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diff --git a/21962-h/21962-h.htm b/21962-h/21962-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5bef9f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/21962-h/21962-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,20167 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +Harvard Classics Volume 28--Essays English and American +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 5%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: medium; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.salutation {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.closing {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.transnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.index {font-size: small ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.intro {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.dedication {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 15%; + text-align: justify } + +P.published {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 15% } + +P.quote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.report {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.report2 {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +H3.h3left { margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 1%; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: left ; + clear: left ; + text-align: center } + +H3.h3right { margin-left: 1%; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: right ; + clear: right ; + text-align: center } + +H3.h3center { margin-left: 0; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: none ; + clear: both ; + text-align: center } + +H4.h4left { margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 1%; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: left ; + clear: left ; + text-align: center } + +H4.h4right { margin-left: 1%; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: right ; + clear: right ; + text-align: center } + +H4.h4center { margin-left: 0; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: none ; + clear: both ; + text-align: center } + +H5.h5left { margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 1%; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: left ; + clear: left ; + text-align: center } + +H5.h5right { margin-left: 1%; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: right ; + clear: right ; + text-align: center } + +H5.h5center { margin-left: 0; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: none ; + clear: both ; + text-align: center } + +IMG.imgleft { float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: 1%; + padding: 0; + text-align: center } + +IMG.imgright {float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1%; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center } + +IMG.imgcenter { margin-left: auto; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: auto; } + +.pagenum { position: absolute; + left: 1%; + font-size: 95%; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; } + + + + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Harvard Classics Volume 28, by Various + +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: Harvard Classics Volume 28 + Essays English and American + +Author: Various + +Editor: Charles W. Eliot + +Release Date: June 29, 2007 [EBook #21962] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARVARD CLASSICS VOLUME 28 *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="Thomas H. Huxley" BORDER="2" WIDTH="402" HEIGHT="572"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 402px"> +Thomas H. Huxley +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE HARVARD CLASSICS +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +EDITED BY CHARLES W ELIOT LL D +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +ESSAYS +<BR> +ENGLISH AND AMERICAN +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WITH INTRODUCTIONS, NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"DR ELIOT'S FIVE-FOOT SHELF OF BOOKS" +</H3> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +P F COLLIER & SON +<BR> +NEW YORK +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +[Transcriber's note: This book contains a number of Greek fragments. +Most of these fragments (the smaller ones) were transliterated into +their English equivalents using the guidelines in Project Gutenberg's +"Greek How-To". The three largest fragments were scanned and inserted +into the HTML version of this e-book as images. Those three fragments +are all in Matthew Arnold's "The Study of Poetry" section of this book, +with translations (not transliterations) of them in footnotes 3, 4, and +5.] +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +Copyright 1910<BR> +BY P. F. COLLIER & Son<BR> +<BR> +Copyright 1886<BR> +BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL<BR> +<BR> +By arrangement with<BR> +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<BR> +<BR> +Copyright 1889<BR> +BY THE TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY<BR> +OF HARTFORD, CONN.<BR> +<BR> +Copyright 1891<BR> +BY THE TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY<BR> +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#chap01a">JONATHAN SWIFT</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#chap02a">THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em"><A HREF="#chap02b">I. WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY?</A></SPAN> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 0.5em"><A HREF="#chap02c">II. SITE OF A UNIVERSITY</A></SPAN> +<BR> +<A HREF="#chap02d">III. UNIVERSITY LIFE AT ATHENS</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">JOHN HENRY NEWMAN</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#chap03a">THE STUDY OF POETRY</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">MATTHEW ARNOLD</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#chap04a">SESAME AND LILIES</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em"><A HREF="#chap04b">LECTURE I—SESAME: OF KINGS' TREASURIES</A></SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em"><A HREF="#chap04c">LECTURE II—LILIES: OF QUEENS' GARDENS</A></SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">JOHN RUSKIN</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#chap05a">JOHN MILTON</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">WALTER BAGEHOT</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#chap06a">SCIENCE AND CULTURE</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#chap07a">RACE AND LANGUAGE</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#chap08a">TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE</A> +<BR> +<A HREF="#chap08b">SAMUEL PEPYS</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#chap09a">ON THE ELEVATION OF THE LABORING CLASSES</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#chap10a">THE POETIC PRINCIPLE</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">EDGAR ALLAN POE</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#chap11a">WALKING</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">HENRY DAVID THOREAU</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#chap12a">ABRAHAM LINCOLN</A> +<BR> +<A HREF="#chap12b">DEMOCRACY</A> +<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01a"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</I> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>William Makepeace Thackeray, one of the greatest of English novelists, +was born at Calcutta, India, on July 18, 1811, where his father held an +administrative position. He was sent to England at six for his +education, which he received at the Charterhouse and Cambridge, after +which he began, but did not prosecute, the study of law. Having lost +his means, in part by gambling, he made up his mind to earn his living +as an artist, and went to Paris to study. He had some natural gift for +drawing, which he had already employed in caricature, but, though he +made interesting and amusing illustrations for his books, he never +acquired any marked technical skill.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>He now turned to literature, and, on the strength of an appointment as +Paris correspondent of a short-lived radical newspaper, he married. On +the failure of the newspaper he took to miscellaneous journalism and +the reviewing of books and pictures, his most important work appearing +in "Fraser's Magazine" and "Punch." In 1840 his wife's mind became +clouded, and, though she never recovered, she lived on till 1894.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Success came to Thackeray very slowly. "Catherine," "The Great +Hoggarty Diamond," "Barry Lyndon," and several volumes of travel had +failed to gain much attention before the "Snob Papers," issued in +"Punch" in 1846, brought him fame. In the January of the next year +"Vanity Fair" began to appear in monthly numbers, and by the time it +was finished Thackeray had taken his place in the front rank of his +profession. "Pendennis" followed in 1850, and sustained the prestige +he had won.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>The next year he began lecturing, and delivered in London the lectures +on the "English Humourists," which he repeated the following winter in +America with much success. "Esmond" had appeared on the eve of his +setting sail, and revealed his style at its highest point of +perfection, and a tenderer if less powerful touch than "Vanity Fair" +had displayed. In 1855 "The Newcomes" appeared, and was followed by a +second trip to America, when he lectured on the "Four Georges." After +an unsuccessful attempt to enter Parliament, the novelist resumed his +writing with "The Virginians" (1857-59), in which he availed himself of +his American experiences.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>In the January of 1860 the "Cornhill Magazine" was founded, with +Thackeray as first editor, and launched on a distinguished career. +Most of his later work was published in its pages, but "Lovel the +Widower" and the "Adventures of Philip" have not taken a place beside +his greater work. In the essays constituting the "Roundabout Papers," +however, he appeared at his easiest and most charming. After a little +more than two years he resigned the editorship; and on December 23, +1863, he died.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Thackeray's greatest distinction is, of course, as a novelist, and an +estimate of his work in this field is not in place here. But as an +essayist he is also great. The lectures on the "English Humourists," +of which the following paper on "Swift" was the first, were the fruit +of an intimate knowledge of the time of Queen Anne, and a warm sympathy +with its spirit. And here, as in all his mature work, Thackeray is the +master of a style that for ease, suppleness, and range of effect has +seldom been equaled in English.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +JONATHAN SWIFT[1] +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY +</H3> + +<P> +In treating of the English humourists of the past age, it is of the men +and of their lives, rather than of their books, that I ask permission to +speak to you; and in doing so, you are aware that I cannot hope to +entertain you with a merely humourous or facetious story. Harlequin +without his mask is known to present a very sober countenance, and was +himself, the story goes, the melancholy patient whom the Doctor advised +to go and see Harlequin—a man full of cares and perplexities like the +rest of us, whose Self must always be serious to him, under whatever mask +or disguise or uniform he presents it to the public. And as all of you +here must needs be grave when you think of your own past and present, you +will not look to find, in the histories of those whose lives and feelings +I am going to try and describe to you, a story that is otherwise than +serious, and of ten very sad. If Humour only meant laughter, you would +scarcely feel more interest about humourous writers than about the +private life of poor Harlequin just mentioned, who possesses in common +with these the power of making you laugh. But the men regarding whose +lives and stories your kind presence here shows that you have curiosity +and sympathy, appeal to a great number of our other faculties, besides +our mere sense of ridicule. The humourous writer professes to awaken and +direct your love, your pity, your kindness—your scorn for untruth, +pretension, imposture—your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the +oppressed, the unhappy. To the best of his means and ability he comments +on all the ordinary actions and passions of life almost. He takes upon +himself to be the week-day preacher, so to speak. Accordingly, as he +finds, and speaks, and feels the truth best we regard him, esteem +him—sometimes love him. And, as his business is to mark other people's +lives and peculiarities, we moralize upon his life when he is gone—and +yesterday's preacher becomes the text for to-day's sermon. +</P> + +<P> +Of English parents, and of a good English family of clergymen, Swift was +born in Dublin in 1667, seven months after the death of his father, who +had come to practise there as a lawyer. The boy went to school at +Kilkenny, and afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin, where he got a +degree with difficulty, and was wild, and witty, and poor. In 1688, by +the recommendation of his mother, Swift was received into the family of +Sir William Temple, who had known Mrs. Swift in Ireland. He left his +patron in 1694, and the next year took orders in Dublin. But he threw up +the small Irish preferment which he got and returned to Temple, in whose +family he remained until Sir William's death in 1699. His hopes of +advancement in England failing, Swift returned to Ireland, and took the +living of Laracor. Hither he invited Hester Johnson, Temple's natural +daughter, with whom he had contracted a tender friendship, while they +were both dependants of Temple's. And with an occasional visit to +England, Swift now passed nine years at home. +</P> + +<P> +In 1709 he came to England, and, with a brief visit to Ireland, during +which he took possession of his deanery of St. Patrick, he now passed +five years in England, taking the most distinguished part in the +political transactions which terminated with the death of Queen Anne. +After her death, his party disgraced, and his hopes of ambition over, +Swift returned to Dublin, where he remained twelve years. In this time +he wrote the famous "Drapier's Letters" and "Gulliver's Travels." He +married Hester Johnson, Stella, and buried Esther Vanhomrigh, Vanessa, +who had followed him to Ireland from London, where she had contracted a +violent passion for him. In 1726 and 1727 Swift was in England, which he +quitted for the last time on hearing of his wife's illness. Stella died +in January, 1728, and Swift not until 1745, having passed the last five +of the seventy-eight years of his life with an impaired intellect and +keepers to watch him. +</P> + +<P> +You know, of course, that Swift has had many biographers; his life has +been told by the kindest and most good-natured of men, Scott, who admires +but can't bring himself to love him; and by stout old Johnson, who, +forced to admit him into the company of poets, receives the famous +Irishman, and takes off his hat to him with a bow of surly recognition, +scans him from head to foot, and passes over to the other side of the +street. Dr. Wilde of Dublin, who has written a most interesting volume +on the closing years of Swift's life, calls Johnson "the most malignant +of his biographers:" it is not easy for an English critic to please +Irishmen—perhaps to try and please them. And yet Johnson truly admires +Swift: Johnson does not quarrel with Swift's change of politics, or doubt +his sincerity of religion: about the famous Stella and Vanessa +controversy the Doctor does not bear very hardly on Swift. But he could +not give the Dean that honest hand of his; the stout old man puts it into +his breast, and moves off from him. +</P> + +<P> +Would we have liked to live with him? That is a question which, in +dealing with these people's works, and thinking of their lives and +peculiarities, every reader of biographies must put to himself. Would +you have liked to be a friend of the great Dean? I should like to have +been Shakspeare's shoeblack—just to have lived in his house, just to +have worshipped him—to have run on his errands, and seen that sweet +serene face. I should like, as a young man, to have lived on Fielding's +staircase in the Temple, and after helping him up to bed perhaps, and +opening his door with his latch-key, to have shaken hands with him in the +morning, and heard him talk and crack jokes over his breakfast and his +mug of small beer. Who would not give something to pass a night at the +club with Johnson, and Goldsmith, and James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck? +The charm of Addison's companionship and conversation has passed to us by +fond tradition—but Swift? If you had been his inferior in parts (and +that, with a great respect for all persons present, I fear is only very +likely), his equal in mere social station, he would have bullied, +scorned, and insulted you; if, undeterred by his great reputation, you +had met him like a man, he would have quailed before you, and not had the +pluck to reply, and gone home, and years after written a foul epigram +about you—watched for you in a sewer, and come out to assail you with a +coward's blow and a dirty bludgeon. If you had been a lord with a blue +riband, who flattered his vanity, or could help his ambition, he would +have been the most delightful company in the world. He would have been +so manly, so sarcastic, so bright, odd, and original, that you might +think he had no object in view but the indulgence of his humour and that +he was the most reckless, simple creature in the world. How he would +have torn your enemies to pieces for you! and made fun of the Opposition! +His servility was so boisterous that it looked like independence; he +would have done your errands, but with the air of patronizing you, and +after fighting your battles, masked, in the street or the press, would +have kept on his hat before your wife and daughters in the drawing-room, +content to take that sort of pay for his tremendous services as a bravo. +</P> + +<P> +He says as much himself in one of his letters to Bolingbroke:—"All my +endeavours to distinguish myself were only for want of a great title and +fortune, that I might be used like a lord by those who have an opinion of +my parts; whether right or wrong is no great matter. And so the +reputation of wit and great learning does the office of a blue riband or +a coach and six." +</P> + +<P> +Could there be a greater candour? It is an outlaw, who says, "These are +my brains; with these I'll win titles and compete with fortune. These +are my bullets; these I'll turn into gold;" and he hears the sound of +coaches and six, takes the road like Macheath, and makes society stand +and deliver. They are all on their knees before him. Down go my lord +bishop's apron, and his Grace's blue riband, and my lady's brocade +petticoat in the mud. He eases the one of a living, the other of a +patent place, the third of a little snug post about the Court, and gives +them over to followers of his own. The great prize has not come yet. +The coach with the mitre and crosier in it, which he intends to have for +his share, has been delayed on the way from St. James's; and he waits and +waits until nightfall, when his runners come and tell him that the coach +has taken a different road, and escaped him. So he fires his pistols +into the air with a curse, and rides away into his own country. +</P> + +<P> +Swift's seems to me to be as good a name to point a moral or adorn a tale +of ambition, as any hero's that ever lived and failed. But we must +remember that the morality was lax—that other gentlemen besides himself +took the road in his day—that public society was in a strange disordered +condition, and the State was ravaged by other condottieri. The Boyne was +being fought and won, and lost—the bells rung in William's victory, in +the very same tone with which they would have pealed for James's. Men +were loose upon politics, and had to shift for themselves. They, as well +as old beliefs and institutions, had lost their moorings and gone adrift +in the storm. As in the South Sea Bubble, almost everybody gambled; as +in the Railway mania—not many centuries ago—almost every one took his +unlucky share: a man of that time, of the vast talents and ambition of +Swift, could scarce do otherwise than grasp at his prize, and make his +spring at his opportunity. His bitterness, his scorn, his rage, his +subsequent misanthropy, are ascribed by some panegyrists to a deliberate +conviction of mankind's unworthiness, and a desire to amend them by +castigating. His youth was bitter, as that of a great genius bound down +by ignoble ties, and powerless in a mean dependence; his age was bitter, +like that of a great genius that had fought the battle and nearly won it, +and lost it, and thought of it afterwards writhing in a lonely exile. A +man may attribute to the gods, if he likes, what is caused by his own +fury, or disappointment, or self-will. What public man—what statesman +projecting a <I>coup</I>—what king determined on an invasion of his +neighbour—what satirist meditating an onslaught on society or an +individual, can't give a pretext for his move? There was a French +general the other day who proposed to march into this country and put it +to sack and pillage, in revenge for humanity outraged by our conduct at +Copenhagen: there is always some excuse for men of the aggressive turn. +They are of their nature warlike, predatory, eager for fight, plunder, +dominion. +</P> + +<P> +As fierce a beak and talon as ever struck—as strong a wing as ever beat, +belonged to Swift. I am glad, for one, that fate wrested the prey out of +his claws, and cut his wings and chained him. One can gaze, and not +without awe and pity, at the lonely eagle chained behind the bars. +</P> + +<P> +That Swift was born at No. 7, Hoey's Court, Dublin, on the 30th November, +1667, is a certain fact, of which nobody will deny the sister island the +honour and glory; but, it seems to me, he was no more an Irishman than a +man born of English parents at Calcutta is a Hindoo. Goldsmith was an +Irishman, and always an Irishman: Steele was an Irishman, and always an +Irishman: Swift's heart was English and in England, his habits English, +his logic eminently English; his statement is elaborately simple; he +shuns tropes and metaphors, and uses his ideas and words with a wise +thrift and economy, as he used his money: with which he could be generous +and splendid upon great occasions, but which he husbanded when there was +no need to spend it. He never indulges in needless extravagance of +rhetoric, lavish epithets, profuse imagery. He lays his opinion before +you with a grave simplicity and a perfect neatness. Dreading ridicule +too, as a man of his humour—above all an Englishman of his +humour—certainly would, he is afraid to use the poetical power which he +really possessed; one often fancies in reading him that he dares not be +eloquent when he might; that he does not speak above his voice, as it +were, and the tone of society. +</P> + +<P> +His initiation into politics, his knowledge of business, his knowledge of +polite life, his acquaintance with literature even, which he could not +have pursued very sedulously during that reckless career at Dublin, Swift +got under the roof of Sir William Temple. He was fond of telling in +after life what quantities of books he devoured there, and how King +William taught him to cut asparagus in the Dutch fashion. It was at +Shene and at Moor Park, with a salary of twenty pounds and a dinner at +the upper servants' table, that this great and lonely Swift passed a ten +years' apprenticeship—wore a cassock that was only not a livery—bent +down a knee as proud as Lucifer's to supplicate my lady's good graces, or +run on his honour's errands. It was here, as he was writing at Temple's +table, or following his patron's walk, that he saw and heard the men who +had governed the great world—measured himself with them, looking up from +his silent corner, gauged their brains, weighed their wits, turned them, +and tried them, and marked them. Ah! what platitudes he must have heard! +what feeble jokes! what pompous commonplaces! what small men they must +have seemed under those enormous periwigs, to the swarthy, uncouth, +silent Irish secretary. I wonder whether it ever struck Temple, that +that Irishman was his master? I suppose that dismal conviction did not +present itself under the ambrosial wig, or Temple could never have lived +with Swift. Swift sickened, rebelled, left the service—ate humble pie +and came back again; and so for ten years went on, gathering learning, +swallowing scorn, and submitting with a stealthy rage to his fortune. +</P> + +<P> +Temple's style is the perfection of practised and easy good-breeding. If +he does not penetrate very deeply into a subject, he professes a very +gentlemanly acquaintance with it; if he makes rather a parade of Latin, +it was the custom of his day, as it was the custom for a gentleman to +envelope his head in a periwig and his hands in lace ruffles. If he +wears buckles and square-toed shoes, he steps in them with a consummate +grace, and you never hear their creak, or find them treading upon any +lady's train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. When that grows +too hot or too agitated for him, he politely leaves it. He retires to +his retreat of Shene or Moor Park; and lets the King's party and the +Prince of Orange's party battle it out among themselves. He reveres the +Sovereign (and no man perhaps ever testified to his loyalty by so elegant +a bow); he admires the Prince of Orange; but there is one person whose +ease and comfort he loves more than all the princes in Christendom, and +that valuable member of society is himself, Gulielmus Temple, Baronettus. +One sees him in his retreat; between his study-chair and his tulip-beds, +clipping his apricots and pruning his essays,—the statesman, the +ambassador no more; but the philosopher, the Epicurean, the fine +gentleman and courtier at St. James's as at Shene; where in place of +kings and fair ladies, he pays his court to the Ciceronian majesty; or +walks a minuet with the Epic Muse; or dallies by the south wall with the +ruddy nymph of gardens. +</P> + +<P> +Temple seems to have received and exacted a prodigious deal of veneration +from his household, and to have been coaxed, and warmed, and cuddled by +the people round about him, as delicately as any of the plants which he +loved. When he fell ill in 1693, the household was aghast at his +indisposition: mild Dorothea, his wife, the best companion of the best of +men— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great,<BR> +Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +As for Dorinda, his sister,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Those who would grief describe, might come and trace<BR> +Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face.<BR> +To see her weep, joy every face forsook,<BR> +And grief flung sables on each menial look.<BR> +The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul,<BR> +That furnished spirit and motion through the whole."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Isn't that line in which grief is described as putting the menials into a +mourning livery, a fine image? One of the menials wrote it, who did not +like that Temple livery nor those twenty-pound wages. Cannot one fancy +the uncouth young servitor, with downcast eyes, books and papers in hand, +following at his honour's heels in the garden walk; or taking his +honour's orders as he stands by the great chair, where Sir William has +the gout, and his feet all blistered with moxa? When Sir William has the +gout or scolds it must be hard work at the second table; the Irish +secretary owned as much afterwards: and when he came to dinner, how he +must have lashed and growled and torn the household with his gibes and +scorn! What would the steward say about the pride of them Irish +schollards—and this one had got no great credit even at his Irish +college, if the truth were known—and what a contempt his Excellency's +own gentleman must have had for Parson Teague from Dublin. (The valets +and chaplains were always at war. It is hard to say which Swift thought +the more contemptible.) And what must have been the sadness, the sadness +and terror, of the housekeeper's little daughter with the curling black +ringlets and the sweet smiling face, when the secretary who teaches her +to read and write, and whom she loves and references above all +things—above mother, above mild Dorothea, above that tremendous Sir +William in his square-toes-and periwig,—when <I>Mr. Swift</I> comes down from +his master with rage in his heart, and has not a kind word even for +little Hester Johnson? +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps, for the Irish secretary, his Excellency's condescension was even +more cruel than his frowns. Sir William <I>would</I> perpetually quote Latin +and the ancient classics <I>ąpropos</I> of his gardens and his Dutch statues +and <I>plates-bandes</I>, and talk about Epicurus and Diogenes Laertius, +Julius Caesar, Semiramis, and the gardens of the Hesperides, Maecenas, +Strabo describing Jericho, and the Assyrian kings. <I>Ąpropos</I> of beans, +he would mention Pythagoras's precept to abstain from beans, and that +this precept probably meant that wise men should abstain from public +affairs. <I>He</I> is a placid Epicurean; <I>he</I> is a Pythagorean philosopher; +<I>he</I> is a wise man—that is the deduction. Does not Swift think so? One +can imagine the downcast eyes lifted up for a moment, and the flash of +scorn which they emit. Swift's eyes were as azure as the heavens; Pope +says nobly (as everything Pope said and thought of his friend was good +and noble), "His eyes are as azure as the heavens, and have a charming +archness in them." And one person in that household, that pompous, +stately, kindly Moor Park, saw heaven nowhere else. +</P> + +<P> +But the Temple amenities and solemnities did not agree with Swift. He +was half-killed with a surfeit of Shene pippins; and in a garden-seat +which he devised for himself at Moor Park, and where he devoured greedily +the stock of books within his reach, he caught a vertigo and deafness +which punished and tormented him through life. He could not bear the +place or the servitude. Even in that poem of courtly condolence, from +which we have quoted a few lines of mock melancholy, he breaks out of the +funereal procession with a mad shriek, as it were, and rushes away crying +his own grief, cursing his own fate, foreboding madness, and forsaken by +fortune, and even hope. +</P> + +<P> +I don't know anything more melancholy than the letter to Temple, in +which, after having broke from his bondage, the poor wretch crouches +piteously towards his cage again, and deprecates his master's anger. He +asks for testimonials for orders. "The particulars required of me are +what relate to morals and learning; and the reasons of quitting your +honour's family—that is, whether the last was occasioned by any ill +action. They are left entirely to your honour's mercy, though in the +first I think I cannot reproach myself for anything further than for +<I>infirmities</I>. This is all I dare at present beg from your honour, under +circumstances of life not worth your regard: what is left me to wish +(next to the health and prosperity of your honour and family) is that +Heaven would one day allow me the opportunity of leaving my +acknowledgments at your feet. I beg my most humble duty and service be +presented to my ladies, your honour's lady and sister."—Can prostration +fall deeper? could a slave bow lower? +</P> + +<P> +Twenty years afterwards Bishop Kennet, describing the same man, says, +"Dr. Swift came into the coffee-house and had a bow from everybody but +me. When I came to the antechamber [at Court] to wait before prayers, +Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business. He was soliciting +the Earl of Arran to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a +place for a clergyman. He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake, with +my Lord Treasurer, that he should obtain a salary of 200L. per annum as +member of the English Church at Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., +going into the Queen with the red bag, and told him aloud, he had +something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He took out his gold +watch, and telling the time of day, complained that it was very late. A +gentleman said he was too fast. 'How can I help it,' says the Doctor, +'if the courtiers give me a watch that won't go right?' Then he +instructed a young nobleman, that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope +(a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English, for which +he would have them all subscribe: 'For,' says he, 'he shall not begin to +print till I have a thousand guineas for him.' Lord Treasurer, after +leaving the Queen, came through the room, beckoning Dr. Swift to follow +him,—both went off just before prayers." There's a little malice in the +Bishop's "just before prayers." +</P> + +<P> +This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, and is harsh, though not +altogether unpleasant. He was doing good, and to deserving men too, in +the midst of these intrigues and triumphs. His journals and a thousand +anecdotes of him relate his kind acts and rough manners. His hand was +constantly stretched out to relieve an honest man—he was cautious about +his money, but ready.—If you were in a strait would you like such a +benefactor? I think I would rather have had a potato and a friendly word +from Goldsmith than have been beholden to the Dean for a guinea and a +dinner. He insulted a man as he served him, made women cry, guests look +foolish, bullied unlucky friends, and flung his benefactions into poor +men's faces. No; the Dean was no Irishman—no Irishman ever gave but +with a kind word and a kind heart. +</P> + +<P> +It is told, as if it were to Swift's credit, that the Dean of St. +Patrick's performed his family devotions every morning regularly, but +with such secrecy that the guests in his house were never in the least +aware of the ceremony. There was no need surely why a church dignitary +should assemble his family privily in a crypt, and as if he was afraid of +heathen persecution. But I think the world was right, and the bishops +who advised Queen Anne, when they counselled her not to appoint the +author of the "Tale of a Tub" to a bishopric, gave perfectly good advice. +The man who wrote the arguments and illustrations in that wild book, +could not but be aware what must be the sequel of the propositions which +he laid down. The boon companion of Pope and Bolingbroke, who chose +these as the friends of his life, and the recipients of his confidence +and affection, must have heard many an argument, and joined in many a +conversation over Pope's port, or St. John's burgundy, which would not +bear to be repeated at other men's boards. +</P> + +<P> +I know of few things more conclusive as to the sincerity of Swift's +religion than his advice to poor John Gay to turn clergyman, and look out +for a seat on the Bench. Gay, the author of the "Beggar's Opera"—Gay, +the wildest of the wits about town—it was this man that Jonathan Swift +advised to take orders—to invest in a cassock and bands—just as he +advised him to husband his shillings and put his thousand pounds out at +interest. The Queen, and the bishops, and the world, were right in +mistrusting the religion of that man. +</P> + +<P> +I am not here, of course, to speak of any man's religious views, except +in so far as they influence his literary character, his life, his humour. +The most notorious sinners of all those fellow-mortals whom it is our +business to discuss—Harry Fielding and Dick Steele, were especially +loud, and I believe really fervent, in their expressions of belief; they +belaboured freethinkers, and stoned imaginary atheists on all sorts of +occasions, going out of their way to bawl their own creed, and persecute +their neighbour's, and if they sinned and stumbled, as they constantly +did with debt, with drink, with all sorts of bad behaviour, they got upon +their knees and cried "Peccavi" with a most sonorous orthodoxy. Yes; +poor Harry Fielding and poor Dick Steele were trusty and undoubting +Church of England men; they abhorred Popery, Atheism, and wooden shoes, +and idolatries in general; and hiccupped Church and State with fervour. +</P> + +<P> +But Swift? <I>His</I> mind had had a different schooling, and possessed a +very different logical power. <I>He</I> was not bred up in a tipsy +guard-room, and did not learn to reason in a Covent Garden tavern. He +could conduct an argument from beginning to end. He could see forward +with a fatal clearness. In his old age, looking at the "Tale of a Tub," +when he said, "Good God, what a genius I had when I wrote that book!" I +think he was admiring not the genius, but the consequences to which the +genius had brought him—a vast genius, a magnificent genius, a genius +wonderfully bright, and dazzling, and strong,—to seize, to know, to see, +to flash upon falsehood and scorch it into perdition, to penetrate into +the hidden motives, and expose the black thoughts of men,—an awful, an +evil spirit. +</P> + +<P> +Ah man! you, educated in Epicurean Temple's library, you whose friends +were Pope and St. John—what made you to swear to fatal vows, and bind +yourself to a life-long hypocrisy before the Heaven which you adored with +such real wonder, humility, and reverence? For Swift was a reverent, was +a pious spirit—for Swift could love and could pray. Through the storms +and tempests of his furious mind, the stars of religion and love break +out in the blue, shining serenely, though hidden by the driving clouds +and the maddened hurricane of his life. +</P> + +<P> +It is my belief that he suffered frightfully from the consciousness of +his own scepticism, and that he had bent his pride so far down as to put +his apostasy out to hire. The paper left behind him, called "Thoughts on +Religion," is merely a set of excuses for not professing disbelief. He +says of his sermons that he preached pamphlets: they have scarce a +Christian characteristic; they might be preached from the steps of a +synagogue, or the floor of a mosque, or the box of a coffee-house almost. +There is little or no cant—he is too great and too proud for that; and, +in so far as the badness of his sermons goes, he is honest. But having +put that cassock on, it poisoned him: he was strangled in his bands. He +goes through life, tearing, like a man possessed with a devil. Like +Abudah in the Arabian story, he is always looking out for the Fury, and +knows that the night will come and the inevitable hag with it. What a +night, my God, it was! what a lonely rage and long agony—what a vulture +that tore the heart of that giant! It is awful to think of the great +sufferings of this great man. Through life he always seems alone, +somehow. Goethe was so. I can't fancy Shakspeare otherwise. The giants +must live apart. The kings can have no company. But this man suffered +so; and deserved so to suffer. One hardly reads anywhere of such a pain. +</P> + +<P> +The "saeva indignatio" of which he spoke as lacerating his heart, and +which he dares to inscribe on his tombstone—as if the wretch who lay +under that stone waiting God's judgment had a right to be angry,—breaks +out from him in a thousand pages of his writing, and tears and rends him. +Against men in office, he having been overthrown; against men in England, +he having lost his chance of preferment there, the furious exile never +fails to rage and curse. Is it fair to call the famous "Drapier's +Letters" patriotism? They are masterpieces of dreadful humour and +invective: they are reasoned logically enough too, but the proposition is +as monstrous and fabulous as the Lilliputian island. It is not that the +grievance is so great, but there is his enemy—the assault is wonderful +for its activity and terrible rage. It is Samson, with a bone in his +hand, rushing on his enemies and felling them: one admires not the cause +so much as the strength, the anger, the fury of the champion. As is the +case with madmen, certain subjects provoke him, and awaken his fits of +wrath. Marriage is one of these; in a hundred passages in his writings +he rages against it; rages against children; an object of constant +satire, even more contemptible in his eyes than a lord's chaplain, is a +poor curate with a large family. The idea of this luckless paternity +never fails to bring down from him gibes and foul language. Could Dick +Steele, or Goldsmith, or Fielding, in his most reckless moment of satire, +have written anything like the Dean's famous "modest proposal" for eating +children? Not one of these but melts at the thoughts of childhood, +fondles and caresses it. Mr. Dean has no such softness, and enters the +nursery with the tread and gaiety of an ogre. "I have been assured," +says he in the "Modest Proposal," "by a very knowing American of my +acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a +year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether +stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt it will equally +serve in a ragout." And taking up this pretty joke, as his way is, he +argues it with perfect gravity and logic. He turns and twists this +subject in a score of different ways: he hashes it; and he serves it up +cold; and he garnishes it; and relishes it always. He describes the +little animal as "dropped from its dam," advising that the mother should +let it suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render it plump and +fat for a good table! +</P> + +<P> +"A child," says his Reverence, "will make two dishes at an entertainment +for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter +will make a reasonable dish," and so on; and, the subject being so +delightful that he can't leave it, he proceeds to recommend, in place of +venison for squires' tables, "the bodies of young lads and maidens not +exceeding fourteen or under twelve." Amiable humourist! laughing +castigator of morals! There was a process well known and practised in +the Dean's gay days: when a lout entered the coffee-house, the wags +proceeded to what they called "roasting" him. This is roasting a subject +with a vengeance. The Dean had a native genius for it. As the "Almanach +des Gourmands" says, <I>On naīt rōtisseur</I>. +</P> + +<P> +And it was not merely by the sarcastic method that Swift exposed the +unreasonableness of loving and having children. In Gulliver, the folly +of love and marriage is urged by graver arguments and advice. In the +famous Lilliputian kingdom, Swift speaks with approval of the practice of +instantly removing children from their parents and educating them by the +State; and amongst his favourite horses, a pair of foals are stated to be +the very utmost a well-regulated equine couple would permit themselves. +In fact, our great satirist was of opinion that conjugal love was +unadvisable, and illustrated the theory by his own practice and +example—God help him—which made him about the most wretched being in +God's world. +</P> + +<P> +The grave and logical conduct of an absurd proposition, as exemplified in +the cannibal proposal just mentioned, is our author's constant method +through all his works of humour. Given a country of people six inches or +sixty feet high, and by the mere process of the logic, a thousand +wonderful absurdities are evolved, at so many stages of the calculation. +Turning to the first minister who waited behind him with a white staff +near as tall as the mainmast of the "Royal Sovereign," the King of +Brobdingnag observes how contemptible a thing human grandeur is, as +represented by such a contemptible little creature as Gulliver. "The +Emperor of Lilliput's features are strong and masculine" (what a +surprising humour there is in this description!)—"The Emperor's +features," Gulliver says, "are strong and masculine, with an Austrian +lip, an arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his +body and limbs well proportioned, and his deportment majestic. He is +taller <I>by the breadth of my nail</I> than any of his court, which alone is +enough to strike an awe into beholders." +</P> + +<P> +What a surprising humour there is in these descriptions! How noble the +satire is here! how just and honest! How perfect the image! Mr. +Macaulay has quoted the charming lines of the poet, where the king of the +pigmies is measured by the same standard. We have all read in Milton of +the spear that was like "the mast of some tall admiral," but these images +are surely likely to come to the comic poet originally. The subject is +before him. He is turning it in a thousand ways. He is full of it. The +figure suggests itself naturally to him, and comes out of his subject, as +in that wonderful passage when Gulliver's box having been dropped by the +eagle into the sea, and Gulliver having been received into the ship's +cabin, he calls upon the crew to bring the box into the cabin, and put it +on the table, the cabin being only a quarter the size of the box. It is +the <I>veracity</I> of the blunder which is so admirable. Had a man come from +such a country as Brobdingnag he would have blundered so. +</P> + +<P> +But the best stroke of humour, if there be a best in that abounding book, +is that where Gulliver, in the unpronounceable country, describes his +parting from his master the horse. "I took," he says, "a second leave of +my master, but as I was going to prostrate myself to kiss his hoof, he +did me the honour to raise it gently to my mouth. I am not ignorant how +much I have been censured for mentioning this last particular. +Detractors are pleased to think it improbable that so illustrious a +person should descend to give so great a mark of distinction to a +creature so inferior as I. Neither have I forgotten how apt some +travellers are to boast of extraordinary favours they have received. But +if these censurers were better acquainted with the noble and courteous +disposition of the Houyhnhnms they would soon change their opinion." +</P> + +<P> +The surprise here, the audacity of circumstantial evidence, the +astounding gravity of the speaker, who is not ignorant how much he has +been censured, the nature of the favour conferred, and the respectful +exultation at the receipt of it, are surely complete; it is truth +topsy-turvy, entirely logical and absurd. +</P> + +<P> +As for the humour and conduct of this famous fable, I suppose there is no +person who reads but must admire; as for the moral, I think it horrible, +shameful, unmanly, blasphemous; and giant and great as this Dean is, I +say we should hoot him. Some of this audience mayn't have read the last +part of Gulliver, and to such I would recall the advice of the venerable +Mr. Punch to persons about to marry, and say "Don't." When Gulliver +first lands among the Yahoos, the naked howling wretches clamber up trees +and assault him, and he describes himself as "almost stifled with the +filth which fell about him." The reader of the fourth part of +"Gulliver's Travels" is like the hero himself in this instance. It is +Yahoo language: a monster gibbering shrieks, and gnashing imprecations +against mankind—tearing down all shreds of modesty, past all sense of +manliness and shame; filthy in word, filthy in thought, furious, raging, +obscene. +</P> + +<P> +And dreadful it is to think that Swift knew the tendency of his +creed—the fatal rocks towards which his logic desperately drifted. That +last part of "Gulliver" is only a consequence of what has gone before; +and the worthlessness of all mankind, the pettiness, cruelty, pride, +imbecility, the general vanity, the foolish pretension, the mock +greatness, the pompous dulness, the mean aims, the base successes—all +these were present to him; it was with the din of these curses of the +world, blasphemies against heaven, shrieking in his ears, that he began +to write his dreadful allegory—of which the meaning is that man is +utterly wicked, desperate and imbecile, and his passions are so +monstrous, and his boasted powers so mean, that he is and deserves to be +the slave of brutes, and ignorance is better than his vaunted reason. +What had this man done? what secret remorse was rankling at his heart? +what fever was boiling in him, that he should see all the world +blood-shot? We view the world with our own eyes, each of us; and we make +from within us the world we see. A weary heart gets no gladness out of +sunshine; a selfish man is sceptical about friendship, as a man with no +ear doesn't care for music. A frightful self-consciousness it must have +been, which looked on mankind so darkly through those keen eyes of Swift. +</P> + +<P> +A remarkable story is told by Scott, of Delany, who interrupted +Archbishop King and Swift in a conversation which left the prelate in +tears, and from which Swift rushed away with marks of strong terror and +agitation in his countenance, upon which the Archbishop said to Delany, +"You have just met the most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of +his wretchedness you must never ask a question." +</P> + +<P> +The most unhappy man on earth;—Miserrimus—what a character of him! And +at this time all the great wits of England had been at his feet. All +Ireland had shouted after him, and worshipped him as a liberator, a +saviour, the greatest Irish patriot and citizen. Dean Drapier +Bickerstaff Gulliver—the most famous statesmen, and the greatest poets +of his day, had applauded him, and done him homage; and at this time, +writing over to Bolingbroke from Ireland, he says, "It is time for me to +have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better +before I was called into the best, <I>and not die here in a rage, like a +poisoned rat in a hole</I>." +</P> + +<P> +We have spoken about the men, and Swift's behaviour to them; and now it +behoves us not to forget that there are certain other persons in the +creation who had rather intimate relations with the great Dean. Two +women whom he loved and injured are known by every reader of books so +familiarly that if we had seen them, or if they had been relatives of our +own, we scarcely could have known them better. Who hasn't in his mind an +image of Stella? Who does not love her? Fair and tender creature: pure +and affectionate heart! Boots it to you, now that you have been at rest +for a hundred and twenty years, not divided in death from the cold heart +which caused yours, whilst it beat, such faithful pangs of love and +grief—boots it to you now, that the whole world loves and deplores you? +Scarce any man, I believe, ever thought of that grave; that did not cast +a flower of pity on it, and write over it a sweet epitaph. Gentle lady, +so lovely, so loving, so unhappy! you have had countless champions; +millions of manly hearts mourning for you. From generation to generation +we take up the fond tradition of your beauty; we watch and follow your +tragedy, your bright morning love and purity, your constancy, your grief, +your sweet martyrdom. We know your legend by heart. You are one of the +saints of English story. +</P> + +<P> +And if Stella's love and innocence are charming to contemplate, I will +say that in spite of ill-usage, in spite of drawbacks, in spite of +mysterious separation and union, of hope delayed and sickened heart—in +the teeth of Vanessa, and that little episodical aberration which plunged +Swift into such woful pitfalls and quagmires of amorous perplexity—in +spite of the verdicts of most women, I believe, who, as far as my +experience and conversation go, generally take Vanessa's part in the +controversy—in spite of the tears which Swift caused Stella to shed, and +the rocks and barriers which fate and temper interposed, and which +prevented the pure course of that true love from running smoothly—the +brightest part of Swift's story, the pure star in that dark and +tempestuous life of Swift's, is his love for Hester Johnson. It has been +my business, professionally of course, to go through a deal of +sentimental reading in my time, and to acquaint myself with love-making, +as it has been described in various languages, and at various ages of the +world; and I know of nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely +touching, than some of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls +"his little language" in his journal to Stella. +</P> + +<P> +He writes to her night and morning often. He never sends away a letter +to her but he begins a new one on the same day. He can't bear to let go +her kind little hand, as it were. He knows that she is thinking of him, +and longing for him far away in Dublin yonder. He takes her letters from +under his pillow and talks to them, familiarly, paternally, with fond +epithets and pretty caresses—as he would to the sweet and artless +creature who loved him. "Stay," he writes one morning—it is the 14th of +December, 1710—"Stay, I will answer some of your letter this morning in +bed. Let me see. Come and appear, little letter! Here I am, says he, +and what say you to Stella this morning fresh and fasting? And can +Stella read this writing without hurting her dear eyes?" he goes on, +after more kind prattle and fond whispering. The dear eyes shine clearly +upon him then—the good angel of his life is with him and blessing him. +Ah, it was a hard fate that wrung from them so many tears, and stabbed +pitilessly that pure and tender bosom. A hard fate: but would she have +changed it? I have heard a woman say that she would have taken Swift's +cruelty to have had his tenderness. He had a sort of worship for her +whilst he wounded her. He speaks of her after she is gone; of her wit, +of her kindness, of her grace, of her beauty, with a simple love and +reverence that are indescribably touching; in contemplation of her +goodness his hard heart melts into pathos; his cold rhyme kindles and +glows into poetry, and he falls down on his knees, so to speak, before +the angel whose life he had embittered, confesses his own wretchedness +and unworthiness, and adores her with cries of remorse and love:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"When on my sickly couch I lay,<BR> +Impatient both of night and day,<BR> +And groaning in unmanly strains,<BR> +Called every power to ease my pains,<BR> +Then Stella ran to my relief,<BR> +With cheerful face and inward grief,<BR> +And though by heaven's severe decree<BR> +She suffers hourly more than me,<BR> +No cruel master could require<BR> +From slaves employed for daily hire,<BR> +What Stella, by her friendship warmed,<BR> +With vigour and delight performed.<BR> +Now, with a soft and silent tread,<BR> +Unheard she moves about my bed:<BR> +My sinking spirits now supplies<BR> +With cordials in her hands and eyes.<BR> +Best pattern of true friends! beware;<BR> +You pay too dearly for your care<BR> +If, while your tenderness secures<BR> +My life, it must endanger yours:<BR> +For such a fool was never found<BR> +Who pulled a palace to the ground,<BR> +Only to have the ruins made<BR> +Materials for a house decayed."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +One little triumph Stella had in her life—one dear little piece of +injustice was performed in her favour, for which I confess, for my part, +I can't help thanking fate and the Dean. <I>That other person</I> was +sacrificed to her—that—that young woman, who lived five doors from Dr. +Swift's lodgings in Bury Street, and who flattered him, and made love to +him in such an outrageous manner—Vanessa was thrown over. +</P> + +<P> +Swift did not keep Stella's letters to him in reply to those he wrote to +her. He kept Bolingbroke's, and Pope's, and Harley's, and +Peterborough's: but Stella, "very carefully," the Lives say, kept +Swift's. Of course: that is the way of the world: and so we cannot tell +what her style was, or of what sort were the little letters which the +Doctor placed there at night, and bade to appear from under his pillow of +a morning. But in Letter IV. of that famous collection he describes his +lodging in Bury Street, where he has the first-floor, a dining-room and +bed-chamber, at eight shillings a week; and in Letter VI. he says "he has +visited a lady just come to town," whose name somehow is not mentioned; +and in Letter VIII. he enters a query of Stella's—"What do you mean +'that boards near me, that I dine with now and then?' What the deuce! +You know whom I have dined with every day since I left you, better than I +do." Of course she does. Of course Swift has not the slightest idea of +what she means. But in a few letters more it turns out that the Doctor +has been to dine "gravely" with a Mrs. Vanhomrigh: then that he has been +to "his neighbour:" then that he has been unwell, and means to dine for +the whole week with his neighbour! Stella was quite right in her +previsions. She saw from the very first hint, what was going to happen; +and scented Vanessa in the air. The rival is at the Dean's feet. The +pupil and teacher are reading together, and drinking tea together, and +going to prayers together, and learning Latin together, and conjugating +<I>amo, amas, amavi</I> together. The little language is over for poor +Stella. By the rule of grammar and the course of conjugation, doesn't +<I>amavi</I> come after <I>amo</I> and <I>amas</I>? +</P> + +<P> +The loves of Cadenus and Vanessa you may peruse in Cadenus's own poem on +the subject, and in poor Vanessa's vehement expostulatory verses and +letters to him; she adores him, implores him, admires him, thinks him +something god-like, and only prays to be admitted to lie at his feet. As +they are bringing him home from church, those divine feet of Dr. Swift's +are found pretty often in Vanessa's parlour. He likes to be admired and +adored. He finds Miss Vanhomrigh to be a woman of great taste and +spirit, and beauty and wit, and a fortune too. He sees her every day; he +does not tell Stella about the business: until the impetuous Vanessa +becomes too fond of him, until the Doctor is quite frightened by the +young woman's ardour, and confounded by her warmth. He wanted to marry +neither of them—that I believe was the truth; but if he had not married +Stella, Vanessa would have had him in spite of himself. When he went +back to Ireland, his Ariadne, not content to remain in her isle, pursued +the fugitive Dean. In vain he protested, he vowed, he soothed, and +bullied; the news of the Dean's marriage with Stella at last came to her, +and it killed her—she died of that passion. +</P> + +<P> +And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift had written beautifully +regarding her, "That doesn't surprise me," said Mrs. Stella, "for we all +know the Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick." A woman—a +true woman! Would you have had one of them forgive the other? +</P> + +<P> +In a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend Dr. Tuke of +Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed in a paper by Swift, on +which are written, in the Dean's hand, the words: "<I>Only a woman's +hair</I>." An instance, says Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his +feelings under the mask of cynical indifference. +</P> + +<P> +See the various notions of critics! Do those words indicate indifference +or an attempt to hide feeling? Did you ever hear or read four words more +pathetic? Only a woman's hair: only love, only fidelity, only purity, +innocence, beauty; only the tenderest heart in the world stricken and +wounded, and passed away now out of reach of pangs of hope deferred, love +insulted, and pitiless desertion:—only that lock of hair left; and +memory and remorse, for the guilty, lonely wretch, shuddering over the +grave of his victim. +</P> + +<P> +And yet to have had so much love, he must have given some. Treasures of +wit and wisdom, and tenderness, too, must that man have had locked up in +the caverns of his gloomy heart, and shown fitfully to one or two whom he +took in there. But it was not good to visit that place. People did not +remain there long, and suffered for having been there. He shrank away +from all affections sooner or later. Stella and Vanessa both died near +him, and away from him. He had not heart enough to see them die. He +broke from his fastest friend, Sheridan; he slunk away from his fondest +admirer, Pope. His laugh jars on one's ear after seven score years. He +was always alone—alone and gnashing in the darkness, except when +Stella's sweet smile came and shone upon him. When that went, silence +and utter night closed over him. An immense genius: an awful downfall +and ruin. So great a man he seems to me, that thinking of him is like +thinking of an empire falling. We have other great names to +mention—none I think, however, so great or so gloomy. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[1] From the English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02a"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +JOHN HENRY NEWMAN +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</I> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>John Henry Newman was born in London, February 21, 1801. Going up to +Oxford at sixteen, he gained a scholarship at Trinity College, and +after graduation became fellow and tutor of Oriel, then the most alive, +intellectually, of the Oxford colleges. He took orders, and in 1828 +was appointed vicar of St. Mary's, the university church. In 1832 he +had to resign his tutorship on account of a difference of opinion with +the head of the college as to his duties and responsibilities, Newman +regarding his function as one of a "substantially religious nature."</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Returning to Oxford the next year from a journey on the Continent, he +began, in cooperation with R. H. Froude and others, the publication of +the "Tracts for the Times," a series of pamphlets which gave a name to +the "Tractarian" or "Oxford" movement for the defence of the "doctrine +of apostolical succession and the integrity of the Prayer-Book." After +several years of agitation, during which Newman came to exercise an +extraordinary influence in Oxford, the movement and its leader fell +under the official ban of the university and of the Anglican bishops, +and Newman withdrew from Oxford, feeling that the Anglican Church had +herself destroyed the defences which he had sought to build for her. +In October, 1845, he was received into the Roman Church.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>The next year he went to Rome, and on his return introduced into +England the institute of the Oratory. In 1854 he went to Dublin for +four years as rector of the new Catholic university, and while there +wrote his volume on the "Idea of a University," in which he expounds +with wonderful clearness of thought and beauty of language his view of +the aim of education. In 1879 he was created cardinal in recognition +of his services to the cause of religion in England, and in 1890 he +died. Of the history of Newman's religious opinions and influence no +hint can be given here. The essays which follow do, indeed, imply +important and fundamental elements of his system of belief; but they +can be taken in detachment as the exposition of a view of the nature +and value of culture by a man who was himself the fine flower of +English university training and a master of English prose.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I. WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? +</H3> + +<P> +If I were asked to describe as briefly and popularly as I could, what a +University was, I should draw my answer from its ancient designation of +a <I>Studium Generale</I>, or "School of Universal Learning." This +description implies the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one +spot;—<I>from all parts</I>; else, how will you find professors and +students for every department of knowledge? and <I>in one spot</I>; else, +how can there be any school at all? Accordingly, in its simple and +rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting +of teachers and learners from every quarter. Many things are requisite +to complete and satisfy the idea embodied in this description; but such +as this a University seems to be in its essence, a place for the +communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal +intercourse, through a wide extent of country. +</P> + +<P> +There is nothing far-fetched or unreasonable in the idea thus presented +to us; and if this be a University, then a University does but +contemplate a necessity of our nature, and is but one specimen in a +particular medium, out of many which might be adduced in others, of a +provision for that necessity. Mutual education, in a large sense of +the word, is one of the great and incessant occupations of human +society, carried on partly with set purpose, and partly not. One +generation forms another; and the existing generation is ever acting +and reacting upon itself in the persons of its individual members. +Now, in this process, books, I need scarcely say, that is, the <I>litera +scripta</I>, are one special instrument. It is true; and emphatically so +in this age. Considering the prodigious powers of the press, and how +they are developed at this time in the never-intermitting issue of +periodicals, tracts, pamphlets, works in series, and light literature, +we must allow there never was a time which promised fairer for +dispensing with every other means of information and instruction. What +can we want more, you will say, for the intellectual education of the +whole man, and for every man, than so exuberant and diversified and +persistent a promulgation of all kinds of knowledge? Why, you will +ask, need we go up to knowledge, when knowledge comes down to us? The +Sibyl wrote her prophecies upon the leaves of the forest, and wasted +them; but here such careless profusion might be prudently indulged, for +it can be afforded without loss, in consequence of the almost fabulous +fecundity of the instrument which these latter ages have invented. We +have sermons in stones, and books in the running brooks; works larger +and more comprehensive than those which have gained for ancients an +immortality, issue forth every morning, and are projected onwards to +the ends of the earth at the rate of hundreds of miles a day. Our +seats are strewed, our pavements are powdered, with swarms of little +tracts; and the very bricks of our city walls preach wisdom, by +informing us by their placards where we can at once cheaply purchase it. +</P> + +<P> +I allow all this, and much more; such certainly is our popular +education, and its effects are remarkable. Nevertheless, after all, +even in this age, whenever men are really serious about getting what, +in the language of trade, is called "a good article," when they aim at +something precise, something refined, something really luminous, +something really large, something choice, they go to another market; +they avail themselves, in some shape or other, of the rival method, the +ancient method, of oral instruction, of present communication between +man and man, of teachers instead of learning, of the personal influence +of a master, and the humble initiation of a disciple, and, in +consequence, of great centres of pilgrimage and throng, which such a +method of education necessarily involves. This, I think, will be found +to hold good in all those departments or aspects of society, which +possess an interest sufficient to bind men together, or to constitute +what is called "a world." It holds in the political world, and in the +high world, and in the religious world; and it holds also in the +literary and scientific world. +</P> + +<P> +If the actions of men may be taken as any test of their convictions, +then we have reason for saying this, viz.:—that the province and the +inestimable benefit of the <I>litera scripta</I> is that of being a record +of truth, and an authority of appeal, and an instrument of teaching in +the hands of a teacher; but that, if we wish to become exact and fully +furnished in any branch of knowledge which is diversified and +complicated, we must consult the living man and listen to his living +voice. I am not bound to investigate the cause of this, and anything I +may say will, I am conscious, be short of its full analysis;—perhaps +we may suggest, that no books can get through the number of minute +questions which it is possible to ask on any extended subject, or can +hit upon the very difficulties which are severally felt by each reader +in succession. Or again, that no book can convey the special spirit +and delicate peculiarities of its subject with that rapidity and +certainty which attend on the sympathy of mind with mind, through the +eyes, the look, the accent, and the manner, in casual expressions +thrown off at the moment, and the unstudied turns of familiar +conversation. But I am already dwelling too long on what is but an +incidental portion of my main subject. Whatever be the cause, the fact +is undeniable. The general principles of any study you may learn by +books at home; but the detail, the colour, the tone, the air, the life +which makes it live in us, you must catch all these from those in whom +it lives already. You must imitate the student in French or German, +who is not content with his grammar, but goes to Paris or Dresden: you +must take example from the young artist, who aspires to visit the great +Masters in Florence and in Rome. Till we have discovered some +intellectual daguerreotype, which takes off the course of thought, and +the form, lineaments, and features of truth, as completely and +minutely, as the optical instrument reproduces the sensible object; we +must come to the teachers of wisdom to learn wisdom, we must repair to +the fountain, and drink there. Portions of it may go from thence to +the ends of the earth by means of books; but the fulness is in one +place alone. It is in such assemblages and congregations of intellect +that books themselves, the masterpieces of human genius, are written, +or at least originated. +</P> + +<P> +The principle on which I have been insisting is so obvious, and +instances in point are so ready, that I should think it tiresome to +proceed with the subject, except that one or two illustrations may +serve to explain my own language about it, which may not have done +justice to the doctrine which it has been intended to enforce. +</P> + +<P> +For instance, the polished manners and high-bred bearing which are so +difficult of attainment, and so strictly personal when attained,—which +are so much admired in society, from society are acquired. All that +goes to constitute a gentleman,—the carriage, gait, address, gestures, +voice; the ease, the self-possession, the courtesy, the power of +conversing, the talent of not offending; the lofty principle, the +delicacy of thought, the happiness of expression, the taste and +propriety, the generosity and forbearance, the candour and +consideration, the openness of hand;—these qualities, some of them +come by nature, some of them may be found in any rank, some of them are +a direct precept of Christianity; but the full assemblage of them, +bound up in the unity of an individual character, do we expect they can +be learned from books? are they not necessarily acquired, where they +are to be found, in high society? The very nature of the case leads us +to say so; you cannot fence without an antagonist, nor challenge all +comers in disputation before you have supported a thesis; and in like +manner, it stands to reason, you cannot learn to converse till you have +the world to converse with; you cannot unlearn your natural +bashfulness, or awkwardness, or stiffness, or other besetting +deformity, till you serve your time in some school of manners. Well, +and is it not so in matter of fact? The metropolis, the court, the +great houses of the land, are the centres to which at stated times the +country comes up, as to shrines of refinement and good taste; and then +in due time the country goes back again home, enriched with a portion +of the social accomplishments, which those very visits serve to call +out and heighten in the gracious dispensers of them. We are unable to +conceive how the "gentlemanlike" can otherwise be maintained; and +maintained in this way it is. +</P> + +<P> +And now a second instance: and here too I am going to speak without +personal experience of the subject I am introducing. I admit I have +not been in Parliament, any more than I have figured in the <I>beau +monde</I>; yet I cannot but think that statesmanship, as well as high +breeding, is learned, not by books, but in certain centres of +education. If it be not presumption to say so, Parliament puts a +clever man <I>au courant</I> with politics and affairs of state in a way +surprising to himself. A member of the Legislature, if tolerably +observant, begins to see things with new eyes, even though his views +undergo no change. Words have a meaning now, and ideas a reality, such +as they had not before. He hears a vast deal in public speeches and +private conversation, which is never put into print. The bearings of +measures and events, the action of parties, and the persons of friends +and enemies, are brought out to the man who is in the midst of them +with a distinctness, which the most diligent perusal of newspapers will +fail to impart to them. It is access to the fountain-heads of +political wisdom and experience, it is daily intercourse, of one kind +or another, with the multitude who go up to them, it is familiarity +with business, it is access to the contributions of fact and opinion +thrown together by many witnesses from many quarters, which does this +for him. However, I need not account for a fact, to which it is +sufficient to appeal; that the Houses of Parliament and the atmosphere +around them are a sort of University of politics. +</P> + +<P> +As regards the world of science, we find a remarkable instance of the +principle which I am illustrating, in the periodical meetings for its +advance, which have arisen in the course of the last twenty years, such +as the British Association. Such gatherings would to many persons +appear at first sight simply preposterous. Above all subjects of +study, Science is conveyed, is propagated, by books, or by private +teaching; experiments and investigations are conducted in silence; +discoveries are made in solitude. What have philosophers to do with +festive celebrities, and panegyrical solemnities with mathematical and +physical truth? Yet on a closer attention to the subject, it is found +that not even scientific thought can dispense with the suggestions, the +instruction, the stimulus, the sympathy, the intercourse with mankind +on a large scale, which such meetings secure. A fine time of year is +chosen, when days are long, skies are bright, the earth smiles, and all +nature rejoices; a city or town is taken by turns, of ancient name or +modern opulence, where buildings are spacious and hospitality hearty. +The novelty of place and circumstance, the excitement of strange, or +the refreshment of well-known faces, the majesty of rank or of genius, +the amiable charities of men pleased both with themselves and with each +other; the elevated spirits, the circulation of thought, the curiosity; +the morning sections, the outdoor exercise, the well-furnished, +well-earned board, the not ungraceful hilarity, the evening circle; the +brilliant lecture, the discussions or collisions or guesses of great +men one with another, the narratives of scientific processes, of hopes, +disappointments, conflicts, and successes, the splendid eulogistic +orations; these and the like constituents of the annual celebration, +are considered to do something real and substantial for the advance of +knowledge which can be done in no other way. Of course they can but be +occasional; they answer to the annual Act, or Commencement, or +Commemoration of a University, not to its ordinary condition; but they +are of a University nature; and I can well believe in their utility. +They issue in the promotion of a certain living and, as it were, bodily +communication of knowledge from one to another, of a general +interchange of ideas, and a comparison and adjustment of science with +science, of an enlargement of mind, intellectual and social, of an +ardent love of the particular study, which may be chosen by each +individual, and a noble devotion to its interests. +</P> + +<P> +Such meetings, I repeat, are but periodical, and only partially +represent the idea of a University. The bustle and whirl which are +their usual concomitants, are in ill keeping with the order and gravity +of earnest intellectual education. We desiderate means of instruction +which involve no interruption of our ordinary habits; nor need we seek +it long, for the natural course of things brings it about, while we +debate over it. In every great country, the metropolis itself becomes +a sort of necessary University, whether we will or no. As the chief +city is the seat of the court, of high society, of politics, and of +law, so as a matter of course is it the seat of letters also; and at +this time, for a long term of years, London and Paris are in fact and +in operation Universities, though in Paris its famous University is no +more, and in London a University scarcely exists except as a board of +administration. The newspapers, magazines, reviews, journals, and +periodicals of all kinds, the publishing trade, the libraries, museums, +and academies there found, the learned and scientific societies, +necessarily invest it with the functions of a University; and that +atmosphere of intellect, which in a former age hung over Oxford or +Bologna or Salamanca, has, with the change of times, moved away to the +centre of civil government. Thither come up youths from all parts of +the country, the students of law, medicine, and the fine arts, and the +<I>employés and attachés</I> of literature. There they live, as chance +determines; and they are satisfied with their temporary home, for they +find in it all that was promised to them there. They have not come in +vain, as far as their own object in coming is concerned. They have not +learned any particular religion, but they have learned their own +particular profession well. They have, moreover, become acquainted +with the habits, manners, and opinions of their place of sojourn, and +done their part in maintaining the tradition of them. We cannot then +be without virtual Universities; a metropolis is such: the simple +question is, whether the education sought and given should be based on +principle, formed upon rule, directed to the highest ends, or left to +the random succession of masters and schools, one after another, with a +melancholy waste of thought and an extreme hazard of truth. +</P> + +<P> +Religious teaching itself affords us an illustration of our subject to +a certain point. It does not indeed seat itself merely in centres of +the world; this is impossible from the nature of the case. It is +intended for the many, not the few; its subject matter is truth +necessary for us, not truth recondite and rare; but it concurs in the +principle of a University so far as this, that its great instrument, or +rather organ, has ever been that which nature prescribes in all +education, the personal presence of a teacher, or, in theological +language, Oral Tradition. It is the living voice, the breathing form, +the expressive countenance, which preaches, which catechises. Truth, a +subtle, invisible, manifold spirit, is poured into the mind of the +scholar by his eyes and ears, through his affections, imagination, and +reason; it is poured into his mind and is sealed up there in +perpetuity, by propounding and repeating it, by questioning and +requestioning, by correcting and explaining, by progressing and then +recurring to first principles, by all those ways which are implied in +the word "catechising." In the first ages, it was a work of long time; +months, sometimes years, were devoted to the arduous task of disabusing +the mind of the incipient Christian of its pagan errors, and of +moulding it upon the Christian faith. The Scriptures indeed were at +hand for the study of those who could avail themselves of them; but St. +Irenaeus does not hesitate to speak of whole races, who had been +converted to Christianity, without being able to read them. To be +unable to read or write was in those times no evidence of want of +learning: the hermits of the deserts were, in this sense of the word, +illiterate; yet the great St. Anthony, though he knew not letters, was +a match in disputation for the learned philosophers who came to try +him. Didymus again, the great Alexandrian theologian, was blind. The +ancient discipline, called the <I>Disciplina Arcani</I>, involved the same +principle. The more sacred doctrines of Revelation were not committed +to books but passed on by successive tradition. The teaching on the +Blessed Trinity and the Eucharist appears to have been so handed down +for some hundred years; and when at length reduced to writing, it has +filled many folios, yet has not been exhausted. +</P> + +<P> +But I have said more than enough in illustration; I end as I began;—a +University is a place of concourse, whither students come from every +quarter for every kind of knowledge. You cannot have the best of every +kind everywhere; you must go to some great city or emporium for it. +There you have all the choicest productions of nature and art all +together, which you find each in its own separate place elsewhere. All +the riches of the land, and of the earth, are carried up thither; there +are the best markets, and there the best workmen. It is the centre of +trade, the supreme court of fashion, the umpire of rival talents, and +the standard of things rare and precious. It is the place for seeing +galleries of first-rate pictures, and for hearing wonderful voices and +performers of transcendent skill. It is the place for great preachers, +great orators, great nobles, great statesmen. In the nature of things, +greatness and unity go together; excellence implies a centre. And +such, for the third or fourth time, is a University; I hope I do not +weary out the reader by repeating it. It is the place to which a +thousand schools make contributions; in which the intellect may safely +range and speculate, sure to find its equal in some antagonist +activity, and its judge in the tribunal of truth. It is a place where +inquiry is pushed forward, and discoveries verified and perfected, and +rashness rendered innocuous, and error exposed, by the collision of +mind with mind, and knowledge with knowledge. It is the place where +the professor becomes eloquent, and is a missionary and a preacher, +displaying his science in its most complete and most winning form, +pouring it forth with the zeal of enthusiasm, and lighting up his own +love of it in the breasts of his hearers. It is the place where the +catechist makes good his ground as he goes, treading in the truth day +by day into the ready memory, and wedging and tightening it into the +expanding reason. It is a place which wins the admiration of the young +by its celebrity, kindles the affections of the middle-aged by its +beauty, and rivets the fidelity of the old by its associations. It is +a seat of wisdom, a light of the world, a minister of the faith, an +Alma Mater of the rising generation. It is this and a great deal more, +and demands a somewhat better head and hand than mine to describe it +well. +</P> + +<P> +Such is a University in its idea and in its purpose; such in good +measure has it before now been in fact. Shall it ever be again? We +are going forward in the strength of the Cross, under the patronage of +the Blessed Virgin, in the name of St. Patrick, to attempt it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02c"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II. SITE OF A UNIVERSITY +</H3> + +<P> +If we would know what a University is, considered in its elementary +idea, we must betake ourselves to the first and most celebrated home of +European literature and source of European civilization, to the bright +and beautiful Athens,—Athens, whose schools drew to her bosom, and +then sent back again to the business of life, the youth of the Western +World for a long thousand years. Seated on the verge of the continent, +the city seemed hardly suited for the duties of a central metropolis of +knowledge; yet, what it lost in convenience of approach, it gained in +its neighbourhood to the traditions of the mysterious East, and in the +loveliness of the region in which it lay. Hither, then, as to a sort +of ideal land, where all archetypes of the great and the fair were +found in substantial being, and all departments of truth explored, and +all diversities of intellectual power exhibited, where taste and +philosophy were majestically enthroned as in a royal court, where there +was no sovereignty but that of mind, and no nobility but that of +genius, where professors were rulers, and princes did homage, hither +flocked continually from the very corners of the <I>orbis terrarum</I>, the +many-tongued generation, just rising, or just risen into manhood, in +order to gain wisdom. +</P> + +<P> +Pisistratus had in an early age discovered and nursed the infant genius +of his people, and Cimon, after the Persian war, had given it a home. +That war had established the naval supremacy of Athens; she had become +an imperial state; and the Ionians, bound to her by the double chain of +kindred and of subjection, were importing into her both their +merchandize and their civilization. The arts and philosophy of the +Asiatic coast were easily carried across the sea, and there was Cimon, +as I have said, with his ample fortune, ready to receive them with due +honours. Not content with patronizing their professors, he built the +first of those noble porticos, of which we hear so much in Athens, and +he formed the groves, which in process of time became the celebrated +Academy. Planting is one of the most graceful, as in Athens it was one +of the most beneficent, of employments. Cimon took in hand the wild +wood, pruned and dressed it, and laid it out with handsome walks and +welcome fountains. Nor, while hospitable to the authors of the city's +civilization, was he ungrateful to the instruments of her prosperity. +His trees extended their cool, umbrageous branches over the merchants, +who assembled in the Agora, for many generations. +</P> + +<P> +Those merchants certainly had deserved that act of bounty; for all the +while their ships had been carrying forth the intellectual fame of +Athens to the western world. Then commenced what may be called her +University existence. Pericles, who succeeded Cimon both in the +government and in the patronage of art, is said by Plutarch to have +entertained the idea of making Athens the capital of federated Greece: +in this he failed, but his encouragement of such men as Phidias and +Anaxagoras led the way to her acquiring a far more lasting sovereignty +over a far wider empire. Little understanding the sources of her own +greatness, Athens would go to war: peace is the interest of a seat of +commerce and the arts; but to war she went; yet to her, whether peace +or war, it mattered not. The political power of Athens waned and +disappeared; kingdoms rose and fell; centuries rolled away,—they did +but bring fresh triumphs to the city of the poet and the sage. There +at length the swarthy Moor and Spaniard were seen to meet the blue-eyed +Gaul; and the Cappadocian, late subject of Mithridates, gazed without +alarm at the haughty conquering Roman. Revolution after revolution +passed over the face of Europe, as well as of Greece, but still she was +there,—Athens, the city of mind,—as radiant, as splendid, as +delicate, as young, as ever she had been. +</P> + +<P> +Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed by the blue Aegean, many a +spot is there more beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory more +ample; but there was one charm in Attica, which in the same perfection +was nowhere else. The deep pastures of Arcadia, the plain of Argos, +the Thessalian vale, these had not the gift; Boeotia, which lay to its +immediate north, was notorious for its very want of it. The heavy +atmosphere of that Boeotia might be good for vegetation, but it was +associated in popular belief with the dulness of the Boeotian +intellect: on the contrary, the special purity, elasticity, clearness, +and salubrity of the air of Attica, fit concomitant and emblem of its +genius, did that for it which earth did not;—-it brought out every +bright hue and tender shade of the landscape over which it was spread, +and would have illuminated the face even of a more bare and rugged +country. +</P> + +<P> +A confined triangle, perhaps fifty miles its greatest length, and +thirty its greatest breadth; two elevated rocky barriers, meeting at an +angle; three prominent mountains, commanding the plain,—Parnes, +Pentelicus, and Hymettus; an unsatisfactory soil; some streams, not +always full;—such is about the report which the agent of a London +company would have made of Attica. He would report that the climate +was mild; the hills were limestone; there was plenty of good marble; +more pasture land than at first survey might have been expected, +sufficient certainly for sheep and goats; fisheries productive; silver +mines once, but long since worked out; figs fair; oil first-rate; +olives in profusion. But what he would not think of noting down, was, +that that olive tree was so choice in nature and so noble in shape, +that it excited a religious veneration; and that it took so kindly to +the light soil, as to expand into woods upon the open plain, and to +climb up and fringe the hills. He would not think of writing word to +his employers, how that clear air, of which I have spoken, brought out, +yet blended and subdued the colours on the marble, till they had a +softness and harmony, for all their richness, which in a picture looks +exaggerated, yet is after all within the truth. He would not tell, how +that same delicate and brilliant atmosphere freshened up the pale +olive, till the olive forgot its monotony, and its cheek glowed like +the arbutus or beech of the Umbrian hills. He would say nothing of the +thyme and thousand fragrant herbs which carpeted Hymettus; he would +hear nothing of the hum of its bees; nor take much account of the rare +flavour of its honey, since Gozo and Minorca were sufficient for the +English demand. He would look over the Aegean from the height he had +ascended; he would follow with his eye the chain of islands, which, +starting from the Simian headland, seemed to offer the fabled +divinities of Attica, when they would visit their Ionian cousins, a +sort of viaduct thereto across the sea; but that fancy would not occur +to him, nor any admiration of the dark violet billows with their white +edges down below; nor of those graceful, fan-like jets of silver upon +the rocks, which slowly rise aloft like water spirits from the deep, +then shiver, and break, and spread, and shroud themselves, and +disappear, in a soft mist of foam; nor of the gentle, incessant heaving +and panting of the whole liquid plain; nor of the long waves, keeping +steady time, like a line of soldiery, as they resound upon the hollow +shore,—he would not deign to notice that restless living element at +all, except to bless his stars that he was not upon it. Nor the +distinct detail, nor the refined colouring, nor the graceful outline +and roseate golden hue of the jutting crags, nor the bold shadows cast +from Otus or Laurium by the declining sun;—our agent of a mercantile +firm would not value these matters even at a low figure. Rather we +must turn for the sympathy we seek to yon pilgrim student come from a +semi-barbarous land to that small corner of the earth, as to a shrine, +where he might take his fill of gazing on those emblems and +coruscations of invisible unoriginate perfection. It was the stranger +from a remote province, from Britain or from Mauritania, who in a scene +so different from that of his chilly, woody swamps, or of his fiery +choking sands, learned at once what a real University must be, by +coming to understand the sort of country, which was its suitable home. +</P> + +<P> +Nor was this all that a University required, and found in Athens. No +one, even there, could live on poetry. If the students at that famous +place had nothing better than bright hues and soothing sounds, they +would not have been able or disposed to turn their residence there to +much account. Of course they must have the means of living, nay, in a +certain sense, of enjoyment; if Athens was to be an Alma Mater at the +time, or to remain afterwards a pleasant thought in their memory. And +so they had: be it recollected Athens was a port, and a mart of trade, +perhaps the first in Greece; and this was very much to the point, when +a number of strangers were ever flocking to it, whose combat was to be +with intellectual, not physical difficulties, and who claimed to have +their bodily wants supplied, that they might be at leisure to set about +furnishing their minds. Now, barren as was the soil of Attica, and +bare the face of the country, yet it had only too many resources for an +elegant, nay luxurious abode there. So abundant were the imports of +the place, that it was a common saying, that the productions, which +were found singly elsewhere, were brought all together in Athens. Corn +and wine, the staple of subsistence in such a climate, came from the +isles of the Aegean; fine wool and carpeting from Asia Minor; slaves, +as, now, from the Euxine, and timber too; and iron and brass from the +coasts of the Mediterranean. The Athenian did not condescend to +manufactures himself, but encouraged them in others; and a population +of foreigners caught at the lucrative occupation both for home +consumption and for exportation. Their cloth, and other textures for +dress and furniture, and their hardware—for instance, armour—were in +great request. Labour was cheap; stone and marble in plenty; and the +taste and skill, which at first were devoted to public buildings, as +temples and porticos, were in course of time applied to the mansions of +public men. If nature did much for Athens, it is undeniable that art +did much more. +</P> + +<P> +Here some one will interrupt me with the remark: "By the bye, where are +we, and whither are we going?—what has all this to do with a +University? at least what has it to do with education? It is +instructive doubtless; but still how much has it to do with your +subject?" Now I beg to assure the reader that I am most +conscientiously employed upon my subject; and I should have thought +every one would have seen this: however, since the objection is made, I +may be allowed to pause awhile, and show distinctly the drift of what I +have been saying, before I go farther. What has this to do with my +subject! why, the question of the site is the very first that comes +into consideration, when a <I>Stadium Generale</I> is contemplated; for that +site should be a liberal and noble one; who will deny it? All +authorities agree in this, and very little reflection will be +sufficient to make it clear. I recollect a conversation I once had on +this very subject with a very eminent man. I was a youth of eighteen, +and was leaving my University for the Long Vacation, when I found +myself in company in a public conveyance with a middle-aged person, +whose face was strange to me. However, it was the great academical +luminary of the day, whom afterwards I knew very well. Luckily for me, +I did not suspect it; and luckily too, it was a fancy of his, as his +friends knew, to make himself on easy terms especially with stage-coach +companions. So, what with my flippancy and his condescension, I +managed to hear many things which were novel to me at the time; and one +point which he was strong upon, and was evidently fond of urging, was +the material pomp and circumstance which should environ a great seat of +learning. He considered it was worth the consideration of the +government, whether Oxford should not stand in a domain of its own. An +ample range, say four miles in diameter, should be turned into wood and +meadow, and the University should be approached on all sides by a +magnificent park, with fine trees in groups and groves and avenues, and +with glimpses and views of the fair city, as the traveller drew near +it. There is nothing surely absurd in the idea, though it would cost a +round sum to realise it. What has a better claim to the purest and +fairest possessions of nature, than the seat of wisdom? So thought my +coach companion; and he did but express the tradition of ages and the +instinct of mankind. +</P> + +<P> +For instance, take the great University of Paris. That famous school +engrossed as its territory the whole south bank of the Seine, and +occupied one half, and that the pleasanter half, of the city. King +Louis had the island pretty well as his own,—it was scarcely more than +a fortification; and the north of the river was given over to the +nobles and citizens to do what they could with its marshes; but the +eligible south, rising from the stream, which swept around its base, to +the fair summit of St. Genevieve, with its broad meadows, its vineyards +and its gardens, and with the sacred elevation of Montmartre +confronting it, all this was the inheritance of the University. There +was that pleasant Pratum, stretching along the river's bank, in which +the students for centuries took their recreation, which Alcuin seems to +mention in his farewell verses to Paris, and which has given a name to +the great Abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés. For long years it was devoted +to the purposes of innocent and healthy enjoyment; but evil times came +on the University; disorder arose within its precincts, and the fair +meadow became the scene of party brawls; heresy stalked through Europe, +and Germany and England no longer sending their contingent of students, +a heavy debt was the consequence to the academical body. To let their +land was the only resource left to them: buildings rose upon it, and +spread along the green sod, and the country at length became town. +Great was the grief and indignation of the doctors and masters, when +this catastrophe occurred. "A wretched sight," said the Proctor of the +German nation, "a wretched sight, to witness the sale of that ancient +manor, whither the Muses were wont to wander for retirement and +pleasure. Whither shall the youthful student now betake himself, what +relief will he find for his eyes, wearied with intense reading, now +that the pleasant stream is taken from him?" Two centuries and more +have passed since this complaint was uttered; and time has shown that +the outward calamity, which it recorded, was but the emblem of the +great moral revolution, which was to follow; till the institution +itself has followed its green meadows, into the region of things which +once were and now are not. +</P> + +<P> +And in like manner, when they were first contemplating a University in +Belgium, some centuries ago, "Many," says Lipsius, "suggested Mechlin, +as an abode salubrious and clean, but Louvain was preferred, as for +other reasons, so because no city seemed from the disposition of place +and people, more suitable for learned leisure. Who will not approve +the decision? Can a site be healthier or more pleasant? The +atmosphere pure and cheerful; the spaces open and delightful; meadows, +fields, vines, groves, nay, I may say, a <I>rus in urbe</I>. Ascend and +walk round the walls; what do you look down upon? Does not the +wonderful and delightful variety smooth the brow and soothe the mind? +You have corn, and apples, and grapes; sheep and oxen; and birds +chirping or singing. Now carry your feet or your eyes beyond the +walls; there are streamlets, the river meandering along; +country-houses, convents, the superb fortress; copses or woods fill up +the scene, and spots for simple enjoyment." And then he breaks out +into poetry: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Salvete Athenae nostrae, Athens Belgicae,<BR> +Te Gallus, te Germanus, et te Sarmata<BR> +Invisit, et Britannus, et te duplicis<BR> +Hispaniae alumnus, etc.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Extravagant, then, and wayward as might be the thought of my learned +coach companion, when, in the nineteenth century, he imagined, +Norman-wise, to turn a score of villages into a park or pleasaunce, +still, the waywardness of his fancy is excused by the justness of his +principle; for certainly, such as he would have made it, a University +ought to be. Old Antony-a-Wood, discoursing on the demands of a +University, had expressed the same sentiment long before him; as Horace +in ancient times, with reference to Athens itself, when he spoke of +seeking truth "in the <I>groves</I> of Academe." And to Athens, as will be +seen, Wood himself appeals, when he would discourse of Oxford. Among +"those things which are required to make a University," he puts down,— +</P> + +<P> +"First, a good and pleasant site, where there is a wholesome and +temperate constitution of the air; composed with waters, springs or +wells, woods and pleasant fields; which being obtained, those +commodities are enough to invite students to stay and abide there. As +the Athenians in ancient times were happy for their conveniences, so +also were the Britons, when by a remnant of the Grecians that came +amongst them, they or their successors selected such a place in Britain +to plant a school or schools therein, which for its pleasant situation +was afterwards called Bellositum or Bellosite, now Oxford, privileged +with all those conveniences before mentioned." +</P> + +<P> +By others the local advantages of that University have been more +philosophically analyzed;—for instance, with a reference to its +position in the middle of southern England; its situation on several +islands in a broad plain, through which many streams flowed; the +surrounding marshes, which, in times when it was needed, protected the +city from invaders; its own strength as a military position; its easy +communication with London, nay with the sea, by means of the Thames; +while the London fortifications hindered pirates from ascending the +stream, which all the time was so ready and convenient for a descent. +</P> + +<P> +Alas! for centuries past that city has lost its prime honour and boast, +as a servant and soldier of the Truth. Once named the second school of +the Church, second only to Paris, the foster-mother of St. Edmund, St. +Richard, St. Thomas Cantilupe, the theatre of great intellects, of +Scotus the subtle Doctor, of Hales the irrefragable, of Occam the +special, of Bacon the admirable, of Middleton the solid, and of +Bradwardine the profound, Oxford has now lapsed to that level of mere +human loveliness, which in its highest perfection we admire in Athens. +Nor would it have a place, now or hereafter, in these pages, nor would +it occur to me to speak its name, except that, even in its sorrowful +deprivation, it still retains so much of that outward lustre, which, +like the brightness on the prophet's face, ought to be a ray from an +illumination within, as to afford me an illustration of the point on +which I am engaged, viz., what should be the material dwelling-place +and appearance, the local circumstances, and the secular concomitants +of a great University. Pictures are drawn in tales of romance, of +spirits seemingly too beautiful in their fall to be really fallen, and +the holy Pope at Rome, Gregory, in fact, and not in fiction, looked +upon the blue eyes and golden hair of the fierce Saxon youth in the +slave market, and pronounced them Angels, not Angles; and the spell +which this once loyal daughter of the Church still exercises upon the +foreign visitor, even now when her true glory is departed, suggests to +us how far more majestic and more touching, how brimful of +indescribable influence would be the presence of a University, which +was planted within, not without Jerusalem,—an influence, potent as her +truth is strong, wide as her sway is world-wide, and growing, not +lessening, by the extent of space over which its attraction would be +exerted. +</P> + +<P> +Let the reader then listen to the words of the last learned German, who +has treated of Oxford, and judge for himself if they do not bear me +out, in what I have said of the fascination which the very face and +smile of a University possess over those who come within its range. +</P> + +<P> +"There is scarce a spot in the world," says Huber, "that bears an +historical stamp so deep and varied as Oxford; where so many noble +memorials of moral and material power coöperating to an honourable end, +meet the eye all at once. He who can be proof against the strong +emotions which the whole aspect and genius of the place tend to +inspire, must be dull, thoughtless, uneducated, or of very perverted +views. Others will bear us witness, that, even side by side with the +Eternal Rome, the Alma Mater of Oxford may be fitly named, as producing +a deep, a lasting, and peculiar impression. +</P> + +<P> +"In one of the most fertile districts of the Queen of the Seas, whom +nature has so richly blessed, whom for centuries past no footstep of +foreign armies has desecrated, lies a broad green vale, where the +Cherwell and the Isis mingle their full, clear waters. Here and there +primeval elms and oaks overshadow them; while in their various windings +they encircle gardens, meadows, and fields, villages, cottages, +farm-houses, and country-seats, in motley mixture. In the midst rises +a mass of mighty buildings, the general character of which varies +between convent, palace, and castle. Some few Gothic church-towers and +Romaic domes, it is true, break through the horizontal lines; yet the +general impression at a distance and at first sight, is essentially +different from that of any of the towns of the middle ages. The +outlines are far from being so sharp, so angular, so irregular, so +fantastical; a certain softness, a peculiar repose, reigns in those +broader, terrace-like rising masses. Only in the creations of Claude +Lorraine or Poussin could we expect to find a spot to compare with the +prevailing character of this picture, especially when lit up by a +favourable light. The principal masses consist of Colleges, the +University buildings, and the city churches; and by the side of these +the city itself is lost on distant view. But on entering the streets, +we find around us all the signs of an active and prosperous trade. +Rich and elegant shops in profusion afford a sight to be found nowhere +but in England; but with all this glitter and show, they sink into a +modest, and, as it were, a menial attitude, by the side of the grandly +severe memorials of the higher intellectual life, memorials which have +been growing out of that life from almost the beginning of Christianity +itself. Those rich and elegant shops are, as it were, the domestic +offices of these palaces of learning, which ever rivet the eye of the +observer, while all besides seems perforce to be subservient to them. +Each of the larger and more ancient Colleges looks like a separate +whole—an entire town, whose walls and monuments proclaim the vigorous +growth of many centuries; and the town itself has happily escaped the +lot of modern beautifying, and in this respect harmonizes with the +Colleges." +</P> + +<P> +There are those who, having felt the influence of this ancient School, +and being smit with its splendour and its sweetness, ask wistfully, if +never again it is to be Catholic, or whether at least some footing for +Catholicity may not be found there. All honour and merit to the +charitable and zealous hearts who so inquire! Nor can we dare to tell +what in time to come may be the inscrutable purposes of that grace, +which is ever more comprehensive than human hope and aspiration. But +for me, from the day I left its walls, I never, for good or bad, have +had anticipation of its future; and never for a moment have I had a +wish to see again a place, which I have never ceased to love, and where +I lived for nearly thirty years. Nay, looking at the general state of +things at this day, I desiderate for a School of the Church, if an +additional School is to be granted to us, a more central position than +Oxford has to show. Since the age of Alfred and of the first Henry, +the world has grown, from the west and south of Europe, into four or +five continents; and I look for a city less inland than that old +sanctuary, and a country closer upon the highway of the seas. I look +towards a land both old and young; old in its Christianity, young in +the promise of its future; a nation, which received grace before the +Saxon came to Britain, and which has never quenched it; a Church, which +comprehends in its history the rise and fall of Canterbury and York, +which Augustine and Paulinus found, and Pole and Fisher left behind +them. I contemplate a people which has had a long night, and will have +an inevitable day. I am turning my eyes towards a hundred years to +come, and I dimly see the island I am gazing on, become the road of +passage and union between two hemispheres, and the centre of the world. +I see its inhabitants rival Belgium in populousness, France in vigour, +and Spain in enthusiasm; and I see England taught by advancing years to +exercise in its behalf that good sense which is her characteristic +towards every one else. The capital of that prosperous and hopeful +land is situate in a beautiful bay and near a romantic region; and in +it I see a flourishing University, which for a while had to struggle +with fortune, but which, when its first founders and servants were dead +and gone, had successes far exceeding their anxieties. Thither, as to +a sacred soil, the home of their fathers, and the fountain-head of +their Christianity, students are flocking from East, West, and South, +from America and Australia and India, from Egypt and Asia Minor, with +the ease and rapidity of a locomotion not yet discovered, and last, +though not least, from England,—all speaking one tongue, all owning +one faith, all eager for one large true wisdom; and thence, when their +stay is over, going back again to carry over all the earth "peace to +men of good will." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02d"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III. UNIVERSITY LIFE AT ATHENS +</H3> + +<P> +However apposite may have been the digression into which I was led when +I had got about half through the foregoing Chapter, it has had the +inconvenience of what may be called running me off the rails; and now +that I wish to proceed from the point at which it took place, I shall +find some trouble, if I may continue the metaphor, in getting up the +steam again, or if I may change it, in getting into the swing of my +subject. +</P> + +<P> +It has been my desire, were I able, to bring before the reader what +Athens may have been, viewed as what we have since called a University; +and to do this, not with any purpose of writing a panegyric on a +heathen city, or of denying its many deformities, or of concealing what +was morally base in what was intellectually great, but just the +contrary, of representing things as they really were; so far, that is, +as to enable him to see what a University is, in the very constitution +of society and in its own idea, what is its nature and object, and what +it needs of aid and support external to itself to complete that nature +and to secure that object. +</P> + +<P> +So now let us fancy our Scythian, or Armenian, or African, or Italian, +or Gallic student, after tossing on the Saronic waves, which would be +his more ordinary course to Athens, at last casting anchor at Piraeus. +He is of any condition or rank of life you please, and may be made to +order, from a prince to a peasant. Perhaps he is some Cleanthes, who +has been a boxer in the public games. How did it ever cross his brain +to betake himself to Athens in search of wisdom? or, if he came thither +by accident, how did the love of it ever touch his heart? But so it +was, to Athens he came with three drachms in his girdle, and he got his +livelihood by drawing water, carrying loads, and the like servile +occupations. He attached himself, of all philosophers, to Zeno the +Stoic,—to Zeno, the most high-minded, the most haughty of speculators; +and out of his daily earnings the poor scholar brought his master the +daily sum of an obolus, in payment for attending his lectures. Such +progress did he make, that on Zeno's death he actually was his +successor in his school; and, if my memory does not play me false, he +is the author of a hymn to the Supreme Being, which is one of the +noblest effusions of the kind in classical poetry. Yet, even when he +was the head of a school, he continued in his illiberal toil as if he +had been a monk; and, it is said, that once, when the wind took his +pallium, and blew it aside, he was discovered to have no other garment +at all;—something like the German student who came up to Heidelberg +with nothing upon him but a great coat and a pair of pistols. +</P> + +<P> +Or it is another disciple of the Porch,—Stoic by nature, earlier than +by profession,—who is entering the city; but in what different fashion +he comes! It is no other than Marcus, Emperor of Rome and philosopher. +Professors long since were summoned from Athens for his service, when +he was a youth, and now he comes, after his victories in the battle +field, to make his acknowledgments at the end of life, to the city of +wisdom, and to submit himself to an initiation into the Eleusinian +mysteries. +</P> + +<P> +Or it is a young man of great promise as an orator, were it not for his +weakness of chest, which renders it necessary that he should acquire +the art of speaking without over-exertion, and should adopt a delivery +sufficient for the display of his rhetorical talents on the one hand, +yet merciful to his physical resources on the other. He is called +Cicero; he will stop but a short time, and will pass over to Asia Minor +and its cities, before he returns to continue a career which will +render his name immortal; and he will like his short sojourn at Athens +so well, that he will take good care to send his son thither at an +earlier age than he visited it himself. +</P> + +<P> +But see where comes from Alexandria (for we need not be very solicitous +about anachronisms), a young man from twenty to twenty-two, who has +narrowly escaped drowning on his voyage, and is to remain at Athens as +many as eight or ten years, yet in the course of that time will not +learn a line of Latin, thinking it enough to become accomplished in +Greek composition, and in that he will succeed. He is a grave person, +and difficult to make out; some say he is a Christian, something or +other in the Christian line his father is for certain. His name is +Gregory, he is by country a Cappadocian, and will in time become +preėminently a theologian, and one of the principal Doctors of the +Greek Church. +</P> + +<P> +Or it is one Horace, a youth of low stature and black hair, whose +father has given him an education at Rome above his rank in life, and +now is sending him to finish it at Athens; he is said to have a turn +for poetry: a hero he is not, and it were well if he knew it; but he is +caught by the enthusiasm of the hour, and goes off campaigning with +Brutus and Cassius, and will leave his shield behind him on the field +of Philippi. +</P> + +<P> +Or it is a mere boy of fifteen: his name Eunapius; though the voyage +was not long, sea sickness, or confinement, or bad living on board the +vessel, threw him into a fever, and, when the passengers landed in the +evening at Piraeus, he could not stand. His countrymen who accompanied +him, took him up among them and carried him to the house of the great +teacher of the day, Proaeresius, who was a friend of the captain's, and +whose fame it was which drew the enthusiastic youth to Athens. His +companions understand the sort of place they are in, and, with the +license of academic students, they break into the philosopher's house, +though he appears to have retired for the night, and proceed to make +themselves free of it, with an absence of ceremony, which is only not +impudence, because Proaeresius takes it so easily. Strange +introduction for our stranger to a seat of learning, but not out of +keeping with Athens; for what could you expect of a place where there +was a mob of youths and not even the pretence of control; where the +poorer lived any how, and got on as they could, and the teachers +themselves had no protection from the humours and caprices of the +students who filled their lecture-halls? However, as to this Eunapius, +Proaeresius took a fancy to the boy, and told him curious stories about +Athenian life. He himself had come up to the University with one +Hephaestion, and they were even worse off than Cleanthes the Stoic; for +they had only one cloak between them, and nothing whatever besides, +except some old bedding; so when Proaeresius went abroad, Hephaestion +lay in bed, and practised himself in oratory; and then Hephaestion put +on the cloak, and Proaeresius crept under the coverlet. At another +time there was so fierce a feud between what would be called "town and +gown" in an English University, that the Professors did not dare +lecture in public, for fear of ill treatment. +</P> + +<P> +But a freshman like Eunapius soon got experience for himself of the +ways and manners prevalent in Athens. Such a one as he had hardly +entered the city, when he was caught hold of by a party of the academic +youth, who proceeded to practise on his awkwardness and his ignorance. +At first sight one wonders at their childishness; but the like conduct +obtained in the medieval Universities; and not many months have passed +away since the journals have told us of sober Englishmen, given to +matter-of-fact calculations, and to the anxieties of money-making, +pelting each other with snowballs on their own sacred territory, and +defying the magistracy, when they would interfere with their privilege +of becoming boys. So I suppose we must attribute it to something or +other in human nature. Meanwhile, there stands the new-comer, +surrounded by a circle of his new associates, who forthwith proceed to +frighten, and to banter, and to make a fool of him, to the extent of +their wit. Some address him with mock politeness, others with +fierceness; and so they conduct him in solemn procession across the +Agora to the Baths; and as they approach, they dance about him like +madmen. But this was to be the end of his trial, for the Bath was a +sort of initiation; he thereupon received the pallium, or University +gown, and was suffered by his tormentors to depart in peace. One alone +is recorded as having been exempted from this persecution; it was a +youth graver and loftier than even St. Gregory himself: but it was not +from his force of character, but at the instance of Gregory, that he +escaped. Gregory was his bosom-friend, and was ready in Athens to +shelter him when he came. It was another Saint and Doctor; the great +Basil, then, (it would appear,) as Gregory, but a catechumen of the +Church. +</P> + +<P> +But to return to our freshman. His troubles are not at an end, though +he has got his gown upon him. Where is he to lodge? whom is he to +attend? He finds himself seized, before he well knows where he is, by +another party of men, or three or four parties at once, like foreign +porters at a landing, who seize on the baggage of the perplexed +stranger, and thrust half a dozen cards into his unwilling hands. Our +youth is plied by the hangers-on of professor this, or sophist that, +each of whom wishes the fame or the profit of having a houseful. We +will say that he escapes from their hands,—but then he will have to +choose for himself where he will put up; and, to tell the truth, with +all the praise I have already given, and the praise I shall have to +give, to the city of mind, nevertheless, between ourselves, the brick +and wood which formed it, the actual tenements, where flesh and blood +had to lodge (always excepting the mansions of great men of the place), +do not seem to have been much better than those of Greek or Turkish +towns, which are at this moment a topic of interest and ridicule in the +public prints. A lively picture has lately been set before us of +Gallipoli. Take, says the writer, a multitude of the dilapidated +outhouses found in farm-yards in England, of the rickety old wooden +tenements, the cracked, shutterless structures of planks and tiles, the +sheds and stalls, which our bye lanes, or fish-markets, or river-sides +can supply; tumble them down on the declivity of a bare bald hill; let +the spaces between house and house, thus accidentally determined, be +understood to form streets, winding of course for no reason, and with +no meaning, up and down the town; the roadway always narrow, the +breadth never uniform, the separate houses bulging or retiring below, +as circumstances may have determined, and leaning forward till they +meet overhead;—and you have a good idea of Gallipoli. I question +whether this picture would not nearly correspond to the special seat of +the Muses in ancient times. Learned writers assure us distinctly that +the houses of Athens were for the most part small and mean; that the +streets were crooked and narrow; that the upper stories projected over +the roadway; and that staircases, balustrades, and doors that opened +outwards, obstructed it;—a remarkable coincidence of description. I +do not doubt at all, though history is silent, that that roadway was +jolting to carriages, and all but impassable; and that it was traversed +by drains, as freely as any Turkish town now. Athens seems in these +respects to have been below the average cities of its time. "A +stranger," says an ancient, "might doubt, on the sudden view, if really +he saw Athens." +</P> + +<P> +I grant all this, and much more, if you will; but, recollect, Athens +was the home of the intellectual, and beautiful; not of low mechanical +contrivances, and material organization. Why stop within your lodgings +counting the rents in your wall or the holes in your tiling, when +nature and art call you away? You must put up with such a chamber, and +a table, and a stool, and a sleeping board, any where else in the three +continents; one place does not differ from another indoors; your +magalia in Africa, or your grottos in Syria are not perfection. I +suppose you did not come to Athens to swarm up a ladder, or to grope +about a closet: you came to see and to hear, what hear and see you +could not elsewhere. What food for the intellect is it possible to +procure indoors, that you stay there looking about you? do you think to +read there? where are your books? do you expect to purchase books at +Athens—you are much out in your calculations. True it is, we at this +day, who live in the nineteenth century, have the books of Greece as a +perpetual memorial; and copies there have been, since the time that +they were written; but you need not go to Athens to procure them, nor +would you find them in Athens. Strange to say, strange to the +nineteenth century, that in the age of Plato and Thucydides, there was +not, it is said, a bookshop in the whole place: nor was the book trade +in existence till the very time of Augustus. Libraries, I suspect, +were the bright invention of Attalus or the Ptolemies; I doubt whether +Athens had a library till the reign of Hadrian. It was what the +student gazed on, what he heard, what he caught by the magic of +sympathy, not what he read, which was the education furnished by Athens. +</P> + +<P> +He leaves his narrow lodging early in the morning; and not till night, +if even then, will he return. It is but a crib or kennel,—in which he +sleeps when the weather is inclement or the ground damp; in no respect +a home. And he goes out of doors, not to read the day's newspaper, or +to buy the gay shilling volume, but to imbibe the invisible atmosphere +of genius, and to learn by heart the oral traditions of taste. Out he +goes; and, leaving the tumble-down town behind him, he mounts the +Acropolis to the right, or he turns to the Areopagus on the left. He +goes to the Parthenon to study the sculptures of Phidias; to the temple +of the Dioscuri to see the paintings of Polygnotus. We indeed take our +Sophocles or Aeschylus out of our coat-pocket; but, if our sojourner at +Athens would understand how a tragic poet can write, he must betake +himself to the theatre on the south, and see and hear the drama +literally in action. Or let him go westward to the Agora, and there he +will hear Lysias or Andocides pleading, or Demosthenes haranguing. He +goes farther west still, along the shade of those noble planes, which +Cimon has planted there; and he looks around him at the statues and +porticos and vestibules, each by itself a work of genius and skill, +enough to be the making of another city. He passes through the city +gate, and then he is at the famous Ceramicus; here are the tombs of the +mighty dead; and here, we will suppose, is Pericles himself, the most +elevated, the most thrilling of orators, converting a funeral oration +over the slain into a philosophical panegyric of the living. +</P> + +<P> +Onwards he proceeds still; and now he has come to that still more +celebrated Academe, which has bestowed its own name on Universities +down to this day; and there he sees a sight which will be graven on his +memory till he dies. Many are the beauties of the place, the groves, +and the statues, and the temple, and the stream of the Cephissus +flowing by; many are the lessons which will be taught him day after day +by teacher or by companion; but his eye is just now arrested by one +object; it is the very presence of Plato. He does not hear a word that +he says; he does not care to hear; he asks neither for discourse nor +disputation; what he sees is a whole, complete in itself, not to be +increased by addition, and greater than anything else. It will be a +point in the history of his life; a stay for his memory to rest on, a +burning thought in his heart, a bond of union with men of like mind, +ever afterwards. Such is the spell which the living man exerts on his +fellows, for good or for evil. How nature impels us to lean upon +others, making virtue, or genius, or name, the qualification for our +doing so! A Spaniard is said to have travelled to Italy, simply to see +Livy; he had his fill of gazing, and then went back again home. Had +our young stranger got nothing by his voyage but the sight of the +breathing and moving Plato, had he entered no lecture-room to hear, no +gymnasium to converse, he had got some measure of education, and +something to tell of to his grandchildren. +</P> + +<P> +But Plato is not the only sage, nor the sight of him the only lesson to +be learned in this wonderful suburb. It is the region and the realm of +philosophy. Colleges were the inventions of many centuries later; and +they imply a sort of cloistered life, or at least a life of rule, +scarcely natural to an Athenian. It was the boast of the philosophic +statesman of Athens, that his countrymen achieved by the mere force of +nature and the love of the noble and the great, what other people aimed +at by laborious discipline; and all who came among them were submitted +to the same method of education. We have traced our student on his +wanderings from the Acropolis to the Sacred Way; and now he is in the +region of the schools. No awful arch, no window of many-coloured +lights marks the seats of learning there or elsewhere; philosophy lives +out of doors. No close atmosphere oppresses the brain or inflames the +eyelid; no long session stiffens the limbs. Epicurus is reclining in +his garden; Zeno looks like a divinity in his porch; the restless +Aristotle, on the other side of the city, as if in antagonism to Plato, +is walking his pupils off their legs in his Lyceum by the Ilyssus. Our +student has determined on entering himself as a disciple of +Theophrastus, a teacher of marvellous popularity, who has brought +together two thousand pupils from all parts of the world. He himself +is of Lesbos; for masters, as well as students, come hither from all +regions of the earth,—as befits a University. How could Athens have +collected hearers in such numbers, unless she had selected teachers of +such power? it was the range of territory, which the notion of a +University implies, which furnished both the quantity of the one, and +the quality of the other. Anaxagoras was from Ionia, Carneades from +Africa, Zeno from Cyprus, Protagoras from Thrace, and Gorgias from +Sicily. Andromachus was a Syrian, Proaeresius an Armenian, Hilarius a +Bithynian, Philiscus a Thessalian, Hadrian a Syrian. Rome is +celebrated for her liberality in civil matters; Athens was as liberal +in intellectual. There was no narrow jealousy, directed against a +Professor, because he was not an Athenian; genius and talent were the +qualifications; and to bring them to Athens, was to do homage to it as +a University. There was a brotherhood and a citizenship of mind. +</P> + +<P> +Mind came first, and was the foundation of the academical polity; but +it soon brought along with it, and gathered round itself, the gifts of +fortune and the prizes of life. As time went on, wisdom was not always +sentenced to the bare cloak of Cleanthes; but beginning in rags, it +ended in fine linen. The Professors became honourable and rich; and +the students ranged themselves under their names, and were proud of +calling themselves their countrymen. The University was divided into +four great nations, as the medieval antiquarian would style them; and +in the middle of the fourth century, Proaeresius was the leader or +proctor of the Attic, Hephaestion of the Oriental, Epiphanius of the +Arabic, and Diophantus of the Pontic. Thus the Professors were both +patrons of clients, and hosts and <I>proxeni</I> of strangers and visitors, +as well as masters of the schools: and the Cappadocian, Syrian, or +Sicilian youth who came to one or other of them, would be encouraged to +study by his protection, and to aspire by his example. +</P> + +<P> +Even Plato, when the schools of Athens were not a hundred years old, +was in circumstances to enjoy the <I>otium cum dignitate</I>. He had a +villa out at Heraclea; and he left his patrimony to his school, in +whose hands it remained, not only safe, but fructifying, a marvellous +phenomenon in tumultuous Greece, for the long space of eight hundred +years. Epicurus too had the property of the Gardens where he lectured; +and these too became the property of his sect. But in Roman times the +chairs of grammar, rhetoric, politics, and the four philosophies, were +handsomely endowed by the State; some of the Professors were themselves +statesmen or high functionaries, and brought to their favourite study +senatorial rank or Asiatic opulence. +</P> + +<P> +Patrons such as these can compensate to the freshman, in whom we have +interested ourselves, for the poorness of his lodging and the +turbulence of his companions. In every thing there is a better side +and a worse; in every place a disreputable set and a respectable, and +the one is hardly known at all to the other. Men come away from the +same University at this day, with contradictory impressions and +contradictory statements, according to the society they have found +there; if you believe the one, nothing goes on there as it should be: +if you believe the other, nothing goes on as it should <I>not</I>. Virtue, +however, and decency are at least in the minority everywhere, and under +some sort of a cloud or disadvantage; and this being the case, it is so +much gain whenever an Herodes Atticus is found, to throw the influence +of wealth and station on the side even of a decorous philosophy. A +consular man, and the heir of an ample fortune, this Herod was content +to devote his life to a professorship, and his fortune to the patronage +of literature. He gave the sophist Polemo about eight thousand pounds, +as the sum is calculated, for three declamations. He built at Athens a +stadium six hundred feet long, entirely of white marble, and capable of +admitting the whole population. His theatre, erected to the memory of +his wife, was made of cedar wood curiously carved. He had two villas, +one at Marathon, the place of his birth, about ten miles from Athens, +the other at Cephissia, at the distance of six; and thither he drew to +him the <I>élite</I>, and at times the whole body of the students. Long +arcades, groves of trees, clear pools for the bath, delighted and +recruited the summer visitor. Never was so brilliant a lecture-room as +his evening banqueting-hall; highly connected students from Rome mixed +with the sharp-witted provincial of Greece or Asia Minor; and the +flippant sciolist, and the nondescript visitor, half philosopher, half +tramp, met with a reception, courteous always, but suitable to his +deserts. Herod was noted for his repartees; and we have instances on +record of his setting down, according to the emergency, both the one +and the other. +</P> + +<P> +A higher line, though a rarer one, was that allotted to the youthful +Basil. He was one of those men who seem by a sort of fascination to +draw others around them even without wishing it. One might have deemed +that his gravity and his reserve would have kept them at a distance; +but, almost in spite of himself, he was the centre of a knot of youths, +who, pagans as most of them were, used Athens honestly for the purpose +for which they professed to seek it; and, disappointed and displeased +with the place himself, he seems nevertheless to have been the means of +their profiting by its advantages. One of these was Sophronius, who +afterwards held a high office in the State: Eusebius was another, at +that time the bosom-friend of Sophronius, and afterwards a Bishop. +Celsus too is named, who afterwards was raised to the government of +Cilicia by the Emperor Julian. Julian himself, in the sequel of +unhappy memory, was then at Athens, and known at least to St. Gregory. +Another Julian is also mentioned, who was afterwards commissioner of +the land tax. Here we have a glimpse of the better kind of society +among the students of Athens; and it is to the credit of the parties +composing it, that such young men as Gregory and Basil, men as +intimately connected with Christianity, as they were well known in the +world, should hold so high a place in their esteem and love. When the +two saints were departing, their companions came around them with the +hope of changing their purpose. Basil persevered; but Gregory +relented, and turned back to Athens for a season. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03a"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE STUDY OF POETRY +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MATTHEW ARNOLD +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</I> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Matthew Arnold was the son of the well-known English schoolmaster, +Thomas Arnold of Rugby. He was born at Laleham in 1822, and went to +school at Winchester and Rugby. Going up to Balliol College, Oxford, +in 1841, he won a scholarship, took the Newdigate prize for English +verse, and was elected fellow of Oriel in 1845. After some years as a +private secretary, he became an Inspector of Schools and performed the +routine duties of this office for thirty-five years. For ten years he +was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and in 1883-84 he lectured in +America. He died in 1888.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Arnold is notable among modern men of letters as being almost equally +distinguished in poetry and prose. His poetical work belongs to the +earlier part of his career, and was practically finished by 1867. At +the time of its first publication it appealed to only a narrow public; +but it rose steadily in esteem through Arnold's life, though he ceased +to add to it, and now many critics hold that it will outlive his prose. +The best of it is refined in feeling, lofty in thought, and exquisite +in expression; its prevailing note, a subdued melancholy.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>In prose Arnold wrote on many themes—educational, social, political, +and, especially, literary and religious. His attacks on dogmatic +Christianity promise to be the most short-lived of his works; and +perhaps deservedly so, as here Arnold was dealing with technical +matters in which he was not an expert. In literary criticism he has +been and still is a vital influence, urging especially the value of an +outlook over the literatures of other countries and the cultivating of +an intimacy with the great classics of the past. In the following +essay on the "Study of Poetry," one of the most famous of his +utterances, there may be found exemplified his characteristically +vivacious and memorable style, his delicate appreciations brilliantly +and precisely expressed, his concrete and persuasive argument. Perhaps +no single critical document of our time has contributed so many phrases +to the current literary vocabulary, or has stimulated so many readers +to the use of lofty and definite standards of judgment.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE STUDY OF POETRY[1] +</H3> + +<P> +'The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy +of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever +surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an +accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received +tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has +materialised itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached +its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it. But for +poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of +divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is +the fact. The strongest part of our religion to-day is its unconscious +poetry.' +</P> + +<P> +Let me be permitted to quote these words of my own, as uttering the +thought which should, in my opinion, go with us and govern us in all +our study of poetry. In the present work it is the course of one great +contributory stream to the world-river of poetry that we are invited to +follow. We are here invited to trace the stream of English poetry. +But whether we set ourselves, as here, to follow only one of the +several streams that make the mighty river of poetry, or whether we +seek to know them all, our governing thought should be the same. We +should conceive of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been +the custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of +higher uses, and called to higher destinies, than those which in +general men have assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will +discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to +console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear +incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and +philosophy will be replaced by poetry. Science, I say, will appear +incomplete without it. For finely and truly does Wordsworth call +poetry 'the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all +science'; and what is a countenance without its expression? Again, +Wordsworth finely and truly calls poetry 'the breath and finer spirit +of all knowledge'; our religion, parading evidences such as those on +which the popular mind relies now; our philosophy, pluming itself on +its reasonings about causation and finite and infinite being; what are +they but the shadows and dreams and false shows of knowledge? The day +will come when we shall wonder at ourselves for having trusted to them, +for having taken them seriously; and the more we perceive their +hollowness, the more we shall prize 'the breath and finer spirit of +knowledge' offered to us by poetry. +</P> + +<P> +But if we conceive thus highly of the destinies of poetry, we must also +set our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of +fulfilling such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order of +excellence. We must accustom ourselves to a high standard and to a +strict judgment. Sainte-Beuve relates that Napoleon one day said, when +somebody was spoken of in his presence as a charlatan: 'Charlatan as +much as you please; but where is there <I>not</I> charlatanism?'—'Yes,' +answers Sainte-Beuve, 'in politics, in the art of governing mankind, +that is perhaps true. But in the order of thought, in art, the glory, +the eternal honour is that charlatanism shall find no entrance; herein +lies the inviolableness of that noble portion of man's being.' It is +admirably said, and let us hold fast to it. In poetry, which is +thought and art in one, it is the glory, the eternal honour, that +charlatanism shall find no entrance; that this noble sphere be kept +inviolate and inviolable. Charlatanism is for confusing or +obliterating the distinctions between excellent and inferior, sound and +unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true. It is +charlatanism, conscious or unconscious, whenever we confuse or +obliterate these. And in poetry, more than anywhere else, it is +impermissible to confuse or obliterate them. For in poetry the +distinction between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only +half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true, is of paramount +importance. It is of paramount importance because of the high +destinies of poetry. In poetry, as in criticism of life under the +conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and +poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find, we have said, as time +goes on and as other helps fail, its consolation and stay. But the +consolation and stay will be of power in proportion to the power of the +criticism of life. And the criticism of life will be of power in +proportion as the poetry conveying it is excellent rather than +inferior, sound rather than unsound or half-sound, true rather than +untrue or half-true. +</P> + +<P> +The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found to have +a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can. +A clearer, deeper sense of the best in poetry, and of the strength and +joy to be drawn from it, is the most precious benefit which we can +gather from a poetical collection such as the present. And yet in the +very nature and conduct of such a collection there is inevitably +something which tends to obscure in us the consciousness of what our +benefit should be, and to distract us from the pursuit of it. We +should therefore steadily set it before our minds at the outset, and +should compel ourselves to revert constantly to the thought of it as we +proceed. +</P> + +<P> +Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the really +excellent, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, should be +present in our minds and should govern our estimate of what we read. +But this real estimate, the only true one, is liable to be superseded, +if we are not watchful, by two other kinds of estimate, the historic +estimate and the personal estimate, both of which are fallacious. A +poet or a poem may count to us historically, they may count to us on +grounds personal to ourselves, and they may count to us really. They +may count to us historically. The course of development of a nation's +language, thought, and poetry, is profoundly interesting; and by +regarding a poet's work as a stage in this course of development we may +easily bring ourselves to make it of more importance as poetry than in +itself it really is, we may come to use a language of quite exaggerated +praise in criticising it; in short, to over-rate it. So arises in our +poetic judgments the fallacy caused by the estimate which we may call +historic. Then, again, a poet or poem may count to us on grounds +personal to ourselves. Our personal affinities, likings and +circumstances, have great power to sway our estimate of this or that +poet's work, and to make us attach more importance to it as poetry than +in itself it really possesses, because to us it is, or has been, of +high importance. Here also we over-rate the object of our interest, +and apply to it a language of praise which is quite exaggerated. And +thus we get the source of a second fallacy in our poetic judgments—the +fallacy caused by an estimate which we may call personal. +</P> + +<P> +Both fallacies are natural. It is evident how naturally the study of +the history and development of poetry may incline a man to pause over +reputations and works once conspicuous but now obscure, and to quarrel +with a careless public for skipping, in obedience to mere tradition and +habit, from one famous name or work in its national poetry to another, +ignorant of what it misses, and of the reason for keeping what it +keeps, and of the whole process of growth in its poetry. The French +have become diligent students of their own early poetry, which they +long neglected; the study makes many of them dissatisfied with their +so-called classical poetry, the court-tragedy of the seventeenth +century, a poetry which Pellisson long ago reproached with its want of +the true poetic stamp, with its <I>politesse stérile et rampante</I>, but +which nevertheless has reigned in France as absolutely as if it had +been the perfection of classical poetry indeed. The dissatisfaction is +natural; yet a lively and accomplished critic, M. Charles d'Héricault, +the editor of Clément Marot, goes too far when he says that 'the cloud +of glory playing round a classic is a mist as dangerous to the future +of a literature as it is intolerable for the purposes of history.' 'It +hinders,' he goes on, 'it hinders us from seeing more than one single +point, the culminating and exceptional point; the summary, fictitious +and arbitrary, of a thought and of a work. It substitutes a halo for a +physiognomy, it puts a statue where there was once a man, and hiding +from us all trace of the labour, the attempts, the weaknesses, the +failures, it claims not study but veneration; it does not show us how +the thing is done, it imposes upon us a model. Above all, for the +historian this creation of classic personages is inadmissible; for it +withdraws the poet from his time, from his proper life, it breaks +historical relationships, it blinds criticism by conventional +admiration, and renders the investigation of literary origins +unacceptable. It gives us a human personage no longer but a God seated +immovable amidst His perfect work, like Jupiter on Olympus; and hardly +will it be possible for the young student to whom such work is +exhibited at such a distance from him, to believe that it did not issue +ready made from that divine head.' +</P> + +<P> +All this is brilliantly and tellingly said, but we must plead for a +distinction. Everything depends on the reality of a poet's classic +character. If he is a dubious classic, let us sift him; if he is a +false classic, let us explode him. But if he is a real classic, if his +work belongs to the class of the very best (for this is the true and +right meaning of the word <I>classic, classical</I>), then the great thing +for us is to feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we can, and to +appreciate the wide difference between it and all work which has not +the same high character. This is what is salutary, this is what is +formative; this is the great benefit to be got from the study of +poetry. Everything which interferes with it, which hinders it, is +injurious. True, we must read our classic with open eyes, and not with +eyes blinded with superstition; we must perceive when his work comes +short, when it drops out of the class of the very best, and we must +rate it, in such cases, at its proper value. But the use of this +negative criticism is not in itself, it is entirely in its enabling us +to have a clearer sense and a deeper enjoyment of what is truly +excellent. To trace the labour, the attempts, the weaknesses, the +failures of a genuine classic, to acquaint oneself with his time and +his life and his historical relationships, is mere literary +dilettantism unless it has that clear sense and deeper enjoyment for +its end. It may be said that the more we know about a classic the +better we shall enjoy him; and, if we lived as long as Methuselah and +had all of us heads of perfect clearness and wills of perfect +steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it is plausible in theory. +But the case here is much the same as the case with the Greek and Latin +studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate philological groundwork which +we require them to lay is in theory an admirable preparation for +appreciating the Greek and Latin authors worthily. The more thoroughly +we lay the groundwork, the better we shall be able, it may be said, to +enjoy the authors. True, if time were not so short, and schoolboys' +wits not so soon tired and their power of attention exhausted; only, as +it is, the elaborate philological preparation goes on, but the authors +are little known and less enjoyed. So with the investigator of +'historic origins' in poetry. He ought to enjoy the true classic all +the better for his investigations; he often is distracted from the +enjoyment of the best, and with the less good he overbusies himself, +and is prone to over-rate it in proportion to the trouble which it has +cost him. +</P> + +<P> +The idea of tracing historic origins and historical relationships +cannot be absent from a compilation like the present. And naturally +the poets to be exhibited in it will be assigned to those persons for +exhibition who are known to prize them highly, rather than to those who +have no special inclination towards them. Moreover, the very +occupation with an author, and the business of exhibiting him, disposes +us to affirm and amplify his importance. In the present work, +therefore, we are sure of frequent temptation to adopt the historic +estimate, or the personal estimate, and to forget the real estimate; +which latter, nevertheless, we must employ if we are to make poetry +yield us its full benefit. So high is that benefit, the benefit of +clearly feeling and of deeply enjoying the really excellent, the truly +classic in poetry, that we do well, I say, to set it fixedly before our +minds as our object in studying poets and poetry, and to make the +desire of attaining it the one principle to which, as the Imitation +says, whatever we may read or come to know, we always return. <I>Cum +multa legeris et cognoveris, ad unum semper oportet redire principium.</I> +</P> + +<P> +The historic estimate is likely in especial to affect our judgment and +our language when we are dealing with ancient poets; the personal +estimate when we are dealing with poets our contemporaries, or at any +rate modern. The exaggerations due to the historic estimate are not in +themselves, perhaps, of very much gravity. Their report hardly enters +the general ear; probably they do not always impose even on the +literary men who adopt them. But they lead to a dangerous abuse of +language. So we hear Caedmon, amongst our own poets, compared to +Milton. I have already noticed the enthusiasm of one accomplished +French critic for 'historic origins.' Another eminent French critic, +M. Vitet, comments upon that famous document of the early poetry of his +nation, the <I>Chanson de Roland</I>. It is indeed a most interesting +document. The <I>joculator</I> or <I>jongleur</I> Taillefer, who was with +William the Conqueror's army at Hastings, marched before the Norman +troops, so said the tradition, singing 'of Charlemagne and of Roland +and of Oliver, and of the vassals who died at Roncevaux'; and it is +suggested that in the <I>Chanson de Roland</I> by one Turoldus or Théroulde, +a poem preserved in a manuscript of the twelfth century in the Bodleian +Library at Oxford, we have certainly the matter, perhaps even some of +the words, of the chant which Taillefer sang. The poem has vigour and +freshness; it is not without pathos. But M. Vitet is not satisfied +with seeing in it a document of some poetic value, and of very high +historic and linguistic value; he sees in it a grand and beautiful +work, a monument of epic genius. In its general design he finds the +grandiose conception, in its details he finds the constant union of +simplicity with greatness, which are the marks, he truly says, of the +genuine epic, and distinguish it from the artificial epic of literary +ages. One thinks of Homer; this is the sort of praise which is given +to Homer, and justly given. Higher praise there cannot well be, and it +is the praise due to epic poetry of the highest order only, and to no +other. Let us try, then, the <I>Chanson de Roland </I>at its best. Roland, +mortally wounded, lay himself down under a pine-tree, with his face +turned towards Spain and the enemy— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'De plusurs choses ą remembrer li prist,<BR> +De tantes teres cume li bers cunquist,<BR> +De dulce France, des humes de sun lign,<BR> +De Carlemagne sun seignor ki l'nurrit.' [2]<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +That is primitive work, I repeat, with an undeniable poetic quality of +its own. It deserves such praise, and such praise is sufficient for +it. But now turn to Homer— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-072a"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-072a.jpg" ALT="Fragment of Homer's Iliad [3]" BORDER="2" WIDTH="266" HEIGHT="39"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 266px"> +Fragment of Homer's Iliad [3] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +We are here in another world, another order of poetry altogether; here +is rightly due such supreme praise as that which M. Vitet gives to the +<I>Chanson de Roland</I>. If our words are to have any meaning, if our +judgments are to have any solidity, we must not heap that supreme +praise upon poetry of an order immeasurably inferior. +</P> + +<P> +Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry +belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us +most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of +the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. +Of course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it +may be very dissimilar. But if we have any tact we shall find them, +when we have lodged them well in our minds, an infallible touchstone +for detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also +the degree of this quality, in all other poetry which we may place +beside them. Short passages, even single lines, will serve our turn +quite sufficiently. Take the two lines which I have just quoted from +Homer, the poet's comment on Helen's mention of her brothers;—or take +his +</P> + +<A NAME="img-072b"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-072b.jpg" ALT="Fragment of Homer's Iliad [4]" BORDER="2" WIDTH="280" HEIGHT="60"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 280px"> +Fragment of Homer's Iliad [4] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +the address of Zeus to the horses of Peleus;—or take finally his +</P> + +<A NAME="img-073"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-073.jpg" ALT="Fragment of Homer's Iliad [5]" BORDER="2" WIDTH="295" HEIGHT="21"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 295px"> +Fragment of Homer's Iliad [5] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +the words of Achilles to Priam, a suppliant before him. Take that +incomparable line and a half of Dante, Ugolino's tremendous words— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Io no piangeva; sģ dentro impietrai.<BR> +Piangevan elli . . .' [6]<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +take the lovely words of Beatrice to Virgil— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Io son fatta da Dio, sua mercč, tale,<BR> +Che la vostra miseria non mi tange,<BR> +Nč fiamma d'esto incendio non m'assale . . .' [7]<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +take the simple, but perfect, single line— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'In la sua volontade č nostra pace.' [8]<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Take of Shakespeare a line or two of Henry the Fourth's expostulation +with sleep— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast<BR> +Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains<BR> +In cradle of the rude imperious surge . . .'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and take, as well, Hamlet's dying request to Horatio— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,<BR> +Absent thee from felicity awhile,<BR> +And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain<BR> +To tell my story . . .'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Take of Milton that Miltonic passage: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em">'Darken'd so, yet shone</SPAN><BR> +Above them all the archangel; but his face<BR> +Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care<BR> +Sat on his faded cheek . . .'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +add two such lines as— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'And courage never to submit or yield<BR> +And what is else not to be overcome . . .'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and finish with the exquisite close to the loss of Proserpine, the loss +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'. . . which cost Ceres all that pain<BR> +To seek her through the world.'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even of +themselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to save +us from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate. +</P> + +<P> +The specimens I have quoted differ widely from one another, but they +have in common this: the possession of the very highest poetical +quality. If we are thoroughly penetrated by their power, we shall find +that we have acquired a sense enabling us, whatever poetry may be laid +before us, to feel the degree in which a high poetical quality is +present or wanting there. Critics give themselves great labour to draw +out what in the abstract constitutes the characters of a high quality +of poetry. It is much better simply to have recourse to concrete +examples;—to take specimens of poetry of the high, the very highest +quality, and to say: The characters of a high quality of poetry are +what is expressed <I>there</I>. They are far better recognized by being +felt in the verse of the master, than by being perused in the prose of +the critic. Nevertheless if we are urgently pressed to give some +critical account of them, we may safely, perhaps, venture on laying +down, not indeed how and why the characters arise, but where and in +what they arise. They are in the matter and substance of the poetry, +and they are in its manner and style. Both of these, the substance and +matter on the one hand, the style and manner on the other, have a mark, +an accent, of high beauty, worth, and power. But if we are asked to +define this mark and accent in the abstract, our answer must be: No, +for we should thereby be darkening the question, not clearing it. The +mark and accent are as given by the substance and matter of that +poetry, by the style and manner of that poetry, and of all other poetry +which is akin to it in quality. +</P> + +<P> +Only one thing we may add as to the substance and matter of poetry, +guiding ourselves by Aristotle's profound observation that the +superiority of poetry over history consists in its possessing a higher +truth and a higher seriousness (<I>philosophoteron chai spoudaioteron</I>). +Let us add, therefore, to what we have said, this: that the substance +and matter of the best poetry acquire their special character from +possessing, in an eminent degree, truth and seriousness. We may add +yet further, what is in itself evident, that to the style and manner of +the best poetry their special character, their accent, is given by +their diction, and, even yet more, by their movement. And though we +distinguish between the two characters, the two accents, of +superiority, yet they are nevertheless vitally connected one with the +other. The superior character of truth and seriousness, in the matter +and substance of the best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority +of diction and movement marking its style and manner. The two +superiorities are closely related, and are in steadfast proportion one +to the other. So far as high poetic truth and seriousness are wanting +to a poet's matter and substance, so far also, we may be sure, will a +high poetic stamp of diction and movement be wanting to his style and +manner. In proportion as this high stamp of diction and movement, +again, is absent from a poet's style and manner, we shall find, also, +that high poetic truth and seriousness are absent from his substance +and matter. +</P> + +<P> +So stated, these are but dry generalities; their whole force lies in +their application. And I could wish every student of poetry to make +the application of them for himself. Made by himself, the application +would impress itself upon his mind far more deeply than made by me. +Neither will my limits allow me to make any full application of the +generalities above propounded; but in the hope of bringing out, at any +rate, some significance in them, and of establishing an important +principle more firmly by their means, I will, in the space which +remains to me, follow rapidly from the commencement the course of our +English poetry with them in my view. +</P> + +<P> +Once more I return to the early poetry of France, with which our own +poetry, in its origins, is indissolubly connected. In the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries, that seed-time of all modern language and +literature, the poetry of France had a clear predominance in Europe. +Of the two divisions of that poetry, its productions in the <I>langue +d'oil</I> and its productions in the <I>langue d'oc</I>, the poetry of the +<I>langue d'oc</I>, of southern France, of the troubadours, is of importance +because of its effect on Italian literature;—the first literature of +modern Europe to strike the true and grand note, and to bring forth, as +in Dante and Petrarch it brought forth, classics. But the predominance +of French poetry in Europe, during the twelfth and thirteenth +centuries, is due to its poetry of the <I>langue d'oil</I>, the poetry of +northern France and of the tongue which is now the French language. In +the twelfth century the bloom of this romance-poetry was earlier and +stronger in England, at the court of our Anglo-Norman kings, than in +France itself. But it was a bloom of French poetry; and as our native +poetry formed itself, it formed itself out of this. The romance-poems +which took possession of the heart and imagination of Europe in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries are French; 'they are,' as Southey +justly says, 'the pride of French literature, nor have we anything +which can be placed in competition with them.' Themes were supplied +from all quarters; but the romance-setting which was common to them +all, and which gained the ear of Europe, was French. This constituted +for the French poetry, literature, and language, at the height of the +Middle Age, an unchallenged predominance. The Italian Brunette Latini, +the master of Dante, wrote his <I>Treasure</I> in French because, he says, +'la parleure en est plus délitable et plus commune ą toutes gens.' In +the same century, the thirteenth, the French romance-writer, Christian +of Troyes, formulates the claims, in chivalry and letters, of France, +his native country, as follows:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Or vous ert par ce livre apris,<BR> +Que Gresse ot de chevalerie<BR> +Le premier los et de clergie;<BR> +Puis vint chevalerie ą Rome,<BR> +Et de la clergie la some,<BR> +Qui ore est en France venue.<BR> +Diex doinst qu'ele i soit retenue,<BR> +Et que li lius li abelisse<BR> +Tant que de France n'isse<BR> +L'onor qui s'i est arestée!'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +'Now by this book you will learn that first Greece had the renown for +chivalry and letters: then chivalry and the primacy in letters passed +to Rome, and now it is come to France. God grant it may be kept there; +and that the place may please it so well, that the honour which has +come to make stay in France may never depart thence!' +</P> + +<P> +Yet it is now all gone, this French romance-poetry of which the weight +of substance and the power of style are not unfairly represented by +this extract from Christian of Troyes. Only by means of the historic +estimate can we persuade ourselves not to think that any of it is of +poetical importance. +</P> + +<P> +But in the fourteenth century there comes an Englishman nourished on +this poetry, taught his trade by this poetry, getting words, rhyme, +metre from this poetry; for even of that stanza which the Italians +used, and which Chaucer derived immediately from the Italians, the +basis and suggestion was probably given in France. Chaucer (I have +already named him) fascinated his contemporaries, but so too did +Christian of Troyes and Wolfram of Eschenbach. Chaucer's power of +fascination, however, is enduring; his poetical importance does not +need the assistance of the historic estimate; it is real. He is a +genuine source of joy and strength, which is flowing still for us and +will flow always. He will be read, as time goes on, far more generally +than he is read now. His language is a cause of difficulty for us; but +so also, and I think in quite as great a degree, is the language of +Burns. In Chaucer's case, as in that of Burns, it is a difficulty to +be unhesitatingly accepted and overcome. +</P> + +<P> +If we ask ourselves wherein consists the immense superiority of +Chaucer's poetry over the romance-poetry—why it is that in passing +from this to Chaucer we suddenly feel ourselves to be in another world, +we shall find that his superiority is both in the substance of his +poetry and in the style of his poetry. His superiority in substance is +given by his large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human +life,—so unlike the total want, in the romance-poets, of all +intelligent command of it. Chaucer has not their helplessness; he has +gained the power to survey the world from a central, a truly human +point of view. We have only to call to mind the Prologue to <I>The +Canterbury Tales</I>. The right comment upon it is Dryden's: 'It is +sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that <I>here is God's +plenty</I>.' And again: 'He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.' It +is by a large, free, sound representation of things, that poetry, this +high criticism of life, has truth of substance; and Chaucer's poetry +has truth of substance. +</P> + +<P> +Of his style and manner, if we think first of the romance-poetry and +then of Chaucer's divine liquidness of diction, his divine fluidity of +movement, it is difficult to speak temperately. They are irresistible, +and justify all the rapture with which his successors speak of his +'gold dew-drops of speech.' Johnson misses the point entirely when he +finds fault with Dryden for ascribing to Chaucer the first refinement +of our numbers, and says that Gower also can show smooth numbers and +easy rhymes. The refinement of our numbers means something far more +than this. A nation may have versifiers with smooth numbers and easy +rhymes, and yet may have no real poetry at all. Chaucer is the father +of our splendid English poetry; he is our 'well of English undefiled,' +because by the lovely charm of his diction, the lovely charm of his +movement, he makes an epoch and founds a tradition. In Spenser, +Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, we can follow the tradition of the liquid +diction, the fluid movement of Chaucer; at one time it is his liquid +diction of which in these poets we feel the virtue, and at another time +it is his fluid movement. And the virtue is irresistible. +</P> + +<P> +Bounded as is my space, I must yet find room for an example of +Chaucer's virtue, as I have given examples to show the virtue of the +great classics. I feel disposed to say that a single line is enough to +show the charm of Chaucer's verse; that merely one line like this— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'O martyr souded[9] in virginitee!'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +has a virtue of manner and movement such as we shall not find in all +the verse of romance-poetry;—but this is saying nothing. The virtue +is such as we shall not find, perhaps, in all English poetry, outside +the poets whom I have named as the special inheritors of Chaucer's +tradition. A single line, however, is too little if we have not the +strain of Chaucer's verse well in our memory; let us take a stanza. It +is from <I>The Prioress's Tale</I>, the story of the Christian child +murdered in a Jewry— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'My throte is cut unto my nekke-bone<BR> +Saidč this child, and as by way of kinde<BR> +I should have deyd, yea, longč time agone;<BR> +But Jesu Christ, as ye in bookčs finde,<BR> +Will that his glory last and be in minde,<BR> +And for the worship of his mother dere<BR> +Yet may I sing O <I>Alma</I> loud and clere.'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Wordsworth has modernised this Tale, and to feel how delicate and +evanescent is the charm of verse, we have only to read Wordsworth's +first three lines of this stanza after Chaucer's— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'My throat is cut unto the bone, I trow,<BR> +Said this young child, and by the law of kind<BR> +I should have died, yea, many hours ago.'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The charm is departed. It is often said that the power of liquidness +and fluidity in Chaucer's verse was dependent upon a free, a licentious +dealing with language, such as is now impossible; upon a liberty, such +as Burns too enjoyed, of making words like <I>neck, bird</I>, into a +dissyllable by adding to them, and words like <I>cause, rhyme</I>, into a +dissyllable by sounding the <I>e</I> mute. It is true that Chaucer's +fluidity is conjoined with this liberty, and is admirably served by it; +but we ought not to say that it was dependent upon it. It was +dependent upon his talent. Other poets with a like liberty do not +attain to the fluidity of Chaucer; Burns himself does not attain to it. +Poets, again, who have a talent akin to Chaucer's, such as Shakespeare +or Keats, have known how to attain his fluidity without the like +liberty. +</P> + +<P> +And yet Chaucer is not one of the great classics. His poetry +transcends and effaces, easily and without effort, all the +romance-poetry of Catholic Christendom; it transcends and effaces all +the English poetry contemporary with it, it transcends and effaces all +the English poetry subsequent to it down to the age of Elizabeth. Of +such avail is poetic truth of substance, in its natural and necessary +union with poetic truth of style. And yet, I say, Chaucer is not one +of the great classics. He has not their accent. What is wanting to +him is suggested by the mere mention of the name of the first great +classic of Christendom, the immortal poet who died eighty years before +Chaucer,—Dante. The accent of such verse as +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'In la sua volontade č nostra pace . . .'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +is altogether beyond Chaucer's reach; we praise him, but we feel that +this accent is out of the question for him. It may be said that it was +necessarily out of the reach of any poet in the England of that stage +of growth. Possibly; but we are to adopt a real, not a historic, +estimate of poetry. However we may account for its absence, something +is wanting, then, to the poetry of Chaucer, which poetry must have +before it can be placed in the glorious class of the best. And there +is no doubt what that something is. It is the <I>spoudaiotes</I> the high +and excellent seriousness, which Aristotle assigns as one of the grand +virtues of poetry. The substance of Chaucer's poetry, his view of +things and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, +benignity; but it has not this high seriousness. Homer's criticism of +life has it, Dante's has it, Shakespeare's has it. It is this chiefly +which gives to our spirits what they can rest upon; and with the +increasing demands of our modern ages upon poetry, this virtue of +giving us what we can rest upon will be more and more highly esteemed. +A voice from the slums of Paris, fifty or sixty years after Chaucer, +the voice of poor Villon out of his life of riot and crime, has at its +happy moments (as, for instance, in the last stanza of <I>La Belle +Heaulmičre</I>[10]) more of this important poetic virtue of seriousness +than all the productions of Chaucer. But its apparition in Villon, and +in men like Villon, is fitful; the greatness of the great poets, the +power of their criticism of life, is that their virtue is sustained. +</P> + +<P> +To our praise, therefore, of Chaucer as a poet there must be this +limitation; he lacks the high seriousness of the great classics, and +therewith an important part of their virtue. Still, the main fact for +us to bear in mind about Chaucer is his sterling value according to +that real estimate which we firmly adopt for all poets. He has poetic +truth of substance, though he has not high poetic seriousness, and +corresponding to his truth of substance he has an exquisite virtue of +style and manner. With him is born our real poetry. +</P> + +<P> +For my present purpose I need not dwell on our Elizabethan poetry, or +on the continuation and close of this poetry in Milton. We all of us +profess to be agreed in the estimate of this poetry: we all of us +recognise it as great poetry, our greatest, and Shakespeare and Milton +as our poetical classics. The real estimate, here, has universal +currency. With the next age of our poetry divergency and difficulty +begin. An historic estimate of that poetry has established itself; and +the question is, whether it will be found to coincide with the real +estimate. +</P> + +<P> +The age of Dryden, together with our whole eighteenth century which +followed it, sincerely believed itself to have produced poetical +classics of its own, and even to have made advance, in poetry, beyond +all its predecessors. Dryden regards as not seriously disputable the +opinion 'that the sweetness of English verse was never understood or +practised by our fathers.' Cowley could see nothing at all in +Chaucer's poetry. Dryden heartily admired it, and, as we have seen, +praised its matter admirably; but of its exquisite manner and movement +all he can find to say is that 'there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch +tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect.' +Addison, wishing to praise Chaucer's numbers, compares them with +Dryden's own. And all through the eighteenth century, and down even +into our own times, the stereotyped phrase of approbation for good +verse found in our early poetry has been, that it even approached the +verse of Dryden, Addison, Pope, and Johnson. Are Dryden and Pope +poetical classics? Is the historic estimate, which represents them as +such, and which has been so long established that it cannot easily give +way, the real estimate? Wordsworth and Coleridge, as is well known, +denied it; but the authority of Wordsworth and Coleridge does not weigh +much with the young generation, and there are many signs to show that +the eighteenth century and its judgments are coming into favour again. +Are the favourite poets of the eighteenth-century classics? +</P> + +<P> +It is impossible within my present limits to discuss the question +fully. And what man of letters would not shrink from seeming to +dispose dictatorially of the claims of two men who are, at any rate, +such masters in letters as Dryden and Pope; two men of such admirable +talent, both of them, and one of them, Dryden, a man, on all sides, of +such energetic and genial power? And yet, if we are to gain the full +benefit from poetry, we must have the real estimate of it. I cast +about for some mode of arriving, in the present case, at such an +estimate without offence. And perhaps the best way is to begin, as it +is easy to begin, with cordial praise. +</P> + +<P> +When we find Chapman, the Elizabethan translator of Homer, expressing +himself in his preface thus: 'Though truth in her very nakedness sits +in so deep a pit, that from Gades to Aurora and Ganges few eyes can +sound her, I hope yet those few here will so discover and confirm that, +the date being out of her darkness in this morning of our poet, he +shall now gird his temples with the sun,'—we pronounce that such a +prose is intolerable. When we find Milton writing: 'And long it was +not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not +be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, +ought himself to be a true poem,'—we pronounce that such a prose has +its own grandeur, but that it is obsolete and inconvenient. But when +we find Dryden telling us: 'What Virgil wrote in the vigour of his age, +in plenty and at ease, I have undertaken to translate in my declining +years; struggling with wants, oppressed with sickness, curbed in my +genius, liable to be misconstrued in all I write,'—then we exclaim +that here at last we have the true English prose, a prose such as we +would all gladly use if we only knew how. Yet Dryden was Milton's +contemporary. +</P> + +<P> +But after the Restoration the time had come when our nation felt the +imperious need of a fit prose. So, too, the time had likewise come +when our nation felt the imperious need of freeing itself from the +absorbing preoccupation which religion in the Puritan age had +exercised. It was impossible that this freedom should be brought about +without some negative excess, without some neglect and impairment of +the religious life of the soul; and the spiritual history of the +eighteenth century shows us that the freedom was not achieved without +them. Still, the freedom was achieved; the preoccupation, an +undoubtedly baneful and retarding one if it had continued, was got rid +of. And as with religion amongst us at that period, so it was also +with letters. A fit prose was a necessity; but it was impossible that +a fit prose should establish itself amongst us without some touch of +frost to the imaginative life of the soul. The needful qualities for a +fit prose are regularity, uniformity, precision, balance. The men of +letters, whose destiny it may be to bring their nation to the +attainment of a fit prose, must of necessity, whether they work in +prose or in verse, give a predominating, an almost exclusive attention +to the qualities of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance. But an +almost exclusive attention to these qualities involves some repression +and silencing of poetry. +</P> + +<P> +We are to regard Dryden as the puissant and glorious founder, Pope as +the splendid high priest, of our age of prose and reason, of our +excellent and indispensable eighteenth century. For the purposes of +their mission and destiny their poetry, like their prose, is admirable. +Do you ask me whether Dryden's verse, take it almost where you will, is +not good? +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged,<BR> +Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged.'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the inaugurator of an age of +prose and reason. Do you ask me whether Pope's verse, take it almost +where you will, is not good? +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'To Hounslow Heath I point, and Banstead Down<BR> +Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own.'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the high priest of an age of +prose and reason. But do you ask me whether such verse proceeds from +men with an adequate poetic criticism of life, from men whose criticism +of life has a high seriousness, or even, without that high seriousness, +has poetic largeness, freedom, insight, benignity? Do you ask me +whether the application of ideas to life in the verse of these men, +often a powerful application, no doubt, is a powerful <I>poetic</I> +application? Do you ask me whether the poetry of these men has either +the matter or the inseparable manner of such an adequate poetic +criticism; whether it has the accent of +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Absent thee from felicity awhile . . .'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +or of +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'And what is else not to be overcome . . .'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +or of +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'O martyr souded in virginitee!'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +I answer: It has not and cannot have them; it is the poetry of the +builders of an age of prose and reason. Though they may write in +verse, though they may in a certain sense be masters of the art of +versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics of our poetry, they are +classics of our prose. +</P> + +<P> +Gray is our poetical classic of that literature and age; the position +of Gray is singular, and demands a word of notice here. He has not the +volume or the power of poets who, coming in times more favourable, have +attained to an independent criticism of life. But he lived with the +great poets, he lived, above all, with the Greeks, through perpetually +studying and enjoying them; and he caught their poetic point of view +for regarding life, caught their poetic manner. The point of view and +the manner are not self-sprung in him, he caught them of others; and he +had not the free and abundant use of them. But, whereas Addison and +Pope never had the use of them, Gray had the use of them at times. He +is the scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a +classic. +</P> + +<P> +And now, after Gray, we are met, as we draw towards the end of the +eighteenth century, we are met by the great name of Burns. We enter +now on times where the personal estimate of poets begins to be rife, +and where the real estimate of them is not reached without difficulty. +But in spite of the disturbing pressures of personal partiality, of +national partiality, let us try to reach a real estimate of the poetry +of Burns. +</P> + +<P> +By his English poetry Burns in general belongs to the eighteenth +century, and has little importance for us. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Mark ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes,<BR> +Rousing elate in these degenerate times;<BR> +View unsuspecting Innocence a prey,<BR> +As guileful Fraud points out the erring way;<BR> +While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue<BR> +The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong!'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Evidently this is not the real Burns, or his name and fame would have +disappeared long ago. Nor is Clarinda's love-poet, Sylvander, the real +Burns either. But he tells us himself: 'These English songs gravel me +to death. I have not the command of the language that I have of my +native tongue. In fact, I think that my ideas are more barren in +English than in Scotch. I have been at <I>Duncan Gray</I> to dress it in +English, but all I can do is desperately stupid.' We English turn +naturally, in Burns, to the poems in our own language, because we can +read them easily; but in those poems we have not the real Burns. +</P> + +<P> +The real Burns is of course in his Scotch poems. Let us boldly say +that of much of this poetry, a poetry dealing perpetually with Scotch +drink, Scotch religion, and Scotch manners, a Scotchman's estimate is +apt to be personal. A Scotchman is used to this world of Scotch drink, +Scotch religion, and Scotch manners; he has a tenderness for it; he +meets its poet half way. In this tender mood he reads pieces like the +<I>Holy Fair</I> or <I>Halloween</I>. But this world of Scotch drink, Scotch +religion, and Scotch manners is against a poet, not for him, when it is +not a partial countryman who reads him; for in itself it is not a +beautiful world, and no one can deny that it is of advantage to a poet +to deal with a beautiful world. Burns's world of Scotch drink, Scotch +religion, and Scotch manners, is often a harsh, a sordid, a repulsive +world: even the world of his <I>Cotter's Saturday Night</I> is not a +beautiful world. No doubt a poet's criticism of life may have such +truth and power that it triumphs over its world and delights us. Burns +may triumph over his world, often he does triumph over his world, but +let us observe how and where. Burns is the first case we have had +where the bias of the personal estimate tends to mislead; let us look +at him closely, he can bear it. +</P> + +<P> +Many of his admirers will tell us that we have Burns, convivial, +genuine, delightful, here— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Than either school or college;</SPAN><BR> +It kindles wit, it waukens lair,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">It pangs us fou o' knowledge.</SPAN><BR> +Be't whisky gill or penny wheep<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Or ony stronger potion,</SPAN><BR> +It never fails, on drinking deep,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To kittle up our notion</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">By night or day.'</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +There is a great deal of that sort of thing in Burns, and it is +unsatisfactory, not because it is bacchanalian poetry, but because it +has not that accent of sincerity which bacchanalian poetry, to do it +justice, very often has. There is something in it of bravado, +something which makes us feel that we have not the man speaking to us +with his real voice; something, therefore, poetically unsound. +</P> + +<P> +With still more confidence will his admirers tell us that we have the +genuine Burns, the great poet, when his strain asserts the +independence, equality, dignity, of men, as in the famous song <I>For a +that, and a' that</I>— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'A prince can mak' a belted knight,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">A marquis, duke, and a' that;</SPAN><BR> +But an honest man's aboon his might,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Guid faith he mauna fa' that!</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">For a' that, and a' that,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">Their dignities, and a' that,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">Are higher rank than a' that.'</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Here they find his grand, genuine touches; and still more, when this +puissant genius, who so often set morality at defiance, falls +moralising— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'The sacred lowe o' weel-placed love<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Luxuriantly indulge it;</SPAN><BR> +But never tempt th' illicit rove,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Tho' naething should divulge it.</SPAN><BR> +I waive the quantum o' the sin,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The hazard o' concealing,</SPAN><BR> +But och! it hardens a' within,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And petrifies the feeling.'</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Or in a higher strain— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Who made the heart, 'tis He alone<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Decidedly can try us;</SPAN><BR> +He knows each chord, its various tone;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Each spring, its various bias.</SPAN><BR> +Then at the balance let's be mute,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">We never can adjust it;</SPAN><BR> +What's <I>done</I> we partly may compute,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But know not what's resisted.'</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Or in a better strain yet, a strain, his admirers will say, +unsurpassable— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'To make a happy fire-side clime<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">To weans and wife,</SPAN><BR> +That's the true pathos and sublime<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">Of human life.'</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +There is criticism of life for you, the admirers of Burns will say to +us; there is the application of ideas to life! There is, undoubtedly. +The doctrine of the last-quoted lines coincides almost exactly with +what was the aim and end, Xenophon tells us, of all the teaching of +Socrates. And the application is a powerful one; made by a man of +vigorous understanding, and (need I say?) a master of language. +</P> + +<P> +But for supreme poetical success more is required than the powerful +application of ideas to life; it must be an application under the +conditions fixed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Those +laws fix as an essential condition, in the poet's treatment of such +matters as are here in question, high seriousness;—the high +seriousness which comes from absolute sincerity. The accent of high +seriousness, born of absolute sincerity, is what gives to such verse as +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'In la sua volontade č nostra pace . . .'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +to such criticism of life as Dante's, its power. Is this accent felt +in the passages which I have been quoting from Burns? Surely not; +surely, if our sense is quick, we must perceive that we have not in +those passages a voice from the very inmost soul of the genuine Burns; +he is not speaking to us from these depths, he is more or less +preaching. And the compensation for admiring such passages less, from +missing the perfect poetic accent in them, will be that we shall admire +more the poetry where that accent is found. +</P> + +<P> +No; Burns, like Chaucer, comes short of the high seriousness of the +great classics, and the virtue of matter and manner which goes with +that high seriousness is wanting to his work. At moments he touches it +in a profound and passionate melancholy, as in those four immortal +lines taken by Byron as a motto for <I>The Bride of Abydos</I>, but which +have in them a depth of poetic quality such as resides in no verse of +Byron's own— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Had we never loved sae kindly,<BR> +Had we never loved sae blindly,<BR> +Never met, or never parted,<BR> +We had ne'er been broken-hearted.'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +But a whole poem of that quality Burns cannot make; the rest, in the +<I>Farewell to Nancy</I>, is verbiage. +</P> + +<P> +We arrive best at the real estimate of Burns, I think, by conceiving +his work as having truth of matter and truth of manner, but not the +accent or the poetic virtue of the highest masters. His genuine +criticism of life, when the sheer poet in him speaks, is ironic; it is +not— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">These woes of mine fulfil,</SPAN><BR> +Here firm I rest, they must be best<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Because they are Thy will!'</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +It is far rather: <I>Whistle owre the lave o't</I>! Yet we may say of him +as of Chaucer, that of life and the world, as they come before him, his +view is large, free, shrewd, benignant,—truly poetic therefore; and +his manner of rendering what he sees is to match. But we must note, at +the same time, his great difference from Chaucer. The freedom of +Chaucer is heightened, in Burns, by a fiery, reckless energy; the +benignity of Chaucer deepens, in Burns, into an overwhelming sense of +the pathos of things;—of the pathos of human nature, the pathos, also, +of non-human nature. Instead of the fluidity of Chaucer's manner, the +manner of Burns has spring, boundless swiftness. Burns is by far the +greater force, though he has perhaps less charm. The world of Chaucer +is fairer, richer, more significant than that of Burns; but when the +largeness and freedom of Burns get full sweep, as in <I>Tam o' Shanter</I>, +or still more in that puissant and splendid production, <I>The Jolly +Beggars</I>, his world may be what it will, his poetic genius triumphs +over it. In the world of <I>The Jolly Beggars</I> there is more than +hideousness and squalor, there is bestiality; yet the piece is a superb +poetic success. It has a breadth, truth, and power which make the +famous scene in Auerbach's Cellar, of Goethe's <I>Faust</I>, seem artificial +and tame beside it, and which are only matched by Shakespeare and +Aristophanes. +</P> + +<P> +Here, where his largeness and freedom serve him so admirably, and also +in those poems and songs where to shrewdness he adds infinite archness +and wit, and to benignity infinite pathos, where his manner is +flawless, and a perfect poetic whole is the result,—in things like the +address to the mouse whose home he had ruined, in things like <I>Duncan +Gray, Tam Glen, Whistle and I'll come to you my Lad, Auld Lang Syne</I> +(this list might be made much longer),—here we have the genuine Burns, +of whom the real estimate must be high indeed. Not a classic, nor with +the excellent <I>spoudaiotes</I> of the great classics, nor with a verse +rising to a criticism of life and a virtue like theirs; but a poet with +thorough truth of substance and an answering truth of style, giving us +a poetry sound to the core. We all of us have a leaning towards the +pathetic, and may be inclined perhaps to prize Burns most for his +touches of piercing, sometimes almost intolerable, pathos; for verse +like— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'We twa hae paidl't i' the burn<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">From mornin' sun till dine;</SPAN><BR> +But seas between us braid hae roar'd<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sin auld lang syne . . .'</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +where he is as lovely as he is sound. But perhaps it is by the +perfection of soundness of his lighter and archer masterpieces that he +is poetically most wholesome for us. For the votary misled by a +personal estimate of Shelley, as so many of us have been, are, and will +be,—of that beautiful spirit building his many-coloured haze of words +and images +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Pinnacled dim in the intense inane'—<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +no contact can be wholesomer than the contact with Burns at his archest +and soundest. Side by side with the +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'On the brink of the night and the morning<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">My coursers are wont to respire,</SPAN><BR> +But the Earth has just whispered a warning<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That their flight must be swifter than fire . . .'</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noident"> +of <I>Prometheus Unbound</I>, how salutary, how very salutary, to place this +from <I>Tam Glen</I>— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'My minnie does constantly deave me<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And bids me beware o' young men;</SPAN><BR> +They flatter, she says, to deceive me;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But wha can think sae o' Tam Glen?'</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +But we enter on burning ground as we approach the poetry of times so +near to us—poetry like that of Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth—of +which the estimates are so often not only personal, but personal with +passion. For my purpose, it is enough to have taken the single case of +Burns, the first poet we come to of whose work the estimate formed is +evidently apt to be personal, and to have suggested how we may proceed, +using the poetry of the great classics as a sort of touchstone, to +correct this estimate, as we had previously corrected by the same means +the historic estimate where we met with it. A collection like the +present, with its succession of celebrated names and celebrated poems, +offers a good opportunity to us for resolutely endeavouring to make our +estimates of poetry real. I have sought to point out a method which +will help us in making them so, and to exhibit it in use so far as to +put any one who likes in a way of applying it for himself. +</P> + +<P> +At any rate the end to which the method and the estimate are designed +to lead, and from leading to which, if they do lead to it, they get +their whole value,—the benefit of being able clearly to feel and +deeply to enjoy the best, the truly classic, in poetry,—is an end, let +me say it once more at parting, of supreme importance. We are often +told that an era is opening in which we are to see multitudes of a +common sort of readers, and masses of a common sort of literature; that +such readers do not want and could not relish anything better than such +literature, and that to provide it is becoming a vast and profitable +industry. Even if good literature entirely lost currency with the +world, it would still be abundantly worth while to continue to enjoy it +by oneself. But it never will lose currency with the world, in spite +of monetary appearances; it never will lose supremacy. Currency and +supremacy are insured to it, not indeed by the world's deliberate and +conscious choice, but by something far deeper,—by the instinct of +self-preservation in humanity. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[1] Published in 1880 as the General Introduction to 'The English +Poets' edited by T. H. Ward. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[2] 'Then began he to call many things to remembrance,—all the lands +which his valour conquered, and pleasant France, and the men of his +lineage, and Charlemagne his liege lord who nourished him.'—'Chanson +de Roland,' iii. 939-942. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[3] 'So said she; they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing, +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">There, in their own dear land, their fatherland, Lacedaemon.'</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">—'Iliad,' iii. 243, 244 (translated by Dr. Hawtrey).</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[4] 'Ah, unhappy pair, why gave we you to King Peleus, to a mortal? but +ye are without old age, and immortal. Was it that with men born to +misery ye might have sorrow?'—'Iliad,' xvii. 443-445. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[5] 'Nay, and thou too, old man, in former days wast, as we hear, +happy.—'Iliad,' xxiv. 543. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[6] 'I wailed not, so of stone grew I within;—<I>they</I> +wailed.'—'Inferno, xxxiii. 39, 40. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[7] 'Of such sort hath God, thanked be His mercy, made me, that your +misery toucheth me not, neither doth the flame of this fire strike +me.—'Inferno,' ii. 91-93. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[8] 'In His will is our peace.'—'Paradiso,' iii. 85. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[9] The French <I>soudé</I>; soldered, fixed fast. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[10] The name <I>Heaulmičre</I> is said to be derived from a head-dress +(helm) worn as a mark by courtesans. In Villon's ballad, a poor old +creature of this class laments her days of youth and beauty. The last +stanza of the ballad runs thus— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Ainsi le bon temps regretons<BR> +Entre nous, pauvres vieilles sottes,<BR> +Assises has, ą croppetons,<BR> +Tout en ung tas comme pelottes;<BR> +A petit feu de chenevottes<BR> +Tost allumées, tost estainctes.<BR> +Et jadis fusmes si mignottes!<BR> +Ainsi en prend ą maintz et maintes.'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +'Thus amongst ourselves we regret the good time, poor silly old things +low-seated on our heels, all in a heap like so many balls; by a little +fire of hemp-stalks, soon lighted, soon spent. And once we were such +darlings! So fares it with many and many a one.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04a"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SESAME AND LILIES +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +JOHN RUSKIN +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</I> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>John Ruskin (1819-1900), the greatest master of ornate prose in the +English language, was born in London and educated at Oxford. He +studied painting, and became a graceful and accurate draftsman, but he +early transferred his main energies from the production to the +criticism and teaching of art. In 1843 appeared the first volume of +"Modern Painters" and succeeding volumes continued to be published till +it was completed by the fifth in 1860. The startling originality of +this work, both in style and in the nature of its esthetic theories, +brought the author at once into prominence, though for some time he was +more attacked than followed. Meanwhile he extended his scope to +include other fields. In "The Seven Lamps of Architecture" (1849) and +"The Stones of Venice" (1851-53) he applied his theories to +architecture; in "Pre-Raphaelitism" (1851) he came to the defense of +the new school of art then beginning to agitate England; in "Unto this +Last" (1861) and many other writings he attacked the current political +economy.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>In spite of the great variety of the themes of Ruskin's numerous +volumes, there are to be found, underlying the eloquent argument, +exposition, and exhortation of all, a few persistent principles. The +application of these principles in one place is often inconsistent with +that in another, and Ruskin frankly reversed his opinion with great +frequency in successive editions of the same work; yet he continued to +use a dogmatic tone which is at once his strength and his weakness.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>The two lectures which constitute "Sesame and Lilies" deal ostensibly +with the reading of books; but in characteristic fashion the author +brings into the discussion his favorite ideas on ethics, esthetics, +economics, and many other subjects. It thus gives a fairly +comprehensive idea of the nature of the widespread influence which he +exerted on English life and thought during the whole of the second half +of the nineteenth century. Its style also, in its earnestness, its +richness, and its lofty eloquence, exemplifies the pitch to which he +brought the tradition of the highly decorated prose cultivated by De +Quincey in the previous generation, a pitch of gorgeousness in color +and cadence which has been surpassed by none.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SESAME AND LILIES +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LECTURE I—SESAME +<BR> +OF KINGS' TREASURIES[1] +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +"You shall each have a cake of sesame,—and ten pound."<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">LUCIAN: <I>The Fisherman.</I></SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +My first duty this evening is to ask your pardon for the ambiguity of +title under which the subject of this lecture has been announced: for +indeed I am not going to talk of kings, known as regnant, nor of +treasuries, understood to contain wealth; but of quite another order of +royalty, and another material of riches, than those usually +acknowledged. I had even intended to ask your attention for a little +while on trust, and (as sometimes one contrives, in taking a friend to +see a favorite piece of scenery) to hide what I wanted most to show, +with such imperfect cunning as I might, until we unexpectedly reached +the best point of view by winding paths. But—and as also I have heard +it said, by men practiced in public address, that hearers are never so +much fatigued as by the endeavour to follow a speaker who gives them no +clue to his purposes,—I will take the slight mask off at once, and +tell you plainly that I want to speak to you about the treasures hidden +in books; and about the way we find them, and the way we lose them. A +grave subject, you will say; and a wide one! Yes; so wide that I shall +make no effort to touch the compass of it. I will try only to bring +before you a few simple thoughts about reading, which press themselves +upon me every day more deeply, as I watch the course of the public mind +with respect to our daily enlarging means of education; and the +answeringly wider spreading on the levels, of the irrigation of +literature. +</P> + +<P> +2. It happens that I have practically some connection with schools for +different classes of youth; and I receive many letters from parents +respecting the education of their children. In the mass of these +letters I am always struck by the precedence which the idea of a +"position in life" takes above all other thoughts in the parents'—more +especially in the mothers'—minds. "The education befitting such and +such a <I>station in life</I>"—this is the phrase, this the object, always. +They never seek, as far as I can make out, an education good in itself; +even the conception of abstract rightness in training rarely seems +reached by the writers. But, an education "which shall keep a good +coat on my son's back;—which shall enable him to ring with confidence +the visitors' bell at doubled-belled doors; which shall result +ultimately in establishment of a doubled-belled door to his own +house;—in a word, which shall lead to 'advancement in life';—<I>this</I> +we pray for on bent knees—and this is <I>all</I> we pray for." It never +seems to occur to the parents that there may be an education which, in +itself, <I>is</I> advancement in Life;—that any other than that may perhaps +be advancement in Death; and that this essential education might be +more easily got, or given, than they fancy, if they set about it in the +right way; while it is for no price, and by no favor, to be got, if +they set about it in the wrong. +</P> + +<P> +3. Indeed, among the ideas most prevalent and effective in the mind of +this busiest of countries, I suppose the first—at least that which is +confessed with the greatest frankness, and put forward as the fittest +stimulus to youthful exertion—is this of "Advancement in Life." May I +ask you to consider with me what this idea practically includes, and +what it should include? +</P> + +<P> +Practically, then, at present, "advancement in life" means, becoming +conspicuous in life;—obtaining a position which shall be acknowledged +by others to be respectable or honorable. We do not understand by this +advancement in general, the mere making of money, but the being known +to have made it; not the accomplishment of any great aim, but the being +seen to have accomplished it. In a word, we mean the gratification of +our thirst for applause. That thirst, if the last infirmity of noble +minds, is also the first infirmity of weak ones; and, on the whole, the +strongest impulsive influence of average humanity: the greatest efforts +of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise, as its +greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +4. I am not about to attack or defend this impulse. I want you only +to feel how it lies at the root of effort; especially of all modern +effort. It is the gratification of vanity which is, with us, the +stimulus of toil, and balm of repose; so closely does it touch the very +springs of life that the wounding of our vanity is always spoken of +(and truly) as in its measure <I>mortal</I>; we call it "mortification," +using the same expression which we should apply to a gangrenous and +incurable bodily hurt. And although few of us may be physicians enough +to recognize the various effect of this passion upon health and energy, +I believe most honest men know, and would at once acknowledge, its +leading power with them as a motive. The seaman does not commonly +desire to be made captain only because he knows he can manage the ship +better than any other sailor on board. He wants to be made captain +that he may be <I>called</I> captain. The clergyman does not usually want +to be made a bishop only because he believes no other hand can, as +firmly as his, direct the diocese through its difficulties. He wants +to be made bishop primarily that he may be called "My Lord." And a +prince does not usually desire to enlarge, or a subject to gain, a +kingdom, because he believes that no one else can as well serve the +State, upon its throne; but, briefly, because he wishes to be addressed +as "Your Majesty," by as many lips as may be brought to such utterance. +</P> + +<P> +5. This, then, being the main idea of "advancement in life," the force +of it applies, for all of us, according to our station, particularly to +that secondary result of such advancement which we call "getting into +good society." We want to get into good society, not that we may have +it, but that we may be seen in it; and our notion of its goodness +depends primarily on its conspicuousness. +</P> + +<P> +Will you pardon me if I pause for a moment to put what I fear you may +think an impertinent question? I never can go on with an address +unless I feel, or know, that my audience are either with me or against +me: I do not much care which, in beginning; but I must know where they +are; and I would fain find out, at this instant, whether you think I am +putting the motives of popular action too low. I am resolved, +to-night, to state them low enough to be admitted as probable; for +whenever, in my writings on Political Economy, I assume that a little +honesty, or generosity—or what used to be called "virtue"—may be +calculated upon as a human motive of action, people always answer me, +saying, "You must not calculate on that: that is not in human nature: +you must not assume anything to be common to men but acquisitiveness +and jealousy; no other feeling ever has influence on them, except +accidentally, and in matters out of the way of business." I begin, +accordingly, to-night low in the scale of motives; but I must know if +you think me right in doing so. Therefore, let me ask those who admit +the love of praise to be usually the strongest motive in men's minds in +seeking advancement, and the honest desire of doing any kind of duty to +be an entirely secondary one, to hold up their hands. (<I>About a dozen +of hands held up—the audience, partly not being sure the lecturer is +serious, and, partly, shy of expressing opinion.</I>) I am quite +serious—I really do want to know what you think; however, I can judge +by putting the reverse question. Will those who think that duty is +generally the first, and love of praise the second, motive, hold up +their hands? (<I>One hand reported to have been held up, behind the +lecturer.</I>) Very good; I see you are with me, and that you think I +have not begun too near the ground. Now, without teasing you by +putting farther question, I venture to assume that you will admit duty +as at least a secondary or tertiary motive. You think that the desire +of doing something useful, or obtaining some real good, is indeed an +existent collateral idea, though a secondary one, in most men's desire +of advancement. You will grant that moderately honest men desire place +and office, at least in some measure, for the sake of beneficent power; +and would wish to associate rather with sensible and well-informed +persons than with fools and ignorant persons, whether they are seen in +the company of the sensible ones or not. And finally, without being +troubled by repetition of any common truisms about the preciousness of +friends, and the influence of companions, you will admit, doubtless +that according to the sincerity of our desire that our friends may be +true, and our companions wise,—and in proportion to the earnestness +and discretion with which we choose both, will be the general chances +of our happiness and usefulness. +</P> + +<P> +6. But, granting that we had both the will and the sense to choose our +friends well, how few of us have the power! or, at least, how limited, +for most, is the sphere of choice! Nearly all our associations are +determined by chance, or necessity; and restricted within a narrow +circle. We cannot know whom we would; and those whom we know, we +cannot have at our side when we most need them. All the higher circles +of human intelligence are, to those beneath, only momentarily and +partially open. We may, by good fortune, obtain a glimpse of a great +poet, and hear the sound of his voice; or put a question to a man of +science, and be answered good-humoredly. We may intrude ten minutes' +talk on a cabinet minister, answered probably with words worse than +silence, being deceptive; or snatch, once or twice in our lives, the +privilege of throwing a bouquet in the path of a Princess, or arresting +the kind glance of a Queen. And yet these momentary chances we covet; +and spend our years, and passions, and powers in pursuit of little more +than these; while, meantime, there is a society continually open to us, +of people who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever our rank or +occupation;—talk to us in the best words they can choose, and of the +things nearest their hearts. And this society, because it is so +numerous and so gentle, and can be kept waiting round us all day +long,—kings and statesmen lingering patiently, not to grant audience, +but to gain it!—in those plainly furnished and narrow anterooms, our +bookcase shelves,—we make no account of that company,—perhaps never +listen to a word they would say, all day long! +</P> + +<P> +7. You may tell me, perhaps, or think within yourselves, that the +apathy with which we regard this company of the noble, who are praying +us to listen to them; and the passion with which we pursue the company, +probably of the ignoble who despise us, or who have nothing to teach +us, are grounded in this,—that we can see the faces of the living men, +and it is themselves, and not their sayings, with which we desire to +become familiar. But it is not so. Suppose you never were to see +their faces;—suppose you could be put behind a screen in the +statesman's cabinet, or the prince's chamber, would you not be glad to +listen to their words, though you were forbidden to advance beyond the +screen? And when the screen is only a little less, folded in two +instead of four, and you can be hidden behind the cover of the two +boards that bind a book, and listen all day long, not to the casual +talk, but to the studied, determined, chosen addresses of the wisest of +men;—this station of audience, and honorable privy council, you +despise! +</P> + +<P> +8. But perhaps you will say that it is because the living people talk +of things that are passing, and are of immediate interest to you, that +you desire to hear them. Nay; that cannot be so, for the living people +will themselves tell you about passing matters, much better in their +writings than in their careless talk. But I admit that this motive +does influence you, so far as you prefer those rapid and ephemeral +writings to slow and enduring writings,—books, properly so called. +For all books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, +and the books of all time. Mark this distinction—it is not one of +quality only. It is not merely the bad book that does not last, and +the good one that does. It is a distinction of species. There are +good books for the hour, and good ones for all time; bad books for the +hour, and bad ones for all time. I must define the two kinds before I +go farther. +</P> + +<P> +9. The good book of the hour, then,—I do not speak of the bad +ones,—is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you +cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, +telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible +friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; +good-humored and witty discussions of question; lively or pathetic +story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real +agents concerned in the events of passing history;—all these books of +the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a +peculiar possession of the present age; we ought to be entirely +thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good +use of them. But we make the worst possible use if we allow them to +usurp the place of true books: for strictly speaking, they are not +books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our +friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, to-day: whether worth +keeping or not, is to be considered. The newspaper may be entirely +proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. +So, though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so +pleasant an account of the inns, and roads, and weather last year at +such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the +real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for +occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a +"book" at all, nor in the real sense, to be "read." A book is +essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written, not +with the view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of +talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of +people at once; if he could, he would—the volume is mere +<I>multiplication</I> of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in +India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere +<I>conveyance</I> of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the +voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The author +has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or +helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so +far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, +clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum +of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest +to him;—this, the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share +of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it +down forever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "This is the +best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved, and +hated, like another; my life was as the vapor and is not; but this I +saw and knew: this if anything of mine, is worth your memory." That is +his "writing"; it is, in his small human way and with whatever degree +of true inspiration is in him his inscription, or scripture. That is a +"Book." +</P> + +<P> +10. Perhaps you think no books were ever so written. But, again, I +ask you, do you at all believe in honesty, or at all in kindness? or do +you think there is never any honesty or benevolence in wise people? +None of us, I hope, are so unhappy as to think that. Well, whatever +bit of a wise man's work is honestly and benevolently done, that bit is +his book, or his piece of art.[2] It is mixed always with evil +fragments—ill-done, redundant, affected work. But if you read +rightly, you will easily discover the true bits, and those <I>are</I> the +book. +</P> + +<P> +11. Now books of this kind have been written in all ages by their +greatest men:—by great readers, great statesmen, and great thinkers. +These are all at your choice; and Life is short. You have heard as +much before;—yet have you measured and mapped out this short life and +its possibilities? Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot read +that—that what you lose to-day you cannot gain to-morrow? Will you go +and gossip with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you may talk +with queens and kings; or flatter yourselves that it is with any worthy +consciousness of your own claims to respect that you jostle with the +hungry and common crowd for <I>entrée</I> here, and audience there, when all +the while this eternal court is open to you, with its society, wide as +the world, multitudinous as its days, the chosen, and the mighty, of +every place and time? Into that you may enter always; in that you may +take fellowship and rank according to your wish; from that, once +entered into it, you can never be outcast but by your own fault; by +your aristocracy of companionship there, your own inherent aristocracy +will be assuredly tested, and the motives with which you strive to take +high place in the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth +and sincerity that are in them, by the place you desire to take in this +company of the Dead. +</P> + +<P> +12. "The place you desire," and the place you <I>fit yourself for</I>, I +must also say; because, observe, this court of the past differs from +all living aristocracy in this:—it is open to labor and to merit, but +to nothing else. No wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no artifice +deceive, the guardian of those Elysian gates. In the deep sense, no +vile or vulgar person ever enters there. At the portičres of that +silent Faubourg St. Germain, there is but brief question, Do you +deserve to enter? Pass. Do you ask to be the companion of nobles? +Make yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the +conversation of the wise? Learn to understand it, and you shall hear +it. But on other terms?—no. If you will not rise to us, we cannot +stoop to you. The living lord may assume courtesy, the living +philosopher explain his thought to you with considerate pain; but here +we neither feign nor interpret; you must rise to the level of our +thoughts if you would be gladdened by them, and share our feelings, if +you would recognize our presence. +</P> + +<P> +13. This, then, is what you have to do, and I admit that it is much. +You must, in a word, love these people, if you are to be among them. +No ambition is of any use. They scorn your ambition. You must love +them, and show your love in these two following ways: +</P> + +<P> +I.—First, by a true desire to be taught by them, and to enter into +their thoughts. To enter into theirs, observe; not to find your own +expressed by them. If the person who wrote the book is not wiser than +you, you need not read it; if he be, he will think differently from you +in many respects. +</P> + +<P> +Very ready we are to say of a book, "How good this is—that's exactly +what I think!" But the right feeling is, "How strange that is! I +never thought of that before, and yet I see it is true; or if I do not +now, I hope I shall, some day." But whether thus submissively or not, +at least be sure that you go to the author to get at <I>his</I> meaning, not +to find yours. Judge it afterwards, if you think yourself qualified to +do so; but ascertain it first. And be sure also, if the author is +worth anything, that you will not get at his meaning all at once;—nay, +that at his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive in any +wise. Not that he does not say what he means, and in strong words too; +but he cannot say it all; and what is more strange, <I>will</I> not, but in +a hidden way and in parables, in order that he may be sure you want it. +I cannot quite see the reason of this, nor analyze that cruel reticence +in the breasts of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper +thought. They do not give it to you by way of help, but of reward; and +will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to +reach it. But it is the same with the physical type of wisdom, gold. +There seems, to you and me, no reason why the electric forces of the +earth should not carry whatever there is of gold within it at once to +the mountain tops, so that kings and people might know that all the +gold they could get was there; and without any trouble of digging, or +anxiety, or chance, or waste of time, cut it away, and coin as much as +they needed. But Nature does not manage it so. She puts it in little +fissures in the earth, nobody knows where: you may dig long and find +none; you must dig painfully to find any. +</P> + +<P> +14. And it is just the same with men's best wisdom. When you come to +a good book, you must ask yourself, "Am I inclined to work as an +Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and +am I in good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my +breath good, and my temper?" And, keeping the figure a little longer, +even at the cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, +the metal you are in search of being the author's mind or meaning, his +words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get +at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit, and learning; your +smelting-furnace is your own thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at +any good author's meaning without those tools and that fire; often you +will need sharpest, finest chiseling, and patientest fusing, before you +can gather one grain of the metal. +</P> + +<P> +15. And therefore, first of all, I tell you, earnestly and +authoritatively (I <I>know</I> I am right in this), you must get into the +habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their +meaning, syllable by syllable—nay letter by letter. For though it is +only by reason of the opposition of letters in the function of signs, +to sounds in the function of signs, that the study of books is called +"literature," and that a man versed in it is called, by the consent of +nations, a man of letters instead of a man of books, or of words, you +may yet connect with that accidental nomenclature this real fact;—that +you might read all the books in the British Museum (if you could live +long enough) and remain an utterly "illiterate," uneducated person; but +that if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter,—that is +to say, with real accuracy,—you are forevermore in some measure an +educated person. The entire difference between education and +non-education (as regards the merely intellectual part of it) consists +in this accuracy. A well-educated gentleman may not know many +languages,—may not be able to speak any but his own,—may have read +very few books. But whatever language he knows, he knows precisely; +whatever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly; above all, he is +learned in the <I>peerage</I> of words; knows the words of true descent and +ancient blood at a glance, from words of modern canaille; remembers all +their ancestry, their inter-marriages, distant relationships, and the +extent to which they were admitted, and offices they held, among the +national noblesse of words at any time, and in any country. But an +uneducated person may know, by memory, many languages, and talk them +all, and yet truly know not a word of any,—not a word even of his own. +An ordinarily clever and sensible seaman will be able to make his way +ashore at most ports; yet he has only to speak a sentence of any +language to be known for an illiterate person: so also the accent, or +turn of expression of a single sentence, will at once mark a scholar. +And this is so strongly felt, so conclusively admitted by educated +persons, that a false accent or a mistaken syllable is enough, in the +parliament of any civilized nation, to assign to a man a certain degree +of inferior standing forever. +</P> + +<P> +16. And this is right; but it is a pity that the accuracy insisted on +is not greater, and required to a serious purpose. It is right that a +false Latin quantity should excite a smile in the House of Commons: but +it is wrong that a false English <I>meaning</I> should <I>not</I> excite a frown +there. Let the accent of words be watched; and closely: let their +meaning be watched more closely still, and fewer will do the work. A +few words well chosen and distinguished, will do work that a thousand +cannot, when every one is acting, equivocally, in the function of +another. Yes; and words, if they are not watched, will do deadly work +sometimes. There are masked words droning and skulking about us in +Europe just now,—(there never were so many, owing to the spread of a +shallow, blotching, blundering, infectious "information," or rather +deformation, everywhere, and to the teaching of catechisms and phrases +at schools instead of human meanings)—there are masked words abroad, I +say, which nobody understands, but which everybody uses, and most +people will also fight for, live for, or even die for, fancying they +mean this or that, or the other, of things dear to them: for such words +wear chameleon cloaks—"groundlion" cloaks, of the color of the ground +of any man's fancy: on that ground they lie in wait, and rend him with +a spring from it. There never were creatures of prey so mischievous, +never diplomatists so cunning, never poisoners so deadly, as these +masked words; they are the unjust stewards of all men's ideas: whatever +fancy or favorite instinct a man most cherishes, he gives to his +favorite masked word to take care of for him; the word at last comes to +have an infinite power over him,—you cannot get at him but by its +ministry. +</P> + +<P> +17. And in languages so mongrel in breed as the English, there is a +fatal power of equivocation put into men's hands, almost whether they +will or no, in being able to use Greek or Latin words for an idea when +they want it to be awful; and Saxon or otherwise common words when they +want it to be vulgar. What a singular and salutary effect, for +instance, would be produced on the minds of people who are in the habit +of taking the Form of the "Word" they live by, for the Power of which +that Word tells them, if we always either retained, or refused, the +Greek form "biblos," or "biblion," as the right expression for +"book"—instead of employing it only in the one instance in which we +wish to give dignity to the idea, and translating it into English +everywhere else. How wholesome it would be for many simple persons, +if, in such places (for instance) as Acts xix. 19, we retained the +Greek expression, instead of translating it, and they had to +read—"Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their bibles +together, and burnt them before all men; and they counted the price of +them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver!" Or, if, on the +other hand, we translated where we retain it, and always spoke of "The +Holy Book," instead of "Holy Bible," it might come into more heads than +it does at present, that the Word of God, by which the heavens were, of +old, and by which they are now kept in store,[3] cannot be made a +present of to anybody in morocco binding; nor sown on any wayside by +help either of steam plough or steam press; but is nevertheless being +offered to us daily, and by us with contumely refused; and sown in us +daily, and by us, as instantly as may be, choked. +</P> + +<P> +18. So, again, consider what effect has been produced on the English +vulgar mind by the use of the sonorous Latin form "damno," in +translating the Greek <I>chatachrino</I>, when people charitably wish to +make it forcible; and the substitution of the temperate "condemn" for +it, when they choose to keep it gentle; and what notable sermons have +been preached by illiterate clergymen on—"He that believeth not shall +be damned"; though they would shrink with horror from translating Heb. +xi. 7, "The saving of his house, by which he damned the world"; or John +viii. 10, 11, "Woman, hath no man damned thee? She saith, No man, +Lord. Jesus answered her, Neither do I damn thee; go and sin no more." +And divisions in the mind of Europe, which have cost seas of blood and +in the defense of which the noblest souls of men have been cast away in +frantic desolation, countless as forest leaves—though, in the heart of +them, founded on deeper causes—have nevertheless been rendered +practicably possible, namely, by the European adoption of the Greek +word for a public meeting, "ecclesia," to give peculiar respectability +to such meetings, when held for religious purposes; and other +collateral equivocations, such as the vulgar English one of using the +word "priest" as a contraction for "presbyter." +</P> + +<P> +19. Now, in order to deal with words rightly, this is the habit you +must form. Nearly every word in your language has been first a word of +some other language—of Saxon, German, French, Latin, or Greek (not to +speak of eastern and primitive dialects). And many words have been all +these;—that is to say, have been Greek first, Latin next, French and +German next, and English last: undergoing a certain change of sense and +use on the lips of each nation; but retaining a deep vital meaning, +which all good scholars feel in employing them, even at this day. If +you do not know the Greek alphabet, learn it; young or old—girl or +boy—whoever you may be, if you think of reading seriously (which, of +course, implies that you have some leisure at command), learn your +Greek alphabet; then get good dictionaries of all these languages, and +whenever you are in doubt about a word, hunt it down patiently. Read +Max Müller's lectures thoroughly, to begin with; and, after that, never +let a word escape you that looks suspicious. It is severe work; but +you will find it, even at first, interesting, and at last, endlessly +amusing. And the general gain to your character, in power and +precision, will be quite incalculable. +</P> + +<P> +Mind, this does not imply knowing, or trying to know, Greek or Latin, +or French. It takes a whole life to learn any language perfectly. But +you can easily ascertain the meanings through which the English word +has passed; and those which in a good writer's work it must still bear. +</P> + +<P> +20. And now, merely for example's sake, I will, with your permission, +read a few lines of a true book with you, carefully; and see what will +come out of them. I will take a book perfectly known to you all. No +English words are more familiar to us, yet few perhaps have been read +with less sincerity. I will take these few following lines of Lycidas: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Last came, and last did go,<BR> +The pilot of the Galilean lake;<BR> +Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,<BR> +(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain),<BR> +He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake,<BR> +'How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain,<BR> +Enow of such as for their bellies' sake<BR> +Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!