the signification of a wearisome +repetition of a request, a constant asking, impossible to satisfy. +Tithonus was supposed to complain because he was obliged to live although +he wanted to die. That young girl does not want to die at all. And she +says that the noise of the insect, supposed to repeat the complaint of +Tithonus, only makes it more tiresome for her to work. She was feeling, no +doubt, much as a Japanese student would feel when troubled by the singing +of _semi_ on some very hot afternoon while he is trying to master some +difficult problem. + +That is pure Greek--pure as another mingling of the Greek feeling with the +modern scholarly spirit, entitled "An Invocation." Before quoting from it +I must explain somewhat; otherwise you might not be able to imagine what +it means, because it was written to be read by those only who are +acquainted with Theocritus and the Greek idylists. Perhaps I had better +say something too, about the word idyl, for the use of the word by +Tennyson is not the Greek use at all, except in the mere fact that the +word signifies a picturing, a shadowing or an imagining of things. +Tennyson's pictures are of a purely imaginative kind in the "Idyls of the +King." But the Greek poets who first invented the poetry called idyllic +did not attempt the heroic works of imagination at all; they only +endeavoured to make perfectly true pictures of the common life of peasants +in the country. They wrote about the young men and young girls working on +the farms, about the way they quarrelled or rejoiced or made love, about +their dances and their songs, about their religious festivals and their +sacrifices to the gods at the parish temple. Imagine a Japanese scholar of +to-day who, after leaving the university, instead of busying himself with +the fashionable studies of the time, should go out into the remoter +districts or islands of Japan, and devote his life to studying the +existence of the commoner people there, and making poems about it. This +was exactly what the Greek idylists did,--that is, the best of them. They +were great scholars and became friends of kings, but they wrote poetry +chiefly about peasant life, and they gave all their genius to the work. +The result was so beautiful that everybody is still charmed by the +pictures or idyls which they made. + +Well, after this disgression, to return to the subject of Theocritus, the +greatest of the idylists. He has often introduced into his idyls the name +of Comatas. Who was Comatas? Comatas was a Greek shepherd boy, or more +strictly speaking a goatherd, who kept the flocks of a rich man. It was +his duty to sacrifice to the gods none of his master's animals, without +permission; but as his master was a very avaricious person, Comatas knew +that it would be of little use to ask him. Now this Comatas was a very +good singer of peasant songs, and he made many beautiful poems for the +people to sing, and he believed that it was the gods who had given him +power to make the songs, and the Muses had inspired him with the capacity +to make good verse. In spite of his master's will, Comatas therefore +thought it was not very bad to take the young kids and sacrifice to the +gods and the Muses. When his master found out what had been done with the +animals, naturally he became very angry, and he put Comatas into a great +box of cedar-wood in order to starve him to death--saying, as he closed +and locked the lid, "Now, Comatas, let us see whether the gods will feed +you!" In that box Comatas was left for a year without food or drink, and +when the master, at the end of the year, opened the box, he expected to +find nothing but the bones of the goatherd. But Comatas was alive and +well, singing sweet songs, because during the year the Muses had sent bees +to feed him with honey. The bees had been able to enter the box through a +very little hole. I suppose you know that bees were held sacred to the +Muses, and that there is in Greek legend a symbolic relation between bees +and poetry. + +If you want to know what kind of songs Comatas sang and what kind of life +he represented, you will find all this exquisitely told by Theocritus; and +there is a beautiful little translation in prose of Theocritus, Bion and +Moschus, made by Andrew Lang, which should delight you to read. Another +day I shall give you examples of such translations. Then you will see what +true idyllic poetry originally signified. These Greeks, although trained +scholars and philosophers, understood not only that human nature in itself +is a beautiful thing, but also that the best way to study human nature is +to study the life of the peasants and the common people. It is not to the +rich and leisurely, not to rank and society, that a poet must go for +inspiration. He will not find it there. What is called society is a world +in which nobody is happy, and in which pure human nature is afraid to show +itself. Life among the higher classes in all countries is formal, +artificial, theatrical; poetry is not there. Of course no kind of human +community is perfectly happy, but it is among the simple folk, the country +folk, who do not know much about evil and deceit, that the greater +proportion of happiness can be found. Among the youths of the country +especially, combining the charm of childhood with the strength of adult +maturity, the best possible subjects for fine pure studies of human nature +can be found. May I not here express the hope that some young Japanese +poet, some graduate of this very university, will eventually attempt to do +in Japan what Theocritus and Bion did in ancient Sicily? A great deal of +the very same kind of poetry exists in our own rural districts, and +parallels can be found in the daily life of the Japanese peasants for +everything beautifully described in Theocritus. At all events I am quite +sure of one thing, that no great new literature can possibly arise in this +country until some scholarly minds discover that the real force and truth +and beauty and poetry of life is to be found only in studies of the common +people--not in the life of the rich and the noble, not in the shadowy life +of books. + +Well, our English poet felt with the Greek idylists, and in the poem +called "An Invocation" he beautifully expresses this sympathy. All of us, +he says, should like to see and hear something of the ancient past if it +were possible. We should like, some of us, to call back the vanished gods +and goddesses of the beautiful Greek world, or to talk to the great souls +of that world who had the experience of life as men--to Socrates, for +example, to Plato, to Phidias the sculptor, to Pericles the statesman. +But, as a poet, my wish would not be for the return of the old gods nor of +the old heroes so much as for the return to us of some common men who +lived in the Greek world. It is Comatas, he says, that he would most like +to see, and to see in some English park--in the neighbourhood of Cambridge +University, or of Eton College. And thus he addresses the spirit of +Comatas: + + O dear divine Comatas, I would that thou and I + Beneath this broken sunlight this leisure day might lie; + Where trees from distant forests, whose names were strange to thee, + Should bend their amorous branches within thy reach to be, + And flowers thine Hellas knew not, which art hath made more fair, + Should shed their shining petals upon thy fragrant hair. + + Then thou shouldst calmly listen with ever-changing looks + To songs of younger minstrels and plots of modern books, + And wonder at the daring of poets later born, + Whose thoughts are unto thy thoughts as noontide is to morn; + And little shouldst them grudge them their greater strength of soul, + Thy partners in the torch-race, though nearer to the goal. + + * * * * * + + Or in thy cedarn prison thou waitest for the bee: + Ah, leave that simple honey and take thy food from me. + My sun is stooping westward. Entranced dreamer, haste; + There's fruitage in my garden that I would have thee taste. + Now lift the lid a moment; now, Dorian shepherd, speak; + Two minds shall flow together, the English and the Greek. + +A few phrases of these beautiful stanzas need explanation. "Broken +sunlight" refers, of course, to the imperfect shade thrown by the trees +under which the poet is lying. The shadow is broken by the light passing +through leaves, or conversely, the light is broken by the interposition of +the leaves. The reference to trees from distant forests no doubt intimates +that the poet is in some botanical garden, a private park, in which +foreign trees are carefully cultivated. The "torch race" is a simile for +the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Greek thinkers compare the +transmission of knowledge from one generation to another, to the passing +of a lighted torch from hand to hand, as in the case of messengers +carrying signals or athletes running a mighty race. As a runner runs until +he is tired, or until he reaches the next station, and then passes the +torch which he has been carrying to another runner waiting to receive it, +so does each generation pass on its wisdom to the succeeding generation, +and disappear. "My sun is stooping westward" is only a beautiful way of +saying, "I am becoming very old; be quick, so that we may see each other +before I die." And the poet suggests that it is because of his age and his +experience and his wisdom that he could hope to be of service to the dear +divine Comatas. The expression, "there is fruitage in my garden," refers +to no material garden, but to the cultivated mind of the scholar; he is +only saying, "I have strange knowledge that I should like to impart to +you." How delightful, indeed, it would be, could some university scholar +really converse with a living Greek of the old days! + +There is another little Greek study of great and simple beauty entitled +"The Daughter of Cleomenes." It is only an historical incident, but it is +so related for the pleasure of suggesting a profound truth about the +instinct of childhood. Long ago, when the Persians were about to make an +attack upon the Greeks, there was an attempt to buy off the Spartan +resistance, and the messenger to the Spartan general found him playing +with his little daughter, a child of six or seven. The conference was +carried on in whispers, and the child could not hear what was being said; +but she broke up the whole plot by a single word. I shall quote a few +lines from the close of the poem, which contain its moral lessons. The +emissary has tried to tempt him with promises of wealth and power. + + He falters; for the waves he fears, + The roads he cannot measure; + But rates full high the gleam of spears + And dreams of yellow treasure. + He listens; he is yielding now; + Outspoke the fearless child: + "Oh, Father, come away, lest thou + Be by this man beguiled." + Her lowly judgment barred the plea, + So low, it could not reach her. + _The man knows more of land and sea, + But she's the truer teacher._ + +All the little girl could know about the matter was instinctive; she only +saw the cunning face of the stranger, and felt sure that he was trying to +deceive her father for a bad purpose--so she cried out, "Father, come away +with me, or else that man will deceive you." And she spoke truth, as her +father immediately recognized. + +There are several more classical studies of extraordinary beauty; but your +interest in them would depend upon something more than interest in Greek +and Roman history, and we can not study all the poems. So I prefer to go +back to the meditative lyrics, and to give a few splendid examples of +these more personal compositions. The following stanzas are from a poem +whose Latin title signifies that Love conquers death. In this poem the +author becomes the equal of Tennyson as a master of language. + + The plunging rocks, whose ravenous throats + The sea in wrath and mockery fills, + The smoke that up the valley floats, + The girlhood of the growing hills; + + The thunderings from the miners' ledge, + The wild assaults on nature's hoard, + The peak that stormward bares an edge + Ground sharp in days when Titans warred; + + Grim heights, by wandering clouds embraced + Where lightning's ministers conspire, + Grey glens, with tarns and streamlet laced, + Stark forgeries of primeval fire. + + These scenes may gladden many a mind + Awhile from homelier thoughts released, + And here my fellow men may find + A Sabbath and a vision-feast. + + _I bless them in the good they feel; + And yet I bless them with a sigh; + On me this grandeur stamps the seal + Of tyrannous mortality._ + + _The pitiless mountain stands so sure. + The human breast so weakly heaves, + That brains decay while rocks endure. + At this the insatiate spirit grieves._ + + But hither, oh ideal bride! + For whom this heart in silence aches, + Love is unwearied as the tide, + Love is perennial as the lakes. + + Come thou. The spiky crags will seem + One harvest of one heavenly year, + And fear of death, like childish dream, + Will pass and flee, when thou art here. + +Very possibly this charming meditation was written on the Welsh coast; +there is just such scenery as the poem describes, and the grand peak of +Snowdon would well realize the imagination of the line about the girlhood +of the growing hills. The melancholy of the latter part of the composition +is the same melancholy to be found in "Mimnermus in Church," the first of +Cory's poems which we read together. It is the Greek teaching that there +is nothing to console us for the great doubt and mystery of existence +except unselfish affection. All through the book we find the same +philosophy, even in the beautiful studies of student life and the memories +of childhood. So it is quite a melancholy book, though the sadness be +beautiful. I have given you examples of the sadness of doubt and of the +sadness of love; but there is yet a third kind of sadness--the sadness of +a childless man, wishing that he could have a child of his own. It is a +very pretty thing, simply entitled "Scheveningen Avenue"--probably the +name of the avenue where the incident occurred. The poet does not tell us +how it occurred, but we can very well guess. He was riding in a street +car, probably, and a little girl next to him, while sitting upon her +nurse's lap, fell asleep, and as she slept let her head fall upon his +shoulder. This is a very simple thing to make a poem about, but what a +poem it is! + + Oh, that the road were longer + A mile, or two, or three! + So might the thought grow stronger + That flows from touch of thee. + + _Oh little slumbering maid, + If thou wert five years older, + Thine head would not be laid + So simply on my shoulder!_ + + _Oh, would that I were younger, + Oh, were I more like thee, + I should not faintly hunger + For love that cannot be._ + + A girl might be caressed + Beside me freely sitting; + A child on knee might rest, + And not like thee, unwitting. + + Such honour is thy mother's, + Who smileth on thy sleep, + Or for the nurse who smothers + Thy cheek in kisses deep. + + And but for parting day, + And but for forest shady, + From me they'd take away + The burden of their lady. + + Ah thus to feel thee leaning + Above the nursemaid's hand, + Is like a stranger's gleaning + Where rich men own the land; + + Chance gains, and humble thrift, + With shyness much like thieving, + No notice with the gift, + No thanks with the receiving. + + Oh peasant, when thou starvest + Outside the fair domain, + Imagine there's a harvest + In every treasured grain. + + Make with thy thoughts high cheer, + Say grace for others dining, + And keep thy pittance clear + From poison of repining. + +There is an almost intolerable acuity of sadness in the last two mocking +verses, but how pretty and how tender the whole thing is, and how +gentle-hearted must have been the man who wrote it! The same tenderness +reappears in references to children of a larger growth, the boys of his +school. Sometimes he very much regrets the necessity of discipline, and +advocates a wiser method of dealing with the young. How very pretty is +this little verse about the boy he loves. + + Sweet eyes, that aim a level shaft, + At pleasure flying from afar, + Sweet lips, just parted for a draught + Of Hebe's nectar, shall I mar + By stress of disciplinal craft + The joys that in your freedom are? + +But a little reflection further on in the same poem reminds us how +necessary the discipline must be for the battle of life, inasmuch as each +of those charming boys will have to fight against evil-- + + yet shall ye cope + With worlding wrapped in silken lies, + With pedant, hypocrite, and pope. + +One might easily lecture about this little volume for many more days, so +beautiful are the things which fill it. But enough has been cited to +exemplify its unique value. If you reread these quotations, I think you +will find each time new beauty in them. And the beauty is quite peculiar. +Such poetry could have been written only under two conditions. The first +is that the poet be a consummate scholar. The second is that he must have +suffered, as only a great mind and heart could suffer, from want of +affection. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +OLD GREEK FRAGMENTS + + +The other day when we were reading some of the poems in "Ionica," I +promised to speak in another short essay of Theocritus and his songs or +idyls of Greek peasant life, but in speaking of him it will be well also +to speak of others who equally illustrate the fact that everywhere there +is truth and beauty for the mind that can see. I spoke last week about +what I thought the highest possible kind of literary art might become. But +the possible becoming is yet far away; and in speaking of some old Greek +writers I want only to emphasize the fact that modern literary art as well +as ancient literary art produced their best results from a close study of +human nature. + +Although Theocritus and others who wrote idyls found their chief +inspiration in the life of the peasants, they sometimes also wrote about +the life of cities. Human nature may be studied in the city as well as in +the country, provided that a man knows how to look for it. It is not in +the courts of princes nor the houses of nobles nor the residences of the +wealthy that such study can be made. These superior classes have found it +necessary to show themselves to the world very cautiously; they live by +rule, they conceal their emotions, they move theatrically. But the +ordinary, everyday people of cities are very different; they speak their +thoughts, they keep their hearts open, and they let us see, just as +children do, the good or the evil side of their characters. So a good poet +and a good observer can find in the life of cities subjects of study +almost as easily as in the country. Theocritus has done this in his +fifteenth idyl. This idyl is very famous, and it has been translated +hundreds of times into various languages. Perhaps you may have seen one +version of it which was made by Matthew Arnold. But I think that the +version made by Lang is even better. + +The scene is laid in Alexandria, probably some two thousand years ago, and +the occasion is a religious holiday--a _matsuri_, as we call it in Japan. +Two women have made an appointment to go together to the temple, to see +the festival and to see the people. The poet begins his study by +introducing us to the chamber of one of the women. + +GORGO. "Is Praxinoe at home?" + +PRAXINOE. "Dear Gorgo, how long is it since you have been here! She is at +home. The wonder is that you have got here at last! Eunoe, come and see +that she has a chair and put a cushion on it!" + +G. "It does most charmingly as it is." + +P. "Do sit down." + +How natural this is. There is nothing Greek about it any more than there +is Japanese; it is simply human. It is something that happens in Tokyo +every day, certainly in houses where there are chairs and where it is a +custom to put a cushion on the chair for the visitor. But remember, this +was two thousand years ago. Now listen to what the visitor has to say. + +"I have scarcely got to you at all, Praxinoe! What a huge crowd, what +hosts of carriages! Everywhere cavalry boots, everywhere men in uniform! +And the road is endless; yes, you really live too far away!" + +Praxinoe answers: + +"It is all for that mad man of mine. Here he came to the ends of the earth +and took a hall, not a house, and all that we might not be neighbours. The +jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite." + +She is speaking half in jest, half in earnest; but she forgets that her +little boy is present, and the visitor reminds her of the fact: + +"Don't talk of your husband like that, my dear girl, before the little +boy,--look how he is staring at you!--Never mind, Zaphyrion, sweet child, +she is not speaking about papa." + +P. "Our Lady! (Persephone) The child takes notice!" + +Then the visitor to comfort the child says "Nice papa," and the +conversation proceeds. The two talk about their husbands, about their +dresses, about the cost of things in the shops; but in order to see the +festival Praxinoe must dress herself quickly, and woman, two thousand +years ago, just as now, takes a long time to dress. Hear Praxinoe talking +to her maid-servant while she hurries to get ready: + +"Eunoe, bring the water and put it down in the middle of the room,--lazy +creature that you are. Cat-like, always trying to sleep soft! Come, +bustle, bring the water; quicker! I want water first,--and how she carries +it! Give it me all the same;--don't pour out so much, you extravagant +thing! Stupid girl! Why are you wetting my dress? There, stop, I have +washed my hands as heaven would have it. Where is the key of the big +chest? Bring it here." + +This is life, natural and true; we can see those three together, the +girlish young wife hurrying and scolding and chattering naturally and half +childishly, the patient servant girl smiling at the hurry of her mistress, +and the visitor looking at her friend's new dress, wondering how much it +cost and presently asking her the price. At last all is ready. But the +little boy sees his mother go out and he wants to go out too, though it +has been decided not to take him, because the crowd is too rough and he +might be hurt. Here the mother first explains, then speaks firmly: + +"No, child, I don't mean to take you. Boo! Bogies! There is a horse that +bites! Cry as much as you please, but I cannot have you maimed." + +They go out, Praxinoe and Gorgo and the maid-servant Eunoe. The crowd is +tremendous, and they find it very hard to advance. Sometimes there are +horses in the way, sometimes wagons, occasionally a legion of cavalry. We +know all this, because we hear the chatter of the women as they make their +way through the press. + +"Give me your hand, and you, Eunoe, catch hold of Eutychis,--for fear lest +you get lost.... Here come the kings on horses! My dear man, don't trample +on me. Eunoe, you fool-hardy girl, will you never keep out of the way? Oh! +How tiresome, Gorgo, my muslin veil is torn in two already.... For +heaven's sake, sir, if you ever wish to be fortunate, take care of my +shawl!" + +STRANGER. "I can hardly help myself, but for all that I will be as helpful +as I can." + +The strange man helps the women and children through the pushing crowd, +and they thank him very prettily, praying that he may have good fortune +all his life. But not all the strangers who come in contact with them +happen to be so kind. They come at last into that part of the temple +ground where the image of Adonis is displayed; the beauty of the statue +moves them, and they utter exclamations of delight. This does not please +some of the male spectators, one of whom exclaims, "You tiresome women, do +cease your endless cooing talk! They bore one to death with their eternal +broad vowels!" + +They are country women, and their critic is probably a purist--somebody +who has studied Greek as it is pronounced and spoken in Athens. But the +women bravely resent this interference with their rights. + +GORGO. "Indeed! And where may this person come from? What is it to you if +we are chatterboxes? Give orders to your own servants, sir. Do you pretend +to command the ladies of Syracuse? If you must know, we are Corinthians by +descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak Peloponnesian. Dorian +women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume." + +This is enough to silence the critic, but the other young woman also turns +upon him, and we may suppose that he is glad to escape from their tongues. +And then everybody becomes silent, for the religious services begin. The +priestess, a comely girl, chants the psalm of Adonis, the beautiful old +pagan hymn, more beautiful and more sensuous than anything uttered by the +later religious poets of the West; and all listen in delighted stillness. +As the hymn ends, Gorgo bursts out in exclamation of praise: + +"Praxinoe! The woman is cleverer than we fancied! Happy woman to know so +much!--Thrice happy to have so sweet a voice! Well, all the same, it is +time to be making for home; Diocleides has not had his dinner, and the man +is all vinegar,--don't venture near him when he is kept waiting for +dinner. Farewell, beloved Adonis--may you find us glad at your next +coming." + +And with this natural mingling of the sentimental and the commonplace the +little composition ends. It is as though we were looking through some +window into the life of two thousand years ago. Read the whole thing over +to yourselves when you have time to find the book in the library, and see +how true to human nature it is. There is nothing in it except the +wonderful hymn, which does not belong to to-day as much as to the long +ago, to modern Tokyo as much as to ancient Greece. That is what makes the +immortality of any literary production--not simply truth to the life of +one time, but truth to the life of every time and place. + +Not many years ago there was discovered a book by Herodas, a Greek writer +of about the same period. It is called the "Mimes," a series of little +dramatic studies picturing the life of the time. One of these is well +worthy of rank with the idyl of Theocritus above mentioned. It is the +study of a conversation between a young woman and an old woman. The young +woman has a husband, who left her to join a military expedition and has +not been heard of for several years. The old woman is a go-between, and +she comes to see the young person on behalf of another young man, who +admires her. But as soon as she states the nature of her errand, the young +lady becomes very angry and feigns much virtuous indignation. There is a +quarrel. Then the two become friends, and we know that the old woman's +coming is likely to bring about the result desired. Now the wonder of this +little study also is the play of emotion which it reveals. Such emotions +are common to all ages of humanity; we feel the freshness of this +reflection as we read, to such a degree that we cannot think of the matter +as having happened long ago. Yet even the city in which these episodes +took place has vanished from the face of the earth. + +In the case of the studies of peasant life, there is also value of another +kind. Here we have not only studies of human nature, but studies of +particular social conditions. The quarrels of peasants, half good natured +and nearly always happily ending; their account of their sorrows; their +gossip about their work in the fields--all this might happen almost +anywhere and at almost any time. But the song contest, the prize given for +the best composition upon a chosen subject, this is particularly Greek, +and has never perhaps existed outside of some place among the peasant +folk. It was the poetical side of this Greek life of the peasants, as +recorded by Theocritus, which so much influenced the literatures of the +seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in France and in England. But neither +in France nor in England has there ever really been, at any time, any life +resembling that portrayed by Theocritus; to-day nothing appears to us more +absurd than the eighteenth century habit of picturing the Greek shepherd +life in English or French landscapes. What really may have existed among +the shepherds of the antique world could not possibly exist in modern +times. But how pretty it is! I think that the tenth idyl of Theocritus is +perhaps the prettiest example of the whole series, thirty in number, which +have been preserved for us. The plan is of the simplest. Two young +peasants, respectively named Battus and Milon, meeting together in the +field, talk about their sweethearts. One of them works lazily and is +jeered by the other in consequence. The subject of the jeering +acknowledges that he works badly because his mind is disturbed--he has +fallen in love. Then the other expresses sympathy for him, and tells him +that the best thing he can do to cheer himself up will be to make a song +about the girl, and to sing it as he works. Then he makes a song, which +has been the admiration of the world for twenty centuries and lifts been +translated into almost every language possessing a literature. + +"They all call thee a gipsy, gracious Bombyca, and lean, and +sunburnt;--'tis only I that call thee honey-pale. + +"Yea, and the violet is swart and swart the lettered hyacinth; but yet +these flowers are chosen the first in garlands. + +"The goat runs after cytisus, the wolf pursues the goat, the crane follows +the plough,--but I am wild for love of thee. + +"Would it were mine, all the wealth whereof Croesus was lord, as men tell! +Then images of us, all in gold, should be dedicated to Aphrodite, thou +with thy flute, and a rose, yea, or an apple, and I in fair attire and new +shoon of Amyclae on both my feet. + +"Ah, gracious Bombyca, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice +is drowsy sweet, and thy ways--I can not tell of them." + +Even through the disguise of an English prose translation, you will see +how pretty and how simple this little song must have been in the Greek, +and how very natural is the language of it. Our young peasant has fallen +in love with the girl who is employed to play the flute for the reapers, +as the peasants like to work to the sound of music. His comrades do not +much admire Bombyca; one calls her "a long grasshopper of a girl"; another +finds her too thin; a third calls her a gipsy, such a dark brown her skin +has become by constant exposure to the summer sun. And the lover, looking +at her, is obliged to acknowledge in his own mind that she is long and +lean and dark and like a gipsy; but he finds beauty in all these +characteristics, nevertheless. What if she is dark? The sweetest honey is +darkish, like amber, and so are beautiful flowers, the best of all +flowers, flowers given to Aphrodite; and the sacred hyacinth on whose +leaves appear the letters of the word of lamentation "Ai! Ai!"--that is +also dark like Bombyca. Her darkness is that of honey and flowers. What a +charming apology! He cannot deny that she is long and lean, and he remains +silent on these points, but here we must all sympathize with him. He shows +good taste. It is the tall slender girl that is really the most beautiful +and the most graceful, not the large-limbed, strong-bodied peasant type +that his companions would prefer. Without knowing it, he has fallen in +love like an artist. And he is not blind to the, grace of slenderness and +of form, though he cannot express it in artistic language. He can only +compare the shape of the girl's feet to the ivory feet of the divinities +in the temples--perhaps he is thinking of some ivory image of Aphrodite +which he has seen. But how charming an image does he make to arise before +us! Beautiful is the description of the girl's voice as "drowsy sweet." +But the most exquisite thing in the whole song is the final despairing +admission that he can not describe her at all--"and thy ways, I can not +tell of them"! This is one of the most beautiful expressions in any poem +ancient or modern, because of its supreme truth. What mortal ever could +describe the charm of manner, voice, smile, address, in mere words? Such +things are felt, they can not be described; and the peasant boy reaches +the highest height of true lyrical poetry when he cries out "I can not +tell of them." The great French critic Sainte-Beuve attempted to render +this line as follows--"_Quant ą ta maničre, je ne puis la rendre!"_ This +is very good; and you can take your choice between it and any English +translation. But good judges say that nothing in English of French equals +the charm of the original. + +You will find three different classes of idyls in Theocritus; the idyl +which is a simple song of peasant life, a pure lyric expressing only a +single emotion; the idyl which is a little story, usually a story about +the gods or heroes; and lastly, the idyl which is presented in the form of +a dialogue, or even of a conversation between three or four persons. All +these forms of idyl, but especially the first and the third, were +afterward beautifully imitated by the Roman poets; then very imperfectly +imitated by modern poets. The imitation still goes on, but the very best +English poets have never really been able to give us anything worthy of +Theocritus himself. + +However, this study of the Greek model has given some terms to English +literature which every student ought to know. One of these terms is +amoebęan,--amoebęan poetry being dialogue poetry composed in the form of +question and reply. The original Greek signification was that of alternate +speaking. Please do not forget the word. You may often find it in critical +studies in essays upon contemporary literature; and when you see it again, +remember Theocritus and the school of Greek poets who first introduced the +charm of amoebęan poetry. I hope that this little lecture will interest +some of you in Theocritus sufficiently to induce you to read him carefully +through and through. But remember that you can not get the value of even a +single poem of his at a single reading. We have become so much accustomed +to conventional forms of literature that the simple art of poetry like +this quite escapes us at first sight. We have to read it over and over +again many times, and to think about it; then only we feel the wonderful +charm. + + + + +INDEX + + [Transcriber's note: Page numbers have been converted to chapter + numbers in this index.] + + "A dry cicale chirps to a lass making hay," 14 + Aicard, Jean, 11 + Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 4 + "Along the garden ways just now," 2 + "Amaturus," 3 + "A Ma Future," 3 + "Amelia," 2 + "Amis and Amile," Introduction, 13 + "Amphibian," 10 + Andrews, Bishop Lancelot, 6 + "Angel in the House, The," 2 + "An Invocation," 14 + "Appreciations of Poetry," Introduction + "Arabian Nights, The," 13 + "Arachne," 10 + Arnold, Sir Edwin, 3 + Arnold, Matthew, 7, 15 + "Art of Worldly Wisdom, The," 7 + Ashe, Thomas, 3 + "A simple ring with a simple stone," 3 + "Atalanta in Calydon," 12 + "Atalanta's Race," 2 + + "Bhagavad-Gita, The," 6 + Bible, The, Introduction, 3, 6, 12, 13 + Bion, 14 + Blake, William, 6, 10 + Book of Common Prayer, The, 12 + Breton, Jules, 11 + "Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art," 2 + Browning, Robert, 2, 3, 10, 14 + "Burly, dozing humble bee," 10 + "Busy, curious thirsty fly," 10 + Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 2, 3 + + Carew, Thomas, 3 + Carlyle, Thomas, 5, 6 + Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Fourth Earl of, 7 + Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 2 + Coleridge, Hartley, 3 + Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 2, 6, 10 + "Conservative, A," 10 + Cooke, Rose Terry, 10 + Cory, William, Introduction, 3, 14 + Crashaw, Richard, 3 + + Dante Alighieri, 2 + "Daughter of Cleomenes, The," 14 + Descartes, Rene, 10 + "Deteriora," 14 + Dickens, Charles, Introduction + "Djins, Les," 4 + "Dream of Fair Women, A," 14 + + "Emaux et Camées," 11 + Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 4, 10 + "Epigramme Funeraire," 11 + "Evelyn Hope," 3 + + "Fable, A," 14 + "Fifine at the Fair," 10 + Francis of Assisi, Saint, 10 + Freneau, Philip, 10 + + Gautier, Théophile, 11 + "Gazing on stars, my star?" 2 + Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 4 + "Golden Legend, The," 13 + Gracian, Baltasar, 7 + "Grasshopper, The," 11 + Gray, Thomas, 10 + "Greater Memory," 2 + Greek Anthology, Introduction, 4, 14 + "Grillon solitaire," 11 + + "Havamal, The," Introduction, 6 + Hearn, Lafcadio, Introduction + Heredia, José, Maria de, Introduction, 5, 11 + Herodas, 15 + Herrick, Robert, 4 + "He that loves a rosy cheek," 3 + Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 10 + Hood, Thomas, 3 + Hugo, Victor, 2, 2, 4, 5, 11 + + "Idyls of the King," 14 + "I love to hear thine earnest voice," 10 + "In a branch of willow hid," 10 + "Interpretations of Literature," Introduction + "Ionica," Introduction, 3 + "I strove with none, for none was worth my strife," 4 + "It is a golden morning of the spring," 2 + + Jonson, Ben, 3, 4 + + "Kalevala, The," Introduction, 12 + Keats, John, Introduction, 2, 6, 10 + "King Solomon and the Ants," 10 + + "La Demoiselle," 11 + "Lady of Shalott, The," 11 + Landor, Walter Savage, 4 + Lang, Andrew, Introduction, 15 + Lamartine, 11 + Lamb, Charles, 10 + "Le Daimio," 5 + Lemerre, Alphonse, 10 + "Le Samourai," 5 + "Les Cigales," 11 + "Life and Literature," Introduction + de Lisle, Leconte, 87 + "Lives there whom pain has evermore passed by," 4 + Locker-Lampson, Frederic, 3, 10 + "Locksley Hall," 2 + Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 5, 7, 11, 12, 13 + Lönnrot, 12 + Lovelace, Richard, 11 + Lubbock, Sir John, 8 + + Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 10 + "Ma Libellule," 11 + "Maud," 2 + Meredith, George, Introduction, 7 + "Mimes," 15 + "Mimnermus in church," 14 + Moschus, 14 + + "Nay but you, who do not love her," 3 + "Never the time and the place," 2 + "New Ethics, The," Introduction + "New Year's Day, A," 14 + Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 8 + "Njal-Saga, The." 1 + + "Ode on the Spring," 10 + Oldys, William, 10 + O'Shaughnessy, Arthur, 2 + + "Pansie," 3 + "Patchwork," 3 + Pater, Walter, Introduction, 13 + Patmore, Coventry, 2, 10 + "Pause, A," 2 + Plato, 2 + Poe, Edgar Allan, 12 + "Poems of Places," 5 + Porson, Richard, 10 + Powell, Frederick York, 7 + "Princess, The," Introduction + + Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur Thomas, 10 + + "Reparabo," 14 + Rossetti, Christina, 2, 3 + Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 2, 11 + Ruskin, John, 6, 9 + "Ruth," 3 + + "Saga of King Olaf, The," 7 + Sainte-Beuve, 15 + Saintsbury, Professor George, 6 + "Scheveningen Avenue," 14 + Scott, Sir Walter, 7 + Shakespeare, William, 11 + Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 2 + "She walks in beauty, like the night," 3 + "She was a phantom of delight," 3 + "Solitary-Hearted, The," 3 + "Somewhere or other," 3 + "Song in time of Revolution, A," 12 + "Song of Hiawatha, The," 12 + "Song of Songs," 10 + Spencer, Herbert, 2, 7, 8 + "Stay near me, do not take thy flight" 10 + Stetson, Charlotte Perkins, 10 + Stevenson, Robert Louis, 2 + "Story of Burnt Njal, The," 1 + "Studies in Greek Poets," 4 + "Such Kings of shreds have wooed and won her," 4 + "Sudden Light," 2 + Sully-Prudhomme, René, Franēois Armande, 5 + "Summum Bonum," 3 + Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 12 + Symonds, John Addington, 2, 4 + + Ten Brink, Bernhard Egidius Konrad, 13 + Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, Introduction, 2, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14 + Tennyson, Frederick, 2 + Thackeray, William Makepeace, Introduction + "The butterfly the ancient Grecians made," 10 + Theocritus, Introduction, 14, 15 + "The poetry of earth is never dead," 10 + "The thousand painful steps at last are trod," 4 + "The trembling arm I pressed," 2 + "They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead," 14 + "Think not thy wisdom can illume away," 4 + Thompson, Maurice, 2 + "Thou canst not wave thy staff in air," 4 + "To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars," 11 + "Two Fragments of Childhood," 14 + "Two Voices, The," 10 + + "Unknown Eros, The," 2 + + Vigfusson, Gudbrandt, 7 + "Voice of the summer wind," 10 + + Watson, William, 4, 10 + "When spring grows old," 2 + "White Moth, The," 10 + Whittier, John Greenleaf, 10 + "Wishes to the Supposed Mistress + Wordsworth, William, 2, 3, 6, 10 + Wycliffe, John, 6 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Books and Habits from the Lectures of 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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: Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn + +Author: Lafcadio Hearn + +Release Date: December 13, 2004 [EBook #14338] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOOKS AND HABITS *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Barbara Tozier and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>Books and Habits</h1> +<h3><em>from the lectures of</em></h3> +<h2>Lafcadio Hearn</h2> +<h4><em>Selected and Edited with an Introduction by</em></h4> +<h3>John Erskine</h3> +<h4><em>Professor of English Columbia University</em></h4> +<h3>1922</h3> +<h5>London: William Heinemann</h5> +<hr class="full" /> +<!-- Transcriber's Note: Moved Contents to top of file for easier navigation --> +<h2><a id="Contents" name="Contents">Contents</a></h2> +<table summary="Contents" style="margin:auto;"> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td><a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">I</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_1">The Insuperable Difficulty</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">II</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_2">On Love in English Poetry</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">III</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_3">The Ideal Woman in English Poetry</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">IV</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_4">Note Upon the Shortest Forms of English +Poetry</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">V</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_5">Some Foreign Poems on Japanese +Subjects</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">VI</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_6">The Bible in English Literature</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">VII</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_7">The “Havamal”</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">VIII</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_8">Beyond Man</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">IX</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_9">The New Ethics</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">X</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_10">Some Poems about Insects</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">XI</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_11">Some French Poems about Insects</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">XII</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_12">Note on the Influence of Finnish Poetry in +English Literature</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">XIII</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_13">The Most Beautiful Romance of the Middle +Ages</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">XIV</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_14">“Ionica”</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="rgt">XV</td> +<td><a href="#Ch_15">Old Greek Fragments</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td><a href="#Index">Index</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a id="Introduction" name="Introduction">Introduction</a></h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>These chapters, for the most part, are reprinted from Lafcadio +Hearn’s “Interpretations of Literature,” 1915, +from his “Life and Literature,” 1916, and from his +“Appreciations of Poetry,” 1917. Three chapters appear +here for the first time. They are all taken from the student notes +of Hearn’s lectures at the University of Tokyo, 1896-1902, +sufficiently described in the earlier volumes just mentioned. They +are now published in this regrouping in response to a demand for a +further selection of the lectures, in a less expensive volume and +with emphasis upon those papers which illustrate Hearn’s +extraordinary ability to interpret the exotic in life and in +books.</p> +<p>It should be remembered that these lectures were delivered to +Japanese students, and that Hearn’s purpose was not only to +impart the information about Western literature usually to be found +in our histories and text-books, but much more to explain to the +Oriental mind those peculiarities of our civilization which might +be hard to understand on the further side of the Pacific Ocean. The +lectures are therefore unique, in that they are the first large +attempt by a Western critic to interpret us to the East. That we +shall be deeply concerned in the near future to continue this +interpretation on an even larger scale, no one of us doubts. We +wish we might hope for another genius like Hearn to carry on the +work.</p> +<p>The merit of the chapters printed or reprinted in the present +volume seems to me their power to teach us to imagine our familiar +traditions as foreign and exotic in the eyes of other peoples. We +are accustomed, like every one else, to think of our literature as +the final product of other literatures—as a terminal in +itself, rather than as a channel through which great potentialities +might flow. Like other men, we are accustomed to think of ourselves +as native, under all circumstances, and of other people at all +times as foreign. While we were staying in their country, did we +not think of the French as foreigners? In these chapters, not +originally intended for us, we have the piquant and salutary +experience of seeing what we look like on at least one occasion +when we are the foreigners; we catch at least a glimpse of what to +the Orient seems exotic in us, and it does us no harm to observe +that the peculiarly Western aspects of our culture are not +self-justifying nor always justifiable when looked at through eyes +not already disposed in their favour. Hearn was one of the most +loyal advocates the West could possibly have sent to the East, but +he was an honest artist, and he never tried to improve his case by +trimming a fact. His interpretation of us, therefore, touches our +sensitiveness in regions—and in a degree—which perhaps +his Japanese students were unconscious of; we too marvel as well as +they at his skill in explaining, but we are sensitive to what he +found necessary to explain. We read less for the explanation than +for the inventory of ourselves.</p> +<p>Any interpretation of life which looks closely to the facts will +probably increase our sense of mystery and of strangeness in common +things. If on the other hand it is a theory of experience which +chiefly interests us, we may divert our attention somewhat from the +experience to the theory, leaving the world as humdrum as it was +before we explained it. In that case we must seek the exotic in +remote places and in exceptional conditions, if we are to observe +it at all. But Lafcadio Hearn cultivated in himself and taught his +students to cultivate a quick alertness to those qualities of life +to which we are usually dulled by habit. Education as he conceived +of it had for its purpose what Pater says is the end of philosophy, +to rouse the human spirit, to startle it into sharp and eager +observation. It is a sign that dulness is already spreading in us, +if we must go far afield for the stimulating, the wondrous, the +miraculous. The growing sensitiveness of a sound education would +help us to distinguish these qualities of romance in the very heart +of our daily life. To have so distinguished them is in my opinion +the felicity of Hearn in these chapters. When he was writing of +Japan for European or American readers, we caught easily enough the +exotic atmosphere of the island kingdom—easily enough, since +it was the essence of a world far removed from ours. The exotic +note is quite as strong in these chapters. We shall begin to +appreciate Hearn’s genius when we reflect that here he finds +for us the exotic in ourselves.</p> +<p>The first three chapters deal from different standpoints with +the same subject—the characteristic of Western civilization +which to the East is most puzzling, our attitude toward women. +Hearn attempted in other essays also to do full justice to this +fascinating theme, but these illustrations are typical of his +method. To the Oriental it is strange to discover a civilization in +which the love of husband and wife altogether supersedes the love +of children for their parents, yet this is the civilization he will +meet in English and in most Western literatures. He can understand +the love of individual women, as we understand the love of +individual men, but he will not easily understand our worship of +women as a sex, our esteem of womankind, our chivalry, our way of +taking woman as a religion. How difficult, then, will he find such +a poem as Tennyson’s “Princess,” or most English +novels. He will wonder why the majority of all Western stories are +love stories, and why in English literature the love story takes +place before marriage, whereas in French and other Continental +literatures it usually follows marriage. In Japan marriages are the +concern of the parents; with us they are the concern of the lovers, +who must choose their mates in competition more or less open with +other suitors. No wonder the rivalries and the precarious technique +of love-making are with us an obsession quite exotic to the Eastern +mind. But the Japanese reader, if he would understand us, must also +learn how it is that we have two ways of reckoning with +love—a realistic way, which occupies itself in portraying +sex, the roots of the tree, as Hearn says, and the idealistic way, +which tries to fix and reproduce the beautiful illusion of either +happy or unhappy passion. And if the Japanese reader has learned +enough of our world to understand all this, he must yet visualize +our social system more clearly perhaps than most of us see it, if +he would know why so many of our love poems are addressed to the +woman we have not yet met. When we begin to sympathize with him in +his efforts to grasp the meaning of our literature, we are at last +awakened ourselves to some notion of what our civilization means, +and as Hearn guides us through the discipline, we realize an exotic +quality in things which formerly we took for granted.</p> +<p>Lecturing before the days of Imagism, before the attention of +many American poets had been turned to Japanese art, Hearn +recognized the scarcity in our literature of those short forms of +verse in which the Greeks as well as the Japanese excel. The +epigram with us is—or was until recently—a classical +tradition, based on the brief inscriptions of the Greek anthology +or on the sharp satires of Roman poetry; we had no native turn for +the form as an expression of our contemporary life. Since Hearn +gave his very significant lecture we have discovered for ourselves +an American kind of short poem, witty rather than poetic, and few +verse-forms are now practised more widely among us. Hearn spoke as +a prophet or as a shrewd observer—which is the same +thing—when he pointed out the possibility of development in +this field of brevity. He saw that Japan was closer to the Greek +world in this practice than we were, and that our indifference to +the shorter forms constituted a peculiarity which we could hardly +defend. He saw, also, in the work of Heredia, how great an +influence Japanese painting might have on Western literature, even +on those poets who had no other acquaintance with Japan. In this +point also his observation has proved prophetic; the new poets in +America have adopted Japan, as they have adopted Greece, as a +literary theme, and it is somewhat exclusively from the fine arts +of either country that they draw their idea of its life.</p> +<p>The next chapters which are brought together here, consider the +origin and the nature of English and European ethics. Hearn was an +artist to the core, and as a writer he pursued with undivided +purpose that beauty which, as Keats reminded us, is truth. In his +creative moments he was a beauty-lover, not a moralist. But when he +turned critic he at once stressed the cardinal importance of ethics +in the study of literature. The art which strives to end in beauty +will reveal even more clearly than more complex forms of expression +the personality of the artist, and personality is a matter of +character, and character both governs the choice of an ethical +system and is modified by it. Literary criticism as Hearn practised +it is little interested in theology or in the system of morals +publicly professed; it is, however, profoundly concerned with the +ethical principles upon which the artist actually proceeds, the +directions in which his impulses assert themselves, the verdicts of +right and wrong which his temperament pronounces unconsciously, it +may be. Here is the true revelation of character, Hearn thinks, +even though our habitual and instinctive ethics may differ widely +from the ethics we quite sincerely profess. Whether we know it or +not, we are in such matters the children of some educational or +philosophical system, which, preached at our ancestors long ago, +has come at last to envelop us with the apparent naturalness of the +air we breathe. It is a spiritual liberation of the first order, to +envisage such an atmosphere as what it truly is, only a system of +ethics effectively inculcated, and to compare the principles we +live by with those we thought we lived by. Hearn was contriving +illumination for the Japanese when he made his great lecture on the +“Havamal,” identifying in the ancient Northern poem +those precepts which laid down later qualities of English +character; for the Oriental reader it would be easier to identify +the English traits in Thackeray or Dickens or Meredith if he could +first consider them in a dogmatic precept. But the lecture gives +us, I think, an extraordinary insight into ourselves, a power of +self-criticism almost disconcerting as we realize not only the +persistence of ethical ideals in the past, but also the possible +career of new ethical systems as they may permeate the books +written to-day. To what standard will the reader of our +contemporary literature be unconsciously moulded? What account will +be given of literature a thousand years from now, when a later +critic informs himself of our ethics in order to understand more +vitally the pages in which he has been brought up?</p> +<p>Partly to inform his Japanese students still further as to our +ethical tendencies in literature, and partly I think to indulge his +own speculation as to the morality that will be found in the +literature of the future, Hearn gave his remarkable lectures on the +ant-world, following Fabre and other European investigators, and +his lecture on “The New Ethics.” When he spoke, over +twenty years ago, the socialistic ideal had not gripped us so +effectually as it has done in the last decade, but he had no +difficulty in observing the tendency. Civilization in some later +cycle may wonder at our ambition to abandon individual liberty and +responsibility and to subside into the social instincts of the ant; +and even as it wonders, that far-off civilization may detect in +itself ant-like reactions which we cultivated for it. With this +description of the ant-world it is illuminating to read the two +brilliant chapters on English and French poems about insects. +Against this whole background of ethical theory, I have ventured to +set Hearn’s singularly objective account of the Bible.</p> +<p>In the remaining four chapters Hearn speaks of the +“Kalevala,” of the mediæval romance “Amis +and Amile,” of William Cory’s “Ionica,” and +of Theocritus. These chapters deal obviously with literary +influences which have become part and parcel of English poetry, yet +which remain exotic to it, if we keep in mind the Northern stock +which still gives character, ethical and otherwise, to the English +tradition. The “Kalevala,” which otherwise should seem +nearest to the basic qualities of our poetry, is almost unique, as +Hearn points out, in the extent of its preoccupation with +enchantments and charms, with the magic of words. “Amis and +Amile,” which otherwise ought to seem more foreign to us, is +strangely close in its glorification of friendship; for chivalry +left with us at least this one great ethical feeling, that to keep +faith in friendship is a holy thing. No wonder Amicus and Amelius +were popular saints. The story implies also, as it falls here in +the book, some illustration of those unconscious or unconsidered +ethical reactions which, as we saw in the chapter on the +“Havamal,” have a lasting influence on our ideals and +on our conduct.</p> +<p>Romanticist though he was, Hearn constantly sought the romance +in the highway of life, the aspects of experience which seem to +perpetuate themselves from age to age, compelling literature to +reassert them under whatever changes of form. To one who has +followed the large mass of his lectures it is not surprising that +he emphasized those ethical positions which are likely to remain +constant, in spite of much new philosophy, nor that he constantly +recurred to such books as Cory’s “Ionica,” or +Lang’s translation of Theocritus, in which he found +statements of enduring human attitudes. To him the Greek mind made +a double appeal. Not only did it represent to him the best that has +yet been thought or said in the world, but by its fineness and its +maturity it seemed kindred to the spirit he found in ancient Japan. +Lecturing to Japanese students on Greek poetry as it filters +through English paraphrases and translations, he must have felt +sometimes as we now feel in reading his lectures, that in his +teaching the long migration of the world’s culture was +approaching the end of the circuit, and that the earliest +apparition of the East known to most of us was once more arriving +at its starting place, mystery returning to mystery, and its path +at all points mysterious if we rightly observe the miracle of the +human spirit.</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>BOOKS AND HABITS</h2> +<hr class="short" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page1" name= +"page1">[1]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_1" name="Ch_1">Chapter I</a></h3> +<h2>The Insuperable Difficulty</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>I wish to speak of the greatest difficulty with which the +Japanese students of English literature, or of almost any Western +literature, have to contend. I do not think that it ever has been +properly spoken about. A foreign teacher might well hesitate to +speak about, it—because, if he should try to explain it +merely from the Western point of view, he could not hope to be +understood; and if he should try to speak about it from the +Japanese point of view, he would be certain to make various +mistakes and to utter various extravagances. The proper explanation +might be given by a Japanese professor only, who should have so +intimate an acquaintance with Western life as to sympathize with +it. Yet I fear that it would be difficult to find such a Japanese +professor for this reason, that just in proportion as he should +find himself in sympathy with Western life, in that proportion he +would become less and less able to communicate that sympathy to his +students. The difficulties are so great that it has taken me many +years even to partly guess how great they are. <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page2" name="page2">[2]</a></span>That they can be +removed at the present day is utterly out of the question. But +something may be gained by stating them even imperfectly. At the +risk of making blunders and uttering extravagances, I shall make +the attempt. I am impelled to do so by a recent conversation with +one of the cleverest students that I ever had, who acknowledged his +total inability to understand some of the commonest facts in +Western life,—all those facts relating, directly or +indirectly, to the position of woman in Western literature as +reflecting Western life.</p> +<p>Let us clear the ground it once by putting down some facts in +the plainest and lowest terms possible. You must try to imagine a +country in which the place of the highest virtue is occupied, so to +speak, by the devotion of sex to sex. The highest duty of the man +is not to his father, but to his wife; and for the sake of that +woman he abandons all other earthly ties, should any of these +happen to interfere with that relation. The first duty of the wife +may be, indeed, must be, to her child, when she has one; but +otherwise her husband is her divinity and king. In that country it +would be thought unnatural or strange to have one’s parents +living in the same house with wife or husband. You know all this. +But it does not explain for you other things, much more difficult +to understand, especially the influence of the abstract idea of +woman upon society at large as well as upon <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page3" name="page3">[3]</a></span>the conduct of +the individual. The devotion of man to woman does not mean at all +only the devotion of husband to wife. It means actually +this,—that every man is bound by conviction and by opinion to +put all women before himself, simply because they are women. I do +not mean that any man is likely to think of any woman as being his +intellectual and physical superior; but I do mean that he is bound +to think of her as something deserving and needing the help of +every man. In time of danger the woman must be saved first. In time +of pleasure, the woman must be given the best place. In time of +hardship the woman’s share of the common pain must be taken +voluntarily by the man as much as possible. This is not with any +view to recognition of the kindness shown. The man who assists a +woman in danger is not supposed to have any claim upon her for that +reason. He has done his duty only, not to her, the individual, but +to womankind at large. So we have arrived at this general fact, +that the first place in all things, except rule, is given to woman +in Western countries, and that it is given almost religiously.</p> +<p>Is woman a religion? Well, perhaps you will have the chance of +judging for yourselves if you go to America. There you will find +men treating women with just the same respect formerly accorded +only to religious dignitaries or to great nobles. Everywhere they +are saluted and helped <span class="pagenum"><a id="page4" name= +"page4">[4]</a></span>to the best places; everywhere they are +treated as superior beings. Now if we find reverence, loyalty and +all kinds of sacrifices devoted either to a human being or to an +image, we are inclined to think of worship. And worship it is. If a +Western man should hear me tell you this, he would want the +statement qualified, unless he happened to be a philosopher. But I +am trying to put the facts before you in the way in which you can +best understand them. Let me say, then, that the all-important +thing for the student of English literature to try to understand, +is that in Western countries woman is a cult, a religion, or if you +like still plainer language, I shall say that in Western countries +woman is a god.</p> +<p>So much for the abstract idea of woman. Probably you will not +find that particularly strange; the idea is not altogether foreign +to Eastern thought, and there are very extensive systems of +feminine pantheism in India. Of course the Western idea is only in +the romantic sense a feminine pantheism; but the Oriental idea may +serve to render it more comprehensive. The ideas of divine Mother +and divine Creator may be studied in a thousand forms; I am now +referring rather to the sentiment, to the feeling, than to the +philosophical conception.</p> +<p>You may ask, if the idea or sentiment of divinity attaches to +woman in the abstract, what about woman in the +concrete—individual woman? <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page5" name="page5">[5]</a></span>Are women individually +considered as gods? Well, that depends on how you define the word +god. The following definition would cover the ground, I +think:—“Gods are beings superior to man, capable of +assisting or injuring him, and to be placated by sacrifice and +prayer.” Now according to this definition, I think that the +attitude of man towards woman in Western countries might be very +well characterized as a sort of worship. In the upper classes of +society, and in the middle classes also, great reverence towards +women is exacted. Men bow down before them, make all kinds of +sacrifices to please them, beg for their good will and their +assistance. It does not matter that this sacrifice is not in the +shape of incense burning or of temple offerings; nor does it matter +that the prayers are of a different kind from those pronounced in +churches. There is sacrifice and worship. And no saying is more +common, no truth better known, than that the man who hopes to +succeed in life must be able to please the women. Every young man +who goes into any kind of society knows this. It is one of the +first lessons that he has to learn. Well, am I very wrong in saying +that the attitude of men towards women in the West is much like the +attitude of men towards gods?</p> +<p>But you may answer at once,—How comes it, if women are +thus reverenced as you say, that men of the lower classes beat and +ill-treat their wives <span class="pagenum"><a id="page6" name= +"page6">[6]</a></span>in those countries? I must reply, for the +same reason that Italian and Spanish sailors will beat and abuse +the images of the saints and virgins to whom they pray, when their +prayer is not granted. It is quite possible to worship an image +sincerely and to seek vengeance upon it in a moment of anger. The +one feeling does not exclude the other. What in the higher classes +may be a religion, in the lower classes may be only a superstition, +and strange contradictions exist, side by side, in all forms of +superstition. Certainly the Western working man or peasant does not +think about his wife or his neighbour’s wife in the +reverential way that the man of the superior class does. But you +will find, if you talk to them, that something of the reverential +idea is there; it is there at least during their best moments.</p> +<p>Now there is a certain exaggeration in what I have said. But +that is only because of the somewhat narrow way in which I have +tried to express a truth. I am anxious to give you the idea that +throughout the West there exists, though with a difference +according to class and culture, a sentiment about women quite as +reverential as a sentiment of religion. This is true; and not to +understand it, is not to understand Western literature.</p> +<p>How did it come into existence? Through many causes, some of +which are so old that we can not know anything about them. This +feeling did not belong to the Greek and Roman civilization +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page7" name="page7">[7]</a></span>but +it belonged to the life of the old Northern races who have since +spread over the world, planting their ideas everywhere. In the +oldest Scandinavian literature you will find that women were +thought of and treated by the men of the North very much as they +are thought of and treated by Englishmen of to-day. You will find +what their power was in the old sagas, such as the Njal-Saga, or +“The Story of Burnt Njal.” But we must go much further +than the written literature to get a full knowledge of the origin +of such a sentiment. The idea seems to have existed that woman was +semi-divine, because she was the mother, the creator of man. And we +know that she was credited among the Norsemen with supernatural +powers. But upon this Northern foundation there was built up a +highly complex fabric of romantic and artistic sentiment. The +Christian worship of the Virgin Mary harmonized with the Northern +belief. The sentiment of chivalry reinforced it. Then came the +artistic resurrection of the Renaissance, and the new reverence for +the beauty of the old Greek gods, and the Greek traditions of +female divinities; these also coloured and lightened the old +feeling about womankind. Think also of the effect with which +literature, poetry and the arts have since been cultivating and +developing the sentiment. Consider how the great mass of Western +poetry is love poetry, and the greater part of Western fiction love +stories.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page8" name= +"page8">[8]</a></span>Of course the foregoing is only the vaguest +suggestion of a truth. Really my object is not to trouble you at +all about the evolutional history of the sentiment, but only to ask +you to think what this sentiment means in literature. I am not +asking you to sympathize with it, but if you could sympathize with +it you would understand a thousand things in Western books which +otherwise must remain dim and strange. I am not expecting that you +can sympathize with it. But it is absolutely necessary that you +should understand its relation to language and literature. +Therefore I have to tell you that you should try to think of it as +a kind of religion, a secular, social, artistic religion, not to be +confounded with any national religion. It is a kind of race feeling +or race creed. It has not originated in any sensuous idea, but in +some very ancient superstitious idea. Nearly all forms of the +highest sentiment and the highest faith and the highest art have +had their beginnings in equally humble soil.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page9" name= +"page9">[9]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_2" name="Ch_2">Chapter II</a></h3> +<h2>On Love in English Poetry</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature +the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the +extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in +fiction and in poetry. Indeed, by this time I have begun to feel a +little astonished at it myself. Of course, before I came to this +country it seemed to me quite natural that love should be the chief +subject of literature; because I did not know anything about any +other kind of society except Western society. But to-day it really +seems to me a little strange. If it seems strange to me, how much +more ought it to seem strange to you! Of course, the simple +explanation of the fact is that marriage is the most important act +of man’s life in Europe or America, and that everything +depends upon it. It is quite different on this side of the world. +But the simple explanation of the difference is not enough. There +are many things to be explained. Why should not only the novel +writers but all the poets make love the principal subject of their +work? I never knew, because I never thought, how much English +literature was saturated with the subject of love <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page10" name="page10">[10]</a></span>until I +attempted to make selections of poetry and prose for class +use—naturally endeavouring to select such pages or poems as +related to other subjects than passion. Instead of finding a good +deal of what I was looking for, I could find scarcely anything. The +great prose writers, outside of the essay or history, are nearly +all famous as tellers of love stories. And it is almost impossible +to select half a dozen stanzas of classic verse from Tennyson or +Rossetti or Browning or Shelley or Byron, which do not contain +anything about kissing, embracing, or longing for some imaginary or +real beloved. Wordsworth, indeed, is something of an exception; and +Coleridge is most famous for a poem which contains nothing at all +about love. But exceptions do not affect the general rule that love +is the theme of English poetry, as it is also of French, Italian, +Spanish, or German poetry. It is the dominant motive.</p> +<p>So with the English novelists. There have been here also a few +exceptions—such as the late Robert Louis Stevenson, most of +whose novels contain little about women; they are chiefly novels or +romances of adventure. But the exceptions are very few. At the +present time there are produced almost every year in England about +a thousand new novels, and all of these or nearly all are love +stories. To write a novel without a woman in it would be a +dangerous undertaking; in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the +book would not sell.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page11" name= +"page11">[11]</a></span>Of course all this means that the English +people throughout the world, as readers, are chiefly interested in +the subject under discussion. When you find a whole race interested +more in one thing than in anything else, you may be sure that it is +so because the subject is of paramount importance in the life of +the average person. You must try to imagine then, a society in +which every man must choose his wife, and every woman must choose +her husband, independent of all outside help, and not only choose +but obtain if possible. The great principle of Western society is +that competition rules here as it rules in everything else. The +best man—that is to say, the strongest and cleverest—is +likely to get the best woman, in the sense of the most beautiful +person. The weak, the feeble, the poor, and the ugly have little +chance of being able to marry at all. Tens of thousands of men and +women can not possibly marry. I am speaking of the upper and middle +classes. The working people, the peasants, the labourers, these +marry young; but the competition there is just the same—just +as difficult, and only a little rougher. So it may be said that +every man has a struggle of some kind in order to marry, and that +there is a kind of fight or contest for the possession of every +woman worth having. Taking this view of Western society not only in +England but throughout all Europe, you will easily be able to see +why the Western public have reason to be more interested +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page12" name= +"page12">[12]</a></span>in literature which treats of love than in +any other kind of literature.</p> +<p>But although the conditions that I have been describing are +about the same in all Western countries, the tone of the literature +which deals with love is not at all the same. There are very great +differences. In prose they are much more serious than in poetry; +because in all countries a man is allowed, by public opinion, more +freedom in verse than in prose. Now these differences in the way of +treating the subject in different countries really indicate +national differences of character. Northern love stories and +Northern poetry about love are very serious; and these authors are +kept within fixed limits. Certain subjects are generally forbidden. +For example, the English public wants novels about love, but the +love must be the love of a girl who is to become somebody’s +wife. The rule in the English novel is to describe the pains, +fears, and struggles of the period before marriage—the +contest in the world for the right of marriage. A man must not +write a novel about any other point of love. Of course there are +plenty of authors who have broken this rule but the rule still +exists. A man may represent a contest between two women, one good +and one bad, but if the bad woman is allowed to conquer in the +story, the public will growl. This English fashion has existed +since the eighteenth century. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page13" +name="page13">[13]</a></span>since the time of Richardson, and is +likely to last for generations to come.</p> +<p>Now this is not the rule at all which governs making of novels +in France. French novels generally treat of the relations of women +to the world and to lovers, after marriage; consequently there is a +great deal in French novels about adultery, about improper +relations between the sexes, about many things which the English +public would not allow. This does not mean that the English are +morally a better people than the French or other Southern races. +But it does mean that there are great differences in the social +conditions. One such difference can be very briefly expressed. An +English girl, an American girl, a Norwegian, a Dane, a Swede, is +allowed all possible liberty before marriage. The girl is told, +“You must be able to take care of yourself, and not do +wrong.” After marriage there is no more such liberty. After +marriage in all Northern countries a woman’s conduct is +strictly watched. But in France, and in Southern countries, the +young girl has no liberty before marriage. She is always under the +guard of her brother, her father, her mother, or some experienced +relation. She is accompanied wherever she walks. She is not allowed +to see her betrothed except in the presence of witnesses. But after +marriage her liberty begins. Then she is told for the first time +that she must take care of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page14" +name="page14">[14]</a></span>herself. Well, you will see that the +conditions which inspire the novels, in treating of the subjects of +love and marriage, are very different in Northern and in Southern +Europe. For this reason alone the character of the novel produced +in England could not be the same.</p> +<p>You must remember, however, that there are many other reasons +for this difference—reasons of literary sentiment. The +Southern or Latin races have been civilized for a much longer time +than the Northern races; they have inherited the feelings of the +ancient world, the old Greek and Roman world, and they think still +about the relation of the sexes in very much the same way that the +ancient poets and romance writers used to think. And they can do +things which English writers can not do, because their language has +power of more delicate expression.</p> +<p>We may say that the Latin writers still speak of love in very +much the same way that it was considered before Christianity. But +when I speak of Christianity I am only referring to an historical +date. Before Christianity the Northern races also thought about +love very much in the same way that their best poets do at this +day. The ancient Scandinavian literature would show this. The +Viking, the old sea-pirate, felt very much as Tennyson or as +Meredith would feel upon this subject; he thought of only one kind +of love as real—that which ends in marriage, the affection +between <span class="pagenum"><a id="page15" name= +"page15">[15]</a></span>husband and wife. Anything else was to him +mere folly and weakness. Christianity did not change his sentiment +on this subject. The modern Englishman, Swede, Dane, Norwegian, or +German regards love in exactly that deep, serious, noble way that +his pagan ancestors did. I think we can say that different races +have differences of feeling on sexual relations, which differences +are very much older than any written history. They are in the blood +and soul of a people, and neither religion nor civilization can +utterly change them.</p> +<p>So far I have been speaking particularly about the differences +in English and French novels; and a novel is especially a +reflection of national life, a kind of dramatic narration of truth, +in the form of a story. But in poetry, which is the highest form of +literature, the difference is much more observable. We find the +Latin poets of to-day writing just as freely on the subject of love +as the old Latin poets of the age of Augustus, while Northern poets +observe with few exceptions great restraint when treating of this +theme. Now where is the line to be drawn? Are the Latins right? Are +the English right? How are we to make a sharp distinction between +what is moral and good and what is immoral and bad in treating +love-subjects?</p> +<p>Some definition must be attempted.</p> +<p>What is meant by love? As used by Latin writers the word has a +range of meanings, from <span class="pagenum"><a id="page16" name= +"page16">[16]</a></span>that of the sexual relation between insects +or animals up to the highest form of religious emotion, called +“The love of God.” I need scarcely say that this +definition is too loose for our use. The English word, by general +consent, means both sexual passion and deep friendship. This again +is a meaning too wide for our purpose. By putting the adjective +“true” before love, some definition is attempted in +ordinary conversation. When an Englishman speaks of “true +love,” he usually means something that has no passion at all; +he means a perfect friendship which grows up between man and wife +and which has nothing to do with the passion which brought the pair +together. But when the English poet speaks of love, he generally +means passion, not friendship. I am only stating very general +rules. You see how confusing the subject is, how difficult to +define the matter. Let us leave the definition alone for a moment, +and consider the matter philosophically.</p> +<p>Some very foolish persons have attempted even within recent +years to make a classification of different kinds of +love—love between the sexes. They talk about romantic love, +and other such things. All that is utter nonsense. In the meaning +of sexual affection there is only one kind of love, the natural +attraction of one sex for them other; and the only difference in +the highest for of this attraction and the lowest is this, that in +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page17" name= +"page17">[17]</a></span>the nobler nature a vast number of moral, +aesthetic, and ethical sentiments are related to the passion, and +that in lower natures those sentiments are absent. Therefore we may +say that even in the highest forms of the sentiment there is only +one dominant feeling, complex though it be, the desire for +possession. What follows the possession we may call love if we +please; but it might better be called perfect friendship and +sympathy. It is altogether a different thing. The love that is the +theme of poets in all countries is really love, not the friendship +that grows out of it.</p> +<p>I suppose you know that the etymological meaning of +“passion” is “a state of suffering.” In +regard to love, the word has particular significance to the Western +mind, for it refers to the time of struggle and doubt and longing +before the object is attained. Now how much of this passion is a +legitimate subject of literary art?</p> +<p>The difficulty may, I think, be met by remembering the +extraordinary character of the mental phenomena which manifest +themselves in the time of passion. There is during that time a +strange illusion, an illusion so wonderful that it has engaged the +attention of great philosophers for thousands of years; Plato, you +know, tried to explain it in a very famous theory. I mean the +illusion that seems to charm, or rather, actually does charm the +senses of a man at a certain time. <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page18" name="page18">[18]</a></span>To his eye a certain face has +suddenly become the most beautiful object in the world. To his ears +the accents of one voice become the sweetest of all music. Reason +has nothing to do with this, and reason has no power against the +enchantment. Out of Nature’s mystery, somehow or other, this +strange magic suddenly illuminates the senses of a man; then +vanishes again, as noiselessly as it came. It is a very ghostly +thing, and can not be explained by any theory not of a very ghostly +kind. Even Herbert Spencer has devoted his reasoning to a new +theory about it. I need not go further in this particular than to +tell you that in a certain way passion is now thought to have +something to do with other lives than the present; in short, it is +a kind of organic memory of relations that existed in thousands and +tens of thousands of former states of being. Right or wrong though +the theories may be, this mysterious moment of love, the period of +this illusion, is properly the subject of high poetry, simply +because it is the most beautiful and the most wonderful experience +of a human life. And why?</p> +<p>Because in the brief time of such passion the very highest and +finest emotions of which human nature is capable are brought into +play. In that time more than at any other hour in life do men +become unselfish, unselfish at least toward one human being. Not +only unselfishness but self-sacrifice is a desire peculiar to the +period. The <span class="pagenum"><a id="page19" name= +"page19">[19]</a></span>young man in love is not merely willing to +give away everything that he possesses to the person beloved; he +wishes to suffer pain, to meet danger, to risk his life for her +sake. Therefore Tennyson, in speaking of that time, beautifully +said:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with +might,</p> +<p>Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass’d in music +out of sight.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Unselfishness is, of course, a very noble feeling, independently +of the cause. But this is only one of the emotions of a higher +class when powerfully aroused. There is pity, tenderness—the +same kind of tenderness that one feels toward a child—the +love of the helpless, the desire to protect. And a third sentiment +felt at such a time more strongly than at any other, is the +sentiment of duty; responsibilities moral and social are then +comprehended in a totally new way. Surely none can dispute these +facts nor the beauty of them.</p> +<p>Moral sentiments are the highest of all; but next to them the +sentiment of beauty in itself, the artistic feeling, is also a very +high form of intellectual and even of secondary moral experience. +Scientifically there is a relation between the beautiful and the +good, between the physically perfect and the ethically perfect. Of +course it is not absolute. There is nothing absolute in this world. +But the relation exists. Whoever can comprehend <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page20" name="page20">[20]</a></span>the highest +form of one kind of beauty must be able to comprehend something of +the other. I know very well that the ideal of the love-season is an +illusion; in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of the thousand +the beauty of the woman is only imagined. But does that make any +possible difference? I do not think that it does. To imagine beauty +is really to see it—not objectively, perhaps, but +subjectively beyond all possibility of doubt. Though you see the +beauty only in your mind, in your mind it is; and in your mind its +ethical influence must operate. During the time that a man worships +even imaginary bodily beauty, he receives some secret glimpse of a +higher kind of beauty—beauty of heart and mind. Was there +ever in this world a real lover who did not believe the woman of +his choice to be not only the most beautiful of mortals, but also +the best in a moral sense? I do not think that there ever was.</p> +<p>The moral and the ethical sentiments of a being thus aroused +call into sudden action all the finer energies of the man—the +capacities for effort, for heroism, for high-pressure work of any +sort, mental or physical, for all that requires quickness in +thought and exactitude in act. There is for the time being a sense +of new power. Anything that makes strong appeal to the best +exercise of one’s faculties is beneficent and, in most cases, +worthy of reverence. Indeed, it is in the short season of +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page21" name= +"page21">[21]</a></span>which I am speaking that we always discover +the best of everything in the character of woman or of man. In that +period the evil qualities, the ungenerous side, is usually kept as +much out of sight as possible.</p> +<p>Now for all these suggested reasons, as for many others which +might be suggested, the period of illusion in love is really the +period which poets and writers of romance are naturally justified +in describing. Can they go beyond it with safety, with propriety? +That depends very much upon whether they go up or down. By going up +I mean keeping within the region of moral idealism. By going down I +mean descending to the level of merely animal realism. In this +realism there is nothing deserving the highest effort of art of any +sort.</p> +<p>What is the object of art? Is it not, or should it not be, to +make us imagine better conditions than that which at present exist +in the world, and by so imagining to prepare the way for the coming +of such conditions? I think that all great art has done this. Do +you remember the old story about Greek mothers keeping in their +rooms the statue of a god or a man, more beautiful than anything +real, so that their imagination might be constantly influenced by +the sight of beauty, and that they might perhaps be able to bring +more beautiful children into the world? Among the Arabs, mothers +also do something of this kind, only, as <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page22" name="page22">[22]</a></span>they have no +art of imagery, they go to Nature herself for the living image. +Black luminous eyes are beautiful, and wives keep in their tents a +little deer, the gazelle, which is famous for the brilliancy and +beauty of its eyes. By constantly looking at this charming pet the +Arab wife hopes to bring into the world some day a child with eyes +as beautiful as the eyes of the gazelle. Well, the highest function +of art ought to do for us, or at least for the world, what the +statue and the gazelle were expected to do for Grecian and Arab +mothers—to make possible higher conditions than the existing +ones.</p> +<p>So much being said, consider again the place and the meaning of +the passion of love in any human life. It is essentially a period +of idealism, of imagining better things and conditions than are +possible in this world. For everybody who has been in love has +imagined something higher than the possible and the present. Any +idealism is a proper subject for art. It is not at all the same in +the case of realism. Grant that all this passion, imagination, and +fine sentiment is based upon a very simple animal impulse. That +does not make the least difference in the value of the highest +results of that passion. We might say the very same thing about any +human emotion; every emotion can be evolutionally traced back to +simple and selfish impulses shared by man with the lower animals. +But, because an apple tree or a pear tree <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page23" name="page23">[23]</a></span>happens to +have its roots in the ground, does that mean that its fruits are +not beautiful and wholesome? Most assuredly we must not judge the +fruit of the tree from the unseen roots; but what about turning up +the ground to look at the roots? What becomes of the beauty of the +tree when you do that? The realist—at least the French +realist—likes to do that. He likes to bring back the +attention of his reader to the lowest rather than to the highest, +to that which should be kept hidden, for the very same reason that +the roots of a tree should be kept underground if the tree is to +live.</p> +<p>The time of illusion, then, is the beautiful moment of passion; +it represents the artistic zone in which the poet or romance writer +ought to be free to do the very best that he can. He may go beyond +that zone; but then he has only two directions in which he can +travel. Above it there is religion, and an artist may, like Dante, +succeed in transforming love into a sentiment of religious ecstasy. +I do not think that any artist could do that to-day; this is not an +age of religious ecstasy. But upwards there is no other way to go. +Downwards the artist may travel until he finds himself in hell. +Between the zone of idealism and the brutality of realism there are +no doubt many gradations. I am only indicating what I think to be +an absolute truth, that in treating of love the literary master +should keep to the period of illusion, <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page24" name="page24">[24]</a></span>and that to go below it is a +dangerous undertaking. And now, having tried to make what are +believed to be proper distinctions between great literature on this +subject and all that is not great, we may begin to study a few +examples. I am going to select at random passages from English +poets and others, illustrating my meaning.</p> +<p>Tennyson is perhaps the most familiar to you among poets of our +own time; and he has given a few exquisite examples of the ideal +sentiment in passion. One is a concluding verse in the beautiful +song that occurs in the monodrama of “Maud,” where the +lover, listening in the garden, hears the steps of his beloved +approaching.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She is coming, my own, my sweet,</p> +<p class="i2">Were it ever so airy a tread,</p> +<p>My heart would hear her and beat,</p> +<p class="i2">Were it earth in an earthy bed;</p> +<p>My dust would hear her and beat,</p> +<p class="i2">Had I lain for a century dead;</p> +<p>Would start and tremble under her feet,</p> +<p class="i2">And blossom in purple and red.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is a very fine instance of the purely idea +emotion—extravagant, if you like, in the force of the imagery +used, but absolutely sincere and true; for the imagination of love +is necessarily extravagant. It would be quite useless to ask +whether the sound of a girl’s footsteps could really waken a +dead man; we know that love can fancy such things quite naturally, +not in one country only but <span class="pagenum"><a id="page25" +name="page25">[25]</a></span>everywhere. An Arabian poem written +long before the time of Mohammed contains exactly the same thought +in simpler words; and I think that there are some old Japanese +songs containing something similar. All that the statement really +means is that the voice, the look, the touch, even the footstep of +the woman beloved have come to possess for the lover a significance +as great as life and death. For the moment he knows no other +divinity; she is his god, in the sense that her power over him has +become infinite and irresistible.</p> +<p>The second example may be furnished from another part of the +same composition—the little song of exaltation after the +promise to marry has been given.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O let the solid ground</p> +<p class="i2">Not fail beneath my feet</p> +<p>Before my life has found</p> +<p class="i2">What some have found so sweet;</p> +<p>Then let come what come may,</p> +<p>What matter if I go mad,</p> +<p>I shall have had my day.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Let the sweet heavens endure,</p> +<p class="i2">Not close and darken above me</p> +<p>Before I am quite, quite sure</p> +<p class="i2">That there is one to love me;</p> +<p>Then let come what come may</p> +<p>To a life that has been so sad,</p> +<p>I shall have had my day.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page26" name= +"page26">[26]</a></span>The feeling of the lover is that no matter +what happens afterwards, the winning of the woman is enough to pay +for life, death, pain, or anything else. One of the most remarkable +phenomena of the illusion is the supreme indifference to +consequences—at least to any consequences which would not +signify moral shame or loss of honour, Of course the poet is +supposed to consider the emotion only in generous natures. But the +subject of this splendid indifference has been more wonderfully +treated by Victor Hugo than by Tennyson—as we shall see later +on, when considering another phase of the emotion. Before doing +that, I want to call your attention to a very charming treatment of +love’s romance by an American. It is one of the most delicate +of modern compositions, and it is likely to become a classic, as it +has already been printed in four or five different anthologies. The +title is “Atalanta’s Race.”</p> +<p>First let me tell you the story of Atalanta, so that you will be +better able to see the fine symbolism of the poem. Atalanta, the +daughter of a Greek king, was not only the most beautiful of +maidens, but the swiftest runner in the world. She passed her time +in hunting, and did not wish to marry. But as many men wanted to +marry her, a law was passed that any one who desired to win her +must run a race with her. If he could beat her in running, then she +promised to marry him, but if he lost the race, he was to be +killed. Some <span class="pagenum"><a id="page27" name= +"page27">[27]</a></span>say that the man was allowed to run first, +and that the girl followed with a spear in her hand and killed him +when she overtook him. There are different accounts of the contest. +Many suitors lost the race and were killed. But finally young man +called Hippomenes obtained from the Goddess of Love three golden +apples, and he was told that if he dropped these apples while +running, the girl would stop to pick them up, and that in this way +he might be able to win the race. So he ran, and when he found +himself about to be beaten, he dropped one apple. She stopped to +pick it up and thus he gained a little. In this way he won the race +and married Atalanta. Greek mythology says that afterwards she and +her husband were turned into lions because they offended the gods; +however, that need not concern us here. There is a very beautiful +moral in the old Greek story, and the merit of the American +composition is that its author, Maurice Thompson, perceived this +moral and used it to illustrate a great philosophical truth.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>When Spring grows old, and sleepy winds</p> +<p class="i2">Set from the South with odours sweet,</p> +<p>I see my love, in green, cool groves,</p> +<p class="i2">Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet.</p> +<p>She throws a kiss and bids me run,</p> +<p class="i2">In whispers sweet as roses’ breath;</p> +<p>I know I cannot win the race,</p> +<p>And at the end, I know, is death.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page28" name= +"page28">[28]</a></span> +<p>But joyfully I bare my limbs,</p> +<p class="i2">Anoint me with the tropic breeze,</p> +<p>And feel through every sinew run</p> +<p class="i2">The vigour of Hippomenes.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O race of love! we all have run</p> +<p class="i2">Thy happy course through groves of Spring,</p> +<p>And cared not, when at last we lost,</p> +<p class="i2">For life or death, or anything!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>There are a few thoughts here requiring a little comment. You +know that the Greek games and athletic contests were held in the +fairest season, and that the contestants were stripped. They were +also anointed with oil, partly to protect the skin against sun and +temperature and partly to make the body more supple. The poet +speaks of the young man as being anointed by the warm wind of +Spring, the tropic season of life. It is a very pretty fancy. What +he is really telling us is this:</p> +<p>“There are no more Greek games, but the race of love is +still run to-day as in times gone by; youth is the season, and the +atmosphere of youth is the anointing of the contestant.”</p> +<p>But the moral of the piece is its great charm, the poetical +statement of a beautiful and a wonderful fact. In almost every life +there is a time when we care for only one person, and suffer much +for that person’s sake; yet in that period we do not care +whether we suffer or die, and in after life, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page29" name="page29">[29]</a></span>when we look +back at those hours of youth, we wonder at the way in which we then +felt. In European life of to-day the old Greek fable is still true; +almost everybody must run Atalanta’s race and abide by the +result.</p> +<p>One of the delightful phases of the illusion of love is the +sense of old acquaintance, the feeling as if the person loved had +been known and loved long ago in some time and place forgotten. I +think you must have observed, many of you, that when the senses of +sight and hearing happen to be strongly stirred by some new and +most pleasurable experience, the feeling of novelty is absent, or +almost absent. You do not feel as if you were seeing or hearing +something new, but as if you saw or heard something that you knew +all about very long ago. I remember once travelling with a Japanese +boy into a charming little country town in Shikoku—and +scarcely had we entered the main street, than he cried out: +“Oh, I have seen this place before!” Of course he had +not seen it before; he was from Osaka and had never left the great +city until then. But the pleasure of his new experience had given +him this feeling of familiarity with the unfamiliar. I do not +pretend to explain this familiarity with the new—it is a +great mystery still, just as it was a great mystery to the Roman +Cicero. But almost everybody that has been in love has probably had +the same feeling during a moment or two—the feeling “I +have <span class="pagenum"><a id="page30" name= +"page30">[30]</a></span>known that woman before,” though the +where and the when are mysteries. Some of the modern poets have +beautifully treated this feeling. The best example that I can give +you is the exquisite lyric by Rossetti entitled “Sudden +Light.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I have been here before,</p> +<p class="i2">But when or how I cannot tell:</p> +<p>I know the grass beyond the door,</p> +<p class="i2">The sweet keen smell,</p> +<p>The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>You have been mine before,—</p> +<p class="i2">How long ago I may not know:</p> +<p>But just when at that swallow’s soar</p> +<p class="i2">Your neck turn’d so,</p> +<p>Some veil did fall,—I knew it all of yore.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Has this been thus before?</p> +<p class="i2">And shall not thus time’s eddying flight</p> +<p>Still with our lives our loves restore</p> +<p class="i2">In death’s despite,</p> +<p>And day and night yield one delight once more?</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>I think you will acknowledge that this is very pretty; and the +same poet has treated the idea equally well in other poems of a +more complicated kind. But another poet of the period was haunted +even more than Rossetti by this idea—Arthur +O’Shaughnessy. Like Rossetti he was a great lover, and very +unfortunate in his love; and he wrote his poems, now famous, out of +the pain and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page31" name= +"page31">[31]</a></span>regret that was in his heart, much as +singing birds born in cages are said to sing better when their eyes +are put out. Here is one example:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Along the garden ways just now</p> +<p class="i2">I heard the flowers speak;</p> +<p>The white rose told me of your brow,</p> +<p class="i2">The red rose of your cheek;</p> +<p>The lily of your bended head,</p> +<p class="i2">The bindweed of your hair:</p> +<p>Each looked its loveliest and said</p> +<p class="i2">You were more fair.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I went into the woods anon,</p> +<p class="i2">And heard the wild birds sing</p> +<p>How sweet you were; they warbled on,</p> +<p class="i2">Piped, trill’d the self-same thing.</p> +<p>Thrush, blackbird, linnet, without pause</p> +<p class="i2">The burden did repeat,</p> +<p>And still began again because</p> +<p class="i2">You were more sweet.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And then I went down to the sea,</p> +<p class="i2">And heard it murmuring too,</p> +<p>Part of an ancient mystery,</p> +<p class="i2">All made of me and you:</p> +<p>How many a thousand years ago</p> +<p class="i2">I loved, and you were sweet—</p> +<p>Longer I could not stay, and so</p> +<p class="i2">I fled back to your feet.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The last stanza especially expresses the idea that I have been +telling you about; but in a poem <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page32" name="page32">[32]</a></span>entitled “Greater +Memory” the idea is much more fully expressed. By +“greater memory” you must understand the memory beyond +this life into past stages of existence. This piece has become a +part of the nineteenth century poetry that will live; and a few of +the best stanzas deserve to be quoted,</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>In the heart there lay buried for years</p> +<p>Love’s story of passion and tears;</p> +<p>Of the heaven that two had begun</p> +<p class="i2">And the horror that tore them apart;</p> +<p>When one was love’s slayer, but one</p> +<p class="i2">Made a grave for the love in his heart.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The long years pass’d weary and lone</p> +<p>And it lay there and changed there unknown;</p> +<p>Then one day from its innermost place,</p> +<p class="i2">In the shamed and ruin’d love’s +stead,</p> +<p>Love arose with a glorified face,</p> +<p class="i2">Like an angel that comes from the dead.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>It uplifted the stone that was set</p> +<p>On that tomb which the heart held yet;</p> +<p>But the sorrow had moulder’d within</p> +<p class="i2">And there came from the long closed door</p> +<p>A dear image, that was not the sin</p> +<p class="i2">Or the grief that lay buried before.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>There was never the stain of a tear</p> +<p>On the face that was ever so dear;</p> +<p>’Twas the same in each lovelier way;</p> +<p class="i2">’Twas old love’s holier part,</p> +<p>And the dream of the earliest day</p> +<p class="i2">Brought back to the desolate heart.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page33" name= +"page33">[33]</a></span> +<p>It was knowledge of all that had been</p> +<p>In the thought, in the soul unseen;</p> +<p>’Twas the word which the lips could not say</p> +<p class="i2">To redeem or recover the past.</p> +<p>It was more than was taken away</p> +<p class="i2">Which the heart got back at the last.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The passion that lost its spell,</p> +<p>The rose that died where it fell,</p> +<p>The look that was look’d in vain,</p> +<p class="i2">The prayer that seemed lost evermore,</p> +<p>They were found in the heart again,</p> +<p class="i2">With all that the heart would restore.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Put into less mystical language the legend is this: A young man +and a young woman loved each other for a time; then they were +separated by some great wrong—we may suppose the woman was +untrue. The man always loved her memory, in spite of this wrong +which she had done. The two died and were buried; hundreds and +hundreds of years they remained buried, and the dust of them mixed +with the dust of the earth. But in the perpetual order of things, a +pure love never can die, though bodies may die and pass away. So +after many generations the pure love which this man had for a bad +woman was born again in the heart of another man—the same, +yet not the same. And the spirit of the woman that long ago had +done the wrong, also found incarnation again; and the two meeting, +are drawn to each other by what people call love, but what +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page34" name= +"page34">[34]</a></span>is really Greater Memory, the recollection +of past lives. But now all is happiness for them, because the +weaker and worse part of each has really died and has been left +hundreds of years behind, and only the higher nature has been born +again. All that ought not to have been is not; but all that ought +to be now is. This is really an evolutionary teaching, but it is +also poetical license, for the immoral side of mankind does not by +any means die so quickly as the poet supposes. It is perhaps a +question of many tens of thousands of years to get rid of a few of +our simpler faults. Anyway, the fancy charms us and tempts us +really to hope that these things might be so.</p> +<p>While the poets of our time so extend the history of a love +backwards beyond this life, we might expect them to do the very +same thing in the other direction. I do not refer to reunion in +heaven, or anything of that sort, but simply to affection continued +after death. There are some very pretty fancies of the kind. But +they can not prove to you quite so interesting as the poems which +treat the recollection of past life. When we consider the past +imaginatively, we have some ground to stand on. The past has +been—there is no doubt about that. The fact that we are at +this moment alive makes it seem sufficiently true that we were +alive thousands or millions of years ago. But when we turn to the +future for poetical inspiration, the case is very different. There +we <span class="pagenum"><a id="page35" name= +"page35">[35]</a></span>must imagine without having anything to +stand upon in the way of experience. Of course if born again into a +body we could imagine many things; but there is the ghostly +interval between death and birth which nobody is able to tell us +about. Here the poet depends upon dream experiences, and it is of +such an experience that Christina Rossetti speaks in her beautiful +poem entitled “A Pause.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>They made the chamber sweet with flowers and leaves,</p> +<p class="i2">And the bed sweet with flowers on which I lay,</p> +<p class="i2">While my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way.</p> +<p>I did not hear the birds about the eaves,</p> +<p>Nor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves:</p> +<p>Only my soul kept watch from day to day,</p> +<p class="i2">My thirsty soul kept watch for one away:—</p> +<p>Perhaps he loves, I thought, remembers, grieves.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>At length there came the step upon the stair,</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the lock the old familiar hand:</p> +<p>Then first my spirit seemed to scent the air</p> +<p class="i2">Of Paradise; then first the tardy sand</p> +<p>Of time ran golden; and I felt my hair</p> +<p class="i2">Put on a glory, and my soul expand.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The woman is dead. In the room where her body died, flowers have +been placed, offerings to the dead. Also there are flowers upon the +bed. The ghost of the woman observes all this, but she does not +feel either glad or sad because of it; she is thinking only of the +living lover, who was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page36" name= +"page36">[36]</a></span>not there when she died, but far away. She +wants to know whether he really loved her, whether he will really +be sorry to hear that she is dead. Outside the room of death the +birds are singing; in the fields beyond the windows peasants are +working, and talking as they work. But the ghost does not listen to +these sounds. The ghost remains in the room only for love’s +sake; she can not go away until the lover comes. At last she hears +him coming. She knows the sound of the step; she knows the touch of +the hand upon the lock of the door. And instantly, before she sees +him at all, she first feels delight. Already it seems to her that +she can smell the perfume of the flowers of heaven; it then seems +to her that about her head, as about the head of an angel, a circle +of glory is shaping itself, and the real heaven, the Heaven of +Love, is at hand.</p> +<p>How very beautiful this is. There is still one line which +requires a separate explanation—I mean the sentence about the +sands of time running golden. Perhaps you may remember the same +simile in Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall”:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in His glowing +hands;</p> +<p>Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Here time is identified with the sand of the hour glass, and the +verb “to run” is used because this verb commonly +expresses the trickling of the sand <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page37" name="page37">[37]</a></span>from the upper part of the +glass into the lower. In other words, fine sand “runs” +just like water. To say that the sands of time run golden, or +become changed into gold, is only a poetical way of stating that +the time becomes more than happy—almost heavenly or divine. +And now you will see how very beautiful the comparison becomes in +this little poem about the ghost of the woman waiting for the +coming step of her lover.</p> +<p>Several other aspects of the emotion may now be considered +separately. One of these, an especially beautiful one, is memory. +Of course, there are many aspects of love’s memories, some +all happiness, others intensely sorrowful—the memory of a +walk, a meeting, a moment of good-bye. Such memories occupy a very +large place in the treasure house of English love poems. I am going +to give three examples only, but each of a different kind. The +first poet that I am going to mention is Coventry Patmore. He wrote +two curious books of poetry, respectively called “The Angel +in the House” and “The Unknown Eros.” In the +first of these books he wrote the whole history of his courtship +and marriage—a very dangerous thing for a poet to do, but he +did it successfully. The second volume is miscellaneous, and +contains some very beautiful things. I am going to quote only a few +lines from the piece called “Amelia.” This piece is the +story of an evening spent with a sweetheart, and the lines +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page38" name= +"page38">[38]</a></span>which I am quoting refer to the moment of +taking the girl home. They are now rather famous:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>… To the dim street</p> +<p>I led her sacred feet;</p> +<p>And so the Daughter gave,</p> +<p>Soft, moth-like, sweet,</p> +<p>Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk,</p> +<p>Back to her Mother, anxious in the dusk.</p> +<p>And now “Good Night!”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Why should the poet speak of the girl in this way? Why does he +call her feet sacred? She has just promised to marry him; and now +she seems to him quite divine. But he discovers very plain words +with which to communicate his finer feelings to the reader. The +street is “dim” because it is night; and in the night +the beautifully dressed maiden seems like a splendid moth—the +name given to night butterflies in England. In England the moths +are much more beautiful than the true butterflies; they have wings +of scarlet and purple and brown and gold. So the comparison, though +peculiarly English, is very fine. Also there is a suggestion of the +soundlessness of the moth’s flight. Now “showy as +damask rose” is a striking simile only because the +damask-rose is a wonderfully splendid flower—richest in +colour of all roses in English gardens. “Shy as musk” +is rather a daring simile. “Musk” is a perfume used by +English as well as Japanese ladies, but there is no <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page39" name="page39">[39]</a></span>perfume which +must be used with more discretion, carefulness. If you use ever so +little too much, the effect is not pleasant. But if you use exactly +the proper quantity, and no more, there is no perfume which is more +lovely. “Shy as musk” thus refers to that kind of +girlish modesty which never commits a fault even by the measure of +a grain—beautiful shyness incapable of being anything but +beautiful. Nevertheless the comparison must be confessed one which +should be felt rather than explained.</p> +<p>The second of the three promised quotations shall be from Robert +Browning. There is one feeling, not often touched upon by poets, +yet peculiar to lovers, that is here treated—the desire when +you are very happy or when you are looking at anything attractive +to share the pleasure of the moment with the beloved. But it seldom +happens that the wish and the conditions really meet. Referring to +this longing Browning made a short lyric that is now a classic; it +is among the most dainty things of the century.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Never the time and the place</p> +<p class="i2">And the loved one all together!</p> +<p>This path—how soft to pace!</p> +<p class="i2">This May—what magic weather!</p> +<p>Where is the loved one’s face?</p> +<p>In a dream that loved one’s face meets mine,</p> +<p>But the house is narrow, the place is bleak</p> +<p>Where, outside, rain and wind combine</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page40" name="page40">[40]</a></span> +<p>With a furtive ear, if I try to speak,</p> +<p>With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,</p> +<p>With a malice that marks each word, each sign!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Never can we have things the way we wish in this world—a +beautiful day, a beautiful place, and the presence of the beloved +all at the same time. Something is always missing; if the place be +beautiful, the weather perhaps is bad. Or if the weather and the +place both happen to be perfect, the woman is absent. So the poet +finding himself in some very beautiful place, and remembering this, +remembers also the last time that he met the woman beloved. It was +a small dark house and chilly; outside there was rain and storm; +and the sounds of the wind and of the rain were as the sounds of +people secretly listening, or sounds of people trying to look in +secretly through the windows. Evidently it was necessary that the +meeting should be secret, and it was not altogether as happy as +could have been wished.</p> +<p>The third example is a very beautiful poem; we must content +ourselves with an extract from it. It is the memory of a betrothal +day, and the poet is Frederick Tennyson. I suppose you know that +there were three Tennysons, and although Alfred happened to be the +greatest, all of them were good poets.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>It is a golden morning of the spring,</p> +<p class="i2">My cheek is pale, and hers is warm with bloom,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page41" name="page41">[41]</a></span> +<p class="i2">And we are left in that old carven room,</p> +<p>And she begins to sing;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The open casement quivers in the breeze,</p> +<p class="i2">And one large musk-rose leans its dewy grace</p> +<p class="i2">Into the chamber, like a happy face,</p> +<p>And round it swim the bees;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<hr class="short" /></div> +<div class="stanza">I know not what I said—what she replied +<p class="i2">Lives, like eternal sunshine, in my heart;</p> +<p class="i2">And then I murmured, Oh! we never part,</p> +<p>My love, my life, my bride!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<hr class="short" /></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And silence o’er us, after that great bliss,</p> +<p class="i2">Fell like a welcome shadow—and I heard</p> +<p class="i2">The far woods sighing, and a summer bird</p> +<p>Singing amid the trees;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The sweet bird’s happy song, that streamed around,</p> +<p class="i2">The murmur of the woods, the azure skies,</p> +<p class="i2">Were graven on my heart, though ears and eyes</p> +<p>Marked neither sight nor sound.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She sleeps in peace beneath the chancel stone,</p> +<p class="i2">But ah! so clearly is the vision seen,</p> +<p class="i2">The dead seem raised, or Death has never been,</p> +<p>Were I not here alone.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is great art in its power of picturing a memory of the +heart. Let us notice some of the beauties. The lover is pale +because he is afraid, anxious; he is going to ask a question and he +does not know how she may answer him. All this was <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page42" name="page42">[42]</a></span>long ago, +years and years ago, but the strong emotions of that morning leave +their every detail painted in remembrance, with strange vividness +After all those years the man still recollects the appearance of +the room, the sunshine entering and the crimson rose looking into +the room from the garden, with bees humming round it. Then after +the question had been asked and happily answered, neither could +speak for joy; and because of the silence all the sounds of nature +outside became almost painfully distinct. Now he remembers how he +heard in that room the sound of the wind in far-away trees, the +singing of a bird—he also remembers all the colours and the +lights of the day. But it was very, very long ago, and she is dead. +Still, the memory is so clear and bright in his heart that it is as +if time had stood still, or as if she had come back from the grave. +Only one thing assures him that it is but a memory—he is +alone.</p> +<p>Returning now to the subject of love’s illusion in itself, +let me remind you that the illusion does not always pass +away—not at all. It passes away in every case of happy union, +when it has become no longer necessary to the great purposes of +nature. But in case of disappointment, loss, failure to win the +maiden desired, it often happens that the ideal image never fades +away, but persistently haunts the mind through life, and is capable +thus of making even the most successful life unhappy. <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page43" name="page43">[43]</a></span>Sometimes the +result of such disappointment may be to change all a man’s +ideas about the world, about life, about religion; and everything +remains darkened for him. Many a young person disappointed in love +begins to lose religious feeling from that moment, for it seems to +him, simply because he happens to be unfortunate, that the universe +is all wrong. On the other hand the successful lover thinks that +the universe is all right; he utters his thanks to the gods, and +feels his faith in religion and human nature greater than before. I +do not at this moment remember any striking English poem +illustrating this fact; but there is a pretty little poem in French +by Victor Hugo showing well the relation between successful love +and religious feeling in simple minds. Here is an English +translation of it. The subject is simply a walk at night, the +girl-bride leaning upon the arm of her husband; and his memory of +the evening is thus expressed:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The trembling arm I pressed</p> +<p>Fondly; our thoughts confessed</p> +<p class="i2">Love’s conquest tender;</p> +<p>God filled the vast sweet night,</p> +<p>Love filled our hearts; the light</p> +<p class="i2">Of stars made splendour.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Even as we walked and dreamed,</p> +<p>’Twixt heaven and earth, it seemed</p> +<p class="i2">Our souls were speaking;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page44" name="page44">[44]</a></span> +<p>The stars looked on thy face;</p> +<p>Thine eyes through violet space</p> +<p class="i2">The stars were seeking.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And from the astral light</p> +<p>Feeling the soft sweet night</p> +<p class="i2">Thrill to thy soul,</p> +<p>Thou saidst: “O God of Bliss,</p> +<p>Lord of the Blue Abyss,</p> +<p class="i2">Thou madest the whole!”</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And the stars whispered low</p> +<p>To the God of Space, “We know,</p> +<p class="i2">God of Eternity,</p> +<p>Dear Lord, all Love is Thine,</p> +<p>Even by Love’s Light we shine!</p> +<p class="i2">Thou madest Beauty!”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Of course here the religious feeling itself is part of the +illusion, but it serves to give great depth and beauty to simple +feeling. Besides, the poem illustrates one truth very +forcibly—namely, that when we are perfectly happy all the +universe appears to be divine and divinely beautiful; in other +words, we are in heaven. On the contrary, when we are very unhappy +the universe appears to be a kind of hell, in which there is no +hope, no joy, and no gods to pray to.</p> +<p>But the special reason I wished to call attention to Victor +Hugo’s lyric is that it has that particular quality called by +philosophical critics “cosmic emotion.” Cosmic emotion +means the highest quality <span class="pagenum"><a id="page45" +name="page45">[45]</a></span>of human emotion. The word +“cosmos” signifies the universe—not simply this +world, but all the hundred millions of suns and worlds in the known +heaven. And the adjective “cosmic” means, of course, +“related to the whole universe.” Ordinary emotion may +be more than individual in its relations. I mean that your feelings +may be moved by the thought or the perception of something relating +not only to your own life but also to the lives of many others. The +largest form of such ordinary emotion is what would be called +national feeling, the feeling of your own relation to the whole +nation or the whole race. But there is higher emotion even than +that. When you think of yourself emotionally not only in relation +to your own country, your own nation, but in relation to all +humanity, then you have a cosmic emotion of the third or second +order. I say “third or second,” because whether the +emotion be second or third rate depends very much upon your +conception of humanity as One. But if you think of yourself in +relation not to this world only but to the whole universe of +hundreds of millions of stars and planets—in relation to the +whole mystery of existence—then you have a cosmic emotion of +the highest order. Of course there are degrees even in this; the +philosopher or the metaphysician will probably have a finer quality +of cosmic emotion than the poet or the artist is able to have. But +lovers very often, according to their degree <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page46" name="page46">[46]</a></span>of +intellectual culture, experience a kind of cosmic emotion; and +Victor Hugo’s little poem illustrates this. Night and the +stars and the abyss of the sky all seem to be thrilling with love +and beauty to the lover’s eyes, because he himself is in a +state of loving happiness; and then he begins to think about his +relation to the universal life, to the supreme mystery beyond all +Form and Name.</p> +<p>A third or fourth class of such emotion may be illustrated by +the beautiful sonnet of Keats, written not long before his death. +Only a very young man could have written this, because only a very +young man loves in this way—but how delightful it is! It has +no title.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—</p> +<p class="i2">Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night</p> +<p>And watching, with eternal lids apart,</p> +<p class="i2">Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,</p> +<p>The moving waters at their priest-like task</p> +<p class="i2">Of pure ablution round earth’s human +shores,</p> +<p>Or gazing on new soft-fallen mask</p> +<p class="i2">Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,</p> +<p class="i2">Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening +breast,</p> +<p>To feel forever its soft fall and swell,</p> +<p class="i2">Awake forever in a sweet unrest,</p> +<p>Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,</p> +<p>And so live ever—or else swoon to death.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Tennyson has charmingly represented a lover <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page47" name="page47">[47]</a></span>wishing that +he were a necklace of his beloved, or her girdle, or her earring; +but that is not a cosmic emotion at all. Indeed, the idea of +Tennyson’s pretty song was taken from old French and English +love songs of the peasants—popular ballads. But in this +beautiful sonnet of Keats, where the lover wishes to be endowed +with the immortality and likeness of a star only to be forever with +the beloved, there is something of the old Greek thought which +inspired the beautiful lines written between two and three thousand +years ago, and translated by J.A. Symonds:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Gazing on stars, my Star? Would that I were the welkin,</p> +<p>Starry with myriad eyes, ever to gave upon thee!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>But there is more than the Greek beauty of thought in +Keats’s sonnet, for we find the poet speaking of the exterior +universe in the largest relation, thinking of the stars watching +forever the rising and the falling of the sea tides, thinking of +the sea tides themselves as continually purifying the world, even +as a priest purifies a temple. The fancy of the boy expands to the +fancy of philosophy; it is a blending of poetry, philosophy, and +sincere emotion.</p> +<p>You will have seen by the examples which we have been reading +together that English love poetry, like Japanese love poetry, may +be divided into many branches and classified according to the range +of subject from the very simplest utterance <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page48" name="page48">[48]</a></span>of feeling up +to that highest class expressing cosmic emotion. Very rich the +subject is; the student is only puzzled where to choose. I should +again suggest to you to observe the value of the theme of illusion, +especially as illustrated in our examples. There are indeed +multitudes of Western love poems that would probably appear to you +very strange, perhaps very foolish. But you will certainly +acknowledge that there are some varieties of English love poetry +which are neither strange nor foolish, and which are well worth +studying, not only in themselves but in their relation to the +higher forms of emotional expression in all literature. Out of love +poetry belonging to the highest class, much can be drawn that would +serve to enrich and to give a new colour to your own literature of +emotion.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page49" name= +"page49">[49]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_3" name="Ch_3">Chapter III</a></h3> +<h2>The Ideal Woman in English Poetry</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>As I gave already in this class a lecture on the subject of love +poetry, you will easily understand that the subject of the present +lecture is not exactly love. It is rather about love’s +imagining of perfect character and perfect beauty. The part of it +to which I think your attention could be deservedly given is that +relating to the imagined wife of the future, for this is a subject +little treated of in Eastern poetry. It is a very pretty subject. +But in Japan and other countries of the East almost every young man +knows beforehand whom he is likely to marry. Marriage is arranged +by the family: it is a family matter, indeed a family duty and not +a romantic pursuit. At one time, very long ago, in Europe, +marriages were arranged in much the same way. But nowadays it may +be said in general that no young man in England or America can even +imagine whom he will marry. He has to find his wife for himself; +and he has nobody to help him; and if he makes a mistake, so much +the worse for him. So to Western imagination the wife of the future +is a mystery, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page50" name= +"page50">[50]</a></span>a romance, an anxiety—something to +dream about and to write poetry about.</p> +<p>This little book that I hold in my hand is now very rare. It is +out of print, but it is worth mentioning to you because it is the +composition of an exquisite man of letters, Frederick +Locker-Lampson, best of all nineteenth century writers of society +verse. It is called “Patchwork.” Many years ago the +author kept a kind of journal in which he wrote down or copied all +the most beautiful or most curious things which he had heard or +which he had found in books. Only the best things remained, so the +value of the book is his taste in selection. Whatever +Locker-Lampson pronounced good, the world now knows to have been +exactly what he pronounced, for his taste was very fine. And in +this book I find a little poem quoted from Mr. Edwin Arnold, now +Sir Edwin. Sir Edwin Arnold is now old and blind, and he has not +been thought of kindly enough in Japan, because his work has not +been sufficiently known. Some people have even said his writings +did harm to Japan, but I want to assure you that such statements +are stupid lies. On the contrary, he did for Japan whatever good +the best of his talent as a poet and the best of his influence as a +great journalist could enable him to do. But to come back to our +subject: when Sir Edwin was a young student he had his dreams about +marriage like other young English students, and he put one +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page51" name= +"page51">[51]</a></span>of them into verse, and that verse was at +once picked out by Frederick Locker-Lampson for his little book of +gems. Half a century has passed since then; but +Locker-Lampson’s judgment remains good, and I am going to put +this little poem first because it so well illustrates the subject +of the lecture. It is entitled “A Ma Future.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Where waitest thou,</p> +<p class="i2">Lady, I am to love? Thou comest not,</p> +<p class="i2">Thou knowest of my sad and lonely lot—</p> +<p>I looked for thee ere now!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>It is the May,</p> +<p class="i2">And each sweet sister soul hath found its +brother,</p> +<p class="i2">Only we two seek fondly each the other,</p> +<p>And seeking still delay.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Where art thou, sweet?</p> +<p class="i2">I long for thee as thirsty lips for streams,</p> +<p class="i2">O gentle promised angel of my dreams,</p> +<p>Why do we never meet?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou art as I,</p> +<p class="i2">Thy soul doth wait for mine as mine for thee;</p> +<p class="i2">We cannot live apart, must meeting be</p> +<p>Never before we die?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Dear Soul, not so,</p> +<p class="i2">For time doth keep for us some happy years,</p> +<p class="i2">And God hath portioned us our smiles and tears,</p> +<p>Thou knowest, and I know.</p> +</div> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page52" name="page52">[52]</a></span> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Therefore I bear</p> +<p class="i2">This winter-tide as bravely as I may,</p> +<p class="i2">Patiently waiting for the bright spring day</p> +<p>That cometh with thee, Dear.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>’Tis the May light</p> +<p class="i2">That crimsons all the quiet college gloom,</p> +<p class="i2">May it shine softly in thy sleeping room,</p> +<p>And so, dear wife, good night!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is, of course, addressed to the spirit of the unknown +future wife. It is pretty, though it is only the work of a young +student. But some one hundred years before, another student—a +very great student, Richard Crashaw,—had a fancy of the same +kind, and made verses about it which are famous. You will find +parts of his poem about the imaginary wife in the ordinary +anthologies, but not all of it, for it is very long. I will quote +those verses which seem to me the best.</p> +<h4>Wishes</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Whoe’er she be,</p> +<p>That not impossible She,</p> +<p>That shall command my heart and me;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Where’er she lie,</p> +<p>Locked up from mortal eye,</p> +<p>In shady leaves of Destiny;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Till that ripe birth</p> +<p>Of studied Fate stand forth,</p> +<p>And teach her fair steps to our earth;</p> +</div> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page53" name="page53">[53]</a></span> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Till that divine</p> +<p>Idea take a shrine</p> +<p>Of crystal flesh, through which to shine;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Meet you her, my wishes,</p> +<p>Bespeak her to my blisses,</p> +<p>And be ye called my absent kisses.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The poet is supposing that the girl whom he is to marry may not +as yet even have been born, for though men in the world of +scholarship can marry only late in life, the wife is generally +quite young. Marriage is far away in the future for the student, +therefore these fancies. What he means to say in short is about +like this:</p> +<p>“Oh, my wishes, go out of my heart and look for the being +whom I am destined to marry—find the soul of her, whether +born or yet unborn, and tell that soul of the love that is waiting +for it.” Then he tries to describe the imagined woman he +hopes to find:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I wish her beauty</p> +<p>That owes not all its duty</p> +<p>To gaudy ’tire or glist’ring shoe-tie.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Something more than</p> +<p>Taffeta or tissue can;</p> +<p>Or rampant feather, or rich fan.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>More than the spoil</p> +<p>Of shop or silk worm’s toil,</p> +<p>Or a bought blush, or a set smile.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page54" name= +"page54">[54]</a></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A face that’s best</p> +<p>By its own beauty drest</p> +<p>And can alone command the rest.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A face made up</p> +<p>Out of no other shop</p> +<p>Than what nature’s white hand sets ope.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A cheek where grows</p> +<p>More than a morning rose</p> +<p>Which to no box his being owes.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<hr class="short" /></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Eyes that displace</p> +<p>The neighbor diamond and outface</p> +<p>That sunshine by their own sweet grace.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Tresses that wear</p> +<p>Jewels, but to declare</p> +<p>How much themselves more precious are.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Smiles, that can warm</p> +<p>The blood, yet teach a charm</p> +<p>That chastity shall take no harm.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<hr class="short" /></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Life, that dares send</p> +<p>A challenge to his end,</p> +<p>And when it comes, say “Welcome, friend!”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>There is much more, but the best of the thoughts are here. They +are not exactly new thoughts, nor strange thoughts, but they are +finely expressed in a strong and simple way.</p> +<p>There is another composition on the same +subject—<span class="pagenum"><a id="page55" name= +"page55">[55]</a></span>the imaginary spouse, the destined one. But +this is written by a woman, Christina Rossetti.</p> +<h4>Somewhere or Other</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Somewhere or other there must surely be</p> +<p class="i2">The face not seen, the voice not heard,</p> +<p>The heart that not yet—never yet—ah me!</p> +<p class="i2">Made answer to my word.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Somewhere or other, may be near or far;</p> +<p class="i2">Past land and sea, clean out of sight;</p> +<p>Beyond the wondering moon, beyond the star</p> +<p class="i2">That tracks her night by night.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Somewhere or other, may be far or near;</p> +<p class="i2">With just a wall, a hedge between;</p> +<p>With just the last leaves of the dying year,</p> +<p class="i2">Fallen on a turf grown green.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>And that turf means of course the turf of a grave in the +churchyard. This poem expresses fear that the destined one never +can be met, because death may come before the meeting time. All +through the poem there is the suggestion of an old belief that for +every man and for every woman there must be a mate, yet that it is +a chance whether the mate will ever be found.</p> +<p>You observe that all of these are ghostly poems, whether +prospective or retrospective. Here is another prospective poem: +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page56" name= +"page56">[56]</a></span></p> +<h4>Amaturus</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Somewhere beneath the sun,</p> +<p class="i2">These quivering heart-strings prove it,</p> +<p>Somewhere there must be one</p> +<p class="i2">Made for this soul, to move it;</p> +<p>Someone that hides her sweetness</p> +<p class="i2">From neighbors whom she slights,</p> +<p>Nor can attain completeness,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor give her heart its rights;</p> +<p>Someone whom I could court</p> +<p class="i2">With no great change of manner,</p> +<p>Still holding reason’s fort</p> +<p class="i2">Though waving fancy’s banner;</p> +<p>A lady, not so queenly</p> +<p class="i2">As to disdain my hand,</p> +<p>Yet born to smile serenely</p> +<p class="i2">Like those that rule the land;</p> +<p>Noble, but not too proud;</p> +<p class="i2">With soft hair simply folded,</p> +<p>And bright face crescent-browed</p> +<p class="i2">And throat by Muses moulded;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Keen lips, that shape soft sayings</p> +<p class="i2">Like crystals of the snow,</p> +<p>With pretty half-betrayings</p> +<p class="i2">Of things one may not know;</p> +<p>Fair hand, whose touches thrill,</p> +<p class="i2">Like golden rod of wonder,</p> +<p>Which Hermes wields at will</p> +<p class="i2">Spirit and flesh to sunder.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page57" name="page57">[57]</a></span> +<p>Forth, Love, and find this maid,</p> +<p class="i2">Wherever she be hidden;</p> +<p>Speak, Love, be not afraid,</p> +<p class="i2">But plead as thou art bidden;</p> +<p>And say, that he who taught thee</p> +<p class="i2">His yearning want and pain,</p> +<p>Too dearly dearly bought thee</p> +<p class="i2">To part with thee in vain.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>These lines are by the author of that exquisite little book +“Ionica”—a book about which I hope to talk to you +in another lecture. His real name was William Cory, and he was long +the head-master of an English public school, during which time he +composed and published anonymously the charming verses which have +made him famous—modelling his best work in close imitation of +the Greek poets. A few expressions in these lines need explanation. +For instance, the allusion to Hermes and his rod. I think you know +that Hermes is the Greek name of the same god whom the Romans +called Mercury,—commonly represented as a beautiful young +man, naked and running quickly, having wings attached to the +sandals upon his feet. Runners used to pray to him for skill in +winning foot races. But this god had many forms and many +attributes, and one of his supposed duties was to bring the souls +of the dead into the presence of the king of Hades. So you will see +some pictures of him standing before the throne of the king of the +Dead, and behind him <span class="pagenum"><a id="page58" name= +"page58">[58]</a></span>a long procession of shuddering ghosts. He +is nearly always pictured as holding in his hands a strange sceptre +called the <em>caduceus</em>, a short staff about which two little +serpents are coiled, and at the top of which is a tiny pair of +wings. This is the golden rod referred to by the poet; when Hermes +touched anybody with it, the soul of the person touched was obliged +immediately to leave the body and follow after him. So it is a very +beautiful stroke of art in this poem to represent the touch of the +hand of great love as having the magical power of the golden rod of +Hermes. It is as if the poet were to say: “Should she but +touch me, I know that my spirit would leap out of my body and +follow after her.” Then there is the expression +“crescent-browed.” It means only having beautifully +curved eyebrows—arched eyebrows being considered particularly +beautiful in Western countries.</p> +<p>Now we will consider another poem of the ideal. What we have +been reading referred to ghostly ideals, to memories, or to hopes. +Let us now see how the poets have talked about realities. Here is a +pretty thing by Thomas Ashe. It is entitled “Pansie”; +and this flower name is really a corruption of a French word +“Penser,” meaning a thought. The flower is very +beautiful, and its name is sometimes given to girls, as in the +present case.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page59" name="page59">[59]</a></span> +<h4>Meet We No Angels, Pansie?</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Came, on a Sabbath noon, my sweet,</p> +<p class="i2">In white, to find her lover;</p> +<p>The grass grew proud beneath her feet,</p> +<p class="i2">The green elm-leaves above her:—</p> +<p class="i4">Meet we no angels, Pansie?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She said, “We meet no angels now;”</p> +<p class="i2">And soft lights stream’d upon her;</p> +<p>And with white hand she touch’d a bough;</p> +<p class="i2">She did it that great honour:—</p> +<p class="i4">What! meet no angels, Pansie?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O sweet brown hat, brown hair, brown eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">Down-dropp’d brown eyes, so tender!</p> +<p>Then what said I? Gallant replies</p> +<p class="i2">Seem flattery, and offend her:—</p> +<p class="i4">But—meet no angels, Pansie?</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The suggestion is obvious, that the maiden realizes to the +lover’s eye the ideal of an angel. As she comes he asks her +slyly,—for she has been to the church—“Is it true +that nobody ever sees real angels?” She answers innocently, +thinking him to be in earnest, “No—long ago people used +to see angels, but in these times no one ever sees them.” He +does not dare tell her how beautiful she seems to him; but he +suggests much more than admiration by the tone of his protesting +response to her answer: “What! You cannot mean to say that +there are no angels now?” Of course that is the same as to +say, “I see an angel now”—but the <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page60" name="page60">[60]</a></span>girl is much +too innocent to take the real and flattering meaning.</p> +<p>Wordsworth’s portrait of the ideal woman is very famous; +it was written about his own wife though that fact would not be +guessed from the poem. The last stanza is the most famous, but we +had better quote them all.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She was a phantom of delight</p> +<p>When first she gleamed upon my sight;</p> +<p>A lovely apparition, sent</p> +<p>To be a moment’s ornament;</p> +<p>Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;</p> +<p>Like twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;</p> +<p>But all things else about her drawn</p> +<p>From May-time and the cheerful dawn;</p> +<p>A dancing shape, an image gay,</p> +<p>To haunt, to startle, and waylay.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I saw her upon nearer view,</p> +<p>A Spirit, yet a Woman too!</p> +<p>Her household motions light and free,</p> +<p>And steps of virgin liberty;</p> +<p>A countenance in which did meet</p> +<p>Sweet records, promises as sweet;</p> +<p>A creature not too bright or good</p> +<p>For human nature’s daily food;</p> +<p>For transient sorrows, simple wiles,</p> +<p>Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And now I see with eye serene</p> +<p>The very pulse of the machine;</p> +<p>A being breathing thoughtful breath,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page61" name="page61">[61]</a></span> +<p>A traveller betwixt life and death;</p> +<p>The reason firm, the temperate will,</p> +<p>Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;</p> +<p>A perfect woman, nobly plann’d,</p> +<p>To warn, to comfort and command;</p> +<p>And yet a Spirit still, and bright</p> +<p>With something of angelic light.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>I quoted this after the Pansie poem to show you how much more +deeply Wordsworth could touch the same subject. To him, too, the +first apparition of the ideal maiden seemed angelic; like Ashe he +could perceive the mingled attraction of innocence and of youth. +But innocence and youth are by no means all that make up the best +attributes of woman; character is more than innocence and more than +youth, and it is character that Wordsworth studies. But in the last +verse he tells us that the angel is always there, nevertheless, +even when the good woman becomes old. The angel is the +Mother-soul.</p> +<p>Wordsworth’s idea that character is the supreme charm was +expressed very long before him by other English poets, notably by +Thomas Carew.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>He that loves a rosy cheek,</p> +<p class="i2">Or a coral lip admires,</p> +<p>Or from star-like eyes doth seek</p> +<p class="i2">Fuel to maintain his fires:</p> +<p>As old Time makes these decay,</p> +<p class="i2">So his flames must waste away.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page62" name= +"page62">[62]</a></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But a smooth and steadfast mind,</p> +<p class="i2">Gentle thoughts and calm desires,</p> +<p>Hearts with equal love combined,</p> +<p class="i2">Kindle never-dying fires.</p> +<p>Where these, are not, I despise</p> +<p class="i2">Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"></div> +</div> +<p>For about three hundred years in English literature it was the +fashion—a fashion borrowed from the Latin poets—to +speak of love as a fire or flame, and you must understand the image +in these verses in that signification. To-day the fashion is not +quite dead, but very few poets now follow it.</p> +<p>Byron himself, with all his passion and his affected scorn of +ethical convention, could and did, when he pleased, draw beautiful +portraits of moral as well as physical attraction. These stanzas +are famous; they paint for us a person with equal attraction of +body and mind.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She walks in beauty, like the night</p> +<p class="i2">Of cloudless climes and starry skies;</p> +<p>And all that’s best of dark and bright</p> +<p class="i2">Meet in her aspect and her eyes:</p> +<p>Thus mellow’d to that tender light</p> +<p class="i2">Which heaven to gaudy day denies.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>One shade the more, one ray the less,</p> +<p class="i2">Had half impair’d the nameless grace</p> +<p>Which waves in every raven tress,</p> +<p class="i2">Or softly lightens o’er her face;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page63" name="page63">[63]</a></span> +<p>Where thoughts serenely sweet express</p> +<p class="i2">How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,</p> +<p class="i2">So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,</p> +<p>The smiles that win, the tints that glow,</p> +<p class="i2">But tell of days in goodness spent,</p> +<p>A mind at peace with all below,</p> +<p class="i2">A heart whose love is innocent!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>It is worth noticing that in each of the last three poems, the +physical beauty described is that of dark eyes and hair. This may +serve to remind you that there are two distinct types, opposite +types, of beauty celebrated by English poets; and the next poem +which I am going to quote, the beautiful “Ruth” of +Thomas Hood, also describes a dark woman.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She stood breast-high amid the corn,</p> +<p>Clasp’d by the golden light of morn,</p> +<p>Like the sweetheart of the sun,</p> +<p>Who many a glowing kiss had won.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>On her cheek an autumn flush,</p> +<p>Deeply ripen’d;—such a blush</p> +<p>In the midst of brown was born,</p> +<p>Like red poppies grown with corn.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Round her eyes her tresses fell,</p> +<p>Which were blackest none could tell,</p> +<p>But long lashes veil’d a light,</p> +<p>That had else been all too bright.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page64" name= +"page64">[64]</a></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And her hat, with shady brim,</p> +<p>Made her tressy forehead dim;</p> +<p>Thus she stood among the stooks,</p> +<p>Praising God with sweetest looks:—</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Sure, I said, Heav’n did not mean,</p> +<p>Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,</p> +<p>Lay thy sheaf adown and come,</p> +<p>Share my harvest and my home.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>We might call this the ideal of a peasant girl whose poverty +appeals to the sympathy of all who behold her. The name of the poem +is suggested indeed by the Bible story of Ruth the gleaner, but the +story in the poem is only that of a rich farmer who marries a very +poor girl, because of her beauty and her goodness. It is just a +charming picture—a picture of the dark beauty which is so +much admired in Northern countries, where it is less common than in +Southern Europe. There are beautiful brown-skinned types; and the +flush of youth on the cheeks of such a brown girl has been compared +to the red upon a ripe peach or a russet apple—a hard kind of +apple, very sweet and juicy, which is brown instead of yellow, or +reddish brown. But the poet makes the comparison with poppy flowers +and wheat. That, of course, means golden yellow and red; in English +wheat fields red poppy flowers grow in abundance. The expression +“tressy forehead” in the second line of the fourth +stanza means a forehead half covered with falling, loose hair.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page65" name= +"page65">[65]</a></span>The foregoing pretty picture may be offset +by charming poem of Browning’s describing a lover’s +pride in his illusion. It is simply entitled “Song,” +and to appreciate it you must try to understand the mood of a young +man who believes that he has actually realized his ideal, and that +the woman that he loves is the most beautiful person in the whole +world. The fact that this is simply imagination on his part does +not make the poem less beautiful—on the contrary, the false +imagining is just what makes it beautiful, the youthful emotion of +a moment being so humanly and frankly described. Such a youth must +imagine that every one else sees and thinks about the girl just as +he does, and he expects them to confess it.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Nay but you, who do not love her,</p> +<p class="i2">Is she not pure gold, my mistress?</p> +<p>Holds earth aught—speak truth—above her?</p> +<p class="i2">Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,</p> +<p>And this last fairest tress of all,</p> +<p>So fair, see, ere I let it fall?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Because you spend your lives in praising;</p> +<p class="i2">To praise, you search the wide world over;</p> +<p>Then why not witness, calmly gazing,</p> +<p class="i2">If earth holds aught—speak truth—above +her?</p> +<p>Above this tress, and this, I touch</p> +<p>But cannot praise, I love so much!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>You see the picture, I think,—probably some <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page66" name= +"page66">[66]</a></span>artist’s studio for a background. She +sits or stands there with her long hair loosely flowing down to her +feet like a river of gold; and her lover, lifting up some of the +long tresses in his hand, asks his friend, who stands by, to notice +how beautiful such hair is. Perhaps the girl was having her picture +painted. One would think so from the question, “Since your +business is to look for beautiful things, why can you not honestly +acknowledge that this woman is the most beautiful thing in the +whole world?” Or we might imagine the questioned person to be +a critic by profession as well as an artist. Like the preceding +poem this also is a picture. But the next poem, also by Browning, +is much more than a picture—it is very profound indeed, +simple as it looks. An old man is sitting by the dead body of a +young girl of about sixteen. He tells us how he secretly loved her, +as a father might love a daughter, as a brother might love a +sister. But he would have wished, if he had not been so old, and +she so young, to love her as a husband. He never could have her in +this world, but why should he not hope for it in the future world? +He whispers into her dead ear his wish, and he puts a flower into +her dead hand, thinking, “When she wakes up, in another life, +she will see that flower, and remember what I said to her, and how +much I loved her.” That is the mere story. But we must +understand that the greatness of the love <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page67" name="page67">[67]</a></span>expressed in +the poem is awakened by an ideal of innocence and sweetness and +goodness, and the affection is of the soul—that is to say, it +is the love of beautiful character, not the love of a beautiful +face only, that is expressed.</p> +<h4>Evelyn Hope</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!</p> +<p class="i2">Sit and watch by her side an hour.</p> +<p>That is her book-shelf, this her bed;</p> +<p class="i2">She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,</p> +<p>Beginning to die too, in the glass;</p> +<p class="i2">Little has yet been changed, I think:</p> +<p>The shutters are shut, no light can pass</p> +<p class="i2">Save two long rays through the hinge’s +chink.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Sixteen years old when she died!</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;</p> +<p>It was not her time to love; beside,</p> +<p class="i2">Her life had many a hope and aim,</p> +<p>Duties enough and little cares,</p> +<p class="i2">And now was quiet, now astir,</p> +<p>Till God’s hand beckoned unawares,—</p> +<p class="i2">And the sweet white brow is all of her.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope?</p> +<p class="i2">What, your soul was pure and true,</p> +<p>The good stars met in your horoscope,</p> +<p class="i2">Made you of spirit, fire and dew—</p> +<p>And just because I was thrice as old</p> +<p class="i2">And our paths in the world diverged so wide,</p> +<p>Each was naught to each, must I be told?</p> +<p class="i2">We were fellow mortals, naught beside?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page68" name= +"page68">[68]</a></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>No, indeed! for God above,</p> +<p class="i2">Is great to grant, as mighty to make,</p> +<p>And creates the love to reward the love:</p> +<p class="i2">I claim you still, for my own love’s sake!</p> +<p>Delayed it may be for more lives yet,</p> +<p class="i2">Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:</p> +<p>Much is to learn, much to forget,</p> +<p class="i2">Ere the time be come for taking you.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But the time will come,—at last it will,</p> +<p class="i2">When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)</p> +<p>In the lower earth, in the years long still,</p> +<p class="i2">That body and soul so pure and gay?</p> +<p>Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,</p> +<p class="i2">And your mouth of your own geranium’s +red—</p> +<p>And what you would do with me, in fine,</p> +<p class="i2">In the new life come in the old one’s +stead.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,</p> +<p class="i2">Given up myself so many times,</p> +<p>Gained me the gains of various men,</p> +<p class="i2">Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;</p> +<p>Yet one thing, one, in my soul’s full scope,</p> +<p class="i2">Either I missed or itself missed me:</p> +<p>And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!</p> +<p class="i2">What is the issue? let us see!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!</p> +<p class="i2">My heart seemed full as it could hold;</p> +<p>There was space and to spare for the frank young smile,</p> +<p class="i2">And the red young mouth, and the hair’s young +gold.</p> +<p>So, hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep:</p> +<p class="i2">See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page69" name="page69">[69]</a></span> +<p>There, that is our secret: go to sleep!</p> +<p class="i2">You will wake, and remember, and understand.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>No other poet has written so many different kinds of poems on +this subject as Browning; and although I can not quote all of them, +I must not neglect to make a just representation of the variety. +Here is another example: the chief idea is again the beauty of +truthfulness and fidelity, but the artistic impression is quite +different.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A simple ring with a single stone,</p> +<p class="i2">To the vulgar eye no stone of price:</p> +<p>Whisper the right word, that alone—</p> +<p class="i2">Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice.</p> +<p>And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll)</p> +<p>Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole</p> +<p class="i4">Through the power in a pearl.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A woman (’tis I this time that say)</p> +<p class="i2">With little the world counts worthy praise:</p> +<p>Utter the true word—out and away</p> +<p class="i2">Escapes her soul; I am wrapt in blaze,</p> +<p>Creation’s lord, of heaven and earth</p> +<p>Lord whole and sole—by a minute’s birth—</p> +<p class="i4">Through the love in a girl!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Paraphrased, the meaning will not prove as simple as the verses: +Here is a finger ring set with one small stone, one jewel. It is a +very cheap-looking stone to common eyes. But if you know a certain +magical word, and, after putting the ring on your finger, you +whisper that magical <span class="pagenum"><a id="page70" name= +"page70">[70]</a></span>word over the cheap-looking stone, suddenly +a spirit, a demon or a genie, springs from that gem like a flash of +fire miraculously issuing from a lump of ice. And that spirit or +genie has power to make you king of the whole world and of the sky +above the world, lord of the spirits of heaven and earth and air +and fire. Yet the stone is only—a pearl—and it can make +you lord of the universe. That is the old Arabian story. The word +scroll here means a manuscript, an Arabian manuscript.</p> +<p>But what is after all the happiness of mere power? There is a +greater happiness possible than to be lord of heaven and earth; +that is the happiness of being truly loved. Here is a woman; to the +eye of the world, to the sight of other men, she is not very +beautiful nor at all remarkable in any way. She is just an ordinary +woman, as the pearl in the ring is to all appearances just a common +pearl. But let the right word be said, let the soul of that woman +be once really touched by the magic of love, and what a revelation! +As the spirit in the Arabian story sprang from the stone of the +magical ring, when the word was spoken, so from the heart of this +woman suddenly her soul displays itself in shining light. And the +man who loves, instantly becomes, in the splendour of that light, +verily the lord of heaven and earth; to the eyes of the being who +loves him he is a god.</p> +<p>The legend is the legend of Solomon—not the Solomon of the +Bible, but the much more wonderful <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page71" name="page71">[71]</a></span>Solomon of the Arabian +story-teller. His power is said to have been in a certain seal +ring, upon which the mystical name of Allah, or at least one of the +ninety and nine mystical names, was engraved. When he chose to use +this ring, all the spirits of air, the spirits of earth, the +spirits of water and the spirits of fire were obliged to obey him. +The name of such a ring is usually “Talisman.”</p> +<p>Here is another of Browning’s jewels, one of the last +poems written shortly before his death. It is entitled +“Summum Bonum,”—signifying “the highest +good.” The subject is a kiss; we may understand that the +first betrothal kiss is the mark of affection described. When the +promise of marriage has been made, that promise is sealed or +confirmed by the first kiss. But this refers only to the refined +classes of society. Among the English people proper, especially the +country folk, kissing the girls is only a form of showing mere good +will, and has no serious meaning at all.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one +bee:</p> +<p class="i2">All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of +one gem:</p> +<p>In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the +sea:</p> +<p class="i2">Breath and bloom, shade and shine,—wonder, +wealth, and—how far above them—</p> +<p>Truth, that’s brighter than gem,</p> +<p class="i2">Trust, that’s purer than pearl,—</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page72" name="page72">[72]</a></span> +<p>Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe—all were for +me</p> +<p class="i2">In the kiss of one girl.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>There is in this a suggestion of Ben Jonson, who uses almost +exactly the same simile without any moral significance. The +advantage of Browning is that he has used the sensuous imagery for +ethical symbolism; here he greatly surpasses Jonson, though it +would be hard to improve upon the beauty of Jonson’s verses, +as merely describing visual beauty. Here are Jonson’s +stanzas:</p> +<h4>The Triumph</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>See the Chariot at hand here of Love,</p> +<p class="i2">Wherein my Lady rideth!</p> +<p>Each that draws is a swan or a dove,</p> +<p class="i2">And well the car Love guideth.</p> +<p>As she goes, all hearts do duty</p> +<p class="i2">Unto her beauty;</p> +<p>And enamoured do wish, so they might</p> +<p class="i2">But enjoy such a sight,</p> +<p>That they still were to run by her side,</p> +<p>Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Do but look on her eyes, they do light</p> +<p class="i2">All that Love’s world compriseth!</p> +<p>Do but look on her hair, it is bright</p> +<p class="i2">As love’s star when it riseth!</p> +<p>Do but mark, her forehead’s smoother</p> +<p class="i2">Than words that soothe her;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page73" name="page73">[73]</a></span> +<p>And from her arch’d brows such a grace</p> +<p class="i2">Sheds itself through the face,</p> +<p>As alone there triumphs to the life</p> +<p>All the gain, all the good, of the elements’ strife.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Have you seen but a bright lily grow</p> +<p class="i2">Before rude hands have touched it?</p> +<p>Have you mark’d but the fall of the snow</p> +<p class="i2">Before the soil hath smutch’d it?</p> +<p>Have you felt the wool of beaver</p> +<p class="i2">Or swan’s down ever?</p> +<p>Or have smelt o’ the bud o’ the brier,</p> +<p class="i2">Or the nard in the fire?</p> +<p>Or have tasted the bag of the bee?</p> +<p>O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The first of the above stanzas is a study after the Roman poets; +but the last stanza is Jonson’s own and is very famous. You +will see that Browning was probably inspired by him, but I think +that his verses are much more beautiful in thought and feeling.</p> +<p>There is one type of ideal woman very seldom described in +poetry—the old maid, the woman whom sorrow or misfortune +prevents from fulfilling her natural destiny. Commonly the woman +who never marries is said to become cross, bad tempered, unpleasant +in character. She could not be blamed for this, I think; but there +are old maids who always remain as unselfish and frank and kind as +a girl, and who keep the charm of girlhood even when their hair is +white. Hartley <span class="pagenum"><a id="page74" name= +"page74">[74]</a></span>Coleridge, son of the great Samuel, +attempted to describe such a one, and his picture is both touching +and beautiful.</p> +<h4>The Solitary-Hearted</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She was a queen of noble Nature’s crowning,</p> +<p class="i2">A smile of hers was like an act of grace;</p> +<p>She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning,</p> +<p class="i2">Like daily beauties of the vulgar race:</p> +<p>But if she smiled, a light was on her face,</p> +<p class="i2">A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam</p> +<p>Of peaceful radiance, silvering o’er the stream</p> +<p class="i2">Of human thought with unabiding glory;</p> +<p>Not quite a waking truth, not quite a dream,</p> +<p class="i2">A visitation, bright and transitory.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But she is changed,—hath felt the touch of sorrow,</p> +<p class="i2">No love hath she, no understanding friend;</p> +<p>O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow</p> +<p class="i2">What the poor niggard earth has not to lend;</p> +<p>But when the stalk is snapt, the rose must bend.</p> +<p class="i2">The tallest flower that skyward rears its head</p> +<p>Grows from the common ground, and there must shed</p> +<p class="i2">Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely</p> +<p>That they should find so base a bridal bed,</p> +<p class="i2">Who lived in virgin pride, so sweet and purely.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>She had a brother, and a tender father,</p> +<p class="i2">And she was loved, but not as others are</p> +<p>From whom we ask return of love,—but rather</p> +<p class="i2">As one might love a dream; a phantom fair</p> +<p>Of something exquisitely strange and rare,</p> +<p class="i2">Which all were glad to look on, men and maids,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page75" name="page75">[75]</a></span> +<p>Yet no one claimed—as oft, in dewy glades,</p> +<p class="i2">The peering primrose, like a sudden gladness,</p> +<p>Gleams on the soul, yet unregarded fades;—</p> +<p class="i2">The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>’Tis vain to say—her worst of grief is only</p> +<p class="i2">The common lot, which all the world have known</p> +<p>To her ‘tis more, because her heart is lonely,</p> +<p class="i2">And yet she hath no strength to stand +alone,—</p> +<p>Once she had playmates, fancies of her own,</p> +<p class="i2">And she did love them. They are past away</p> +<p>As fairies vanish at the break of day;</p> +<p class="i2">And like a spectre of an age departed,</p> +<p>Or unsphered angel woefully astray,</p> +<p class="i2">She glides along—the solitary-hearted.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Perhaps it is scarcely possible for you to imagine that a woman +finds it impossible to marry because of being too beautiful, too +wise, and too good. In Western countries it is not impossible at +all. You must try to imagine entirely different social +conditions—conditions in which marriage depends much more +upon the person than upon the parents, much more upon inclination +than upon anything else. A woman’s chances of marriage depend +very much upon herself, upon her power of pleasing and charming. +Thousands and tens of thousands can never get married. Now there +are cases in which a woman can please too much. Men become afraid +of her. They think, “She knows too much, I dare not be frank +with her”—or, “She is too beautiful, she never +would accept <span class="pagenum"><a id="page76" name= +"page76">[76]</a></span>a common person like me”—or, +“She is too formal and correct, she would never forgive a +mistake, and I could never be happy with her.” Not only is +this possible, but it frequently happens. Too much excellence makes +a misfortune. I think you can understand it best by the reference +to the very natural prejudice against over-educated women, a +prejudice founded upon experience and existing in all countries, +even in Japan. Men are not attracted to a woman because she is +excellent at mathematics, because she knows eight or nine different +languages, because she has acquired all the conventions of +high-pressure training. Men do not care about that. They want love +and trust and kindliness and ability to make a home beautiful and +happy. Well, the poem we have been reading is very pathetic because +it describes a woman who can not fulfil her natural destiny, can +not be loved—this through no fault of her own, but quite the +reverse. To be too much advanced beyond one’s time and +environment is even a worse misfortune than to be too much +behind.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page77" name= +"page77">[77]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_4" name="Ch_4">Chapter IV</a></h3> +<h2>Note Upon the Shortest Forms of English Poetry</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Perhaps there is an idea among Japanese students that one +general difference between Japanese and Western poetry is that the +former cultivates short forms and the latter longer ones, gut this +is only in part true. It is true that short forms of poetry have +been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe; but in +all European literature short forms of poetry are to be +found—indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese. Like the +Japanese, the old Greeks, who carried poetry to the highest +perfection that it has ever attained, delighted in short forms; and +the Greek Anthology is full of compositions containing only two or +three lines. You will find beautiful translations of these in +Symonds’s “Studies of Greek Poets,” in the second +volume. Following Greek taste, the Roman poets afterwards +cultivated short forms of verse, but they chiefly used such verse +for satirical purposes, unfortunately; I say, unfortunately, +because the first great English poets who imitated the ancients +were chiefly influenced by the Latin writers, and they <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page78" name="page78">[78]</a></span>also used the +short forms for epigrammatic satire rarely for a purely esthetic +object. Ben Jonson both wrote and translated a great number of very +short stanzas—two lines and four lines; but Jonson was a +satirist in these forms. Herrick, as you know, delighted in very +short poems; but he was greatly influenced by Jonson, and many of +his couplets and of his quatrains are worthless satires or +worthless jests. However, you will find some short verses in +Herrick that almost make you think of a certain class of Japanese +poems. After the Elizabethan Age, also, the miniature poems were +still used in the fashion set by the Roman writers,—then the +eighteenth century deluged us with ill-natured witty epigrams of +the like brief form. It was not until comparatively modern times +that our Western world fully recognized the value of the distich, +triplet or quatrain for the expression of beautiful thoughts, +rather than for the expression of ill-natured ones. But now that +the recognition has come, it has been discovered that nothing is +harder than to write a beautiful poem of two or four lines. Only +great masters have been truly successful at it. Goethe, you know, +made a quatrain that has become a part of world-literature:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Who ne’er his bread in sorrow ate,—</p> +<p class="i2">Who ne’er the lonely midnight hours,</p> +<p>Weeping upon his bed has sate,</p> +<p class="i2">He knows ye not, ye Heavenly Powers!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page79" name= +"page79">[79]</a></span>—meaning, of course, that inspiration +and wisdom come to us only through sorrow, and that those who have +never suffered never can be wise. But in the universities of +England a great deal of short work of a most excellent kind has +been done in Greek and Latin; and there is the celebrated case of +an English student who won a prize by a poem of a single line. The +subject given had been the miracle of Christ’s turning water +into wine at the marriage feast; and while other scholars attempted +elaborate composition on the theme, this student wrote but one +verse, of which the English translation is</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The modest water saw its Lord, and blushed.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Of course the force of the idea depends upon the popular +conception of wine being red. The Latin and Greek model, however, +did not seem to encourage much esthetic effort in short poems of +English verse until the time of the romantic movement. Then, both +in France and England, many brief forms of poetry made their +appearance. In France, Victor Hugo attempted composition in +astonishingly varied forms of verse—some forms actually +consisting of only two syllables to a line. With this surprisingly +short measure begins one of Hugo’s most remarkably early +poems, “Les Djins,” representing the coming of evil +spirits with a storm, their passing over the house where a man is +at prayer, and departing <span class="pagenum"><a id="page80" name= +"page80">[80]</a></span>into the distance again. Beginning with +only two syllables to the line, the measure of the poem gradually +widens as the spirits approach, becomes very wide, very long and +sonorous as they reach the house, and again shrinks back to lines +of two syllables as the sound of them dies away. In England a like +variety of experiments has been made; but neither in France nor in +England has the short form yet been as successfully cultivated as +it was among the Greeks. We have some fine examples; but, as an +eminent English editor observed a few years ago, not enough +examples to make a book. And of course this means that there are +very few; for you can make a book of poetry very well with as +little as fifty pages of largely and widely printed text. However, +we may cite a few modern instances.</p> +<p>I think that about the most perfect quatrains we have are those +of the extraordinary man, Walter Savage Landor, who, you know, was +a rare Greek scholar, all his splendid English work being very +closely based upon the Greek models. He made a little epitaph upon +himself, which is matchless of its kind:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;</p> +<p class="i2">Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;</p> +<p>I warmed both hands before the fire of life:</p> +<p class="i2">It sinks; and I am ready to depart.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>You know that Greeks used the short form a <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page81" name="page81">[81]</a></span>great deal +for their exquisite epitaphs, and that a considerable part of the +anthology consists of epitaphic literature. But the quatrain has a +much wider range than this funereal limitation, and one such +example of epitaph will suffice.</p> +<p>Only one English poet of our own day, and that a minor one, has +attempted to make the poem of four lines a specialty—that is +William Watson. He has written a whole volume of such little poems, +but very few of them are successful. As I said before, we have not +enough good poems of this sort for a book; and the reason is not +because English poets despise the short form, but because it is +supremely difficult. The Greeks succeeded in it, but we are still +far behind the Greeks in the shaping of any kind of verse. The best +of Watson’s pieces take the form of philosophical +suggestions; and this kind of verse is particularly well adapted to +philosophical utterance.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Think not thy wisdom can illume away</p> +<p>The ancient tanglement of night and day.</p> +<p>Enough to acknowledge both, and both revere;</p> +<p>They see not clearliest who see all things clear.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>That is to say, do not think that any human knowledge will ever +be able to make you understand the mystery of the universe with its +darkness and light, its joy and pain. It is best to revere the +powers that make both good and evil, and to remember that the +keenest, worldly, practical minds <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page82" name="page82">[82]</a></span>are not the minds that best +perceive the great truths and mysteries of existence. Here is +another little bit, reminding us somewhat of Goethe’s +quatrain, already quoted.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Lives there whom pain hath evermore passed by</p> +<p>And sorrow shunned with an averted eye?</p> +<p>Him do thou pity,—him above the rest,</p> +<p>Him, of all hapless mortals most unblessed.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>That needs no commentary, and it contains a large truth in small +space. Here is a little bit on the subject of the artist’s +ambition, which is also good.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The thousand painful steps at last are trod,</p> +<p class="i2">At last the temple’s difficult door we win,</p> +<p>But perfect on his pedestal, the God</p> +<p class="i2">Freezes us hopeless when we enter in.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The higher that the artist climbs by effort, the nearer his +approach to the loftier truth, the more he understands how little +his very best can achieve. It is the greatest artist, he who +veritably enters the presence of God—that most feels his own +weakness; the perception of beauty that other men can not see, +terrifies him, freezes him motionless, as the poet says.</p> +<p>Out of all of Watson’s epigrams I believe these are the +best. The rest with the possible exception of those on the subject +of love seem to me altogether failures. Emerson and various +American <span class="pagenum"><a id="page83" name= +"page83">[83]</a></span>poets also attempted the quatrain—but +Emerson’s verse is nearly always bad, even when his thought +is sublime. One example of Emerson will suffice.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou canst not wave thy staff in air,</p> +<p class="i2">Or dip thy paddle in the lake,</p> +<p>But it carves the bow of beauty there,</p> +<p class="i2">And the ripples in rhyme the oar forsake.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The form is atrociously bad; but the reflection is +grand—it is another way of expressing the beautiful old Greek +thought that “God <em>geometrizes</em> +everywhere”—that is, that all motion is in geometrical +lines, and full of beauty. You can pick hundreds of fine things in +very short verse out of Emerson, but the verse is nearly always +shapeless; the composition of the man invariably makes us think of +diamonds in the rough, jewels uncut. So far as form goes a much +better master of quatrain is the American poet Aldrich, who wrote +the following little thing, entitled “Popularity.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Such kings of shreds have wooed and won her,</p> +<p class="i2">Such crafty knaves her laurel owned,</p> +<p>It has become almost an honour</p> +<p class="i2">Not to be crowned.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is good verse. The reference to “a king of shreds and +patches”—that is, a beggar king—you will +recognize as Shakespearean. But although this pretty verse has in +it more philosophy than satire, it approaches the satiric class of +epigrams. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page84" name= +"page84">[84]</a></span>Neither America nor England has been able +to do very much in the sort of verse that we have been talking +about. Now this is a very remarkable thing,—because at the +English universities beautiful work has been done in Greek or +Latin—in poems of a single line, of two lines, of three lines +and other very brief measures. Why can it not be done in English? I +suspect that it is because our English language has not yet become +sufficiently perfect, sufficiently flexible, sufficiently melodious +to allow of great effect with a very few words. We can do the thing +in Greek or in Latin because either Greek or Latin is a more +perfect language.</p> +<p>So much for theory. I should like to suggest, however, that it +is very probable many attempts at these difficult forms of poetry +will be attempted by English poets within the next few years. There +is now a tendency in that direction. I do not know whether such +attempts will be successful; but I should like you to understand +that for Western poets they are extremely difficult and that you +ought to obtain from the recognition of this fact a new sense of +the real value of your own short forms of verse in the hands of a +master. Effects can be produced in Japanese which the Greeks could +produce with few syllables, but which the English can not. Now it +strikes me that, instead of even thinking of throwing away old +forms of verse in order to invent new ones, the future Japanese +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page85" name= +"page85">[85]</a></span>poets ought rather to develop and cultivate +and prize the forms already existing, which belong to the genius of +the language, and which have proved themselves capable of much that +no English verse or even French verse could accomplish. Perhaps +only the Italian is really comparable to Japanese in some respects; +you can perform miracles with Italian verse.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page86" name= +"page86">[86]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_5" name="Ch_5">Chapter V</a></h3> +<h2>Some Foreign Poems on Japanese Subjects</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>The Western poet and writer of romance has exactly the same kind +of difficulty in comprehending Eastern subjects as you have in +comprehending Western subjects. You will commonly find references +to Japanese love poems of the popular kind made in such a way as to +indicate the writer’s belief that such poems refer to married +life or at least to a courtship relation. No Western writer who has +not lived for many years in the East, could write correctly about +anything on this subject; and even after a long stay in the country +he might be unable to understand. Therefore a great deal of Western +poetry written about Japan must seem to you all wrong, and I can +not hope to offer you many specimens of work in this direction that +could deserve your praise. Yet there is some poetry so fine on the +subject of Japan that I think you would admire it and I am sure +that you should know it. A proof of really great art is that it is +generally true—it seldom falls into the misapprehensions to +which minor art is liable. What do you think of the fact that the +finest poetry ever written upon a Japanese subject by any Western +poet, has been written by a man who never saw <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page87" name="page87">[87]</a></span>the land? But +he is a member of the French Academy, a great and true lover of +art, and without a living superior in that most difficult form of +poetry, the sonnet. In the time of thirty years he produced only +one very small volume of sonnets, but so fine are these that they +were lifted to the very highest place in poetical distinction. I +may say that there are now only three really great French +poets—survivals of the grand romantic school. These are +Leconte de Lisle, Sully-Prudhomme, and José Maria de +Heredia. It is the last of whom I am speaking. As you can tell by +his name, he is not a Frenchman either by birth or blood, but a +Spaniard, or rather a Spanish Creole, born in Cuba. Heredia knows +Japan only through pictures, armour, objects of art in museums, +paintings and carvings. Remembering this, I think that you will +find that he does wonderfully well. It is true that he puts a woman +in one of his pictures, but I think that his management of his +subject is very much nearer the truth than that of almost any +writer who has attempted to describe old Japan. And you must +understand that the following sonnet is essentially intended to be +a picture—to produce upon the mind exactly the same effect +that a picture does, with the addition of such life as poetry can +give.</p> +<h3>Le Samourai</h3> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>D’un doigt distrait frôlant la sonore +bîva,</p> +<p>A travers les bambous tressés en fine latte,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page88" name="page88">[88]</a></span> +<p>Elle a vu, par la plage éblouissante et plate,</p> +<p>S’avancer le vainqueur que son amour rêva.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>C’est lui. Sabres au flanc, l’éventail haut, +il va.</p> +<p>La cordelière rouge et le gland écarlate</p> +<p>Coupent l’armure sombre, et, sur l’épaule, +éclate</p> +<p>Le blazon de Hizen ou de Tokungawa.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ce beau guerrier vêtu de lames et de plaques,</p> +<p>Sous le bronze, la soie et les brillantes laques,</p> +<p>Semble un crustace noir, gigantesque et vermeil.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Il l’a vue. Il sourit dans la barbe du masque,</p> +<p>Et son pas plus hâtif fait reluire au soleil</p> +<p>Les deux antennes d’or qui tremblent à son +casque.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>“Lightly touching her <em>biva</em> with heedless finger, +she has perceived, through the finely woven bamboo screen, the +conqueror, lovingly thought of, approach over the dazzling level of +the beach.</p> +<p>“It is he. With his swords at his side he advances, +holding up his fan. The red girdle and the scarlet tassel appear in +sharply cut relief against the dark armour; and upon his shoulder +glitters a crest of Hizen or of Tokungawa.</p> +<p>“This handsome warrior sheathed with his scales and plates +of metal, under his bronze, his silk and glimmering lacquer, seems +a crustacean, gigantic, black and vermilion.</p> +<p>“He has caught sight of her. Under the beaver of the war +mask he smiles, and his quickened step <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page89" name="page89">[89]</a></span>makes to glitter in the sun +the two antennæ of gold that quiver upon his +helmet.”</p> +<p>The comparison of a warrior in full armour to a gigantic crab or +lobster, especially lobster, is not exactly new. Victor Hugo has +used it before in French literature, just as Carlyle has used it in +English literature; indeed the image could not fail to occur to the +artist in any country where the study of armour has been carried +on. But here the poet does not speak of any particular creature; he +uses only the generic term, crustacean, the vagueness of which +makes the comparison much more effective. I think you can see the +whole picture at once. It is a Japanese colour-print,—some +ancient interior, lighted by the sun of a great summer day; and a +woman looking through a bamboo blind toward the seashore, where she +sees a warrior approaching. He divines that he is seen; but if he +smiles, it is only because the smile is hidden by his iron mask. +The only sign of any sentiment on his part is that he walks a +little quicker. Still more amazing is a companion picture, +containing only a solitary figure:</p> +<h3>Le Daimio (Matin de bataille)</h3> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Sous le noir fouet de guerre à quadruple pompon,</p> +<p>L’étalon belliqueux en hennissant se cabre,</p> +<p>Et fait bruire, avec de cliquetis de sabre,</p> +<p>La cuirasse de bronze aux lames du jupon.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page90" name= +"page90">[90]</a></span> +<p>Le Chef vêtu d’airain, de laque et de +crépon,</p> +<p>Otant le masque à poils de son visage glabre,</p> +<p>Regarde le volcan sur un ciel de cinabre</p> +<p>Dresser la neige où rit l’aurore du Nippon.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Mais il a vu, vers l’Est éclaboussé +d’or, l’astre,</p> +<p>Glorieux d’éclairer ce matin de +désastre,</p> +<p>Poindre, orbe éblouissant, au-dessus de la mer;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Et pour couvrir ses yeux dont pas un cil ne bouge,</p> +<p>Il ouvre d’un seul coup son éventail de fer,</p> +<p>Où dans le satin blanc se lève un Soleil +rouge.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>“Under the black war whip with its quadruple pompon the +fierce stallion, whinnying, curvets, and makes the rider’s +bronze cuirass ring against the plates of his shirt of mail, with a +sound like the clashing of sword blades.</p> +<p>“The Chief, clad in bronze and lacquer and silken crape, +removing the bearded masque from his beardless face, turns his gaze +to the great volcano, lifting its snows into the cinnabar sky where +the dawn of Nippon begins to smile.</p> +<p>“Nay! he has already seen the gold-spattered day star, +gloriously illuminating the morning of disaster, rise, a blinding +disk, above the seas. And to shade his eyes, on both of which not +even a single eyelash stirs, he opens with one quick movement his +iron fan, wherein upon a field of white satin there rises a crimson +sun.”</p> +<p>Of course this hasty translation is very poor; and you can only +get from it the signification and <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page91" name="page91">[91]</a></span>colour of the +picture—the beautiful sonority and luminosity of the French +is all gone. Nevertheless, I am sure that the more you study the +original the more you will see how fine it is. Here also is a +Japanese colour print. We see the figure of the horseman on the +shore, in the light of dawn; behind him the still dark sky of +night; before him the crimson dawn, and Fuji white against the red +sky. And in the open fan, with its red sun, we have a grim +suggestion of the day of blood that is about to be; that is all. +But whoever reads that sonnet will never forget it; it burns into +the memory. So, indeed, does everything that Heredia writes. +Unfortunately he has not yet written anything more about Japan.</p> +<p>I have quoted Heredia because I think that no other poet has +even approached him in the attempt to make a Japanese +picture—though many others have tried; and the French, nearly +always, have done much better than the English, because they are +more naturally artists. Indeed one must be something of an artist +to write anything in the way of good poetry on a Japanese subject. +If you look at the collection “Poems of Places,” in the +library, you will see how poorly Japan is there represented; the +only respectable piece of foreign work being by Longfellow, and +that is only about Japanese vases. But since then some English +poems have appeared which are at least worthy of Japanese +notice.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page92" name= +"page92">[92]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_6" name="Ch_6">Chapter VI</a></h3> +<h2>The Bible in English Literature</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to +Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it +will have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the +written and spoken language of the English race. For this reason, +to study English literature without some general knowledge of the +relation of the Bible to that literature would be to leave +one’s literary education very incomplete. It is not necessary +to consider the work from a religious point of view at all; indeed, +to so consider it would be rather a hindrance to the understanding +of its literary excellence. Some persons have ventured to say that +it is only since Englishmen ceased to believe in the Bible that +they began to discover how beautiful it was. This is not altogether +true; but it is partly true. For it is one thing to consider every +word of a book as the word of God or gods, and another thing to +consider it simply as the work of men like ourselves. Naturally we +should think it our duty to suppose the work of a divine being +perfect in itself, and to imagine beauty and truth where neither +really exists. The wonder of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page93" +name="page93">[93]</a></span>the English Bible can really be best +appreciated by those who, knowing it to be the work of men much +less educated and cultivated than the scholars of the nineteenth +century, nevertheless perceive that those men were able to do in +literature what no man of our own day could possibly do.</p> +<p>Of course in considering the work of the translators, we must +remember the magnificence of the original. I should not like to say +that the Bible is the greatest of all religious books. From the +moral point of view it contains very much that we can not to-day +approve of; and what is good in it can be found in the sacred books +of other nations. Its ethics can not even claim to be absolutely +original. The ancient Egyptian scriptures contain beauties almost +superior in moral exaltation to anything contained in the Old +Testament; and the sacred books of other Eastern nations, notably +the sacred books of India, surpass the Hebrew scriptures in the +highest qualities of imagination and of profound thought. It is +only of late years that Europe, through the labour of Sanskrit and +Pali scholars, has become acquainted with the astonishing beauty of +thought and feeling which Indian scholars enshrined in scriptures +much more voluminous than the Hebrew Bible; and it is not +impossible that this far-off literature will some day influence +European thought quite as much as the Jewish Bible. Everywhere +to-day in Europe and America the study of <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page94" name="page94">[94]</a></span>Buddhist and +Sanskrit literature is being pursued not only with eagerness but +with enthusiasm—an enthusiasm which sometimes reaches to +curious extremes. I might mention, in example, the case of a rich +man who recently visited Japan on his way from India. He had in New +Zealand a valuable property; he was a man of high culture, and of +considerable social influence. One day he happened to read an +English translation of the “Bhagavad-Gita.” Almost +immediately he resolved to devote the rest of his life to religious +study in India, in a monastery among the mountains; and he gave up +wealth, friends, society, everything that Western civilization +could offer him, in order to seek truth in a strange country. +Certainly this is not the only instance of the kind; and while such +incidents can happen, we may feel sure that the influence of +religious literature is not likely to die for centuries to +come.</p> +<p>But every great scripture, whether Hebrew, Indian, Persian, or +Chinese, apart from its religious value will be found to have some +rare and special beauty of its own; and in this respect the +original Bible stands very high as a monument of sublime poetry and +of artistic prose. If it is not the greatest of religious books as +a literary creation, it is at all events one of the greatest; and +the proof is to be found in the inspiration which millions and +hundreds of millions, dead and living, have obtained from its +utterances. The Semitic <span class="pagenum"><a id="page95" name= +"page95">[95]</a></span>races have always possessed in a very high +degree the genius of poetry, especially poetry in which imagination +plays a great part; and the Bible is the monument of Semitic genius +in this regard. Something in the serious, stern, and reverential +spirit of the genius referred to made a particular appeal to +Western races having certain characteristics of the same kind. +Themselves uncultivated in the time that the Bible was first made +known to them, they found in it almost everything that they thought +and felt, expressed in a much better way than they could have +expressed it. Accordingly the Northern races of Europe found their +inspiration in the Bible; and the enthusiasm for it has not yet +quite faded away.</p> +<p>But the value of the original, be it observed, did not make the +value of the English Bible. Certainly it was an inspiring force; +but it was nothing more. The English Bible is perhaps a much +greater piece of fine literature, altogether considered, than the +Hebrew Bible. It was so for a particular reason which it is very +necessary for the student to understand. The English Bible is a +product of literary evolution.</p> +<p>In studying English criticisms upon different authors, I think +that you must have sometimes felt impatient with the critics who +told you, for example, that Tennyson was partly inspired by +Wordsworth and partly by Keats and partly by Coleridge; and that +Coleridge was partly inspired <span class="pagenum"><a id="page96" +name="page96">[96]</a></span>by Blake and Blake by the +Elizabethans, and so on. You may have been tempted to say, as I +used very often myself to say, “What does it matter where the +man got his ideas from? I care only for the beauty that is in his +work, not for a history of his literary education.” But +to-day the value of the study of such relations appears in quite a +new light. Evolutional philosophy, applied to the study of +literature as to everything else, has shown us conclusively that +man is not a god who can make something out of nothing, and that +every great work of genius must depend even less upon the man of +genius himself than upon the labours of those who lived before him. +Every great author must draw his thoughts and his knowledge in part +from other great authors, and these again from previous authors, +and so on back, till we come to that far time in which there was no +written literature, but only verses learned by heart and memorized +by all the people of some one tribe or place, and taught by them to +their children and to their grandchildren. It is only in Greek +mythology that the divinity of Wisdom leaps out of a god’s +head, in full armour. In the world of reality the more beautiful a +work of art, the longer, we may be sure, was the time required to +make it, and the greater the number of different minds which +assisted in its development.</p> +<p>So with the English Bible. No one man could have made the +translation of 1611. No one generation <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page97" name="page97">[97]</a></span>of men could have done it. It +was not the labour of a single century. It represented the work of +hundreds of translators working through hundreds of years, each +succeeding generation improving a little upon the work of the +previous generation, until in the seventeenth century the best had +been done of which the English brain and the English language was +capable. In no other way can the surprising beauties of style and +expression be explained. No subsequent effort could improve the +Bible of King James. Every attempt made since the seventeenth +century has only resulted in spoiling and deforming the strength +and the beauty of the authorized text.</p> +<p>Now you will understand why, from the purely literary point of +view, the English Bible is of the utmost importance for study. +Suppose we glance for a moment at the principal events in the +history of this evolution.</p> +<p>The first translation of the Bible into a Western tongue was +that made by Jerome (commonly called Saint Jerome) in the fourth +century; he translated directly from the Hebrew and other Arabic +languages into Latin, then the language of the Empire. This +translation into Latin was called the Vulgate,—from +<em>vulgare</em>, “to make generally known.” The +Vulgate is still used in the Roman church. The first English +translations which have been preserved to us were made from the +Vulgate, not from the original tongues. <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page98" name="page98">[98]</a></span> First of +all, John Wycliffe’s Bible may be called the foundation of +the seventeenth century Bible. Wycliffe’s translation, in +which he was helped by many others, was published between 1380 and +1388. So we may say that the foundation of the English Bible dates +from the fourteenth century, one thousand years after +Jerome’s Latin translation. But Wycliffe’s version, +excellent as it was, could not serve very long: the English +language was changing too quickly. Accordingly, in the time of +Henry VIII Tyndale and Coverdale, with many others, made a new +translation, this time not from the Vulgate, but from the Greek +text of the great scholar Erasmus. This was the most important +literary event of the time, for “it coloured the entire +complexion of subsequent English prose,”—to use the +words of Professor Gosse. This means that all prose in English +written since Henry VIII has been influenced, directly or +indirectly, by the prose of Tyndale’s Bible, which was +completed about 1535. Almost at the same time a number of English +divines, under the superintendence of Archbishop Cramner, gave to +the English language a literary treasure scarcely inferior to the +Bible itself, and containing wonderful translations from the +Scriptures,—the “Book of Common Prayer.” No +English surpasses the English of this book, still used by the +Church; and many translators have since found new inspiration from +it.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page99" name= +"page99">[99]</a></span>A revision of this famous Bible was made in +1565, entitled “The Bishops’ Bible.” The cause of +the revision was largely doctrinal, and we need not trouble +ourselves about this translation farther than to remark that +Protestantism was reshaping the Scriptures to suit the new state +religion. Perhaps this edition may have had something to do with +the determination of the Roman Catholics to make an English Bible +of their own. The Jesuits began the work in 1582 at Rheims, and by +1610 the Roman Catholic version known as the Douay (or Douai) +version—because of its having been made chiefly at the +Catholic College of Douai in France—was completed. This +version has many merits; next to the wonderful King James version, +it is certainly the most poetical; and it has the further advantage +of including a number of books which Protestantism has thrown out +of the authorized version, but which have been used in the Roman +church since its foundation. But I am speaking of the book only as +a literary English production. It was not made with the help of +original sources; its merits are simply those of a melodious +translation from the Latin Vulgate.</p> +<p>At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, +the famous King James version; and this is the great literary +monument of the English language. It was the work of many learned +men; but the chief worker and supervisor <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page100" name="page100">[100]</a></span>was the +Bishop of Winchester, Lancelot Andrews, perhaps the most eloquent +English preacher that ever lived. He was a natural-born orator, +with an exquisite ear for the cadences of language. To this natural +faculty of the Bishop’s can be attributed much of the musical +charm of the English in which the Bible was written. Still, it must +not be supposed that he himself did all the work, or even more than +a small proportion of it. What he did was to tone it; he overlooked +and corrected all the text submitted to him, and suffered only the +best forms to survive. Yet what magnificent material he had to +choose from! All the translations of the Bible that had been made +before his time were carefully studied with a view to the +conservation of the best phrases, both for sound and for form. We +must consider the result not merely as a study of literature in +itself, but also as a study of eloquence; for every attention was +given to those effects to be expected from an oratorical recitation +of the text in public.</p> +<p>This marks the end of the literary evolution of the Bible. +Everything that has since been done has only been in the direction +of retrogression, of injury to the text. We have now a great many +later versions, much more scholarly, so far as correct scholarship +is concerned, than the King James version, but none having any +claim to literary importance. Unfortunately, exact scholars are +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page101" name= +"page101">[101]</a></span>very seldom men of literary ability; the +two faculties are rarely united. The Bible of 1870, known as the +Oxford Bible, and now used in the Anglican state-church, evoked a +great protest from the true men of letters, the poets and critics +who had found their inspirations in the useful study of the old +version. The new version was the work of fourteen years; it was +made by the united labour of the greatest scholars in the +English-speaking world; and it is far the most exact translation +that we have. Nevertheless the literary quality has been injured to +such an extent that no one will ever turn to the new revision for +poetical study. Even among the churches there was a decided +condemnation of this scholarly treatment of the old text; and many +of the churches refused to use the book. In this case, conservatism +is doing the literary world a service, keeping the old King James +version in circulation, and insisting especially upon its use in +Sunday schools.</p> +<p>We may now take a few examples of the differences between the +revised version and the Bible of King James. Professor Saintsbury, +in an essay upon English prose, published some years ago, said that +the most perfect piece of English prose in the language was that +comprised in the sixth and seventh verses of the eighth chapter of +the Song of Songs:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page102" name="page102">[pg +102]</a></span>Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon +thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the +grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most +vehement flame.</p> +<p>Many waters can not quench love, neither can the floods drown +it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it +would utterly be condemned.</p> +</div> +<p>I should not like to say that the Professor is certainly right +in calling this the finest prose in the English language; but he is +a very great critic, whose opinion must be respected and +considered, and the passage is certainly very fine. But in the +revised version, how tame the same text has become in the hands of +the scholarly translators!</p> +<div class="quote">The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very +flame of the Lord.</div> +<p>Now as a description of jealousy, not to speak of the literary +execution at all, which is the best? What, we may ask, has been +gained by calling jealousy “a flame of the Lord” or by +substituting the word “flashes” for “coals of +fire”? All through the new version are things of this kind. +For example, in the same Song of Songs there is a beautiful +description of eyes, like “doves by the rivers of waters, +washed with milk, and fitly set.” By substituting +“rivers” only for “rivers of waters” the +text may have gained in exactness, but it has lost immeasurably, +both in poetry and in sound. Far more poetical is the verse as +given in the Douai version: “His eyes are as doves upon +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page103" name= +"page103">[103]</a></span>brooks of waters, which are washed with +milk, and sit beside the beautiful streams.”</p> +<p>It may even be said without any question that the mistakes of +the old translators were often much more beautiful than the +original. A splendid example is given in the verse of Job, chapter +twenty-six, verse thirteen: “By his spirit he hath garnished +the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.” By +the crooked serpent was supposed to be signified the grand +constellation called <em>Draco</em>, or the Dragon. And the figure +is sublime. It is still more sublime in the Douai translation. +“His obstetric hand hath brought forth the Winding +Serpent.” This is certainly a grand imagination—the +hand of God, like the hand of a midwife, bringing forth a +constellation out of the womb of the eternal night. But in the +revised version, which is exact, we have only “His hand hath +pierced the Swift Serpent!” All the poetry is dead.</p> +<p>There are two methods for the literary study of any +book—the first being the study of its thought and emotion; +the second only that of its workmanship. A student of literature +should study some of the Bible from both points of view. In +attempting the former method he will do well to consider many works +of criticism, but for the study of the text as literature, his duty +is very plain—the King James version is the only one that +ought to form the basis of his study, though he <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page104" name="page104">[104]</a></span>should +look at the Douai version occasionally. Also he should have a book +of references, such as Cruden’s Concordance, by help of which +he can collect together in a few moments all the texts upon any +particular subject, such as the sea, the wind, the sky, human life, +the shadows of evening. The study of the Bible is not one which I +should recommend to very young Japanese students, because of the +quaintness of the English. Before a good knowledge of English forms +is obtained, the archaisms are apt to affect the students’ +mode of expression. But for the advanced student of literature, I +should say that some knowledge of the finest books in the Bible is +simply indispensable. The important books to read are not many. But +one should read at least the books of Genesis, Exodus, Ruth, +Esther, the Song of Songs, Proverbs,—and, above all, Job. Job +is certainly the grandest book in the Bible; but all of those which +I have named are books that have inspired poets and writers in all +departments of English literature to such an extent that you can +scarcely read a masterpiece in which there is not some conscious or +unconscious reference to them. Another book of philosophical +importance is Ecclesiastes, where, in addition to much proverbial +wisdom, you will find some admirable world-poetry—that is, +poetry which contains universal truth about human life in all times +and all ages. Of the historical books and the law books I do not +think that it is <span class="pagenum"><a id="page105" name= +"page105">[105]</a></span>important to read much; the literary +element in these is not so pronounced. It is otherwise with the +prophetic books, but here in order to obtain a few jewels of +expression, you have to read a great deal that is of little value. +Of the New Testament there is very little equal to the Old in +literary value; indeed, I should recommend the reading only of the +closing book—the book called the Revelation, or the +Apocalypse, from which we have derived a literary adjective +“apocalyptic,” to describe something at once very +terrible and very grand. Whether one understands the meaning of +this mysterious text makes very little difference; the sonority and +the beauty of its sentences, together with the tremendous character +of its imagery, can not but powerfully influence mind and ear, and +thus stimulate literary taste. At least two of the great prose +writers of the nineteenth century, Carlyle and Ruskin, have been +vividly influenced by the book of the Revelation. Every period of +English literature shows some influence of Bible study, even from +the old Anglo-Saxon days; and during the present year, the study +has so little slackened that one constantly sees announcements of +new works upon the literary elements of the Bible. Perhaps one of +the best is Professor Moulton’s “Modern Reader’s +Bible,” in which the literary side of the subject receives +better consideration than in any other work of the kind published +for general use.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page106" name= +"page106">[106]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_7" name="Ch_7">Chapter VII</a></h3> +<h2>The “Havamal”</h2> +<h3>Old Northern Ethics of Life</h3> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Then from his lips in music rolled</p> +<p>The Havamal of Odin old,</p> +<p>With sounds mysterious as the roar</p> +<p>Of billows on a distant shore.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Perhaps many of you who read this little verse in +Longfellow’s “Saga of King Olaf” have wished to +know what was this wonderful song that the ghost of the god sang to +the king. I am afraid that you would be very disappointed in some +respects by the “Havamal.” There is indeed a magical +song in it; and it is this magical song especially that Longfellow +refers to, a song of charms. But most of the “Havamal” +is a collection of ethical teaching. All that has been preserved by +it has been published and translated by Professors Vigfusson and +Powell. It is very old—perhaps the oldest Northern literature +that we have. I am going to attempt a short lecture upon it, +because it is very closely related to the subject of Northern +character, and will help us, perhaps better than almost anything +else, to understand how the ancestors of the English felt +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page107" name= +"page107">[107]</a></span>and thought before they became +Christians. Nor is this all. I venture to say that the character of +the modern English people still retains much more of the quality +indicated by the “Havamal” than of the quality implied +by Christianity. The old Northern gods are not dead; they rule a +very great part of the world to-day.</p> +<p>The proverbial philosophy of a people helps us to understand +more about them than any other kind of literature. And this sort of +literature is certainly among the oldest. It represents only the +result of human experience in society, the wisdom that men get by +contact with each other, the results of familiarity with right and +wrong. By studying the proverbs of a people, you can always make a +very good guess as to whether you could live comfortably among them +or not.</p> +<p>Froude, in one of his sketches of travel in Norway, made the +excellent observation that if we could suddenly go back to the time +of the terrible sea-kings, if we could revisit to-day the homes of +the old Northern pirates, and find them exactly as they were one +thousand or fifteen hundred years ago, we should find them very +much like the modern Englishmen—big, simple, silent men, +concealing a great deal of shrewdness under an aspect of +simplicity. The teachings of the “Havamal” give great +force to this supposition. The book must have been known in some +form to the early English—or at least the verses composing it +(it is all <span class="pagenum"><a id="page108" name= +"page108">[108]</a></span>written in verse); and as I have already +said, the morals of the old English, as well as their character, +differed very little from those of the men of the still further +North, with whom they mingled and intermarried freely, both before +and after the Danish conquest, when for one moment England and +Sweden were one kingdom.</p> +<p>Of course you must remember that Northern society was a very +terrible thing in some ways. Every man carried his life in his +hands; every farmer kept sword and spear at his side even in his +own fields; and every man expected to die fighting. In fact, among +the men of the more savage North—the men of Norway in +especial—it was considered a great disgrace to die of +sickness, to die on one’s bed. That was not to die like a +man. Men would go out and get themselves killed, when they felt old +age or sickness coming on. But these facts must not blind us to the +other fact that there was even in that society a great force of +moral cohesion, and sound principles of morality. If there had not +been, it could not have existed; much less could the people who +lived under it have become the masters of a great part of the +world, which they are at the present day. There was, in spite of +all that fierceness, much kindness and good nature among them; +there were rules of conduct such as no man could find fault +with—rules which still govern English society to some extent. +And there was opportunity enough <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page109" name="page109">[109]</a></span>for social amusement, +social enjoyment, and the winning of public esteem by a noble +life.</p> +<p>Still, even in the “Havamal,” one is occasionally +startled by teachings which show the darker side of Northern life, +a life of perpetual vendetta. As in old Japan, no man could live +under the same heaven with the murderer of his brother or father; +vengeance was a duty even in the case of a friend. On the subject +of enemies the “Havamal” gives not a little curious +advice:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>A man should never step a foot beyond his weapons; for he can +never tell where, on his path without, he may need his spear.</p> +<p>A man, before he goes into a house, should look to and espy all +the doorways (<em>so that he can find his way out quickly +again</em>), for he can never know where foes may be sitting in +another man’s house.</p> +</div> +<p>Does not this remind us of the Japanese proverb that everybody +has three enemies outside of his own door? But the meaning of the +“Havamal” teaching is much more sinister. And when the +man goes into the house, he is still told to be extremely +watchful—to keep his ears and eyes open so that he may not be +taken by surprise:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>The wary guest keeps watchful silence; he listens with his ears +and peers about with his eyes; thus does every wise man look about +him.</p> +</div> +<p>One would think that men must have had very strong nerves to +take comfort under such circumstances, <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page110" name="page110">[110]</a></span>but the poet tells us that +the man who can enjoy nothing must be both a coward and a fool. +Although a man was to keep watch to protect his life, that was not +a reason why he should be afraid of losing it. There were but three +things of which a man should be particularly afraid. The first was +drink—because drink often caused a man to lose control of his +temper; the second was another man’s wife—repeatedly +the reader is warned never to make love to another man’s +wife; and the third was thieves—men who would pretend +friendship for the purpose of killing and stealing, The man who +could keep constant watch over himself and his surroundings was, of +course, likely to have the longest life.</p> +<p>Now in all countries there is a great deal of ethical teaching, +and always has been, on the subject of speech. The +“Havamal” is full of teaching on this subject—the +necessity of silence, the danger and the folly of reckless talk. +You all know the Japanese proverb that “the mouth is the +front gate of all misfortune.” The Norse poet puts the same +truth into a grimmer shape: “The tongue works death to the +head.” Here are a number of sayings on this subject:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>He that is never silent talks much folly; a glib tongue, unless +it be bridled, will often talk a man into trouble.</p> +<p>Do not speak three angry words with a worse man; for often the +better man falls by the worse man’s sword.</p> +<p>Smile thou in the face of the man thou trusteth not, and speak +against thy mind.</p> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page111" name= +"page111">[111]</a></span>This is of course a teaching of cunning; +but it is the teaching, however immoral, that rules in English +society to-day. In the old Norse, however, there were many reasons +for avoiding a quarrel whenever possible—reasons which must +have existed also in feudal Japan. A man might not care about +losing his own life; but he had to be careful not to stir up a feud +that might go on for a hundred years. Although there was a great +deal of killing, killing always remained a serious matter, because +for every killing there had to be a vengeance. It is true that the +law exonerated the man who killed another, if he paid a certain +blood-price; murder was not legally considered an unpardonable +crime. But the family of the dead man would very seldom be +satisfied with a payment; they would want blood for blood. +Accordingly men had to be very cautious about quarreling, however +brave they might personally be.</p> +<p>But all this caution about silence and about watchfulness did +not mean that a man should be unable to speak to the purpose when +speech was required. “A wise man,” says the +“Havamal,” “should be able both to ask and to +answer.” There is a proverb which you know, to the effect +that you can not shut the door upon another man’s mouth. So +says the Norse poet: “The sons of men can keep silence about +nothing that passes among men; therefore a man should be able to +take his own part, prudently and strongly.” Says <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page112" name="page112">[112]</a></span>the +“Havamal”: “A fool thinks he knows everything if +he sits snug in his little corner; but he is at a loss for words if +the people put to him a question.” Elsewhere it is said: +“Arch dunce is he who can speak nought, for that is the mark +of a fool.” And the sum of all this teaching about the tongue +is that men should never speak without good reason, and then should +speak to the point strongly and wisely.</p> +<p>On the subject of fools there is a great deal in the +“Havamal”; but you must understand always by the word +fool, in the Northern sense, a man of weak character who knows not +what to do in time of difficulty. That was a fool among those men, +and a dangerous fool; for in such a state of society mistakes in +act or in speech might reach to terrible consequences. See these +little observations about fools:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Open-handed, bold-hearted men live most happily, they never feel +care; but a fool troubles himself about everything. The niggard +pines for gifts.</p> +<p>A fool is awake all night, worrying about everything; when the +morning comes he is worn out, and all his troubles are just the +same as before.</p> +<p>A fool thinks that all who smile upon him are his friends, not +knowing, when he is with wise men, who there may be plotting +against him.</p> +<p>If a fool gets a drink, all his mind is immediately +displayed.</p> +</div> +<p>But it was not considered right for a man not <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page113" name="page113">[113]</a></span>to drink, +although drink was a dangerous thing. On the contrary, not to drink +would have been thought a mark of cowardice and of incapacity for +self-control. A man was expected even to get drunk if necessary, +and to keep his tongue and his temper no matter how much he drank. +The strong character would only become more cautious and more +silent under the influence of drink; the weak man would immediately +show his weakness. I am told the curious fact that in the English +army at the present day officers are expected to act very much +after the teaching of the old Norse poet; a man is expected to be +able on occasion to drink a considerable amount of wine or spirits +without showing the effects of it, either in his conduct or in his +speech. “Drink thy share of mead; speak fair or not at +all”—that was the old text, and a very sensible one in +its way.</p> +<p>Laughter was also condemned, if indulged in without very good +cause. “The miserable man whose mind is warped laughs at +everything, not knowing what he ought to know, that he himself has +no lack of faults.” I need scarcely tell you that the English +are still a very serious people, not disposed to laugh nearly so +much as are the men of the more sympathetic Latin races. You will +remember perhaps Lord Chesterfield’s saying that since he +became a man no man had ever seen him laugh. I remember about +twenty years ago that there was published by some Englishman a very +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page114" name= +"page114">[114]</a></span>learned and very interesting little book, +called “The Philosophy of Laughter,” in which it was +gravely asserted that all laughter was foolish. I must acknowledge, +however, that no book ever made me laugh more than the volume in +question.</p> +<p>The great virtue of the men of the North, according to the +“Havamal,” was indeed the virtue which has given to the +English race its present great position among nations,—the +simplest of all virtues, common sense. But common sense means much +more than the words might imply to the Japanese students, or to any +one unfamiliar with English idioms. Common sense, or mother-wit, +means natural intelligence, as opposed to, and independent of, +cultivated or educated intelligence. It means inherited knowledge; +and inherited knowledge may take even the form of genius. It means +foresight. It means intuitive knowledge of other people’s +character. It means cunning as well as broad comprehension. And the +modern Englishman, in all times and in all countries, trusts +especially to this faculty, which is very largely developed in the +race to which he belongs. No Englishman believes in working from +book learning. He suspects all theories, philosophical or other. He +suspects everything new, and dislikes it, unless he can be +compelled by the force of circumstances to see that this new thing +has advantages over the old. Race-experience is what he invariably +depends upon, whenever he can, whether in India, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page115" name="page115">[115]</a></span>in Egypt, +or in Australia. His statesmen do not consult historical precedents +in order to decide what to do: they first learn the facts as they +are; then they depend upon their own common sense, not at all upon +their university learning or upon philosophical theories. And in +the case of the English nation, it must be acknowledged that this +instinctive method has been eminently successful. When the +“Havamal” speaks of wisdom it means mother-wit, and +nothing else; indeed, there was no reading or writing to speak of +in those times:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>No man can carry better baggage on his journey than wisdom.</p> +<p>There is no better friend than great common sense.</p> +</div> +<p>But the wise man should not show himself to be wise without +occasion. He should remember that the majority of men are not wise, +and he should be careful not to show his superiority over them +unnecessarily. Neither should be despise men who do not happen to +be as wise as himself:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>No man is so good but there is a flaw in him, nor so bad as to +be good for nothing.</p> +<p>Middling wise should every man be; never overwise. Those who +know many things rarely lead the happiest life.</p> +<p>Middling wise should every man be; never overwise. No man should +know his fate beforehand; so shall he live freest from care.</p> +<p>Middling wise should every man be, never too wise. A wise +man’s heart is seldom glad, if its owner be a true sage.</p> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page116" name= +"page116">[116]</a></span>This is the ancient wisdom also of +Solomon “He that increases wisdom increases sorrow.” +But how very true as worldly wisdom these little Northern sentences +are. That a man who knows a little of many things, and no one thing +perfectly, is the happiest man—this certainly is even more +true to-day than it was a thousand years ago. Spencer has well +observed that the man who can influence his generation, is never +the man greatly in advance of his time, but only the man who is +very slightly better than his fellows. The man who is very superior +is likely to be ignored or disliked. Mediocrity can not help +disliking superiority; and as the old Northern sage declared, +“the average of men is but moiety.” Moiety does not +mean necessarily mediocrity, but also that which is below +mediocrity. What we call in England to-day, as Matthew Arnold +called it, the Philistine element, continues to prove in our own +time, to almost every superior man, the danger of being too +wise.</p> +<p>Interesting in another way, and altogether more agreeable, are +the old sayings about friendship: “Know this, if thou hast a +trusty friend, go and see him often; because a road which is seldom +trod gets choked with brambles and high grass.”</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Be not thou the first to break off from thy friend. Sorrow will +eat thy heart if thou lackest the friend to open thy heart to.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page117" name= +"page117">[117]</a></span>Anything is better than to be false; he +is no friend who only speaks to please.</p> +</div> +<p>Which means, of course, that a true friend is not afraid to find +fault with his friend’s course; indeed, that is his solemn +duty. But these teachings about friendship are accompanied with +many cautions; for one must be very careful in the making friends. +The ancient Greeks had a terrible proverb: “Treat your friend +as if he should become some day your enemy; and treat your enemy as +if he might some day become your friend.” This proverb seems +to me to indicate a certain amount of doubt in human nature. We do +not find this doubt in the Norse teaching, but on the contrary, +some very excellent advice. The first thing to remember is that +friendship is sacred: “He that opens his heart to another +mixes blood with him.” Therefore one should be very careful +either about forming or about breaking a friendship.</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>A man should be a friend to his friend’s friend. But no +man should be a friend of his friend’s foe, nor of his +foe’s friend.</p> +<p>A man should be a friend with his friend, and pay back gift with +gift; give back laughter for laughter (to his enemies), and lesing +for lies.</p> +<p>Give and give back makes the longest friend. Give not overmuch +at one time. Gift always looks for return.</p> +</div> +<p>The poet also tells us how trifling gifts are quite <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page118" name="page118">[118]</a></span>sufficient +to make friends and to keep them, if wisely given. A costly gift +may seem like a bribe; a little gift is only the sign of kindly +feeling. And as a mere matter of justice, a costly gift may be +unkind, for it puts the friend under an obligation which he may not +be rich enough to repay. Repeatedly we are told also that too much +should not be expected of friendship. The value of a friend is his +affection, his sympathy; but favours that cost must always be +returned.</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>I never met a man so open-hearted and free with his food, but +that boon was boon to him—nor so generous as not to look for +return if he had a chance.</p> +</div> +<p>Emerson says almost precisely the same thing in his essay on +friendship—showing how little human wisdom has changed in all +the centuries. Here is another good bit of advice concerning +visits:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>It is far away to an ill friend, even though he live on +one’s road; but to a good friend there is a short cut, even +though he live far out.</p> +<p>Go on, be not a guest ever in the same house. The welcome +becomes wearisome if he sits too long at another’s table.</p> +</div> +<p>This means that we must not impose on our friends; but there is +a further caution on the subject of eating at a friend’s +house. You must not go to your friend’s house hungry, when +you can help it.</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page119" name= +"page119">[119]</a></span>A man should take his meal betimes, +before he goes to his neighbour—or he will sit and seem +hungered like one starving, and have no power to talk.</p> +</div> +<p>That is the main point to remember in dining at another’s +house, that you are not there only for your own pleasure, but for +that of other people. You are expected to talk; and you can not +talk if you are very hungry. At this very day a gentleman makes it +the rule to do the same thing. Accordingly we see that these rough +men of the North must have had a good deal of social +refinement—refinement not of dress or of speech, but of +feeling. Still, says the poet, one’s own home is the best, +though it be but a cottage. “A man is a man in his own +house.”</p> +<p>Now we come to some sentences teaching caution, which are +noteworthy in a certain way:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Tell one man thy secret, but not two. What three men know, all +the world knows.</p> +<p>Never let a bad man know thy mishaps; for from a bad man thou +shalt never get reward for thy sincerity.</p> +</div> +<p>I shall presently give you some modern examples in regard to the +advice concerning bad men. Another thing to be cautious about is +praise. If you have to be careful about blame, you must be very +cautious also about praise.</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Praise the day at even-tide; a woman at her burying; a sword +when it has been tried; a maid when she is married; <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page120" name="page120">[120]</a></span>ice when +you have crossed over it; ale when it is drunk.</p> +</div> +<p>If there is anything noteworthy in English character to-day it +is the exemplification of this very kind of teaching. This is +essentially Northern. The last people from whom praise can be +expected, even for what is worthy of all praise, are the English. A +new friendship, a new ideal, a reform, a noble action, a wonderful +poet, an exquisite painting—any of these things will be +admired and praised by every other people in Europe long before you +can get Englishmen to praise. The Englishman all this time is +studying, considering, trying to find fault. Why should he try to +find fault? So that he will not make any mistakes at a later day. +He has inherited the terrible caution of his ancestors in regard to +mistakes. It must be granted that his caution has saved him from a +number of very serious mistakes that other nations have made. It +must also be acknowledged that he exercises a fair amount of +moderation in the opposite direction—this modern Englishman; +he has learned caution of another kind, which his ancestors taught +him. “Power,” says the “Havamal,” +“should be used with moderation; for whoever finds himself +among valiant men will discover that no man is peerless.” And +this is a very important thing for the strong man to +know—that however strong, he can not be the strongest; his +match will be found when occasion demands it. <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page121" name="page121">[121]</a></span>Not only +Scandinavian but English rulers have often discovered this fact to +their cost. Another matter to be very anxious about is public +opinion.</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Chattels die; kinsmen pass away; one dies oneself; but I know +something that never dies—the name of the man, for good or +bad.</p> +</div> +<p>Do not think that this means anything religious. It means only +that the reputation of a man goes to influence the good or ill +fortune of his descendants. It is something to be proud of, to be +the son of a good man; it helps to success in life. On the other +hand, to have had a father of ill reputation is a very serious +obstacle to success of any kind in countries where the influence of +heredity is strongly recognized.</p> +<p>I have nearly exhausted the examples of this Northern wisdom +which I selected for you; but there are two subjects which remain +to be considered. One is the law of conduct in regard to +misfortune; and the other is the rule of conduct in regard to +women. A man was expected to keep up a brave heart under any +circumstances. These old Northmen seldom committed suicide; and I +must tell you that all the talk about Christianity having checked +the practice of suicide to some extent, can not be fairly accepted +as truth. In modern England to-day the suicides average nearly +three thousand a year; but making allowance for extraordinary +circumstances, it is certainly true <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page122" name="page122">[122]</a></span>that the Northern races +consider suicide in an entirely different way from what the Latin +races do. There was very little suicide among the men of the North, +because every man considered it his duty to get killed, not to kill +himself; and to kill himself would have seemed cowardly, as +implying fear of being killed by others. In modern ethical +training, quite apart from religious considerations a man is taught +that suicide is only excusable in case of shame, or under such +exceptional circumstances as have occurred in the history of the +Indian mutiny. At all events, we have the feeling still strongly +manifested in England that suicide is not quite manly; and this is +certainly due much more to ancestral habits of thinking, which date +back to pagan days, than to Christian doctrine. As I have said, the +pagan English would not commit suicide to escape mere pain. But the +Northern people knew how to die to escape shame. There is an awful +story in Roman history about the wives and daughters of the +conquered German tribes, thousands in number, asking to be promised +that their virtue should be respected, and all killing themselves +when the Roman general refused the request. No Southern people of +Europe in that time would have shown such heroism upon such a +matter. Leaving honour aside, however, the old book tells us that a +man should never despair.</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page123" name= +"page123">[123]</a></span>Fire, the sight of the sun, good health, +and a blameless life these are the goodliest things in this +world.</p> +<p>Yet a man is not utterly wretched, though he have bad health, or +be maimed.</p> +<p>The halt may ride a horse; the handless may drive a herd; the +deaf can fight and do well; better be blind than buried. A corpse +is good for naught.</p> +</div> +<p>On the subject of women there is not very much in the book +beyond the usual caution in regard to wicked women; but there is +this little observation:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Never blame a woman for what is all man’s weakness. Hues +charming and fair may move the wise and not the dullard. Mighty +love turns the son of men from wise to fool.</p> +</div> +<p>This is shrewd, and it contains a very remarkable bit of +esthetic truth, that it requires a wise man to see certain kinds of +beauty, which a stupid man could never be made to understand. And, +leaving aside the subject of love, what very good advice it is +never to laugh at a person for what can be considered a common +failure. In the same way an intelligent man should learn to be +patient with the unintelligent, as the same poem elsewhere +insists.</p> +<p>Now what is the general result of this little study, the general +impression that it leaves upon the mind? Certainly we feel that the +life reflected in these sentences was a life in which caution +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page124" name= +"page124">[124]</a></span>was above all things +necessary—caution in thought and speech and act, never +ceasing, by night or day, during the whole of a man’s life. +Caution implies moderation. Moderation inevitably develops a +certain habit of justice—a justice that might not extend +outside of the race, but a justice that would be exercised between +man and man of the same blood. Very much of English character and +of English history is explained by the life that the +“Havamal” portrays. Very much that is good; also very +much that is bad—not bad in one sense, so far as the future +of the race is concerned, but in a social way certainly not good. +The judgment of the Englishman by all other European peoples is +that he is the most suspicious, the most reserved, the most +unreceptive, the most unfriendly, the coldest hearted, and the most +domineering of all Western peoples. Ask a Frenchman, an Italian, a +German, a Spaniard, even an American, what he thinks about +Englishmen; and every one of them will tell you the very same +thing. This is precisely what the character of men would become who +had lived for thousands of years in the conditions of Northern +society. But you would find upon the other hand that nearly all +nations would speak highly of certain other English +qualities—energy, courage, honour, justice (between +themselves). They would say that although no man is so difficult to +make friends with, the friendship of an <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page125" name="page125">[125]</a></span>Englishman +once gained is more strong and true than any other. And as the +battle of life still continues, and must continue for thousands of +years to come, it must be acknowledged that the English character +is especially well fitted for the struggle. Its reserves, its +cautions, its doubts, its suspicions, its brutality—these +have been for it in the past, and are still in the present, the +best social armour and panoply of war. It is not a lovable nor an +amiable character; it is not even kindly. The Englishman of the +best type is much more inclined to be just than he is to be kind, +for kindness is an emotional impulse, and the Englishman is on his +guard against every kind of emotional impulse. But with all this, +the character is a grand one, and its success has been the best +proof of its value.</p> +<p>Now you will have observed in the reading of this ancient code +of social morals that, while none of the teaching is religious, +some of it is absolutely immoral from any religious standpoint. No +great religion permits us to speak what is not true, and to smile +in the face of an enemy while pretending to be his friend. No +religion teaches that we should “pay back lesing for +lies.” Neither does a religion tell us that we should expect +a return for every kindness done; that we should regard friendship +as being actuated by selfish motives; that we should never praise +when praise seems to be deserved. In fact, when Sir Walter Scott +long <span class="pagenum"><a id="page126" name= +"page126">[126]</a></span>ago made a partial translation of the +“Havamal,” he thought himself obliged to leave out a +number of sentences which seemed to him highly immoral, and to +apologize for others. He thought that they would shock English +readers too much.</p> +<p>We are not quite so squeamish to-day; and a thinker of our own +time would scarcely deny that English society is very largely +governed at this moment by the same kind of rules that Sir Walter +Scott thought to be so bad. But here we need not condemn English +society in particular. All European society has been for hundreds +of years conducting itself upon very much the same principles; for +the reason that human social experience has been the same in all +Western countries. I should say that the only difference between +English society and other societies is that the hardness of +character is very much greater. Let us go back even to the most +Christian times of Western societies in the most Christian country +of Europe, and observe whether the social code was then and there +so very different from the social code of the old +“Havamal.” Mr. Spencer observes in his +“Ethics” that, so far as the conduct of life is +concerned, religion is almost nothing and practice is everything. +We find this wonderfully exemplified in a most remarkable book of +social precepts written in the seventeenth century, in Spain, under +the title of the “Oraculo Manual.” It was composed by a +Spanish priest, named Baltasar Gracian, who <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page127" name="page127">[127]</a></span>was born +in the year 1601 and died in 1658; and it has been translated into +nearly all languages. The best English translation, published by +Macmillan, is called “The Art of Worldly Wisdom.” It is +even more admired to-day than in the seventeenth century; and what +it teaches as to social conduct holds as good to-day of modern +society as it did of society two hundred years ago. It is one of +the most unpleasant and yet interesting books ever +published—unpleasant because of the malicious cunning which +it often displays—interesting because of the frightful +perspicacity of the author. The man who wrote that book understood +the hearts of men, especially the bad side. He was a gentleman of +high rank before he became a priest, and his instinctive shrewdness +must have been hereditary. Religion, this man would have said, +teaches the best possible morals; but the world is not governed by +religion altogether, and to mix with it, we must act according to +its dictates.