<BR> +Of other care they little reckoning make,<BR> +Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,<BR> +And shove away the worthy bidden guest;<BR> +Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold<BR> +A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else, the least<BR> +That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs!<BR> +What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;<BR> +And when they list, their lean and flashy songs<BR> +Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;<BR> +The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,<BR> +But, swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,<BR> +Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;<BR> +Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw<BR> +Daily devours apace, and nothing said.'"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Let us think over this passage, and examine its words. +</P> + +<P> +First, is it not singular to find Milton assigning to St. Peter, not +only his full episcopal function, but the very types of it which +Protestants usually refuse most passionately? His "mitred" locks! +Milton was no Bishop-lover; how comes St. Peter to be "mitred"? "Two +massy keys he bore." Is this, then, the power of the keys claimed by +the Bishops of Rome, and is it acknowledged here by Milton only in a +poetical license, for the sake of its picturesqueness, that he may get +the gleam of the golden keys to help his effect? Do not think it. +Great men do not play stage tricks with doctrines of life and death: +only little men do that. Milton means what he says; and means it with +his might too—is going to put the whole strength of his spirit +presently into the saying of it. For though not a lover of false +bishops, he <I>was</I> a lover of true ones; and the Lake-pilot is here, in +his thoughts, the type and head of true episcopal power. For Milton +reads that text, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of +Heaven" quite honestly. Puritan though he be, he would not blot it out +of the book because there have been bad bishops; nay, in order to +understand <I>him</I>, we must understand that verse first; it will not do +to eye it askance, or whisper it under our breath, as if it were a +weapon of an adverse sect. It is a solemn, universal assertion, deeply +to be kept in mind by all sects. But perhaps we shall be better able +to reason on it if we go on a little farther, and come back to it. For +clearly this marked insistence on the power of the true episcopate is +to make us feel more weightily what is to be charged against the false +claimants of episcopate; or generally, against false claimants of power +and rank in the body of the clergy; they who, "for their bellies' sake, +creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold." +</P> + +<P> +21. Never think Milton uses those three words to fill up his verse, as +a loose writer would. He needs all the three; specially those three, +and no more than those—"creep," and "intrude," and "climb"; no other +words would or could serve the turn, and no more could be added. For +they exhaustively comprehend the three classes, correspondent to the +three characters, of men who dishonestly seek ecclesiastical power. +First, those who "<I>creep</I>" into the fold: who do not care for office, +nor name, but for secret influence, and do all things occultly and +cunningly, consenting to any servility of office or conduct, so only +that they may intimately discern, and unawares direct, the minds of +men. Then those who "intrude" (thrust, that is) themselves into the +fold, who by natural insolence of heart, and stout eloquence of tongue, +and fearlessly perseverant self-assertion, obtain hearing and authority +with the common crowd. Lastly, those who "climb," who by labor and +learning, both stout and sound, but selfishly exerted in the cause of +their own ambition, gain high dignities and authorities, and become +"lords over the heritage," though not "ensamples to the flock." +</P> + +<P> +22. Now go on:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Of other care they little reckoning make,<BR> +Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast.<BR> +<I>Blind mouths</I>—"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +I pause again, for this is a strange expression; a broken metaphor, one +might think, careless and unscholarly. +</P> + +<P> +Not so: its very audacity and pithiness are intended to make us look +close at the phrase and remember it. Those two monosyllables express +the precisely accurate contraries of right character, in the two great +offices of the Church—those of bishop and pastor. +</P> + +<P> +A "Bishop" means a "person who sees." +</P> + +<P> +A "Pastor" means a "person who feeds." +</P> + +<P> +The most unbishoply character a man can have is therefore to be Blind. +</P> + +<P> +The most unpastoral is, instead of feeding, to want to be fed,—to be a +Mouth. +</P> + +<P> +Take the two reverses together, and you have "blind mouths." We may +advisably follow out this idea a little. Nearly all the evils in the +Church have arisen from bishops desiring <I>power</I> more than <I>light</I>. +They want authority, not outlook. Whereas their real office is not to +rule; though it may be vigorously to exhort and rebuke; it is the +king's office to rule; the bishop's office is to <I>oversee</I> the flock; +to number it, sheep by sheep; to be ready always to give full account +of it. Now it is clear he cannot give account of the souls, if he has +not so much as numbered the bodies of his flock. The first thing, +therefore, that a bishop has to do is at least to put himself in a +position in which, at any moment, he can obtain the history, from +childhood, of every living soul in his diocese, and of its present +state. Down in that back street, Bill and Nancy, knocking each other's +teeth out!—Does the bishop know all about it? Has he his eye upon +them? Has he <I>had</I> his eye upon them? Can he circumstantially explain +to us how Bill got into the habit of beating Nancy about the head? If +he cannot, he is no bishop, though he had a mitre as high as Salisbury +steeple; he is no bishop,—he has sought to be at the helm instead of +the masthead; he has no sight of things. "Nay," you say, "it is not +his duty to look after Bill in the back street." What! the fat sheep +that have full fleeces—you think it is only those he should look +after, while (go back to your Milton) "the hungry sheep look up, and +are not fed, besides what the grim wolf with privy paw" (bishops +knowing nothing about it) "daily devours apace, and nothing said"? +</P> + +<P> +"But that's not our idea of a bishop." [4] Perhaps not; but it was St. +Paul's; and it was Milton's. They may be right, or we may be; but we +must not think we are reading either one or the other by putting our +meaning into their words. +</P> + +<P> +23. I go on. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"But, swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This is to meet the vulgar answer that "if the poor are not looked +after in their bodies, they are in their souls; they have spiritual +food." +</P> + +<P> +And Milton says, "They have no such thing as spiritual food; they are +only swollen with wind." At first you may think that is a coarse type, +and an obscure one. But again, it is a quite literally accurate one. +Take up your Latin and Greek dictionaries, and find out the meaning of +"Spirit." It is only a contraction of the Latin word "breath," and an +indistinct translation of the Greek word for "wind." The same word is +used in writing, "The wind bloweth where it listeth"; and in writing, +"So is every one that is born of the Spirit"; born of the <I>breath</I>, +that is; for it means the breath of God, in soul and body. We have the +true sense of it in our words "inspiration" and "expire." Now, there +are two kinds of breath with which the flock may be filled; God's +breath, and man's. The breath of God is health, and life, and peace to +them, as the air of heaven is to the flocks on the hills; but man's +breath—the word which <I>he</I> calls spiritual,—is disease and contagion +to them, as the fog of the fen. They rot inwardly with it; they are +puffed up by it, as a dead body by the vapors of its own decomposition. +This is literally true of all false religious teaching; the first and +last, and fatalest sign of it is that "puffing up." Your converted +children, who teach their parents; your converted convicts, who teach +honest men; your converted dunces, who, having lived in cretinous +stupefaction half their lives, suddenly awakening to the fact of there +being a God, fancy themselves therefore His peculiar people and +messengers; your sectarians of every species, small and great, Catholic +or Protestant, of high church or low, in so far as they think +themselves exclusively in the right and others wrong; and preėminently, +in every sect, those who hold that men can be saved by thinking rightly +instead of doing rightly, by word instead of act, and wish instead of +work:—these are the true fog children—clouds, these, without water; +bodies, these, of putrescent vapor and skin, without blood or flesh: +blown bag-pipes for the fiends to pipe with—corrupt, and +corrupting,—"Swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw." +</P> + +<P> +24. Lastly, let us return to the lines respecting the power of the +keys, for now we can understand them. Note the difference between +Milton and Dante in their interpretation of this power: for once, the +latter is weaker in thought; he supposes <I>both</I> the keys to be of the +gate of heaven; one is of gold, the other of silver: they are given by +St. Peter to the sentinel angel; and it is not easy to determine the +meaning either of the substances of the three steps of the gate, or of +the two keys. But Milton makes one, of gold, the key of heaven; the +other, of iron, the key of the prison in which the wicked teachers are +to be bound who "have taken away the key of knowledge, yet entered not +in themselves." +</P> + +<P> +We have seen that the duties of bishop and pastor are to see and feed; +and, of all who do so it is said, "He that watereth, shall be watered +also himself." But the reverse is truth also. He that watereth not, +shall be <I>withered</I> himself, and he that seeth not, shall himself be +shut out of sight,—shut into the perpetual prison-house. And that +prison opens here, as well as hereafter: he who is to be bound in +heaven must first be bound on earth. That command to the strong +angels, of which the rock-apostle is the image, "Take him, and bind him +hand and foot, and cast him out," issues, in its measure, against the +teacher, for every help withheld, and for every truth refused, and for +every falsehood enforced; so that he is more strictly fettered the more +he fetters, and farther outcast, as he more and more misleads, till at +last the bars of the iron cage close upon him, and as "the golden opes, +the iron shuts amain." +</P> + +<P> +25. We have got something out of the lines, I think, and much more is +yet to be found in them; but we have done enough by way of example of +the kind of word-by-word examination of your author which is rightly +called "reading"; watching every accent and expression, and putting +ourselves always in the author's place, annihilating our own +personality, and seeking to enter into his, so as to be able assuredly +to say, "Thus Milton thought," not "Thus <I>I</I> thought, in mis-reading +Milton." And by this process you will gradually come to attach less +weight to your own "Thus I thought" at other times. You will begin to +perceive that what you thought was a matter of no serious +importance;—that your thoughts on any subject are not perhaps the +clearest and wisest that could be arrived at thereupon:—in fact, that +unless you are a very singular person, you cannot be said to have any +"thoughts" at all; that you have no materials for them, in any serious +matters;[5]—no right to "think," but only to try to learn more of the +facts. Nay, most probably all your life (unless, as I said, you are a +singular person) you will have no legitimate right to an "opinion" on +any business, except that instantly under your hand. What must of +necessity be done, you can always find out, beyond question, how to do. +Have you a house to keep in order, a commodity to sell, a field to +plough, a ditch to cleanse. There need be no two opinions about these +proceedings; it is at your peril if you have not much more than an +"opinion" on the way to manage such matters. And also, outside of your +own business, there are one or two subjects on which you are bound to +have but one opinion. That roguery and lying are objectionable, and +are instantly to be flogged out of the way whenever discovered;—that +covetousness and love of quarreling are dangerous dispositions even in +children, and deadly dispositions in men and nations;—that in the end, +the God of heaven and earth loves active, modest, and kind people, and +hates idle, proud, greedy, and cruel ones;—on these general facts you +are bound to have but one and that a very strong, opinion. For the +rest, respecting religions, governments, sciences, arts, you will find +that, on the whole, you can know NOTHING,—judge nothing; that the best +you can do, even though you may be a well-educated person, is to be +silent, and strive to be wiser every day, and to understand a little +more of the thoughts of others, which so soon as you try to do +honestly, you will discover that the thoughts even of the wisest are +very little more than pertinent questions. To put the difficulty into +a clear shape, and exhibit to you the grounds for <I>in</I>decision, that is +all they can generally do for you!—and well for them and for us, if +indeed they are able "to mix the music with our thoughts, and sadden us +with heavenly doubts." This writer, from whom I have been reading to +you, is not among the first or wisest: he sees shrewdly as far as he +sees, and therefore it is easy to find out his full meaning; but with +the greater men, you cannot fathom their meaning; they do not even +wholly measure it themselves,—it is so wide. Suppose I had asked you, +for instance, to seek for Shakespeare's opinion, instead of Milton's, +on this matter of Church authority?—or for Dante's? Have any of you, +at this instant, the least idea what either thought about it? Have you +ever balanced the scene with the bishops in Richard III. against the +character of Cranmer? the description of St. Francis and St. Dominic +against that of him who made Virgil wonder to gaze upon him,—"disteso, +tanto vilmente, nell' eterno esilio"; or of him whom Dante stood +beside, "come 'l frate che confessa lo perfido assassin?" [6] +Shakespeare and Alighieri knew men better than most of us, I presume! +They were both in the midst of the main struggle between the temporal +and spiritual powers. They had an opinion, we may guess. But where is +it? Bring it into court! Put Shakespeare's or Dante's creed into +articles, and send it up for trial by the Ecclesiastical Courts! +</P> + +<P> +26. You will not be able, I tell you again, for many and many a day, +to come at the real purposes and teaching of these great men; but a +very little honest study of them will enable you to perceive that what +you took for your own "judgment" was mere chance prejudice, and +drifted, helpless, entangled weed of castaway thought: nay, you will +see that most men's minds are indeed little better than rough heath +wilderness, neglected and stubborn, partly barren, partly overgrown +with pestilent brakes, and venomous, wind-sown herbage of evil surmise; +that the first thing you have to do for them, and yourself, is eagerly +and scornfully to set fire to <I>this</I>; burn all the jungle into +wholesome ash heaps, and then plough and sow. All the true literary +work before you, for life, must begin with obedience to that order, +"Break up your fallow ground, and <I>sow not among thorns</I>." +</P> + +<P> +27. II.[7]—Having then faithfully listened to the great teachers, +that you may enter into their Thoughts, you have yet this higher +advance to make;—you have to enter into their Hearts. As you go to +them first for clear sight, so you must stay with them, that you may +share at last their just and mighty Passion. Passion, or "sensation." +I am not afraid of the word; still less of the thing. You have heard +many outcries against sensation lately; but, I can tell you, it is not +less sensation we want, but more. The ennobling difference between one +man and another,—between one animal and another,—is precisely in +this, that one feels more than another. If we were sponges, perhaps +sensation might not be easily got for us; if we were earth-worms, +liable at every instant to be cut in two by the spade, perhaps too much +sensation might not be good for us. But, being human creatures, <I>it +is</I> good for us; nay, we are only human in so far as we are sensitive, +and our honor is precisely in proportion to our passion. +</P> + +<P> +28. You know I said of that great and pure society of the dead, that +it would allow "no vain or vulgar person to enter there." What do you +think I meant by a "vulgar" person? What do you yourselves mean by +"vulgarity"? You will find it a fruitful subject of thought; but, +briefly, the essence of all vulgarity lies in want of sensation. +Simple and innocent vulgarity is merely an untrained and undeveloped +bluntness of body and mind; but in true inbred vulgarity, there is a +deathful callousness, which, in extremity, becomes capable of every +sort of bestial habit and crime, without fear, without pleasure, +without horror, and without pity. It is in the blunt hand and the dead +heart, in the diseased habit, in the hardened conscience, that men +become vulgar; they are forever vulgar, precisely in proportion as they +are incapable of sympathy,—of quick understanding,—of all that, in +deep insistence on the common, but most accurate term, may be called +the "tact" or "touch-faculty" of body and soul; that tact which the +Mimosa has in trees, which the pure woman has above all +creatures;—fineness and fullness of sensation beyond reason;—the +guide and sanctifier of reason itself. Reason can but determine what +is true:—it is the God-given passion of humanity which alone can +recognize what God has made good. +</P> + +<P> +29. We come then to the great concourse of the Dead, not merely to +know from them what is True, but chiefly to feel with them what is +just. Now, to feel with them, we must be like them: and none of us can +become that without pains. As the true knowledge is disciplined and +tested knowledge,—not the first thought that comes,—so the true +passion is disciplined and tested passion,—not the first passion that +comes. The first that come are the vain, the false, the treacherous; +if you yield to them they will lead you wildly and far in vain pursuit, +in hollow enthusiasm, till you have no true purpose and no true passion +left. Not that any feeling possible to humanity is in itself wrong, +but only wrong when undisciplined. Its nobility is in its force and +justice; it is wrong when it is weak, and felt for paltry cause. There +is a mean wonder, as of a child who sees a juggler tossing golden +balls, and this is base, if you will. But do you think that the wonder +is ignoble, or the sensation less, with which every human soul is +called to watch the golden balls of heaven tossed through the night by +the Hand that made them? There is a mean curiosity, as of a child +opening a forbidden door, or a servant prying into her master's +business;—and a noble curiosity, questioning, in the front of danger, +the source of the great river beyond the sand,—the place of the great +continents beyond the sea;—a nobler curiosity still, which questions +of the source of the River of Life, and of the space of the Continent +of Heaven,—things which "the angels desire to look into." So the +anxiety is ignoble, with which you linger over the course and +catastrophe of an idle tale; but do you think the anxiety is less, or +greater, with which you watch, or <I>ought</I> to watch, the dealings of +fate and destiny with the life of an agonized nation? Alas! it is the +narrowness, selfishness, minuteness, of your sensation that you have to +deplore in England at this day;—sensation which spends itself in +bouquets and speeches; in revelings and junketings; in sham fights and +gay puppet shows, while you can look on and see noble nations murdered, +man by man, without an effort or a tear. +</P> + +<P> +30. I said "minuteness" and "selfishness" of sensation, but in a word, +I ought to have said "injustice" or "unrighteousness" of sensation. +For as in nothing is a gentleman better to be discerned from a vulgar +person, so in nothing is a gentle nation (such nations have been) +better to be discerned from a mob, than in this,—that their feelings +are constant and just, results of due contemplation, and of equal +thought. You can talk a mob into anything; its feelings may +be—usually are—on the whole, generous and right; but it has no +foundation for them, no hold of them; you may tease or tickle it into +any, at your pleasure; it thinks by infection, for the most part, +catching an opinion like a cold, and there is nothing so little that it +will not roar itself wild about, when the fit is on;—nothing so great +but it will forget in an hour, when the fit is past. But a gentleman's +or a gentle nation's, passions are just, measured and continuous. A +great nation, for instance, does not spend its entire national wits for +a couple of months in weighing evidence of a single ruffian's having +done a single murder; and for a couple of years see its own children +murder each other by their thousands or tens of thousands a day, +considering only what the effect is likely to be on the price of +cotton, and caring nowise to determine which side of battle is in the +wrong. Neither does a great nation send its poor little boys to jail +for stealing six walnuts; and allow its bankrupts to steal their +hundreds or thousands with a bow, and its bankers, rich with poor men's +savings, to close their doors "under circumstances over which they have +no control," with a "by your leave"; and large landed estates to be +bought by men who have made their money by going with armed steamers up +and down the China Seas, selling opium at the cannon's mouth, and +altering, for the benefit of the foreign nation, the common +highwayman's demand of "your money <I>or</I> your life," into that of "your +money <I>and</I> your life." Neither does a great nation allow the lives of +its innocent poor to be parched out of them by fog fever, and rotted +out of them by dunghill plague, for the sake of sixpence a life extra +per week to its landlords;[8] and then debate, with driveling tears, +and diabolical sympathies, whether it ought not piously to save, and +nursingly cherish, the lives of its murderers. Also, a great nation +having made up its mind that hanging is quite the wholesomest process +for its homicides in general, can yet with mercy distinguish between +the degrees of guilt in homicides; and does not yelp like a pack of +frost-pinched wolf-cubs on the blood-track of an unhappy crazed boy, or +gray-haired clodpate Othello, "perplexed i' the extreme," at the very +moment that it is sending a Minister of the Crown to make polite +speeches to a man who is bayoneting young girls in their father's +sight, and killing noble youths in cool blood, faster than a country +butcher kills lambs in spring. And, lastly, a great nation does not +mock Heaven and its Powers, by pretending belief in a revelation whith +asserts the love of money to be the root of all evil, and declaring, at +the same time, that it is actuated, and intends to be actuated, in all +chief national deeds and measures, by no other love. +</P> + +<P> +31. My friends, I do not know why any of us should talk about reading. +We want some sharper discipline than that of reading; but, at all +events, be assured, we cannot read. No reading is possible for a +people with its mind in this state. No sentence of any great writer is +intelligible to them. It is simply and sternly impossible for the +English public, at this moment, to understand any thoughtful +writing,—so incapable of thought has it become in its insanity of +avarice. Happily, our disease is, as yet, little worse than this +incapacity of thought; it is not corruption of the inner nature; we +ring true still, when anything strikes home to us; and though the idea +that everything should "pay" has infected our every purpose so deeply, +that even when we would play the good Samaritan, we never take out our +twopence and give them to the host without saying, "When I come again, +thou shalt give me fourpence," there is a capacity of noble passion +left in our hearts' core. We show it in our work,—in our war,—even +in those unjust domestic affections which make us furious at a small +private wrong, while we are polite to a boundless public one: we are +still industrious to the last hour of the day, though we add the +gambler's fury to the laborer's patience; we are still brave to the +death, though incapable of discerning true cause for battle; and are +still true in affection to our own flesh, to the death, as the +sea-monsters are, and the rock-eagles. And there is hope for a nation +while this can be still said of it. As long as it holds its life in +its hand, ready to give it for its honor (though a foolish honor), for +its love (though a selfish love), and for its business (though a base +business), there is hope for it. But hope only; for this instinctive, +reckless virtue cannot last. No nation can last, which has made a mob +of itself, however generous at heart. It must discipline its passions, +and direct them, or they will discipline <I>it</I>, one day, with scorpion +whips. Above all a nation cannot last as a money-making mob: it cannot +with impunity,—it cannot with existence,—go on despising literature, +despising science, despising art, despising nature, despising +compassion, and concentrating its soul on Pence. Do you think these +are harsh or wild words? Have patience with me but a little longer. I +will prove their truth to you, clause by clause. +</P> + +<P> +32. I.—I say first we have despised literature. What do we, as a +nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on +our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our +horses? If a man spends lavishly on his library you call him mad—a +bibliomaniac. But you never call any one a horse-maniac, though men +ruin themselves every day by their horses, and you do not hear of +people ruining themselves by their books. Or, to go lower still, how +much do you think the contents of the book-shelves of the United +Kingdom, public and private, would fetch, as compared with the contents +of its wine-cellars? What position would its expenditure on literature +take, as compared with its expenditure on luxurious eating? We talk of +food for the mind, as of food for the body; now a good book contains +such food inexhaustibly; it is a provision for life, and for the best +part of us; yet how long most people would look at the best book before +they would give the price of a large turbot for it! though there have +been men who have pinched their stomachs and bared their backs, to buy +a book, whose libraries were cheaper to them, I think, in the end, than +most men's dinners are. We are few of us put to such trial, and more +the pity; for, indeed, a precious thing is all the more precious to us +if it has been won by work or economy; and if public libraries were +half as costly as public dinners, or books cost the tenth part of what +bracelets do, even foolish men and women might sometimes suspect there +was good in reading, as well as in munching and sparkling; whereas the +very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if +a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything +which is not worth <I>much</I>; nor is it serviceable, until it has been +read, and reread, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you +can refer to the passages you want in it as a soldier can seize the +weapon he needs in an armory, or a housewife bring the spice she needs +from her store. Bread of flour is good: but there is bread, sweet as +honey, if we would eat it, in a good book; and the family must be poor +indeed which, once in their lives, cannot, for such multipliable +barley-loaves, pay their baker's bill. We call ourselves a rich +nation, and we are filthy and foolish enough to thumb each other's +books out of circulating libraries! +</P> + +<P> +33. II.—I say we have despised science. "What!" you exclaim, "are we +not foremost in all discovery,[9] and is not the whole world giddy by +reason, or unreason, of our inventions?" Yes; but do you suppose that +is national work? That work is all done <I>in spite of</I> the nation; by +private people's zeal and money. We are glad enough, indeed, to make +our profit of science; we snap up anything in the way of a scientific +bone that has meat on it, eagerly enough; but if the scientific man +comes for a bone or a crust to us, that is another story. What have we +publicly done for science? We are obliged to know what o'clock it is, +for the safety of our ships, and therefore we pay for an observatory; +and we allow ourselves, in the person of our Parliament, to be annually +tormented into doing something, in a slovenly way, for the British +Museum; sullenly apprehending that to be a place for keeping stuffed +birds in, to amuse our children. If anybody will pay for his own +telescope, and resolve another nebula, we cackle over the discernment +as if it were our own; if one in ten thousand of our hunting squires +suddenly perceives that the earth was indeed made to be something else +than a portion for foxes, and burrows in it himself, and tells us where +the gold is, and where the coals, we understand that there is some use +in that; and very properly knight him; but is the accident of his +having found out how to employ himself usefully any credit to us? (The +negation of such discovery among his brother squires may perhaps be +some discredit to us, if we would consider of it.) But if you doubt +these generalities, here is one fact for us all to meditate upon, +illustrative of our love of science. Two years ago there was a +collection of the fossils of Solenhofen to be sold in Bavaria; the best +in existence, containing many specimens unique for perfectness, and +one, unique as an example of a species (a whole kingdom of unknown +living creatures being announced by that fossil). This collection, of +which the mere market worth, among private buyers, would probably have +been some thousand or twelve hundred pounds, was offered to the English +nation for seven hundred; but we would not give seven hundred, and the +whole series would have been in the Munich Museum at this moment, if +Professor Owen[10] had not with loss of his own time, and patient +tormenting of the British public in person of its representatives, got +leave to give four hundred pounds at once, and himself become +answerable for the other three! which the said public will doubtless +pay him eventually, but sulkily, and caring nothing about the matter +all the while; only always ready to cackle if any credit comes of it. +Consider, I beg of you, arithmetically, what this fact means. Your +annual expenditure for public purposes (a third of it for military +apparatus), is at least fifty millions. Now 700L. is to 50,000,000L. +roughly, as seven pence to two thousand pounds. Suppose then, a +gentleman of unknown income, but whose wealth was to be conjectured +from the fact that he spent two thousand a year on his park-walls and +footmen only, professes himself fond of science; and that one of his +servants comes eagerly to tell him that an unique collection of +fossils, giving clue to a new era of creation, is to be had for the sum +of seven pence sterling; and that the gentleman, who is fond of +science, and spends two thousand a year on his park, answers, after +keeping his servant waiting several months, "Well! I'll give you four +pence for them, if you will be answerable for the extra three pence +yourself, till next year!" +</P> + +<P> +34. III.—I say you have despised Art! "What!" you again answer, +"have we not Art exhibitions, miles long? and do we not pay thousands +of pounds for single pictures? and have we not Art schools and +institutions, more than ever nation had before?" Yes, truly, but all +that is for the sake of the shop. You would fain sell canvas as well +as coals, and crockery as well as iron; you would take every other +nation's bread out of its mouth if you could;[11] not being able to do +that, your ideal of life is to stand in the thoroughfares of the world, +like Ludgate apprentices, screaming to every passer-by, "What d'ye +lack?" You know nothing of your own faculties or circumstances; you +fancy that, among your damp, flat fields of clay, you can have as quick +art-fancy as the Frenchman among his bronzed vines, or the Italian +under his volcanic cliffs;—that art may be learned as book-keeping is, +and when learned, will give you more books to keep. You care for +pictures, absolutely, no more than you do for the bills pasted on your +dead walls. There is always room on the walls for the bills to be +read,—never for the pictures to be seen. You do not know what +pictures you have (by repute) in the country, nor whether they are +false or true, nor whether they are taken care of or not; in foreign +countries, you calmly see the noblest existing pictures in the world +rotting in abandoned wreck—(in Venice you saw the Austrian guns +deliberately pointed at the palaces containing them), and if you heard +that all the fine pictures in Europe were made into sand-bags to-morrow +on the Austrian forts, it would not trouble you so much as the chance +of a brace or two of game less in your own bags, in a day's shooting. +That is your national love of Art. +</P> + +<P> +35. IV.—You have despised Nature; that is to say, all the deep and +sacred sensations of natural scenery. The French revolutionists made +stables of the cathedrals of France; you have made race-courses of the +cathedrals of the earth. Your <I>one</I> conception of pleasure is to drive +in railroad carriages round their aisles, and eat off their altars.[12] +You have put a railroad bridge over the fall of Schaffhausen. You have +tunneled the cliffs of Lucerne by Tell's chapel; you have destroyed the +Clarens shore of the Lake of Geneva; there is not a quiet valley in +England that you have not filled with bellowing fire; there is no +particle left of English land which you have not trampled coal ashes +into[13]—nor any foreign city in which the spread of your presence is +not marked among its fair old streets and happy gardens by a consuming +white leprosy of new hotels and perfumers' shops: the Alps themselves, +which your own poets used to love so reverently, you look upon as +soaped poles in a bear-garden, which you set yourselves to climb, and +slide down again with "shrieks of delight." When you are past +shrieking, having no human articulate voice to say you are glad with, +you fill the quietude of their valleys with gunpowder blasts, and rush +home, red with cutaneous eruption of conceit, and voluble with +convulsive hiccough of self-satisfaction. I think nearly the two +sorrowfullest spectacles I have ever seen in humanity, taking the deep +inner significance of them, are the English mobs in the valley of +Chamouni, amusing themselves with firing rusty howitzers; and the Swiss +vintagers of Zurich expressing their Christian thanks for the gift of +the vine, by assembling in knots in the "towers of the vineyards," and +slowly loading and firing horse-pistols from morning till evening. It +is pitiful to have dim conceptions of duty; more pitiful, it seems to +me, to have conceptions like these, of mirth. +</P> + +<P> +36. Lastly. You despise compassion. There is no need of words of +mine for proof of this. I will merely print one of the newspaper +paragraphs which I am in the habit of cutting out and throwing into my +store-drawer; here is one from a <I>Daily Telegraph</I> of an early date +this year (1867) (date which, though by me carelessly left unmarked, is +easily discoverable; for on the back of the slip, there is the +announcement that "yesterday the seventh of the special services of +this year was performed by the Bishop of Ripon in St. Paul's"); it +relates only one of such facts as happen now daily; this, by chance, +having taken a form in which it came before the coroner. I will print +the paragraph in red. Be sure, the facts themselves are written in +that color in a book which we shall all of us, literate or illiterate, +have to read our page of, some day. +</P> + +<P> +"An inquiry was held on Friday by Mr. Richards, deputy coroner, at the +White Horse Tavern, Christ Church, Spitalfields, respecting the death +of Michael Collins, aged 58 years. Mary Collins, a miserable-looking +woman, said that she lived with the deceased and his son in a room at +2, Cobb's Court, Christ Church. Deceased was a 'translator' of boots. +Witness went out and bought old boots; deceased and his son made them +into good ones, and then witness sold them for what she could get at +the shops, which was very little indeed. Deceased and his son used to +work night and day to try and get a little bread and tea, and pay for +the room (2s. a week), so as to keep the home together. On Friday +night week, deceased got up from his bench and began to shiver. He +threw down the boots, saying, 'Somebody else must finish them when I am +gone, for I can do no more.' There was no fire, and he said, 'I would +be better if I was warm.' Witness therefore took two pairs of +translated boots[14] to sell at the shop, but she could only get 14d. +for the two pairs, for the people at the shop said, 'We must have our +profit.' Witness got 14 lbs. of coal and a little tea and bread. Her +son sat up the whole night to make the 'translations,' to get money, +but deceased died on Saturday morning. The family never had enough to +eat.—Coroner: 'It seems to me deplorable that you did not go into the +workhouse.' Witness: 'We wanted the comforts of our little home.' A +juror asked what the comforts were, for he only saw a little straw in +the corner of the room, the windows of which were broken. The witness +began to cry, and said that they had a quilt and other little things. +The deceased said he never would go into the workhouse. In summer, +when the season was good, they sometimes made as much as 10s. profit in +a week. They then always saved towards the next week, which was +generally a bad one. In winter they made not half so much. For three +years they had been getting from bad to worse.—Cornelius Collins said +that he had assisted his father since 1847. They used to work so far +into the night that both nearly lost their eyesight. Witness now had a +film over his eyes. Five years ago deceased applied to the parish for +aid. The relieving officer gave him a 4-lb. loaf, and told him if he +came again he should 'get the stones.'[15] That disgusted deceased, +and he would have nothing to do with them since. They got worse and +worse until last Friday week, when they had not even a halfpenny to buy +a candle. Deceased then lay down on the straw, and said he could not +live till morning.—A juror: 'You are dying of starvation yourself, and +you ought to go into the house until the summer.' Witness: 'If we went +in we should die. When we come out in the summer we should be like +people dropped from the sky. No one would know us, and we would not +have even a room. I could work now if I had food, for my sight would +get better.' Dr. G. P. Walker said deceased died from syncope, from +exhaustion, from want of food. The deceased had had no bed-clothes. +For four months he had had nothing but bread to eat. There was not a +particle of fat in the body. There was no disease, but if there had +been medical attendance, he might have survived the synope or fainting. +The coroner having remarked upon the painful nature of the case, the +jury returned the following verdict: 'That deceased died from +exhaustion, from want of food and the common necessaries of life; also +through want of medical aid.'" +</P> + +<P> +37. "Why would witness not go into the workhouse?" you ask. Well, the +poor seem to have a prejudice against the workhouse which the rich have +not; for, of course, every one who takes a pension from Government goes +into the workhouse on a grand scale;[16] only the workhouses for the +rich do not involve the idea of work, and should be called play-houses. +But the poor like to die independently, it appears; perhaps if we made +the play-houses for them pretty and pleasant enough, or gave them their +pensions at home, and allowed them a little introductory peculation +with the public money, their minds might be reconciled to the +conditions. Meantime, here are the facts: we make our relief either so +insulting to them, or so painful, that they rather die than take it at +our hands; or, for third alternative, we leave them so untaught and +foolish that they starve like brute creatures, wild and dumb, not +knowing what to do, or what to ask. I say, you despise compassion; if +you did not, such a newspaper paragraph would be as impossible in a +Christian country as a deliberate assassination permitted in its public +streets.[17] "Christian" did I say? Alas, if we were but wholesomely +<I>un</I>-Christian, it would be impossible; it is our imaginary +Christianity that helps us to commit these crimes, for we revel and +luxuriate in our faith, for the lewd sensation of it; dressing it up, +like everything else, in fiction. The dramatic Christianity of the +organ and aisle, of dawn-service and twilight-revival—the Christianity +which we do not fear to mix the mockery of, pictorially, with our play +about the devil, in our Satanellas,—Roberts,—Fausts; chanting hymns +through traceried windows for back-ground effect, and artistically +modulating the "Dio" through variation on variation of mimicked prayer +(while we distribute tracts, next day, for the benefit of uncultivated +swearers, upon what we suppose to be the signification of the Third +Commandment);—this gas-lighted, and gas-inspired, Christianity, we are +triumphant in, and draw back the hem of our robes from the touch of the +heretics who dispute it. But to do a piece of common Christian +righteousness in a plain English word or deed; to make Christian law +any rule of life, and found one National act or hope thereon,—we know +too well what our faith comes to for that! You might sooner get +lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your +modern English religion. You had better get rid of the smoke, and the +organ-pipes, both; leave them, and the Gothic windows, and the painted +glass, to the property-man; give up your carburetted hydrogen ghost in +one healthy expiration, and look after Lazarus at the door-step. For +there is a true Church wherever one hand meets another helpfully, and +that is the only holy or Mother Church which ever was, or ever shall be. +</P> + +<P> +38. All these pleasures, then, and all these virtues, I repeat, you +nationally despise. You have, indeed, men among you who do not; by +whose work, by whose strength, by whose life, by whose death, you live, +and never thank them. Your wealth, your amusement, your pride, would +all be alike impossible, but for those whom you scorn or forget. The +policeman, who is walking up and down the black lane all night to watch +the guilt you have created there, and may have his brains beaten out, +and be maimed for life, at any moment, and never be thanked; the sailor +wrestling with the sea's rage; the quiet student poring over his book +or his vial; the common worker, without praise, and nearly without +bread, fulfilling his task as your horses drag your carts, hopeless, +and spurned of all; these are the men by whom England lives; but they +are not the nation; they are only the body and nervous force of it, +acting still from old habit in a convulsive perseverance, while the +mind is gone. Our National wish and purpose are to be amused; our +National religion is the performance of church ceremonies, and +preaching of soporific truths (or untruths) to keep the mob quietly at +work, while we amuse ourselves; and the necessity for this amusement is +fastening on us as a feverous disease of parched throat and wandering +eyes—senseless, dissolute, merciless. How literally that word +<I>Dis</I>-Ease; the Negation and impossibility of Ease, expresses the +entire moral state of our English Industry and its Amusements! +</P> + +<P> +39. When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their +work, as the color-petals out of a fruitful flower;—when they are +faithfully helpful and compassionate, all their emotions become steady, +deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the soul as the natural pulse of the +body. But now, having no true business, we pour our whole masculine +energy into the false business of money-making; and having no true +emotion, we must have false emotions dressed up for us to play with, +not innocently, as children with dolls, but guiltily and darkly, as the +idolatrous Jews with their pictures on cavern walls, which men had to +dig to detect. The justice we do not execute, we mimic in the novel +and on the stage; for the beauty we destroy in nature, we substitute +the metamorphosis of the pantomime, and (the human nature of us +imperatively requiring awe and sorrow of some kind) for the noble grief +we should have borne with our fellows, and the pure tears we should +have wept with them, we gloat over the pathos of the police court, and +gather the night-dew of the grave. +</P> + +<P> +40. It is difficult to estimate the true significance of these things; +the facts are frightful enough;—the measure of national fault involved +in them is, perhaps, not as great as it would at first seem. We +permit, or cause, thousands of deaths daily, but we mean no harm; we +set fire to houses, and ravage peasants' fields; yet we should be sorry +to find we had injured anybody. We are still kind at heart; still +capable of virtue, but only as children are. Chalmers, at the end of +his long life, having had much power with the public, being plagued in +some serious matter by a reference to "public opinion," uttered the +impatient exclamation, "The public is just a great baby!" And the +reason that I have allowed all these graver subjects of thought to mix +themselves up with an inquiry into methods of reading, is that, the +more I see of our national faults and miseries, the more they resolve +themselves into conditions of childish illiterateness, and want of +education in the most ordinary habits of thought. It is, I repeat, not +vice, not selfishness, not dullness of brain, which we have to lament; +but an unreachable schoolboy's recklessness, only differing from the +true schoolboy's in its incapacity of being helped, because it +acknowledges no master. +</P> + +<P> +41. There is a curious type of us given in one of the lovely, +neglected works of the last of our great painters. It is a drawing of +Kirkby Lonsdale churchyard, and of its brook, and valley, and hills, +and folded morning sky beyond. And unmindful alike of these, and of +the dead who have left these for other valleys and for other skies, a +group of schoolboys have piled their little books upon a grave, to +strike them off with stones. So, also, we play with the words of the +dead that would teach us, and strike them far from us with our bitter, +reckless will; little thinking that those leaves which the wind +scatters had been piled, not only upon a gravestone, but upon the seal +of an enchanted vault—nay, the gate of a great city of sleeping kings, +who would awake for us, and walk with us, if we knew but how to call +them by their names. How often, even if we lift the marble entrance +gate, do we but wander among those old kings in their repose, and +finger the robes they lie in, and stir the crowns on their foreheads; +and still they are silent to us, and seem but a dusty imagery; because +we know not the incantation of the heart that would wake them;—which, +if they once heard, they would start up to meet us in their power of +long ago, narrowly to look upon us, and consider us; and, as the fallen +kings of Hades meet the newly fallen, saying, "Art thou also become +weak as we—art thou also become one of us?" so would these kings, with +their undimmed, unshaken diadems, meet us, saying, "Art thou also +become pure and mighty of heart as we? art thou also become one of us?" +</P> + +<P> +42. Mighty of heart, mighty of mind—"magnanimous"—to be this, is, +indeed, to be great in life; to become this increasingly, is, indeed, +to "advance in life,"—in life itself—not in the trappings of it. My +friends, do you remember that old Scythian custom, when the head of a +house died? How he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his +chariot, and carried about to his friends' houses; and each of them +placed him at his table's head, and all feasted in his presence? +Suppose it were offered to you, in plain words, as it is offered to you +in dire facts, that you should gain this Scythian honor, gradually, +while you yet thought yourself alive. Suppose the offer were this: You +shall die slowly; your blood shall daily grow cold, your flesh petrify, +your heart beat at last only as a rusted group of iron valves. Your +life shall fade from you, and sink through the earth into the ice of +Caina; but, day by day, your body shall be dressed more gaily, and set +in higher chariots, and have more orders on its breast—crowns on its +head, if you will. Men shall bow before it, stare and shout round it, +crowd after it up and down the streets; build palaces for it, feast +with it at their tables' heads all the night long; your soul shall stay +enough within it to know what they do, and feel the weight of the +golden dress on its shoulders, and the furrow of the crown-edge on the +skull;—no more. Would you take the offer, verbally made by the +death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? Yet +practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure; +many of us grasp at it in its fullness of horror. Every man accepts +it, who desires to advance in life without knowing what life is; who +means only that he is to get more horses, and more footmen, and more +fortune, and more public honor, and—not more personal soul. He only +is advancing in life, whose heart is getting softer, whose blood +warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into Living +peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or +kings of the earth—they, and they only. All other kingships, so far +as they are true, are only the practical issue and expression of +theirs; if less than this, they are either dramatic royalties,—costly +shows, set off, indeed, with real jewels instead of tinsel,—but still +only the toys of nations; or else, they are no royalties at all, but +tyrannies, or the mere active and practical issue of national folly; +for which reason I have said of them elsewhere, "Visible governments +are the toys of some nations, the diseases of others, the harness of +some, the burdens of more." +</P> + +<P> +43. But I have no words for the wonder with which I hear Kinghood +still spoken of, even among thoughtful men, as if governed nations were +a personal property, and might be bought and sold, or otherwise +acquired, as sheep, of whose flesh their king was to feed, and whose +fleece he was to gather; as if Achilles' indignant epithet of base +kings, "people-eating," were the constant and proper title of all +monarchs; and enlargement of a king's dominion meant the same thing as +the increase of a private man's estate! Kings who think so, however +powerful, can no more be the true kings of the nation than gad-flies +are the kings of a horse; they suck it, and may drive it wild, but do +not guide it. They, and their courts, and their armies are, if one +could see clearly, only a large species of marsh mosquito, with bayonet +proboscis and melodious, band-mastered, trumpeting in the summer air; +the twilight being, perhaps, sometimes fairer, but hardly more +wholesome, for its glittering mists of midge companies. The true +kings, meanwhile, rule quietly, if at all, and hate ruling; too many of +them make "il gran rifiśto" [18]; and if they do not, the mob, as soon +as they are likely to become useful to it, is pretty sure to make <I>its</I> +"gran rifiśto" of <I>them</I>. +</P> + +<P> +44. Yet the visible king may also be a true one, some day, if ever day +comes when he will estimate his dominion by the <I>force</I> of it,—not the +geographical boundaries. It matters very little whether Trent cuts you +a cantel out here, or Rhine rounds you a castle less there. But it +does matter to you, king of men, whether you can verily say to this +man, "Go," and he goeth; and to another, "Come," and he cometh. +Whether you can turn your people, as you can Trent—and where it is +that you bid them come, and where go. It matters to you, king of men, +whether your people hate you, and die by you, or love you, and live by +you. You may measure your dominion by multitudes better than by miles; +and count degrees of love latitude, not from, but to a wonderfully warm +and indefinite equator. +</P> + +<P> +45. Measure! nay, you cannot measure. Who shall measure the +difference between the power of those who "do and teach," and who are +greatest in the kingdoms of earth, as of heaven—and the power of those +who undo, and consume—whose power, at the fullest, is only the power +of the moth and the rust? Strange! to think how the Moth-kings lay up +treasures for the moth; and the Rust-kings, who are to their peoples' +strength as rust to armor, lay up treasures for the rust; and the +Robber-kings, treasures for the robber; but how few kings have ever +laid up treasures that needed no guarding—treasures of which, the more +thieves there were, the better! Broidered robe, only to be rent; helm +and sword, only to be dimmed; jewel and gold, only to be +scattered;—there have been three kinds of kings who have gathered +these. Suppose there ever should arise a Fourth order of kings, who +had read, in some obscure writing of long ago, that there was a Fourth +kind of treasure, which the jewel and gold could not equal, neither +should it be valued with pure gold. A web made fair in the weaving, by +Athena's shuttle; an armor, forged in divine fire by Vulcanian force—a +gold to be mined in the sun's red heart, where he sets over the +Delphian cliffs;—deep-pictured tissue, impenetrable armor, potable +gold!—the three great Angels of Conduct, Toil, and Thought, still +calling to us, and waiting at the posts of our doors, to lead us, with +their winged power, and guide us, with their unerring eyes, by the path +which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye has not seen! +Suppose kings should ever arise, who heard and believed this word, and +at last gathered and brought forth treasures of—Wisdom—for their +people? +</P> + +<P> +46. Think what an amazing business <I>that</I> would be! How +inconceivable, in the state of our present national wisdom! That we +should bring up our peasants to a book exercise instead of a bayonet +exercise!—organize, drill, maintain with pay, and good generalship, +armies of thinkers, instead of armies of stabbers!—find national +amusement in reading-rooms as well as rifle-grounds; give prizes for a +fair shot at a fact, as well as for a leaden splash on a target. What +an absurd idea it seems, put fairly in words, that the wealth of the +capitalists of civilized nations should ever come to support literature +instead of war! +</P> + +<P> +47. Have yet patience with me, while I read you a single sentence out +of the only book, properly to be called a book, that I have yet written +myself, the one that will stand (if anything stand) surest and longest +of all work of mine. +</P> + +<P> +"It is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in Europe that it +is entirely capitalists' wealth that supports unjust wars. Just wars +do not need so much money to support them; for most of the men who wage +such, wage them gratis; but for an unjust war, men's bodies and souls +have both to be bought; and the best tools of war for them besides, +which makes such war costly to the maximum; not to speak of the cost of +base fear, and angry suspicion, between nations which have not grace +nor honesty enough in all their multitudes to buy an hour's peace of +mind with; as, at present, France and England, purchasing of each other +ten millions' sterling worth of consternation, annually (a remarkably +light crop, half thorns and half aspen leaves, sown, reaped, and +granaried by the 'science' of the modern political economist, teaching +covetousness instead of truth). And, all unjust war being supportable, +if not by pillage of the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these +loans are repaid by subsequent taxation of the people, who appear to +have no will in the matter, the capitalists' will being the primary +root of the war; but its real root is the covetousness of the whole +nation, rendering it incapable of faith, frankness, or justice, and +bringing about, therefore, in due time, his own separate loss and +punishment to each person." +</P> + +<P> +48. France and England literally, observe, buy <I>panic</I> of each other; +they pay, each of them, for ten thousand thousand pounds' worth of +terror, a year. Now suppose, instead of buying these ten millions' +worth of panic annually, they made up their minds to be at peace with +each other, and buy ten millions' worth of knowledge annually; and that +each nation spent its ten thousand thousand pounds a year in founding +royal libraries, royal art galleries, royal museums, royal gardens, and +places of rest. Might it not be better somewhat for both French and +English? +</P> + +<P> +49. It will be long, yet, before that comes to pass. Nevertheless, I +hope it will not be long before royal or national libraries will be +founded in every considerable city, with a royal series of books in +them; the same series in every one of them, chosen books, the best in +every kind, prepared for that national series in the most perfect way +possible; their text printed all on leaves of equal size, broad of +margin, and divided into pleasant volumes, light in the hand, +beautiful, and strong, and thorough as examples of binders' work; and +that these great libraries will be accessible to all clean and orderly +persons at all times of the day and evening; strict law being enforced +for this cleanliness and quietness. +</P> + +<P> +I could shape for you other plans for art galleries, and for natural +history galleries, and for many precious—many, it seems to me, +needful—things; but this book plan is the easiest and needfullest, and +would prove a considerable tonic to what we call our British +constitution, which has fallen dropsical of late, and has an evil +thirst, and evil hunger, and wants healthier feeding. You have got its +corn laws repealed for it; try if you cannot get corn laws established +for it dealing in a better bread;—bread made of that old enchanted +Arabian grain, the Sesame, which opens doors;—doors not of robbers, +but of Kings' Treasuries. +</P> + +<P> +50. Note to Paragraph 30.—Respecting the increase of rent by the +deaths of the poor, for evidence of which, see the preface to the +Medical officers' report to the Privy Council, just published, there +are suggestions in its preface which will make some stir among us, I +fancy, respecting which let me note these points following:— +</P> + +<P> +There are two theories on the subject of land now abroad, and in +contention; both false. +</P> + +<P> +The first is that, by Heavenly law, there have always existed, and must +continue to exist, a certain number of hereditarily sacred persons to +whom the earth, air, and water of the world belong, as personal +property; of which earth, air, and water, these persons may, at their +pleasure, permit, or forbid, the rest of the human race to eat, +breathe, or to drink. This theory is not for many years longer +tenable. The adverse theory is that a division of the land of the +world among the mob of the world would immediately elevate the said mob +into sacred personages; that houses would then build themselves, and +corn grow of itself; and that everybody would be able to live, without +doing any work for his living. This theory would also be found highly +untenable in practice. +</P> + +<P> +It will, however, require some rough experiments, and rougher +catastrophes, before the generality of persons will be convinced that +no law concerning anything, least of all concerning land, for either +holding or dividing it, or renting it high, or renting it low—would be +of the smallest ultimate use to the people—so long as the general +contest for life, and for the means of life, remains one of mere brutal +competition. That contest, in an unprincipled nation, will take one +deadly form or another, whatever laws you make against it. For +instance, it would be an entirely wholesome law for England, if it +could be carried, that maximum limits should be assigned to incomes +according to classes; and that every nobleman's income should be paid +to him as a fixed salary or pension by the nation; and not squeezed by +him in variable sums, at discretion, out of the tenants of his land. +But if you could get such a law passed to-morrow, and if, which would +be farther necessary, you could fix the value of the assigned incomes +by making a given weight of pure bread for a given sum, a twelvemonth +would not pass before another currency would have been tacitly +established, and the power of accumulative wealth would have reasserted +itself in some other article, or some other imaginary sign. There is +only one cure for public distress—and that is public education, +directed to make men thoughtful, merciful, and just. There are, +indeed, many laws conceivable which would gradually better and +strengthen the national temper; but, for the most part, they are such +as the national temper must be much bettered before it would bear. A +nation in its youth may be helped by laws, as a weak child by +backboards, but when it is old it cannot that way straighten its +crooked spine. +</P> + +<P> +And besides, the problem of land, at its worst, is a bye one; +distribute the earth as you will, the principal question remains +inexorable,—Who is to dig it? Which of us, in brief words, is to do +the hard and dirty work for the rest—and for what pay? Who is to do +the pleasant and clean work, and for what pay? Who is to do no work, +and for what pay? And there are curious moral and religious questions +connected with these. How far is it lawful to suck a portion of the +soul out of a great many persons, in order to put the abstracted +psychical quantities together and make one very beautiful or ideal +soul? If we had to deal with mere blood, instead of spirit (and the +thing might literally be done—as it has been done with infants before +now)—so that it were possible by taking a certain quantity of blood +from the arms of a given number of the mob, and putting it all into one +person, to make a more azure-blooded gentleman of him, the thing would +of course be managed; but secretly, I should conceive. But now, +because it is brain and soul that we abstract, not visible blood, it +can be done quite openly, and we live, we gentlemen, on delicatest +prey, after the manner of weasels; that is to say, we keep a certain +number of clowns digging and ditching, and generally stupefied, in +order that we, being fed gratis, may have all the thinking and feeling +to ourselves. Yet there is a great deal to be said for this. A +highly-bred and trained English, French, Austrian, or Italian gentleman +(much more a lady) is a great production,—a better production than +most statues; being beautifully colored as well as shaped, and plus all +the brains; a glorious thing to look at, a wonderful thing to talk to; +and you cannot have it, any more than a pyramid or a church, but by +sacrifice of much contributed life. And it is, perhaps, better to +build a beautiful human creature than a beautiful dome or steeple—and +more delightful to look up reverently to a creature far above us, than +to a wall; only the beautiful human creature will have some duties to +do in return—duties of living belfry and rampart—of which presently. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[1] This lecture was given December 6, 1864, at Rusholme Town Hall, +Manchester, in aid of a library fund for the Rusholme Institute. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[2] Note this sentence carefully, and compare the "Queen of the Air," +section 106. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[3] 2 Peter, iii. 5-7. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[4] Compare the 13th Letter in "Time and Tide." +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[5] Modern "education" for the most part signifies giving people the +faculty of thinking wrong on every conceivable subject of importance to +them. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[6] "Inferno," xxiii. 125, 126; xix. 49, 50. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[7] Compare section 13 above. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[8] See note at end of lecture. I have put it in large type, because +the course of matters since it was written has made it perhaps better +worth attention. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[9] Since this was written, the answer has become definitely—No; we +have surrendered the field of Arctic discovery to the Continental +nations, as being ourselves too poor to pay for ships. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[10] I state this fact without Professor Owen's permission: which of +course he could not with propriety have granted, had I asked it; but I +consider it so important that the public should be aware of the fact +that I do what seems to be right though rude. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[11] That was our real idea of "Free Trade"—"All the trade to myself." +You find now that by "competition" other people can manage to sell +something as well as you—and now we call for Protection again. +Wretches! +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[12] I meant that the beautiful places of the world—Switzerland, +Italy, South Germany, and so on—are, indeed, the truest +cathedrals—places to be reverent in, and to worship in, and that we +only care to drive through them; and to eat and drink at their most +sacred places. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[13] I was singularly struck, some years ago, by finding all the river +shore at Richmond, in Yorkshire, black in its earth, from the mere +drift of soot-laden air from places many miles away. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[14] One of the things which we must very resolutely enforce, for the +good of all classes, in our future arrangements, must be that they wear +no "translated" articles of dress. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[15] This abbreviation of the penalty of useless labor is curiously +coincident in verbal form with a certain passage which some of us may +remember. It may, perhaps, be well to preserve beside this paragraph +another cutting out of my store-drawer, from the "Morning Post," of +about a parallel date, Friday, March 10th, 1865:—"The <I>salons</I> of Mme. +C——, who did the honors with clever imitative grace and elegance, +were crowded with princes, dukes, marquises, and counts—in fact, with +the same <I>male</I> company as one meets at the parties of the Princess +Metternich and Madame Drouyn de Lhuys. Some English peers and members +of Parliament were present, and appeared to enjoy the animated and +dazzlingly improper scene. On the second floor the supper-tables were +loaded with every delicacy of the season. That your readers may form +some idea of the dainty fare of the Parisian demi-monde, I copy the +menu of the supper, which was served to all the guests (about 200) +seated at four o'clock. Choice Yquem, Johannisberg, Lafitte, Tokay, +and Champagne of the finest vintages were served most lavishly +throughout the morning. After supper dancing was resumed with +increased animation, and the ball terminated with a <I>chaīne diabolique</I> +and a <I>cancan d'enfer</I> at seven in the morning. (Morning-service—'Ere +the fresh lawns appeared under the opening eyelids of the Morn.—') +Here is the menu:—'Consommé de volaille ą la Bagration; 16 +hors-d'oeuvres variés. Bouchées ą la Talleyrand. Saumons froids, +sauce Ravigote. Filets de boeuf en Bellevue, timbales milanaises +chaudfroid de gibier. Dindes truffées. Pātés de foies gras, buissons +d'écrevisses, salades vénétiennes, gelées blanches aux fruits, gateaux +mancini, parisiens et parisiennes. Fromages glacés, Ananas. Dessert.'" +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[16] Please observe this statement, and think of it, and consider how +it happens that a poor old woman will be ashamed to take a shilling a +week from the country—but no one is ashamed to take a pension of a +thousand a year. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[17] I am heartily glad to see such a paper as the "Pall Mall Gazette" +established; for the power of the press in the hands of highly educated +men, in independent position, and of honest purpose, may, indeed, +become all that it has been hitherto vainly vaunted to be. Its editor +will, therefore, I doubt not, pardon me, in that, by very reason of my +respect for the journal, I do not let pass unnoticed an article in its +third number, page 5, which was wrong in every word of it, with the +intense wrongness which only an honest man can achieve who has taken a +false turn of thought in the outset, and is following it, regardless of +consequences. It contained at the end this notable passage:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +"The bread of affliction, and the water of affliction—aye, and the +bedsteads and blankets of affliction, are the very utmost that the law +ought to give to <I>outcasts merely as outcasts</I>." I merely put beside +this expression of the gentlemanly mind of England in 1865, a part of +the message which Isaiah was ordered to "lift up his voice like a +trumpet" in declaring to the gentlemen of his day: "Ye fast for strife, +and to smite with the fist of wickedness. Is not this the fast that I +have chosen, to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the +poor <I>that are cast out</I> (margin 'afflicted') to <I>thy</I> house." The +falsehood on which the writer had mentally founded himself, as +previously stated by him, was this: "To confound the functions of the +dispensers of the poor-rates with those of the dispensers of a +charitable institution is a great and pernicious error." This sentence +is so accurately and exquisitely wrong, that its substance must be thus +reversed in our minds before we can deal with any existing problem of +national distress. "To understand that the dispensers of the +poor-rates are the almoners of the nation, and should distribute its +alms with a gentleness and freedom of hand as much greater and franker +than that possible to individual charity, as the collective national +wisdom and power may be supposed greater than those of any single +person, is the foundation of all law respecting pauperism." (Since +this was written the "Pall Mall Gazette" has become a mere party +paper—like the rest; but it writes well, and does more good than +mischief on the whole.) +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[18] The great renunciation. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04c"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SESAME AND LILIES +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LECTURE—II—LILIES[1] +<BR> +OF QUEENS' GARDENS. +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +"Be thou glad, oh thirsting Desert; let the desert be made cheerful, +and bloom as the lily; and the barren places of Jordan shall run wild +with wood."—ISAIAH xxxv, i. (Septuagint.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It will, perhaps, be well, as this Lecture is the sequel of one +previously given, that I should shortly state to you my general +intention in both. The questions specially proposed to you in the +first, namely, How and What to Read, rose out of a far deeper one, +which it was my endeavor to make you propose earnestly to yourselves, +namely, <I>Why</I> to Read. I want you to feel, with me, that whatever +advantages we possess in the present day in the diffusion of education +and of literature, can only be rightly used by any of us when we have +apprehended clearly what education is to lead to, and literature to +teach. I wish you to see that both well-directed moral training and +well-chosen reading lead to the possession of a power over the +ill-guided and illiterate, which is, according to the measure of it, in +the truest sense, <I>kingly</I>; conferring indeed the purest kingship that +can exist among men: too many other kingships (however distinguished by +visible insignia or material power) being either spectral, or +tyrannous;—Spectral—that is to say, aspects and shows only of +royalty, hollow as death, and which only the "Likeness of a kingly +crown have on"; or else tyrannous—that is to say, substituting their +own will for the law of justice and love by which all true kings rule. +</P> + +<P> +52. There is, then, I repeat—and as I want to leave this idea with +you, I begin with it, and shall end with it—only one pure kind of +kingship; an inevitable and external kind, crowned or not: the +kingship, namely, which consists in a stronger moral state, and a truer +thoughtful state, than that of others; enabling you, therefore, to +guide, or to raise them. Observe that word "State"; we have got into a +loose way of using it. It means literally the standing and stability +of a thing; and you have the full force of it in the derived word +"statue"—"the immovable thing." A king's majesty or "state," then, +and the right of his kingdom to be called a state, depends on the +movelessness of both:—without tremor, without quiver of balance; +established and enthroned upon a foundation of eternal law which +nothing can alter, nor overthrow. +</P> + +<P> +53. Believing that all literature and all education are only useful so +far as they tend to confirm this calm, beneficent, and <I>therefore</I> +kingly, power—first, over ourselves, and, through ourselves, over all +around us, I am now going to ask you to consider with me farther, what +special portion or kind of this royal authority, arising out of noble +education, may rightly be possessed by women; and how far they also are +called to a true queenly power. Not in their households merely, but +over all within their sphere. And in what sense, if they rightly +understood and exercised this royal or gracious influence, the order +and beauty induced by such benignant power would justify us in speaking +of the territories over which each of them reigned, as "Queens' +Gardens." +</P> + +<P> +54. And here, in the very outset, we are met by a far deeper question, +which—strange though this may seem—remains among many of us yet quite +undecided, in spite of its infinite importance. +</P> + +<P> +We cannot determine what the queenly power of women should be, until we +are agreed what their ordinary power should be. We cannot consider how +education may fit them for any widely extending duty, until we are +agreed what is their true constant duty. And there never was a time +when wilder words were spoken, or more vain imagination permitted, +respecting this question—quite vital to all social happiness. The +relations of the womanly to the manly nature, their different +capacities of intellect or of virtue, seem never to have been yet +estimated with entire consent. We hear of the "mission" and of the +"rights" of Woman, as if these could ever be separate from the mission +and the rights of Man;—as if she and her lord were creatures of +independent kind, and of irreconcilable claim. This, at least, is +wrong. And not less wrong—perhaps even more foolishly wrong (for I +will anticipate thus far what I hope to prove)—is the idea that woman +is only the shadow and attendant image of her lord, owing him a +thoughtless and servile obedience, and supported altogether in her +weakness, by the preėminence of his fortitude. +</P> + +<P> +This, I say, is the most foolish of all errors respecting her who was +made to be the helpmate of man. As if he could be helped effectively +by a shadow, or worthily by a slave! +</P> + +<P> +55. I.—Let us try, then, whether we cannot get at some clear and +harmonious idea (it must be harmonious if it is true) of what womanly +mind and virtue are in power and office, with respect to man's; and how +their relations rightly accepted, aid, and increase, the vigor, and +honor, and authority of both. +</P> + +<P> +And now I must repeat one thing I said in the last lecture: namely, +that the first use of education was to enable us to consult with the +wisest and the greatest men on all points of earnest difficulty. That +to use books rightly, was to go to them for help: to appeal to them, +when our own knowledge and power of thought failed: to be led by them +into wider sight—purer conception—than our own, and receive from them +the united sentence of the judges and councils of all time, against our +solitary and unstable opinion. +</P> + +<P> +Let us do this now. Let us see whether the greatest, the wisest, the +purest-hearted of all ages are agreed in any wise on this point: let us +hear the testimony they have left respecting what they held to be the +true dignity of woman, and her mode of help to man. +</P> + +<P> +56. And first let us take Shakespeare. +</P> + +<P> +Note broadly in the outset, Shakespeare has no heroes;—he has only +heroines. There is not one entirely heroic figure in all his plays, +except the slight sketch of Henry the Fifth, exaggerated for the +purposes of the stage: and the still slighter Valentine in The Two +Gentlemen of Verona. In his labored and perfect plays you have no +hero. Othello would have been one, if his simplicity had not been so +great as to leave him the prey of every base practice round him; but he +is the only example even approximating to the heroic type. +Coriolanus—Caesar—Antony, stand in flawed strength, and fall by their +vanities;—Hamlet is indolent, and drowsily speculative; Romeo an +impatient boy; the Merchant of Venice languidly submissive to adverse +fortune; Kent, in King Lear, is entirely noble at heart, but too rough +and unpolished to be of true use at the critical time, and he sinks +into the office of a servant only. Orlando, no less noble, is yet the +despairing toy of chance, followed, comforted, saved, by Rosalind. +Whereas there is hardly a play that has not a perfect woman in it, +steadfast in grave hope and errorless purpose: Cordelia, Desdemona, +Isabella, Hermione, Imogen, Queen Katherine, Perdita, Silvia, Viola, +Rosalind, Helena, and last, and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are all +faultless: conceived in the highest heroic type of humanity. +</P> + +<P> +57. Then observe, secondly, +</P> + +<P> +The catastrophe of every play is caused always by the folly or fault of +a man; the redemption, if there be any, is by the wisdom and virtue of +a woman, and failing that, there is none. The catastrophe of King Lear +is owing to his own want of judgment, his impatient vanity, his +misunderstanding of his children; the virtue of his one true daughter +would have saved him from all the injuries of the others, unless he had +cast her away from him; as it is, she all but saves him. +</P> + +<P> +Of Othello I need not trace the tale;—nor the one weakness of his so +mighty love; nor the inferiority of his perceptive intellect to that +even of the second woman character in the play, the Emilia who dies in +wild testimony against his error:—"Oh, murderous coxcomb! What should +such a fool Do with so good a wife?" +</P> + +<P> +In Romeo and Juliet, the wise and brave stratagem of the wife is +brought to ruinous issue by the reckless impatience of her husband. In +Winter's Tale and in Cymbeline, the happiness and existence of two +princely households, lost through long years, and imperiled to the +death by the folly and obstinacy of the husbands, are redeemed at last +by the queenly patience and wisdom of the wives. In Measure for +Measure, the foul injustice of the judge, and the foul cowardice of the +brother, are opposed to the victorious truth and adamantine purity of a +woman. In Coriolanus, the mother's counsel, acted upon in time, would +have saved her son from all evil; his momentary forgetfulness of it is +his ruin; her prayer at last granted, saves him—not, indeed, from +death, but from the curse of living as the destroyer of his country. +</P> + +<P> +And what shall I say of Julia, constant against the fickleness of a +lover who is a mere wicked child?—of Helena, against the petulance and +insult of a careless youth?—of the patience of Hero, the passion of +Beatrice, and the calmly devoted wisdom of the "unlessoned girl," who +appears among the helplessness, the blindness, and the vindictive +passions of men, as a gentle angel, bringing courage and safety by her +presence, and defeating the worst malignities of crime by what women +are fancied most to fail in,—precision and accuracy of thought. +</P> + +<P> +58. Observe, further, among all the principal figures in Shakespeare's +plays, there is only one weak woman—Ophelia; and it is because she +fails Hamlet at the critical moment, and is not, and cannot in her +nature be, a guide to him when he needs her most, that all the bitter +catastrophe follows. Finally, though there are three wicked women +among the principal figures, Lady Macbeth, Regan, and Goneril, they are +felt at once to be frightful exceptions to the ordinary laws of life; +fatal in their influence also in proportion to the power for good which +they have abandoned. +</P> + +<P> +Such, in broad light, is Shakespeare's testimony to the position and +character of women in human life. He represents them as infallibly +faithful and wise counselors,—incorruptibly just and pure +examples—strong always to sanctify, even when they cannot save. +</P> + +<P> +59. Not as in any wise comparable in knowledge of the nature of +man,—still less in his understanding of the causes and courses of +fate,—but only as the writer who has given us the broadest view of the +conditions and modes of ordinary thought in modern society, I ask you +next to receive the witness of Walter Scott. +</P> + +<P> +I put aside his merely romantic prose writings as of no value; and +though the early romantic poetry is very beautiful, its testimony is of +no weight, other than that of a boy's ideal. But his true works, +studied from Scottish life, bear a true witness; and, in the whole +range of these, there are but three men who reach the heroic +type[2]—Dandie Dinmont, Rob Roy, and Claverhouse; of these, one is a +border farmer; another a freebooter; the third a soldier in a bad +cause. And these touch the ideal of heroism only in their courage and +faith, together with a strong, but uncultivated, or mistakenly applied, +intellectual power; while his younger men are the gentlemanly +playthings of fantastic fortune, and only by aid (or accident) of that +fortune, survive, not vanquish, the trials they involuntarily sustain. +Of any disciplined, or consistent character, earnest in a purpose +wisely conceived, or dealing with forms of hostile evil, definitely +challenged, and resolutely subdued, there is no trace in his +conceptions of young men. Whereas in his imaginations of women,—in +the characters of Ellen Douglas, of Flora MacIvor, Rose Bradwardine, +Catherine Seyton, Diana Vernon, Lilias Redgauntlet, Alice Bridgenorth, +Alice Lee, and Jeanie Deans,—with endless varieties of grace, +tenderness, and intellectual power we find in all a quite infallible +and inevitable sense of dignity and justice; a fearless, instant, and +untiring self-sacrifice to even the appearance of duty, much more to +its real claims; and, finally, a patient wisdom of deeply restrained +affection, which does infinitely more than protect its objects from a +momentary error; it gradually forms, animates, and exalts the +characters of the unworthy lovers, until, at the close of the tale, we +are just able, and no more, to take patience in hearing of their +unmerited success. So that in all cases, with Scott as with +Shakespeare, it is the woman who watches over, teaches, and guides the +youth; it is never, by any chance, the youth who watches over or +educates his mistress. +</P> + +<P> +60. Next, take, though more briefly, graver testimony—that of the +great Italians and Greeks. You know well the plan of Dante's great +poem—that it is a love poem to his dead lady; a song of praise for her +watch over his soul. Stooping only to pity, never to love, she yet +saves him from destruction—saves him from hell. He is going eternally +astray in despair; she comes down from heaven to his help, and +throughout the ascents of Paradise is his teacher, interpreting for him +the most difficult truths, divine and human, and leading him, with +rebuke upon rebuke, from star to star. +</P> + +<P> +I do not insist upon Dante's conception; if I began I could not cease; +besides, you might think this a wild imagination of one poet's heart. +So I will rather read to you a few verses of the deliberate writing of +a knight of Pisa to his living lady, wholly characteristic of the +feeling of all the noblest men of the thirteenth, or early fourteenth +century, preserved among many other such records of knightly honor and +love, which Dante Rossetti has gathered for us from among the early +Italian poets. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">"For lo! thy law is passed</SPAN><BR> +That this my love should manifestly be<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To serve and honor thee;</SPAN><BR> +And so I do; and my delight is full,<BR> +Accepted for the servant of thy rule.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Without almost, I am all rapturous,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Since thus my will was set</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To serve, thou flower of joy, thine excellence;</SPAN><BR> +Nor ever seems it anything could rouse<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">A pain or regret,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But on thee dwells mine every thought and sense;</SPAN><BR> +Considering that from thee all virtues spread<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">As from a fountain head,—</SPAN><BR> +<I>That in thy gift is wisdom's best avail,</I><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><I>And honor without fail;</I></SPAN><BR> +With whom each sovereign good dwells separate,<BR> +Fulfilling the perfection of thy state.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">"Lady, since I conceived</SPAN><BR> +That pleasurable aspect in my heart,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><I>My life has been apart</I></SPAN><BR> +<I>In shining brightness and the place of truth;</I><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Which till that time, good sooth,</SPAN><BR> +Groped among shadows in a darken'd place,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Where many hours and days</SPAN><BR> +It hardly ever had remember'd good.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">But now my servitude</SPAN><BR> +Is thine, and I am full of joy and rest.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">A man from a wild beast</SPAN><BR> +Thou madest me, since for thy love I lived."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +61. You may think, perhaps, a Greek knight would have had a lower +estimate of women than this Christian lover. His spiritual subjection +to them was, indeed, not so absolute; but as regards their own personal +character, it was only because you could not have followed me so +easily, that I did not take the Greek women instead of Shakespeare's; +and instance, for chief ideal types of human beauty and faith, the +simple mother's and wife's heart of Andromache; the divine, yet +rejected wisdom of Cassandra; the playful kindness and simple +princess-life of happy Nausicaa; the housewifely calm of that of +Penelope, with its watch upon the sea; the ever patient, fearless, +hopelessly devoted piety of the sister and daughter, in Antigone; the +bowing down of Iphigenia, lamb-like and silent; and, finally, the +expectation of the resurrection, made clear to the soul of the Greeks +in the return from her grave of that Alcestis, who, to save her +husband, had passed calmly through the bitterness of death. +</P> + +<P> +62. Now, I could multiply witness upon witness of this kind upon you +if I had time. I would take Chaucer, and show you why he wrote a +Legend of Good Women; but no Legend of Good Men. I would take Spenser, +and show you how all his fairy knights are sometimes deceived and +sometimes vanquished; but the soul of Una is never darkened, and the +spear of Britomart is never broken. Nay, I could go back into the +mythical teaching of the most ancient times, and show you how the great +people,—by one of whose princesses it was appointed that the Lawgiver +of all the earth should be educated, rather than by his own +kindred;—how that great Egyptian people, wisest then of nations, gave +to their Spirit of Wisdom the form of a woman; and into her hand, for a +symbol, the weaver's shuttle; and how the name and the form of that +spirit, adopted, believed, and obeyed by the Greeks, became that Athena +of the olive-helm, and cloudy shield, to faith in whom you owe, down to +this date, whatever you hold most precious in art, in literature, or in +types of national virtue. +</P> + +<P> +63. But I will not wander into this distant and mythical element; I +will only ask you to give its legitimate value to the testimony of +these great poets and men of the world,—consistent, as you see it is, +on this head. I will ask you whether it can be supposed that these +men, in the main work of their lives, are amusing themselves with a +fictitious and idle view of the relations between man and woman;—nay, +worse than fictitious or idle; for a thing may be imaginary, yet +desirable, if it were possible; but this, their ideal of woman, is, +according to our common idea of the marriage relation, wholly +undesirable. The woman, we say, is not to guide, nor even to think for +herself. The man is always to be the wiser; he is to be the thinker, +the ruler, the superior in knowledge and discretion, as in power. +</P> + +<P> +64. Is it not somewhat important to make up our minds on this matter? +Are all these great men mistaken, or are we? Are Shakespeare and +Aeschylus, Dante and Homer, merely dressing dolls for us; or, worse +than dolls, unnatural visions, the realization of which, were it +possible, would bring anarchy into all households and ruin into all +affections? Nay, if you could suppose this, take lastly the evidence +of facts, given by the human heart itself. In all Christian ages which +have been remarkable for their purity or progress, there has been +absolute yielding of obedient devotion, by the lover, to his mistress. +I say <I>obedient</I>;—not merely enthusiastic and worshiping in +imagination, but entirely subject, receiving from the beloved woman, +however young, not only the encouragement, the praise, and the reward +of all toil, but so far as any choice is open, or any question +difficult of decision, the <I>direction</I> of all toil. That chivalry, to +the abuse and dishonor of which are attributable primarily whatever is +cruel in war, unjust in peace, or corrupt and ignoble in domestic +relations; and to the original purity and power of which we owe the +defense alike of faith, of law, and of love;—that chivalry, I say, in +its very first conception of honorable life, assumes the subjection of +the young knight to the command—should it even be the command in +caprice—of his lady. It assumes this, because its masters knew that +the first and necessary impulse of every truly taught and knightly +heart is this of blind service to its lady; that where that true faith +and captivity are not, all wayward and wicked passions must be; and +that in this rapturous obedience to the single love of his youth, is +the sanctification of all man's strength, and the continuance of all +his purposes. And this, not because such obedience would be safe, or +honorable, were it ever rendered to the unworthy; but because it ought +to be impossible for every noble youth—it <I>is</I> impossible for every +one rightly trained—to love any one whose gentle counsel he cannot +trust, or whose prayerful command he can hesitate to obey. +</P> + +<P> +65. I do not insist by any farther argument on this, for I think it +should commend itself at once to your knowledge of what has been and to +your feelings of what should be. You cannot think that the buckling on +of the knight's armor by his lady's hand was a mere caprice of romantic +fashion. It is the type of an eternal truth—that the soul's armor is +never well set to the heart unless a woman's hand has braced it; and it +is only when she braces it loosely that the honor of manhood fails. +Know you not those lovely lines—I would they were learned by all +youthful ladies of England.— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Ah, wasteful woman!—she who may<BR> +On her sweet self set her own price,<BR> +Knowing he cannot choose but pay—<BR> +How has she cheapen'd Paradise!<BR> +How given for nought her priceless gift,<BR> +How spoiled the bread and spill'd the wine,<BR> +Which, spent with due, respective thrift,<BR> +Had made brutes men, and men divine!" [3]<BR> +</P> + +<P> +66. Thus much, then, respecting the relations of lovers I believe you +will accept. But what we too often doubt is the fitness of the +continuance of such a relation throughout the whole of human life. We +think it right in the lover and mistress, not in the husband and wife. +That is to say, we think that a reverent and tender duty is due to one +whose affection we still doubt, and whose character we as yet do but +partially and distantly discern; and that this reverence and duty are +to be withdrawn, when the affection has become wholly and limitlessly +our own, and the character has been so sifted and tried that we fear +not to entrust it with the happiness of our lives. Do you not see how +ignoble this is, as well as how unreasonable? Do you not feel that +marriage,—when it is marriage at all,—is only the seal which marks +the vowed transition of temporary into untiring service, and of fitful +into eternal love? +</P> + +<P> +67. But how, you will ask, is the idea of this guiding function of the +woman reconcilable with a true wifely subjection? Simply in that it is +a <I>guiding</I>, not a determining, function. Let me try to show you +briefly how these powers seem to be rightly distinguishable. +</P> + +<P> +We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speaking of the +"superiority" of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared in +similar things. Each has what the other has not: each completes the +other, and is completed by the other: they are in nothing alike, and +the happiness and perfection of both depends on each asking and +receiving from the other what the other only can give. +</P> + +<P> +68. Now their separate characters are briefly these: The man's power +is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently the doer, the +creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for +speculation and invention; his energy for adventure, for war, and for +conquest, wherever war is just, wherever conquest necessary. But the +woman's power is for rule, not for battle,—and her intellect is not +for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and +decision. She sees the qualities of things, their claims, and their +places. Her great function is Praise: she enters into no contest, but +infallibly judges the crown of contest. By her office, and place, she +is protected from all danger and temptation. The man, in his rough +work in open world, must encounter all peril and trial: to him, +therefore, must be the failure, the offense, the inevitable error: +often he must be wounded, or subdued; often misled; and <I>always</I> +hardened. But he guards the woman from all this; within his house, as +ruled by her, unless she herself has sought it, need enter no danger, +no temptation, no cause of error or offense. This is the true nature +of home—it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from all +injury, but from all terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is +not this, it is not home: so far as the anxieties of the outer life +penetrate into it, and the inconsistently-minded, unknown, unloved, or +hostile society of the outer world is allowed by either husband or wife +to cross the threshold, it ceases to be home; it is then only a part of +that outer world which you have roofed over, and lighted fire in. But +so far as it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth +watched over by Household Gods, before whose faces none may come but +those whom they can receive with love,—so far as it is this, and roof +and fire are types only of a nobler shade and light,—shade as of the +rock in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea,—so +far it vindicates the name, and fulfills the praise, of home. +</P> + +<P> +And wherever a true wife comes, this home is always round her. The +stars only may be over her head; the glow-worm in the night-cold grass +may be the only fire at her foot: but home is yet wherever she is; and +for a noble woman it stretches far round her, better than ceiled with +cedar, or painted with vermilion, shedding its quiet light far, for +those who else were homeless. +</P> + +<P> +69. This, then, I believe to be,—will you not admit it to be,—the +woman's true place and power? But do not you see that to fulfill this, +she must—as far as one can use such terms of a human creature—be +incapable of error? So far as she rules, all must be right, or nothing +is. She must be enduringly, incorruptibly good; instinctively, +infallibly wise—wise, not for self-development, but for +self-renunciation: wise, not that she may set herself above her +husband, but that she may never fail from his side: wise, not with the +narrowness of insolent and loveless pride, but with the passionate +gentleness of an infinitely variable, because infinitely applicable, +modesty of service—the true changefulness of woman. In that great +sense—"La donna č mobile," not "Qual piśm' al vento"; no, nor yet +"Variable as the shade, by the light quivering aspen made"; but +variable as the <I>light</I>, manifold in fair and serene division, that it +may take the color of all that it falls upon, and exalt it. +</P> + +<P> +70. II.—I have been trying, thus far, to show you what should be the +place, and what the power of woman. Now, secondly, we ask, What kind +of education is to fit her for these? +</P> + +<P> +And if you indeed think this is a true conception of her office and +dignity, it will not be difficult to trace the course of education +which would fit her for the one, and raise her to the other. +</P> + +<P> +The first of our duties to her—no thoughtful persons now doubt +this—is to secure for her such physical training and exercise as may +confirm her health, and perfect her beauty, the highest refinement of +that beauty being unattainable without splendor of activity and of +delicate strength. To perfect her beauty, I say, and increase its +power; it cannot be too powerful, nor shed its sacred light too far: +only remember that all physical freedom is vain to produce beauty +without a corresponding freedom of heart. There are two passages of +that poet who is distinguished, it seems to me, from all others—not by +power, but by exquisite <I>right</I>ness—which point you to the source, and +describe to you, in a few syllables, the completion of womanly beauty. +I will read the introductory stanzas, but the last is the one I wish +you specially to notice:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Three years she grew in sun and shower,<BR> +Then Nature said, 'A lovelier flower<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">On earth was never sown.</SPAN><BR> +This child I to myself will take;<BR> +She shall be mine, and I will make<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">A lady of my own.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'Myself will to my darling be<BR> +Both law and impulse; and with me<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The girl, in rock and plain,</SPAN><BR> +In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,<BR> +Shall feel an overseeing power<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To kindle, or restrain.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'The floating clouds their state shall lend<BR> +To her; for her the willow bend;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Nor shall she fail to see</SPAN><BR> +Even in the motions of the storm<BR> +Grace that shall mould the maiden's form<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">By silent sympathy.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'And <I>vital feelings of delight</I><BR> +Shall rear her form to stately height,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Her virgin bosom swell.</SPAN><BR> +Such thoughts to Lucy I will give,<BR> +While she and I together live,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Here in this happy dell.'" [4]</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"<I>Vital</I> feelings of delight," observe. There are deadly feelings of +delight; but the natural ones are vital, necessary to very life. +</P> + +<P> +And they must be feelings of delight, if they are to be vital. Do not +think you can make a girl lovely, if you do not make her happy. There +is not one restraint you put on a good girl's nature—there is not one +check you give to her instincts of affection or of effort—which will +not be indelibly written on her features, with a hardness which is all +the more painful because it takes away the brightness from the eyes of +innocence, and the charm from the brow of virtue. +</P> + +<P> +71. This for the means: now note the end. Take from the same poet, in +two lines, a perfect description of womanly beauty— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"A countenance in which did meet<BR> +Sweet records, promises as sweet."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The perfect loveliness of a woman's countenance can only consist in +that majestic peace, which is founded in the memory of happy and useful +years,—full of sweet records; and from the joining of this with that +yet more majestic childishness, which is still full of change and +promise;—opening always—modest at once, and bright, with hope of +better things to be won, and to be bestowed. There is no old age where +there is still that promise. +</P> + +<P> +72. Thus, then, you have first to mould her physical frame, and then, +as the strength she gains will permit you, to fill and temper her mind +with all knowledge and thoughts which tend to confirm its natural +instincts of justice, and refine its natural tact of love. +</P> + +<P> +All such knowledge should be given her as may enable her to understand, +and even to aid, the work of men: and yet it should be given, not as +knowledge,—not as if it were, or could be, for her an object to know; +but only to feel, and to judge. It is of no moment, as a matter of +pride or perfectness in herself, whether she knows many languages or +one; but it is of the utmost, that she should be able to show kindness +to a stranger, and to understand the sweetness of a stranger's tongue. +It is of no moment to her own worth or dignity that she should be +acquainted with this science or that; but it is of the highest that she +should be trained in habits of accurate thought; that she should +understand the meaning, the inevitableness, and the loveliness of +natural laws; and follow at least some one path of scientific +attainment, as far as to the threshold of that bitter Valley of +Humiliation, into which only the wisest and bravest of men can descend, +owning themselves forever children, gathering pebbles on a boundless +shore. It is of little consequence how many positions of cities she +knows, or how many dates of events, or names of celebrated persons—it +is not the object of education to turn a woman into a dictionary; but +it is deeply necessary that she should be taught to enter with her +whole personality into the history she reads; to picture the passages +of it vitally in her own bright imagination; to apprehend, with her +fine instincts, the pathetic circumstances and dramatic relations, +which the historian too often only eclipses by his reasoning, and +disconnects by his arrangement: it is for her to trace the hidden +equities of divine reward, and catch sight, through the darkness, of +the fatal threads of woven fire that connect error with its +retribution. But, chiefly of all, she is to be taught to extend the +limits of her sympathy with respect to that history which is being for +her determined as the moments pass in which she draws her peaceful +breath: and to the contemporary calamity, which, were it but rightly +mourned by her, would recur no more hereafter. She is to exercise +herself in imagining what would be the effects upon her mind and +conduct, if she were daily brought into the presence of the suffering +which is not the less real because shut from her sight. She is to be +taught somewhat to understand the nothingness of the proportion which +that little world in which she lives and loves, bears to the world in +which God lives and loves;—and solemnly she is to be taught to strive +that her thoughts of piety may not be feeble in proportion to the +number they embrace, nor her prayer more languid than it is for the +momentary relief from pain of her husband or her child, when it is +uttered for the multitudes of those who have none to love them,—and +is, "for all who are desolate and oppressed." +</P> + +<P> +73. Thus far, I think, I have had your concurrence; perhaps you will +not be with me in what I believe is most needful for me to say. There +is one dangerous science for women—one which they must indeed beware +how they profanely touch—that of theology. Strange, and miserably +strange, that while they are modest enough to doubt their powers, and +pause at the threshold of sciences where every step is demonstrable and +sure, they will plunge headlong, and without one thought of +incompetency, into that science in which the greatest men have +trembled, and the wisest erred. Strange, that they will complacently +and pridefully bind up whatever vice or folly there is in them, +whatever arrogance, petulance, or blind incomprehensiveness, into one +bitter bundle of consecrated myrrh. Strange, in creatures born to be +Love visible, that where they can know least, they will condemn first, +and think to recommend themselves to their Master, by scrambling up the +steps of His judgment throne, to divide it with Him. Strangest of all, +that they should think they were led by the Spirit of the Comforter +into habits of mind which have become in them the unmixed elements of +home discomfort; and that they dare to turn the Household Gods of +Christianity into ugly idols of their own;—spiritual dolls, for them +to dress according to their caprice; and from which their husbands must +turn away in grieved contempt, lest they should be shrieked at for +breaking them. +</P> + +<P> +74. I believe then, with this exception, that a girl's education +should be nearly, in its course and material of study, the same as a +boy's; but quite differently directed. A woman in any rank of life, +ought to know whatever her husband is likely to know, but to know it in +a different way. His command of it should be foundational and +progressive; hers, general and accomplished for daily and helpful use. +Not but that it would often be wiser in men to learn things in a +womanly sort of way, for present use, and to seek for the discipline +and training of their mental powers in such branches of study as will +be afterwards fittest for social service; but, speaking broadly, a man +ought to know any language or science he learns, thoroughly—while a +woman ought to know the same language, or science, only so far as may +enable her to sympathize in her husband's pleasures, and in those of +his best friends. +</P> + +<P> +75. Yet, observe, with exquisite accuracy as far as she reaches. +There is a wide difference between elementary knowledge and superficial +knowledge—between a firm beginning, and an infirm attempt at +compassing. A woman may always help her husband by what she knows, +however little; by what she half-knows, or mis-knows, she will only +tease him. +</P> + +<P> +And indeed, if there were to be any difference between a girl's +education and a boy's, I should say that of the two the girl should be +earlier led, as her intellect ripens faster, into deep and serious +subjects: and that her range of literature should be, not more, but +less frivolous; calculated to add the qualities of patience and +seriousness to her natural poignancy of thought and quickness of wit; +and also to keep her in a lofty and pure element of thought. I enter +not now into any question of choice of books; only let us be sure that +her books are not heaped up in her lap as they fall out of the package +of the circulating library, wet with the last and lightest spray of the +fountain of folly. +</P> + +<P> +76. Or even of the fountain of wit; for with respect to that sore +temptation of novel-reading, it is not the badness of a novel that we +should dread, so much as its over-wrought interest. The weakest +romance is not so stupefying as the lower forms of religious exciting +literature, and the worst romance is not so corrupting as false +history, false philosophy, or false political essays. But the best +romance becomes dangerous, if, by its excitement it renders the +ordinary course of life uninteresting, and increases the morbid thirst +for useless acquaintance with scenes in which we shall never be called +upon to act. +</P> + +<P> +77. I speak therefore of good novels only; and our modern literature +is particularly rich in types of such. Well read, indeed, these books +have serious use, being nothing less than treatises on moral anatomy +and chemistry; studies of human nature in the elements of it. But I +attach little weight to this function: they are hardly ever read with +earnestness enough to permit them to fulfill it. The utmost they +usually do is to enlarge somewhat the charity of a kind reader, or the +bitterness of a malicious one; for each will gather, from the novel, +food for her own disposition. Those who are naturally proud and +envious will learn from Thackeray to despise humanity; those who are +naturally gentle, to pity it; those who are naturally shallow, to laugh +at it. So also, there might be a serviceable power in novels to bring +before us, in vividness, a human truth which we had before dimly +conceived; but the temptation to picturesqueness of statement is so +great, that often the best writers of fiction cannot resist it; and our +views are rendered so violent and one-sided, that their vitality is +rather a harm than good. +</P> + +<P> +78. Without, however, venturing here on any attempt at decision of how +much novel-reading should be allowed, let me at least clearly assert +this, that whether novels, or poetry, or history be read, they should +be chosen, not for their freedom from evil, but for their possession of +good. The chance and scattered evil that may here and there haunt, or +hide itself in, a powerful book, never does any harm to a noble girl; +but the emptiness of an author oppresses her, and his amiable folly +degrades her. And if she can have access to a good library of old and +classical books, there need be no choosing at all. Keep the modern +magazine and novel out of your girl's way; turn her loose into the old +library every wet day, and let her alone. She will find what is good +for her; you cannot; for there is just this difference between the +making of a girl's character and a boy's—you may chisel a boy into +shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better +kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl +into anything. She grows as a flower does,—she will wither without +sun; she will decay in her sheath, as the narcissus will, if you do not +give her air enough; she may fall, and defile her head in dust, if you +leave her without help at some moments of her life; but you cannot +fetter her; she must take her own fair form and way, if she take any, +and in mind as in body, must have always— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Her household motions light and free<BR> +And steps of virgin liberty."