</p> +<p>These dictates remind us in many ways of the cautions and the +cunning of the “Havamal.” The first thing enjoined upon +a man both by the Norse writer and by the Spanish author is the art +of silence. Probably this has been the result of social experience +in all countries. “Cautious silence is the holy of holies of +worldly wisdom,” says Gracian. And he gives many elaborate +reasons for this statement, not the least of which is the +following: “If you do not declare yourself immediately, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page128" name= +"page128">[128]</a></span>you arouse expectation, especially when +the importance of your position makes you the object of general +attention. Mix a little mystery with everything, and the very +mystery arouses veneration.” A little further on he gives us +exactly the same advice as did the “Havamal” writer, in +regard to being frank with enemies. “Do not,” he says, +“show your wounded finger, for everything will knock up +against it; nor complain about it, for malice always aims where +weakness can be injured…. Never disclose the source of +mortification or of joy, if you wish the one to cease, the other to +endure.” About secrets the Spaniard is quite as cautious as +the Norseman. He says, “Especially dangerous are secrets +entrusted to friends. He that communicates his secret to another +makes himself that other man’s slave.” But after a +great many such cautions in regard to silence and secrecy, he tells +us also that we must learn how to fight with the world. You +remember the advice of the “Havamal” on this subject, +how it condemns as a fool the man who can not answer a reproach. +The Spaniard is, however, much more malicious in his suggestions. +He tells as that we must “learn to know every man’s +thumbscrew.” I suppose you know that a thumbscrew was an +instrument of torture used in old times to force confessions from +criminals. This advice means nothing less than that we should learn +how <span class="pagenum"><a id="page129" name= +"page129">[129]</a></span>to be be able to hurt other men’s +feelings, or to flatter other men’s weaknesses. “First +guess every man’s ruling passion, appeal to it by a word, set +it in motion by temptation, and you will infallibly give checkmate +to his freedom of will.” The term “give +checkmate” is taken from the game of chess, and must here be +understood as meaning to overcome, to conquer. A kindred piece of +advice is “keep a store of sarcasms, and know how to use +them.” Indeed he tells us that this is the point of greatest +tact in human intercourse. “Struck by the slightest word of +this kind, many fall away from the closest intimacy with superiors +or inferiors, which intimacy could not be in the slightest shaken +by a whole conspiracy of popular insinuation or private +malevolence.” In other words, you can more quickly destroy a +man’s friendship by one word of sarcasm than by any amount of +intrigue. Does not this read very much like sheer wickedness? +Certainly it does; but the author would have told you that you must +fight the wicked with their own weapons. In the +“Havamal” you will not find anything quite so openly +wicked as that; but we must suppose that the Norsemen knew the +secret, though they might not have put it into words. As for the +social teaching, you will find it very subtly expressed even in the +modern English novels of George Meredith, who, by the way, has +written a poem in praise of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page130" +name="page130">[130]</a></span>sarcasm and ridicule. But let us now +see what the Spanish author has to tell us about friendship and +unselfishness.</p> +<p>The shrewd man knows that others when they seek him do not seek +“him,” but “their advantage in him and by +him.” That is to say, a shrewd man does not believe in +disinterested friendship. This is much worse than anything in the +“Havamal.” And it is diabolically elaborated. What are +we to say about such teaching as the following: “A wise man +would rather see men needing him than thanking him. To keep them on +the threshold of hope is diplomatic; to trust to their gratitude is +boorish; hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one”? There +is much more of this kind; but after the assurance that only a +boorish person (that is to say, an ignorant and vulgar man) can +believe in gratitude, the author’s opinion of human nature +needs no further elucidation. The old Norseman would have been +shocked at such a statement. But he might have approved the +following: “When you hear anything favourable, keep a tight +rein upon your credulity; if unfavourable, give it the spur.” +That is to say, when you hear anything good about another man, do +not be ready to believe it; but if you hear anything bad about him, +believe as much of it as you can.</p> +<p>I notice also many other points of resemblance between the +Northern and the Spanish teaching in regard to caution. The +“Havamal” says that you <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page131" name="page131">[131]</a></span>must not pick a quarrel +with a worse man than yourself; “because the better man often +falls by the worse man’s sword.” The Spanish priest +gives a still shrewder reason for the same policy. “Never +contend,” he says, “with a man who has nothing to lose; +for thereby you enter into an unequal conflict. The other enters +without anxiety; having lost everything, including shame, he has no +further loss to fear.” I think that this is an immoral +teaching, though a very prudent one; but I need scarcely to tell +you that it is still a principle in modern society not to contend +with a man who has no reputation to lose. I think it is immoral, +because it is purely selfish, and because a good man ought not to +be afraid to denounce a wrong because of making enemies. Another +point, however, on which the “Havamal” and the priest +agree, is more commendable and interesting. “We do not think +much of a man who never contradicts us; that is no sign he loves +us, but rather a sign that he loves himself. Original and +out-of-the-way views are signs of superior ability.”</p> +<p>I should not like you to suppose, however, that the whole of the +book from which I have been quoting is of the same character as the +quotations. There is excellent advice in it; and much kindly +teaching on the subject of generous acts. It is a book both good +and bad, and never stupid. The same man who tells you that +friendship is seldom unselfish, also declares that life would be a +desert <span class="pagenum"><a id="page132" name= +"page132">[132]</a></span>without friends, and that there is no +magic like a good turn—that is, a kind act. He teaches the +importance of getting good will by honest means, although he +advises us also to learn how to injure. I am sure that nobody could +read the book without benefit. And I may close these quotations +from it with the following paragraph, which is the very best bit of +counsel that could be given to a literary student:</p> +<div class="quote"> +<p>Be slow and sure. Quickly done can be quickly undone. To last an +eternity requires an eternity of preparation. Only excellence +counts. Profound intelligence is the only foundation for +immortality. Worth much costs much. The precious metals are the +heaviest.</p> +</div> +<p>But so far as the question of human conduct is concerned, the +book of Gracian is no more of a religious book than is the +“Havamal” of the heathen North. You would find, were +such a book published to-day and brought up to the present time by +any shrewd writer, that Western morality has not improved in the +least since the time before Christianity was established, so far as +the rules of society go. Society is not, and can not be, religious, +because it is a state of continual warfare. Every person in it has +to fight, and the battle is not less cruel now because it is not +fought with swords. Indeed, I should think that the time when every +man carried his sword in society was a time when men were quite as +kindly and much more <span class="pagenum"><a id="page133" name= +"page133">[133]</a></span>honest than they are now. The object of +this little lecture was to show you that the principles of the +ancient Norse are really the principles ruling English society +to-day; but I think you will be able to take from it a still larger +meaning. It is that not only one form of society, but all forms of +society, represent the warfare of man and man. That is why +thinkers, poets, philosophers, in all ages, have tried to find +solitude, to keep out of the contest, to devote themselves only to +study of the beautiful and the true. But the prizes of life are not +to be obtained in solitude, although the prizes of thought can only +there be won. After all, whatever we may think about the cruelty +and treachery of the social world, it does great things in the end. +It quickens judgment, deepens intelligence, enforces the +acquisition of self-control, creates forms of mental and moral +strength that can not fail to be sometimes of vast importance to +mankind. But if you should ask me whether it increases human +happiness, I should certainly say “no.” The +“Havamal” said the same thing,—the truly wise man +can not be happy.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page134" name= +"page134">[134]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_8" name="Ch_8">Chapter VIII</a></h3> +<h2>Beyond Man</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>It seems to me a lecturer’s duty to speak to you about any +remarkable thought at this moment engaging the attention of Western +philosophers and men of science,—partly because any such new +ideas are certain, sooner or later, to be reflected in literature, +and partly because without a knowledge of them you might form +incorrect ideas in relation to utterances of any important +philosophic character. I am not going to discourse about Nietzsche, +though the title of this lecture is taken from one of his books; +the ideas about which I am going to tell you, you will not find in +his books. It is most extraordinary, to my thinking, that these +ideas never occurred to him, for he was an eminent man of science +before writing his probably insane books. I have not the slightest +sympathy with most of his ideas; they seem to me misinterpretations +of evolutional teachings; and if not misinterpretations, they are +simply undeveloped and ill-balanced thinking. But the title of one +of his books, and the idea which he tries always unsuccessfully to +explain,—that of a state above mankind, a moral condition +“beyond man,” as he <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page135" name="page135">[135]</a></span>calls it,—that is +worth talking about. It is not nonsense at all, but fact, and I +think that I can give you a correct idea of the realities in the +case. Leaving Nietzsche entirely alone, then, let us ask if it is +possible to suppose a condition of human existence above +morality,—that is to say, more moral than the most moral +ideal which a human brain can conceive? We may answer, it is quite +possible, and it is not only possible, but it has actually been +predicted by many great thinkers, including Herbert Spencer.</p> +<p>We have been brought up to think that there can be nothing +better than virtue, than duty, than strictly following the precepts +of a good religion. However, our ideas of goodness and of virtue +necessarily imply the existence of the opposite qualities. To do a +good thing because it is our duty to do it, implies a certain +amount of resolve, a struggle against difficulty. The virtue of +honesty is a term implying the difficulty of being perfectly +honest. When we think of any virtuous or great deed, we can not +help thinking of the pain and obstacles that have to be met with in +performing that deed. All our active morality is a struggle against +immorality. And I think that, as every religion teaches, it must be +granted that no human being has a perfectly moral nature.</p> +<p>Could a world exist in which the nature of all the inhabitants +would be so moral that the mere idea of what is immoral could not +exist? Let me <span class="pagenum"><a id="page136" name= +"page136">[136]</a></span>explain my question more in detail. +Imagine a society in which the idea of dishonesty would not exist, +because no person could be dishonest, a society in which the idea +of unchastity could not exist, because no person could possibly be +unchaste, a world in which no one could have any idea of envy, +ambition or anger, because such passions could not exist, a world +in which there would be no idea of duty, filial or parental, +because not to be filial, not to be loving, not to do everything +which we human beings now call duty, would be impossible. In such a +world ideas of duty would be quite useless; for every action of +existence would represent the constant and faultless performance of +what we term duty. Moreover, there would be no difficulty, no pain +in such performance; it would be the constant and unfailing +pleasure of life. With us, unfortunately, what is wrong often gives +pleasure; and what is good to do, commonly causes pain. But in the +world which I am asking you to imagine there could not be any +wrong, nor any pleasure in wrong-doing; all the pleasure would be +in right-doing. To give a very simple illustration—one of the +commonest and most pardonable faults of young people is eating, +drinking, or sleeping too much. But in our imaginary world to eat +or to drink or to sleep in even the least degree more than is +necessary could not be done; the constitution of the race would not +permit it. One more illustration. Our children <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page137" name="page137">[137]</a></span>have to be +educated carefully in regard to what is right or wrong; in the +world of which I am speaking, no time would be wasted in any such +education, for every child would be born with full knowledge of +what is right and wrong. Or to state the case in psychological +language—I mean the language of scientific, not of +metaphysical, psychology—we should have a world in which +morality would have been transmuted into inherited instinct. Now +again let me put the question: can we imagine such a world? Perhaps +you will answer, Yes, in heaven—nowhere else. But I answer +you that such a world actually exists, and that it can be studied +in almost any part of the East or of Europe by a person of +scientific training. The world of insects actually furnishes +examples of such a moral transformation. It is for this reason that +such writers as Sir John Lubbock and Herbert Spencer have not +hesitated to say that certain kinds of social insects have +immensely surpassed men, both in social and in ethical +progress.</p> +<p>But that is not all that it is necessary to say here. You might +think that I am only repeating a kind of parable. The important +thing is the opinion of scientific men that humanity will at last, +in the course of millions of years, reach the ethical conditions of +the ants. It is only five or six years ago that some of these +conditions were established by scientific evidence, and I want to +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page138" name= +"page138">[138]</a></span>speak of them. They have a direct bearing +upon important ethical questions; and they have startled the whole +moral world, and set men thinking in entirely new directions.</p> +<p>In order to explain how the study of social insects has set +moralists of recent years thinking in a new direction, it will be +necessary to generalize a great deal in the course of so short a +lecture. It is especially the social conditions of the ants which +has inspired these new ideas; but you must not think that any one +species of ants furnishes us with all the facts. The facts have +been arrived at only through the study of hundreds of different +kinds of ants by hundreds of scientific men; and it is only by the +consensus of their evidence that we get the ethical picture which I +shall try to outline for you. Altogether there are probably about +five thousand different species of ants, and these different +species represent many different stages of social evolution, from +the most primitive and savage up to the most highly civilized and +moral. The details of the following picture are furnished by a +number of the highest species only; that must not be forgotten. +Also, I must remind you that the morality of the ant, by the +necessity of circumstance, does not extend beyond the limits of its +own species. Impeccably ethical within the community, ants carry on +war outside their own borders; were it not for this, we might call +them morally perfect creatures.</p> +<p>Although the mind of an ant can not be at all <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page139" name="page139">[139]</a></span>like to +the mind of the human being, it is so intelligent that we are +justified in trying to describe its existence by a kind of +allegorical comparison with human life. Imagine, then, a world full +of women, working night and day,—building, tunnelling, +bridging,—also engaged in agriculture, in horticulture, and +in taking care of many kinds of domestic animals. (I may remark +that ants have domesticated no fewer than five hundred and +eighty-four different kinds of creatures.) This world of women is +scrupulously clean; busy as they are, all of them carry combs and +brushes about them, and arrange themselves several times a day. In +addition to this constant work, these women have to take care of +myriads of children,—children so delicate that the slightest +change in the weather may kill them. So the children have to be +carried constantly from one place to another in order to keep them +warm.</p> +<p>Though this multitude of workers are always gathering food, no +one of them would eat or drink a single atom more than is +necessary; and none of them would sleep for one second longer than +is necessary. Now comes a surprising fact, about which a great deal +must be said later on. These women have no sex. They are women, for +they sometimes actually give birth, as virgins, to children; but +they are incapable of wedlock. They are more than vestals. Sex is +practically suppressed.</p> +<p>This world of workers is protected by an army <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page140" name="page140">[140]</a></span>of +soldiers. The soldiers are very large, very strong, and shaped so +differently from the working females that they do not seem at first +to belong to the same race. They help in the work, though they are +not able to help in some delicate kinds of work—they are too +clumsy and strong. Now comes the second astonishing fact: these +soldiers are all women—amazons, we might call them; but they +are sexless women. In these also sex has been suppressed.</p> +<p>You ask, where do the children come from? Most of the children +are born of special mothers—females chosen for the purpose of +bearing offspring, and not allowed to do anything else. They are +treated almost like empresses, being constantly fed and attended +and served, and being lodged in the best way possible. Only these +can eat and drink at all times—they must do so for the sake +of their offspring. They are not suffered to go out, unless +strongly attended, and they are not allowed to run any risk of +danger or of injury The life of the whole race circles about them +and about their children, but they are very few.</p> +<p>Last of all are the males, the men. One naturally asks why +females should have been specialized into soldiers instead of men. +It appears that the females have more reserve force, and all the +force that might have been utilized in the giving of life has been +diverted to the making of aggressive <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page141" name="page141">[141]</a></span>powers. The real males are +very small and weak. They appear to be treated with indifference +and contempt. They are suffered to become the bridegrooms of one +night, after which they die very quickly. By contrast, the lives of +the rest are very long. Ants live for at least three or four years, +but the males live only long enough to perform their solitary +function.</p> +<p>In the foregoing little fantasy, the one thing that should have +most impressed you is the fact of the suppression of sex. But now +comes the last and most astonishing fact of all: this suppression +of sex is not natural, but artificial—I mean that it is +voluntary. It has been discovered that ants are able, by a +systematic method of nourishment, to suppress or develop sex as +they please. The race has decided that sex shall not be allowed to +exist except in just so far as it is absolutely necessary to the +existence of the race. Individuals with sex are tolerated only as +necessary evils. Here is an instance of the most powerful of all +passions voluntarily suppressed for the benefit of the community at +large. It vanishes whenever unnecessary; when necessary after a war +or a calamity of some kind, it is called into existence again. +Certainly it is not wonderful that such a fact should have set +moralists thinking. Of course if a human community could discover +some secret way of effecting the same object, and could have the +courage to do it, or rather the unselfishness to do it, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page142" name= +"page142">[142]</a></span>the result would simply be that sexual +immorality of any kind would become practically impossible The very +idea of such immorality would cease to exist.</p> +<p>But that is only one fact of self-suppression and the ant-world +furnishes hundreds. To state the whole thing in the simplest +possible way, let me say the race has entirely got rid of +everything that we call a selfish impulse. Even hunger and thirst +allow of no selfish gratification. The entire life of the community +is devoted to the common good and to mutual help and to the care of +the young. Spencer says it is impossible to imagine that an ant has +a sense of duty like our own,—a religion, if you like. But it +does not need a sense of duty, it does not need religion. Its life +is religion in the practical sense. Probably millions of years ago +the ant had feelings much more like our own than it has now. At +that time, to perform altruistic actions may have been painful to +the ant; to perform them now has become the one pleasure of its +existence. In order to bring up children and serve the state more +efficiently these insects have sacrificed their sex and every +appetite that we call by the name of animal passion. Moreover they +have a perfect community, a society in which nobody could think of +property, except as a state affair, a public thing, or as the +Romans would say a <em>res publica</em>. In a human community so +organized, there could not be ambition, any jealousy, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page143" name="page143">[143]</a></span>any +selfish conduct of any sort—indeed, no selfishness at all. +The individual is said to be practically sacrificed for the sake of +the race; but such a supposition means the highest moral altruism. +Therefore thinkers have to ask, “Will man ever rise to +something like the condition of ants?”</p> +<p>Herbert Spencer says that such is the evident tendency. He does +not say, nor is it at all probable, that there will be in future +humanity such physiological specialization as would correspond to +the suppression of sex among ants, or to the bringing of women to +the dominant place in the human world, and the masculine sex to an +inferior position. That is not likely ever to happen, for reasons +which it would take very much too long to speak of now. But there +is evidence that the most selfish of all human passions will +eventually be brought under control—under such control that +the present cause of wellnigh all human suffering, the pressure of +population, will be practically removed. And there is psychological +evidence that the human mind will undergo such changes that +wrong-doing, in the sense of unkindly action, will become almost +impossible, and that the highest pleasure will be found not in +selfishness but in unselfishness. Of course there are thousands of +things to think about, suggested by this discovery of the life of +ants. I am only telling the more important ones. What I have told +you ought at least to suggest that the idea of a moral condition +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page144" name= +"page144">[144]</a></span>much higher than all our moral conditions +of today is quite possible,—that it is not an idea to be +laughed at. But it was not Nietzsche who ever conceived this +possibility. His “Beyond Man” and the real and much to +be hoped for “beyond man,” are absolutely antagonistic +conceptions. When the ancient Hebrew writer said, thousands of +years ago, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her +ways,” he could not have imagined how good his advice would +prove in the light of twentieth century science.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page145" name= +"page145">[145]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_9" name="Ch_9">Chapter IX</a></h3> +<h2>The New Ethics</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Before leaving the subject of these latter-day intellectual +changes, a word must be said concerning the ethical questions +involved. Of course when a religious faith has been shaken to its +foundation, it is natural to suppose that morals must have been +simultaneously affected. The relation of morals to literature is +very intimate; and we must expect that any change of ideas in the +direction of ethics would show themselves in literature. The drama, +poetry, romance, the novel, all these are reflections of moral +emotion in especial, of the eternal struggle between good and evil, +as well as of the temporary sentiments concerning right and wrong. +And every period of transition is necessarily accompanied by +certain tendencies to disintegration. Contemporary literature in +the West has shown some signs of ethical change. These caused many +thinkers to predict a coming period of demoralization in +literature. But the alarm was really quite needless. These vagaries +of literature, such as books questioning the morality of the +marriage relation, for example, were only repetitions of older +vagaries, and represented <span class="pagenum"><a id="page146" +name="page146">[146]</a></span>nothing more than the temporary +agitation of thought upon all questions. The fact seems to be that +in spite of everything, moral feeling was never higher at any time +in Western social history than it is at present. The changes of +thought have indeed been very great, but the moral experience of +mankind remains exactly as valuable as it was before, and new +perceptions of that value have been given to us by the new +philosophy.</p> +<p>It has been wisely observed by the greatest of modern thinkers +that mankind has progressed more rapidly in every other respect +than in morality. Moral progress has not been rapid simply because +the moral ideal has always been kept a little in advance of the +humanly possible. Thousands of years ago the principles of morality +were exactly the same as those which rule our lives to-day. We can +not improve upon them; we can not even improve upon the language +which expressed them. The most learned of our poets could not make +a more beautiful prayer than the prayer which Egyptian mothers +taught to their little children in ages when all Europe was still a +land of savages. The best of the moral philosophy of the nineteenth +century is very little of improvement upon the moral philosophy of +ancient India or China. If there is any improvement at all, it is +simply in the direction of knowledge of causes and effects. And +that is why in all countries <span class="pagenum"><a id="page147" +name="page147">[147]</a></span>the common sense of mankind +universally condemns any attempt to interfere with moral ideas. +These represent the social experience of man for thousands and +thousands of years; and it is not likely that the wisdom of any one +individual can ever better them. If bettered at all it can not be +through theory. The amelioration must be effected by future +experience of a universal kind. We may improve every branch of +science, every branch of art, everything else relating to the work +of human heads and hands; but we can not improve morals by +invention or by hypothesis. Morals are not made, but grow.</p> +<p>Yet, as I have said, there is what may be called a new system of +ethics. But this new system of ethics means nothing more than a new +way of understanding the old system of ethics. By the application +of evolutional science to the study of morals, we have been enabled +to trace back the whole history of moral ideas to the time of their +earliest inception,—to understand the reasons of them, and to +explain them without the help of any supernatural theory. And the +result, so far from diminishing our respect for the wisdom of our +ancestors, has immensely increased that respect. There is no single +moral teaching common to different civilizations and different +religions of an advanced stage of development which we do not find +to be eternally true. Let us try to study this view of the case by +the help of a few examples.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page148" name= +"page148">[148]</a></span>In early times, of course, men obeyed +moral instruction through religious motives. If asked why they +thought it was wrong to perform certain actions and right to +perform others, they could have answered only that such was +ancestral custom and that the gods will it so. Not until we could +understand the laws governing the evolution of society could we +understand the reason of many ethical regulations. But now we can +understand very plainly that the will of the gods, as our ancestors +might have termed it, represents divine laws indeed, for the laws +of ethical evolution are certainly the unknown laws shaping all +things—suns, worlds, and human societies. All that opposes +itself to the operation of those universal laws is what we have +been accustomed to call bad, and everything which aids the +operation of those laws is what we have been accustomed to think of +as good. The common crimes condemned by all religions, such as +theft, murder, adultery, bearing false witness, disloyalty, all +these are practices which directly interfere with the natural +process of evolution; and without understanding why, men have from +the earliest times of real civilisation united all their power to +suppress them. I think that we need not dwell upon the simple +facts; they will at once suggest to you all that is necessary to +know. I shall select for illustration only one less familiar topic, +that of the ascetic ideal.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page149" name= +"page149">[149]</a></span>A great many things which in times of +lesser knowledge we imagined to be superstitious or useless, prove +to-day on examination to have been of immense value to mankind. +Probably no superstition ever existed which did not have some +social value; and the most seemingly repulsive or cruel sometimes +turn out to have been the most precious. To choose one of these for +illustration, we must take one not confined to any particular +civilization or religion, but common to all human societies at a +certain period of their existence; and the ascetic ideal best fits +our purpose. From very early times, even from a time long preceding +any civilization, we find men acting under the idea that by +depriving themselves of certain pleasures and by subjecting +themselves to certain pains they could please the divine powers and +thereby obtain strength. Probably there is no people in the world +among whom this belief has not had at some one time or another a +very great influence. At a later time, in the early civilizations, +this idea would seem to have obtained much larger sway, and to have +affected national life more and more extensively. In the age of the +great religions the idea reaches its acme, an acme often +represented by extravagances of the most painful kind and +sacrifices which strike modern imagination as ferocious and +terrible. In Europe asceticism reached its great extremes as you +know during the Middle Ages, and especially took the direction of +antagonism <span class="pagenum"><a id="page150" name= +"page150">[150]</a></span>to the natural sex-relation. Looking back +to-day to the centuries in which celibacy was considered the most +moral condition, and marriage was counted as little better than +weakness, when Europe was covered with thousands of monasteries, +and when the best intellects of the age deemed it the highest duty +to sacrifice everything pleasurable for the sake of an imaginary +reward after death, we can not but recognize that we are +contemplating a period of religious insanity. Even in the +architecture of the time, the architecture that Ruskin devoted his +splendid talent to praise, there is a grim and terrible something +that suggests madness. Again, the cruelties of the age have an +insane character, the burning alive of myriads of people who +refused to believe or could not believe in the faith of their time; +the tortures used to extort confessions from the innocent; the +immolation of thousands charged with being wizards or witches; the +extinction of little centres of civilization in the South of France +and elsewhere by brutal crusades—contemplating all this, we +seem to be contemplating not only madness but furious madness. I +need not speak to you of the Crusades, which also belonged to this +period. Compared with the Roman and Greek civilizations before it, +what a horrible Europe it was! And yet the thinker must recognize +that it had a strength of its own, a strength of a larger kind than +that of the preceding civilizations. It may seem monstrous +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page151" name= +"page151">[151]</a></span>to assert that all this cruelty and +superstition and contempt of learning were absolutely necessary for +the progress of mankind; and yet we must so accept them in the +light of modern knowledge. The checking of intellectual development +for hundreds of years is certainly a fact that must shock us; but +the true question is whether such a checking had not become +necessary. Intellectual strength, unless supported by moral +strength, leads a people into the ways of destruction. Compared +with the men of the Middle Ages, the Greeks and Romans were +incomparably superior intellectually; compared with them morally +they were very weak. They had conquered the world and developed all +the arts, these Greeks and Romans; they had achieved things such as +mankind has never since been able to accomplish, and then, losing +their moral ideal, losing their simplicity, losing their faith, +they were utterly crushed by inferior races in whom the principles +of self-denial had been intensely developed. And the old +instinctive hatred of the Church for the arts and the letters and +the sciences of the Greek and Roman civilizations was not quite so +much of a folly as we might be apt to suppose. The priests +recognized in a vague way that anything like a revival of the older +civilizations would signify moral ruin. The Renaissance proves that +the priests were not wrong. Had the movement occurred a few hundred +years earlier, the result <span class="pagenum"><a id="page152" +name="page152">[152]</a></span>would probably have been a universal +corruption I do not mean to say that the Church at any time was +exactly conscious of what she was doing; she acted blindly under +the influence of an instinctive fear. But the result of all that +she did has now proved unfortunate. What the Roman and Greek +civilizations had lost in moral power was given back to the world +by the frightful discipline of the Middle Ages. For a long series +of generations the ascetic idea was triumphant; and it became +feeble only in proportion as men became strong enough to do without +it. Especially it remodelled that of which it first seemed the +enemy, the family relation. It created a new basis for society, +founded upon a new sense of the importance to society of family +morals. Because this idea, this morality, came through +superstition, its value is not thereby in the least diminished. +Superstitions often represent correct guesses at eternal truth. +To-day we know that all social progress, all national strength, all +national vigour, intellectual as well as physical, depend +essentially upon the family, upon the morality of the household, +upon the relation of parents to children. It was this fact which +the Greeks and Romans forgot, and lost themselves by forgetting. It +was this fact which the superstitious tyranny of the Middle Ages +had to teach the West over again, and after such a fashion that it +is not likely ever to become forgotten. So much for the mental +history of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page153" name= +"page153">[153]</a></span>question. Let us say a word about the +physical aspects of it.</p> +<p>No doubt you have read that the result of macerating the body, +of depriving oneself of all comfort, and even of nourishing food, +is not an increase of intellectual vigour or moral power of any +kind. And in one sense this is true. The individual who passes his +life in self-mortification is not apt to improve under that regime. +For this reason the founder of the greatest of Oriental religions +condemned asceticism on the part of his followers, except within +certain fixed limits. But the history of the changes produced by a +universal idea is not a history of changes in the individual, but +of changes brought about by the successive efforts of millions of +individuals in the course of many generations. Not in one lifetime +can we perceive the measure of ethical force obtained by +self-control; but in the course of several hundreds of years we +find that the result obtained is so large as to astonish us. This +result, imperceptibly obtained, signifies a great increase of that +nervous power upon which moral power depends; it means an +augmentation in strength of every kind; and this augmentation again +represents what we might call economy. Just as there is a science +of political economy, there is a science of ethical economy; and it +is in relation to such a science that we should rationally consider +the influence of all religions teaching self-suppression. So +studying, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page154" name= +"page154">[154]</a></span>we find that self-suppression does not +mean the destruction of any power, but only the economical storage +of that power for the benefit of the race As a result, the highly +civilized man can endure incomparably more than the savage, whether +of moral or physical strain. Being better able to control himself +under all circumstances, he has a great advantage over the +savage.</p> +<p>That which is going on in the new teaching of ethics is really +the substitution of a rational for an emotional morality. But this +does not mean that the value of the emotional element in morality +is not recognized. Not only is it recognized, but it is even being +enlarged—enlarged, however, in a rational way. For example, +let us take the very emotional virtue of loyalty. Loyalty, in a +rational form, could not exist among an uneducated people; it could +only exist as a feeling, a sentiment. In the primitive state of +society this sentiment takes the force and the depth of a religion. +And the ruler, regarded as divine, really has in relation to his +people the power of a god. Once that people becomes educated in the +modern sense, their ideas regarding their ruler and their duties to +their ruler necessarily undergo modification. But does this mean +that the sentiment is weakened in the educated class? I should say +that this depends very much upon the quality of the individual +mind. In a mind of small capacity, incapable of receiving the +higher forms of thought, it is very <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page155" name="page155">[155]</a></span>likely that the sentiment +may be weakened and almost destroyed. But in the mind of a real +thinker, a man of true culture, the sense of loyalty, although +changed, is at the same time immensely expanded. In order to give a +strong example, I should take the example not from a monarchical +country but from a republican one. What does the President of the +United States of America, for example, represent to the American of +the highest culture? He appears to him in two entirely different +capacities. First he appears to him merely as a man, an ordinary +man, with faults and weaknesses like other ordinary men. His +private life is apt to be discussed in the newspapers. He is +expected to shake hands with anybody and with everybody whom he +meets at Washington; and when he ceases to hold office, he has no +longer any particular distinction from other Americans. But as the +President of the United States, he is also much more than a man. He +represents one hundred millions of people; he represents the +American Constitution; he represents the great principles of human +freedom laid down by that Constitution; he represents also the idea +of America, of everything American, of all the hopes, interests, +and glories of the nation. Officially he is quite as sacred as a +divinity could be. Millions would give their lives for him at an +instant’s notice; and thousands capable of making vulgar +jokes about the man would hotly resent the least <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page156" name="page156">[156]</a></span>word +spoken about the President as the representative of America. The +very same thing exists in other Western countries, notwithstanding +the fact that the lives of rulers are sometimes attempted. England +is a striking example. The Queen has really scarcely any power; her +rule is little more than nominal. Every Englishman knows that +England is a monarchy only in name. But the Queen represents to +every Englishman more than a woman and more than a queen: she +represents England, English race feeling, English love of country, +English power, English dignity; she is a symbol, and as a symbol +sacred. The soldier jokingly calls her “the Widow”; he +makes songs about her; all this is well and good. But a soldier who +cursed her a few years ago was promptly sent to prison for twenty +years. To sing a merry song about the sovereign as a woman is a +right which English freedom claims; but to speak disrespectfully of +the Queen, as England, as the government, is properly regarded as a +crime; because it proves the man capable of it indifferent to all +his duties as an Englishman, as a citizen, as a soldier. The spirit +of loyalty is far from being lost in Western countries; it has only +changed in character, and it is likely to strengthen as time goes +on.</p> +<p>Broad tolerance in the matter of beliefs is necessarily a part +of the new ethics. It is quite impossible in the present state of +mankind that all <span class="pagenum"><a id="page157" name= +"page157">[157]</a></span>persons should be well educated, or that +the great masses of a nation should attain to the higher forms of +culture. For the uneducated a rational system of ethics must long +remain out of the question and it is proper that they should cling +to the old emotional forms of moral teaching. The observation of +Huxley that he would like to see every unbeliever who could not get +a reason for his unbelief publicly put to shame, was an observation +of sound common sense. It is only those whose knowledge obliges +them to see things from another standpoint than that of the masses +who can safely claim to base their rule of life upon philosophical +morality. The value of the philosophical morality happens to be +only in those directions where it recognizes and supports the truth +taught by common morality, which, after all, is the safest guide. +Therefore the philosophical moralist will never mock or oppose a +belief which he knows to exercise a good influence upon human +conduct. He will recognize even the value of many superstitions as +being very great; and he will understand that any attempt to +suddenly change the beliefs of man in any ethical direction must be +mischievous. Such changes as he might desire will come; but they +should come gradually and gently, in exact proportion to the +expanding capacity of the national mind. Recognizing this +probability, several Western countries, notably America, have +attempted to introduce into education an entirely new system +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page158" name= +"page158">[158]</a></span>of ethical teaching—ethical +teaching in the broadest sense, and in harmony with the new +philosophy. But the result there and elsewhere can only be that +which I have said at the beginning of this lecture,—namely, +the enlargement of the old moral ideas, and the deeper +comprehension of their value in all relations of life.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page159" name= +"page159">[159]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_10" name="Ch_10">Chapter X</a></h3> +<h2>Some Poems about Insects</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>One of the great defects of English books printed in the last +century is the want of an index. The importance of being able to +refer at once to any subject treated of in a book was not +recognized until the days when exact scholarship necessitated +indexing of the most elaborate kind. But even now we constantly +find good books severely criticized because of this deficiency. All +that I have said tends to show that even to-day in Western +countries the immense importance of systematic arrangement in +literary collections is not sufficiently recognized. We have, of +course, a great many English anthologies,—that is to say, +collections of the best typical compositions of a certain epoch in +poetry or in prose. But you must have observed that, in Western +countries, nearly all such anthologies are compiled +chronologically—not according to the subject of the poems. To +this general rule there are indeed a few exceptions. There is a +collection of love poetry by Watson, which is famous; a collection +of child poetry by Patmore; a collection of “society +verse” by Locker-Lampson; and several things of that sort. +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page160" name= +"page160">[160]</a></span>But even here the arrangement is not of a +special kind; nor is it ever divided according to the subject of +each particular poem. I know that some books have been published of +late years with such titles as “Poems of the Sea,” +“Poems of Nature”—but these are of no literary +importance at all and they are not compiled by competent critics. +Besides, the subject-heads are always of much too general a kind. +The French are far in advance of the English in the art of making +anthologies; but even in such splendid anthologies as those of +Crépet and of Lemerre the arrangement is of the most general +kind,—chronological, and little more.</p> +<p>I was reminded to tell you this, because of several questions +recently asked me, which I found it impossible to answer. Many a +Japanese student might suppose that Western poetry has its +classified arrangements corresponding in some sort to those of +Japanese poetry. Perhaps the Germans have something of the kind, +but the English and French have not. Any authority upon the subject +of Japanese literature can, I have been told, inform himself almost +immediately as to all that has been written in poetry upon a +particular subject. Japanese poetry has been classified and +sub-classified and double-indexed or even quadruple-indexed after a +manner incomparably more exact than anything English anthologies +can show. I am aware that this fact is chiefly owing to the ancient +rules <span class="pagenum"><a id="page161" name= +"page161">[161]</a></span>about subjects, seasons, contrasts, and +harmonies, after which the old poets used to write. But whatever be +said about such rules, there can be no doubt at all of the +excellence of the arrangements which the rules produced. It is +greatly to be regretted that we have not in English a system of +arrangement enabling the student to discover quickly all that has +been written upon a particular subject—such as roses, for +example, or pine trees, or doves, or the beauties of the autumn +season. There is nobody to tell you where to find such things; and +as the whole range of English poetry is so great that it takes a +great many years even to glance through it, a memorized knowledge +of the subjects is impossible for the average man. I believe that +Macaulay would have been able to remember almost any reference in +the poetry then accessible to scholars,—just as the wonderful +Greek scholar Porson could remember the exact place of any text in +the whole of Greek literature, and even all the variations of that +text. But such men are born only once in hundreds of years; the +common memory can not attempt to emulate their feats. And it is +very difficult at the present time for the ordinary student of +poetry to tell you just how much has been written upon any +particular subject by the best English poets.</p> +<p>Now you will recognize some difficulties in the way of a +lecturer in attempting to make classifications of English poetry +after the same manner <span class="pagenum"><a id="page162" name= +"page162">[162]</a></span>that Japanese classification can be made +of Japanese poetry. One must read enormously merely to obtain +one’s materials, and even then the result is not to be +thought of as exhaustive. I am going to try to give you a few +lectures upon English poetry thus classified, but we must not +expect that the lectures will be authoritatively complete. Indeed, +we have no time for lectures of so thorough a sort. All that I can +attempt will be to give you an idea of the best things that English +poets have thought and expressed upon certain subjects.</p> +<p>You know that the old Greeks wrote a great deal of beautiful +poetry about insects,—especially about musical insects, +crickets, cicadas, and other insects such as those the Japanese +poets have been writing about for so many hundreds of years. But in +modern Western poetry there is very little, comparatively speaking, +about insects. The English poets have all written a great deal +about birds, and especially about singing birds; but very little +has been written upon the subject of insects—singing insects. +One reason is probably that the number of musical insects in +England is very small, perhaps owing to the climate. American poets +have written more about insects than English poets have done, +though their work is of a much less finished kind. But this is +because musical insects in America are very numerous. On the whole, +we may say that neither in English nor in French poetry will you +find much about the Voices of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page163" +name="page163">[163]</a></span>rickets, locusts, or cicadæ. I +could not even give you a special lecture upon that subject. We +must take the subject “insect” in a rather general +signification; and if we do that we can edit together a nice little +collection of poetical examples.</p> +<p>The butterfly was regarded by the Greeks especially as the +emblem of the soul and therefore of immortality. We have several +Greek remains, picturing the butterfly as perched upon a skull, +thus symbolizing life beyond death. And the metamorphosis of the +insect is, you know, very often referred to in Greek philosophy. We +might expect that English poets would have considered the butterfly +especially from this point of view; and we do have a few examples. +Perhaps the best known is that of Coleridge.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">The butterfly the ancient Grecians made</p> +<p>The soul’s fair emblem, and its only name—</p> +<p>But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade</p> +<p>Of earthly life! For in this mortal frame</p> +<p>Ours is the reptile’s lot, much toil, much blame,</p> +<p>Manifold motions making little speed,</p> +<p>And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The allusion to the “name” is of course to the Greek +word, <em>psyche</em>, which signifies both soul and butterfly. +Psyche, as the soul, was pictured by the Greeks as a beautiful +girl, with a somewhat sad face, and butterfly wings springing from +her shoulders. Coleridge tells us here that although the Greeks +likened the soul to the butterfly, we <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page164" name="page164">[164]</a></span>must remember what the +butterfly really is,—the last and highest state of +insect-being—“escaped the slavish trade of earthly +life.” What is this so-called slavish trade? It is the +necessity of working and struggling in order to live—in order +to obtain food. The butterfly is not much of an eater; some +varieties, indeed, do not eat at all. All the necessity for eating +ended with the life of the larva. In the same manner religion +teaches that the soul represents the changed state of man. In this +life a man is only like a caterpillar; death changes him into a +chrysalis, and out of the chrysalis issues the winged soul which +does not have to trouble itself about such matters as eating and +drinking. By the word “reptile” in this verse, you must +understand caterpillar. Therefore the poet speaks of all our human +work as manifold motions making little speed; you have seen how +many motions a caterpillar must make in order to go even a little +distance, and you must have noticed the manner in which it spoils +the appearance of the plant upon which it feeds. There is here an +allusion to the strange and terrible fact, that all life—and +particularly the life of man—is maintained only by the +destruction of other life. In order to live we must +kill—perhaps only plants, but in any case we must kill.</p> +<p>Wordsworth has several poems on butterflies, but only one of +them is really fine. It is fine, not because it suggests any deep +problem, but because <span class="pagenum"><a id="page165" name= +"page165">[165]</a></span>with absolute simplicity it pictures the +charming difference of character in a little boy and a little girl +playing together in the fields. The poem is addressed to the +butterfly.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Stay near me—do not take thy flight!</p> +<p>A little longer stay in sight!</p> +<p>Much converse do I find in thee,</p> +<p>Historian of my infancy!</p> +<p>Float near me; do not yet depart!</p> +<p>Dead times revive in thee:</p> +<p>Thou bring’st, gay creature as thou art!</p> +<p>A solemn image to my heart,</p> +<p class="i2">My father’s family.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,</p> +<p>The time, when, in our childish plays,</p> +<p>My sister Emmeline and I</p> +<p>Together chased the butterfly!</p> +<p>A very hunter did I rush</p> +<p>Upon the prey: with leaps and springs</p> +<p>I followed on from brake to bush;</p> +<p>But she, God love her, feared to brush</p> +<p>The dust from off its wings.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>What we call and what looks like dust on the wings of a +butterfly, English children are now taught to know as really +beautiful scales or featherlets, but in Wordsworth’s time the +real structure of the insect was not so well known as now to little +people. Therefore to the boy the coloured matter brushed from the +wings would only have seemed so much dust. But the little girl, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page166" name= +"page166">[166]</a></span>with the instinctive tenderness of the +future mother-soul in her, dreads to touch those strangely delicate +wings; she fears, not only to spoil, but also to hurt.</p> +<p>Deeper thoughts than memory may still be suggested to English +poets by the sight of a butterfly, and probably will be for +hundreds of years to come. Perhaps the best poem of a +half-metaphorical, half-philosophical thought about butterflies is +the beautiful prologue to Browning’s “Fifine at the +Fair,” which prologue is curiously entitled +“Amphibian”—implying that we are about to have a +reference to creatures capable of living in two distinctive +elements, yet absolutely belonging neither to the one nor to the +other. The poet swims out far into the sea on a beautiful day; and, +suddenly, looking up, perceives a beautiful butterfly flying over +his head, as if watching him. The sight of the insect at once +suggests to him its relation to Greek fancy as a name for the soul; +then he begins to wonder whether it might not really be the soul, +or be the symbol of the soul, of a dead woman who loved him. From +that point of the poem begins a little metaphysical fantasy about +the possible condition of souls.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The fancy I had to-day,</p> +<p>Fancy which turned a fear!</p> +<p>I swam far out in the bay,</p> +<p>Since waves laughed warm and clear.</p> +</div> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page167" name= +"page167">[167]</a></span> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I lay and looked at the sun,</p> +<p>The noon-sun looked at me:</p> +<p>Between us two, no one</p> +<p>Live creature, that I could see.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Yes! There came floating by</p> +<p>Me, who lay floating too,</p> +<p>Such a strange butterfly!</p> +<p>Creature as dear as new:</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Because the membraned wings</p> +<p>So wonderful, so wide,</p> +<p>So sun-suffused, were things</p> +<p>Like soul and nought beside.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>So much for the conditions of the poet’s revery. He is +swimming in the sea; above his face, only a few inches away, the +beautiful butterfly is hovering. Its apparition makes him think of +many things—perhaps first about the dangerous position of the +butterfly, for if it should only touch the water, it is certain to +be drowned. But it does not touch the water; and he begins to think +how clumsy is the man who moves in water compared with the insect +that moves in air, and how ugly a man is by comparison with the +exquisite creature which the Greeks likened to the soul or ghost of +the man. Thinking about ghosts leads him at once to the memory of a +certain very dear ghost about which he forthwith begins to +dream.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>What if a certain soul</p> +<p>Which early slipped its sheath,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page168" name= +"page168">[168]</a></span> +<p>And has for its home the whole</p> +<p>Of heaven, thus look beneath,</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus watch one who, in the world,</p> +<p>Both lives and likes life’s way,</p> +<p>Nor wishes the wings unfurled</p> +<p>That sleep in the worm, they say?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But sometimes when the weather</p> +<p>Is blue, and warm waves tempt</p> +<p>To free oneself of tether,</p> +<p>And try a life exempt</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>From worldly noise and dust,</p> +<p>In the sphere which overbrims</p> +<p>With passion and thought,—why, just</p> +<p>Unable to fly, one swims!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is better understood by paraphrase: “I wonder if the +soul of a certain person, who lately died, slipped so gently out of +the hard sheath of the perishable body—I wonder if she does +not look down from her home in the sky upon me, just as that little +butterfly is doing at this moment. And I wonder if she laughs at +the clumsiness of this poor swimmer, who finds it so much labour +even to move through the water, while she can move through whatever +she pleases by the simple act of wishing. And this man, strangely +enough, does not want to die, and to become a ghost. He likes to +live very much; he does not yet desire those soul-wings which are +supposed to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page169" name= +"page169">[169]</a></span>be growing within the shell of his body, +just as the wings of the butterfly begin to grow in the chrysalis. +He does not want to die at all. But sometimes he wants to get away +from the struggle and the dust of the city, and to be alone with +nature; and then, in order to be perfectly alone, he swims. He +would like to fly much better; but he can not. However, swimming is +very much like flying, only the element of water is thicker than +air.”</p> +<p>However, more than the poet’s words is suggested here. We +are really told that what a fine mind desires is spiritual life, +pure intellectual life—free from all the trammels of bodily +necessity. Is not the swimmer really a symbol of the superior mind +in its present condition? Your best swimmer can not live under the +water, neither can he rise into the beautiful blue air. He can only +keep his head in the air; his body must remain in the grosser +element. Well, a great thinker and poet is ever thus—floating +between the universe of spirit and the universe of matter. By his +mind he belongs to the region of pure mind,—the ethereal +state; but the hard necessity of living keeps him down in the world +of sense and grossness and struggle. On the other hand the +butterfly, freely moving in a finer element, better represents the +state of spirit or soul.</p> +<p>What is the use of being dissatisfied with nature? The best we +can do is to enjoy in the imagination <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page170" name="page170">[170]</a></span>those things which it is +not possible for us to enjoy in fact.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Emancipate through passion</p> +<p>And thought, with sea for sky,</p> +<p>We substitute, in a fashion,</p> +<p>For heaven—poetry:</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Which sea, to all intent,</p> +<p>Gives flesh such noon-disport,</p> +<p>As a finer element</p> +<p>Affords the spirit-sort.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Now you see where the poet’s vision of a beautiful +butterfly has been leading his imagination. The nearest approach +which we can make to the act of flying, in the body, is the act of +swimming. The nearest approach that we can make to the heavenly +condition, mentally, is in poetry. Poetry, imagination, the +pleasure of emotional expression—these represent our nearest +approach to paradise. Poetry is the sea in which the soul of man +can swim even as butterflies can swim in the air, or happy ghosts +swim in the finer element of the infinite ether. The last three +stanzas of the poem are very suggestive:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And meantime, yonder streak</p> +<p>Meets the horizon’s verge;</p> +<p>That is the land, to seek</p> +<p>If we tire or dread the surge:</p> +</div> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page171" name= +"page171">[171]</a></span> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Land the solid and safe—</p> +<p>To welcome again (confess!)</p> +<p>When, high and dry, we chafe</p> +<p>The body, and don the dress.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Does she look, pity, wonder</p> +<p>At one who mimics flight,</p> +<p>Swims—heaven above, sea under,</p> +<p>Yet always earth in sight?</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>“Streak,” meaning an indistinct line, here refers to +the coast far away, as it appears to the swimmer. It is just such a +word as a good Japanese painter ought to appreciate in such a +relation. In suggesting that the swimmer is glad to return to shore +again and get warm, the poet is telling us that however much we may +talk about the happiness of spirits in heaven—however much we +may praise heaven in poetry—the truth is that we are very +fond of this world, we like comfort, we like company, we like human +love and human pleasures. There is a good deal of nonsense in +pretending that we think heaven is a better place than the world to +which we belong. Perhaps it is a better place, but, as a matter of +fact, we do not know anything about it; and we should be frightened +if we could go beyond a certain distance from the real world which +we do know. As he tells us this, the poet begins again to think +about the spirit of the dead woman. Is she happy? Is she looking at +him—and pitying him as he <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page172" name="page172">[172]</a></span>swims, taking good care +not to go too far away from the land? Or is she laughing at him, +because in his secret thoughts he confesses that he likes to +live—that he does not want to become a pure ghost at the +present time?</p> +<p>Evidently a butterfly was quite enough, not only to make +Browning’s mind think very seriously, but to make that mind +teach us the truth and seriousness which may attach to very small +things—incidents, happenings of daily life, in any hour and +place. I believe that is the greatest English poem we have on the +subject of the butterfly.</p> +<p>The idea that a butterfly might be, not merely the symbol of the +soul, but in very fact the spirit of a dead person, is somewhat +foreign to English thought; and whatever exists in poetry on the +subject must necessarily be quite new. The idea of a relation +between insects, birds, or other living creatures, and the spirits +of the dead, is enormously old in Oriental literature;—we +find it in Sanskrit texts thousands of years ago. But the Western +mind has not been accustomed to think of spiritual life as outside +of man; and much of natural poetry has consequently remained +undeveloped in Western countries. A strange little poem, “The +White Moth,” is an exception to the general rule that I have +indicated; but I am almost certain that its author, A.T. +Quiller-Couch, must have read Oriental books, or obtained his fancy +from some Eastern source. As the knowledge of <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page173" name="page173">[173]</a></span>Indian +literature becomes more general in England, we may expect to find +poetry much influenced by Oriental ideas. At the present time, such +a composition as this is quite a strange anomaly.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>If a leaf rustled, she would start:</em></p> +<p><em>And yet she died, a year ago.</em></p> +<p><em>How had so frail a thing the heart</em></p> +<p><em>To journey where she trembled so?</em></p> +<p><em>And do they turn and turn in fright,</em></p> +<p><em>Those little feet, in so much night?</em></p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The light above the poet’s head</p> +<p>Streamed on the page and on the cloth,</p> +<p>And twice and thrice there buffeted</p> +<p>On the black pane a white-winged moth:</p> +<p>‘Twas Annie’s soul that beat outside,</p> +<p>And “Open, open, open!” cried:</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“I could not find the way to God;</p> +<p>There were too many flaming suns</p> +<p>For signposts, and the fearful road</p> +<p>Led over wastes where millions</p> +<p>Of tangled comets hissed and burned—</p> +<p>I was bewildered and I turned.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“Oh, it was easy then! I knew</p> +<p>Your window and no star beside.</p> +<p>Look up and take me back to you!”</p> +<p>—He rose and thrust the window wide.</p> +<p>‘Twas but because his brain was hot</p> +<p>With rhyming; for he heard her not.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page174" name= +"page174">[174]</a></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But poets polishing a phrase</p> +<p>Show anger over trivial things;</p> +<p>And as she blundered in the blaze</p> +<p>Towards him, on ecstatic wings,</p> +<p>He raised a hand and smote her dead;</p> +<p>Then wrote “<em>That I had died instead!</em>”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The lover, or bereaved husband, is writing a poem of which a +part is given in the first stanza—which is therefore put in +italics. The action proper begins with the second stanza. The soul +of the dead woman taps at the window in the shape of a +night-butterfly or moth—imagining, perhaps, that she has +still a voice and can make herself heard by the man that she loves. +She tells the story of her wandering in space—privileged to +pass to heaven, yet afraid of the journey. Now the subject of the +poem which the lover happens to be writing inside the room is a +memory of the dead woman—mourning for her, describing her in +exquisite ways. He can not hear her at all; he does not hear even +the beating of the little wings at the window, but he stands up and +opens the window—because he happens to feel hot and tired. +The moth thinks that he has heard her, that he knows; and she flies +toward him in great delight. But he, thinking that it is only a +troublesome insect, kills her with a blow of his hand; and then +sits down to continue his poem with the words, “Oh, how I +wish I could have died instead <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page175" name="page175">[175]</a></span>of that dear woman!” +Altogether this is a queer poem in English literature, and I +believe almost alone of its kind. But it is queer only because of +its rarity of subject. As for construction, it is very good +indeed.</p> +<p>I do not know that it is necessary to quote any more poems upon +butterflies or moths. There are several others; but the workmanship +and the thought are not good enough or original enough to justify +their use here as class texts. So I shall now turn to the subject +of dragon-flies. Here we must again be very brief. References to +dragon-flies are common throughout English poetry, but the +references signify little more than a mere colourless mention of +the passing of the insect. However, it so happens that the finest +modern lines of pure description written about any insect, are +about dragon-flies. And they also happen to be by Tennyson. +Naturalists and men of science have greatly praised these lines, +because of their truth to nature and the accuracy of observation +which they show. You will find them in the poem entitled “The +Two Voices.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>To-day I saw the dragon-fly</p> +<p>Come from the wells where he did lie.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>An inner impulse rent the veil</p> +<p>Of his old husk; from head to tail</p> +<p>Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page176" name= +"page176">[176]</a></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>He dried his wings; like gauze they grew;</p> +<p>Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew</p> +<p>A living rush of light he flew.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>There are very few real poems, however, upon the dragon-fly in +English, and considering the extraordinary beauty and grace of the +insect, this may appear strange to you. But I think that you can +explain the strangeness at a later time. The silence of English +poets on the subject of insects as compared with Japanese poets is +due to general causes that we shall consider at the close of the +lecture.</p> +<p>Common flies could scarcely seem to be a subject for +poetry—disgusting and annoying creatures as they are. But +there are more poems about the house-fly than about the dragon-fly. +Last year I quoted for you a remarkable and rather mystical +composition by the poet Blake about accidentally killing a fly. +Blake represents his own thoughts about the brevity of human life +which had been aroused by the incident. It is charming little poem; +but it does not describe the fly at all. I shall not quote it here +again, because we shall have many other things to talk about; but I +shall give you the text of a famous little composition by Oldys on +the same topic. It has almost the simplicity of Blake,—and +certainly something of the same kind of philosophy.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Busy, curious, thirsty fly,</p> +<p>Drink with me and drink as I;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page177" name= +"page177">[177]</a></span> +<p>Freely welcome to my cup,</p> +<p>Couldst thou sip and sip it up:</p> +<p>Make the most of life you may,</p> +<p>Life is short and wears away.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Both alike are mine and thine</p> +<p>Hastening quick to their decline:</p> +<p>Thine’s a summer, mine’s no more,</p> +<p>Though repeated to threescore.</p> +<p>Threescore summers, when they’re gone,</p> +<p>Will appear as short as one!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The suggestion is that, after all, time is only a very relative +affair in the cosmic order of things. The life of the man of sixty +years is not much longer than the life of the insect which lives +but a few hours, days, or months. Had Oldys, who belongs to the +eighteenth century, lived in our own time, he might have been able +to write something very much more curious on this subject. It is +now known that time, to the mind of an insect, must appear +immensely longer than it appears to the mind of a man. It has been +calculated that a mosquito or a gnat moves its wings between four +and five hundred times a second. Now the scientific dissection of +such an insect, under the microscope, justifies the opinion that +the insect must be conscious of each beat of the wings—just +as a man feels that he lifts his arm or bends his head every time +that the action is performed. A man can not even imagine the +consciousness of so short an interval of time as the five-hundredth +part of one <span class="pagenum"><a id="page178" name= +"page178">[178]</a></span>second. But insect consciousness can be +aware of such intervals; and a single day of life might well appear +to the gnat as long as the period of a month to a man. Indeed, we +have reason to suppose that to even the shortest-lived insect life +does not appear short at all; and that the ephemeral may actually, +so far as felling is concerned, live as long as a +man—although its birth and death does occur between the +rising and the setting of the sun.</p> +<p>We might suppose that bees would form a favourite subject of +poetry, especially in countries where agriculture is practised upon +such a scale as in England. But such is not really the case. Nearly +every English poet makes some reference to bees, as Tennyson does +in the famous couplet—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The moan of doves in immemorial elms,</p> +<p>And murmuring of innumerable bees.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>But the only really remarkable poem addressed to a bee is by the +American philosopher Emerson. The poem in question can not be +compared as to mere workmanship with some others which I have +cited; but as to thinking, it is very interesting, and you must +remember that the philosopher who writes poetry should be judged +for his thought rather than for the measure of his verse. The whole +is not equally good, nor is it short enough to quote entire; I +shall only give the best parts.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page179" name= +"page179">[179]</a></span> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Burly, dozing humble-bee,</p> +<p>Where thou art is clime for me.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,</p> +<p>Let me chase thy waving lines;</p> +<p>Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,</p> +<p>Singing over shrubs and vines.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Insect lover of the sun,</p> +<p>Joy of thy dominion!</p> +<p>Sailor of the atmosphere;</p> +<p>Swimmer through the waves of air;</p> +<p>Voyager of light and noon;</p> +<p>Epicurean of June;</p> +<p>Wait, I prithee, till I come</p> +<p>Within earshot of thy hum,—</p> +<p>All without is martyrdom.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou, in sunny solitudes,</p> +<p>Rover of the underwoods,</p> +<p>The green silence dost displace</p> +<p>With thy mellow, breezy bass.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Aught unsavory or unclean</p> +<p>Hath my insect never seen;</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Wiser far than human seer,</p> +<p>Yellow-breeched philosopher!</p> +<p>Seeing only what is fair,</p> +<p>Sipping only what is sweet,</p> +<p>Thou dost mock at fate and care,</p> +<p>Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page180" name= +"page180">[180]</a></span>This is really the poetry of the +bee—visiting only beautiful flowers, and sucking from them +their perfumed juices—always healthy, happy, and surrounded +by beautiful things. A great rover, a constant wanderer is the +bee—visiting many different places, seeing many different +things, but stopping only to enjoy what is beautiful to the sight +and sweet to the taste. Now Emerson tells us that a wise man should +act like the bee—never stopping to look at what is bad, or +what is morally ugly, but seeking only what is beautiful and +nourishing for the mind. It is a very fine thought; and the manner +of expressing it is greatly helped by Emerson’s use of +curious and forcible words—such as “burly,” +“zigzag,” and the famous expression +“yellow-breeched philosopher”—which has passed +almost into an American household phrase. The allusion of course is +to the thighs of the bee, covered with the yellow pollen of flowers +so as to make them seem covered with yellow breeches, or trousers +reaching only to the knees.</p> +<p>I do not of course include in the lecture such child songs about +insects as that famous one beginning with the words, “How +doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour.” This is +no doubt didactically very good; but I wish to offer you only +examples of really fine poetry on the topic. Therefore leaving the +subject of bees for the time, let us turn to the subject of musical +insects<span class="pagenum"><a id="page181" name= +"page181">[181]</a></span>—the singers of the fields and +woods—grasshoppers and crickets.</p> +<p>In Japanese poetry there are thousands of verses upon such +insects. Therefore it seems very strange that we have scarcely +anything on the subject in English. And the little that we do have +is best represented by the poem of Keats on the night cricket. The +reference is probably to what we call in England the hearth +cricket, an insect which hides in houses, making itself at home in +some chink of the brickwork or stonework about a fireplace, for it +loves the warmth. I suppose that the small number of poems in +English about crickets can be partly explained by the scarcity of +night singers. Only the house cricket seems to be very well known. +But on the other hand, we can not so well explain the rarity of +composition in regard to the day-singers—the grasshoppers and +locusts which can be heard, though somewhat faintly, in any English +country place after sunset during the warm season. Another queer +thing is that the example set by Keats has not been imitated or at +least followed even up to the present time.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The poetry of earth is never dead:</p> +<p>When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, etc.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>In this charming composition you will have noticed the word +“stove”; but you must remember that this is not a stove +as we understand the term now, and signifies only an old-fashioned +fireplace <span class="pagenum"><a id="page182" name= +"page182">[182]</a></span>of brick or tile. In Keats’s day +there were no iron stoves. Another word which I want to notice is +the word “poetry” in the first line. By the poetry of +nature the poet means the voices of nature—the musical sounds +made by its idle life in woods and fields. So the word +“poetry” here has especially the meaning of song, and +corresponds very closely to the Japanese word which signifies +either poem or song, but perhaps more especially the latter. The +general meaning of the sonnet is that at no time, either in winter +or in summer, is nature silent. When the birds do not sing, the +grasshoppers make music for us; and when the cold has killed or +banished all other life, then the house cricket begins with its +thin sweet song to make us think of the dead voices of the +summer.</p> +<p>There is not much else of note about the grasshopper and the +cricket in the works of the great English poets. But perhaps you do +not know that Tennyson in his youth took up the subject and made a +long poem upon the grasshopper, but suppressed it after the edition +of 1842. He did not think it good enough to rank with his other +work. But a few months ago the poems which Tennyson suppressed in +the final edition of his works have been published and carefully +edited by an eminent scholar, and among these poems we find +“The Grasshopper.” I will quote some of this poem, +because it is beautiful, and because the fact of its suppression +will serve to show you how very exact <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page183" name="page183">[183]</a></span>and careful Tennyson was +to preserve only the very best things that he wrote.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Voice of the summer wind,</p> +<p>Joy of the summer plain,</p> +<p>Life of the summer hours,</p> +<p>Carol clearly, bound along,</p> +<p>No Tithon thou as poets feign</p> +<p>(Shame fall ’em, they are deaf and blind),</p> +<p>But an insect lithe and strong</p> +<p>Bowing the seeded summer flowers.</p> +<p>Prove their falsehood and thy quarrel,</p> +<p>Vaulting on thine airy feet</p> +<p>Clap thy shielded sides and carol,</p> +<p>Carol clearly, chirrups sweet.</p> +<p>Thou art a mailéd warrior in youth and strength +complete;</p> +<p class="i2">Armed cap-à-pie,</p> +<p class="i2">Full fair to see;</p> +<p class="i2">Unknowing fear,</p> +<p class="i2">Undreading loss,</p> +<p class="i2">A gallant cavalier,</p> +<p class="i2"><em>Sans peur et sans reproche</em>.</p> +<p class="i2">In sunlight and in shadow,</p> +<p class="i2">The Bayard of the meadow.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The reference to Tithonus is a reference of course to a subject +afterwards beautifully elaborated in another poem by Tennyson, the +great poem of “Tithonus.” The Bayard here referred to +was the great French model of perfect chivalry, and is sometimes +called the last of the feudal knights. He was said to be without +fear and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page184" name= +"page184">[184]</a></span>without blame. You may remember that he +was killed by a ball from a gun—it was soon after the use of +artillery in war had been introduced; and his dying words were to +the effect that he feared there was now an end of great deeds, +because men had begun to fight from a distance with machines +instead of fighting in the old knightly and noble way with sword +and spear. The grasshopper, covered with green plates and bearing +so many little sharp spines upon its long limbs, seems to have +suggested to Tennyson the idea of a fairy knight in green +armour.</p> +<p>As I said before, England is poor in singing insects, while +America is rich in them—almost, perhaps, as rich as Japan, +although you will not find as many different kinds of singing +insects in any one state or district. The singing insects of +America are peculiar to particular localities. But the Eastern +states have perhaps the most curious insect of this kind. It is +called the Katydid. This name is spelt either Katydid, or +Catydid—though the former spelling is preferable. Katy, or +Katie, is the abbreviation of the name Catherine; very few girls +are called by the full name Catherine, also spelt Katherine; +because the name is long and unmusical, their friends address them +usually as Katy, and their acquaintances, as Kate. Well, the insect +of which I am speaking, a kind of <em>semi</em>, makes a sound +resembling the sound of the words “Katie did!” Hence +the name—one of the few <span class="pagenum"><a id="page185" +name="page185">[185]</a></span>corresponding to the names given to +the Japanese <em>semi</em>, such as <em>tsuku-tsuku-boshi</em>, or +<em>minmin-semi</em>. The most interesting composition upon this +cicada is by Oliver Wendell Holmes, but it is of the lighter sort +of verse, with a touch of humour in it. I shall quote a few verses +only, as the piece contains some allusions that would require +explanation at considerable length.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I love to hear thine earnest voice,</p> +<p class="i2">Wherever thou art hid,</p> +<p>Thou testy little dogmatist,</p> +<p class="i2">Thou pretty Katydid!</p> +<p>Thou mindest me of gentlefolks,—</p> +<p class="i2">Old gentlefolks are they,—</p> +<p>Thou say’st an undisputed thing</p> +<p class="i2">In such a solemn way.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh tell me where did Katy live,</p> +<p class="i2">And what did Katy do?</p> +<p>And was she very fair and young,</p> +<p class="i2">And yet so wicked, too?</p> +<p>Did Katy love a naughty man,</p> +<p class="i2">Or kiss more cheeks than one?</p> +<p>I warrant Katy did no more</p> +<p class="i2">Than many a Kate has done.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ah, no! The living oak shall crash,</p> +<p class="i2">That stood for ages still,</p> +<p>The rock shall rend its mossy base</p> +<p class="i2">And thunder down the hill,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page186" name= +"page186">[186]</a></span> +<p>Before the little Katydid</p> +<p class="i2">Shall add one word, to tell</p> +<p>The mystic story of the maid</p> +<p class="i2">Whose name she knows so well.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The word “testy” may be a little unfamiliar to some +of you; it is a good old-fashioned English term for +“cross,” “irritable.” The reference to the +“old gentlefolks” implies the well-known fact that in +argument old persons are inclined to be much more obstinate than +young people. And there is also a hint in the poem of the tendency +among old ladies to blame the conduct of young girls even more +severely than may be necessary. There is nothing else to recommend +the poem except its wit and the curiousness of the subject. There +are several other verses about the same creature, by different +American poets; but none of them is quite so good as the +composition of Holmes. However, I may cite a few verses from one of +the earlier American poets, Philip Freneau, who flourished in the +eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth. He long +anticipated the fancy of Holmes; but he spells the word +Catydid.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>In a branch of willow hid</p> +<p>Sings the evening Catydid:</p> +<p>From the lofty locust bough</p> +<p>Feeding on a drop of dew,</p> +<p>In her suit of green arrayed</p> +<p>Hear her singing in the shade—</p> +<p class="i2">Catydid, Catydid, Catydid!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page187" name= +"page187">[187]</a></span> +<p>While upon a leaf you tread,</p> +<p>Or repose your little head</p> +<p>On your sheet of shadows laid,</p> +<p>All the day you nothing said;</p> +<p>Half the night your cheery tongue</p> +<p>Revelled out its little song,—</p> +<p class="i2">Nothing else but Catydid.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Tell me, what did Caty do?</p> +<p>Did she mean to trouble you?</p> +<p>Why was Caty not forbid</p> +<p>To trouble little Catydid?</p> +<p>Wrong, indeed, at you to fling,</p> +<p>Hurting no one while you sing,—</p> +<p class="i2">Catydid! Catydid! Catydid!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>To Dr. Holmes the voice of the cicada seemed like the voice of +an old obstinate woman, an old prude, accusing a young girl of some +fault,—but to Freneau the cry of the little creature seemed +rather to be like the cry of a little child complaining—a +little girl, perhaps, complaining that somebody had been throwing +stones at her, or had hurt her in some way. And, of course, the +unfinished character of the phrase allows equally well either +supposition.</p> +<p>Before going back to more serious poetry, I want—while we +are speaking of American poets—to make one reference to the +ironical or satirical poetry which insects have inspired in some +minds, taking for example the poem by Charlotte Perkins Stetson +about a butterfly. This author is <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page188" name="page188">[188]</a></span>rather a person of note, +being a prominent figure in educational reforms and the author of a +volume of poems of a remarkably strong kind in the didactic sense. +In other words, she is especially a moral poet; and unless moral +poetry be really very well executed, it is scarcely worth while +classing it as literature. I think, however, that the symbolism in +the following verses will interest you—especially when we +comment upon them. The composition from which they are taken is +entitled “A Conservative.”</p> +<p>The poet, walking in the garden one morning, sees a butterfly, +very unhappy, and gifted with power to express the reason of its +unhappiness. The butterfly says, complaining of its wings,</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“My legs are thin and few</p> +<p>Where once I had a swarm!</p> +<p>Soft fuzzy fur—a joy to view—</p> +<p>Once kept my body warm,</p> +<p>Before these flapping wing-things grew,</p> +<p>To hamper and deform!”</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>At that outrageous bug I shot</p> +<p>The fury of mine eye;</p> +<p>Said I, in scorn all burning hot,</p> +<p>In rage and anger high,</p> +<p>“You ignominious idiot!</p> +<p>Those wings are made to fly!”</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“I do not want to fly,” said he,</p> +<p>“I only want to squirm!”</p> +<p>And he drooped his wings dejectedly,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page189" name= +"page189">[189]</a></span> +<p>But still his voice was firm:</p> +<p>“I do not want to be a fly!</p> +<p>I want to be a worm!”</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O yesterday of unknown lack!</p> +<p>To-day of unknown bliss!</p> +<p>I left my fool in red and black,</p> +<p>The last I saw was this,—</p> +<p>The creature madly climbing back</p> +<p>Into his chrysalis.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Of course the wings here represent the powers of the +mind—knowledge, reason, will. Men ought to use these in order +to reach still nobler and higher states of life. But there are men +who refuse to use their best faculties for this end. Such men are +like butterflies who do not want to take the trouble to fly, but +prefer the former condition of the caterpillar which does nothing +but eat and sleep. As applied to certain forms of conservatism the +satire is strong.</p> +<p>Something may now be said as to poems about spiders. But let me +remind you that a spider is not an insect. Scientifically it has no +relation to the great family of true insects; it belongs to the +very distinct family of the arthropoda or +“joint-footed” animals. But as it is still popularly +called an insect in most European countries, we may be excused for +including it in the subject of the present lecture. I suppose you +know that one of the scientific names for this whole class of +creatures is Arachnida,—a name derived from the Greek +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page190" name= +"page190">[190]</a></span>name Arachne. The story of Arachne is +interesting, and everybody studying natural history ought to know +it. Arachne was a young girl, according to the Greek story, who was +very skilful at weaving. She wove cloths of many different colours +and beautiful patterns, and everybody admired her work. This made +her vain—so vain that at last she said that even the goddess +of weaving could not weave better than she. Immediately after she +had said that, the terrible goddess herself—Pallas +Athena—entered the room. Pallas Athena was not only the +goddess of wisdom, you know, but especially the goddess of young +girls, presiding over the chastity, the filial piety, and the +domestic occupations of virgins; and she was very angry at the +conceit of this girl. So she said to her, “You have boasted +that you can weave as well as I can; now let me see you +weave!” So Arachne was obliged to sit down at her loom and +weave in the presence of the goddess; and the goddess also wove, +far surpassing the weaving of Arachne. When the weaving was done, +the goddess asked the girl, “Now see! which is the better, my +work or yours?” And Arachne was obliged to confess that she +had been defeated and put to shame. But the goddess was not +thoroughly satisfied; to punish Arachne, she touched her lightly +with the distaff, saying, “Spin forever!” and thereupon +Arachne was changed into a spider, which forever spins and weaves +perishable films of perishable <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page191" name="page191">[191]</a></span>shiny thread. Poetically +we still may call a spider Arachne.</p> +<p>I have here a little poem of a touching character entitled +“Arachne,” by Rose Terry Cooke,—one of the +symbolic poems which are becoming so numerous in these days of +newer and deeper philosophy. I think that you will like it: a +spinster, that is, a maiden passed the age of girlhood, is the +speaker.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I watch her in the corner there,</p> +<p>As, restless, bold, and unafraid,</p> +<p>She slips and floats along the air</p> +<p>Till all her subtile house is made.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Her home, her bed, her daily food,</p> +<p>All from that hidden store she draws;</p> +<p>She fashions it and knows it good,</p> +<p>By instinct’s strong and sacred laws.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>No tenuous threads to weave her nest,</p> +<p>She seeks and gathers there or here;</p> +<p>But spins it from her faithful breast,</p> +<p>Renewing still, till leaves are sere.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Then, worn with toil, and tired of life,</p> +<p>In vain her shining traps are set.</p> +<p>Her frost hath hushed the insect strife</p> +<p>And gilded flies her charm forget.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But swinging in the snares she spun,</p> +<p>She sways to every wintry wind:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page192" name= +"page192">[192]</a></span> +<p>Her joy, her toil, her errand done,</p> +<p>Her corse the sport of storms unkind.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The symbolism of these verses will appear to you more +significant when I tell you that it refers especially to conditions +in New England in the present period. The finest American +population—perhaps the finest Anglo-Saxons ever +produced—were the New Englanders of the early part of the +century. But with the growth of the new century, the men found +themselves attracted elsewhere, especially westward; their +shrewdness, their energies, their inventiveness, were needed in +newer regions. And they wandered away by thousands and thousands, +never to come back again, and leaving the women behind them. +Gradually the place of these men was taken by immigrants of +inferior development—but the New England women had nothing to +hope for from these strangers. The bravest of them also went away +to other states; but myriads who could not go were condemned by +circumstances to stay and earn their living by hard work without +any prospect of happy marriage. The difficulty which a girl of +culture may experience in trying to live by the work of her hands +in New England is something not easily imagined. But it is getting +to be the same in most Western countries. Such a girl is watching a +spider weaving in the corner of the same room where she herself is +weaving; and she thinks, “Am I not like that spider, obliged +to supply <span class="pagenum"><a id="page193" name= +"page193">[193]</a></span>my every need by the work of my own +hands, without sympathy, without friends? The spider will spin and +catch flies until the autumn comes; then she will die. Perhaps I +too must continue to spin until the autumn of my own +life—until I become too old to work hard, and die of cold and +of exhaustion.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Poor sister of the spinster clan!</p> +<p>I too from out my store within</p> +<p>My daily life and living plan,</p> +<p>My home, my rest, my pleasure spin.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I know thy heart when heartless hands</p> +<p>Sweep all that hard-earned web away;</p> +<p>Destroy its pearled and glittering bands,</p> +<p>And leave thee homeless by the way.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I know thy peace when all is done.</p> +<p>Each anchored thread, each tiny knot,</p> +<p>Soft shining in the autumn sun;</p> +<p>A sheltered, silent, tranquil lot.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I know what thou hast never known,—</p> +<p>Sad presage to a soul allowed—</p> +<p>That not for life I spin, alone,</p> +<p>But day by day I spin my shroud.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The reference to the sweeping away of the spider’s web, of +course, implies the pain often caused to such hardworking girls by +the meanness of men who employ them only to cheat +them—<span class="pagenum"><a id="page194" name= +"page194">[194]</a></span>shopkeepers or manufacturers who take +their work without justly paying for it, and who criticize it as +bad in order to force the owner to accept less money than it is +worth. Again a reference may be intended to the destruction of the +home by some legal trick—some unscrupulous method of cheating +the daughter out of the property bequeathed to her by her +parents.</p> +<p>Notice a few pretty words here. The “pearled” as +applied to the spider’s thread gives an intimation of the +effect produced by dew on the thread, but there is also the +suggestion of tears upon the thread work woven by the hands of the +girl. The participle “anchored” is very pretty in its +use here as an adjective, because this word is now especially used +for rope-fastening, whether the rope be steel or hemp; and +particularly for the fastening of the cables of a bridge. The last +stanza might be paraphrased thus: “Sister Spider, I know more +than you—and that knowledge makes me unhappy. You do not +know, when you are spinning your little web, that you are really +weaving your own shroud. But I know this, my work is slowly but +surely killing me. And I know it because I have a soul—at +least a mind made otherwise than yours.”</p> +<p>The use of the word “soul” in the last stanza of +this poem, brings me back to the question put forth in an earlier +part of the lecture—why European poets, during the last two +thousand years, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page195" name= +"page195">[195]</a></span>have written so little upon the subject +of insects? Three thousand, four thousand years ago, the most +beautiful Greek poetry—poetry more perfect than anything of +English poetry—was written upon insects. In old Japanese +literature poems upon insects are to be found by thousands. What is +the signification of the great modern silence in Western countries +upon this delightful topic? I believe that Christianity, as dogma, +accounts for the long silence. The opinions of the early Church +refused soul, ghost, intelligence of any sort to other creatures +than man. All animals were considered as automata—that is, as +self-acting machines, moved by a something called instinct, for +want of a better name. To talk about the souls of animals or the +spirits of animals would have been very dangerous in the Middle +Ages, when the Church had supreme power; it would indeed have been +to risk or to invite an accusation of witchcraft, for demons were +then thought to take the shape of animals at certain times. To +discuss the <em>mind</em> of an animal would have been for the +Christian faith to throw doubt upon the existence of human souls as +taught by the Church; for if you grant that animals are able to +think, then you must acknowledge that man is able to think without +a soul, or you must acknowledge that the soul is not the essential +principle of thought and action. Until after the time of Descartes, +who later argued philosophically that animals were only machines, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page196" name= +"page196">[196]</a></span>it was scarcely possible to argue +rationally about the matter in Europe.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, we shall soon perceive that this explanation will +not cover all the facts. You will naturally ask how it happens +that, if the question be a question of animal souls, birds, horses, +dogs, cats, and many other animals have been made the subject of +Western poems from ancient times. The silence is only upon the +subject of insects. And, again, Christianity has one +saint—the most beautiful character in all Christian +hagiography—who thought of all nature in a manner that, at +first sight, strangely resembles Buddhism. This saint was Francis +of Assisi, born in the latter part of the twelfth century, so that +he may be said to belong to the very heart of the Middle +Ages,—the most superstitious epoch of Christianity. Now this +saint used to talk to trees and stones as if they were animated +beings. He addressed the sun as “my brother sun”; and +he spoke of the moon as his sister. He preached not only to human +beings, but also to the birds and the fishes; and he made a great +many poems on these subjects, full of a strange and childish +beauty. For example, his sermon to the doves, beginning, “My +little sisters, the doves,” in which he reminds them that +their form is the emblem or symbol of the Holy Ghost, is a +beautiful poem; and has been, with many others, translated into +nearly all modern languages. But observe that neither St. Francis +nor <span class="pagenum"><a id="page197" name= +"page197">[197]</a></span>any other saint has anything to say on +the subject of insects.</p> +<p>Perhaps we must go back further than Christianity to guess the +meaning of these distinctions. Among the ancient races of Asia, +where the Jewish faith arose, there were strange and sinister +beliefs about insects—old Assyrian superstitions, old +Babylonian beliefs. Insects seemed to those early peoples very +mysterious creatures (which they really are); and it appears to +have been thought that they had a close relation to the world of +demons and evil spirits. I suppose you know that the name of one of +their gods, Beelzebub, signifies the Lord of Flies. The Jews, as is +shown by their Talmudic literature, inherited some of these ideas; +and it is quite probable that they were passed on to the days of +Christianity. Again, in the early times of Christianity in Northern +Africa the Church had to fight against superstitions of an equally +strange sort derived from old Egyptian beliefs. Among the +Egyptians, certain insects were sacred and became symbols of +divinity,—such as the beetle. Now I imagine that for these +reasons the subject of insects became at an early time a subject +which Christianity thought dangerous, and that thereafter a kind of +hostile opinion prevailed regarding any literature upon this +topic.</p> +<p>However, to-day things are very different. With the development +of scientific studies—especially of microscopic +study—it has been found that <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page198" name="page198">[198]</a></span>insects, far from being +the lowliest of creatures, are the most highly organized of all +beings; that their special senses are incomparably superior to our +own; and that in natural history, from the evolutional standpoint, +they have to be given first place. This of course renders it +impossible any longer to consider the insect as a trifling subject. +Moreover, the new philosophy is teaching the thinking classes in +all Western countries the great truth of the unity of life. With +the recognition of such unity, an insect must interest the +philosophers—even the man of ordinary culture—quite as +much as the bird or any other animal.</p> +<p>Nearly all the poems which I have quoted to you have been poems +of very modern date—from which we may infer that interest in +the subject of insects has been developing of late years only. In +this connection it is interesting to note that a very religious +poet, Whittier, gave us in the last days of his life a poem upon +ants. This would have seemed strange enough in a former age; it +does not seem strange to-day, and it is beautiful. The subject is +taken from old Jewish literature.</p> +<h4>KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Out from Jerusalem</p> +<p class="i2">The King rode with his great</p> +<p class="i2">War chiefs and lords of state,</p> +<p>And Sheba’s queen with them;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page199" name= +"page199">[199]</a></span> +<p>Comely, but black withal,</p> +<p class="i2">To whom, perchance, belongs</p> +<p class="i2">That wondrous Song of Songs,</p> +<p>Sensuous and mystical,</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Whereto devout souls turn</p> +<p class="i2">In fond, ecstatic dream,</p> +<p class="i2">And through its earth-born theme</p> +<p>The Love of Loves discern.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Proud in the Syrian sun,</p> +<p class="i2">In gold and purple sheen,</p> +<p class="i2">The dusky Ethiop queen</p> +<p>Smiled on King Solomon.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Wisest of men, he knew</p> +<p class="i2">The languages of all</p> +<p class="i2">The creatures great or small</p> +<p>That trod the earth or flew.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Across an ant-hill led</p> +<p class="i2">The king’s path, and he heard</p> +<p class="i2">Its small folk, and their word</p> +<p>He thus interpreted:</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“Here comes the king men greet</p> +<p class="i2">As wise and good and just,</p> +<p class="i2">To crush us in the dust</p> +<p>Under his heedless feet.”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The king, understanding the language of insects, turns to the +queen and explains to her what the ants have just said. She advises +him to pay no <span class="pagenum"><a id="page200" name= +"page200">[200]</a></span>attention to the sarcasm of the +ants—how dare such vile creatures speak thus about a king! +But Solomon thinks otherwise:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“Nay,” Solomon replied,</p> +<p class="i2">“The wise and strong should seek</p> +<p class="i2">The welfare of the weak,”</p> +<p>And turned his horse aside.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>His train, with quick alarm,</p> +<p class="i2">Curved with their leader round</p> +<p class="i2">The ant-hill’s peopled mound,</p> +<p>And left it free from harm.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The jewelled head bent low;</p> +<p class="i2">“Oh, king!” she said, +“henceforth</p> +<p class="i2">The secret of thy worth</p> +<p>And wisdom well I know.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“Happy must be the State</p> +<p class="i2">Whose ruler heedeth more</p> +<p class="i2">The murmurs of the poor</p> +<p>Than flatteries of the great.”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The reference to the Song of Songs—also the Song of +Solomon and Canticle of Canticles—may require a little +explanation. The line “Comely but black withal,” is +borrowed from a verse of this song—“I am black but +beautiful, oh, ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as +the curtains of Solomon.” In another part of the song the +reason of this blackness is given: “I am black, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page201" name="page201">[201]</a></span>because +the sun hath looked upon me.” From which we can see that the +word black only means dark, brown, tanned by the sun. Perhaps you +do not know that as late as the middle of the eighteenth century it +was still the custom in England to speak of a person with black +hair and eyes as “a black man”—a custom which +Charles Lamb had reason to complain of even at a later day. The +tents referred to in the text were probably tents made of +camel-skin, such as the Arabs still make, and the colour of these +is not black but brown. Whether Solomon wrote the so-called song or +not we do not know; but the poet refers to a legend that it was +written in praise of the beauty of the dark queen who came from +Sheba to visit the wisest man of the world. Such is not, however, +the opinion of modern scholars. The composition is really dramatic, +although thrown into lyrical form, and as arranged by Renan and +others it becomes a beautiful little play, of which each act is a +monologue. “Sensuous” the poet correctly calls it; for +it is a form of praise of woman’s beauty in all its details, +as appears in such famous verses as these: “How beautiful are +thy feet in shoes, O prince’s daughter; the joints of thy +thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. +Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins which feed +among the lilies.” But Christianity, instead of dismissing +this part of the Bible, interpreted the song <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page202" name= +"page202">[202]</a></span>mystically—insisting that the woman +described meant the Church, and the lover, Christ. Of course only +very pious people continue to believe this; even the good Whittier +preferred the legend that it was written about the Queen of +Sheba.</p> +<p>I suppose that I ought to end this lecture upon insect poetry by +some quotation to which a moral or philosophical meaning can be +attached. I shall end it therefore with a quotation from the poet +Gray. The poetry of insects may be said to have first appeared in +English literature during the second half of the eighteenth +century, so that it is only, at the most, one hundred and fifty +years old. But the first really fine poem of the eighteenth century +relating to the subject is quite as good as anything since composed +by Englishmen upon insect life in general. Perhaps Gray referred +especially to what we call May-flies—those delicate ghostly +insects which hover above water surfaces in fine weather, but which +die on the same day that they are born. He does not specify +May-flies, however, and we may consider the moral of the poem quite +apart from any particular kind of insect. You will find this +reference in the piece entitled “Ode on the Spring,” in +the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Still is the toiling hand of care:</p> +<p class="i2">The panting herds repose:</p> +<p>Yet hark, how through the peopled air</p> +<p>The busy murmur glows!</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page203" name= +"page203">[203]</a></span> +<p>The insect youth are on the wing,</p> +<p>Eager to taste the honied spring,</p> +<p>And float amid the liquid noon:</p> +<p>Some lightly o’er the current skim,</p> +<p>Some show their gaily-gilded trim</p> +<p class="i2">Quick-glancing to the sun.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>To Contemplation’s sober eye</p> +<p class="i2">Such is the race of man:</p> +<p>And they that creep, and they that fly,</p> +<p class="i2">Shall end where they began.</p> +<p>Alike the Busy and the Gay</p> +<p>But flutter through life’s little day,</p> +<p>In fortune’s varying colours dressed:</p> +<p>Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,</p> +<p>Or chilled by Age, their airy dance</p> +<p class="i2">They leave, in dust to rest.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Methinks I hear in accents low</p> +<p class="i2">The sportive kind reply:</p> +<p>Poor moralist! and what art thou?</p> +<p class="i2">A solitary fly!</p> +<p>Thy joys no glittering female meets,</p> +<p>No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,</p> +<p>No painted plumage to display:</p> +<p>On hasty wings thy youth is flown;</p> +<p>Thy sun is set; thy spring is gone—</p> +<p class="i2">We frolic, while ’tis May.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The poet Gray was never married, and the last stanza which I +have quoted refers jocosely to himself. It is an artistic device to +set off the moral by a little mockery, so that it may not appear +too melancholy.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page204" name= +"page204">[204]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_11" name="Ch_11">Chapter XI</a></h3> +<h2>Some French Poems about Insects</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>Last year I gave a lecture on the subject of English poems about +insects, with some reference to the old Greek poems on the same +subject. But I did not then have an opportunity to make any +reference to French poems upon the same subject, and I think that +it would be a pity not to give you a few examples.</p> +<p>Just as in the case of English poems about insects, nearly all +the French literature upon this subject is new. Insect poetry +belongs to the newer and larger age of thought, to the age that +begins to perceive the great truth of the unity of life. We no +longer find, even in natural histories, the insect treated as a +mere machine and unthinking organism; on the contrary its habits, +its customs and its manifestation both of intelligence and instinct +are being very carefully studied in these times, and a certain +sympathy, as well as a certain feeling of respect or admiration, +may be found in the scientific treatises of the greatest men who +write about insect life. So, naturally, Europe is slowly returning +to the poetical standpoint of the old Greeks in this respect. It is +not improbable that <span class="pagenum"><a id="page205" name= +"page205">[205]</a></span>keeping caged insects as pets may again +become a Western custom, as it was in Greek times, when cages were +made of rushes or straw for the little creatures. I suppose you +have heard that the Japanese custom is very likely to become a +fashion in America. If that should really happen, the fact would +certainly have an effect upon poetry. I think that it is very +likely to happen.</p> +<p>The French poets who have written pretty things about insects +are nearly all poets of our own times. Some of them treat the +subject from the old Greek standpoint—indeed the beautiful +poem of Heredia upon the tomb of a grasshopper is perfectly Greek, +and reads almost like a translation from the Greek. Other poets try +to express the romance of insects in the form of a monologue, full +of the thought of our own age. Others again touch the subject of +insects only in connection with the subject of love. I will give +one example of each method, keeping the best piece for the last, +and beginning with a pretty fancy about a dragonfly.</p> +<h4>MA LIBELLULE</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>En te voyant, toute mignonne,</p> +<p>Blanche dans ta robe d’azure,</p> +<p>Je pensais à quelque madone</p> +<p>Drapée en un pen de ciel pur.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Je songeais à ces belles saintes</p> +<p>Que l’on voyait au temps jadis</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page206" name= +"page206">[206]</a></span> +<p>Sourire sur les vitres peintes,</p> +<p>Montrant d’un doigt le paradis:</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Et j’aurais voulu, loin du monde</p> +<p>Qui passait frivole entre nous,</p> +<p>Dans quelque retraite profonde</p> +<p>T’adorer seul à deux genoux.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This first part of the poem is addressed of course to a +beautiful child, some girl between the age of childhood and +womanhood:</p> +<p>“Beholding thee, Oh darling one, all white in thy azure +dress, I thought of some figure of the Madonna robed in a shred of +pure blue sky.</p> +<p>“I dreamed of those beautiful figures of saints whom one +used to see in olden times smiling in the stained glass of church +windows, and pointing upward to Paradise.</p> +<p>“And I could have wished to adore you alone upon my bended +knees in some far hidden retreat, away from the frivolous world +that passed between us.”</p> +<p>This little bit of ecstasy over the beauty and purity of a child +is pretty, but not particularly original. However, it is only an +introduction. Now comes the pretty part of the poem:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Soudain un caprice bizarre</p> +<p>Change la scène et le décor,</p> +<p>Et mon esprit au loin s’égare</p> +<p>Sur des grands prés d’azure et d’or</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page207" name= +"page207">[207]</a></span> +<p>Où, près de ruisseaux muscules</p> +<p>Gazouillants comme des oiseaux,</p> +<p>Se poursuivent les libellules,</p> +<p>Ces fleurs vivantes des roseaux.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Enfant, n’es tu pas l’une d’elles</p> +<p>Qui me poursuit pour consoler?</p> +<p>Vainement tu caches tes ailes;</p> +<p>Tu marches, mais tu sais voler.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Petite fée au bleu corsage,</p> +<p>Que j’ai connu dès mon berceau,</p> +<p>En revoyant ton doux visage,</p> +<p>Je pense aux joncs de mon ruisseau!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Veux-tu qu’en amoureux fidèles</p> +<p>Nous revenions dans ces prés verts?</p> +<p>Libellule, reprends tes ailes;</p> +<p>Moi, je brulerai tous mes vers!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Et nous irons, sous la lumière,</p> +<p>D’un ciel plus frais et plus léger</p> +<p>Chacun dans sa forme première,</p> +<p>Moi courir, et toi voltiger.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>“Suddenly a strange fancy changes for me the scene and the +scenery; and my mind wanders far away over great meadows of azure +and gold.</p> +<p>“Where, hard by tiny streams that murmur with a sound like +voices of little birds, the dragon-flies, those living flowers of +the reeds, chase each other at play.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page208" name= +"page208">[208]</a></span>”Child, art thou not one of those +dragon-flies, following after me to console me? Ah, it is in vain +that thou tryest to hide thy wings; thou dost walk, indeed, but +well thou knowest how to fly!</p> +<p>“O little fairy with the blue corsage whom I knew even +from the time I was a baby in the cradle; seeing again thy sweet +face, I think of the rushes that border the little stream of my +native village!</p> +<p>“Dost thou not wish that even now as faithful lovers we +return to those green fields? O dragon-fly, take thy wings again, +and I—I will burn all my poetry,</p> +<p>“And we shall go back, under the light of the sky more +fresh and pure than this, each of us in the original form—I +to run about, and thou to hover in the air as of yore.”</p> +<p>The sight of a child’s face has revived for the poet very +suddenly and vividly, the recollection of the village home, the +green fields of childhood, the little stream where he used to play +with the same little girl, sometimes running after the dragon-fly. +And now the queer fancy comes to him that she herself is so like a +dragon-fly—so light, graceful, spiritual! Perhaps really she +is a dragon-fly following him into the great city, where he +struggles to live as a poet, just in order to console him. She +hides her wings, but that is only to prevent other people knowing. +Why not return once more to the home of childhood, back to the +green fields <span class="pagenum"><a id="page209" name= +"page209">[209]</a></span>and the sun? “Little +dragon-fly,” he says to her, “let us go back! do you +return to your beautiful summer shape, be a dragon-fly again, +expand your wings of gauze; and I shall stop trying to write +poetry. I shall burn my verses; I shall go back to the streams +where we played as children; I shall run about again with the joy +of a child, and with you beautifully flitting hither and thither as +a dragon-fly.”</p> +<p>Victor Hugo also has a little poem about a dragon-fly, symbolic +only, but quite pretty. It is entitled “La Demoiselle”; +and the other poem was entitled, as you remember, “Ma +Libellule.” Both words mean a dragon-fly, but not the same +kind of dragon-fly. The French word “demoiselle,” which +might be adequately rendered into Japanese by the term +<em>ojosan</em>, refers only to those exquisitely slender, +graceful, slow-flitting dragon-flies known to the scientist by the +name of Calopteryx. Of course you know the difference by sight, and +the reason of the French name will be poetically apparent to +you.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Quand la demoiselle dorée</p> +<p>S’envole au départ des hivers,</p> +<p>Souvent sa robe diaprée,</p> +<p>Souvent son aile est déchirée</p> +<p>Aux mille dards des buissons verts.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ainsi, jeunesse vive et frêle,</p> +<p>Qui, t’égarant de tous côtés,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page210" name= +"page210">[210]</a></span> +<p>Voles ou ton instinct t’appele,</p> +<p>Souvent tu déchires ton aile</p> +<p>Aux épines des voluptes.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>“When, at the departure of winter, the gilded dragon-fly +begins to soar, often her many-coloured robe, often her wing, is +torn by the thousand thorns of the verdant shrubs.</p> +<p>“Even so, O frail and joyous Youth, who, wandering hither +and thither, in every direction, flyest wherever thy instinct calls +thee—even so thou dost often tear thy wings upon the thorns +of pleasure.”</p> +<p>You must understand that pleasure is compared to a rose-bush, +whose beautiful and fragrant flowers attract the insects, but whose +thorns are dangerous to the visitors. However, Victor Hugo does not +use the word for rose-bush, for obvious reasons; nor does he +qualify the plants which are said to tear the wings of the +dragon-fly. I need hardly tell you that the comparison would not +hold good in reference to the attraction of flowers, because +dragon-flies do not care in the least about flowers, and if they +happen to tear their wings among thorn bushes, it is much more +likely to be in their attempt to capture and devour other insects. +The merit of the poem is chiefly in its music and colour; as +natural history it would not bear criticism. The most beautiful +modern French poem about insects, beautiful because of its +classical perfection, is I think a sonnet by Heredia, entitled +“Épigramme Funéraire”—that is +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page211" name= +"page211">[211]</a></span>to say, “Inscription for a +Tombstone.” This is an exact imitation of Greek sentiment and +expression, carefully studied after the poets of the anthology. +Several such Greek poems are extant, recounting how children +mourned for pet insects which had died in spite of all their care. +The most celebrated one among these I quoted in a former +lecture—the poem about the little Greek girl Myro who made a +tomb for her grasshopper and cried over it. Heredia has very well +copied the Greek feeling in this fine sonnet:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ici gît, Etranger, la verte sauterelle</p> +<p>Que durant deux saisons nourrit la jeune Hellé,</p> +<p>Et dont l’aile vibrant sous le pied dentelé.</p> +<p>Bruissait dans le pin, le cytise, ou l’airelle.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Elle s’est tue, hélas! la lyre naturelle,</p> +<p>La muse des guérets, des sillons et du blé;</p> +<p>De peur que son léger sommeil ne soit troublé,</p> +<p>Ah, passe vite, ami, ne pèse point sur elle.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>C’est là. Blanche, au milieu d’une touffe de +thym,</p> +<p>Sa pierre funéraire est fraîchement +poseé.</p> +<p>Que d’hommes n’ont pas eu ce suprême +destin!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Des larmes d’un enfant la tombe est arrosée,</p> +<p>Et l’Aurore pieuse y fait chaque matin</p> +<p>Une libation de gouttes de rosée.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>“Stranger, here reposes the green grasshopper that the +young girl Helle cared for during two <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page212" name="page212">[212]</a></span>seasons,—the +grasshopper whose wings, vibrating under the strokes of its +serrated feet, used to resound in the pine, the trefoil and the +whortleberry.</p> +<p>“She is silent now, alas! that natural lyre, muse of the +unsown fields, of the furrows, and of the wheat. Lest her light +sleep should be disturbed, ah! pass quickly, friend! do not be +heavy upon her.</p> +<p>“It is there. All white, in the midst of a tuft of thyme, +her funeral monument is placed, in cool shadow; how many men have +not been able to have this supremely happy end!</p> +<p>“By the tears of a child the insect’s tomb is +watered; and the pious goddess of dawn each morning there makes a +libation of drops of dew.”</p> +<p>This reads very imperfectly in a hasty translation; the original +charm is due to the perfect art of the form. But the whole thing, +as I have said before, is really Greek, and based upon a close +study of several little Greek poems on the same kind of subject. +Little Greek girls thousands of years ago used to keep singing +insects as pets, every day feeding them with slices of leek and +with fresh water, putting in their little cages sprigs of the +plants which they liked. The sorrow of the child for the inevitable +death of her insect pets at the approach of winter, seems to have +inspired many Greek poets. With all tenderness, the child would +make a small grave for the insect, bury it solemnly, and put a +little white stone above the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page213" +name="page213">[213]</a></span>place to imitate a grave-stone. But +of course she would want an inscription for this +tombstone—perhaps would ask some of her grown-up friends to +compose one for her. Sometimes the grown-up friend might be a poet, +in which case he would compose an epitaph for all time.</p> +<p>I suppose you perceive that the solemnity of this imitation of +the Greek poems on the subject is only a tender mockery, a playful +sympathy with the real grief of the child. The expression, +“pass, friend,” is often found in Greek funeral +inscriptions together with the injunction to tread lightly upon the +dust of the dead. There is one French word to which I will call +attention,—the word “guérets.” We have no +English equivalent for this term, said to be a corruption of the +Latin word “veractum,” and meaning fields which have +been ploughed but not sown.</p> +<p>Not to dwell longer upon the phase of art indicated by this +poem, I may turn to the subject of crickets. There are many French +poems about crickets. One by Lamartine is known to almost every +French child.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Grillon solitaire,</p> +<p>Ici comme moi,</p> +<p>Voix qui sors de terre,</p> +<p>Ah! réveille-toi!</p> +<p>J’attise la flamme,</p> +<p>C’est pour t’égayer;</p> +<p>Mais il manque une âme,</p> +<p>Une âme au foyer.</p> +</div> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page214" name= +"page214">[214]</a></span> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Grillon solitaire,</p> +<p>Voix qui sors de terre,</p> +<p>Ah! réveille-toi</p> +<p class="i2">Pour moi.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Quand j’étais petite</p> +<p>Comme ce berceau,</p> +<p>Et que Marguerite</p> +<p>Filait son fuseau,</p> +<p>Quand le vent d’automne</p> +<p>Faisait tout gémir,</p> +<p>Ton cri monotone</p> +<p>M’aidait à dormir.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Grillon solitaire,</p> +<p>Voix qui sors de terre,</p> +<p>Ah! réveille-toi</p> +<p class="i2">Pour moi.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Seize fois l’année</p> +<p>A compté mes jours;</p> +<p>Dans la cheminée</p> +<p>Tu niches toujours.</p> +<p>Je t’écoute encore</p> +<p>Aux froides saisons.</p> +<p>Souvenir sonore</p> +<p>Des vieilles maisons.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Grillon solitaire,</p> +<p>Voix qui sors de terre,</p> +<p>Ah! réveille-toi</p> +<p class="i2">Pour moi.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>It is a young girl who thus addresses the cricket <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page215" name="page215">[215]</a></span>of the +hearth, the house cricket. It is very common in country houses in +Europe. This is what she says:</p> +<p>“Little solitary cricket, all alone here just like myself, +little voice that comes up out of the ground, ah, awake for my +sake! I am stirring up the fires, that is just to make you +comfortable; but there lacks a presence by the hearth; a soul to +keep me company.</p> +<p>“When I was a very little girl, as little as that cradle +in the corner of the room, then, while Margaret our servant sat +there spinning, and while the autumn wind made everything moan +outside, your monotonous cry used to help me to fall asleep.</p> +<p>“Solitary cricket, voice that issues from the ground, +awaken, for my sake.</p> +<p>“Now I am sixteen years of age and you are still nestling +in the chimneys as of old. I can hear you still in the cold +season,—like a sound—memory,—a sonorous memory of +old houses.</p> +<p>“Solitary cricket, voice that issues from the ground, +awaken, O awaken for my sake.”</p> +<p>I do not think this pretty little song needs any explanation; I +would only call your attention to the natural truth of the fancy +and the feeling. Sitting alone by the fire in the night, the maiden +wants to hear the cricket sing, because it makes her think of her +childhood, and she finds happiness in remembering it.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page216" name= +"page216">[216]</a></span>So far as mere art goes, the poem of +Gautier on the cricket is very much finer than the poem of +Lamartine, though not so natural and pleasing. But as Gautier was +the greatest master of French verse in the nineteenth century, not +excepting Victor Hugo, I think that one example of his poetry on +insects may be of interest. He was very poor, compared with Victor +Hugo; and he had to make his living by writing for newspapers, so +that he had no time to become the great poet that nature intended +him to be. However, he did find time to produce one volume of +highly finished poetry, which is probably the most perfect verse of +the nineteenth century, if not the most perfect verse ever made by +a French poet; I mean the “Emaux et Camées.” But +the little poem which I am going to read to you is not from the +“Emaux et Camées.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Souffle, bise! Tombe à flots, pluie!</p> +<p>Dans mon palais tout noir de suie,</p> +<p>Je ris de la pluie et du vent;</p> +<p>En attendant que l’hiver fuie,</p> +<p>Je reste au coin du feu, rêvant.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>C’est moi qui suis l’esprit de +l’âtre!</p> +<p>Le gaz, de sa langue bleuàtre,</p> +<p>Lèche plus doucement le bois;</p> +<p>La fumée en filet d’albàtre,</p> +<p>Monte et se contourne à ma voix.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page217" name= +"page217">[217]</a></span> +<p>La bouilloire rit et babille;</p> +<p>La flamme aux pieds d’argent sautille</p> +<p>En accompagnant ma chanson;</p> +<p>La bûche de duvet s’habille;</p> +<p>La sève bout dans le tison.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Pendant la nuit et la journée</p> +<p>Je chante sous la cheminée;</p> +<p>Dans mon langage de grillon</p> +<p>J’ai, des rebuts de son aînée,</p> +<p>Souvent console Cendrillon.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Quel plaisir? Prolonger sa veille,</p> +<p>Regarder la flamme vermeille</p> +<p>Prenant à deux bras le tison,</p> +<p>A tous les bruits prêter l’oreille,</p> +<p>Entendre vivre la maison.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Tapi dans sa niche bien chaude,</p> +<p>Sentir l’hiver qui pleure et rôde,</p> +<p>Tout blême, et le nez violet,</p> +<p>Tachant de s’introduire en fraude</p> +<p>Par quelque fente du volet!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This poem is especially picturesque, and is intended to give us +the comfortable sensations of a winter night by the fire, and the +amusement of watching the wood burn and of hearing the kettle +boiling. You will find that the French has a particular quality of +lucid expression; it is full of clearness and colour.</p> +<p>“Blow on, cold wind! pour down, O rain. I, in <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page218" name="page218">[218]</a></span>my +soot-black palace, laugh at both rain and wind; and while waiting +for winter to pass I remain in my corner by the fire dreaming.</p> +<p>“It is I that am really the spirit of the hearth! The +gaseous flame licks the wood more softly with its bluish tongue +when it hears me; and the smoke rises up like an alabaster thread, +and curls itself about (or twists) at the sound of my voice.</p> +<p>“The kettle chuckles and chatters; the golden-footed flame +leaps, dancing to the accompaniment of my song (or in accompaniment +to my song); the great log covers itself with down, the sap boils +in the wooden embers (“duvet,” meaning +“down,” refers to the soft fluffy white ash that forms +upon the surface of burning wood).</p> +<p>“All night and all day I sing below the chimney. Often in +my cricket-language, I have consoled Cinderella for the snubs of +her elder sister.</p> +<p>“Ah, what pleasure to sit up at night, and watch the +crimson flames embracing the wood (or hugging the wood) with both +arms at once, and to listen to all the sounds and to hear the life +of the house!</p> +<p>“Nestling in one’s good warm nook, how pleasant to +hear Winter, who weeps and prowls round about the house outside, +all wan and blue-nosed with cold, trying to smuggle itself inside +some chink in the shutter!”</p> +<p>Of course this does not give us much about the insect itself, +which remains invisible in the poem, <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page219" name="page219">[219]</a></span>just as it really remains +invisible in the house where the voice is heard. Rather does the +poem express the feelings of the person who hears the cricket.</p> +<p>When we come to the subject of grasshoppers, I think that the +French poets have done much better than the English. There are many +poems on the field grasshopper; I scarcely know which to quote +first. But I think you would be pleased with a little composition +by the celebrated French painter, Jules Breton. Like Rossetti he +was both painter and poet; and in both arts he took for his +subjects by preference things from country life. This little poem +is entitled “Les Cigales.” The word +“cigales,” though really identical with our word +“cicala,” seldom means the same thing. Indeed the +French word may mean several different kinds of insects, and it is +only by studying the text that we can feel quite sure what sort of +insect is meant.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Lorsque dans l’herbe mûre ancun épi ne +bouge,</p> +<p>Qu’à l’ardeur des rayons crépite le +frement,</p> +<p>Que le coquelicot tombe languissament</p> +<p>Sous le faible fardeau de sa corolle rouge,</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Tous les oiseaux de l’air out fait taire leur chants;</p> +<p>Les ramiers paresseux, au plus noir des ramures,</p> +<p>Somnolents, dans les bois, out cessé leurs murmures</p> +<p>Loin du soleil muet incendiant les champs.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page220" name= +"page220">[220]</a></span> +<p>Dans le blé, cependant, d’intrépides +cigales</p> +<p>Jetant leurs mille bruits, fanfare de +l’été,</p> +<p>Out frénétiquement et sans trève +agité</p> +<p>Leurs ailes sur l’airaine de leurs folles cymbales.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Trémoussantes, deboutes sur les longs épis +d’or,</p> +<p>Virtuoses qui vont s’eteindre avant l’automne,</p> +<p>Elles poussent au del leur hymne monotone</p> +<p>Que dans I’ombre des nuits retentisse encore.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Et rien n’arrêtera leurs cris intarissables;</p> +<p>Quand on les chassera de l’avoine et des blés.</p> +<p>Elles émigreront sur les buissons brulés</p> +<p>Qui se meurent de soif dans les deserts de sable.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Sur l’arbuste effeuillé, sur les chardons +flétris</p> +<p>Qui laissent s’envoler leur blanche chevelure,</p> +<p>On reverra l’insecte à la forte encolure,</p> +<p>Pleine d’ivresse, toujours s’exalter dans ses +cris.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Jusqu’à ce qu’ouvrant l’aile en +lambeaux arrachée,</p> +<p>Exasperé, brulant d’un feu toujours plus pur,</p> +<p>Son oeil de bronze fixe et tendu vers l’azur,</p> +<p>II expire en chantant sur la tige séchée.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>For the word “encolure” we have no English +equivalent; it means the line of the neck and +shoulder—sometimes the general appearance of shape of the +body.</p> +<p>“When in the ripening grain field not a single ear of +wheat moves; when in the beaming heat the corn seems to crackle; +when the poppy languishes <span class="pagenum"><a id="page221" +name="page221">[221]</a></span>and bends down under the feeble +burden of its scarlet corolla,</p> +<p>“Then all the birds of the air have hushed their songs; +even the indolent doves, seeking the darkest part of the foliage in +the tree, have become drowsy in the woods, and have ceased their +cooing, far from the fields, which the silent sun is burning.</p> +<p>“Nevertheless, in the wheat, the brave grasshoppers +uttering their thousand sounds, a trumpet flourish of summer, have +continued furiously and unceasingly to smite their wings upon the +brass of their wild cymbal.</p> +<p>“Quivering as they stand upon the long gold ears of the +grain, master musicians who must die before the coming of Fall, +they sound to heaven their monotonous hymn, which re-echoes even in +the darkness of the night.</p> +<p>“And nothing will check their inexhaustible shrilling. +When chased away from the oats and from the wheat, they will +migrate to the scorched bushes which die of thirst in the wastes of +sand.</p> +<p>“Upon the leafless shrubs, upon the dried up thistles, +which let their white hair fall and float away, there the +sturdily-built insect can be seen again, filled with enthusiasm, +even more and more excited as he cries,</p> +<p>“Until, at last, opening his wings, now rent into shreds, +exasperated, burning more and more <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page222" name="page222">[222]</a></span>fiercely in the frenzy of +his excitement, and with his eyes of bronze always fixed +motionlessly upon the azure sky, he dies in his song upon the +withered grain.”</p> +<p>This is difficult to translate at all satisfactorily, owing to +the multitude of images compressed together. But the idea expressed +is a fine one—the courage of the insect challenging the sun, +and only chanting more and more as the heat and the thirst +increase. The poem has, if you like, the fault of exaggeration, but +the colour and music are very fine; and even the exaggeration +itself has the merit of making the images more vivid.</p> +<p>It will not be necessary to quote another text; we shall +scarcely have the time; but I want to translate to you something of +another poem upon the same insect by the modern French poet Jean +Aicard. In this poem, as in the little poem by Gautier, which I +quoted to you, the writer puts his thought in the mouth of the +insect, so to say—that is, makes the insect tell its own +story.</p> +<p>“I am the impassive and noble insect that sings in the +summer solstice from the dazzling dawn all the day long in the +fragrant pine-wood. And my song is always the same, regular as the +equal course of the season and of the sun. I am the speech of the +hot and beaming sun, and when the reapers, weary of heaping the +sheaves together, lie down in the lukewarm shade, and sleep and +pant in the ardour of noonday—then more <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page223" name="page223">[223]</a></span>than at +any other time do I utter freely and joyously that double-echoing +strophe with which my whole body vibrates. And when nothing else +moves in all the land round about, I palpitate and loudly sound my +little drum. Otherwise the sunlight triumphs; and in the whole +landscape nothing is heard but my cry,—like the joy of the +light itself.</p> +<p>“Like a butterfly I take up from the hearts of the flowers +that pure water which the night lets fall into them like tears. I +am inspired only by the almighty sun. Socrates listened to me; +Virgil made mention of me. I am the insect especially beloved by +the poets and by the bards. The ardent sun reflects himself in the +globes of my eyes. My ruddy bed, which seems to be powdered like +the surface of fine ripe fruit, resembles some exquisite key-board +of silver and gold, all quivering with music. My four wings, with +their delicate net-work of nerves, allow the bright down upon my +black back to be seen through their transparency. And like a star +upon the forehead of some divinely inspired poet, three exquisitely +mounted rubies glitter upon my head.”</p> +<p>These are fair examples of the French manner of treating the +interesting subject of insects in poetry. If you should ask me +whether the French poets are better than the English, I should +answer, “In point of feeling, no.” The real value of +such examples to the student should be emotional, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page224" name="page224">[224]</a></span>not +descriptive. I think that the Japanese poems on insects, though not +comparable in point of mere form with some of the foreign poems +which I have quoted, are better in another way—they come +nearer to the true essence of poetry. For the Japanese poets have +taken the subject of insects chiefly for the purpose of suggesting +human emotion; and that is certainly the way in which such a +subject should be used. Remember that this is an age in which we +are beginning to learn things about insects which could not have +been even imagined fifty years ago, and the more that we learn +about these miraculous creatures, the more difficult does it become +for us to write poetically about their lives, or about their +possible ways of thinking and feeling. Probably no mortal man will +ever be able to imagine how insects think or feel or hear or even +see. Not only are their senses totally different from those of +animals, but they appear to have a variety of special senses about +which we can not know anything at all. As for their existence, it +is full of facts so atrocious and so horrible as to realize most of +the imaginations of old about the torments of hell. Now, for these +reasons to make an insect speak in poetry—to put one’s +thoughts, so to speak, into the mouth of an insect—is no +longer consistent with poetical good judgment. No; we must think of +insects either in relation to the mystery of their marvellous +lives, or in relation to the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page225" +name="page225">[225]</a></span>emotion which their sweet and +melancholy music makes within our minds. The impressions produced +by hearing the shrilling of crickets at night or by hearing the +storm of cicadæ in summer woods—those impressions +indeed are admirable subjects for poetry, and will continue to be +for all time.</p> +<p>When I lectured to you long ago about Greek and English poems on +insects, I told you that nearly all the English poems on the +subject were quite modern. I still believe that I was right in this +statement, as a general assertion; but I have found one quaint poem +about a grasshopper, which must have been written about the middle +of the seventeenth century or, perhaps, a little earlier. The date +of the author’s birth and death are respectively 1618 and +1658. His name, I think, you are familiar with—Richard +Lovelace, author of many amatory poems, and of one especially +famous song, “To Lucasta, on Going to the +Wars”—containing the celebrated stanza—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Yet this inconstancy is such</p> +<p class="i2">As you too shall adore;</p> +<p>I could not love thee, Dear, so much,</p> +<p class="i2">Loved I not honour more.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Well, as I said, this man wrote one pretty little poem on a +grasshopper, which antedates most of the English poems on insects, +if not all of them.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page226" name= +"page226">[226]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE GRASSHOPPER</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O Thou that swing’st upon the waving ear</p> +<p class="i2">Of some well-filled oaten beard,</p> +<p>Drunk every night with a delicious tear</p> +<p class="i2">Dropt thee from heaven, where now th’art +rear’d!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The joys of earth and air are thine entire,</p> +<p class="i2">That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;</p> +<p>And when thy poppy works, thou dost retire</p> +<p class="i2">To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom’st then,</p> +<p class="i2">Sport’st in the gilt plaits of his beams,</p> +<p>And all these merry days mak’st merry men</p> +<p class="i2">Thyself, and melancholy streams.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>A little artificial, this poem written at least two hundred and +fifty years ago; but it is pretty in spite of its artifice. Some of +the conceits are so quaint that they must be explained. By the term +“oaten beard,” the poet means an ear of oats; and you +know that the grain of this plant is furnished with very long hair, +so that many poets have spoken of the bearded oats. You may +remember in this connection Tennyson’s phrase “the +bearded barley” in the “Lady of Shalott,” and +Longfellow’s term “bearded grain” in his famous +poem about the Reaper Death. When a person’s beard is very +thick, we say in England to-day “a full beard,” but in +the time of Shakespeare they used to say “a well filled +beard”—hence the phrase in the second line of the first +stanza.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page227" name= +"page227">[227]</a></span>In the third line the term +“delicious tear” means dew,—which the Greeks +called the tears of the night, and sometimes the tears of the dawn; +and the phrase “drunk with dew” is quite Greek—so +we may suspect that the author of this poem had been reading the +Greek Anthology. In the third line of the second stanza the word +“poppy” is used for sleep—a very common simile in +Elizabethan times, because from the poppy flower was extracted the +opiate which enables sick persons to sleep. The Greek authors spoke +of poppy sleep. “And when thy poppy works,” means, when +the essence of sleep begins to operate upon you, or more simply, +when you sleep. Perhaps the phrase about the “carved +acorn-bed” may puzzle you; it is borrowed from the fairy-lore +of Shakespeare’s time, when fairies were said to sleep in +little beds carved out of acorn shells; the simile is used only by +way of calling the insect a fairy creature. In the second line of +the third stanza you may notice the curious expression about the +“gilt plaits” of the sun’s beams. It was the +custom in those days, as it still is in these, for young girls to +plait their long hair; and the expression “gilt plaits” +only means braided or plaited golden hair. This is perhaps a Greek +conceit; for classic poets spoke of the golden hair of the Sun God +as illuminating the world. I have said that the poem is a little +artificial, but I think you will find it pretty, and even the +whimsical similes are “precious” in the best sense.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page228" name= +"page228">[228]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_12" name="Ch_12">Chapter XII</a></h3> +<h2>Note on the Influence of Finnish Poetry in English +Literature</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>The subject of Finnish poetry ought to have a special interest +for the Japanese student, if only for the reason that Finnish +poetry comes more closely in many respects to Japanese poetry than +any other form of Western poetry. Indeed it is supposed that the +Finnish race is more akin to the Tartar races, and therefore +probably to the Japanese, than the races of Europe proper. Again, +through Longfellow, the value of Finnish poetry to English poetry +was first suggested, and I think you know that Longfellow’s +Indian epic, “The Song of Hiawatha,” was modelled +entirely upon the Finnish “Kalevala.”</p> +<p>But a word about the “Kalevala,” which has a very +interesting history. I believe you know that at the beginning of +the nineteenth century, the “Kalevala” was not known to +exist. During the first half of the century, Finnish scholars in +the University of Helsingfors (where there is now a great and +flourishing university) began to take literary interest in the +popular songs of Finland. For years the people had been singing +extraordinary <span class="pagenum"><a id="page229" name= +"page229">[229]</a></span>songs full of a strange beauty and +weirdness quite unlike any other popular songs of Europe; and for +centuries professional singers had been wandering about the country +teaching these songs to the accompaniment of a kind of +<em>biwa</em> called Kantela. The scholars of the University began +to collect these songs from the mouths of the peasants and +musicians—at first with great difficulty, afterwards with +much success. The difficulty was a very curious one. In Finland the +ancient pagan religion had really never died; the songs of the +peasants were full of allusions to the old faith and the old gods, +and the orthodox church had often attempted in vain to prevent the +singing of these songs, because they were not Christian. So the +peasants at first thought that the scholars who wanted to copy the +songs were government spies or church spies who wanted evidence to +justify punishments. When the fears of the people had been removed +and when they came to understand that the questioners were only +scholars interested in literary beauty, all the secret stores of +songs were generously opened, and an immense collection of oral +literature was amassed in the University at Helsingfors.</p> +<p>The greatest of the scholars engaged in the subsequent work of +arranging and classifying was Doctor Lönnrot. While examining +the manuscript of these poems he was struck by the fact that, put +together in a particular order, they naturally <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page230" name="page230">[230]</a></span>made one +great continuous story or epic. Was it possible that the Finnish +people had had during all these centuries an epic unknown to the +world of literature? Many persons would have ridiculed the idea. +But Lönnrot followed up that idea, and after some years’ +study he disengaged from all that mass of song something in the +shape of a wonderful epic, the epic of the “Kalevala.” +Lönnrot was probably, almost certainly, the only one who had +even understood the idea of an epic of this kind. The peasants did +not know. They only had the fragments of the whole; parts of the +poem existed in one province, parts in another; no Finnish musician +had ever known the whole. The whole may have been made first by +Lönnrot. At all events he was the Homer of the +“Kalevala,” and it was fortunate for Finland that he +happened to be himself both a scholar and a +poet—qualifications seldom united in the same person.</p> +<p>What is the “Kalevala” as we now possess it? It is +an epic, but not like any other epic in the world, for the subject +of it is Magic. We might call it the Epic of Magic. It is the story +of how the world and the heaven and the sun and the moon and the +stars, the elements and the races of living creatures and all other +things were created by magic; also how the first inhabitants of the +world lived, and loved, and fought. But there is another thing to +be said in a general was about <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page231" name="page231">[231]</a></span>this magic. The magic of +“Kalevala” is not like anything else known by that name +in European literature. The magic of “Kalevala” is +entirely the magic of words. These ancient people believed in the +existence of words, by the utterance of which anything might be +accomplished. Instead of buying wood and hiring carpenters, you +might build a house by uttering certain magical words. If you had +no horse and wanted to travel rapidly, you could make a horse for +yourself out of bits of bark and old sticks by uttering over them +certain magical words. But this was not all. Beings of intellect, +men and women, whole armies of men, in fact, might be created in a +moment by the utterance of these mystical words. There is the real +subject of the “Kalevala.”</p> +<p>I told you that the epic is not like anything else in European +literature and not like anything else in the world as to the +subject. But this is not the case as regards the verse. The verse +is not like Japanese verse, indeed, but it comes nearer to it than +any other European verse does. Of course even in Finnish verse, +accents mean a great deal, and accent means nothing at all in +Japanese verse. But I imagine something very much like Finnish +verse might be written in Japanese, provided that in reciting it a +slight stress is thrown on certain syllables. Of course you know +something about Longfellow’s +“Hiawatha”—such lines as these:</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page232" name= +"page232">[232]</a></span> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And the evening sun descending</p> +<p>Set the clouds on fire with redness,</p> +<p>Burned the broad sky like a prairie,</p> +<p>Left upon the level water</p> +<p>One long track and trail of splendour,</p> +<p>Down whose stream, as down a river,</p> +<p>Westward, westward Hiawatha</p> +<p>Sailed into the fiery sunset,</p> +<p>Sailed into the purple vapours,</p> +<p>Sailed into the dusk of evening.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>You will observe this is verse of eight syllables with four +trochees to a line. Now it is perhaps as near to Finnish verse as +English verse can be made. But the Finnish verse is more musical, +and it is much more flexible, and the rules of it can be better +carried out than in English. There is much more to be thought about +than the placing of four trochaic feet to a line. Not only must the +verse be trochaic, it must also be alliterative, and it must also +be, to some extent, rhymed verse—a matter which Longfellow +did not take into consideration. That would have doubled his +difficulty. To make verse trochaic, alliterative and rhymed, is +very difficult indeed—that is, to do it well. Only one +liberty is allowed; it is not necessary that the rhyme shall be +regular and constant; it is necessary only that it should be +occasional. But the interest of Finnish verse does not end here. I +have not yet mentioned the most important law of Finnish +poetry—the law of parallelism <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page233" name="page233">[233]</a></span>or repetition. Parallelism +is the better word. It means the repetition of a thought in a +slightly modified way. It is parallelism especially that makes so +splendid the English translation of the Bible, and the majesty of +such passages in the Book of Common Prayer as the Funeral Service. +So that Finnish poetry is anything but very simple. We may now sum +it up thus—trochaic verse of eight syllables, with +alliteration and rhyme, a caesura in the same part of every line, +and every line reiterated in parallelism.</p> +<p>A little above I mentioned the English of the Bible. Long ago I +explained why that English is so beautiful and so strong. But +remember that much of the best of the Bible, in the original +Hebrew, was not prose but verse, and that the fine effects have +been produced by translating the verse into musical prose. The very +effect can be produced by translating the “Kalevala” +into prose. Occasionally the passages are of surprising beauty, and +they are always of surprising strangeness.</p> +<p>It is in parallelism especially that Finnish poetry offers a +contrast to Japanese, but there is no reason whatever why, in the +longer poems of Japanese poetry, parallelism could not be used. All +things have value according to place and time, and this has +value—provided that it has a special effect on a special +occasion. All through the “Kalevala,” all through five +hundred pages, large <span class="pagenum"><a id="page234" name= +"page234">[234]</a></span>pages, the parallelism is carried on, and +yet one never gets tired. It is not monotonous. But that is because +the subject is so well adapted to this form of poetry. See how the +poem opens, when the poet begins to talk about what he is going to +sing:</p> +<p>“Anciently my father sang me these words in hewing the +handle of his ax; anciently my mother taught me these words as she +turned her spindle. In that time I was only a child, a little child +at the breast,—a useless little being creeping upon the floor +at the feet of its nurse, its cheek bedaubed with milk. And there +are other words which I drew from the spring of knowledge, which I +found by the wayside, which I snatched from the heart of the +thickets, which I detached from the branches of the trees, which I +gathered at the edges of the pastures—when, In my infancy, I +used to go to guard the flocks, in the midst of the honey-streaming +meadows, upon the gold-shining hills, behind the black Murikki, +behind the spotted Kimmo, my favourite cows.</p> +<p>“Also the cold sang the songs, the rain sang me verses, +the winds of heaven, the waves of the sea made me hear their poems, +the birds instructed me with their melodies, the long-haired trees +invited me to their concerts. And all the songs I gathered +together, I rolled them up in a skin, I carried them away in my +beautiful little holiday <span class="pagenum"><a id="page235" +name="page235">[235]</a></span>sledge, I deposited them in the +bottom of a chest of brass, upon the highest shelf of my treasure +house.”</p> +<p>Now when a poem opens that way we may be sure that there are +great things in it; and some of these great things we shall read +about presently. The “Kalevala” is full of wonderful +stories, But in the above quotation, I want you to see how multiple +it is, and yet it is beautiful. Now there is a very interesting +thing yet to tell you about this parallelism. Such poems as those +of the “Kalevala” have always to be sung not by one +singer but by two. The two singers straddle a bench facing each +other and hold each other’s hands. Then they sing +alternately, each chanting one line, rocking back and forward, +pulling each other to and fro as they sing—so that it is like +the motion of rowing. One chants a line and pulls backward, then +the other chants the next line and pulls in the opposite direction. +Not to be able to answer at once would be considered a great +disgrace; and every singer has to be able to improvise as well as +to sing. And that is the signification of the following verse:</p> +<p>“Put thy hand to my hand—place thy fingers between +my fingers—that we may sing of the things which +are.”</p> +<p>The most beautiful story in this wonderful book is the story of +Kullervo. It was after reading this <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page236" name="page236">[236]</a></span>story that Longfellow +imagined his story of the Strong Man Kwasind. Kullervo is born so +strong that as an infant he breaks his cradle to pieces, and as a +boy he can not do any work, for all the tools and instruments break +in his grasp. Therefore he gives a great deal of trouble at home +and has to go out into the world to seek his fortune. In the world, +of course, he has just the same trouble; for nobody will employ him +very long. However, the story of Kullervo’s feats of +strength, though interesting, need not now concern us. The great +charm of this composition is in the description of a mother’s +love which it contains. Kullervo brought misfortune everywhere +simply by his strength and by his great passions—at last +committing a terrible crime, causing the death of his own sister, +whom he does not recognize. He goes back home in desperation and +remorse; and there everybody regards him with horror, except only +his mother. She alone tries to console him; she alone tells him +that repentance may bring him rest. He then proposes to go away and +amend his wrong-doing in solitude. But first he bids them all +goodbye, and the episode is characteristic.</p> +<p>Kullervo, the son of Kalervo, gets him ready to depart; he goes +to his old father and says: “Farewell now, O my dear father. +Wilt thou regret me bitterly, when thou shalt learn that I am +dead?—that I have disappeared from among the multitude of the +living?—that I no longer am <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page237" name="page237">[237]</a></span>one of the members of thy +family?” The father answered: “No, certainly I will not +regret thee when I shall hear that thou art dead. Another son +perchance will be born to me—a son who will grow up better +and wiser than thou.”</p> +<p>Kullervo, son of Kalervo, answered: “And I also will not +be sorry if I hear that thou art dead. Without any trouble I can +find me such a father as thou—a stone-hearted father, a +clay-mouthed father, a berry-eyed father, a straw-bearded father, a +father whose feet are made of the roots of the willow tree, a +father whose flesh is decaying wood.” Why does Kullervo use +these extraordinary terms? It is a reference to magic—out of +stone and clay and straw, a phantom man can be made, and Kullervo +means to say that his father is no more to him than a phantom +father, an unreal father, a father who has no fatherly feeling. His +brothers and sisters all questioned in turn if they will be sorry +to hear that he is dead, make the same cruel answer; and he replies +to them with the same angry words. But it is very different when he +speaks to his mother.</p> +<p>For to his mother he said—“Oh my sweet mother, my +beautiful nurse, my loved protectress, wilt thou regret me bitterly +when thou shalt learn that I am dead, that I have disappeared from +the multitude of the living, that I am no longer one of the members +of thy family?”</p> +<p>The mother made answer: “Thou does not <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page238" name="page238">[238]</a></span>comprehend +the soul of the mother—thou canst not understand the heart of +the mother. Assuredly will I regret thee most bitterly when I shall +learn that thou art dead, that thou hast disappeared, from among +the multitude of the living, that thou hast ceased to be one of the +members of my family. Floods of tears shall I weep in my chamber. +The waves of tears will overflow on the floor. And upon the +stairway lamentably shall I weep; and in the stable loudly shall I +sorrow. Upon the icy ways the snow shall melt under my +tears—under my tears the earth of the roads shall melt away; +under my tears new meadow grass shall grow up, green sprouting, and +through that grass little streams shall murmur away.” To this +mother, naturally, Kullervo says no unkind words. He goes away, +able at least to feel that there is one person in the world who +loves him and one person in the world whom he loves. But how much +his mother really loves him he does not yet know; he will know that +later—it forms the most beautiful part of the poem.</p> +<p>“Kullervo directed his steps once more to the home of his +fathers. Desolate he found it, desolate and deserted; no person +advanced to salute him, no person came to press his hand, to give +him welcome.</p> +<p>“He drew near to the hearth: the embers were extinguished. +By that he knew that his mother had ceased to be.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page239" name= +"page239">[239]</a></span>”He drew near to the fire-place, +and the stones of the fire-place were cold. By that he knew that +his father had ceased to be.</p> +<p>“He turned his eyes upon the floor of his home; the planks +of the floor were covered with dirt and rubbish. By that he knew +that his sister had ceased to be.</p> +<p>“To the shore of the sea he went; the boat that used to be +there was there no longer. By that he knew that his brother had +ceased to be.</p> +<p>“Then he began to weep. For a whole day he wept, for two +whole days he wept; then he cried aloud: ‘O my mother, O my +sweet mother, what didst thou leave thy son yet in the world? Alas! +now thou canst hear me no longer; and it is in vain that I stand +above thy tomb, that I sob over the place of thine eyebrows, over +the place of thy temples; it is in vain that I cry out my grief +above thy dead forehead.’</p> +<p>“The mother of Kullervo awakened in her tomb, and out of +the depth of the dust she spake to him: ‘I have left the dog +Mastif, in order that thou mayst go with him to the chase. Take +therefore the faithful dog, and go with him into the wild forest, +into the dark wilderness, even to the dwelling place, far away, of +the blue-robed Virgins of the wood, and there thou wilt seek thy +nourishment, thou wilt ask for the game that is necessary to thy +existence.’”</p> +<p>It was believed that there was a particular forest <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page240" name="page240">[240]</a></span>god, who +protected the trees and the wild things of the wood. The hunter +could be successful in the chase only upon condition of obtaining +his favour and permission to hunt. This explains the reference to +the abode of the forest god. But Kullervo can not go far; his +remorse takes him by the throat.</p> +<p>“Kullervo, son of Kalervo, took his faithful dog, and +directed his steps toward the wild forest, toward the dark +wilderness. But when he had gone only a little way he found himself +at the very place where he had outraged the young girl, where he +had dishonoured the child of his mother. And all things there +mourned for her—all things; the soft grass and the tender +foliage, and the little plants, and the sorrowful briars. The grass +was no longer green, the briars no longer blossomed, the leaves and +the plants hung withered and dry about the spot where the virgin +had been dishonoured, where the brother had dishonoured his +sister.</p> +<p>“Kullervo drew forth his sword, his sharpedged sword; a +long time he looked at it, turning it in his hand, and asking it +whether it would feel no pleasure in eating the flesh of the man +thus loaded with infamy, in drinking the blood of the man thus +covered with crime.</p> +<p>“And the sword knew the heart of the man: it understood +the question of the hero. And it made answer to him saying: +‘Why indeed should I not <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page241" name="page241">[241]</a></span>gladly devour the flesh of +the man who is loaded with infamy? Why indeed should I not drink +with pleasure the blood of the man who is burdened with crime? For +well I devoured even the flesh of the innocent man, well can I +drink even the blood of the man who is free from crime.’</p> +<p>“Then Kullervo fixed his sword in the earth, with the +handle downwards and the point upwards, and he threw himself upon +the point, and the point passed through all the depth of his +breast.</p> +<p>“This was the end of all, this was the cruel destiny of +Kullervo, the irrevocable end of the son of the heroes—the +death of the ‘Man of Misfortune.’”</p> +<p>You can see how very much unlike other Western poetry this +poetry is. The imagination indeed is of another race and another +time than those to whose literary productions we have become +accustomed. But there is beauty here; and the strangeness of it +indicates a possible literary value by which any literature may be +more or less enriched. Many are the particular episodes which rival +the beauty and strangeness of the episode of Kullervo; and I wish +that we could have time to quote them. But I can only refer to +them. There is, for example, the legend of the invention of music, +when the hero Wainamoinen (supposed to represent the Spirit of the +Wind, and the sound of the name indicates the wailing of the wind) +invents <span class="pagenum"><a id="page242" name= +"page242">[242]</a></span>the first musical instrument. In no other +literature is there anything quite like this except in the Greek +story of Orpheus. Even as the trees bent down their heads to listen +to the song of Orpheus, and as the wild beasts became tamed at the +sound, and as the very stones of the road followed to the steps of +the musician, so is it in the “Kalevala.” But the +Finnish Orpheus is the greater magician. To hear him, the sun and +moon come nearer to the earth, the waves of the sea stop short, +bending their heads; the cataracts of the rivers hang motionless +and silent; the fish raise their heads above the water. And when he +plays a sad melody, all nature weeps with him, even the trees and +the stones and the little plants by the wayside. And his own tears +in falling become splendid pearls for the crowns of kings.</p> +<p>Then very wonderful too is the story of the eternal smith, +Ilmarinen, who forged the foundations of the world, forged the +mountains, forged the blue sky, so well forging them that nowhere +can be seen the marks of the pincer, the marks of the hammer, the +heads of the nails. Working in his smithy we see him all grime and +black; upon his head there is one yard deep of iron firing, upon +his shoulders there is one fathom deep of soot—the soot of +the forge; for he seldom has time to bathe himself. But when the +notion takes him to get married, for the first time he bathes +himself, and dresses himself handsomely, then he becomes +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page243" name= +"page243">[243]</a></span>the most beautiful of men. In order to +win his wife he is obliged to perform miracles of work; yet after +he wins her she is killed by wild beasts. Then he sets to work to +forge himself a wife, a wife of silver, a bride of gold. Very +beautiful she is, but she has no heart, and she is always cold, and +there is no comfort in her; even all the magic of the world-maker +can not give her a warm heart. But the work is so beautiful that he +does not like to destroy it. So he takes the wife of silver, the +bride of gold, to the wisest of heroes, Wainamoinen, and offers her +to him as a gift. But the hero will have no such gift, “Throw +her back into your forged fire, O Ilmarinen,” the hero makes +answer—“What greater folly, what greater sorrow can +come upon man than to love a wife of silver, a bride of +gold?”</p> +<p>This pretty story needs no explanation; the moral is simply +“Never marry for money.”</p> +<p>Then there is the story of Lemminkainen (this personality +suggested the Pau-puk-keewis of Longfellow)—the joyous, +reckless, handsome, mischievous pleasure-lover,—always +falling into trouble, because he will not follow his mother’s +advice, but always loved by her in spite of his follies. The mother +of Lemminkainen is a more wonderful person than the mother of +Kullervo. Her son has been murdered, thrown into a river—the +deepest of all rivers, the river of the dead, the river of hell. +And his mother goes out to find <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page244" name="page244">[244]</a></span>him. She asks the trees in +the forest to tell her where her son is, and she obliges them to +answer. But they do not know. She asks the grass, the plants, the +animals, the birds; she obliges even the road upon which he walked +to talk to her, she talks to the stars and the moon and the sun. +Only the sun knows, because he sees everything and he answers, +“Your son is dead, torn to pieces; he has been thrown into +the river of Tuoni, the river of hell, the river of the +dead.” But the mother does not despair. Umarinen, the eternal +smith, must make for her a rake of brass with teeth long enough to +reach into the world of the dead, into the bottom of the abyss; and +out of the abyss she brings up the parts of the torn body of her +son; she puts them together; she sings over them a magic song; she +brings her son to life again, and takes him home. But for a long +time he is not able to remember, because he has been dead. After a +long time he gets back his memory—only to get into new +mischief out of which his mother must help him afresh.</p> +<p>The names of the three heroes quoted to you represent also the +names of three great stories, out of the many stories contained in +the epics. But in this epic, as in the Indian epics (I mean the +Sanskrit epic), there is much more than stories. There are also +chapters of moral instruction of a very curious kind—chapters +about conduct, the conduct of the parents, the conduct of the +children, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page245" name= +"page245">[245]</a></span>the conduct of the husband, the conduct +of the bride. The instructions to the bride are contained in the +twenty-third Rune; there are altogether fifty Runes in the book. +This appears to me likely to interest you, for it is written in +relation to a family system not at all like the family system of +the rest of Europe. I think you will find in it not a little that +may remind you of Chinese teaching on the same subject—the +conduct of the daughter-in-law. But there are of course many +differences, and the most pleasing difference is the tone of great +tenderness in which the instructions are given. Let us quote some +of them:</p> +<p>“O young bride, O my young sister, O my well beloved and +beautiful young flower, listen to the words which I am going to +speak to you, harken to the lesson which I am going to teach you. +You are going now very far away from us, O beautiful +flower!—you are going to take a long journey, O my +wild-strawberry fruit! you are about to fly away from us, O most +delicate down! you are about to leave us forever, O velvet +tissue—far away from this habitation you must go, far away +from this beautiful house, to enter another house, to enter into a +strange family. And in that strange house your position will be +very different. There you will have to walk about with care, to +conduct yourself with prudence, to conduct yourself with +thoughtfulness. There you will not be able, as in the house of your +father, as in the dwelling of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page246" +name="page246">[246]</a></span>your mother, to run about where you +please, to run singing through the valleys, to warhle out your +songs upon the roadway.</p> +<p>“New habits you must now learn, and forget all the old. +You must abandon the love of your father and content yourself with +the love of your father-in-law; you must bow very low, you must +learn to be generous in the use of courteous words. You must give +up old habits and form new ones; you must resign the love of your +mother and content yourself with the love of your step-mother: +lower must you bow, and you must learn to be lavish in the use of +kindly words.</p> +<p>“New habits you must learn and forget the old: you must +leave behind you the friendship of your brother, and content +yourself with the friendship of your brother-in-law; you must bow +lower than you do now; you must learn to be lavish of kindly +words.</p> +<p>“New habits you must acquire and forget the old ones; you +must leave behind you the friendship of your sister, and be +satisfied with the friendship of your sister-in-law; you must learn +to make humble reverence, to bow low, to be generous in kindly +words.</p> +<p>“If the old man in the corner be to you even like a wolf, +if the old woman in her corner be to you even as a she-bear in the +house, if the brother-in-law be to you even as a serpent upon the +threshold, if the sister-in-law be to you even as a sharp nail, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page247" name= +"page247">[247]</a></span>none the less you must show them each and +all exactly the same respect and the same obedience that you have +been accustomed to display to your father, to display to your +mother, under the roof of your childhood home.”</p> +<p>Then follows a really terrible list of the duties that she must +perform every day from early morning until late at night; to +mention them all would take too long. I quote only a few, enough to +show that the position of a Finnish wife was by no means an easy +one.</p> +<p>“So soon as the cock crows in the morning you must be +quick to rise; you must keep your ears awake to hear the cry of the +cock. And if there be no cock, or the cock does not crow, then let +the moon be as a cock for you, let the constellation of the great +Bear tell you when it is time to rise. Then you must quickly make +the fire, skilfully removing the ashes, without sprinkling them +upon the floor. Then quickly go to the stable, clean the stable, +take food to the cattle, feed all the animals on the farm. For +already the cow of your mother-in-law will be lowing for food; the +horse of your father-in-law will be whinnying; the milch cow of +your sister-in-law will be straining at her tether; the calf of +your brother-in-law will be bleating; for all will be waiting for +her whose duty it is to give them hay, whose duty it is to give +them food.”</p> +<p>Like instructions are given about feeding the <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page248" name="page248">[248]</a></span>younger +animals and the fowls and the little pigs. But she must not forget +the children of the house at the same time:</p> +<p>“When you have fed the animals and cleaned the stables +come back quickly, quickly as a snow-storm. For in the chamber the +little child has awakened and has begun to cry in his cradle. He +cannot speak, poor little one; he cannot tell you, if he be hungry +or if he be cold, or if anything extraordinary has happened to him, +before someone that he knows has come to care for him, before he +hears the voice of his own mother.”</p> +<p>After enumerating and inculcating in the same manner all the +duties of the day, the conduct to be observed toward every member +of the family—father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister, and +brother-in-law, and the children of them—we find a very +minute code of conduct set forth in regard to neighbours and +acquaintances. The young wife is especially warned against gossip, +against listening to any stories about what happens in other +people’s houses, and against telling anybody what goes on +within her own. One piece of advice is memorable. If the young wife +is asked whether she is well fed, she should reply always that she +has the best of everything which a house can afford, this even if +she should have been left without any proper nourishment for +several days. Evidently the condition of submission to which +Finnish women were reduced by custom was something <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page249" name="page249">[249]</a></span>much less +merciful than has ever been known in Eastern countries. Only a very +generous nature could bear such discipline; and we have many +glimpses in the poem of charming natures of this kind.</p> +<p>You have seen that merely as a collection of wonderful stories +the Kalevala is of extraordinary interest, that it is also of +interest as describing the social ethics of a little known +people—finally that it is of interest, of very remarkable +interest, merely as natural poetry—poetry treating of wild +nature, especially rivers and forests and mountains, of the life of +the fisher and hunter and wood-cutter. Indeed, so far as this kind +of poetry is concerned, the “Kalevala” stands alone +among the older productions of European poetry. You do not find +this love of nature in Scandinavian poetry, nor in Anglo-Saxon +poetry, nor in old German poetry, much less in the earlier form of +French, Italian, or Spanish poetry. The old Northern poetry comes +nearest to it; for in Anglo-Saxon composition we can find at least +wonderful descriptions of the sea, of stones, of the hard life of +sailors. But the dominant tone in Northern poetry is war; it is in +descriptions of battle, or in accounts of the death of heroes, that +the ancient English or ancient Scandinavian poets excelled In +Finnish poetry, on the other hand, there is little or nothing about +war. These peaceful people never had any warlike history; their +life was agricultural <span class="pagenum"><a id="page250" name= +"page250">[250]</a></span>for the most part, with little or no +violence except such as the excitement of hunting and fishing could +produce. Therefore they had plenty of time to think about nature, +to love nature and to describe it as no other people of the same +period described it. Striking comparisons have been made between +the Anglo-Saxon Runes, or charm songs, and Finnish songs of the +same kind, which fully illustrate this difference. Like the Finns, +the early English had magical songs to the gods of +nature—songs for the healing of wounds and the banishing of +sickness. But these are very commonplace. Not one of them can +compare as poetry with the verses of the Finnish on the same +subject. Here are examples in evidence. The first is a prayer said +when offering food to the Spirit of the forest, that he might aid +the hunter in his hunting.</p> +<p>“Look, O Kuntar, a fat cake, a cake with honey, that I may +propitiate the forest, that I may propitiate the forest, that I may +entice the thick forest for the day of my hunting, when I go in +search of prey. Accept my salt, O wood, accept my porridge, O +Tapio, dear king of the wood with the hat of leaves, with the beard +of moss.”</p> +<p>And here is a little prayer to the goddess of water repeated by +a sick man taking water as a medicine.</p> +<p>“O pure water, O Lady of the Water, now do thou make me +whole, lovely as before! for this <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page251" name="page251">[251]</a></span>beg thee dearly, and in +offering I give thee blood to appease thee, salt to propitiate +thee!”</p> +<p>Or this:</p> +<p>“Goddess of the Sea, mistress of waters, Queen of a +hundred caves, arouse the scaly flocks, urge on the fishy-crowds +forth from their hiding places, forth from the muddy shrine, forth +from the net-hauling, to the nets of a hundred fishers! Take now +thy beauteous shield, shake the golden water, with which thou +frightenest the fish, and direct them toward the net beneath the +dark level, above the borders black.”</p> +<p>Yet another:</p> +<p>“O vigorous mistress of the wild beasts, sweet lady of the +earth, come with me, be with me, where I go. Come thou and good +luck bring me, to happy fortune help me. Make thou to move the +foliage, the fruit tree to be shaken, and the wild beasts drive +thither, the largest and the smallest, with their snouts of every +kind, with their paws of fur of all kinds!”</p> +<p>Now when you look at these little prayers, when you read them +over and observe how pretty they are, you will also observe that +they make little pictures in the mind. Can not you see the fish +gliding over the black border under the dark level of the water, to +the net of a hundred fishers? Can you not see the “dear king +of the wood,” with his hat of leaves and his beard of moss? +Can you not also see in imagination the wild creatures of +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page252" name= +"page252">[252]</a></span>the forest with their snouts of many +shapes, with their fur of all kinds? But in Anglo-Saxon poetry you +will not find anything like that. Anglo-Saxon Rune songs create no +images. It is this picturesqueness, this actuality of imagery that +is distinctive in Finnish poetry.</p> +<p>In the foregoing part of the lecture I have chiefly tried to +interest you in the “Kalevala.” But aside from +interesting you in the book itself as a story, as a poem, I hope to +direct your attention to a particular feature in Finnish poetry +which is most remote from Japanese poetry. I have spoken of +resemblances as to structure and method; but it is just in that +part of the method most opposed to Japanese tradition that the +greatest interest lies. I do not mean only the use of natural +imagery; I mean much more the use of parallelism to reinforce that +imagery. That is the thing especially worthy of literary study. +Indeed, I think that such study might greatly help towards a new +development, a totally new departure in Japanese verse. In another +lecture I spoke as sincerely as I could of the very high merit in +the epigrammatic forms of Japanese poetry. These brief forms of +poetry have been developed in Japan to perfection not equalled +elsewhere in modern poetry, perhaps not surpassed, in some +respects, even by Greek poetry of the same kind. But there can be +no doubt of this fact, that a national literature requires many +other forms of expression <span class="pagenum"><a id="page253" +name="page253">[253]</a></span>than the epigrammatic form. Nothing +that is good should ever be despised or cast aside; but because of +its excellences, we should not be blind to the possibility of other +excellences. Now Japanese literature has other forms of +poetry—forms in which it is possible to produce poems of +immense length, but the spirit of epigrammatic poetry has really +been controlling even these to a great degree.</p> +<p>I mean that so far as I am able to understand the subject, the +tendency of all Japanese poetry is to terse expression. Were it not +well therefore to consider at least the possible result of a +totally opposite tendency,—expansion of fancy, luxuriance of +expression? Terseness of expression, pithiness, condensation, are +of vast importance in prose, but poetry has other methods, and the +“Kalevala” is one of the best possible object lessons +in the study of such methods, because of the very simplicity and +naturalness with which they are followed.</p> +<p>Of course there was parallelism in Western poetry, and all arts +of repetition, before anybody knew anything about the +“Kalevala.” The most poetical part of Bible English, as +I said, whether in the Bible itself or in the Book of Common +Prayer, depends almost entirely for its literary effect upon +parallelism, because the old Hebrews, like the old Finns, practised +this art of expression. Loosely and vaguely it was practised also +by many <span class="pagenum"><a id="page254" name= +"page254">[254]</a></span>poets almost unconsciously, who had been +particularly influenced by the splendour of the scriptural +translation. It had figured in prose-poetry as early as the time of +Sir Thomas Browne. It had established quite a new idea of poetry +even in America, where the great American poet Poe introduced it +into his compositions before Longfellow studied the +“Kalevala.” I told you that the work of Poe, small as +it is, had influenced almost every poet of the great epoch, +including Tennyson and the Victorian masters. But the work even of +Poe was rather instinctive than the result of any systematic idea. +The systematic idea was best illustrated when the study of the +“Kalevala” began.</p> +<p>Let us see how Longfellow used the suggestion; but remember that +he was only a beginner, dealing with something entirely +new—that he did not have the strength of Tennyson nor the +magical genius of Swinburne to help him. He worked very simply, and +probably very rapidly. There is a good deal of his song of +“Hiawatha” that is scarcely worthy of praise, and it is +difficult to quote effectively from it, because the charm of the +thing depends chiefly upon its reading as a whole. Nevertheless +there are parts which so well show or imitate the Finnish spirit, +that I must try to quote them. Take for instance the teaching of +the little Indian child by his grandmother—such <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page255" name="page255">[255]</a></span>verses as +these, where she talks to the little boy about the milky way in the +sky:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Many things Nokomis taught him</p> +<p>Of the stars that shine in heaven;</p> +<p>Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet,</p> +<p>Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses;</p> +<p>Showed the Death-Dance of the spirits,</p> +<p>Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs,</p> +<p>Flaring far away to northward</p> +<p>In the frosty nights of Winter;</p> +<p>Showed the broad, white road in heaven,</p> +<p>Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows,</p> +<p>Running straight across the heavens,</p> +<p>Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Or take again the story of the origin of the flower commonly +called “Dandelion”:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>In his life he had one shadow,</p> +<p>In his heart one sorrow had he.</p> +<p>Once, as he was gazing northward,</p> +<p>Far away upon a prairie</p> +<p>He beheld a maiden standing,</p> +<p>Saw a tall and slender maiden</p> +<p>All alone upon a prairie;</p> +<p>Brightest green were all her garments</p> +<p>And her hair was like the sunshine.</p> +<p>Day by day he gazed upon her,</p> +<p>Day by day he sighed with passion,</p> +<p>Day by day his heart within him</p> +<p>Grew more hot with love and longing</p> +<p>For the maid with yellow tresses.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page256" name= +"page256">[256]</a></span>Observe how the repetition served to +represent the growing of the lover’s admiration. The same +repetition can be used much more effectively in describing +weariness and pain, as In the lines about the winter famine:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, the long and dreary Winter!</p> +<p>Oh, the cold and cruel Winter!</p> +<p>Ever thicker, thicker, thicker</p> +<p>Froze the ice on lake and river,</p> +<p>Ever deeper, deeper, deeper</p> +<p>Fell the snow o’er all the landscape,</p> +<p>Fell the covering snow, and drifted</p> +<p>Through the forest, round the village.</p> +<p>Hardly from his buried wigwam</p> +<p>Could the hunter force a passage;</p> +<p>With his mittens and his snow-shoes</p> +<p>Vainly walked he through the forest,</p> +<p>Sought for bird or beast and found none,</p> +<p>Saw no track of deer or rabbit,</p> +<p>In the snow beheld no footprints,</p> +<p>In the ghastly, gleaming forest</p> +<p>Fell, and could not rise from weakness,</p> +<p>Perished there from cold and hunger.</p> +<p>Oh, the famine and the fever!</p> +<p>Oh, the wasting of the famine!</p> +<p>Oh, the blasting of the fever!</p> +<p>Oh, the wailing of the children!</p> +<p>Oh, the anguish of the women!</p> +<p>All the earth was sick and famished;</p> +<p>Hungry was the air around them,</p> +<p>Hungry was the sky above them,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page257" name= +"page257">[257]</a></span> +<p>And the hungry stars in heaven</p> +<p>Like the eyes of wolves glared at them!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is strong, emotionally strong, though it is not great +poetry; but it makes the emotional effect of great poetry by the +use of the same means which the Finnish poets used. The best part +of the poem is the famine chapter, and the next best is the part +entitled “The Ghosts.” However, the charm of a +composition can be fully felt only by those who understand +something of the American Indian’s life and the wild +northwestern country described. That is not the immediate matter to +be considered, notwithstanding. The matter to be considered is +whether this method of using parallelism and repetition and +alliteration can give new and great results. I believe that it can, +and that a greater Longfellow would have brought such results into +existence long ago. Of course, the form is primitive; it does not +follow that an English poet or a Japanese poet should attempt only +a return to primitive methods of poetry in detail. The detail is of +small moment; the spirit is everything. Parallelism means simply +the wish to present the same idea under a variety of aspects, +instead of attempting to put it forward in one aspect only. +Everything great in the way of thought, everything beautiful in the +way of idea, has many sides. It is merely the superficial which we +can see from the front only; the solid can be perceived from every +possible direction, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page258" name= +"page258">[258]</a></span>and changes shape according to the +direction looked at.</p> +<p>The great master of English verse, Swinburne is also a poet much +given to parallelism; for he has found it of incomparable use to +him in managing new forms of verse. He uses it in an immense +variety of ways—ways impossible to Japanese poets or to +Finnish poets; and the splendour of the results can not be imitated +in another language. But his case is interesting. The most +primitive methods of Finnish poetry, and of ancient poetry in +general, coming into his hands, are reproduced into music. I +propose to make a few quotations, in illustration. Here are some +lines from “Atalanta in Calydon”; they are only +parallelisms, but how magnificent they are!</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>When thou dravest the men</p> +<p class="i2">Of the chosen of Thrace,</p> +<p>None turned him again,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor endured he thy face</p> +<p>Close round with the blush of the battle, with light from a +terrible place.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Look again at the following lines from “A Song in Time of +Revolution”:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>There is none of them all that is whole; their lips gape open +for breath;</p> +<p>They are clothed with sickness of soul, and the shape of the +shadow of death.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page259" name= +"page259">[259]</a></span> +<p>The wind is thwart in their feet; it is full of the shouting of +mirth;</p> +<p>As one shaketh the sides of a sheet, so it shaketh the ends of +the earth.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The sword, the sword is made keen; the iron has opened its +mouth;</p> +<p>The corn is red that was green; it is bound for the sheaves of +the south.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The sound of a word was shed, the sound of the wind as a +breath,</p> +<p>In the ears of the souls that were dead, in the dust of the +deepness of death.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Where the face of the moon is taken, the ways of the stars +undone,</p> +<p>The light of the whole sky shaken, the light of the face of the +sun.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Where the sword was covered and hidden, and dust had grown in +its side,</p> +<p>A word came forth which was bidden, the crying of one that +cried:</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The sides of the two-edged sword shall be bare, and its mouth +shall be red,</p> +<p>For the breath of the face of the Lord that is felt in the bones +of the dead.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>All this is indeed very grand compared with anything in the +“Kalevala” or in Longfellow’s rendering; but do +you not see that the grandeur is <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page260" name="page260">[260]</a></span>also the grandeur of +parallelism? Here is proof of what a master can do with a method +older than Western civilization. But what is the inference? Is it +not that the old primitive poetry contains something of eternal +value, a value ranging from the lowest even to the highest, a value +that can lend beauty equally to the song of a little child or to +the thunder of the grandest epic verse?</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page261" name= +"page261">[261]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_13" name="Ch_13">Chapter XIII</a></h3> +<h2>The Most Beautiful Romance of the Middle Ages</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>The value of romantic literature, which has been, so far as the +Middle Ages are concerned, unjustly depreciated, does not depend +upon beauty of words or beauty of fact. To-day the immense debt of +modern literature to the literature of the Middle Ages is better +understood; and we are generally beginning to recognize what we owe +to the imagination of the Middle Ages, in spite of the ignorance, +the superstition and the cruelty of that time. If the evils of the +Middle Ages had really been universal, those ages could not have +imparted to us lessons of beauty and lessons of nobility having +nothing to do with literary form in themselves, yet profoundly +affecting modern poetry of the highest class. No; there was very +much of moral goodness as well as of moral badness in the Middle +Ages; and what was good happened to be very good indeed. Commonly +it used to be said (though I do not think any good critic would say +it now) that the fervid faith of the time made the moral beauty. +Unless we modify <span class="pagenum"><a id="page262" name= +"page262">[262]</a></span>this statement a great deal, we can not +now accept it at all. There was indeed a religious beauty, +particularly mediæval, but it was not that which created the +romance of the period. Indeed, that romantic literature was +something of a reaction against the religious restraint upon +imagination. But if we mean by mediæval faith only that which +is very much older than any European civilization, and which does +not belong to the West any more than to the East—the profound +belief in human moral experience—then I think that the +statement is true enough. At no time in European history were men +more sincere believers in the value of certain virtues than during +the Middle Ages—and the very best of the romances are just +those romances which illustrate that belief, though not written for +a merely ethical purpose.</p> +<p>But I can not better illustrate what I mean than by telling a +story, which has nothing to do with Europe, or the Middle Ages, or +any particular form of religious belief. It is not a Christian +story at all; and it could not be told you exactly as written, for +there are some very curious pages in it. But it is a good example +of the worth that may lie in a mere product of imagination.</p> +<p>There was a king once, in Persia or Arabia, who, at the time of +his accession to power, discovered a wonderful subterranean hall +under the garden of his palace. In one chamber of that hall stood +six marvellous statues of young girls, <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page263" name="page263">[263]</a></span>each statue being made out +of a single diamond. The beauty as well as the cost of the work was +beyond imagination. But in the midst of the statues, which stood in +a circle, there was an empty pedestal, and on that pedestal was a +precious casket containing a letter from the dead father of the +king. The letter said:</p> +<p>“O my son, though these statues of girls are indeed beyond +all praise, there is yet a seventh statue incomparably more +precious and beautiful which I could not obtain before I died. It +is now your duty, O my son, to obtain that statue, that it may be +placed upon the seventh pedestal. Go, therefore, and ask my +favourite slave, who is still alive, how you are to obtain +it.” Then the young king went in all haste to that old slave, +who had been his father’s confidant, and showed him the +letter. And the old man said, “Even now, O master, I will go +with you to find that statue. But it is in one of the three islands +in which the genii dwell; and it is necessary, above all things, +that you do not fear, and that you obey my instructions in all +things. Also, remember that if you make a promise to the Spirits of +that land, the promise must be kept.”</p> +<p>And they proceeded upon their journey through a great +wilderness, in which “nothing existed but grass and the +presence of God.” I can not try now to tell you about the +wonderful things that happened to them, nor about the marvellous +boat, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page264" name= +"page264">[264]</a></span>rowed by a boatman having upon his +shoulders the head of an elephant. Suffice it to say that at last +they reached the palace of the king of the Spirits; and the king +came to meet them in the form of a beautiful old man with a long +white beard. And he said to the young king, “My son, I will +gladly help you, as I helped your father; and I will give you that +seventh statue of diamond which you desire. But I must ask for a +gift in return. You must bring to me here a young girl of about +sixteen years old; and she must be very intelligent; and she must +be a true maiden, not only as to her body, but as to her soul, and +heart, and all her thoughts.” The young king thought that was +a very easy thing to find, but the king of the Spirits assured him +that it was not, and further told him this, “My son, no +mortal man is wise enough to know by his own wisdom the purity that +is in the heart of a young girl. Only by the help of this magical +mirror, which I now lend you, will you be able to know. Look at the +reflection of any maiden in this mirror, and then, if her heart is +perfectly good and pure, the mirror will remain bright. But if +there be any fault in her, the mirror will grow dim. Go now, and do +my bidding.”</p> +<p>You can imagine, of course, what happened next. Returning to his +kingdom, the young king had brought before him many beautiful +girls, the daughters of the noblest and highest in all the cities +of the land. But in no case did the mirror <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page265" name="page265">[265]</a></span>remain +perfectly clear when the ghostly test was applied. For three years +in vain the king sought; then in despair he for the first time +turned his attention to the common people. And there came before +him on the very first day a rude man of the desert, who said, +“I know of just such a girl as you want.” Then he went +forth and presently returned with a simple girl from the desert, +who had been brought up in the care of her father only, and had +lived with no other companion than the members of her own family +and the camels and horses of the encampment. And as she stood in +her poor dress before the king, he saw that she was much more +beautiful than any one whom he had seen before; and he questioned +her, only to find that she was very intelligent; and she was not at +all afraid or ashamed of standing before the king, but looked about +her with large wondering eyes, like the eyes of a child; and +whoever met that innocent gaze, felt a great joy in his heart, and +could not tell why. And when the king had the mirror brought, and +the reflection of the girl was thrown upon it, the mirror became +much brighter than before, and shone like a great moon.</p> +<p>There was the maid whom the Spirit-king wished for. The king +easily obtained her from her parents; but he did not tell her what +he intended to do with her. Now it was his duty to give her to the +Spirits; but there was a condition he found very hard to fulfil. By +the terms of his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page266" name= +"page266">[266]</a></span>promise he was not allowed to kiss her, +to caress her, or even to see her, except veiled after the manner +of the country. Only by the mirror had he been able to know how +fair she was. And the voyage was long; and on the way, the girl, +who thought she was going to be this king’s bride, became +sincerely attached to him, after the manner of a child with a +brother; and he also in his heart became much attached to her. But +it was his duty to give her up. At last they reached the palace of +the Spirit-king; and the figure of the old man came forth and said, +“My son, you have done well and kept your promise. This +maiden is all that I could have wished for; and I accept her. Now +when you go back to your palace, you will find on the seventh +pedestal the statue of the diamond which your father desired you to +obtain.” And, with these words, the Spirit-king vanished, +taking with him the girl, who uttered a great and piercing cry to +heaven at having been thus deceived. Very sorrowfully the young +king then began his journey home. All along the way he kept +regretting that girl, and regretting the cruelty which he had +practised in deceiving her and her parents. And he began to say to +himself, “Accursed be the gift of the king of the Spirits! Of +what worth to me is a woman of diamond any more than a woman of +stone? What is there in all the world half so beautiful or half so +precious <span class="pagenum"><a id="page267" name= +"page267">[267]</a></span>as a living girl such as I discovered? +Fool that I was to give her up for the sake of a statue!” But +he tried to console himself by remembering that he had obeyed his +dead father’s wish.</p> +<p>Still, he could not console himself. Reaching his palace, he +went to his secret chamber to weep alone, and he wept night and +day, in spite of the efforts of his ministers to comfort him. But +at last one of them said, “O my king, in the hall beneath +your garden there has appeared a wonderful statue upon the seventh +pedestal; perchance if you go to see it, your heart will become +more joyful.”</p> +<p>Then with great reluctance the king properly dressed himself, +and went to the subterranean hall.</p> +<p>There indeed was the statue, the gift of the Spirit-king; and +very beautiful it was. But it was not made of diamond, and it +looked so strangely like the girl whom he had lost, that the +king’s heart leapt in his breast for astonishment. He put out +his hand and touched the statue, and found it warm with life and +youth. And a sweet voice said to him, “Yes, it is really +I—have you forgotten?”</p> +<p>Thus she was given back to him; and the Spirit-king came to +their wedding, and thus addressed the bridegroom, “O my son, +for your dead father’s sake I did this thing. For it was +meant to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page268" name= +"page268">[268]</a></span>teach you that the worth of a really pure +and perfect woman is more than the price of any diamond or any +treasure that the earth can yield.”</p> +<p>Now you can see at once the beauty of this story; and the moral +of it is exactly the same as that of the famous verse, in the Book +of Proverbs, “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is +far above rubies.” But it is simply a story from the +“Arabian Nights”—one of those stories which you +will not find in the ordinary European translations, because it is +written in such a way that no English translator except Burton +would have dared to translate it quite literally. The obscenity of +parts of the original does not really detract in the least from the +beauty and tenderness of the motive of the story; and we must +remember that what we call moral or immoral in style depends very +much upon the fashion of an age and time.</p> +<p>Now it is exactly the same kind of moral charm that +distinguishes the best of the old English romances—a charm +which has nothing to do with the style, but everything to do with +the feeling and suggestion of the composition. But in some of the +old romances, the style too has a very great charm of quaintness +and simplicity and sincerity not to be imitated to-day. In this +respect the older French romances, from which the English made +their renderings, are much the best. And the best of all is said to +be “Amis and Amile,” which the <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page269" name="page269">[269]</a></span>English +rendered as “Amicus and Amelius.” Something of the +story ought to interest you.</p> +<p>The whole subject of this romance is the virtue of friendship, +though this of course involves a number of other virtues quite as +distinguished. Amis and Amile, that is to say Amicus and Amelius, +are two young knights who at the beginning of their career become +profoundly attached to each other. Not content with the duties of +this natural affection, they imposed upon themselves all the duties +which chivalry also attached to the office of friend. The romance +tells of how they triumphed over every conceivable test to which +their friendship was subjected. Often and often the witchcraft of +woman worked to separate them, but could not. Both married, yet +after marriage their friendship was just as strong as before. Each +has to fight many times on account of the other, and suffer all +things which it is most hard for a proud and brave man to bear. But +everything is suffered cheerfully, and the friends are such true +knights that, in all their trials, neither does anything wrong, or +commits the slightest fault against truth—until a certain sad +day. On that day it is the duty of Amis to fight in a trial by +battle. But he is sick, and can not fight; then to save his honour +his friend Amile puts on the armour and helmet of Amis, and so +pretending to be Amis, goes to the meeting place, and wins the +fight gloriously. But this was an act of untruthfulness; +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page270" name= +"page270">[270]</a></span>he had gone into battle under a false +name, and to do anything false even for a good motive is bad. So +heaven punishes him by afflicting him with the horrible disease of +leprosy.</p> +<p>The conditions of leprosy in the Middle Ages were of a peculiar +kind. The disease seems to have been introduced into Europe from +Asia—perhaps by the Crusaders. Michelet suggests that it may +have resulted from the European want of cleanliness, brought about +by ascetic teachings—for the old Greek and Roman public +bath-houses were held in horror by the mediæval Church. But +this is not at all certain. What is certain is that in the +thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries leprosy became very +prevalent. The disease was not then at all understood; it was +supposed to be extremely contagious, and the man afflicted by it +was immediately separated from society, and not allowed to live in +any community under such conditions as could bring him into contact +with other inhabitants. His wife or children could accompany him +only on the terrible condition of being considered lepers. Every +leper wore a kind of monk’s dress, with a hood covering the +face; and he had to carry a bell and ring it constantly to give +notice of his approach. Special leper-houses were built near every +town, where such unfortunates might obtain accommodation. They were +allowed to beg, but it was considered dangerous to go very near +them, so that in most cases <span class="pagenum"><a id="page271" +name="page271">[271]</a></span>alms or food would be thrown to them +only, instead of being put into their hands.</p> +<p>Now when the victim of leprosy in this romance is first +afflicted by the disease, he happens to be far away from his good +friend. And none of his own family is willing to help him; he is +regarded with superstitious as well as with physical horror. There +is nothing left for him to do but to yield up his knighthood and +his welfare and his family, to put on the leper’s robe, and +to go begging along the roads, carrying a leper’s bell. And +this he does. For long, long months he goes begging from town to +town, till at last, by mere chance, he finds his way to the gate of +the great castle where his good friend is living—now a great +prince, and married to the daughter of the king. And he asks at the +castle gate for charity and for food.</p> +<p>Now the porter at the gate observes that the leper has a very +beautiful cup, exactly resembling a drinking cup belonging to his +master, and he thinks it his duty to tell these things to the lord +of the castle. And the lord of the castle remembers that very long +ago he and his friend each had a cup of this kind, given to them by +the bishop of Rome. So, hearing the porter’s story, he knew +that the leper at the gate was the friend who “had delivered +him from death, and won for him the daughter of the King of France +to be his wife.” Here I had better quote from the French +version <span class="pagenum"><a id="page272" name= +"page272">[272]</a></span>of the story, in which the names of the +friends are changed, but without changing the beauty of the tale +itself:</p> +<p>“And straightway he fell upon him, and began to weep +greatly, and kissed him. And when his wife heard that, she ran out +with her hair in disarray, weeping and distressed +exceedingly—for she remembered that it was he who had slain +the false Ardres. And thereupon they placed him in a fair bed, and +said to him, ‘Abide with us until God’s will be +accomplished in thee, for all that we have is at thy +service.’ So he abode with them.”</p> +<p>You must understand, by the allusion to “God’s +will,” that leprosy was in the Middle Ages really considered +to be a punishment from heaven—so that in taking a leper into +his castle, the good friend was not only offending against the law +of the land, but risking celestial punishment as well, according to +the notions of that age. His charity, therefore, was true charity +indeed, and his friendship without fear. But it was going to be put +to a test more terrible than any ever endured before. To comprehend +what followed, you must know that there was one horrible +superstition of the Middle Ages—the belief that by bathing in +human blood the disease of leprosy might be cured. Murders were +often committed under the influence of that superstition. I believe +you will remember that the “Golden Legend” of +Longfellow is <span class="pagenum"><a id="page273" name= +"page273">[273]</a></span>founded upon a mediæval story in +which a young girl voluntarily offers up her life in order that her +blood may cure the leprosy of her king. In the present romance +there is much more tragedy. One night while sleeping in his +friend’s castle, the leper was awakened by an angel from +God—Raphael—who said to him:</p> +<p>“I am Raphael, the angel of the Lord, and I am come to +tell thee how thou mayst be healed. Thou shalt bid Amile thy +comrade that he slay his two children and wash thee in their blood, +and so thy body shall be made whole.” And Amis said to him, +“Let not this thing be, that my comrade should become a +murderer for my sake.” But the angel said, “It is +convenient that he do this.” And thereupon the angel +departed.</p> +<p>The phrase, “it is convenient,” must be understood +as meaning, “it is ordered.” For the mediæval +lord used such gentle expressions when issuing his commands; and +the angel talked like a feudal messenger. But in spite of the +command, the sick man does not tell his friend about the +angel’s visit, until Amile, who has overheard the voice, +forces him to acknowledge whom he had been talking with during the +night. And the emotion of the lord may be imagined, though he +utters it only in the following gentle words—“I would +have given to thee my man servants and my maid servants and all my +goods—and thou feignest that an angel hath spoken to thee +that I <span class="pagenum"><a id="page274" name= +"page274">[274]</a></span>should slay my two children. But I +conjure thee by the faith which there is between me and thee and by +our comradeship, and by the baptism we received together, that thou +tell me whether it was man or angel said that to thee.”</p> +<p>Amis declares that it was really an angel, and Amile never +thinks of doubting his friend’s word. It would be a pity to +tell you the sequel in my own words; let me quote again from the +text, translated by Walter Pater. I think you will find it +beautiful and touching:</p> +<p>“Then Amile began to weep in secret, and thought within +himself, ‘If this man was ready to die before the King for +me, shall I not for him slay my children? Shall I not keep faith +with him who was faithful to me even unto death?’ And Amile +tarried no longer, but departed to the chamber of his wife, and +bade her go to hear the Sacred Office. And he took a sword, and +went to the bed where the children were lying, and found them +asleep. And he lay down over them and began to weep bitterly and +said, ‘Has any man yet heard of a father who of his own will +slew his children? Alas, my children! I am no longer your father, +but your cruel murderer.’</p> +<p>“And the children awoke at the tears of their father, +which fell upon them; and they looked up into his face and began to +laugh. And as they were of age about three years, he said, +‘Your laughing will be turned into tears, for your innocent +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page275" name= +"page275">[275]</a></span>blood must now be shed’; and +therewith he cut off their heads. Then he laid them back in the +bed, and put the heads upon the bodies, and covered them as though +they slept; and with the blood which he had taken he washed his +comrade, and said, ‘Lord Jesus Christ! who hast commanded men +to keep faith on earth, and didst heal the leper by Thy word! +cleanse now my comrade, for whose love I have shed the blood of my +children.’” And of course the leper is immediately and +completely cured. But the mother did not know anything about the +killing of the children; we have to hear something about her share +in the tragedy. Let me again quote, this time giving the real and +very beautiful conclusion—</p> +<p>“Now neither the father nor the mother had yet entered +where the children were, but the father sighed heavily because they +were dead, and the mother asked for them, that they might rejoice +together; but Amile said, ‘Dame! let the children +sleep.’ And it was already the hour of Tierce. And going in +alone to the children to weep over them, he found them at play in +the bed; only, in the place of the sword-cuts about their throats +was, as it were, a thread of crimson. And he took them in his arms +and carried them to his wife and said, ‘Rejoice greatly! For +thy children whom I had slain by the commandment of the angel, are +alive, and by their blood is Amis healed.’”</p> +<p>I think you will all see how fine a story this is, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page276" name="page276">[276]</a></span>and feel +the emotional force of the grand moral idea behind it. There is +nothing more to tell you, except the curious fact that during the +Middle Ages, when it was believed that the story was really true, +Amis and Amile—or Amicus and Amelius—were actually +considered by the Church as saints, and people used to pray to +them. When anybody was anxious for his friend, or feared that he +might lose the love of his friend, or was afraid that he might not +have strength to perform his duty as friend—then he would go +to church to implore help from the good saints Amicus and Amelius. +But of course it was all a mistake—a mistake which lasted +until the end of the seventeenth century! Then somebody called the +attention of the Church to the unmistakable fact that Amicus and +Amelius were merely inventions of some mediæval romancer. +Then the Church made investigation, and greatly shocked, withdrew +from the list of its saints those long-loved names of Amicus and +Amelius—a reform in which I cannot help thinking the Church +made a very serious mistake. What matter whether those shadowy +figures represented original human lives or only human dreams? They +were beautiful, and belief in them made men think beautiful +thoughts, and the imagined help from them had comforted many +thousands of hearts. It would have been better to have left them +alone; for that matter, how many of the existent lives of saints +are really true? <span class="pagenum"><a id="page277" name= +"page277">[277]</a></span>Nevertheless the friends are not dead, +though expelled from the heaven of the Church. They still live in +romance; and everybody who reads about them feels a little better +for their acquaintance.</p> +<p>What I read to you was from the French version—that is +much the more beautiful of the two. You will find some extracts +from the English version in the pages of Ten Brink. But as that +great German scholar pointed out, the English story is much rougher +than the French. For example, in the English story, the knight +rushes out of his castle to beat the leper at the gate, and to +accuse him of having stolen the cup. And he does beat him +ferociously, and abuses him with very violent terms. In fact, the +English writer reflected too much of mediæval English +character, in trying to cover, or to improve upon, the French +story, which was the first. In the French story all is knightly +smooth, refined as well as simple and strong. And where did the +mediæval imagination get its material for the story? Partly, +perhaps, from the story of Joseph in the Bible, partly from the +story of Abraham; but the scriptural material is so admirably +worked over that the whole thing appears deliciously original. That +was the great art of the Middle Ages—to make old, old things +quite new by the magic of spiritual imagination. Men then lived in +a world of dreams. And that world still attracts us, for the simple +reason that happiness chiefly consists in <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page278" name="page278">[278]</a></span>dreams. +Exact science may help us a great deal no doubt, but mathematics do +not make us any happier. Dreams do, if we can believe them. The +Middle Ages could believe them; we, at the best, can only try.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page279" name= +"page279">[279]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_14" name="Ch_14">Chapter XIV</a></h3> +<h2>“Ionica”</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>I am going now to talk about a very rare kind of poetry in a +very rare little book, like fine wine in a small and precious +flask. The author never put his name to the book—indeed for +many years it was not known who wrote the volume. We now know that +the author was a school teacher called William Johnson who, later +in life, coming into a small fortune, changed his name to William +Cory. He was born sometime about 1823, and died in 1892. He was, I +believe, an Oxford man and was assistant master of Eton College for +a number of years. Judging from his poems, he must have found +pleasure in his profession as well as pain. There is a strange +sadness nearly always, but this sadness is mixed with expressions +of love for the educational establishment which he directed, and +for the students whose minds he helped to form. He must have been +otherwise a very shy man. Scarcely anything seems to be known about +him after his departure from educational circles, although +everybody of taste now knows his poems. I wish to speak of them +because I think that literary graduates of this university +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page280" name= +"page280">[280]</a></span>ought to be at least familiar with the +name “Ionica.” At all events you should know something +about the man and about the best of his poems. If you should ask +why so little has yet been said about him in books on English +literature, I would answer that in the first place he was a very +small poet writing in the time of giants, having for competitors +Tennyson, Browning and others. He could scarcely make his small +pipe heard in the thunder of those great organ tones. In the second +place his verses were never written to please the public at all. +They were written only for fine scholars, and even the titles of +many of them cannot be explained by a person devoid of some Greek +culture. So the little book, which appeared quite early in the +Victorian Age, was soon forgotten. Being forgotten it ran out of +print and disappeared. Then somebody remembered that it had +existed. I have told you that it was like the tone of a little pipe +or flute as compared with the organ music of the larger poets. But +the little pipe happened to be a Greek pipe—the melody was +very sweet and very strange and old, and people who had heard it +once soon wanted to hear it again. But they could not get it. +Copies of the first edition fetched extraordinary sums. Some few +years ago a new edition appeared, but this too is now out of print +and is fetching fancy prices. However, you must not expect anything +too wonderful from this way <span class="pagenum"><a id="page281" +name="page281">[281]</a></span>of introducing the subject. The +facts only show that the poems are liked by persons of refinement +and wealth. I hope to make you like some of them, but the +difficulties of so doing are considerable, because of the extremely +English character of some pieces and the extremely Greek tone of +others. There is also some uneven work. The poet is not in all +cases successful. Sometimes he tried to write society verse, and +his society verse must be considered a failure. The best pieces are +his Greek pieces and some compositions on love subjects of a most +delicate and bewitching kind.</p> +<p>Of course the very name “Ionica” suggests Greek +work, a collection of pieces in Ionic style. But you must not think +that this means only repetitions of ancient subjects. This author +brings the Greek feeling back again into the very heart of English +life sometimes, or makes an English fact illustrate a Greek fable. +Some delightful translations from the Greek there are, but less +than half a dozen in all.</p> +<p>I scarcely know how to begin—what piece to quote first. +But perhaps the little fancy called “Mimnermus in +Church” is the best known, and the one which will best serve +to introduce us to the character of Cory. Before quoting it, +however, I must explain the title briefly. Mimnermus was an old +Greek philosopher and poet who thought that all things in the world +are temporary, that all hope of a future life is vain, that +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page282" name= +"page282">[282]</a></span>there is nothing worth existing for +except love, and that without affection one were better dead. There +are, no doubt, various modern thinkers who tell you much the same +thing, and this little poem exhibits such modern feeling in a Greek +dress. I mean that we have here a picture of a young man, a young +English scholar, listening in church to Christian teaching, but +answering that teaching with the thought of the old Greeks. There +is of course one slight difference; the modern conception of love +is perhaps a little wider in range than that of the old Greeks. +There is more of the ideal in it.</p> +<h4>MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>You promise heavens free from strife,</p> +<p class="i2">Pure truth, and perfect change of will;</p> +<p>But sweet, sweet is this human life,</p> +<p class="i2">So sweet, I fain would breathe it still;</p> +<p>Your chilly stars I can forego,</p> +<p>This warm kind world is all I know.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>You say there is no substance here,</p> +<p class="i2">One great reality above:</p> +<p>Back from that void I shrink in fear</p> +<p class="i2">And child-like hide myself in love;</p> +<p>Show me what angels feel. Till then</p> +<p>I cling, a mere weak man, to men.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>You bid me lift my mean desires</p> +<p class="i2">From faltering lips and fitful veins</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page283" name= +"page283">[283]</a></span> +<p>To sexless souls, ideal choirs,</p> +<p class="i2">Unwearied voices, wordless strains;</p> +<p>My mind with fonder welcome owns</p> +<p>One dear dead friend’s remembered tones.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Forsooth the present we must give</p> +<p class="i2">To that which cannot pass away;</p> +<p>All beauteous things for which we live</p> +<p class="i2">By laws of time and space decay.</p> +<p>But oh, the very reason why</p> +<p>I clasp them, is because they die.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The preacher has been talking to his congregation about the joys +of Heaven. There, he says, there will be no quarrelling, no +contest, no falsehood, and all evil dispositions will be entirely +changed to good. The poet answers, “This world and this life +are full of beauty and of joy for me. I do not want to die, I want +to live. I do not wish to go to that cold region of stars about +which you teach. I only know this world and I find in it warm +hearts and precious affection. You say that this world is a +phantom, unsubstantial, unreal, and that the only reality is above, +in Heaven. To me that Heaven appears but as an awful emptiness. I +shrink from it in terror, and like a child seek for consolation in +human love. It is no use to talk to me about angels until you can +prove to me that angels can feel happier than men. I prefer to +remain with human beings. You say that I ought to wish for higher +things than this world can give, that here minds are unsteady and +weak, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page284" name= +"page284">[284]</a></span>hearts fickle and selfish, and you talk +of souls without sex, imaginary concerts of perfect music, tireless +singing in Heaven, and the pleasure of conversation without speech. +But all the happiness that we know is received from our fellow +beings. I remember the voice of one dead friend with deeper love +and pleasure than any images of Heaven could ever excite in my +mind.”</p> +<p>The last stanza needs no paraphrasing, but it deserves some +comment, for it is the expression of one great difference between +the old Greek feeling in regard to life and death, and all modern +religious feeling on the same subject. You can read through +hundreds of beautiful inscriptions which were placed over the Greek +tombs. They are contained in the Greek Anthology. You will find +there almost nothing about hope of a future life, or about Heaven. +They are not for the most part sad; they are actually joyous in +many cases. You would say that the Greek mind thought thus about +death—“I have had my share of the beauty and the love +of this world, and I am grateful for this enjoyment, and now it is +time to go to sleep.” There is actually an inscription to the +effect, “I have supped well of the banquet of life.” +The Eastern religions, including Christianity, taught that because +everything in the world is uncertain, impermanent, perishable, +therefore we ought not to allow our minds to love worldly things. +But the Greek mind, as expressed by the old epigraphy <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page285" name="page285">[285]</a></span>in the +cemeteries, not less than by the teaching of Mimnermus, took +exactly the opposite view. “O children of men, it is because +beauty and pleasure and love and light can last only for a little +while, it is exactly because of this that you should love them. Why +refuse to enjoy the present because it can not last for +ever?” And at a much later day the Persian poet Omar took, +you will remember, precisely the same view. You need not think that +it would be wise to accept such teaching for a rule of life, but it +has a certain value as a balance to the other extreme view, that we +should make ourselves miserable in this world with the idea of +being rewarded in another, concerning which we have no positive +knowledge. The lines with which the poem concludes at least deserve +to be thought about—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But oh, the very reason why</p> +<p>I clasp them, is because they die.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>We shall later on take some of the purely Greek work of Cory for +study, but I want now to interest you in the more modern part of +it. The charm of the following passage you will better feel by +remembering that the writer was then a schoolmaster at Eton, and +that the verses particularly express the love which he felt for his +students—a love the more profound, perhaps, because the +circumstances of the teacher’s position obliged him to appear +cold and severe, obliged <span class="pagenum"><a id="page286" +name="page286">[286]</a></span>him to suppress natural impulses of +affection and generosity. The discipline of the masters in English +public schools is much more severe than the discipline to which the +students are subjected. The boys enjoy a great deal of liberty. The +masters may be said to have none. Yet there are men so constituted +that they learn to greatly love the profession. The title of this +poem is “Reparabo,” which means “I will +atone.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The world will rob me of my friends,</p> +<p class="i2">For time with her conspires;</p> +<p>But they shall both, to make amends,</p> +<p class="i2">Relight my slumbering fires.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>For while my comrades pass away</p> +<p class="i2">To bow and smirk and gloze,</p> +<p>Come others, for as short a stay;</p> +<p class="i2">And dear are these as those.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And who was this? they ask; and then</p> +<p class="i2">The loved and lost I praise:</p> +<p>“Like you they frolicked; they are men;</p> +<p class="i2">Bless ye my later days.”</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Why fret? The hawks I trained are flown;</p> +<p class="i2">’Twas nature bade them range;</p> +<p>I could not keep their wings half-grown,</p> +<p class="i2">I could not bar the change.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>With lattice opened wide I stand</p> +<p class="i2">To watch their eager flight;</p> +<p>With broken jesses in my hand</p> +<p class="i2">I muse on their delight.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page287" name= +"page287">[287]</a></span> +<p>And oh! if one with sullied plume</p> +<p class="i2">Should droop in mid career,</p> +<p>My love makes signals,—“There is room,</p> +<p class="i2">O bleeding wanderer, here.”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This comparison of the educator to a falconer, and of the +students to young hawks eager to break their jesses seems to an +Englishman particularly happy in reference to Eton, from which so +many youths pass into the ranks of the army and navy. The line +about bowing, smirking and glozing, refers to the comparative +insincerity of the higher society into which so many of the +scholars must eventually pass. “Smirking” suggests +insincere smiles, “glozing” implies tolerating or +lightly passing over faults or wrongs or serious matters that +should not be considered lightly. Society is essentially insincere +and artificial in all countries, but especially so in England. The +old Eton master thinks, however, that he knows the moral character +of the boys, the strong principles which make its foundation, and +he trusts that they will be able in a general way to do only what +is right, in spite of conventions and humbug.</p> +<p>As I told you before, we know very little about the personal +life of Cory, who must have been a very reserved man; but a poet +puts his heart into his verses as a general rule, and there are +many little poems in this book that suggest to us an unhappy love +episode. These are extremely pretty and touching, the writer in +most cases confessing <span class="pagenum"><a id="page288" name= +"page288">[288]</a></span>himself unworthy of the person who +charmed him; but the finest thing of the kind is a composition +which he suggestively entitled “A Fable”—that is +to say, a fable in the Greek sense, an emblem or symbol of +truth.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>An eager girl, whose father buys</p> +<p class="i2">Some ruined thane’s forsaken hall,</p> +<p>Explores the new domain and tries</p> +<p class="i2">Before the rest to view it all.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>I think you have often noted the fact here related; when a +family moves to a new house, it is the child, or the youngest +daughter, who is the first to explore all the secrets of the new +residence, and whose young eyes discover things which the older +folks had not noticed.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Alone she lifts the latch, and glides,</p> +<p class="i2">Through many a sadly curtained room,</p> +<p>As daylight through the doorway slides</p> +<p class="i2">And struggles with the muffled gloom.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>With mimicries of dance she wakes</p> +<p class="i2">The lordly gallery’s silent floor,</p> +<p>And climbing up on tiptoe, makes</p> +<p class="i2">The old-world mirror smile once more.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>With tankards dry she chills her lips,</p> +<p class="i2">With yellowing laces veils the head,</p> +<p>And leaps in pride of ownership</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the faded marriage bed.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page289" name= +"page289">[289]</a></span> +<p>A harp in some dark nook she sees</p> +<p class="i2">Long left a prey to heat and frost,</p> +<p>She smites it; can such tinklings please?</p> +<p class="i2">Is not all worth, all beauty, lost?</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ah, who’d have thought such sweetness clung</p> +<p class="i2">To loose neglected strings like those?</p> +<p>They answered to whate’er was sung,</p> +<p class="i2">And sounded as a lady chose.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Her pitying finger hurried by</p> +<p class="i2">Each vacant space, each slackened chord;</p> +<p>Nor would her wayward zeal let die</p> +<p class="i2">The music-spirit she restored.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The fashion quaint, the timeworn flaws,</p> +<p class="i2">The narrow range, the doubtful tone,</p> +<p>All was excused awhile, because</p> +<p class="i2">It seemed a creature of her own.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Perfection tires; the new in old,</p> +<p class="i2">The mended wrecks that need her skill,</p> +<p>Amuse her. If the truth be told,</p> +<p class="i2">She loves the triumph of her will.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>With this, she dares herself persuade,</p> +<p class="i2">She’ll be for many a month content,</p> +<p>Quite sure no duchess ever played</p> +<p class="i2">Upon a sweeter instrument.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus in sooth she can beguile</p> +<p class="i2">Girlhood’s romantic hours, but soon</p> +<p>She yields to taste and mood and style,</p> +<p class="i2">A siren of the gay saloon.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page290" name= +"page290">[290]</a></span> +<p>And wonders how she once could like</p> +<p class="i2">Those drooping wires, those failing notes,</p> +<p>And leaves her toy for bats to strike</p> +<p class="i2">Amongst the cobwebs and the motes.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>But enter in, thou freezing wind,</p> +<p class="i2">And snap the harp-strings, one by one;</p> +<p>It was a maiden blithe and kind:</p> +<p class="i2">They felt her touch; their task is done.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>In this charming little study we know that the harp described is +not a harp; it is the loving heart of an old man, at least of a man +beyond the usual age of lovers. He has described and perhaps adored +some beautiful person who seemed to care for him, and who played +upon his heart, with her whims, caresses, smiles, much as one would +play upon the strings of a harp. She did not mean to be cruel at +all, nor even insincere. It is even probable that she really in +those times thought that she loved the man, and under the charms of +the girl the man became a different being; the old-fashioned mind +brightened, the old-fashioned heart exposed its hidden treasures of +tenderness and wisdom and sympathy. Very much like playing upon a +long forgotten instrument, was the relation between the maiden and +the man—not only because he resembled such an instrument in +the fact of belonging emotionally and intellectually to another +generation, but also because his was a <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page291" name="page291">[291]</a></span>heart whose true music had +long been silent, unheard by the world. Undoubtedly the maiden +meant no harm, but she caused a great deal of pain, for at a later +day, becoming a great lady of society, she forgot all about this +old friendship, or perhaps wondered why she ever wasted her time in +talking to such a strange old-fashioned professor. Then the +affectionate heart is condemned to silence again, to silence and +oblivion, like the harp thrown away in some garret to be covered +with cobwebs and visited only by bats. “Is it not +time,” the old man thinks, “that the strings should be +broken, the strings of the heart? Let the cold wind of death now +come and snap them.” Yet, after all, why should he complain? +Did he not have the beautiful experience of loving, and was she not +in that time at least well worthy of the love that she called forth +like music?</p> +<p>There are several other poems referring to what would seem to be +the same experience, and all are beautiful, but one seems to me +nobler than the rest, expressing as it does a generous resignation. +It is called “Deteriora,” a Latin word signifying +lesser, inferior, or deteriorated things—not easy to +translate. Nor would you find the poem easy to understand, +referring as it does to conditions of society foreign to anything +in Japanese experience. But some verses which I may quote you will +like.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page292" name= +"page292">[292]</a></span> +<p>If fate and nature screen from me</p> +<p class="i2">The sovran front I bowed before,</p> +<p>And set the glorious creature free,</p> +<p class="i2">Whom I would clasp, detain, adore,—</p> +<p>If I forego that strange delight,</p> +<p>Must all be lost? Not quite, not quite.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>Die, Little Love, without complaint,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>Whom honour standeth by to shrive:</em></p> +<p><em>Assoilèd from all selfish taint,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>Die, Love, whom Friendship will survive.</em></p> +<p><em>Not hate nor folly gave thee birth;</em></p> +<p><em>And briefness does but raise thy worth.</em></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is the same thought which Tennyson expressed in his famous +lines,</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>’Tis better to have loved and lost</p> +<p>Than never to have loved at all.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>But it is still more finely expressed to meet a particular +personal mood. One must not think the world lost because a woman +has been lost, he says, and such a love is not a thing for any man +to be ashamed of, in spite of the fact that it has been +disappointed. It was honourable, unselfish, not inspired by any +passion or any folly, and the very brevity of the experience only +serves to make it more precious. Observe the use of the words +“shrive” and “assoiled.” These refer to the +old religious custom of confession; to “shrive” +signifies to forgive, to free from sin, as a priest is supposed to +do, and “assoiled” means “purified.”</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page293" name= +"page293">[293]</a></span>If this was a personal experience, it +must have been an experience of advanced life. Elsewhere the story +of a boyish love is told very prettily, under the title of +“Two Fragments of Childhood.” This is the first +fragment:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>When these locks were yellow as gold,</p> +<p>When past days were easily told,</p> +<p>Well I knew the voice of the sea,</p> +<p>Once he spake as a friend to me.</p> +<p>Thunder-rollings carelessly heard,</p> +<p>Once that poor little heart they stirred,</p> +<p class="i2">Why, Oh, why?</p> +<p class="i2">Memory, memory!</p> +<p>She that I wished to be with was by.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Sick was I in those misanthrope days</p> +<p>Of soft caresses, womanly ways;</p> +<p>Once that maid on the stair I met</p> +<p>Lip on brow she suddenly set.</p> +<p>Then flushed up my chivalrous blood,</p> +<p>Like Swiss streams in a mid-summer flood.</p> +<p class="i2">Then, Oh, then,</p> +<p class="i2">Imogen, Imogen!</p> +<p>Hadst thou a lover, whose years were ten.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This is evidently the charming memory of a little sick boy sent +to the seaside for his health, according to the English custom, and +unhappy there, unable to play about like stronger children, and +obliged to remain under the constant care of nurses and female +relatives. But in the same house there is another family with a +beautiful <span class="pagenum"><a id="page294" name= +"page294">[294]</a></span>young daughter, probably sixteen or +eighteen years old. The little boy wishes, wishes so much that the +beautiful lady would speak to him and play with him, but he is shy, +afraid to approach her—only looks at her with great admiring +loving eyes. But one day she meets him on the stairs, and stoops +down and kisses him on the forehead. Then he is in Heaven. +Afterward no doubt she played with him, and they walked up and down +by the shore of the sea together, and now, though an old man, +whenever he hears the roar of the sea he remembers the beautiful +lady who played with him and caressed him, when he was a little +sick child. How much he loved her! But she was a woman, and he was +only ten years old. The reference to “chivalrous blood” +signifies just this, that at the moment when she kissed him he +would have given his life for her, would have dared anything or +done anything to show his devotion to her. No prettier memory of a +child could be told.</p> +<p>We can learn a good deal about even the shyest of the poets +through a close understanding of his poetry. From the foregoing we +know that Cory must have been a sickly child; and from other poems +referring to school life we can not escape the supposition that he +was not a strong lad. In one of his verses he speaks of being +unable to join in the hearty play of his comrades; and in the poem +which touches on the life of the mature man we find him +acknowledging that he believed his <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page295" name="page295">[295]</a></span>life a failure—a +failure through want of strength. I am going to quote this poem for +other reasons. It is a beautiful address either to some favourite +student or to a beloved son—it is impossible to decide which. +But that does not matter. The title is “A New Year’s +Day.”</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Our planet runs through liquid space,</p> +<p>And sweeps us with her in the race;</p> +<p>And wrinkles gather on my face,</p> +<p class="i2">And Hebe bloom on thine:</p> +<p>Our sun with his encircling spheres</p> +<p>Around the central sun careers;</p> +<p>And unto thee with mustering years</p> +<p class="i2">Come hopes which I resign.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>’Twere sweet for me to keep thee still</p> +<p>Reclining halfway up the hill;</p> +<p>But time will not obey the will,</p> +<p class="i2">And onward thou must climb:</p> +<p>’Twere sweet to pause on this descent,</p> +<p>To wait for thee and pitch my tent,</p> +<p>But march I must with shoulders bent,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet further from my prime.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>I shall not tread thy battlefield,</em></p> +<p><em>Nor see the blazon on thy shield;</em></p> +<p><em>Take thou the sword I could not wield,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>And leave me, and forget.</em></p> +<p><em>Be fairer, braver, more admired;</em></p> +<p><em>So win what feeble hearts desired;</em></p> +<p><em>Then leave thine arms, when thou art tired,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>To some one nobler yet.</em></p> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page296" name= +"page296">[296]</a></span>How beautiful this is, and how profoundly +sad!</p> +<p>I shall return to the personal poetry of Cory later on, but I +want now to give you some examples of his Greek work. Perhaps the +best of this is little more than a rendering of Greek into English; +some of the work is pure translation. But it is the translation of +a very great master, the perfect rendering of Greek feeling as well +as of Greek thought. Here is an example of pure translation:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,</p> +<p>They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to +shed.</p> +<p>I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I</p> +<p>Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.</p> +<p>And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,</p> +<p>A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,</p> +<p>Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;</p> +<p>For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>What are “thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales”? +They are the songs which the dear dead poet made, still sung in his +native country, though his body was burned to ashes long +ago—has been changed into a mere handful of grey ashes, +which, doubtless, have been placed in an urn, as is done with such +ashes to-day in Japan. Death takes away all things from man, but +not his poems, his songs, the beautiful thoughts which he puts into +musical verse. These will always be heard like <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page297" name= +"page297">[297]</a></span>nightingales. The fourth line in the +first stanza contains an idiom which may not be familiar to you. It +means only that the two friends talked all day until the sun set in +the West, and still talked on after that. Tennyson has used the +same Greek thought in a verse of his poem, “A Dream of Fair +Women,” where Cleopatra says,</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>“We drank the Libyan sun to sleep.”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The Greek author of the above poem was the great poet +Callimachus, and the English translator does not think it necessary +even to give the name, as he wrote only for folk well acquainted +with the classics. He has another short translation which he +accompanies with the original Greek text; it is very pretty, but of +an entirely different kind, a kind that may remind you of some +Japanese poems. It is only about a cicada and a peasant girl, and +perhaps it is twenty-four or twenty-five hundred years old.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A dry cicale chirps to a lass making hay,</p> +<p>“Why creak’st thou, Tithonus?” quoth she. +“I don’t play;</p> +<p>It doubles my toil, your importunate lay,</p> +<p>I’ve earned a sweet pillow, lo! Hesper is nigh;</p> +<p>I clasp a good wisp and in fragrance I lie;</p> +<p>But thou art unwearied, and empty, and dry.”