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in a field. It +knows the bad weeds twenty times better than you; and the good ones, +too, and will eat some bitter and prickly ones, good for it, which you +had not the slightest thought would have been so. +</P> + +<P> +79. Then, in art, keep the finest models before her, and let her +practice in all accomplishments to be accurate and thorough, so as to +enable her to understand more than she accomplishes. I say the finest +models—that is to say, the truest, simplest, usefullest. Note those +epithets; they will range through all the arts. Try them in music, +where you might think them the least applicable. I say the truest, +that in which the notes most closely and faithfully express the meaning +of the words, or the character of intended emotion; again, the +simplest, that in which the meaning and melody are attained with the +fewest and most significant notes possible; and, finally, the +usefullest, that music which makes the best words most beautiful, which +enchants them in our memories each with its own glory of sound, and +which applies them closest to the heart at the moment we need them. +</P> + +<P> +80. And not only in the material and in the course, but yet more +earnestly in the spirit of it, let a girl's education be as serious as +a boy's. You bring up your girls as if they were meant for sideboard +ornament, and then complain of their frivolity. Give them the same +advantages that you give their brothers—appeal to the same grand +instincts of virtue in them; teach <I>them</I>, also, that courage and truth +are the pillars of their being;—do you think that they would not +answer that appeal, brave and true as they are even now, when you know +that there is hardly a girl's school in this Christian kingdom where +the children's courage or sincerity would be thought of half so much +importance as their way of coming in at a door; and when the whole +system of society, as respects the mode of establishing them in life, +is one rotten plague of cowardice and imposture—cowardice, in not +daring to let them live, or love, except as their neighbors choose; and +imposture, in bringing, for the purpose of our own pride, the full glow +of the world's worst vanity upon a girl's eyes, at the very period when +the whole happiness of her future existence depends upon her remaining +undazzled? +</P> + +<P> +81. And give them, lastly, not only noble teachings but noble +teachers. You consider somewhat, before you send your boy to school, +what kind of a man the master is;—whatsoever kind of a man he is, you +at least give him full authority over your son, and show some respect +for him yourself;—if he comes to dine with you, you do not put him at +a side table; you know, also, that at his college, your child's +immediate tutor will be under the direction of some still higher tutor, +for whom you have absolute reverence. You do not treat the Dean of +Christ Church or the Master of Trinity as your inferiors. +</P> + +<P> +But what teachers do you give your girls, and what reverence do you +show to the teachers you have chosen? Is a girl likely to think her +own conduct, or her own intellect, of much importance, when you trust +the entire formation of her character, moral and intellectual, to a +person whom you let your servants treat with less respect than they do +your housekeeper (as if the soul of your child were a less charge than +jams and groceries), and whom you yourself think you confer an honor +upon by letting her sometimes sit in the drawing-room in the evening? +</P> + +<P> +82. Thus, then, of literature as her help, and thus of art. There is +one more help which we cannot do without—one which, alone, has +sometimes done more than all other influences besides,—the help of +wild and fair nature. Hear this of the education of Joan of Arc:— +</P> + +<P> +"The education of this poor girl was mean according to the present +standard; was ineffably grand, according to a purer philosophic +standard; and only not good for our age, because for us it would be +unattainable.… +</P> + +<P> +"Next after her spiritual advantages, she owed most to the advantages +of her situation. The fountain of Domrémy was on the brink of a +boundless forest; and it was haunted to that degree by fairies, that +the parish priest (<I>curé</I>) was obliged to read mass there once a year, +in order to keep them in any decent bounds.… +</P> + +<P> +"But the forest of Domrémy—those were the glories of the land; for in +them abode mysterious powers and ancient secrets that towered into +tragic strength. Abbeys there were, and abbey windows,'—'like Moorish +temples of the Hindoos,' that exercised even princely power both in +Touraine and in the German Diets. These had their sweet bells that +pierced the forests for many a league at matins or vespers, and each +its own dreamy legend. Few enough, and scattered enough, were these +abbeys, so as in no degree to disturb the deep solitude of the region; +yet many enough to spread a network or awning of Christian sanctity +over what else might have seemed a heathen wilderness." [5] +</P> + +<P> +Now you cannot, indeed, have here in England, woods eighteen miles deep +to the centre; but you can, perhaps, keep a fairy or two for your +children yet, if you wish to keep them. But <I>do</I> you wish it? Suppose +you had each, at the back of your houses, a garden large enough for +your children to play in, with just as much lawn as would give them +room to run,—no more—and that you could not change your abode; but +that, if you choose, you could double your income, or quadruple it, by +digging a coal-shaft in the middle of the lawn, and turning the +flower-beds into heaps of coke. Would you do it? I hope not. I can +tell you, you would be wrong if you did, though it gave you income +sixty-fold instead of four-fold. +</P> + +<P> +83. Yet this is what you are doing with all England. The whole +country is but a little garden, not more than enough for your children +to run on the lawns of, if you would let them <I>all</I> run there. And +this little garden you will turn into furnace-ground, and fill with +heaps of cinders, if you can; and those children of yours, not you, +will suffer for it. For the fairies will not be all banished; there +are fairies of the furnace as of the wood, and their first gifts seem +to be "sharp arrows of the mighty"; but their last gifts are "coals of +juniper." +</P> + +<P> +84. And yet I cannot—though there is no part of my subject that I +feel more—press this upon you; for we made so little use of the power +of nature while we had it, that we shall hardly feel what we have lost. +Just on the other side of the Mersey you have your Snowdon, and your +Menai Straits, and that mighty granite rock beyond the moors of +Anglesea, splendid in its heatherly crest, and foot planted in the deep +sea, once thought of as sacred—a divine promontory, looking westward; +the Holy Head or Headland, still not without awe when its red light +glares first through storm. These are the hills, and these the bays +and blue inlets, which, among the Greeks, would have been always loved, +always fateful in influence on the national mind. That Snowdon is your +Parnassus; but where are its Muses? That Holyhead mountain is your +Island of Aegina, but where is its Temple to Minerva? +</P> + +<P> +85. Shall I read you what the Christian Minerva had achieved under the +shadow of our Parnassus, up to the year 1848?—Here is a little account +of a Welsh school, from page 261 of the report on Wales, published by +the Committee of Council on Education. This is a school close to a +town containing 5,000 persons:— +</P> + +<P> +"I then called up a larger class, most of whom had recently come to the +school. Three girls repeatedly declared that they had never heard of +Christ, and two that they had never heard of God. Two out of six +thought Christ was on earth now ('they might have had a worse thought, +perhaps'); three knew nothing about the crucifixion. Four out of seven +did not know the names of the months, nor the number of days in a year. +They had no notion of addition beyond two and two, or three and three; +their minds were perfect blanks." +</P> + +<P> +Oh, ye women of England! from the Princess of that Wales to the +simplest of you, do not think your own children can be brought into +their true fold of rest while these are scattered on the hills, as +sheep having no shepherd. And do not think your daughters can be +trained to the truth of their own human beauty, while the pleasant +places, which God made at once for their school-room and their +playground, lie desolate and defiled. You cannot baptize them rightly +in those inch-deep fonts of yours, unless you baptize them also in the +sweet waters which the great Lawgiver strikes forth forever from the +rocks of your native land—waters which a Pagan would have worshiped in +their purity, and you only worship with pollution. You cannot lead +your children faithfully to those narrow axe-hewn church altars of +yours, while the dark azure altars in heaven—the mountains that +sustain your island throne,—mountains on which a Pagan would have seen +the powers of heaven rest in every wreathed cloud—remain for you +without inscription; altars built, not to, but by, an Unknown God. +</P> + +<P> +86. III.—Thus far, then, of the nature, thus far of the teaching, of +women, and thus of her household office, and queenliness. We come now +to our last, our widest question,—What is her queenly office with +respect to the state? +</P> + +<P> +Generally we are under an impression that a man's duties are public, +and a woman's private. But this is not altogether so. A man has a +personal work or duty, relating to his own home, and a public work or +duty, which is the expansion of the other, relating to the state. So a +woman has a personal work and duty, relating to her own home, and a +public work and duty, which is also the expansion of that. +</P> + +<P> +Now the man's work for his own home is, as has been said, to secure its +maintenance, progress, and defence; the woman's to secure its order, +comfort, and loveliness. +</P> + +<P> +Expand both these functions. The man's duty, as a member of a +commonwealth, is to assist in the maintenance, in the advance, in the +defense of the state. The woman's duty, as a member of the +commonwealth, is to assist in the ordering, in the comforting, and in +the beautiful adornment of the state. +</P> + +<P> +What the man is at his own gate, defending it, if need be, against +insult and spoil, that also, not in a less, but in a more devoted +measure, he is to be at the gate of his country, leaving his home, if +need be, even to the spoiler, to do his more incumbent work there. +</P> + +<P> +And, in like manner, what the woman is to be within her gates, as the +center of order, the balm of distress, and the mirror of beauty; that +she is also to be without her gates, where order is more difficult, +distress more imminent, loveliness more rare. +</P> + +<P> +And as within the human heart there is always set an instinct for all +its real duties,—an instinct which you cannot quench, but only warp +and corrupt if you withdraw it from its true purpose;—as there is the +intense instinct of love, which, rightly disciplined, maintains all the +sanctities of life, and, misdirected, undermines them; and <I>must</I> do +either the one or the other;—so there is in the human heart an +inextinguishable instinct, the love of power, which, rightly directed, +maintains all the majesty of law and life, and, misdirected, wrecks +them. +</P> + +<P> +87. Deep rooted in the innermost life of the heart of man, and of the +heart of woman, God set it there, and God keeps it there. Vainly, as +falsely, you blame or rebuke the desire of power!—For Heaven's sake, +and for Man's sake, desire it all you can. But <I>what</I> power? That is +all the question. Power to destroy? the lion's limb, and the dragon's +breath? Not so. Power to heal, to redeem, to guide, and to guard. +Power of the scepter and shield; the power of the royal hand that heals +in touching,—that binds the fiend and looses the captive; the throne +that is founded on the rock of Justice, and descended from only by +steps of mercy. Will you not covet such power as this, and seek such +throne as this, and be no more housewives, but queens? +</P> + +<P> +88. It is now long since the women of England arrogated, universally, +a title which once belonged to nobility only, and, having once been in +the habit of accepting the simple title of gentlewoman, as +correspondent to that of gentleman, insisted on the privilege of +assuming the title of "Lady," [6] which properly corresponds only to +the title of "Lord." +</P> + +<P> +I do not blame them for this; but only for their narrow motive in this. +I would have them desire and claim the title of Lady, provided they +claim, not merely the title, but the office and duty signified by it. +Lady means "bread-giver" or "loaf-giver," and Lord means "maintainer of +laws," and both titles have reference, not to the law which is +maintained in the house, nor to the bread which is given to the +household, but to law maintained for the multitude, and to bread broken +among the multitude. So that a Lord has legal claim only to his title +in so far as he is the maintainer of the justice of the Lord of Lords; +and a Lady has legal claim to her title only so far as she communicates +that help to the poor representatives of her Master, which women once, +ministering to Him of their substance, were permitted to extend to that +Master Himself; and when she is known, as He Himself once was, in +breaking of bread. +</P> + +<P> +89. And this beneficent and legal dominion, this power of the Dominus, +or House-Lord, and of the Domina, or House-Lady, is great and +venerable, not in the number of those through whom it has lineally +descended, but in the number of those whom it grasps within its sway; +it is always regarded with reverent worship wherever its dynasty is +founded on its duty, and its ambition co-relative with its beneficence. +Your fancy is pleased with the thought of being noble ladies, with a +train of vassals. Be it so: you cannot be too noble, and your train +cannot be too great; but see to it that your train is of vassals whom +you serve and feed, not merely of slaves who serve and feed <I>you</I>; and +that the multitude which obeys you is of those whom you have comforted, +not oppressed,—whom you have redeemed, not led into captivity. +</P> + +<P> +90. And this, which is true of the lower or household dominion, is +equally true of the queenly dominion;—that highest dignity is opened +to you, if you will also accept that highest duty. Rex et Regina—Roi +et Reine—"<I>Right</I>-doers"; they differ but from the Lady and Lord, in +that their power is supreme over the mind as over the person—that they +not only feed and clothe, but direct and teach. And whether +consciously or not, you must be, in many a heart, enthroned: there is +no putting by that crown; queens you must always be; queens to your +lovers; queens to your husbands and your sons; queens of higher mystery +to the world beyond, which bows itself, and will forever bow, before +the myrtle crown, and the stainless scepter, of womanhood. But, alas! +you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the +least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest; and leaving +misrule and violence to work their will among men, in defiance of the +power, which, holding straight in gift from the Prince of all Peace, +the wicked among you betray, and the good forget. +</P> + +<P> +91. "Prince of Peace." Note that name. When kings rule in that name, +and nobles, and the judges of the earth, they also, in their narrow +place, and mortal measure, receive the power of it. There are no other +rulers than they: other rule than theirs is but <I>mis</I>rule; they who +govern verily "Dei gratia" are all princes, yes, or princesses, of +peace. There is not a war in the world, no, nor an injustice, but you +women are answerable for it; not in that you have provoked, but in that +you have not hindered. Men, by their nature, are prone to fight; they +will fight for any cause, or for none. It is for you to choose their +cause for them, and to forbid them when there is no cause. There is no +suffering, no injustice, no misery in the earth, but the guilt of it +lies with you. Men can bear the sight of it, but you should not be +able to bear it. Men may tread it down without sympathy in their own +struggle; but men are feeble in sympathy, and contracted in hope; it is +you only who can feel the depths of pain; and conceive the way of its +healing. Instead of trying to do this, you turn away from it; you shut +yourselves within your park walls and garden gates; and you are content +to know that there is beyond them a whole world in wilderness—a world +of secrets which you dare not penetrate; and of suffering which you +dare not conceive. +</P> + +<P> +92. I tell you that this is to me quite the most amazing among the +phenomena of humanity. I am surprised at no depths to which, when once +warped from its honor, that humanity can be degraded. I do not wonder +at the miser's death, with his hands, as they relax, dropping gold. I +do not wonder at the sensualist's life, with the shroud wrapped about +his feet. I do not wonder at the single-handed murder of a single +victim, done by the assassin in the darkness of the railway, or +reed-shadow of the marsh. I do not even wonder at the myriad-handed +murder of multitudes, done boastfully in the daylight, by the frenzy of +nations, and the immeasurable, unimaginable guilt, heaped up from hell +to heaven, of their priests and kings. But this is wonderful to +me—oh, how wonderful!—to see the tender and delicate woman among you, +with her child at her breast, and a power, if she would wield it, over +it, and over its father, purer than the air of heaven, and stronger +than the seas of earth—nay a magnitude of blessing which her husband +would not part with for all that earth itself, though it were made of +one entire and perfect chrysolite:—to see her abdicate this majesty to +play at precedence with her next-door neighbor! This is wonderful—oh, +wonderful!—to see her, with every innocent feeling fresh within her, +go out in the morning into her garden to play with the fringes of its +guarded flowers, and lift their heads when they are drooping, with her +happy smile upon her face, and no cloud upon her brow, because there is +a little wall around her place of peace: and yet she knows, in her +heart, if she would only look for its knowledge, that, outside of that +little rose-covered wall, the wild grass, to the horizon, is torn up by +the agony of men, and beat level by the drift of their life blood. +</P> + +<P> +93. Have you ever considered what a deep under meaning there lies, or +at least may be read, if we choose, in our custom of strewing flowers +before those whom we think most happy? Do you suppose it is merely to +deceive them into the hope that happiness is always to fall thus in +showers at their feet?—that wherever they pass they will tread on the +herbs of sweet scent, and that the rough ground will be made smooth for +them by depth of roses? So surely as they believe that, they will +have, instead, to walk on bitter herbs and thorns; and the only +softness to their feet will be of snow. But it is not thus intended +they should believe; there is a better meaning in that old custom. The +path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers: but they rise +behind her steps not before them. "Her feet have touched the meadows, +and left the daisies rosy." +</P> + +<P> +94. You think that only a lover's fancy;—false and vain! How if it +could be true? You think this also, perhaps, only a poet's fancy— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Even the light harebell raised its head<BR> +Elastic from her airy tread."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +But it is little to say of a woman, that she only does not destroy +where she passes. She should revive; the harebells should bloom, not +stoop, as she passes. You think I am rushing into wild hyperbole? +Pardon me, not a whit—I mean what I say in calm English, spoken in +resolute truth. You have heard it said—(and I believe there is more +than fancy even in that saying, but let it pass for a fanciful +one)—that flowers only flourish rightly in the garden of some one who +loves them. I know you would like that to be true; you would think it +a pleasant magic if you could flush your flowers into brighter bloom by +a kind look upon them; nay, more, if your look had the power, not only +to cheer but to guard them:—if you could bid the black blight turn +away and the knotted caterpillar spare—if you could bid the dew fall +upon them in the drought, and say to the south wind, in frost—"Come, +thou south, and breathe upon my garden, that the spices of it may flow +out." This you would think a great thing? And do you think it not a +greater thing, that all this (and how much more than this!) you <I>can</I> +do for fairer flowers than these—flowers that could bless you for +having blessed them, and will love you for having loved them;—flowers +that have thoughts like yours, and lives like yours; which, once saved, +you save forever? Is this only a little power? Far among the +moorlands and the rocks,—far in the darkness of the terrible +streets,—these feeble florets are lying, with all their fresh leaves +torn, and their stems broken—will you never go down to them, nor set +them in order in their little fragrant beds, nor fence them in their +trembling from the fierce wind? Shall morning follow morning, for you, +but not for them; and the dawn rise to watch, far away, those frantic +Dances of Death,[7] but no dawn rise to breathe upon these living banks +of wild violet, and woodbine, and rose; nor call to you, through your +casement,—call (not giving you the name of the English poet's lady, +but the name of Dante's great Matilda, who on the edge of happy Lethe, +stood wreathing flowers with flowers), saying:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Come into the garden, Maud,<BR> +For the black bat, night, has flown,<BR> +And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad<BR> +And the musk of the roses blown."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Will you not go down among them?—among those sweet living things, +whose new courage, sprung from the earth with the deep color of heaven +upon it, is starting up in strength of goodly spire; and whose purity, +washed from the dust, is opening, bud by bud, into the flower of +promise;—and still they turn to you and for you, "The Larkspur +listens—I hear, I hear! And the Lily whispers—I wait." +</P> + +<P> +95. Did you notice that I missed two lines when I read you that first +stanza; and think that I had forgotten them? Hear them now:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Come into the garden, Maud,<BR> +For the black bat, night, has flown.<BR> +Come into the garden, Maud,<BR> +I am here at the gate, alone."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Who is it, think you, who stands at the gate of this sweeter garden, +alone, waiting for you? Did you ever hear, not of a Maude but a +Madeleine who went down to her garden in the dawn and found one waiting +at the gate, whom she supposed to be the gardener? Have you not sought +Him often;—sought Him in vain, all through the night;—sought Him in +vain at the gate of that old garden where the fiery sword is set? He +is never there; but at the gate of <I>this</I> garden He is waiting +always—waiting to take your hand—ready to go down to see the fruits +of the valley, to see whether the vine has flourished, and the +pomegranate budded. There you shall see with Him the little tendrils +of the vines that His hand is guiding—there you shall see the +pomegranate springing where His hand cast the sanguine seed;—more: you +shall see the troops of the angel keepers, that, with their wings, wave +away the hungry birds from the pathsides where He has sown, and call to +each other between the vineyard rows, "Take us the foxes, the little +foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes." +Oh—you queens—you queens; among the hills and happy greenwood of this +land of yours, shall the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air +have nests; and in your cities, shall the stones cry out against you, +that they are the only pillows where the Son of Man can lay His head? +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[1] This lecture was given December 14, 1864, at the Town Hall, +Manchester, in aid of the St. Andrew's Schools. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[2] I ought, in order to make this assertion fully understood, to have +noted the various weaknesses which lower the ideal of other great +characters of men in the Waverley novels—the selfishness and +narrowness of thought in Redgauntlet, the weak religious enthusiasm in +Edward Glendinning, and the like; and I ought to have noticed that +there are several quite perfect characters sketched sometimes in the +backgrounds; three—let us accept joyously this courtesy to England and +her soldiers—are English officers; Colonel Gardiner, Colonel Talbot, +and Colonel Mannering. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[3] Coventry Patmore. You cannot read him too often or too carefully; +as far as I know he is the only living poet who always strengthens and +purifies; the others sometimes darken, and nearly always depress and +discourage, the imagination they deeply seize. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[4] Observe, it is "Nature" who is speaking throughout, and who says, +"While she and I together live." +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[5] "Joan of Arc: in reference to M. Michelet's History of France." De +Quincey's Works, Vol. III, page 217. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[6] I wish there were a true order of chivalry instituted for our +English youth of certain ranks, in which both boy and girl should +receive, at a given age, their knighthood and ladyhood by true title; +attainable only by certain probation and trial both of character and +accomplishment; and to be forfeited, on conviction, by their peers, of +any dishonorable act. Such an institution would be entirely, and with +all noble results, possible, in a nation which loved honor. That it +would not be possible among us is not to the discredit of the scheme. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[7] See note, p. 124. [Transcriber's note: refers to one of footnote +12 or 13 in Ruskin's "Sesame" article.] +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05a"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +JOHN MILTON +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WALTER BAGEHOT +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</I> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Walter Bagehot, economist, journalist, and critic, was born at +Langport, Somersetshire, February 3, 1826. He was the son of a banker, +and after graduating at University College, London, and being called to +the bar, he joined his father in business. In 1851 he went to Paris, +and was there during the coup d'état of Louis Napoleon, of which he +gave a vivacious account in letters to an English journal. Soon after +his return he began to contribute Ids first series of biographical +studies to the "Prospective Review" and the "National Review," of which +latter he was for some time joint-editor. From 1860 to 1877 he was +editor of the "Economist," and during this period he published his +notable work on "The English Constitution," his "Physics and Politics," +and his "Lombard Street: a Description of the Money Market." He died +March 24, 1877.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +It is chiefly as one of the most brilliant and original of recent +writers on political philosophy that Bagehot is known, but he holds +also a distinct place as a critic of literature. He did not write +criticism like a professional man of letters, and his production in +this field is at times less fine in workmanship than that of some men +of much less ability. But, in compensation, he was free from the +tendency to the use of a technical literary dialect and to the +excessive self-consciousness in style which mars so much modern work in +this department. He wrote as a man of affairs with a vigorous mind and +a gift of picturesque speech, a robust taste and a genuine love of +letters. He always had something definite to say, and no one can read +his discussion of such a man as Milton without feeling braced and +stimulated by contact with an intellect of uncommon strength and +incisiveness. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +JOHN MILTON[1] +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +(1859) +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Copyright, 1891, by The Travelers Insurance Company<BR> +Copyright, 1899, by The Travelers Insurance Company<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The "Life of Milton," by Prof. Masson, is a difficulty for the critics. +It is very laborious, very learned, and in the main, we believe, very +accurate; it is exceedingly long,—there are 780 pages in this volume, +and there are to be two volumes more; it touches on very many subjects, +and each of these has been investigated to the very best of the +author's ability. No one can wish to speak with censure of a book on +which so much genuine labor has been expended; and yet we are bound, as +true critics, to say that we think it has been composed upon a +principle that is utterly erroneous. In justice to ourselves we must +explain our meaning. +</P> + +<P> +There are two methods on which biography may consistently be written. +The first of these is what we may call the "exhaustive" method. Every +fact which is known about the hero may be told us; everything which he +did, everything which he would not do, everything which other people +did to him, everything which other people would not do to him, may be +narrated at full length. We may have a complete picture of all the +events of his life; of all which he underwent, and all which he +achieved. We may, as Mr. Carlyle expresses it, have a complete account +"of his effect upon the universe, and of the effect of the universe +upon him." [2] We admit that biographies of this species would be very +long, and generally very tedious; we know that the world could not +contain very many of them: but nevertheless, the principle on which +they may be written is intelligible. +</P> + +<P> +The second method on which the life of a man may be written is the +selective. Instead of telling everything, we may choose what we will +tell. We may select out of the numberless events, from among the +innumerable actions of his life, those events and those actions which +exemplify his true character, which prove to us what were the true +limits of his talents, what was the degree of his deficiencies, which +were his defects, which his vices; in a word, we may select the traits +and the particulars which seem to give us the best idea of the man as +he lived and as he was. On this side the Flood, as Sydney Smith would +have said, we should have fancied that this was the only practicable +principle on which biographies can be written about persons of whom +many details are recorded. For ancient heroes the exhaustive method is +possible: all that can be known of them is contained in a few short +passages of Greek and Latin, and it is quite possible to say whatever +can be said about every one of these; the result would not be +unreasonably bulky, though it might be dull. But in the case of men +who have lived in the thick of the crowded modern world, no such course +is admissible; overmuch <I>may</I> be said, and we must choose what we will +say. Biographers, however, are rarely bold enough to adopt the +selective method consistently. They have, we suspect, the fear of the +critics before their eyes. They do not like that it should be said +that "the work of the learned gentleman contains serious omissions: the +events of 1562 are not mentioned; those of October, 1579, are narrated +but very cursorily"; and we fear that in any case such remarks will be +made. Very learned people are pleased to show that they know what is +<I>not</I> in the book; sometimes they may hint that perhaps the author did +not know it, or surely he would have mentioned it. But a biographer +who wishes to write what most people of cultivation will be pleased to +read must be courageous enough to face the pain of such censures. He +must choose, as we have explained, the characteristic parts of his +subject: and all that he has to take care of besides is, so to narrate +them that their characteristic elements shall be shown; to give such an +account of the general career as may make it clear what these chosen +events really were,—to show their respective bearings to one another; +to delineate what is expressive in such a manner as to make it +expressive. +</P> + +<P> +This plan of biography is, however, by no means that of Mr. Masson: he +has no dread of overgrown bulk and overwhelming copiousness. He finds +indeed what we have called the "exhaustive method" insufficient: he not +only wishes to narrate in full the life of Milton, but to add those of +his contemporaries likewise; he seems to wish to tell us not only what +Milton did, but also what every one else did in Great Britain during +his lifetime. He intends his book to be not +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +"merely a biography of Milton, but also in some sort a continuous +history of his time.… The suggestions of Milton's life have +indeed determined the tracks of these historical researches and +expositions, sometimes through the literature of the period, sometimes +through its civil and ecclesiastical politics; but the extent to which +I have pursued them, and the space which I have assigned to them, have +been determined by my desire to present, by their combination, +something like a connected historical view of British thought and +British society in general prior to the great Revolution." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +We need not do more than observe that this union of heterogeneous aims +must always end, as it has in this case, in the production of a work at +once overgrown and incomplete. A great deal which has only a slight +bearing on the character of Milton is inserted; much that is necessary +to a true history of "British thought and British society" is of +necessity left out. The period of Milton's life which is included in +the published volume makes the absurdity especially apparent. In +middle life Milton was a great controversialist on contemporary topics; +and though it would not be proper for a biographer to load his pages +with a full account of all such controversies, yet some notice of the +most characteristic of them would be expected from him. In this part +of Milton's life some reference to public events would be necessary; +and we should not severely censure a biographer if the great interest +of those events induced him to stray a little from his topic. But the +first thirty years of Milton's life require a very different treatment. +He passed those years in the ordinary musings of a studious and +meditative youth; it was the period of "Lycidas" and "Comus"; he then +dreamed the +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Sights which youthful poets dream<BR> +On summer eve by haunted stream." [3]<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +We do not wish to have this part of his life disturbed, to a greater +extent than may be necessary, with the harshness of public affairs. +Nor is it necessary that it should be so disturbed: a life of poetic +retirement requires but little reference to anything except itself; in +a biography of Mr. Tennyson we should not expect to hear of the Reform +Bill or the Corn Laws. Mr. Masson is, however, of a different opinion: +he thinks it necessary to tell us, not only all which Milton did, but +everything also that he might have heard of. +</P> + +<P> +The biography of Mr. Keightley is on a very different scale: he tells +the story of Milton's career in about half a small volume. Probably +this is a little too concise, and the narrative is somewhat dry and +bare. It is often, however, acute, and is always clear; and even were +its defects greater than they are, we should think it unseemly to +criticize the last work of one who has performed so many useful +services to literature with extreme severity. +</P> + +<P> +The bare outline of Milton's life is very well known. We have all +heard that he was born in the latter years of King James, just when +Puritanism was collecting its strength for the approaching struggle; +that his father and mother were quiet good people, inclined, but not +immoderately, to that persuasion; that he went up to Cambridge early, +and had some kind of dissension with the authorities there; that the +course of his youth was in a singular degree pure and staid; that in +boyhood he was a devourer of books, and that he early became, and +always remained, a severely studious man; that he married and had +difficulties of a peculiar character with his first wife; that he wrote +on divorce: that after the death of his first wife, he married a second +time a lady who died very soon, and a third time a person who survived +him more than fifty years; that he wrote early poems of singular +beauty, which we still read; that he travelled in Italy, and exhibited +his learning in the academies there; that he plunged deep in the +theological and political controversies of his time; that he kept a +school,—or rather, in our more modern phrase, took pupils; that he was +a republican of a peculiar kind, and of "no church," which Dr. Johnson +thought dangerous;[4] that he was Secretary for Foreign Languages under +the Long Parliament, and retained that office after the <I>coup d'état</I> +of Cromwell; that he defended the death of Charles I., and became blind +from writing a book in haste upon that subject; that after the +Restoration he was naturally in a position of some danger and much +difficulty; that in the midst of that difficulty he wrote "Paradise +Lost"; that he did not fail in "heart or hope," [5] but lived for +fourteen years after the destruction of all for which he had labored, +in serene retirement, "though fallen on evil days, though fallen on +evil times," [6]—all this we have heard from our boyhood. How much is +wanting to complete the picture—how many traits both noble and +painful, might be recovered from the past—we shall never know, till +some biographer skilled in interpreting the details of human nature +shall select this subject for his art. All that we can hope to do in +an essay like this is, to throw together some miscellaneous remarks on +the character of the Puritan poet, and on the peculiarities of his +works; and if in any part of them we may seem to make unusual +criticisms, and to be over-ready with depreciation or objection, our +excuse must be, that we wish to paint a likeness and that the harsher +features of the subject should have a prominence even in an outline. +</P> + +<P> +There are two kinds of goodness conspicuous in the world, and often +made the subject of contrast there; for which, however, we seem to want +exact words, and which we are obliged to describe rather vaguely and +incompletely. These characters may in one aspect be called the +"sensuous" and the "ascetic." The character of the first is that which +is almost personified in the poet-king of Israel, whose actions and +whose history have been "improved" so often by various writers that it +now seems trite even to allude to them. Nevertheless, the particular +virtues and the particular career of David seem to embody the idea of +what may be called "sensuous goodness" far more completely than a +living being in general comes near to an abstract idea. There may have +been shades in the actual man which would have modified the +resemblance; but in the portrait which has been handed down to us, the +traits are perfect and the approximation exact. The principle of this +character is its sensibility to outward stimulus: it is moved by all +which occurs, stirred by all which happens, open to the influences of +whatever it sees, hears or meets with. The certain consequence of this +mental constitution is a peculiar liability to temptation. Men are +according to the divine, "put upon their trial through the senses." It +is through the constant suggestions of the outer world that our minds +are stimulated, that our will has the chance of a choice, that moral +life becomes possible. The sensibility to this external stimulus +brings with it, when men have it to excess, an unusual access of moral +difficulty. Everything acts on them, and everything has a chance of +turning them aside; the most tempting things act upon them very deeply +and their influence, in consequence, is extreme. Naturally, therefore, +the errors of such men are great. We need not point the moral:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Dizzied faith and guilt and woe;<BR> +Loftiest aims by earth defiled,<BR> +Gleams of wisdom sin-beguiled,<BR> +Sated power's tyrannic mood,<BR> +Counsels shared with men of blood,<BR> +Sad success, parental tears,<BR> +And a dreary gift of years." [7]<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +But on the other hand, the excellence of such men has a charm, a kind +of sensuous sweetness, that is its own. Being conscious of frailty, +they are tender to the imperfect; being sensitive to this world, they +sympathize with the world; being familiar with all the moral incidents +of life, their goodness has a richness and a complication: they +fascinate their own age, and in their deaths they are "not divided" +from the love of others. Their peculiar sensibility gives a depth to +their religion: it is at once deeper and more human than that of other +men. As their sympathetic knowledge of those whom they have seen is +great, so it is with their knowledge of Him whom they have not seen; +and as is their knowledge, so is their love, it is deep, from their +nature; rich and intimate, from the variety of their experience; +chastened by the ever-present sense of their weakness and of its +consequences. +</P> + +<P> +In extreme opposition to this is the ascetic species of goodness. This +is not, as is sometimes believed, a self-produced ideal,—a simply +voluntary result of discipline and restraint. Some men have by nature +what others have to elaborate by effort. Some men have a repulsion +from the world. All of us have, in some degree, a protective instinct; +an impulse, that is to say, to start back from what may trouble us, to +shun what may fascinate us, to avoid what may tempt us. On the moral +side of human nature this preventive check is occasionally imperious: +it holds the whole man under its control,—makes him recoil from the +world, be offended at its amusements, be repelled by its occupations, +be scared by its sins. The consequences of this tendency, when it is +thus in excess, upon the character are very great and very singular. +It secludes a man in a sort of natural monastery; he lives in a kind of +moral solitude: and the effects of his isolation, for good and for +evil, on his disposition are very many. The best result is a singular +capacity for meditative religion. Being aloof from what is earthly, +such persons are shut up with what is spiritual; being unstirred by the +incidents of time, they are alone with the eternal; rejecting this +life, they are alone with what is beyond. According to the measure of +their minds, men of this removed and secluded excellence become eminent +for a settled and brooding piety, for a strong and predominant +religion. In human life, too, in a thousand ways, their isolated +excellence is apparent. They walk through the whole of it with an +abstinence from sense, a zeal of morality, a purity of ideal, which +other men have not; their religion has an imaginative grandeur, and +their life something of an unusual impeccability: and these are +obviously singular excellences. But the deficiencies to which the same +character tends are equally singular. In the first place, their +isolation gives them a certain pride in themselves and an inevitable +ignorance of others. They are secluded by their constitutional +<I>daimon</I> from life; they are repelled from the pursuits which others +care for; they are alarmed at the amusements which others enjoy. In +consequence, they trust in their own thoughts; they come to magnify +both them and themselves,—for being able to think and to retain them. +The greater the nature of the man, the greater is this temptation. His +thoughts are greater, and in consequence the greater is his tendency to +prize them, the more extreme is his tendency to overrate them. This +pride, too, goes side by side with a want of sympathy. Being aloof +from others, such a mind is unlike others; and it feels, and sometimes +it feels bitterly, its own unlikeness. Generally, however, it is too +wrapped up in its own exalted thoughts to be sensible of the pain of +moral isolation; it stands apart from others, unknowing and unknown. +It is deprived of moral experience in two ways,—it is not tempted +itself, and it does not comprehend the temptations of others. And this +defect of moral experience is almost certain to produce two effects, +one practical and the other speculative. When such a man is wrong, he +will be apt to believe that he is right. If his own judgment err, he +will not have the habit of checking it by the judgment of others: he +will be accustomed to think most men wrong; differing from them would +be no proof of error, agreeing with them would rather be a basis for +suspicion. He may, too, be very wrong, for the conscience of no man is +perfect on all sides. The strangeness of secluded excellence will be +sometimes deeply shaded by very strange errors. To be commonly above +others, still more to think yourself above others, is to be below them +every now and then, and sometimes much below. Again, on the +speculative side, this defect of moral experience penetrates into the +distinguishing excellence of the character,—its brooding and +meditative religion. Those who see life under only one aspect can see +religion under only one likewise. This world is needful to interpret +what is beyond; the seen must explain the unseen. It is from a tried +and a varied and a troubled moral life that the deepest and truest idea +of God arises. The ascetic character wants these; therefore in its +religion there will be a harshness of outline,—a bareness, so to +say,—as well as a grandeur. In life we may look for a singular +purity; but also, and with equal probability, for singular +self-confidence, a certain unsympathizing straitness, and perhaps a few +singular errors. +</P> + +<P> +The character of the ascetic or austere species of goodness is almost +exactly embodied in Milton. Men, indeed, are formed on no ideal type: +human nature has tendencies too various, and circumstances too complex; +all men's characters have sides and aspects not to be comprehended in a +single definition: but in this case, the extent to which the character +of the man as we find it delineated approaches to the moral abstraction +which we sketch from theory is remarkable. The whole being of Milton +may, in some sort, be summed up in the great commandment of the austere +character, "Reverence thyself." We find it expressed in almost every +one of his singular descriptions of himself,—of those striking +passages which are scattered through all his works, and which add to +whatever interest may intrinsically belong to them one of the rarest of +artistic charms, that of magnanimous autobiography. They have been +quoted a thousand times, but one of them may perhaps be quoted again: +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +"I had my time, readers, as others have, who have good learning +bestowed upon them, to be sent to those places where, the opinion was, +it might be soonest attained; and as the manner is, was not unstudied +in those authors which are most commended: whereof some were grave +orators and historians, whose matter methought I loved indeed, but as +my age then was, so I understood them; others were the smooth elegiac +poets, whereof the schools are not scarce, whom both for the pleasing +sound of their numerous writing, which in imitation I found most easy +and most agreeable to nature's part in me, and for their matter, which +what it is there be few who know not, I was so allured to read, that no +recreation came to me better welcome. For that it was then those years +with me which are excused, though they be least severe, I may be saved +the labor to remember ye. Whence having observed them to account it +the chief glory of their wit, in that they were ablest to judge, to +praise, and by that could esteem themselves worthiest to love, those +high perfections which under one or other name they took to celebrate, +I thought with myself by every instinct and presage of nature, which is +not wont to be false, that what emboldened them to this task might with +such diligence as they used embolden me; and that what judgment, wit, +or elegance was my share would herein best appear, and best value +itself, by how much more wisely and with more love of virtue I should +choose (let rude ears be absent) the object of not unlike praises. For +albeit these thoughts to some will seem virtuous and commendable, to +others only pardonable, to a third sort perhaps idle, yet the +mentioning of them now will end in serious. +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +"Nor blame it, readers, in those years to propose to themselves such a +reward, as the noblest dispositions above other things in this life +have sometimes preferred; whereof not to be sensible when good and fair +in one person meet, argues both a gross and shallow judgment, and +withal an ungentle and swainish breast. For by the firm settling of +these persuasions, I became, to my best memory, so much a proficient, +that if I found those authors anywhere speaking unworthy things of +themselves, or unchaste of those names which before they had extolled, +this effect it wrought with me,—from that time forward their art I +still applauded, but the men I deplored; and above them all, preferred +the two famous renowners of <I>Beatrice</I> and <I>Laura</I>, who never write but +honor of them to whom they devote their verse, displaying sublime and +pure thoughts without transgression. And long it was not after, when I +was confirmed in this opinion,—that he who would not be frustrate of +his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be +a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and +honorablest things: not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or +famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the +practice of all that which is praiseworthy." [8] +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It may be fanciful to add, and we may be laughed at, but we believe +that the self-reverencing propensity was a little aided by his singular +personal beauty. All the describers of his youth concur in telling us +that this was very remarkable. Mr. Masson has the following account of +it:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +"When Milton left Cambridge in July, 1632, he was twenty-three years +and eight months old. In stature, therefore, at least, he was already +whatever he was to be. 'In stature,' he says himself at a later +period, when driven to speak on the subject, 'I confess I am not tall, +but still of what is nearer to middle height than to little; and what +if I were of little, of which stature have often been very great men +both in peace and war—though why should that be called little which is +great enough for virtue?' ('Staturā, fateor non sum procerā, sed quae +mediocri tamen quąm parvae propior sit; sed quid si parvā, quā et summi +saepe tum pace turn bello viri fuere—quanquam parva cur dicitur, quae +ad virtutem satis magna est?') This is precise enough; but we have +Aubrey's words to the same effect. 'He was scarce so tall as I am,' +says Aubrey; to which, to make it more intelligible, he appends this +marginal note,—'<I>Qu. Quot</I> feet I am high? <I>Resp.</I> Of middle +stature': <I>i. e.</I>, Milton was a little under middle height. 'He had +light-brown hair,' continues Aubrey,—putting the word 'abrown' +(auburn) in the margin by way of synonym for 'light brown';—'his +complexion exceeding fair; oval face; his eye a dark gray.'" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +We are far from accusing Milton of personal vanity: his character was +too enormous, if we may be allowed so to say, for a fault so petty. +But a little tinge of excessive self-respect will cling to those who +can admire themselves. Ugly men are and ought to be ashamed of their +existence; Milton was not so. +</P> + +<P> +The peculiarities of the austere type of character stand out in Milton +more remarkably than in other men who partake of it, because of the +extreme strength of his nature. In reading him this is the first thing +that strikes us. We seem to have left the little world of ordinary +writers. The words of some authors are said to have "hands and feet"; +they seem, that is, to have a vigor and animation which only belong to +things which live and move. Milton's words have not this animal +life,—there is no rude energy about them; but on the other hand, they +have or seem to have a soul, a spirit which other words have not. He +was early aware that what he wrote, "by certain vital signs it had," +was such as the world would not "willingly let die." [9] After two +centuries we feel the same. There is a solemn and firm music in the +lines; a brooding sublimity haunts them; the spirit of the great writer +moves over the face of the page. In life there seems to have been the +same peculiar strength that his works suggest to us. His moral +tenacity is amazing: he took his own course, and he kept his own +course; and we may trace in his defects the same characteristics. +"Energy and ill temper," some say, "are the same thing;" and though +this is a strong exaggeration, yet there is a basis of truth in it. +People who labor much will be cross if they do not obtain that for +which they labor; those who desire vehemently will be vexed if they do +not obtain that which they desire. As is the strength of the impelling +tendency, so, other things being equal, is the pain which it will +experience if it be baffled. Those, too, who are set on what is high +will be proportionately offended by the intrusion of what is low. +Accordingly, Milton is described by those who knew him as "a harsh and +choleric man." "He had," we are told, "a gravity in his temper, not +melancholy, or not till the latter part of his life, not sour, not +morose or ill-natured, but a certain severity of mind; a mind not +condescending to little things;" [10] and this although his daughter +remembered that he was delightful company, the life of conversation, +and that he was so "on account of a flow of subject, and an unaffected +cheerfulness and civility." Doubtless this may have been so when he +was at ease, and at home; but there are unmistakable traces of the +harsher tendency in almost all his works. +</P> + +<P> +Some of the peculiarities of the ascetic character were likewise +augmented by his studious disposition. This began very early in life, +and continued till the end. "My father," he says, "destined me … +to the study of polite literature, which I embraced with such avidity, +that from the twelfth year of my age I hardly ever retired to rest from +my studies till midnight; which was the first source of injury to my +eyes, to the natural weakness of which were added frequent headaches: +all of which not retarding my eagerness after knowledge, he took care +to have me instructed—" etc.[11] Every page of his works shows the +result of this education. In spite of the occupations of manhood, and +the blindness and melancholy of old age, he still continued to have his +principal pleasure in that "studious and select" reading, which, though +often curiously transmuted, is perpetually involved in the very texture +of his works. We need not stay to observe how a habit in itself so +austere conduces to the development of an austere character. Deep +study, especially deep study which haunts and rules the imagination, +necessarily removes men from life, absorbs them in themselves; purifies +their conduct, with some risk of isolating their sympathies; develops +that loftiness of mood which is gifted with deep inspirations and +indulged with great ideas, but which tends in its excess to engender a +contempt for others, and a self-appreciation which is even more +displeasing to them. +</P> + +<P> +These same tendencies were aggravated also by two defects which are +exceedingly rare in great English authors, and which perhaps Milton +alone amongst those of the highest class is in a remarkable degree +chargeable with; we mean a deficiency in humor, and a deficiency in a +knowledge of plain human nature. Probably when, after the lapse of +ages, English literature is looked at in its larger features only, and +in comparison with other literatures which have preceded or which may +follow it, the critics will lay down that its most striking +characteristic as a whole is its involution, so to say, in life; the +degree to which its book life resembles real life; the extent to which +the motives, dispositions, and actions of common busy persons are +represented in a medium which would seem likely to give us peculiarly +the ideas of secluded and the tendencies of meditative men. It is but +an aspect of this fact, that English literature abounds—some critics +will say abounds excessively—with humor. This is in some sense the +imaginative element of ordinary life,—the relieving charm, partaking +at once of contrast and similitude, which gives a human and an +intellectual interest to the world of clowns and cottages, of fields +and farmers. The degree to which Milton is deficient in this element +is conspicuous in every page of his writings where its occurrence could +be looked for; and if we do not always look for it, this is because the +subjects of his most remarkable works are on a removed elevation, where +ordinary life, the world of "cakes and ale," is never thought of and +never expected. It is in his dramas, as we should expect, that Milton +shows this deficiency the most. "Citizens" never talk in his pages, as +they do in Shakespeare. We feel instinctively that Milton's eye had +never rested with the same easy pleasure on the easy, ordinary, +shopkeeping world. Perhaps, such is the complication of art, it is on +the most tragic occasions that we feel this want the most. +</P> + +<P> +It may seem an odd theory, and yet we believe it to be a true +principle, that catastrophes require a comic element. We appear to +feel the same principle in life. We may read solemn descriptions of +great events in history,—say of Lord Stratford's trial, and of his +marvelous speech, and his appeal to his "saint in heaven"; but we +comprehend the whole transaction much better when we learn from Mr. +Baillie, the eye-witness, that people ate nuts and apples, and talked, +and laughed, and betted on the great question of acquittal and +condemnation. Nor is it difficult to understand why this should be so. +It seems to be a law of the imagination, at least in most men, that it +will not bear concentration. It is essentially a glancing faculty. It +goes and comes, and comes and goes, and we hardly know whence or why. +But we most of us know that when we try to fix it, in a moment it +passes away. Accordingly, the proper procedure of art is to let it go +in such a manner as to insure its coming back again. The force of +artistic contrasts effects exactly this result: skillfully disposed +opposites suggest the notion of each other. We realize more perfectly +and easily the great idea, the tragic conception, when we are +familiarized with its effects on the minds of little people, with the +petty consequences which it causes as well as with the enormous forces +from which it comes. The catastrophe of "Samson Agonistes" discloses +Milton's imperfect mastery of this element of effect. If ever there +was an occasion which admitted its perfect employment, it was this. +The kind of catastrophe is exactly that which is sure to strike, and +strike forcibly, the minds of common persons. If their observations on +the occasion were really given to us, we could scarcely avoid something +rather comic. The eccentricity, so to speak, of ordinary persons shows +itself peculiarly at such times, and they say the queerest things. +Shakespeare has exemplified this principle most skillfully on various +occasions: it is the sort of art which is just in his way. His +imagination always seems to be floating between the contrasts of +things; and if his mind had a resting-place that it liked, it was this +ordinary view of extraordinary events. Milton was under the great +[est] obligation to use this relieving principle of art in the +catastrophe of "Samson," because he has made every effort to heighten +the strictly tragic element, which requires that relief. His art, +always serious, was never more serious. His Samson is not the +incarnation of physical strength which the popular fancy embodies in +the character; nor is it the simple and romantic character of the Old +Testament. On the contrary, Samson has become a Puritan: the +observations he makes would have done much credit to a religious +pikeman in Cromwell's army. In consequence, his death requires some +lightening touches to make it a properly artistic event. The pomp of +seriousness becomes too oppressive. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"At length for intermission sake they led him<BR> +Between the pillars; he his guide requested<BR> +(For so from such as nearer stood we heard),<BR> +As over-tired, to let him lean awhile<BR> +With both his arms on those two massy pillars<BR> +That to the archčd roof gave main support.<BR> +He unsuspicious led him; which when Samson<BR> +Felt in his arms, with head awhile inclined,<BR> +And eyes fast fixed, he stood, as one who prayed,<BR> +Or some great matter in his mind revolved;<BR> +At last with head erect thus cried aloud:<BR> +'Hitherto, lords, what your commands imposed<BR> +I have performed, as reason was, obeying,<BR> +Not without wonder or delight beheld;<BR> +Now of my own accord such other trial<BR> +I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater,<BR> +As with amaze shall strike all who behold.'<BR> +This uttered, straining all his nerves he bowed,<BR> +As with the force of winds and waters pent<BR> +When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars<BR> +With horrible convulsion to and fro.<BR> +He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew<BR> +The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder,<BR> +Upon the heads of all who sat beneath,—<BR> +Lords, ladies, captains, counselors, or priests,<BR> +Their choice nobility and flower, not only<BR> +Of this, but each Philistian city round,<BR> +Met from all parts to solemnize this feast.<BR> +Samson with these immixed, inevitably<BR> +Pulled down the same destruction on himself;<BR> +The vulgar only 'scaped who stood without.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><I>Chor.</I> O dearly bought revenue, yet glorious!</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Living or dying thou hast fulfilled</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">The work for which thou wast foretold</SPAN><BR> +To Israel, and now liest victorious<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Among thy slain self-killed,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Not willingly, but tangled in the fold</SPAN><BR> +Of dire necessity, whose law in death conjoined<BR> +Thee with thy slaughtered foes, in number more<BR> +Than all thy life bad slain before."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +This is grave and fine; but Shakespeare would have done it differently +and better. +</P> + +<P> +We need not pause to observe how certainly this deficiency in humor and +in the delineation of ordinary human feeling is connected with a +recluse, a solitary, and to some extent an unsympathizing life. If we +combine a certain natural aloofness from common men with literary +habits and an incessantly studious musing, we shall at once see how +powerful a force is brought to bear on an instinctively austere +character, and how sure it will be to develop the peculiar tendencies +of it, both good and evil. It was to no purpose that Milton seems to +have practiced a sort of professional study of life. No man could rank +more highly the importance to a poet of an intellectual insight into +all-important pursuits and "seemly arts." But it is not by the mere +intellect that we can take in the daily occupations of mankind: we must +sympathize with them, and see them in their human relations. A +chimney-sweeper, <I>quā</I> chimney-sweeper, is not very sentimental: it is +in himself that he is so interesting. +</P> + +<P> +Milton's austere character is in some sort the more evident because he +possessed in large measure a certain relieving element, in which those +who are eminent in that character are very deficient. Generally such +persons have but obtuse senses: we are prone to attribute the purity of +their conduct to the dullness of their sensations. Milton had no such +obtuseness: he had every opportunity for knowing the "world of eye and +ear";[12] you cannot open his works without seeing how much he did know +of it. The austerity of his nature was not caused by the deficiency of +his senses, but by an excess of the warning instinct. Even when he +professed to delineate the world of sensuous delight, this instinct +shows itself. Dr. Johnson thought he could discern melancholy in +"L'Allegro";[13] if he had said "solitariness," it would have been +correct. +</P> + +<P> +The peculiar nature of Milton's character is very conspicuous in the +events of his domestic life, and in the views which he took of the +great public revolutions of his age. We can spare only a very brief +space for the examination of either of these; but we will endeavor to +say a few words upon each of them. +</P> + +<P> +The circumstances of Milton's first marriage are as singular as any in +the strange series of the loves of the poets. The scene opens with an +affair of business. Milton's father, as is well known, was a +scrivener,—a kind of professional money-lender, then well known in +London; and having been early connected with the vicinity of Oxford, +continued afterwards to have pecuniary transactions of a certain nature +with country gentlemen of that neighborhood. In the course of these he +advanced L500 to a certain Mr. Richard Powell, a squire of fair landed +estate, residing at Forest Hill, which is about four miles from the +city of Oxford. The money was lent on the 11th of June, 1627; and a +few months afterwards Mr. Milton the elder gave L312 of it to his son +the poet, who was then a youth at college, and made a formal memorandum +of the same in the form then usual, which still exists. The debt was +never wholly discharged; "for in 1650-1 we find Milton asserting on +oath that he had received only about L180, 'in part satisfaction of my +said just and principal debt, with damages for the same, and my costs +of suit.'" Mr. Keightley supposes him to have taken "many a ride over +to Forest Hill" after he left Cambridge and was living at Horton, which +is not very far distant; but of course this is only conjecture. We +only know that about 1643 "he took," as his nephew relates, "a journey +into the country, nobody about him certainly knowing the reason, or +that it was any more than a journey of recreation. After a month's +stay, home he returns a married man, that went out a bachelor; his wife +being Mary, the eldest daughter of Mr. Richard Powell, then a justice +of the peace" for the county of Oxford. The suddenness of the event is +rather striking; but Philips was at the time one of Milton's pupils, +and it is possible that some pains may have been taken to conceal the +love affair from the "young gentlemen." Still, as Philips was Milton's +nephew, he was likely to hear such intelligence tolerably early; and as +he does not seem to have done so, the <I>dénouement</I> was probably rather +prompt. At any rate, he was certainly married at that time, and took +his bride home to his house in Aldersgate Street; and there was +feasting and gayety according to the usual custom of such events. A +few weeks after, the lady went home to her friends, in which there was +of course nothing remarkable; but it is singular that when the natural +limit of her visit at home was come, she absolutely refused to return +to her husband. The grounds of so strange a resolution are very +difficult to ascertain. Political feeling ran very high; old Mr. +Powell adhered to the side of the king, and Milton to that of the +Parliament: and this might be fancied to have caused an estrangement. +But on the other hand, these circumstances must have been well known +three months before. Nothing had happened in that quarter of a year to +change very materially the position of the two parties in the state. +Some other cause for Mrs. Milton's conduct must be looked for. She +herself is said to have stated that she did not like her husband's +"spare diet and hard study." [14] No doubt, too, she found it dull in +London: she had probably always lived in the country, and must have +been quite unaccustomed to the not very pleasant scene in which she +found herself. Still, many young ladies have married schoolmasters, +and many young ladies have gone from Oxfordshire to London; and +nevertheless, no such dissolution of matrimonial harmony is known to +have occurred. +</P> + +<P> +The fact we believe to be, that the bride took a dislike to her +husband. We cannot but have a suspicion that she did not like him +before marriage, and that pecuniary reasons had their influence. If, +however, Mr. Powell exerted his paternal influence, it may be admitted +that he had unusual considerations to advance in favor of the alliance +he proposed. It is not every father whose creditors are handsome young +gentlemen with fair incomes. Perhaps it seemed no extreme tyranny to +press the young lady a little to do that which some others might have +done without pressing. Still all this is but hypothesis: our evidence +as to the love affairs of the time of King Charles I. is but meager. +But whatever the feelings of Miss Powell may have been, those of Mrs. +Milton are exceedingly certain. She would not return to her husband; +she did not answer his letters; and a messenger whom he sent to bring +her back was handled rather roughly. Unquestionably she was deeply to +blame, by far the most to blame of the two. Whatever may be alleged +against him is as nothing compared with her offense in leaving him. To +defend so startling a course, we must adopt views of divorce even more +extreme than those which Milton was himself driven to inculcate; and +whatever Mrs. Milton's practice may have been, it may be fairly +conjectured that her principles were strictly orthodox. Yet if she +could be examined by a commission to the ghosts, she would probably +have some palliating circumstances to allege in mitigation of judgment. +There were perhaps peculiarities in Milton's character which a young +lady might not improperly dislike. The austere and ascetic character +is of course far less agreeable to women than the sensuous and +susceptible. The self-occupation, the pride, the abstraction of the +former are to the female mind disagreeable; studious habits and unusual +self-denial seem to it purposeless; lofty enthusiasm, public spirit, +the solitary pursuit of an elevated ideal, are quite out of its way: +they rest too little on the visible world to be intelligible, they are +too little suggested by the daily occurrences of life to seem possible. +The poet in search of an imaginary phantom has never been successful +with women,—there are innumerable proofs of that; and the ascetic +moralist is even less interesting. A character combined out of the +two—and this to some extent was Milton's—is singularly likely to meet +with painful failure; with a failure the more painful, that it could +never anticipate or explain it. Possibly he was absorbed in an austere +self-conscious excellence: it may never have occurred to him that a +lady might prefer the trivial detail of daily happiness. +</P> + +<P> +Milton's own view of the matter he has explained to us in his book on +divorce; and it is a very odd one. His complaint was that his wife +would not talk. What he wished in marriage was "an intimate and +speaking help": he encountered "a mute and spiritless mate." One of +his principal incitements to the "pious necessity of divorcing" was an +unusual deficiency in household conversation. A certain loquacity in +their wives has been the complaint of various eminent men; but his +domestic affliction was a different one. The "ready and reviving +associate," whom he had hoped to find, appeared to be a "coinhabiting +mischief," who was sullen, and perhaps seemed bored and tired. And at +times he is disposed to cast the blame of his misfortune on the +uninstructive nature of youthful virtue. The "soberest and best +governed men," he says, "are least practiced in these affairs," are not +very well aware that "the bashful muteness" of a young lady "may +ofttimes hide all the unliveliness and natural sloth which is really +unfit for conversation," and are rather in too great haste to "light +the nuptial torch": whereas those "who have lived most loosely, by +reason of their bold accustoming, prove most successful in their +matches; because their wild affections, unsettling at will have been as +so many divorces to teach them experience." And he rather wishes to +infer that the virtuous man should, in case of mischance, have his +resource of divorce likewise. +</P> + +<P> +In truth, Milton's book on divorce—though only containing principles +which he continued to believe long after he had any personal reasons +for wishing to do so—was clearly suggested at first by the unusual +phenomena of his first marriage. His wife began by not speaking to +him, and finished by running away from him. Accordingly, like most +books which spring out of personal circumstances, his treatises on this +subject have a frankness and a mastery of detail which others on the +same topic sometimes want. He is remarkably free from one peculiarity +of modern writers on such matters. Several considerate gentlemen are +extremely anxious for the "rights of woman"; they think that women will +benefit by removing the bulwarks which the misguided experience of ages +has erected for their protection. A migratory system of domestic +existence might suit Madame Dudevant, and a few cases of singular +exception; but we cannot fancy that it would be, after all, so much to +the taste of most ladies as the present more permanent system. We have +some reminiscence of the stories of the wolf and the lamb, when we hear +amiable men addressing a female auditory (in books, of course) on the +advantages of a freer "development." We are perhaps wrong, but we +cherish an indistinct suspicion that an indefinite extension of the +power of selection would rather tend to the advantage of the sex which +more usually chooses. But we have no occasion to avow such opinions +now. Milton had no such modern views: he is frankly and honestly +anxious for the rights of the man. Of the doctrine that divorce is +only permitted for the help of wives, he exclaims, "Palpably uxorious! +who can be ignorant that woman was created for man, and not man for +woman?… What an injury is it after wedlock not to be beloved! +what to be slighted! what to be contended with in point of house-rule +who shall be the head; not for any parity of wisdom, for that were +something reasonable, but out of female pride! 'I suffer not,' saith +St. Paul, 'the woman to usurp authority over the man.' If the Apostle +could not suffer it," he naturally remarks, "into what mold is he +mortified that can?" He had a sincere desire to preserve men from the +society of unsocial and unsympathizing women; and that was his +principal idea. +</P> + +<P> +His theory, to a certain extent, partakes of the same notion. The +following passage contains a perspicuous exposition of it:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +"Moses, Deut. xxiv. i, established a grave and prudent law, full of +moral equity, full of due consideration towards nature, that cannot be +resisted, a law consenting with the wisest men and civilest nations: +that when a man hath married a wife, if it come to pass that he cannot +love her by reason of some displeasing natural quality or unfitness in +her, let him write her a bill of divorce. The intent of which law +undoubtedly was this: that if any good and peaceable man should +discover some helpless disagreement or dislike, either of mind or body, +whereby he could not cheerfully perform the duty of a husband without +the perpetual dissembling of offense and disturbance to his +spirit,—rather than to live uncomfortably and unhappy both to himself +and to his wife, rather than to continue undertaking a duty which he +could not possibly discharge, he might dismiss her whom he could not +tolerably, and so not conscionably, retain. And this law the Spirit of +God by the mouth of Solomon, Prov. xxx. 21, 23, testifies to be a good +and a necessary law, by granting it that 'a hated woman' (for so the +Hebrew word signifies, rather than 'odious,' though it come all to +one),—that 'a hated woman, when she is married, is a thing that the +earth cannot bear.'" +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +And he complains that the civil law of modern states interferes with +the "domestical prerogative of the husband." +</P> + +<P> +His notion would seem to have been that a husband was bound not to +dismiss his wife, except for a reason really sufficient; such as a +thoroughly incompatible temper, an incorrigible "muteness," and a +desertion like that of Mrs. Milton. But he scarcely liked to admit +that in the use of this power he should be subject to the correction of +human tribunals. He thought that the circumstances of each case +depended upon "utterless facts"; and that it was practically impossible +for a civil court to decide on a subject so delicate in its essence, +and so imperceptible in its data. But though amiable men doubtless +suffer much from the deficiencies of their wives, we should hardly like +to intrust them, in their own cases, with a jurisdiction so prompt and +summary. +</P> + +<P> +We are far from being concerned, however, just now, with the doctrine +of divorce on its intrinsic merits: we were only intending to give such +an account of Milton's opinions upon it as might serve to illustrate +his character. We think we have shown that it is possible there may +have been in his domestic relations, a little overweening pride; a +tendency to overrate the true extent of masculine rights, and to dwell +on his wife's duty to be social towards him rather than on his duty to +be social towards her,—to be rather sullen whenever she was not quite +cheerful. Still, we are not defending a lady for leaving her husband +for defects of such inferior magnitude. Few households would be kept +together, if the right of transition were exercised on such trifling +occasions. We are but suggesting that she may share the excuse which +our great satirist has suggested for another unreliable lady: "My +mother was an angel; but angels are not always <I>commodes ą vivre</I>." +</P> + +<P> +This is not a pleasant part of our subject, and we must leave it. It +is more agreeable to relate that on no occasion of his life was the +substantial excellence of Milton's character more conclusively shown +than in his conduct at the last stage of this curious transaction. +After a very considerable interval, and after the publication of his +book on divorce, Mrs. Milton showed a disposition to return to her +husband; and in spite of his theories, he received her with open arms. +With great Christian patience, he received her relations too. The +Parliamentary party was then victorious; and old Mr. Powell, who had +suffered very much in the cause of the king, lived until his death +untroubled, and "wholly to his devotion," as we are informed, in the +house of his son-in-law. +</P> + +<P> +Of the other occurrences of Milton's domestic life we have left +ourselves no room to speak; we must turn to our second source of +illustration for his character,—his opinions on the great public +events of his time. It may seem odd, but we believe that a man of +austere character naturally tends <I>both</I> to an excessive party spirit +and to an extreme isolation. Of course the circumstances which develop +the one must be different from those which are necessary to call out +the other: party spirit requires companionship; isolation, if we may be +pardoned so original a remark, excludes it. But though, as we have +shown, this species of character is prone to mental solitude, tends to +an intellectual isolation where it is possible and as soon as it can, +yet when invincible circumstances throw it into mental companionship, +when it is driven into earnest association with earnest men on +interesting topics, its zeal becomes excessive. Such a man's mind is +at home only with its own enthusiasm; it is cooped up within the narrow +limits of its own ideas, and it can make no allowance for those who +differ from or oppose them. We may see something of this excessive +party zeal in Burke. No one's reasons are more philosophical; yet no +one who acted with a party went farther in aid of it or was more +violent in support of it. He forgot what could be said for the tenets +of the enemy; his imagination made that enemy an abstract incarnation +of his tenets. A man, too, who knows that he formed his opinions +originally by a genuine and intellectual process is but little aware of +the undue energy those ideas may obtain from the concurrence of those +around. Persons who first acquired their ideas at second hand are more +open to a knowledge of their own weakness, and better acquainted with +the strange force which there is in the sympathy of others. The +isolated mind, when it acts with the popular feeling, is apt to +exaggerate that feeling for the most part by an almost inevitable +consequence of the feelings which render it isolated. Milton is an +example of this remark. In the commencement of the struggle between +Charles I. and the Parliament, he sympathized strongly with the popular +movement, and carried to what seems now a strange extreme his +partisanship. No one could imagine that the first literary Englishman +of his time could write the following passage on Charles I.:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +"Who can with patience hear this filthy, rascally fool speak so +irreverently of persons eminent both in greatness and piety? Dare you +compare King <I>David</I> with King <I>Charles</I>: a most religious king and +prophet with a superstitious prince, and who was but a novice in the +Christian religion; a most prudent, wise prince with a weak one; a +valiant prince with a cowardly one; finally, a most just prince with a +most unjust one? Have you the impudence to commend his chastity and +sobriety, who is known to have committed all manner of lewdness in +company with his confidant the Duke of <I>Buckingham</I>? It were to no +purpose to inquire into the private actions of his life, who publicly +at plays would embrace and kiss the ladies." [15] +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Whatever may be the faults of that ill-fated monarch,—and they +assuredly were not small,—no one would now think this absurd invective +to be even an excusable exaggeration. It misses the true mark +altogether, and is the expression of a strongly imaginative mind, which +has seen something that it did not like, and is unable in consequence +to see anything that has any relation to it distinctly or correctly. +But with the supremacy of the Long Parliament Milton's attachment to +their cause ceased. No one has drawn a more unfavorable picture of the +rule which they established. Years after their supremacy had passed +away, and the restoration of the monarchy had covered with a new and +strange scene the old actors and the old world, he thrust into a most +unlikely part of his "History of England" [Book iii.] the following +attack on them:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +"But when once the superficial zeal and popular fumes that acted their +New Magistracy were cooled and spent in them, straight every one betook +himself (setting the Commonwealth behind, his private ends before) to +do as his own profit or ambition led him. Then was justice delayed, +and soon after denied; spite and favor determined all: hence faction, +thence treachery, both at home and in the field; everywhere wrong and +oppression; foul and horrid deeds committed daily, or maintained, in +secret or in open. Some who had been called from shops and warehouses, +without other merit, to sit in supreme councils and committees (as +their breeding was), fell to huckster the Commonwealth. Others did +thereafter as men could soothe and humor them best; so he who would +give most, or under covert of hypocritical zeal insinuate basest, +enjoyed unworthily the rewards of learning and fidelity, or escaped the +punishment of his crimes and misdeeds. Their votes and ordinances, +which men looked should have contained the repealing of bad laws, and +the immediate constitution of better, resounded with nothing else but +new impositions, taxes, excises,—yearly, monthly, weekly; not to +reckon the offices, gifts, and preferments bestowed and shared among +themselves." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +His dislike of this system of committees, and of the generally dull and +unemphatic administration of the Commonwealth, attached him to the +Puritan army and to Cromwell; but in the continuation of the passage we +have referred to, he expresses—with something, let it be said, of a +schoolmaster's feeling—an unfavorable judgment on their career:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +"For <I>Britain</I>, to speak a truth not often spoken, as it is a land +fruitful enough of men stout and courageous in war, so it is naturally +not over-fertile of men able to govern justly and prudently in peace, +trusting only in their mother-wit; who consider not justly that +civility, prudence, love of the public good more than of money or vain +honor, are to this soil in a manner outlandish,—grow not here, but in +minds well implanted with solid and elaborate breeding; too impolitic +else and rude, if not headstrong and intractable to the industry and +virtue either of executing or understanding true civil government. +Valiant indeed, and prosperous to win a field; but to know the end and +reason of winning, unjudicious and unwise: in good or bad success, +alike unteachable. For the sun, which we want, ripens wits as well as +fruits; and as wine and oil are imported to us from abroad, so must +ripe understanding and many civil virtues be imported into our minds +from foreign writings and examples of best ages; we shall else miscarry +still, and come short in the attempts of any great enterprise. Hence +did their victories prove as fruitless as their losses dangerous, and +left them still, conquering, under the same grievances that men suffer +conquered: which was indeed unlikely to go otherwise, unless men more +than vulgar—bred up, as few of them were, in the knowledge of ancient +and illustrious deeds, invincible against many and vain titles, +impartial to friendships and relations—had conducted their affairs; +but then, from the chapman to the retailer, many whose ignorance was +more audacious than the rest were admitted with all their sordid +rudiments to bear no mean sway among them, both in church and state." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +We need not speak of Milton's disapprobation of the Restoration. +Between him and the world of Charles II. the opposition was inevitable +and infinite. Therefore the general fact remains, that except in the +early struggles, when he exaggerated the popular feeling, he remained +solitary in opinion, and had very little sympathy with any of the +prevailing parties of his time. +</P> + +<P> +Milton's own theory of government is to be learned from his works. He +advocated a free commonwealth, without rule of a single person or House +of Lords; but the form of his projected commonwealth was peculiar. He +thought that a certain perpetual council, which should be elected by +the nation once for all, and the number of which should be filled up as +vacancies might occur, was the best possible machine of government. He +did not confine his advocacy to abstract theory, but proposed the +immediate establishment of such a council in this country. We need not +go into an elaborate discussion to show the errors of this conclusion. +Hardly any one, then or since, has probably adopted it. The interest +of the theoretical parts of Milton's political works is entirely +historical. The tenets advocated are not of great value, and the +arguments by which he supports them are perhaps of less; but their +relation to the times in which they were written gives them a very +singular interest. The time of the Commonwealth was the only period in +English history in which the fundamental questions of government have +been thrown open for popular discussion in this country. We read in +French literature, discussions on the advisability of establishing a +monarchy, on the advisability of establishing a republic, on the +advisability of establishing an empire; and before we proceed to +examine the arguments, we cannot help being struck at the strange +contrast which this multiplicity of open questions presents to our own +uninquiring acquiescence in the hereditary polity which has descended +to us. "Kings, Lords, and Commons" are, we think, ordinances of +nature. Yet Milton's political writings embody the reflections of a +period when, for a few years, the government of England was nearly as +much a subject of fundamental discussion as that of France was in 1851. +An "invitation to thinkers," to borrow the phrase of Necker, was given +by the circumstances of the time; and with the habitual facility of +philosophical speculation, it was accepted, and used to the utmost. +</P> + +<P> +Such are not the kind of speculations in which we expect assistance +from Milton. It is not in its transactions with others, in its +dealings with the manifold world, that the isolated and austere mind +shows itself to the most advantage. Its strength lies in itself. It +has "a calm and pleasing solitariness." It hears thoughts which others +cannot hear. It enjoys the quiet and still air of delightful studies; +and is ever conscious of such musing and poetry "as is not to be +obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her twin daughters, but +by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all +utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed +fire of his altar." +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Descend from heaven, Urania, by that name<BR> +If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine<BR> +Following, above th' Olympian hill I soar.<BR> +Above the flight of Pegaséan wing.<BR> +The meaning, not the name, I call; for thou<BR> +Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top<BR> +Of old Olympus dwell'st, but heavenly born:<BR> +Before the hills appeared, or fountain flowed,<BR> +Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse,<BR> +Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play<BR> +In presence of th' Almighty Father, pleased<BR> +With thy celestial song. Up led by thee,<BR> +Into the heaven of heavens I have presumed,<BR> +An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,<BR> +Thy tempering. With like safety guided down,<BR> +Return me to my native element:<BR> +Lest from this flying steed unreined (as once<BR> +Bellerophon, though from a lower clime),<BR> +Dismounted, on th' Aleian field I fall,<BR> +Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn.<BR> +Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound<BR> +Within the visible diurnal sphere:<BR> +Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole,<BR> +More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged<BR> +To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,<BR> +On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues;<BR> +In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,<BR> +And solitude: yet not alone, while thou<BR> +Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn<BR> +Purples the east. Still govern thou my song,<BR> +Urania, and fit audience find, though few;<BR> +But drive far off the barbarous dissonance<BR> +Of Bacchus and his revelers, the race<BR> +Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard<BR> +In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears<BR> +To rapture, till the savage clamor drowned<BR> +Both harp and voice, nor could the Muse defend<BR> +Her son. So fail not thou, who thee implores;<BR> +For thou art heavenly, she an empty dream." [16]<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"An ancient clergyman of Dorsetshire, Dr. Wright, found John Milton in +a small chamber hung with rusty green, sitting in an elbow-chair, and +dressed neatly in black; pale, but not cadaverous.… He used also +to sit in a gray coarse-cloth coat at the door of his house near +Bunhill Fields, in warm sunny weather;" [17] and the common people said +he was inspired. +</P> + +<P> +If from the man we turn to his works, we are struck at once with two +singular contrasts. The first of them is this:—The distinction +between ancient and modern art is sometimes said, and perhaps truly, to +consist in the simple bareness of the imaginative conceptions which we +find in ancient art, and the comparatively complex clothing in which +all modern creations are embodied. If we adopt this distinction, +Milton seems in some sort ancient, and in some sort modern. Nothing is +so simple as the subject-matter of his works. The two greatest of his +creations, the character of Satan and the character of Eve, are two of +the simplest—the latter probably the very simplest—in the whole field +of literature. On this side Milton's art is classical. On the other +hand, in no writer is the imagery more profuse, the illustrations more +various, the dress altogether more splendid; and in this respect the +style of his art seems romantic and modern. In real truth, however, it +is only ancient art in a modern disguise: the dress is a mere dress, +and can be stripped off when we will,—we all of us do perhaps in +memory strip it off for ourselves. Notwithstanding the lavish +adornments with which her image is presented, the character of Eve is +still the simplest sort of feminine essence,—the pure embodiment of +that inner nature which we believe and hope that women have. The +character of Satan, though it is not so easily described, has nearly as +few elements in it. The most purely modern conceptions will not bear +to be unclothed in this manner: their romantic garment clings +inseparably to them. Hamlet and Lear are not to be thought of except +as complex characters, with very involved and complicated embodiments. +They are as difficult to draw out in words as the common characters of +life are; that of Hamlet, perhaps, is more so. If we make it, as +perhaps we should, the characteristic of modern and romantic art that +it presents us with creations which we cannot think of or delineate +except as very varied and so to say circumstantial, we must not rank +Milton among the masters of romantic art. And without involving the +subject in the troubled sea of an old controversy, we may say that the +most striking of the poetical peculiarities of Milton is the bare +simplicity of his ideas and the rich abundance of his illustrations. +</P> + +<P> +Another of his peculiarities is equally striking. There seems to be +such a thing as second-hand poetry: some poets, musing on the poetry of +other men, have unconsciously shaped it into something of their own. +The new conception is like the original, it would never probably have +existed had not the original existed previously: still, it is +sufficiently different from the original to be a new thing, not a copy +or a plagiarism; it is a creation, though so to say, a suggested +creation. +</P> + +<P> +Gray is as good an example as can be found of a poet whose works abound +in this species of semi-original conceptions. Industrious critics +track his best lines back, and find others like them which doubtless +lingered near his fancy while he was writing them. The same critics +have been equally busy with the works of Milton, and equally +successful. They find traces of his reading in half his works; not, +which any reader could do, in overt similes and distinct illustrations, +but also in the very texture of the thought and the expression. In +many cases doubtless, they discover more than he himself knew. A mind +like his, which has an immense store of imaginative recollections, can +never know which of his own imaginations is exactly suggested by which +recollection. Men awake with their best ideas; it is seldom worth +while to investigate very curiously whence they came. Our proper +business is to adapt and mold and act upon them. Of poets perhaps this +is true even more remarkably than of other men: their ideas are +suggested in modes, and according to laws, which are even more +impossible to specify than the ideas of the rest of the world. +Second-hand poetry, so to say, often seems quite original to the poet +himself; he frequently does not know that he derived it from an old +memory: years afterwards it may strike him as it does others. Still, +in general, such inferior species of creation is not so likely to be +found in minds of singular originality as in those of less. A +brooding, placid, cultivated mind, like that of Gray, is the place +where we should expect to meet with it. Great originality disturbs the +adaptive process, removes the mind of the poet from the thoughts of +other men, and occupies it with its own heated and flashing thoughts. +Poetry of the second degree is like the secondary rocks of modern +geology,—a still, gentle, alluvial formation: the igneous glow of +primary genius brings forth ideas like the primeval granite, simple, +astounding, and alone. Milton's case is an exception to this rule. +His mind has marked originality, probably as much of it as any in +literature: but it has as much of molded recollection as any mind, too. +His poetry in consequence is like an artificial park, green and soft +and beautiful, yet with outlines bold, distinct, and firm, and the +eternal rock ever jutting out; or better still, it is like our own lake +scenery where nature has herself the same combination, where we have +Rydal Water side by side with the everlasting upheaved mountain. +Milton has the same union of softened beauty with unimpaired grandeur; +and it is his peculiarity. +</P> + +<P> +These are the two contrasts which puzzle us at first in Milton, and +which distinguish him from other poets in our remembrance afterwards. +We have a superficial complexity in illustration and imagery and +metaphor; and in contrast with it we observe a latent simplicity of +idea, an almost rude strength of conception. The underlying thoughts +are few, though the flowers on the surface are so many. We have +likewise the perpetual contrast of the soft poetry of the memory, and +the firm—as it were, fused—and glowing poetry of the imagination. +His words, we may half fancifully say, are like his character: there is +the same austerity in the real essence, the same exquisiteness of +sense, the same delicacy of form which we know that he had, the same +music which we imagine there was in his voice. In both his character +and his poetry there was an ascetic nature in a sheath of beauty. +</P> + +<P> +No book, perhaps, which has ever been written is more difficult to +criticize than "Paradise Lost." The only way to criticize a work of +the imagination is, to describe its effect upon the mind of the +reader,—at any rate, of the critic; and this can only be adequately +delineated by strong illustrations, apt similes, and perhaps a little +exaggeration. The task is in its very nature not an easy one: the poet +paints a picture on the fancy of the critic, and the critic has in some +sort to copy it on the paper; he must say what it is before he can make +remarks upon it. But in the case of "Paradise Lost" we hardly like to +use illustrations. The subject is one which the imagination rather +shrinks from. At any rate, it requires courage and an effort to compel +the mind to view such a subject as distinctly and vividly as it views +other subjects. Another peculiarity of "Paradise Lost" makes the +difficulty even greater. It does not profess to be a mere work of art; +or rather, it claims to be by no means that and that only. It starts +with a dogmatic aim: it avowedly intends to +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">"assert eternal Providence,</SPAN><BR> +And justify the ways of God to men."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +In this point of view we have always had a sympathy with the Cambridge +mathematician who has been so much abused. He said, "After all, +'Paradise Lost' <I>proves</I> nothing"; and various persons of poetical +tastes and temperament have been very severe on the prosaic +observation. Yet, "after all," he was right: Milton professed to prove +something; he was too profound a critic—rather, he had too profound an +instinct of those eternal principles of art which criticism tries to +state—not to know that on such a subject he must prove something. He +professed to deal with the great problem of human destiny: to show why +man was created, in what kind of universe he lives, whence he came and +whither he goes. He dealt of necessity with the greatest of subjects; +he had to sketch the greatest of objects. He was concerned with +infinity and eternity even more than with time and sense: he undertook +to delineate the ways and consequently the character of Providence, as +well as the conduct and the tendencies of man. The essence of success +in such an attempt is to satisfy the religious sense of man; to bring +home to our hearts what we know to be true; to teach us what we have +not seen; to awaken us to what we have forgotten; to remove the +"covering" from all people, and the "veil" that is spread over all +nations: to give us, in a word, such a conception of things divine and +human as we can accept, believe, and trust. The true doctrine of +criticism demands what Milton invites,—an examination of the degree in +which the great epic attains this aim. And if, in examining it, we +find it necessary to use unusual illustrations, and plainer words than +are customary, it must be our excuse that we do not think the subject +can be made clear without them. +</P> + +<P> +The defect of "Paradise Lost" is that, after all, it is founded on a +<I>political</I> transaction. The scene is in heaven very early in the +history of the universe, before the creation of man or the fall of +Satan. We have a description of a court [Book v.]. The angels, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"by imperial summons called,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +appear:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Under their hierarchs in orders bright<BR> +Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced;<BR> +Standards and gonfalons 'twixt van and rear<BR> +Stream in the air, and for distinction serve<BR> +Of hierarchies, or orders, and degrees."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +To this assemblage "th' Omnipotent" speaks:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Hear, all ye angels, progeny of light,<BR> +Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers,<BR> +Hear my decree, which unrevoked shall stand:<BR> +This day I have begot whom I declare<BR> +My only Son, and on this holy hill<BR> +Him have anointed, whom ye now behold<BR> +At my right hand; your Head I him appoint:<BR> +And by myself have sworn, to him shall bow<BR> +All knees in heaven, and shall confess him Lord;<BR> +Under his great vicegerent reign abide<BR> +United as one individual soul,<BR> +Forever happy. Him who disobeys,<BR> +Me disobeys, breaks union, and that day,<BR> +Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls<BR> +Int' utter darkness, deep ingulfed, his place<BR> +Ordained without redemption, without end."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This act of patronage was not popular at court; and why should it have +been? The religious sense is against it. The worship which sinful men +owe to God is not transferable to lieutenants and vicegerents. The +whole scene of the court jars upon a true feeling; we seem to be +reading about some emperor of history, who admits his son to a share in +the empire, who confers on him a considerable jurisdiction, and +requires officials, with "standards and gonfalons," to bow before him. +The orthodoxy of Milton is quite as questionable as his accuracy; the +old Athanasian creed was not made by persons who would allow such a +picture as that of Milton to stand before their imaginations. The +generation of the Son was to them a fact "before all time," an eternal +fact. There was no question in their minds of patronage or promotion: +the Son was the Son before all time, just as the Father was the Father +before all time. Milton had in such matters a bold but not very +sensitive imagination. He accepted the inevitable materialism of +Biblical (and to some extent of all religious) language as distinct +revelation. He certainly believed, in contradiction to the old creed, +that God had both "parts and passions." He imagined that earth is +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">"but the shadow of heaven, and things therein</SPAN><BR> +Each to other like more than on earth is thought." [18]<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +From some passages it would seem that he actually thought of God as +having "the members and form" of a man. Naturally, therefore, he would +have no toleration for the mysterious notions of time and eternity +which are involved in the traditional doctrine. We are not, however, +now concerned with Milton's belief, but with his representation of his +creed,—his picture, so to say, of it in "Paradise Lost"; still, as we +cannot but think, that picture is almost irreligious, and certainly +different from that which has been generally accepted in Christendom. +Such phrases as "before all time," "eternal generation," are doubtless +very vaguely interpreted by the mass of men; nevertheless, no +sensitively orthodox man could have drawn the picture of a generation, +not to say an exaltation, in time. +</P> + +<P> +We shall see this more clearly by reading what follows in the poem. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"All seemed well pleased; all seemed, but were not all."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +One of the archangels, whose name can be guessed, decidedly +disapproved, and calls a meeting, at which he explains that +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">"orders and degrees</SPAN><BR> +Jar not with liberty, but well consist;"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +but still, that the promotion of a new person, on grounds of +relationship merely, above—even infinitely above—the old angels, with +imperial titles, was a "new law," and rather tyrannical. Abdiel, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"than whom none with more zeal adored<BR> +The Deity, and divine commands obeyed,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +attempts a defense:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">"Grant it thee unjust,</SPAN><BR> +That equal over equals monarch reign;<BR> +Thyself, though great and glorious, dost thou count,<BR> +Or all angelic nature joined in one,<BR> +Equal to him begotten Son? by whom<BR> +As by his word the mighty Father made<BR> +All things, even thee, and all the spirits of heaven<BR> +By him created in their bright degrees,<BR> +Crowned them with glory, and to their glory named<BR> +Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers,<BR> +Essential Powers; nor by his reign obscured,<BR> +But more illustrious made, since he the Head<BR> +One of our number thus reduced becomes,<BR> +His laws our laws, all honor to him done<BR> +Returns our own. Cease then this impious rage,<BR> +And tempt not these; but hasten to appease<BR> +Th' incensčd Father and th' incensčd Son,<BR> +While pardon may be found, in time besought."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Yet though Abdiel's intentions were undeniably good, his argument is +rather specious. Acting as an instrument in the process of creation +would scarcely give a valid claim to the obedience of the created +being. Power may be shown in the act, no doubt; but mere power gives +no true claim to the obedience of moral beings. It is a kind of +principle of all manner of idolatries and false religions to believe +that it does so. Satan, besides, takes issue on the fact:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"That we were formed then, say'st thou? and the work<BR> +Of secondary hands, by task transferred<BR> +From Father to his Son? Strange point and new!<BR> +Doctrine which we would know whence learned."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +And we must say that the speech in which the new ruler is introduced to +the "Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers," is hard to +reconcile with Abdiel's exposition. "<I>This day</I>" he seems to have come +into existence, and could hardly have assisted at the creation of the +angels, who are not young, and who converse with one another like old +acquaintances. +</P> + +<P> +We have gone into this part of the subject at length, because it is the +source of the great error which pervades "Paradise Lost": Satan is made +<I>interesting</I>. This has been the charge of a thousand orthodox and +even heterodox writers against Milton. Shelley, on the other hand, has +gloried in it; and fancied, if we remember rightly, that Milton +intentionally ranged himself on the Satanic side of the universe, just +as Shelley himself would have done, and that he wished to show the +falsity of the ordinary theology. But Milton was born an age too early +for such aims, and was far too sincere to have advocated any doctrine +in a form so indirect. He believed every word he said. He was not +conscious of the effect his teaching would produce in an age like this, +when skepticism is in the air, and when it is not possible to help +looking coolly on his delineations. Probably in our boyhood we can +recollect a period when any solemn description of celestial events +would have commanded our respect; we should not have dared to read it +intelligently, to canvass its details and see what it meant: it was a +religious book; it sounded reverential, and that would have sufficed. +Something like this was the state of mind of the seventeenth century. +Even Milton probably shared in a vague reverence for religious +language; he hardly felt the moral effect of the pictures he was +drawing. His artistic instinct, too, often hurries him away. His +Satan was to him, as to us, the hero of his poem: having commenced by +making him resist on an occasion which in an earthly kingdom would have +been excusable and proper, he probably a little sympathized with him, +just as his readers do. +</P> + +<P> +The interest of Satan's character is at its height in the first two +books. Coleridge justly compared it to that of Napoleon. There is the +same pride, the same Satanic ability, the same will, the same egotism. +His character seems to grow with his position. He is far finer after +his fall, in misery and suffering, with scarcely any resource except in +himself, than he was originally in heaven; at least, if Raphael's +description of him can be trusted. No portrait which imagination or +history has drawn of a revolutionary anarch is nearly so perfect; there +is all the grandeur of the greatest human mind, and a certain +infinitude in his circumstances which humanity must ever want. Few +Englishmen feel a profound reverence for Napoleon I.; there was no +French alliance in his time; we have most of us some tradition of +antipathy to him. Yet hardly any Englishman can read the account of +the campaign of 1814 without feeling his interest in the Emperor to be +strong, and without perhaps being conscious of a latent wish that he +may succeed. Our opinion is against him, our serious wish is of course +for England; but the imagination has a sympathy of its own, and will +not give place. We read about the great general,—never greater than +in that last emergency,—showing resources of genius that seem almost +infinite, and that assuredly have never been surpassed, yet vanquished, +yielding to the power of circumstances, to the combined force of +adversaries each of whom singly he outmatches in strength, and all of +whom together he surpasses in majesty and in mind. Something of the +same sort of interest belongs to the Satan of the first two books of +"Paradise Lost." We know that he will be vanquished; his name is not a +recommendation. Still, we do not imagine distinctly the minds by which +he is to be vanquished; we do not take the same interest in them that +we do in him; our sympathies, our fancy, are on his side. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps much of this was inevitable; yet what a defect it is! +especially what a defect in Milton's own view, and looked at with the +stern realism with which he regarded it! Suppose that the author of +evil in the universe were the most attractive being in it; suppose that +the source of all sin were the origin of all interest to us! We need +not dwell upon this. +</P> + +<P> +As we have said, much of this was difficult to avoid, if indeed it +could be avoided in dealing with such a theme. Even Milton shrank, in +some measure, from delineating the Divine character. His imagination +evidently halts when it is required to perform that task. The more +delicate imagination of our modern world would shrink still more. Any +person who will consider what such an attempt must end in, will find +his nerves quiver. But by a curiously fatal error, Milton has selected +for delineation exactly that part of the Divine nature which is most +beyond the reach of the human faculties, and which is also, when we try +to describe our fancy of it, the least effective to our minds. He has +made God <I>argue</I>. Now, the procedure of the Divine mind from truth to +truth must ever be incomprehensible to us; the notion, indeed, of his +proceeding at all is a contradiction: to some extent, at least, it is +inevitable that we should use such language, but we know it is in +reality inapplicable. A long train of reasoning in such a connection +is so out of place as to be painful; and yet Milton has many. He +relates a series of family prayers in heaven, with sermons afterwards, +which are very tedious. Even Pope was shocked at the notion of +Providence talking like a "school-divine." [19] And there is the still +worse error, that if you once attribute reasoning to him, subsequent +logicians may discover that he does not reason very well. +</P> + +<P> +Another way in which Milton has contrived to strengthen our interest in +Satan is the number and insipidity of the good angels. There are old +rules as to the necessity of a supernatural machinery for an epic poem, +worth some fraction of the paper on which they are written, and derived +from the practice of Homer, who believed his gods and goddesses to be +real beings, and would have been rather harsh with a critic who called +them machinery. These rules had probably an influence with Milton, and +induced him to manipulate these serious angels more than he would have +done otherwise. They appear to be excellent administrators with very +little to do; a kind of grand chamberlains with wings, who fly down to +earth and communicate information to Adam and Eve. They have no +character: they are essentially messengers,—merely conductors, so to +say, of the Providential will; no one fancies that they have an +independent power of action; they seem scarcely to have minds of their +own. No effect can be more unfortunate. If the struggle of Satan had +been with Deity directly, the natural instincts of religion would have +been awakened; but when an angel possessed of mind is contrasted with +angels possessed only of wings, we sympathize with the former. +</P> + +<P> +In the first two books, therefore, our sympathy with Milton's Satan is +great; we had almost said unqualified. The speeches he delivers are of +well-known excellence. Lord Brougham, no contemptible judge of +emphatic oratory, has laid down that if a person had not an opportunity +of access to the great Attic masterpieces, he had better choose these +for a model. What is to be regretted about the orator is, that he +scarcely acts up to his sentiments. "Better to reign in hell than +serve in heaven," is at any rate an audacious declaration; but he has +no room for exhibiting similar audacity in action. His offensive +career is limited; in the nature of the subject, there was scarcely any +opportunity for the fallen archangel to display in the detail of his +operations the surpassing intellect with which Milton has endowed him. +He goes across chaos, gets into a few physical difficulties; but these +are not much. His grand aim is the conquest of our first parents; and +we are at once struck with the enormous inequality of the conflict. +Two beings just created, without experience, without guile, without +knowledge of good and evil, are expected to contend with a being on the +delineation of whose powers every resource of art and imagination, +every subtle suggestion, every emphatic simile has been lavished. The +idea in every reader's mind is, and must be, not surprise that our +first parents should yield, but wonder that Satan should not think it +beneath him to attack them. It is as if an army should invest a +cottage. +</P> + +<P> +We have spoken more of theology than we intended; and we need not say +how much the monstrous inequalities attributed to the combatants affect +our estimate of the results of the conflict. The state of man is what +it is, because the defenseless Adam and Eve of Milton's imagination +yielded to the nearly all-powerful Satan whom he has delineated. +Milton has in some sense invented this difficulty; for in the book of +Genesis there is no such inequality. The serpent may be subtler than +any beast of the field; but he is not necessarily subtler or cleverer +than man. So far from Milton having justified the ways of God to man, +he has loaded the common theology with a new incumbrance. +</P> + +<P> +We may need refreshment after this discussion; and we cannot find it +better than in reading a few remarks of Eve:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"That day I oft remember, when from sleep<BR> +I first awaked, and found myself reposed<BR> +Under a shade on flowers, much wondering where<BR> +And what I was, whence hither brought, and how.<BR> +Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound<BR> +Of waters issued from a cave, and spread<BR> +Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved<BR> +Pure as th' expanse of heaven; I thither went<BR> +With unexperienced thought, and laid me down<BR> +On the green bank, to look into the clear<BR> +Smooth lake, that to me seemed another sky.<BR> +As I bent down to look, just opposite<BR> +A shape within the watery gleam appeared,<BR> +Bending to look on me, I, started back,<BR> +It started back: but pleased I soon returned;<BR> +Pleased it returned, as soon with answering looks<BR> +Of sympathy and love. There I had fixed<BR> +Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,<BR> +Had not a voice thus warned me:—'What thou seest,<BR> +What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself;<BR> +With thee it came and goes: but follow me,<BR> +And I will bring thee where no shadow stays<BR> +Thy coming, and thy soft embraces; he<BR> +Whose image thou art, him thou shalt enjoy<BR> +Inseparably thine; to him shalt bear<BR> +Multitudes like thyself, and thence be called<BR> +Mother of human race.' What could I do<BR> +But follow straight, invisibly thus led?<BR> +Till I espied thee, fair indeed and tall,<BR> +Under a platan; yet methought less fair,<BR> +Less winning soft, less amiably mild,<BR> +Than that smooth watery image. Back I turned;<BR> +Thou following criedst aloud, 'Return, fair Eve;<BR> +Whom fly'st thou?'" [20]<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Eve's character, indeed, is one of the most wonderful efforts of the +human imagination. She is a kind of abstract woman; essentially a +typical being; an official "mother of all living." Yet she is a real +interesting woman, not only full of delicacy and sweetness, but with +all the undefinable fascination, the charm of personality, which such +typical characters hardly ever have. By what consummate miracle of wit +this charm of individuality is preserved, without impairing the general +idea which is ever present to us, we cannot explain, for we do not know. +</P> + +<P> +Adam is far less successful. He has good hair,—"hyacinthine locks" +that "from his parted forelock manly hung"; a "fair large front" and +"eye sublime": but he has little else that we care for. There is, in +truth, no opportunity of displaying manly virtues, even if he possessed +them. He has only to yield to his wife's solicitations, which he does. +Nor are we sure that he does it well: he is very tedious. He indulges +in sermons which are good; but most men cannot but fear that so +delightful a being as Eve must have found him tiresome. She steps +away, however, and goes to sleep at some of the worst points. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Johnson remarked that after all, "Paradise Lost" was one of the +books which no one wished longer: we fear, in this irreverent +generation, some wish it shorter. Hardly any reader would be sorry if +some portions of the latter books had been spared him. Coleridge, +indeed, discovered profound mysteries in the last; but in what could +not Coleridge find a mystery if he wished? Dryden more wisely remarked +that Milton became tedious when he entered upon a "track of Scripture." +[21] Nor is it surprising that such is the case. The style of many +parts of Scripture is such that it will not bear addition or +subtraction. A word less or an idea more, and the effect upon the mind +is the same no longer. Nothing can be more tiresome than a sermonic +amplification of such passages. It is almost too much when, as from +the pulpit, a paraphrastic commentary is prepared for our spiritual +improvement. In deference to the intention, we bear it, but we bear it +unwillingly; and we cannot endure it at all when, as in poems, the +object is to awaken our fancy rather than to improve our conduct. The +account of the creation in the book of Genesis is one of the +compositions from which no sensitive imagination would subtract an +iota, to which it could not bear to add a word. Milton's paraphrase is +alike copious and ineffective. The universe is, in railway phrase, +"opened," but not created; no green earth springs in a moment from the +indefinite void. Instead, too, of the simple loneliness of the Old +Testament, several angelic officials are in attendance, who help in +nothing, but indicate that heaven must be plentifully supplied with +tame creatures. +</P> + +<P> +There is no difficulty in writing such criticisms and indeed other +unfavorable criticisms, on "Paradise Lost." There is scarcely any book +in the world which is open to a greater number, or which a reader who +allows plain words to produce a due effect will be less satisfied with. +Yet what book is really greater? In the best parts the words have a +magic in them; even in the inferior passages you are hardly sensible of +their inferiority till you translate them into your own language. +Perhaps no style ever written by man expressed so adequately the +conceptions of a mind so strong and so peculiar; a manly strength, a +haunting atmosphere of enhancing suggestions, a firm continuous music, +are only some of its excellences. To comprehend the whole of the +others, you must take the volume down and read it,—the best defense of +Milton, as has been said most truly, against all objections. +</P> + +<P> +Probably no book shows the transition which our theology has made since +the middle of the seventeenth century, at once so plainly and so fully. +We do not now compose long narratives to "justify the ways of God to +men." The more orthodox we are, the more we shrink from it, the more +we hesitate at such a task, the more we allege that we have no powers +for it. Our most celebrated defenses of established tenets are in the +style of Butler, not in that of Milton. They do not profess to show a +satisfactory explanation of human destiny: on the contrary, they hint +that probably we could not understand such an explanation if it were +given us; at any rate, they allow that it is not given us. Their +course is palliative: they suggest an "analogy of difficulties"; if our +minds were greater, so they reason, we should comprehend these +doctrines,—now we cannot explain analogous facts which we see and +know. No style can be more opposite to the bold argument, the boastful +exposition of Milton. The teaching of the eighteenth century is in the +very atmosphere we breathe: we read it in the teachings of Oxford; we +hear it from the missionaries of the Vatican. The air of the theology +is clarified. We know our difficulties, at least: we are rather prone +to exaggerate the weight of some than to deny the reality of any. +</P> + +<P> +We cannot continue a line of thought which would draw us on too far for +the patience of our readers. We must, however, make one more remark, +and we shall have finished our criticism on "Paradise Lost." It is +analogous to that which we have just made. The scheme of the poem is +based on an offense against positive morality. The offense of Adam was +not against nature or conscience, nor against anything of which we can +see the reason or conceive the obligation, but against an unexplained +injunction of the Supreme Will. The rebellion in heaven, as Milton +describes it, was a rebellion not against known ethics or immutable +spiritual laws, but against an arbitrary selection and an unexplained +edict. We do not say that there is no such thing as positive +morality,—we do not think so; even if we did, we should not insert a +proposition so startling at the conclusion of a literary criticism. +But we are sure that wherever a positive moral edict is promulgated, it +is no subject, except perhaps under a very peculiar treatment, for +literary art. By the very nature of it, it cannot satisfy the heart +and conscience. It is a difficulty; we need not attempt to explain it +away,—there are mysteries enough which will never be explained away. +But it is contrary to every principle of criticism to state the +difficulty as if it were not one; to bring forward the puzzle, yet +leave it to itself; to publish so strange a problem, and give only an +untrue solution of it: and yet such, in its bare statement, is all that +Milton has done. +</P> + +<P> +Of Milton's other writings we have left ourselves no room to speak; and +though every one of them, or almost every one of them, would well repay +a careful criticism, yet few of them seem to throw much additional +light on his character, or add much to our essential notion of his +genius, though they may exemplify and enhance it. "Comus" is the poem +which does so the most. Literature has become so much lighter than it +used to be, that we can scarcely realize the position it occupied in +the light literature of our forefathers. We have now in our own +language many poems that are pleasanter in their subject, more graceful +in their execution, more flowing in their outline, more easy to read. +Dr. Johnson, though perhaps no very excellent authority on the more +intangible graces of literature, was disposed to deny to Milton the +capacity of creating the lighter literature: "Milton, madam, was a +genius that could cut a colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads +upon cherry-stones." And it would not be surprising if this +generation, which has access to the almost infinite quantity of lighter +compositions which have been produced since Johnson's time, were to +echo his sentence. In some degree, perhaps, the popular taste does so. +"Comus" has no longer the peculiar exceptional popularity which it used +to have: we can talk without general odium of its defects; its +characters are nothing, its sentiments are tedious, its story is not +interesting. But it is only when we have realized the magnitude of its +deficiencies that we comprehend the peculiarity of its greatness. Its +power is in its style. A grave and firm music pervades it; it is soft, +without a thought of weakness; harmonious and yet strong; impressive as +few such poems are, yet covered with a bloom of beauty and a complexity +of charm that few poems have either. We have perhaps light literature +in itself better, that we read oftener and more easily, that lingers +more in our memories; but we have not any, we question if there ever +will be any, which gives so true a conception of the capacity and the +dignity of the mind by which it was produced. The breath of solemnity +which hovers round the music attaches us to the writer. Every line, +here as elsewhere, in Milton excites the idea of indefinite power. +</P> + +<P> +And so we must draw to a close. The subject is an infinite one, and if +we pursued it, we should lose ourselves in miscellaneous commentary, +and run on far beyond the patience of our readers. What we have said +has at least a defined intention: we have wished to state the +impression which the character of Milton and the greatest of Milton's +works are likely to produce on readers of the present generation,—a +generation different from his own almost more than any other. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[1] The Life of John Milton, narrated in connection with the Political, +Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his time. By David Masson, M. +A., Professor of English Literature in University College, London, +Cambridge: Macmillan. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +An Account of the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton. By +Thomas Keightley; with an Introduction to "Paradise Lost." London: +Chapman & Hall. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +The Poems of Milton, with Notes by Thomas Keightley. London; Chapman & +Hall. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[2] Review of Lockhart's Scott. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[3] "L'Allegro." +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[4] "Life of Milton." +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[5] Sonnet xix. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[6] "Though fallen on evil days, +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues."</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">—"Paradise Lost," Book vii.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[7] John Henry Newman's "Call of David." +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[8] "Apology for Smectymnuus." +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[9] "Reason of Church Government," introduction to Book iii. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[10] Philips. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[11] Translated by Keightley from "Defensio Secunda." +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[12] Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey." +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[13] "Life of Milton." +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[14] Philips. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[15] "Defense of the People of England," Chap. iv. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[16] "Paradise Lost," Book vii. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[17] Richardson. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[18] Book v., Raphael to Adam. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[19] Imitation of Horace's Epistle to Augustus, Book ii., Ep. i. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[20] Book iv. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[21] "Essay on Satire." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06a"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SCIENCE AND CULTURE +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</I> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95) was born at Baling, near London, and +having studied medicine went to sea as assistant surgeon in the navy. +After leaving the Government service, he became Professor of Natural +History at the Royal School of Mines and Fullerian Professor of +Physiology at the Royal Institution, and later held many commissions +and received many distinctions in the scientific world. His special +field was morphology, and in it he produced a large number of +monographs and several comprehensive manuals.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>It is not, however, by his original contributions to knowledge that +Huxley's name is best known to readers outside of technical science, +but rather by his labors in popularisation and in polemics. He was one +of the foremost and most effective champions of Darwinism, and no +scientist has been more conspicuous in the battle between the doctrine +of evolution and the older religious orthodoxy. Outside of this +particular issue, he was a vigorous opponent of supernaturalism in all +its forms, and a supporter of the agnosticism which demands that +nothing shall be believed "with greater assurance than the evidence +warrants"—the evidence intended being, of course, of the same kind as +that admitted in natural science.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Huxley's interests thus extended from pure science into many adjoining +fields, such as those of theology, philosophy (where he wrote an +admirable book on Hume), and education. Of his attitude toward this +last, a clear idea may be gained from the following address on "Science +and Culture," a singularly forcible plea for the importance of natural +science in general education.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>In all his writings Huxley commands a style excellently adapted to his +purpose: clear, forcible, free from mannerism, yet telling and often +memorable in phrase. Whatever may be the exact magnitude of his +services to pure science, he was a master in the writing of English for +the purposes of exposition and controversy, and a powerful intellectual +influence on almost all classes in his generation.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SCIENCE AND CULTURE[1] +</H3> + +<P> +Six years ago, as some of my present hearers may remember, I had the +privilege of addressing a large assemblage of the inhabitants of this +city, who had gathered together to do honor to the memory of their +famous townsman, Joseph Priestley; and, if any satisfaction attaches to +posthumous glory, we may hope that the manes of the burnt-out +philosopher were then finally appeased. +</P> + +<P> +No man, however, who is endowed with a fair share of common-sense, and +not more than a fair share of vanity, will identify either contemporary +or posthumous fame with the highest good; and Priestley's life leaves +no doubt that he, at any rate, set a much higher value upon the +advancement of knowledge, and the promotion of that freedom of thought +which is at once the cause and the consequence of intellectual progress. +</P> + +<P> +Hence I am disposed to think that, if Priestley could be amongst us +to-day, the occasion of our meeting would afford him even greater +pleasure than the proceedings which celebrated the centenary of his +chief discovery. The kindly heart would be moved, the high sense of +social duty would be satisfied, by the spectacle of well-earned wealth, +neither squandered in tawdry luxury and vainglorious show, nor +scattered with the careless charity which blesses neither him that +gives nor him that takes, but expended in the execution of a +well-considered plan for the aid of present and future generations of +those who are willing to help themselves. +</P> + +<P> +We shall all be of one mind thus far. But it is needful to share +Priestley's keen interest in physical science; and to have learned, as +he had learned, the value of scientific training in fields of inquiry +apparently far remote from physical science in order to appreciate, as +he would have appreciated, the value of the noble gift which Sir Josiah +Mason has bestowed upon the inhabitants of the Midland district. +</P> + +<P> +For us children of the nineteenth century, however, the establishment +of a college under the conditions of Sir Josiah Mason's trust has a +significance apart from any which it could have possessed a hundred +years ago. It appears to be an indication that we are reaching the +crisis of the battle, or rather of the long series of battles, which +have been fought over education in a campaign which began long before +Priestley's time, and will probably not be finished just yet. +</P> + +<P> +In the last century, the combatants were the champions of ancient +literature, on the one side, and those of modern literature on the +other; but, some thirty years[2] ago, the contest became complicated by +the appearance of a third army, ranged round the banner of physical +science. +</P> + +<P> +I am not aware that any one has authority to speak in the name of this +new host. For it must be admitted to be somewhat of a guerilla force, +composed largely of irregulars, each of whom fights pretty much for his +own hand. But the impressions of a full private, who has seen a good +deal of service in the ranks, respecting the present position of +affairs and the conditions of a permanent peace, may not be devoid of +interest; and I do not know that I could make a better use of the +present opportunity than by laying them before you. +</P> + +<P> +From the time that the first suggestion to introduce physical science +into ordinary education was timidly whispered, until now, the advocates +of scientific education have met with opposition of two kinds. On the +one hand, they have been poohpoohed by the men of business who pride +themselves on being the representatives of practicality; while, on the +other hand, they have been excommunicated by the classical scholars, in +their capacity of Levites in charge of the ark of culture and +monopolists of liberal education. +</P> + +<P> +The practical men believed that the idol whom they worship—rule of +thumb—has been the source of the past prosperity, and will suffice for +the future welfare of the arts and manufactures. They were of opinion +that science is speculative rubbish; that theory and practice have +nothing to do with one another; and that the scientific habit of mind +is an impediment, rather than an aid, in the conduct of ordinary +affairs. +</P> + +<P> +I have used the past tense in speaking of the practical men—for +although they were very formidable thirty years ago, I am not sure that +the pure species has not been extirpated. In fact, so far as mere +argument goes, they have been subjected to such a <I>feu d'enfer</I> that it +is a miracle if any have escaped. But I have remarked that your +typical practical man has an unexpected resemblance to one of Milton's +angels. His spiritual wounds, such as are inflicted by logical +weapons, may be as deep as a well and as wide as a church door, but +beyond shedding a few drops of ichor, celestial or otherwise, he is no +whit the worse. So, if any of these opponents be left, I will not +waste time in vain repetition of the demonstrative evidence of the +practical value of science; but knowing that a parable will sometimes +penetrate where syllogisms fail to effect an entrance, I will offer a +story for their consideration. +</P> + +<P> +Once upon a time, a boy, with nothing to depend upon but his own +vigorous nature, was thrown into the thick of the struggle for +existence in the midst of a great manufacturing population. He seems +to have had a hard fight, inasmuch as, by the time he was thirty years +of age, his total disposable funds amounted to twenty pounds. +Nevertheless, middle life found him giving proof of his comprehension +of the practical problems he had been roughly called upon to solve, by +a career of remarkable prosperity. +</P> + +<P> +Finally, having reached old age with its well-earned surroundings of +"honor, troops of friends," the hero of my story bethought himself of +those who were making a like start in life, and how he could stretch +out a helping hand to them. +</P> + +<P> +After long and anxious reflection this successful practical man of +business could devise nothing better than to provide them with the +means of obtaining "sound, extensive, and practical scientific +knowledge." And he devoted a large part of his wealth and five years +of incessant work to this end. +</P> + +<P> +I need not point the moral of a tale which, as the solid and spacious +fabric of the Scientific College assures us, is no fable, nor can +anything which I could say intensify the force of this practical answer +to practical objections. +</P> + +<P> +We may take it for granted then, that, in the opinion of those best +qualified to judge, the diffusion of thorough scientific education is +an absolutely essential condition of industrial progress; and that the +college which has been opened to-day will confer an inestimable boon +upon those whose livelihood is to be gained by the practice of the arts +and manufactures of the district. +</P> + +<P> +The only question worth discussion is, whether the conditions, under +which the work of the college is to be carried out, are such as to give +it the best possible chance of achieving permanent success. +</P> + +<P> +Sir Josiah Mason, without doubt most wisely, has left very large +freedom of action to the trustees, to whom he proposes ultimately to +commit the administration of the college, so that they may be able to +adjust its arrangements in accordance with the changing conditions of +the future. But, with respect to three points, he has laid most +explicit injunctions upon both administrators and teachers. +</P> + +<P> +Party politics are forbidden to enter into the minds of either, so far +as the work of the college is concerned; theology is as sternly +banished from its precincts; and finally, it is especially declared +that the college shall make no provision for "mere literary instruction +and education." +</P> + +<P> +It does not concern me at present to dwell upon the first two +injunctions any longer than may be needful to express my full +conviction of their wisdom. But the third prohibition brings us face +to face with those other opponents of scientific education, who are by +no means in the moribund condition of the practical man, but alive, +alert, and formidable. +</P> + +<P> +It is not impossible that we shall hear this express exclusion of +"literary instruction and education" from a college which, +nevertheless, professes to give a high and efficient education, sharply +criticised. Certainly the time was that the Levites of culture would +have sounded their trumpets against its walls as against an educational +Jericho. +</P> + +<P> +How often have we not been told that the study of physical science is +incompetent to confer culture; that it touches none of the higher +problems of life; and, what is worse, that the continual devotion to +scientific studies tends to generate a narrow and bigoted belief in the +applicability of scientific methods to the search after truth of all +kinds. How frequently one has reason to observe that no reply to a +troublesome argument tells so well as calling its author a "mere +scientific specialist." And, as I am afraid it is not permissible to +speak of this form of opposition to scientific education in the past +tense; may we not expect to be told that this, not only omission, but +prohibition, of "mere literary instruction and education" is a patent +example of scientific narrow-mindedness? +</P> + +<P> +I am not acquainted with Sir Josiah Mason's reasons for the action +which he has taken; but if, as I apprehend is the case, he refers to +the ordinary classical course of our schools and universities by the +name of "mere literary instruction and education," I venture to offer +sundry reasons of my own in support of that action. +</P> + +<P> +For I hold very strongly by two convictions. The first is, that +neither the discipline nor the subject-matter of classical education is +of such direct value to the student of physical science as to justify +the expenditure of valuable time upon either; and the second is, that +for the purpose of attaining real culture, an exclusively scientific +education is at least as effectual as an exclusively literary education. +</P> + +<P> +I need hardly point out to you that these opinions, especially the +latter, are diametrically opposed to those of the great majority of +educated Englishmen, influenced as they are by school and university +traditions. In their belief, culture is obtainable only by a liberal +education; and a liberal education is synonymous, not merely with +education and instruction in literature, but in one particular form of +literature, namely, that of Greek and Roman antiquity. They hold that +the man who has learned Latin and Greek, however little, is educated; +while he who is versed in other branches of knowledge, however deeply, +is a more or less respectable specialist, not admissible into cultured +caste. The stamp of the educated man, the university degree, is not +for him. +</P> + +<P> +I am too well acquainted with the generous catholicity of spirit, the +true sympathy with scientific thought, which pervades the writings of +our chief apostle of culture to identify him with these opinions; and +yet one may cull from one and another of those epistles to the +Philistines, which so much delight all who do not answer to that name, +sentences which lend them some support. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Arnold tells us that the meaning of culture is "to know the best +that has been thought and said in the world." It is the criticism of +life contained in literature. That criticism regards "Europe as being, +for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound +to a joint action and working to a common result; and whose members +have, for their common outfit, a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern +antiquity, and of one another. Special, local, and temporary +advantages being put out of account, that modern nation will in the +intellectual and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most +thoroughly carries out this programme. And what is that but saying +that we too, all of us, as individuals, the more thoroughly we carry it +out, shall make the more progress?" +</P> + +<P> +We have here to deal with two distinct propositions. The first, that a +criticism of life is the essence of culture; the second, that +literature contains the materials which suffice for the construction of +such a criticism. +</P> + +<P> +I think that we must all assent to the first proposition. For culture +certainly means something quite different from learning or technical +skill. It implies the possession of an ideal, and the habit of +critically estimating the value of things by comparison with a +theoretic standard. Perfect culture should apply a complete theory of +life, based upon a clear knowledge alike of its possibilities and of +its limitations. +</P> + +<P> +But we may agree to all this, and yet strongly dissent from the +assumption that literature alone is competent to supply this knowledge. +After having learnt all that Greek, Roman, and Eastern antiquity have +thought and said, and all that modern literatures have to tell us, it +is not self-evident that we have laid a sufficiently broad and deep +foundation for that criticism of life which constitutes culture. +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, to any one acquainted with the scope of physical science, it is +not at all evident. Considering progress only in the "intellectual and +spiritual sphere," I find myself wholly unable to admit that either +nations or individuals will really advance, if their common outfit +draws nothing from the stores of physical science. I should say that +an army, without weapons of precision, and with no particular base of +operations, might more hopefully enter upon a campaign on the Rhine, +than a man, devoid of a knowledge of what physical science has done in +the last century, upon a criticism of life. +</P> + +<P> +When a biologist meets with an anomaly, he instinctively turns to the +study of development to clear it up. The rationale of contradictory +opinions may with equal confidence be sought in history. +</P> + +<P> +It is, happily, no new thing that Englishmen should employ their wealth +in building and endowing institutions for educational purposes. But, +five or six hundred years ago, deeds of foundation expressed or implied +conditions as nearly as possible contrary to those which have been +thought expedient by Sir Josiah Mason. That is to say, physical +science was practically ignored, while a certain literary training was +enjoined as a means to the acquirement of knowledge which was +essentially theological. +</P> + +<P> +The reason of this singular contradiction between the actions of men +alike animated by a strong and disinterested desire to promote the +welfare of their fellows, is easily discovered. +</P> + +<P> +At that time, in fact, if any one desired knowledge beyond such as +could be obtained by his own observation, or by common conversation, +his first necessity was to learn the Latin language, inasmuch as all +the higher knowledge of the western world was contained in works +written in that language. Hence, Latin grammar, with logic and +rhetoric, studied through Latin, were the fundamentals of education. +With respect to the substance of the knowledge imparted through this +channel, the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, as interpreted and +supplemented by the Romish Church, were held to contain a complete and +infallibly true body of information. +</P> + +<P> +Theological dicta were, to the thinkers of those days, that which the +axioms and definitions of Euclid are to the geometers of these. The +business of the philosophers of the Middle Ages was to deduce from the +data furnished by the theologians, conclusions in accordance with +ecclesiastical decrees. They were allowed the high privilege of +showing, by logical process, how and why that which the Church said was +true, must be true. And if their demonstrations fell short of or +exceeded this limit, the Church was maternally ready to check their +aberrations, if need be, by the help of the secular arm. +</P> + +<P> +Between the two, our ancestors were furnished with a compact and +complete criticism of life. They were told how the world began, and +how it would end; they learned that all material existence was but a +base and insignificant blot upon the fair face of the spiritual world, +and that nature was, to all intents and purposes, the play-ground of +the devil; they learned that the earth is the centre of the visible +universe, and that man is the cynosure of things terrestrial; and more +especially is it inculcated that the course of nature had no fixed +order, but that it could be, and constantly was, altered by the agency +of innumerable spiritual beings, good and bad, according as they were +moved by the deeds and prayers of men. The sum and substance of the +whole doctrine was to produce the conviction that the only thing really +worth knowing in this world was how to secure that place in a better, +which, under certain conditions, the Church promised. +</P> + +<P> +Our ancestors had a living belief in this theory of life, and acted +upon it in their dealings with education, as in all other matters. +Culture meant saintliness—after the fashion of the saints of those +days; the education that led to it was, of necessity, theological; and +the way to theology lay through Latin. +</P> + +<P> +That the study of nature—further than was requisite for the +satisfaction of everyday wants—should have any bearing on human life +was far from the thoughts of men thus trained. Indeed, as nature had +been cursed for man's sake, it was an obvious conclusion that those who +meddled with nature were likely to come into pretty close contact with +Satan. And, if any born scientific investigator followed his +instincts, he might safely reckon upon earning the reputation, and +probably upon suffering the fate, of a sorcerer. +</P> + +<P> +Had the western world been left to itself in Chinese isolation, there +is no saying how long this state of things might have endured. But, +happily, it was not left to itself. Even earlier than the thirteenth +century, the development of Moorish civilization in Spain and the great +movement of the Crusades had introduced the leaven which, from that day +to this, has never ceased to work. At first, through the +intermediation of Arabic translations, afterwards by the study of the +originals, the western nations of Europe became acquainted with the +writings of the ancient philosophers and poets, and, in time, with the +whole of the vast literature of antiquity. +</P> + +<P> +Whatever there was of high intellectual aspiration or dominant capacity +in Italy, France, Germany, and England, spent itself for centuries in +taking possession of the rich inheritance left by the dead civilization +of Greece and Rome. Marvelously aided by the invention of printing, +classical learning spread and flourished. Those who possessed it +prided themselves on having attained the highest culture then within +the reach of mankind. +</P> + +<P> +And justly. For, saving Dante on his solitary pinnacle, there was no +figure in modern literature at the time of the Renaissance to compare +with the men of antiquity; there was no art to compete with their +sculpture; there was no physical science but that which Greece had +created. Above all, there was no other example of perfect intellectual +freedom—of the unhesitating acceptance of reason as the sole guide to +truth and the supreme arbiter of conduct. +</P> + +<P> +The new learning necessarily soon exerted a profound influence upon +education. The language of the monks and schoolmen seemed little +better than gibberish to scholars fresh from Vergil and Cicero, and the +study of Latin was placed upon a new foundation. Moreover, Latin +itself ceased to afford the sole key to knowledge. The student who +sought the highest thought of antiquity found only a second-hand +reflection of it in Roman literature, and turned his face to the full +light of the Greeks. And after a battle, not altogether dissimilar to +that which is at present being fought over the teaching of physical +science, the study of Greek was recognized as an essential element of +all higher education. +</P> + +<P> +Thus the humanists, as they were called, won the day; and the great +reform which they effected was of incalculable service to mankind. But +the Nemesis of all reformers is finality; and the reformers of +education, like those of religion, fell into the profound, however +common, error of mistaking the beginning for the end of the work of +reformation. +</P> + +<P> +The representatives of the humanists in the nineteenth century take +their stand upon classical education as the sole avenue to culture, as +firmly as if we were still in the age of Renaissance. Yet, surely, the +present intellectual relations of the modern and the ancient worlds are +profoundly different from those which obtained three centuries ago. +Leaving aside the existence of a great and characteristically modern +literature, of modern painting, and, especially, of modern music, there +is one feature of the present state of the civilized world which +separates it more widely from the Renaissance than the Renaissance was +separated from the Middle Ages. +</P> + +<P> +This distinctive character of our own times lies in the vast and +constantly increasing part which is played by natural knowledge. Not +only is our daily life shaped by it, not only does the prosperity of +millions of men depend upon it, but our whole theory of life has long +been influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by the general +conceptions of the universe, which have been forced upon us by physical +science. +</P> + +<P> +In fact, the most elementary acquaintance with the results of +scientific investigation shows us that they offer a broad and striking +contradiction to the opinions so implicitly credited and taught in the +Middle Ages. +</P> + +<P> +The notions of the beginning and the end of the world entertained by +our forefathers are no longer credible. It is very certain that the +earth is not the chief body in the material universe, and that the +world is not subordinated to man's use. It is even more certain that +nature is the expression of a definite order with which nothing +interferes, and that the chief business of mankind is to learn that +order and govern themselves accordingly. Moreover this scientific +"criticism of life" presents itself to us with different credentials +from any other. It appeals not to authority, nor to what anybody may +have thought or said, but to nature. It admits that all our +interpretations of natural fact are more or less imperfect and +symbolic, and bids the learner seek for truth not among words but among +things. It warns us that the assertion which outstrips evidence is not +only a blunder but a crime. +</P> + +<P> +The purely classical education advocated by the representatives of the +humanists in our day gives no inkling of all this. A man may be a +better scholar than Erasmus, and know no more of the chief causes of +the present intellectual fermentation than Erasmus did. Scholarly and +pious persons, worthy of all respect, favor us with allocutions upon +the sadness of the antagonism of science to their mediaeval way of +thinking, which betray an ignorance of the first principles of +scientific investigation, an incapacity for understanding what a man of +science means by veracity, and an unconsciousness of the weight of +established scientific truths, which is almost comical. +</P> + +<P> +There is no great force in the <I>tu quoque</I> argument, or else the +advocates of scientific education might fairly enough retort upon the +modern humanists that they may be learned specialists, but that they +possess no such sound foundation for a criticism of life as deserves +the name of culture. And, indeed, if we were disposed to be cruel, we +might urge that the humanists have brought this reproach upon +themselves, not because they are too full of the spirit of the ancient +Greek, but because they lack it. +</P> + +<P> +The period of the Renaissance is commonly called that of the "Revival +of Letters," as if the influences then brought to bear upon the mind of +Western Europe had been wholly exhausted in the field of literature. I +think it is very commonly forgotten that the revival of science, +effected by the same agency, although less conspicuous, was not less +momentous. +</P> + +<P> +In fact, the few and scattered students of nature of that day picked up +the clew to her secrets exactly as it fell from the hands of the Greeks +a thousand years before. The foundations of mathematics were so well +laid by them that our children learn their geometry from a book written +for the schools of Alexandria two thousand years ago. Modern astronomy +is the natural continuation and development of the work of Hipparchus +and of Ptolemy; modern physics of that of Democritus and of Archimedes; +it was long before modern biological science outgrew the knowledge +bequeathed to us by Aristotle, by Theophrastus, and by Galen. +</P> + +<P> +We cannot know all the best thoughts and sayings of the Greeks unless +we know what they thought about natural phenomena. We cannot fully +apprehend their criticism of life unless we understand the extent to +which that criticism was affected by scientific conceptions. We +falsely pretend to be the inheritors of their culture, unless we are +penetrated, as the best minds among them were, with an unhesitating +faith that the free employment of reason, in accordance with scientific +method, is the sole method of reaching truth. +</P> + +<P> +Thus I venture to think that the pretensions of our modern humanists to +the possession of the monopoly of culture and to the exclusive +inheritance of the spirit of antiquity must be abated, if not +abandoned. But I should be very sorry that anything I have said should +be taken to imply a desire on my part to depreciate the value of +classical education, as it might be and as it sometimes is. The native +capacities of mankind vary no less than their opportunities; and while +culture is one, the road by which one man may best reach it is widely +different from that which is most advantageous to another. Again, +while scientific education is yet inchoate and tentative, classical +education is thoroughly well organized upon the practical experience of +generations of teachers. So that, given ample time for learning and +destination for ordinary life, or for a literary career, I do not think +that a young Englishman in search of culture can do better than follow +the course usually marked out for him, supplementing its deficiencies +by his own efforts. +</P> + +<P> +But for those who mean to make science their serious occupation; or who +intend to follow the profession of medicine; or who have to enter early +upon the business of life; for all these, in my opinion, classical +education is a mistake; and it is for this reason that I am glad to see +"mere literary education and instruction" shut out from the curriculum +of Sir Josiah Mason's college, seeing that its inclusion would probably +lead to the introduction of the ordinary smattering of Latin and Greek. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, I am the last person to question the importance of +genuine literary education, or to suppose that intellectual culture can +be complete without it. An exclusively scientific training will bring +about a mental twist as surely as an exclusive literary training. The +value of the cargo does not compensate for a ship's being out of trim; +and I should be very sorry to think that the Scientific College would +turn out none but lop-sided men. +</P> + +<P> +There is no need, however, that such a catastrophe should happen. +Instruction in English, French, and German is provided, and thus the +three greatest literatures of the modern world are made accessible to +the student. +</P> + +<P> +French and German, and especially the latter language, are absolutely +indispensable to those who desire full knowledge in any department of +science. But even supposing that the knowledge of these languages +acquired is not more than sufficient for purely scientific purposes, +every Englishman has, in his native tongue, an almost perfect +instrument of literary expression; and, in his own literature, models +of every kind of literary excellence. If an Englishman cannot get +literary culture out of his Bible, his Shakespeare, his Milton, +neither, in my belief, will the profoundest study of Homer and +Sophocles, Vergil and Horace, give it to him. +</P> + +<P> +Thus, since the constitution of the college makes sufficient provision +for literary as well as for scientific education, and since artistic +instruction is also contemplated, it seems to me that a fairly complete +culture is offered to all who are willing to take advantage of it. +</P> + +<P> +But I am not sure that at this point the "practical" man, scotched but +not slain, may ask what all this talk about culture has to do with an +institution, the object of which is defined to be "to promote the +prosperity of the manufactures and the industry of the country." He +may suggest that what is wanted for this end is not culture, nor even a +purely scientific discipline, but simply a knowledge of applied science. +</P> + +<P> +I often wish that this phrase, "applied science," had never been +invented. For it suggests that there is a sort of scientific knowledge +of direct practical use, which can be studied apart from another sort +of scientific knowledge, which is of no practical utility, and which is +termed "pure science." But there is no more complete fallacy than +this. What people call applied science is nothing but the application +of pure science to particular classes of problems. It consists of +deductions from those general principles, established by reasoning and +observation, which constitute pure science. No one can safely make +these deductions until he has a firm grasp of the principles; and he +can obtain that grasp only by personal experience of the operations of +observation and of reasoning on which they are founded. +</P> + +<P> +Almost all the processes employed in the arts and manufactures fall +within the range either of physics or of chemistry. In order to +improve them one must thoroughly understand them; and no one has a +chance of really understanding them, unless he has obtained that +mastery of principles and that habit of dealing with facts which is +given by long-continued and well-directed purely scientific training in +the physical and chemical laboratory. So that there really is no +question as to the necessity of purely scientific discipline, even if +the work of the college were limited by the narrowest interpretation of +its stated aims. +</P> + +<P> +And, as to the desirableness of a wider culture than that yielded by +science alone, it is to be recollected that the improvement of +manufacturing processes is only one of the conditions which contribute +to the prosperity of industry. Industry is a means and not an end; and +mankind work only to get something which they want. What that +something is depends partly on their innate, and partly on their +acquired, desires. +</P> + +<P> +If the wealth resulting from prosperous industry is to be spent upon +the gratification of unworthy desires, if the increasing perfection of +manufacturing processes is to be accompanied by an increasing +debasement of those who carry them on, I do not see the good of +industry and prosperity. +</P> + +<P> +Now it is perfectly true that men's views of what is desirable depend +upon their characters; and that the innate proclivities to which we +give that name are not touched by any amount of instruction. But it +does not follow that even mere intellectual education may not, to an +indefinite extent, modify the practical manifestation of the characters +of men in their actions, by supplying them with motives unknown to the +ignorant. A pleasure-loving character will have pleasure of some sort; +but, if you give him the choice, he may prefer pleasures which do not +degrade him to those which do. And this choice is offered to every man +who possesses in literary or artistic culture a never-failing source of +pleasures, which are neither withered by age, nor staled by custom, nor +embittered in the recollection by the pangs of self-reproach. +</P> + +<P> +If the institution opened to-day fulfils the intention of its founder, +the picked intelligences among all classes of the population of this +district will pass through it. No child born in Birmingham, +henceforward, if he have the capacity to profit by the opportunities +offered to him, first in the primary and other schools, and afterward +in the Scientific College, need fail to obtain, not merely the +instruction, but the culture most appropriate to the conditions of his +life. +</P> + +<P> +Within these walls the future employer and the future artisan may +sojourn together for awhile, and carry, through all their lives, the +stamp of the influences then brought to bear upon them. Hence, it is +not beside the mark to remind you that the prosperity of industry +depends not merely upon the improvement of manufacturing processes, not +merely upon the ennobling of the individual character, but upon a third +condition, namely, a clear understanding of the conditions of social +life on the part of both the capitalist and the operative, and their +agreement upon common principles of social action. They must learn +that social phenomena are as much the expression of natural laws as any +others; that no social arrangements can be permanent unless they +harmonize with the requirements of social statics and dynamics; and +that, in the nature of things, there is an arbiter whose decisions +execute themselves. +</P> + +<P> +But this knowledge is only to be obtained by the application of the +methods of investigation adopted in physical researches to the +investigation of the phenomena of society. Hence, I confess I should +like to see one addition made to the excellent scheme of education +propounded for the college, in the shape of provision for the teaching +of sociology. For though we are all agreed that party politics are to +have no place in the instruction of the college; yet in this country, +practically governed as it is now by universal suffrage, every man who +does his duty must exercise political functions. And, if the evils +which are inseparable from the good of political liberty are to be +checked, if the perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy and +despotism is to be replaced by the steady march of self-restraining +freedom; it will be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal +with political, as they now deal with scientifical questions; to be as +ashamed of undue haste and partisan prejudice in the one case as in the +other; and to believe that the machinery of society is at least as +delicate as that of a spinning-jenny, and as little likely to be +improved by the meddling of those who have not taken the trouble to +master the principles of its action. +</P> + +<P> +In conclusion, I am sure that I make myself the mouthpiece of all +present in offering to the venerable founder of the institution, which +now commences its beneficent career, our congratulations on the +completion of his work; and in expressing the conviction that the +remotest posterity will point to it as a crucial instance of the wisdom +which natural piety leads all men to ascribe to their ancestors. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[1] Originally delivered as an address, in 1880, at the opening of +Mason College, Birmingham, England, now the University of Birmingham. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[2] The advocacy of the introduction of physical science into general +education by George Combe and others commenced a good deal earlier; but +the movement had acquired hardly any practical force before the time to +which I refer. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07a"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +RACE AND LANGUAGE +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</I> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Edward Augustus Freeman (1823-92), one of the most distinguished of +recent English historians, was born at Harborne, in Staffordshire, and +educated at Oxford, where he was a Fellow of Trinity College, and later +Regius Professor of Modern History. His earlier writings show great +interest in architecture, and it was one of his distinctions to be the +first historian to make extensive use in his subject of the evidences +and illustrations supplied by the study of that art. His most famous +and most elaborate work was his "History of the Norman Conquest" +(1867-79), a monument which is likely long to remain the great +authority on its period.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Freeman believed in the unity of the study of history, and in the wide +range of his own writings he went far toward realising the universality +he preached. Outside of the field just mentioned he wrote on ancient +Greece, on Sicily, on the Ottoman Empire, on the United States, on the +methods of historical study, and on many other subjects. His interests +were primarily political, and he took an active part in the politics of +his own day, writing for many years for the "Saturday Review." As a +teacher he influenced profoundly the scientific study of history in +England.</I> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Of few terms in general use has the average man a less exact or less +accurate comprehension than of the word "race." The speculative +philologists of last century, with their attempts to classify the +peoples of the earth according to linguistic evidences, succeeded, as +far as the layman is concerned, chiefly in adding to the confusion by +popularising prematurely facts whose signification was improperly +understood. The anthropologists of a more recent time, with their +study of skull-shapes and complexions, have sought to correct +misapprehensions; but the popular mind is still in a mist about the +whole matter. In the following essay Freeman brings his knowledge of +modern scientific results and his enormous historical information to +the rescue of the bewildered student, and does much to clear up the +perplexing relations of race with language, custom, and blood.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +RACE AND LANGUAGE[1] +</H3> + +<P> +It is no very great time since the readers of the English newspapers +were, perhaps a little amused, perhaps a little startled, at the story +of a deputation of Hungarian students going to Constantinople to +present a sword of honor to an Ottoman general. The address and the +answer enlarged on the ancient kindred of Turks and Magyars, on the +long alienation of the dissevered kinsfolk, on the return of both in +these later times to a remembrance of the ancient kindred and to the +friendly feelings to which such kindred gave birth. The discourse has +a strange sound when we remember the reigns of Sigismund and +Wladislaus, when we think of the dark days of Nikopolis and Varna, when +we think of Huniades encamped at the foot of Haemus, and of Belgrade +beating back Mahomet the Conqueror from her gates. The Magyar and the +Ottoman embracing with the joy of reunited kinsfolk is a sight which +certainly no man would have looked forward to in the fourteenth or +fifteenth century. At an earlier time the ceremony might have seemed a +degree less wonderful. If a man whose ideas are drawn wholly from the +modern map should sit down to study the writings of Constantine +Porphyrogennźtos, he would perhaps be startled at finding Turks and +Franks spoken of as neighbors, at finding <I>Turcia</I> and <I>Francia</I>—we +must not translate <I>Tourchia</I> and <I>Phraggia</I> by Turkey and +France—spoken of as border-lands. A little study will perhaps show +him that the change lies almost wholly in the names and not in the +boundaries. The lands are there still, and the frontier between them +has shifted much less than one might have looked for in nine hundred +years. Nor has there been any great change in the population of the +two countries. The Turks and the Franks of the Imperial geographer are +there still, in the lands which he calls Turcia and Francia; only we no +longer speak of them as Turks and Franks. The Turks of Constantine are +Magyars; the Franks of Constantine are Germans. The Magyar students +may not unlikely have turned over the Imperial pages, and they may have +seen how their forefathers stand described there. We can hardly fancy +that the Ottoman general is likely to have given much time to lore of +such a kind. Yet the Ottoman answer was as brimful of ethnological and +antiquarian sympathy as the Magyar address. It is hardly to be +believed that a Turk, left to himself, would by his own efforts have +found out the primeval kindred between Turk and Magyar. He might +remember that Magyar exiles had found a safe shelter on Ottoman +territory; he might look deep enough into the politics of the present +moment to see that the rule of Turk and Magyar alike is threatened by +the growth of Slavonic national life. But the idea that Magyar and +Turk owe each other any love or any duty, directly on the ground of +primeval kindred, is certainly not likely to have presented itself to +the untutored Ottoman mind. In short, it sounds, as some one said at +the time, rather like the dream of a professor who has run wild with an +ethnological craze, than like the serious thought of a practical man of +any nation. Yet the Magyar students seem to have meant their address +quite seriously. And the Turkish general, if he did not take it +seriously, at least thought it wise to shape his answer as if he did. +As a piece of practical politics, it sounds like Frederick Barbarossa +threatening to avenge the defeat of Crassus upon Saladin, or like the +French of the revolutionary wars making the Pope Pius of those days +answerable for the wrongs of Vercingetorix. The thing sounds like +comedy, almost like conscious comedy. But it is a kind of comedy which +may become tragedy, if the idea from which it springs get so deeply +rooted in men's minds as to lead to any practical consequences. As +long as talk of this kind does not get beyond the world of hot-headed +students, it may pass for a craze. It would be more than a craze, if +it should be so widely taken up on either side that the statesmen on +either side find it expedient to profess to take it up also. +</P> + +<P> +To allege the real or supposed primeval kindred between Magyars and +Ottomans as a ground for political action, or at least for political +sympathy, in the affairs of the present moment, is an extreme +case—some may be inclined to call it a <I>reductio ad absurdum</I>—of a +whole range of doctrines and sentiments which have in modern days +gained a great power over men's minds. They have gained so great a +power that those who may regret their influence cannot afford to +despise it. To make any practical inference from the primeval kindred +of Magyar and Turk is indeed pushing the doctrine of race, and of +sympathies arising from race, as far as it well can be pushed. Without +plunging into any very deep mysteries, without committing ourselves to +any dangerous theories in the darker regions of ethnological inquiry, +we may perhaps be allowed at starting to doubt whether there is any +real primeval kindred between the Ottoman and the Finnish Magyar. It +is for those who have gone specially deep into the antiquities of the +non-Aryan races to say whether there is or is not. At all events, as +far as the great facts of history go, the kindred is of the vaguest and +most shadowy kind. It comes to little more than the fact that Magyars +and Ottomans are alike non-Aryan invaders who have made their way into +Europe within recorded times, and that both have, rightly or wrongly, +been called by the name of Turks. These do seem rather slender grounds +on which to build up a fabric of national sympathy between two nations, +when several centuries of living practical history all pull the other +way. It is hard to believe that the kindred of Turk and Magyar was +thought of when a Turkish pacha ruled at Buda. Doubtless Hungarian +Protestants often deemed, and not unreasonably deemed, that the +contemptuous toleration of the Moslem sultan was a lighter yoke than +the persecution of the Catholic emperor. But it was hardly on grounds +of primeval kindred that they made the choice. The ethnological +dialogue held at Constantinople does indeed sound like ethnological +theory run mad. But it is the very wildness of the thing which gives +it its importance. The doctrine of race, and of sympathies springing +from race, must have taken very firm hold indeed of men's minds before +it could be carried out in a shape which we are tempted to call so +grotesque as this. +</P> + +<P> +The plain fact is that the new lines of scientific and historical +inquiry which have been opened in modern times have had a distinct and +deep effect upon the politics of the age. The fact may be estimated in +many ways, but its existence as a fact cannot be denied. Not in a +merely scientific or literary point of view, but in one strictly +practical, the world is not the same world as it was when men had not +yet dreamed of the kindred between Sanscrit, Greek, and English, when +it was looked on as something of a paradox to him that there was a +distinction between Celtic and Teutonic tongues and nations. +Ethnological and philological researches—I do not forget the +distinction between the two, but for the present I must group them +together—have opened the way for new national sympathies, new national +antipathies, such as would have been unintelligible a hundred years +ago. A hundred years ago a man's political likes and dislikes seldom +went beyond the range which was suggested by the place of his birth or +immediate descent. Such birth or descent made him a member of this or +that political community, a subject of this or that prince, a +citizen—perhaps a subject—of this or that commonwealth. The +political community of which he was a member had its traditional +alliances and traditional enmities, and by those alliances and enmities +the likes and dislikes of the members of that community were guided. +But those traditional alliances and enmities were seldom determined by +theories about language or race. The people of this or that place +might be discontented under a foreign government; but, as a rule, they +were discontented only if subjection to that foreign government brought +with it personal oppression or at least political degradation. Regard +or disregard of some purely local privilege or local feeling went for +more than the fact of a government being native or foreign. What we +now call the sentiment of nationality did not go for much; what we call +the sentiment of race went for nothing at all. Only a few men here and +there would have understood the feelings which have led to those two +great events of our own time, the political reunion of the German and +Italian nations after their long political dissolution. Not a soul +would have understood the feelings which have allowed Panslavism to be +a great practical agent in the affairs of Europe, and which have made +talk about "the Latin race," if not practical, at least possible. +Least of all, would it have been possible to give any touch of +political importance to what would have then seemed so wild a dream as +a primeval kindred between Magyar and Ottoman. +</P> + +<P> +That feelings such as these, and the practical consequences which have +flowed from them, are distinctly due to scientific and historical +teaching there can, I think, be no doubt. Religious sympathy and +purely national sympathy are both feelings of much simpler growth, +which need no deep knowledge nor any special teaching. The cry which +resounded through Christendom when the Holy City was taken by the +Mussulmans, the cry which resounded through Islam when the same city +was taken by the Christians, the spirit which armed England to support +French Huguenots and which armed Spain to support French Leaguers, all +spring from motives which lie on the surface. Nor need we seek for any +explanation but such as lies on the surface for the natural wish for +closer union which arose among Germans or Italians who found themselves +parted off by purely dynastic arrangements from men who were their +countrymen in everything else. Such a feeling has to strive with the +counter-feeling which springs from local jealousies and local dislikes; +but it is a perfectly simple feeling, which needs no subtle research +either to arouse or to understand it. So, if we draw our illustrations +from the events of our own time, there is nothing but what is perfectly +simple in the feeling which calls Russia, as the most powerful of +Orthodox states, to the help of her Orthodox brethren everywhere, and +which calls the members of the Orthodox Church everywhere to look to +Russia as their protector. The feeling may have to strive against a +crowd of purely political considerations, and by those purely political +considerations it may be outweighed. But the feeling is in itself +altogether simple and natural. So again, the people of Montenegro and +of the neighboring lands in Herzegovina and by the <I>Bocche</I> of Cattaro +feel themselves countrymen in every sense but the political accident +which keeps them asunder. They are drawn together by a tie which +everyone can understand, by the same tie which would draw together the +people of three adjoining English counties, if any strange political +action should part them asunder in like manner. The feeling here is +that of nationality in the strictest sense, nationality in a purely +local or geographical sense. It would exist all the same if Panslavism +had never been heard of; it might exist though those who feel it had +never heard of the Slavonic race at all. It is altogether another +thing when we come to the doctrine of race, and of sympathies founded +on race, in the wider sense. Here we have a feeling which professes to +bind together, and which as a matter of fact has had a real effect in +binding together, men whose kindred to one another is not so obvious at +first sight as the kindred of Germans, Italians, or Serbs who are kept +asunder by nothing but a purely artificial political boundary. It is a +feeling at whose bidding the call to union goes forth to men whose +dwellings are geographically far apart, to men who may have had no +direct dealings with one another for years or for ages, to men whose +languages, though the scholar may at once see that they are closely +akin, may not be so closely akin as to be mutually intelligible for +common purposes. A hundred years back the Servian might have cried for +help to the Russian on the ground of common Orthodox faith; he would +hardly have called for help on the ground of common Slavonic speech and +origin. If he had done so, it would have been rather by way of +grasping at any chance, however desperate or far-fetched, than as +putting forward a serious and well understood claim which he might +expect to find accepted and acted on by large masses of men. He might +have received help, either out of genuine sympathy springing from +community of faith or from the baser thought that he could be made use +of as a convenient political tool. He would have got but little help +purely on the ground of a community of blood and speech which had had +no practical result for ages. When Russia in earlier days interfered +between the Turk and his Christian subjects, there is no sign of any +sympathy felt or possessed for Slaves as Slaves. Russia dealt with +Montenegro, not, as far as one can see, out of any Slavonic +brotherhood, but because an independent Orthodox State at enmity with +the Turk could not fail to be a useful ally. The earlier dealings of +Russia with the subject nations were far more busy among the Greeks +than among the Slaves. In fact, till quite lately all the Orthodox +subjects of the Turk were in most European eyes looked on as alike +Greeks. The Orthodox Church has been commonly known as the Greek +Church; and it has often been very hard to make people understand that +the vast mass of the members of that so-called Greek Church are not +Greek in any other sense. In truth we may doubt whether, till +comparatively lately, the subject nations themselves were fully alive +to the differences of race and speech among them. A man must in all +times and places know whether he speaks the same language as another +man; but he does not always go on to put his consciousness of +difference into the shape of a sharply drawn formula. Still less does +he always make the difference the ground of any practical course of +action. The Englishman in the first days of the Norman Conquest felt +the hardships of foreign rule, and he knew that those hardships were +owing to foreign rule. But he had not learned to put his sense of +hardship into any formula about an oppressed nationality. So, when the +policy of the Turk found that the subtle intellect of the Greek could +be made use of as an instrument of dominion over the other subject +nations, the Bulgarian felt the hardship of the state of things in +which, as it was proverbially said, his body was in bondage to the Turk +and his soul in bondage to the Greek. But we may suspect that this +neatly turned proverb dates only from the awakening of a distinctly +national Bulgarian feeling in modern times. The Turk was felt to be an +intruder and an enemy, because his rule was that of an open oppressor +belonging to another creed. The Greek, on the other hand, though his +spiritual dominion brought undoubted practical evils with it, was not +felt to be an intruder and an enemy in the same sense. His quicker +intellect and superior refinement made him a model. The Bulgarian +imitated the Greek tongue and Greek manners; he was willing in other +lands to be himself looked on as a Greek. It is only in quite modern +times, under the direct influence of the preaching of the doctrine of +race, that a hard and fast line has been drawn between Greeks and +Bulgarians. That doctrine has cut two ways. It has given both +nations, Greek and Bulgarian alike, a renewed national life, national +strength, national hopes, such as neither of them had felt for ages. +In so doing, it has done one of the best and most hopeful works of the +age. But in so doing, it has created one of the most dangerous of +immediate political difficulties. In calling two nations into a +renewed being, it has arrayed them in enmity against each other, and +that in the face of a common enemy in whose presence all lesser +differences and jealousies ought to be hushed into silence. +</P> + +<P> +There is then a distinct doctrine of race, and of sympathies founded on +race, distinct from the feeling of community of religion, and distinct +from the feeling of nationality in the narrower sense. It is not so +simple or easy a feeling as either of those two. It does not in the +same way lie on the surface; it is not in the same way grounded on +obvious facts which are plain to every man's understanding. The +doctrine of race is essentially an artificial doctrine, a learned +doctrine. It is an inference from facts which the mass of mankind +could never have found out for themselves; facts which, without a +distinctly learned teaching, could never be brought home to them in any +intelligible shape. Now what is the value of such a doctrine? Does it +follow that, because it is confessedly artificial, because it springs, +not from a spontaneous impulse, but from a learned teaching, it is +therefore necessarily foolish, mischievous, perhaps unnatural? It may +perhaps be safer to hold that like many other doctrines, many other +sentiments, it is neither universally good nor universally bad, neither +inherently wise nor inherently foolish. It may be safer to hold that +it may, like other doctrines and sentiments, have a range within which +it may work for good, while in some other range it may work for evil. +It may in short be a doctrine which is neither to be rashly accepted, +nor rashly cast aside, but one which may need to be guided, regulated, +modified, according to time, place, and circumstance. I am not now +called on so much to estimate the practical good and evil of the +doctrine as to work out what the doctrine itself is, and to try to +explain some difficulties about it, but I must emphatically say that +nothing can be more shallow, nothing more foolish, nothing more purely +sentimental, than the talk of those who think that they can simply +laugh down or shriek down any doctrine or sentiment which they +themselves do not understand. A belief or a feeling which has a +practical effect on the conduct of great masses of men, sometimes on +the conduct of whole nations, may be very false and very mischievous; +but it is in every case a great and serious fact, to be looked gravely +in the face. Men who sit at their ease and think that all wisdom is +confined to themselves and their own clique may think themselves vastly +superior to the great emotions which stir our times, as they would +doubtless have thought themselves vastly superior to the emotions which +stirred the first Saracens or the first Crusaders. But the emotions +are there all the same, and they do their work all the same. The most +highly educated man in the most highly educated society cannot sneer +them out of being. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +But it is time to pass to the more strictly scientific aspect of the +subject. The doctrine of race, in its popular form, is the direct +offspring of the study of scientific philology; and yet it is just now, +in its popular form at least, somewhat under the ban of scientific +philologers. There is nothing very wonderful in this. It is in fact +the natural course of things which might almost have been reckoned on +beforehand. When the popular mind gets hold of a truth it seldom gets +hold of it with strict scientific precision. It commonly gets hold of +one side of the truth; it puts forth that side of the truth only. It +puts that side forth in a form which may not be in itself distorted or +exaggerated, but which practically becomes distorted and exaggerated, +because other sides of the same truth are not brought into their due +relation with it. The popular idea thus takes a shape which is +naturally offensive to men of strict precision, and which men of strict +scientific precision have naturally, and from their own point of view +quite rightly, risen up to rebuke. Yet it may often happen that, while +the scientific statement is the only true one for scientific purposes, +the popular version may also have a kind of practical truth for the +somewhat rough and ready purposes of a popular version. In our present +case scientific philologers are beginning to complain, with perfect +truth and perfect justice from their own point of view, that the +popular doctrine of race confounds race and language. They tell us, +and they do right to tell us, that language is no certain test of race, +that men who speak the same tongue are not therefore necessarily men of +the same blood. And they tell us further, that from whatever quarter +the alleged popular confusion came, it certainly did not come from any +teaching of scientific philologers. +</P> + +<P> +The truth of all this cannot be called in question. We have too many +instances in recorded history of nations laying aside the use of one +language and taking to the use of another, for anyone who cares for +accuracy to set down language as any sure test of race. In fact, the +studies of the philologer and those of the ethnologer strictly so +called are quite distinct, and they deal with two wholly different sets +of phenomena. The science of the ethnologer is strictly a physical +science. He has to deal with purely physical phenomena; his business +lies with the different varieties of the human body, and specially, to +take that branch of his inquiries which most impresses the unlearned, +with the various conformations of the human skull. His researches +differ in nothing from those of the zoölogist or the paleontologist, +except that he has to deal with the physical phenomena of man, while +they deal with the physical phenomena of other animals. He groups the +different races of men, exactly as the others group the genera and +species of living or extinct mammals or reptiles. The student of +ethnology as a physical science may indeed strengthen his conclusions +by evidence of other kinds, evidence from arms, ornaments, pottery, +modes of burial. But all these are secondary; the primary ground of +classification is the physical conformation of man himself. As to +language, the ethnological method, left to itself, can find out nothing +whatever. The science of the ethnologer then is primarily physical; it +is historical only in that secondary sense in which paleontology, and +geology itself, may fairly be called historical. It arranges the +varieties of mankind according to a strictly physical classification; +what the language of each variety may have been, it leaves to the +professors of another branch of study to find out. +</P> + +<P> +The science of the philologer, on the other hand, is strictly +historical. There is doubtless a secondary sense in which purely +philological science may be fairly called physical, just as there is a +secondary sense in which pure ethnology may be called historical. That +is to say, philology has to deal with physical phenomena, so far as it +has to deal with the physical aspect of the sounds of which human +language is made up. Its primary business, like the primary business +of any other historical science, is to deal with phenomena which do not +depend on physical laws, but which do depend on the human will. The +science of language is, in this respect, like the science of human +institutions or of human beliefs. Its subject-matter is not, like that +of pure ethnology, what man is, but, like that of any other historical +science, what man does. It is plain that no man's will can have any +direct influence on the shape of his skull. I say no direct influence, +because it is not for me to rule how far habits, places of abode, modes +of life, a thousand things which do come under the control of the human +will, may indirectly affect the physical conformation of a man himself +or of his descendants. Some observers have made the remark that men of +civilized nations who live in a degraded social state do actually +approach to the physical type of inferior races. However this may be, +it is quite certain, that as no man can by taking thought add a cubit +to his stature, so no man can by taking thought make his skull +brachycephalic or dolichocephalic. But the language which a man speaks +does depend upon his will; he can by taking thought make his speech +Romance or Teutonic. No doubt he has in most cases practically no +choice in the matter. The language which he speaks is practically +determined for him by fashion, habit, early teaching, a crowd of things +over which he has practically no control. But still the control is not +physical and inevitable, as it is in the case of the shape of his +skull. If we say that he cannot help speaking in a particular way; +that is, that he cannot help speaking a particular language, this +simply means that his circumstances are such that no other way of +speaking presents itself to his mind. And in many cases, he has a real +choice between two or more ways of speaking; that is, between two or +more languages. Every word that a man speaks is the result of a real, +though doubtless unconscious, act of his free will. We are apt to +speak of gradual changes in languages, as in institutions or anything +else, as if they were the result of a physical law, acting upon beings +who had no choice in the matter. Yet every change of the kind is +simply the aggregate of various acts of the will on the part of all +concerned. Every change in speech, every introduction of a new sound +or a new word, was really the result of an act of the will of some one +or other. The choice may have been unconscious; circumstances may have +been such as practically to give him but one choice; still he did +choose; he spoke in one way, when there was no physical hinderance to +his speaking in another way, when there was no physical compulsion to +speak at all. The Gauls need not have changed their own language for +Latin; the change was not the result of a physical necessity, but of a +number of acts of the will on the part of this and that Gaul. Moral +causes directed their choice, and determined that Gaul should become a +Latin-speaking land. But whether the skulls of the Gauls should be +long or short, whether their hair should be black or yellow, those were +points over which the Gauls themselves had no direct control whatever. +</P> + +<P> +The study of men's skulls then is a study which is strictly physical, a +study of facts over which the will of man has no direct control. The +study of men's languages is strictly an historical study, a study of +facts over which the will of man has a direct control. It follows +therefore from the very nature of the two studies that language cannot +be an absolutely certain test of physical descent. A man cannot, under +any circumstances, choose his own skull; he may, under some +circumstances, choose his own language. He must keep the skull which +has been given him by his parents; he cannot, by any process of taking +thought, determine what kind of skull he will hand on to his own +children. But he may give up the use of the language which he has +learned from his parents, and he may determine what language he will +teach to his children. The physical characteristics of a race are +unchangeable, or are changed only by influences over which the race +itself has no direct control. The language which the race speaks may +be changed, either by a conscious act of the will or by that power of +fashion which is in truth the aggregate of countless unconscious acts +of the will. And, as the very nature of the case thus shows that +language is no sure test of race, so the facts of recorded history +equally prove the same truth. Both individuals and whole nations do in +fact often exchange the language of their forefathers for some other +language. A man settles in a foreign country. He learns the language +of that country; sometimes he forgets the use of his own language. His +children may perhaps speak both tongues; if they speak one tongue only, +it will be the tongue of the country where they live. In a generation +or two all trace of foreign origin will have passed away. Here then +language is no test of race. If the great-grandchildren speak the +language of their great-grandfathers, it will simply be as they may +speak any other foreign language. Here are men who by speech belong to +one nation, by actual descent to another. If they lose the physical +characteristics of the race to which the original settler belonged, it +will be due to inter-marriage, to climate, to some cause altogether +independent of language. Every nation will have some adopted children +of this kind, more or fewer; men who belong to it by speech, but who do +not belong to it by race. And what happens in the case of individuals +happens in the case of whole nations. The pages of history are crowded +with cases in which nations have cast aside the tongue of their +forefathers, and have taken instead the tongue of some other people. +Greek in the East, Latin in the West, became the familiar speech of +millions who had not a drop of Greek or Italian blood in their veins. +The same has been the case in later times with Arabic, Persian, +Spanish, German, English. Each of those tongues has become the +familiar speech of vast regions where the mass of the people are not +Arabian, Spanish, or English, otherwise than by adoption. The Briton +of Cornwall has, slowly but in the end thoroughly, adopted the speech +of England. In the American continent full-blooded Indians preside +over commonwealths which speak the tongue of Cortes and Pizarro. In +the lands to which all eyes are now turned, the Greek, who has been +busily assimilating strangers ever since he first planted his colonies +in Asia and Sicily, goes on busily assimilating his Albanian neighbors. +And between renegades, janizaries, and mothers of all nations, the +blood of many a Turk must be physically anything rather than Turkish. +The inherent nature of the case, and the witness of recorded history, +join together to prove that language is no certain test of race, and +that the scientific philologers are doing good service to accuracy of +expression and accuracy of thought by emphatically calling attention to +the fact that language is no such test. +</P> + +<P> +But on the other hand, it is quite possible that the truth to which our +attention is just now most fittingly called may, if put forth too +broadly and without certain qualifications, lead to error quite as +great as the error at which it is aimed. I do not suppose that anyone +ever thought that language was, necessarily and in all cases, an +absolute and certain test. If anybody does think so, he has put +himself altogether out of court by shutting his eyes to the most +manifest facts of the case. But there can be no doubt that many people +have given too much importance to language as a test of race. Though +they have not wholly forgotten the facts which tell the other way, they +have not brought them out with enough prominence. But I can also +believe that many people have written and spoken on the subject in a +way which cannot be justified from a strictly scientific point of view, +but which may have been fully justified from the point of view of the +writers and speakers themselves. It may often happen that a way of +speaking may not be scientifically accurate, but may yet be quite near +enough to the truth for the purposes of the matter in hand. It may, +for some practical or even historical purpose, be really more true than +the statement which is scientifically more exact. Language is no +certain test of race; but if a man, struck by this wholesome warning, +should run off into the belief that language and race have absolutely +nothing to do with one another, he had better have gone without the +warning. For in such a case the last error would be worse than the +first. The natural instinct of mankind connects race and language. It +does not assume that language is an infallible test of race; but it +does assume that language and race have something to do with one +another. It assumes, that though language is not an accurately +scientific test of race, yet it is a rough and ready test which does +for many practical purposes. To make something more of an exact +definition, one might say, that though language is not a test of race, +it is, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, a presumption of +race; that though it is not a test of race, yet it is a test of +something which, for many practical purposes, is the same as race. +Professor Max Müller warned us long ago that we must not speak of a +Celtic skull. Mr. Sayce has more lately warned us that we must not +infer from community of Aryan speech that there is any kindred in blood +between this or that Englishman and this or that Hindoo. And both +warnings are scientifically true. Yet anyone who begins his studies on +these matters with Professor Müller's famous Oxford Essay will +practically come to another way of looking at things. He will fill his +mind with a vivid picture of the great Aryan family, as yet one, +dwelling in one place, speaking one tongue, having already taken the +first steps towards settled society, recognizing the domestic +relations, possessing the first rudiments of government and religion, +and calling all these first elements of culture by names of which +traces still abide here and there among the many nations of the common +stock. He will go on to draw pictures equally vivid of the several +branches of the family parting off from the primeval home. One great +branch he will see going to the southeast, to become the forefathers of +the vast, yet isolated colony in the Asiatic lands of Persia and India. +He watches the remaining mass sending off wave after wave, to become +the forefathers of the nations of historical Europe. He traces out how +each branch starts with its own share of the common stock—how the +language, the creed, the institutions, once common to all, grow up into +different, yet kindred, shapes, among the many parted branches which +grew up, each with an independent life and strength of its own. This +is what our instructors set before us as the true origin of nations and +their languages. And, in drawing out the picture, we cannot avoid, our +teachers themselves do not avoid, the use of words which imply that the +strictly family relation, the relation of community of blood, is at the +root of the whole matter. We cannot help talking about the family and +its branches, about parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins. The +nomenclature of natural kindred exactly fits the case; it fits it so +exactly that no other nomenclature could enable us to set forth the +case with any clearness. Yet we cannot be absolutely certain that +there was any real community of blood in the whole story. We really +know nothing of the origin of language or the origin of society. We +may make a thousand ingenious guesses; but we cannot prove any of them. +It may be that the group which came together, and which formed the +primeval society which spoke the primeval Aryan tongue, were not +brought together by community of blood, but by some other cause which +threw them in one another's way. If we accept the Hebrew genealogies, +they need not have had any community of blood nearer than common +descent from Adam and Noah. That is, they need not have been all +children of Shem, of Ham, or of Japheth; some children of Shem, some of +Ham, and some of Japheth may have been led by some cause to settle +together. Or if we believe in independent creations of men, or in the +development of men out of mollusks, the whole of the original society +need not have been descendants of the same man or the same mollusk. In +short, there is no theory of the origin of man which requires us to +believe that the primeval Aryans were a natural family; they may have +been more like an accidental party of fellow-travelers. And if we +accept them as a natural family, it does not follow that the various +branches which grew into separate races and nations, speaking separate +though kindred languages, were necessarily marked off by more immediate +kindred. It may be that there is no nearer kindred in blood between +this or that Persian, this or that Greek, this or that Teuton, than the +general kindred of all Aryans. For, when this or that party marched +off from the common home, it does not follow that those who marched off +together were necessarily immediate brothers or cousins. The party +which grew into Hindoos or Teutons may not have been made up +exclusively of one set of near kinsfolk. Some of the children of the +same parents or forefathers may have marched one way, while others +marched another way, or stayed behind. We may, if we please, indulge +our fancy by conceiving that there may actually be family distinctions +older than distinctions of nation and race. It may be that the Gothic +<I>Amali</I> and the Roman <I>Aemilii</I>—I throw out the idea as a mere +illustration—were branches of a family which had taken a name before +the division of Teuton and Italian. Some of the members of that family +may have joined the band of which came the Goths, while other members +joined the band of which came the Romans. There is no difference but +the length of time to distinguish such a supposed case from the case of +an English family, one branch of which settled in the seventeenth +century at Boston in Massachusetts, while another branch stayed behind +at Boston in Holland. Mr. Sayce says truly that the use of a kindred +language does not prove that the Englishman and the Hindoo are really +akin in race; for, as he adds, many Hindoos are men of non-Aryan race +who have simply learned to speak tongues of Sanscrit origin. He might +have gone on to say, with equal truth, that there is no positive +certainty that there was any community in blood among the original +Aryan group itself, and that if we admit such community of blood in the +original Aryan group, it does not follow that there is any further +special kindred between Hindoo and Hindoo or between Englishman and +Englishman. The original group may not have been a family, but an +artificial union. And if it was a family, those of its members who +marched together east or west or north or south may have had no tie of +kindred beyond the common cousinship of all. +</P> + +<P> +Now the tendency of this kind of argument is to lead to something a +good deal more startling than the doctrine that language is no certain +test of race. Its tendency is to go on further, and to show that race +is no certain test of community of blood. And this comes pretty nearly +to saying that there is no such thing as race at all. For our whole +conception of race starts from the idea of community of blood. If the +word "race" does not mean community of blood, it is hard to see what it +does mean. Yet it is certain that there can be no positive proof of +real community of blood, even among those groups of mankind which we +instinctively speak of as families and races. It is not merely that +the blood has been mingled in after-times; there is no positive proof +that there was any community of blood in the beginning. No living +Englishman can prove with absolute certainty that he comes in the male +line of any of the Teutonic settlers in Britain in the fifth or sixth +centuries. I say in the male line, because anyone who is descended +from any English king can prove such descent, though he can prove it +only through a long and complicated web of female successions. But we +may be sure that in no other case can such a pedigree be proved by the +kind of proof which lawyers would require to make out the title to an +estate or a peerage. The actual forefathers of the modern Englishman +may chance to have been, not true-born Angles or Saxons, but Britons, +Scots, in later days Frenchmen, Flemings, men of any other nation who +learned to speak English and took to themselves English names. But +supposing that a man could make out such a pedigree, supposing that he +could prove that he came in the male line of some follower of Hengest +or Cerdic, he would be no nearer to proving original community of blood +either in the particular Teutonic race or in the general Aryan family. +If direct evidence is demanded, we must give up the whole doctrine of +families and races, as far as we take language, manners, institutions, +anything but physical conformation, as the distinguishing marks of +races and families. That is to say, if we wish never to use any word +of whose accuracy we cannot be perfectly certain, we must leave off +speaking of races and families at all from any but the purely physical +side. We must content ourselves with saying that certain groups of +mankind have a common history, that they have languages, creeds, and +institutions in common, but that we have no evidence whatever to show +how they came to have languages, creeds, and institutions in common. +We cannot say for certain what was the tie which brought the members of +the original group together, any more than we can name the exact time +and the exact place when and where they came together. +</P> + +<P> +We may thus seem to be landed in a howling wilderness of scientific +uncertainty. The result of pushing our inquiries so far may seem to be +to show that we really know nothing at all. But in truth the +uncertainty is no greater than the uncertainty which attends all +inquiries in the historical sciences. Though a historical fact may be +recorded in the most trustworthy documents, though it may have happened +in our own times, though we may have seen it happen with our own eyes, +yet we cannot have the same certainty about it as the mathematician has +about the proposition which he proves to absolute demonstration. We +cannot have even that lower degree of certainty which the geologist has +with regard to the order of succession between this and that stratum. +For in all historical inquiries we are dealing with facts which +themselves come within the control of human will and human caprice, and +the evidence for which depends on the trustworthiness of human +informants, who may either purposely deceive or unwittingly mislead. A +man may lie; he may err. The triangles and the rocks can neither lie +nor err. I may with my own eyes see a certain man do a certain act; he +may tell me himself, or some one else may tell me, that he is the same +man who did some other act; but as to his statement I cannot have +absolute certainty, and no one but myself can have absolute certainty +as to the statement which I make as to the facts which I saw with my +own eyes. Historical evidence may range through every degree, from the +barest likelihood to that undoubted moral certainty on which every man +acts without hesitation in practical affairs. But it cannot get beyond +this last standard. If, then, we are ever to use words like race, +family, or even nation, to denote groups of mankind marked off by any +kind of historical, as distinguished from physical, characteristics, we +must be content to use those words, as we use many other words, without +being able to prove that our use of them is accurate, as mathematicians +judge of accuracy. I cannot be quite sure that William the Conqueror +landed at Pevensey, though I have strong reasons for believing that he +did so. And I have strong reasons for believing many facts about race +and language about which I am much further from being quite sure than I +am about William's landing at Pevensey. In short, in all these +matters, we must be satisfied to let presumption very largely take the +place of actual proof; and, if we only let presumption in, most of our +difficulties at once fly away. Language is no certain test of race; +but it is a presumption of race. Community of race, as we commonly +understand race, is no certain proof of original community of blood; +but it is a presumption of original community of blood. The +presumption amounts to moral proof, if only we do not insist on proving +such physical community of blood as would satisfy a genealogist. It +amounts to moral proof, if all that we seek is to establish a relation +in which the community of blood is the leading idea, and in which where +natural community of blood does not exist, its place is supplied by +something which by a legal fiction is looked upon as its equivalent. +</P> + +<P> +If, then, we do not ask for scientific, for what we may call physical, +accuracy, but if we are satisfied with the kind of proof which is all +that we can ever get in the historical sciences—if we are satisfied to +speak in a way which is true for popular and practical purposes—then +we may say that language has a great deal to do with race, as race is +commonly understood, and that race has a great deal to do with +community of blood. If we once admit the Roman doctrine of adoption, +our whole course is clear. The natural family is the starting-point of +everything; but we must give the natural family the power of +artificially enlarging itself by admitting adoptive members. A group +of mankind is thus formed, in which it does not follow that all the +members have any natural community of blood, but in which community of +blood is the starting-point, in which those who are connected by +natural community of blood form the original body within whose circle +the artificial members are admitted. A group of mankind thus formed is +something quite different from a fortuitous concurrence of atoms. +Three or four brothers by blood, with a fourth or fifth man whom they +agree to look on as filling in everything the same place as a brother +by blood, form a group which is quite unlike a union of four or five +men, none of whom is bound by any tie of blood to any of the others. +In the latter kind of union the notion of kindred does not come in at +all. In the former kind the notion of kindred is the groundwork of +everything; it determines the character of every relation and every +action, even though the kindred between some members of the society and +others may be owing to a legal fiction and not to natural descent. All +that we know of the growth of tribes, races, nations, leads us to +believe that they grew in this way. Natural kindred was the +groundwork, the leading and determining idea; but, by one of those +legal fictions which have such an influence on all institutions, +adoption was in certain cases allowed to count as natural kindred.[2] +</P> + +<P> +The usage of all language shows that community of blood was the leading +idea in forming the greater and smaller groups of mankind. Words like +<I>phylon, genos, gens, natio, kin,</I> all point to the natural family as +the origin of all society. The family in the narrower sense, the +children of one father in one house, grew into a more extended family, +the <I>gens</I>. Such were the Alkmaiōnidai, the Julii, or the Scyldingas, +the real or artificial descendants of a real or supposed forefather. +The nature of the <I>gens</I> has been set forth often enough. If it is a +mistake to fancy that every Julius or Cornelius was the natural kinsman +of every other Julius or Cornelius, it is equally a mistake to think +that the <I>gens Julia</I> or <I>Cornelia</I> was in its origin a mere artificial +association, into which the idea of natural kindred did not enter. It +is indeed possible that really artificial <I>gentes</I>, groups of men of +whom it might chance that none were natural kinsmen, were formed in +later times after the model of the original <I>gentes</I>. Still such +imitation would bear witness to the original conception of the <I>gens</I>. +It would be the doctrine of adoption turned the other way; instead of a +father adopting a son, a number of men would agree to adopt a common +father. The family then grew into the <I>gens</I>; the union of <I>gentes</I> +formed the State, the political community, which in its first form was +commonly a tribe. Then came the nation, formed of a union of tribes. +Kindred, real or artificial, is the one basis on which all society and +all government have grown up. +</P> + +<P> +Now it is plain, that as soon as we admit the doctrine of artificial +kindred—that is, as soon as we allow the exercise of the law of +adoption—physical purity of race is at an end. Adoption treats a man +as if he were the son of a certain father; it cannot really make him +the son of that father. If a brachycephalic father adopts a +dolichocephalic son, the legal act cannot change the shape of the +adopted son's skull. I will not undertake to say whether, not indeed +the rite of adoption, but the influences and circumstances which would +spring from it, might not, in the course of generations, affect even +the skull of the man who entered a certain <I>gens</I>, tribe, or nation by +artificial adoption only. If by any chance the adopted son spoke a +different language from the adopted father, the rite of adoption itself +would not of itself change his language. But it would bring him under +influences which would make him adopt the language of his new <I>gens</I> by +a conscious act of the will, and which would make his children adopt it +by the same unconscious act of the will by which each child adopts the +language of his parents. The adopted son, still more the son of the +adopted son, became, in speech, in feelings, in worship, in everything +but physical descent, one with the <I>gens</I> into which he was adopted. +He became one of that <I>gens</I> for all practical, political, historical +purposes. It is only the physiologist who could deny his right to his +new position. The nature of the process is well expressed by a phrase +of our own law. When the nation—the word itself keeps about it the +remembrance of birth as the groundwork of everything—adopts a new +citizen, that is, a new child of the State, he is said to be +naturalized. That is, a legal process puts him in the same position, +and gives him the same rights, as a man who is a citizen and a son by +birth. It is assumed that the rights of citizenship come by +nature—that is, by birth. The stranger is admitted to them only by a +kind of artificial birth; he is naturalized by law; his children are in +a generation or two naturalized in fact. There is now no practical +distinction between the Englishman whose forefathers landed with +William, or even between the Englishman whose forefathers sought +shelter from Alva or from Louis XIV, and the Englishman whose +forefathers landed with Hengest. It is for the physiologist to say +whether any difference can be traced in their several skulls; for all +practical purposes, historical or political, all distinction between +these several classes has passed away. +</P> + +<P> +We may, in short, say that the law of adoption runs through everything, +and that it may be practised on every scale. What adoption is at the +hands of the family, naturalization is at the hands of the State. And +the same process extends itself from adopted or naturalized individuals +to large classes of men, indeed to whole nations. When the process +takes place on this scale, we may best call it assimilation. Thus Rome +assimilated the continental nations of western Europe to that degree +that, allowing for a few survivals here and there, not only Italy, but +Gaul and Spain, became Roman. The people of those lands, admitted step +by step to the Roman franchise, adopted the name and tongue of Romans. +It must soon have been hard to distinguish the Roman colonist in Gaul +or Spain from the native Gaul or Spaniard who had, as far as in him +lay, put on the guise of a Roman. This process of assimilation has +gone on everywhere and at all times. When two nations come in this way +into close contact with one another, it depends on a crowd of +circumstances which shall assimilate the other, or whether they shall +remain distinct without assimilation either way. Sometimes the +conquerors assimilate their subjects; sometimes they are assimilated by +their subjects; sometimes conquerors and subjects remain distinct +forever. When assimilation either way does take place, the direction +which it takes in each particular case will depend, partly on their +respective numbers, partly on their degrees of civilization. A small +number of less civilized conquerors will easily be lost among a greater +number of more civilized subjects, and that even though they give their +name to the land and people which they conquer. The modern Frenchman +represents, not the conquering Frank, but the conquered Gaul, or, as he +called himself, the conquered Roman. The modern Bulgarian represents, +not the Finnish conqueror, but the conquered Slave. The modern Russian +represents, not the Scandinavian ruler, but the Slave who sent for the +Scandinavian to rule over him. And so we might go on with endless +other cases. The point is that the process of adoption, +naturalization, assimilation, has gone on everywhere. No nation can +boast of absolute purity of blood, though no doubt some nations come +much nearer to it than others. When I speak of purity of blood, I +leave out of sight the darker questions which I have already raised +with regard to the groups of mankind in days before recorded history. +I assume great groups like Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic, as having what +we may call a real corporate existence, however we may hold that that +corporate existence began. My present point is that no existing nation +is, in the physiologist's sense of purity, purely Celtic, Teutonic, +Slavonic, or anything else. All races have assimilated a greater or +less amount of foreign elements. Taking this standard, one which comes +more nearly within the range of our actual knowledge than the +possibilities of unrecorded times, we may again say that, from the +purely scientific or physiological point of view, not only is language +no test of race, but that, at all events among the great nations of the +world, there is no such thing as purity of race at all. +</P> + +<P> +But, while we admit this truth, while we even insist upon it from the +strictly scientific point of view, we must be allowed to look at it +with different eyes from a more practical standing point. This is the +standing point, whether of history which is the politics of the past, +or of politics which are the history of the present. From this point +of view, we may say unhesitatingly that there are such things as races, +and nations, and that to the grouping of those races and nations +language is the best guide. We cannot undertake to define with any +philosophical precision the exact distinction between race and race, +between nation and nation. Nor can we undertake to define with the +like precision in what way the distinctions between race and race, +between nation and nation, began. But all analogy leads us to believe +that tribes, nations, races, were all formed according to the original +model of the family, the family which starts from the idea of the +community of blood, but which allows artificial adoption to be its +legal equivalent. In all cases of adoption, naturalization, +assimilation, whether of individuals or of large classes of men, the +adopted person or class is adopted into an existing community. Their +adoption undoubtedly influences the community into which they are +adopted. It at once destroys any claim on the part of that community +to purity of blood, and it influences the adopting community in many +ways, physical and moral. A family, a tribe, or a nation, which has +largely recruited itself by adopted members, cannot be the same as one +which has never practised adoption at all, but all whose members come +of the original stock. But the influence which the adopting community +exercises upon its adopted members is far greater than any influence +which they exercise upon it. It cannot change their blood; it cannot +give them new natural forefathers; but it may do everything short of +this; it may make them, in speech, in feeling, in thought, and in +habit, genuine members of the community which has artificially made +them its own. While there is not in any nation, in any race, any such +thing as strict purity of blood, yet there is in each nation, in each +race, a dominant element—or rather something more than an +element—something which is the true essence of the race or nation, +something which sets its standard and determines its character, +something which draws to itself and assimilates to itself all other +elements. It so works that all other elements are not coequal elements +with itself, but mere infusions poured into an already existing body. +Doubtless these infusions do in some measure influence the body which +assimilates them; but the influence which they exercise is as nothing +compared to the influence which they undergo. We may say that they +modify the character of the body into which they are assimilated; they +do not effect its personality. Thus, assuming the great groups of +mankind as primary facts, the origin of which lies beyond our certain +knowledge, we may speak of families and races, of the great Aryan +family and of the races into which it parted, as groups which have a +real, practical existence, as groups founded on the ruling primeval +idea of kindred, even though in many cases the kindred may not be by +natural descent, but only by law of adoption. The Celtic, Teutonic, +Slavonic races of man are real living and abiding groups, the +distinction between which we must accept among the primary facts of +history. And they go on as living and abiding groups, even though we +know that each of them has assimilated many adopted members, sometimes +from other branches of the Aryan family, sometimes from races of men +alien to the whole Aryan stock. These races which, in a strictly +physiological point of view, have no existence at all, have a real +existence from the more practical point of view of history and +politics. The Bulgarian calls to the Russian for help, and the Russian +answers to his call for help, on the ground of their being alike +members of the one Slavonic race. It may be that, if we could trace +out the actual pedigree of this or that Bulgarian, of this or that +Russian, we might either find that there was no real kindred between +them, or we might find that there was a real kindred, but a kindred +which must be traced up to another stock than that of the Slaves. In +point of actual blood, instead of both being Slaves, it may be that one +of them comes, it may be that both of them come of a stock which is not +Slavonic or even Aryan. The Bulgarian may chance to be a Bulgarian in +a truer sense than he thinks for; he may come of the blood of those +original Finnish conquerors who gave the Bulgarian name to the Slaves +among whom they were merged. And if this or that Bulgarian may chance +to come of the stock of Finnish conquerors assimilated by their +Slavonic subjects, this or that Russian may chance to come of the stock +of Finnish subjects assimilated by their Slavonic conquerors. It may +then so happen that the cry for help goes up, and is answered on a +ground of kindred which in the eye of the physiologist has no +existence. Or it may happen that the kindred is real in a way which +neither the suppliant nor his helper thinks of. But in either case, +for the practical purposes of human life, the plea is a good plea; the +kindred on which it is founded is a real kindred. It is good by the +law of adoption. It is good by the law the force of which we all admit +whenever we count a man as an Englishman whose forefathers, two +generations or twenty generations back, came to our shores as +strangers. For all practical purposes, for all the purposes which +guide men's actions, public or private, the Russian and the Bulgarian, +kinsmen so long parted, perhaps in very truth no natural kinsmen at +all, are members of the same race, bound together by the common +sentiment of race. They belong to the same race, exactly as an +Englishman whose forefathers came into Britain fourteen hundred years +back, and an Englishman whose forefathers came only one or two hundred +years back, are like members of the same nation, bound together by a +tie of common nationality. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And now, having ruled that races and nations, though largely formed by +the workings of an artificial law, are still real and living things, +groups in which the idea of kindred is the idea around which everything +has grown, how are we to define our races and our nations? How are we +to mark them off one from the other? Bearing in mind the cautions and +qualifications which have been already given, bearing in mind large +classes of exceptions which will presently be spoken of, I say +unhesitatingly that for practical purposes there is one test, and one +only, and that that test is language. It is hardly needful to show +that races and nations cannot be defined by the merely political +arrangements which group men under various governments. For some +purposes of ordinary language, for some purposes of ordinary politics, +we are tempted, sometimes driven, to take this standard. And in some +parts of the world, in our own western Europe for instance, nations and +governments do, in a rough way, fairly answer to one another. And, in +any case, political divisions are not without their influence on the +formation of national divisions, while national divisions ought to have +the greatest influence on political divisions. That is to say, <I>primā +facie</I> a nation and government should coincide. I say only <I>primā +facie</I>; for this is assuredly no inflexible rule; there are often good +reasons why it should be otherwise; only, whenever it is otherwise, +there should be some good reason forthcoming. It might even be true +that in no case did a government and a nation exactly coincide, and yet +it would none the less be the rule that a government and a nation +should coincide. That is to say, so far as a nation and a government +coincide, we accept it as the natural state of things, and ask no +question as to the cause. So far as they do not coincide, we mark the +case as exceptional, by asking what is the cause. And by saying that a +government and a nation should coincide we mean that, as far as +possible, the boundaries of governments should be so laid out as to +agree with the boundaries of nations. That is, we assume the nation as +something already existing, something primary, to which the secondary +arrangements of government should, as far as possible, conform. How +then do we define the nation, which is, if there is no especial reason, +to the contrary, to fix the limits of a government? Primarily, I say, +as a rule, but a rule subject to exception—as a <I>primā facie</I> +standard, subject to special reasons to the contrary—we define the +nation by language. We may at least apply the test negatively. It +would be unsafe to rule that all speakers of the same language must +have a common nationality; but we may safely say that where there is +not community of language, there is no common nationality in the +highest sense. It is true that without community of language there may +be an artificial nationality, a nationality which may be good for all +political purposes, and which may engender a common national feeling. +Still this is not quite the same thing as that fuller national unity +which is felt where there is community of language. In fact, mankind +instinctively takes language as the badge of nationality. We so far +take it as the badge, that we instinctively assume community of +language in a nation as the rule, and we set down anything that departs +from that rule as an exception. The first idea suggested by the word +Frenchman or German or any other national name, is that he is a man who +speaks French or German as his mother-tongue. We take for granted, in +the absence of anything to make us think otherwise, that a Frenchman is +a speaker of French, and that a speaker of French is a Frenchman. +Where in any case it is otherwise, we mark that case as an exception, +and we ask the special cause. Again, the rule is none the less the +rule, nor the exceptions the exceptions, because the exceptions may +easily outnumber the instances which conform to the rule. The rule is +still the rule, because we take the instances which conform to it as a +matter of course, while in every case which does not conform to it we +ask for the explanation. All the larger countries of Europe provide us +with exceptions; but we treat them all as exceptions. We do not ask +why a native of France speaks French. But when a native of France +speaks as his mother-tongue some other tongue than French, when French, +or something which popularly passes for French, is spoken as his +mother-tongue by someone who is not a native of France, we at once ask +the reason. And the reason will be found in each case in some, special +historical cause which withdraws that case from the operation of the +general law. A very good reason can be given why French, or something +which popularly passes for French, is spoken in parts of Belgium and +Switzerland, whose inhabitants are certainly not Frenchmen. But the +reason has to be given, and it may fairly be asked. +</P> + +<P> +In the like sort, if we turn to our own country, whenever within the +bounds of Great Britain we find any tongue spoken other than English, +we at once ask the reason, and we learn the special historic cause. In +a part of France and a part of Great Britain we find tongues spoken +which differ alike from English and from French, but which are strongly +akin to one another. We find that these are the survivals of a group +of tongues once common to Gaul and Britain, but which the settlement of +other nations, the introduction and the growth of other tongues, have +brought down to the level of survivals. So again we find islands which +both speech and geographical position seem to mark as French, but which +are dependencies, and loyal dependencies, of the English crown. We +soon learn the cause of the phenomenon which seems so strange. Those +islands are the remains of a State and a people which adopted the +French tongue, but which, while it remained one, did not become a part +of the French State. That people brought England by force of arms +under the rule of their own sovereigns. The greater part of that +people were afterward conquered by France, and gradually became French +in feeling as well as in language. But a remnant clave to their +connection with the land which their forefathers had conquered, and +that remnant, while keeping the French tongue, never became French in +feeling. This last case, that of the Norman islands, is a specially +instructive one. Normandy and England were politically connected, +while language and geography pointed rather to a union between Normandy +and France. In the case of continental Normandy, where the +geographical tie was strongest, language and geography together could +carry the day, and the continental Norman became a Frenchman. In the +islands, where the geographical tie was less strong, political +traditions and manifest interest carried the day against language and a +weaker geographical tie. The insular Norman did not become a +Frenchman. But neither did he become an Englishman. He alone remained +Norman, keeping his own tongue and his own laws, but attached to the +English crown by a tie at once of tradition and of advantage. Between +States of the relative size of England and the Norman islands, the +relation naturally becomes a relation of dependence on the part of the +smaller members of the union. But it is well to remember that our +forefathers never conquered the forefathers of the men of the Norman +islands, but that their forefathers did once conquer ours. +</P> + +<P> +These instances, and countless others, bear out the position that, +while community of language is the most obvious sign of common +nationality, while it is the main element, or something more than an +element, in the formation of nationality, the rule is open to +exceptions of all kinds, and that the influence of language is at all +times liable to be overruled by other influences. But all the +exceptions confirm the rule, because we specially remark those cases +which contradict the rule, and we do not specially remark those cases +which do not conform to it. +</P> + +<P> +In the cases which we have just spoken of, the growth of the nation as +marked out by language, and the growth of the exceptions to the rule of +language, have both come through the gradual, unconscious working of +historical causes. Union under the same government, or separation +under separate governments, has been among the foremost of those +historical causes. The French nation consists of the people of all +that extent of continuous territory which has been brought under the +rule of the French kings. But the working of the cause has been +gradual and unconscious. There was no moment when anyone deliberately +proposed to form a French nation by joining together all the separate +duchies and countries which spoke the French tongue. Since the French +nation has been formed, men have proposed to annex this or that land on +the ground that its people spoke the French tongue, or perhaps only +some tongue akin to the French tongue. But the formation of the French +nation itself was the work of historical causes, the work doubtless of +a settled policy acting through many generations, but not the work of +any conscious theory about races and languages. It is a special mark +of our time, a special mark of the influence which doctrines about race +and language have had on men's minds, that we have seen great nations +united by processes in which theories of race and language really have +had much to do with bringing about their union. If statesmen have not +been themselves moved by such theories, they have at least found that +it suited their purpose to make use of such theories as a means of +working on the minds of others. In the reunion of the severed German +and Italian nations the conscious feeling of nationality, and the +acceptance of a common language as the outward badge of nationality, +had no small share. Poets sang of language as the badge of national +union; statesmen made it the badge, so far as political considerations +did not lead them to do anything else. The revivified kingdom of Italy +is very far from taking in all the speakers of the Italian tongue. +Lugano, Trent, Aquileia—to take places which are clearly Italian, and +not to bring in places of more doubtful nationality, like the cities of +Istria and Dalmatia—form no part of the Italian political body, and +Corsica is not under the same rule as the other two great neighboring +islands. But the fact that all these places do not belong to the +Italian body at once suggests the twofold question, why they do not +belong to it, and whether they ought not to belong to it. History +easily answers the first question; it may perhaps also answer the +second question in a way which will say Yes as regards one place and No +as regards another. Ticino must not lose her higher freedom; Trieste +must remain the needful mouth for southern Germany; Dalmatia must not +be cut off from the Slavonic mainland; Corsica would seem to have +sacrificed national feeling to personal hero-worship. But it is +certainly hard to see why Trent and Aquileia should be kept apart from +the Italian body. On the other hand, the revivified Italian kingdom +contains very little which is not Italian in speech. It is perhaps by +a somewhat elastic view of language that the dialect of Piedmont and +the dialect of Sicily are classed under one head; still, as a matter of +fact, they have a single classical standard, and they are universally +accepted as varieties of the same tongue. But it is only in a few +Alpine valleys that languages are spoken which, whether Romance or +Teutonic, are in any case not Italian. The reunion of Italy, in short, +took in all that was Italian, save when some political cause hindered +the rule of language from being followed. Of anything not Italian by +speech so little has been taken in that the non-Italian parts of Italy, +Burgundian Aosta and the Seven German Communes—if these last still +keep their Teutonic language—fall under the rule that there are some +things too small for laws to pay heed to. +</P> + +<P> +But it must not be forgotten that all this simply means that in the +lands of which we have just been speaking the process of adoption has +been carried out on the largest scale. Nations, with languages as +their rough practical test, have been formed; but they have been formed +with very little regard to physical purity of blood. In short, +throughout western Europe assimilation has been the rule. That is to +say, in any of the great divisions of Western Europe, though the land +may have been settled and conquered over and over again, yet the mass +of the people of the land have been drawn to some one national type. +Either some one among the races inhabiting the land has taught the +others to put on its likeness, or else a new national type has arisen +which has elements drawn from several of those races. Thus the modern +Frenchman may be defined as produced by the union of blood which is +mainly Celtic with a speech which is mainly Latin, and with an +historical polity which is mainly Teutonic. That is, he is neither +Gaul, Roman, nor Frank, but a fourth type, which has drawn important +elements from all three. Within modern France this new national type +has so far assimilated all others as to make everything else merely +exceptional. The Fleming of one corner, the Basque of another, even +the far more important Breton of a third corner, have all in this way +become mere exceptions to the general type of the country. If we pass +into our own islands we shall find that the same process has been at +work. If we look to Great Britain only, we shall find that, though the +means have not been the same, yet the end has been gained hardly less +thoroughly than in France. For all real political purposes, for +everything which concerns a nation in the face of other nations, Great +Britain is as thoroughly united as France is. Englishmen, Scotchmen, +Welshmen feel themselves one people in the general affairs of the +world. A secession of Scotland or Wales is as unlikely as a secession +of Normandy or Languedoc. The part of the island which is not +thoroughly assimilated in language, that part which still speaks Welsh +or Gaelic, is larger in proportion than the non-French part of modern +France. But however much either the northern or the western Briton +may, in a fit of antiquarian politics, declaim against the Saxon, for +all practical political purposes he and the Saxon are one. The +distinction between the southern and the northern English—for the men +of Lothian and Fife must allow me to call them by this last name—is, +speaking politically and without ethnological or linguistic precision, +much as if France and Aquitaine had been two kingdoms united on equal +terms, instead of Aquitaine being merged in France. When we cross into +Ireland, we indeed find another state of things, and one which comes +nearer to some of the phenomena which we shall come to in other parts +of the world. Ireland is, most unhappily, not so firmly united to +Great Britain as the different parts of Great Britain are to one +another. Still even here the division arises quite as much from +geographical and historical causes as from distinctions of race +strictly so called. If Ireland had had no wrongs, still two great +islands can never be so thoroughly united as a continuous territory can +be. On the other hand, in point of language, the discontented part of +the United Kingdom is much less strongly marked off than that fraction +of the contented part which is not thoroughly assimilated. Irish is +certainly not the language of Ireland in at all the same degree in +which Welsh is the language of Wales. The Saxon has commonly to be +denounced in the Saxon tongue. +</P> + +<P> +In some other parts of Western Europe, as in the Spanish and +Scandinavian peninsulas, the coincidence of language and nationality is +stronger than it is in France, Britain, or even Italy. No one speaks +Spanish except in Spain or in the colonies of Spain. And within Spain +the proportion of those who do not speak Spanish, namely the Basque +remnant, is smaller than the non-assimilated element in Britain and +France. Here two things are to be marked: First, the modern Spanish +nation has been formed, like the French, by a great process of +assimilation; secondly, the actual national arrangements of the Spanish +peninsula are wholly due to historical causes, we might almost say +historical accidents, and those of very recent date. Spain and +Portugal are separate kingdoms, and we look on their inhabitants as +forming separate nations. But this is simply because a queen of +Castile in the fifteenth century married a king of Aragon. Had +Isabella married a king of Portugal we should now talk of Spain and +Aragon as we now talk of Spain and Portugal, and we should count +Portugal for part of Spain. In language, in history, in everything +else, Aragon was really more distinct from Castile than Portugal was. +The king of Castile was already spoken of as king of Spain, and +Portugal would have merged in the Spanish kingdom at last as easily as +Aragon did. In Scandinavia, on the other hand, there must have been +less assimilation than anywhere else. In the present kingdoms of +Norway and Sweden there must be a nearer approach to actual purity of +blood than in any other part of Europe. One cannot fancy that much +Finnish blood has been assimilated, and there have been no conquests or +settlements later than that of the Northmen themselves. +</P> + +<P> +When we pass into central Europe we shall find a somewhat different +state of things. The distinctions of race seem to be more lasting. +While the national unity of the German Empire is greater than that of +either France or Great Britain, it has not only subjects of other +languages, but actually discontented subjects, in three corners, on its +French, its Danish, and its Polish frontiers. We ask the reason, and +it will be at once answered that the discontent of all three is the +result of recent conquest, in two cases of very recent conquest indeed. +But this is one of the very points to be marked; the strong national +unity of the German Empire has been largely the result of assimilation; +and these three parts, where recent conquest has not yet been followed +by assimilation, are chiefly important because in all three cases, the +discontented territory is geographically continuous with a territory of +its own speech outside the Empire. This does not prove that +assimilation can never take place, but it will undoubtedly make the +process longer and harder. +</P> + +<P> +So again, wherever German-speaking people dwell outside the bounds of +the revived German State, as well as when that revived German State +contains other than German-speaking people, we ask the reason and we +can find it. Political reasons forbade the immediate annexation of +Austria, Tyrol, and Salzburg. Combined political and geographical +reasons, and, if we look a little deeper, ethnological reasons too, +forbade the annexation of Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia. Some reason +or other will, it may be hoped, always be found to hinder the +annexation of lands which, like Zürich and Berne, have reached a higher +political level. Outlying brethren in Transsilvania or at Saratof +again come under the rule "<I>De minimis non curat lex</I>." In all these +cases the rule that nationality and language should go together yields +to unavoidable circumstances. But, on the other hand, where French or +Danish or Slavonic or Lithuanian is spoken within the bounds of the new +empire, the principle that language is the badge of nationality, that +without community of language nationality is imperfect, shows itself in +another shape. One main object of modern policy is to bring these +exceptional districts under the general rule by spreading the German +language in them. Everywhere, in short, wherever a power is supposed +to be founded on nationality, the common feeling of mankind +instinctively takes language as the test of nationality. We assume +language as the test of a nation, without going into any minute +questions as to the physical purity of blood in that nation. A +continuous territory, living under the same government and speaking the +same tongue, forms a nation for all practical purposes. If some of its +inhabitants do not belong to the original stock of blood, they at least +belong to it by adoption. +</P> + +<P> +The question may now fairly be asked. What is the case in those parts +of the world where people who are confessedly of different races and +languages inhabit a continuous territory and live under the same +government? How do we define nationality in such cases as these? The +answer will be very different in different cases, according to the +means by which the different national elements in such a territory have +been brought together. They may form what I have already called an +artificial nation, united by an act of its own free will. Or it may be +simply a case where distinct nations, distinct in everything which can +be looked on as forming a nation, except the possession of an +independent government, are brought together, by whatever causes, under +a common ruler. The former case is very distinctly an exception which +proves the rule, and the latter is, though in quite another way, an +exception which proves the rule also. Both cases may need somewhat +more in the way of definition. We will begin with the first, the case +of a nation which has been formed out of elements which differ in +language, but which still have been brought together so as to form an +artificial nation. In the growth of the chief nations of western +Europe the principle which was consciously or unconsciously followed +has been that the nation should be marked out by language, and the use +of any tongue other than the dominant tongue of the nation should be at +least exceptional. But there is one nation in Europe, one which has a +full right to be called a nation in a political sense, which has been +formed on the directly opposite principle. The Swiss Confederation has +been formed by the union of certain detached fragments of the German, +Italian, and Burgundian nations. It may indeed be said that the +process has been in some sort a process of adoption, that the Italian +and Burgundian elements have been incorporated into an already existing +German body; that, as those elements were once subjects or dependents +or protected allies, the case is one of clients or freedmen who have +been admitted to the full privileges of the <I>gens</I>. This is +undoubtedly true, and it is equally true of a large part of the German +element itself. Throughout the Confederation allies and subjects have +been raised to the rank of confederates. But the former position of +the component elements does not matter for our purpose. As a matter of +fact, the foreign dependencies have all been admitted into the +Confederation on equal terms. German is undoubtedly the language of a +great majority of the Confederation; but the two recognized Romance +languages are each the speech, not of a mere fragment or survival, like +Welsh in Britain or Breton in France, but of a large minority forming a +visible element in the general body. The three languages are all of +them alike recognized as national languages, though, as if to keep up +the universal rule that there should be some exceptions to all rules, a +fourth language still lives on within the bounds of the Confederation, +which is not admitted to the rights of the other three, but is left in +the state of a fragment or a survival.[3] Is such an artificial body +as this to be called a nation? It is plainly not a nation by blood or +by speech. It can hardly be called a nation by adoption. For, if we +chose to say that the three elements have all agreed to adopt one +another as brethren, yet it has been adoption without assimilation. +Yet surely the Swiss Confederation is a nation. It is not a mere +power, in which various nations are brought together, whether +willingly, or unwillingly, under a common ruler, but without any +further tie of union. For all political purposes the Swiss +Confederation is a nation, a nation capable of as strong and true +national feeling as any other nation. Yet it is a nation purely +artificial, one in no way defined by blood or speech. It thus proves +the rule in two ways. We at once feel that this artificially formed +nation, which has no common language, but each of whose elements speaks +a language common to itself with some other nation, is something +different from those nations which are defined by a universal or at +least a predominant language. We mark it as an exception, as something +different from other cases. And when we see how nearly this artificial +nation comes, in every point but that of language, to the likeness of +those nations which are defined by language, we see that it is a nation +defined by language which sets the standard, and after the model of +which the artificial nation forms itself. The case of the Swiss +Confederation and its claim to rank as a nation would be like the case +of those <I>gentes</I>, if any such there were, which did not spring even +from the expansion of an original family, but which were artificially +formed in imitation of those which did, and which, instead of a real or +traditional forefather, chose for themselves an adopted one. +</P> + +<P> +In the Swiss Confederation, then, we have a case of a nation formed by +an artificial process, but which still is undoubtedly a nation in the +face of other nations. We now come to the other class, in which +nationality and language keep the connection which they have elsewhere, +but in which nations do not even in the roughest way answer to +governments. We have only to go into the Eastern lands of Europe to +find a state of things in which the notion of nationality, as marked +out by language and national feeling, has altogether parted company +from the notion of political government. It must be remembered that +this state of things is not confined to the nations which are or have +lately been under the yoke of the Turk. It extends also to the nations +or fragments of nations which make up the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. +In all the lands held by these two powers we come across phenomena of +geography, race, and language, which stand out in marked contrast with +anything to which we are used in western Europe. We may perhaps better +understand what these phenomena are if we suppose a state of things +which sounds absurd in the West, but which has its exact parallel in +many parts of the East. Let us suppose that in a journey through +England we came successively to districts, towns, or villages, where we +found, one after another, first, Britons speaking Welsh; then Romans +speaking Latin; then Saxons or Angles, speaking an older form of our +own tongue; then Scandinavians speaking Danish; then Normans speaking +Old-French; lastly, perhaps a settlement of Flemings, Huguenots, or +Palatines, still remaining a distinct people and speaking their own +tongue. Or let us suppose a journey through northern France, in which +we found at different stages, the original Gaul, the Roman, the Frank, +the Saxon of Bayeux, the Dane of Coutances, each remaining a distinct +people, each of them keeping the tongue which they first brought with +them into the land. Let us suppose further that, in many of these +cases, a religious distinction was added to a national distinction. +Let us conceive one village Roman Catholic, another Anglican, others +Non-conformist of various types, even if we do not call up any remnants +of the worshippers of Jupiter or of Woden. All this seems absurd in +any Western country, and absurd enough it is. But the absurdity of the +West is the living reality of the East. There we may still find all +the chief races which have ever occupied the country, still remaining +distinct, still keeping separate tongues, and those for the most part, +their own original tongues. Within the present and late European +dominions of the Turk, the original races, those whom we find there at +the first beginnings of history, are all there still, and two of them +keep their original tongues. They form three distinct nations. First +of all there are the Greeks. We have not here to deal with them as the +representatives of that branch of the Roman Empire which adopted their +speech, but simply as one of the original elements in the population of +the Eastern peninsula. Known almost down to our own day by their +historical name of Romans, they have now fallen back on the name of +Hellźnes. And to that name they have a perfectly good claim. If the +modern Greeks are not all true Hellźnes, they are an aggregate of +adopted Hellźnes gathered round and assimilated to a true Hellenic +kernel. Here we see the oldest recorded inhabitants of a large part of +the land abiding, and abiding in a very different case from the +remnants of the Celt and the Iberian in Western Europe. The Greeks are +no survival of a nation; they are a true and living nation—a nation +whose importance is quite out of proportion to its extent in mere +numbers. They still abide, the predominant race in their own ancient +and again independent land, the predominant race in those provinces of +the continental Turkish dominion which formed part of their ancient +land, the predominant race through all the shores and islands of the +Aegean and of part of the Euxine also. In near neighborhood to the +Greeks still live another race of equal antiquity, the Skipetar or +Albanians. These, as I believe is no longer doubted, represent the +ancient Illyrians. The exact degree of their ethnical kindred with the +Greeks is a scientific question which need not here be considered; but +the facts that they are more largely intermingled with the Greeks than +any of the other neighboring nations, that they show a special power of +identifying themselves with the Greeks—a power, so to speak, of +becoming Greeks and making part of the artificial Greek nation, are +matters of practical history. It must never be forgotten that, among +the worthies of the Greek War of Independence, some of the noblest were +not of Hellenic but Albanian blood. The Orthodox Albanian easily turns +into a Greek; and the Mahometan Albanian is something which is broadly +distinguished from a Turk. He has, as he well may have, a strong +national feeling, and that national feeling has sometimes got the +better of religious divisions. If Albania is among the most backward +parts of the peninsula, still it is, by all accounts, the part where +there is most hope of men of different religions joining together +against the common enemy. +</P> + +<P> +Here then are two ancient races, the Greeks and another race, not +indeed so advanced, so important, or so widely spread, but a race which +equally keeps a real national being. There is also a third ancient +race which survives as a distinct people, though they have for ages +adopted a foreign language. These are the Vlachs or Roumans, the +surviving representatives of the great race, call it Thracian or any +other, which at the beginning of history held the great inland mass of +the Eastern peninsula, with the Illyrians to the west of them and the +Greeks to the south. Every one knows that in the modern principality +of Roumania and in the adjoining parts of the Austro-Hungarian +monarchy, there is to be seen that phenomenon so unique in the East, a +people who not only, as the Greeks did till lately, still keep the +Roman name, but who speak neither Greek nor Turkish, neither Slave nor +Skipetar, but a dialect of Latin, a tongue akin, not to the tongues of +any of their neighbors, but to the tongues of Gaul, Italy, and Spain. +And any one who has given any real attention to this matter knows that +the same race is to be found, scattered here and there, if in some +parts only as wandering shepherds, in the Slavonic, Albanian, and Greek +lands south of the Danube. The assumption has commonly been that this, +outlying Romance people owe their Romance character to the Roman +colonization of Dacia under Trajan. In this view, the modern Roumans +would be the descendants of Trajan's colonists and of Dacians who had +learned of them to adopt the speech and manners of Rome. But when we +remember that Dacia was the first Roman province to be given up—that +the modern Roumania was for ages the highway of every barbarian tribe +on its way from the East to the West—that the land has been conquered +and settled and forsaken over and over again—it would be passing +strange if this should be the one land, and its people the one race, to +keep the Latin tongue when it has been forgotten in all the neighboring +countries. In fact, this idea has been completely dispersed by modern +research. The establishment of the Roumans in Dacia is of +comparatively recent date, beginning only in the thirteenth century. +The Roumans of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transsilvania, are isolated +from the scattered Rouman remnant on Pindos and elsewhere. They +represent that part of the inhabitants of the peninsula which became +Latin, while the Greeks remained Greek, and the Illyrians remained +barbarian. Their lands, Mossia, Thrace specially so called, and Dacia, +were added to the empire at various times from Augustus to Trajan. +That they should gradually adopt the Latin language is in no sort +wonderful. Their position with regard to Rome was exactly the same as +that of Gaul and Spain. Where Greek civilization had been firmly +established, Latin could nowhere displace it. Where Greek civilization +was unknown, Latin overcame the barbarian tongue. It would naturally +do so in this part of the East exactly as it did in the West.[4] +</P> + +<P> +Here then we have in the southeastern peninsula three nations which +have all lived on to all appearances from the very beginnings of +European history, three distinct nations, speaking three distinct +languages. We have nothing answering to this in the West. It needs no +proof that the speakers of Celtic and Basque in Gaul and in Spain do +not hold the same position in western Europe which the Greeks, +Albanians, and Roumans do in eastern Europe. In the East the most +ancient inhabitants of the land are still there, not as scraps or +survivals, not as fragments of nations lingering on in corners, but as +nations in the strictest sense, nations whose national being forms an +element in every modern and political question. They all have their +memories, their grievances, and their hopes; and their memories, their +grievances, and their hopes are all of a practical and political kind. +Highlanders, Welshmen, Bretons, French Basques, whatever we say of the +Spanish brethren, have doubtless memories, but they have hardly +political grievances or hopes. Ireland may have political grievances; +it certainly has political hopes; but they are not exactly of the same +kind as the grievances or hopes of the Greek, the Albanian, and the +Rouman. Let Home Rule succeed to the extent of setting up an +independent king and parliament of Ireland, yet the language and +civilization of that king and parliament would still be English. +Ireland would form an English State, politically hostile, it may be, to +Great Britain, but still an English State. No Greek, Albanian or +Rouman State would be in the same way either Turkish or Austrian. +</P> + +<P> +On these primitive and abiding races came, as on other parts of Europe, +the Roman conquest. That conquest planted Latin colonies on the +Dalmatian coast, where the Latin tongue still remains in its Italian +variety as the speech of literature and city life; it Romanized one +great part of the earlier inhabitants: it had the great political +effect of all, that of planting the Roman power in a Greek city, and +thereby creating a State, and in the end a nation, which was Roman on +one side, and Greek on the other. Then came the wandering of the +nations, on which, as regards men of our own race, we need not dwell. +The Goths marched at will through the Eastern Empire; but no Teutonic +settlement was ever made within its bounds, no lasting Teutonic +settlement was ever made even on its border. The part of the Teuton in +the West was played, far less perfectly indeed, by the Slave in the +East. He is there what the Teuton is here, the great representative of +what we may call the modern European races, those whose part in history +began after the establishment of the Rouman power. The differences +between the position of the two races are chiefly these. The Slave in +the East has pre-Roman races standing alongside of him in a way in +which the Teuton has not in the West. On the Greeks and Albanians he +has had but little influence; on the Rouman and his language his +influence has been far greater, but hardly so great as the influence of +the Teuton on the Romance nations and languages of western Europe. The +Slave too stands alongside of races which have come in since his own +coming, in a way in which the Teuton in the West is still further from +doing. That is to say, besides Greeks, Albanians, and Roumans, he +stands alongside of Bulgarians, Magyars, and Turks, who have nothing to +answer to them in the West. The Slave, in the time of his coming, in +the nature of his settlement, answers roughly to the Teuton; his +position is what that of the Teuton would be if western Europe had been +brought under the power of an alien race at some time later than his +own settlement. The Slaves undoubtedly form the greatest element in +the population of the Eastern peninsula, and they once reached more +widely still. Taking the Slavonic name in its widest meaning, they +occupy all the lands from the Danube and its great tributaries +southward to the strictly Greek border. The exceptions are where +earlier races remain, Greek or Italian on the coast-line, Albanian in +the mountains. The Slaves hold the heart of the peninsula, and they +hold more than the peninsula itself. The Slave lives equally on both +sides of what is or was the frontier of the Austrian and Ottoman +empires; indeed, but for another set of causes which have affected +eastern Europe, the Slave might have reached uninterruptedly from the +Baltic to the Aegaean. +</P> + +<P> +This last set of causes are those which specially distinguish the +histories of eastern and of western Europe; a set of causes which, +though exactly twelve hundred years old,[5] are still fresh and living, +and which are the special causes which have aggravated the special +difficulties of the last five hundred years. In Western Europe, though +we have had plenty of political conquests, we have had no national +migrations since the days of the Teutonic settlements—at least, if we +may extend these last so as to take in the Scandinavian settlements in +Britain and Gaul. The Teuton has pressed to the East at the expense of +the Slave and the Old-Prussian: the borders between the Romance and the +Teutonic nations in the West have fluctuated; but no third set of +nations has come in, strange alike to the Roman and the Teuton and to +the whole Aryan family. As the Huns of Attila showed themselves in +western Europe as passing ravagers, so did the Magyars at a later day; +so did the Ottoman Turks in a day later still, when they besieged +Vienna and laid waste the Venetian mainland. But all these Turanian +invaders appeared in western Europe simply as passing invaders; in +eastern Europe their part has been widely different. Besides the +temporary dominion of Avars, Patzinaks, Chazars, Cumans, and a crowd of +others, three bodies of more abiding settlers, the Bulgarians, the +Magyars, and the Mongol conquerors of Russia, have come in by one path; +a fourth, the Ottoman Turks, have come in by another path. Among all +these invasions we have one case of thorough assimilation, and only +one. The original Finnish Bulgarians have, like Western conquerors, +been lost among Slavonic subjects and neighbors. The geographical +function of the Magyar has been to keep the two great groups of +Slavonic nations apart. To his coming, more than to any other cause, +we may attribute the great historical gap which separates the Slave of +the Baltic from his southern kinsfolk. The work of the Ottoman Turk we +all know. These latter settlers remain alongside of the Slave, just as +the Slave remains alongside of the earlier settlers. The Slavonized +Bulgarians are the only instance of assimilation such as we are used to +in the West. All the other races, old and new, from the Albanian to +the Ottoman, are still there, each keeping its national being and its +national speech. And in one part of the ancient Dacia we must add +quite a distinct element, the element of Teutonic occupation in a form +unlike any in which we see it in the West, in the shape of the Saxons +of Transsilvania. We have thus worked out our point in detail. While +in each Western country some one of the various races which have +settled in it has, speaking roughly, assimilated the others, in the +lands which are left under the rule of the Turk, or which have been +lately delivered from his rule, all the races that have ever settled in +the country still abide side by side. So when we pass into the lands +which form the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, we find that that composite +dominion is just as much opposed as the dominion of the Turk is to +those ideas of nationality towards which Western Europe has been long +feeling its way. We have seen by the example of Switzerland that it is +possible to make an artificial nation out of fragments which have split +off from three several nations. But the Austro-Hungarian monarchy is +not a nation, not even an artificial nation of this kind. Its elements +are not bound together in the same way as the three elements of the +Swiss Confederation. It does indeed contain one whole nation in the +form of the Magyars; we might say that it contains two, if we reckon +the Czechs for a distinct nation. Of its other elements, we may for +the moment set aside those parts of Germany which are so strangely +united with the crowns of Hungary and Dalmatia. In those parts of the +monarchy which come within the more strictly Eastern lands—the <I>Roman</I> +and the <I>Rouman</I>—we may so distinguish the Romance-speaking +inhabitants of Dalmatia and the Romance-speaking inhabitants of +Transsilvania. The Slave of the north and of the south, the Magyar +conqueror, the Saxon immigrant, all abide as distinct races. That the +Ottoman is not to be added to our list in Hungary, while he is to be +added in lands farther south, is simply because he has been driven out +of Hungary, while he is allowed to abide in lands farther south. No +point is more important to insist on now than the fact that the Ottoman +once held the greater part of Hungary by exactly the same right, the +right of the strongest, as that by which he still holds Macedonia and +Epeiros. It is simply the result of a century of warfare, from +Sobieski to Joseph II, which fixed the boundary which only yesterday +seemed eternal to diplomatists, but which now seems to have vanished. +The boundary has advanced and gone back over and over again. As Buda +once was Turkish, Belgrade has more than once been Austrian. The whole +of the southeastern lands, Austrian, Turkish, and independent, from the +Carpathian Mountains southward, present the same characteristic of +permanence and distinctness among the several races which occupy them. +The several races may lie, here in large continuous masses, there in +small detached settlements; but there they all are in their +distinctness. There is among them plenty of living and active national +feeling; but while in the West political arrangements for the most part +follow the great lines of national feeling, in the East the only way in +which national feeling can show itself is by protesting, whether in +arms or otherwise, against existing political arrangements. Save the +Magyars alone, the ruling race in the Hungarian kingdom, there is no +case in those lands in which the whole continuous territory inhabited +by speakers of the same tongue is placed under a separate national +government of its own. And, even in this case, the identity between +nation and government is imperfect in two ways. It is imperfect, +because, after all, though Hungary has a separate national government +in internal matters, yet it is not the Hungarian kingdom, but the +Austro-Hungarian monarchy of which it forms a part, which counts as a +power among the other powers of Europe. And the national character of +the Hungarian government is equally imperfect from the other side. It +is national as regards the Magyar; it is not national as regards the +Slave, the Saxon, and the Rouman. Since the liberation of part of +Bulgaria, no whole European nation is under the rule of the Turk. No +one nation of the southeast peninsula forms a single national +government. One fragment of a nation is free under a national +government, another fragment is ruled by civilized strangers, a third +is trampled down by barbarians. The existing States of Greece, +Roumania, and Servia are far from taking in the whole of the Greek, +Rouman, and Servian nations. In all these lands, Austrian, Turkish, +and independent, there is no difficulty in marking off the several +nations; only in no case do the nations answer to any existing +political power. +</P> + +<P> +In all these cases, where nationality and government are altogether +divorced, language becomes yet more distinctly the test of nationality +than it is in Western lands where nationality and government do to some +extent coincide. And when nationality and language do not coincide in +the East, it is owing to another cause, of which also we know nothing +in the West. In many cases religion takes the place of nationality; or +rather the ideas of religion and nationality can hardly be +distinguished. In the West a man's nationality is in no way affected +by the religion which he professes, or even by his change from one +religion to another. In the East it is otherwise. The Christian +renegade who embraces Islam becomes for most practical purposes a Turk. +Even if, as in Crete and Bosnia, he keeps his Greek or Slavonic +language, he remains Greek or Slave only in a secondary sense. For the +first principle of the Mahometan religion, the lordship of the true +believer over the infidel, cuts off the possibility of any true +national fellowship between the true believer and the infidel. Even +the Greek or Armenian who embraces the Latin creed goes far toward +parting with his nationality as well as with his religion. For the +adoption of the Latin creed implies what is in some sort the adoption +of a new allegiance, the accepting of the authority of the Roman +bishop. In the Armenian indeed we are come very near to the phenomena +of the further East, where names like Parsee and Hindoo, names in +themselves as strictly ethnical as Englishman or Frenchman, have come +to express distinctions in which religion and nationality are +absolutely the same thing. Of this whole class of phenomena the Jew is +of course the crowning example. But we speak of these matters here +only as bringing in an element in the definition of nationality to +which we are unused in the West. But it quite comes within our present +subject to give one definition from the southeastern lands. What is +the Greek? Clearly he who is at once a Greek in speech and Orthodox in +faith. The Hellenic Mussulmans in Crete, even the Hellenic Latins in +some of the other islands, are at the most imperfect members of the +Hellenic body. The utmost that can be said is that they keep the power +of again entering that body, either by their own return to the national +faith, or by such a change in the state of things as shall make +difference in religion no longer inconsistent with true national +fellowship. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Thus, wherever we go, we find language to be the rough practical test +of nationality. The exceptions are many; they may perhaps outnumber +the instances which conform to the rule. Still they are exceptions. +Community of language does not imply community of blood; it might be +added that diversity of language does not imply diversity of blood. +But community of language is, in the absence of any evidence to the +contrary, a presumption of the community of blood, and it is proof of +something which for practical purposes is the same as community of +blood. To talk of "the Latin race" is in strictness absurd. We know +that the so-called race is simply made up of those nations which +adopted the Latin language. The Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic races +may conceivably have been formed by a like artificial process. But the +presumption is the other way; and if such a process ever took place, it +took place long before history began. The Celtic, Teutonic, and +Slavonic races come before us as groups of mankind marked out by the +test of language. Within those races separate nations are again marked +out by a stricter application of the test of language. Within the race +we may have languages which are clearly akin to each other, but which +need not be mutually intelligible. Within the nation we have only +dialects which are mutually intelligible, or which, at all events, +gather round some one central dialect which is intelligible to all. We +take this standard of races and nations, fully aware that it will not +stand a physiological test, but holding that for all practical purposes +adoption must pass as equivalent to natural descent. And, among the +practical purposes which are affected by the facts of race and +nationality, we must, as long as a man is what he is, as long as he has +not been created afresh according to some new scientific pattern, not +shrink from reckoning those generous emotions which, in the present +state of European feeling, are beginning to bind together the greater +as well as the lesser groups of mankind. The sympathies of men are +beginning to reach wider than could have been dreamed of a century ago. +The feeling which was once confined to the mere household extended +itself to the tribe or city. From the tribe or city it extended itself +to the nation; from the nation it is beginning to extend itself to the +whole race. In some cases it can extend itself to the whole race far +more easily than in others. In some cases historical causes have made +nations of the same race bitter enemies, while they have made nations +of different races friendly allies. The same thing happened in earlier +days between tribes and cities of the same nation. But, when +hindrances of this kind do not exist, the feeling of race, as something +beyond the narrower feeling of nationality, is beginning to be a +powerful agent in the feelings and actions of men and of nations. A +long series of mutual wrongs, conquest, and oppression on one side, +avenged by conquest and oppression on the other side, have made the +Slave of Poland and the Slave of Russia the bitterest of enemies. No +such hindrance exists to stop the flow of natural and generous feeling +between the Slave of Russia and the Slave of the southeastern lands. +Those whose statesmanship consists in some hand-to-mouth shift for the +moment, whose wisdom consists in refusing to look either back to the +past or onward to the future, cannot understand this great fact of our +times; and what they cannot understand they mock at. But the fact +exists, and does its work in spite of them. And it does its work none +the less because in some cases the feeling of sympathy is awakened by a +claim of kindred, where, in the sense of the physiologist or the +genealogist, there is no kindred at all. The practical view, +historical or political, will accept as members of this or that race or +nation many members whom the physiologist would shut out, whom the +English lawyer would shut out, but whom the Roman lawyer would gladly +welcome to every privilege of the stock on which they were grafted. +The line of the Scipios, of the Caesars, and of the Antonines was +continued by adoption; and for all practical purposes the nations of +the earth have agreed to follow the examples set them by their masters. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[1] From "Historical Essays," Third Series, 1879. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[2] I am here applying to this particular purpose a line of thought +which both myself and others have often applied to other purposes. +See, above all, Sir Henry Maine's lecture "On Kinship as the Basis of +Society" in the lectures on the "Early History of Institutions"; I +would refer also to my own lecture on "The State" in "Comparative +Politics." +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[3] While the Swiss Confederation recognises German, French, and +Italian as all alike national languages, the independent Romance +language, which is still used in some parts of the Canton of +Graubünden, that which is known specially as <I>Romansch</I>, is not +recognized. It is left in the same position in which Welsh and Gaelic +are left in Great Britain, in which Basque, Breton, Provenēal, Walloon, +and Flemish are left within the borders of that French kingdom which +has grown so as to take them all in. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[4] On Rouman history I have followed Roesler's "Romėnische Studien" +and Jirecek's "Geschichte der Bulgaren." +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[5] It should be remembered that, as the year 1879 saw the beginning of +the liberated Bulgarian State, the year 679 saw the beginning of the +first Bulgarian kingdom south of the Danube. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08a"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SAMUEL PEPYS +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</I> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850-94), novelist, essayist, and +poet, was descended from a famous family of lighthouse builders. He +was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, and was intended for the ancestral +profession of engineer. Abandoning this, he tried law with no better +success, and finally devoted himself to his destined vocation of +letters.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Stevenson began his career with the writing of essays, then issued two +charming volumes of humorous and contemplative travel, "An Inland +Voyage" and "Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes"; then collected, in +his "New Arabian Nights" a number of fanciful short stories he had been +publishing in a magazine. In 1883 he first caught the attention of the +larger public with "Treasure Island," one of the best, and probably the +best written, boys' story in the language. His most sensational +success was "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"; but a much +higher literary quality appears: in such novels as "The Master of +Ballantrae," "Kidnapped," and "Catriona," in which he to some extent +follows the tradition of Scott, with far greater finish of style, but +without Scott's fine spontaneity and unconsciousness. He published +also three small volumes of verse, some of it of great charm and +delicacy.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Stevenson was essentially an artist in words. The modern desire for +subtlety of cadence and for the rendering of fine shades of expression +is seen in a high degree in all he wrote, and his work has the merits +and defects that accompany this extreme preoccupation with style. But +he had also great virtues of matter. He was a superb story-teller, an +acute and sensitive critic, a genial and whole-hearted lover of life. +In the essay on "Truth of Intercourse" will be found an example of his +gracious and tactful moralising; In "Samuel Pepys," a penetrating +interpretation of one of the most amazing pieces of self-revelation in +the annals of literature.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE +</H3> + +<P> +Among sayings that have a currency in spite of being wholly false upon +the face of them for the sake of a half-truth upon another subject +which is accidentally combined with error, one of the grossest and +broadest conveys the monstrous proposition that it is easy to tell the +truth and hard to tell a lie. I wish heartily it were. But the truth +is one; it has first to be discovered, then justly and exactly uttered. +Even with instruments specially contrived for such a purpose—with a +foot rule, a level, or a theodolite—it is not easy to be exact; it is +easier, alas! to be inexact. From those who mark the divisions on a +scale to those who measure the boundaries of empires or the distance of +the heavenly stars, it is by careful method and minute, unwearying +attention that men rise even to material exactness or to sure knowledge +even of external and constant things. But it is easier to draw the +outline of a mountain than the changing appearance of a face; and truth +in human relations is of this more intangible and dubious order: hard +to seize, harder to communicate. Veracity to facts in a loose, +colloquial sense—not to say that I have been in Malabar when as a +matter of fact I was never out of England, not to say that I have read +Cervantes in the original when as a matter of fact I know not one +syllable of Spanish—this, indeed, is easy and to the same degree +unimportant in itself. Lies of this sort, according to circumstances, +may or may not be important; in a certain sense even they may or may +not be false. The habitual liar may be a very honest fellow, and live +truly with his wife and friends; while another man who never told a +formal falsehood in his life may yet be himself one lie—heart and +face, from top to bottom. This is the kind of lie which poisons +intimacy. And, <I>vice versā</I>, veracity to sentiment, truth in a +relation, truth to your own heart and your friends, never to feign or +falsify emotion—that is the truth which makes love possible and +mankind happy. +</P> + +<P> +<I>L'art de bien dire</I> is but a drawing-room accomplishment unless it be +pressed into the service of the truth. The difficulty of literature is +not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, +but to affect him precisely as you wish. This is commonly understood +in the case of books or set orations; even in making your will, or +writing an explicit letter, some difficulty is admitted by the world. +But one thing you can never make Philistine natures understand; one +thing, which yet lies on the surface, remains as unseizable to their +wits as a high flight of metaphysics—namely, that the business of life +is mainly carried on by means of this difficult art of literature, and +according to a man's proficiency in that art shall be the freedom and +the fulness of his intercourse with other men. Anybody, it is +supposed, can say what he means; and, in spite of their notorious +experience to the contrary, people so continue to suppose. Now, I +simply open the last book I have been reading—Mr. Leland's captivating +<I>English Gipsies</I>. "It is said," I find on p. 7, "that those who can +converse with Irish peasants in their own native tongue form far higher +opinions of their appreciation of the beautiful, and of <I>the elements +of humour and pathos in their hearts</I>, than to those who know their +thoughts only through the medium of English. I know from my own +observations that this is quite the case with the Indians of North +America, and it is unquestionably so with the gipsy." In short, where +a man has not a full possession of the language, the most important, +because the most amiable, qualities of his nature have to lie buried +and fallow; for the pleasure of comradeship, and the intellectual part +of love, rest upon these very "elements of humour and pathos." Here is +man opulent in both, and for lack of a medium he can put none of it out +to interest in the market of affection! But what is thus made plain to +our apprehensions in the case of a foreign language is partially true +even with the tongue we learned in childhood. Indeed, we all speak +different dialects; one shall be copious and exact, another loose and +meagre; but the speech of the ideal talker shall correspond and fit +upon the truth of fact—not clumsily, obscuring lineaments, like a +mantle, but cleanly adhering, like an athlete's skin. And what is the +result? That the one can open himself more clearly to his friends, and +can enjoy more of what makes life truly valuable—intimacy with those +he loves. An orator makes a false step; he employs some trivial, some +absurd, some vulgar phrase; in the turn of a sentence he insults by a +side wind, those whom he is labouring to charm; in speaking to one +sentiment he unconsciously ruffles another in parenthesis; and you are +not surprised, for you know his task to be delicate and filled with +perils. "O frivolous mind of man, light ignorance!" As if yourself, +when you seek to explain some misunderstanding or excuse some apparent +fault, speaking swiftly and addressing a mind still recently incensed, +were not harnessing for a more perilous adventure; as if yourself +required less tact and eloquence; as if an angry friend or a suspicious +lover were not more easy to offend than a meeting of indifferent +politicians! Nay, and the orator treads in a beaten round; the matters +he discusses have been discussed a thousand times before; language is +ready-shaped to his purpose; he speaks out of a cut and dry vocabulary. +But you—may it not be that your defence reposes on some subtlety of +feeling, not so much as touched upon in Shakespeare, to express which, +like a pioneer, you must venture forth into zones of thought still +unsurveyed, and become yourself a literary innovator? For even in love +there are unlovely humours; ambiguous acts, unpardonable words, may yet +have sprung from a kind sentiment. If the injured one could read your +heart, you may be sure that he would understand and pardon; but, alas! +the heart cannot be shown—it has to be demonstrated in words. Do you +think it is a hard thing to write poetry? Why, that is to write +poetry, and of a high, if not the highest, order. +</P> + +<P> +I should even more admire "the lifelong and heroic literary labours" of +my fellow-men, patiently clearing up in words their loves and their +contentions, and speaking their autobiography daily to their wives, +were it not for a circumstance which lessens their difficulty and my +admiration by equal parts. For life, though largely, is not entirely +carried on by literature. We are subject to physical passions and +contortions; the voice breaks and changes, and speaks by unconscious +and winning inflections; we have legible countenances, like an open +book; things that cannot be said look eloquently through the eye; and +the soul, not locked into the body as a dungeon, dwells ever on the +threshold with appealing signals. Groans and tears, looks and +gestures, a flush or a paleness, are often the most clear reporters of +the heart, and speak more directly to the hearts of others. The +message flies by these interpreters in the least space of time, and the +misunderstanding is averted in the moment of its birth. To explain in +words takes time and a just and patient hearing; and in the critical +epochs of a close relation, patience and justice are not qualities on +which we can rely. But the look or the gesture explains things in a +breath; they tell their message without ambiguity; unlike speech, they +cannot stumble, by the way, on a reproach or an allusion that should +steel your friend against the truth; and then they have a higher +authority, for they are the direct expression of the heart, not yet +transmitted through the unfaithful and sophisticating brain. Not long +ago I wrote a letter to a friend which came near involving us in +quarrel; but we met, and in personal talk I repeated the worst of what +I had written, and added worse to that; and with the commentary of the +body it seemed not unfriendly either to hear or say. Indeed, letters +are in vain for the purposes of intimacy; an absence is a dead break in +the relation; yet two who know each other fully and are bent on +perpetuity in love, may so preserve the attitude of their affections +that they may meet on the same terms as they had parted. +</P> + +<P> +Pitiful is the case of the blind, who cannot read the face; pitiful +that of the deaf, who cannot follow the changes of the voice. And +there are others also to be pitied; for there are some of an inert, +uneloquent nature, who have been denied all the symbols of +communication, who have neither a lively play of facial expression, nor +speaking gestures, nor a responsive voice, nor yet the gift of frank, +explanatory speech: people truly made of clay, people tied for life +into a bag which no one can undo. They are poorer than the gipsy, for +their heart can speak no language under heaven. Such people we must +learn slowly by the tenor of their acts, or through yea and nay +communications; or we take them on trust on the strength of a general +air, and now and again, when we see the spirit breaking through in a +flash, correct or change our estimate. But these will be uphill +intimacies, without charm or freedom, to the end; and freedom is the +chief ingredient in confidence. Some minds, romantically dull, despise +physical endowments. That is a doctrine for a misanthrope; to those +who like their fellow-creatures it must always be meaningless; and, for +my part, I can see few things more desirable, after the possession of +such radical qualities as honour and humour and pathos, than to have a +lively and not a stolid countenance; to have looks to correspond with +every feeling; to be elegant and delightful in person, so that we shall +please even in the intervals of active pleasing, and may never +discredit speech with uncouth manners or become unconsciously our own +burlesques. But of all unfortunates there is one creature (for I will +not call him man) conspicuous in misfortune. This is he who has +forfeited his birthright of expression, who has cultivated artful +intonations, who has taught his face tricks, like a pet monkey, and on +every side perverted or cut off his means of communication with his +fellow-men. The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, +showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us. +But this fellow has filled his windows with opaque glass, elegantly +coloured. His house may be admired for its design, the crowd may pause +before the stained windows, but meanwhile the poor proprietor must lie +languishing within, uncomforted, unchangeably alone. +</P> + +<P> +Truth of intercourse is something more difficult than to refrain from +open lies. It is possible to avoid falsehood and yet not tell the +truth. It is not enough to answer formal questions. To reach the +truth by yea and nay communications implies a questioner with a share +of inspiration such as is often found in mutual love. <I>Yea</I> and <I>nay</I> +mean nothing; the meaning must have been related in the question. Many +words are often necessary to convey a very simple statement; for in +this sort of exercise we never hit the gold; the most that we can hope +is by many arrows, more or less far off on different sides, to +indicate, in the course of time, for what target we are aiming, and +after an hour's talk, back and forward, to convey the purport of a +single principle or a single thought. And yet while the curt, pithy +speaker misses the point entirely, a wordy, prolegomenous babbler will +often add three new offences in the process of excusing one. It is +really a most delicate affair. The world was made before the English +language, and seemingly upon a different design. Suppose we held our +converse, not in words, but in music; those who have a bad ear would +find themselves cut off from all near commerce, and no better than +foreigners in this big world. But we do not consider how many have "a +bad ear" for words, nor how often the most eloquent find nothing to +reply. I hate questioners and questions; there are so few that can be +spoken to without a lie. "<I>Do you forgive me?</I>" Madam and sweetheart, +so far as I have gone in life I have never yet been able to discover +what forgiveness means. "<I>Is it still the same between us?</I>" Why, how +can it be? It is eternally different; and yet you are still the friend +of my heart. "Do you understand me?" God knows; I should think it +highly improbable. +</P> + +<P> +The cruelest lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a +room for hours and not opened his teeth, and yet come out of that room +a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator. And how many loves have +perished because, from pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly +shame which withholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a lover, at +the critical point of the relation, has but hung his head and held his +tongue? And, again, a lie may be told by a truth, or a truth conveyed +through a lie. Truth to facts is not always truth to sentiment; and +part of the truth, as often happens in answer to a question, may be the +foulest calumny. A fact may be an exception; but the feeling is the +law, and it is that which you must neither garble nor belie. The whole +tenor of a conversation is a part of the meaning of each separate +statement; the beginning and the end define and travesty the +intermediate conversation. You never speak to God; you address a +fellow-man, full of his own tempers; and to tell truth, rightly +understood, is not to state the true facts, but to convey a true +impression; truth in spirit, not truth to letter, is the true veracity. +To reconcile averted friends a Jesuitical discretion is often needful, +not so much to gain a kind hearing as to communicate sober truth. +Women have an ill name in this connection; yet they live in as true +relations; the lie of a good woman is the true index of her heart. +</P> + +<P> +"It takes," says Thoreau, in the noblest and most useful passage I +remember to have read in any modern author[1] "two to speak truth—one +to speak and another to hear." He must be very little experienced, or +have no great zeal for truth, who does not recognise the fact. A grain +of anger or a grain of suspicion produces strange acoustical effects, +and makes the ear greedy to remark offence. Hence we find those who +have once quarrelled carry themselves distantly, and are ever ready to +break the truce. To speak truth there must be moral equality or else +no respect; and hence between parent and child intercourse is apt to +degenerate into a verbal fencing bout, and misapprehensions to become +ingrained. And there is another side to this, for the parent begins +with an imperfect notion of the child's character, formed in early +years or during the equinoctial gales of youth; to this he adheres, +noting only the facts which suit with his preconception; and wherever a +person fancies himself unjustly judged, he at once and finally gives up +the effort to speak truth. With our chosen friends, on the other hand, +and still more between lovers (for mutual understanding is love's +essence), the truth is easily indicated by the one and aptly +comprehended by the other. A hint taken, a look understood, conveys +the gist of long and delicate explanations; and where the life is known +even <I>yea</I> and <I>nay</I> become luminous. In the closest of all +relations—that of a love well founded and equally shared—speech is +half discarded, like a roundabout, infantile process or a ceremony of +formal etiquette; and the two communicate directly by their presences, +and with few looks and fewer words contrive to share their good and +evil and uphold each other's hearts in joy. For love rests upon a +physical basis; it is a familiarity of nature's making and apart from +voluntary choice. Understanding has in some sort outrun knowledge, for +the affection perhaps began with the acquaintance; and as it was not +made like other relations, so it is not, like them, to be perturbed or +clouded. Each knows more than can be uttered; each lives by faith, and +believes by a natural compulsion; and between man and wife the language +of the body is largely developed and grown strangely eloquent. The +thought that prompted and was conveyed in a caress would only lose to +be set down in words—ay, although Shakespeare himself should be the +scribe. +</P> + +<P> +Yet it is in these dear intimacies, beyond all others, that we must +strive and do battle for the truth. Let but a doubt arise, and alas! +all the previous intimacy and confidence is but another charge against +the person doubted. "<I>What a monstrous dishonesty is this if I have +been deceived so long and so completely!</I>" Let but that thought gain +entrance, and you plead before a deaf tribunal. Appeal to the past; +why, that is your crime! Make all clear, convince the reason; alas! +speciousness is but a proof against you. "<I>If you can abuse me now, +the more likely that you have abused me from the first.</I>" +</P> + +<P> +For a strong affection such moments are worth supporting, and they will +end well; for your advocate is in your lover's heart and speaks her own +language; it is not you but she herself who can defend and clear you of +the charge. But in slighter intimacies, and for a less stringent +union? Indeed, is it worth while? We are all <I>incompris</I>, only more +or less concerned for the mischance: all trying wrongly to do right; +all fawning at each other's feet like dumb, neglected lap-dogs. +Sometimes we catch an eye—this is our opportunity in the ages—and we +wag our tail with a poor smile. "<I>Is that all?</I>" All? If you only +knew! But how can they know? They do not love us; the more fools we +to squander life on the indifferent. +</P> + +<P> +But the morality of the thing, you will be glad to hear, is excellent; +for it is only by trying to understand others that we can get our own +hearts understood; and in matters of human feeling the clement judge is +the most successful pleader. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[1] "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," Wednesday, p. 283. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08c"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SAMUEL PEPYS +</H3> + +<P> +In two books a fresh light has recently been thrown on the character and +position of Samuel Pepys. Mr. Mynors Bright has given us a new +transcription of the Diary, increasing it in bulk by near a third, +correcting many errors, and completing our knowledge of the man in some +curious and important points. We can only regret that he has taken +liberties with the author and the public. It is no part of the duties of +the editor of an established classic to decide what may or may not be +"tedious to the reader." The book is either an historical document or +not, and in condemning Lord Braybrooke Mr. Bright condemns himself. As +for the time-honored phrase, "unfit for publication," without being +cynical, we may regard it as the sign of a precaution more or less +commercial; and we may think, without being sordid, that when we purchase +six huge and distressingly expensive volumes, we are entitled to be +treated rather more like scholars and rather less like children. But Mr. +Bright may rest assured: while we complain, we are still grateful. Mr. +Wheatley, to divide our obligation, brings together, clearly and with no +lost words, a body of illustrative material. Sometimes we might ask a +little more; never, I think, less. And as a matter of fact, a great part +of Mr. Wheatley's volume might be transferred, by a good editor of Pepys, +to the margin of the text, for it is precisely what the reader wants. +</P> + +<P> +In the light of these two books, at least, we have now to read our +author. Between them they contain all we can expect to learn for, it may +be, many years. Now, if ever, we should be able to form some notion of +that unparalleled figure in the annals of mankind—unparalleled for three +good reasons: first, because he was a man known to his contemporaries in +a halo of almost historical pomp, and to his remote descendants with an +indecent familiarity, like a tap-room comrade; second, because he has +outstripped all competitors in the art or virtue of a conscious honesty +about oneself; and, third, because, being in many ways a very ordinary +person, he has yet placed himself before the public eye with such a +fulness and such an intimacy of detail as might be envied by a genius +like Montaigne. Not then for his own sake only, but as a character in a +unique position, endowed with a unique talent, and shedding a unique +light upon the lives of the mass of mankind, he is surely worthy of +prolonged and patient study. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE DIARY +</H3> + +<P> +That there should be such a book as Pepys's Diary is incomparably +strange. Pepys, in a corrupt and idle period, played the man in public +employments, toiling hard and keeping his honor bright. Much of the +little good that is set down to James the Second comes by right to Pepys; +and if it were little for a king, it is much for a subordinate. To his +clear, capable head was owing somewhat of the greatness of England on the +seas. In the exploits of Hawke, Rodney, or Nelson, this dead Mr. Pepys +of the Navy Office had some considerable share. He stood well by his +business in the appalling plague of 1666. He was loved and respected by +some of the best and wisest men in England. He was President of the +Royal Society; and when he came to die, people said of his conduct in +that solemn hour—thinking it needless to say more—that it was +answerable to the greatness of his life. Thus he walked in dignity, +guards of soldiers sometimes attending him in his walks, subalterns +bowing before his periwig; and when he uttered his thoughts they were +suitable to his state and services. On February 8, 1668, we find him +writing to Evelyn, his mind bitterly occupied with the late Dutch war, +and some thoughts of the different story of the repulse of the great +Armada: "Sir, you will not wonder at the backwardness of my thanks for +the present you made me, so many days since, of the Prospect of the +Medway, while the Hollander rode master in it, when I have told you that +the sight of it hath led me to such reflections on my particular +interest, by my employment, in the reproach due to that miscarriage, as +have given me little less disquiet than he is fancied to have who found +his face in Michael Angelo's hell. The same should serve me also in +excuse for my silence in celebrating your mastery shown in the design and +draught, did not indignation rather than courtship urge me so far to +commend them, as to wish the furniture of our House of Lords changed from +the story of '88 to that of '67 (of Evelyn's designing), till the pravity +of this were reformed to the temper of that age, wherein God Almighty +found his blessings more operative than, I fear, he doth in ours his +judgments." +</P> + +<P> +This is a letter honorable to the writer, where the meaning rather than +the words is eloquent. Such was the account he gave of himself to his +contemporaries; such thoughts he chose to utter, and in such language: +giving himself out for a grave and patriotic public servant. We turn to +the same date in the Diary by which he is known, after two centuries, to +his descendants. The entry begins in the same key with the letter, +blaming the "madness of the House of Commons" and "the base proceedings, +just the epitome of all our public proceedings in this age, of the House +of Lords;" and then, without the least transition, this is how our +diarist proceeds: "To the Strand, to my bookseller's, and there bought an +idle, rogueish French book, <I>L'escholle des Filles</I>, which I have bought +in plain binding, avoiding the buying of it better bound, because I +resolve, as soon as I have read it, to burn it, that it may not stand in +the list of books, nor among them, to disgrace them, if it should be +found." Even in our day, when responsibility is so much more clearly +apprehended, the man who wrote the letter would be notable; but what +about the man, I do not say who bought a roguish book, but who was +ashamed of doing so, yet did it, and recorded both the doing and the +shame in the pages of his daily journal? +</P> + +<P> +We all, whether we write or speak, must somewhat drape ourselves when we +address our fellows; at a given moment we apprehend our character and +acts by some particular side; we are merry with one, grave with another, +as befits the nature and demands of the relation. Pepys's letter to +Evelyn would have little in common with that other one to Mrs. Knipp +which he signed by the pseudonym of <I>Dapper Dicky</I>; yet each would be +suitable to the character of his correspondent. There is no untruth in +this, for man, being a Protean animal, swiftly shares and changes with +his company and surroundings; and these changes are the better part of +his education in the world. To strike a posture once for all, and to +march through life like a drum-major, is to be highly disagreeable to +others and a fool for oneself into the bargain. To Evelyn and to Knipp +we understand the double facing; but to whom was he posing in the Diary, +and what, in the name of astonishment, was the nature of the pose? Had +he suppressed all mention of the book, or had he bought it, gloried in +the act, and cheerfully recorded his glorification, in either case we +should have made him out. But no; he is full of precautions to conceal +the "disgrace" of the purchase, and yet speeds to chronicle the whole +affair in pen and ink. It is a sort of anomaly in human action, which we +can exactly parallel from another part of the Diary. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Pepys had written a paper of her too just complaints against her +husband, and written it in plain and very pungent English. Pepys, in an +agony lest the world should come to see it, brutally seizes and destroys +the tell-tale document; and then—you disbelieve your eyes—down goes the +whole story with unsparing truth and in the cruellest detail. It seems +he has no design but to appear respectable, and here he keeps a private +book to prove he was not. You are at first faintly reminded of some of +the vagaries of the morbid religious diarist; but at a moment's thought +the resemblance disappears. The design of Pepys is not at all to edify; +it is not from repentance that he chronicles his peccadilloes, for he +tells us when he does repent, and, to be just to him, there often follows +some improvement. Again, the sins of the religious diarist are of a very +formal pattern, and are told with an elaborate whine. But in Pepys you +come upon good, substantive misdemeanors; beams in his eye of which he +alone remains unconscious; healthy outbreaks of the animal nature, and +laughable subterfuges to himself that always command belief and often +engage the sympathies. +</P> + +<P> +Pepys was a young man for his age, came slowly to himself in the world, +sowed his wild oats late, took late to industry, and preserved till +nearly forty the headlong gusto of a boy. So, to come rightly at the +spirit in which the Diary was written, we must recall a class of +sentiments which with most of us are over and done before the age of +twelve. In our tender years we still preserve a freshness of surprise at +our prolonged existence; events make an impression out of all proportion +to their consequence; we are unspeakably touched by our own past +adventures, and look forward to our future personality with sentimental +interest. It was something of this, I think, that clung to Pepys. +Although not sentimental in the abstract, he was sweetly sentimental +about himself. His own past clung about his heart, an evergreen. He was +the slave of an association. He could not pass by Islington, where his +father used to carry him to cakes and ale, but he must light at the +"King's Head" and eat and drink "for remembrance of the old house sake." +He counted it good fortune to lie a night at Epsom to renew his old +walks, "where Mrs. Hely and I did use to walk and talk, with whom I had +the first sentiments of love and pleasure in a woman's company, discourse +and taking her by the hand, she being a pretty woman." He goes about +weighing up the <I>Assurance</I>, which lay near Woolwich under water, and +cries in a parenthesis, "Poor ship, that I have been twice merry in, in +Captain Holland's time;" and after revisiting the <I>Naseby</I>, now changed +into the <I>Charles</I>, he confesses "it was a great pleasure to myself to +see the ship that I began my good fortune in." The stone that he was cut +for he preserved in a case; and to the Turners he kept alive such +gratitude for their assistance that for years, and after he had begun to +mount himself into higher zones, he continued to have that family to +dinner on the anniversary of the operation. Not Hazlitt nor Rousseau had +a more romantic passion for their past, although at times they might +express it more romantically; and if Pepys shared with them this childish +fondness, did not Rousseau, who left behind him the <I>Confessions</I>, or +Hazlitt, who wrote the <I>Liber Amoris</I>, and loaded his essays with loving +personal detail, share with Pepys in his unwearied egotism? For the two +things go hand in hand; or, to be more exact, it is the first that makes +the second either possible or pleasing. +</P> + +<P> +But, to be quite in sympathy with Pepys, we must return once more to the +experience of children. I can remember to have written, in the fly-leaf +of more than one book, the date and the place where I then was—if, for +instance, I was ill in bed or sitting in a certain garden; these were +jottings for my future self; if I should chance on such a note in after +years, I thought it would cause me a particular thrill to recognize +myself across the intervening distance. Indeed, I might come upon them +now, and not be moved one tittle—which shows that I have comparatively +failed in life, and grown older than Samuel Pepys. For in the Diary we +can find more than one such note of perfect childish egotism; as when he +explains that his candle is going out, "which makes me write thus +slobberingly;" or as in this incredible particularity, "To my study, +where I only wrote thus much of this day's passages to this, and so out +again;" or lastly, as here, with more of circumstance: "I staid up till +the bellman came by with his bell under my window, <I>as I was writing of +this very line</I>, and cried, 'Past one of the clock, and a cold, frosty, +windy morning.'" Such passages are not to be misunderstood. The appeal +to Samuel Pepys years hence is unmistakable. He desires that dear, +though unknown, gentleman keenly to realize his predecessor; to remember +why a passage was uncleanly written; to recall (let us fancy, with a +sigh) the tones of the bellman, the chill of the early, windy morning, +and the very line his own romantic self was scribing at the moment. The +man, you will perceive was making reminiscences—a sort of pleasure by +ricochet, which comforts many in distress, and turns some others into +sentimental libertines: and the whole book, if you will but look at it in +that way, is seen to be a work of art to Pepys's own address. +</P> + +<P> +Here, then, we have the key to that remarkable attitude preserved by him +throughout his Diary, to that unflinching—I had almost said, that +unintelligent—sincerity which makes it a miracle among human books. He +was not unconscious of his errors—far from it; he was often startled +into shame, often reformed, often made and broke his vows of change. But +whether he did ill or well, he was still his own unequalled self; still +that entrancing <I>ego</I> of whom alone he cared to write; and still sure of +his own affectionate indulgence, when the parts should be changed, and +the writer come to read what he had written. Whatever he did, or said, +or thought, or suffered, it was still a trait of Pepys, a character of +his career; and as, to himself, he was more interesting than Moses or +than Alexander, so all should be faithfully set down. I have called his +Diary a work of art. Now when the artist has found something, word or +deed, exactly proper to a favorite character in play or novel, he will +neither suppress nor diminish it, though the remark be silly or the act +mean. The hesitation of Hamlet, the credulity of Othello, the baseness +of Emma Bovary, or the irregularities of Mr. Swiveller, caused neither +disappointment nor disgust to their creators. And so with Pepys and his +adored protagonist: adored not blindly, but with trenchant insight and +enduring, human toleration. I have gone over and over the greater part +of the Diary; and the points where, to the most suspicious scrutiny, he +has seemed not perfectly sincere, are so few, so doubtful, and so petty, +that I am ashamed to name them. It may be said that we all of us write +such a diary in airy characters upon our brain; but I fear there is a +distinction to be made; I fear that as we render to our consciousness an +account of our daily fortunes and behavior, we too often weave a tissue +of romantic compliments and dull excuses; and even if Pepys were the ass +and coward that men call him, we must take rank as sillier and more +cowardly than he. The bald truth about oneself, what we are all too +timid to admit when we are not too dull to see it, that was what he saw +clearly and set down unsparingly. +</P> + +<P> +It is improbable that the Diary can have been carried on in the same +single spirit in which it was begun. Pepys was not such an ass, but he +must have perceived, as he went on, the extraordinary nature of the work +he was producing. He was a great reader, and he knew what other books +were like. It must, at least, have crossed his mind that some one might +ultimately decipher the manuscript, and he himself, with all his pains +and pleasures, be resuscitated in some later day; and the thought, +although discouraged, must have warmed his heart. He was not such an +ass, besides, but he must have been conscious of the deadly explosives, +the guncotton and the giant powder, he was hoarding in his drawer. Let +some contemporary light upon the Journal, and Pepys was plunged forever +in social and political disgrace. We can trace the growth of his terrors +by two facts. In 1660, while the Diary was still in its youth, he tells +about it, as a matter of course, to a lieutenant in the navy; but in +1669, when it was already near an end, he could have bitten his tongue +out, as the saying is, because he had let slip his secret to one so grave +and friendly as Sir William Coventry. And from two other facts I think +we may infer that he had entertained, even if he had not acquiesced in, +the thought of a far-distant publicity. The first is of capital +importance: the Diary was not destroyed. The second—that he took +unusual precautions to confound the cipher in "rogueish" +passages—proves, beyond question, that he was thinking of some other +reader besides himself. Perhaps while his friends were admiring the +"greatness of his behavior" at the approach of death, he may have had a +twinkling hope of immortality. <I>Mens cujusque is est quisque</I>, said his +chosen motto; and, as he had stamped his mind with every crook and foible +in the pages of the Diary, he might feel that what he left behind him was +indeed himself. There is perhaps no other instance so remarkable of the +desire of man for publicity and an enduring name. The greatness of his +life was open, yet he longed to communicate its smallness also; and, +while contemporaries bowed before him, he must buttonhole posterity with +the news that his periwig was once alive with nits. But this thought, +although I cannot doubt he had it, was neither his first nor his deepest; +it did not color one word that he wrote; the Diary, for as long as he +kept it, remained what it was when he began, a private pleasure for +himself. It was his bosom secret; it added a zest to all his pleasures; +he lived in and for it, and might well write these solemn words, when he +closed that confidant forever: "And so I betake myself to that course +which is almost as much as to see myself go into the grave; for which, +and all the discomforts that will accompany my being blind, the good God +prepare me." +</P> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A LIBERAL GENIUS +</H3> + +<P> +Pepys spent part of a certain winter Sunday, when he had taken physic, +composing "a song in praise of a liberal genius (such as I take my own to +be) to all studies and pleasures." The song was unsuccessful, but the +Diary is, in a sense, the very song that he was seeking; and his portrait +by Hales, so admirably reproduced in Mynors Bright's edition, is a +confirmation of the Diary. Hales it would appear, had known his +business; and though he put his sitter to a deal of trouble, almost +breaking his neck "to have the portrait full of shadows," and draping him +in an Indian gown hired expressly for the purpose, he was preoccupied +about no merely picturesque effects, but to portray the essence of the +man. Whether we read the picture by the Diary or the Diary by the +picture, we shall at least agree that Hales was among the number of those +who can "surprise the manners in the face." Here we have a mouth +pouting, moist with desires; eyes greedy, protuberant, and yet apt for +weeping too; a nose great alike in character and dimensions; and +altogether a most fleshly, melting countenance. The face is attractive +by its promise of reciprocity. I have used the word <I>greedy</I>, but the +reader must not suppose that he can change it for that closely kindred +one of <I>hungry</I>; for there is here no aspiration, no waiting for better +things, but an animal joy in all that comes. It could never be the face +of an artist; it is the face of a <I>viveur</I>—kindly, pleased and pleasing, +protected from excess and upheld in contentment by the shifting +versatility of his desires. For a single desire is more rightly to be +called a lust; but there is health in a variety, where one may balance +and control another. +</P> + +<P> +The whole world, town or country, was to Pepys a garden of Armida. +Wherever he went, his steps were winged with the most eager expectation; +whatever he did, it was done with the most lively pleasure. An +insatiable curiosity in all the shows of the world and all the secrets of +knowledge, filled him brimful of the longing to travel, and supported him +in the toils of study. Rome was the dream of his life; he was never +happier than when he read or talked of the Eternal City. When he was in +Holland, he was "with child" to see any strange thing. Meeting some +friends and singing with them in a palace near The Hague, his pen fails +him to express his passion of delight, "the more so because in a heaven +of pleasure and in a strange country." He must go to see all famous +executions. He must needs visit the body of a murdered man, defaced +"with a broad wound," he says, "that makes my hand now shake to write of +it." He learned to dance, and was "like to make a dancer." He learned +to sing, and walked about Gray's Inn Fields "humming to myself (which is +now my constant practice) the trillo." He learned to play the lute, the +flute, the flageolet, and the theorbo, and it was not the fault of his +intention if he did not learn the harpsichord or the spinet. He learned +to compose songs, and burned to give forth "a scheme and theory of music +not yet ever made in the world." When he heard "a fellow whistle like a +bird exceeding well," he promised to return another day and give an angel +for a lesson in the art. Once, he writes, "I took the Bezan back with +me, and with a brave gale and tide reached up that night to the Hope, +taking great pleasure in learning the seamen's manner of singing when +they sound the depths." If he found himself rusty in his Latin grammar, +he must fall to it like a schoolboy. He was a member of Harrington's +Club till its dissolution, and of the Royal Society before it had +received the name. Boyle's <I>Hydrostatics</I> was "of infinite delight" to +him, walking in Barnes Elms. We find him comparing Bible concordances, a +captious judge of sermons, deep in Descartes and Aristotle. We find him, +in a single year, studying timber and the measurement of timber; tar and +oil, hemp, and the process of preparing cordage; mathematics and +accounting; the hull and the rigging of ships from a model; and "looking +and improving himself of the (naval) stores with"—hark to the +fellow!—"great delight." His familiar spirit of delight was not the +same with Shelley's; but how true it was to him through life! He is only +copying something, and behold, he "takes great pleasure to rule the +lines, and have the capital words wrote with red ink;" he has only had +his coal-cellar emptied and cleaned, and behold, "it do please him +exceedingly." A hog's harslett is "a piece of meat he loves." He cannot +ride home in my Lord Sandwich's coach, but he must exclaim, with +breathless gusto, "his noble, rich coach!" When he is bound for a supper +party, he anticipates a "glut of pleasure." When he has a new watch, "to +see my childishness," says he, "I could not forbear carrying it in my +hand and seeing what o'clock it was an hundred times." To go to +Vauxhall, he says, and "to hear the nightingales and other birds, hear +fiddles, and there a harp and here a Jew's trump, and here laughing, and +there fine people walking, is mighty divertising." And the nightingales, +I take it, were particularly dear to him; and it was again "with great +pleasure" that he paused to hear them as he walked to Woolwich, while the +fog was rising and the April sun broke through. +</P> + +<P> +He must always be doing something agreeable, and, by preference, two +agreeable things at once. In his house he had a box of carpenter's +tools, two dogs, an eagle, a canary, and a blackbird that whistled tunes, +lest, even in that full life, he should chance upon an empty moment. If +he had to wait for a dish of poached eggs, he must put in the time by +playing on the flageolet; if a sermon were dull, he must read in the book +of Tobit or divert his mind with sly advances on the nearest women. When +he walked, it must be with a book in his pocket to beguile the way in +case the nightingales were silent; and even along the streets of London, +with so many pretty faces to be spied for and dignitaries to be saluted, +his trail was marked by little debts "for wine, pictures, etc.," the true +headmark of a life intolerant of any joyless passage. He had a kind of +idealism in pleasure; like the princess in the fairy story, he was +conscious of a rose-leaf out of place. Dearly as he loved to talk, he +could not enjoy nor shine in a conversation when he thought himself +unsuitably dressed. Dearly as he loved eating, he "knew not how to eat +alone;" pleasure for him must heighten pleasure; and the eye and ear must +be flattered like the palate ere he avow himself content. He had no zest +in a good dinner when it fell to be eaten "in a bad street and in a +periwig-maker's house;" and a collation was spoiled for him by +indifferent music. His body was indefatigable, doing him yeoman service +in this breathless chase of pleasures. On April 11, 1662, he mentions +that he went to bed "weary, <I>which I seldom am</I>;" and already over +thirty, he would sit up all night cheerfully to see a comet. But it is +never pleasure that exhausts the pleasure-seeker; for in that career, as +in all others, it is failure that kills. The man who enjoys so wholly +and bears so impatiently the slightest widowhood from joy, is just the +man to lose a night's rest over some paltry question of his right to +fiddle on the leads, or to be "vexed to the blood" by a solecism in his +wife's attire; and we find in consequence that he was always peevish when +he was hungry, and that his head "aked mightily" after a dispute. But +nothing could divert him from his aim in life; his remedy in care was the +same as his delight in prosperity; it was with pleasure, and with +pleasure only, that he sought to drive out sorrow; and, whether he was +jealous of his wife or skulking from a bailiff, he would equally take +refuge in the theatre. There, if the house be full and the company +noble, if the songs be tunable, the actors perfect, and the play +diverting, this old hero of the secret Diary, this private self-adorer, +will speedily be healed of his distresses. +</P> + +<P> +Equally pleased with a watch, a coach, a piece of meat, a tune upon the +fiddle, or a fact in hydrostatics, Pepys was pleased yet more by the +beauty, the worth, the mirth, or the mere scenic attitude in life of his +fellow-creatures. He shows himself throughout a sterling humanist. +Indeed, he who loves himself, not in idle vanity, but with a plenitude of +knowledge, is the best equipped of all to love his neighbors. And +perhaps it is in this sense that charity may be most properly said to +begin at home. It does not matter what quality a person has: Pepys can +appreciate and love him for it. He "fills his eyes" with the beauty of +Lady Castlemaine; indeed, he may be said to dote upon the thought of her +for years; if a woman be good-looking and not painted, he will walk miles +to have another sight of her; and even when a lady by a mischance spat +upon his clothes, he was immediately consoled when he had observed that +she was pretty. But, on the other hand, he is delighted to see Mrs. Pett +upon her knees, and speaks thus of his Aunt James: "a poor, religious, +well-meaning, good soul, talking of nothing but God Almighty, and that +with so much innocence that mightily pleased me." He is taken with Pen's +merriment and loose songs, but not less taken with the sterling worth of +Coventry. He is jolly with a drunken sailor, but listens with interest +and patience, as he rides the Essex roads, to the story of a Quaker's +spiritual trials and convictions. He lends a critical ear to the +discourse of kings and royal dukes. He spends an evening at Vauxhall +with "Killigrew and young Newport—loose company," says he, "but worth a +man's being in for once, to know the nature of it, and their manner of +talk and lives." And when a rag-boy lights him home, he examines him +about his business and other ways of livelihood for destitute children. +This is almost half-way to the beginning of philanthropy; had it only +been the fashion, as it is at present, Pepys had perhaps been a man +famous for good deeds. And it is through this quality that he rises, at +times, superior to his surprising egotism; his interest in the love +affairs of others is, indeed, impersonal; he is filled with concern for +my Lady Castlemaine, whom he only knows by sight, shares in her very +jealousies, joys with her in her successes; and it is not untrue, however +strange it seems in his abrupt presentment, that he loved his maid Jane +because she was in love with his man Tom. +</P> + +<P> +Let us hear him, for once, at length: "So the women and W. Hewer and I +walked upon the Downes, where a flock of sheep was; and the most pleasant +and innocent sight that ever I saw in my life. We found a shepherd and +his little boy reading, far from any houses or sight of people, the Bible +to him; so I make the boy to read to me, which he did with the forced +tone that children do usually read, that was mighty pretty; and then I +did give him something, and went to the father, and talked with him. He +did content himself mightily in my liking his boy's reading, and did +bless God for him, the most like one of the old patriarchs that ever I +saw in my life, and it brought those thoughts of the old age of the world +in my mind for two or three days after. We took notice of his woollen +knit stockings of two colors mixed, and of his shoes shod with iron, both +at the toe and heels, and with great nails in the soles of his feet, +which was mighty pretty; and taking notice of them, 'Why,' says the poor +man, 'the downes, you see, are full of stones, and we are faine to shoe +ourselves thus; and these,' says he, 'will make the stones fly till they +ring before me.' I did give the poor man something, for which he was +mighty thankful, and I tried to cast stones with his home crooke. He +values his dog mightily, that would turn a sheep any way which he would +have him, when he goes to fold them; told me there was about eighteen +score sheep in his flock, and that he hath four shillings a week the year +round for keeping of them; and Mrs. Turner, in the common fields here, +did gather one of the prettiest nosegays that ever I saw in my life." +</P> + +<P> +And so the story rambles on to the end of that day's pleasuring; with +cups of milk, and glow-worms, and people walking at sundown with their +wives and children, and all the way home Pepys still dreaming "of the old +age of the world" and the early innocence of man. This was how he walked +through life, his eyes and ears wide open, and his hand, you will +observe, not shut; and thus he observed the lives, the speech, and the +manners of his fellow-men, with prose fidelity of detail and yet a +lingering glamour of romance. +</P> + +<P> +It was "two or three days after" that he extended this passage in the +pages of his Journal, and the style has thus the benefit of some +reflection. It is generally supposed that, as a writer, Pepys must rank +at the bottom of the scale of merit. But a style which is indefatigably +lively, telling, and picturesque through six large volumes of everyday +experience, which deals with the whole matter of a life, and yet is +rarely wearisome, which condescends to the most fastidious particulars, +and yet sweeps all away in the forthright current of the narrative,—such +a style may be ungrammatical, it may be inelegant, it may be one tissue +of mistakes, but it can never be devoid of merit. The first and the true +function of the writer has been thoroughly performed throughout; and +though the manner of his utterance may be childishly awkward, the matter +has been transformed and assimilated by his unfeigned interest and +delight. The gusto of the man speaks out fierily after all these years. +For the difference between Pepys and Shelly, to return to that half +whimsical approximation, is one of quality but not one of degree; in his +sphere, Pepys felt as keenly, and his is the true prose of poetry—prose +because the spirit of the man was narrow and earthly, but poetry because +he was delightedly alive. Hence, in such a passage as this about the +Epsom shepherd, the result upon the reader's mind is entire conviction +and unmingled pleasure. So, you feel, the thing fell out, not otherwise; +and you would no more change it than you would change a sublimity of +Shakespeare's, a homely touch of Bunyan's, or a favored reminiscence of +your own. +</P> + +<P> +There never was a man nearer being an artist, who yet was not one. The +tang was in the family; while he was writing the journal for our +enjoyment in his comely house in Navy Gardens, no fewer than two of his +cousins were tramping the fens, kit under arm, to make music to the +country girls. But he himself, though he could play so many instruments +and pass judgment in so many fields of art, remained an amateur. It is +not given to any one so keenly to enjoy, without some greater power to +understand. That he did not like Shakespeare as an artist for the stage +may be a fault, but it is not without either parallel or excuse. He +certainly admired him as a poet; he was the first beyond mere actors on +the rolls of that innumerable army who have got "To be or not to be" by +heart. Nor was he content with that; it haunted his mind; he quoted it +to himself in the pages of the Diary, and, rushing in where angels fear +to tread, he set it to music. Nothing, indeed, is more notable than the +heroic quality of the verses that our little sensualist in a periwig +chose out to marry with his own mortal strains. Some gust from brave +Elizabethan times must have warmed his spirit, as he sat tuning his +sublime theorbo. "To be or not to be. Whether 'tis nobler"—"Beauty +retire, thou dost my pity move"—"It is decreed, nor shall thy fate, O +Rome;"—open and dignified in the sound, various and majestic in the +sentiment, it was no inapt, as it was certainly no timid, spirit that +selected such a range of themes. Of "Gaze not on Swans," I know no more +than these four words; yet that also seems to promise well. It was, +however, not a probable suspicion, the work of his master, Mr. +Berkenshaw—as the drawings that figure at the breaking up of a young +ladies' seminary are the work of the professor attached to the +establishment. Mr. Berkenshaw was not altogether happy in his pupil. +The amateur cannot usually rise into the artist, some leaven of the world +still clogging him; and we find Pepys behaving like a pickthank to the +man who taught him composition. In relation to the stage, which he so +warmly loved and understood, he was not only more hearty, but more +generous to others. Thus he encounters Colonel Reames, "a man," says he, +"who understands and loves a play as well as I, and I love him for it." +And again, when he and his wife had seen a most ridiculous insipid piece, +"Glad we were," he writes, "that Betterton had no part in it." It is by +such a zeal and loyalty to those who labor for his delight that the +amateur grows worthy of the artist. And it should be kept in mind that, +not only in art, but in morals, Pepys rejoiced to recognize his betters. +There was not one speck of envy in the whole human-hearted egotist. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +RESPECTABILITY +</H3> + +<P> +When writers inveigh against respectability, in the present degraded +meaning of the word, they are usually suspected of a taste for clay pipes +and beer cellars; and their performances are thought to hail from the +<I>Owl's Nest</I> of the comedy. They have something more, however, in their +eye than the dulness of a round million dinner parties that sit down +yearly in old England. For to do anything because others do it, and not +because the thing is good, or kind, or honest in its own right, is to +resign all moral control and captaincy upon yourself, and go post-haste +to the devil with the greater number. We smile over the ascendency of +priests; but I had rather follow a priest than what they call the leaders +of society. No life can better than that of Pepys illustrate the dangers +of this respectable theory of living. For what can be more untoward than +the occurrence, at a critical period and while the habits are still +pliable, of such sweeping transformation as the return of Charles the +Second? Round went the whole fleet of England on the other tack; and +while a few tall pintas, Milton or Pen, still sailed a lonely course by +the stars and their own private compass, the cock-boat, Pepys, must go +about with the majority among "the stupid starers and the loud huzzas." +</P> + +<P> +The respectable are not led so much by any desire of applause as by a +positive need for countenance. The weaker and the tamer the man, the +more will he require this support; and any positive quality relieves him, +by just so much, of this dependence. In a dozen ways, Pepys was quite +strong enough to please himself without regard for others; but his +positive qualities were not co-extensive with the field of conduct; and +in many parts of life he followed, with gleeful precision, in the +footprints of the contemporary Mrs. Grundy. In morals, particularly, he +lived by the countenance of others; felt a slight from another more +keenly than a meanness in himself, and then first repented when he was +found out. You could talk of religion or morality to such a man; and by +the artist side of him, by his lively sympathy and apprehension, he could +rise, as it were dramatically, to the significance of what you said. All +that matter in religion which has been nicknamed other-worldliness was +strictly in his gamut; but a rule of life that should make a man rudely +virtuous, following right in good report and ill report, was foolishness +and a stumbling-block to Pepys. He was much thrown across the Friends; +and nothing can be more instructive than his attitude toward these most +interesting people of that age. I have mentioned how he conversed with +one as he rode; when he saw some brought from a meeting under arrest, "I +would to God," said he, "they would either conform, or be more wise and +not be catched;" and to a Quaker in his own office he extended a timid +though effectual protection. Meanwhile there was growing up next door to +him that beautiful nature, William Pen. It is odd that Pepys condemned +him for a top; odd, though natural enough when you see Pen's portrait, +that Pepys was jealous of him with his wife. But the cream of the story +is when Pen publishes his <I>Sandy Foundation Shaken</I>, and Pepys has it +read aloud by his wife. "I find it," he says, "so well writ as, I think, +it is too good for him ever to have writ it; and it is a serious sort of +book, and <I>not fit for everybody to read</I>." Nothing is more galling to +the merely respectable than to be brought in contact with religious +ardor. Pepys had his own foundations, sandy enough, but dear to him from +practical considerations, and he would read the book with true uneasiness +of spirit; for conceive the blow if, by some plaguy accident, this Pen +were to convert him! It was a different kind of doctrine that he judged +profitable for himself and others. "A good sermon of Mr. Gifford's at +our church, upon 'Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven.' A very excellent +and persuasive, good and moral sermon. He showed, like a wise man, that +righteousness is a surer moral way of being rich than sin and villainy." +It is thus that respectable people desire to have their Greathearts +address them, telling, in mild accents, how you may make the best of both +worlds, and be a moral hero without courage, kindness, or troublesome +reflection; and thus the Gospel, cleared of Eastern metaphor, becomes a +manual of worldly prudence, and a handy-book for Pepys and the successful +merchant. +</P> + +<P> +The respectability of Pepys was deeply grained. He has no idea of truth +except for the Diary. He has no care that a thing shall be, if it but +appear; gives out that he has inherited a good estate, when he has +seemingly got nothing but a lawsuit; and is pleased to be thought liberal +when he knows he has been mean. He is conscientiously ostentatious. I +say conscientiously, with reason. He could never have been taken for a +fop, like Pen, but arrayed himself in a manner nicely suitable to his +position. For long he hesitated to assume the famous periwig; for a +public man should travel gravely with his fashions, not foppishly before, +nor dowdily behind, the central movement of his age. For long he durst +not keep a carriage; that, in his circumstances, would have been +improper; but a time comes, with the growth of his fortune, when the +impropriety has shifted to the other side, and he is "ashamed to be seen +in a hackney." Pepys talked about being "a Quaker or some very +melancholy thing;" for my part, I can imagine nothing so melancholy, +because nothing half so silly, as to be concerned about such problems. +But so respectability and the duties of society haunt and burden their +poor devotees; and what seems at first the very primrose path of life, +proves difficult and thorny like the rest. And the time comes to Pepys, +as to all the merely respectable, when he must not only order his +pleasures, but even clip his virtuous movements, to the public patter of +the age. There was some juggling among officials to avoid direct +taxation; and Pepys, with a noble impulse, growing ashamed of this +dishonesty, designed to charge himself with L1000; but finding none to +set him an example, "nobody of our ablest merchants" with this moderate +liking for clean hands, he judged it "not decent;" he feared it would "be +thought vain glory;" and, rather than appear singular, cheerfully +remained a thief. One able merchant's countenance, and Pepys had dared +to do an honest act! Had he found one brave spirit, properly recognized +by society, he might have gone far as a disciple. Mrs. Turner, it is +true, can fill him full of sordid scandal, and make him believe, against +the testimony of his senses, that Pen's venison pasty stank like the +devil; but, on the other hand, Sir William Coventry can raise him by a +word into another being. Pepys, when he is with Coventry, talks in the +vein of an old Roman. What does he care for office or emolument? "Thank +God, I have enough of my own," says he, "to buy me a good book and a good +fiddle, and I have a good wife." And again, we find this pair projecting +an old age when an ungrateful country shall have dismissed them from the +field of public service; Coventry living retired in a fine house, and +Pepys dropping in, "it may be, to read a chapter of Seneca." +</P> + +<P> +Under this influence, the only good one in his life, Pepys continued +zealous and, for the period, pure in his employment. He would not be +"bribed to be unjust," he says, though he was "not so squeamish as to +refuse a present after," suppose the king to have received no wrong. His +new arrangement for the victualling of Tangier, he tells us with honest +complacency, will save the king a thousand and gain Pepys three hundred +pounds a year,—a statement which exactly fixes the degree of the age's +enlightenment. But for his industry and capacity no praise can be too +high. It was an unending struggle for the man to stick to his business +in such a garden of Armida as he found this life; and the story of his +oaths, so often broken, so courageously renewed, is worthy rather of +admiration than the contempt it has received. +</P> + +<P> +Elsewhere, and beyond the sphere of Coventry's influence, we find him +losing scruples and daily complying further with the age. When he began +the Journal, he was a trifle prim and puritanic; merry enough, to be +sure, over his private cups, and still remembering Magdalene ale and his +acquaintance with Mrs. Ainsworth of Cambridge. But youth is a hot season +with all; when a man smells April and May he is apt at times to stumble; +and in spite of a disordered practice, Pepy's [Transcriber's note: +Pepys'?] theory, the better things that he approved and followed after, +we may even say were strict. Where there was "tag, rag, and bobtail, +dancing, singing, and drinking," he felt "ashamed, and went away;" and +when he slept in church he prayed God forgive him. In but a little while +we find him with some ladies keeping each other awake "from spite," as +though not to sleep in church were an obvious hardship; and yet later he +calmly passes the time of service, looking about him, with a perspective +glass, on all the pretty women. His favorite ejaculation, "Lord!" occurs +but once that I have observed in 1660, never in '61, twice in '62, and at +least five times in '63; after which the "Lords" may be said to pullulate +like herrings, with here and there a solitary "damned," as it were a +whale among the shoal. He and his wife, once filled with dudgeon by some +innocent freedoms at a marriage, are soon content to go pleasuring with +my Lord Brouncker's mistress, who was not even, by his own account, the +most discreet of mistresses. Tag, rag, and bobtail, dancing, singing, +and drinking become his natural element; actors and actresses and +drunken, roaring courtiers are to be found in his society; until the man +grew so involved with Saturnalian manners and companions that he was shot +almost unconsciously into the grand domestic crash of 1668. +</P> + +<P> +That was the legitimate issue and punishment of years of staggering walk +and conversation. The man who has smoked his pipe for half a century in +a powder magazine finds himself at last the author and the victim of a +hideous disaster. So with our pleasant-minded Pepys and his +peccadilloes. All of a sudden, as he still trips dexterously enough +among the dangers of a double-faced career, thinking no great evil, +humming to himself the trillo, Fate takes the further conduct of that +matter from his hands, and brings him face to face with the consequences +of his acts. For a man still, after so many years, the lover, although +not the constant lover, of his wife,—for a man, besides, who was so +greatly careful of appearances,—the revelation of his infidelities was a +crushing blow. The tears that he shed, the indignities that he endured, +are not to be measured. A vulgar woman, and now justly incensed, Mrs. +Pepys spared him no detail of suffering. She was violent, threatening +him with the tongs; she was careless of his honor, driving him to insult +the mistress whom she had driven him to betray and to discard; worst of +all, she was hopelessly inconsequent in word and thought and deed, now +lulling him with reconciliations, and anon flaming forth again with the +original anger. Pepys had not used his wife well; he had wearied her +with jealousies, even while himself unfaithful; he had grudged her +clothes and pleasures, while lavishing both upon himself; he had abused +her in words; he had bent his fist at her in anger; he had once blacked +her eye; and it is one of the oddest particulars in that odd Diary of +his, that, while the injury is referred to once in passing, there is no +hint as to the occasion or the manner of the blow. But now, when he is +in the wrong, nothing can exceed the long-suffering affection of this +impatient husband. While he was still sinning and still undiscovered, he +seems not to have known a touch of penitence stronger than what might +lead him to take his wife to the theatre, or for an airing, or to give +her a new dress, by way of compensation. Once found out, however, and he +seems to himself to have lost all claim to decent usage. It is perhaps +the strongest instance of his externality. His wife may do what she +pleases, and though he may groan, it will never occur to him to blame +her; he has no weapon left but tears and the most abject submission. We +should perhaps have respected him more had he not given away so +utterly,—above all, had he refused to write, under his wife's dictation, +an insulting letter to his unhappy fellow-culprit, Miss Willet; but +somehow I believe we like him better as he was. +</P> + +<P> +The death of his wife, following so shortly after, must have stamped the +impression of this episode upon his mind. For the remaining years of his +long life we have no Diary to help us, and we have seen already how +little stress is to be laid upon the tenor of his correspondence; but +what with the recollection of the catastrophe of his married life, what +with the natural influence of his advancing years and reputation, it +seems not unlikely that the period of gallantry was at an end for Pepys; +and it is beyond a doubt that he sat down at last to an honored and +agreeable old age among his books and music, the correspondent of Sir +Isaac Newton, and in one instance at least, the poetical counsellor of +Dryden. Through all this period, that Diary which contained the secret +memoirs of his life, with all its inconsistencies and escapades, had been +religiously preserved; nor when he came to die, does he appear to have +provided for its destruction. So we may conceive him faithful to the end +to all his dear and early memories; still mindful of Mrs. Hely in the +woods at Epsom; still lighting at Islington for a cup of kindness to the +dead; still, if he heard again that air that once so much disturbed him, +thrilling at the recollection of the love that bound him to his wife. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09a"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ON THE ELEVATION OF THE LABORING CLASSES +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</I> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>William Ellery Channing, the chief apostle of New England +Unitarianism, was born at Newport, Rhode Island, April 7, 1780. He +graduated from Harvard in 1798, and five years later became minister of +the Federal Street Church in Boston, where he remained for thirty-seven +years. He died October 2, 1842.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Channing was still a child when, in 1785, King's Chapel in Boston, in +revising its liturgy, eliminated the doctrine of the Trinity. For the +next fifty years the movement went on, separating the Congregational +churches in New England into Trinitarian and Unitarian. A sermon +preached by Channing in Baltimore in 1819, at the ordination of Jared +Sparks, is generally regarded as the formulation of the Unitarian +creed, and throughout his life Channing continued a leader in the +denomination.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>To the tolerance, the culture, and the high civic and private virtue +that characterised the typical Unitarian of that time, Channing added +an emotional and spiritual quality, and an interest in philosophy, that +make him not merely the greatest of the Unitarian leaders, but in +important respects the first of the Transcendentalists. "The +Calvinists," it has been said, "believed that human nature is totally +depraved; the Unitarians denied this, their denial carrying with it the +positive implication that human nature is essentially good; the +Transcendentalists believed that human nature is divine" (Goddard). +Judged by this test, Channing belongs to the third group, for it is in +his passionate faith in the divinity of human nature, apparent in the +following lectures "On the Elevation of the Laboring Classes," as in +his writing and preaching in general, that one finds the characteristic +mark of his spirit and the main secret of his power.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +INTRODUCTORY REMARKS +</H3> + +<P> +The following lectures were prepared for two meetings of mechanics, one +of them consisting of apprentices, the other of adults. For want of +strength they were delivered only to the former, though, in preparing +them, I had kept the latter also in view. "The Mechanic Apprentices' +Library Association," at whose request the lectures are published, is +an institution of much promise, not only furnishing a considerable +means of intellectual improvement, but increasing the self-respect and +conducing to the moral safety of the members. +</P> + +<P> +When I entered on this task, I thought of preparing only one lecture of +the usual length. But I soon found that I could not do justice to my +views in so narrow a compass, I therefore determined to write at large, +and to communicate through the press the results of my labor, if they +should be thought worthy of publication. With this purpose, I +introduced topics which I did not deliver, and which I thought might be +usefully presented to some who might not hear me. I make this +statement to prevent the objection, that the lectures are not, in all +things, adapted to those to whom they were delivered. Whilst written +chiefly for a class, they were also intended for the community. +</P> + +<P> +As the same general subject is discussed in these lectures as in the +"Lecture on Self-Culture," published last winter, there will, of +course, be found in them that coincidence of thoughts which always +takes place in the writings of a man who has the inculcation of certain +great principles much at heart. Still, the point of view, the mode of +discussion, and the choice of topics, differ much in the two +productions; so that my state of mind would be given very imperfectly +were the present lectures withheld. +</P> + +<P> +This is, probably, the last opportunity I shall have for communicating +with the laboring classes through the press. I may, therefore, be +allowed to express my earnest wishes for their happiness, and my strong +hope that they will justify the confidence of their friends, and will +prove by their example the possibility of joining with labor all the +improvements which do honor to our nature—<I>W. E. C., Boston, February +11, 1840.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ON THE ELEVATION OF THE LABORING CLASSES +</H3> + +<P> +It is with no common pleasure that I take part in the present course of +lectures. Such a course is a sign of the times, and very interesting to +all who are interested in the progress of their fellow-creatures. We +hear much of the improvements of our age. The wonders achieved by +machinery are the common talk of every circle; but I confess that, to me, +this gathering of mechanics' apprentices, whose chief bond of union is a +library, and who come together weekly to refresh and improve themselves +by the best instruction which the state of society places within their +reach, is more encouraging than all the miracles of the machinist. In +this meeting I see, what I desire most to see, that the mass of the +people are beginning to comprehend themselves and their true happiness, +that they are catching glimpses of the great work and vocation of human +beings, and are rising to their true place in the social state. The +present meeting indicates a far more radical, more important change in +the world than the steam-engine, or the navigation of the Atlantic in a +fortnight. That members of the laboring class, at the close of a day's +work, should assemble in such a hall as this, to hear lectures on +science, history, ethics, and the most stirring topics of the day, from +men whose education is thought to fit them for the highest offices, is a +proof of a social revolution to which no bounds can be set, and from +which too much cannot be hoped. I see in it a repeal of the sentence of +degradation passed by ages on the mass of mankind. I see in it the dawn +of a new era, in which it will be understood that the first object of +society is to give incitements and means of progress to all its members. +I see in it the sign of the approaching triumph of men's spiritual over +their outward and material interests. In the hunger and thirst for +knowledge and for refined pleasures which this course of lectures +indicates in those who labor, I see that the spirit of man is not always +to be weighed down by toils for animal life and by the appetite for +animal indulgences. I do attach great importance to this meeting, not +for its own sake or its immediate benefits, but as a token and pledge of +a new impulse given to society through all its conditions. On this +account, I take more pleasure in speaking here than I should feel in +being summoned to pronounce a show-oration before all the kings and +nobles on earth. In truth, it is time to have done with shows. The age +is too stirring, we are pressed on by too solemn interests, to be +justified in making speeches for self-display or mere amusement. He who +cannot say something in sympathy with, or in aid of, the great movements +of humanity, might as well hold his peace. +</P> + +<P> +With these feelings and convictions, I am naturally, almost necessarily, +led to address you on a topic which must insure the attention of such an +audience: namely, the elevation of that portion of the community who +subsist by the labor of the hands. This work, I have said, is going on. +I may add, that it is advancing nowhere so rapidly as in this city. I do +not believe that, on the face of the earth, the spirit of improvement has +anywhere seized so strongly on those who live by the sweat of the brow as +among ourselves. Here it is nothing rare to meet the union of +intellectual culture and self-respect with hard work. Here the prejudice +against labor as degrading has very much given way. This, then, is the +place where the subject which I have proposed should be discussed. We +ought to consider in what the true elevation of the laboring portion +consists, how far it is practicable, and how it may be helped onward. +The subject, I am aware, is surrounded with much prejudice and error. +Great principles need to be brought out, and their application plainly +stated. There are serious objections to be met, fears to be disarmed, +and rash hopes to be crushed. I do not profess to have mastered the +topic. But I can claim one merit, that of coming to the discussion with +a feeling of its importance, and with a deep interest in the class of +people whom it concerns. I trust that this expression of interest will +not be set down as mere words, or as meant to answer any selfish purpose. +A politician who professes attachment to the people is suspected to love +them for their votes. But a man who neither seeks nor would accept any +place within their gift may hope to be listened to as their friend. As a +friend, I would speak plainly. I cannot flatter. I see defects in the +laboring classes. I think that, as yet, the greater part of them have +made little progress; that the prejudices and passions, the sensuality +and selfishness of multitudes among them, are formidable barriers to +improvement; that multitudes have not waked as yet to a dim conception of +the end for which they are to struggle. My hopes do not blind me to what +exists; and with this clear sense of the deficiencies of the multitude of +men, I cannot, without guilt, minister to their vanity. Not that they +alone are to be charged with deficiencies. Look where we may, we shall +discern in all classes ground for condemnation; and whoever would do good +ought to speak the truth of all, only remembering that he is to speak +with sympathy, and with a consciousness of his own fallibleness and +infirmity. +</P> + +<P> +In giving my views of the elevation of the laboring multitude, I wish +that it may be understood that I shall often speak prospectively, or of +changes and improvements which are not to be expected immediately, or +soon; and this I say, that I may not be set down as a dreamer, expecting +to regenerate the world in a day. I fear, however, that this explanation +will not shield me from this and like reproaches. There are men who, in +the face of all history, of the great changes wrought in men's condition, +and of the new principles which are now acting on society, maintain that +the future is to be a copy of the past, and probably a faded rather than +bright copy. From such I differ, and did I not differ I would not stand +here. Did I expect nothing better from human nature than I see, I should +have no heart for the present effort, poor as it may be. I see the signs +of a better futurity, and especially signs that the large class by whose +toil we all live are rising from the dust; and this faith is my only +motive to what I now offer. +</P> + +<P> +The elevation of the laboring portion of society: this is our subject. I +shall first consider in what this consists. I shall then consider some +objections to its practicableness, and to this point shall devote no +small part of the discussion; and shall close the subject with giving +some grounds of my faith and hope in regard to the most numerous class of +our fellow-beings. +</P> + +<P> +I. What is to be understood by the elevation of the laboring class? +This is our first topic. To prevent misapprehension, I will begin with +stating what is not meant by it, in what it does not consist.—I say, +then, that by the elevation of the laborer, I do not understand that he +is to be raised above the need of labor. I do not expect a series of +improvements, by which he is to be released from his daily work. Still +more, I have no desire to dismiss him from his workshop and farm, to take +the spade and axe from his hand, and to make his life a long holiday. I +have faith in labor, and I see the goodness of God in placing us in a +world where labor alone can keep us alive. I would not change, if I +could, our subjection to physical laws, our exposure to hunger and cold, +and the necessity of constant conflicts with the material world. I would +not, if I could, so temper the elements that they should infuse into us +only grateful sensations, that they should make vegetation so exuberant +as to anticipate every want, and the minerals so ductile as to offer no +resistance to our strength and skill. Such a world would make a +contemptible race. Man owes his growth, his energy, chiefly to that +striving of the will, that conflict with difficulty, which we call +effort. Easy, pleasant work does not make robust minds, does not give +men a consciousness of their powers, does not train them to endurance, to +perseverance, to steady force of will, that force without which all other +acquisitions avail nothing. Manual labor is a school in which men are +placed to get energy of purpose and character,—a vastly more important +endowment than all the learning of all other schools. They are placed, +indeed, under hard masters, physical sufferings and wants, the power of +fearful elements, and the vicissitudes of all human things; but these +stern teachers do a work which no compassionate, indulgent friend could +do for us; and true wisdom will bless Providence for their sharp +ministry. I have great faith in hard work. The material world does much +for the mind by its beauty and order; but it does more for our minds by +the pains it inflicts; by its obstinate resistance, which nothing but +patient toil can overcome; by its vast forces, which nothing but +unremitting skill and effort can turn to our use; by its perils, which +demand continual vigilance; and by its tendencies to decay. I believe +that difficulties are more important to the human mind than what we call +assistances. Work we all must, if we mean to bring out and perfect our +nature. Even if we do not work with the hands, we must undergo +equivalent toil in some other direction. No business or study which does +not present obstacles, tasking to the full the intellect and the will, is +worthy of a man. In science, he who does not grapple with hard +questions, who does not concentrate his whole intellect in vigorous +attention, who does not aim to penetrate what at first repels him, will +never attain to mental force. The uses of toil reach beyond the present +world. The capacity of steady, earnest labor is, I apprehend, one of our +great preparations for another state of being. When I see the vast +amount of toil required of men, I feel that it must have important +connection with their future existence; and that he who has met this +discipline manfully has laid one essential foundation of improvement, +exertion, and happiness in the world to come. You will here see that to +me labor has great dignity. It is not merely the grand instrument by +which the earth is overspread with fruitfulness and beauty, and the ocean +subdued, and matter wrought into innumerable forms for comfort and +ornament. It has a far higher function, which is to give force to the +will, efficiency, courage, the capacity of endurance, and of persevering +devotion to far-reaching plans. Alas, for the man who has not learned to +work! He is a poor creature. He does not know himself. He depends on +others, with no capacity of making returns for the support they give; and +let him not fancy that he has a monopoly of enjoyment. Ease, rest, owes +its deliciousness to toil; and no toil is so burdensome as the rest of +him who has nothing to task and quicken his powers. +</P> + +<P> +I do not, then, desire to release the laborer from toil. This is not the +elevation to be sought for him. Manual labor is a great good; but, in so +saying, I must be understood to speak of labor in its just proportions. +In excess it does great harm. It is not a good, when made the sole work +of life. It must be joined with higher means of improvement, or it +degrades instead of exalting. Man has a various nature, which requires a +variety of occupation and discipline for its growth. Study, meditation, +society, and relaxation should be mixed up with his physical toils. He +has intellect, heart, imagination, taste, as well as bones and muscles; +and he is grievously wronged when compelled to exclusive drudgery for +bodily subsistence. Life should be an alternation of employments, so +diversified as to call the whole man into action. Unhappily our present +civilization is far from realizing this idea. It tends to increase the +amount of manual toil, at the very time that it renders this toil less +favorable to the culture of the mind. The division of labor, which +distinguishes civilized from savage life, and to which we owe chiefly the +perfection of the arts, tends to dwarf the intellectual powers, by +confining the activity of the individual to a narrow range, to a few +details, perhaps to the heading of pins, the pointing of nails, or the +tying together of broken strings; so that while the savage has his +faculties sharpened by various occupations, and by exposure to various +perils, the civilized man treads a monotonous, stupefying round of +unthinking toil. This cannot, must not, always be. Variety of action, +corresponding to the variety of human powers, and fitted to develop all, +is the most important element of human civilization. It should be the +aim of philanthropists. In proportion as Christianity shall spread the +spirit of brotherhood, there will and must be a more equal distribution +of toils and means of improvement. That system of labor which saps the +health, and shortens life, and famishes intellect, needs, and must +receive, great modification. Still, labor in due proportion is an +important part of our present lot. It is the condition of all outward +comforts and improvements, whilst, at the same time, it conspires with +higher means and influences in ministering to the vigor and growth of the +soul. Let us not fight against it. We need this admonition, because at +the present moment there is a general disposition to shun labor; and this +ought to be regarded as a bad sign of our times. The city is thronged +with adventurers from the country, and the liberal professions are +overstocked, in the hope of escaping the primeval sentence of living by +the sweat of the brow; and to this crowding of men into trade we owe not +only the neglect of agriculture, but, what is far worse, the +demoralization of the community. It generates excessive competition, +which of necessity generates fraud. Trade is turned to gambling; and a +spirit of mad speculation exposes public and private interests to a +disastrous instability. It is, then, no part of the philanthropy which +would elevate the laboring body, to exempt them from manual toil. In +truth, a wise philanthropy would, if possible, persuade all men of all +conditions to mix up a measure of this toil with their other pursuits. +The body as well as the mind needs vigorous exertion, and even the +studious would be happier were they trained to labor as well as thought. +Let us learn to regard manual toil as the true discipline of a man. Not +a few of the wisest, grandest spirits have toiled at the work-bench and +the plough. +</P> + +<P> +I have said that, by the elevation of the laboring mass, I do not mean +that they are to be released from labor. I add, in the next place, that +this elevation is not to be gained by efforts to force themselves into +what are called the upper ranks of society. I wish them to rise, but I +have no desire to transform them into gentlemen or ladies, according to +the common acceptation of these terms. I desire for them not an outward +and showy, but an inward and real change; not to give them new titles and +an artificial rank, but substantial improvements and real claims to +respect. I have no wish to dress them from a Parisian tailor's shop, or +to teach them manners from a dancing-school. I have no desire to see +them, at the end of the day, doff their working dress, that they may play +a part in richly attired circles. I have no desire that they should be +admitted to luxurious feasts, or should get a taste for gorgeous +upholstery. There is nothing cruel in the necessity which sentences the +multitude of men to eat, dress, and lodge plainly and simply, especially +where the sentence is executed so mildly as in this country. In this +country, where the demand for labor is seldom interrupted, and the +openings for enterprise are numerous beyond precedent, the laboring +class, with few exceptions, may well be satisfied with their +accommodations. Very many of them need nothing but a higher taste for +beauty, order, and neatness, to give an air of refinement and grace as +well as comfort to their establishments. In this country, the mass of +laborers have their share of outward good. Their food, abundant and +healthful, seasoned with the appetite which labor gives, is, on the +whole, sweeter as well as healthier than the elaborate luxuries of the +prosperous; and their sleep is sounder and more refreshing than falls to +the lot of the less employed. Were it a possible thing, I should be +sorry to see them turned into men and women of fashion. Fashion is a +poor vocation. Its creed, that idleness is a privilege, and work a +disgrace, is among the deadliest errors. Without depth of thought, or +earnestness of feeling, or strength of purpose, living an unreal life, +sacrificing substance to show, substituting the factitious for the +natural, mistaking a crowd for society, finding its chief pleasure in +ridicule, and exhausting its ingenuity in expedients for killing time, +fashion is among the last influences under which a human being, who +respects himself or who comprehends the great end of life, would desire +to be placed. I use strong language, because I would combat the +disposition, too common in the laboring mass, to regard what is called +the upper class with envy or admiration. This disposition manifests +itself among them in various forms. Thus, when one of their number +prospers he is apt to forget his old acquaintance, and to work his way, +if possible, into a more fashionable caste. As far, indeed, as he +extends his acquaintance among the intelligent, refined, generous, and +truly honorable, he makes a substantial improvement of his condition; but +if, as is too often the case, he is admitted by way of favor into a +circle which has few claims beyond those of greater luxury and show, and +which bestows on him a patronizing, condescending notice, in exchange for +his old, honorable influence among his original associates, he does any +thing but rise. Such is not the elevation I desire for the laborer. I +do not desire him to struggle into another rank. Let him not be a +servile copyist of other classes, but aim at something higher than has +yet been realized in any body of men. Let him not associate the idea of +dignity or honor with certain modes of living, or certain outward +connections. I would have every man stand on his own ground, and take +his place among men according to personal endowments and worth, and not +according to outward appendages; and I would have every member of the +community furnished with such means of improvement, that, if faithful to +himself, he may need no outward appendage to attract the respect of all +around him. +</P> + +<P> +I have said, that the people are not to be elevated by escaping labor, or +by pressing into a different rank. Once more, I do not mean by the +elevation of the people, that they should become self-important +politicians; that, as individuals or a class, they should seize on +political power; that by uniting their votes they should triumph over the +more prosperous; or that they should succeed in bending the +administration of government to their particular interests. An +individual is not elevated by figuring in public affairs, or even by +getting into office. He needs previous elevation to save him from +disgrace in his public relations. To govern one's self, not others, is +true glory. To serve through love, not to rule, is Christian greatness. +Office is not dignity. The lowest men, because most faithless in +principle, most servile to opinion, are to be found in office. I am +sorry to say it, but the truth should be spoken, that, at the present +moment, political action in this country does little to lift up any who +are concerned in it. It stands in opposition to a high morality. +Politics, indeed, regarded as the study and pursuit of the true, enduring +good of a community, as the application of great unchangeable principles +to public affairs, is a noble sphere of thought and action; but politics, +in its common sense, or considered as the invention of temporary shifts, +as the playing of a subtile game, as the tactics of party for gaining +power and the spoils of office, and for elevating one set of men above +another, is a paltry and debasing concern. The laboring class are +sometimes stimulated to seek power as a class, and this it is thought +will raise them. But no class, as such, should bear rule among us. All +conditions of society should be represented in the government, and alike +protected by it; nor can any thing be expected but disgrace to the +individual and the country from the success of any class in grasping at a +monopoly of political power. I would by no means discourage the +attention of the people to politics. They ought to study in earnest the +interests of the country, the principles of our institutions, the +tendencies of public measures. But the unhappiness is, they do not +<I>study</I>; and, until they do, they cannot rise by political action. A +great amount of time, which, if well used, would form an enlightened +population, is now wasted on newspapers and conversations, which inflame +the passions, which unscrupulously distort the truth, which denounce +moral independence as treachery to one's party, which agitate the country +for no higher end than a triumph over opponents; and thus multitudes are +degraded into men-worshippers or men-haters, into the dupes of the +ambitious, or the slaves of a faction. To rise, the people must +substitute reflection for passion. There is no other way. By these +remarks, I do not mean to charge on the laboring class all the +passionateness of the country. All classes partake of the madness, and +all are debased by it. The fiery spirits are not confined to one portion +of the community. The men, whose ravings resound through the halls of +Congress, and are then circulated through the country as eloquence, are +not taken from among those who toil. Party prejudices break out as +fiercely on the exchange, and even in the saloon, as in the workshop. +The disease has spread everywhere. Yet it does not dishearten me, for I +see that it admits of mitigation, if not of cure. I trust that these +lectures, and other sources of intellectual enjoyment now opening to the +public, will abate the fever of political excitement, by giving better +occupation to the mind. Much, too, may be hoped from the growing +self-respect of the people, which will make them shrink indignantly from +the disgrace of being used as blinded partisans and unreflecting tools. +Much also is to be hoped from the discovery, which must sooner or later +be made, that the importance of government is enormously overrated, that +it does not deserve all this stir, that there are vastly more effectual +means of human happiness. Political institutions are to be less and less +deified, and to shrink into a narrower space; and just in proportion as a +wiser estimate of government prevails, the present frenzy of political +excitement will be discovered and put to shame. +</P> + +<P> +I have now said what I do not mean by the elevation of the laboring +classes. It is not an outward change of condition. It is not release +from labor. It is not struggling for another rank. It is not political +power. I understand something deeper. I know but one elevation of a +human being, and that is elevation of soul. Without this, it matters +nothing where a man stands or what he possesses; and with it, he towers, +he is one of God's nobility, no matter what place he holds in the social +scale. There is but one elevation for a laborer, and for all other men. +There are not different kinds of dignity for different orders of men, but +one and the same to all. The only elevation of a human being consists in +the exercise, growth, energy of the higher principles and powers of his +soul. A bird may be shot upward to the skies by a foreign force; but it +rises, in the true sense of the word, only when it spreads its own wings +and soars by its own living power. So a man may be thrust upward into a +conspicuous place by outward accidents; but he rises, only in so far as +he exerts himself, and expands his best faculties, and ascends by a free +effort to a nobler region of thought and action. Such is the elevation I +desire for the laborer, and I desire no other. This elevation is indeed +to be aided by an improvement of his outward condition, and in turn it +greatly improves his outward lot; and thus connected, outward good is +real and great; but supposing it to exist in separation from inward +growth and life, it would be nothing worth, nor would I raise a finger to +promote it. +</P> + +<P> +I know it will be said, that such elevation as I have spoken of is not +and cannot be within the reach of the laboring multitude, and of +consequence they ought not to be tantalized with dreams of its +attainment. It will be said that the principal part of men are plainly +designed to work on matter for the acquisition of material and corporeal +good, and that, in such, the spirit is of necessity too wedded to matter +to rise above it. This objection will be considered by and by; but I +would just observe, in passing, that the objector must have studied very +carelessly the material world, if he suppose that it is meant to be the +grave of the minds of most of those who occupy it. Matter was made for +spirit, body for mind. The mind, the spirit, is the end of this living +organization of flesh and bones, of nerves and muscles; and the end of +this vast system of sea and land, and air and skies. This unbounded +creation of sun, and moon, and stars, and clouds, and seasons, was not +ordained merely to feed and clothe the body, but first and supremely to +awaken, nourish, and expand the soul, to be the school of the intellect, +the nurse of thought and imagination, the field for the active powers, a +revelation of the Creator, and a bond of social union. We were placed in +the material creation, not to be its slaves, but to master it, and to +make it a minister to our highest powers. It is interesting to observe +how much the material world does for the mind. Most of the sciences, +arts, professions, and occupations of life, grow out of our connection +with matter. The natural philosopher, the physician, the lawyer, the +artist, and the legislator, find the objects or occasions of their +researches in matter. The poet borrows his beautiful imagery from +matter. The sculptor and painter express their noble conceptions through +matter. Material wants rouse the world to activity. The material organs +of sense, especially the eye, wake up infinite thoughts in the mind. To +maintain, then, that the mass of men are and must be so immersed in +matter, that their souls cannot rise, is to contradict the great end of +their connection with matter. I maintain that the philosophy which does +not see, in the laws and phenomena of outward nature, the means of +awakening mind, is lamentably short-sighted: and that a state of society +which leaves the mass of men to be crushed and famished in soul by +excessive toils on matter is at war with God's designs, and turns into +means of bondage what was meant to free and expand the soul. +</P> + +<P> +Elevation of soul, this is to be desired for the laborer as for every +human being; and what does this mean? The phrase, I am aware, is vague, +and often serves for mere declamation. Let me strive to convey some +precise ideas of it; and in doing this, I can use no language which will +save the hearer from the necessity of thought. The subject is a +spiritual one. It carries us into the depths of our own nature, and I +can say nothing about it worth saying, without tasking your powers of +attention, without demanding some mental toil. I know that these +lectures are meant for entertainment rather than mental labor; but, as I +have told you, I have great faith in labor, and I feel that I cannot be +more useful than in exciting the hearer to some vigorous action of mind. +</P> + +<P> +Elevation of soul, in what does this consist? Without aiming at +philosophical exactness, I shall convey a sufficiently precise idea of +it, by saying that it consists, first, in force of thought exerted for +the acquisition of truth; secondly, in force of pure and generous +feeling; thirdly, in force of moral purpose. Each of these topics needs +a lecture for its development. I must confine myself to the first; from +which, however, you may learn in a measure my views of the other +two.—Before entering on this topic, let me offer one preliminary remark. +To every man who would rise in dignity as a man, be he rich or poor, +ignorant or instructed, there is one essential condition, one effort, one +purpose, without which not a step can be taken. He must resolutely +purpose and labor to free himself from whatever he knows to be wrong in +his motives and life. He who habitually allows himself in any known +crime or wrong-doing, effectually bars his progress towards a higher +intellectual and moral life. On this point every man should deal +honestly with himself. If he will not listen to his conscience, rebuking +him for violations of plain duty, let him not dream of self-elevation. +The foundation is wanting. He will build, if at all, in sand. +</P> + +<P> +I now proceed to my main subject. I have said that the elevation of a +man is to be sought, or rather consists, first, in force of thought +exerted for the acquisition of truth; and to this I ask your serious +attention. Thought, thought, is the fundamental distinction of mind, and +the great work of life. All that a man does outwardly is but the +expression and completion of his inward thought. To work effectually, he +must think clearly. To act nobly, he must think nobly. Intellectual +force is a principal element of the soul's life, and should be proposed +by every man as a principal end of his being. It is common to +distinguish between the intellect and the conscience, between the power +of thought and virtue, and to say that virtuous action is worth more than +strong thinking. But we mutilate our nature by thus drawing lines +between actions or energies of the soul, which are intimately, +indissolubly bound together. The head and the heart are not more vitally +connected than thought and virtue. Does not conscience include, as a +part of itself, the noblest action of the intellect or reason? Do we not +degrade it by making it a mere feeling? Is it not something more? Is it +not a wise discernment of the right, the holy, the good? Take away +thought from virtue, and what remains worthy of a man? Is not high +virtue more than blind instinct? Is it not founded on, and does it not +include clear, bright perceptions of what is lovely and grand in +character and action? Without power of thought, what we call +conscientiousness, or a desire to do right, shoots out into illusion, +exaggeration, pernicious excess. The most cruel deeds on earth have been +perpetrated in the name of conscience. Men have hated and murdered one +another from a sense of duty. The worst frauds have taken the name of +pious. Thought, intelligence, is the dignity of a man, and no man is +rising but in proportion as he is learning to think clearly and forcibly, +or directing the energy of his mind to the acquisition of truth. Every +man, in whatsoever condition, is to be a student. No matter what other +vocation he may have, his chief vocation is to Think. +</P> + +<P> +I say every man is to be a student, a thinker. This does not mean that +he is to shut himself within four walls, and bend his body and mind over +books. Men thought before books were written, and some of the greatest +thinkers never entered what we call a study. Nature, Scripture, society, +and life, present perpetual subjects for thought; and the man who +collects, concentrates, employs his faculties on any of these subjects +for the purpose of getting the truth, is so far a student, a thinker, a +philosopher, and is rising to the dignity of a man. It is time that we +should cease to limit to professed scholars the titles of thinkers, +philosophers. Whoever seeks truth with an earnest mind, no matter when +or how, belongs to the school of intellectual men. +</P> + +<P> +In a loose sense of the word, all men may be said to think; that is, a +succession of ideas, notions, passes through their minds from morning to +night; but in as far as this succession is passive, undirected, or +governed only by accident and outward impulse, it has little more claim +to dignity than the experience of the brute, who receives, with like +passiveness, sensations from abroad through his waking hours. Such +thought, if thought it may be called, having no aim, is as useless as the +vision of an eye which rests on nothing, which flies without pause over +earth and sky, and of consequence receives no distinct image. Thought, +in its true sense, is an energy of intellect. In thought, the mind not +only receives impressions or suggestions from without or within, but +reacts upon them, collects its attention, concentrates its forces upon +them, breaks them up and analyzes them like a living laboratory, and then +combines them anew, traces their connections, and thus impresses itself +on all the objects which engage it. +</P> + +<P> +The universe in which we live was plainly meant by God to stir up such +thought as has now been described. It is full of difficulty and mystery, +and can only be penetrated and unravelled by the concentration of the +intellect. Every object, even the simplest in nature and society, every +event of life, is made up of various elements subtly bound together; so +that, to understand anything, we must reduce it from its complexity to +its parts and principles, and examine their relations to one another. +Nor is this all. Every thing which enters the mind not only contains a +depth of mystery in itself, but is connected by a thousand ties with all +other things. The universe is not a disorderly, disconnected heap, but a +beautiful whole, stamped throughout with unity, so as to be an image of +the One Infinite Spirit. Nothing stands alone. All things are knit +together, each existing for all and all for each. The humblest object +has infinite connections. The vegetable, which you saw on your table +to-day, came to you from the first plant which God made to grow on the +earth, and was the product of the rains and sunshine of six thousand +years. Such a universe demands thought to be understood; and we are +placed in it to think, to put forth the power within, to look beneath the +surface of things, to look beyond particular facts and events to their +causes and effects, to their reasons and ends, their mutual influences, +their diversities and resemblances, their proportions and harmonies, and +the general laws which bind them together. This is what I mean by +thinking; and by such thought the mind rises to a dignity which humbly +represents the greatness of the Divine intellect; that is, it rises more +and more to consistency of views, to broad general principles, to +universal truths, to glimpses of the order and harmony and infinity of +the Divine system, and thus to a deep, enlightened veneration of the +Infinite Father. Do not be startled, as if I were holding out an +elevation of mind utterly to be despaired of; for all thinking, which +aims honestly and earnestly to see things as they are, to see them in +their connections, and to bring the loose, conflicting ideas of the mind +into consistency and harmony, all such thinking, no matter in what +sphere, is an approach to the dignity of which I speak. You are all +capable of the thinking which I recommend. You have all practised it in +a degree. The child, who casts an inquiring eye on a new toy, and breaks +it to pieces that he may discover the mysterious cause of its movements, +has begun the work of which I speak, has begun to be a philosopher, has +begun to penetrate the unknown, to seek consistency and harmony of +thought; and let him go on as he has begun, and make it one great +business of life to inquire into the elements, connections, and reasons +of whatever he witnesses in his own breast, or in society, or in outward +nature, and, be his condition what it may, he will rise by degrees to a +freedom and force of thought, to a breadth and unity of views, which will +be to him an inward revelation and promise of the intellectual greatness +for which he was created. +</P> + +<P> +You will observe, that in speaking of force of thought as the elevation +of the laborer and of every human being, I have continually supposed this +force to be exerted for the purpose of acquiring truth. I beg you never +to lose sight of this motive, for it is essential to intellectual +dignity. Force of thought may be put forth for other purposes,—to amass +wealth for selfish gratification, to give the individual power over +others, to blind others, to weave a web of sophistry, to cast a deceitful +lustre on vice, to make the worse appear the better cause. But energy of +thought so employed, is suicidal. The intellect, in becoming a pander to +vice, a tool of the passions, an advocate of lies, becomes not only +degraded, but diseased. It loses the capacity of distinguishing truth +from falsehood, good from evil, right from wrong; it becomes as worthless +as an eye which cannot distinguish between colors or forms. Woe to that +mind which wants the love of truth! For want of this, genius has become +a scourge to the world, its breath a poisonous exhalation, its brightness +a seducer into paths of pestilence and death. Truth is the light of the +Infinite Mind, and the image of God in his creatures. Nothing endures +but truth. The dreams, fictions, theories, which men would substitute +for it, soon die. Without its guidance effort is vain, and hope +baseless. Accordingly, the love of truth, a deep thirst for it, a +deliberate purpose to seek it and hold it fast, may be considered as the +very foundation of human culture and dignity. Precious as thought is, +the love of truth is still more precious; for without it, +thought—thought wanders and wastes itself, and precipitates men into +guilt and misery. There is no greater defect in education and the pulpit +than that they inculcate so little an impartial, earnest, reverential +love of truth, a readiness to toil, to live and die for it. Let the +laboring man be imbued in a measure with this spirit; let him learn to +regard himself as endowed with the power of thought, for the very end of +acquiring truth; let him learn to regard truth as more precious than his +daily bread; and the spring of true and perpetual elevation is touched +within him. He has begun to be a man; he becomes one of the elect of his +race. Nor do I despair of this elevation of the laborer. Unhappily +little, almost nothing, has been done as yet to inspire either rich or +poor with the love of truth for its own sake, or for the life, and +inspiration, and dignity it gives to the soul. The prosperous have as +little of this principle as the laboring mass. I think, indeed, that the +spirit of luxurious, fashionable life, is more hostile to it than the +hardships of the poor. Under a wise culture, this principle may be +awakened in all classes, and wherever awakened, it will form +philosophers, successful and noble thinkers. These remarks seem to me +particularly important, as showing how intimate a union subsists between +the moral and intellectual nature, and how both must work together from +the beginning. All human culture rests on a moral foundation, on an +impartial, disinterested spirit, on a willingness to make sacrifices to +the truth. Without this moral power, mere force of thought avails +nothing towards our elevation. +</P> + +<P> +I am aware that I shall be told that the work of thought which I have +insisted on is difficult,—that to collect and concentrate the mind for +the truth is harder than to toil with the hands. Be it so. But are we +weak enough to hope to rise without toil? Does any man, laborer or not, +expect to invigorate body or mind without strenuous effort? Does not the +child grow and get strength by throwing a degree of hardship and +vehemence and conflict into his very sports? Does not life without +difficulty become insipid and joyless? Cannot a strong interest turn +difficulty into pleasure? Let the love of truth, of which I have spoken, +be awakened, and obstacles in the way to it will whet, not discourage, +the mind, and inspire a new delight into its acquisition. +</P> + +<P> +I have hitherto spoken of force of thought in general. My views will be +given more completely and distinctly, by considering, next, the objects +on which this force is to be exerted. These may be reduced to two +classes, matter and mind—the physical world which falls under our eyes, +and the spiritual world. The working man is particularly called to make +matter his study, because his business is to work on it, and he works +more wisely, effectually, cheerfully, and honorably, in proportion as he +knows what he acts upon, knows the laws and forces of which he avails +himself, understands the reason of what he does, and can explain the +changes which fall under his eye. Labor becomes a new thing when thought +is thrown into it, when the mind keeps pace with the hands. Every farmer +should study chemistry, so as to understand the elements or ingredients +which enter into soils, vegetation, and manures, and the laws according +to which they combine with and are loosened from one another. So, the +mechanic should understand the mechanical powers, the laws of motion, and +the history and composition of the various substances which he works on. +Let me add, that the farmer and the mechanic should cultivate the +perception of beauty. What a charm and new value might the farmer add to +his grounds and cottage, were he a man of taste! The product of the +mechanic, be it great or small, a house or a shoe, is worth more, +sometimes much more, if he can succeed in giving it the grace of +proportion. In France, it is not uncommon to teach drawing to mechanics, +that they may get a quick eye and a sure hand, and may communicate to +their works the attraction of beauty. Every man should aim to impart +this perfection to his labors. The more of mind we carry into toil, the +better. Without a habit of thought, a man works more like a brute or +machine than like a man. With it, his soul is kept alive amidst his +toils. He learns to fix an observing eye on the processes of his trade, +catches hints which abridge labor, gets glimpses of important +discoveries, and is sometimes able to perfect his art. Even now, after +all the miracles of invention which honor our age, we little suspect what +improvements of machinery are to spring from spreading intelligence and +natural science among workmen. +</P> + +<P> +But I do not stop here. Nature is to engage our force of thought, not +simply for the aid which the knowledge of it gives in working, but for a +higher end. Nature should be studied for its own sake, because so +wonderful a work of God, because impressed with his perfection, because +radiant with beauty, and grandeur, and wisdom, and beneficence. A +laborer, like every other man, is to be liberally educated, that is, he +is to get knowledge, not only for his bodily subsistence, but for the +life, and growth, and elevation of his mind. Am I asked, whether I +expect the laborer to traverse the whole circle of the physical sciences? +Certainly not; nor do I expect the merchant, or the lawyer, or preacher +to do it. Nor is this at all necessary to elevation of soul. The truths +of physical science, which give greatest dignity to the mind, are those +general laws of the creation which it has required ages to unfold, but +which an active mind, bent on self-enlargement, may so far study and +comprehend, as to interpret the changes of nature perpetually taking +place around us, as to see in all the forces of the universe the workings +of one Infinite Power, and in all its arrangements the manifestation of +one unsearchable wisdom. +</P> + +<P> +And this leads me to observe the second great object on which force of +thought is to be exerted, and that is mind, spirit, comprehending under +this word God and all his intelligent offspring. This is the subject of +what are called the metaphysical and moral sciences. This is the grand +field for thought; for the outward, material world is the shadow of the +spiritual, and made to minister to it. This study is of vast extent. It +comprehends theology, metaphysics, moral philosophy, political science, +history, literature. This is a formidable list, and it may seem to +include a vast amount of knowledge which is necessarily placed beyond the +reach of the laborer. But it is an interesting thought, that the key to +these various sciences is given to every human being in his own nature, +so that they are peculiarly accessible to him. How is it that I get my +ideas of God, of my fellow-creatures, of the deeds, suffering, motives, +which make up universal history? I comprehend all these from the +consciousness of what passes in my own soul. The mind within me is a +type representative of all others, and therefore I can understand all. +Whence come my conceptions of the intelligence, and justice, and +goodness, and power of God? It is because my own spirit contains the +germs of these attributes. The ideas of them are first derived from my +own nature, and therefore I comprehend them in other beings. Thus the +foundation of all the sciences which treat of mind is laid in every man's +breast. The good man is exercising in his business and family faculties +and affections which bear a likeness to the attributes of the Divinity, +and to the energies which have made the greatest men illustrious; so that +in studying himself, in learning the highest principles and laws of his +own soul, he is in truth studying God, studying all human history, +studying the philosophy which has immortalized the sages of ancient and +modern times. In every man's mind and life all other minds and lives are +more or less represented and wrapped up. To study other things, I must +go into the outward world, and perhaps go far. To study the science of +spirit, I must come home and enter my own soul. The profoundest books +that have ever been written do nothing more than bring out, place in +clear light, what is passing in each of your minds. So near you, so +within you, is the grandest truth. +</P> + +<P> +I have, indeed, no expectation that the laborer is to understand in +detail the various sciences which relate to mind. Few men in any +vocation do so understand them. Nor is it necessary; though, where time +can be commanded, the thorough study of some particular branch, in which +the individual has a special interest, will be found of great utility. +What is needed to elevate the soul is, not that a man should know all +that has been thought and written in regard to the spiritual nature, not +that a man should become an encyclopaedia, but that the great ideas, in +which all discoveries terminate, which sum up all sciences, which the +philosopher extracts from infinite details, may be comprehended and felt. +It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the +mind's dignity. A man of immense information may, through the want of +large and comprehensive ideas, be far inferior in intellect to a laborer, +who, with little knowledge, has yet seized on great truths. For example, +I do not expect the laborer to study theology in the ancient languages, +in the writings of the Fathers, in the history of sects, &c., &c.; nor is +this needful. All theology, scattered as it is through countless +volumes, is summed up in the idea of God; and let this idea shine bright +and clear in the laborer's soul and he has the essence of theological +libraries, and a far higher light than has visited thousands of renowned +divines. A great mind is formed by a few great ideas, not by an infinity +of loose details. I have known very learned men who seemed to me very +poor in intellect, because they had no grand thoughts. What avails it +that a man has studied ever so minutely the histories of Greece and Rome, +if the great ideas of freedom, and beauty, and valor, and spiritual +energy, have not been kindled by these records into living fires in his +soul? The illumination of an age does not consist in the amount of its +knowledge, but in the broad and noble principles of which that knowledge +is the foundation and inspirer. The truth is, that the most laborious +and successful student is confined in his researches to a very few of +God's works; but this limited knowledge of things may still suggest +universal laws, broad principles, grand ideas, and these elevate the +mind. There are certain thoughts, principles, ideas, which by their +nature rule over all knowledge, which are intrinsically glorious, +quickening, all-comprehending, eternal, and with these I desire to enrich +the mind of the laborer and of every human being. +</P> + +<P> +To illustrate my meaning, let me give a few examples of the great ideas +which belong to the study or science of mind. Of course, the first of +these, the grandest, the most comprehensive, is the idea of God, the +Parent Mind, the Primitive and Infinite Intelligence. Every man's +elevation is to be measured first and chiefly by his conception of this +Great Being; and to attain a just, and bright, and quickening knowledge +of Him, is the highest aim of thought. In truth, the great end of the +universe, of revelation, of life, is to develop in us the idea of God. +Much earnest, patient, laborious thought is required to see this Infinite +Being as He is, to rise above the low, gross notions of the Divinity, +which rush in upon us from our passions, from our selfish partialities, +and from the low-minded world around us. There is one view of God +particularly suited to elevate us. I mean the view of Him as the "Father +of our spirits;" as having created us with great powers to grow up to +perfection; as having ordained all outward things to minister to the +progress of the soul; as always present to inspire and strengthen us, to +wake us up to inward life, and to judge and rebuke our wrong-doing; as +looking with parental joy on our resistance of evil; as desiring to +communicate himself to our minds for ever. This one idea, expanded in +the breast of the laborer, is a germ of elevation more fruitful than all +science, no matter how extensive or profound, which treats only of +outward finite things. It places him in the first rank of human beings. +You hear of great theologians. He only deserves the name, be his +condition what it may, who has, by thought and obedience, purified and +enlarged his conception of God. +</P> + +<P> +From the idea of God, I proceed to another grand one, that of man, of +human nature; and this should be the object of serious, intense thought. +Few men know, as yet, what a man is. They know his clothes, his +complexion, his property, his rank, his follies, and his outward life. +But the thought of his inward being, his proper humanity, has hardly +dawned on multitudes; and yet, who can live a man's life that does not +know what is the distinctive worth of a human being? It is interesting +to observe how faithful men generally are to their idea of a man; how +they act up to it. Spread the notion that courage is true manhood, and +how many will die rather than fall short of that standard; and hence, the +true idea of a man, brought out in the laborer's mind, elevates him above +every other class who may want it. Am I asked for my conception of the +dignity of a human being? I should say, that it consists, first, in that +spiritual principle, called sometimes the reason, sometimes the +conscience, which, rising above what is local and temporary, discerns +immutable truth and everlasting right; which, in the midst of imperfect +things, conceives of perfection; which is universal and impartial, +standing in direct opposition to the partial, selfish principles of human +nature; which says to me with authority, that my neighbor is as precious +as myself, and his rights as sacred as my own; which commands me to +receive all truth, however it may war with my pride, and to do all +justice, however it may conflict with my interest; and which calls me to +rejoice with love in all that is beautiful, good, holy, happy, in +whatever being these attributes may be found. This principle is a ray of +Divinity in man. We do not know what man is, still something of the +celestial grandeur of this principle in the soul may be discerned. There +is another grand view of man, included indeed in the former, yet +deserving distinct notice. He is a free being; created to act from a +spring in his own breast, to form himself and to decide his own destiny; +connected intimately with nature, but not enslaved to it; connected still +more strongly with God, yet not enslaved even to the Divinity, but having +power to render or withhold the service due to his Creator; encompassed +by a thousand warring forces, by physical elements which inflict pleasure +and pain, by dangers seen and unseen, by the influences of a tempting, +sinful world, yet endued by God with power to contend with all, to +perfect himself by conflict with the very forces which threaten to +overwhelm him. Such is the idea of a man. Happy he in whom it is +unfolded by earnest thought! +</P> + +<P> +Had I time, I should be glad to speak of other great ideas belonging to +the science of mind, and which sum up and give us, in one bright +expression, the speculations of ages. The idea of human life, of its +true end and greatness; the idea of virtue, as the absolute and ultimate +good; the idea of liberty, which is the highest thought of political +science, and which, by its intimate presence to the minds of the people, +is the chief spring of our country's life and greatness,—all these might +be enlarged on; and I might show how these may be awakened in the +laborer, and may give him an elevation which many who are above labor +want. But, leaving all these, I will only refer to another, one of the +most important results of the science of mind, and which the laborer, in +common with every man, may and should receive, and should strengthen by +patient thought. It is the idea of his importance as an individual. He +is to understand that he has a value, not as belonging to a community, +and contributing to a general good which is distinct from himself, but on +his own account. He is not a mere part of a machine. In a machine the +parts are useless, but as conducing to the end of the whole, for which +alone they subsist. Not so a man. He is not simply a means, but an end, +and exists for his own sake, for the unfolding of his nature, for his own +virtue and happiness. True, he is to work for others, but not servilely, +not with a broken spirit, not so as to degrade himself: he is to work for +others from a wise self-regard, from principles of justice and +benevolence, and in the exercise of a free will and intelligence, by +which his own character is perfected. His individual dignity, not +derived from birth, from success, from wealth, from outward show, but +consisting in the indestructible principles of his soul,—this ought to +enter into his habitual consciousness. I do not speak rhetorically or +use the cant of rhapsodists, but I utter my calm, deliberate conviction, +when I say that the laborer ought to regard himself with a self-respect +unknown to the proudest monarch who rests on outward rank. +</P> + +<P> +I have now illustrated what I mean by the great ideas which exalt the +mind. Their worth and power cannot be exaggerated. They are the +mightiest influences on earth. One great thought breathed into a man may +regenerate him. The idea of freedom in ancient and modern republics, the +idea of inspiration in various religious sects, the idea of immortality, +how have these triumphed over worldly interests! How many heroes and +martyrs have they formed! Great ideas are mightier than the passions. +To awaken them is the highest office of education. As yet it has been +little thought of. The education of the mass of the people has consisted +in giving them mechanical habits, in breaking them to current usages and +modes of thinking, in teaching religion and morality as traditions. It +is time that a rational culture should take the place of mechanical; that +men should learn to act more from ideas and principles, and less from +blind impulse and undiscerning imitation. +</P> + +<P> +Am I met here by the constantly recurring objection, that such great +thoughts as have now been treated of are not to be expected in the +multitude of men whose means of culture are so confined? To this +difficulty I shall reply in the next lecture; but I wish to state a fact, +or law of our nature, very cheering to those who, with few means, still +pant for generous improvement. It is this, that great ideas come to us +less from outward, direct, laborious teaching, than from indirect +influences, and from the native working of our own minds; so that those +who want the outward apparatus for extensive learning are not cut off +from them. Thus, laborious teachers may instruct us for years in God, +and virtue, and the soul, and we may remain nearly as ignorant of them as +at the beginning; whilst a look, a tone, an act of a fellow-creature, who +is kindled by a grand thought, and who is thrown in our path at some +susceptible season of life, will do much to awaken and expand this +thought within us. It is a matter of experience that the greatest ideas +often come to us, when right-minded, we know not how. They flash on us +as lights from heaven. A man seriously given to the culture of his mind +in virtue and truth finds himself under better teaching than that of man. +Revelations of his own soul, of God's intimate presence, of the grandeur +of the creation, of the glory of disinterestedness, of the deformity of +wrong-doing, of the dignity of universal justice, of the might of moral +principle, of the immutableness of truth, of immortality, and of the +inward sources of happiness; these revelations, awakening a thirst for +something higher than he is or has, come of themselves to an humble, +self-improving man. Sometimes a common scene in nature, one of the +common relations of life, will open itself to us with a brightness and +pregnancy of meaning unknown before. Sometimes a thought of this kind +forms an era in life. It changes the whole future course. It is a new +creation. And these great ideas are not confined to men of any class. +They are communications of the Infinite Mind to all minds which are open +to their reception; and labor is a far better condition for their +reception than luxurious or fashionable life. It is even better than a +studious life, when this fosters vanity, pride, and the spirit of jealous +competition. A childlike simplicity attracts these revelations more than +a selfish culture of intellect, however far extended.—Perhaps a caution +should be added to these suggestions. In speaking of great ideas, as +sometimes springing up of themselves, as sudden illuminations, I have no +thought of teaching that we are to wait for them passively, or to give up +our minds unthinkingly to their control. We must prepare ourselves for +them by faithfulness to our own powers, by availing ourselves of all +means of culture within our reach; and, what is more, these +illuminations, if they come, are not distinct, complete, perfect views, +but glimpses, suggestions, flashes, given us, like all notices and +impressions from the outward world, to be thought upon, to be made +subjects of patient reflection, to be brought by our own intellect and +activity into their true connection with all our other thoughts. A great +idea, without reflection, may dazzle and bewilder, may destroy the +balance and proportion of the mind, and impel to dangerous excess. It is +to awaken the free, earnest exertion of our powers, to rouse us from +passiveness to activity and life, that inward inspirations, and the +teachings of outward nature, are accorded to the mind. +</P> + +<P> +I have thus spoken at large of that force of thought which the laborer is +to seek as his true elevation; and I will close the subject with +observing, that on whatever objects or for whatever purposes this force +may be exerted, one purpose should be habitually predominant, and that +is, to gain a larger, clearer comprehension of all the duties of life. +Thought cannot take too wide a range; but its chief aim should be to +acquire juster and brighter perceptions of the right and the good, in +every relation and condition in which we may be placed. Do not imagine +that I am here talking professionally, or sliding unconsciously, by the +force of habit, into the tone of the pulpit. The subject of duty belongs +equally to all professions and all conditions. It were as wise to think +of living without breath, or of seeing without light, as to exclude moral +and religious principle from the work of self-elevation. And I say this, +because you are in danger of mistaking mere knowledge for improvement. +Knowledge fails of its best end when it does not minister to a high +virtue. I do not say that we are never to think, read, or study, but for +the express purpose of learning our duties. The mind must not be tied +down by rigid rules. Curiosity, amusement, natural tastes, may +innocently direct reading and study to a certain extent. Even in these +cases, however, we are bound to improve ourselves morally as well as +intellectually, by seeking truth and rejecting falsehood, and by watching +against the taint which inheres in almost all human productions. What +avails intellectual without moral power? How little does it avail us to +study the outward world, if its greatness inspire no reverence of its +Author, if its beneficence awaken no kindred love towards our +fellow-creatures! How little does it avail us to study history, if the +past do not help us to comprehend the dangers and duties of the present; +if from the sufferings of those who have gone before us, we do not learn +how to suffer, and from their great and good deeds how to act nobly; if +the development of the human heart, in different ages and countries, do +not give us a better knowledge of ourselves! How little does literature +benefit us, if the sketches of life and character, the generous +sentiments, the testimonies to disinterestedness and rectitude, with +which it abounds, do not incite and guide us to wiser, purer, and more +graceful action! How little substantial good do we derive from poetry +and the fine arts, if the beauty, which delights the imagination, do not +warm and refine the heart, and raise us to the love and admiration of +what is fair, and perfect, and lofty, in character and life! Let our +studies be as wide as our condition will allow; but let this be their +highest aim, to instruct us in our duty and happiness, in the perfection +of our nature, in the true use of life, in the best direction of our +powers. Then is the culture of intellect an unmixed good, when it is +sacredly used to enlighten the conscience, to feed the flame of generous +sentiment, to perfect us in our common employments, to throw a grace over +our common actions, to make us sources of innocent cheerfulness and +centres of holy influence, and to give us courage, strength, stability, +amidst the sudden changes and sore temptations and trials of life. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09c"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LECTURE II +</H3> + +<P> +In my last lecture I invited your attention to a subject of great +interest,—the elevation of the laboring portion of the community. I +proposed to consider, first, in what this elevation consists; secondly +the objections which may be made to its practicableness; thirdly, the +circumstances which now favor it, and gives us hope that it will be +more and more accomplished. In considering the first head, I began +with stating in what the elevation of the laboring class does not +consist, and then proceeded to show positively what it is, what it does +consist in. I want time to retrace the ground over which we then +travelled. I must trust to your memories. I was obliged by my narrow +limits to confine myself chiefly to the consideration of the +intellectual elevation which the laborer is to propose; though, in +treating this topic, I showed the moral, religious, social improvements +which enter into his true dignity. I observed that the laborer was to +be a student, a thinker, an intellectual man, as well as a laborer; and +suggested the qualifications of this truth which are required by this +peculiar employment, by his daily engagement in manual toil. I now +come to consider the objections which spring up in many minds, when +such views of the laborer's destiny are given. This is our second head. +</P> + +<P> +First, it will be objected, that the laboring multitude cannot command +a variety of books, or spend much time in reading; and how, then, can +they gain the force of thought, and the great ideas, which were treated +of in the former lecture? This objection grows out of the prevalent +disposition to confound intellectual improvement with book-learning. +Some seem to think that there is a kind of magic in a printed page, +that types give a higher knowledge than can be gained from other +sources. Reading is considered as the royal road to intellectual +eminence. This prejudice I have virtually set aside in my previous +remarks; but it has taken so strong a hold of many as to need some +consideration. I shall not attempt to repel the objection by decrying +books. Truly good books are more than mines to those who can +understand them. They are the breathings of the great souls of past +times. Genius is not embalmed in them, as is sometimes said, but +<I>lives</I> in them perpetually. But we need not many books to answer the +great ends of reading. A few are better than many, and a little time +given to a faithful study of the few will be enough to quicken thought +and enrich the mind. The greatest men have not been bookmen. +Washington, it has often been said, was no great reader. The learning +commonly gathered from books is of less worth than the truths we gain +from experience and reflection. Indeed, most of the knowledge from +reading, in these days, being acquired with little mental action, and +seldom or never reflected on and turned to use, is very much a vain +show. Events stirring the mind to earnest thought and vigorous +application of its resources, do vastly more to elevate the mind than +most of our studies at the present time. Few of the books read among +us deserve to be read. Most of them have no principle of life, as is +proved by the fact that they die the year of their birth. They do not +come from thinkers, and how can they awaken thought? A great +proportion of the reading of this city is useless, I had almost said +pernicious. I should be sorry to see our laborers exchanging their +toils for the reading of many of our young ladies and young gentlemen, +who look on the intellect as given them for amusement; who read, as +they visit, for amusement, who discuss no great truths and put forth no +energy of thought on the topics which fly through their minds. With +this insensibility to the dignity of the intellect, and this frittering +away of the mind on superficial reading, I see not with what face they +can claim superiority to the laboring mass, who certainly understand +one thing thoroughly, that is, their own business, and who are doing +something useful for themselves and their fellow-creatures. The great +use of books is to rouse us to thought; to turn us to questions which +great men have been working on for ages; to furnish us with materials +for the exercise of judgment, imagination, and moral feeling; to +breathe into us a moral life from higher spirits than our own; and this +benefit of books may be enjoyed by those who have not much time for +retired study. +</P> + +<P> +It must not be forgotten, by those who despair of the laboring classes +because they cannot live in libraries, that the highest sources of +truth, light, and elevation of mind, are not libraries, but our inward +and outward experience. Human life, with its joys and sorrows, its +burdens and alleviations, its crimes and virtues, its deep wants, its +solemn changes, and its retributions, always pressing on us; what a +library is this! and who may not study it? Every human being is a +volume worthy to be studied. The books which circulate most freely +through the community are those which give us pictures of human life. +How much more improving is the original, did we know how to read it? +The laborer has this page always open before him; and, still more, the +laborer is every day writing a volume more full of instruction than all +human productions,—I mean his own life. No work of the most exalted +genius can teach us so much as the revelation of human nature in the +secrets of our own souls, in the workings of our own passions, in the +operations of our own intelligence, in the retributions which follow +our own good and evil deeds, in the dissatisfaction with the present, +in the spontaneous thoughts and aspirations which form part of every +man's biography. The study of our own history from childhood, of all +the stages of our development, of the good and bad influences which +have beset us, of our mutations of feeling and purpose, and of the +great current which is setting us towards future happiness or +woe,—this is a study to make us nobly wise; and who of us has not +access to this fountain of eternal truth? May not the laborer study +and understand the pages which he is writing in his own breast? +</P> + +<P> +In these remarks, I have aimed to remove the false notion into which +the laborers themselves fall, that they can do little towards acquiring +force and fulness of thought, because in want of books. I shall next +turn to prejudices more confined to other classes. A very common one +is, that the many are not to be called to think, study, improve their +minds, because a privileged few are intended by God to do their +thinking for them. "Providence," it is said, "raises up superior +minds, whose office it is to discover truth for the rest of the race. +Thinking and manual toil are not meant to go together. The division of +labor is a great law of nature. One man is to serve society by his +head, another by his hands. Let each class keep to its proper work." +These doctrines I protest against. I deny to any individual or class +this monopoly of thought. Who among men can show God's commission to +think for his brethren, to shape passively the intellect of the mass, +to stamp his own image on them as if they were wax? As well might a +few claim a monopoly of light and air, of seeing and breathing, as of +thought. Is not the intellect as universal a gift as the organs of +sight and respiration? Is not truth as freely spread abroad as the +atmosphere or the sun's rays? Can we imagine that God's highest gifts +of intelligence, imagination, and moral power were bestowed to provide +only for animal wants? to be denied the natural means of growth, which +is action? to be starved by drudgery? Were the mass of men made to be +monsters? to grow only in a few organs and faculties, and to pine away +and shrivel in others? or were they made to put forth all the powers of +men, especially the best and most distinguishing? No man, not the +lowest, is all hands, all bones and muscles. The mind is more +essential to human nature, and more enduring, than the limbs; and was +this made to lie dead? Is not thought the right and duty of all? Is +not truth alike precious to all? Is not truth the natural ailment of +the mind, as plainly as the wholesome grain is of the body? Is not the +mind adapted to thought, as plainly as the eye to light, the ear to +sound? Who dares to withhold it from its natural action, its natural +element and joy? Undoubtedly some men are more gifted than others, and +are marked out for more studious lives. But the work of such men is +not to do others' thinking for them, but to help them to think more +vigorously and effectually. Great minds are to make others great. +Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to +intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, +but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for +themselves. The light and life which spring up in one soul are to be +spread far and wide. Of all treasons against humanity, there is no one +worse than his who employs great intellectual force to keep down the +intellect of his less favored brother. +</P> + +<P> +It is sometimes surged by those who consider the multitude as not +intended to think, that at best they can learn but little, and that +this is likely to harm rather than to do them good. "A little +learning," we are told, "is a dangerous thing." "Shallow draughts" of +knowledge are worse than ignorance. The mass of the people, it is +said, can go to the bottom of nothing; and the result of stimulating +them to thought will be the formation of a dangerous set of +half-thinkers. To this argument I reply, first, that it has the +inconvenience of proving too much; for, if valid, it shows that none of +any class ought to think. For who, I would ask, can go to the bottom +of anything? Whose "learning" is not "little"? Whose "draughts" of +knowledge are not "shallow"? Who of us has fathomed the depths of a +single product of nature or a single event in history? Who of us is +not baffled by the mysteries in a grain of sand? How contracted the +range of the widest intellect! But is our knowledge, because so +little, of no worth? Are we to despise the lessons which are taught us +in this nook of creation, in this narrow round of human experience, +because an infinite universe stretches around us, which we have no +means of exploring, and in which the earth, and sun, and planets +dwindle to a point? We should remember that the known, however little +it may be, is in harmony with the boundless unknown, and a step towards +it. We should remember, too, that the gravest truths may be gathered +from a very narrow compass of information. God is revealed in his +smallest work as truly as in his greatest. The principles of human +nature may be studied better in a family than in the history of the +world. The finite is a manifestation of the infinite. The great +ideas, of which I have formerly spoken, are within the reach of every +man who thirsts for truth, and seeks it with singleness of mind. I +will only add, that the laboring class are not now condemned to +draughts of knowledge so shallow as to merit scorn. Many of them know +more of the outward world than all the philosophers of antiquity; and +Christianity has opened to them mysteries of the spiritual world which +kings and prophets were not privileged to understand. And are they, +then, to be doomed to spiritual inaction, as incapable of useful +thought? +</P> + +<P> +It is sometimes said, that the multitude may think on the common +business of life, but not on higher subjects, and especially on +religion. This, it is said, must be received on authority; on this, +men in general can form no judgment of their own. But this is the last +subject on which the individual should be willing to surrender himself +to others' dictation. In nothing has he so strong an interest. In +nothing is it so important that his mind and heart should be alive and +engaged. In nothing has he readier means of judging for himself. In +nothing, as history shows, is he more likely to be led astray by such +as assume the office of thinking for him. Religion is a subject open +to all minds. Its great truths have their foundation in the soul +itself, and their proofs surround us on all sides. God has not shut up +the evidence of his being in a few books, written in a foreign +language, and locked up in the libraries of colleges and philosophers; +but has written his name on the heavens and on the earth, and even on +the minutest animal and plant; and his word, taught by Jesus Christ, +was not given to scribes and lawyers, but taught to the poor, to the +mass of men, on mountains, in streets, and on the sea-shore. Let me +not be told that the multitude do actually receive religion on +authority, or on the word of others. I reply, that a faith so received +seems to me of little worth. The precious, the living, the effectual +part of a poor man's faith, is that of which he sees the reasonableness +and excellence; that which approves itself to his intelligence, his +conscience, his heart; that which answers to deep wants in his own +soul, and of which he has the witness in his own inward and outward +experience. All other parts of his belief, those which he takes on +blind trust, and in which he sees no marks of truth and divinity, do +him little or no good. Too often they do him harm, by perplexing his +simple reason, by substituting the fictions and artificial systems of +theologians for the plain precepts of love, and justice, and humility, +and filial trust in God. As long as it was supposed that religion is +to benefit the world by laying restraints, awakening fears, and acting +as a part of the system of police, so long it was natural to rely on +authority and tradition as the means of its propagation; so long it was +desirable to stifle thought and inquiry on the subject. But now that +we have learned that the true office of religion is to awaken pure and +lofty sentiments, and to unite man to God by rational homage and +enlightened love, there is something monstrous in placing religion +beyond the thought and the study of the mass of the human race. +</P> + +<P> +I proceed to another prejudice. It is objected, that the distinction +of ranks is essential to social order, and that this will be swept away +by calling forth energy of thought in all men. This objection, indeed, +though exceedingly insisted on in Europe, has nearly died out here; but +still enough of it lingers among us to deserve consideration. I reply, +then, that it is a libel on social order to suppose that it requires +for its support the reduction of the multitude of human beings to +ignorance and servility; and that it is a libel on the Creator to +suppose that he requires, as the foundation of communities, the +systematic depression of the majority of his intelligent offspring. +The supposition is too grossly unreasonable, too monstrous, to require +labored refutation. I see no need of ranks, either for social order or +for any other purpose. A great variety of pursuits and conditions is +indeed to be desired. Men ought to follow their genius, and to put +forth their powers in every useful and lawful way. I do not ask for a +monotonous world. We are far too monotonous now. The vassalage of +fashion, which is a part of rank, prevents continually the free +expansion of men's powers. Let us have the greatest diversity of +occupations. But this does not imply that there is a need of splitting +society into castes or ranks, or that a certain number should arrogate +superiority, and stand apart from the rest of men as a separate race. +Men may work in different departments of life, and yet recognize their +brotherly relation, and honor one another, and hold friendly communion +with one another. Undoubtedly, men will prefer as friends and common +associates those with whom they sympathize most. But this is not to +form a rank or caste. For example, the intelligent seek out the +intelligent; the pious, those who reverence God. But suppose the +intellectual and the religious to cut themselves off by some broad, +visible distinction from the rest of society, to form a clan of their +own, to refuse admission into their houses to people of inferior +knowledge and virtue, and to diminish as far as possible the occasions +of intercourse with them; would not society rise up, as one man, +against this arrogant exclusiveness? And if intelligence and piety may +not be the foundations of a caste, on what ground shall they, who have +no distinction but wealth, superior costume, richer equipages, finer +houses, draw lines around themselves and constitute themselves a higher +class? That some should be richer than others is natural and is +necessary, and could only be prevented by gross violations of right. +Leave men to the free use of their powers, and some will accumulate +more than their neighbors. But to be prosperous is not to be superior; +and should form no barrier between men. Wealth ought not to secure to +the prosperous the slightest consideration. The only distinctions +which should be recognized are those of the soul, of strong principle, +of incorruptible integrity, of usefulness, of cultivated intellect, of +fidelity in seeking for truth. A man in proportion as he has these +claims, should be honored and welcomed everywhere. I see not why such +a man, however coarsely if neatly dressed, should not be a respected +guest in the most splendid mansions, and at the most brilliant +meetings. A man is worth infinitely more than the saloons, and the +costumes, and the show of the universe. He was made to tread all these +beneath his feet. What an insult to humanity is the present deference +to dress and upholstery, as if silk-worms, and looms, and scissors, and +needles could produce something nobler than a man! Every good man +should protest against a caste founded on outward prosperity, because +it exalts the outward above the inward, the material above the +spiritual; because it springs from and cherishes a contemptible pride +in superficial and transitory distinctions: because it alienates man +from his brother, breaks the tie of common humanity, and breeds +jealousy, scorn, and mutual ill-will. Can this be needed to social +order? +</P> + +<P> +It is true, that in countries where the mass of the people are ignorant +and servile, the existence of a higher and a worshipped rank tends to +keep them from outrage. It infuses a sentiment of awe, which prevents +more or less the need of force and punishment. But it is worthy of +remark that the means of keeping order in one state of society may +become the chief excitement of discontent and disorder in another, and +this is peculiarly true of aristocracy or high rank. In rude ages, +this keeps the people down; but when the people by degrees have risen +to some consciousness of their rights and essential equality with the +rest of the race, the awe of rank naturally subsides, and passes into +suspicion, jealousy, and sense of injury, and a disposition to resist. +The very institution which once restrained, now provokes. Through this +process the Old World is now passing. The strange illusion, that a +man, because he wears a garter or a riband, or was born to a title, +belongs to another race, is fading away; and society must pass through +a series of revolutions, silent or bloody, until a more natural order +takes place of distinctions which grew originally out of force. Thus +aristocracy, instead of giving order to society, now convulses it. So +impossible is it for arbitrary human ordinations permanently to degrade +human nature or subvert the principles of justice and freedom. +</P> + +<P> +I am aware that it will be said, "that the want of refinement of +manners and taste in the lower classes will necessarily keep them an +inferior caste, even though all political inequalities be removed." I +acknowledge this defect of manners in the multitude, and grant that it +is an obstacle to intercourse with the more improved, though often +exaggerated. But this is a barrier which must and will yield to the +means of culture spread through our community. The evil is not +necessarily associated with any condition of human life. An +intelligent traveller tells us, that in Norway, a country wanting many +of our advantages, good manners and politeness are spread through all +conditions; and that the "rough way of talking to and living with each +other, characteristic of the lower classes of society in England, is +not found there." Not many centuries ago, the intercourse of the +highest orders in Europe was sullied by indelicacy and fierceness; but +time has worn out these stains, and the same cause is now removing what +is repulsive among those who toil with their hands. I cannot believe +that coarse manners, boisterous conversation, slovenly negligence, +filthy customs, surliness, indecency, are to descend by necessity from +generation to generation in any portion of the community. I do not see +why neatness, courtesy, delicacy, ease, and deference to others' +feelings, may not be made the habits of the laboring multitude. A +change is certainly going on among them in respect to manners. Let us +hope that it will be a change for the better; that they will not adopt +false notions of refinement; that they will escape the servile +imitation of what is hollow and insincere, and the substitution of +outward shows for genuine natural courtesy. Unhappily they have but +imperfect models on which to form themselves. It is not one class +alone which needs reform in manners. We all need a new social +intercourse, which shall breathe genuine refinement; which shall unite +the two great elements of politeness, self-respect, and a delicate +regard to the rights and feelings of others; which shall be free +without rudeness, and earnest without positiveness; which shall be +graceful, yet warm-hearted; and in which communication shall be frank, +unlabored, overflowing, through the absence of all assumption and +pretence, and through the consciousness of being safe from heartless +ridicule. This grand reform, which I trust is to come, will bring with +it a happiness little known in social life; and whence shall it come? +The wise and disinterested of all conditions must contribute to it; and +I see not why the laboring classes may not take part in the work. +Indeed, when I consider the greater simplicity of their lives and their +greater openness to the spirit of Christianity, I am not sure but that +the "golden age" of manners is to begin among those who are now +despaired of for their want of refinement. +</P> + +<P> +In these remarks, I have given the name of "prejudices" to the old +opinions respecting rank, and respecting the need of keeping the people +from much thought. But allow these opinions to have a foundation in +truth; suppose high fences of rank to be necessary to refinement of +manners; suppose that the happiest of all ages were the feudal, when +aristocracy was in its flower and glory, when the noble, superior to +the laws, committed more murders in one year than the multitude in +twenty. Suppose it best for the laborer to live and die in thoughtless +ignorance. Allow all this, and that we have reason to look with envy +on the past; one thing is plain, the past is gone, the feudal castle is +dismantled, the distance between classes greatly reduced. Unfortunate +as it may be, the people have begun to think, to ask reasons for what +they do and suffer and believe, and to call the past to account. Old +spells are broken, old reliances gone. Men can no longer be kept down +by pageantry, state-robes, forms, and shows. Allowing it to be best +that society should rest on the depression of the multitude, the +multitude will no longer be quiet when they are trodden under toot, but +ask impatiently for a reason why they too may not have a share in +social blessings. Such is the state of things, and we must make the +best of what we cannot prevent. Right or wrong, the people will think; +and is it not important that they should think justly? that they should +be inspired with the love of truth, and instructed how to seek it? that +they should be established by wise culture in the great principles on +which religion and society rest, and be protected from scepticism and +wild speculation by intercourse with enlightened and virtuous men? It +is plain that in the actual state of the world, nothing can avail us +but a real improvement of the mass of the people. No stable foundation +can be laid for us but in men's minds. Alarming as the truth is, it +should be told, that outward institutions cannot now secure us. +Mightier powers than institutions have come into play among us,—the +judgment, the opinions, the feelings of the many; and all hopes of +stability which do not rest on the progress of the many must perish. +</P> + +<P> +But a more serious objection than any yet considered, to the +intellectual elevation of the laboring class, remains to be stated. It +is said, "that the laborer can gain subsistence for himself and his +family only by a degree of labor which forbids the use of means of +improvement. His necessary toils leave no time or strength for +thought. Political economy, by showing that population outstrips the +means of improvement, passes an irrepealable sentence of ignorance and +degradation on the laborer. He can live but for one end, which is to +keep himself alive. He cannot give time and strength to intellectual, +social, and moral culture, without starving his family, and +impoverishing the community. Nature has laid this heavy law on the +mass of the people, and it is idle to set up our theories and dreams of +improvement against nature." +</P> + +<P> +This objection applies with great force to Europe, and is not without +weight here. But it does not discourage me. I reply, first, to this +objection, that it generally comes from a suspicious source. It comes +generally from men who abound, and are at ease; who think more of +property than of any other human interest; who have little concern for +the mass of their fellow-creatures; who are willing that others should +bear all the burdens of life, and that any social order should continue +which secures to themselves personal comfort or gratification. The +selfish epicure and the thriving man of business easily discover a +natural necessity for that state of things which accumulates on +themselves all the blessings, and on their neighbor all the evils, of +life. But no man can judge what is good or necessary for the multitude +but he who feels for them, and whose equity and benevolence are shocked +by the thought that all advantages are to be monopolized by one set of +men, and all disadvantages by another. I wait for the judgment of +profound thinkers and earnest philanthropists on this point,—a +judgment formed after patient study of political economy, and human +nature and human history; nor even on such authority shall I readily +despair of the multitude of my race. +</P> + +<P> +In the next place, the objection under consideration is very much a +repetition of the old doctrine, that what has been must be; that the +future is always to repeat the past, and society to tread for ever the +beaten path. But can any thing be plainer than that the present +condition of the world is peculiar, unprecedented? that new powers and +new principles are at work? that the application of science to art is +accomplishing a stupendous revolution? that the condition of the +laborer is in many places greatly improved, and his intellectual aids +increased? that abuses, once thought essential to society, and which +seemed entwined with all its fibres, have been removed? Do the mass of +men stand where they did a few centuries ago? And do not new +circumstances, if they make us fearful, at the same time keep us from +despair? The future, be it what it may, will not resemble the past. +The present has new elements, which must work out new weal or woe. We +have no right, then, on the ground of the immutableness of human +affairs, to quench, as far as we have power, the hope of social +progress. +</P> + +<P> +Another consideration, in reply to the objection that the necessary +toils of life exclude improvement, may be drawn not only from general +history, but from the experience of this country in particular. The +working classes here have risen and are still rising intellectually, +and yet there are no signs of starvation, nor are we becoming the +poorest people on earth. By far the most interesting view of this +country is the condition of the working multitude. Nothing among us +deserves the attention of the traveller so much as the force of thought +and character, and the self-respect awakened by our history and +institutions in the mass of the people. Our prosperous classes are +much like the same classes abroad, though, as we hope, of purer morals; +but the great working multitude leave far behind them the laborers of +other countries. No man of observation and benevolence can converse +with them without being struck and delighted with the signs they give +of strong and sound intellect and manly principle. And who is +authorized to set bounds to this progress? In improvement the first +steps are the hardest. The difficulty is to wake up men's souls, not +to continue their action. Every accession of light and strength is a +help to new acquisitions. +</P> + +<P> +Another consideration, in reply to the objection, is, that as yet no +community has seriously set itself to the work of improving all its +members, so that what is possible remains to be ascertained. No +experiment has been made to determine how far liberal provision can be +made at once for the body and mind of the laborer. The highest social +art is yet in its infancy. Great minds have nowhere solemnly, +earnestly undertaken to resolve the problem, how the multitude of men +may be elevated. The trial is to come. Still more, the multitude have +nowhere comprehended distinctly the true idea of progress, and resolved +deliberately and solemnly to reduce it to reality. This great thought, +however, is gradually opening on them, and it is destined to work +wonders. From themselves their salvation must chiefly come. Little +can be done for them by others, till a spring is touched in their own +breasts; and this being done, they cannot fail. The people, as history +shows us, can accomplish miracles under the power of a great idea. How +much have they often done and suffered in critical moments for country, +for religion! The great idea of their own elevation is only beginning +to unfold itself within them, and its energy is not to be foretold. A +lofty conception of this kind, were it once distinctly seized, would be +a new life breathed into them. Under this impulse they would create +time and strength for their high calling, and would not only regenerate +themselves, but the community. +</P> + +<P> +Again, I am not discouraged by the objection, that the laborer, if +encouraged to give time and strength to the elevation of his mind, will +starve himself and impoverish the country, when I consider the energy +and efficiency of mind. The highest force in the universe is mind. +This created the heavens and earth. This has changed the wilderness +into fruitfulness, and linked distant countries in a beneficent +ministry to one another's wants. It is not to brute force, to physical +strength, so much as to art, to skill, to intellectual and moral +energy, that men owe their mastery over the world. It is mind which +has conquered matter. To fear, then, that by calling forth a people's +mind, we shall impoverish and starve them, is to be frightened at a +shadow. I believe, that with the growth of intellectual and moral +power in the community, its productive power will increase, that +industry will become more efficient, that a wiser economy will +accumulate wealth, that unimagined resources of art and nature will be +discovered. I believe that the means of living will grow easier, in +proportion as a people shall become enlightened, self-respecting, +resolute, and just. Bodily or material forces can be measured, but not +the forces of the soul; nor can the results of increased mental energy +be foretold. Such a community will tread down obstacles now deemed +invincible, and turn them into helps. The inward moulds the outward. +The power of a people lies in its mind; and this mind, if fortified and +enlarged, will bring external things into harmony with itself. It will +create a new world around it, corresponding to itself. If, however, I +err in this belief; if, by securing time and means for improvement to +the multitude, industry and capital should become less productive, I +still say, Sacrifice the wealth, and not the mind of a people. Nor do +I believe that the physical good of a community would in this way be +impaired. The diminution of a country's wealth, occasioned by general +attention to intellectual and moral culture, would be followed by very +different effects from those which would attend an equal diminution +brought about by sloth, intemperance, and ignorance. There would +indeed be less production in such a country, but the character and +spirit of the people would effect a much more equal distribution of +what would be produced; and the happiness of a community depends vastly +more on the distribution than on the amount of its wealth. In thus +speaking of the future, I do not claim any special prophetical gift. +As a general rule, no man is able to foretell distinctly the ultimate, +permanent results of any great social change. But as to the case +before us, we ought not to doubt. It is a part of religion to believe +that by nothing can a country so effectually gain happiness and lasting +prosperity as by the elevation of all classes of its citizens. To +question this seems an approach to crime. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">"If this fail,</SPAN><BR> +The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,<BR> +And earth's base built on stubble."