</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>How very human this little thing is—how actually it brings +before us the figure of the girl, who must <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page298" name="page298">[298]</a></span>have +become dust some time between two and three thousand years ago! She +is working hard in the field, and the constant singing of the +insect prompts her to make a comical protest. “Oh, Tithonus, +what are you making that creaking noise for? You old dry thing, I +have no time to play with you, or to idle in any way, but you do +nothing but complain. Why don’t you work, as I do? Soon I +shall have leave to sleep, because I have worked well. There is the +evening star, and I shall have a good bed of hay, sweet-smelling +fresh hay, to lie upon. How well I shall sleep. But you, you idle +noisy thing, you do not deserve to sleep. You have done nothing to +tire you. And you are empty, dry and thirsty. Serves you +right!” Of course you recognize the allusion to the story of +Tithonus, so beautifully told by Tennyson. The girl’s jest +has a double meaning. The word “importunate” has the +signification of a wearisome repetition of a request, a constant +asking, impossible to satisfy. Tithonus was supposed to complain +because he was obliged to live although he wanted to die. That +young girl does not want to die at all. And she says that the noise +of the insect, supposed to repeat the complaint of Tithonus, only +makes it more tiresome for her to work. She was feeling, no doubt, +much as a Japanese student would feel when troubled by the singing +of <em>semi</em> on some very hot afternoon while he is trying to +master some difficult problem.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page299" name= +"page299">[299]</a></span>That is pure Greek—pure as another +mingling of the Greek feeling with the modern scholarly spirit, +entitled “An Invocation.” Before quoting from it I must +explain somewhat; otherwise you might not be able to imagine what +it means, because it was written to be read by those only who are +acquainted with Theocritus and the Greek idylists. Perhaps I had +better say something too, about the word idyl, for the use of the +word by Tennyson is not the Greek use at all, except in the mere +fact that the word signifies a picturing, a shadowing or an +imagining of things. Tennyson’s pictures are of a purely +imaginative kind in the “Idyls of the King.” But the +Greek poets who first invented the poetry called idyllic did not +attempt the heroic works of imagination at all; they only +endeavoured to make perfectly true pictures of the common life of +peasants in the country. They wrote about the young men and young +girls working on the farms, about the way they quarrelled or +rejoiced or made love, about their dances and their songs, about +their religious festivals and their sacrifices to the gods at the +parish temple. Imagine a Japanese scholar of to-day who, after +leaving the university, instead of busying himself with the +fashionable studies of the time, should go out into the remoter +districts or islands of Japan, and devote his life to studying the +existence of the commoner people there, and making poems about it. +This was exactly what <span class="pagenum"><a id="page300" name= +"page300">[300]</a></span>the Greek idylists did,—that is, +the best of them. They were great scholars and became friends of +kings, but they wrote poetry chiefly about peasant life, and they +gave all their genius to the work. The result was so beautiful that +everybody is still charmed by the pictures or idyls which they +made.</p> +<p>Well, after this disgression, to return to the subject of +Theocritus, the greatest of the idylists. He has often introduced +into his idyls the name of Comatas. Who was Comatas? Comatas was a +Greek shepherd boy, or more strictly speaking a goatherd, who kept +the flocks of a rich man. It was his duty to sacrifice to the gods +none of his master’s animals, without permission; but as his +master was a very avaricious person, Comatas knew that it would be +of little use to ask him. Now this Comatas was a very good singer +of peasant songs, and he made many beautiful poems for the people +to sing, and he believed that it was the gods who had given him +power to make the songs, and the Muses had inspired him with the +capacity to make good verse. In spite of his master’s will, +Comatas therefore thought it was not very bad to take the young +kids and sacrifice to the gods and the Muses. When his master found +out what had been done with the animals, naturally he became very +angry, and he put Comatas into a great box of cedar-wood in order +to starve him to death—saying, as he closed and locked the +lid, “Now, Comatas, let us see whether the gods <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page301" name="page301">[301]</a></span>will feed +you!” In that box Comatas was left for a year without food or +drink, and when the master, at the end of the year, opened the box, +he expected to find nothing but the bones of the goatherd. But +Comatas was alive and well, singing sweet songs, because during the +year the Muses had sent bees to feed him with honey. The bees had +been able to enter the box through a very little hole. I suppose +you know that bees were held sacred to the Muses, and that there is +in Greek legend a symbolic relation between bees and poetry.</p> +<p>If you want to know what kind of songs Comatas sang and what +kind of life he represented, you will find all this exquisitely +told by Theocritus; and there is a beautiful little translation in +prose of Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, made by Andrew Lang, which +should delight you to read. Another day I shall give you examples +of such translations. Then you will see what true idyllic poetry +originally signified. These Greeks, although trained scholars and +philosophers, understood not only that human nature in itself is a +beautiful thing, but also that the best way to study human nature +is to study the life of the peasants and the common people. It is +not to the rich and leisurely, not to rank and society, that a poet +must go for inspiration. He will not find it there. What is called +society is a world in which nobody is happy, and in which pure +human nature is afraid <span class="pagenum"><a id="page302" name= +"page302">[302]</a></span>to show itself. Life among the higher +classes in all countries is formal, artificial, theatrical; poetry +is not there. Of course no kind of human community is perfectly +happy, but it is among the simple folk, the country folk, who do +not know much about evil and deceit, that the greater proportion of +happiness can be found. Among the youths of the country especially, +combining the charm of childhood with the strength of adult +maturity, the best possible subjects for fine pure studies of human +nature can be found. May I not here express the hope that some +young Japanese poet, some graduate of this very university, will +eventually attempt to do in Japan what Theocritus and Bion did in +ancient Sicily? A great deal of the very same kind of poetry exists +in our own rural districts, and parallels can be found in the daily +life of the Japanese peasants for everything beautifully described +in Theocritus. At all events I am quite sure of one thing, that no +great new literature can possibly arise in this country until some +scholarly minds discover that the real force and truth and beauty +and poetry of life is to be found only in studies of the common +people—not in the life of the rich and the noble, not in the +shadowy life of books.</p> +<p>Well, our English poet felt with the Greek idylists, and in the +poem called “An Invocation” he beautifully expresses +this sympathy. All of us, he says, should like to see and hear +something of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page303" name= +"page303">[303]</a></span>the ancient past if it were possible. We +should like, some of us, to call back the vanished gods and +goddesses of the beautiful Greek world, or to talk to the great +souls of that world who had the experience of life as men—to +Socrates, for example, to Plato, to Phidias the sculptor, to +Pericles the statesman. But, as a poet, my wish would not be for +the return of the old gods nor of the old heroes so much as for the +return to us of some common men who lived in the Greek world. It is +Comatas, he says, that he would most like to see, and to see in +some English park—in the neighbourhood of Cambridge +University, or of Eton College. And thus he addresses the spirit of +Comatas:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O dear divine Comatas, I would that thou and I</p> +<p>Beneath this broken sunlight this leisure day might lie;</p> +<p>Where trees from distant forests, whose names were strange to +thee,</p> +<p>Should bend their amorous branches within thy reach to be,</p> +<p>And flowers thine Hellas knew not, which art hath made more +fair,</p> +<p>Should shed their shining petals upon thy fragrant hair.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Then thou shouldst calmly listen with ever-changing looks</p> +<p>To songs of younger minstrels and plots of modern books,</p> +<p>And wonder at the daring of poets later born,</p> +<p>Whose thoughts are unto thy thoughts as noontide is to morn;</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page304" name= +"page304">[304]</a></span> +<p>And little shouldst them grudge them their greater strength of +soul,</p> +<p>Thy partners in the torch-race, though nearer to the goal.</p> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Or in thy cedarn prison thou waitest for the bee:</p> +<p>Ah, leave that simple honey and take thy food from me.</p> +<p>My sun is stooping westward. Entranced dreamer, haste;</p> +<p>There’s fruitage in my garden that I would have thee +taste.</p> +<p>Now lift the lid a moment; now, Dorian shepherd, speak;</p> +<p>Two minds shall flow together, the English and the Greek.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>A few phrases of these beautiful stanzas need explanation. +“Broken sunlight” refers, of course, to the imperfect +shade thrown by the trees under which the poet is lying. The shadow +is broken by the light passing through leaves, or conversely, the +light is broken by the interposition of the leaves. The reference +to trees from distant forests no doubt intimates that the poet is +in some botanical garden, a private park, in which foreign trees +are carefully cultivated. The “torch race” is a simile +for the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Greek thinkers compare the +transmission of knowledge from one generation to another, to the +passing of a lighted torch from hand to hand, as in the case of +messengers carrying signals or athletes running a mighty race. As a +runner runs until he is tired, or until he reaches the next +station, and then passes the torch which he has been <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page305" name="page305">[305]</a></span>carrying +to another runner waiting to receive it, so does each generation +pass on its wisdom to the succeeding generation, and disappear. +“My sun is stooping westward” is only a beautiful way +of saying, “I am becoming very old; be quick, so that we may +see each other before I die.” And the poet suggests that it +is because of his age and his experience and his wisdom that he +could hope to be of service to the dear divine Comatas. The +expression, “there is fruitage in my garden,” refers to +no material garden, but to the cultivated mind of the scholar; he +is only saying, “I have strange knowledge that I should like +to impart to you.” How delightful, indeed, it would be, could +some university scholar really converse with a living Greek of the +old days!</p> +<p>There is another little Greek study of great and simple beauty +entitled “The Daughter of Cleomenes.” It is only an +historical incident, but it is so related for the pleasure of +suggesting a profound truth about the instinct of childhood. Long +ago, when the Persians were about to make an attack upon the +Greeks, there was an attempt to buy off the Spartan resistance, and +the messenger to the Spartan general found him playing with his +little daughter, a child of six or seven. The conference was +carried on in whispers, and the child could not hear what was being +said; but she broke up the whole plot by a single word. I shall +quote a few lines from the close of the poem, <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page306" name="page306">[306]</a></span>which +contain its moral lessons. The emissary has tried to tempt him with +promises of wealth and power.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>He falters; for the waves he fears,</p> +<p class="i2">The roads he cannot measure;</p> +<p>But rates full high the gleam of spears</p> +<p class="i2">And dreams of yellow treasure.</p> +<p>He listens; he is yielding now;</p> +<p class="i2">Outspoke the fearless child:</p> +<p>“Oh, Father, come away, lest thou</p> +<p class="i2">Be by this man beguiled.”</p> +<p>Her lowly judgment barred the plea,</p> +<p class="i2">So low, it could not reach her.</p> +<p><em>The man knows more of land and sea,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>But she’s the truer teacher.</em></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>All the little girl could know about the matter was instinctive; +she only saw the cunning face of the stranger, and felt sure that +he was trying to deceive her father for a bad purpose—so she +cried out, “Father, come away with me, or else that man will +deceive you.” And she spoke truth, as her father immediately +recognized.</p> +<p>There are several more classical studies of extraordinary +beauty; but your interest in them would depend upon something more +than interest in Greek and Roman history, and we can not study all +the poems. So I prefer to go back to the meditative lyrics, and to +give a few splendid examples of these more personal compositions. +The following stanzas are from a poem whose Latin <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page307" name="page307">[307]</a></span>title +signifies that Love conquers death. In this poem the author becomes +the equal of Tennyson as a master of language.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The plunging rocks, whose ravenous throats</p> +<p class="i2">The sea in wrath and mockery fills,</p> +<p>The smoke that up the valley floats,</p> +<p class="i2">The girlhood of the growing hills;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>The thunderings from the miners’ ledge,</p> +<p class="i2">The wild assaults on nature’s hoard,</p> +<p>The peak that stormward bares an edge</p> +<p class="i2">Ground sharp in days when Titans warred;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Grim heights, by wandering clouds embraced</p> +<p class="i2">Where lightning’s ministers conspire,</p> +<p>Grey glens, with tarns and streamlet laced,</p> +<p class="i2">Stark forgeries of primeval fire.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>These scenes may gladden many a mind</p> +<p class="i2">Awhile from homelier thoughts released,</p> +<p>And here my fellow men may find</p> +<p class="i2">A Sabbath and a vision-feast.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>I bless them in the good they feel;</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>And yet I bless them with a sigh;</em></p> +<p><em>On me this grandeur stamps the seal</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>Of tyrannous mortality.</em></p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>The pitiless mountain stands so sure.</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>The human breast so weakly heaves,</em></p> +<p><em>That brains decay while rocks endure.</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>At this the insatiate spirit grieves.</em></p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page308" name= +"page308">[308]</a></span> +<p>But hither, oh ideal bride!</p> +<p class="i2">For whom this heart in silence aches,</p> +<p>Love is unwearied as the tide,</p> +<p class="i2">Love is perennial as the lakes.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Come thou. The spiky crags will seem</p> +<p class="i2">One harvest of one heavenly year,</p> +<p>And fear of death, like childish dream,</p> +<p class="i2">Will pass and flee, when thou art here.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Very possibly this charming meditation was written on the Welsh +coast; there is just such scenery as the poem describes, and the +grand peak of Snowdon would well realize the imagination of the +line about the girlhood of the growing hills. The melancholy of the +latter part of the composition is the same melancholy to be found +in “Mimnermus in Church,” the first of Cory’s +poems which we read together. It is the Greek teaching that there +is nothing to console us for the great doubt and mystery of +existence except unselfish affection. All through the book we find +the same philosophy, even in the beautiful studies of student life +and the memories of childhood. So it is quite a melancholy book, +though the sadness be beautiful. I have given you examples of the +sadness of doubt and of the sadness of love; but there is yet a +third kind of sadness—the sadness of a childless man, wishing +that he could have a child of his own. It is a very pretty thing, +simply entitled “Scheveningen Avenue”—probably +the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page309" name= +"page309">[309]</a></span>name of the avenue where the incident +occurred. The poet does not tell us how it occurred, but we can +very well guess. He was riding in a street car, probably, and a +little girl next to him, while sitting upon her nurse’s lap, +fell asleep, and as she slept let her head fall upon his shoulder. +This is a very simple thing to make a poem about, but what a poem +it is!</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, that the road were longer</p> +<p class="i2">A mile, or two, or three!</p> +<p>So might the thought grow stronger</p> +<p class="i2">That flows from touch of thee.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>Oh little slumbering maid,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>If thou wert five years older,</em></p> +<p><em>Thine head would not be laid</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>So simply on my shoulder!</em></p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p><em>Oh, would that I were younger,</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>Oh, were I more like thee,</em></p> +<p><em>I should not faintly hunger</em></p> +<p class="i2"><em>For love that cannot be.</em></p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>A girl might be caressed</p> +<p class="i2">Beside me freely sitting;</p> +<p>A child on knee might rest,</p> +<p class="i2">And not like thee, unwitting.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Such honour is thy mother’s,</p> +<p class="i2">Who smileth on thy sleep,</p> +<p>Or for the nurse who smothers</p> +<p class="i2">Thy cheek in kisses deep.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page310" name= +"page310">[310]</a></span> +<p>And but for parting day,</p> +<p class="i2">And but for forest shady,</p> +<p>From me they’d take away</p> +<p class="i2">The burden of their lady.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ah thus to feel thee leaning</p> +<p class="i2">Above the nursemaid’s hand,</p> +<p>Is like a stranger’s gleaning</p> +<p class="i2">Where rich men own the land;</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Chance gains, and humble thrift,</p> +<p class="i2">With shyness much like thieving,</p> +<p>No notice with the gift,</p> +<p class="i2">No thanks with the receiving.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh peasant, when thou starvest</p> +<p class="i2">Outside the fair domain,</p> +<p>Imagine there’s a harvest</p> +<p class="i2">In every treasured grain.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Make with thy thoughts high cheer,</p> +<p class="i2">Say grace for others dining,</p> +<p>And keep thy pittance clear</p> +<p class="i2">From poison of repining.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>There is an almost intolerable acuity of sadness in the last two +mocking verses, but how pretty and how tender the whole thing is, +and how gentle-hearted must have been the man who wrote it! The +same tenderness reappears in references to children of a larger +growth, the boys of his school. Sometimes he very much regrets the +necessity of discipline, and advocates a wiser method of dealing +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page311" name= +"page311">[311]</a></span>with the young. How very pretty is this +little verse about the boy he loves.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Sweet eyes, that aim a level shaft,</p> +<p class="i2">At pleasure flying from afar,</p> +<p>Sweet lips, just parted for a draught</p> +<p class="i2">Of Hebe’s nectar, shall I mar</p> +<p>By stress of disciplinal craft</p> +<p class="i2">The joys that in your freedom are?</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>But a little reflection further on in the same poem reminds us +how necessary the discipline must be for the battle of life, +inasmuch as each of those charming boys will have to fight against +evil—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8">yet shall ye cope</p> +<p>With worlding wrapped in silken lies,</p> +<p class="i2">With pedant, hypocrite, and pope.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>One might easily lecture about this little volume for many more +days, so beautiful are the things which fill it. But enough has +been cited to exemplify its unique value. If you reread these +quotations, I think you will find each time new beauty in them. And +the beauty is quite peculiar. Such poetry could have been written +only under two conditions. The first is that the poet be a +consummate scholar. The second is that he must have suffered, as +only a great mind and heart could suffer, from want of +affection.</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page312" name= +"page312">[312]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="Ch_15" name="Ch_15">Chapter XV</a></h3> +<h2>Old Greek Fragments</h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<p>The other day when we were reading some of the poems in +“Ionica,” I promised to speak in another short essay of +Theocritus and his songs or idyls of Greek peasant life, but in +speaking of him it will be well also to speak of others who equally +illustrate the fact that everywhere there is truth and beauty for +the mind that can see. I spoke last week about what I thought the +highest possible kind of literary art might become. But the +possible becoming is yet far away; and in speaking of some old +Greek writers I want only to emphasize the fact that modern +literary art as well as ancient literary art produced their best +results from a close study of human nature.</p> +<p>Although Theocritus and others who wrote idyls found their chief +inspiration in the life of the peasants, they sometimes also wrote +about the life of cities. Human nature may be studied in the city +as well as in the country, provided that a man knows how to look +for it. It is not in the courts of princes nor the houses of nobles +nor the residences of the wealthy that such study can be made. +These superior classes have found it necessary <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page313" name="page313">[313]</a></span>to show +themselves to the world very cautiously; they live by rule, they +conceal their emotions, they move theatrically. But the ordinary, +everyday people of cities are very different; they speak their +thoughts, they keep their hearts open, and they let us see, just as +children do, the good or the evil side of their characters. So a +good poet and a good observer can find in the life of cities +subjects of study almost as easily as in the country. Theocritus +has done this in his fifteenth idyl. This idyl is very famous, and +it has been translated hundreds of times into various languages. +Perhaps you may have seen one version of it which was made by +Matthew Arnold. But I think that the version made by Lang is even +better.</p> +<p>The scene is laid in Alexandria, probably some two thousand +years ago, and the occasion is a religious holiday—a +<em>matsuri</em>, as we call it in Japan. Two women have made an +appointment to go together to the temple, to see the festival and +to see the people. The poet begins his study by introducing us to +the chamber of one of the women.</p> +<p><span class="sc">Gorgo.</span> “Is Praxinoe at +home?”</p> +<p><span class="sc">Praxinoe.</span> “Dear Gorgo, how long is +it since you have been here! She is at home. The wonder is that you +have got here at last! Eunoe, come and see that she has a chair and +put a cushion on it!”</p> +<p>G. “It does most charmingly as it is.”</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page314" name= +"page314">[314]</a></span> P. “Do sit down.”</p> +<p>How natural this is. There is nothing Greek about it any more +than there is Japanese; it is simply human. It is something that +happens in Tokyo every day, certainly in houses where there are +chairs and where it is a custom to put a cushion on the chair for +the visitor. But remember, this was two thousand years ago. Now +listen to what the visitor has to say.</p> +<p>“I have scarcely got to you at all, Praxinoe! What a huge +crowd, what hosts of carriages! Everywhere cavalry boots, +everywhere men in uniform! And the road is endless; yes, you really +live too far away!”</p> +<p>Praxinoe answers:</p> +<p>“It is all for that mad man of mine. Here he came to the +ends of the earth and took a hall, not a house, and all that we +might not be neighbours. The jealous wretch, always the same, ever +for spite.”</p> +<p>She is speaking half in jest, half in earnest; but she forgets +that her little boy is present, and the visitor reminds her of the +fact:</p> +<p>“Don’t talk of your husband like that, my dear girl, +before the little boy,—look how he is staring at +you!—Never mind, Zaphyrion, sweet child, she is not speaking +about papa.”</p> +<p>P. “Our Lady! (Persephone) The child takes +notice!”</p> +<p>Then the visitor to comfort the child says “Nice +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page315" name= +"page315">[315]</a></span>papa,” and the conversation +proceeds. The two talk about their husbands, about their dresses, +about the cost of things in the shops; but in order to see the +festival Praxinoe must dress herself quickly, and woman, two +thousand years ago, just as now, takes a long time to dress. Hear +Praxinoe talking to her maid-servant while she hurries to get +ready:</p> +<p>“Eunoe, bring the water and put it down in the middle of +the room,—lazy creature that you are. Cat-like, always trying +to sleep soft! Come, bustle, bring the water; quicker! I want water +first,—and how she carries it! Give it me all the +same;—don’t pour out so much, you extravagant thing! +Stupid girl! Why are you wetting my dress? There, stop, I have +washed my hands as heaven would have it. Where is the key of the +big chest? Bring it here.”</p> +<p>This is life, natural and true; we can see those three together, +the girlish young wife hurrying and scolding and chattering +naturally and half childishly, the patient servant girl smiling at +the hurry of her mistress, and the visitor looking at her +friend’s new dress, wondering how much it cost and presently +asking her the price. At last all is ready. But the little boy sees +his mother go out and he wants to go out too, though it has been +decided not to take him, because the crowd is too rough and he +might be hurt. Here the mother first explains, then speaks +firmly:</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page316" name= +"page316">[316]</a></span>“No, child, I don’t mean to +take you. Boo! Bogies! There is a horse that bites! Cry as much as +you please, but I cannot have you maimed.”</p> +<p>They go out, Praxinoe and Gorgo and the maid-servant Eunoe. The +crowd is tremendous, and they find it very hard to advance. +Sometimes there are horses in the way, sometimes wagons, +occasionally a legion of cavalry. We know all this, because we hear +the chatter of the women as they make their way through the +press.</p> +<p>“Give me your hand, and you, Eunoe, catch hold of +Eutychis,—for fear lest you get lost…. Here come the +kings on horses! My dear man, don’t trample on me. Eunoe, you +fool-hardy girl, will you never keep out of the way? Oh! How +tiresome, Gorgo, my muslin veil is torn in two already…. For +heaven’s sake, sir, if you ever wish to be fortunate, take +care of my shawl!”</p> +<p><span class="sc">Stranger.</span> “I can hardly help +myself, but for all that I will be as helpful as I can.”</p> +<p>The strange man helps the women and children through the pushing +crowd, and they thank him very prettily, praying that he may have +good fortune all his life. But not all the strangers who come in +contact with them happen to be so kind. They come at last into that +part of the temple ground where the image of Adonis is displayed; +the beauty of the statue moves them, and they <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page317" name="page317">[317]</a></span>utter +exclamations of delight. This does not please some of the male +spectators, one of whom exclaims, “You tiresome women, do +cease your endless cooing talk! They bore one to death with their +eternal broad vowels!”</p> +<p>They are country women, and their critic is probably a +purist—somebody who has studied Greek as it is pronounced and +spoken in Athens. But the women bravely resent this interference +with their rights.</p> +<p><span class="sc">Gorgo.</span> “Indeed! And where may this +person come from? What is it to you if we are chatterboxes? Give +orders to your own servants, sir. Do you pretend to command the +ladies of Syracuse? If you must know, we are Corinthians by +descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak Peloponnesian. +Dorian women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume.”</p> +<p>This is enough to silence the critic, but the other young woman +also turns upon him, and we may suppose that he is glad to escape +from their tongues. And then everybody becomes silent, for the +religious services begin. The priestess, a comely girl, chants the +psalm of Adonis, the beautiful old pagan hymn, more beautiful and +more sensuous than anything uttered by the later religious poets of +the West; and all listen in delighted stillness. As the hymn ends, +Gorgo bursts out in exclamation of praise:</p> +<p>“Praxinoe! The woman is cleverer than we <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page318" name="page318">[318]</a></span>fancied! +Happy woman to know so much!—Thrice happy to have so sweet a +voice! Well, all the same, it is time to be making for home; +Diocleides has not had his dinner, and the man is all +vinegar,—don’t venture near him when he is kept waiting +for dinner. Farewell, beloved Adonis—may you find us glad at +your next coming.”</p> +<p>And with this natural mingling of the sentimental and the +commonplace the little composition ends. It is as though we were +looking through some window into the life of two thousand years +ago. Read the whole thing over to yourselves when you have time to +find the book in the library, and see how true to human nature it +is. There is nothing in it except the wonderful hymn, which does +not belong to to-day as much as to the long ago, to modern Tokyo as +much as to ancient Greece. That is what makes the immortality of +any literary production—not simply truth to the life of one +time, but truth to the life of every time and place.</p> +<p>Not many years ago there was discovered a book by Herodas, a +Greek writer of about the same period. It is called the +“Mimes,” a series of little dramatic studies picturing +the life of the time. One of these is well worthy of rank with the +idyl of Theocritus above mentioned. It is the study of a +conversation between a young woman and an old woman. The young +woman has a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page319" name= +"page319">[319]</a></span>husband, who left her to join a military +expedition and has not been heard of for several years. The old +woman is a go-between, and she comes to see the young person on +behalf of another young man, who admires her. But as soon as she +states the nature of her errand, the young lady becomes very angry +and feigns much virtuous indignation. There is a quarrel. Then the +two become friends, and we know that the old woman’s coming +is likely to bring about the result desired. Now the wonder of this +little study also is the play of emotion which it reveals. Such +emotions are common to all ages of humanity; we feel the freshness +of this reflection as we read, to such a degree that we cannot +think of the matter as having happened long ago. Yet even the city +in which these episodes took place has vanished from the face of +the earth.</p> +<p>In the case of the studies of peasant life, there is also value +of another kind. Here we have not only studies of human nature, but +studies of particular social conditions. The quarrels of peasants, +half good natured and nearly always happily ending; their account +of their sorrows; their gossip about their work in the +fields—all this might happen almost anywhere and at almost +any time. But the song contest, the prize given for the best +composition upon a chosen subject, this is particularly Greek, and +has never perhaps existed outside of some place among the peasant +folk. It was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page320" name= +"page320">[320]</a></span>the poetical side of this Greek life of +the peasants, as recorded by Theocritus, which so much influenced +the literatures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in +France and in England. But neither in France nor in England has +there ever really been, at any time, any life resembling that +portrayed by Theocritus; to-day nothing appears to us more absurd +than the eighteenth century habit of picturing the Greek shepherd +life in English or French landscapes. What really may have existed +among the shepherds of the antique world could not possibly exist +in modern times. But how pretty it is! I think that the tenth idyl +of Theocritus is perhaps the prettiest example of the whole series, +thirty in number, which have been preserved for us. The plan is of +the simplest. Two young peasants, respectively named Battus and +Milon, meeting together in the field, talk about their sweethearts. +One of them works lazily and is jeered by the other in consequence. +The subject of the jeering acknowledges that he works badly because +his mind is disturbed—he has fallen in love. Then the other +expresses sympathy for him, and tells him that the best thing he +can do to cheer himself up will be to make a song about the girl, +and to sing it as he works. Then he makes a song, which has been +the admiration of the world for twenty centuries and lifts been +translated into almost every language possessing a literature.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page321" name= +"page321">[321]</a></span>“They all call thee a gipsy, +gracious Bombyca, and lean, and sunburnt;—’tis only I +that call thee honey-pale.</p> +<p>“Yea, and the violet is swart and swart the lettered +hyacinth; but yet these flowers are chosen the first in +garlands.</p> +<p>“The goat runs after cytisus, the wolf pursues the goat, +the crane follows the plough,—but I am wild for love of +thee.</p> +<p>“Would it were mine, all the wealth whereof Croesus was +lord, as men tell! Then images of us, all in gold, should be +dedicated to Aphrodite, thou with thy flute, and a rose, yea, or an +apple, and I in fair attire and new shoon of Amyclae on both my +feet.</p> +<p>“Ah, gracious Bombyca, thy feet are fashioned like carven +ivory, thy voice is drowsy sweet, and thy ways—I can not tell +of them.”</p> +<p>Even through the disguise of an English prose translation, you +will see how pretty and how simple this little song must have been +in the Greek, and how very natural is the language of it. Our young +peasant has fallen in love with the girl who is employed to play +the flute for the reapers, as the peasants like to work to the +sound of music. His comrades do not much admire Bombyca; one calls +her “a long grasshopper of a girl”; another finds her +too thin; a third calls her a gipsy, such a dark brown her skin has +become by constant exposure to the summer sun. And the lover, +looking <span class="pagenum"><a id="page322" name= +"page322">[322]</a></span>at her, is obliged to acknowledge in his +own mind that she is long and lean and dark and like a gipsy; but +he finds beauty in all these characteristics, nevertheless. What if +she is dark? The sweetest honey is darkish, like amber, and so are +beautiful flowers, the best of all flowers, flowers given to +Aphrodite; and the sacred hyacinth on whose leaves appear the +letters of the word of lamentation “Ai! Ai!”—that +is also dark like Bombyca. Her darkness is that of honey and +flowers. What a charming apology! He cannot deny that she is long +and lean, and he remains silent on these points, but here we must +all sympathize with him. He shows good taste. It is the tall +slender girl that is really the most beautiful and the most +graceful, not the large-limbed, strong-bodied peasant type that his +companions would prefer. Without knowing it, he has fallen in love +like an artist. And he is not blind to the, grace of slenderness +and of form, though he cannot express it in artistic language. He +can only compare the shape of the girl’s feet to the ivory +feet of the divinities in the temples—perhaps he is thinking +of some ivory image of Aphrodite which he has seen. But how +charming an image does he make to arise before us! Beautiful is the +description of the girl’s voice as “drowsy +sweet.” But the most exquisite thing in the whole song is the +final despairing admission that he can not describe her at +all—“and thy ways, I can not tell of <span class= +"pagenum"><a id="page323" name= +"page323">[323]</a></span>them”! This is one of the most +beautiful expressions in any poem ancient or modern, because of its +supreme truth. What mortal ever could describe the charm of manner, +voice, smile, address, in mere words? Such things are felt, they +can not be described; and the peasant boy reaches the highest +height of true lyrical poetry when he cries out “I can not +tell of them.” The great French critic Sainte-Beuve attempted +to render this line as follows—“<em>Quant à ta +manière, je ne puis la rendre!”</em> This is very +good; and you can take your choice between it and any English +translation. But good judges say that nothing in English of French +equals the charm of the original.</p> +<p>You will find three different classes of idyls in Theocritus; +the idyl which is a simple song of peasant life, a pure lyric +expressing only a single emotion; the idyl which is a little story, +usually a story about the gods or heroes; and lastly, the idyl +which is presented in the form of a dialogue, or even of a +conversation between three or four persons. All these forms of +idyl, but especially the first and the third, were afterward +beautifully imitated by the Roman poets; then very imperfectly +imitated by modern poets. The imitation still goes on, but the very +best English poets have never really been able to give us anything +worthy of Theocritus himself.</p> +<p>However, this study of the Greek model has given some terms to +English literature which every <span class="pagenum"><a id= +"page324" name="page324">[324]</a></span>student ought to know. One +of these terms is amoebæan,—amoebæan poetry being +dialogue poetry composed in the form of question and reply. The +original Greek signification was that of alternate speaking. Please +do not forget the word. You may often find it in critical studies +in essays upon contemporary literature; and when you see it again, +remember Theocritus and the school of Greek poets who first +introduced the charm of amoebæan poetry. I hope that this +little lecture will interest some of you in Theocritus sufficiently +to induce you to read him carefully through and through. But +remember that you can not get the value of even a single poem of +his at a single reading. We have become so much accustomed to +conventional forms of literature that the simple art of poetry like +this quite escapes us at first sight. We have to read it over and +over again many times, and to think about it; then only we feel the +wonderful charm.</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a id="Index" name="Index">INDEX</a></h2> +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of +Contents</a></p> +<ul> +<li class="first">“A dry cicale chirps to a lass making +hay,” <a href="#page297">297</a></li> +<li>Aicard, Jean, <a href="#page222">222</a></li> +<li>Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, <a href="#page83">83</a></li> +<li>“Along the garden ways just now,” <a href= +"#page31">31</a></li> +<li>“Amaturus,” <a href="#page56">56</a></li> +<li>“A Ma Future,” <a href="#page51">51</a></li> +<li>“Amelia,” <a href="#page37">37</a></li> +<li>“Amis and Amile,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href= +"#page268">268</a>-<a href="#page278">278</a></li> +<li>“Amphibian,” <a href="#page166">166</a>-<a href= +"#page172">172</a></li> +<li>Andrews, Bishop Lancelot, <a href="#page101">101</a></li> +<li>“Angel in the House, The,” <a href= +"#page37">37</a></li> +<li>“An Invocation,” <a href="#page299">299</a>, +<a href="#page302">302</a></li> +<li>“Appreciations of Poetry,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>“Arabian Nights, The,” <a href= +"#page268">268</a></li> +<li>“Arachne,” <a href="#page191">191</a></li> +<li>Arnold, Sir Edwin, <a href="#page50">50</a>, <a href= +"#page51">51</a></li> +<li>Arnold, Matthew, <a href="#page116">116</a>, <a href= +"#page313">313</a></li> +<li>“Art of Worldly Wisdom, The,” <a href= +"#page127">127</a></li> +<li>Ashe, Thomas, <a href="#page58">58</a></li> +<li>“A simple ring with a simple stone,” <a href= +"#page69">69</a></li> +<li>“Atalanta in Calydon,” <a href= +"#page258">258</a></li> +<li>“Atalanta’s Race,” <a href= +"#page26">26</a></li> +<li class="first">“Bhagavad-Gita, The,” <a href= +"#page94">94</a></li> +<li>Bible, The, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href= +"#page64">64</a>, <a href="#page92">92</a>-<a href= +"#page105">105</a>, <a href="#page233">233</a>, <a href= +"#page253">253</a>, <a href="#page277">277</a></li> +<li>Bion, <a href="#page301">301</a>, <a href= +"#page302">302</a></li> +<li>Blake, William, <a href="#page96">96</a>, <a href= +"#page176">176</a></li> +<li>Book of Common Prayer, The, <a href="#page233">233</a>, +<a href="#page253">253</a></li> +<li>Breton, Jules, <a href="#page219">219</a></li> +<li>“Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art,” +<a href="#page46">46</a></li> +<li>Browning, Robert, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href= +"#page39">39</a>, <a href="#page65">65</a>-<a href= +"#page69">69</a>, <a href="#page71">71</a>, <a href= +"#page73">73</a>, <a href="#page166">166</a>-<a href= +"#page172">172</a>, <a href="#page280">280</a></li> +<li>“Burly, dozing humble bee,” <a href= +"#page179">179</a></li> +<li>“Busy, curious thirsty fly,” <a href= +"#page176">176</a></li> +<li>Byron, George Gordon, Lord, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href= +"#page62">62</a></li> +<li class="first">Carew, Thomas, <a href="#page61">61</a></li> +<li>Carlyle, Thomas, <a href="#page89">89</a>, <a href= +"#page105">105</a></li> +<li>Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Fourth Earl of, <a href= +"#page113">113</a></li> +<li>Cicero, Marcus Tullius, <a href="#page29">29</a></li> +<li>Coleridge, Hartley, <a href="#page74">74</a></li> +<li>Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href= +"#page95">95</a>, <a href="#page163">163</a></li> +<li>“Conservative, A,” <a href="#page188">188</a></li> +<li>Cooke, Rose Terry, <a href="#page191">191</a></li> +<li>Cory, William, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, +<a href="#page57">57</a>, <a href="#page279">279</a></li> +<li>Crashaw, Richard, <a href="#page52">52</a></li> +<li class="first">Dante Alighieri, <a href="#page23">23</a></li> +<li>“Daughter of Cleomenes, The,” <a href= +"#page305">305</a></li> +<li>Descartes, Rene, <a href="#page195">195</a></li> +<li>“Deteriora,” <a href="#page291">291</a></li> +<li>Dickens, Charles, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>“Djins, Les,” <a href="#page79">79</a></li> +<li>“Dream of Fair Women, A,” <a href= +"#page297">297</a></li> +<li class="first">“Emaux et Camées,” <a href= +"#page216">216</a></li> +<li>Emerson, Ralph Waldo, <a href="#page82">82</a>, <a href= +"#page178">178</a></li> +<li>“Epigramme Funeraire,” <a href="#page210">210</a>, +<a href="#page211">211</a></li> +<li>“Evelyn Hope,” <a href="#page67">67</a></li> +<li class="first">“Fable, A,” <a href= +"#page288">288</a></li> +<li>“Fifine at the Fair,” <a href= +"#page166">166</a></li> +<li>Francis of Assisi, Saint, <a href="#page196">196</a></li> +<li>Freneau, Philip, <a href="#page186">186</a></li> +<li class="first">Gautier, Théophile, <a href= +"#page216">216</a></li> +<li>“Gazing on stars, my star?” <a href= +"#page47">47</a></li> +<li>Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, <a href="#page78">78</a>, <a href= +"#page82">82</a></li> +<li>“Golden Legend, The,” <a href= +"#page272">272</a></li> +<li>Gracian, Baltasar, <a href="#page126">126</a></li> +<li>“Grasshopper, The,” <a href="#page226">226</a></li> +<li>Gray, Thomas, <a href="#page202">202</a></li> +<li>“Greater Memory,” <a href="#page32">32</a></li> +<li>Greek Anthology, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, +<a href="#page77">77</a>, <a href="#page284">284</a></li> +<li>“Grillon solitaire,” <a href= +"#page213">213</a></li> +<li class="first">“Havamal, The,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href= +"#page105">105</a>-<a href="#page133">133</a></li> +<li>Hearn, Lafcadio, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>Heredia, José, Maria de, <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href="#page87">87</a>-<a href= +"#page91">91</a>, <a href="#page205">205</a>, <a href= +"#page209">209</a>-<a href="#page211">211</a></li> +<li>Herodas, <a href="#page318">318</a></li> +<li>Herrick, Robert, <a href="#page78">78</a></li> +<li>“He that loves a rosy cheek,” <a href= +"#page61">61</a></li> +<li>Holmes, Oliver Wendell, <a href="#page185">185</a></li> +<li>Hood, Thomas, <a href="#page62">62</a></li> +<li>Hugo, Victor, <a href="#page26">26</a>, <a href= +"#page43">43</a>, <a href="#page79">79</a>, <a href= +"#page89">89</a>, <a href="#page209">209</a></li> +<li class="first">“Idyls of the King,” <a href= +"#page299">299</a></li> +<li>“I love to hear thine earnest voice,” <a href= +"#page185">185</a></li> +<li>“In a branch of willow hid,” <a href= +"#page186">186</a></li> +<li>“Interpretations of Literature,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>“Ionica,” <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, +<a href="#page56">56</a>, <a href="#page57">57</a></li> +<li>“I strove with none, for none was worth my strife,” +<a href="#page80">80</a></li> +<li>“It is a golden morning of the spring,” <a href= +"#page40">40</a></li> +<li class="first">Jonson, Ben, <a href="#page72">72</a>, <a href= +"#page78">78</a></li> +<li class="first">“Kalevala, The,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href= +"#page228">228</a>-<a href="#page260">260</a></li> +<li>Keats, John, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href= +"#page46">46</a>, <a href="#page47">47</a>, <a href= +"#page95">95</a>, <a href="#page181">181</a></li> +<li>“King Solomon and the Ants,” <a href= +"#page198">198</a></li> +<li class="first">“La Demoiselle,” <a href= +"#page209">209</a></li> +<li>“Lady of Shalott, The,” <a href= +"#page226">226</a></li> +<li>Landor, Walter Savage, <a href="#page80">80</a></li> +<li>Lang, Andrew, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, +<a href="#page313">313</a></li> +<li>Lamartine, <a href="#page213">213</a>, <a href= +"#page216">216</a></li> +<li>Lamb, Charles, <a href="#page201">201</a></li> +<li>“Le Daimio,” <a href="#page89">89</a></li> +<li>Lemerre, Alphonse, <a href="#page160">160</a></li> +<li>“Le Samourai,” <a href="#page87">87</a></li> +<li>“Les Cigales,” <a href="#page219">219</a></li> +<li>“Life and Literature,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>de Lisle, Leconte, <a href="#page87">87</a></li> +<li>“Lives there whom pain has evermore passed by,” +<a href="#page82">82</a></li> +<li>Locker-Lampson, Frederic, <a href="#page50">50</a>, <a href= +"#page51">51</a>, <a href="#page159">159</a></li> +<li>“Locksley Hall,” <a href="#page36">36</a></li> +<li>Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, <a href="#page91">91</a>, <a href= +"#page106">106</a>, <a href="#page226">226</a>, <a href= +"#page228">228</a>, <a href="#page231">231</a>, <a href= +"#page254">254</a>, <a href="#page255">255</a>, <a href= +"#page272">272</a></li> +<li>Lönnrot, <a href="#page229">229</a>, <a href= +"#page230">230</a>, <a href="#page231">231</a></li> +<li>Lovelace, Richard, <a href="#page225">225</a></li> +<li>Lubbock, Sir John, <a href="#page137">137</a></li> +<li class="first">Macaulay, Thomas Babington, <a href= +"#page161">161</a></li> +<li>“Ma Libellule,” <a href="#page205">205</a>-<a href= +"#page209">209</a></li> +<li>“Maud,” <a href="#page24">24</a>, <a href= +"#page25">25</a></li> +<li>Meredith, George, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, +<a href="#page129">129</a></li> +<li>“Mimes,” <a href="#page318">318</a></li> +<li>“Mimnermus in church,” <a href="#page281">281</a>, +<a href="#page308">308</a></li> +<li>Moschus, <a href="#page301">301</a></li> +<li class="first">“Nay but you, who do not love her,” +<a href="#page65">65</a></li> +<li>“Never the time and the place,” <a href= +"#page39">39</a></li> +<li>“New Ethics, The,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>“New Year’s Day, A,” <a href= +"#page295">295</a></li> +<li>Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, <a href="#page135">135</a>, +<a href="#page144">144</a></li> +<li>“Njal-Saga, The.” <a href="#page7">7</a></li> +<li class="first">“Ode on the Spring,” <a href= +"#page202">202</a></li> +<li>Oldys, William, <a href="#page176">176</a>, <a href= +"#page177">177</a></li> +<li>O’Shaughnessy, Arthur, <a href="#page30">30</a></li> +<li class="first">“Pansie,” <a href= +"#page58">58</a></li> +<li>“Patchwork,” <a href="#page50">50</a></li> +<li>Pater, Walter, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, +<a href="#page274">274</a></li> +<li>Patmore, Coventry, <a href="#page37">37</a>, <a href= +"#page159">159</a></li> +<li>“Pause, A,” <a href="#page35">35</a></li> +<li>Plato, <a href="#page17">17</a></li> +<li>Poe, Edgar Allan, <a href="#page254">254</a></li> +<li>“Poems of Places,” <a href="#page91">91</a></li> +<li>Porson, Richard, <a href="#page161">161</a></li> +<li>Powell, Frederick York, <a href="#page106">106</a></li> +<li>“Princess, The,” <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li class="first">Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur Thomas, <a href= +"#page172">172</a></li> +<li class="first">“Reparabo,” <a href= +"#page286">286</a></li> +<li>Rossetti, Christina, <a href="#page35">35</a>, <a href= +"#page36">36</a>, <a href="#page55">55</a></li> +<li>Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href= +"#page30">30</a>, <a href="#page219">219</a></li> +<li>Ruskin, John, <a href="#page105">105</a>, <a href= +"#page150">150</a></li> +<li>“Ruth,” <a href="#page63">63</a>, <a href= +"#page64">64</a></li> +<li class="first">“Saga of King Olaf, The,” <a href= +"#page106">106</a></li> +<li>Sainte-Beuve, <a href="#page323">323</a></li> +<li>Saintsbury, Professor George, <a href="#page101">101</a></li> +<li>“Scheveningen Avenue,” <a href= +"#page308">308</a></li> +<li>Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#page125">125</a>, <a href= +"#page126">126</a></li> +<li>Shakespeare, William, <a href="#page226">226</a></li> +<li>Shelley, Percy Bysshe, <a href="#page10">10</a></li> +<li>“She walks in beauty, like the night,” <a href= +"#page62">62</a></li> +<li>“She was a phantom of delight,” <a href= +"#page60">60</a>, <a href="#page61">61</a></li> +<li>“Solitary-Hearted, The,” <a href= +"#page74">74</a></li> +<li>“Somewhere or other,” <a href="#page55">55</a></li> +<li>“Song in time of Revolution, A,” <a href= +"#page258">258</a>, <a href="#page259">259</a></li> +<li>“Song of Hiawatha, The,” <a href= +"#page228">228</a>, <a href="#page231">231</a>, <a href= +"#page254">254</a>-<a href="#page257">257</a></li> +<li>“Song of Songs,” <a href="#page200">200</a></li> +<li>Spencer, Herbert, <a href="#page18">18</a>, <a href= +"#page116">116</a>, <a href="#page126">126</a>, <a href= +"#page135">135</a>, <a href="#page137">137</a>, <a href= +"#page142">142</a>, <a href="#page143">143</a></li> +<li>“Stay near me, do not take thy flight” <a href= +"#page165">165</a></li> +<li>Stetson, Charlotte Perkins, <a href="#page187">187</a></li> +<li>Stevenson, Robert Louis, <a href="#page10">10</a></li> +<li>“Story of Burnt Njal, The,” <a href= +"#page7">7</a></li> +<li>“Studies in Greek Poets,” <a href= +"#page77">77</a></li> +<li>“Such Kings of shreds have wooed and won her,” +<a href="#page83">83</a></li> +<li>“Sudden Light,” <a href="#page30">30</a></li> +<li>Sully-Prudhomme, René, François Armande, <a href= +"#page87">87</a></li> +<li>“Summum Bonum,” <a href="#page71">71</a></li> +<li>Swinburne, Algernon Charles, <a href="#page254">254</a>, +<a href="#page258">258</a>, <a href="#page259">259</a></li> +<li>Symonds, John Addington, <a href="#page47">47</a>, <a href= +"#page77">77</a></li> +<li class="first">Ten Brink, Bernhard Egidius Konrad, <a href= +"#page277">277</a></li> +<li>Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href="#page10">10</a>, +<a href="#page19">19</a>, <a href="#page24">24</a>, <a href= +"#page25">25</a>, <a href="#page36">36</a>, <a href= +"#page47">47</a>, <a href="#page95">95</a>, <a href= +"#page175">175</a>, <a href="#page178">178</a>, <a href= +"#page182">182</a>-<a href="#page184">184</a>, <a href= +"#page226">226</a>, <a href="#page254">254</a>, <a href= +"#page280">280</a>, <a href="#page297">297</a>, <a href= +"#page299">299</a></li> +<li>Tennyson, Frederick, <a href="#page40">40</a>, <a href= +"#page41">41</a></li> +<li>Thackeray, William Makepeace, <a href= +"#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> +<li>“The butterfly the ancient Grecians made,” <a href= +"#page163">163</a></li> +<li>Theocritus, <a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a>, <a href= +"#page300">300</a>-<a href="#page302">302</a>, <a href= +"#page312">312</a>-<a href="#page324">324</a></li> +<li>“The poetry of earth is never dead,” <a href= +"#page181">181</a></li> +<li>“The thousand painful steps at last are trod,” +<a href="#page82">82</a></li> +<li>“The trembling arm I pressed,” <a href= +"#page43">43</a></li> +<li>“They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were +dead,” <a href="#page296">296</a></li> +<li>“Think not thy wisdom can illume away,” <a href= +"#page81">81</a></li> +<li>Thompson, Maurice, <a href="#page27">27</a>, <a href= +"#page28">28</a></li> +<li>“Thou canst not wave thy staff in air,” <a href= +"#page83">83</a></li> +<li>“To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars,” <a href= +"#page225">225</a></li> +<li>“Two Fragments of Childhood,” <a href= +"#page293">293</a></li> +<li>“Two Voices, The,” <a href="#page175">175</a></li> +<li class="first">“Unknown Eros, The,” <a href= +"#page37">37</a></li> +<li class="first">Vigfusson, Gudbrandt, <a href= +"#page106">106</a></li> +<li>“Voice of the summer wind,” <a href= +"#page183">183</a></li> +<li class="first">Watson, William, <a href="#page81">81</a>, +<a href="#page159">159</a></li> +<li>“When spring grows old,” <a href= +"#page27">27</a></li> +<li>“White Moth, The,” <a href="#page172">172</a></li> +<li>Whittier, John Greenleaf, <a href="#page198">198</a></li> +<li>“Wishes to the Supposed Mistress, <a href= +"#page52">52</a></li> +<li>Wordsworth, William, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href= +"#page60">60</a>, <a href="#page61">61</a>, <a href= +"#page95">95</a>, <a href="#page164">164</a>, <a href= +"#page165">165</a></li> +<li>Wycliffe, John, <a href="#page98">98</a></li> +</ul> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Books and 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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: Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn + +Author: Lafcadio Hearn + +Release Date: December 13, 2004 [EBook #14338] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOOKS AND HABITS *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Barbara Tozier and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +BOOKS AND HABITS + +_from the lectures of_ + +LAFCADIO HEARN + + + +_Selected and Edited with an Introduction by_ + +JOHN ERSKINE + +_Professor of English Columbia University_ + + + +1922 + +London: William Heinemann + + + + + [Transcriber's note: Contents moved to precede the Introduction.] + +CONTENTS + + INTRODUCTION + I THE INSUPERABLE DIFFICULTY + II ON LOVE IN ENGLISH POETRY + III THE IDEAL WOMAN IN ENGLISH POETRY + IV NOTE UPON THE SHORTEST FORMS OF ENGLISH POETRY + V SOME FOREIGN POEMS ON JAPANESE SUBJECTS + VI THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE + VII THE "HAVAMAL" + VIII BEYOND MAN + IX THE NEW ETHICS + X SOME POEMS ABOUT INSECTS + XI SOME FRENCH POEMS ABOUT INSECTS + XII NOTE ON THE INFLUENCE OF FINNISH POETRY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE + XIII THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ROMANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES + XIV "IONICA" + XV OLD GREEK FRAGMENTS + INDEX + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +These chapters, for the most part, are reprinted from Lafcadio Hearn's +"Interpretations of Literature," 1915, from his "Life and Literature," +1916, and from his "Appreciations of Poetry," 1917. Three chapters appear +here for the first time. They are all taken from the student notes of +Hearn's lectures at the University of Tokyo, 1896-1902, sufficiently +described in the earlier volumes just mentioned. They are now published in +this regrouping in response to a demand for a further selection of the +lectures, in a less expensive volume and with emphasis upon those papers +which illustrate Hearn's extraordinary ability to interpret the exotic in +life and in books. + +It should be remembered that these lectures were delivered to Japanese +students, and that Hearn's purpose was not only to impart the information +about Western literature usually to be found in our histories and +text-books, but much more to explain to the Oriental mind those +peculiarities of our civilization which might be hard to understand on the +further side of the Pacific Ocean. The lectures are therefore unique, in +that they are the first large attempt by a Western critic to interpret us +to the East. That we shall be deeply concerned in the near future to +continue this interpretation on an even larger scale, no one of us doubts. +We wish we might hope for another genius like Hearn to carry on the work. + +The merit of the chapters printed or reprinted in the present volume seems +to me their power to teach us to imagine our familiar traditions as +foreign and exotic in the eyes of other peoples. We are accustomed, like +every one else, to think of our literature as the final product of other +literatures--as a terminal in itself, rather than as a channel through +which great potentialities might flow. Like other men, we are accustomed +to think of ourselves as native, under all circumstances, and of other +people at all times as foreign. While we were staying in their country, +did we not think of the French as foreigners? In these chapters, not +originally intended for us, we have the piquant and salutary experience of +seeing what we look like on at least one occasion when we are the +foreigners; we catch at least a glimpse of what to the Orient seems exotic +in us, and it does us no harm to observe that the peculiarly Western +aspects of our culture are not self-justifying nor always justifiable when +looked at through eyes not already disposed in their favour. Hearn was one +of the most loyal advocates the West could possibly have sent to the East, +but he was an honest artist, and he never tried to improve his case by +trimming a fact. His interpretation of us, therefore, touches our +sensitiveness in regions--and in a degree--which perhaps his Japanese +students were unconscious of; we too marvel as well as they at his skill +in explaining, but we are sensitive to what he found necessary to explain. +We read less for the explanation than for the inventory of ourselves. + +Any interpretation of life which looks closely to the facts will probably +increase our sense of mystery and of strangeness in common things. If on +the other hand it is a theory of experience which chiefly interests us, we +may divert our attention somewhat from the experience to the theory, +leaving the world as humdrum as it was before we explained it. In that +case we must seek the exotic in remote places and in exceptional +conditions, if we are to observe it at all. But Lafcadio Hearn cultivated +in himself and taught his students to cultivate a quick alertness to those +qualities of life to which we are usually dulled by habit. Education as he +conceived of it had for its purpose what Pater says is the end of +philosophy, to rouse the human spirit, to startle it into sharp and eager +observation. It is a sign that dulness is already spreading in us, if we +must go far afield for the stimulating, the wondrous, the miraculous. The +growing sensitiveness of a sound education would help us to distinguish +these qualities of romance in the very heart of our daily life. To have so +distinguished them is in my opinion the felicity of Hearn in these +chapters. When he was writing of Japan for European or American readers, +we caught easily enough the exotic atmosphere of the island +kingdom--easily enough, since it was the essence of a world far removed +from ours. The exotic note is quite as strong in these chapters. We shall +begin to appreciate Hearn's genius when we reflect that here he finds for +us the exotic in ourselves. + +The first three chapters deal from different standpoints with the same +subject--the characteristic of Western civilization which to the East is +most puzzling, our attitude toward women. Hearn attempted in other essays +also to do full justice to this fascinating theme, but these illustrations +are typical of his method. To the Oriental it is strange to discover a +civilization in which the love of husband and wife altogether supersedes +the love of children for their parents, yet this is the civilization he +will meet in English and in most Western literatures. He can understand +the love of individual women, as we understand the love of individual men, +but he will not easily understand our worship of women as a sex, our +esteem of womankind, our chivalry, our way of taking woman as a religion. +How difficult, then, will he find such a poem as Tennyson's "Princess," or +most English novels. He will wonder why the majority of all Western +stories are love stories, and why in English literature the love story +takes place before marriage, whereas in French and other Continental +literatures it usually follows marriage. In Japan marriages are the +concern of the parents; with us they are the concern of the lovers, who +must choose their mates in competition more or less open with other +suitors. No wonder the rivalries and the precarious technique of +love-making are with us an obsession quite exotic to the Eastern mind. But +the Japanese reader, if he would understand us, must also learn how it is +that we have two ways of reckoning with love--a realistic way, which +occupies itself in portraying sex, the roots of the tree, as Hearn says, +and the idealistic way, which tries to fix and reproduce the beautiful +illusion of either happy or unhappy passion. And if the Japanese reader +has learned enough of our world to understand all this, he must yet +visualize our social system more clearly perhaps than most of us see it, +if he would know why so many of our love poems are addressed to the woman +we have not yet met. When we begin to sympathize with him in his efforts +to grasp the meaning of our literature, we are at last awakened ourselves +to some notion of what our civilization means, and as Hearn guides us +through the discipline, we realize an exotic quality in things which +formerly we took for granted. + +Lecturing before the days of Imagism, before the attention of many +American poets had been turned to Japanese art, Hearn recognized the +scarcity in our literature of those short forms of verse in which the +Greeks as well as the Japanese excel. The epigram with us is--or was until +recently--a classical tradition, based on the brief inscriptions of the +Greek anthology or on the sharp satires of Roman poetry; we had no native +turn for the form as an expression of our contemporary life. Since Hearn +gave his very significant lecture we have discovered for ourselves an +American kind of short poem, witty rather than poetic, and few verse-forms +are now practised more widely among us. Hearn spoke as a prophet or as a +shrewd observer--which is the same thing--when he pointed out the +possibility of development in this field of brevity. He saw that Japan was +closer to the Greek world in this practice than we were, and that our +indifference to the shorter forms constituted a peculiarity which we could +hardly defend. He saw, also, in the work of Heredia, how great an +influence Japanese painting might have on Western literature, even on +those poets who had no other acquaintance with Japan. In this point also +his observation has proved prophetic; the new poets in America have +adopted Japan, as they have adopted Greece, as a literary theme, and it is +somewhat exclusively from the fine arts of either country that they draw +their idea of its life. + +The next chapters which are brought together here, consider the origin and +the nature of English and European ethics. Hearn was an artist to the +core, and as a writer he pursued with undivided purpose that beauty which, +as Keats reminded us, is truth. In his creative moments he was a +beauty-lover, not a moralist. But when he turned critic he at once +stressed the cardinal importance of ethics in the study of literature. The +art which strives to end in beauty will reveal even more clearly than more +complex forms of expression the personality of the artist, and personality +is a matter of character, and character both governs the choice of an +ethical system and is modified by it. Literary criticism as Hearn +practised it is little interested in theology or in the system of morals +publicly professed; it is, however, profoundly concerned with the ethical +principles upon which the artist actually proceeds, the directions in +which his impulses assert themselves, the verdicts of right and wrong +which his temperament pronounces unconsciously, it may be. Here is the +true revelation of character, Hearn thinks, even though our habitual and +instinctive ethics may differ widely from the ethics we quite sincerely +profess. Whether we know it or not, we are in such matters the children of +some educational or philosophical system, which, preached at our ancestors +long ago, has come at last to envelop us with the apparent naturalness of +the air we breathe. It is a spiritual liberation of the first order, to +envisage such an atmosphere as what it truly is, only a system of ethics +effectively inculcated, and to compare the principles we live by with +those we thought we lived by. Hearn was contriving illumination for the +Japanese when he made his great lecture on the "Havamal," identifying in +the ancient Northern poem those precepts which laid down later qualities +of English character; for the Oriental reader it would be easier to +identify the English traits in Thackeray or Dickens or Meredith if he +could first consider them in a dogmatic precept. But the lecture gives us, +I think, an extraordinary insight into ourselves, a power of +self-criticism almost disconcerting as we realize not only the persistence +of ethical ideals in the past, but also the possible career of new ethical +systems as they may permeate the books written to-day. To what standard +will the reader of our contemporary literature be unconsciously moulded? +What account will be given of literature a thousand years from now, when a +later critic informs himself of our ethics in order to understand more +vitally the pages in which he has been brought up? + +Partly to inform his Japanese students still further as to our ethical +tendencies in literature, and partly I think to indulge his own +speculation as to the morality that will be found in the literature of the +future, Hearn gave his remarkable lectures on the ant-world, following +Fabre and other European investigators, and his lecture on "The New +Ethics." When he spoke, over twenty years ago, the socialistic ideal had +not gripped us so effectually as it has done in the last decade, but he +had no difficulty in observing the tendency. Civilization in some later +cycle may wonder at our ambition to abandon individual liberty and +responsibility and to subside into the social instincts of the ant; and +even as it wonders, that far-off civilization may detect in itself +ant-like reactions which we cultivated for it. With this description of +the ant-world it is illuminating to read the two brilliant chapters on +English and French poems about insects. Against this whole background of +ethical theory, I have ventured to set Hearn's singularly objective +account of the Bible. + +In the remaining four chapters Hearn speaks of the "Kalevala," of the +mediaeval romance "Amis and Amile," of William Cory's "Ionica," and of +Theocritus. These chapters deal obviously with literary influences which +have become part and parcel of English poetry, yet which remain exotic to +it, if we keep in mind the Northern stock which still gives character, +ethical and otherwise, to the English tradition. The "Kalevala," which +otherwise should seem nearest to the basic qualities of our poetry, is +almost unique, as Hearn points out, in the extent of its preoccupation +with enchantments and charms, with the magic of words. "Amis and Amile," +which otherwise ought to seem more foreign to us, is strangely close in +its glorification of friendship; for chivalry left with us at least this +one great ethical feeling, that to keep faith in friendship is a holy +thing. No wonder Amicus and Amelius were popular saints. The story implies +also, as it falls here in the book, some illustration of those unconscious +or unconsidered ethical reactions which, as we saw in the chapter on the +"Havamal," have a lasting influence on our ideals and on our conduct. + +Romanticist though he was, Hearn constantly sought the romance in the +highway of life, the aspects of experience which seem to perpetuate +themselves from age to age, compelling literature to reassert them under +whatever changes of form. To one who has followed the large mass of his +lectures it is not surprising that he emphasized those ethical positions +which are likely to remain constant, in spite of much new philosophy, nor +that he constantly recurred to such books as Cory's "Ionica," or Lang's +translation of Theocritus, in which he found statements of enduring human +attitudes. To him the Greek mind made a double appeal. Not only did it +represent to him the best that has yet been thought or said in the world, +but by its fineness and its maturity it seemed kindred to the spirit he +found in ancient Japan. Lecturing to Japanese students on Greek poetry as +it filters through English paraphrases and translations, he must have felt +sometimes as we now feel in reading his lectures, that in his teaching the +long migration of the world's culture was approaching the end of the +circuit, and that the earliest apparition of the East known to most of us +was once more arriving at its starting place, mystery returning to +mystery, and its path at all points mysterious if we rightly observe the +miracle of the human spirit. + + + + + +BOOKS AND HABITS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE INSUPERABLE DIFFICULTY + + +I wish to speak of the greatest difficulty with which the Japanese +students of English literature, or of almost any Western literature, have +to contend. I do not think that it ever has been properly spoken about. A +foreign teacher might well hesitate to speak about, it--because, if he +should try to explain it merely from the Western point of view, he could +not hope to be understood; and if he should try to speak about it from the +Japanese point of view, he would be certain to make various mistakes and +to utter various extravagances. The proper explanation might be given by a +Japanese professor only, who should have so intimate an acquaintance with +Western life as to sympathize with it. Yet I fear that it would be +difficult to find such a Japanese professor for this reason, that just in +proportion as he should find himself in sympathy with Western life, in +that proportion he would become less and less able to communicate that +sympathy to his students. The difficulties are so great that it has taken +me many years even to partly guess how great they are. That they can be +removed at the present day is utterly out of the question. But something +may be gained by stating them even imperfectly. At the risk of making +blunders and uttering extravagances, I shall make the attempt. I am +impelled to do so by a recent conversation with one of the cleverest +students that I ever had, who acknowledged his total inability to +understand some of the commonest facts in Western life,--all those facts +relating, directly or indirectly, to the position of woman in Western +literature as reflecting Western life. + +Let us clear the ground it once by putting down some facts in the plainest +and lowest terms possible. You must try to imagine a country in which the +place of the highest virtue is occupied, so to speak, by the devotion of +sex to sex. The highest duty of the man is not to his father, but to his +wife; and for the sake of that woman he abandons all other earthly ties, +should any of these happen to interfere with that relation. The first duty +of the wife may be, indeed, must be, to her child, when she has one; but +otherwise her husband is her divinity and king. In that country it would +be thought unnatural or strange to have one's parents living in the same +house with wife or husband. You know all this. But it does not explain for +you other things, much more difficult to understand, especially the +influence of the abstract idea of woman upon society at large as well as +upon the conduct of the individual. The devotion of man to woman does not +mean at all only the devotion of husband to wife. It means actually +this,--that every man is bound by conviction and by opinion to put all +women before himself, simply because they are women. I do not mean that +any man is likely to think of any woman as being his intellectual and +physical superior; but I do mean that he is bound to think of her as +something deserving and needing the help of every man. In time of danger +the woman must be saved first. In time of pleasure, the woman must be +given the best place. In time of hardship the woman's share of the common +pain must be taken voluntarily by the man as much as possible. This is not +with any view to recognition of the kindness shown. The man who assists a +woman in danger is not supposed to have any claim upon her for that +reason. He has done his duty only, not to her, the individual, but to +womankind at large. So we have arrived at this general fact, that the +first place in all things, except rule, is given to woman in Western +countries, and that it is given almost religiously. + +Is woman a religion? Well, perhaps you will have the chance of judging for +yourselves if you go to America. There you will find men treating women +with just the same respect formerly accorded only to religious dignitaries +or to great nobles. Everywhere they are saluted and helped to the best +places; everywhere they are treated as superior beings. Now if we find +reverence, loyalty and all kinds of sacrifices devoted either to a human +being or to an image, we are inclined to think of worship. And worship it +is. If a Western man should hear me tell you this, he would want the +statement qualified, unless he happened to be a philosopher. But I am +trying to put the facts before you in the way in which you can best +understand them. Let me say, then, that the all-important thing for the +student of English literature to try to understand, is that in Western +countries woman is a cult, a religion, or if you like still plainer +language, I shall say that in Western countries woman is a god. + +So much for the abstract idea of woman. Probably you will not find that +particularly strange; the idea is not altogether foreign to Eastern +thought, and there are very extensive systems of feminine pantheism in +India. Of course the Western idea is only in the romantic sense a feminine +pantheism; but the Oriental idea may serve to render it more +comprehensive. The ideas of divine Mother and divine Creator may be +studied in a thousand forms; I am now referring rather to the sentiment, +to the feeling, than to the philosophical conception. + +You may ask, if the idea or sentiment of divinity attaches to woman in the +abstract, what about woman in the concrete--individual woman? Are women +individually considered as gods? Well, that depends on how you define the +word god. The following definition would cover the ground, I think:--"Gods +are beings superior to man, capable of assisting or injuring him, and to +be placated by sacrifice and prayer." Now according to this definition, I +think that the attitude of man towards woman in Western countries might be +very well characterized as a sort of worship. In the upper classes of +society, and in the middle classes also, great reverence towards women is +exacted. Men bow down before them, make all kinds of sacrifices to please +them, beg for their good will and their assistance. It does not matter +that this sacrifice is not in the shape of incense burning or of temple +offerings; nor does it matter that the prayers are of a different kind +from those pronounced in churches. There is sacrifice and worship. And no +saying is more common, no truth better known, than that the man who hopes +to succeed in life must be able to please the women. Every young man who +goes into any kind of society knows this. It is one of the first lessons +that he has to learn. Well, am I very wrong in saying that the attitude of +men towards women in the West is much like the attitude of men towards +gods? + +But you may answer at once,--How comes it, if women are thus reverenced as +you say, that men of the lower classes beat and ill-treat their wives in +those countries? I must reply, for the same reason that Italian and +Spanish sailors will beat and abuse the images of the saints and virgins +to whom they pray, when their prayer is not granted. It is quite possible +to worship an image sincerely and to seek vengeance upon it in a moment of +anger. The one feeling does not exclude the other. What in the higher +classes may be a religion, in the lower classes may be only a +superstition, and strange contradictions exist, side by side, in all forms +of superstition. Certainly the Western working man or peasant does not +think about his wife or his neighbour's wife in the reverential way that +the man of the superior class does. But you will find, if you talk to +them, that something of the reverential idea is there; it is there at +least during their best moments. + +Now there is a certain exaggeration in what I have said. But that is only +because of the somewhat narrow way in which I have tried to express a +truth. I am anxious to give you the idea that throughout the West there +exists, though with a difference according to class and culture, a +sentiment about women quite as reverential as a sentiment of religion. +This is true; and not to understand it, is not to understand Western +literature. + +How did it come into existence? Through many causes, some of which are so +old that we can not know anything about them. This feeling did not belong +to the Greek and Roman civilization but it belonged to the life of the old +Northern races who have since spread over the world, planting their ideas +everywhere. In the oldest Scandinavian literature you will find that women +were thought of and treated by the men of the North very much as they are +thought of and treated by Englishmen of to-day. You will find what their +power was in the old sagas, such as the Njal-Saga, or "The Story of Burnt +Njal." But we must go much further than the written literature to get a +full knowledge of the origin of such a sentiment. The idea seems to have +existed that woman was semi-divine, because she was the mother, the +creator of man. And we know that she was credited among the Norsemen with +supernatural powers. But upon this Northern foundation there was built up +a highly complex fabric of romantic and artistic sentiment. The Christian +worship of the Virgin Mary harmonized with the Northern belief. The +sentiment of chivalry reinforced it. Then came the artistic resurrection +of the Renaissance, and the new reverence for the beauty of the old Greek +gods, and the Greek traditions of female divinities; these also coloured +and lightened the old feeling about womankind. Think also of the effect +with which literature, poetry and the arts have since been cultivating and +developing the sentiment. Consider how the great mass of Western poetry is +love poetry, and the greater part of Western fiction love stories. + +Of course the foregoing is only the vaguest suggestion of a truth. Really +my object is not to trouble you at all about the evolutional history of +the sentiment, but only to ask you to think what this sentiment means in +literature. I am not asking you to sympathize with it, but if you could +sympathize with it you would understand a thousand things in Western books +which otherwise must remain dim and strange. I am not expecting that you +can sympathize with it. But it is absolutely necessary that you should +understand its relation to language and literature. Therefore I have to +tell you that you should try to think of it as a kind of religion, a +secular, social, artistic religion, not to be confounded with any national +religion. It is a kind of race feeling or race creed. It has not +originated in any sensuous idea, but in some very ancient superstitious +idea. Nearly all forms of the highest sentiment and the highest faith and +the highest art have had their beginnings in equally humble soil. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ON LOVE IN ENGLISH POETRY + + +I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the +Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance +given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry. Indeed, by +this time I have begun to feel a little astonished at it myself. Of +course, before I came to this country it seemed to me quite natural that +love should be the chief subject of literature; because I did not know +anything about any other kind of society except Western society. But +to-day it really seems to me a little strange. If it seems strange to me, +how much more ought it to seem strange to you! Of course, the simple +explanation of the fact is that marriage is the most important act of +man's life in Europe or America, and that everything depends upon it. It +is quite different on this side of the world. But the simple explanation +of the difference is not enough. There are many things to be explained. +Why should not only the novel writers but all the poets make love the +principal subject of their work? I never knew, because I never thought, +how much English literature was saturated with the subject of love until I +attempted to make selections of poetry and prose for class use--naturally +endeavouring to select such pages or poems as related to other subjects +than passion. Instead of finding a good deal of what I was looking for, I +could find scarcely anything. The great prose writers, outside of the +essay or history, are nearly all famous as tellers of love stories. And it +is almost impossible to select half a dozen stanzas of classic verse from +Tennyson or Rossetti or Browning or Shelley or Byron, which do not contain +anything about kissing, embracing, or longing for some imaginary or real +beloved. Wordsworth, indeed, is something of an exception; and Coleridge +is most famous for a poem which contains nothing at all about love. But +exceptions do not affect the general rule that love is the theme of +English poetry, as it is also of French, Italian, Spanish, or German +poetry. It is the dominant motive. + +So with the English novelists. There have been here also a few +exceptions--such as the late Robert Louis Stevenson, most of whose novels +contain little about women; they are chiefly novels or romances of +adventure. But the exceptions are very few. At the present time there are +produced almost every year in England about a thousand new novels, and all +of these or nearly all are love stories. To write a novel without a woman +in it would be a dangerous undertaking; in ninety-nine cases out of a +hundred the book would not sell. + +Of course all this means that the English people throughout the world, as +readers, are chiefly interested in the subject under discussion. When you +find a whole race interested more in one thing than in anything else, you +may be sure that it is so because the subject is of paramount importance +in the life of the average person. You must try to imagine then, a society +in which every man must choose his wife, and every woman must choose her +husband, independent of all outside help, and not only choose but obtain +if possible. The great principle of Western society is that competition +rules here as it rules in everything else. The best man--that is to say, +the strongest and cleverest--is likely to get the best woman, in the sense +of the most beautiful person. The weak, the feeble, the poor, and the ugly +have little chance of being able to marry at all. Tens of thousands of men +and women can not possibly marry. I am speaking of the upper and middle +classes. The working people, the peasants, the labourers, these marry +young; but the competition there is just the same--just as difficult, and +only a little rougher. So it may be said that every man has a struggle of +some kind in order to marry, and that there is a kind of fight or contest +for the possession of every woman worth having. Taking this view of +Western society not only in England but throughout all Europe, you will +easily be able to see why the Western public have reason to be more +interested in literature which treats of love than in any other kind of +literature. + +But although the conditions that I have been describing are about the same +in all Western countries, the tone of the literature which deals with love +is not at all the same. There are very great differences. In prose they +are much more serious than in poetry; because in all countries a man is +allowed, by public opinion, more freedom in verse than in prose. Now these +differences in the way of treating the subject in different countries +really indicate national differences of character. Northern love stories +and Northern poetry about love are very serious; and these authors are +kept within fixed limits. Certain subjects are generally forbidden. For +example, the English public wants novels about love, but the love must be +the love of a girl who is to become somebody's wife. The rule in the +English novel is to describe the pains, fears, and struggles of the period +before marriage--the contest in the world for the right of marriage. A man +must not write a novel about any other point of love. Of course there are +plenty of authors who have broken this rule but the rule still exists. A +man may represent a contest between two women, one good and one bad, but +if the bad woman is allowed to conquer in the story, the public will +growl. This English fashion has existed since the eighteenth century. +since the time of Richardson, and is likely to last for generations to +come. + +Now this is not the rule at all which governs making of novels in France. +French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and +to lovers, after marriage; consequently there is a great deal in French +novels about adultery, about improper relations between the sexes, about +many things which the English public would not allow. This does not mean +that the English are morally a better people than the French or other +Southern races. But it does mean that there are great differences in the +social conditions. One such difference can be very briefly expressed. An +English girl, an American girl, a Norwegian, a Dane, a Swede, is allowed +all possible liberty before marriage. The girl is told, "You must be able +to take care of yourself, and not do wrong." After marriage there is no +more such liberty. After marriage in all Northern countries a woman's +conduct is strictly watched. But in France, and in Southern countries, the +young girl has no liberty before marriage. She is always under the guard +of her brother, her father, her mother, or some experienced relation. She +is accompanied wherever she walks. She is not allowed to see her betrothed +except in the presence of witnesses. But after marriage her liberty +begins. Then she is told for the first time that she must take care of +herself. Well, you will see that the conditions which inspire the novels, +in treating of the subjects of love and marriage, are very different in +Northern and in Southern Europe. For this reason alone the character of +the novel produced in England could not be the same. + +You must remember, however, that there are many other reasons for this +difference--reasons of literary sentiment. The Southern or Latin races +have been civilized for a much longer time than the Northern races; they +have inherited the feelings of the ancient world, the old Greek and Roman +world, and they think still about the relation of the sexes in very much +the same way that the ancient poets and romance writers used to think. And +they can do things which English writers can not do, because their +language has power of more delicate expression. + +We may say that the Latin writers still speak of love in very much the +same way that it was considered before Christianity. But when I speak of +Christianity I am only referring to an historical date. Before +Christianity the Northern races also thought about love very much in the +same way that their best poets do at this day. The ancient Scandinavian +literature would show this. The Viking, the old sea-pirate, felt very much +as Tennyson or as Meredith would feel upon this subject; he thought of +only one kind of love as real--that which ends in marriage, the affection +between husband and wife. Anything else was to him mere folly and +weakness. Christianity did not change his sentiment on this subject. The +modern Englishman, Swede, Dane, Norwegian, or German regards love in +exactly that deep, serious, noble way that his pagan ancestors did. I +think we can say that different races have differences of feeling on +sexual relations, which differences are very much older than any written +history. They are in the blood and soul of a people, and neither religion +nor civilization can utterly change them. + +So far I have been speaking particularly about the differences in English +and French novels; and a novel is especially a reflection of national +life, a kind of dramatic narration of truth, in the form of a story. But +in poetry, which is the highest form of literature, the difference is much +more observable. We find the Latin poets of to-day writing just as freely +on the subject of love as the old Latin poets of the age of Augustus, +while Northern poets observe with few exceptions great restraint when +treating of this theme. Now where is the line to be drawn? Are the Latins +right? Are the English right? How are we to make a sharp distinction +between what is moral and good and what is immoral and bad in treating +love-subjects? + +Some definition must be attempted. + +What is meant by love? As used by Latin writers the word has a range of +meanings, from that of the sexual relation between insects or animals up +to the highest form of religious emotion, called "The love of God." I need +scarcely say that this definition is too loose for our use. The English +word, by general consent, means both sexual passion and deep friendship. +This again is a meaning too wide for our purpose. By putting the adjective +"true" before love, some definition is attempted in ordinary conversation. +When an Englishman speaks of "true love," he usually means something that +has no passion at all; he means a perfect friendship which grows up +between man and wife and which has nothing to do with the passion which +brought the pair together. But when the English poet speaks of love, he +generally means passion, not friendship. I am only stating very general +rules. You see how confusing the subject is, how difficult to define the +matter. Let us leave the definition alone for a moment, and consider the +matter philosophically. + +Some very foolish persons have attempted even within recent years to make +a classification of different kinds of love--love between the sexes. They +talk about romantic love, and other such things. All that is utter +nonsense. In the meaning of sexual affection there is only one kind of +love, the natural attraction of one sex for them other; and the only +difference in the highest for of this attraction and the lowest is this, +that in the nobler nature a vast number of moral, aesthetic, and ethical +sentiments are related to the passion, and that in lower natures those +sentiments are absent. Therefore we may say that even in the highest forms +of the sentiment there is only one dominant feeling, complex though it be, +the desire for possession. What follows the possession we may call love if +we please; but it might better be called perfect friendship and sympathy. +It is altogether a different thing. The love that is the theme of poets in +all countries is really love, not the friendship that grows out of it. + +I suppose you know that the etymological meaning of "passion" is "a state +of suffering." In regard to love, the word has particular significance to +the Western mind, for it refers to the time of struggle and doubt and +longing before the object is attained. Now how much of this passion is a +legitimate subject of literary art? + +The difficulty may, I think, be met by remembering the extraordinary +character of the mental phenomena which manifest themselves in the time of +passion. There is during that time a strange illusion, an illusion so +wonderful that it has engaged the attention of great philosophers for +thousands of years; Plato, you know, tried to explain it in a very famous +theory. I mean the illusion that seems to charm, or rather, actually does +charm the senses of a man at a certain time. To his eye a certain face has +suddenly become the most beautiful object in the world. To his ears the +accents of one voice become the sweetest of all music. Reason has nothing +to do with this, and reason has no power against the enchantment. Out of +Nature's mystery, somehow or other, this strange magic suddenly +illuminates the senses of a man; then vanishes again, as noiselessly as it +came. It is a very ghostly thing, and can not be explained by any theory +not of a very ghostly kind. Even Herbert Spencer has devoted his reasoning +to a new theory about it. I need not go further in this particular than to +tell you that in a certain way passion is now thought to have something to +do with other lives than the present; in short, it is a kind of organic +memory of relations that existed in thousands and tens of thousands of +former states of being. Right or wrong though the theories may be, this +mysterious moment of love, the period of this illusion, is properly the +subject of high poetry, simply because it is the most beautiful and the +most wonderful experience of a human life. And why? + +Because in the brief time of such passion the very highest and finest +emotions of which human nature is capable are brought into play. In that +time more than at any other hour in life do men become unselfish, +unselfish at least toward one human being. Not only unselfishness but +self-sacrifice is a desire peculiar to the period. The young man in love +is not merely willing to give away everything that he possesses to the +person beloved; he wishes to suffer pain, to meet danger, to risk his life +for her sake. Therefore Tennyson, in speaking of that time, beautifully +said: + + Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might, + Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. + +Unselfishness is, of course, a very noble feeling, independently of the +cause. But this is only one of the emotions of a higher class when +powerfully aroused. There is pity, tenderness--the same kind of tenderness +that one feels toward a child--the love of the helpless, the desire to +protect. And a third sentiment felt at such a time more strongly than at +any other, is the sentiment of duty; responsibilities moral and social are +then comprehended in a totally new way. Surely none can dispute these +facts nor the beauty of them. + +Moral sentiments are the highest of all; but next to them the sentiment of +beauty in itself, the artistic feeling, is also a very high form of +intellectual and even of secondary moral experience. Scientifically there +is a relation between the beautiful and the good, between the physically +perfect and the ethically perfect. Of course it is not absolute. There is +nothing absolute in this world. But the relation exists. Whoever can +comprehend the highest form of one kind of beauty must be able to +comprehend something of the other. I know very well that the ideal of the +love-season is an illusion; in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of +the thousand the beauty of the woman is only imagined. But does that make +any possible difference? I do not think that it does. To imagine beauty is +really to see it--not objectively, perhaps, but subjectively beyond all +possibility of doubt. Though you see the beauty only in your mind, in your +mind it is; and in your mind its ethical influence must operate. During +the time that a man worships even imaginary bodily beauty, he receives +some secret glimpse of a higher kind of beauty--beauty of heart and mind. +Was there ever in this world a real lover who did not believe the woman of +his choice to be not only the most beautiful of mortals, but also the best +in a moral sense? I do not think that there ever was. + +The moral and the ethical sentiments of a being thus aroused call into +sudden action all the finer energies of the man--the capacities for +effort, for heroism, for high-pressure work of any sort, mental or +physical, for all that requires quickness in thought and exactitude in +act. There is for the time being a sense of new power. Anything that makes +strong appeal to the best exercise of one's faculties is beneficent and, +in most cases, worthy of reverence. Indeed, it is in the short season of +which I am speaking that we always discover the best of everything in the +character of woman or of man. In that period the evil qualities, the +ungenerous side, is usually kept as much out of sight as possible. + +Now for all these suggested reasons, as for many others which might be +suggested, the period of illusion in love is really the period which poets +and writers of romance are naturally justified in describing. Can they go +beyond it with safety, with propriety? That depends very much upon whether +they go up or down. By going up I mean keeping within the region of moral +idealism. By going down I mean descending to the level of merely animal +realism. In this realism there is nothing deserving the highest effort of +art of any sort. + +What is the object of art? Is it not, or should it not be, to make us +imagine better conditions than that which at present exist in the world, +and by so imagining to prepare the way for the coming of such conditions? +I think that all great art has done this. Do you remember the old story +about Greek mothers keeping in their rooms the statue of a god or a man, +more beautiful than anything real, so that their imagination might be +constantly influenced by the sight of beauty, and that they might perhaps +be able to bring more beautiful children into the world? Among the Arabs, +mothers also do something of this kind, only, as they have no art of +imagery, they go to Nature herself for the living image. Black luminous +eyes are beautiful, and wives keep in their tents a little deer, the +gazelle, which is famous for the brilliancy and beauty of its eyes. By +constantly looking at this charming pet the Arab wife hopes to bring into +the world some day a child with eyes as beautiful as the eyes of the +gazelle. Well, the highest function of art ought to do for us, or at least +for the world, what the statue and the gazelle were expected to do for +Grecian and Arab mothers--to make possible higher conditions than the +existing ones. + +So much being said, consider again the place and the meaning of the +passion of love in any human life. It is essentially a period of idealism, +of imagining better things and conditions than are possible in this world. +For everybody who has been in love has imagined something higher than the +possible and the present. Any idealism is a proper subject for art. It is +not at all the same in the case of realism. Grant that all this passion, +imagination, and fine sentiment is based upon a very simple animal +impulse. That does not make the least difference in the value of the +highest results of that passion. We might say the very same thing about +any human emotion; every emotion can be evolutionally traced back to +simple and selfish impulses shared by man with the lower animals. But, +because an apple tree or a pear tree happens to have its roots in the +ground, does that mean that its fruits are not beautiful and wholesome? +Most assuredly we must not judge the fruit of the tree from the unseen +roots; but what about turning up the ground to look at the roots? What +becomes of the beauty of the tree when you do that? The realist--at least +the French realist--likes to do that. He likes to bring back the attention +of his reader to the lowest rather than to the highest, to that which +should be kept hidden, for the very same reason that the roots of a tree +should be kept underground if the tree is to live. + +The time of illusion, then, is the beautiful moment of passion; it +represents the artistic zone in which the poet or romance writer ought to +be free to do the very best that he can. He may go beyond that zone; but +then he has only two directions in which he can travel. Above it there is +religion, and an artist may, like Dante, succeed in transforming love into +a sentiment of religious ecstasy. I do not think that any artist could do +that to-day; this is not an age of religious ecstasy. But upwards there is +no other way to go. Downwards the artist may travel until he finds himself +in hell. Between the zone of idealism and the brutality of realism there +are no doubt many gradations. I am only indicating what I think to be an +absolute truth, that in treating of love the literary master should keep +to the period of illusion, and that to go below it is a dangerous +undertaking. And now, having tried to make what are believed to be proper +distinctions between great literature on this subject and all that is not +great, we may begin to study a few examples. I am going to select at +random passages from English poets and others, illustrating my meaning. + +Tennyson is perhaps the most familiar to you among poets of our own time; +and he has given a few exquisite examples of the ideal sentiment in +passion. One is a concluding verse in the beautiful song that occurs in +the monodrama of "Maud," where the lover, listening in the garden, hears +the steps of his beloved approaching. + + She is coming, my own, my sweet, + Were it ever so airy a tread, + My heart would hear her and beat, + Were it earth in an earthy bed; + My dust would hear her and beat, + Had I lain for a century dead; + Would start and tremble under her feet, + And blossom in purple and red. + +This is a very fine instance of the purely idea emotion--extravagant, if +you like, in the force of the imagery used, but absolutely sincere and +true; for the imagination of love is necessarily extravagant. It would be +quite useless to ask whether the sound of a girl's footsteps could really +waken a dead man; we know that love can fancy such things quite naturally, +not in one country only but everywhere. An Arabian poem written long +before the time of Mohammed contains exactly the same thought in simpler +words; and I think that there are some old Japanese songs containing +something similar. All that the statement really means is that the voice, +the look, the touch, even the footstep of the woman beloved have come to +possess for the lover a significance as great as life and death. For the +moment he knows no other divinity; she is his god, in the sense that her +power over him has become infinite and irresistible. + +The second example may be furnished from another part of the same +composition--the little song of exaltation after the promise to marry has +been given. + + O let the solid ground + Not fail beneath my feet + Before my life has found + What some have found so sweet; + Then let come what come may, + What matter if I go mad, + I shall have had my day. + + Let the sweet heavens endure, + Not close and darken above me + Before I am quite, quite sure + That there is one to love me; + Then let come what come may + To a life that has been so sad, + I shall have had my day. + +The feeling of the lover is that no matter what happens afterwards, the +winning of the woman is enough to pay for life, death, pain, or anything +else. One of the most remarkable phenomena of the illusion is the supreme +indifference to consequences--at least to any consequences which would not +signify moral shame or loss of honour, Of course the poet is supposed to +consider the emotion only in generous natures. But the subject of this +splendid indifference has been more wonderfully treated by Victor Hugo +than by Tennyson--as we shall see later on, when considering another phase +of the emotion. Before doing that, I want to call your attention to a very +charming treatment of love's romance by an American. It is one of the most +delicate of modern compositions, and it is likely to become a classic, as +it has already been printed in four or five different anthologies. The +title is "Atalanta's Race." + +First let me tell you the story of Atalanta, so that you will be better +able to see the fine symbolism of the poem. Atalanta, the daughter of a +Greek king, was not only the most beautiful of maidens, but the swiftest +runner in the world. She passed her time in hunting, and did not wish to +marry. But as many men wanted to marry her, a law was passed that any one +who desired to win her must run a race with her. If he could beat her in +running, then she promised to marry him, but if he lost the race, he was +to be killed. Some say that the man was allowed to run first, and that the +girl followed with a spear in her hand and killed him when she overtook +him. There are different accounts of the contest. Many suitors lost the +race and were killed. But finally young man called Hippomenes obtained +from the Goddess of Love three golden apples, and he was told that if he +dropped these apples while running, the girl would stop to pick them up, +and that in this way he might be able to win the race. So he ran, and when +he found himself about to be beaten, he dropped one apple. She stopped to +pick it up and thus he gained a little. In this way he won the race and +married Atalanta. Greek mythology says that afterwards she and her husband +were turned into lions because they offended the gods; however, that need +not concern us here. There is a very beautiful moral in the old Greek +story, and the merit of the American composition is that its author, +Maurice Thompson, perceived this moral and used it to illustrate a great +philosophical truth. + + When Spring grows old, and sleepy winds + Set from the South with odours sweet, + I see my love, in green, cool groves, + Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet. + She throws a kiss and bids me run, + In whispers sweet as roses' breath; + I know I cannot win the race, + And at the end, I know, is death. + + But joyfully I bare my limbs, + Anoint me with the tropic breeze, + And feel through every sinew run + The vigour of Hippomenes. + + O race of love! we all have run + Thy happy course through groves of Spring, + And cared not, when at last we lost, + For life or death, or anything! + +There are a few thoughts here requiring a little comment. You know that +the Greek games and athletic contests were held in the fairest season, and +that the contestants were stripped. They were also anointed with oil, +partly to protect the skin against sun and temperature and partly to make +the body more supple. The poet speaks of the young man as being anointed +by the warm wind of Spring, the tropic season of life. It is a very pretty +fancy. What he is really telling us is this: + +"There are no more Greek games, but the race of love is still run to-day +as in times gone by; youth is the season, and the atmosphere of youth is +the anointing of the contestant." + +But the moral of the piece is its great charm, the poetical statement of a +beautiful and a wonderful fact. In almost every life there is a time when +we care for only one person, and suffer much for that person's sake; yet +in that period we do not care whether we suffer or die, and in after life, +when we look back at those hours of youth, we wonder at the way in which +we then felt. In European life of to-day the old Greek fable is still +true; almost everybody must run Atalanta's race and abide by the result. + +One of the delightful phases of the illusion of love is the sense of old +acquaintance, the feeling as if the person loved had been known and loved +long ago in some time and place forgotten. I think you must have observed, +many of you, that when the senses of sight and hearing happen to be +strongly stirred by some new and most pleasurable experience, the feeling +of novelty is absent, or almost absent. You do not feel as if you were +seeing or hearing something new, but as if you saw or heard something that +you knew all about very long ago. I remember once travelling with a +Japanese boy into a charming little country town in Shikoku--and scarcely +had we entered the main street, than he cried out: "Oh, I have seen this +place before!" Of course he had not seen it before; he was from Osaka and +had never left the great city until then. But the pleasure of his new +experience had given him this feeling of familiarity with the unfamiliar. +I do not pretend to explain this familiarity with the new--it is a great +mystery still, just as it was a great mystery to the Roman Cicero. But +almost everybody that has been in love has probably had the same feeling +during a moment or two--the feeling "I have known that woman before," +though the where and the when are mysteries. Some of the modern poets have +beautifully treated this feeling. The best example that I can give you is +the exquisite lyric by Rossetti entitled "Sudden Light." + + I have been here before, + But when or how I cannot tell: + I know the grass beyond the door, + The sweet keen smell, + The sighing sound, the lights around the shore. + + You have been mine before,-- + How long ago I may not know: + But just when at that swallow's soar + Your neck turn'd so, + Some veil did fall,--I knew it all of yore. + + Has this been thus before? + And shall not thus time's eddying flight + Still with our lives our loves restore + In death's despite, + And day and night yield one delight once more? + +I think you will acknowledge that this is very pretty; and the same poet +has treated the idea equally well in other poems of a more complicated +kind. But another poet of the period was haunted even more than Rossetti +by this idea--Arthur O'Shaughnessy. Like Rossetti he was a great lover, +and very unfortunate in his love; and he wrote his poems, now famous, out +of the pain and regret that was in his heart, much as singing birds born +in cages are said to sing better when their eyes are put out. Here is one +example: + + Along the garden ways just now + I heard the flowers speak; + The white rose told me of your brow, + The red rose of your cheek; + The lily of your bended head, + The bindweed of your hair: + Each looked its loveliest and said + You were more fair. + + I went into the woods anon, + And heard the wild birds sing + How sweet you were; they warbled on, + Piped, trill'd the self-same thing. + Thrush, blackbird, linnet, without pause + The burden did repeat, + And still began again because + You were more sweet. + + And then I went down to the sea, + And heard it murmuring too, + Part of an ancient mystery, + All made of me and you: + How many a thousand years ago + I loved, and you were sweet-- + Longer I could not stay, and so + I fled back to your feet. + +The last stanza especially expresses the idea that I have been telling you +about; but in a poem entitled "Greater Memory" the idea is much more fully +expressed. By "greater memory" you must understand the memory beyond this +life into past stages of existence. This piece has become a part of the +nineteenth century poetry that will live; and a few of the best stanzas +deserve to be quoted, + + In the heart there lay buried for years + Love's story of passion and tears; + Of the heaven that two had begun + And the horror that tore them apart; + When one was love's slayer, but one + Made a grave for the love in his heart. + + The long years pass'd weary and lone + And it lay there and changed there unknown; + Then one day from its innermost place, + In the shamed and ruin'd love's stead, + Love arose with a glorified face, + Like an angel that comes from the dead. + + It uplifted the stone that was set + On that tomb which the heart held yet; + But the sorrow had moulder'd within + And there came from the long closed door + A dear image, that was not the sin + Or the grief that lay buried before. + + * * * * * + + There was never the stain of a tear + On the face that was ever so dear; + 'Twas the same in each lovelier way; + 'Twas old love's holier part, + And the dream of the earliest day + Brought back to the desolate heart. + + It was knowledge of all that had been + In the thought, in the soul unseen; + 'Twas the word which the lips could not say + To redeem or recover the past. + It was more than was taken away + Which the heart got back at the last. + + The passion that lost its spell, + The rose that died where it fell, + The look that was look'd in vain, + The prayer that seemed lost evermore, + They were found in the heart again, + With all that the heart would restore. + +Put into less mystical language the legend is this: A young man and a +young woman loved each other for a time; then they were separated by some +great wrong--we may suppose the woman was untrue. The man always loved her +memory, in spite of this wrong which she had done. The two died and were +buried; hundreds and hundreds of years they remained buried, and the dust +of them mixed with the dust of the earth. But in the perpetual order of +things, a pure love never can die, though bodies may die and pass away. So +after many generations the pure love which this man had for a bad woman +was born again in the heart of another man--the same, yet not the same. +And the spirit of the woman that long ago had done the wrong, also found +incarnation again; and the two meeting, are drawn to each other by what +people call love, but what is really Greater Memory, the recollection of +past lives. But now all is happiness for them, because the weaker and +worse part of each has really died and has been left hundreds of years +behind, and only the higher nature has been born again. All that ought not +to have been is not; but all that ought to be now is. This is really an +evolutionary teaching, but it is also poetical license, for the immoral +side of mankind does not by any means die so quickly as the poet supposes. +It is perhaps a question of many tens of thousands of years to get rid of +a few of our simpler faults. Anyway, the fancy charms us and tempts us +really to hope that these things might be so. + +While the poets of our time so extend the history of a love backwards +beyond this life, we might expect them to do the very same thing in the +other direction. I do not refer to reunion in heaven, or anything of that +sort, but simply to affection continued after death. There are some very +pretty fancies of the kind. But they can not prove to you quite so +interesting as the poems which treat the recollection of past life. When +we consider the past imaginatively, we have some ground to stand on. The +past has been--there is no doubt about that. The fact that we are at this +moment alive makes it seem sufficiently true that we were alive thousands +or millions of years ago. But when we turn to the future for poetical +inspiration, the case is very different. There we must imagine without +having anything to stand upon in the way of experience. Of course if born +again into a body we could imagine many things; but there is the ghostly +interval between death and birth which nobody is able to tell us about. +Here the poet depends upon dream experiences, and it is of such an +experience that Christina Rossetti speaks in her beautiful poem entitled +"A Pause." + + They made the chamber sweet with flowers and leaves, + And the bed sweet with flowers on which I lay, + While my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way. + I did not hear the birds about the eaves, + Nor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves: + Only my soul kept watch from day to day, + My thirsty soul kept watch for one away:-- + Perhaps he loves, I thought, remembers, grieves. + + At length there came the step upon the stair, + Upon the lock the old familiar hand: + Then first my spirit seemed to scent the air + Of Paradise; then first the tardy sand + Of time ran golden; and I felt my hair + Put on a glory, and my soul expand. + +The woman is dead. In the room where her body died, flowers have been +placed, offerings to the dead. Also there are flowers upon the bed. The +ghost of the woman observes all this, but she does not feel either glad or +sad because of it; she is thinking only of the living lover, who was not +there when she died, but far away. She wants to know whether he really +loved her, whether he will really be sorry to hear that she is dead. +Outside the room of death the birds are singing; in the fields beyond the +windows peasants are working, and talking as they work. But the ghost does +not listen to these sounds. The ghost remains in the room only for love's +sake; she can not go away until the lover comes. At last she hears him +coming. She knows the sound of the step; she knows the touch of the hand +upon the lock of the door. And instantly, before she sees him at all, she +first feels delight. Already it seems to her that she can smell the +perfume of the flowers of heaven; it then seems to her that about her +head, as about the head of an angel, a circle of glory is shaping itself, +and the real heaven, the Heaven of Love, is at hand. + +How very beautiful this is. There is still one line which requires a +separate explanation--I mean the sentence about the sands of time running +golden. Perhaps you may remember the same simile in Tennyson's "Locksley +Hall": + + Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in His glowing hands; + Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. + +Here time is identified with the sand of the hour glass, and the verb "to +run" is used because this verb commonly expresses the trickling of the +sand from the upper part of the glass into the lower. In other words, fine +sand "runs" just like water. To say that the sands of time run golden, or +become changed into gold, is only a poetical way of stating that the time +becomes more than happy--almost heavenly or divine. And now you will see +how very beautiful the comparison becomes in this little poem about the +ghost of the woman waiting for the coming step of her lover. + +Several other aspects of the emotion may now be considered separately. One +of these, an especially beautiful one, is memory. Of course, there are +many aspects of love's memories, some all happiness, others intensely +sorrowful--the memory of a walk, a meeting, a moment of good-bye. Such +memories occupy a very large place in the treasure house of English love +poems. I am going to give three examples only, but each of a different +kind. The first poet that I am going to mention is Coventry Patmore. He +wrote two curious books of poetry, respectively called "The Angel in the +House" and "The Unknown Eros." In the first of these books he wrote the +whole history of his courtship and marriage--a very dangerous thing for a +poet to do, but he did it successfully. The second volume is +miscellaneous, and contains some very beautiful things. I am going to +quote only a few lines from the piece called "Amelia." This piece is the +story of an evening spent with a sweetheart, and the lines which I am +quoting refer to the moment of taking the girl home. They are now rather +famous: + + ... To the dim street + I led her sacred feet; + And so the Daughter gave, + Soft, moth-like, sweet, + Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk, + Back to her Mother, anxious in the dusk. + And now "Good Night!" + +Why should the poet speak of the girl in this way? Why does he call her +feet sacred? She has just promised to marry him; and now she seems to him +quite divine. But he discovers very plain words with which to communicate +his finer feelings to the reader. The street is "dim" because it is night; +and in the night the beautifully dressed maiden seems like a splendid +moth--the name given to night butterflies in England. In England the moths +are much more beautiful than the true butterflies; they have wings of +scarlet and purple and brown and gold. So the comparison, though +peculiarly English, is very fine. Also there is a suggestion of the +soundlessness of the moth's flight. Now "showy as damask rose" is a +striking simile only because the damask-rose is a wonderfully splendid +flower--richest in colour of all roses in English gardens. "Shy as musk" +is rather a daring simile. "Musk" is a perfume used by English as well as +Japanese ladies, but there is no perfume which must be used with more +discretion, carefulness. If you use ever so little too much, the effect is +not pleasant. But if you use exactly the proper quantity, and no more, +there is no perfume which is more lovely. "Shy as musk" thus refers to +that kind of girlish modesty which never commits a fault even by the +measure of a grain--beautiful shyness incapable of being anything but +beautiful. Nevertheless the comparison must be confessed one which should +be felt rather than explained. + +The second of the three promised quotations shall be from Robert Browning. +There is one feeling, not often touched upon by poets, yet peculiar to +lovers, that is here treated--the desire when you are very happy or when +you are looking at anything attractive to share the pleasure of the moment +with the beloved. But it seldom happens that the wish and the conditions +really meet. Referring to this longing Browning made a short lyric that is +now a classic; it is among the most dainty things of the century. + + Never the time and the place + And the loved one all together! + This path--how soft to pace! + This May--what magic weather! + Where is the loved one's face? + In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, + But the house is narrow, the place is bleak + Where, outside, rain and wind combine + With a furtive ear, if I try to speak, + With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, + With a malice that marks each word, each sign! + +Never can we have things the way we wish in this world--a beautiful day, a +beautiful place, and the presence of the beloved all at the same time. +Something is always missing; if the place be beautiful, the weather +perhaps is bad. Or if the weather and the place both happen to be perfect, +the woman is absent. So the poet finding himself in some very beautiful +place, and remembering this, remembers also the last time that he met the +woman beloved. It was a small dark house and chilly; outside there was +rain and storm; and the sounds of the wind and of the rain were as the +sounds of people secretly listening, or sounds of people trying to look in +secretly through the windows. Evidently it was necessary that the meeting +should be secret, and it was not altogether as happy as could have been +wished. + +The third example is a very beautiful poem; we must content ourselves with +an extract from it. It is the memory of a betrothal day, and the poet is +Frederick Tennyson. I suppose you know that there were three Tennysons, +and although Alfred happened to be the greatest, all of them were good +poets. + + It is a golden morning of the spring, + My cheek is pale, and hers is warm with bloom, + And we are left in that old carven room, + And she begins to sing; + + The open casement quivers in the breeze, + And one large musk-rose leans its dewy grace + Into the chamber, like a happy face, + And round it swim the bees; + + * * * * * + + I know not what I said--what she replied + Lives, like eternal sunshine, in my heart; + And then I murmured, Oh! we never part, + My love, my life, my bride! + + * * * * * + + And silence o'er us, after that great bliss, + Fell like a welcome shadow--and I heard + The far woods sighing, and a summer bird + Singing amid the trees; + + The sweet bird's happy song, that streamed around, + The murmur of the woods, the azure skies, + Were graven on my heart, though ears and eyes + Marked neither sight nor sound. + + She sleeps in peace beneath the chancel stone, + But ah! so clearly is the vision seen, + The dead seem raised, or Death has never been, + Were I not here alone. + +This is great art in its power of picturing a memory of the heart. Let us +notice some of the beauties. The lover is pale because he is afraid, +anxious; he is going to ask a question and he does not know how she may +answer him. All this was long ago, years and years ago, but the strong +emotions of that morning leave their every detail painted in remembrance, +with strange vividness After all those years the man still recollects the +appearance of the room, the sunshine entering and the crimson rose looking +into the room from the garden, with bees humming round it. Then after the +question had been asked and happily answered, neither could speak for joy; +and because of the silence all the sounds of nature outside became almost +painfully distinct. Now he remembers how he heard in that room the sound +of the wind in far-away trees, the singing of a bird--he also remembers +all the colours and the lights of the day. But it was very, very long ago, +and she is dead. Still, the memory is so clear and bright in his heart +that it is as if time had stood still, or as if she had come back from the +grave. Only one thing assures him that it is but a memory--he is alone. + +Returning now to the subject of love's illusion in itself, let me remind +you that the illusion does not always pass away--not at all. It passes +away in every case of happy union, when it has become no longer necessary +to the great purposes of nature. But in case of disappointment, loss, +failure to win the maiden desired, it often happens that the ideal image +never fades away, but persistently haunts the mind through life, and is +capable thus of making even the most successful life unhappy. Sometimes +the result of such disappointment may be to change all a man's ideas about +the world, about life, about religion; and everything remains darkened for +him. Many a young person disappointed in love begins to lose religious +feeling from that moment, for it seems to him, simply because he happens +to be unfortunate, that the universe is all wrong. On the other hand the +successful lover thinks that the universe is all right; he utters his +thanks to the gods, and feels his faith in religion and human nature +greater than before. I do not at this moment remember any striking English +poem illustrating this fact; but there is a pretty little poem in French +by Victor Hugo showing well the relation between successful love and +religious feeling in simple minds. Here is an English translation of it. +The subject is simply a walk at night, the girl-bride leaning upon the arm +of her husband; and his memory of the evening is thus expressed: + + The trembling arm I pressed + Fondly; our thoughts confessed + Love's conquest tender; + God filled the vast sweet night, + Love filled our hearts; the light + Of stars made splendour. + + Even as we walked and dreamed, + 'Twixt heaven and earth, it seemed + Our souls were speaking; + The stars looked on thy face; + Thine eyes through violet space + The stars were seeking. + + And from the astral light + Feeling the soft sweet night + Thrill to thy soul, + Thou saidst: "O God of Bliss, + Lord of the Blue Abyss, + Thou madest the whole!" + + And the stars whispered low + To the God of Space, "We know, + God of Eternity, + Dear Lord, all Love is Thine, + Even by Love's Light we shine! + Thou madest Beauty!" + +Of course here the religious feeling itself is part of the illusion, but +it serves to give great depth and beauty to simple feeling. Besides, the +poem illustrates one truth very forcibly--namely, that when we are +perfectly happy all the universe appears to be divine and divinely +beautiful; in other words, we are in heaven. On the contrary, when we are +very unhappy the universe appears to be a kind of hell, in which there is +no hope, no joy, and no gods to pray to. + +But the special reason I wished to call attention to Victor Hugo's lyric +is that it has that particular quality called by philosophical critics +"cosmic emotion." Cosmic emotion means the highest quality of human +emotion. The word "cosmos" signifies the universe--not simply this world, +but all the hundred millions of suns and worlds in the known heaven. And +the adjective "cosmic" means, of course, "related to the whole universe." +Ordinary emotion may be more than individual in its relations. I mean that +your feelings may be moved by the thought or the perception of something +relating not only to your own life but also to the lives of many others. +The largest form of such ordinary emotion is what would be called national +feeling, the feeling of your own relation to the whole nation or the whole +race. But there is higher emotion even than that. When you think of +yourself emotionally not only in relation to your own country, your own +nation, but in relation to all humanity, then you have a cosmic emotion of +the third or second order. I say "third or second," because whether the +emotion be second or third rate depends very much upon your conception of +humanity as One. But if you think of yourself in relation not to this +world only but to the whole universe of hundreds of millions of stars and +planets--in relation to the whole mystery of existence--then you have a +cosmic emotion of the highest order. Of course there are degrees even in +this; the philosopher or the metaphysician will probably have a finer +quality of cosmic emotion than the poet or the artist is able to have. But +lovers very often, according to their degree of intellectual culture, +experience a kind of cosmic emotion; and Victor Hugo's little poem +illustrates this. Night and the stars and the abyss of the sky all seem to +be thrilling with love and beauty to the lover's eyes, because he himself +is in a state of loving happiness; and then he begins to think about his +relation to the universal life, to the supreme mystery beyond all Form and +Name. + +A third or fourth class of such emotion may be illustrated by the +beautiful sonnet of Keats, written not long before his death. Only a very +young man could have written this, because only a very young man loves in +this way--but how delightful it is! It has no title. + + Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art-- + Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night + And watching, with eternal lids apart, + Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, + The moving waters at their priest-like task + Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, + Or gazing on new soft-fallen mask + Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-- + + No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, + Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, + To feel forever its soft fall and swell, + Awake forever in a sweet unrest, + Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, + And so live ever--or else swoon to death. + +Tennyson has charmingly represented a lover wishing that he were a +necklace of his beloved, or her girdle, or her earring; but that is not a +cosmic emotion at all. Indeed, the idea of Tennyson's pretty song was +taken from old French and English love songs of the peasants--popular +ballads. But in this beautiful sonnet of Keats, where the lover wishes to +be endowed with the immortality and likeness of a star only to be forever +with the beloved, there is something of the old Greek thought which +inspired the beautiful lines written between two and three thousand years +ago, and translated by J.A. Symonds: + + Gazing on stars, my Star? Would that I were the welkin, + Starry with myriad eyes, ever to gave upon thee! + +But there is more than the Greek beauty of thought in Keats's sonnet, for +we find the poet speaking of the exterior universe in the largest +relation, thinking of the stars watching forever the rising and the +falling of the sea tides, thinking of the sea tides themselves as +continually purifying the world, even as a priest purifies a temple. The +fancy of the boy expands to the fancy of philosophy; it is a blending of +poetry, philosophy, and sincere emotion. + +You will have seen by the examples which we have been reading together +that English love poetry, like Japanese love poetry, may be divided into +many branches and classified according to the range of subject from the +very simplest utterance of feeling up to that highest class expressing +cosmic emotion. Very rich the subject is; the student is only puzzled +where to choose. I should again suggest to you to observe the value of the +theme of illusion, especially as illustrated in our examples. There are +indeed multitudes of Western love poems that would probably appear to you +very strange, perhaps very foolish. But you will certainly acknowledge +that there are some varieties of English love poetry which are neither +strange nor foolish, and which are well worth studying, not only in +themselves but in their relation to the higher forms of emotional +expression in all literature. Out of love poetry belonging to the highest +class, much can be drawn that would serve to enrich and to give a new +colour to your own literature of emotion. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE IDEAL WOMAN IN ENGLISH POETRY + + +As I gave already in this class a lecture on the subject of love poetry, +you will easily understand that the subject of the present lecture is not +exactly love. It is rather about love's imagining of perfect character and +perfect beauty. The part of it to which I think your attention could be +deservedly given is that relating to the imagined wife of the future, for +this is a subject little treated of in Eastern poetry. It is a very pretty +subject. But in Japan and other countries of the East almost every young +man knows beforehand whom he is likely to marry. Marriage is arranged by +the family: it is a family matter, indeed a family duty and not a romantic +pursuit. At one time, very long ago, in Europe, marriages were arranged in +much the same way. But nowadays it may be said in general that no young +man in England or America can even imagine whom he will marry. He has to +find his wife for himself; and he has nobody to help him; and if he makes +a mistake, so much the worse for him. So to Western imagination the wife +of the future is a mystery, a romance, an anxiety--something to dream +about and to write poetry about. + +This little book that I hold in my hand is now very rare. It is out of +print, but it is worth mentioning to you because it is the composition of +an exquisite man of letters, Frederick Locker-Lampson, best of all +nineteenth century writers of society verse. It is called "Patchwork." +Many years ago the author kept a kind of journal in which he wrote down or +copied all the most beautiful or most curious things which he had heard or +which he had found in books. Only the best things remained, so the value +of the book is his taste in selection. Whatever Locker-Lampson pronounced +good, the world now knows to have been exactly what he pronounced, for his +taste was very fine. And in this book I find a little poem quoted from Mr. +Edwin Arnold, now Sir Edwin. Sir Edwin Arnold is now old and blind, and he +has not been thought of kindly enough in Japan, because his work has not +been sufficiently known. Some people have even said his writings did harm +to Japan, but I want to assure you that such statements are stupid lies. +On the contrary, he did for Japan whatever good the best of his talent as +a poet and the best of his influence as a great journalist could enable +him to do. But to come back to our subject: when Sir Edwin was a young +student he had his dreams about marriage like other young English +students, and he put one of them into verse, and that verse was at once +picked out by Frederick Locker-Lampson for his little book of gems. Half a +century has passed since then; but Locker-Lampson's judgment remains good, +and I am going to put this little poem first because it so well +illustrates the subject of the lecture. It is entitled "A Ma Future." + + Where waitest thou, + Lady, I am to love? Thou comest not, + Thou knowest of my sad and lonely lot-- + I looked for thee ere now! + + It is the May, + And each sweet sister soul hath found its brother, + Only we two seek fondly each the other, + And seeking still delay. + + Where art thou, sweet? + I long for thee as thirsty lips for streams, + O gentle promised angel of my dreams, + Why do we never meet? + + Thou art as I, + Thy soul doth wait for mine as mine for thee; + We cannot live apart, must meeting be + Never before we die? + + Dear Soul, not so, + For time doth keep for us some happy years, + And God hath portioned us our smiles and tears, + Thou knowest, and I know. + + Therefore I bear + This winter-tide as bravely as I may, + Patiently waiting for the bright spring day + That cometh with thee, Dear. + + 'Tis the May light + That crimsons all the quiet college gloom, + May it shine softly in thy sleeping room, + And so, dear wife, good night! + +This is, of course, addressed to the spirit of the unknown future wife. It +is pretty, though it is only the work of a young student. But some one +hundred years before, another student--a very great student, Richard +Crashaw,--had a fancy of the same kind, and made verses about it which are +famous. You will find parts of his poem about the imaginary wife in the +ordinary anthologies, but not all of it, for it is very long. I will quote +those verses which seem to me the best. + + +WISHES + + Whoe'er she be, + That not impossible She, + That shall command my heart and me; + + Where'er she lie, + Locked up from mortal eye, + In shady leaves of Destiny; + + Till that ripe birth + Of studied Fate stand forth, + And teach her fair steps to our earth; + + Till that divine + Idea take a shrine + Of crystal flesh, through which to shine; + + Meet you her, my wishes, + Bespeak her to my blisses, + And be ye called my absent kisses. + +The poet is supposing that the girl whom he is to marry may not as yet +even have been born, for though men in the world of scholarship can marry +only late in life, the wife is generally quite young. Marriage is far away +in the future for the student, therefore these fancies. What he means to +say in short is about like this: + +"Oh, my wishes, go out of my heart and look for the being whom I am +destined to marry--find the soul of her, whether born or yet unborn, and +tell that soul of the love that is waiting for it." Then he tries to +describe the imagined woman he hopes to find: + + I wish her beauty + That owes not all its duty + To gaudy 'tire or glist'ring shoe-tie. + + Something more than + Taffeta or tissue can; + Or rampant feather, or rich fan. + + More than the spoil + Of shop or silk worm's toil, + Or a bought blush, or a set smile. + + A face that's best + By its own beauty drest + And can alone command the rest. + + A face made up + Out of no other shop + Than what nature's white hand sets ope. + + A cheek where grows + More than a morning rose + Which to no box his being owes. + + * * * * * + + Eyes that displace + The neighbor diamond and outface + That sunshine by their own sweet grace. + + Tresses that wear + Jewels, but to declare + How much themselves more precious are. + + Smiles, that can warm + The blood, yet teach a charm + That chastity shall take no harm. + + * * * * * + + Life, that dares send + A challenge to his end, + And when it comes, say "Welcome, friend!" + +There is much more, but the best of the thoughts are here. They are not +exactly new thoughts, nor strange thoughts, but they are finely expressed +in a strong and simple way. + +There is another composition on the same subject--the imaginary spouse, +the destined one. But this is written by a woman, Christina Rossetti. + + +SOMEWHERE OR OTHER + + Somewhere or other there must surely be + The face not seen, the voice not heard, + The heart that not yet--never yet--ah me! + Made answer to my word. + + Somewhere or other, may be near or far; + Past land and sea, clean out of sight; + Beyond the wondering moon, beyond the star + That tracks her night by night. + + Somewhere or other, may be far or near; + With just a wall, a hedge between; + With just the last leaves of the dying year, + Fallen on a turf grown green. + +And that turf means of course the turf of a grave in the churchyard. This +poem expresses fear that the destined one never can be met, because death +may come before the meeting time. All through the poem there is the +suggestion of an old belief that for every man and for every woman there +must be a mate, yet that it is a chance whether the mate will ever be +found. + +You observe that all of these are ghostly poems, whether prospective or +retrospective. Here is another prospective poem: + + +AMATURUS + + Somewhere beneath the sun, + These quivering heart-strings prove it, + Somewhere there must be one + Made for this soul, to move it; + Someone that hides her sweetness + From neighbors whom she slights, + Nor can attain completeness, + Nor give her heart its rights; + Someone whom I could court + With no great change of manner, + Still holding reason's fort + Though waving fancy's banner; + A lady, not so queenly + As to disdain my hand, + Yet born to smile serenely + Like those that rule the land; + Noble, but not too proud; + With soft hair simply folded, + And bright face crescent-browed + And throat by Muses moulded; + + Keen lips, that shape soft sayings + Like crystals of the snow, + With pretty half-betrayings + Of things one may not know; + Fair hand, whose touches thrill, + Like golden rod of wonder, + Which Hermes wields at will + Spirit and flesh to sunder. + Forth, Love, and find this maid, + Wherever she be hidden; + Speak, Love, be not afraid, + But plead as thou art bidden; + And say, that he who taught thee + His yearning want and pain, + Too dearly dearly bought thee + To part with thee in vain. + +These lines are by the author of that exquisite little book "Ionica"--a +book about which I hope to talk to you in another lecture. His real name +was William Cory, and he was long the head-master of an English public +school, during which time he composed and published anonymously the +charming verses which have made him famous--modelling his best work in +close imitation of the Greek poets. A few expressions in these lines need +explanation. For instance, the allusion to Hermes and his rod. I think you +know that Hermes is the Greek name of the same god whom the Romans called +Mercury,--commonly represented as a beautiful young man, naked and running +quickly, having wings attached to the sandals upon his feet. Runners used +to pray to him for skill in winning foot races. But this god had many +forms and many attributes, and one of his supposed duties was to bring the +souls of the dead into the presence of the king of Hades. So you will see +some pictures of him standing before the throne of the king of the Dead, +and behind him a long procession of shuddering ghosts. He is nearly always +pictured as holding in his hands a strange sceptre called the _caduceus_, +a short staff about which two little serpents are coiled, and at the top +of which is a tiny pair of wings. This is the golden rod referred to by +the poet; when Hermes touched anybody with it, the soul of the person +touched was obliged immediately to leave the body and follow after him. So +it is a very beautiful stroke of art in this poem to represent the touch +of the hand of great love as having the magical power of the golden rod of +Hermes. It is as if the poet were to say: "Should she but touch me, I know +that my spirit would leap out of my body and follow after her." Then there +is the expression "crescent-browed." It means only having beautifully +curved eyebrows--arched eyebrows being considered particularly beautiful +in Western countries. + +Now we will consider another poem of the ideal. What we have been reading +referred to ghostly ideals, to memories, or to hopes. Let us now see how +the poets have talked about realities. Here is a pretty thing by Thomas +Ashe. It is entitled "Pansie"; and this flower name is really a corruption +of a French word "Penser," meaning a thought. The flower is very +beautiful, and its name is sometimes given to girls, as in the present +case. + + +MEET WE NO ANGELS, PANSIE? + + Came, on a Sabbath noon, my sweet, + In white, to find her lover; + The grass grew proud beneath her feet, + The green elm-leaves above her:-- + Meet we no angels, Pansie? + + She said, "We meet no angels now;" + And soft lights stream'd upon her; + And with white hand she touch'd a bough; + She did it that great honour:-- + What! meet no angels, Pansie? + + O sweet brown hat, brown hair, brown eyes, + Down-dropp'd brown eyes, so tender! + Then what said I? Gallant replies + Seem flattery, and offend her:-- + But--meet no angels, Pansie? + +The suggestion is obvious, that the maiden realizes to the lover's eye the +ideal of an angel. As she comes he asks her slyly,--for she has been to +the church--"Is it true that nobody ever sees real angels?" She answers +innocently, thinking him to be in earnest, "No--long ago people used to +see angels, but in these times no one ever sees them." He does not dare +tell her how beautiful she seems to him; but he suggests much more than +admiration by the tone of his protesting response to her answer: "What! +You cannot mean to say that there are no angels now?" Of course that is +the same as to say, "I see an angel now"--but the girl is much too +innocent to take the real and flattering meaning. + +Wordsworth's portrait of the ideal woman is very famous; it was written +about his own wife though that fact would not be guessed from the poem. +The last stanza is the most famous, but we had better quote them all. + + She was a phantom of delight + When first she gleamed upon my sight; + A lovely apparition, sent + To be a moment's ornament; + Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; + Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair; + But all things else about her drawn + From May-time and the cheerful dawn; + A dancing shape, an image gay, + To haunt, to startle, and waylay. + + I saw her upon nearer view, + A Spirit, yet a Woman too! + Her household motions light and free, + And steps of virgin liberty; + A countenance in which did meet + Sweet records, promises as sweet; + A creature not too bright or good + For human nature's daily food; + For transient sorrows, simple wiles, + Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles. + + And now I see with eye serene + The very pulse of the machine; + A being breathing thoughtful breath, + A traveller betwixt life and death; + The reason firm, the temperate will, + Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; + A perfect woman, nobly plann'd, + To warn, to comfort and command; + And yet a Spirit still, and bright + With something of angelic light. + +I quoted this after the Pansie poem to show you how much more deeply +Wordsworth could touch the same subject. To him, too, the first apparition +of the ideal maiden seemed angelic; like Ashe he could perceive the +mingled attraction of innocence and of youth. But innocence and youth are +by no means all that make up the best attributes of woman; character is +more than innocence and more than youth, and it is character that +Wordsworth studies. But in the last verse he tells us that the angel is +always there, nevertheless, even when the good woman becomes old. The +angel is the Mother-soul. + +Wordsworth's idea that character is the supreme charm was expressed very +long before him by other English poets, notably by Thomas Carew. + + He that loves a rosy cheek, + Or a coral lip admires, + Or from star-like eyes doth seek + Fuel to maintain his fires: + As old Time makes these decay, + So his flames must waste away. + + But a smooth and steadfast mind, + Gentle thoughts and calm desires, + Hearts with equal love combined, + Kindle never-dying fires. + Where these, are not, I despise + Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes. + +For about three hundred years in English literature it was the fashion--a +fashion borrowed from the Latin poets--to speak of love as a fire or +flame, and you must understand the image in these verses in that +signification. To-day the fashion is not quite dead, but very few poets +now follow it. + +Byron himself, with all his passion and his affected scorn of ethical +convention, could and did, when he pleased, draw beautiful portraits of +moral as well as physical attraction. These stanzas are famous; they paint +for us a person with equal attraction of body and mind. + + She walks in beauty, like the night + Of cloudless climes and starry skies; + And all that's best of dark and bright + Meet in her aspect and her eyes: + Thus mellow'd to that tender light + Which heaven to gaudy day denies. + + One shade the more, one ray the less, + Had half impair'd the nameless grace + Which waves in every raven tress, + Or softly lightens o'er her face; + Where thoughts serenely sweet express + How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. + + And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, + So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, + The smiles that win, the tints that glow, + But tell of days in goodness spent, + A mind at peace with all below, + A heart whose love is innocent! + +It is worth noticing that in each of the last three poems, the physical +beauty described is that of dark eyes and hair. This may serve to remind +you that there are two distinct types, opposite types, of beauty +celebrated by English poets; and the next poem which I am going to quote, +the beautiful "Ruth" of Thomas Hood, also describes a dark woman. + + She stood breast-high amid the corn, + Clasp'd by the golden light of morn, + Like the sweetheart of the sun, + Who many a glowing kiss had won. + + On her cheek an autumn flush, + Deeply ripen'd;--such a blush + In the midst of brown was born, + Like red poppies grown with corn. + + Round her eyes her tresses fell, + Which were blackest none could tell, + But long lashes veil'd a light, + That had else been all too bright. + + And her hat, with shady brim, + Made her tressy forehead dim; + Thus she stood among the stooks, + Praising God with sweetest looks:-- + + Sure, I said, Heav'n did not mean, + Where I reap thou shouldst but glean, + Lay thy sheaf adown and come, + Share my harvest and my home. + +We might call this the ideal of a peasant girl whose poverty appeals to +the sympathy of all who behold her. The name of the poem is suggested +indeed by the Bible story of Ruth the gleaner, but the story in the poem +is only that of a rich farmer who marries a very poor girl, because of her +beauty and her goodness. It is just a charming picture--a picture of the +dark beauty which is so much admired in Northern countries, where it is +less common than in Southern Europe. There are beautiful brown-skinned +types; and the flush of youth on the cheeks of such a brown girl has been +compared to the red upon a ripe peach or a russet apple--a hard kind of +apple, very sweet and juicy, which is brown instead of yellow, or reddish +brown. But the poet makes the comparison with poppy flowers and wheat. +That, of course, means golden yellow and red; in English wheat fields red +poppy flowers grow in abundance. The expression "tressy forehead" in the +second line of the fourth stanza means a forehead half covered with +falling, loose hair. + +The foregoing pretty picture may be offset by charming poem of Browning's +describing a lover's pride in his illusion. It is simply entitled "Song," +and to appreciate it you must try to understand the mood of a young man +who believes that he has actually realized his ideal, and that the woman +that he loves is the most beautiful person in the whole world. The fact +that this is simply imagination on his part does not make the poem less +beautiful--on the contrary, the false imagining is just what makes it +beautiful, the youthful emotion of a moment being so humanly and frankly +described. Such a youth must imagine that every one else sees and thinks +about the girl just as he does, and he expects them to confess it. + + Nay but you, who do not love her, + Is she not pure gold, my mistress? + Holds earth aught--speak truth--above her? + Aught like this tress, see, and this tress, + And this last fairest tress of all, + So fair, see, ere I let it fall? + + Because you spend your lives in praising; + To praise, you search the wide world over; + Then why not witness, calmly gazing, + If earth holds aught--speak truth--above her? + Above this tress, and this, I touch + But cannot praise, I love so much! + +You see the picture, I think,--probably some artist's studio for a +background. She sits or stands there with her long hair loosely flowing +down to her feet like a river of gold; and her lover, lifting up some of +the long tresses in his hand, asks his friend, who stands by, to notice +how beautiful such hair is. Perhaps the girl was having her picture +painted. One would think so from the question, "Since your business is to +look for beautiful things, why can you not honestly acknowledge that this +woman is the most beautiful thing in the whole world?" Or we might imagine +the questioned person to be a critic by profession as well as an artist. +Like the preceding poem this also is a picture. But the next poem, also by +Browning, is much more than a picture--it is very profound indeed, simple +as it looks. An old man is sitting by the dead body of a young girl of +about sixteen. He tells us how he secretly loved her, as a father might +love a daughter, as a brother might love a sister. But he would have +wished, if he had not been so old, and she so young, to love her as a +husband. He never could have her in this world, but why should he not hope +for it in the future world? He whispers into her dead ear his wish, and he +puts a flower into her dead hand, thinking, "When she wakes up, in another +life, she will see that flower, and remember what I said to her, and how +much I loved her." That is the mere story. But we must understand that the +greatness of the love expressed in the poem is awakened by an ideal of +innocence and sweetness and goodness, and the affection is of the +soul--that is to say, it is the love of beautiful character, not the love +of a beautiful face only, that is expressed. + + +EVELYN HOPE + + Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! + Sit and watch by her side an hour. + That is her book-shelf, this her bed; + She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, + Beginning to die too, in the glass; + Little has yet been changed, I think: + The shutters are shut, no light can pass + Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. + + Sixteen years old when she died! + Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; + It was not her time to love; beside, + Her life had many a hope and aim, + Duties enough and little cares, + And now was quiet, now astir, + Till God's hand beckoned unawares,-- + And the sweet white brow is all of her. + + Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope? + What, your soul was pure and true, + The good stars met in your horoscope, + Made you of spirit, fire and dew-- + And just because I was thrice as old + And our paths in the world diverged so wide, + Each was naught to each, must I be told? + We were fellow mortals, naught beside? + + No, indeed! for God above, + Is great to grant, as mighty to make, + And creates the love to reward the love: + I claim you still, for my own love's sake! + Delayed it may be for more lives yet, + Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few: + Much is to learn, much to forget, + Ere the time be come for taking you. + + But the time will come,--at last it will, + When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) + In the lower earth, in the years long still, + That body and soul so pure and gay? + Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, + And your mouth of your own geranium's red-- + And what you would do with me, in fine, + In the new life come in the old one's stead. + + I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, + Given up myself so many times, + Gained me the gains of various men, + Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; + Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, + Either I missed or itself missed me: + And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! + What is the issue? let us see! + + I loved you, Evelyn, all the while! + My heart seemed full as it could hold; + There was space and to spare for the frank young smile, + And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. + So, hush,--I will give you this leaf to keep: + See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand! + There, that is our secret: go to sleep! + You will wake, and remember, and understand. + +No other poet has written so many different kinds of poems on this subject +as Browning; and although I can not quote all of them, I must not neglect +to make a just representation of the variety. Here is another example: the +chief idea is again the beauty of truthfulness and fidelity, but the +artistic impression is quite different. + + A simple ring with a single stone, + To the vulgar eye no stone of price: + Whisper the right word, that alone-- + Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice. + And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll) + Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole + Through the power in a pearl. + + A woman ('tis I this time that say) + With little the world counts worthy praise: + Utter the true word--out and away + Escapes her soul; I am wrapt in blaze, + Creation's lord, of heaven and earth + Lord whole and sole--by a minute's birth-- + Through the love in a girl! + +Paraphrased, the meaning will not prove as simple as the verses: Here is a +finger ring set with one small stone, one jewel. It is a very +cheap-looking stone to common eyes. But if you know a certain magical +word, and, after putting the ring on your finger, you whisper that magical +word over the cheap-looking stone, suddenly a spirit, a demon or a genie, +springs from that gem like a flash of fire miraculously issuing from a +lump of ice. And that spirit or genie has power to make you king of the +whole world and of the sky above the world, lord of the spirits of heaven +and earth and air and fire. Yet the stone is only--a pearl--and it can +make you lord of the universe. That is the old Arabian story. The word +scroll here means a manuscript, an Arabian manuscript. + +But what is after all the happiness of mere power? There is a greater +happiness possible than to be lord of heaven and earth; that is the +happiness of being truly loved. Here is a woman; to the eye of the world, +to the sight of other men, she is not very beautiful nor at all remarkable +in any way. She is just an ordinary woman, as the pearl in the ring is to +all appearances just a common pearl. But let the right word be said, let +the soul of that woman be once really touched by the magic of love, and +what a revelation! As the spirit in the Arabian story sprang from the +stone of the magical ring, when the word was spoken, so from the heart of +this woman suddenly her soul displays itself in shining light. And the man +who loves, instantly becomes, in the splendour of that light, verily the +lord of heaven and earth; to the eyes of the being who loves him he is a +god. + +The legend is the legend of Solomon--not the Solomon of the Bible, but the +much more wonderful Solomon of the Arabian story-teller. His power is said +to have been in a certain seal ring, upon which the mystical name of +Allah, or at least one of the ninety and nine mystical names, was +engraved. When he chose to use this ring, all the spirits of air, the +spirits of earth, the spirits of water and the spirits of fire were +obliged to obey him. The name of such a ring is usually "Talisman." + +Here is another of Browning's jewels, one of the last poems written +shortly before his death. It is entitled "Summum Bonum,"--signifying "the +highest good." The subject is a kiss; we may understand that the first +betrothal kiss is the mark of affection described. When the promise of +marriage has been made, that promise is sealed or confirmed by the first +kiss. But this refers only to the refined classes of society. Among the +English people proper, especially the country folk, kissing the girls is +only a form of showing mere good will, and has no serious meaning at all. + + All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee: + All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem: + In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea: + Breath and bloom, shade and shine,--wonder, wealth, and--how far + above them-- + Truth, that's brighter than gem, + Trust, that's purer than pearl,-- + Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe--all were for me + In the kiss of one girl. + +There is in this a suggestion of Ben Jonson, who uses almost exactly the +same simile without any moral significance. The advantage of Browning is +that he has used the sensuous imagery for ethical symbolism; here he +greatly surpasses Jonson, though it would be hard to improve upon the +beauty of Jonson's verses, as merely describing visual beauty. Here are +Jonson's stanzas: + + +THE TRIUMPH + + See the Chariot at hand here of Love, + Wherein my Lady rideth! + Each that draws is a swan or a dove, + And well the car Love guideth. + As she goes, all hearts do duty + Unto her beauty; + And enamoured do wish, so they might + But enjoy such a sight, + That they still were to run by her side, + Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride. + + Do but look on her eyes, they do light + All that Love's world compriseth! + Do but look on her hair, it is bright + As love's star when it riseth! + Do but mark, her forehead's smoother + Than words that soothe her; + And from her arch'd brows such a grace + Sheds itself through the face, + As alone there triumphs to the life + All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife. + + Have you seen but a bright lily grow + Before rude hands have touched it? + Have you mark'd but the fall of the snow + Before the soil hath smutch'd it? + Have you felt the wool of beaver + Or swan's down ever? + Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier, + Or the nard in the fire? + Or have tasted the bag of the bee? + O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she! + +The first of the above stanzas is a study after the Roman poets; but the +last stanza is Jonson's own and is very famous. You will see that Browning +was probably inspired by him, but I think that his verses are much more +beautiful in thought and feeling. + +There is one type of ideal woman very seldom described in poetry--the old +maid, the woman whom sorrow or misfortune prevents from fulfilling her +natural destiny. Commonly the woman who never marries is said to become +cross, bad tempered, unpleasant in character. She could not be blamed for +this, I think; but there are old maids who always remain as unselfish and +frank and kind as a girl, and who keep the charm of girlhood even when +their hair is white. Hartley Coleridge, son of the great Samuel, attempted +to describe such a one, and his picture is both touching and beautiful. + + +THE SOLITARY-HEARTED + + She was a queen of noble Nature's crowning, + A smile of hers was like an act of grace; + She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning, + Like daily beauties of the vulgar race: + But if she smiled, a light was on her face, + A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam + Of peaceful radiance, silvering o'er the stream + Of human thought with unabiding glory; + Not quite a waking truth, not quite a dream, + A visitation, bright and transitory. + + But she is changed,--hath felt the touch of sorrow, + No love hath she, no understanding friend; + O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow + What the poor niggard earth has not to lend; + But when the stalk is snapt, the rose must bend. + The tallest flower that skyward rears its head + Grows from the common ground, and there must shed + Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely + That they should find so base a bridal bed, + Who lived in virgin pride, so sweet and purely. + + She had a brother, and a tender father, + And she was loved, but not as others are + From whom we ask return of love,--but rather + As one might love a dream; a phantom fair + Of something exquisitely strange and rare, + Which all were glad to look on, men and maids, + Yet no one claimed--as oft, in dewy glades, + The peering primrose, like a sudden gladness, + Gleams on the soul, yet unregarded fades;-- + The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness. + + 'Tis vain to say--her worst of grief is only + The common lot, which all the world have known + To her 'tis more, because her heart is lonely, + And yet she hath no strength to stand alone,-- + Once she had playmates, fancies of her own, + And she did love them. They are past away + As fairies vanish at the break of day; + And like a spectre of an age departed, + Or unsphered angel woefully astray, + She glides along--the solitary-hearted. + +Perhaps it is scarcely possible for you to imagine that a woman finds it +impossible to marry because of being too beautiful, too wise, and too +good. In Western countries it is not impossible at all. You must try to +imagine entirely different social conditions--conditions in which marriage +depends much more upon the person than upon the parents, much more upon +inclination than upon anything else. A woman's chances of marriage depend +very much upon herself, upon her power of pleasing and charming. Thousands +and tens of thousands can never get married. Now there are cases in which +a woman can please too much. Men become afraid of her. They think, "She +knows too much, I dare not be frank with her"--or, "She is too beautiful, +she never would accept a common person like me"--or, "She is too formal +and correct, she would never forgive a mistake, and I could never be happy +with her." Not only is this possible, but it frequently happens. Too much +excellence makes a misfortune. I think you can understand it best by the +reference to the very natural prejudice against over-educated women, a +prejudice founded upon experience and existing in all countries, even in +Japan. Men are not attracted to a woman because she is excellent at +mathematics, because she knows eight or nine different languages, because +she has acquired all the conventions of high-pressure training. Men do not +care about that. They want love and trust and kindliness and ability to +make a home beautiful and happy. Well, the poem we have been reading is +very pathetic because it describes a woman who can not fulfil her natural +destiny, can not be loved--this through no fault of her own, but quite the +reverse. To be too much advanced beyond one's time and environment is even +a worse misfortune than to be too much behind. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +NOTE UPON THE SHORTEST FORMS OF ENGLISH POETRY + + +Perhaps there is an idea among Japanese students that one general +difference between Japanese and Western poetry is that the former +cultivates short forms and the latter longer ones, gut this is only in +part true. It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in +the Far East more than in modern Europe; but in all European literature +short forms of poetry are to be found--indeed quite as short as anything +in Japanese. Like the Japanese, the old Greeks, who carried poetry to the +highest perfection that it has ever attained, delighted in short forms; +and the Greek Anthology is full of compositions containing only two or +three lines. You will find beautiful translations of these in Symonds's +"Studies of Greek Poets," in the second volume. Following Greek taste, the +Roman poets afterwards cultivated short forms of verse, but they chiefly +used such verse for satirical purposes, unfortunately; I say, +unfortunately, because the first great English poets who imitated the +ancients were chiefly influenced by the Latin writers, and they also used +the short forms for epigrammatic satire rarely for a purely esthetic +object. Ben Jonson both wrote and translated a great number of very short +stanzas--two lines and four lines; but Jonson was a satirist in these +forms. Herrick, as you know, delighted in very short poems; but he was +greatly influenced by Jonson, and many of his couplets and of his +quatrains are worthless satires or worthless jests. However, you will find +some short verses in Herrick that almost make you think of a certain class +of Japanese poems. After the Elizabethan Age, also, the miniature poems +were still used in the fashion set by the Roman writers,--then the +eighteenth century deluged us with ill-natured witty epigrams of the like +brief form. It was not until comparatively modern times that our Western +world fully recognized the value of the distich, triplet or quatrain for +the expression of beautiful thoughts, rather than for the expression of +ill-natured ones. But now that the recognition has come, it has been +discovered that nothing is harder than to write a beautiful poem of two or +four lines. Only great masters have been truly successful at it. Goethe, +you know, made a quatrain that has become a part of world-literature: + + Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,-- + Who ne'er the lonely midnight hours, + Weeping upon his bed has sate, + He knows ye not, ye Heavenly Powers! + +--meaning, of course, that inspiration and wisdom come to us only through +sorrow, and that those who have never suffered never can be wise. But in +the universities of England a great deal of short work of a most excellent +kind has been done in Greek and Latin; and there is the celebrated case of +an English student who won a prize by a poem of a single line. The subject +given had been the miracle of Christ's turning water into wine at the +marriage feast; and while other scholars attempted elaborate composition +on the theme, this student wrote but one verse, of which the English +translation is + + The modest water saw its Lord, and blushed. + +Of course the force of the idea depends upon the popular conception of +wine being red. The Latin and Greek model, however, did not seem to +encourage much esthetic effort in short poems of English verse until the +time of the romantic movement. Then, both in France and England, many +brief forms of poetry made their appearance. In France, Victor Hugo +attempted composition in astonishingly varied forms of verse--some forms +actually consisting of only two syllables to a line. With this +surprisingly short measure begins one of Hugo's most remarkably early +poems, "Les Djins," representing the coming of evil spirits with a storm, +their passing over the house where a man is at prayer, and departing into +the distance again. Beginning with only two syllables to the line, the +measure of the poem gradually widens as the spirits approach, becomes very +wide, very long and sonorous as they reach the house, and again shrinks +back to lines of two syllables as the sound of them dies away. In England +a like variety of experiments has been made; but neither in France nor in +England has the short form yet been as successfully cultivated as it was +among the Greeks. We have some fine examples; but, as an eminent English +editor observed a few years ago, not enough examples to make a book. And +of course this means that there are very few; for you can make a book of +poetry very well with as little as fifty pages of largely and widely +printed text. However, we may cite a few modern instances. + +I think that about the most perfect quatrains we have are those of the +extraordinary man, Walter Savage Landor, who, you know, was a rare Greek +scholar, all his splendid English work being very closely based upon the +Greek models. He made a little epitaph upon himself, which is matchless of +its kind: + + I strove with none, for none was worth my strife; + Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; + I warmed both hands before the fire of life: + It sinks; and I am ready to depart. + +You know that Greeks used the short form a great deal for their exquisite +epitaphs, and that a considerable part of the anthology consists of +epitaphic literature. But the quatrain has a much wider range than this +funereal limitation, and one such example of epitaph will suffice. + +Only one English poet of our own day, and that a minor one, has attempted +to make the poem of four lines a specialty--that is William Watson. He has +written a whole volume of such little poems, but very few of them are +successful. As I said before, we have not enough good poems of this sort +for a book; and the reason is not because English poets despise the short +form, but because it is supremely difficult. The Greeks succeeded in it, +but we are still far behind the Greeks in the shaping of any kind of +verse. The best of Watson's pieces take the form of philosophical +suggestions; and this kind of verse is particularly well adapted to +philosophical utterance. + + Think not thy wisdom can illume away + The ancient tanglement of night and day. + Enough to acknowledge both, and both revere; + They see not clearliest who see all things clear. + +That is to say, do not think that any human knowledge will ever be able to +make you understand the mystery of the universe with its darkness and +light, its joy and pain. It is best to revere the powers that make both +good and evil, and to remember that the keenest, worldly, practical minds +are not the minds that best perceive the great truths and mysteries of +existence. Here is another little bit, reminding us somewhat of Goethe's +quatrain, already quoted. + + Lives there whom pain hath evermore passed by + And sorrow shunned with an averted eye? + Him do thou pity,--him above the rest, + Him, of all hapless mortals most unblessed. + +That needs no commentary, and it contains a large truth in small space. +Here is a little bit on the subject of the artist's ambition, which is +also good. + + The thousand painful steps at last are trod, + At last the temple's difficult door we win, + But perfect on his pedestal, the God + Freezes us hopeless when we enter in. + +The higher that the artist climbs by effort, the nearer his approach to +the loftier truth, the more he understands how little his very best can +achieve. It is the greatest artist, he who veritably enters the presence +of God--that most feels his own weakness; the perception of beauty that +other men can not see, terrifies him, freezes him motionless, as the poet +says. + +Out of all of Watson's epigrams I believe these are the best. The rest +with the possible exception of those on the subject of love seem to me +altogether failures. Emerson and various American poets also attempted the +quatrain--but Emerson's verse is nearly always bad, even when his thought +is sublime. One example of Emerson will suffice. + + Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, + Or dip thy paddle in the lake, + But it carves the bow of beauty there, + And the ripples in rhyme the oar forsake. + +The form is atrociously bad; but the reflection is grand--it is another +way of expressing the beautiful old Greek thought that "God _geometrizes_ +everywhere"--that is, that all motion is in geometrical lines, and full of +beauty. You can pick hundreds of fine things in very short verse out of +Emerson, but the verse is nearly always shapeless; the composition of the +man invariably makes us think of diamonds in the rough, jewels uncut. So +far as form goes a much better master of quatrain is the American poet +Aldrich, who wrote the following little thing, entitled "Popularity." + + Such kings of shreds have wooed and won her, + Such crafty knaves her laurel owned, + It has become almost an honour + Not to be crowned. + +This is good verse. The reference to "a king of shreds and patches"--that +is, a beggar king--you will recognize as Shakespearean. But although this +pretty verse has in it more philosophy than satire, it approaches the +satiric class of epigrams. Neither America nor England has been able to do +very much in the sort of verse that we have been talking about. Now this +is a very remarkable thing,--because at the English universities beautiful +work has been done in Greek or Latin--in poems of a single line, of two +lines, of three lines and other very brief measures. Why can it not be +done in English? I suspect that it is because our English language has not +yet become sufficiently perfect, sufficiently flexible, sufficiently +melodious to allow of great effect with a very few words. We can do the +thing in Greek or in Latin because either Greek or Latin is a more perfect +language. + +So much for theory. I should like to suggest, however, that it is very +probable many attempts at these difficult forms of poetry will be +attempted by English poets within the next few years. There is now a +tendency in that direction. I do not know whether such attempts will be +successful; but I should like you to understand that for Western poets +they are extremely difficult and that you ought to obtain from the +recognition of this fact a new sense of the real value of your own short +forms of verse in the hands of a master. Effects can be produced in +Japanese which the Greeks could produce with few syllables, but which the +English can not. Now it strikes me that, instead of even thinking of +throwing away old forms of verse in order to invent new ones, the future +Japanese poets ought rather to develop and cultivate and prize the forms +already existing, which belong to the genius of the language, and which +have proved themselves capable of much that no English verse or even +French verse could accomplish. Perhaps only the Italian is really +comparable to Japanese in some respects; you can perform miracles with +Italian verse. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SOME FOREIGN POEMS ON JAPANESE SUBJECTS + + +The Western poet and writer of romance has exactly the same kind of +difficulty in comprehending Eastern subjects as you have in comprehending +Western subjects. You will commonly find references to Japanese love poems +of the popular kind made in such a way as to indicate the writer's belief +that such poems refer to married life or at least to a courtship relation. +No Western writer who has not lived for many years in the East, could +write correctly about anything on this subject; and even after a long stay +in the country he might be unable to understand. Therefore a great deal of +Western poetry written about Japan must seem to you all wrong, and I can +not hope to offer you many specimens of work in this direction that could +deserve your praise. Yet there is some poetry so fine on the subject of +Japan that I think you would admire it and I am sure that you should know +it. A proof of really great art is that it is generally true--it seldom +falls into the misapprehensions to which minor art is liable. What do you +think of the fact that the finest poetry ever written upon a Japanese +subject by any Western poet, has been written by a man who never saw the +land? But he is a member of the French Academy, a great and true lover of +art, and without a living superior in that most difficult form of poetry, +the sonnet. In the time of thirty years he produced only one very small +volume of sonnets, but so fine are these that they were lifted to the very +highest place in poetical distinction. I may say that there are now only +three really great French poets--survivals of the grand romantic school. +These are Leconte de Lisle, Sully-Prudhomme, and Jose Maria de Heredia. It +is the last of whom I am speaking. As you can tell by his name, he is not +a Frenchman either by birth or blood, but a Spaniard, or rather a Spanish +Creole, born in Cuba. Heredia knows Japan only through pictures, armour, +objects of art in museums, paintings and carvings. Remembering this, I +think that you will find that he does wonderfully well. It is true that he +puts a woman in one of his pictures, but I think that his management of +his subject is very much nearer the truth than that of almost any writer +who has attempted to describe old Japan. And you must understand that the +following sonnet is essentially intended to be a picture--to produce upon +the mind exactly the same effect that a picture does, with the addition of +such life as poetry can give. + + +LE SAMOURAI + + D'un doigt distrait frolant la sonore biva, + A travers les bambous tresses en fine latte, + Elle a vu, par la plage eblouissante et plate, + S'avancer le vainqueur que son amour reva. + + C'est lui. Sabres au flanc, l'eventail haut, il va. + La cordeliere rouge et le gland ecarlate + Coupent l'armure sombre, et, sur l'epaule, eclate + Le blazon de Hizen ou de Tokungawa. + + Ce beau guerrier vetu de lames et de plaques, + Sous le bronze, la soie et les brillantes laques, + Semble un crustace noir, gigantesque et vermeil. + + Il l'a vue. Il sourit dans la barbe du masque, + Et son pas plus hatif fait reluire au soleil + Les deux antennes d'or qui tremblent a son casque. + +"Lightly touching her _biva_ with heedless finger, she has perceived, +through the finely woven bamboo screen, the conqueror, lovingly thought +of, approach over the dazzling level of the beach. + +"It is he. With his swords at his side he advances, holding up his fan. +The red girdle and the scarlet tassel appear in sharply cut relief against +the dark armour; and upon his shoulder glitters a crest of Hizen or of +Tokungawa. + +"This handsome warrior sheathed with his scales and plates of metal, under +his bronze, his silk and glimmering lacquer, seems a crustacean, gigantic, +black and vermilion. + +"He has caught sight of her. Under the beaver of the war mask he smiles, +and his quickened step makes to glitter in the sun the two antennae of gold +that quiver upon his helmet." + +The comparison of a warrior in full armour to a gigantic crab or lobster, +especially lobster, is not exactly new. Victor Hugo has used it before in +French literature, just as Carlyle has used it in English literature; +indeed the image could not fail to occur to the artist in any country +where the study of armour has been carried on. But here the poet does not +speak of any particular creature; he uses only the generic term, +crustacean, the vagueness of which makes the comparison much more +effective. I think you can see the whole picture at once. It is a Japanese +colour-print,--some ancient interior, lighted by the sun of a great summer +day; and a woman looking through a bamboo blind toward the seashore, where +she sees a warrior approaching. He divines that he is seen; but if he +smiles, it is only because the smile is hidden by his iron mask. The only +sign of any sentiment on his part is that he walks a little quicker. Still +more amazing is a companion picture, containing only a solitary figure: + + +LE DAIMIO (Matin de bataille) + + Sous le noir fouet de guerre a quadruple pompon, + L'etalon belliqueux en hennissant se cabre, + Et fait bruire, avec de cliquetis de sabre, + La cuirasse de bronze aux lames du jupon. + + Le Chef vetu d'airain, de laque et de crepon, + Otant le masque a poils de son visage glabre, + Regarde le volcan sur un ciel de cinabre + Dresser la neige ou rit l'aurore du Nippon. + + Mais il a vu, vers l'Est eclabousse d'or, l'astre, + Glorieux d'eclairer ce matin de desastre, + Poindre, orbe eblouissant, au-dessus de la mer; + + Et pour couvrir ses yeux dont pas un cil ne bouge, + Il ouvre d'un seul coup son eventail de fer, + Ou dans le satin blanc se leve un Soleil rouge. + +"Under the black war whip with its quadruple pompon the fierce stallion, +whinnying, curvets, and makes the rider's bronze cuirass ring against the +plates of his shirt of mail, with a sound like the clashing of sword +blades. + +"The Chief, clad in bronze and lacquer and silken crape, removing the +bearded masque from his beardless face, turns his gaze to the great +volcano, lifting its snows into the cinnabar sky where the dawn of Nippon +begins to smile. + +"Nay! he has already seen the gold-spattered day star, gloriously +illuminating the morning of disaster, rise, a blinding disk, above the +seas. And to shade his eyes, on both of which not even a single eyelash +stirs, he opens with one quick movement his iron fan, wherein upon a field +of white satin there rises a crimson sun." + +Of course this hasty translation is very poor; and you can only get from +it the signification and colour of the picture--the beautiful sonority and +luminosity of the French is all gone. Nevertheless, I am sure that the +more you study the original the more you will see how fine it is. Here +also is a Japanese colour print. We see the figure of the horseman on the +shore, in the light of dawn; behind him the still dark sky of night; +before him the crimson dawn, and Fuji white against the red sky. And in +the open fan, with its red sun, we have a grim suggestion of the day of +blood that is about to be; that is all. But whoever reads that sonnet will +never forget it; it burns into the memory. So, indeed, does everything +that Heredia writes. Unfortunately he has not yet written anything more +about Japan. + +I have quoted Heredia because I think that no other poet has even +approached him in the attempt to make a Japanese picture--though many +others have tried; and the French, nearly always, have done much better +than the English, because they are more naturally artists. Indeed one must +be something of an artist to write anything in the way of good poetry on a +Japanese subject. If you look at the collection "Poems of Places," in the +library, you will see how poorly Japan is there represented; the only +respectable piece of foreign work being by Longfellow, and that is only +about Japanese vases. But since then some English poems have appeared +which are at least worthy of Japanese notice. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE + + +It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to +Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it will +have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the written and spoken +language of the English race. For this reason, to study English literature +without some general knowledge of the relation of the Bible to that +literature would be to leave one's literary education very incomplete. It +is not necessary to consider the work from a religious point of view at +all; indeed, to so consider it would be rather a hindrance to the +understanding of its literary excellence. Some persons have ventured to +say that it is only since Englishmen ceased to believe in the Bible that +they began to discover how beautiful it was. This is not altogether true; +but it is partly true. For it is one thing to consider every word of a +book as the word of God or gods, and another thing to consider it simply +as the work of men like ourselves. Naturally we should think it our duty +to suppose the work of a divine being perfect in itself, and to imagine +beauty and truth where neither really exists. The wonder of the English +Bible can really be best appreciated by those who, knowing it to be the +work of men much less educated and cultivated than the scholars of the +nineteenth century, nevertheless perceive that those men were able to do +in literature what no man of our own day could possibly do. + +Of course in considering the work of the translators, we must remember the +magnificence of the original. I should not like to say that the Bible is +the greatest of all religious books. From the moral point of view it +contains very much that we can not to-day approve of; and what is good in +it can be found in the sacred books of other nations. Its ethics can not +even claim to be absolutely original. The ancient Egyptian scriptures +contain beauties almost superior in moral exaltation to anything contained +in the Old Testament; and the sacred books of other Eastern nations, +notably the sacred books of India, surpass the Hebrew scriptures in the +highest qualities of imagination and of profound thought. It is only of +late years that Europe, through the labour of Sanskrit and Pali scholars, +has become acquainted with the astonishing beauty of thought and feeling +which Indian scholars enshrined in scriptures much more voluminous than +the Hebrew Bible; and it is not impossible that this far-off literature +will some day influence European thought quite as much as the Jewish +Bible. Everywhere to-day in Europe and America the study of Buddhist and +Sanskrit literature is being pursued not only with eagerness but with +enthusiasm--an enthusiasm which sometimes reaches to curious extremes. I +might mention, in example, the case of a rich man who recently visited +Japan on his way from India. He had in New Zealand a valuable property; he +was a man of high culture, and of considerable social influence. One day +he happened to read an English translation of the "Bhagavad-Gita." Almost +immediately he resolved to devote the rest of his life to religious study +in India, in a monastery among the mountains; and he gave up wealth, +friends, society, everything that Western civilization could offer him, in +order to seek truth in a strange country. Certainly this is not the only +instance of the kind; and while such incidents can happen, we may feel +sure that the influence of religious literature is not likely to die for +centuries to come. + +But every great scripture, whether Hebrew, Indian, Persian, or Chinese, +apart from its religious value will be found to have some rare and special +beauty of its own; and in this respect the original Bible stands very high +as a monument of sublime poetry and of artistic prose. If it is not the +greatest of religious books as a literary creation, it is at all events +one of the greatest; and the proof is to be found in the inspiration which +millions and hundreds of millions, dead and living, have obtained from its +utterances. The Semitic races have always possessed in a very high degree +the genius of poetry, especially poetry in which imagination plays a great +part; and the Bible is the monument of Semitic genius in this regard. +Something in the serious, stern, and reverential spirit of the genius +referred to made a particular appeal to Western races having certain +characteristics of the same kind. Themselves uncultivated in the time that +the Bible was first made known to them, they found in it almost everything +that they thought and felt, expressed in a much better way than they could +have expressed it. Accordingly the Northern races of Europe found their +inspiration in the Bible; and the enthusiasm for it has not yet quite +faded away. + +But the value of the original, be it observed, did not make the value of +the English Bible. Certainly it was an inspiring force; but it was nothing +more. The English Bible is perhaps a much greater piece of fine +literature, altogether considered, than the Hebrew Bible. It was so for a +particular reason which it is very necessary for the student to +understand. The English Bible is a product of literary evolution. + +In studying English criticisms upon different authors, I think that you +must have sometimes felt impatient with the critics who told you, for +example, that Tennyson was partly inspired by Wordsworth and partly by +Keats and partly by Coleridge; and that Coleridge was partly inspired by +Blake and Blake by the Elizabethans, and so on. You may have been tempted +to say, as I used very often myself to say, "What does it matter where the +man got his ideas from? I care only for the beauty that is in his work, +not for a history of his literary education." But to-day the value of the +study of such relations appears in quite a new light. Evolutional +philosophy, applied to the study of literature as to everything else, has +shown us conclusively that man is not a god who can make something out of +nothing, and that every great work of genius must depend even less upon +the man of genius himself than upon the labours of those who lived before +him. Every great author must draw his thoughts and his knowledge in part +from other great authors, and these again from previous authors, and so on +back, till we come to that far time in which there was no written +literature, but only verses learned by heart and memorized by all the +people of some one tribe or place, and taught by them to their children +and to their grandchildren. It is only in Greek mythology that the +divinity of Wisdom leaps out of a god's head, in full armour. In the world +of reality the more beautiful a work of art, the longer, we may be sure, +was the time required to make it, and the greater the number of different +minds which assisted in its development. + +So with the English Bible. No one man could have made the translation of +1611. No one generation of men could have done it. It was not the labour +of a single century. It represented the work of hundreds of translators +working through hundreds of years, each succeeding generation improving a +little upon the work of the previous generation, until in the seventeenth +century the best had been done of which the English brain and the English +language was capable. In no other way can the surprising beauties of style +and expression be explained. No subsequent effort could improve the Bible +of King James. Every attempt made since the seventeenth century has only +resulted in spoiling and deforming the strength and the beauty of the +authorized text. + +Now you will understand why, from the purely literary point of view, the +English Bible is of the utmost importance for study. Suppose we glance for +a moment at the principal events in the history of this evolution. + +The first translation of the Bible into a Western tongue was that made by +Jerome (commonly called Saint Jerome) in the fourth century; he translated +directly from the Hebrew and other Arabic languages into Latin, then the +language of the Empire. This translation into Latin was called the +Vulgate,--from _vulgare_, "to make generally known." The Vulgate is still +used in the Roman church. The first English translations which have been +preserved to us were made from the Vulgate, not from the original tongues. +First of all, John Wycliffe's Bible may be called the foundation of the +seventeenth century Bible. Wycliffe's translation, in which he was helped +by many others, was published between 1380 and 1388. So we may say that +the foundation of the English Bible dates from the fourteenth century, one +thousand years after Jerome's Latin translation. But Wycliffe's version, +excellent as it was, could not serve very long: the English language was +changing too quickly. Accordingly, in the time of Henry VIII Tyndale and +Coverdale, with many others, made a new translation, this time not from +the Vulgate, but from the Greek text of the great scholar Erasmus. This +was the most important literary event of the time, for "it coloured the +entire complexion of subsequent English prose,"--to use the words of +Professor Gosse. This means that all prose in English written since Henry +VIII has been influenced, directly or indirectly, by the prose of +Tyndale's Bible, which was completed about 1535. Almost at the same time a +number of English divines, under the superintendence of Archbishop +Cramner, gave to the English language a literary treasure scarcely +inferior to the Bible itself, and containing wonderful translations from +the Scriptures,--the "Book of Common Prayer." No English surpasses the +English of this book, still used by the Church; and many translators have +since found new inspiration from it. + +A revision of this famous Bible was made in 1565, entitled "The Bishops' +Bible." The cause of the revision was largely doctrinal, and we need not +trouble ourselves about this translation farther than to remark that +Protestantism was reshaping the Scriptures to suit the new state religion. +Perhaps this edition may have had something to do with the determination +of the Roman Catholics to make an English Bible of their own. The Jesuits +began the work in 1582 at Rheims, and by 1610 the Roman Catholic version +known as the Douay (or Douai) version--because of its having been made +chiefly at the Catholic College of Douai in France--was completed. This +version has many merits; next to the wonderful King James version, it is +certainly the most poetical; and it has the further advantage of including +a number of books which Protestantism has thrown out of the authorized +version, but which have been used in the Roman church since its +foundation. But I am speaking of the book only as a literary English +production. It was not made with the help of original sources; its merits +are simply those of a melodious translation from the Latin Vulgate. + +At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous +King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English +language. It was the work of many learned men; but the chief worker and +supervisor was the Bishop of Winchester, Lancelot Andrews, perhaps the +most eloquent English preacher that ever lived. He was a natural-born +orator, with an exquisite ear for the cadences of language. To this +natural faculty of the Bishop's can be attributed much of the musical +charm of the English in which the Bible was written. Still, it must not be +supposed that he himself did all the work, or even more than a small +proportion of it. What he did was to tone it; he overlooked and corrected +all the text submitted to him, and suffered only the best forms to +survive. Yet what magnificent material he had to choose from! All the +translations of the Bible that had been made before his time were +carefully studied with a view to the conservation of the best phrases, +both for sound and for form. We must consider the result not merely as a +study of literature in itself, but also as a study of eloquence; for every +attention was given to those effects to be expected from an oratorical +recitation of the text in public. + +This marks the end of the literary evolution of the Bible. Everything that +has since been done has only been in the direction of retrogression, of +injury to the text. We have now a great many later versions, much more +scholarly, so far as correct scholarship is concerned, than the King James +version, but none having any claim to literary importance. Unfortunately, +exact scholars are very seldom men of literary ability; the two faculties +are rarely united. The Bible of 1870, known as the Oxford Bible, and now +used in the Anglican state-church, evoked a great protest from the true +men of letters, the poets and critics who had found their inspirations in +the useful study of the old version. The new version was the work of +fourteen years; it was made by the united labour of the greatest scholars +in the English-speaking world; and it is far the most exact translation +that we have. Nevertheless the literary quality has been injured to such +an extent that no one will ever turn to the new revision for poetical +study. Even among the churches there was a decided condemnation of this +scholarly treatment of the old text; and many of the churches refused to +use the book. In this case, conservatism is doing the literary world a +service, keeping the old King James version in circulation, and insisting +especially upon its use in Sunday schools. + +We may now take a few examples of the differences between the revised +version and the Bible of King James. Professor Saintsbury, in an essay +upon English prose, published some years ago, said that the most perfect +piece of English prose in the language was that comprised in the sixth and +seventh verses of the eighth chapter of the Song of Songs: + + Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine + arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave; + the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement + flame. + + Many waters can not quench love, neither can the floods drown it: + if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it + would utterly be condemned. + +I should not like to say that the Professor is certainly right in calling +this the finest prose in the English language; but he is a very great +critic, whose opinion must be respected and considered, and the passage is +certainly very fine. But in the revised version, how tame the same text +has become in the hands of the scholarly translators! + + The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very flame of the Lord. + +Now as a description of jealousy, not to speak of the literary execution +at all, which is the best? What, we may ask, has been gained by calling +jealousy "a flame of the Lord" or by substituting the word "flashes" for +"coals of fire"? All through the new version are things of this kind. For +example, in the same Song of Songs there is a beautiful description of +eyes, like "doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly +set." By substituting "rivers" only for "rivers of waters" the text may +have gained in exactness, but it has lost immeasurably, both in poetry and +in sound. Far more poetical is the verse as given in the Douai version: +"His eyes are as doves upon brooks of waters, which are washed with milk, +and sit beside the beautiful streams." + +It may even be said without any question that the mistakes of the old +translators were often much more beautiful than the original. A splendid +example is given in the verse of Job, chapter twenty-six, verse thirteen: +"By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the +crooked serpent." By the crooked serpent was supposed to be signified the +grand constellation called _Draco_, or the Dragon. And the figure is +sublime. It is still more sublime in the Douai translation. "His obstetric +hand hath brought forth the Winding Serpent." This is certainly a grand +imagination--the hand of God, like the hand of a midwife, bringing forth a +constellation out of the womb of the eternal night. But in the revised +version, which is exact, we have only "His hand hath pierced the Swift +Serpent!" All the poetry is dead. + +There are two methods for the literary study of any book--the first being +the study of its thought and emotion; the second only that of its +workmanship. A student of literature should study some of the Bible from +both points of view. In attempting the former method he will do well to +consider many works of criticism, but for the study of the text as +literature, his duty is very plain--the King James version is the only one +that ought to form the basis of his study, though he should look at the +Douai version occasionally. Also he should have a book of references, such +as Cruden's Concordance, by help of which he can collect together in a few +moments all the texts upon any particular subject, such as the sea, the +wind, the sky, human life, the shadows of evening. The study of the Bible +is not one which I should recommend to very young Japanese students, +because of the quaintness of the English. Before a good knowledge of +English forms is obtained, the archaisms are apt to affect the students' +mode of expression. But for the advanced student of literature, I should +say that some knowledge of the finest books in the Bible is simply +indispensable. The important books to read are not many. But one should +read at least the books of Genesis, Exodus, Ruth, Esther, the Song of +Songs, Proverbs,--and, above all, Job. Job is certainly the grandest book +in the Bible; but all of those which I have named are books that have +inspired poets and writers in all departments of English literature to +such an extent that you can scarcely read a masterpiece in which there is +not some conscious or unconscious reference to them. Another book of +philosophical importance is Ecclesiastes, where, in addition to much +proverbial wisdom, you will find some admirable world-poetry--that is, +poetry which contains universal truth about human life in all times and +all ages. Of the historical books and the law books I do not think that it +is important to read much; the literary element in these is not so +pronounced. It is otherwise with the prophetic books, but here in order to +obtain a few jewels of expression, you have to read a great deal that is +of little value. Of the New Testament there is very little equal to the +Old in literary value; indeed, I should recommend the reading only of the +closing book--the book called the Revelation, or the Apocalypse, from +which we have derived a literary adjective "apocalyptic," to describe +something at once very terrible and very grand. Whether one understands +the meaning of this mysterious text makes very little difference; the +sonority and the beauty of its sentences, together with the tremendous +character of its imagery, can not but powerfully influence mind and ear, +and thus stimulate literary taste. At least two of the great prose writers +of the nineteenth century, Carlyle and Ruskin, have been vividly +influenced by the book of the Revelation. Every period of English +literature shows some influence of Bible study, even from the old +Anglo-Saxon days; and during the present year, the study has so little +slackened that one constantly sees announcements of new works upon the +literary elements of the Bible. Perhaps one of the best is Professor +Moulton's "Modern Reader's Bible," in which the literary side of the +subject receives better consideration than in any other work of the kind +published for general use. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE "HAVAMAL" + +OLD NORTHERN ETHICS OF LIFE + + Then from his lips in music rolled + The Havamal of Odin old, + With sounds mysterious as the roar + Of billows on a distant shore. + + +Perhaps many of you who read this little verse in Longfellow's "Saga of +King Olaf" have wished to know what was this wonderful song that the ghost +of the god sang to the king. I am afraid that you would be very +disappointed in some respects by the "Havamal." There is indeed a magical +song in it; and it is this magical song especially that Longfellow refers +to, a song of charms. But most of the "Havamal" is a collection of ethical +teaching. All that has been preserved by it has been published and +translated by Professors Vigfusson and Powell. It is very old--perhaps the +oldest Northern literature that we have. I am going to attempt a short +lecture upon it, because it is very closely related to the subject of +Northern character, and will help us, perhaps better than almost anything +else, to understand how the ancestors of the English felt and thought +before they became Christians. Nor is this all. I venture to say that the +character of the modern English people still retains much more of the +quality indicated by the "Havamal" than of the quality implied by +Christianity. The old Northern gods are not dead; they rule a very great +part of the world to-day. + +The proverbial philosophy of a people helps us to understand more about +them than any other kind of literature. And this sort of literature is +certainly among the oldest. It represents only the result of human +experience in society, the wisdom that men get by contact with each other, +the results of familiarity with right and wrong. By studying the proverbs +of a people, you can always make a very good guess as to whether you could +live comfortably among them or not. + +Froude, in one of his sketches of travel in Norway, made the excellent +observation that if we could suddenly go back to the time of the terrible +sea-kings, if we could revisit to-day the homes of the old Northern +pirates, and find them exactly as they were one thousand or fifteen +hundred years ago, we should find them very much like the modern +Englishmen--big, simple, silent men, concealing a great deal of shrewdness +under an aspect of simplicity. The teachings of the "Havamal" give great +force to this supposition. The book must have been known in some form to +the early English--or at least the verses composing it (it is all written +in verse); and as I have already said, the morals of the old English, as +well as their character, differed very little from those of the men of the +still further North, with whom they mingled and intermarried freely, both +before and after the Danish conquest, when for one moment England and +Sweden were one kingdom. + +Of course you must remember that Northern society was a very terrible +thing in some ways. Every man carried his life in his hands; every farmer +kept sword and spear at his side even in his own fields; and every man +expected to die fighting. In fact, among the men of the more savage +North--the men of Norway in especial--it was considered a great disgrace +to die of sickness, to die on one's bed. That was not to die like a man. +Men would go out and get themselves killed, when they felt old age or +sickness coming on. But these facts must not blind us to the other fact +that there was even in that society a great force of moral cohesion, and +sound principles of morality. If there had not been, it could not have +existed; much less could the people who lived under it have become the +masters of a great part of the world, which they are at the present day. +There was, in spite of all that fierceness, much kindness and good nature +among them; there were rules of conduct such as no man could find fault +with--rules which still govern English society to some extent. And there +was opportunity enough for social amusement, social enjoyment, and the +winning of public esteem by a noble life. + +Still, even in the "Havamal," one is occasionally startled by teachings +which show the darker side of Northern life, a life of perpetual vendetta. +As in old Japan, no man could live under the same heaven with the murderer +of his brother or father; vengeance was a duty even in the case of a +friend. On the subject of enemies the "Havamal" gives not a little curious +advice: + + A man should never step a foot beyond his weapons; for he can + never tell where, on his path without, he may need his spear. + + A man, before he goes into a house, should look to and espy all + the doorways (_so that he can find his way out quickly again_), + for he can never know where foes may be sitting in another man's + house. + +Does not this remind us of the Japanese proverb that everybody has three +enemies outside of his own door? But the meaning of the "Havamal" teaching +is much more sinister. And when the man goes into the house, he is still +told to be extremely watchful--to keep his ears and eyes open so that he +may not be taken by surprise: + + The wary guest keeps watchful silence; he listens with his ears + and peers about with his eyes; thus does every wise man look about + him. + +One would think that men must have had very strong nerves to take comfort +under such circumstances, but the poet tells us that the man who can enjoy +nothing must be both a coward and a fool. Although a man was to keep watch +to protect his life, that was not a reason why he should be afraid of +losing it. There were but three things of which a man should be +particularly afraid. The first was drink--because drink often caused a man +to lose control of his temper; the second was another man's +wife--repeatedly the reader is warned never to make love to another man's +wife; and the third was thieves--men who would pretend friendship for the +purpose of killing and stealing, The man who could keep constant watch +over himself and his surroundings was, of course, likely to have the +longest life. + +Now in all countries there is a great deal of ethical teaching, and always +has been, on the subject of speech. The "Havamal" is full of teaching on +this subject--the necessity of silence, the danger and the folly of +reckless talk. You all know the Japanese proverb that "the mouth is the +front gate of all misfortune." The Norse poet puts the same truth into a +grimmer shape: "The tongue works death to the head." Here are a number of +sayings on this subject: + + He that is never silent talks much folly; a glib tongue, unless it + be bridled, will often talk a man into trouble. + + Do not speak three angry words with a worse man; for often the + better man falls by the worse man's sword. + + Smile thou in the face of the man thou trusteth not, and speak + against thy mind. + +This is of course a teaching of cunning; but it is the teaching, however +immoral, that rules in English society to-day. In the old Norse, however, +there were many reasons for avoiding a quarrel whenever possible--reasons +which must have existed also in feudal Japan. A man might not care about +losing his own life; but he had to be careful not to stir up a feud that +might go on for a hundred years. Although there was a great deal of +killing, killing always remained a serious matter, because for every +killing there had to be a vengeance. It is true that the law exonerated +the man who killed another, if he paid a certain blood-price; murder was +not legally considered an unpardonable crime. But the family of the dead +man would very seldom be satisfied with a payment; they would want blood +for blood. Accordingly men had to be very cautious about quarreling, +however brave they might personally be. + +But all this caution about silence and about watchfulness did not mean +that a man should be unable to speak to the purpose when speech was +required. "A wise man," says the "Havamal," "should be able both to ask +and to answer." There is a proverb which you know, to the effect that you +can not shut the door upon another man's mouth. So says the Norse poet: +"The sons of men can keep silence about nothing that passes among men; +therefore a man should be able to take his own part, prudently and +strongly." Says the "Havamal": "A fool thinks he knows everything if he +sits snug in his little corner; but he is at a loss for words if the +people put to him a question." Elsewhere it is said: "Arch dunce is he who +can speak nought, for that is the mark of a fool." And the sum of all this +teaching about the tongue is that men should never speak without good +reason, and then should speak to the point strongly and wisely. + +On the subject of fools there is a great deal in the "Havamal"; but you +must understand always by the word fool, in the Northern sense, a man of +weak character who knows not what to do in time of difficulty. That was a +fool among those men, and a dangerous fool; for in such a state of society +mistakes in act or in speech might reach to terrible consequences. See +these little observations about fools: + + Open-handed, bold-hearted men live most happily, they never feel + care; but a fool troubles himself about everything. The niggard + pines for gifts. + + A fool is awake all night, worrying about everything; when the + morning comes he is worn out, and all his troubles are just the + same as before. + + A fool thinks that all who smile upon him are his friends, not + knowing, when he is with wise men, who there may be plotting + against him. + + If a fool gets a drink, all his mind is immediately displayed. + +But it was not considered right for a man not to drink, although drink was +a dangerous thing. On the contrary, not to drink would have been thought a +mark of cowardice and of incapacity for self-control. A man was expected +even to get drunk if necessary, and to keep his tongue and his temper no +matter how much he drank. The strong character would only become more +cautious and more silent under the influence of drink; the weak man would +immediately show his weakness. I am told the curious fact that in the +English army at the present day officers are expected to act very much +after the teaching of the old Norse poet; a man is expected to be able on +occasion to drink a considerable amount of wine or spirits without showing +the effects of it, either in his conduct or in his speech. "Drink thy +share of mead; speak fair or not at all"--that was the old text, and a +very sensible one in its way. + +Laughter was also condemned, if indulged in without very good cause. "The +miserable man whose mind is warped laughs at everything, not knowing what +he ought to know, that he himself has no lack of faults." I need scarcely +tell you that the English are still a very serious people, not disposed to +laugh nearly so much as are the men of the more sympathetic Latin races. +You will remember perhaps Lord Chesterfield's saying that since he became +a man no man had ever seen him laugh. I remember about twenty years ago +that there was published by some Englishman a very learned and very +interesting little book, called "The Philosophy of Laughter," in which it +was gravely asserted that all laughter was foolish. I must acknowledge, +however, that no book ever made me laugh more than the volume in question. + +The great virtue of the men of the North, according to the "Havamal," was +indeed the virtue which has given to the English race its present great +position among nations,--the simplest of all virtues, common sense. But +common sense means much more than the words might imply to the Japanese +students, or to any one unfamiliar with English idioms. Common sense, or +mother-wit, means natural intelligence, as opposed to, and independent of, +cultivated or educated intelligence. It means inherited knowledge; and +inherited knowledge may take even the form of genius. It means foresight. +It means intuitive knowledge of other people's character. It means cunning +as well as broad comprehension. And the modern Englishman, in all times +and in all countries, trusts especially to this faculty, which is very +largely developed in the race to which he belongs. No Englishman believes +in working from book learning. He suspects all theories, philosophical or +other. He suspects everything new, and dislikes it, unless he can be +compelled by the force of circumstances to see that this new thing has +advantages over the old. Race-experience is what he invariably depends +upon, whenever he can, whether in India, in Egypt, or in Australia. His +statesmen do not consult historical precedents in order to decide what to +do: they first learn the facts as they are; then they depend upon their +own common sense, not at all upon their university learning or upon +philosophical theories. And in the case of the English nation, it must be +acknowledged that this instinctive method has been eminently successful. +When the "Havamal" speaks of wisdom it means mother-wit, and nothing else; +indeed, there was no reading or writing to speak of in those times: + + No man can carry better baggage on his journey than wisdom. + + There is no better friend than great common sense. + +But the wise man should not show himself to be wise without occasion. He +should remember that the majority of men are not wise, and he should be +careful not to show his superiority over them unnecessarily. Neither +should be despise men who do not happen to be as wise as himself: + + No man is so good but there is a flaw in him, nor so bad as to be + good for nothing. + + Middling wise should every man be; never overwise. Those who know + many things rarely lead the happiest life. + + Middling wise should every man be; never overwise. No man should + know his fate beforehand; so shall he live freest from care. + + Middling wise should every man be, never too wise. A wise man's + heart is seldom glad, if its owner be a true sage. + +This is the ancient wisdom also of Solomon "He that increases wisdom +increases sorrow." But how very true as worldly wisdom these little +Northern sentences are. That a man who knows a little of many things, and +no one thing perfectly, is the happiest man--this certainly is even more +true to-day than it was a thousand years ago. Spencer has well observed +that the man who can influence his generation, is never the man greatly in +advance of his time, but only the man who is very slightly better than his +fellows. The man who is very superior is likely to be ignored or disliked. +Mediocrity can not help disliking superiority; and as the old Northern +sage declared, "the average of men is but moiety." Moiety does not mean +necessarily mediocrity, but also that which is below mediocrity. What we +call in England to-day, as Matthew Arnold called it, the Philistine +element, continues to prove in our own time, to almost every superior man, +the danger of being too wise. + +Interesting in another way, and altogether more agreeable, are the old +sayings about friendship: "Know this, if thou hast a trusty friend, go and +see him often; because a road which is seldom trod gets choked with +brambles and high grass." + + Be not thou the first to break off from thy friend. Sorrow will + eat thy heart if thou lackest the friend to open thy heart to. + + Anything is better than to be false; he is no friend who + only speaks to please. + +Which means, of course, that a true friend is not afraid to find fault +with his friend's course; indeed, that is his solemn duty. But these +teachings about friendship are accompanied with many cautions; for one +must be very careful in the making friends. The ancient Greeks had a +terrible proverb: "Treat your friend as if he should become some day your +enemy; and treat your enemy as if he might some day become your friend." +This proverb seems to me to indicate a certain amount of doubt in human +nature. We do not find this doubt in the Norse teaching, but on the +contrary, some very excellent advice. The first thing to remember is that +friendship is sacred: "He that opens his heart to another mixes blood with +him." Therefore one should be very careful either about forming or about +breaking a friendship. + + A man should be a friend to his friend's friend. But no man should + be a friend of his friend's foe, nor of his foe's friend. + + A man should be a friend with his friend, and pay back gift with + gift; give back laughter for laughter (to his enemies), and lesing + for lies. + + Give and give back makes the longest friend. Give not overmuch at + one time. Gift always looks for return. + +The poet also tells us how trifling gifts are quite sufficient to make +friends and to keep them, if wisely given. A costly gift may seem like a +bribe; a little gift is only the sign of kindly feeling. And as a mere +matter of justice, a costly gift may be unkind, for it puts the friend +under an obligation which he may not be rich enough to repay. Repeatedly +we are told also that too much should not be expected of friendship. The +value of a friend is his affection, his sympathy; but favours that cost +must always be returned. + + I never met a man so open-hearted and free with his food, but that + boon was boon to him--nor so generous as not to look for return if + he had a chance. + +Emerson says almost precisely the same thing in his essay on +friendship--showing how little human wisdom has changed in all the +centuries. Here is another good bit of advice concerning visits: + + It is far away to an ill friend, even though he live on one's + road; but to a good friend there is a short cut, even though he + live far out. + + Go on, be not a guest ever in the same house. The welcome becomes + wearisome if he sits too long at another's table. + +This means that we must not impose on our friends; but there is a further +caution on the subject of eating at a friend's house. You must not go to +your friend's house hungry, when you can help it. + + A man should take his meal betimes, before he goes to his + neighbour--or he will sit and seem hungered like one starving, and + have no power to talk. + +That is the main point to remember in dining at another's house, that you +are not there only for your own pleasure, but for that of other people. +You are expected to talk; and you can not talk if you are very hungry. At +this very day a gentleman makes it the rule to do the same thing. +Accordingly we see that these rough men of the North must have had a good +deal of social refinement--refinement not of dress or of speech, but of +feeling. Still, says the poet, one's own home is the best, though it be +but a cottage. "A man is a man in his own house." + +Now we come to some sentences teaching caution, which are noteworthy in a +certain way: + + Tell one man thy secret, but not two. What three men know, all the + world knows. + + Never let a bad man know thy mishaps; for from a bad man thou + shalt never get reward for thy sincerity. + +I shall presently give you some modern examples in regard to the advice +concerning bad men. Another thing to be cautious about is praise. If you +have to be careful about blame, you must be very cautious also about +praise. + + Praise the day at even-tide; a woman at her burying; a sword when + it has been tried; a maid when she is married; ice when + you have crossed over it; ale when it is drunk. + +If there is anything noteworthy in English character to-day it is the +exemplification of this very kind of teaching. This is essentially +Northern. The last people from whom praise can be expected, even for what +is worthy of all praise, are the English. A new friendship, a new ideal, a +reform, a noble action, a wonderful poet, an exquisite painting--any of +these things will be admired and praised by every other people in Europe +long before you can get Englishmen to praise. The Englishman all this time +is studying, considering, trying to find fault. Why should he try to find +fault? So that he will not make any mistakes at a later day. He has +inherited the terrible caution of his ancestors in regard to mistakes. It +must be granted that his caution has saved him from a number of very +serious mistakes that other nations have made. It must also be +acknowledged that he exercises a fair amount of moderation in the opposite +direction--this modern Englishman; he has learned caution of another kind, +which his ancestors taught him. "Power," says the "Havamal," "should be +used with moderation; for whoever finds himself among valiant men will +discover that no man is peerless." And this is a very important thing for +the strong man to know--that however strong, he can not be the strongest; +his match will be found when occasion demands it. Not only Scandinavian +but English rulers have often discovered this fact to their cost. Another +matter to be very anxious about is public opinion. + + Chattels die; kinsmen pass away; one dies oneself; but I know + something that never dies--the name of the man, for good or bad. + +Do not think that this means anything religious. It means only that the +reputation of a man goes to influence the good or ill fortune of his +descendants. It is something to be proud of, to be the son of a good man; +it helps to success in life. On the other hand, to have had a father of +ill reputation is a very serious obstacle to success of any kind in +countries where the influence of heredity is strongly recognized. + +I have nearly exhausted the examples of this Northern wisdom which I +selected for you; but there are two subjects which remain to be +considered. One is the law of conduct in regard to misfortune; and the +other is the rule of conduct in regard to women. A man was expected to +keep up a brave heart under any circumstances. These old Northmen seldom +committed suicide; and I must tell you that all the talk about +Christianity having checked the practice of suicide to some extent, can +not be fairly accepted as truth. In modern England to-day the suicides +average nearly three thousand a year; but making allowance for +extraordinary circumstances, it is certainly true that the Northern races +consider suicide in an entirely different way from what the Latin races +do. There was very little suicide among the men of the North, because +every man considered it his duty to get killed, not to kill himself; and +to kill himself would have seemed cowardly, as implying fear of being +killed by others. In modern ethical training, quite apart from religious +considerations a man is taught that suicide is only excusable in case of +shame, or under such exceptional circumstances as have occurred in the +history of the Indian mutiny. At all events, we have the feeling still +strongly manifested in England that suicide is not quite manly; and this +is certainly due much more to ancestral habits of thinking, which date +back to pagan days, than to Christian doctrine. As I have said, the pagan +English would not commit suicide to escape mere pain. But the Northern +people knew how to die to escape shame. There is an awful story in Roman +history about the wives and daughters of the conquered German tribes, +thousands in number, asking to be promised that their virtue should be +respected, and all killing themselves when the Roman general refused the +request. No Southern people of Europe in that time would have shown such +heroism upon such a matter. Leaving honour aside, however, the old book +tells us that a man should never despair. + + Fire, the sight of the sun, good health, and a blameless + life these are the goodliest things in this world. + + Yet a man is not utterly wretched, though he have bad health, or + be maimed. + + The halt may ride a horse; the handless may drive a herd; the deaf + can fight and do well; better be blind than buried. A corpse is + good for naught. + +On the subject of women there is not very much in the book beyond the +usual caution in regard to wicked women; but there is this little +observation: + + Never blame a woman for what is all man's weakness. Hues charming + and fair may move the wise and not the dullard. Mighty love turns + the son of men from wise to fool. + +This is shrewd, and it contains a very remarkable bit of esthetic truth, +that it requires a wise man to see certain kinds of beauty, which a stupid +man could never be made to understand. And, leaving aside the subject of +love, what very good advice it is never to laugh at a person for what can +be considered a common failure. In the same way an intelligent man should +learn to be patient with the unintelligent, as the same poem elsewhere +insists. + +Now what is the general result of this little study, the general +impression that it leaves upon the mind? Certainly we feel that the life +reflected in these sentences was a life in which caution was above all +things necessary--caution in thought and speech and act, never ceasing, by +night or day, during the whole of a man's life. Caution implies +moderation. Moderation inevitably develops a certain habit of justice--a +justice that might not extend outside of the race, but a justice that +would be exercised between man and man of the same blood. Very much of +English character and of English history is explained by the life that the +"Havamal" portrays. Very much that is good; also very much that is +bad--not bad in one sense, so far as the future of the race is concerned, +but in a social way certainly not good. The judgment of the Englishman by +all other European peoples is that he is the most suspicious, the most +reserved, the most unreceptive, the most unfriendly, the coldest hearted, +and the most domineering of all Western peoples. Ask a Frenchman, an +Italian, a German, a Spaniard, even an American, what he thinks about +Englishmen; and every one of them will tell you the very same thing. This +is precisely what the character of men would become who had lived for +thousands of years in the conditions of Northern society. But you would +find upon the other hand that nearly all nations would speak highly of +certain other English qualities--energy, courage, honour, justice (between +themselves). They would say that although no man is so difficult to make +friends with, the friendship of an Englishman once gained is more strong +and true than any other. And as the battle of life still continues, and +must continue for thousands of years to come, it must be acknowledged that +the English character is especially well fitted for the struggle. Its +reserves, its cautions, its doubts, its suspicions, its brutality--these +have been for it in the past, and are still in the present, the best +social armour and panoply of war. It is not a lovable nor an amiable +character; it is not even kindly. The Englishman of the best type is much +more inclined to be just than he is to be kind, for kindness is an +emotional impulse, and the Englishman is on his guard against every kind +of emotional impulse. But with all this, the character is a grand one, and +its success has been the best proof of its value. + +Now you will have observed in the reading of this ancient code of social +morals that, while none of the teaching is religious, some of it is +absolutely immoral from any religious standpoint. No great religion +permits us to speak what is not true, and to smile in the face of an enemy +while pretending to be his friend. No religion teaches that we should "pay +back lesing for lies." Neither does a religion tell us that we should +expect a return for every kindness done; that we should regard friendship +as being actuated by selfish motives; that we should never praise when +praise seems to be deserved. In fact, when Sir Walter Scott long ago made +a partial translation of the "Havamal," he thought himself obliged to +leave out a number of sentences which seemed to him highly immoral, and to +apologize for others. He thought that they would shock English readers too +much. + +We are not quite so squeamish to-day; and a thinker of our own time would +scarcely deny that English society is very largely governed at this moment +by the same kind of rules that Sir Walter Scott thought to be so bad. But +here we need not condemn English society in particular. All European +society has been for hundreds of years conducting itself upon very much +the same principles; for the reason that human social experience has been +the same in all Western countries. I should say that the only difference +between English society and other societies is that the hardness of +character is very much greater. Let us go back even to the most Christian +times of Western societies in the most Christian country of Europe, and +observe whether the social code was then and there so very different from +the social code of the old "Havamal." Mr. Spencer observes in his "Ethics" +that, so far as the conduct of life is concerned, religion is almost +nothing and practice is everything. We find this wonderfully exemplified +in a most remarkable book of social precepts written in the seventeenth +century, in Spain, under the title of the "Oraculo Manual." It was +composed by a Spanish priest, named Baltasar Gracian, who was born in the +year 1601 and died in 1658; and it has been translated into nearly all +languages. The best English translation, published by Macmillan, is called +"The Art of Worldly Wisdom." It is even more admired to-day than in the +seventeenth century; and what it teaches as to social conduct holds as +good to-day of modern society as it did of society two hundred years ago. +It is one of the most unpleasant and yet interesting books ever +published--unpleasant because of the malicious cunning which it often +displays--interesting because of the frightful perspicacity of the author. +The man who wrote that book understood the hearts of men, especially the +bad side. He was a gentleman of high rank before he became a priest, and +his instinctive shrewdness must have been hereditary. Religion, this man +would have said, teaches the best possible morals; but the world is not +governed by religion altogether, and to mix with it, we must act according +to its dictates. + +These dictates remind us in many ways of the cautions and the cunning of +the "Havamal." The first thing enjoined upon a man both by the Norse +writer and by the Spanish author is the art of silence. Probably this has +been the result of social experience in all countries. "Cautious silence +is the holy of holies of worldly wisdom," says Gracian. And he gives many +elaborate reasons for this statement, not the least of which is the +following: "If you do not declare yourself immediately, you arouse +expectation, especially when the importance of your position makes you the +object of general attention. Mix a little mystery with everything, and the +very mystery arouses veneration." A little further on he gives us exactly +the same advice as did the "Havamal" writer, in regard to being frank with +enemies. "Do not," he says, "show your wounded finger, for everything will +knock up against it; nor complain about it, for malice always aims where +weakness can be injured.... Never disclose the source of mortification or +of joy, if you wish the one to cease, the other to endure." About secrets +the Spaniard is quite as cautious as the Norseman. He says, "Especially +dangerous are secrets entrusted to friends. He that communicates his +secret to another makes himself that other man's slave." But after a great +many such cautions in regard to silence and secrecy, he tells us also that +we must learn how to fight with the world. You remember the advice of the +"Havamal" on this subject, how it condemns as a fool the man who can not +answer a reproach. The Spaniard is, however, much more malicious in his +suggestions. He tells as that we must "learn to know every man's +thumbscrew." I suppose you know that a thumbscrew was an instrument of +torture used in old times to force confessions from criminals. This advice +means nothing less than that we should learn how to be be able to hurt +other men's feelings, or to flatter other men's weaknesses. "First guess +every man's ruling passion, appeal to it by a word, set it in motion by +temptation, and you will infallibly give checkmate to his freedom of +will." The term "give checkmate" is taken from the game of chess, and must +here be understood as meaning to overcome, to conquer. A kindred piece of +advice is "keep a store of sarcasms, and know how to use them." Indeed he +tells us that this is the point of greatest tact in human intercourse. +"Struck by the slightest word of this kind, many fall away from the +closest intimacy with superiors or inferiors, which intimacy could not be +in the slightest shaken by a whole conspiracy of popular insinuation or +private malevolence." In other words, you can more quickly destroy a man's +friendship by one word of sarcasm than by any amount of intrigue. Does not +this read very much like sheer wickedness? Certainly it does; but the +author would have told you that you must fight the wicked with their own +weapons. In the "Havamal" you will not find anything quite so openly +wicked as that; but we must suppose that the Norsemen knew the secret, +though they might not have put it into words. As for the social teaching, +you will find it very subtly expressed even in the modern English novels +of George Meredith, who, by the way, has written a poem in praise of +sarcasm and ridicule. But let us now see what the Spanish author has to +tell us about friendship and unselfishness. + +The shrewd man knows that others when they seek him do not seek "him," but +"their advantage in him and by him." That is to say, a shrewd man does not +believe in disinterested friendship. This is much worse than anything in +the "Havamal." And it is diabolically elaborated. What are we to say about +such teaching as the following: "A wise man would rather see men needing +him than thanking him. To keep them on the threshold of hope is +diplomatic; to trust to their gratitude is boorish; hope has a good +memory, gratitude a bad one"? There is much more of this kind; but after +the assurance that only a boorish person (that is to say, an ignorant and +vulgar man) can believe in gratitude, the author's opinion of human nature +needs no further elucidation. The old Norseman would have been shocked at +such a statement. But he might have approved the following: "When you hear +anything favourable, keep a tight rein upon your credulity; if +unfavourable, give it the spur." That is to say, when you hear anything +good about another man, do not be ready to believe it; but if you hear +anything bad about him, believe as much of it as you can. + +I notice also many other points of resemblance between the Northern and +the Spanish teaching in regard to caution. The "Havamal" says that you +must not pick a quarrel with a worse man than yourself; "because the +better man often falls by the worse man's sword." The Spanish priest gives +a still shrewder reason for the same policy. "Never contend," he says, +"with a man who has nothing to lose; for thereby you enter into an unequal +conflict. The other enters without anxiety; having lost everything, +including shame, he has no further loss to fear." I think that this is an +immoral teaching, though a very prudent one; but I need scarcely to tell +you that it is still a principle in modern society not to contend with a +man who has no reputation to lose. I think it is immoral, because it is +purely selfish, and because a good man ought not to be afraid to denounce +a wrong because of making enemies. Another point, however, on which the +"Havamal" and the priest agree, is more commendable and interesting. "We +do not think much of a man who never contradicts us; that is no sign he +loves us, but rather a sign that he loves himself. Original and +out-of-the-way views are signs of superior ability." + +I should not like you to suppose, however, that the whole of the book from +which I have been quoting is of the same character as the quotations. +There is excellent advice in it; and much kindly teaching on the subject +of generous acts. It is a book both good and bad, and never stupid. The +same man who tells you that friendship is seldom unselfish, also declares +that life would be a desert without friends, and that there is no magic +like a good turn--that is, a kind act. He teaches the importance of +getting good will by honest means, although he advises us also to learn +how to injure. I am sure that nobody could read the book without benefit. +And I may close these quotations from it with the following paragraph, +which is the very best bit of counsel that could be given to a literary +student: + + Be slow and sure. Quickly done can be quickly undone. To last an + eternity requires an eternity of preparation. Only excellence + counts. Profound intelligence is the only foundation for + immortality. Worth much costs much. The precious metals are the + heaviest. + +But so far as the question of human conduct is concerned, the book of +Gracian is no more of a religious book than is the "Havamal" of the +heathen North. You would find, were such a book published to-day and +brought up to the present time by any shrewd writer, that Western morality +has not improved in the least since the time before Christianity was +established, so far as the rules of society go. Society is not, and can +not be, religious, because it is a state of continual warfare. Every +person in it has to fight, and the battle is not less cruel now because it +is not fought with swords. Indeed, I should think that the time when every +man carried his sword in society was a time when men were quite as kindly +and much more honest than they are now. The object of this little lecture +was to show you that the principles of the ancient Norse are really the +principles ruling English society to-day; but I think you will be able to +take from it a still larger meaning. It is that not only one form of +society, but all forms of society, represent the warfare of man and man. +That is why thinkers, poets, philosophers, in all ages, have tried to find +solitude, to keep out of the contest, to devote themselves only to study +of the beautiful and the true. But the prizes of life are not to be +obtained in solitude, although the prizes of thought can only there be +won. After all, whatever we may think about the cruelty and treachery of +the social world, it does great things in the end. It quickens judgment, +deepens intelligence, enforces the acquisition of self-control, creates +forms of mental and moral strength that can not fail to be sometimes of +vast importance to mankind. But if you should ask me whether it increases +human happiness, I should certainly say "no." The "Havamal" said the same +thing,--the truly wise man can not be happy. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +BEYOND MAN + + +It seems to me a lecturer's duty to speak to you about any remarkable +thought at this moment engaging the attention of Western philosophers and +men of science,--partly because any such new ideas are certain, sooner or +later, to be reflected in literature, and partly because without a +knowledge of them you might form incorrect ideas in relation to utterances +of any important philosophic character. I am not going to discourse about +Nietzsche, though the title of this lecture is taken from one of his +books; the ideas about which I am going to tell you, you will not find in +his books. It is most extraordinary, to my thinking, that these ideas +never occurred to him, for he was an eminent man of science before writing +his probably insane books. I have not the slightest sympathy with most of +his ideas; they seem to me misinterpretations of evolutional teachings; +and if not misinterpretations, they are simply undeveloped and +ill-balanced thinking. But the title of one of his books, and the idea +which he tries always unsuccessfully to explain,--that of a state above +mankind, a moral condition "beyond man," as he calls it,--that is worth +talking about. It is not nonsense at all, but fact, and I think that I can +give you a correct idea of the realities in the case. Leaving Nietzsche +entirely alone, then, let us ask if it is possible to suppose a condition +of human existence above morality,--that is to say, more moral than the +most moral ideal which a human brain can conceive? We may answer, it is +quite possible, and it is not only possible, but it has actually been +predicted by many great thinkers, including Herbert Spencer. + +We have been brought up to think that there can be nothing better than +virtue, than duty, than strictly following the precepts of a good +religion. However, our ideas of goodness and of virtue necessarily imply +the existence of the opposite qualities. To do a good thing because it is +our duty to do it, implies a certain amount of resolve, a struggle against +difficulty. The virtue of honesty is a term implying the difficulty of +being perfectly honest. When we think of any virtuous or great deed, we +can not help thinking of the pain and obstacles that have to be met with +in performing that deed. All our active morality is a struggle against +immorality. And I think that, as every religion teaches, it must be +granted that no human being has a perfectly moral nature. + +Could a world exist in which the nature of all the inhabitants would be so +moral that the mere idea of what is immoral could not exist? Let me +explain my question more in detail. Imagine a society in which the idea of +dishonesty would not exist, because no person could be dishonest, a +society in which the idea of unchastity could not exist, because no person +could possibly be unchaste, a world in which no one could have any idea of +envy, ambition or anger, because such passions could not exist, a world in +which there would be no idea of duty, filial or parental, because not to +be filial, not to be loving, not to do everything which we human beings +now call duty, would be impossible. In such a world ideas of duty would be +quite useless; for every action of existence would represent the constant +and faultless performance of what we term duty. Moreover, there would be +no difficulty, no pain in such performance; it would be the constant and +unfailing pleasure of life. With us, unfortunately, what is wrong often +gives pleasure; and what is good to do, commonly causes pain. But in the +world which I am asking you to imagine there could not be any wrong, nor +any pleasure in wrong-doing; all the pleasure would be in right-doing. To +give a very simple illustration--one of the commonest and most pardonable +faults of young people is eating, drinking, or sleeping too much. But in +our imaginary world to eat or to drink or to sleep in even the least +degree more than is necessary could not be done; the constitution of the +race would not permit it. One more illustration. Our children have to be +educated carefully in regard to what is right or wrong; in the world of +which I am speaking, no time would be wasted in any such education, for +every child would be born with full knowledge of what is right and wrong. +Or to state the case in psychological language--I mean the language of +scientific, not of metaphysical, psychology--we should have a world in +which morality would have been transmuted into inherited instinct. Now +again let me put the question: can we imagine such a world? Perhaps you +will answer, Yes, in heaven--nowhere else. But I answer you that such a +world actually exists, and that it can be studied in almost any part of +the East or of Europe by a person of scientific training. The world of +insects actually furnishes examples of such a moral transformation. It is +for this reason that such writers as Sir John Lubbock and Herbert Spencer +have not hesitated to say that certain kinds of social insects have +immensely surpassed men, both in social and in ethical progress. + +But that is not all that it is necessary to say here. You might think that +I am only repeating a kind of parable. The important thing is the opinion +of scientific men that humanity will at last, in the course of millions of +years, reach the ethical conditions of the ants. It is only five or six +years ago that some of these conditions were established by scientific +evidence, and I want to speak of them. They have a direct bearing upon +important ethical questions; and they have startled the whole moral world, +and set men thinking in entirely new directions. + +In order to explain how the study of social insects has set moralists of +recent years thinking in a new direction, it will be necessary to +generalize a great deal in the course of so short a lecture. It is +especially the social conditions of the ants which has inspired these new +ideas; but you must not think that any one species of ants furnishes us +with all the facts. The facts have been arrived at only through the study +of hundreds of different kinds of ants by hundreds of scientific men; and +it is only by the consensus of their evidence that we get the ethical +picture which I shall try to outline for you. Altogether there are +probably about five thousand different species of ants, and these +different species represent many different stages of social evolution, +from the most primitive and savage up to the most highly civilized and +moral. The details of the following picture are furnished by a number of +the highest species only; that must not be forgotten. Also, I must remind +you that the morality of the ant, by the necessity of circumstance, does +not extend beyond the limits of its own species. Impeccably ethical within +the community, ants carry on war outside their own borders; were it not +for this, we might call them morally perfect creatures. + +Although the mind of an ant can not be at all like to the mind of the +human being, it is so intelligent that we are justified in trying to +describe its existence by a kind of allegorical comparison with human +life. Imagine, then, a world full of women, working night and +day,--building, tunnelling, bridging,--also engaged in agriculture, in +horticulture, and in taking care of many kinds of domestic animals. (I may +remark that ants have domesticated no fewer than five hundred and +eighty-four different kinds of creatures.) This world of women is +scrupulously clean; busy as they are, all of them carry combs and brushes +about them, and arrange themselves several times a day. In addition to +this constant work, these women have to take care of myriads of +children,--children so delicate that the slightest change in the weather +may kill them. So the children have to be carried constantly from one +place to another in order to keep them warm. + +Though this multitude of workers are always gathering food, no one of them +would eat or drink a single atom more than is necessary; and none of them +would sleep for one second longer than is necessary. Now comes a +surprising fact, about which a great deal must be said later on. These +women have no sex. They are women, for they sometimes actually give birth, +as virgins, to children; but they are incapable of wedlock. They are more +than vestals. Sex is practically suppressed. + +This world of workers is protected by an army of soldiers. The soldiers +are very large, very strong, and shaped so differently from the working +females that they do not seem at first to belong to the same race. They +help in the work, though they are not able to help in some delicate kinds +of work--they are too clumsy and strong. Now comes the second astonishing +fact: these soldiers are all women--amazons, we might call them; but they +are sexless women. In these also sex has been suppressed. + +You ask, where do the children come from? Most of the children are born of +special mothers--females chosen for the purpose of bearing offspring, and +not allowed to do anything else. They are treated almost like empresses, +being constantly fed and attended and served, and being lodged in the best +way possible. Only these can eat and drink at all times--they must do so +for the sake of their offspring. They are not suffered to go out, unless +strongly attended, and they are not allowed to run any risk of danger or +of injury The life of the whole race circles about them and about their +children, but they are very few. + +Last of all are the males, the men. One naturally asks why females should +have been specialized into soldiers instead of men. It appears that the +females have more reserve force, and all the force that might have been +utilized in the giving of life has been diverted to the making of +aggressive powers. The real males are very small and weak. They appear to +be treated with indifference and contempt. They are suffered to become the +bridegrooms of one night, after which they die very quickly. By contrast, +the lives of the rest are very long. Ants live for at least three or four +years, but the males live only long enough to perform their solitary +function. + +In the foregoing little fantasy, the one thing that should have most +impressed you is the fact of the suppression of sex. But now comes the +last and most astonishing fact of all: this suppression of sex is not +natural, but artificial--I mean that it is voluntary. It has been +discovered that ants are able, by a systematic method of nourishment, to +suppress or develop sex as they please. The race has decided that sex +shall not be allowed to exist except in just so far as it is absolutely +necessary to the existence of the race. Individuals with sex are tolerated +only as necessary evils. Here is an instance of the most powerful of all +passions voluntarily suppressed for the benefit of the community at large. +It vanishes whenever unnecessary; when necessary after a war or a calamity +of some kind, it is called into existence again. Certainly it is not +wonderful that such a fact should have set moralists thinking. Of course +if a human community could discover some secret way of effecting the same +object, and could have the courage to do it, or rather the unselfishness +to do it, the result would simply be that sexual immorality of any kind +would become practically impossible The very idea of such immorality would +cease to exist. + +But that is only one fact of self-suppression and the ant-world furnishes +hundreds. To state the whole thing in the simplest possible way, let me +say the race has entirely got rid of everything that we call a selfish +impulse. Even hunger and thirst allow of no selfish gratification. The +entire life of the community is devoted to the common good and to mutual +help and to the care of the young. Spencer says it is impossible to +imagine that an ant has a sense of duty like our own,--a religion, if you +like. But it does not need a sense of duty, it does not need religion. Its +life is religion in the practical sense. Probably millions of years ago +the ant had feelings much more like our own than it has now. At that time, +to perform altruistic actions may have been painful to the ant; to perform +them now has become the one pleasure of its existence. In order to bring +up children and serve the state more efficiently these insects have +sacrificed their sex and every appetite that we call by the name of animal +passion. Moreover they have a perfect community, a society in which nobody +could think of property, except as a state affair, a public thing, or as +the Romans would say a _res publica_. In a human community so organized, +there could not be ambition, any jealousy, any selfish conduct of any +sort--indeed, no selfishness at all. The individual is said to be +practically sacrificed for the sake of the race; but such a supposition +means the highest moral altruism. Therefore thinkers have to ask, "Will +man ever rise to something like the condition of ants?" + +Herbert Spencer says that such is the evident tendency. He does not say, +nor is it at all probable, that there will be in future humanity such +physiological specialization as would correspond to the suppression of sex +among ants, or to the bringing of women to the dominant place in the human +world, and the masculine sex to an inferior position. That is not likely +ever to happen, for reasons which it would take very much too long to +speak of now. But there is evidence that the most selfish of all human +passions will eventually be brought under control--under such control that +the present cause of wellnigh all human suffering, the pressure of +population, will be practically removed. And there is psychological +evidence that the human mind will undergo such changes that wrong-doing, +in the sense of unkindly action, will become almost impossible, and that +the highest pleasure will be found not in selfishness but in +unselfishness. Of course there are thousands of things to think about, +suggested by this discovery of the life of ants. I am only telling the +more important ones. What I have told you ought at least to suggest that +the idea of a moral condition much higher than all our moral conditions of +today is quite possible,--that it is not an idea to be laughed at. But it +was not Nietzsche who ever conceived this possibility. His "Beyond Man" +and the real and much to be hoped for "beyond man," are absolutely +antagonistic conceptions. When the ancient Hebrew writer said, thousands +of years ago, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways," he could +not have imagined how good his advice would prove in the light of +twentieth century science. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE NEW ETHICS + + +Before leaving the subject of these latter-day intellectual changes, a +word must be said concerning the ethical questions involved. Of course +when a religious faith has been shaken to its foundation, it is natural to +suppose that morals must have been simultaneously affected. The relation +of morals to literature is very intimate; and we must expect that any +change of ideas in the direction of ethics would show themselves in +literature. The drama, poetry, romance, the novel, all these are +reflections of moral emotion in especial, of the eternal struggle between +good and evil, as well as of the temporary sentiments concerning right and +wrong. And every period of transition is necessarily accompanied by +certain tendencies to disintegration. Contemporary literature in the West +has shown some signs of ethical change. These caused many thinkers to +predict a coming period of demoralization in literature. But the alarm was +really quite needless. These vagaries of literature, such as books +questioning the morality of the marriage relation, for example, were only +repetitions of older vagaries, and represented nothing more than the +temporary agitation of thought upon all questions. The fact seems to be +that in spite of everything, moral feeling was never higher at any time in +Western social history than it is at present. The changes of thought have +indeed been very great, but the moral experience of mankind remains +exactly as valuable as it was before, and new perceptions of that value +have been given to us by the new philosophy. + +It has been wisely observed by the greatest of modern thinkers that +mankind has progressed more rapidly in every other respect than in +morality. Moral progress has not been rapid simply because the moral ideal +has always been kept a little in advance of the humanly possible. +Thousands of years ago the principles of morality were exactly the same as +those which rule our lives to-day. We can not improve upon them; we can +not even improve upon the language which expressed them. The most learned +of our poets could not make a more beautiful prayer than the prayer which +Egyptian mothers taught to their little children in ages when all Europe +was still a land of savages. The best of the moral philosophy of the +nineteenth century is very little of improvement upon the moral philosophy +of ancient India or China. If there is any improvement at all, it is +simply in the direction of knowledge of causes and effects. And that is +why in all countries the common sense of mankind universally condemns any +attempt to interfere with moral ideas. These represent the social +experience of man for thousands and thousands of years; and it is not +likely that the wisdom of any one individual can ever better them. If +bettered at all it can not be through theory. The amelioration must be +effected by future experience of a universal kind. We may improve every +branch of science, every branch of art, everything else relating to the +work of human heads and hands; but we can not improve morals by invention +or by hypothesis. Morals are not made, but grow. + +Yet, as I have said, there is what may be called a new system of ethics. +But this new system of ethics means nothing more than a new way of +understanding the old system of ethics. By the application of evolutional +science to the study of morals, we have been enabled to trace back the +whole history of moral ideas to the time of their earliest inception,--to +understand the reasons of them, and to explain them without the help of +any supernatural theory. And the result, so far from diminishing our +respect for the wisdom of our ancestors, has immensely increased that +respect. There is no single moral teaching common to different +civilizations and different religions of an advanced stage of development +which we do not find to be eternally true. Let us try to study this view +of the case by the help of a few examples. + +In early times, of course, men obeyed moral instruction through religious +motives. If asked why they thought it was wrong to perform certain actions +and right to perform others, they could have answered only that such was +ancestral custom and that the gods will it so. Not until we could +understand the laws governing the evolution of society could we understand +the reason of many ethical regulations. But now we can understand very +plainly that the will of the gods, as our ancestors might have termed it, +represents divine laws indeed, for the laws of ethical evolution are +certainly the unknown laws shaping all things--suns, worlds, and human +societies. All that opposes itself to the operation of those universal +laws is what we have been accustomed to call bad, and everything which +aids the operation of those laws is what we have been accustomed to think +of as good. The common crimes condemned by all religions, such as theft, +murder, adultery, bearing false witness, disloyalty, all these are +practices which directly interfere with the natural process of evolution; +and without understanding why, men have from the earliest times of real +civilisation united all their power to suppress them. I think that we need +not dwell upon the simple facts; they will at once suggest to you all that +is necessary to know. I shall select for illustration only one less +familiar topic, that of the ascetic ideal. + +A great many things which in times of lesser knowledge we imagined to be +superstitious or useless, prove to-day on examination to have been of +immense value to mankind. Probably no superstition ever existed which did +not have some social value; and the most seemingly repulsive or cruel +sometimes turn out to have been the most precious. To choose one of these +for illustration, we must take one not confined to any particular +civilization or religion, but common to all human societies at a certain +period of their existence; and the ascetic ideal best fits our purpose. +From very early times, even from a time long preceding any civilization, +we find men acting under the idea that by depriving themselves of certain +pleasures and by subjecting themselves to certain pains they could please +the divine powers and thereby obtain strength. Probably there is no people +in the world among whom this belief has not had at some one time or +another a very great influence. At a later time, in the early +civilizations, this idea would seem to have obtained much larger sway, and +to have affected national life more and more extensively. In the age of +the great religions the idea reaches its acme, an acme often represented +by extravagances of the most painful kind and sacrifices which strike +modern imagination as ferocious and terrible. In Europe asceticism reached +its great extremes as you know during the Middle Ages, and especially took +the direction of antagonism to the natural sex-relation. Looking back +to-day to the centuries in which celibacy was considered the most moral +condition, and marriage was counted as little better than weakness, when +Europe was covered with thousands of monasteries, and when the best +intellects of the age deemed it the highest duty to sacrifice everything +pleasurable for the sake of an imaginary reward after death, we can not +but recognize that we are contemplating a period of religious insanity. +Even in the architecture of the time, the architecture that Ruskin devoted +his splendid talent to praise, there is a grim and terrible something that +suggests madness. Again, the cruelties of the age have an insane +character, the burning alive of myriads of people who refused to believe +or could not believe in the faith of their time; the tortures used to +extort confessions from the innocent; the immolation of thousands charged +with being wizards or witches; the extinction of little centres of +civilization in the South of France and elsewhere by brutal +crusades--contemplating all this, we seem to be contemplating not only +madness but furious madness. I need not speak to you of the Crusades, +which also belonged to this period. Compared with the Roman and Greek +civilizations before it, what a horrible Europe it was! And yet the +thinker must recognize that it had a strength of its own, a strength of a +larger kind than that of the preceding civilizations. It may seem +monstrous to assert that all this cruelty and superstition and contempt of +learning were absolutely necessary for the progress of mankind; and yet we +must so accept them in the light of modern knowledge. The checking of +intellectual development for hundreds of years is certainly a fact that +must shock us; but the true question is whether such a checking had not +become necessary. Intellectual strength, unless supported by moral +strength, leads a people into the ways of destruction. Compared with the +men of the Middle Ages, the Greeks and Romans were incomparably superior +intellectually; compared with them morally they were very weak. They had +conquered the world and developed all the arts, these Greeks and Romans; +they had achieved things such as mankind has never since been able to +accomplish, and then, losing their moral ideal, losing their simplicity, +losing their faith, they were utterly crushed by inferior races in whom +the principles of self-denial had been intensely developed. And the old +instinctive hatred of the Church for the arts and the letters and the +sciences of the Greek and Roman civilizations was not quite so much of a +folly as we might be apt to suppose. The priests recognized in a vague way +that anything like a revival of the older civilizations would signify +moral ruin. The Renaissance proves that the priests were not wrong. Had +the movement occurred a few hundred years earlier, the result would +probably have been a universal corruption I do not mean to say that the +Church at any time was exactly conscious of what she was doing; she acted +blindly under the influence of an instinctive fear. But the result of all +that she did has now proved unfortunate. What the Roman and Greek +civilizations had lost in moral power was given back to the world by the +frightful discipline of the Middle Ages. For a long series of generations +the ascetic idea was triumphant; and it became feeble only in proportion +as men became strong enough to do without it. Especially it remodelled +that of which it first seemed the enemy, the family relation. It created a +new basis for society, founded upon a new sense of the importance to +society of family morals. Because this idea, this morality, came through +superstition, its value is not thereby in the least diminished. +Superstitions often represent correct guesses at eternal truth. To-day we +know that all social progress, all national strength, all national vigour, +intellectual as well as physical, depend essentially upon the family, upon +the morality of the household, upon the relation of parents to children. +It was this fact which the Greeks and Romans forgot, and lost themselves +by forgetting. It was this fact which the superstitious tyranny of the +Middle Ages had to teach the West over again, and after such a fashion +that it is not likely ever to become forgotten. So much for the mental +history of the question. Let us say a word about the physical aspects of +it. + +No doubt you have read that the result of macerating the body, of +depriving oneself of all comfort, and even of nourishing food, is not an +increase of intellectual vigour or moral power of any kind. And in one +sense this is true. The individual who passes his life in +self-mortification is not apt to improve under that regime. For this +reason the founder of the greatest of Oriental religions condemned +asceticism on the part of his followers, except within certain fixed +limits. But the history of the changes produced by a universal idea is not +a history of changes in the individual, but of changes brought about by +the successive efforts of millions of individuals in the course of many +generations. Not in one lifetime can we perceive the measure of ethical +force obtained by self-control; but in the course of several hundreds of +years we find that the result obtained is so large as to astonish us. This +result, imperceptibly obtained, signifies a great increase of that nervous +power upon which moral power depends; it means an augmentation in strength +of every kind; and this augmentation again represents what we might call +economy. Just as there is a science of political economy, there is a +science of ethical economy; and it is in relation to such a science that +we should rationally consider the influence of all religions teaching +self-suppression. So studying, we find that self-suppression does not mean +the destruction of any power, but only the economical storage of that +power for the benefit of the race As a result, the highly civilized man +can endure incomparably more than the savage, whether of moral or physical +strain. Being better able to control himself under all circumstances, he +has a great advantage over the savage. + +That which is going on in the new teaching of ethics is really the +substitution of a rational for an emotional morality. But this does not +mean that the value of the emotional element in morality is not +recognized. Not only is it recognized, but it is even being +enlarged--enlarged, however, in a rational way. For example, let us take +the very emotional virtue of loyalty. Loyalty, in a rational form, could +not exist among an uneducated people; it could only exist as a feeling, a +sentiment. In the primitive state of society this sentiment takes the +force and the depth of a religion. And the ruler, regarded as divine, +really has in relation to his people the power of a god. Once that people +becomes educated in the modern sense, their ideas regarding their ruler +and their duties to their ruler necessarily undergo modification. But does +this mean that the sentiment is weakened in the educated class? I should +say that this depends very much upon the quality of the individual mind. +In a mind of small capacity, incapable of receiving the higher forms of +thought, it is very likely that the sentiment may be weakened and almost +destroyed. But in the mind of a real thinker, a man of true culture, the +sense of loyalty, although changed, is at the same time immensely +expanded. In order to give a strong example, I should take the example not +from a monarchical country but from a republican one. What does the +President of the United States of America, for example, represent to the +American of the highest culture? He appears to him in two entirely +different capacities. First he appears to him merely as a man, an ordinary +man, with faults and weaknesses like other ordinary men. His private life +is apt to be discussed in the newspapers. He is expected to shake hands +with anybody and with everybody whom he meets at Washington; and when he +ceases to hold office, he has no longer any particular distinction from +other Americans. But as the President of the United States, he is also +much more than a man. He represents one hundred millions of people; he +represents the American Constitution; he represents the great principles +of human freedom laid down by that Constitution; he represents also the +idea of America, of everything American, of all the hopes, interests, and +glories of the nation. Officially he is quite as sacred as a divinity +could be. Millions would give their lives for him at an instant's notice; +and thousands capable of making vulgar jokes about the man would hotly +resent the least word spoken about the President as the representative of +America. The very same thing exists in other Western countries, +notwithstanding the fact that the lives of rulers are sometimes attempted. +England is a striking example. The Queen has really scarcely any power; +her rule is little more than nominal. Every Englishman knows that England +is a monarchy only in name. But the Queen represents to every Englishman +more than a woman and more than a queen: she represents England, English +race feeling, English love of country, English power, English dignity; she +is a symbol, and as a symbol sacred. The soldier jokingly calls her "the +Widow"; he makes songs about her; all this is well and good. But a soldier +who cursed her a few years ago was promptly sent to prison for twenty +years. To sing a merry song about the sovereign as a woman is a right +which English freedom claims; but to speak disrespectfully of the Queen, +as England, as the government, is properly regarded as a crime; because it +proves the man capable of it indifferent to all his duties as an +Englishman, as a citizen, as a soldier. The spirit of loyalty is far from +being lost in Western countries; it has only changed in character, and it +is likely to strengthen as time goes on. + +Broad tolerance in the matter of beliefs is necessarily a part of the new +ethics. It is quite impossible in the present state of mankind that all +persons should be well educated, or that the great masses of a nation +should attain to the higher forms of culture. For the uneducated a +rational system of ethics must long remain out of the question and it is +proper that they should cling to the old emotional forms of moral +teaching. The observation of Huxley that he would like to see every +unbeliever who could not get a reason for his unbelief publicly put to +shame, was an observation of sound common sense. It is only those whose +knowledge obliges them to see things from another standpoint than that of +the masses who can safely claim to base their rule of life upon +philosophical morality. The value of the philosophical morality happens to +be only in those directions where it recognizes and supports the truth +taught by common morality, which, after all, is the safest guide. +Therefore the philosophical moralist will never mock or oppose a belief +which he knows to exercise a good influence upon human conduct. He will +recognize even the value of many superstitions as being very great; and he +will understand that any attempt to suddenly change the beliefs of man in +any ethical direction must be mischievous. Such changes as he might desire +will come; but they should come gradually and gently, in exact proportion +to the expanding capacity of the national mind. Recognizing this +probability, several Western countries, notably America, have attempted to +introduce into education an entirely new system of ethical +teaching--ethical teaching in the broadest sense, and in harmony with the +new philosophy. But the result there and elsewhere can only be that which +I have said at the beginning of this lecture,--namely, the enlargement of +the old moral ideas, and the deeper comprehension of their value in all +relations of life. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +SOME POEMS ABOUT INSECTS + + +One of the great defects of English books printed in the last century is +the want of an index. The importance of being able to refer at once to any +subject treated of in a book was not recognized until the days when exact +scholarship necessitated indexing of the most elaborate kind. But even now +we constantly find good books severely criticized because of this +deficiency. All that I have said tends to show that even to-day in Western +countries the immense importance of systematic arrangement in literary +collections is not sufficiently recognized. We have, of course, a great +many English anthologies,--that is to say, collections of the best typical +compositions of a certain epoch in poetry or in prose. But you must have +observed that, in Western countries, nearly all such anthologies are +compiled chronologically--not according to the subject of the poems. To +this general rule there are indeed a few exceptions. There is a collection +of love poetry by Watson, which is famous; a collection of child poetry by +Patmore; a collection of "society verse" by Locker-Lampson; and several +things of that sort. But even here the arrangement is not of a special +kind; nor is it ever divided according to the subject of each particular +poem. I know that some books have been published of late years with such +titles as "Poems of the Sea," "Poems of Nature"--but these are of no +literary importance at all and they are not compiled by competent critics. +Besides, the subject-heads are always of much too general a kind. The +French are far in advance of the English in the art of making anthologies; +but even in such splendid anthologies as those of Crepet and of Lemerre +the arrangement is of the most general kind,--chronological, and little +more. + +I was reminded to tell you this, because of several questions recently +asked me, which I found it impossible to answer. Many a Japanese student +might suppose that Western poetry has its classified arrangements +corresponding in some sort to those of Japanese poetry. Perhaps the +Germans have something of the kind, but the English and French have not. +Any authority upon the subject of Japanese literature can, I have been +told, inform himself almost immediately as to all that has been written in +poetry upon a particular subject. Japanese poetry has been classified and +sub-classified and double-indexed or even quadruple-indexed after a manner +incomparably more exact than anything English anthologies can show. I am +aware that this fact is chiefly owing to the ancient rules about subjects, +seasons, contrasts, and harmonies, after which the old poets used to +write. But whatever be said about such rules, there can be no doubt at all +of the excellence of the arrangements which the rules produced. It is +greatly to be regretted that we have not in English a system of +arrangement enabling the student to discover quickly all that has been +written upon a particular subject--such as roses, for example, or pine +trees, or doves, or the beauties of the autumn season. There is nobody to +tell you where to find such things; and as the whole range of English +poetry is so great that it takes a great many years even to glance through +it, a memorized knowledge of the subjects is impossible for the average +man. I believe that Macaulay would have been able to remember almost any +reference in the poetry then accessible to scholars,--just as the +wonderful Greek scholar Porson could remember the exact place of any text +in the whole of Greek literature, and even all the variations of that +text. But such men are born only once in hundreds of years; the common +memory can not attempt to emulate their feats. And it is very difficult at +the present time for the ordinary student of poetry to tell you just how +much has been written upon any particular subject by the best English +poets. + +Now you will recognize some difficulties in the way of a lecturer in +attempting to make classifications of English poetry after the same manner +that Japanese classification can be made of Japanese poetry. One must read +enormously merely to obtain one's materials, and even then the result is +not to be thought of as exhaustive. I am going to try to give you a few +lectures upon English poetry thus classified, but we must not expect that +the lectures will be authoritatively complete. Indeed, we have no time for +lectures of so thorough a sort. All that I can attempt will be to give you +an idea of the best things that English poets have thought and expressed +upon certain subjects. + +You know that the old Greeks wrote a great deal of beautiful poetry about +insects,--especially about musical insects, crickets, cicadas, and other +insects such as those the Japanese poets have been writing about for so +many hundreds of years. But in modern Western poetry there is very little, +comparatively speaking, about insects. The English poets have all written +a great deal about birds, and especially about singing birds; but very +little has been written upon the subject of insects--singing insects. One +reason is probably that the number of musical insects in England is very +small, perhaps owing to the climate. American poets have written more +about insects than English poets have done, though their work is of a much +less finished kind. But this is because musical insects in America are +very numerous. On the whole, we may say that neither in English nor in +French poetry will you find much about the Voices of rickets, locusts, or +cicadae. I could not even give you a special lecture upon that subject. We +must take the subject "insect" in a rather general signification; and if +we do that we can edit together a nice little collection of poetical +examples. + +The butterfly was regarded by the Greeks especially as the emblem of the +soul and therefore of immortality. We have several Greek remains, +picturing the butterfly as perched upon a skull, thus symbolizing life +beyond death. And the metamorphosis of the insect is, you know, very often +referred to in Greek philosophy. We might expect that English poets would +have considered the butterfly especially from this point of view; and we +do have a few examples. Perhaps the best known is that of Coleridge. + + The butterfly the ancient Grecians made + The soul's fair emblem, and its only name-- + But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade + Of earthly life! For in this mortal frame + Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, + Manifold motions making little speed, + And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed. + +The allusion to the "name" is of course to the Greek word, _psyche_, which +signifies both soul and butterfly. Psyche, as the soul, was pictured by +the Greeks as a beautiful girl, with a somewhat sad face, and butterfly +wings springing from her shoulders. Coleridge tells us here that although +the Greeks likened the soul to the butterfly, we must remember what the +butterfly really is,--the last and highest state of insect-being--"escaped +the slavish trade of earthly life." What is this so-called slavish trade? +It is the necessity of working and struggling in order to live--in order +to obtain food. The butterfly is not much of an eater; some varieties, +indeed, do not eat at all. All the necessity for eating ended with the +life of the larva. In the same manner religion teaches that the soul +represents the changed state of man. In this life a man is only like a +caterpillar; death changes him into a chrysalis, and out of the chrysalis +issues the winged soul which does not have to trouble itself about such +matters as eating and drinking. By the word "reptile" in this verse, you +must understand caterpillar. Therefore the poet speaks of all our human +work as manifold motions making little speed; you have seen how many +motions a caterpillar must make in order to go even a little distance, and +you must have noticed the manner in which it spoils the appearance of the +plant upon which it feeds. There is here an allusion to the strange and +terrible fact, that all life--and particularly the life of man--is +maintained only by the destruction of other life. In order to live we must +kill--perhaps only plants, but in any case we must kill. + +Wordsworth has several poems on butterflies, but only one of them is +really fine. It is fine, not because it suggests any deep problem, but +because with absolute simplicity it pictures the charming difference of +character in a little boy and a little girl playing together in the +fields. The poem is addressed to the butterfly. + + Stay near me--do not take thy flight! + A little longer stay in sight! + Much converse do I find in thee, + Historian of my infancy! + Float near me; do not yet depart! + Dead times revive in thee: + Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art! + A solemn image to my heart, + My father's family. + + Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days, + The time, when, in our childish plays, + My sister Emmeline and I + Together chased the butterfly! + A very hunter did I rush + Upon the prey: with leaps and springs + I followed on from brake to bush; + But she, God love her, feared to brush + The dust from off its wings. + +What we call and what looks like dust on the wings of a butterfly, English +children are now taught to know as really beautiful scales or featherlets, +but in Wordsworth's time the real structure of the insect was not so well +known as now to little people. Therefore to the boy the coloured matter +brushed from the wings would only have seemed so much dust. But the little +girl, with the instinctive tenderness of the future mother-soul in her, +dreads to touch those strangely delicate wings; she fears, not only to +spoil, but also to hurt. + +Deeper thoughts than memory may still be suggested to English poets by the +sight of a butterfly, and probably will be for hundreds of years to come. +Perhaps the best poem of a half-metaphorical, half-philosophical thought +about butterflies is the beautiful prologue to Browning's "Fifine at the +Fair," which prologue is curiously entitled "Amphibian"--implying that we +are about to have a reference to creatures capable of living in two +distinctive elements, yet absolutely belonging neither to the one nor to +the other. The poet swims out far into the sea on a beautiful day; and, +suddenly, looking up, perceives a beautiful butterfly flying over his +head, as if watching him. The sight of the insect at once suggests to him +its relation to Greek fancy as a name for the soul; then he begins to +wonder whether it might not really be the soul, or be the symbol of the +soul, of a dead woman who loved him. From that point of the poem begins a +little metaphysical fantasy about the possible condition of souls. + + The fancy I had to-day, + Fancy which turned a fear! + I swam far out in the bay, + Since waves laughed warm and clear. + + I lay and looked at the sun, + The noon-sun looked at me: + Between us two, no one + Live creature, that I could see. + + Yes! There came floating by + Me, who lay floating too, + Such a strange butterfly! + Creature as dear as new: + + Because the membraned wings + So wonderful, so wide, + So sun-suffused, were things + Like soul and nought beside. + +So much for the conditions of the poet's revery. He is swimming in the +sea; above his face, only a few inches away, the beautiful butterfly is +hovering. Its apparition makes him think of many things--perhaps first +about the dangerous position of the butterfly, for if it should only touch +the water, it is certain to be drowned. But it does not touch the water; +and he begins to think how clumsy is the man who moves in water compared +with the insect that moves in air, and how ugly a man is by comparison +with the exquisite creature which the Greeks likened to the soul or ghost +of the man. Thinking about ghosts leads him at once to the memory of a +certain very dear ghost about which he forthwith begins to dream. + + What if a certain soul + Which early slipped its sheath, + And has for its home the whole + Of heaven, thus look beneath, + + Thus watch one who, in the world, + Both lives and likes life's way, + Nor wishes the wings unfurled + That sleep in the worm, they say? + + But sometimes when the weather + Is blue, and warm waves tempt + To free oneself of tether, + And try a life exempt + + From worldly noise and dust, + In the sphere which overbrims + With passion and thought,--why, just + Unable to fly, one swims! + +This is better understood by paraphrase: "I wonder if the soul of a +certain person, who lately died, slipped so gently out of the hard sheath +of the perishable body--I wonder if she does not look down from her home +in the sky upon me, just as that little butterfly is doing at this moment. +And I wonder if she laughs at the clumsiness of this poor swimmer, who +finds it so much labour even to move through the water, while she can move +through whatever she pleases by the simple act of wishing. And this man, +strangely enough, does not want to die, and to become a ghost. He likes to +live very much; he does not yet desire those soul-wings which are supposed +to be growing within the shell of his body, just as the wings of the +butterfly begin to grow in the chrysalis. He does not want to die at all. +But sometimes he wants to get away from the struggle and the dust of the +city, and to be alone with nature; and then, in order to be perfectly +alone, he swims. He would like to fly much better; but he can not. +However, swimming is very much like flying, only the element of water is +thicker than air." + +However, more than the poet's words is suggested here. We are really told +that what a fine mind desires is spiritual life, pure intellectual +life--free from all the trammels of bodily necessity. Is not the swimmer +really a symbol of the superior mind in its present condition? Your best +swimmer can not live under the water, neither can he rise into the +beautiful blue air. He can only keep his head in the air; his body must +remain in the grosser element. Well, a great thinker and poet is ever +thus--floating between the universe of spirit and the universe of matter. +By his mind he belongs to the region of pure mind,--the ethereal state; +but the hard necessity of living keeps him down in the world of sense and +grossness and struggle. On the other hand the butterfly, freely moving in +a finer element, better represents the state of spirit or soul. + +What is the use of being dissatisfied with nature? The best we can do is +to enjoy in the imagination those things which it is not possible for us +to enjoy in fact. + + Emancipate through passion + And thought, with sea for sky, + We substitute, in a fashion, + For heaven--poetry: + + Which sea, to all intent, + Gives flesh such noon-disport, + As a finer element + Affords the spirit-sort. + +Now you see where the poet's vision of a beautiful butterfly has been +leading his imagination. The nearest approach which we can make to the act +of flying, in the body, is the act of swimming. The nearest approach that +we can make to the heavenly condition, mentally, is in poetry. Poetry, +imagination, the pleasure of emotional expression--these represent our +nearest approach to paradise. Poetry is the sea in which the soul of man +can swim even as butterflies can swim in the air, or happy ghosts swim in +the finer element of the infinite ether. The last three stanzas of the +poem are very suggestive: + + And meantime, yonder streak + Meets the horizon's verge; + That is the land, to seek + If we tire or dread the surge: + + Land the solid and safe-- + To welcome again (confess!) + When, high and dry, we chafe + The body, and don the dress. + + Does she look, pity, wonder + At one who mimics flight, + Swims--heaven above, sea under, + Yet always earth in sight? + +"Streak," meaning an indistinct line, here refers to the coast far away, +as it appears to the swimmer. It is just such a word as a good Japanese +painter ought to appreciate in such a relation. In suggesting that the +swimmer is glad to return to shore again and get warm, the poet is telling +us that however much we may talk about the happiness of spirits in +heaven--however much we may praise heaven in poetry--the truth is that we +are very fond of this world, we like comfort, we like company, we like +human love and human pleasures. There is a good deal of nonsense in +pretending that we think heaven is a better place than the world to which +we belong. Perhaps it is a better place, but, as a matter of fact, we do +not know anything about it; and we should be frightened if we could go +beyond a certain distance from the real world which we do know. As he +tells us this, the poet begins again to think about the spirit of the dead +woman. Is she happy? Is she looking at him--and pitying him as he swims, +taking good care not to go too far away from the land? Or is she laughing +at him, because in his secret thoughts he confesses that he likes to +live--that he does not want to become a pure ghost at the present time? + +Evidently a butterfly was quite enough, not only to make Browning's mind +think very seriously, but to make that mind teach us the truth and +seriousness which may attach to very small things--incidents, happenings +of daily life, in any hour and place. I believe that is the greatest +English poem we have on the subject of the butterfly. + +The idea that a butterfly might be, not merely the symbol of the soul, but +in very fact the spirit of a dead person, is somewhat foreign to English +thought; and whatever exists in poetry on the subject must necessarily be +quite new. The idea of a relation between insects, birds, or other living +creatures, and the spirits of the dead, is enormously old in Oriental +literature;--we find it in Sanskrit texts thousands of years ago. But the +Western mind has not been accustomed to think of spiritual life as outside +of man; and much of natural poetry has consequently remained undeveloped +in Western countries. A strange little poem, "The White Moth," is an +exception to the general rule that I have indicated; but I am almost +certain that its author, A.T. Quiller-Couch, must have read Oriental +books, or obtained his fancy from some Eastern source. As the knowledge of +Indian literature becomes more general in England, we may expect to find +poetry much influenced by Oriental ideas. At the present time, such a +composition as this is quite a strange anomaly. + + _If a leaf rustled, she would start: + And yet she died, a year ago. + How had so frail a thing the heart + To journey where she trembled so? + And do they turn and turn in fright, + Those little feet, in so much night?_ + + The light above the poet's head + Streamed on the page and on the cloth, + And twice and thrice there buffeted + On the black pane a white-winged moth: + 'Twas Annie's soul that beat outside, + And "Open, open, open!" cried: + + "I could not find the way to God; + There were too many flaming suns + For signposts, and the fearful road + Led over wastes where millions + Of tangled comets hissed and burned-- + I was bewildered and I turned. + + "Oh, it was easy then! I knew + Your window and no star beside. + Look up and take me back to you!" + --He rose and thrust the window wide. + 'Twas but because his brain was hot + With rhyming; for he heard her not. + + But poets polishing a phrase + Show anger over trivial things; + And as she blundered in the blaze + Towards him, on ecstatic wings, + He raised a hand and smote her dead; + Then wrote "_That I had died instead!_" + +The lover, or bereaved husband, is writing a poem of which a part is given +in the first stanza--which is therefore put in italics. The action proper +begins with the second stanza. The soul of the dead woman taps at the +window in the shape of a night-butterfly or moth--imagining, perhaps, that +she has still a voice and can make herself heard by the man that she +loves. She tells the story of her wandering in space--privileged to pass +to heaven, yet afraid of the journey. Now the subject of the poem which +the lover happens to be writing inside the room is a memory of the dead +woman--mourning for her, describing her in exquisite ways. He can not hear +her at all; he does not hear even the beating of the little wings at the +window, but he stands up and opens the window--because he happens to feel +hot and tired. The moth thinks that he has heard her, that he knows; and +she flies toward him in great delight. But he, thinking that it is only a +troublesome insect, kills her with a blow of his hand; and then sits down +to continue his poem with the words, "Oh, how I wish I could have died +instead of that dear woman!" Altogether this is a queer poem in English +literature, and I believe almost alone of its kind. But it is queer only +because of its rarity of subject. As for construction, it is very good +indeed. + +I do not know that it is necessary to quote any more poems upon +butterflies or moths. There are several others; but the workmanship and +the thought are not good enough or original enough to justify their use +here as class texts. So I shall now turn to the subject of dragon-flies. +Here we must again be very brief. References to dragon-flies are common +throughout English poetry, but the references signify little more than a +mere colourless mention of the passing of the insect. However, it so +happens that the finest modern lines of pure description written about any +insect, are about dragon-flies. And they also happen to be by Tennyson. +Naturalists and men of science have greatly praised these lines, because +of their truth to nature and the accuracy of observation which they show. +You will find them in the poem entitled "The Two Voices." + + To-day I saw the dragon-fly + Come from the wells where he did lie. + + An inner impulse rent the veil + Of his old husk; from head to tail + Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. + + He dried his wings; like gauze they grew; + Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew + A living rush of light he flew. + +There are very few real poems, however, upon the dragon-fly in English, +and considering the extraordinary beauty and grace of the insect, this may +appear strange to you. But I think that you can explain the strangeness at +a later time. The silence of English poets on the subject of insects as +compared with Japanese poets is due to general causes that we shall +consider at the close of the lecture. + +Common flies could scarcely seem to be a subject for poetry--disgusting +and annoying creatures as they are. But there are more poems about the +house-fly than about the dragon-fly. Last year I quoted for you a +remarkable and rather mystical composition by the poet Blake about +accidentally killing a fly. Blake represents his own thoughts about the +brevity of human life which had been aroused by the incident. It is +charming little poem; but it does not describe the fly at all. I shall not +quote it here again, because we shall have many other things to talk +about; but I shall give you the text of a famous little composition by +Oldys on the same topic. It has almost the simplicity of Blake,--and +certainly something of the same kind of philosophy. + + Busy, curious, thirsty fly, + Drink with me and drink as I; + Freely welcome to my cup, + Couldst thou sip and sip it up: + Make the most of life you may, + Life is short and wears away. + + Both alike are mine and thine + Hastening quick to their decline: + Thine's a summer, mine's no more, + Though repeated to threescore. + Threescore summers, when they're gone, + Will appear as short as one! + +The suggestion is that, after all, time is only a very relative affair in +the cosmic order of things. The life of the man of sixty years is not much +longer than the life of the insect which lives but a few hours, days, or +months. Had Oldys, who belongs to the eighteenth century, lived in our own +time, he might have been able to write something very much more curious on +this subject. It is now known that time, to the mind of an insect, must +appear immensely longer than it appears to the mind of a man. It has been +calculated that a mosquito or a gnat moves its wings between four and five +hundred times a second. Now the scientific dissection of such an insect, +under the microscope, justifies the opinion that the insect must be +conscious of each beat of the wings--just as a man feels that he lifts his +arm or bends his head every time that the action is performed. A man can +not even imagine the consciousness of so short an interval of time as the +five-hundredth part of one second. But insect consciousness can be aware +of such intervals; and a single day of life might well appear to the gnat +as long as the period of a month to a man. Indeed, we have reason to +suppose that to even the shortest-lived insect life does not appear short +at all; and that the ephemeral may actually, so far as felling is +concerned, live as long as a man--although its birth and death does occur +between the rising and the setting of the sun. + +We might suppose that bees would form a favourite subject of poetry, +especially in countries where agriculture is practised upon such a scale +as in England. But such is not really the case. Nearly every English poet +makes some reference to bees, as Tennyson does in the famous couplet-- + + The moan of doves in immemorial elms, + And murmuring of innumerable bees. + +But the only really remarkable poem addressed to a bee is by the American +philosopher Emerson. The poem in question can not be compared as to mere +workmanship with some others which I have cited; but as to thinking, it is +very interesting, and you must remember that the philosopher who writes +poetry should be judged for his thought rather than for the measure of his +verse. The whole is not equally good, nor is it short enough to quote +entire; I shall only give the best parts. + + Burly, dozing humble-bee, + Where thou art is clime for me. + + * * * * * + + Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, + Let me chase thy waving lines; + Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, + Singing over shrubs and vines. + + Insect lover of the sun, + Joy of thy dominion! + Sailor of the atmosphere; + Swimmer through the waves of air; + Voyager of light and noon; + Epicurean of June; + Wait, I prithee, till I come + Within earshot of thy hum,-- + All without is martyrdom. + + * * * * * + + Thou, in sunny solitudes, + Rover of the underwoods, + The green silence dost displace + With thy mellow, breezy bass. + + * * * * * + + Aught unsavory or unclean + Hath my insect never seen; + + * * * * * + + Wiser far than human seer, + Yellow-breeched philosopher! + Seeing only what is fair, + Sipping only what is sweet, + Thou dost mock at fate and care, + Leave the chaff, and take the wheat. + +This is really the poetry of the bee--visiting only beautiful flowers, and +sucking from them their perfumed juices--always healthy, happy, and +surrounded by beautiful things. A great rover, a constant wanderer is the +bee--visiting many different places, seeing many different things, but +stopping only to enjoy what is beautiful to the sight and sweet to the +taste. Now Emerson tells us that a wise man should act like the bee--never +stopping to look at what is bad, or what is morally ugly, but seeking only +what is beautiful and nourishing for the mind. It is a very fine thought; +and the manner of expressing it is greatly helped by Emerson's use of +curious and forcible words--such as "burly," "zigzag," and the famous +expression "yellow-breeched philosopher"--which has passed almost into an +American household phrase. The allusion of course is to the thighs of the +bee, covered with the yellow pollen of flowers so as to make them seem +covered with yellow breeches, or trousers reaching only to the knees. + +I do not of course include in the lecture such child songs about insects +as that famous one beginning with the words, "How doth the little busy bee +improve each shining hour." This is no doubt didactically very good; but I +wish to offer you only examples of really fine poetry on the topic. +Therefore leaving the subject of bees for the time, let us turn to the +subject of musical insects--the singers of the fields and +woods--grasshoppers and crickets. + +In Japanese poetry there are thousands of verses upon such insects. +Therefore it seems very strange that we have scarcely anything on the +subject in English. And the little that we do have is best represented by +the poem of Keats on the night cricket. The reference is probably to what +we call in England the hearth cricket, an insect which hides in houses, +making itself at home in some chink of the brickwork or stonework about a +fireplace, for it loves the warmth. I suppose that the small number of +poems in English about crickets can be partly explained by the scarcity of +night singers. Only the house cricket seems to be very well known. But on +the other hand, we can not so well explain the rarity of composition in +regard to the day-singers--the grasshoppers and locusts which can be +heard, though somewhat faintly, in any English country place after sunset +during the warm season. Another queer thing is that the example set by +Keats has not been imitated or at least followed even up to the present +time. + + The poetry of earth is never dead: + When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, etc. + +In this charming composition you will have noticed the word "stove"; but +you must remember that this is not a stove as we understand the term now, +and signifies only an old-fashioned fireplace of brick or tile. In Keats's +day there were no iron stoves. Another word which I want to notice is the +word "poetry" in the first line. By the poetry of nature the poet means +the voices of nature--the musical sounds made by its idle life in woods +and fields. So the word "poetry" here has especially the meaning of song, +and corresponds very closely to the Japanese word which signifies either +poem or song, but perhaps more especially the latter. The general meaning +of the sonnet is that at no time, either in winter or in summer, is nature +silent. When the birds do not sing, the grasshoppers make music for us; +and when the cold has killed or banished all other life, then the house +cricket begins with its thin sweet song to make us think of the dead +voices of the summer. + +There is not much else of note about the grasshopper and the cricket in +the works of the great English poets. But perhaps you do not know that +Tennyson in his youth took up the subject and made a long poem upon the +grasshopper, but suppressed it after the edition of 1842. He did not think +it good enough to rank with his other work. But a few months ago the poems +which Tennyson suppressed in the final edition of his works have been +published and carefully edited by an eminent scholar, and among these +poems we find "The Grasshopper." I will quote some of this poem, because +it is beautiful, and because the fact of its suppression will serve to +show you how very exact and careful Tennyson was to preserve only the very +best things that he wrote. + + Voice of the summer wind, + Joy of the summer plain, + Life of the summer hours, + Carol clearly, bound along, + No Tithon thou as poets feign + (Shame fall 'em, they are deaf and blind), + But an insect lithe and strong + Bowing the seeded summer flowers. + Prove their falsehood and thy quarrel, + Vaulting on thine airy feet + Clap thy shielded sides and carol, + Carol clearly, chirrups sweet. + Thou art a mailed warrior in youth and strength complete; + Armed cap-a-pie, + Full fair to see; + Unknowing fear, + Undreading loss, + A gallant cavalier, + _Sans peur et sans reproche_. + In sunlight and in shadow, + The Bayard of the meadow. + +The reference to Tithonus is a reference of course to a subject afterwards +beautifully elaborated in another poem by Tennyson, the great poem of +"Tithonus." The Bayard here referred to was the great French model of +perfect chivalry, and is sometimes called the last of the feudal knights. +He was said to be without fear and without blame. You may remember that he +was killed by a ball from a gun--it was soon after the use of artillery in +war had been introduced; and his dying words were to the effect that he +feared there was now an end of great deeds, because men had begun to fight +from a distance with machines instead of fighting in the old knightly and +noble way with sword and spear. The grasshopper, covered with green plates +and bearing so many little sharp spines upon its long limbs, seems to have +suggested to Tennyson the idea of a fairy knight in green armour. + +As I said before, England is poor in singing insects, while America is +rich in them--almost, perhaps, as rich as Japan, although you will not +find as many different kinds of singing insects in any one state or +district. The singing insects of America are peculiar to particular +localities. But the Eastern states have perhaps the most curious insect of +this kind. It is called the Katydid. This name is spelt either Katydid, or +Catydid--though the former spelling is preferable. Katy, or Katie, is the +abbreviation of the name Catherine; very few girls are called by the full +name Catherine, also spelt Katherine; because the name is long and +unmusical, their friends address them usually as Katy, and their +acquaintances, as Kate. Well, the insect of which I am speaking, a kind of +_semi_, makes a sound resembling the sound of the words "Katie did!" Hence +the name--one of the few corresponding to the names given to the Japanese +_semi_, such as _tsuku-tsuku-boshi_, or _minmin-semi_. The most +interesting composition upon this cicada is by Oliver Wendell Holmes, but +it is of the lighter sort of verse, with a touch of humour in it. I shall +quote a few verses only, as the piece contains some allusions that would +require explanation at considerable length. + + I love to hear thine earnest voice, + Wherever thou art hid, + Thou testy little dogmatist, + Thou pretty Katydid! + Thou mindest me of gentlefolks,-- + Old gentlefolks are they,-- + Thou say'st an undisputed thing + In such a solemn way. + + * * * * * + + Oh tell me where did Katy live, + And what did Katy do? + And was she very fair and young, + And yet so wicked, too? + Did Katy love a naughty man, + Or kiss more cheeks than one? + I warrant Katy did no more + Than many a Kate has done. + + * * * * * + + Ah, no! The living oak shall crash, + That stood for ages still, + The rock shall rend its mossy base + And thunder down the hill, + Before the little Katydid + Shall add one word, to tell + The mystic story of the maid + Whose name she knows so well. + +The word "testy" may be a little unfamiliar to some of you; it is a good +old-fashioned English term for "cross," "irritable." The reference to the +"old gentlefolks" implies the well-known fact that in argument old persons +are inclined to be much more obstinate than young people. And there is +also a hint in the poem of the tendency among old ladies to blame the +conduct of young girls even more severely than may be necessary. There is +nothing else to recommend the poem except its wit and the curiousness of +the subject. There are several other verses about the same creature, by +different American poets; but none of them is quite so good as the +composition of Holmes. However, I may cite a few verses from one of the +earlier American poets, Philip Freneau, who flourished in the eighteenth +century and the early part of the nineteenth. He long anticipated the +fancy of Holmes; but he spells the word Catydid. + + In a branch of willow hid + Sings the evening Catydid: + From the lofty locust bough + Feeding on a drop of dew, + In her suit of green arrayed + Hear her singing in the shade-- + Catydid, Catydid, Catydid! + + While upon a leaf you tread, + Or repose your little head + On your sheet of shadows laid, + All the day you nothing said; + Half the night your cheery tongue + Revelled out its little song,-- + Nothing else but Catydid. + + * * * * * + + Tell me, what did Caty do? + Did she mean to trouble you? + Why was Caty not forbid + To trouble little Catydid? + Wrong, indeed, at you to fling, + Hurting no one while you sing,-- + Catydid! Catydid! Catydid! + +To Dr. Holmes the voice of the cicada seemed like the voice of an old +obstinate woman, an old prude, accusing a young girl of some fault,--but +to Freneau the cry of the little creature seemed rather to be like the cry +of a little child complaining--a little girl, perhaps, complaining that +somebody had been throwing stones at her, or had hurt her in some way. +And, of course, the unfinished character of the phrase allows equally well +either supposition. + +Before going back to more serious poetry, I want--while we are speaking of +American poets--to make one reference to the ironical or satirical poetry +which insects have inspired in some minds, taking for example the poem by +Charlotte Perkins Stetson about a butterfly. This author is rather a +person of note, being a prominent figure in educational reforms and the +author of a volume of poems of a remarkably strong kind in the didactic +sense. In other words, she is especially a moral poet; and unless moral +poetry be really very well executed, it is scarcely worth while classing +it as literature. I think, however, that the symbolism in the following +verses will interest you--especially when we comment upon them. The +composition from which they are taken is entitled "A Conservative." + +The poet, walking in the garden one morning, sees a butterfly, very +unhappy, and gifted with power to express the reason of its unhappiness. +The butterfly says, complaining of its wings, + + "My legs are thin and few + Where once I had a swarm! + Soft fuzzy fur--a joy to view-- + Once kept my body warm, + Before these flapping wing-things grew, + To hamper and deform!" + + At that outrageous bug I shot + The fury of mine eye; + Said I, in scorn all burning hot, + In rage and anger high, + "You ignominious idiot! + Those wings are made to fly!" + + "I do not want to fly," said he, + "I only want to squirm!" + And he drooped his wings dejectedly, + But still his voice was firm: + "I do not want to be a fly! + I want to be a worm!" + + O yesterday of unknown lack! + To-day of unknown bliss! + I left my fool in red and black, + The last I saw was this,-- + The creature madly climbing back + Into his chrysalis. + +Of course the wings here represent the powers of the mind--knowledge, +reason, will. Men ought to use these in order to reach still nobler and +higher states of life. But there are men who refuse to use their best +faculties for this end. Such men are like butterflies who do not want to +take the trouble to fly, but prefer the former condition of the +caterpillar which does nothing but eat and sleep. As applied to certain +forms of conservatism the satire is strong. + +Something may now be said as to poems about spiders. But let me remind you +that a spider is not an insect. Scientifically it has no relation to the +great family of true insects; it belongs to the very distinct family of +the arthropoda or "joint-footed" animals. But as it is still popularly +called an insect in most European countries, we may be excused for +including it in the subject of the present lecture. I suppose you know +that one of the scientific names for this whole class of creatures is +Arachnida,--a name derived from the Greek name Arachne. The story of +Arachne is interesting, and everybody studying natural history ought to +know it. Arachne was a young girl, according to the Greek story, who was +very skilful at weaving. She wove cloths of many different colours and +beautiful patterns, and everybody admired her work. This made her vain--so +vain that at last she said that even the goddess of weaving could not +weave better than she. Immediately after she had said that, the terrible +goddess herself--Pallas Athena--entered the room. Pallas Athena was not +only the goddess of wisdom, you know, but especially the goddess of young +girls, presiding over the chastity, the filial piety, and the domestic +occupations of virgins; and she was very angry at the conceit of this +girl. So she said to her, "You have boasted that you can weave as well as +I can; now let me see you weave!" So Arachne was obliged to sit down at +her loom and weave in the presence of the goddess; and the goddess also +wove, far surpassing the weaving of Arachne. When the weaving was done, +the goddess asked the girl, "Now see! which is the better, my work or +yours?" And Arachne was obliged to confess that she had been defeated and +put to shame. But the goddess was not thoroughly satisfied; to punish +Arachne, she touched her lightly with the distaff, saying, "Spin forever!" +and thereupon Arachne was changed into a spider, which forever spins and +weaves perishable films of perishable shiny thread. Poetically we still +may call a spider Arachne. + +I have here a little poem of a touching character entitled "Arachne," by +Rose Terry Cooke,--one of the symbolic poems which are becoming so +numerous in these days of newer and deeper philosophy. I think that you +will like it: a spinster, that is, a maiden passed the age of girlhood, is +the speaker. + + I watch her in the corner there, + As, restless, bold, and unafraid, + She slips and floats along the air + Till all her subtile house is made. + + Her home, her bed, her daily food, + All from that hidden store she draws; + She fashions it and knows it good, + By instinct's strong and sacred laws. + + No tenuous threads to weave her nest, + She seeks and gathers there or here; + But spins it from her faithful breast, + Renewing still, till leaves are sere. + + Then, worn with toil, and tired of life, + In vain her shining traps are set. + Her frost hath hushed the insect strife + And gilded flies her charm forget. + + But swinging in the snares she spun, + She sways to every wintry wind: + Her joy, her toil, her errand done, + Her corse the sport of storms unkind. + +The symbolism of these verses will appear to you more significant when I +tell you that it refers especially to conditions in New England in the +present period. The finest American population--perhaps the finest +Anglo-Saxons ever produced--were the New Englanders of the early part of +the century. But with the growth of the new century, the men found +themselves attracted elsewhere, especially westward; their shrewdness, +their energies, their inventiveness, were needed in newer regions. And +they wandered away by thousands and thousands, never to come back again, +and leaving the women behind them. Gradually the place of these men was +taken by immigrants of inferior development--but the New England women had +nothing to hope for from these strangers. The bravest of them also went +away to other states; but myriads who could not go were condemned by +circumstances to stay and earn their living by hard work without any +prospect of happy marriage. The difficulty which a girl of culture may +experience in trying to live by the work of her hands in New England is +something not easily imagined. But it is getting to be the same in most +Western countries. Such a girl is watching a spider weaving in the corner +of the same room where she herself is weaving; and she thinks, "Am I not +like that spider, obliged to supply my every need by the work of my own +hands, without sympathy, without friends? The spider will spin and catch +flies until the autumn comes; then she will die. Perhaps I too must +continue to spin until the autumn of my own life--until I become too old +to work hard, and die of cold and of exhaustion." + + Poor sister of the spinster clan! + I too from out my store within + My daily life and living plan, + My home, my rest, my pleasure spin. + + I know thy heart when heartless hands + Sweep all that hard-earned web away; + Destroy its pearled and glittering bands, + And leave thee homeless by the way. + + I know thy peace when all is done. + Each anchored thread, each tiny knot, + Soft shining in the autumn sun; + A sheltered, silent, tranquil lot. + + I know what thou hast never known,-- + Sad presage to a soul allowed-- + That not for life I spin, alone, + But day by day I spin my shroud. + +The reference to the sweeping away of the spider's web, of course, implies +the pain often caused to such hardworking girls by the meanness of men who +employ them only to cheat them--shopkeepers or manufacturers who take +their work without justly paying for it, and who criticize it as bad in +order to force the owner to accept less money than it is worth. Again a +reference may be intended to the destruction of the home by some legal +trick--some unscrupulous method of cheating the daughter out of the +property bequeathed to her by her parents. + +Notice a few pretty words here. The "pearled" as applied to the spider's +thread gives an intimation of the effect produced by dew on the thread, +but there is also the suggestion of tears upon the thread work woven by +the hands of the girl. The participle "anchored" is very pretty in its use +here as an adjective, because this word is now especially used for +rope-fastening, whether the rope be steel or hemp; and particularly for +the fastening of the cables of a bridge. The last stanza might be +paraphrased thus: "Sister Spider, I know more than you--and that knowledge +makes me unhappy. You do not know, when you are spinning your little web, +that you are really weaving your own shroud. But I know this, my work is +slowly but surely killing me. And I know it because I have a soul--at +least a mind made otherwise than yours." + +The use of the word "soul" in the last stanza of this poem, brings me back +to the question put forth in an earlier part of the lecture--why European +poets, during the last two thousand years, have written so little upon the +subject of insects? Three thousand, four thousand years ago, the most +beautiful Greek poetry--poetry more perfect than anything of English +poetry--was written upon insects. In old Japanese literature poems upon +insects are to be found by thousands. What is the signification of the +great modern silence in Western countries upon this delightful topic? I +believe that Christianity, as dogma, accounts for the long silence. The +opinions of the early Church refused soul, ghost, intelligence of any sort +to other creatures than man. All animals were considered as automata--that +is, as self-acting machines, moved by a something called instinct, for +want of a better name. To talk about the souls of animals or the spirits +of animals would have been very dangerous in the Middle Ages, when the +Church had supreme power; it would indeed have been to risk or to invite +an accusation of witchcraft, for demons were then thought to take the +shape of animals at certain times. To discuss the _mind_ of an animal +would have been for the Christian faith to throw doubt upon the existence +of human souls as taught by the Church; for if you grant that animals are +able to think, then you must acknowledge that man is able to think without +a soul, or you must acknowledge that the soul is not the essential +principle of thought and action. Until after the time of Descartes, who +later argued philosophically that animals were only machines, it was +scarcely possible to argue rationally about the matter in Europe. + +Nevertheless, we shall soon perceive that this explanation will not cover +all the facts. You will naturally ask how it happens that, if the question +be a question of animal souls, birds, horses, dogs, cats, and many other +animals have been made the subject of Western poems from ancient times. +The silence is only upon the subject of insects. And, again, Christianity +has one saint--the most beautiful character in all Christian +hagiography--who thought of all nature in a manner that, at first sight, +strangely resembles Buddhism. This saint was Francis of Assisi, born in +the latter part of the twelfth century, so that he may be said to belong +to the very heart of the Middle Ages,--the most superstitious epoch of +Christianity. Now this saint used to talk to trees and stones as if they +were animated beings. He addressed the sun as "my brother sun"; and he +spoke of the moon as his sister. He preached not only to human beings, but +also to the birds and the fishes; and he made a great many poems on these +subjects, full of a strange and childish beauty. For example, his sermon +to the doves, beginning, "My little sisters, the doves," in which he +reminds them that their form is the emblem or symbol of the Holy Ghost, is +a beautiful poem; and has been, with many others, translated into nearly +all modern languages. But observe that neither St. Francis nor any other +saint has anything to say on the subject of insects. + +Perhaps we must go back further than Christianity to guess the meaning of +these distinctions. Among the ancient races of Asia, where the Jewish +faith arose, there were strange and sinister beliefs about insects--old +Assyrian superstitions, old Babylonian beliefs. Insects seemed to those +early peoples very mysterious creatures (which they really are); and it +appears to have been thought that they had a close relation to the world +of demons and evil spirits. I suppose you know that the name of one of +their gods, Beelzebub, signifies the Lord of Flies. The Jews, as is shown +by their Talmudic literature, inherited some of these ideas; and it is +quite probable that they were passed on to the days of Christianity. +Again, in the early times of Christianity in Northern Africa the Church +had to fight against superstitions of an equally strange sort derived from +old Egyptian beliefs. Among the Egyptians, certain insects were sacred and +became symbols of divinity,--such as the beetle. Now I imagine that for +these reasons the subject of insects became at an early time a subject +which Christianity thought dangerous, and that thereafter a kind of +hostile opinion prevailed regarding any literature upon this topic. + +However, to-day things are very different. With the development of +scientific studies--especially of microscopic study--it has been found +that insects, far from being the lowliest of creatures, are the most +highly organized of all beings; that their special senses are incomparably +superior to our own; and that in natural history, from the evolutional +standpoint, they have to be given first place. This of course renders it +impossible any longer to consider the insect as a trifling subject. +Moreover, the new philosophy is teaching the thinking classes in all +Western countries the great truth of the unity of life. With the +recognition of such unity, an insect must interest the philosophers--even +the man of ordinary culture--quite as much as the bird or any other +animal. + +Nearly all the poems which I have quoted to you have been poems of very +modern date--from which we may infer that interest in the subject of +insects has been developing of late years only. In this connection it is +interesting to note that a very religious poet, Whittier, gave us in the +last days of his life a poem upon ants. This would have seemed strange +enough in a former age; it does not seem strange to-day, and it is +beautiful. The subject is taken from old Jewish literature. + + +KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS + + Out from Jerusalem + The King rode with his great + War chiefs and lords of state, + And Sheba's queen with them; + + Comely, but black withal, + To whom, perchance, belongs + That wondrous Song of Songs, + Sensuous and mystical, + + Whereto devout souls turn + In fond, ecstatic dream, + And through its earth-born theme + The Love of Loves discern. + + Proud in the Syrian sun, + In gold and purple sheen, + The dusky Ethiop queen + Smiled on King Solomon. + + Wisest of men, he knew + The languages of all + The creatures great or small + That trod the earth or flew. + + Across an ant-hill led + The king's path, and he heard + Its small folk, and their word + He thus interpreted: + + "Here comes the king men greet + As wise and good and just, + To crush us in the dust + Under his heedless feet." + +The king, understanding the language of insects, turns to the queen and +explains to her what the ants have just said. She advises him to pay no +attention to the sarcasm of the ants--how dare such vile creatures speak +thus about a king! But Solomon thinks otherwise: + + "Nay," Solomon replied, + "The wise and strong should seek + The welfare of the weak," + And turned his horse aside. + + His train, with quick alarm, + Curved with their leader round + The ant-hill's peopled mound, + And left it free from harm. + + The jewelled head bent low; + "Oh, king!" she said, "henceforth + The secret of thy worth + And wisdom well I know. + + "Happy must be the State + Whose ruler heedeth more + The murmurs of the poor + Than flatteries of the great." + +The reference to the Song of Songs--also the Song of Solomon and Canticle +of Canticles--may require a little explanation. The line "Comely but black +withal," is borrowed from a verse of this song--"I am black but beautiful, +oh, ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of +Solomon." In another part of the song the reason of this blackness is +given: "I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me." From which we +can see that the word black only means dark, brown, tanned by the sun. +Perhaps you do not know that as late as the middle of the eighteenth +century it was still the custom in England to speak of a person with black +hair and eyes as "a black man"--a custom which Charles Lamb had reason to +complain of even at a later day. The tents referred to in the text were +probably tents made of camel-skin, such as the Arabs still make, and the +colour of these is not black but brown. Whether Solomon wrote the +so-called song or not we do not know; but the poet refers to a legend that +it was written in praise of the beauty of the dark queen who came from +Sheba to visit the wisest man of the world. Such is not, however, the +opinion of modern scholars. The composition is really dramatic, although +thrown into lyrical form, and as arranged by Renan and others it becomes a +beautiful little play, of which each act is a monologue. "Sensuous" the +poet correctly calls it; for it is a form of praise of woman's beauty in +all its details, as appears in such famous verses as these: "How beautiful +are thy feet in shoes, O prince's daughter; the joints of thy thighs are +like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy two breasts +are like two young roes that are twins which feed among the lilies." But +Christianity, instead of dismissing this part of the Bible, interpreted +the song mystically--insisting that the woman described meant the Church, +and the lover, Christ. Of course only very pious people continue to +believe this; even the good Whittier preferred the legend that it was +written about the Queen of Sheba. + +I suppose that I ought to end this lecture upon insect poetry by some +quotation to which a moral or philosophical meaning can be attached. I +shall end it therefore with a quotation from the poet Gray. The poetry of +insects may be said to have first appeared in English literature during +the second half of the eighteenth century, so that it is only, at the +most, one hundred and fifty years old. But the first really fine poem of +the eighteenth century relating to the subject is quite as good as +anything since composed by Englishmen upon insect life in general. Perhaps +Gray referred especially to what we call May-flies--those delicate ghostly +insects which hover above water surfaces in fine weather, but which die on +the same day that they are born. He does not specify May-flies, however, +and we may consider the moral of the poem quite apart from any particular +kind of insect. You will find this reference in the piece entitled "Ode on +the Spring," in the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas. + + Still is the toiling hand of care: + The panting herds repose: + Yet hark, how through the peopled air + The busy murmur glows! + The insect youth are on the wing, + Eager to taste the honied spring, + And float amid the liquid noon: + Some lightly o'er the current skim, + Some show their gaily-gilded trim + Quick-glancing to the sun. + + To Contemplation's sober eye + Such is the race of man: + And they that creep, and they that fly, + Shall end where they began. + Alike the Busy and the Gay + But flutter through life's little day, + In fortune's varying colours dressed: + Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance, + Or chilled by Age, their airy dance + They leave, in dust to rest. + + Methinks I hear in accents low + The sportive kind reply: + Poor moralist! and what art thou? + A solitary fly! + Thy joys no glittering female meets, + No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets, + No painted plumage to display: + On hasty wings thy youth is flown; + Thy sun is set; thy spring is gone-- + We frolic, while 'tis May. + +The poet Gray was never married, and the last stanza which I have quoted +refers jocosely to himself. It is an artistic device to set off the moral +by a little mockery, so that it may not appear too melancholy. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SOME FRENCH POEMS ABOUT INSECTS + + +Last year I gave a lecture on the subject of English poems about insects, +with some reference to the old Greek poems on the same subject. But I did +not then have an opportunity to make any reference to French poems upon +the same subject, and I think that it would be a pity not to give you a +few examples. + +Just as in the case of English poems about insects, nearly all the French +literature upon this subject is new. Insect poetry belongs to the newer +and larger age of thought, to the age that begins to perceive the great +truth of the unity of life. We no longer find, even in natural histories, +the insect treated as a mere machine and unthinking organism; on the +contrary its habits, its customs and its manifestation both of +intelligence and instinct are being very carefully studied in these times, +and a certain sympathy, as well as a certain feeling of respect or +admiration, may be found in the scientific treatises of the greatest men +who write about insect life. So, naturally, Europe is slowly returning to +the poetical standpoint of the old Greeks in this respect. It is not +improbable that keeping caged insects as pets may again become a Western +custom, as it was in Greek times, when cages were made of rushes or straw +for the little creatures. I suppose you have heard that the Japanese +custom is very likely to become a fashion in America. If that should +really happen, the fact would certainly have an effect upon poetry. I +think that it is very likely to happen. + +The French poets who have written pretty things about insects are nearly +all poets of our own times. Some of them treat the subject from the old +Greek standpoint--indeed the beautiful poem of Heredia upon the tomb of a +grasshopper is perfectly Greek, and reads almost like a translation from +the Greek. Other poets try to express the romance of insects in the form +of a monologue, full of the thought of our own age. Others again touch the +subject of insects only in connection with the subject of love. I will +give one example of each method, keeping the best piece for the last, and +beginning with a pretty fancy about a dragonfly. + + +MA LIBELLULE + + En te voyant, toute mignonne, + Blanche dans ta robe d'azure, + Je pensais a quelque madone + Drapee en un pen de ciel pur. + + Je songeais a ces belles saintes + Que l'on voyait au temps jadis + Sourire sur les vitres peintes, + Montrant d'un doigt le paradis: + + Et j'aurais voulu, loin du monde + Qui passait frivole entre nous, + Dans quelque retraite profonde + T'adorer seul a deux genoux. + +This first part of the poem is addressed of course to a beautiful child, +some girl between the age of childhood and womanhood: + +"Beholding thee, Oh darling one, all white in thy azure dress, I thought +of some figure of the Madonna robed in a shred of pure blue sky. + +"I dreamed of those beautiful figures of saints whom one used to see in +olden times smiling in the stained glass of church windows, and pointing +upward to Paradise. + +"And I could have wished to adore you alone upon my bended knees in some +far hidden retreat, away from the frivolous world that passed between us." + +This little bit of ecstasy over the beauty and purity of a child is +pretty, but not particularly original. However, it is only an +introduction. Now comes the pretty part of the poem: + + Soudain un caprice bizarre + Change la scene et le decor, + Et mon esprit au loin s'egare + Sur des grands pres d'azure et d'or + + Ou, pres de ruisseaux muscules + Gazouillants comme des oiseaux, + Se poursuivent les libellules, + Ces fleurs vivantes des roseaux. + + Enfant, n'es tu pas l'une d'elles + Qui me poursuit pour consoler? + Vainement tu caches tes ailes; + Tu marches, mais tu sais voler. + + Petite fee au bleu corsage, + Que j'ai connu des mon berceau, + En revoyant ton doux visage, + Je pense aux joncs de mon ruisseau! + + Veux-tu qu'en amoureux fideles + Nous revenions dans ces pres verts? + Libellule, reprends tes ailes; + Moi, je brulerai tous mes vers! + + Et nous irons, sous la lumiere, + D'un ciel plus frais et plus leger + Chacun dans sa forme premiere, + Moi courir, et toi voltiger. + +"Suddenly a strange fancy changes for me the scene and the scenery; and my +mind wanders far away over great meadows of azure and gold. + +"Where, hard by tiny streams that murmur with a sound like voices of +little birds, the dragon-flies, those living flowers of the reeds, chase +each other at play. + +"Child, art thou not one of those dragon-flies, following after me to +console me? Ah, it is in vain that thou tryest to hide thy wings; thou +dost walk, indeed, but well thou knowest how to fly! + +"O little fairy with the blue corsage whom I knew even from the time I was +a baby in the cradle; seeing again thy sweet face, I think of the rushes +that border the little stream of my native village! + +"Dost thou not wish that even now as faithful lovers we return to those +green fields? O dragon-fly, take thy wings again, and I--I will burn all +my poetry, + +"And we shall go back, under the light of the sky more fresh and pure than +this, each of us in the original form--I to run about, and thou to hover +in the air as of yore." + +The sight of a child's face has revived for the poet very suddenly and +vividly, the recollection of the village home, the green fields of +childhood, the little stream where he used to play with the same little +girl, sometimes running after the dragon-fly. And now the queer fancy +comes to him that she herself is so like a dragon-fly--so light, graceful, +spiritual! Perhaps really she is a dragon-fly following him into the great +city, where he struggles to live as a poet, just in order to console him. +She hides her wings, but that is only to prevent other people knowing. Why +not return once more to the home of childhood, back to the green fields +and the sun? "Little dragon-fly," he says to her, "let us go back! do you +return to your beautiful summer shape, be a dragon-fly again, expand your +wings of gauze; and I shall stop trying to write poetry. I shall burn my +verses; I shall go back to the streams where we played as children; I +shall run about again with the joy of a child, and with you beautifully +flitting hither and thither as a dragon-fly." + +Victor Hugo also has a little poem about a dragon-fly, symbolic only, but +quite pretty. It is entitled "La Demoiselle"; and the other poem was +entitled, as you remember, "Ma Libellule." Both words mean a dragon-fly, +but not the same kind of dragon-fly. The French word "demoiselle," which +might be adequately rendered into Japanese by the term _ojosan_, refers +only to those exquisitely slender, graceful, slow-flitting dragon-flies +known to the scientist by the name of Calopteryx. Of course you know the +difference by sight, and the reason of the French name will be poetically +apparent to you. + + Quand la demoiselle doree + S'envole au depart des hivers, + Souvent sa robe diapree, + Souvent son aile est dechiree + Aux mille dards des buissons verts. + + Ainsi, jeunesse vive et frele, + Qui, t'egarant de tous cotes, + Voles ou ton instinct t'appele, + Souvent tu dechires ton aile + Aux epines des voluptes. + +"When, at the departure of winter, the gilded dragon-fly begins to soar, +often her many-coloured robe, often her wing, is torn by the thousand +thorns of the verdant shrubs. + +"Even so, O frail and joyous Youth, who, wandering hither and thither, in +every direction, flyest wherever thy instinct calls thee--even so thou +dost often tear thy wings upon the thorns of pleasure." + +You must understand that pleasure is compared to a rose-bush, whose +beautiful and fragrant flowers attract the insects, but whose thorns are +dangerous to the visitors. However, Victor Hugo does not use the word for +rose-bush, for obvious reasons; nor does he qualify the plants which are +said to tear the wings of the dragon-fly. I need hardly tell you that the +comparison would not hold good in reference to the attraction of flowers, +because dragon-flies do not care in the least about flowers, and if they +happen to tear their wings among thorn bushes, it is much more likely to +be in their attempt to capture and devour other insects. The merit of the +poem is chiefly in its music and colour; as natural history it would not +bear criticism. The most beautiful modern French poem about insects, +beautiful because of its classical perfection, is I think a sonnet by +Heredia, entitled "Epigramme Funeraire"--that is to say, "Inscription for +a Tombstone." This is an exact imitation of Greek sentiment and +expression, carefully studied after the poets of the anthology. Several +such Greek poems are extant, recounting how children mourned for pet +insects which had died in spite of all their care. The most celebrated one +among these I quoted in a former lecture--the poem about the little Greek +girl Myro who made a tomb for her grasshopper and cried over it. Heredia +has very well copied the Greek feeling in this fine sonnet: + + Ici git, Etranger, la verte sauterelle + Que durant deux saisons nourrit la jeune Helle, + Et dont l'aile vibrant sous le pied dentele. + Bruissait dans le pin, le cytise, ou l'airelle. + + Elle s'est tue, helas! la lyre naturelle, + La muse des guerets, des sillons et du ble; + De peur que son leger sommeil ne soit trouble, + Ah, passe vite, ami, ne pese point sur elle. + + C'est la. Blanche, au milieu d'une touffe de thym, + Sa pierre funeraire est fraichement posee. + Que d'hommes n'ont pas eu ce supreme destin! + + Des larmes d'un enfant la tombe est arrosee, + Et l'Aurore pieuse y fait chaque matin + Une libation de gouttes de rosee. + +"Stranger, here reposes the green grasshopper that the young girl Helle +cared for during two seasons,--the grasshopper whose wings, vibrating +under the strokes of its serrated feet, used to resound in the pine, the +trefoil and the whortleberry. + +"She is silent now, alas! that natural lyre, muse of the unsown fields, of +the furrows, and of the wheat. Lest her light sleep should be disturbed, +ah! pass quickly, friend! do not be heavy upon her. + +"It is there. All white, in the midst of a tuft of thyme, her funeral +monument is placed, in cool shadow; how many men have not been able to +have this supremely happy end! + +"By the tears of a child the insect's tomb is watered; and the pious +goddess of dawn each morning there makes a libation of drops of dew." + +This reads very imperfectly in a hasty translation; the original charm is +due to the perfect art of the form. But the whole thing, as I have said +before, is really Greek, and based upon a close study of several little +Greek poems on the same kind of subject. Little Greek girls thousands of +years ago used to keep singing insects as pets, every day feeding them +with slices of leek and with fresh water, putting in their little cages +sprigs of the plants which they liked. The sorrow of the child for the +inevitable death of her insect pets at the approach of winter, seems to +have inspired many Greek poets. With all tenderness, the child would make +a small grave for the insect, bury it solemnly, and put a little white +stone above the place to imitate a grave-stone. But of course she would +want an inscription for this tombstone--perhaps would ask some of her +grown-up friends to compose one for her. Sometimes the grown-up friend +might be a poet, in which case he would compose an epitaph for all time. + +I suppose you perceive that the solemnity of this imitation of the Greek +poems on the subject is only a tender mockery, a playful sympathy with the +real grief of the child. The expression, "pass, friend," is often found in +Greek funeral inscriptions together with the injunction to tread lightly +upon the dust of the dead. There is one French word to which I will call +attention,--the word "guerets." We have no English equivalent for this +term, said to be a corruption of the Latin word "veractum," and meaning +fields which have been ploughed but not sown. + +Not to dwell longer upon the phase of art indicated by this poem, I may +turn to the subject of crickets. There are many French poems about +crickets. One by Lamartine is known to almost every French child. + + Grillon solitaire, + Ici comme moi, + Voix qui sors de terre, + Ah! reveille-toi! + J'attise la flamme, + C'est pour t'egayer; + Mais il manque une ame, + Une ame au foyer. + + Grillon solitaire, + Voix qui sors de terre, + Ah! reveille-toi + Pour moi. + + Quand j'etais petite + Comme ce berceau, + Et que Marguerite + Filait son fuseau, + Quand le vent d'automne + Faisait tout gemir, + Ton cri monotone + M'aidait a dormir. + + Grillon solitaire, + Voix qui sors de terre, + Ah! reveille-toi + Pour moi. + + Seize fois l'annee + A compte mes jours; + Dans la cheminee + Tu niches toujours. + Je t'ecoute encore + Aux froides saisons. + Souvenir sonore + Des vieilles maisons. + + Grillon solitaire, + Voix qui sors de terre, + Ah! reveille-toi + Pour moi. + +It is a young girl who thus addresses the cricket of the hearth, the house +cricket. It is very common in country houses in Europe. This is what she +says: + +"Little solitary cricket, all alone here just like myself, little voice +that comes up out of the ground, ah, awake for my sake! I am stirring up +the fires, that is just to make you comfortable; but there lacks a +presence by the hearth; a soul to keep me company. + +"When I was a very little girl, as little as that cradle in the corner of +the room, then, while Margaret our servant sat there spinning, and while +the autumn wind made everything moan outside, your monotonous cry used to +help me to fall asleep. + +"Solitary cricket, voice that issues from the ground, awaken, for my sake. + +"Now I am sixteen years of age and you are still nestling in the chimneys +as of old. I can hear you still in the cold season,--like a +sound--memory,--a sonorous memory of old houses. + +"Solitary cricket, voice that issues from the ground, awaken, O awaken for +my sake." + +I do not think this pretty little song needs any explanation; I would only +call your attention to the natural truth of the fancy and the feeling. +Sitting alone by the fire in the night, the maiden wants to hear the +cricket sing, because it makes her think of her childhood, and she finds +happiness in remembering it. + +So far as mere art goes, the poem of Gautier on the cricket is very much +finer than the poem of Lamartine, though not so natural and pleasing. But +as Gautier was the greatest master of French verse in the nineteenth +century, not excepting Victor Hugo, I think that one example of his poetry +on insects may be of interest. He was very poor, compared with Victor +Hugo; and he had to make his living by writing for newspapers, so that he +had no time to become the great poet that nature intended him to be. +However, he did find time to produce one volume of highly finished poetry, +which is probably the most perfect verse of the nineteenth century, if not +the most perfect verse ever made by a French poet; I mean the "Emaux et +Camees." But the little poem which I am going to read to you is not from +the "Emaux et Camees." + + Souffle, bise! Tombe a flots, pluie! + Dans mon palais tout noir de suie, + Je ris de la pluie et du vent; + En attendant que l'hiver fuie, + Je reste au coin du feu, revant. + + C'est moi qui suis l'esprit de l'atre! + Le gaz, de sa langue bleuatre, + Leche plus doucement le bois; + La fumee en filet d'albatre, + Monte et se contourne a ma voix. + + La bouilloire rit et babille; + La flamme aux pieds d'argent sautille + En accompagnant ma chanson; + La buche de duvet s'habille; + La seve bout dans le tison. + + * * * * * + + Pendant la nuit et la journee + Je chante sous la cheminee; + Dans mon langage de grillon + J'ai, des rebuts de son ainee, + Souvent console Cendrillon. + + * * * * * + + Quel plaisir? Prolonger sa veille, + Regarder la flamme vermeille + Prenant a deux bras le tison, + A tous les bruits preter l'oreille, + Entendre vivre la maison. + + Tapi dans sa niche bien chaude, + Sentir l'hiver qui pleure et rode, + Tout bleme, et le nez violet, + Tachant de s'introduire en fraude + Par quelque fente du volet! + +This poem is especially picturesque, and is intended to give us the +comfortable sensations of a winter night by the fire, and the amusement of +watching the wood burn and of hearing the kettle boiling. You will find +that the French has a particular quality of lucid expression; it is full +of clearness and colour. + +"Blow on, cold wind! pour down, O rain. I, in my soot-black palace, laugh +at both rain and wind; and while waiting for winter to pass I remain in my +corner by the fire dreaming. + +"It is I that am really the spirit of the hearth! The gaseous flame licks +the wood more softly with its bluish tongue when it hears me; and the +smoke rises up like an alabaster thread, and curls itself about (or +twists) at the sound of my voice. + +"The kettle chuckles and chatters; the golden-footed flame leaps, dancing +to the accompaniment of my song (or in accompaniment to my song); the +great log covers itself with down, the sap boils in the wooden embers +("duvet," meaning "down," refers to the soft fluffy white ash that forms +upon the surface of burning wood). + +"All night and all day I sing below the chimney. Often in my +cricket-language, I have consoled Cinderella for the snubs of her elder +sister. + +"Ah, what pleasure to sit up at night, and watch the crimson flames +embracing the wood (or hugging the wood) with both arms at once, and to +listen to all the sounds and to hear the life of the house! + +"Nestling in one's good warm nook, how pleasant to hear Winter, who weeps +and prowls round about the house outside, all wan and blue-nosed with +cold, trying to smuggle itself inside some chink in the shutter!" + +Of course this does not give us much about the insect itself, which +remains invisible in the poem, just as it really remains invisible in the +house where the voice is heard. Rather does the poem express the feelings +of the person who hears the cricket. + +When we come to the subject of grasshoppers, I think that the French poets +have done much better than the English. There are many poems on the field +grasshopper; I scarcely know which to quote first. But I think you would +be pleased with a little composition by the celebrated French painter, +Jules Breton. Like Rossetti he was both painter and poet; and in both arts +he took for his subjects by preference things from country life. This +little poem is entitled "Les Cigales." The word "cigales," though really +identical with our word "cicala," seldom means the same thing. Indeed the +French word may mean several different kinds of insects, and it is only by +studying the text that we can feel quite sure what sort of insect is +meant. + + Lorsque dans l'herbe mure ancun epi ne bouge, + Qu'a l'ardeur des rayons crepite le frement, + Que le coquelicot tombe languissament + Sous le faible fardeau de sa corolle rouge, + + Tous les oiseaux de l'air out fait taire leur chants; + Les ramiers paresseux, au plus noir des ramures, + Somnolents, dans les bois, out cesse leurs murmures + Loin du soleil muet incendiant les champs. + + Dans le ble, cependant, d'intrepides cigales + Jetant leurs mille bruits, fanfare de l'ete, + Out frenetiquement et sans treve agite + Leurs ailes sur l'airaine de leurs folles cymbales. + + Tremoussantes, deboutes sur les longs epis d'or, + Virtuoses qui vont s'eteindre avant l'automne, + Elles poussent au del leur hymne monotone + Que dans I'ombre des nuits retentisse encore. + + Et rien n'arretera leurs cris intarissables; + Quand on les chassera de l'avoine et des bles. + Elles emigreront sur les buissons brules + Qui se meurent de soif dans les deserts de sable. + + Sur l'arbuste effeuille, sur les chardons fletris + Qui laissent s'envoler leur blanche chevelure, + On reverra l'insecte a la forte encolure, + Pleine d'ivresse, toujours s'exalter dans ses cris. + + Jusqu'a ce qu'ouvrant l'aile en lambeaux arrachee, + Exaspere, brulant d'un feu toujours plus pur, + Son oeil de bronze fixe et tendu vers l'azur, + II expire en chantant sur la tige sechee. + +For the word "encolure" we have no English equivalent; it means the line +of the neck and shoulder--sometimes the general appearance of shape of the +body. + +"When in the ripening grain field not a single ear of wheat moves; when in +the beaming heat the corn seems to crackle; when the poppy languishes and +bends down under the feeble burden of its scarlet corolla, + +"Then all the birds of the air have hushed their songs; even the indolent +doves, seeking the darkest part of the foliage in the tree, have become +drowsy in the woods, and have ceased their cooing, far from the fields, +which the silent sun is burning. + +"Nevertheless, in the wheat, the brave grasshoppers uttering their +thousand sounds, a trumpet flourish of summer, have continued furiously +and unceasingly to smite their wings upon the brass of their wild cymbal. + +"Quivering as they stand upon the long gold ears of the grain, master +musicians who must die before the coming of Fall, they sound to heaven +their monotonous hymn, which re-echoes even in the darkness of the night. + +"And nothing will check their inexhaustible shrilling. When chased away +from the oats and from the wheat, they will migrate to the scorched bushes +which die of thirst in the wastes of sand. + +"Upon the leafless shrubs, upon the dried up thistles, which let their +white hair fall and float away, there the sturdily-built insect can be +seen again, filled with enthusiasm, even more and more excited as he +cries, + +"Until, at last, opening his wings, now rent into shreds, exasperated, +burning more and more fiercely in the frenzy of his excitement, and with +his eyes of bronze always fixed motionlessly upon the azure sky, he dies +in his song upon the withered grain." + +This is difficult to translate at all satisfactorily, owing to the +multitude of images compressed together. But the idea expressed is a fine +one--the courage of the insect challenging the sun, and only chanting more +and more as the heat and the thirst increase. The poem has, if you like, +the fault of exaggeration, but the colour and music are very fine; and +even the exaggeration itself has the merit of making the images more +vivid. + +It will not be necessary to quote another text; we shall scarcely have the +time; but I want to translate to you something of another poem upon the +same insect by the modern French poet Jean Aicard. In this poem, as in the +little poem by Gautier, which I quoted to you, the writer puts his thought +in the mouth of the insect, so to say--that is, makes the insect tell its +own story. + +"I am the impassive and noble insect that sings in the summer solstice +from the dazzling dawn all the day long in the fragrant pine-wood. And my +song is always the same, regular as the equal course of the season and of +the sun. I am the speech of the hot and beaming sun, and when the reapers, +weary of heaping the sheaves together, lie down in the lukewarm shade, and +sleep and pant in the ardour of noonday--then more than at any other time +do I utter freely and joyously that double-echoing strophe with which my +whole body vibrates. And when nothing else moves in all the land round +about, I palpitate and loudly sound my little drum. Otherwise the sunlight +triumphs; and in the whole landscape nothing is heard but my cry,--like +the joy of the light itself. + +"Like a butterfly I take up from the hearts of the flowers that pure water +which the night lets fall into them like tears. I am inspired only by the +almighty sun. Socrates listened to me; Virgil made mention of me. I am the +insect especially beloved by the poets and by the bards. The ardent sun +reflects himself in the globes of my eyes. My ruddy bed, which seems to be +powdered like the surface of fine ripe fruit, resembles some exquisite +key-board of silver and gold, all quivering with music. My four wings, +with their delicate net-work of nerves, allow the bright down upon my +black back to be seen through their transparency. And like a star upon the +forehead of some divinely inspired poet, three exquisitely mounted rubies +glitter upon my head." + +These are fair examples of the French manner of treating the interesting +subject of insects in poetry. If you should ask me whether the French +poets are better than the English, I should answer, "In point of feeling, +no." The real value of such examples to the student should be emotional, +not descriptive. I think that the Japanese poems on insects, though not +comparable in point of mere form with some of the foreign poems which I +have quoted, are better in another way--they come nearer to the true +essence of poetry. For the Japanese poets have taken the subject of +insects chiefly for the purpose of suggesting human emotion; and that is +certainly the way in which such a subject should be used. Remember that +this is an age in which we are beginning to learn things about insects +which could not have been even imagined fifty years ago, and the more that +we learn about these miraculous creatures, the more difficult does it +become for us to write poetically about their lives, or about their +possible ways of thinking and feeling. Probably no mortal man will ever be +able to imagine how insects think or feel or hear or even see. Not only +are their senses totally different from those of animals, but they appear +to have a variety of special senses about which we can not know anything +at all. As for their existence, it is full of facts so atrocious and so +horrible as to realize most of the imaginations of old about the torments +of hell. Now, for these reasons to make an insect speak in poetry--to put +one's thoughts, so to speak, into the mouth of an insect--is no longer +consistent with poetical good judgment. No; we must think of insects +either in relation to the mystery of their marvellous lives, or in +relation to the emotion which their sweet and melancholy music makes +within our minds. The impressions produced by hearing the shrilling of +crickets at night or by hearing the storm of cicadae in summer woods--those +impressions indeed are admirable subjects for poetry, and will continue to +be for all time. + +When I lectured to you long ago about Greek and English poems on insects, +I told you that nearly all the English poems on the subject were quite +modern. I still believe that I was right in this statement, as a general +assertion; but I have found one quaint poem about a grasshopper, which +must have been written about the middle of the seventeenth century or, +perhaps, a little earlier. The date of the author's birth and death are +respectively 1618 and 1658. His name, I think, you are familiar +with--Richard Lovelace, author of many amatory poems, and of one +especially famous song, "To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars"--containing the +celebrated stanza-- + + Yet this inconstancy is such + As you too shall adore; + I could not love thee, Dear, so much, + Loved I not honour more. + +Well, as I said, this man wrote one pretty little poem on a grasshopper, +which antedates most of the English poems on insects, if not all of them. + + +THE GRASSHOPPER + + O Thou that swing'st upon the waving ear + Of some well-filled oaten beard, + Drunk every night with a delicious tear + Dropt thee from heaven, where now th'art rear'd! + + The joys of earth and air are thine entire, + That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly; + And when thy poppy works, thou dost retire + To thy carved acorn-bed to lie. + + Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom'st then, + Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams, + And all these merry days mak'st merry men + Thyself, and melancholy streams. + +A little artificial, this poem written at least two hundred and fifty +years ago; but it is pretty in spite of its artifice. Some of the conceits +are so quaint that they must be explained. By the term "oaten beard," the +poet means an ear of oats; and you know that the grain of this plant is +furnished with very long hair, so that many poets have spoken of the +bearded oats. You may remember in this connection Tennyson's phrase "the +bearded barley" in the "Lady of Shalott," and Longfellow's term "bearded +grain" in his famous poem about the Reaper Death. When a person's beard is +very thick, we say in England to-day "a full beard," but in the time of +Shakespeare they used to say "a well filled beard"--hence the phrase in +the second line of the first stanza. + +In the third line the term "delicious tear" means dew,--which the Greeks +called the tears of the night, and sometimes the tears of the dawn; and +the phrase "drunk with dew" is quite Greek--so we may suspect that the +author of this poem had been reading the Greek Anthology. In the third +line of the second stanza the word "poppy" is used for sleep--a very +common simile in Elizabethan times, because from the poppy flower was +extracted the opiate which enables sick persons to sleep. The Greek +authors spoke of poppy sleep. "And when thy poppy works," means, when the +essence of sleep begins to operate upon you, or more simply, when you +sleep. Perhaps the phrase about the "carved acorn-bed" may puzzle you; it +is borrowed from the fairy-lore of Shakespeare's time, when fairies were +said to sleep in little beds carved out of acorn shells; the simile is +used only by way of calling the insect a fairy creature. In the second +line of the third stanza you may notice the curious expression about the +"gilt plaits" of the sun's beams. It was the custom in those days, as it +still is in these, for young girls to plait their long hair; and the +expression "gilt plaits" only means braided or plaited golden hair. This +is perhaps a Greek conceit; for classic poets spoke of the golden hair of +the Sun God as illuminating the world. I have said that the poem is a +little artificial, but I think you will find it pretty, and even the +whimsical similes are "precious" in the best sense. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +NOTE ON THE INFLUENCE OF FINNISH POETRY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE + + +The subject of Finnish poetry ought to have a special interest for the +Japanese student, if only for the reason that Finnish poetry comes more +closely in many respects to Japanese poetry than any other form of Western +poetry. Indeed it is supposed that the Finnish race is more akin to the +Tartar races, and therefore probably to the Japanese, than the races of +Europe proper. Again, through Longfellow, the value of Finnish poetry to +English poetry was first suggested, and I think you know that Longfellow's +Indian epic, "The Song of Hiawatha," was modelled entirely upon the +Finnish "Kalevala." + +But a word about the "Kalevala," which has a very interesting history. I +believe you know that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the +"Kalevala" was not known to exist. During the first half of the century, +Finnish scholars in the University of Helsingfors (where there is now a +great and flourishing university) began to take literary interest in the +popular songs of Finland. For years the people had been singing +extraordinary songs full of a strange beauty and weirdness quite unlike +any other popular songs of Europe; and for centuries professional singers +had been wandering about the country teaching these songs to the +accompaniment of a kind of _biwa_ called Kantela. The scholars of the +University began to collect these songs from the mouths of the peasants +and musicians--at first with great difficulty, afterwards with much +success. The difficulty was a very curious one. In Finland the ancient +pagan religion had really never died; the songs of the peasants were full +of allusions to the old faith and the old gods, and the orthodox church +had often attempted in vain to prevent the singing of these songs, because +they were not Christian. So the peasants at first thought that the +scholars who wanted to copy the songs were government spies or church +spies who wanted evidence to justify punishments. When the fears of the +people had been removed and when they came to understand that the +questioners were only scholars interested in literary beauty, all the +secret stores of songs were generously opened, and an immense collection +of oral literature was amassed in the University at Helsingfors. + +The greatest of the scholars engaged in the subsequent work of arranging +and classifying was Doctor Loennrot. While examining the manuscript of +these poems he was struck by the fact that, put together in a particular +order, they naturally made one great continuous story or epic. Was it +possible that the Finnish people had had during all these centuries an +epic unknown to the world of literature? Many persons would have ridiculed +the idea. But Loennrot followed up that idea, and after some years' study +he disengaged from all that mass of song something in the shape of a +wonderful epic, the epic of the "Kalevala." Loennrot was probably, almost +certainly, the only one who had even understood the idea of an epic of +this kind. The peasants did not know. They only had the fragments of the +whole; parts of the poem existed in one province, parts in another; no +Finnish musician had ever known the whole. The whole may have been made +first by Loennrot. At all events he was the Homer of the "Kalevala," and it +was fortunate for Finland that he happened to be himself both a scholar +and a poet--qualifications seldom united in the same person. + +What is the "Kalevala" as we now possess it? It is an epic, but not like +any other epic in the world, for the subject of it is Magic. We might call +it the Epic of Magic. It is the story of how the world and the heaven and +the sun and the moon and the stars, the elements and the races of living +creatures and all other things were created by magic; also how the first +inhabitants of the world lived, and loved, and fought. But there is +another thing to be said in a general was about this magic. The magic of +"Kalevala" is not like anything else known by that name in European +literature. The magic of "Kalevala" is entirely the magic of words. These +ancient people believed in the existence of words, by the utterance of +which anything might be accomplished. Instead of buying wood and hiring +carpenters, you might build a house by uttering certain magical words. If +you had no horse and wanted to travel rapidly, you could make a horse for +yourself out of bits of bark and old sticks by uttering over them certain +magical words. But this was not all. Beings of intellect, men and women, +whole armies of men, in fact, might be created in a moment by the +utterance of these mystical words. There is the real subject of the +"Kalevala." + +I told you that the epic is not like anything else in European literature +and not like anything else in the world as to the subject. But this is not +the case as regards the verse. The verse is not like Japanese verse, +indeed, but it comes nearer to it than any other European verse does. Of +course even in Finnish verse, accents mean a great deal, and accent means +nothing at all in Japanese verse. But I imagine something very much like +Finnish verse might be written in Japanese, provided that in reciting it a +slight stress is thrown on certain syllables. Of course you know something +about Longfellow's "Hiawatha"--such lines as these: + + And the evening sun descending + Set the clouds on fire with redness, + Burned the broad sky like a prairie, + Left upon the level water + One long track and trail of splendour, + Down whose stream, as down a river, + Westward, westward Hiawatha + Sailed into the fiery sunset, + Sailed into the purple vapours, + Sailed into the dusk of evening. + +You will observe this is verse of eight syllables with four trochees to a +line. Now it is perhaps as near to Finnish verse as English verse can be +made. But the Finnish verse is more musical, and it is much more flexible, +and the rules of it can be better carried out than in English. There is +much more to be thought about than the placing of four trochaic feet to a +line. Not only must the verse be trochaic, it must also be alliterative, +and it must also be, to some extent, rhymed verse--a matter which +Longfellow did not take into consideration. That would have doubled his +difficulty. To make verse trochaic, alliterative and rhymed, is very +difficult indeed--that is, to do it well. Only one liberty is allowed; it +is not necessary that the rhyme shall be regular and constant; it is +necessary only that it should be occasional. But the interest of Finnish +verse does not end here. I have not yet mentioned the most important law +of Finnish poetry--the law of parallelism or repetition. Parallelism is +the better word. It means the repetition of a thought in a slightly +modified way. It is parallelism especially that makes so splendid the +English translation of the Bible, and the majesty of such passages in the +Book of Common Prayer as the Funeral Service. So that Finnish poetry is +anything but very simple. We may now sum it up thus--trochaic verse of +eight syllables, with alliteration and rhyme, a caesura in the same part +of every line, and every line reiterated in parallelism. + +A little above I mentioned the English of the Bible. Long ago I explained +why that English is so beautiful and so strong. But remember that much of +the best of the Bible, in the original Hebrew, was not prose but verse, +and that the fine effects have been produced by translating the verse into +musical prose. The very effect can be produced by translating the +"Kalevala" into prose. Occasionally the passages are of surprising beauty, +and they are always of surprising strangeness. + +It is in parallelism especially that Finnish poetry offers a contrast to +Japanese, but there is no reason whatever why, in the longer poems of +Japanese poetry, parallelism could not be used. All things have value +according to place and time, and this has value--provided that it has a +special effect on a special occasion. All through the "Kalevala," all +through five hundred pages, large pages, the parallelism is carried on, +and yet one never gets tired. It is not monotonous. But that is because +the subject is so well adapted to this form of poetry. See how the poem +opens, when the poet begins to talk about what he is going to sing: + +"Anciently my father sang me these words in hewing the handle of his ax; +anciently my mother taught me these words as she turned her spindle. In +that time I was only a child, a little child at the breast,--a useless +little being creeping upon the floor at the feet of its nurse, its cheek +bedaubed with milk. And there are other words which I drew from the spring +of knowledge, which I found by the wayside, which I snatched from the +heart of the thickets, which I detached from the branches of the trees, +which I gathered at the edges of the pastures--when, In my infancy, I used +to go to guard the flocks, in the midst of the honey-streaming meadows, +upon the gold-shining hills, behind the black Murikki, behind the spotted +Kimmo, my favourite cows. + +"Also the cold sang the songs, the rain sang me verses, the winds of +heaven, the waves of the sea made me hear their poems, the birds +instructed me with their melodies, the long-haired trees invited me to +their concerts. And all the songs I gathered together, I rolled them up in +a skin, I carried them away in my beautiful little holiday sledge, I +deposited them in the bottom of a chest of brass, upon the highest shelf +of my treasure house." + +Now when a poem opens that way we may be sure that there are great things +in it; and some of these great things we shall read about presently. The +"Kalevala" is full of wonderful stories, But in the above quotation, I +want you to see how multiple it is, and yet it is beautiful. Now there is +a very interesting thing yet to tell you about this parallelism. Such +poems as those of the "Kalevala" have always to be sung not by one singer +but by two. The two singers straddle a bench facing each other and hold +each other's hands. Then they sing alternately, each chanting one line, +rocking back and forward, pulling each other to and fro as they sing--so +that it is like the motion of rowing. One chants a line and pulls +backward, then the other chants the next line and pulls in the opposite +direction. Not to be able to answer at once would be considered a great +disgrace; and every singer has to be able to improvise as well as to sing. +And that is the signification of the following verse: + +"Put thy hand to my hand--place thy fingers between my fingers--that we +may sing of the things which are." + +The most beautiful story in this wonderful book is the story of Kullervo. +It was after reading this story that Longfellow imagined his story of the +Strong Man Kwasind. Kullervo is born so strong that as an infant he breaks +his cradle to pieces, and as a boy he can not do any work, for all the +tools and instruments break in his grasp. Therefore he gives a great deal +of trouble at home and has to go out into the world to seek his fortune. +In the world, of course, he has just the same trouble; for nobody will +employ him very long. However, the story of Kullervo's feats of strength, +though interesting, need not now concern us. The great charm of this +composition is in the description of a mother's love which it contains. +Kullervo brought misfortune everywhere simply by his strength and by his +great passions--at last committing a terrible crime, causing the death of +his own sister, whom he does not recognize. He goes back home in +desperation and remorse; and there everybody regards him with horror, +except only his mother. She alone tries to console him; she alone tells +him that repentance may bring him rest. He then proposes to go away and +amend his wrong-doing in solitude. But first he bids them all goodbye, and +the episode is characteristic. + +Kullervo, the son of Kalervo, gets him ready to depart; he goes to his old +father and says: "Farewell now, O my dear father. Wilt thou regret me +bitterly, when thou shalt learn that I am dead?--that I have disappeared +from among the multitude of the living?--that I no longer am one of the +members of thy family?" The father answered: "No, certainly I will not +regret thee when I shall hear that thou art dead. Another son perchance +will be born to me--a son who will grow up better and wiser than thou." + +Kullervo, son of Kalervo, answered: "And I also will not be sorry if I +hear that thou art dead. Without any trouble I can find me such a father +as thou--a stone-hearted father, a clay-mouthed father, a berry-eyed +father, a straw-bearded father, a father whose feet are made of the roots +of the willow tree, a father whose flesh is decaying wood." Why does +Kullervo use these extraordinary terms? It is a reference to magic--out of +stone and clay and straw, a phantom man can be made, and Kullervo means to +say that his father is no more to him than a phantom father, an unreal +father, a father who has no fatherly feeling. His brothers and sisters all +questioned in turn if they will be sorry to hear that he is dead, make the +same cruel answer; and he replies to them with the same angry words. But +it is very different when he speaks to his mother. + +For to his mother he said--"Oh my sweet mother, my beautiful nurse, my +loved protectress, wilt thou regret me bitterly when thou shalt learn that +I am dead, that I have disappeared from the multitude of the living, that +I am no longer one of the members of thy family?" + +The mother made answer: "Thou does not comprehend the soul of the +mother--thou canst not understand the heart of the mother. Assuredly will +I regret thee most bitterly when I shall learn that thou art dead, that +thou hast disappeared, from among the multitude of the living, that thou +hast ceased to be one of the members of my family. Floods of tears shall I +weep in my chamber. The waves of tears will overflow on the floor. And +upon the stairway lamentably shall I weep; and in the stable loudly shall +I sorrow. Upon the icy ways the snow shall melt under my tears--under my +tears the earth of the roads shall melt away; under my tears new meadow +grass shall grow up, green sprouting, and through that grass little +streams shall murmur away." To this mother, naturally, Kullervo says no +unkind words. He goes away, able at least to feel that there is one person +in the world who loves him and one person in the world whom he loves. But +how much his mother really loves him he does not yet know; he will know +that later--it forms the most beautiful part of the poem. + +"Kullervo directed his steps once more to the home of his fathers. +Desolate he found it, desolate and deserted; no person advanced to salute +him, no person came to press his hand, to give him welcome. + +"He drew near to the hearth: the embers were extinguished. By that he knew +that his mother had ceased to be. + +"He drew near to the fire-place, and the stones of the fire-place were +cold. By that he knew that his father had ceased to be. + +"He turned his eyes upon the floor of his home; the planks of the floor +were covered with dirt and rubbish. By that he knew that his sister had +ceased to be. + +"To the shore of the sea he went; the boat that used to be there was there +no longer. By that he knew that his brother had ceased to be. + +"Then he began to weep. For a whole day he wept, for two whole days he +wept; then he cried aloud: 'O my mother, O my sweet mother, what didst +thou leave thy son yet in the world? Alas! now thou canst hear me no +longer; and it is in vain that I stand above thy tomb, that I sob over the +place of thine eyebrows, over the place of thy temples; it is in vain that +I cry out my grief above thy dead forehead.' + +"The mother of Kullervo awakened in her tomb, and out of the depth of the +dust she spake to him: 'I have left the dog Mastif, in order that thou +mayst go with him to the chase. Take therefore the faithful dog, and go +with him into the wild forest, into the dark wilderness, even to the +dwelling place, far away, of the blue-robed Virgins of the wood, and there +thou wilt seek thy nourishment, thou wilt ask for the game that is +necessary to thy existence.'" + +It was believed that there was a particular forest god, who protected the +trees and the wild things of the wood. The hunter could be successful in +the chase only upon condition of obtaining his favour and permission to +hunt. This explains the reference to the abode of the forest god. But +Kullervo can not go far; his remorse takes him by the throat. + +"Kullervo, son of Kalervo, took his faithful dog, and directed his steps +toward the wild forest, toward the dark wilderness. But when he had gone +only a little way he found himself at the very place where he had outraged +the young girl, where he had dishonoured the child of his mother. And all +things there mourned for her--all things; the soft grass and the tender +foliage, and the little plants, and the sorrowful briars. The grass was no +longer green, the briars no longer blossomed, the leaves and the plants +hung withered and dry about the spot where the virgin had been +dishonoured, where the brother had dishonoured his sister. + +"Kullervo drew forth his sword, his sharpedged sword; a long time he +looked at it, turning it in his hand, and asking it whether it would feel +no pleasure in eating the flesh of the man thus loaded with infamy, in +drinking the blood of the man thus covered with crime. + +"And the sword knew the heart of the man: it understood the question of +the hero. And it made answer to him saying: 'Why indeed should I not +gladly devour the flesh of the man who is loaded with infamy? Why indeed +should I not drink with pleasure the blood of the man who is burdened with +crime? For well I devoured even the flesh of the innocent man, well can I +drink even the blood of the man who is free from crime.' + +"Then Kullervo fixed his sword in the earth, with the handle downwards and +the point upwards, and he threw himself upon the point, and the point +passed through all the depth of his breast. + +"This was the end of all, this was the cruel destiny of Kullervo, the +irrevocable end of the son of the heroes--the death of the 'Man of +Misfortune.'" + +You can see how very much unlike other Western poetry this poetry is. The +imagination indeed is of another race and another time than those to whose +literary productions we have become accustomed. But there is beauty here; +and the strangeness of it indicates a possible literary value by which any +literature may be more or less enriched. Many are the particular episodes +which rival the beauty and strangeness of the episode of Kullervo; and I +wish that we could have time to quote them. But I can only refer to them. +There is, for example, the legend of the invention of music, when the hero +Wainamoinen (supposed to represent the Spirit of the Wind, and the sound +of the name indicates the wailing of the wind) invents the first musical +instrument. In no other literature is there anything quite like this +except in the Greek story of Orpheus. Even as the trees bent down their +heads to listen to the song of Orpheus, and as the wild beasts became +tamed at the sound, and as the very stones of the road followed to the +steps of the musician, so is it in the "Kalevala." But the Finnish Orpheus +is the greater magician. To hear him, the sun and moon come nearer to the +earth, the waves of the sea stop short, bending their heads; the cataracts +of the rivers hang motionless and silent; the fish raise their heads above +the water. And when he plays a sad melody, all nature weeps with him, even +the trees and the stones and the little plants by the wayside. And his own +tears in falling become splendid pearls for the crowns of kings. + +Then very wonderful too is the story of the eternal smith, Ilmarinen, who +forged the foundations of the world, forged the mountains, forged the blue +sky, so well forging them that nowhere can be seen the marks of the +pincer, the marks of the hammer, the heads of the nails. Working in his +smithy we see him all grime and black; upon his head there is one yard +deep of iron firing, upon his shoulders there is one fathom deep of +soot--the soot of the forge; for he seldom has time to bathe himself. But +when the notion takes him to get married, for the first time he bathes +himself, and dresses himself handsomely, then he becomes the most +beautiful of men. In order to win his wife he is obliged to perform +miracles of work; yet after he wins her she is killed by wild beasts. Then +he sets to work to forge himself a wife, a wife of silver, a bride of +gold. Very beautiful she is, but she has no heart, and she is always cold, +and there is no comfort in her; even all the magic of the world-maker can +not give her a warm heart. But the work is so beautiful that he does not +like to destroy it. So he takes the wife of silver, the bride of gold, to +the wisest of heroes, Wainamoinen, and offers her to him as a gift. But +the hero will have no such gift, "Throw her back into your forged fire, O +Ilmarinen," the hero makes answer--"What greater folly, what greater +sorrow can come upon man than to love a wife of silver, a bride of gold?" + +This pretty story needs no explanation; the moral is simply "Never marry +for money." + +Then there is the story of Lemminkainen (this personality suggested the +Pau-puk-keewis of Longfellow)--the joyous, reckless, handsome, mischievous +pleasure-lover,--always falling into trouble, because he will not follow +his mother's advice, but always loved by her in spite of his follies. The +mother of Lemminkainen is a more wonderful person than the mother of +Kullervo. Her son has been murdered, thrown into a river--the deepest of +all rivers, the river of the dead, the river of hell. And his mother goes +out to find him. She asks the trees in the forest to tell her where her +son is, and she obliges them to answer. But they do not know. She asks the +grass, the plants, the animals, the birds; she obliges even the road upon +which he walked to talk to her, she talks to the stars and the moon and +the sun. Only the sun knows, because he sees everything and he answers, +"Your son is dead, torn to pieces; he has been thrown into the river of +Tuoni, the river of hell, the river of the dead." But the mother does not +despair. Umarinen, the eternal smith, must make for her a rake of brass +with teeth long enough to reach into the world of the dead, into the +bottom of the abyss; and out of the abyss she brings up the parts of the +torn body of her son; she puts them together; she sings over them a magic +song; she brings her son to life again, and takes him home. But for a long +time he is not able to remember, because he has been dead. After a long +time he gets back his memory--only to get into new mischief out of which +his mother must help him afresh. + +The names of the three heroes quoted to you represent also the names of +three great stories, out of the many stories contained in the epics. But +in this epic, as in the Indian epics (I mean the Sanskrit epic), there is +much more than stories. There are also chapters of moral instruction of a +very curious kind--chapters about conduct, the conduct of the parents, the +conduct of the children, the conduct of the husband, the conduct of the +bride. The instructions to the bride are contained in the twenty-third +Rune; there are altogether fifty Runes in the book. This appears to me +likely to interest you, for it is written in relation to a family system +not at all like the family system of the rest of Europe. I think you will +find in it not a little that may remind you of Chinese teaching on the +same subject--the conduct of the daughter-in-law. But there are of course +many differences, and the most pleasing difference is the tone of great +tenderness in which the instructions are given. Let us quote some of them: + +"O young bride, O my young sister, O my well beloved and beautiful young +flower, listen to the words which I am going to speak to you, harken to +the lesson which I am going to teach you. You are going now very far away +from us, O beautiful flower!--you are going to take a long journey, O my +wild-strawberry fruit! you are about to fly away from us, O most delicate +down! you are about to leave us forever, O velvet tissue--far away from +this habitation you must go, far away from this beautiful house, to enter +another house, to enter into a strange family. And in that strange house +your position will be very different. There you will have to walk about +with care, to conduct yourself with prudence, to conduct yourself with +thoughtfulness. There you will not be able, as in the house of your +father, as in the dwelling of your mother, to run about where you please, +to run singing through the valleys, to warhle out your songs upon the +roadway. + +"New habits you must now learn, and forget all the old. You must abandon +the love of your father and content yourself with the love of your +father-in-law; you must bow very low, you must learn to be generous in the +use of courteous words. You must give up old habits and form new ones; you +must resign the love of your mother and content yourself with the love of +your step-mother: lower must you bow, and you must learn to be lavish in +the use of kindly words. + +"New habits you must learn and forget the old: you must leave behind you +the friendship of your brother, and content yourself with the friendship +of your brother-in-law; you must bow lower than you do now; you must learn +to be lavish of kindly words. + +"New habits you must acquire and forget the old ones; you must leave +behind you the friendship of your sister, and be satisfied with the +friendship of your sister-in-law; you must learn to make humble reverence, +to bow low, to be generous in kindly words. + +"If the old man in the corner be to you even like a wolf, if the old woman +in her corner be to you even as a she-bear in the house, if the +brother-in-law be to you even as a serpent upon the threshold, if the +sister-in-law be to you even as a sharp nail, none the less you must show +them each and all exactly the same respect and the same obedience that you +have been accustomed to display to your father, to display to your mother, +under the roof of your childhood home." + +Then follows a really terrible list of the duties that she must perform +every day from early morning until late at night; to mention them all +would take too long. I quote only a few, enough to show that the position +of a Finnish wife was by no means an easy one. + +"So soon as the cock crows in the morning you must be quick to rise; you +must keep your ears awake to hear the cry of the cock. And if there be no +cock, or the cock does not crow, then let the moon be as a cock for you, +let the constellation of the great Bear tell you when it is time to rise. +Then you must quickly make the fire, skilfully removing the ashes, without +sprinkling them upon the floor. Then quickly go to the stable, clean the +stable, take food to the cattle, feed all the animals on the farm. For +already the cow of your mother-in-law will be lowing for food; the horse +of your father-in-law will be whinnying; the milch cow of your +sister-in-law will be straining at her tether; the calf of your +brother-in-law will be bleating; for all will be waiting for her whose +duty it is to give them hay, whose duty it is to give them food." + +Like instructions are given about feeding the younger animals and the +fowls and the little pigs. But she must not forget the children of the +house at the same time: + +"When you have fed the animals and cleaned the stables come back quickly, +quickly as a snow-storm. For in the chamber the little child has awakened +and has begun to cry in his cradle. He cannot speak, poor little one; he +cannot tell you, if he be hungry or if he be cold, or if anything +extraordinary has happened to him, before someone that he knows has come +to care for him, before he hears the voice of his own mother." + +After enumerating and inculcating in the same manner all the duties of the +day, the conduct to be observed toward every member of the +family--father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister, and brother-in-law, and the +children of them--we find a very minute code of conduct set forth in +regard to neighbours and acquaintances. The young wife is especially +warned against gossip, against listening to any stories about what happens +in other people's houses, and against telling anybody what goes on within +her own. One piece of advice is memorable. If the young wife is asked +whether she is well fed, she should reply always that she has the best of +everything which a house can afford, this even if she should have been +left without any proper nourishment for several days. Evidently the +condition of submission to which Finnish women were reduced by custom was +something much less merciful than has ever been known in Eastern +countries. Only a very generous nature could bear such discipline; and we +have many glimpses in the poem of charming natures of this kind. + +You have seen that merely as a collection of wonderful stories the +Kalevala is of extraordinary interest, that it is also of interest as +describing the social ethics of a little known people--finally that it is +of interest, of very remarkable interest, merely as natural poetry--poetry +treating of wild nature, especially rivers and forests and mountains, of +the life of the fisher and hunter and wood-cutter. Indeed, so far as this +kind of poetry is concerned, the "Kalevala" stands alone among the older +productions of European poetry. You do not find this love of nature in +Scandinavian poetry, nor in Anglo-Saxon poetry, nor in old German poetry, +much less in the earlier form of French, Italian, or Spanish poetry. The +old Northern poetry comes nearest to it; for in Anglo-Saxon composition we +can find at least wonderful descriptions of the sea, of stones, of the +hard life of sailors. But the dominant tone in Northern poetry is war; it +is in descriptions of battle, or in accounts of the death of heroes, that +the ancient English or ancient Scandinavian poets excelled In Finnish +poetry, on the other hand, there is little or nothing about war. These +peaceful people never had any warlike history; their life was agricultural +for the most part, with little or no violence except such as the +excitement of hunting and fishing could produce. Therefore they had plenty +of time to think about nature, to love nature and to describe it as no +other people of the same period described it. Striking comparisons have +been made between the Anglo-Saxon Runes, or charm songs, and Finnish songs +of the same kind, which fully illustrate this difference. Like the Finns, +the early English had magical songs to the gods of nature--songs for the +healing of wounds and the banishing of sickness. But these are very +commonplace. Not one of them can compare as poetry with the verses of the +Finnish on the same subject. Here are examples in evidence. The first is a +prayer said when offering food to the Spirit of the forest, that he might +aid the hunter in his hunting. + +"Look, O Kuntar, a fat cake, a cake with honey, that I may propitiate the +forest, that I may propitiate the forest, that I may entice the thick +forest for the day of my hunting, when I go in search of prey. Accept my +salt, O wood, accept my porridge, O Tapio, dear king of the wood with the +hat of leaves, with the beard of moss." + +And here is a little prayer to the goddess of water repeated by a sick man +taking water as a medicine. + +"O pure water, O Lady of the Water, now do thou make me whole, lovely as +before! for this beg thee dearly, and in offering I give thee blood to +appease thee, salt to propitiate thee!" + +Or this: + +"Goddess of the Sea, mistress of waters, Queen of a hundred caves, arouse +the scaly flocks, urge on the fishy-crowds forth from their hiding places, +forth from the muddy shrine, forth from the net-hauling, to the nets of a +hundred fishers! Take now thy beauteous shield, shake the golden water, +with which thou frightenest the fish, and direct them toward the net +beneath the dark level, above the borders black." + +Yet another: + +"O vigorous mistress of the wild beasts, sweet lady of the earth, come +with me, be with me, where I go. Come thou and good luck bring me, to +happy fortune help me. Make thou to move the foliage, the fruit tree to be +shaken, and the wild beasts drive thither, the largest and the smallest, +with their snouts of every kind, with their paws of fur of all kinds!" + +Now when you look at these little prayers, when you read them over and +observe how pretty they are, you will also observe that they make little +pictures in the mind. Can not you see the fish gliding over the black +border under the dark level of the water, to the net of a hundred fishers? +Can you not see the "dear king of the wood," with his hat of leaves and +his beard of moss? Can you not also see in imagination the wild creatures +of the forest with their snouts of many shapes, with their fur of all +kinds? But in Anglo-Saxon poetry you will not find anything like that. +Anglo-Saxon Rune songs create no images. It is this picturesqueness, this +actuality of imagery that is distinctive in Finnish poetry. + +In the foregoing part of the lecture I have chiefly tried to interest you +in the "Kalevala." But aside from interesting you in the book itself as a +story, as a poem, I hope to direct your attention to a particular feature +in Finnish poetry which is most remote from Japanese poetry. I have spoken +of resemblances as to structure and method; but it is just in that part of +the method most opposed to Japanese tradition that the greatest interest +lies. I do not mean only the use of natural imagery; I mean much more the +use of parallelism to reinforce that imagery. That is the thing especially +worthy of literary study. Indeed, I think that such study might greatly +help towards a new development, a totally new departure in Japanese verse. +In another lecture I spoke as sincerely as I could of the very high merit +in the epigrammatic forms of Japanese poetry. These brief forms of poetry +have been developed in Japan to perfection not equalled elsewhere in +modern poetry, perhaps not surpassed, in some respects, even by Greek +poetry of the same kind. But there can be no doubt of this fact, that a +national literature requires many other forms of expression than the +epigrammatic form. Nothing that is good should ever be despised or cast +aside; but because of its excellences, we should not be blind to the +possibility of other excellences. Now Japanese literature has other forms +of poetry--forms in which it is possible to produce poems of immense +length, but the spirit of epigrammatic poetry has really been controlling +even these to a great degree. + +I mean that so far as I am able to understand the subject, the tendency of +all Japanese poetry is to terse expression. Were it not well therefore to +consider at least the possible result of a totally opposite +tendency,--expansion of fancy, luxuriance of expression? Terseness of +expression, pithiness, condensation, are of vast importance in prose, but +poetry has other methods, and the "Kalevala" is one of the best possible +object lessons in the study of such methods, because of the very +simplicity and naturalness with which they are followed. + +Of course there was parallelism in Western poetry, and all arts of +repetition, before anybody knew anything about the "Kalevala." The most +poetical part of Bible English, as I said, whether in the Bible itself or +in the Book of Common Prayer, depends almost entirely for its literary +effect upon parallelism, because the old Hebrews, like the old Finns, +practised this art of expression. Loosely and vaguely it was practised +also by many poets almost unconsciously, who had been particularly +influenced by the splendour of the scriptural translation. It had figured +in prose-poetry as early as the time of Sir Thomas Browne. It had +established quite a new idea of poetry even in America, where the great +American poet Poe introduced it into his compositions before Longfellow +studied the "Kalevala." I told you that the work of Poe, small as it is, +had influenced almost every poet of the great epoch, including Tennyson +and the Victorian masters. But the work even of Poe was rather instinctive +than the result of any systematic idea. The systematic idea was best +illustrated when the study of the "Kalevala" began. + +Let us see how Longfellow used the suggestion; but remember that he was +only a beginner, dealing with something entirely new--that he did not have +the strength of Tennyson nor the magical genius of Swinburne to help him. +He worked very simply, and probably very rapidly. There is a good deal of +his song of "Hiawatha" that is scarcely worthy of praise, and it is +difficult to quote effectively from it, because the charm of the thing +depends chiefly upon its reading as a whole. Nevertheless there are parts +which so well show or imitate the Finnish spirit, that I must try to quote +them. Take for instance the teaching of the little Indian child by his +grandmother--such verses as these, where she talks to the little boy about +the milky way in the sky: + + Many things Nokomis taught him + Of the stars that shine in heaven; + Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet, + Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses; + Showed the Death-Dance of the spirits, + Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs, + Flaring far away to northward + In the frosty nights of Winter; + Showed the broad, white road in heaven, + Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows, + Running straight across the heavens, + Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows. + +Or take again the story of the origin of the flower commonly called +"Dandelion": + + In his life he had one shadow, + In his heart one sorrow had he. + Once, as he was gazing northward, + Far away upon a prairie + He beheld a maiden standing, + Saw a tall and slender maiden + All alone upon a prairie; + Brightest green were all her garments + And her hair was like the sunshine. + Day by day he gazed upon her, + Day by day he sighed with passion, + Day by day his heart within him + Grew more hot with love and longing + For the maid with yellow tresses. + +Observe how the repetition served to represent the growing of the lover's +admiration. The same repetition can be used much more effectively in +describing weariness and pain, as In the lines about the winter famine: + + Oh, the long and dreary Winter! + Oh, the cold and cruel Winter! + Ever thicker, thicker, thicker + Froze the ice on lake and river, + Ever deeper, deeper, deeper + Fell the snow o'er all the landscape, + Fell the covering snow, and drifted + Through the forest, round the village. + Hardly from his buried wigwam + Could the hunter force a passage; + With his mittens and his snow-shoes + Vainly walked he through the forest, + Sought for bird or beast and found none, + Saw no track of deer or rabbit, + In the snow beheld no footprints, + In the ghastly, gleaming forest + Fell, and could not rise from weakness, + Perished there from cold and hunger. + Oh, the famine and the fever! + Oh, the wasting of the famine! + Oh, the blasting of the fever! + Oh, the wailing of the children! + Oh, the anguish of the women! + All the earth was sick and famished; + Hungry was the air around them, + Hungry was the sky above them, + And the hungry stars in heaven + Like the eyes of wolves glared at them! + +This is strong, emotionally strong, though it is not great poetry; but it +makes the emotional effect of great poetry by the use of the same means +which the Finnish poets used. The best part of the poem is the famine +chapter, and the next best is the part entitled "The Ghosts." However, the +charm of a composition can be fully felt only by those who understand +something of the American Indian's life and the wild northwestern country +described. That is not the immediate matter to be considered, +notwithstanding. The matter to be considered is whether this method of +using parallelism and repetition and alliteration can give new and great +results. I believe that it can, and that a greater Longfellow would have +brought such results into existence long ago. Of course, the form is +primitive; it does not follow that an English poet or a Japanese poet +should attempt only a return to primitive methods of poetry in detail. The +detail is of small moment; the spirit is everything. Parallelism means +simply the wish to present the same idea under a variety of aspects, +instead of attempting to put it forward in one aspect only. Everything +great in the way of thought, everything beautiful in the way of idea, has +many sides. It is merely the superficial which we can see from the front +only; the solid can be perceived from every possible direction, and +changes shape according to the direction looked at. + +The great master of English verse, Swinburne is also a poet much given to +parallelism; for he has found it of incomparable use to him in managing +new forms of verse. He uses it in an immense variety of ways--ways +impossible to Japanese poets or to Finnish poets; and the splendour of the +results can not be imitated in another language. But his case is +interesting. The most primitive methods of Finnish poetry, and of ancient +poetry in general, coming into his hands, are reproduced into music. I +propose to make a few quotations, in illustration. Here are some lines +from "Atalanta in Calydon"; they are only parallelisms, but how +magnificent they are! + + When thou dravest the men + Of the chosen of Thrace, + None turned him again, + Nor endured he thy face + Close round with the blush of the battle, with light from a + terrible place. + +Look again at the following lines from "A Song in Time of Revolution": + + There is none of them all that is whole; their lips gape open for + breath; + They are clothed with sickness of soul, and the shape of the shadow + of death. + + The wind is thwart in their feet; it is full of the shouting of mirth; + As one shaketh the sides of a sheet, so it shaketh the ends of the earth. + + The sword, the sword is made keen; the iron has opened its mouth; + The corn is red that was green; it is bound for the sheaves of the south. + + The sound of a word was shed, the sound of the wind as a breath, + In the ears of the souls that were dead, in the dust of the deepness + of death. + + Where the face of the moon is taken, the ways of the stars undone, + The light of the whole sky shaken, the light of the face of the sun. + + * * * * * + + Where the sword was covered and hidden, and dust had grown in its side, + A word came forth which was bidden, the crying of one that cried: + + The sides of the two-edged sword shall be bare, and its mouth shall + be red, + For the breath of the face of the Lord that is felt in the bones of + the dead. + +All this is indeed very grand compared with anything in the "Kalevala" or +in Longfellow's rendering; but do you not see that the grandeur is also +the grandeur of parallelism? Here is proof of what a master can do with a +method older than Western civilization. But what is the inference? Is it +not that the old primitive poetry contains something of eternal value, a +value ranging from the lowest even to the highest, a value that can lend +beauty equally to the song of a little child or to the thunder of the +grandest epic verse? + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ROMANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES + + +The value of romantic literature, which has been, so far as the Middle +Ages are concerned, unjustly depreciated, does not depend upon beauty of +words or beauty of fact. To-day the immense debt of modern literature to +the literature of the Middle Ages is better understood; and we are +generally beginning to recognize what we owe to the imagination of the +Middle Ages, in spite of the ignorance, the superstition and the cruelty +of that time. If the evils of the Middle Ages had really been universal, +those ages could not have imparted to us lessons of beauty and lessons of +nobility having nothing to do with literary form in themselves, yet +profoundly affecting modern poetry of the highest class. No; there was +very much of moral goodness as well as of moral badness in the Middle +Ages; and what was good happened to be very good indeed. Commonly it used +to be said (though I do not think any good critic would say it now) that +the fervid faith of the time made the moral beauty. Unless we modify this +statement a great deal, we can not now accept it at all. There was indeed +a religious beauty, particularly mediaeval, but it was not that which +created the romance of the period. Indeed, that romantic literature was +something of a reaction against the religious restraint upon imagination. +But if we mean by mediaeval faith only that which is very much older than +any European civilization, and which does not belong to the West any more +than to the East--the profound belief in human moral experience--then I +think that the statement is true enough. At no time in European history +were men more sincere believers in the value of certain virtues than +during the Middle Ages--and the very best of the romances are just those +romances which illustrate that belief, though not written for a merely +ethical purpose. + +But I can not better illustrate what I mean than by telling a story, which +has nothing to do with Europe, or the Middle Ages, or any particular form +of religious belief. It is not a Christian story at all; and it could not +be told you exactly as written, for there are some very curious pages in +it. But it is a good example of the worth that may lie in a mere product +of imagination. + +There was a king once, in Persia or Arabia, who, at the time of his +accession to power, discovered a wonderful subterranean hall under the +garden of his palace. In one chamber of that hall stood six marvellous +statues of young girls, each statue being made out of a single diamond. +The beauty as well as the cost of the work was beyond imagination. But in +the midst of the statues, which stood in a circle, there was an empty +pedestal, and on that pedestal was a precious casket containing a letter +from the dead father of the king. The letter said: + +"O my son, though these statues of girls are indeed beyond all praise, +there is yet a seventh statue incomparably more precious and beautiful +which I could not obtain before I died. It is now your duty, O my son, to +obtain that statue, that it may be placed upon the seventh pedestal. Go, +therefore, and ask my favourite slave, who is still alive, how you are to +obtain it." Then the young king went in all haste to that old slave, who +had been his father's confidant, and showed him the letter. And the old +man said, "Even now, O master, I will go with you to find that statue. But +it is in one of the three islands in which the genii dwell; and it is +necessary, above all things, that you do not fear, and that you obey my +instructions in all things. Also, remember that if you make a promise to +the Spirits of that land, the promise must be kept." + +And they proceeded upon their journey through a great wilderness, in which +"nothing existed but grass and the presence of God." I can not try now to +tell you about the wonderful things that happened to them, nor about the +marvellous boat, rowed by a boatman having upon his shoulders the head of +an elephant. Suffice it to say that at last they reached the palace of the +king of the Spirits; and the king came to meet them in the form of a +beautiful old man with a long white beard. And he said to the young king, +"My son, I will gladly help you, as I helped your father; and I will give +you that seventh statue of diamond which you desire. But I must ask for a +gift in return. You must bring to me here a young girl of about sixteen +years old; and she must be very intelligent; and she must be a true +maiden, not only as to her body, but as to her soul, and heart, and all +her thoughts." The young king thought that was a very easy thing to find, +but the king of the Spirits assured him that it was not, and further told +him this, "My son, no mortal man is wise enough to know by his own wisdom +the purity that is in the heart of a young girl. Only by the help of this +magical mirror, which I now lend you, will you be able to know. Look at +the reflection of any maiden in this mirror, and then, if her heart is +perfectly good and pure, the mirror will remain bright. But if there be +any fault in her, the mirror will grow dim. Go now, and do my bidding." + +You can imagine, of course, what happened next. Returning to his kingdom, +the young king had brought before him many beautiful girls, the daughters +of the noblest and highest in all the cities of the land. But in no case +did the mirror remain perfectly clear when the ghostly test was applied. +For three years in vain the king sought; then in despair he for the first +time turned his attention to the common people. And there came before him +on the very first day a rude man of the desert, who said, "I know of just +such a girl as you want." Then he went forth and presently returned with a +simple girl from the desert, who had been brought up in the care of her +father only, and had lived with no other companion than the members of her +own family and the camels and horses of the encampment. And as she stood +in her poor dress before the king, he saw that she was much more beautiful +than any one whom he had seen before; and he questioned her, only to find +that she was very intelligent; and she was not at all afraid or ashamed of +standing before the king, but looked about her with large wondering eyes, +like the eyes of a child; and whoever met that innocent gaze, felt a great +joy in his heart, and could not tell why. And when the king had the mirror +brought, and the reflection of the girl was thrown upon it, the mirror +became much brighter than before, and shone like a great moon. + +There was the maid whom the Spirit-king wished for. The king easily +obtained her from her parents; but he did not tell her what he intended to +do with her. Now it was his duty to give her to the Spirits; but there was +a condition he found very hard to fulfil. By the terms of his promise he +was not allowed to kiss her, to caress her, or even to see her, except +veiled after the manner of the country. Only by the mirror had he been +able to know how fair she was. And the voyage was long; and on the way, +the girl, who thought she was going to be this king's bride, became +sincerely attached to him, after the manner of a child with a brother; and +he also in his heart became much attached to her. But it was his duty to +give her up. At last they reached the palace of the Spirit-king; and the +figure of the old man came forth and said, "My son, you have done well and +kept your promise. This maiden is all that I could have wished for; and I +accept her. Now when you go back to your palace, you will find on the +seventh pedestal the statue of the diamond which your father desired you +to obtain." And, with these words, the Spirit-king vanished, taking with +him the girl, who uttered a great and piercing cry to heaven at having +been thus deceived. Very sorrowfully the young king then began his journey +home. All along the way he kept regretting that girl, and regretting the +cruelty which he had practised in deceiving her and her parents. And he +began to say to himself, "Accursed be the gift of the king of the Spirits! +Of what worth to me is a woman of diamond any more than a woman of stone? +What is there in all the world half so beautiful or half so precious as a +living girl such as I discovered? Fool that I was to give her up for the +sake of a statue!" But he tried to console himself by remembering that he +had obeyed his dead father's wish. + +Still, he could not console himself. Reaching his palace, he went to his +secret chamber to weep alone, and he wept night and day, in spite of the +efforts of his ministers to comfort him. But at last one of them said, "O +my king, in the hall beneath your garden there has appeared a wonderful +statue upon the seventh pedestal; perchance if you go to see it, your +heart will become more joyful." + +Then with great reluctance the king properly dressed himself, and went to +the subterranean hall. + +There indeed was the statue, the gift of the Spirit-king; and very +beautiful it was. But it was not made of diamond, and it looked so +strangely like the girl whom he had lost, that the king's heart leapt in +his breast for astonishment. He put out his hand and touched the statue, +and found it warm with life and youth. And a sweet voice said to him, +"Yes, it is really I--have you forgotten?" + +Thus she was given back to him; and the Spirit-king came to their wedding, +and thus addressed the bridegroom, "O my son, for your dead father's sake +I did this thing. For it was meant to teach you that the worth of a really +pure and perfect woman is more than the price of any diamond or any +treasure that the earth can yield." + +Now you can see at once the beauty of this story; and the moral of it is +exactly the same as that of the famous verse, in the Book of Proverbs, +"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies." But it +is simply a story from the "Arabian Nights"--one of those stories which +you will not find in the ordinary European translations, because it is +written in such a way that no English translator except Burton would have +dared to translate it quite literally. The obscenity of parts of the +original does not really detract in the least from the beauty and +tenderness of the motive of the story; and we must remember that what we +call moral or immoral in style depends very much upon the fashion of an +age and time. + +Now it is exactly the same kind of moral charm that distinguishes the best +of the old English romances--a charm which has nothing to do with the +style, but everything to do with the feeling and suggestion of the +composition. But in some of the old romances, the style too has a very +great charm of quaintness and simplicity and sincerity not to be imitated +to-day. In this respect the older French romances, from which the English +made their renderings, are much the best. And the best of all is said to +be "Amis and Amile," which the English rendered as "Amicus and Amelius." +Something of the story ought to interest you. + +The whole subject of this romance is the virtue of friendship, though this +of course involves a number of other virtues quite as distinguished. Amis +and Amile, that is to say Amicus and Amelius, are two young knights who at +the beginning of their career become profoundly attached to each other. +Not content with the duties of this natural affection, they imposed upon +themselves all the duties which chivalry also attached to the office of +friend. The romance tells of how they triumphed over every conceivable +test to which their friendship was subjected. Often and often the +witchcraft of woman worked to separate them, but could not. Both married, +yet after marriage their friendship was just as strong as before. Each has +to fight many times on account of the other, and suffer all things which +it is most hard for a proud and brave man to bear. But everything is +suffered cheerfully, and the friends are such true knights that, in all +their trials, neither does anything wrong, or commits the slightest fault +against truth--until a certain sad day. On that day it is the duty of Amis +to fight in a trial by battle. But he is sick, and can not fight; then to +save his honour his friend Amile puts on the armour and helmet of Amis, +and so pretending to be Amis, goes to the meeting place, and wins the +fight gloriously. But this was an act of untruthfulness; he had gone into +battle under a false name, and to do anything false even for a good motive +is bad. So heaven punishes him by afflicting him with the horrible disease +of leprosy. + +The conditions of leprosy in the Middle Ages were of a peculiar kind. The +disease seems to have been introduced into Europe from Asia--perhaps by +the Crusaders. Michelet suggests that it may have resulted from the +European want of cleanliness, brought about by ascetic teachings--for the +old Greek and Roman public bath-houses were held in horror by the mediaeval +Church. But this is not at all certain. What is certain is that in the +thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries leprosy became very +prevalent. The disease was not then at all understood; it was supposed to +be extremely contagious, and the man afflicted by it was immediately +separated from society, and not allowed to live in any community under +such conditions as could bring him into contact with other inhabitants. +His wife or children could accompany him only on the terrible condition of +being considered lepers. Every leper wore a kind of monk's dress, with a +hood covering the face; and he had to carry a bell and ring it constantly +to give notice of his approach. Special leper-houses were built near every +town, where such unfortunates might obtain accommodation. They were +allowed to beg, but it was considered dangerous to go very near them, so +that in most cases alms or food would be thrown to them only, instead of +being put into their hands. + +Now when the victim of leprosy in this romance is first afflicted by the +disease, he happens to be far away from his good friend. And none of his +own family is willing to help him; he is regarded with superstitious as +well as with physical horror. There is nothing left for him to do but to +yield up his knighthood and his welfare and his family, to put on the +leper's robe, and to go begging along the roads, carrying a leper's bell. +And this he does. For long, long months he goes begging from town to town, +till at last, by mere chance, he finds his way to the gate of the great +castle where his good friend is living--now a great prince, and married to +the daughter of the king. And he asks at the castle gate for charity and +for food. + +Now the porter at the gate observes that the leper has a very beautiful +cup, exactly resembling a drinking cup belonging to his master, and he +thinks it his duty to tell these things to the lord of the castle. And the +lord of the castle remembers that very long ago he and his friend each had +a cup of this kind, given to them by the bishop of Rome. So, hearing the +porter's story, he knew that the leper at the gate was the friend who "had +delivered him from death, and won for him the daughter of the King of +France to be his wife." Here I had better quote from the French version of +the story, in which the names of the friends are changed, but without +changing the beauty of the tale itself: + +"And straightway he fell upon him, and began to weep greatly, and kissed +him. And when his wife heard that, she ran out with her hair in disarray, +weeping and distressed exceedingly--for she remembered that it was he who +had slain the false Ardres. And thereupon they placed him in a fair bed, +and said to him, 'Abide with us until God's will be accomplished in thee, +for all that we have is at thy service.' So he abode with them." + +You must understand, by the allusion to "God's will," that leprosy was in +the Middle Ages really considered to be a punishment from heaven--so that +in taking a leper into his castle, the good friend was not only offending +against the law of the land, but risking celestial punishment as well, +according to the notions of that age. His charity, therefore, was true +charity indeed, and his friendship without fear. But it was going to be +put to a test more terrible than any ever endured before. To comprehend +what followed, you must know that there was one horrible superstition of +the Middle Ages--the belief that by bathing in human blood the disease of +leprosy might be cured. Murders were often committed under the influence +of that superstition. I believe you will remember that the "Golden Legend" +of Longfellow is founded upon a mediaeval story in which a young girl +voluntarily offers up her life in order that her blood may cure the +leprosy of her king. In the present romance there is much more tragedy. +One night while sleeping in his friend's castle, the leper was awakened by +an angel from God--Raphael--who said to him: + +"I am Raphael, the angel of the Lord, and I am come to tell thee how thou +mayst be healed. Thou shalt bid Amile thy comrade that he slay his two +children and wash thee in their blood, and so thy body shall be made +whole." And Amis said to him, "Let not this thing be, that my comrade +should become a murderer for my sake." But the angel said, "It is +convenient that he do this." And thereupon the angel departed. + +The phrase, "it is convenient," must be understood as meaning, "it is +ordered." For the mediaeval lord used such gentle expressions when issuing +his commands; and the angel talked like a feudal messenger. But in spite +of the command, the sick man does not tell his friend about the angel's +visit, until Amile, who has overheard the voice, forces him to acknowledge +whom he had been talking with during the night. And the emotion of the +lord may be imagined, though he utters it only in the following gentle +words--"I would have given to thee my man servants and my maid servants +and all my goods--and thou feignest that an angel hath spoken to thee that +I should slay my two children. But I conjure thee by the faith which there +is between me and thee and by our comradeship, and by the baptism we +received together, that thou tell me whether it was man or angel said that +to thee." + +Amis declares that it was really an angel, and Amile never thinks of +doubting his friend's word. It would be a pity to tell you the sequel in +my own words; let me quote again from the text, translated by Walter +Pater. I think you will find it beautiful and touching: + +"Then Amile began to weep in secret, and thought within himself, 'If this +man was ready to die before the King for me, shall I not for him slay my +children? Shall I not keep faith with him who was faithful to me even unto +death?' And Amile tarried no longer, but departed to the chamber of his +wife, and bade her go to hear the Sacred Office. And he took a sword, and +went to the bed where the children were lying, and found them asleep. And +he lay down over them and began to weep bitterly and said, 'Has any man +yet heard of a father who of his own will slew his children? Alas, my +children! I am no longer your father, but your cruel murderer.' + +"And the children awoke at the tears of their father, which fell upon +them; and they looked up into his face and began to laugh. And as they +were of age about three years, he said, 'Your laughing will be turned into +tears, for your innocent blood must now be shed'; and therewith he cut off +their heads. Then he laid them back in the bed, and put the heads upon the +bodies, and covered them as though they slept; and with the blood which he +had taken he washed his comrade, and said, 'Lord Jesus Christ! who hast +commanded men to keep faith on earth, and didst heal the leper by Thy +word! cleanse now my comrade, for whose love I have shed the blood of my +children.'" And of course the leper is immediately and completely cured. +But the mother did not know anything about the killing of the children; we +have to hear something about her share in the tragedy. Let me again quote, +this time giving the real and very beautiful conclusion-- + +"Now neither the father nor the mother had yet entered where the children +were, but the father sighed heavily because they were dead, and the mother +asked for them, that they might rejoice together; but Amile said, 'Dame! +let the children sleep.' And it was already the hour of Tierce. And going +in alone to the children to weep over them, he found them at play in the +bed; only, in the place of the sword-cuts about their throats was, as it +were, a thread of crimson. And he took them in his arms and carried them +to his wife and said, 'Rejoice greatly! For thy children whom I had slain +by the commandment of the angel, are alive, and by their blood is Amis +healed.'" + +I think you will all see how fine a story this is, and feel the emotional +force of the grand moral idea behind it. There is nothing more to tell +you, except the curious fact that during the Middle Ages, when it was +believed that the story was really true, Amis and Amile--or Amicus and +Amelius--were actually considered by the Church as saints, and people used +to pray to them. When anybody was anxious for his friend, or feared that +he might lose the love of his friend, or was afraid that he might not have +strength to perform his duty as friend--then he would go to church to +implore help from the good saints Amicus and Amelius. But of course it was +all a mistake--a mistake which lasted until the end of the seventeenth +century! Then somebody called the attention of the Church to the +unmistakable fact that Amicus and Amelius were merely inventions of some +mediaeval romancer. Then the Church made investigation, and greatly +shocked, withdrew from the list of its saints those long-loved names of +Amicus and Amelius--a reform in which I cannot help thinking the Church +made a very serious mistake. What matter whether those shadowy figures +represented original human lives or only human dreams? They were +beautiful, and belief in them made men think beautiful thoughts, and the +imagined help from them had comforted many thousands of hearts. It would +have been better to have left them alone; for that matter, how many of the +existent lives of saints are really true? Nevertheless the friends are not +dead, though expelled from the heaven of the Church. They still live in +romance; and everybody who reads about them feels a little better for +their acquaintance. + +What I read to you was from the French version--that is much the more +beautiful of the two. You will find some extracts from the English version +in the pages of Ten Brink. But as that great German scholar pointed out, +the English story is much rougher than the French. For example, in the +English story, the knight rushes out of his castle to beat the leper at +the gate, and to accuse him of having stolen the cup. And he does beat him +ferociously, and abuses him with very violent terms. In fact, the English +writer reflected too much of mediaeval English character, in trying to +cover, or to improve upon, the French story, which was the first. In the +French story all is knightly smooth, refined as well as simple and strong. +And where did the mediaeval imagination get its material for the story? +Partly, perhaps, from the story of Joseph in the Bible, partly from the +story of Abraham; but the scriptural material is so admirably worked over +that the whole thing appears deliciously original. That was the great art +of the Middle Ages--to make old, old things quite new by the magic of +spiritual imagination. Men then lived in a world of dreams. And that world +still attracts us, for the simple reason that happiness chiefly consists +in dreams. Exact science may help us a great deal no doubt, but +mathematics do not make us any happier. Dreams do, if we can believe them. +The Middle Ages could believe them; we, at the best, can only try. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +"IONICA" + + +I am going now to talk about a very rare kind of poetry in a very rare +little book, like fine wine in a small and precious flask. The author +never put his name to the book--indeed for many years it was not known who +wrote the volume. We now know that the author was a school teacher called +William Johnson who, later in life, coming into a small fortune, changed +his name to William Cory. He was born sometime about 1823, and died in +1892. He was, I believe, an Oxford man and was assistant master of Eton +College for a number of years. Judging from his poems, he must have found +pleasure in his profession as well as pain. There is a strange sadness +nearly always, but this sadness is mixed with expressions of love for the +educational establishment which he directed, and for the students whose +minds he helped to form. He must have been otherwise a very shy man. +Scarcely anything seems to be known about him after his departure from +educational circles, although everybody of taste now knows his poems. I +wish to speak of them because I think that literary graduates of this +university ought to be at least familiar with the name "Ionica." At all +events you should know something about the man and about the best of his +poems. If you should ask why so little has yet been said about him in +books on English literature, I would answer that in the first place he was +a very small poet writing in the time of giants, having for competitors +Tennyson, Browning and others. He could scarcely make his small pipe heard +in the thunder of those great organ tones. In the second place his verses +were never written to please the public at all. They were written only for +fine scholars, and even the titles of many of them cannot be explained by +a person devoid of some Greek culture. So the little book, which appeared +quite early in the Victorian Age, was soon forgotten. Being forgotten it +ran out of print and disappeared. Then somebody remembered that it had +existed. I have told you that it was like the tone of a little pipe or +flute as compared with the organ music of the larger poets. But the little +pipe happened to be a Greek pipe--the melody was very sweet and very +strange and old, and people who had heard it once soon wanted to hear it +again. But they could not get it. Copies of the first edition fetched +extraordinary sums. Some few years ago a new edition appeared, but this +too is now out of print and is fetching fancy prices. However, you must +not expect anything too wonderful from this way of introducing the +subject. The facts only show that the poems are liked by persons of +refinement and wealth. I hope to make you like some of them, but the +difficulties of so doing are considerable, because of the extremely +English character of some pieces and the extremely Greek tone of others. +There is also some uneven work. The poet is not in all cases successful. +Sometimes he tried to write society verse, and his society verse must be +considered a failure. The best pieces are his Greek pieces and some +compositions on love subjects of a most delicate and bewitching kind. + +Of course the very name "Ionica" suggests Greek work, a collection of +pieces in Ionic style. But you must not think that this means only +repetitions of ancient subjects. This author brings the Greek feeling back +again into the very heart of English life sometimes, or makes an English +fact illustrate a Greek fable. Some delightful translations from the Greek +there are, but less than half a dozen in all. + +I scarcely know how to begin--what piece to quote first. But perhaps the +little fancy called "Mimnermus in Church" is the best known, and the one +which will best serve to introduce us to the character of Cory. Before +quoting it, however, I must explain the title briefly. Mimnermus was an +old Greek philosopher and poet who thought that all things in the world +are temporary, that all hope of a future life is vain, that there is +nothing worth existing for except love, and that without affection one +were better dead. There are, no doubt, various modern thinkers who tell +you much the same thing, and this little poem exhibits such modern feeling +in a Greek dress. I mean that we have here a picture of a young man, a +young English scholar, listening in church to Christian teaching, but +answering that teaching with the thought of the old Greeks. There is of +course one slight difference; the modern conception of love is perhaps a +little wider in range than that of the old Greeks. There is more of the +ideal in it. + + +MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH + + You promise heavens free from strife, + Pure truth, and perfect change of will; + But sweet, sweet is this human life, + So sweet, I fain would breathe it still; + Your chilly stars I can forego, + This warm kind world is all I know. + + You say there is no substance here, + One great reality above: + Back from that void I shrink in fear + And child-like hide myself in love; + Show me what angels feel. Till then + I cling, a mere weak man, to men. + + You bid me lift my mean desires + From faltering lips and fitful veins + To sexless souls, ideal choirs, + Unwearied voices, wordless strains; + My mind with fonder welcome owns + One dear dead friend's remembered tones. + + Forsooth the present we must give + To that which cannot pass away; + All beauteous things for which we live + By laws of time and space decay. + But oh, the very reason why + I clasp them, is because they die. + +The preacher has been talking to his congregation about the joys of +Heaven. There, he says, there will be no quarrelling, no contest, no +falsehood, and all evil dispositions will be entirely changed to good. The +poet answers, "This world and this life are full of beauty and of joy for +me. I do not want to die, I want to live. I do not wish to go to that cold +region of stars about which you teach. I only know this world and I find +in it warm hearts and precious affection. You say that this world is a +phantom, unsubstantial, unreal, and that the only reality is above, in +Heaven. To me that Heaven appears but as an awful emptiness. I shrink from +it in terror, and like a child seek for consolation in human love. It is +no use to talk to me about angels until you can prove to me that angels +can feel happier than men. I prefer to remain with human beings. You say +that I ought to wish for higher things than this world can give, that here +minds are unsteady and weak, hearts fickle and selfish, and you talk of +souls without sex, imaginary concerts of perfect music, tireless singing +in Heaven, and the pleasure of conversation without speech. But all the +happiness that we know is received from our fellow beings. I remember the +voice of one dead friend with deeper love and pleasure than any images of +Heaven could ever excite in my mind." + +The last stanza needs no paraphrasing, but it deserves some comment, for +it is the expression of one great difference between the old Greek feeling +in regard to life and death, and all modern religious feeling on the same +subject. You can read through hundreds of beautiful inscriptions which +were placed over the Greek tombs. They are contained in the Greek +Anthology. You will find there almost nothing about hope of a future life, +or about Heaven. They are not for the most part sad; they are actually +joyous in many cases. You would say that the Greek mind thought thus about +death--"I have had my share of the beauty and the love of this world, and +I am grateful for this enjoyment, and now it is time to go to sleep." +There is actually an inscription to the effect, "I have supped well of the +banquet of life." The Eastern religions, including Christianity, taught +that because everything in the world is uncertain, impermanent, +perishable, therefore we ought not to allow our minds to love worldly +things. But the Greek mind, as expressed by the old epigraphy in the +cemeteries, not less than by the teaching of Mimnermus, took exactly the +opposite view. "O children of men, it is because beauty and pleasure and +love and light can last only for a little while, it is exactly because of +this that you should love them. Why refuse to enjoy the present because it +can not last for ever?" And at a much later day the Persian poet Omar +took, you will remember, precisely the same view. You need not think that +it would be wise to accept such teaching for a rule of life, but it has a +certain value as a balance to the other extreme view, that we should make +ourselves miserable in this world with the idea of being rewarded in +another, concerning which we have no positive knowledge. The lines with +which the poem concludes at least deserve to be thought about-- + + But oh, the very reason why + I clasp them, is because they die. + +We shall later on take some of the purely Greek work of Cory for study, +but I want now to interest you in the more modern part of it. The charm of +the following passage you will better feel by remembering that the writer +was then a schoolmaster at Eton, and that the verses particularly express +the love which he felt for his students--a love the more profound, +perhaps, because the circumstances of the teacher's position obliged him +to appear cold and severe, obliged him to suppress natural impulses of +affection and generosity. The discipline of the masters in English public +schools is much more severe than the discipline to which the students are +subjected. The boys enjoy a great deal of liberty. The masters may be said +to have none. Yet there are men so constituted that they learn to greatly +love the profession. The title of this poem is "Reparabo," which means "I +will atone." + + The world will rob me of my friends, + For time with her conspires; + But they shall both, to make amends, + Relight my slumbering fires. + + For while my comrades pass away + To bow and smirk and gloze, + Come others, for as short a stay; + And dear are these as those. + + And who was this? they ask; and then + The loved and lost I praise: + "Like you they frolicked; they are men; + Bless ye my later days." + + Why fret? The hawks I trained are flown; + 'Twas nature bade them range; + I could not keep their wings half-grown, + I could not bar the change. + + With lattice opened wide I stand + To watch their eager flight; + With broken jesses in my hand + I muse on their delight. + + And oh! if one with sullied plume + Should droop in mid career, + My love makes signals,--"There is room, + O bleeding wanderer, here." + +This comparison of the educator to a falconer, and of the students to +young hawks eager to break their jesses seems to an Englishman +particularly happy in reference to Eton, from which so many youths pass +into the ranks of the army and navy. The line about bowing, smirking and +glozing, refers to the comparative insincerity of the higher society into +which so many of the scholars must eventually pass. "Smirking" suggests +insincere smiles, "glozing" implies tolerating or lightly passing over +faults or wrongs or serious matters that should not be considered lightly. +Society is essentially insincere and artificial in all countries, but +especially so in England. The old Eton master thinks, however, that he +knows the moral character of the boys, the strong principles which make +its foundation, and he trusts that they will be able in a general way to +do only what is right, in spite of conventions and humbug. + +As I told you before, we know very little about the personal life of Cory, +who must have been a very reserved man; but a poet puts his heart into his +verses as a general rule, and there are many little poems in this book +that suggest to us an unhappy love episode. These are extremely pretty and +touching, the writer in most cases confessing himself unworthy of the +person who charmed him; but the finest thing of the kind is a composition +which he suggestively entitled "A Fable"--that is to say, a fable in the +Greek sense, an emblem or symbol of truth. + + An eager girl, whose father buys + Some ruined thane's forsaken hall, + Explores the new domain and tries + Before the rest to view it all. + +I think you have often noted the fact here related; when a family moves to +a new house, it is the child, or the youngest daughter, who is the first +to explore all the secrets of the new residence, and whose young eyes +discover things which the older folks had not noticed. + + Alone she lifts the latch, and glides, + Through many a sadly curtained room, + As daylight through the doorway slides + And struggles with the muffled gloom. + + With mimicries of dance she wakes + The lordly gallery's silent floor, + And climbing up on tiptoe, makes + The old-world mirror smile once more. + + With tankards dry she chills her lips, + With yellowing laces veils the head, + And leaps in pride of ownership + Upon the faded marriage bed. + + A harp in some dark nook she sees + Long left a prey to heat and frost, + She smites it; can such tinklings please? + Is not all worth, all beauty, lost? + + Ah, who'd have thought such sweetness clung + To loose neglected strings like those? + They answered to whate'er was sung, + And sounded as a lady chose. + + Her pitying finger hurried by + Each vacant space, each slackened chord; + Nor would her wayward zeal let die + The music-spirit she restored. + + The fashion quaint, the timeworn flaws, + The narrow range, the doubtful tone, + All was excused awhile, because + It seemed a creature of her own. + + Perfection tires; the new in old, + The mended wrecks that need her skill, + Amuse her. If the truth be told, + She loves the triumph of her will. + + With this, she dares herself persuade, + She'll be for many a month content, + Quite sure no duchess ever played + Upon a sweeter instrument. + + And thus in sooth she can beguile + Girlhood's romantic hours, but soon + She yields to taste and mood and style, + A siren of the gay saloon. + + And wonders how she once could like + Those drooping wires, those failing notes, + And leaves her toy for bats to strike + Amongst the cobwebs and the motes. + + But enter in, thou freezing wind, + And snap the harp-strings, one by one; + It was a maiden blithe and kind: + They felt her touch; their task is done. + +In this charming little study we know that the harp described is not a +harp; it is the loving heart of an old man, at least of a man beyond the +usual age of lovers. He has described and perhaps adored some beautiful +person who seemed to care for him, and who played upon his heart, with her +whims, caresses, smiles, much as one would play upon the strings of a +harp. She did not mean to be cruel at all, nor even insincere. It is even +probable that she really in those times thought that she loved the man, +and under the charms of the girl the man became a different being; the +old-fashioned mind brightened, the old-fashioned heart exposed its hidden +treasures of tenderness and wisdom and sympathy. Very much like playing +upon a long forgotten instrument, was the relation between the maiden and +the man--not only because he resembled such an instrument in the fact of +belonging emotionally and intellectually to another generation, but also +because his was a heart whose true music had long been silent, unheard by +the world. Undoubtedly the maiden meant no harm, but she caused a great +deal of pain, for at a later day, becoming a great lady of society, she +forgot all about this old friendship, or perhaps wondered why she ever +wasted her time in talking to such a strange old-fashioned professor. Then +the affectionate heart is condemned to silence again, to silence and +oblivion, like the harp thrown away in some garret to be covered with +cobwebs and visited only by bats. "Is it not time," the old man thinks, +"that the strings should be broken, the strings of the heart? Let the cold +wind of death now come and snap them." Yet, after all, why should he +complain? Did he not have the beautiful experience of loving, and was she +not in that time at least well worthy of the love that she called forth +like music? + +There are several other poems referring to what would seem to be the same +experience, and all are beautiful, but one seems to me nobler than the +rest, expressing as it does a generous resignation. It is called +"Deteriora," a Latin word signifying lesser, inferior, or deteriorated +things--not easy to translate. Nor would you find the poem easy to +understand, referring as it does to conditions of society foreign to +anything in Japanese experience. But some verses which I may quote you +will like. + + If fate and nature screen from me + The sovran front I bowed before, + And set the glorious creature free, + Whom I would clasp, detain, adore,-- + If I forego that strange delight, + Must all be lost? Not quite, not quite. + + _Die, Little Love, without complaint, + Whom honour standeth by to shrive: + Assoiled from all selfish taint, + Die, Love, whom Friendship will survive. + Not hate nor folly gave thee birth; + And briefness does but raise thy worth._ + +This is the same thought which Tennyson expressed in his famous lines, + + 'Tis better to have loved and lost + Than never to have loved at all. + +But it is still more finely expressed to meet a particular personal mood. +One must not think the world lost because a woman has been lost, he says, +and such a love is not a thing for any man to be ashamed of, in spite of +the fact that it has been disappointed. It was honourable, unselfish, not +inspired by any passion or any folly, and the very brevity of the +experience only serves to make it more precious. Observe the use of the +words "shrive" and "assoiled." These refer to the old religious custom of +confession; to "shrive" signifies to forgive, to free from sin, as a +priest is supposed to do, and "assoiled" means "purified." + +If this was a personal experience, it must have been an experience of +advanced life. Elsewhere the story of a boyish love is told very prettily, +under the title of "Two Fragments of Childhood." This is the first +fragment: + + When these locks were yellow as gold, + When past days were easily told, + Well I knew the voice of the sea, + Once he spake as a friend to me. + Thunder-rollings carelessly heard, + Once that poor little heart they stirred, + Why, Oh, why? + Memory, memory! + She that I wished to be with was by. + + Sick was I in those misanthrope days + Of soft caresses, womanly ways; + Once that maid on the stair I met + Lip on brow she suddenly set. + Then flushed up my chivalrous blood, + Like Swiss streams in a mid-summer flood. + Then, Oh, then, + Imogen, Imogen! + Hadst thou a lover, whose years were ten. + +This is evidently the charming memory of a little sick boy sent to the +seaside for his health, according to the English custom, and unhappy +there, unable to play about like stronger children, and obliged to remain +under the constant care of nurses and female relatives. But in the same +house there is another family with a beautiful young daughter, probably +sixteen or eighteen years old. The little boy wishes, wishes so much that +the beautiful lady would speak to him and play with him, but he is shy, +afraid to approach her--only looks at her with great admiring loving eyes. +But one day she meets him on the stairs, and stoops down and kisses him on +the forehead. Then he is in Heaven. Afterward no doubt she played with +him, and they walked up and down by the shore of the sea together, and +now, though an old man, whenever he hears the roar of the sea he remembers +the beautiful lady who played with him and caressed him, when he was a +little sick child. How much he loved her! But she was a woman, and he was +only ten years old. The reference to "chivalrous blood" signifies just +this, that at the moment when she kissed him he would have given his life +for her, would have dared anything or done anything to show his devotion +to her. No prettier memory of a child could be told. + +We can learn a good deal about even the shyest of the poets through a +close understanding of his poetry. From the foregoing we know that Cory +must have been a sickly child; and from other poems referring to school +life we can not escape the supposition that he was not a strong lad. In +one of his verses he speaks of being unable to join in the hearty play of +his comrades; and in the poem which touches on the life of the mature man +we find him acknowledging that he believed his life a failure--a failure +through want of strength. I am going to quote this poem for other reasons. +It is a beautiful address either to some favourite student or to a beloved +son--it is impossible to decide which. But that does not matter. The title +is "A New Year's Day." + + Our planet runs through liquid space, + And sweeps us with her in the race; + And wrinkles gather on my face, + And Hebe bloom on thine: + Our sun with his encircling spheres + Around the central sun careers; + And unto thee with mustering years + Come hopes which I resign. + + 'Twere sweet for me to keep thee still + Reclining halfway up the hill; + But time will not obey the will, + And onward thou must climb: + 'Twere sweet to pause on this descent, + To wait for thee and pitch my tent, + But march I must with shoulders bent, + Yet further from my prime. + + _I shall not tread thy battlefield, + Nor see the blazon on thy shield; + Take thou the sword I could not wield, + And leave me, and forget. + Be fairer, braver, more admired; + So win what feeble hearts desired; + Then leave thine arms, when thou art tired, + To some one nobler yet._ + +How beautiful this is, and how profoundly sad! + +I shall return to the personal poetry of Cory later on, but I want now to +give you some examples of his Greek work. Perhaps the best of this is +little more than a rendering of Greek into English; some of the work is +pure translation. But it is the translation of a very great master, the +perfect rendering of Greek feeling as well as of Greek thought. Here is an +example of pure translation: + + They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, + They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. + I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I + Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. + And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, + A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest, + Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake; + For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take. + +What are "thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales"? They are the songs which +the dear dead poet made, still sung in his native country, though his body +was burned to ashes long ago--has been changed into a mere handful of grey +ashes, which, doubtless, have been placed in an urn, as is done with such +ashes to-day in Japan. Death takes away all things from man, but not his +poems, his songs, the beautiful thoughts which he puts into musical verse. +These will always be heard like nightingales. The fourth line in the first +stanza contains an idiom which may not be familiar to you. It means only +that the two friends talked all day until the sun set in the West, and +still talked on after that. Tennyson has used the same Greek thought in a +verse of his poem, "A Dream of Fair Women," where Cleopatra says, + + "We drank the Libyan sun to sleep." + +The Greek author of the above poem was the great poet Callimachus, and the +English translator does not think it necessary even to give the name, as +he wrote only for folk well acquainted with the classics. He has another +short translation which he accompanies with the original Greek text; it is +very pretty, but of an entirely different kind, a kind that may remind you +of some Japanese poems. It is only about a cicada and a peasant girl, and +perhaps it is twenty-four or twenty-five hundred years old. + + A dry cicale chirps to a lass making hay, + "Why creak'st thou, Tithonus?" quoth she. "I don't play; + It doubles my toil, your importunate lay, + I've earned a sweet pillow, lo! Hesper is nigh; + I clasp a good wisp and in fragrance I lie; + But thou art unwearied, and empty, and dry." + +How very human this little thing is--how actually it brings before us the +figure of the girl, who must have become dust some time between two and +three thousand years ago! She is working hard in the field, and the +constant singing of the insect prompts her to make a comical protest. "Oh, +Tithonus, what are you making that creaking noise for? You old dry thing, +I have no time to play with you, or to idle in any way, but you do nothing +but complain. Why don't you work, as I do? Soon I shall have leave to +sleep, because I have worked well. There is the evening star, and I shall +have a good bed of hay, sweet-smelling fresh hay, to lie upon. How well I +shall sleep. But you, you idle noisy thing, you do not deserve to sleep. +You have done nothing to tire you. And you are empty, dry and thirsty. +Serves you right!" Of course you recognize the allusion to the story of +Tithonus, so beautifully told by Tennyson. The girl's jest has a double +meaning. The word "importunate" has the signification of a wearisome +repetition of a request, a constant asking, impossible to satisfy. +Tithonus was supposed to complain because he was obliged to live although +he wanted to die. That young girl does not want to die at all. And she +says that the noise of the insect, supposed to repeat the complaint of +Tithonus, only makes it more tiresome for her to work. She was feeling, no +doubt, much as a Japanese student would feel when troubled by the singing +of _semi_ on some very hot afternoon while he is trying to master some +difficult problem. + +That is pure Greek--pure as another mingling of the Greek feeling with the +modern scholarly spirit, entitled "An Invocation." Before quoting from it +I must explain somewhat; otherwise you might not be able to imagine what +it means, because it was written to be read by those only who are +acquainted with Theocritus and the Greek idylists. Perhaps I had better +say something too, about the word idyl, for the use of the word by +Tennyson is not the Greek use at all, except in the mere fact that the +word signifies a picturing, a shadowing or an imagining of things. +Tennyson's pictures are of a purely imaginative kind in the "Idyls of the +King." But the Greek poets who first invented the poetry called idyllic +did not attempt the heroic works of imagination at all; they only +endeavoured to make perfectly true pictures of the common life of peasants +in the country. They wrote about the young men and young girls working on +the farms, about the way they quarrelled or rejoiced or made love, about +their dances and their songs, about their religious festivals and their +sacrifices to the gods at the parish temple. Imagine a Japanese scholar of +to-day who, after leaving the university, instead of busying himself with +the fashionable studies of the time, should go out into the remoter +districts or islands of Japan, and devote his life to studying the +existence of the commoner people there, and making poems about it. This +was exactly what the Greek idylists did,--that is, the best of them. They +were great scholars and became friends of kings, but they wrote poetry +chiefly about peasant life, and they gave all their genius to the work. +The result was so beautiful that everybody is still charmed by the +pictures or idyls which they made. + +Well, after this disgression, to return to the subject of Theocritus, the +greatest of the idylists. He has often introduced into his idyls the name +of Comatas. Who was Comatas? Comatas was a Greek shepherd boy, or more +strictly speaking a goatherd, who kept the flocks of a rich man. It was +his duty to sacrifice to the gods none of his master's animals, without +permission; but as his master was a very avaricious person, Comatas knew +that it would be of little use to ask him. Now this Comatas was a very +good singer of peasant songs, and he made many beautiful poems for the +people to sing, and he believed that it was the gods who had given him +power to make the songs, and the Muses had inspired him with the capacity +to make good verse. In spite of his master's will, Comatas therefore +thought it was not very bad to take the young kids and sacrifice to the +gods and the Muses. When his master found out what had been done with the +animals, naturally he became very angry, and he put Comatas into a great +box of cedar-wood in order to starve him to death--saying, as he closed +and locked the lid, "Now, Comatas, let us see whether the gods will feed +you!" In that box Comatas was left for a year without food or drink, and +when the master, at the end of the year, opened the box, he expected to +find nothing but the bones of the goatherd. But Comatas was alive and +well, singing sweet songs, because during the year the Muses had sent bees +to feed him with honey. The bees had been able to enter the box through a +very little hole. I suppose you know that bees were held sacred to the +Muses, and that there is in Greek legend a symbolic relation between bees +and poetry. + +If you want to know what kind of songs Comatas sang and what kind of life +he represented, you will find all this exquisitely told by Theocritus; and +there is a beautiful little translation in prose of Theocritus, Bion and +Moschus, made by Andrew Lang, which should delight you to read. Another +day I shall give you examples of such translations. Then you will see what +true idyllic poetry originally signified. These Greeks, although trained +scholars and philosophers, understood not only that human nature in itself +is a beautiful thing, but also that the best way to study human nature is +to study the life of the peasants and the common people. It is not to the +rich and leisurely, not to rank and society, that a poet must go for +inspiration. He will not find it there. What is called society is a world +in which nobody is happy, and in which pure human nature is afraid to show +itself. Life among the higher classes in all countries is formal, +artificial, theatrical; poetry is not there. Of course no kind of human +community is perfectly happy, but it is among the simple folk, the country +folk, who do not know much about evil and deceit, that the greater +proportion of happiness can be found. Among the youths of the country +especially, combining the charm of childhood with the strength of adult +maturity, the best possible subjects for fine pure studies of human nature +can be found. May I not here express the hope that some young Japanese +poet, some graduate of this very university, will eventually attempt to do +in Japan what Theocritus and Bion did in ancient Sicily? A great deal of +the very same kind of poetry exists in our own rural districts, and +parallels can be found in the daily life of the Japanese peasants for +everything beautifully described in Theocritus. At all events I am quite +sure of one thing, that no great new literature can possibly arise in this +country until some scholarly minds discover that the real force and truth +and beauty and poetry of life is to be found only in studies of the common +people--not in the life of the rich and the noble, not in the shadowy life +of books. + +Well, our English poet felt with the Greek idylists, and in the poem +called "An Invocation" he beautifully expresses this sympathy. All of us, +he says, should like to see and hear something of the ancient past if it +were possible. We should like, some of us, to call back the vanished gods +and goddesses of the beautiful Greek world, or to talk to the great souls +of that world who had the experience of life as men--to Socrates, for +example, to Plato, to Phidias the sculptor, to Pericles the statesman. +But, as a poet, my wish would not be for the return of the old gods nor of +the old heroes so much as for the return to us of some common men who +lived in the Greek world. It is Comatas, he says, that he would most like +to see, and to see in some English park--in the neighbourhood of Cambridge +University, or of Eton College. And thus he addresses the spirit of +Comatas: + + O dear divine Comatas, I would that thou and I + Beneath this broken sunlight this leisure day might lie; + Where trees from distant forests, whose names were strange to thee, + Should bend their amorous branches within thy reach to be, + And flowers thine Hellas knew not, which art hath made more fair, + Should shed their shining petals upon thy fragrant hair. + + Then thou shouldst calmly listen with ever-changing looks + To songs of younger minstrels and plots of modern books, + And wonder at the daring of poets later born, + Whose thoughts are unto thy thoughts as noontide is to morn; + And little shouldst them grudge them their greater strength of soul, + Thy partners in the torch-race, though nearer to the goal. + + * * * * * + + Or in thy cedarn prison thou waitest for the bee: + Ah, leave that simple honey and take thy food from me. + My sun is stooping westward. Entranced dreamer, haste; + There's fruitage in my garden that I would have thee taste. + Now lift the lid a moment; now, Dorian shepherd, speak; + Two minds shall flow together, the English and the Greek. + +A few phrases of these beautiful stanzas need explanation. "Broken +sunlight" refers, of course, to the imperfect shade thrown by the trees +under which the poet is lying. The shadow is broken by the light passing +through leaves, or conversely, the light is broken by the interposition of +the leaves. The reference to trees from distant forests no doubt intimates +that the poet is in some botanical garden, a private park, in which +foreign trees are carefully cultivated. The "torch race" is a simile for +the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Greek thinkers compare the +transmission of knowledge from one generation to another, to the passing +of a lighted torch from hand to hand, as in the case of messengers +carrying signals or athletes running a mighty race. As a runner runs until +he is tired, or until he reaches the next station, and then passes the +torch which he has been carrying to another runner waiting to receive it, +so does each generation pass on its wisdom to the succeeding generation, +and disappear. "My sun is stooping westward" is only a beautiful way of +saying, "I am becoming very old; be quick, so that we may see each other +before I die." And the poet suggests that it is because of his age and his +experience and his wisdom that he could hope to be of service to the dear +divine Comatas. The expression, "there is fruitage in my garden," refers +to no material garden, but to the cultivated mind of the scholar; he is +only saying, "I have strange knowledge that I should like to impart to +you." How delightful, indeed, it would be, could some university scholar +really converse with a living Greek of the old days! + +There is another little Greek study of great and simple beauty entitled +"The Daughter of Cleomenes." It is only an historical incident, but it is +so related for the pleasure of suggesting a profound truth about the +instinct of childhood. Long ago, when the Persians were about to make an +attack upon the Greeks, there was an attempt to buy off the Spartan +resistance, and the messenger to the Spartan general found him playing +with his little daughter, a child of six or seven. The conference was +carried on in whispers, and the child could not hear what was being said; +but she broke up the whole plot by a single word. I shall quote a few +lines from the close of the poem, which contain its moral lessons. The +emissary has tried to tempt him with promises of wealth and power. + + He falters; for the waves he fears, + The roads he cannot measure; + But rates full high the gleam of spears + And dreams of yellow treasure. + He listens; he is yielding now; + Outspoke the fearless child: + "Oh, Father, come away, lest thou + Be by this man beguiled." + Her lowly judgment barred the plea, + So low, it could not reach her. + _The man knows more of land and sea, + But she's the truer teacher._ + +All the little girl could know about the matter was instinctive; she only +saw the cunning face of the stranger, and felt sure that he was trying to +deceive her father for a bad purpose--so she cried out, "Father, come away +with me, or else that man will deceive you." And she spoke truth, as her +father immediately recognized. + +There are several more classical studies of extraordinary beauty; but your +interest in them would depend upon something more than interest in Greek +and Roman history, and we can not study all the poems. So I prefer to go +back to the meditative lyrics, and to give a few splendid examples of +these more personal compositions. The following stanzas are from a poem +whose Latin title signifies that Love conquers death. In this poem the +author becomes the equal of Tennyson as a master of language. + + The plunging rocks, whose ravenous throats + The sea in wrath and mockery fills, + The smoke that up the valley floats, + The girlhood of the growing hills; + + The thunderings from the miners' ledge, + The wild assaults on nature's hoard, + The peak that stormward bares an edge + Ground sharp in days when Titans warred; + + Grim heights, by wandering clouds embraced + Where lightning's ministers conspire, + Grey glens, with tarns and streamlet laced, + Stark forgeries of primeval fire. + + These scenes may gladden many a mind + Awhile from homelier thoughts released, + And here my fellow men may find + A Sabbath and a vision-feast. + + _I bless them in the good they feel; + And yet I bless them with a sigh; + On me this grandeur stamps the seal + Of tyrannous mortality._ + + _The pitiless mountain stands so sure. + The human breast so weakly heaves, + That brains decay while rocks endure. + At this the insatiate spirit grieves._ + + But hither, oh ideal bride! + For whom this heart in silence aches, + Love is unwearied as the tide, + Love is perennial as the lakes. + + Come thou. The spiky crags will seem + One harvest of one heavenly year, + And fear of death, like childish dream, + Will pass and flee, when thou art here. + +Very possibly this charming meditation was written on the Welsh coast; +there is just such scenery as the poem describes, and the grand peak of +Snowdon would well realize the imagination of the line about the girlhood +of the growing hills. The melancholy of the latter part of the composition +is the same melancholy to be found in "Mimnermus in Church," the first of +Cory's poems which we read together. It is the Greek teaching that there +is nothing to console us for the great doubt and mystery of existence +except unselfish affection. All through the book we find the same +philosophy, even in the beautiful studies of student life and the memories +of childhood. So it is quite a melancholy book, though the sadness be +beautiful. I have given you examples of the sadness of doubt and of the +sadness of love; but there is yet a third kind of sadness--the sadness of +a childless man, wishing that he could have a child of his own. It is a +very pretty thing, simply entitled "Scheveningen Avenue"--probably the +name of the avenue where the incident occurred. The poet does not tell us +how it occurred, but we can very well guess. He was riding in a street +car, probably, and a little girl next to him, while sitting upon her +nurse's lap, fell asleep, and as she slept let her head fall upon his +shoulder. This is a very simple thing to make a poem about, but what a +poem it is! + + Oh, that the road were longer + A mile, or two, or three! + So might the thought grow stronger + That flows from touch of thee. + + _Oh little slumbering maid, + If thou wert five years older, + Thine head would not be laid + So simply on my shoulder!_ + + _Oh, would that I were younger, + Oh, were I more like thee, + I should not faintly hunger + For love that cannot be._ + + A girl might be caressed + Beside me freely sitting; + A child on knee might rest, + And not like thee, unwitting. + + Such honour is thy mother's, + Who smileth on thy sleep, + Or for the nurse who smothers + Thy cheek in kisses deep. + + And but for parting day, + And but for forest shady, + From me they'd take away + The burden of their lady. + + Ah thus to feel thee leaning + Above the nursemaid's hand, + Is like a stranger's gleaning + Where rich men own the land; + + Chance gains, and humble thrift, + With shyness much like thieving, + No notice with the gift, + No thanks with the receiving. + + Oh peasant, when thou starvest + Outside the fair domain, + Imagine there's a harvest + In every treasured grain. + + Make with thy thoughts high cheer, + Say grace for others dining, + And keep thy pittance clear + From poison of repining. + +There is an almost intolerable acuity of sadness in the last two mocking +verses, but how pretty and how tender the whole thing is, and how +gentle-hearted must have been the man who wrote it! The same tenderness +reappears in references to children of a larger growth, the boys of his +school. Sometimes he very much regrets the necessity of discipline, and +advocates a wiser method of dealing with the young. How very pretty is +this little verse about the boy he loves. + + Sweet eyes, that aim a level shaft, + At pleasure flying from afar, + Sweet lips, just parted for a draught + Of Hebe's nectar, shall I mar + By stress of disciplinal craft + The joys that in your freedom are? + +But a little reflection further on in the same poem reminds us how +necessary the discipline must be for the battle of life, inasmuch as each +of those charming boys will have to fight against evil-- + + yet shall ye cope + With worlding wrapped in silken lies, + With pedant, hypocrite, and pope. + +One might easily lecture about this little volume for many more days, so +beautiful are the things which fill it. But enough has been cited to +exemplify its unique value. If you reread these quotations, I think you +will find each time new beauty in them. And the beauty is quite peculiar. +Such poetry could have been written only under two conditions. The first +is that the poet be a consummate scholar. The second is that he must have +suffered, as only a great mind and heart could suffer, from want of +affection. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +OLD GREEK FRAGMENTS + + +The other day when we were reading some of the poems in "Ionica," I +promised to speak in another short essay of Theocritus and his songs or +idyls of Greek peasant life, but in speaking of him it will be well also +to speak of others who equally illustrate the fact that everywhere there +is truth and beauty for the mind that can see. I spoke last week about +what I thought the highest possible kind of literary art might become. But +the possible becoming is yet far away; and in speaking of some old Greek +writers I want only to emphasize the fact that modern literary art as well +as ancient literary art produced their best results from a close study of +human nature. + +Although Theocritus and others who wrote idyls found their chief +inspiration in the life of the peasants, they sometimes also wrote about +the life of cities. Human nature may be studied in the city as well as in +the country, provided that a man knows how to look for it. It is not in +the courts of princes nor the houses of nobles nor the residences of the +wealthy that such study can be made. These superior classes have found it +necessary to show themselves to the world very cautiously; they live by +rule, they conceal their emotions, they move theatrically. But the +ordinary, everyday people of cities are very different; they speak their +thoughts, they keep their hearts open, and they let us see, just as +children do, the good or the evil side of their characters. So a good poet +and a good observer can find in the life of cities subjects of study +almost as easily as in the country. Theocritus has done this in his +fifteenth idyl. This idyl is very famous, and it has been translated +hundreds of times into various languages. Perhaps you may have seen one +version of it which was made by Matthew Arnold. But I think that the +version made by Lang is even better. + +The scene is laid in Alexandria, probably some two thousand years ago, and +the occasion is a religious holiday--a _matsuri_, as we call it in Japan. +Two women have made an appointment to go together to the temple, to see +the festival and to see the people. The poet begins his study by +introducing us to the chamber of one of the women. + +GORGO. "Is Praxinoe at home?" + +PRAXINOE. "Dear Gorgo, how long is it since you have been here! She is at +home. The wonder is that you have got here at last! Eunoe, come and see +that she has a chair and put a cushion on it!" + +G. "It does most charmingly as it is." + +P. "Do sit down." + +How natural this is. There is nothing Greek about it any more than there +is Japanese; it is simply human. It is something that happens in Tokyo +every day, certainly in houses where there are chairs and where it is a +custom to put a cushion on the chair for the visitor. But remember, this +was two thousand years ago. Now listen to what the visitor has to say. + +"I have scarcely got to you at all, Praxinoe! What a huge crowd, what +hosts of carriages! Everywhere cavalry boots, everywhere men in uniform! +And the road is endless; yes, you really live too far away!" + +Praxinoe answers: + +"It is all for that mad man of mine. Here he came to the ends of the earth +and took a hall, not a house, and all that we might not be neighbours. The +jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite." + +She is speaking half in jest, half in earnest; but she forgets that her +little boy is present, and the visitor reminds her of the fact: + +"Don't talk of your husband like that, my dear girl, before the little +boy,--look how he is staring at you!--Never mind, Zaphyrion, sweet child, +she is not speaking about papa." + +P. "Our Lady! (Persephone) The child takes notice!" + +Then the visitor to comfort the child says "Nice papa," and the +conversation proceeds. The two talk about their husbands, about their +dresses, about the cost of things in the shops; but in order to see the +festival Praxinoe must dress herself quickly, and woman, two thousand +years ago, just as now, takes a long time to dress. Hear Praxinoe talking +to her maid-servant while she hurries to get ready: + +"Eunoe, bring the water and put it down in the middle of the room,--lazy +creature that you are. Cat-like, always trying to sleep soft! Come, +bustle, bring the water; quicker! I want water first,--and how she carries +it! Give it me all the same;--don't pour out so much, you extravagant +thing! Stupid girl! Why are you wetting my dress? There, stop, I have +washed my hands as heaven would have it. Where is the key of the big +chest? Bring it here." + +This is life, natural and true; we can see those three together, the +girlish young wife hurrying and scolding and chattering naturally and half +childishly, the patient servant girl smiling at the hurry of her mistress, +and the visitor looking at her friend's new dress, wondering how much it +cost and presently asking her the price. At last all is ready. But the +little boy sees his mother go out and he wants to go out too, though it +has been decided not to take him, because the crowd is too rough and he +might be hurt. Here the mother first explains, then speaks firmly: + +"No, child, I don't mean to take you. Boo! Bogies! There is a horse that +bites! Cry as much as you please, but I cannot have you maimed." + +They go out, Praxinoe and Gorgo and the maid-servant Eunoe. The crowd is +tremendous, and they find it very hard to advance. Sometimes there are +horses in the way, sometimes wagons, occasionally a legion of cavalry. We +know all this, because we hear the chatter of the women as they make their +way through the press. + +"Give me your hand, and you, Eunoe, catch hold of Eutychis,--for fear lest +you get lost.... Here come the kings on horses! My dear man, don't trample +on me. Eunoe, you fool-hardy girl, will you never keep out of the way? Oh! +How tiresome, Gorgo, my muslin veil is torn in two already.... For +heaven's sake, sir, if you ever wish to be fortunate, take care of my +shawl!" + +STRANGER. "I can hardly help myself, but for all that I will be as helpful +as I can." + +The strange man helps the women and children through the pushing crowd, +and they thank him very prettily, praying that he may have good fortune +all his life. But not all the strangers who come in contact with them +happen to be so kind. They come at last into that part of the temple +ground where the image of Adonis is displayed; the beauty of the statue +moves them, and they utter exclamations of delight. This does not please +some of the male spectators, one of whom exclaims, "You tiresome women, do +cease your endless cooing talk! They bore one to death with their eternal +broad vowels!" + +They are country women, and their critic is probably a purist--somebody +who has studied Greek as it is pronounced and spoken in Athens. But the +women bravely resent this interference with their rights. + +GORGO. "Indeed! And where may this person come from? What is it to you if +we are chatterboxes? Give orders to your own servants, sir. Do you pretend +to command the ladies of Syracuse? If you must know, we are Corinthians by +descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak Peloponnesian. Dorian +women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume." + +This is enough to silence the critic, but the other young woman also turns +upon him, and we may suppose that he is glad to escape from their tongues. +And then everybody becomes silent, for the religious services begin. The +priestess, a comely girl, chants the psalm of Adonis, the beautiful old +pagan hymn, more beautiful and more sensuous than anything uttered by the +later religious poets of the West; and all listen in delighted stillness. +As the hymn ends, Gorgo bursts out in exclamation of praise: + +"Praxinoe! The woman is cleverer than we fancied! Happy woman to know so +much!--Thrice happy to have so sweet a voice! Well, all the same, it is +time to be making for home; Diocleides has not had his dinner, and the man +is all vinegar,--don't venture near him when he is kept waiting for +dinner. Farewell, beloved Adonis--may you find us glad at your next +coming." + +And with this natural mingling of the sentimental and the commonplace the +little composition ends. It is as though we were looking through some +window into the life of two thousand years ago. Read the whole thing over +to yourselves when you have time to find the book in the library, and see +how true to human nature it is. There is nothing in it except the +wonderful hymn, which does not belong to to-day as much as to the long +ago, to modern Tokyo as much as to ancient Greece. That is what makes the +immortality of any literary production--not simply truth to the life of +one time, but truth to the life of every time and place. + +Not many years ago there was discovered a book by Herodas, a Greek writer +of about the same period. It is called the "Mimes," a series of little +dramatic studies picturing the life of the time. One of these is well +worthy of rank with the idyl of Theocritus above mentioned. It is the +study of a conversation between a young woman and an old woman. The young +woman has a husband, who left her to join a military expedition and has +not been heard of for several years. The old woman is a go-between, and +she comes to see the young person on behalf of another young man, who +admires her. But as soon as she states the nature of her errand, the young +lady becomes very angry and feigns much virtuous indignation. There is a +quarrel. Then the two become friends, and we know that the old woman's +coming is likely to bring about the result desired. Now the wonder of this +little study also is the play of emotion which it reveals. Such emotions +are common to all ages of humanity; we feel the freshness of this +reflection as we read, to such a degree that we cannot think of the matter +as having happened long ago. Yet even the city in which these episodes +took place has vanished from the face of the earth. + +In the case of the studies of peasant life, there is also value of another +kind. Here we have not only studies of human nature, but studies of +particular social conditions. The quarrels of peasants, half good natured +and nearly always happily ending; their account of their sorrows; their +gossip about their work in the fields--all this might happen almost +anywhere and at almost any time. But the song contest, the prize given for +the best composition upon a chosen subject, this is particularly Greek, +and has never perhaps existed outside of some place among the peasant +folk. It was the poetical side of this Greek life of the peasants, as +recorded by Theocritus, which so much influenced the literatures of the +seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in France and in England. But neither +in France nor in England has there ever really been, at any time, any life +resembling that portrayed by Theocritus; to-day nothing appears to us more +absurd than the eighteenth century habit of picturing the Greek shepherd +life in English or French landscapes. What really may have existed among +the shepherds of the antique world could not possibly exist in modern +times. But how pretty it is! I think that the tenth idyl of Theocritus is +perhaps the prettiest example of the whole series, thirty in number, which +have been preserved for us. The plan is of the simplest. Two young +peasants, respectively named Battus and Milon, meeting together in the +field, talk about their sweethearts. One of them works lazily and is +jeered by the other in consequence. The subject of the jeering +acknowledges that he works badly because his mind is disturbed--he has +fallen in love. Then the other expresses sympathy for him, and tells him +that the best thing he can do to cheer himself up will be to make a song +about the girl, and to sing it as he works. Then he makes a song, which +has been the admiration of the world for twenty centuries and lifts been +translated into almost every language possessing a literature. + +"They all call thee a gipsy, gracious Bombyca, and lean, and +sunburnt;--'tis only I that call thee honey-pale. + +"Yea, and the violet is swart and swart the lettered hyacinth; but yet +these flowers are chosen the first in garlands. + +"The goat runs after cytisus, the wolf pursues the goat, the crane follows +the plough,--but I am wild for love of thee. + +"Would it were mine, all the wealth whereof Croesus was lord, as men tell! +Then images of us, all in gold, should be dedicated to Aphrodite, thou +with thy flute, and a rose, yea, or an apple, and I in fair attire and new +shoon of Amyclae on both my feet. + +"Ah, gracious Bombyca, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice +is drowsy sweet, and thy ways--I can not tell of them." + +Even through the disguise of an English prose translation, you will see +how pretty and how simple this little song must have been in the Greek, +and how very natural is the language of it. Our young peasant has fallen +in love with the girl who is employed to play the flute for the reapers, +as the peasants like to work to the sound of music. His comrades do not +much admire Bombyca; one calls her "a long grasshopper of a girl"; another +finds her too thin; a third calls her a gipsy, such a dark brown her skin +has become by constant exposure to the summer sun. And the lover, looking +at her, is obliged to acknowledge in his own mind that she is long and +lean and dark and like a gipsy; but he finds beauty in all these +characteristics, nevertheless. What if she is dark? The sweetest honey is +darkish, like amber, and so are beautiful flowers, the best of all +flowers, flowers given to Aphrodite; and the sacred hyacinth on whose +leaves appear the letters of the word of lamentation "Ai! Ai!"--that is +also dark like Bombyca. Her darkness is that of honey and flowers. What a +charming apology! He cannot deny that she is long and lean, and he remains +silent on these points, but here we must all sympathize with him. He shows +good taste. It is the tall slender girl that is really the most beautiful +and the most graceful, not the large-limbed, strong-bodied peasant type +that his companions would prefer. Without knowing it, he has fallen in +love like an artist. And he is not blind to the, grace of slenderness and +of form, though he cannot express it in artistic language. He can only +compare the shape of the girl's feet to the ivory feet of the divinities +in the temples--perhaps he is thinking of some ivory image of Aphrodite +which he has seen. But how charming an image does he make to arise before +us! Beautiful is the description of the girl's voice as "drowsy sweet." +But the most exquisite thing in the whole song is the final despairing +admission that he can not describe her at all--"and thy ways, I can not +tell of them"! This is one of the most beautiful expressions in any poem +ancient or modern, because of its supreme truth. What mortal ever could +describe the charm of manner, voice, smile, address, in mere words? Such +things are felt, they can not be described; and the peasant boy reaches +the highest height of true lyrical poetry when he cries out "I can not +tell of them." The great French critic Sainte-Beuve attempted to render +this line as follows--"_Quant a ta maniere, je ne puis la rendre!"_ This +is very good; and you can take your choice between it and any English +translation. But good judges say that nothing in English of French equals +the charm of the original. + +You will find three different classes of idyls in Theocritus; the idyl +which is a simple song of peasant life, a pure lyric expressing only a +single emotion; the idyl which is a little story, usually a story about +the gods or heroes; and lastly, the idyl which is presented in the form of +a dialogue, or even of a conversation between three or four persons. All +these forms of idyl, but especially the first and the third, were +afterward beautifully imitated by the Roman poets; then very imperfectly +imitated by modern poets. The imitation still goes on, but the very best +English poets have never really been able to give us anything worthy of +Theocritus himself. + +However, this study of the Greek model has given some terms to English +literature which every student ought to know. One of these terms is +amoebaean,--amoebaean poetry being dialogue poetry composed in the form of +question and reply. The original Greek signification was that of alternate +speaking. Please do not forget the word. You may often find it in critical +studies in essays upon contemporary literature; and when you see it again, +remember Theocritus and the school of Greek poets who first introduced the +charm of amoebaean poetry. I hope that this little lecture will interest +some of you in Theocritus sufficiently to induce you to read him carefully +through and through. But remember that you can not get the value of even a +single poem of his at a single reading. We have become so much accustomed +to conventional forms of literature that the simple art of poetry like +this quite escapes us at first sight. We have to read it over and over +again many times, and to think about it; then only we feel the wonderful +charm. + + + + +INDEX + + [Transcriber's note: Page numbers have been converted to chapter + numbers in this index.] + + "A dry cicale chirps to a lass making hay," 14 + Aicard, Jean, 11 + Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 4 + "Along the garden ways just now," 2 + "Amaturus," 3 + "A Ma Future," 3 + "Amelia," 2 + "Amis and Amile," Introduction, 13 + "Amphibian," 10 + Andrews, Bishop Lancelot, 6 + "Angel in the House, The," 2 + "An Invocation," 14 + "Appreciations of Poetry," Introduction + "Arabian Nights, The," 13 + "Arachne," 10 + Arnold, Sir Edwin, 3 + Arnold, Matthew, 7, 15 + "Art of Worldly Wisdom, The," 7 + Ashe, Thomas, 3 + "A simple ring with a simple stone," 3 + "Atalanta in Calydon," 12 + "Atalanta's Race," 2 + + "Bhagavad-Gita, The," 6 + Bible, The, Introduction, 3, 6, 12, 13 + Bion, 14 + Blake, William, 6, 10 + Book of Common Prayer, The, 12 + Breton, Jules, 11 + "Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art," 2 + Browning, Robert, 2, 3, 10, 14 + "Burly, dozing humble bee," 10 + "Busy, curious thirsty fly," 10 + Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 2, 3 + + Carew, Thomas, 3 + Carlyle, Thomas, 5, 6 + Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Fourth Earl of, 7 + Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 2 + Coleridge, Hartley, 3 + Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 2, 6, 10 + "Conservative, A," 10 + Cooke, Rose Terry, 10 + Cory, William, Introduction, 3, 14 + Crashaw, Richard, 3 + + Dante Alighieri, 2 + "Daughter of Cleomenes, The," 14 + Descartes, Rene, 10 + "Deteriora," 14 + Dickens, Charles, Introduction + "Djins, Les," 4 + "Dream of Fair Women, A," 14 + + "Emaux et Camees," 11 + Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 4, 10 + "Epigramme Funeraire," 11 + "Evelyn Hope," 3 + + "Fable, A," 14 + "Fifine at the Fair," 10 + Francis of Assisi, Saint, 10 + Freneau, Philip, 10 + + Gautier, Theophile, 11 + "Gazing on stars, my star?" 2 + Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 4 + "Golden Legend, The," 13 + Gracian, Baltasar, 7 + "Grasshopper, The," 11 + Gray, Thomas, 10 + "Greater Memory," 2 + Greek Anthology, Introduction, 4, 14 + "Grillon solitaire," 11 + + "Havamal, The," Introduction, 6 + Hearn, Lafcadio, Introduction + Heredia, Jose, Maria de, Introduction, 5, 11 + Herodas, 15 + Herrick, Robert, 4 + "He that loves a rosy cheek," 3 + Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 10 + Hood, Thomas, 3 + Hugo, Victor, 2, 2, 4, 5, 11 + + "Idyls of the King," 14 + "I love to hear thine earnest voice," 10 + "In a branch of willow hid," 10 + "Interpretations of Literature," Introduction + "Ionica," Introduction, 3 + "I strove with none, for none was worth my strife," 4 + "It is a golden morning of the spring," 2 + + Jonson, Ben, 3, 4 + + "Kalevala, The," Introduction, 12 + Keats, John, Introduction, 2, 6, 10 + "King Solomon and the Ants," 10 + + "La Demoiselle," 11 + "Lady of Shalott, The," 11 + Landor, Walter Savage, 4 + Lang, Andrew, Introduction, 15 + Lamartine, 11 + Lamb, Charles, 10 + "Le Daimio," 5 + Lemerre, Alphonse, 10 + "Le Samourai," 5 + "Les Cigales," 11 + "Life and Literature," Introduction + de Lisle, Leconte, 87 + "Lives there whom pain has evermore passed by," 4 + Locker-Lampson, Frederic, 3, 10 + "Locksley Hall," 2 + Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 5, 7, 11, 12, 13 + Loennrot, 12 + Lovelace, Richard, 11 + Lubbock, Sir John, 8 + + Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 10 + "Ma Libellule," 11 + "Maud," 2 + Meredith, George, Introduction, 7 + "Mimes," 15 + "Mimnermus in church," 14 + Moschus, 14 + + "Nay but you, who do not love her," 3 + "Never the time and the place," 2 + "New Ethics, The," Introduction + "New Year's Day, A," 14 + Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 8 + "Njal-Saga, The." 1 + + "Ode on the Spring," 10 + Oldys, William, 10 + O'Shaughnessy, Arthur, 2 + + "Pansie," 3 + "Patchwork," 3 + Pater, Walter, Introduction, 13 + Patmore, Coventry, 2, 10 + "Pause, A," 2 + Plato, 2 + Poe, Edgar Allan, 12 + "Poems of Places," 5 + Porson, Richard, 10 + Powell, Frederick York, 7 + "Princess, The," Introduction + + Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur Thomas, 10 + + "Reparabo," 14 + Rossetti, Christina, 2, 3 + Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 2, 11 + Ruskin, John, 6, 9 + "Ruth," 3 + + "Saga of King Olaf, The," 7 + Sainte-Beuve, 15 + Saintsbury, Professor George, 6 + "Scheveningen Avenue," 14 + Scott, Sir Walter, 7 + Shakespeare, William, 11 + Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 2 + "She walks in beauty, like the night," 3 + "She was a phantom of delight," 3 + "Solitary-Hearted, The," 3 + "Somewhere or other," 3 + "Song in time of Revolution, A," 12 + "Song of Hiawatha, The," 12 + "Song of Songs," 10 + Spencer, Herbert, 2, 7, 8 + "Stay near me, do not take thy flight" 10 + Stetson, Charlotte Perkins, 10 + Stevenson, Robert Louis, 2 + "Story of Burnt Njal, The," 1 + "Studies in Greek Poets," 4 + "Such Kings of shreds have wooed and won her," 4 + "Sudden Light," 2 + Sully-Prudhomme, Rene, Francois Armande, 5 + "Summum Bonum," 3 + Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 12 + Symonds, John Addington, 2, 4 + + Ten Brink, Bernhard Egidius Konrad, 13 + Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, Introduction, 2, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14 + Tennyson, Frederick, 2 + Thackeray, William Makepeace, Introduction + "The butterfly the ancient Grecians made," 10 + Theocritus, Introduction, 14, 15 + "The poetry of earth is never dead," 10 + "The thousand painful steps at last are trod," 4 + "The trembling arm I pressed," 2 + "They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead," 14 + "Think not thy wisdom can illume away," 4 + Thompson, Maurice, 2 + "Thou canst not wave thy staff in air," 4 + "To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars," 11 + "Two Fragments of Childhood," 14 + "Two Voices, The," 10 + + "Unknown Eros, The," 2 + + Vigfusson, Gudbrandt, 7 + "Voice of the summer wind," 10 + + Watson, William, 4, 10 + "When spring grows old," 2 + "White Moth, The," 10 + Whittier, John Greenleaf, 10 + "Wishes to the Supposed Mistress + Wordsworth, William, 2, 3, 6, 10 + Wycliffe, John, 6 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Books and Habits from the Lectures of 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