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +I am aware that, in reply to all that has been said in favor of the +possibility of uniting self-improvement with labor, discouraging facts +may be brought forward from our daily experience. It may be said that +in this country, under advantages unknown in other lands, there is a +considerable number on whom the burden of toil presses very heavily, +who can scarcely live with all their efforts, and who are cut off by +their hard condition from the means of intellectual culture; and if +this take place now, what are we to expect hereafter in a more crowded +population? I acknowledge that we have a number of depressed laborers, +whose state is exceedingly unpropitious to the education of the mind; +but this argument will lose much of its power when we inquire into the +causes of this evil. We shall then see that it comes, not from outward +necessity, not from the irresistible obstacles abroad, but chiefly from +the fault or ignorance of the sufferers themselves; so that the +elevation of the mind and character of the laborer tends directly to +reduce, if not remove, the evil. Of consequence, this elevation finds +support in what is urged against it. In confirmation of these views, +allow me just to hint at the causes of that depression of many laborers +which is said to show that labor and self-improvement cannot go on +together. +</P> + +<P> +First, how much of this depression is to be traced to intemperance? +What a great amount of time, and strength, and money, might multitudes +gain for self-improvement, by a strict sobriety! That cheap remedy, +pure water, would cure the chief evils in very many families of the +ignorant and poor. Were the sums which are still lavished on ardent +spirits appropriated wisely to the elevation of the people, what a new +world we should live in! Intemperance not only wastes the earnings, +but the health and the minds of men. How many, were they to exchange +what they call moderate drinking for water, would be surprised to learn +that they had been living under a cloud, in half-stupefaction, and +would become conscious of an intellectual energy of which they had not +before dreamed! Their labors would exhaust them less; and less labor +would be needed for their support; and thus their inability to +cultivate their high nature would in a great measure be removed. The +working class, above all men, have an interest in the cause of +temperance, and they ought to look on the individual who lives by +scattering the means and excitements of drunkenness not only as the +general enemy of his race, but as their own worst foe. +</P> + +<P> +In the next place, how much of the depression of laborers may be traced +to the want of a strict economy! The prosperity of this country has +produced a wastefulness that has extended to the laboring multitude. A +man, here, turns with scorn from fare that in many countries would be +termed luxurious. It is, indeed, important that the standard of living +in all classes should be high; that is, it should include the comforts +of life, the means of neatness and order in our dwellings, and such +supplies of our wants as are fitted to secure vigorous health. But how +many waste their earnings on indulgences which may be spared, and thus +have no resource for a dark day, and are always trembling on the brink +of pauperism! Needless expenses keep many too poor for +self-improvement. And here let me say, that expensive habits among the +more prosperous laborers often interfere with the mental culture of +themselves and their families. How many among them sacrifice +improvement to appetite! How many sacrifice it to the love of show, to +the desire of outstripping others, and to habits of expense which grow +out of this insatiable passion! In a country so thriving and luxurious +as ours, the laborer is in danger of contracting artificial wants and +diseased tastes; and to gratify these he gives himself wholly to +accumulation, and sells his mind for gain. Our unparalleled prosperity +has not been an unmixed good. It has inflamed cupidity, has diseased +the imagination with dreams of boundless success, and plunged a vast +multitude into excessive toils, feverish competitions, and exhausting +cares. A laborer, having secured a neat home and a wholesome table, +should ask nothing more for the senses; but should consecrate his +leisure, and what may be spared of his earnings, to the culture of +himself and his family, to the best books, to the best teaching, to +pleasant and profitable intercourse, to sympathy and the offices of +humanity, and to the enjoyment of the beautiful in nature and art. +Unhappily, the laborer, if prosperous, is anxious to ape the rich man, +instead of trying to rise above him, as he often may, by noble +acquisitions. The young in particular, the apprentice and the female +domestic, catch a taste for fashion, and on this altar sacrifice too +often their uprightness, and almost always the spirit of improvement, +dooming themselves to ignorance, if not to vice, for a vain show. Is +this evil without remedy? Is human nature always to be sacrificed to +outward decoration? Is the outward always to triumph over the inward +man? Is nobleness of sentiment never to spring up among us? May not a +reform in this particular begin in the laboring class, since it seems +so desperate among the more prosperous? Cannot the laborer, whose +condition calls him so loudly to simplicity of taste and habits, take +his stand against that love of dress which dissipates and corrupts so +many minds among the opulent? Cannot the laboring class refuse to +measure men by outward success, and pour utter scorn on all pretensions +founded on outward show or condition? Sure I am that, were they to +study plainness of dress and simplicity of living, for the purpose of +their own true elevation, they would surpass in intellect, in taste, in +honorable qualities, and in present enjoyment, that great proportion of +the prosperous who are softened into indulgence or enslaved to empty +show. By such self-denial, how might the burden of labor be lightened, +and time and strength redeemed for improvement! +</P> + +<P> +Another cause of the depressed condition of not a few laborers, as I +believe, is their ignorance on the subject of health. Health is the +working man's fortune, and he ought to watch over it more than the +capitalist over his largest investments. Health lightens the efforts +of body and mind. It enables a man to crowd much work into a narrow +compass. Without it, little can be earned, and that little by slow, +exhausting toil. For these reasons I cannot but look on it as a good +omen that the press is circulating among us cheap works, in which much +useful knowledge is given of the structure, and functions, and laws of +the human body. It is in no small measure through our own imprudence +that disease and debility are incurred, and one remedy is to be found +in knowledge. Once let the mass of the people be instructed in their +own frames; let them understand clearly that disease is not an +accident, but has fixed causes, many of which they can avert, and a +great amount of suffering, want, and consequent intellectual depression +will be removed.—I hope I shall not be thought to digress too far, +when I add, that were the mass of the community more enlightened on +these points, they would apply their knowledge, not only to their +private habits, but to the government of the city, and would insist on +municipal regulations favoring general health. This they owe to +themselves. They ought to require a system of measures for effectually +cleansing the city; for supplying it with pure water, either at public +expense or by a private corporation; and for prohibiting the erection +or the letting of such buildings as must generate disease. What a sad +thought is it, that in this metropolis, the blessings which God pours +forth profusely on bird and beast, the blessings of air, and light, and +water, should, in the case of many families, be so stinted or so mixed +with impurities, as to injure instead of invigorating the frame! With +what face can the great cities of Europe and America boast of their +civilization, when within their limits thousands and ten thousands +perish for want of God's freest, most lavish gifts! Can we expect +improvement among people who are cut off from nature's common bounties, +and want those cheering influences of the elements which even savages +enjoy? In this city, how much health, how many lives are sacrificed to +the practice of letting cellars and rooms which cannot be ventilated, +which want the benefits of light, free air, and pure water, and the +means of removing filth! We forbid by law the selling of putrid meat +in the market. Why do we not forbid the renting of rooms in which +putrid, damp and noisome vapors are working as sure destruction as the +worst food? Did people understand that they are as truly poisoned in +such dens as by tainted meat and decaying vegetables, would they not +appoint commissioners for houses as truly as commissioners for markets? +Ought not the renting of untenantable rooms, and the crowding of such +numbers into a single room as must breed disease, and may infect a +neighborhood, be as much forbidden as the importation of a pestilence? +I have enlarged on this point, because I am persuaded that the morals, +manners, decencies, self-respect, and intellectual improvement, as well +as the health and physical comforts of a people, depend on no outward +circumstances more than on the quality of the houses in which they +live. The remedy of the grievance now stated lies with the people +themselves. The laboring people must require that the health of the +city shall be a leading object of the municipal administration, and in +so doing they will protect at once the body and the mind. +</P> + +<P> +I will mention one more cause of the depressed condition of many +laborers, and that is, sloth, "the sin which doth most easily beset +us." How many are there who, working languidly and reluctantly, bring +little to pass, spread the work of one hour over many, shrink from +difficulties which ought to excite them, keep themselves poor, and thus +doom their families to ignorance as well as to want! +</P> + +<P> +In these remarks I have endeavored to show that the great obstacles to +the improvement of the laboring classes are in themselves, and may +therefore be overcome. They want nothing but the will. Outward +difficulty will shrink and vanish before them, just as far as they are +bent on progress, just as far as the great idea of their own elevation +shall take possession of their minds. I know that many will smile at +the suggestion, that the laborer may be brought to practise thrift and +self-denial, for the purpose of becoming a nobler being. But such +sceptics, having never experienced the power of a grand thought or +generous purpose, are no judges of others. They may be assured, +however, that enthusiasm is not wholly a dream, and that it is not +wholly unnatural for individuals or bodies to get the idea of something +higher and more inspiring than their past attainments. +</P> + +<P> +III. Having now treated of the elevation of the laborer, and examined +the objections to it, I proceed, in the last place, to consider some of +the circumstances of the times which encourage hopes of the progress of +the mass of the people. My limits oblige me to confine myself to very +few.—And, first, it is an encouraging circumstance, that the respect +for labor is increasing, or rather that the old prejudices against +manual toil, as degrading a man or putting him in a lower sphere, are +wearing away; and the cause of this change is full of promise; for it +is to be found in the progress of intelligence, Christianity, and +freedom, all of which cry aloud against the old barriers created +between the different classes, and challenge especial sympathy and +regard for those who bear the heaviest burdens, and create most of the +comforts of social life. The contempt of labor of which I have spoken +is a relic of the old aristocratic prejudices which formerly proscribed +trade as unworthy of a gentleman, and must die out with other +prejudices of the same low origin. And the results must be happy. It +is hard for a class of men to respect themselves who are denied respect +by all around them. A vocation looked on as degrading will have a +tendency to degrade those who follow it. Away, then, with the idea of +something low in manual labor. There is something shocking to a +religious man in the thought that the employment which God has ordained +for the vast majority of the human race should be unworthy of any man, +even to the highest. If, indeed, there were an employment which could +not be dispensed with, and which yet tended to degrade such as might be +devoted to it, I should say that it ought to be shared by the whole +race, and thus neutralized by extreme division, instead of being laid, +as the sole vocation, on one man or a few. Let no human being be +broken in spirit or trodden under foot for the outward prosperity of +the State. So far is manual labor from meriting contempt or slight, +that it will probably be found, when united with true means of +spiritual culture, to foster a sounder judgment, a keener observation, +a more creative imagination, and a purer taste, than any other +vocation. Man thinks of the few, God of the many; and the many will be +found at length to have within their reach the most effectual means of +progress. +</P> + +<P> +Another encouraging circumstance of the times is the creation of a +popular literature, which puts within the reach of the laboring class +the means of knowledge in whatever branch they wish to cultivate. +Amidst the worthless volumes which are every day sent from the press +for mere amusement, there are books of great value in all departments, +published for the benefit of the mass of readers. Mines of inestimable +truth are thus open to all who are resolved to think and learn. +Literature is now adapting itself to all wants; and I have little doubt +that a new form of it will soon appear for the special benefit of the +laboring classes. This will have for its object to show the progress +of the various useful arts, and to preserve the memory of their +founders, and of men who have laid the world under obligation by great +inventions. Every trade has distinguished names in its history. Some +trades can number, among those who have followed them, philosophers, +poets, men of true genius. I would suggest to the members of this +Association whether a course of lectures, intended to illustrate the +history of the more important trades, and of the great blessings they +have conferred on society, and of the eminent individuals who have +practised them, might not do much to instruct, and, at the same time, +to elevate them. Such a course would carry them far into the past, +would open to them much interesting information, and at the same time +introduce them to men whom they may well make their models. I would go +farther. I should be pleased to see the members of an important trade +setting apart an anniversary for the commemoration of those who have +shed lustre on it by their virtues, their discoveries, their genius. +It is time that honor should be awarded on higher principles than have +governed the judgment of past ages. Surely the inventor of the press, +the discoverer of the compass, the men who have applied the power of +steam to machinery, have brought the human race more largely into their +debt than the bloody race of conquerors, and even than many beneficent +princes. Antiquity exalted into divinities the first cultivators of +wheat and the useful plants, and the first forgers of metals; and we, +in these maturer ages of the world, have still greater names to boast +in the records of useful art. Let their memory be preserved to kindle +a generous emulation in those who have entered into their labors. +</P> + +<P> +Another circumstance, encouraging the hope of progress in the laboring +class, is to be found in the juster views they are beginning to adopt +in regard to the education of their children. On this foundation, +indeed, our hope for all classes must chiefly rest. All are to rise +chiefly by the care bestowed on the young. Not that I would say, as is +sometimes rashly said, that none but the young can improve. I give up +no age as desperate. Men who have lived thirty, or fifty years, are +not to feel as if the door was shut upon them. Every man who thirsts +to become something better has in that desire a pledge that his labor +will not be in vain. None are too old to learn. The world, from our +first to our last hour, is our school, and the whole of life has but +one great purpose,—education. Still, the child, uncorrupted, +unhardened, is the most hopeful subject; and vastly more, I believe, is +hereafter to be done for children, than ever before, by the gradual +spread of a simple truth, almost too simple, one would think, to need +exposition, yet up to this day wilfully neglected: namely, that +education is a sham, a cheat, unless carried on by able, accomplished +teachers. The dignity of the vocation of a teacher is beginning to be +understood; the idea is dawning on us that no office can compare in +solemnity and importance with that of training the child; that skill to +form the young to energy, truth, and virtue, is worth more than the +knowledge of all other arts and sciences; and that, of consequence, the +encouragement of excellent teachers is the first duty which a community +owes to itself. I say the truth is dawning, and it must make its way. +The instruction of the children of all classes, especially of the +laboring class, has as yet been too generally committed to unprepared, +unskilful hands, and of course the school is in general little more +than a name. The whole worth of a school lies in the teacher. You may +accumulate the most expensive apparatus for instruction; but without an +intellectual, gifted teacher, it is little better than rubbish; and +such a teacher, without apparatus, may effect the happiest results. +Our university boasts, and with justice, of its library, cabinets, and +philosophical instruments; but these are lifeless, profitless, except +as made effectual by the men who use them. A few eminent men, skilled +to understand, reach, and quicken the minds of the pupils, are worth +all these helps. And I say this, because it is commonly thought that +the children of the laboring class cannot be advanced, in consequence +of the inability of parents to furnish a variety of books and other +apparatus. But in education, various books and implements are not the +great requisites, but a high order of teachers. In truth, a few books +do better than many. The object of education is not so much to give a +certain amount of knowledge, as to awaken the faculties, and give the +pupil the use of his own mind; and one book, taught by a man who knows +how to accomplish these ends, is worth more than libraries as usually +read. It is not necessary that much should be taught in youth, but +that a little should be taught philosophically, profoundly, livingly. +For example, it is not necessary that the pupil be carried over the +history of the world from the deluge to the present day. Let him be +helped to read a single history wisely, to apply the principles of +historical evidence to its statements, to trace the causes and effects +of events, to penetrate into the motives of actions, to observe the +workings of human nature in what is done and suffered, to judge +impartially of action and character, to sympathize with what is noble, +to detect the spirit of an age in different forms from our own, to +seize the great truths which are wrapped up in details, and to discern +a moral Providence, a retribution, amidst all corruptions and changes; +let him learn to read a single history thus, and he has learned to read +all histories; he is prepared to study, as he may have time in future +life, the whole course of human events; he is better educated by this +one book than he would be by all the histories in all languages as +commonly taught. The education of the laborer's children need never +stop for want of books and apparatus. More of them would do good, but +enough may be easily obtained. What we want is, a race of teachers +acquainted with the philosophy of the mind, gifted men and women, who +shall respect human nature in the child, and strive to touch and gently +bring out his best powers and sympathies; and who shall devote +themselves to this as the great end of life. This good, I trust, is to +come, but it comes slowly. The establishment of normal schools shows +that the want of it begins to be felt. This good requires that +education shall be recognized by the community as its highest interest +and duty. It requires that the instructors of youth shall take +precedence of the money-getting classes, and that the woman of fashion +shall fall behind the female teacher. It requires that parents shall +sacrifice show and pleasure to the acquisition of the best possible +helps and guides for their children. Not that a great pecuniary +compensation is to create good teachers; these must be formed by +individual impulse, by a genuine interest in education; but good +impulse must be seconded by outward circumstances; and the means of +education will always bear a proportion to the respect in which the +office of teacher is held in the community. +</P> + +<P> +Happily, in this country, the true idea of education, of its nature and +supreme importance, is silently working and gains ground. Those of us +who look back on half a century, see a real, great improvement in +schools and in the standard of instruction. What should encourage this +movement in this country is, that nothing is wanting here to the +intellectual elevation of the laboring class but that a spring should +be given to the child, and that the art of thinking justly and strongly +should be formed in early life; for, this preparation being made, the +circumstances of future life will almost of themselves carry on the +work of improvement. It is one of the inestimable benefits of free +institutions, that they are constant stimulants to the intellect; that +they furnish, in rapid succession, quickening subjects of thought and +discussion. A whole people at the same moment are moved to reflect, +reason, judge, and act on matters of deep and universal concern; and +where the capacity of thought has received wise culture, the intellect, +unconsciously, by an almost irresistible sympathy, is kept perpetually +alive. The mind, like the body, depends on the climate it lives in, on +the air it breathes; and the air of freedom is bracing, exhilarating, +expanding, to a degree not dreamed of under a despotism. This stimulus +of liberty, however, avails little, except where the mind has learned +to think for the acquisition of truth. The unthinking and passionate +are hurried by it into ruinous excess. +</P> + +<P> +The last ground of hope for the elevation of the laborer, and the chief +and the most sustaining, is the clearer development of the principles +of Christianity. The future influences of this religion are not to be +judged from the past. Up to this time it has been made a political +engine, and in other ways perverted. But its true spirit, the spirit +of brotherhood and freedom, is beginning to be understood, and this +will undo the work which opposite principles have been carrying on for +ages. Christianity is the only effectual remedy for the fearful evils +of modern civilization,—a system which teaches its members to grasp at +everything, and to rise above everybody, as the great aims of life. Of +such a civilization the natural fruits are, contempt of others' rights, +fraud, oppression, a gambling spirit in trade, reckless adventure, and +commercial convulsions, all tending to impoverish the laborer and to +render every condition insecure. Relief is to come, and can only come, +from the new application of Christian principles, of universal justice +and universal love, to social institutions, to commerce, to business, +to active life. This application has begun, and the laborer, above all +men, is to feel its happy and exalting influences. +</P> + +<P> +Such are some of the circumstances which inspire hopes of the elevation +of the laboring classes. To these might be added other strong grounds +of encouragement, to be found in the principles of human nature, in the +perfections and providence of God, and in the prophetic intimations of +his word. But these I pass over. From all I derive strong hopes for +the mass of men. I do not, cannot see, why manual toil and +self-improvement may not go on in friendly union. I do not see why the +laborer may not attain to refined habits and manners as truly as other +men. I do not see why conversation under his humble roof may not be +cheered by wit and exalted by intelligence. I do not see why, amidst +his toils, he may not cast his eye around him on God's glorious +creation, and be strengthened and refreshed by the sight. I do not see +why the great ideas which exalt humanity—those of the Infinite Father, +of perfection, of our nearness to God, and of the purpose of our +being—may not grow bright and strong in the laborer's mind. Society, +I trust, is tending towards a condition in which it will look back with +astonishment at the present neglect or perversion of human powers. In +the development of a more enlarged philanthropy, in the diffusion of +the Christian spirit of brotherhood, in the recognition of the equal +rights of every human being, we have the dawn and promise of a better +age, when no man will be deprived of the means of elevation but by his +own fault; when the evil doctrine, worthy of the arch-fiend, that +social order demands the depression of the mass of men, will be +rejected with horror and scorn; when the great object of the community +will be to accumulate means and influences for awakening and expanding +the best powers of all classes; when far less will be expended on the +body and far more on the mind; when men of uncommon gifts for the +instruction of their race will be sent forth to carry light and +strength into every sphere of human life; when spacious libraries, +collections of the fine arts, cabinets of natural history, and all the +institutions by which the people may be refined and ennobled, will be +formed and thrown open to all; and when the toils of life, by a wise +intermixture of these higher influences, will be made the instruments +of human elevation. +</P> + +<P> +Such are my hopes of the intellectual, moral, religious, social +elevation of the laboring class. I should not, however, be true to +myself, did I not add that I have fears as well as hopes. Time is not +left me to enlarge on this point; but without a reference to it I +should not give you the whole truth. I would not disguise from myself +or others the true character of the world we live in. Human +imperfection throws an uncertainty over the future. Society, like the +natural world, holds in its bosom fearful elements. Who can hope that +the storms which have howled over past ages have spent all their force? +It is possible that the laboring classes, by their recklessness, their +passionateness, their jealousies of the more prosperous, and their +subserviency to parties and political leaders, may turn all their +bright prospects into darkness, may blight the hopes which philanthropy +now cherishes of a happier and holier social state. It is also +possible, in this mysterious state of things, that evil may come to +them from causes which are thought to promise them nothing but good. +The present anxiety and universal desire is to make the country rich, +and it is taken for granted that its growing wealth is necessarily to +benefit all conditions. But is this consequence sure? May not a +country be rich, and yet great numbers of the people be wofully +depressed? In England, the richest nation under heaven, how sad, how +degraded the state of the agricultural and manufacturing classes! It +is thought that the institutions of this country give an assurance that +growing wealth will here equally benefit and carry forward all portions +of the community. I hope so; but I am not sure. At the present time a +momentous change is taking place in our condition. The improvement in +steam navigation has half annihilated the space between Europe and +America, and by the progress of invention the two continents are to be +more and more placed side by side. We hail this triumph of the arts +with exultation. We look forward to the approaching spring, when this +metropolis is to be linked with England by a line of steamboats, as a +proud era in our history. That a great temporary excitement will be +given to industry, and that our wealth and numbers will increase, +admits no dispute; but this is a small matter. The great question is, +Will the mass of the people be permanently advanced in the comforts of +life, and, still more, in intelligence and character, in the culture of +their highest powers and affections? It is not enough to grow, if our +growth is to resemble that of other populous places. Better continue +as we are, better even decline, than tread in the steps of any great +city, whether of past or present times. I doubt not that, under God's +providence, the approximation of Europe and America is ultimately to be +a blessing to both; but without our vigilance, the nearer effects may +be more or less disastrous. It cannot be doubted that for a time many +among us, especially in the prosperous classes, will be more and more +infected from abroad, will sympathize more with the institutions, and +catch more the spirit and manners, of the Old World. As a people we +want moral independence. We bow to "the great" of other countries, and +we shall become for a time more and more servile in our imitation. But +this, though bad, may not be the worst result. I would ask, What is to +be the effect of bringing the laboring classes of Europe twice as near +us as they now are? Is there no danger of a competition that is to +depress the laboring classes here? Can the workman here stand his +ground against the half-famished, ignorant workmen of Europe, who will +toil for any wages, and who never think of redeeming an hour for +personal improvement? Is there no danger that, with increasing +intercourse with Europe, we shall import the striking, fearful +contrasts which there divide one people into separate nations? Sooner +than that our laboring class should become a European populace, a good +man would almost wish that perpetual hurricanes, driving every ship +from the ocean, should sever wholly the two hemispheres from each +other. Heaven preserve us from the anticipated benefits of nearer +connection with Europe, if with these must come the degradation which +we see or read of among the squalid poor of her great cities, among the +overworked operatives of her manufactories, among her ignorant and +half-brutalized peasants! Any thing, every thing should be done to +save us from the social evils which deform the Old World, and to build +up here an intelligent, right-minded, self-respecting population. If +this end should require us to change our present modes of life, to +narrow our foreign connections, to desist from the race of commercial +and manufacturing competition with Europe; if it should require that +our great cities should cease to grow, and that a large portion of our +trading population should return to labor, these requisitions ought to +be obeyed. One thing is plain, that our present civilization contains +strong tendencies to the intellectual and moral depression of a large +portion of the community; and this influence ought to be thought of, +studied, watched, withstood, with a stern solemn purpose of withholding +no sacrifice by which it may be counteracted. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps the fears now expressed may be groundless. I do not ask you to +adopt them. My end will be gained if I can lead you to study, +habitually and zealously, the influence of changes and measures on the +character and condition of the laboring class. There is no subject on +which your thoughts should turn more frequently than on this. Many of +you busy yourselves with other questions, such as the probable result +of the next election of President, or the prospects of this or that +party. But these are insignificant, compared with the great question, +Whether the laboring classes here are destined to the ignorance and +depression of the lower ranks of Europe, or whether they can secure to +themselves the means of intellectual and moral progress. You are +cheated, you are false to yourselves, when you suffer politicians to +absorb you in their selfish purposes, and to draw you away from this +great question. Give the first place in your thoughts to this. Carry +it away with you from the present lecture; discuss it together; study +it when alone; let your best heads work on it; resolve that nothing +shall be wanting on your part to secure the means of intellectual and +moral well-being to yourselves, and to those who may come after you. +</P> + +<P> +In these lectures, I have expressed a strong interest in the laboring +portion of the community; but I have no partiality to them considered +merely as laborers. My mind is attracted to them because they +constitute the majority of the human race. My great interest is in +human nature, and in the working classes as its most numerous +representatives. To those who look on this nature with contempt or +utter distrust, such language may seem a mere form, or may be construed +as a sign of the predominance of imagination and feeling over the +judgment. No matter. The pity of these sceptics I can return. Their +wonder at my credulity cannot surpass the sorrowful astonishment with +which I look on their indifference to the fortunes of their race. In +spite of all their doubts and scoffs, human nature is still most dear +to me. When I behold it manifested in its perfect proportions in Jesus +Christ, I cannot but revere it as the true temple of the Divinity. +When I see it as revealed in the great and good of all times, I bless +God for those multiplied and growing proofs of its high destiny. When +I see it bruised, beaten down, stifled by ignorance and vice, by +oppression, injustice, and grinding toil, I weep for it, and feel that +every man should be ready to suffer for its redemption. I do and I +must hope for its progress. But in saying this, I am not blind to its +immediate dangers. I am not sure that dark clouds and desolating +storms are not even now gathering over the world. When we look back on +the mysterious history of the human race, we see that Providence has +made use of fearful revolutions as the means of sweeping away the +abuses of ages, and of bringing forward mankind to their present +improvement. Whether such revolutions may not be in store for our own +times, I know not. The present civilization of the Christian world +presents much to awaken doubt and apprehension. It stands in direct +hostility to the great ideas of Christianity. It is selfish, +mercenary, sensual. Such a civilization cannot, must not, endure for +ever. How it is to be supplanted, I know not. I hope, however, that +it is not doomed, like the old Roman civilization, to be quenched in +blood. I trust that the works of ages are not to be laid low by +violence, rapine, and the all-devouring sword. I trust that the +existing social state contains in its bosom something better than it +has yet unfolded. I trust that a brighter future is to come, not from +the desolation, but from gradual, meliorating changes of the present. +Among the changes to which I look for the salvation of the modern +world, one of the chief is the intellectual and moral elevation of the +laboring class. The impulses which are to reform and quicken society +are probably to come, not from its more conspicuous, but from its +obscurer divisions; and among these I see with joy new wants, +principles, and aspirations beginning to unfold themselves. Let what +is already won give us courage. Let faith in a parental Providence +give us courage; and if we are to be disappointed in the present, let +us never doubt that the great interests of human nature are still +secure under the eye and care of an Almighty Friend. +</P> + +<P> +<I>Note for the third head</I>.—Under the third head of the lectures, in +which some of the encouraging circumstances of the times are stated, I +might have spoken of the singular advantages and means of progress +enjoyed by the laborer in this metropolis. It is believed that there +cannot be found another city in the world in which the laboring classes +are as much improved, possess as many helps, enjoy as much +consideration, exert as much influence, as in this place. Had I +pursued this subject, I should have done what I often wished to do; I +should have spoken of the obligations of our city to my excellent +friend, James Savage, Esq., to whose unwearied efforts we are chiefly +indebted for two inestimable institutions,—the Provident Institution +for Savings and the Primary Schools; the former giving to the laborer +the means of sustaining himself in times of pressure, and the latter +placing almost at his door the means of instruction for his children +from the earliest age. The union of the Primary Schools with the +Grammar Schools and the High Schools in this place constitutes a system +of public education unparalleled, it is believed, in any country. It +would not be easy to name an individual to whom our city is under +greater obligations than to Mr. Savage. In the enterprises which I +have named, he was joined and greatly assisted by the late Elisha +Ticknor, Esq., whose name ought also to be associated with the +Provident Institution and the Primary Schools. The subject of these +lectures brings to my mind the plan of an institution which was laid +before me by Mr. Ticknor, for teaching at once agriculture and the +mechanic arts. He believed that a boy might be made a thorough farmer, +both in theory and practice, and might at the same time learn a trade, +and that by being skilled in both vocations he would be more useful, +and would multiply his chances of comfortable subsistence. I was +interested by the plan, and Mr. Ticknor's practical wisdom led me to +believe that it might be accomplished. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10a"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE POETIC PRINCIPLE +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +EDGAR ALLAN POE +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</I> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) was born in Boston, the child of actors who +died while he was very young. He was adopted by a Virginian gentleman, +Mr. John Allan, who put him to school in England for five years, then +in Richmond, and finally sent him to the University of Virginia. He +remained there only a short time, and after finding that he disliked +business, and publishing a volume of poems, he enlisted in the army. +Mr. Allan had him discharged and placed him in West Point, from which +he got himself dismissed. After that he supported himself in a +hand-to-mouth fashion by writing for and editing newspapers and +periodicals, living successively in Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia, +and New York. The publication of his remarkable poem, "The Raven," in +1845, brought him fame, and for a short time he was a literary lion. +But in 1847 his wife died, and his two remaining years were a gradual +descent.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Poe's work falls into three divisions: poems, tales, and criticism. +The poems are chiefly remarkable for the amazing technical skill with +which haunting rhythms and studied successions of vowel and consonant +sounds are made to suggest atmospheres and emotional moods, with a +minimum of thought. In the writing of fiction, Poe is the great master +of the weird tale, no writer having surpassed him in the power of +shaking the reader's nerves with suggestions of the supernatural and +the horrible. In these stories, as in the poems, he shows an +extraordinary sense of form, and his effects are produced not merely by +the violently sensational, but by carefully calculated attacks upon the +reader's imaginative sensibilities.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>In criticism Poe was, if not a scholarly, at least a stimulating and +suggestive, writer, with a fine ear and, within his range, keen +insight. His essay on "The Poetic Principle" is his poetic confession +of faith. He makes clear and defends his conception of poetry; a +conception which excludes many great kinds of verse, but which, +illuminated as it is by abundant examples of his favorite poems, throws +light in turn upon some of the fundamental elements of poetry.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>It is worth noting that no American author seems to have enjoyed so +great a European vogue as Poe.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE POETIC PRINCIPLE +</H3> + +<P> +In speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either +thorough or profound. While discussing, very much at random, the +essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to +cite for consideration some few of those minor English or American +poems which best suit my own taste, or which upon my own fancy have +left the most definite impression. By "minor poems" I mean, of course, +poems of little length. And here in the beginning permit me to say a +few words in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether +rightfully or wrongfully, has always had its influence in my own +critical estimate of the poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist. +I maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat +contradiction in terms. +</P> + +<P> +I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as +it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the +ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a +psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would +entitle a poem to be so called at all cannot be sustained throughout a +composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at +the very utmost, it flags—fails—a revulsion ensues—and then the poem +is, in effect, and in fact, no longer such. +</P> + +<P> +There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling the +critical dictum that the "Paradise Lost" is to be devoutly admired +throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it, +during perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum +would demand. The great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical, +only when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all works of Art, +Unity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve +its Unity—its totality of effect or impression—we read it (as would +be necessary) at a single sitting, the result is but a constant +alternation of excitement and depression. After a passage of what we +feel to be true poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of +platitude which no critical prejudgment can force us to admire; but if, +upon completing the work, we read it again, omitting the first book +(that is to say, commencing with the second), we shall be surprised at +now finding that admirable which we before condemned—that damnable +which we had previously so much admired. It follows from all this that +the ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under +the sun is a nullity;—and this is precisely the fact. +</P> + +<P> +In regard to the "Iliad," we have, if not positive proof, at least very +good reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but, +granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in +an imperfect sense of art. The modern epic is, of the supposititious +ancient model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the +day of these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very +long poems were popular in reality—which I doubt—it is at least clear +that no very long poem will ever be popular again. +</P> + +<P> +That the extent of a poetical work is, <I>ceteris paribus</I>, the measure +of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition +sufficiently absurd—yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly +Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere size, abstractly +considered—there can be nothing in mere bulk, so far as a volume is +concerned which has so continuously elicited admiration from these +saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of +physical magnitude which it conveys, does impress us with a sense of +the sublime—but no man is impressed after this fashion by the material +grandeur of even "The Columbiad." Even the Quarterlies have not +instructed us to be so impressed by it. <I>As yet</I>, they have not +<I>insisted</I> on our estimating Lamartine by the cubic foot, or Pollok by +the pound—but what else are we to <I>infer</I> from their continual prating +about "sustained effort"? If, by "sustained effort," any little +gentleman has accomplished an epic, let us frankly commend him for the +effort,—if this indeed be a thing commendable,—but let us forbear +praising the epic on the effort's account. It is to be hoped that +common sense, in the time to come, will prefer deciding upon a work of +Art, rather by the impression it makes—by the effect it produces—than +by the time it took to impress the effect, or by the amount of +"sustained effort" which had been found necessary in effecting the +impression. The fact is, that perseverance is one thing and genius +quite another; nor can all the Quarterlies in Christendom confound +them. By and by, this proposition, with many which I have been just +urging, will be received as self-evident. In the mean time, by being +generally condemned as falsities they will not be essentially damaged +as truths. +</P> + +<P> +On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief. +Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A <I>very</I> short +poem, while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces +a profound or enduring, effect. There must be the steady pressing down +of the stamp upon the wax. Beranger has wrought innumerable things, +pungent and spirit-stirring; but, in general, they have been too +imponderous to stamp themselves deeply into the public opinion, and +thus, as so many feathers of fancy, have been blown aloft only to be +whistled down the wind. +</P> + +<P> +A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing a +poem—in keeping it out of the popular view—is afforded by the +following exquisite little serenade:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I arise from dreams of thee<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In the first sweet sleep of night,</SPAN><BR> +When the winds are breathing low,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the stars are shining bright;</SPAN><BR> +I arise from dreams of thee,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And a spirit in my feet</SPAN><BR> +Hath led me—who knows how?—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To thy chamber-window, sweet!</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The wandering airs, they faint<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">On the dark, the silent stream;</SPAN><BR> +And the champak odors fail<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Like sweet thoughts in a dream;</SPAN><BR> +The nightingale's complaint,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">It dies upon her heart,</SPAN><BR> +As I must on thine,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Oh, beloved as thou art!</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Oh, lift me from the grass!<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">I die! I faint! I fail!</SPAN><BR> +Let thy love in kisses rain<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">On my lips and eyelids pale.</SPAN><BR> +My cheek is cold and white, alas!<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">My heart beats loud and fast:</SPAN><BR> +Oh! press it to thine own again,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Where it will break at last!</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Very few, perhaps, are familiar with these lines—yet no less a poet +than Shelley is their author. Their warm, yet delicate and ethereal +imagination will be appreciated by all; but by none so thoroughly as by +him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved, to bathe +in the aromatic air of a southern midsummer night. +</P> + +<P> +One of the finest poems by Willis—the very best, in my opinion, which +he has ever written—has, no doubt, through this same defect of undue +brevity, been kept back from its proper position, not less in the +critical than in the popular view. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The shadows lay along Broadway,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">'Twas near the twilight-tide—</SPAN><BR> +And slowly there a lady fair<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Was walking in her pride.</SPAN><BR> +Alone walked she; but, viewlessly,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Walked spirits at her side.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Peace charmed the street beneath her feet,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And Honor charmed the air;</SPAN><BR> +And all astir looked kind on her,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And called her good as fair;</SPAN><BR> +For all God ever gave to her<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">She kept with chary care.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +She kept with care her beauties rare<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">From lovers warm and true,—</SPAN><BR> +For her heart was cold to all but gold,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the rich came not to woo,—</SPAN><BR> +But honored well are charms to sell<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">If priests the selling do.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Now walking there was one more fair—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">A slight girl, lily-pale;</SPAN><BR> +And she had unseen company<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To make the spirit quail;</SPAN><BR> +'Twixt Want and Scorn she walked forlorn,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And nothing could avail.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +No mercy now can clear her brow<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">For this world's peace to pray;</SPAN><BR> +For, as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Her woman's heart gave way!—</SPAN><BR> +But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">By man is cursed alway!</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +In this composition we find it difficult to recognize the Willis who +has written so many mere "Verses of society." The lines are not only +richly ideal, but full of energy, while they breathe an earnestness—an +evident sincerity of sentiment—for which we look in vain throughout +all the other works of this author. +</P> + +<P> +While the epic mania—while the idea that, to merit in poetry, +prolixity is indispensable—has, for some years past, been gradually +dying out of the public mind by mere dint of its own absurdity—we find +it succeeded by a heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated, but +one which, in the brief period it has already endured, may be said to +have accomplished more in the corruption of our Poetical Literature +than all its other enemies combined. I allude to the heresy of <I>The +Didactic</I>. It has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and +indirectly, that the ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth. Every +poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral; and by this moral is the +poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. We Americans, especially, +have patronized this happy idea; and we Bostonians, very especially, +have developed it in full. We have taken it into our heads that to +write a poem simply for the poem's sake, and to acknowledge such to +have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting +in the true Poetic dignity and force; but the simple fact is, that, +would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls, we should +immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor +can exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, +than this very poem—this poem <I>per se</I>—this poem which is a poem and +nothing more—this poem written solely for the poem's sake. +</P> + +<P> +With as deep a reverence for the True as ever inspired the bosom of +man, I would, nevertheless, limit in some measure its modes of +inculcation. I would limit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble them +by dissipation. The demands of Truth are severe; she has no sympathy +with the myrtles. All <I>that</I> which is so indispensable in Song, is +precisely all <I>that</I> with which <I>she</I> has nothing whatever to do. It +is but making her a flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and +flowers. In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than +efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse. We must +be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we must be in that mood, +which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the poetical. +He must be blind, indeed, who does not perceive the radical and chasmal +differences between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation. +He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite of these +differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the +obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth. +</P> + +<P> +Dividing the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious +distinctions, we have the Pure Intellect, Taste, and the Moral Sense. +I place Taste in the middle, because it is just this position which in +the mind it occupies. It holds intimate relations with either extreme, +but from the Moral Sense is separated by so faint a difference that +Aristotle has not hesitated to place some of its operations among the +virtues themselves. Nevertheless, we find the <I>offices</I> of the trio +marked with a sufficient distinction. Just as the intellect concerns +itself with Truth, so Taste informs us of the Beautiful, while the +Moral Sense is regardful of Duty. Of this latter, while Conscience +teaches the obligation, and Reason the expediency, Taste contents +herself with displaying the charms:—waging war upon Vice solely on the +ground of her deformity—her disproportion—her animosity to the +fitting, to the appropriate, to the harmonious—in a word, to Beauty. +</P> + +<P> +An immortal instinct, deep within the spirit of man, is thus, plainly, +a sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight +in the manifold forms, and sounds, and odors, and sentiments, amid +which he exists. And just as the lily is repeated in the lake, or the +eyes of Amaryllis in the mirror, so is the mere oral or written +repetition of these forms, and sounds, and colors, and odors, and +sentiments, a duplicate source of delight. But this mere repetition is +not poetry. He who shall simply sing, with however glowing enthusiasm, +or with however vivid a truth of description, of the sights, and +sounds, and odors, and colors, and sentiments, which greet <I>him</I> in +common with all mankind—he, I say, has yet failed to prove his divine +title. There is still a something in the distance which he has been +unable to attain. We have still a thirst unquenchable, to allay which +he has not shown us the crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the +immortality of Man. It is at once a consequence and an indication of +his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth for the star. +It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us, but a wild effort +to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the +glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations among +the things and thoughts of Time, to attain a portion of that Loveliness +whose very elements, perhaps, appertain to eternity alone. And thus +when by Poetry—or when by Music, the most entrancing of the Poetic +moods—we find ourselves melted into tears not as the Abbate Gravia +supposes through excess of pleasure, but through a certain petulant, +impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, +at once and forever, those divine and rapturous joys, of which +<I>through</I> the poem, or <I>through</I> the music, we attain to but brief and +indeterminate glimpses. +</P> + +<P> +The struggle to apprehend the supernal Loveliness—this struggle, on +the part of souls fittingly constituted—has given to the world all +that which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand +and to feel as poetic. +</P> + +<P> +The Poetic Sentiment, of course, may develop itself in various +modes—in Painting, in Sculpture, in Architecture, in the Dance—very +especially in Music,—and very peculiarly and with a wide field, in the +composition of the Landscape Garden. Our present theme, however, has +regard only to its manifestation in words. And here let me speak +briefly on the topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with the certainty +that Music, in its various modes of metre, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so +vast a moment in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected—is so vitally +important an adjunct, that he is simply silly who declines its +assistance—I will not now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality. +It is in Music, perhaps, that the soul most nearly attains the great +end for which, when inspired by the Poetic Sentiment, it struggles—the +creation of supernal Beauty. It may be, indeed, that here this sublime +end is, now and then, attained in fact. We are often made to feel, +with a shivering delight, that from an earthly harp are stricken notes +which cannot have been unfamiliar to the angels. And thus there can be +little doubt that in the union of Poetry with Music in its popular +sense we shall find the widest field for the Poetic development. The +old Bards and Minnesingers had advantages which we do not possess—and +Thomas Moore, singing his own songs, was, in the most legitimate +manner, perfecting them as poems. +</P> + +<P> +To recapitulate, then:—I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words +as <I>The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty</I>. Its sole arbiter is Taste. +With the Intellect or with the Conscience, it has only collateral +relations. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with +Duty or with Truth. +</P> + +<P> +A few words, however, in explanation. That pleasure which is at once +the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived, I +maintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. In the +contemplation of Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that +pleasurable elevation, or excitement, <I>of the soul</I>, which we recognize +as the Poetic Sentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from +Truth, which is the satisfaction of the Reason, or from Passion, which +is the excitement of the heart. I make Beauty, therefore,—using the +word as inclusive of the sublime,—I make Beauty the province of the +poem, simply because it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should +be made to spring as directly as possible from their causes—no one as +yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation in +question is at least <I>most readily</I> attainable in the poem. It by no +means follows, however, that the incitements of Passion, or the +precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of Truth, may not be introduced +into a poem and with advantage; for they may subserve, incidentally, in +various ways, the general purposes of the work; but the true artist +will always contrive to tone them down in proper subjection to that +<I>Beauty</I> which is the atmosphere and the real essence of the poem. +</P> + +<P> +I cannot better introduce the few poems which I shall present for your +consideration, than by the citation of the "Proem" to Mr. Longfellow's +"Waif": +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The day is done, and the darkness<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Falls from the wings of Night,</SPAN><BR> +As a feather is wafted downward<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">From an eagle in his flight.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I see the lights of the village<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Gleam through the rain and the mist,</SPAN><BR> +And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That my soul cannot resist:</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +A feeling of sadness and longing,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That is not akin to pain,</SPAN><BR> +And resembles sorrow only<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">As the mist resembles the rain.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Come, read to me some poem,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Some simple and heartfelt lay,</SPAN><BR> +That shall soothe this restless feeling,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And banish the thoughts of day.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Not from the grand old masters,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Not from the bards sublime,</SPAN><BR> +Whose distant footsteps echo<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Through the corridors of Time.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +For, like strains of martial music,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Their mighty thoughts suggest</SPAN><BR> +Life's endless toil and endeavor;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And to-night I long for rest.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Read from some humbler poet,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Whose songs gushed from his heart,</SPAN><BR> +As showers from the clouds of summer,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Or tears from the eyelids start;</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Who, through long days of labor,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And nights devoid of ease,</SPAN><BR> +Still heard in his soul the music<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Of wonderful melodies.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Such songs have power to quiet<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The restless pulse of care,</SPAN><BR> +And come like the benediction<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That follows after prayer.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Then read from the treasured volume<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The poem of thy choice,</SPAN><BR> +And lend to the rhyme of the poet<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The beauty of thy voice.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +And the night shall be filled with music,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the cares, that infest the day,</SPAN><BR> +Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And as silently steal away.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly +admired for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very +effective. Nothing can be better than— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">the bards sublime,</SPAN><BR> +Whose distant footsteps echo<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Through the corridors of Time.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem, on the +whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful <I>insouciance</I> +of its metre, so well in accordance with the character of the +sentiments, and especially for the <I>ease</I> of the general manner. This +"ease," or naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the +fashion to regard as ease in appearance alone—as a point of really +difficult attainment. But not so; a natural manner is difficult only +to him who should never meddle with it—to the unnatural. It is but +the result of writing with the understanding, or with the instinct, +that <I>the tone</I>, in composition, should always be that which the mass +of mankind would adopt—and must perpetually vary, of course, with the +occasion. The author who, after the fashion of the "North American +Review," should be, upon <I>all</I> occasions, merely "quiet," must +necessarily, upon <I>many</I> occasions, be simply silly, or stupid; and has +no more right to be considered "easy," or "natural," than a Cockney +exquisite, or than the sleeping Beauty in the wax-works. +</P> + +<P> +Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the +one which he entitles "June." I quote only a portion of it:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There, through the long, long summer hours,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">The golden light should lie,</SPAN><BR> +And thick, young herbs and groups of flowers<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Stand in their beauty by.</SPAN><BR> +The oriole should build and tell<BR> +His love-tale, close beside my cell;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">The idle butterfly</SPAN><BR> +Should rest him there, and there be heard<BR> +The housewife-bee and humming-bird.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +And what, if cheerful shouts at noon,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Come, from the village sent,</SPAN><BR> +Or songs of maids, beneath the moon<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">With fairy laughter blent?</SPAN><BR> +And what, if in the evening light,<BR> +Betrothčd lovers walk in sight<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Of my low monument?</SPAN><BR> +I would the lovely scene around<BR> +Might know no sadder sight nor sound.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I know that I no more should see<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">The season's glorious show,</SPAN><BR> +Nor would its brightness shine for me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Nor its wild music flow;</SPAN><BR> +But if, around my place of sleep,<BR> +The friends I love should come to weep,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">They might not haste to go.</SPAN><BR> +Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom<BR> +Should keep them, lingering by my tomb.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +These to their softened hearts should bear<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">The thought of what has been,</SPAN><BR> +And speak of one who cannot share<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">The gladness of the scene;</SPAN><BR> +Whose part, in all the pomp that fills<BR> +The circuit of the summer hills,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Is—that his grave is green;</SPAN><BR> +And deeply would their hearts rejoice<BR> +To hear again his living voice.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The rhythmical flow, here, is even voluptuous—nothing could be more +melodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner. +The intense melancholy, which seems to well up, perforce, to the +surface of all the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave, we find +thrilling us to the soul, while there is the truest poetic elevation in +the thrill. The impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness. +</P> + +<P> +And if, in the remaining compositions which I shall introduce to you, +there be more or less of a similar tone always apparent, let me remind +you that (how or why we know not) this certain taint of sadness is +inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of true +Beauty. It is, nevertheless, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +A feeling of sadness and longing<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That is not akin to pain,</SPAN><BR> +And resembles sorrow only<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">As the mist resembles the rain.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible even in a poem so +full of brilliancy and spirit as the "Health" of Edward C. Pinkney:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I fill this cup to one made up<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Of loveliness alone,</SPAN><BR> +A woman, of her gentle sex<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The seeming paragon;</SPAN><BR> +To whom the better elements<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And kindly stars have given</SPAN><BR> +A form so fair, that, like the air,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">'Tis less of earth than heaven.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Her every tone is music's own,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Like those of morning birds,</SPAN><BR> +And something more than melody<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Dwells ever in her words;</SPAN><BR> +The coinage of her heart are they,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And from her lips each flows</SPAN><BR> +As one may see the burdened bee<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Forth issue from the rose.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Affections are as thoughts to her,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The measures of her hours;</SPAN><BR> +Her feelings have the fragrancy,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The freshness of young flowers;</SPAN><BR> +And lovely passions, changing oft,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">So fill her, she appears</SPAN><BR> +The image of themselves by turns,—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The idol of past years!</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Of her bright face one glance will trace<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">A picture on the brain,</SPAN><BR> +And of her voice in echoing hearts<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">A sound must long remain;</SPAN><BR> +But memory, such as mine of her,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">So very much endears,</SPAN><BR> +When death is nigh, my latest sigh<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Will not be life's, but hers.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I fill this cup to one made up<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Of loveliness alone,</SPAN><BR> +A woman, of her gentle sex<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The seeming paragon—</SPAN><BR> +Her health! and would on earth there stood<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Some more of such a frame,</SPAN><BR> +That life might be all poetry,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And weariness a name.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to have been born too far south. +Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been +ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which +has so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting +the thing called the "North American Review." The poem just cited is +especially beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must +refer chiefly to our sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm. We pardon his +hyperboles for the evident earnestness with which they are uttered. +</P> + +<P> +It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the <I>merits</I> +of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for +themselves. Boccalini, in his "Advertisements from Parnassus," tells +us that Zoilus once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a +very admirable book; whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of +the work. He replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On +hearing this, Apollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him +pick out <I>all the chaff</I> for his reward. +</P> + +<P> +Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics; but I am by +no means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain +that the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly +misunderstood. Excellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in +the light of an axiom, which need only be properly <I>put</I>, to become +self-evident. It is not excellence if it requires to be demonstrated +as such; and thus, to point out too particularly the merits of a work +of Art, is to admit that they are not merits altogether. +</P> + +<P> +Among the "Melodies" of Thomas Moore, is one whose distinguished +character as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left out of +view. I allude to his lines beginning: "Come, rest in this bosom." +The intense energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in +Byron. There are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed +that embodies the <I>all in all</I> of the divine passion of love—a +sentiment which, perhaps, has found its echo in more, and in more +passionate, human hearts than any other single sentiment ever embodied +in words:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer,<BR> +Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;<BR> +Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast,<BR> +And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Oh! what was love made for, if 'tis not the same<BR> +Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?<BR> +I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,<BR> +I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Thou hast called me thy angel in moments of bliss,<BR> +And thy angel I'll be, 'mid the horrors of this,—<BR> +Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,<BR> +And shield thee, and save thee,—or perish there too!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +It has been the fashion, of late days, to deny Moore imagination, while +granting him fancy—a distinction originating with Coleridge—than whom +no man more fully comprehended the great powers of Moore. The fact is +that the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other +faculties, and over the fancy of all other men, as to have induced, +very naturally, the idea that he is fanciful only. But never was there +a greater mistake. Never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true +poet. In the compass of the English language I can call to mind no +poem more profoundly, more weirdly <I>imaginative</I>, in the best sense, +than the lines commencing: "I would I were by that dim lake," which are +the composition of Thomas Moore. I regret that I am unable to remember +them. +</P> + +<P> +One of the noblest—and, speaking of fancy, one of the most singularly +fanciful—of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His "Fair Ines" had +always, for me, an inexpressible charm:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +O saw ye not fair Ines?<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">She's gone into the West,</SPAN><BR> +To dazzle when the sun is down,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And rob the world of rest;</SPAN><BR> +She took our daylight with her,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The smiles that we love best,</SPAN><BR> +With morning blushes on her cheek,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And pearls upon her breast.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +O turn again, fair Ines,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Before the fall of night,</SPAN><BR> +For fear the moon should shine alone,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And stars unrivalled bright;</SPAN><BR> +And blessčd will the lover be<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That walks beneath their light,</SPAN><BR> +And breathes the love against thy cheek<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">I dare not even write!</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Would I had been, fair Ines,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That gallant cavalier,</SPAN><BR> +Who rode so gayly by thy side,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And whispered thee so near!</SPAN><BR> +Were there no bonny dames at home,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Or no true lovers here,</SPAN><BR> +That he should cross the seas to win<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The dearest of the dear?</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I saw thee, lovely Ines,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Descend along the shore,</SPAN><BR> +With bands of noble gentlemen,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And banners waved before;</SPAN><BR> +And gentle youth and maidens gay,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And snowy plumes they wore;</SPAN><BR> +It would have been a beauteous dream—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">If it had been no more!</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Alas, alas, fair Ines!<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">She went away with song,</SPAN><BR> +With Music waiting on her steps,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And shoutings of the throng;</SPAN><BR> +But some were sad and felt no mirth,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But only Music's wrong,</SPAN><BR> +In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To her you've loved so long.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Farewell, farewell, fair Ines!<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That vessel never bore</SPAN><BR> +So fair a lady on its deck,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Nor danced so light before,—</SPAN><BR> +Alas, for pleasure on the sea,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And sorrow on the shore!</SPAN><BR> +The smile that blest one lover's heart<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Has broken many more!</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"The Haunted House," by the same author, is one of the truest poems +ever written; one of the <I>truest</I>, one of the most unexceptionable, one +of the most thoroughly artistic both in its theme and in its execution. +It is, moreover, powerfully ideal, imaginative. I regret that its +length renders it unsuitable for the purposes of this Lecture. In +place of it, permit me to offer the universally appreciated "Bridge of +Sighs." +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +One more Unfortunate,<BR> +Weary of breath,<BR> +Rashly importunate,<BR> +Gone to her death!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Take her up tenderly,<BR> +Lift her with care:<BR> +Fashioned so slenderly,<BR> +Young, and so fair!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Look at her garments<BR> +Clinging like cerements;<BR> +Whilst the wave constantly<BR> +Drips from her clothing;<BR> +Take her up instantly,<BR> +Loving, not loathing,—<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Touch her not scornfully;<BR> +Think of her mournfully,<BR> +Gently and humanly;<BR> +Not of the stains of her—<BR> +All that remains of her<BR> +Now, is pure womanly.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Make no deep scrutiny<BR> +Into her mutiny<BR> +Rash and undutiful:<BR> +Past all dishonor,<BR> +Death has left on her<BR> +Only the beautiful.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Still, for all slips of hers,<BR> +One of Eve's family—<BR> +Wipe those poor lips of hers<BR> +Oozing so clammily,<BR> +Loop up her tresses<BR> +Escaped from the comb,<BR> +Her fair auburn tresses;<BR> +Whilst wonderment guesses<BR> +Where was her home?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Who was her father?<BR> +Who was her mother?<BR> +Had she a sister?<BR> +Had she a brother?<BR> +Or was there a dearer one<BR> +Still, and a nearer one<BR> +Yet, than all other?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Alas! for the rarity<BR> +Of Christian charity<BR> +Under the sun!<BR> +Oh, it was pitiful!<BR> +Near a whole city full,<BR> +Home she had none.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Sisterly, brotherly,<BR> +Fatherly, motherly<BR> +Feelings had changed;<BR> +Love, by harsh evidence,<BR> +Thrown from its eminence;<BR> +Even God's providence<BR> +Seeming estranged.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Where the lamps quiver<BR> +So far in the river,<BR> +With many a light<BR> +From window and casement,<BR> +From garret to basement,<BR> +She stood, with amazement,<BR> +Houseless by night.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The bleak wind of March<BR> +Made her tremble and shiver,<BR> +But not the dark arch,<BR> +Or the black flowing river:<BR> +Mad from life's history,<BR> +Glad to death's mystery,<BR> +Swift to be hurled—<BR> +Anywhere, anywhere<BR> +Out of the world!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +In she plunged boldly,<BR> +No matter how coldly<BR> +The rough river ran,—<BR> +Over the brink of it,<BR> +Picture it—think of it,<BR> +Dissolute man!<BR> +Lave in it, drink of it,<BR> +Then, if you can!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Take her up tenderly,<BR> +Lift her with care;<BR> +Fashioned so slenderly,<BR> +Young, and so fair!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Ere her limbs frigidly<BR> +Stiffen too rigidly,<BR> +Decently—kindly—<BR> +Smoothe and compose them:<BR> +And her eyes, close them,<BR> +Staring so blindly!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Dreadfully staring<BR> +Through muddy impurity,<BR> +As when with the daring<BR> +Last look of despairing<BR> +Fixed on futurity.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Perishing gloomily,<BR> +Spurred by contumely,<BR> +Cold inhumanity,<BR> +Burning insanity,<BR> +Into her rest.—<BR> +Cross her hands humbly,<BR> +As if praying dumbly,<BR> +Over her breast!<BR> +Owning her weakness,<BR> +Her evil behavior,<BR> +And leaving, with meekness,<BR> +Her sins to her Saviour!<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The vigor of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos. The +versification, although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the +fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which +is the thesis of the poem. +</P> + +<P> +Among the minor poems of Lord Byron, is one which has never received +from the critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Though the day of my destiny's over,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the star of my fate hath declined,</SPAN><BR> +Thy soft heart refused to discover<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The faults which so many could find;</SPAN><BR> +Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">It shrunk not to share it with me,</SPAN><BR> +And the love which my spirit hath painted<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">It never hath found but in <I>thee</I>.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Then when nature around me is smiling,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The last smile which answers to mine,</SPAN><BR> +I do not believe it beguiling,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Because it reminds me of thine;</SPAN><BR> +And when winds are at war with the ocean,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">As the breasts I believed in with me,</SPAN><BR> +If their billows excite an emotion,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">It is that they bear me from <I>thee</I>.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Though the rock of my last hope is shivered,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And its fragments are sunk in the wave,</SPAN><BR> +Though I feel that my soul is delivered<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To pain—it shall not be its slave.</SPAN><BR> +There is many a pang to pursue me;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">They may crush, but they shall not contemn;</SPAN><BR> +They may torture, but shall not subdue me;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">'Tis of <I>thee</I> that I think—not of them.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Though human, thou didst not deceive me;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Though woman, thou didst not forsake;</SPAN><BR> +Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Though slandered, thou never couldst shake;</SPAN><BR> +Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Though parted, it was not to fly;</SPAN><BR> +Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Nor mute, that the world might belie.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Nor the war of the many with one—</SPAN><BR> +If my soul was not fitted to prize it,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">'Twas folly not sooner to shun;</SPAN><BR> +And if dearly that error hath cost me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And more than I once could foresee,</SPAN><BR> +I have found that, whatever it lost me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">It could not deprive me of <I>thee</I>.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +From the wreck of the past, which hath perished,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Thus much I at least may recall:</SPAN><BR> +It hath taught me that what I most cherished<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Deserved to be dearest of all.</SPAN><BR> +In the desert a fountain is springing,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In the wide waste there still is a tree,</SPAN><BR> +And a bird in the solitude singing,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Which speaks to my spirit of <I>thee</I>.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult, the +versification could scarcely be improved. No nobler theme ever engaged +the pen of poet. It is the soul-elevating idea, that no man can +consider himself entitled to complain of Fate while, in his adversity, +he still retains the unwavering love of woman. +</P> + +<P> +From Alfred Tennyson—although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the +noblest poet that ever lived—I have left myself time to cite only a +very brief specimen. I call him, and <I>think</I> him, the noblest of +poets, <I>not</I> because the impressions he produces are, at <I>all</I> times, +the most profound, <I>not</I> because the poetical excitement which he +induces is, at <I>all</I> times, the most intense, but because it <I>is</I>, at +all times, the most ethereal—in other words, the most elevating and +the most pure. No poet is so little of the earth, earthy. What I am +about to read is from his last long poem, "The Princess":— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,</SPAN><BR> +Tears from the depth of some divine despair<BR> +Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,<BR> +In looking on the happy autumn fields,<BR> +And thinking of the days that are no more.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail</SPAN><BR> +That brings our friends up from the underworld;<BR> +Sad as the last which reddens over one<BR> +That sinks with all we love below the verge;<BR> +So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns</SPAN><BR> +The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds<BR> +To dying ears, when unto dying eyes<BR> +The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;<BR> +So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Dear as remembered kisses after death,</SPAN><BR> +And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned<BR> +On lips that are for others; deep as love,<BR> +Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;<BR> +O Death in Life, the days that are no more.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have +endeavored to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It +has been my purpose to suggest that, while this Principle itself is, +strictly and simply, the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the +manifestation of the Principle is always found in <I>an elevating +excitement of the Soul</I>, quite independent of that passion which is the +intoxication of the Heart, or of that Truth which is the satisfaction +of the Reason. For, in regard to Passion, alas! its tendency is to +degrade rather than elevate the Soul. Love, on the contrary—Love, the +true, the divine Eros, the Uranian as distinguished from the Dionaean +Venus—is unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes. +And in regard to Truth—if, to be sure, through the attainment of a +truth we are led to perceive a harmony where none was apparent before, +we experience, at once the true poetical effect; but this effect is +referable to the harmony alone, and not in the least degree to the +truth which merely served to render the harmony manifest. +</P> + +<P> +We shall reach, however, more immediately a distinct conception of what +the true Poetry is, by mere reference to a few of the simple elements +which induce in the Poet himself the true poetical effect. He +recognizes the ambrosia, which nourishes his soul, in the bright orbs +that shine in Heaven, in the volutes of the flower, in the clustering +of low shrubberies, in the waving of the grain-fields, in the slanting +of the tall, Eastern trees, in the blue distance of mountains, in the +grouping of clouds, in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks, in the +gleaming of silver rivers, in the repose of sequestered lakes, in the +star-mirroring depths of lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of +birds, in the harp of Aeolus, in the sighing of the night-wind, in the +repining voice of the forest, in the surf that complains to the shore, +in the fresh breath of the woods, in the scent of the violet, in the +voluptuous perfume of the hyacinth, in the suggestive odor that comes +to him at eventide from far-distant, undiscovered islands, over dim +oceans, illimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts, +in all unworldly motives, in all holy impulses, in all chivalrous, +generous, and self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of +woman, in the grace of her step, in the lustre of her eye, in the +melody of her voice, in her soft laughter, in her sigh, in the harmony +of the rustling of her robes. He deeply feels it in her winning +endearments, in her burning enthusiasms, in her gentle charities, in +her meek and devotional endurances; but above all—ah! far above +all—he kneels to it, he worships it in the faith, in the purity, in +the strength, in the altogether divine majesty of her love. +</P> + +<P> +Let me conclude by the recitation of yet another brief poem—one very +different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by +Motherwell, and is called "The Song of the Cavalier." With our modern +and altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare, +we are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize +with the sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence, of the +poem. To do this fully, we must identify ourselves, in fancy, with the +soul of the old cavalier. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Then mounte! then mounte, brave gallants, all,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And don your helmes amaine:</SPAN><BR> +Deathe's couriers, Fame and Honor, call<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Us to the field againe.</SPAN><BR> +No shrewish teares shall fill our eye<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">When the sword-hilt's in our hand;</SPAN><BR> +Heart-whole we'll part and no whit sighe<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">For the fayrest of the land;</SPAN><BR> +Let piping swaine, and craven wight,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Thus weepe and puling crye,</SPAN><BR> +Our business is like men to fight,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And hero-like to die!</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11a"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WALKING +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +HENRY DAVID THOREAU +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</I> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Henry David Thoreau was born at Concord, Massachusetts, July 12, 1817, +and died there May 6, 1862. He was one of the most markedly individual +of that group of philosophers and men of letters which has made the +name of the little Massachusetts town so notable in the intellectual +history of America.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Thoreau came of a family of French descent, and was educated at +Harvard. "He was bred," says his friend Emerson, "to no profession; he +never married; he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; +he refused to pay a tax to the State; he ate no flesh, he drank no +wine, he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he +used neither trap nor gun." The individualism which is implied in +these facts was the most prominent characteristic of this remarkable +person. Holding that "a man is rich in proportion to the number of +things which he can afford to let alone," he found that a small part of +his time, devoted to making lead-pencils, carpentering, and surveying, +gave him enough for his simple needs, and left him free for the rest of +the year to observe nature, to think, and to write.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>In 1845 Thoreau built himself a hut on the edge of Walden Pond, and +for over two years lived there in solitude, composing his "Week on the +Concord and Merrimac Rivers." During these years he kept a journal, +from which he later drew the volume called "Walden," and these are his +only two books published during his lifetime. From articles in +magazines and manuscripts, some eight more volumes have been compiled +since his death.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Interesting as is the philosophy which permeates the work of this +solitary, his books have found readers rather on account of their +minute and sympathetic observation of nature and the beauty of their +style. The following essay on "Walking" represents all three elements; +and in its charming discursiveness, in the absence of any structure to +hinder the writer's pen from wandering at will, and in the +responsiveness which it exhibits to the moods and suggestions of +nature, it is a characteristic expression of its author's spirit.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WALKING +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +[1862] +</H3> + +<P> +I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, +as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man +as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member +of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an +emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the +minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care +of that. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who +understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,—who had a +genius, so to speak, for <I>sauntering</I>: which word is beautifully +derived from "idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle +Ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going <I>ą la Sainte Terre</I>," +to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a +<I>Sainte-Terrer</I>," a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the +Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and +vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, +such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from <I>sans +terre</I>, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, +will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. +For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in +a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the +saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering +river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to +the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable +derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some +Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from +the hands of the Infidels. +</P> + +<P> +It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, +nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprizes. Our +expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old +hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our +steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the +spirit of undying adventure, never to return—prepared to send back our +embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are +ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and +child and friends, and never see them again—if you have paid your +debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free +man, then you are ready for a walk. +</P> + +<P> +To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes +have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new, +or rather an old, order—not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or +riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honourable class, I +trust. The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the +Rider seems now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the +Walker,—not the Knight, but Walker, Errant. He is a sort of fourth +estate, outside of Church and State and People. +</P> + +<P> +We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practised this noble art; +though, to tell the truth, at least, if their own assertions are to be +received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but +they cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and +independence which are the capital in this profession. It comes only +by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to +become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers. +<I>Ambulator nascitur, non fit</I>. Some of my townsmen, it is true, can +remember and have described to me some walks which they took ten years +ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for half an +hour in the woods; but I know very well that they have confined +themselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may +make to belong to this select class. No doubt they were elevated for a +moment as by the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when +even they were foresters and outlaws. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"When he came to grene wode,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In a mery mornynge,</SPAN><BR> +There he herde the notes small<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Of byrdes mery syngynge.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That I was last here;</SPAN><BR> +Me lyste a lytell for to shot<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">At the donne dere."</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend +four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than +that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, +absolutely free from all worldly engagements. You may safely say, A +penny for your thoughts, or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am +reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not +only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed +legs, so many of them—as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to +stand or walk upon—I think that they deserve some credit for not +having all committed suicide long ago. +</P> + +<P> +I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring +some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the +eleventh hour or four o'clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the +day, when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with +the daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned +for,—I confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance, to say +nothing of the moral insensibility, of my neighbours who confine +themselves to shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months, ay, +and years almost together. I know not what manner of stuff they are +of—sitting there now at three o'clock in the afternoon, as if it were +three o'clock in the morning. Bonaparte may talk of the +three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage, but it is nothing to the courage +which can sit down cheerfully at this hour in the afternoon over +against one's self whom you have known all the morning, to starve out a +garrison to whom you are bound by such strong ties of sympathy. I +wonder that about this time, or say between four and five o'clock in +the afternoon, too late for the morning papers and too early for the +evening ones, there is not a general explosion heard up and down the +street, scattering a legion of antiquated and housebred notions and +whims to the four winds for an airing—and so the evil cure itself. +</P> + +<P> +How womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men, stand +it I do not know; but I have ground to suspect that most of them do not +<I>stand</I> it at all. When, early in a summer afternoon, we have been +shaking the dust of the village from the skirts of our garments, making +haste past those houses with purely Doric or Gothic fronts, which have +such an air of repose about them, my companion whispers that probably +about these times their occupants are all gone to bed. Then it is that +I appreciate the beauty and the glory of architecture, which itself +never turns in, but forever stands out and erect, keeping watch over +the slumberers. +</P> + +<P> +No doubt temperament, and, above all, age, have a good deal to do with +it. As a man grows older, his ability to sit still and follow indoor +occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in his habits as the +evening of life approaches, till at last he comes forth only just +before sundown, and gets all the walk that he requires in half an hour. +</P> + +<P> +But the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking +exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated +hours—as the swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the +enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in +search of the springs of life. Think of a man's swinging dumb-bells +for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures +unsought by him! +</P> + +<P> +Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only +beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveller asked +Wordsworth's servant to show him her master's study, she answered, +"Here is his library, but his study is out of doors." +</P> + +<P> +Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce a +certain roughness of character—will cause a thicker cuticle to grow +over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and +hands, or as severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their +delicacy of touch. So staying in the house, on the other hand, may +produce a softness and smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, +accompanied by an increased sensibility to certain impressions. +Perhaps we should be more susceptible to some influences important to +our intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had shone and the wind +blown on us a little less; and no doubt it is a nice matter to +proportion rightly the thick and thin skin. But methinks that is a +scurf that will fall off fast enough—that the natural remedy is to be +found in the proportion which the night bears to the day, the winter to +the summer, thought to experience. There will be so much the more air +and sunshine in our thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer are +conversant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch +thrills the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That is mere +sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from +the tan and callus of experience. +</P> + +<P> +When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would +become of us if we walked only in a garden or a mall? Even some sects +of philosophers have felt the necessity of importing the woods to +themselves, since they did not go to the woods. "They planted groves +and walks of Platanes," where they took <I>subdiales ambulationes</I> in +porticos open to the air. Of course it is of no use to direct our +steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when +it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without +getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all +my morning occupations and my obligations to society. But it sometimes +happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of +some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is—I am out +of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What +business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the +woods? I suspect myself, and cannot help a shudder, when I find myself +so implicated even in what are called good works—for this may +sometimes happen. +</P> + +<P> +My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I +have walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together, +I have not yet exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great +happiness, and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours' +walking will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. +A single farmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as +the dominions of the King of Dahomey. There is in fact a sort of +harmony discoverable between the capabilities of the landscape within a +circle of ten miles' radius, or the limits of an afternoon walk, and +the threescore years and ten of human life. It will never become quite +familiar to you. +</P> + +<P> +Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of +houses, and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, +simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap. +A people who would begin by burning the fences and let the forest +stand! I saw the fences half consumed, their ends lost in the middle +of the prairie, and some worldly miser with a surveyor looking after +his bounds, while heaven had taken place around him, and he did not see +the angels going to and fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in +the midst of paradise. I looked again, and saw him standing in the +middle of a boggy stygian fen, surrounded by devils, and he had found +his bounds without a doubt, three little stones, where a stake had been +driven, and looking nearer, I saw that the Prince of Darkness was his +surveyor. +</P> + +<P> +I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, commencing +at my own door, without going by any house, without crossing a road +except where the fox and the mink do: first along by the river, and +then the brook, and then the meadow and the wood-side. There are +square miles in my vicinity which have no inhabitant. From many a hill +I can see civilisation and the abodes of man afar. The farmers and +their works are scarcely more obvious than woodchucks and their +burrows. Man and his affairs, church and state and school, trade and +commerce, and manufactures and agriculture, even politics, the most +alarming of them all,—I am pleased to see how little space they occupy +in the landscape. Politics is but a narrow field, and that still +narrower highway yonder leads to it. I sometimes direct the traveller +thither. If you would go to the political world, follow the great +road—follow that market-man, keep his dust in your eyes, and it will +lead you straight to it; for it, too, has its place merely, and does +not occupy all space. I pass from it as from a bean-field into the +forest, and it is forgotten. In one half-hour I can walk off to some +portion of the earth's surface where a man does not stand from one +year's end to another, and there, consequently, politics are not, for +they are but as the cigar-smoke of a man. +</P> + +<P> +The village is the place to which the roads tend, a sort of expansion +of the highway, as a lake of a river. It is the body of which roads +are the arms and legs—a trivial or quadrivial place, the thoroughfare +and ordinary of travellers. The word is from the Latin <I>villa</I>, which +together with <I>via</I>, a way, or more anciently <I>ved</I> and <I>vella</I>, Varro +derives from <I>veho</I>, to carry, because the villa is the place to and +from which things are carried. They who got their living by teaming +were said <I>vellaturam facere</I>. Hence, too, apparently, the Latin word +<I>vilis</I> and our vile; also <I>villain</I>. This suggests what kind of +degeneracy villagers are liable to. They are wayworn by the travel +that goes by and over them, without travelling themselves. +</P> + +<P> +Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walk across +lots. Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel +in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any +tavern or grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they lead. I am a +good horse to travel, but not from choice a roadster. The +landscape-painter uses the figures of men to mark a road. He would not +make that use of my figure. I walk out into a Nature such as the old +prophets and poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may +name it America, but it is not America: neither Americus Vespucius, nor +Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer +account of it in mythology than in any history of America, so called, +that I have seen. +</P> + +<P> +However, there are a few old roads that may be trodden with profit, as +if they led somewhere now that they are nearly discontinued. There is +the Old Marlborough Road, which does not go to Marlborough now, +methinks, unless that is Marlborough where it carries me. I am the +bolder to speak of it here, because I presume that there are one or two +such roads in every town. +</P> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE OLD MARLBOROUGH ROAD +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Where they once dug for money,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Where sometimes Martial Miles</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">But never found any;</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Singly files,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">And Elijah Wood,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">I fear for no good:</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">No other man,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Save Elisha Dugan,—</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">O man of wild habits,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Partridges and rabbits,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Who hast no cares</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Only to set snares,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Who liv'st all alone,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Close to the bone,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">And where life is sweetest</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Constantly eatest.</SPAN><BR> +When the spring stirs my blood<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">With the instinct to travel</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">I can get enough gravel</SPAN><BR> +On the Old Marlborough Road.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Nobody repairs it,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">For nobody wears it;</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">It is a living way,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">As the Christians say.</SPAN><BR> +Not many there be<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Who enter therein,</SPAN><BR> +Only the guests of the<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Irishman Quin.</SPAN><BR> +What is it, what is it,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But a direction out there,</SPAN><BR> +And the bare possibility<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Of going somewhere?</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Great guide-boards of stone,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">But travellers none;</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Cenotaphs of the towns</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Named on their crowns.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">It is worth going to see</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Where you might be.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">What king</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Did the thing,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">I am still wondering;</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Set up how or when,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">By what selectmen,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Gourgas or Lee,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Clark or Darby?</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">They're a great endeavor</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">To be something forever;</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Blank tablets of stone,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Where a traveller might groan,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">And in one sentence</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Grave all that is known;</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Which another might read,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">In his extreme need.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">I know one or two</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Lines that would do,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Literature that might stand</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">All over the land,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Which a man could remember</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Till next December,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">And read again in the Spring,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">After the thawing.</SPAN><BR> +If with fancy unfurled<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">You leave your abode,</SPAN><BR> +You may go round the world<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">By the Old Marlborough Road.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private +property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative +freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned +off into so-called pleasure-grounds, in which a few will take a narrow +and exclusive pleasure only,—when fences shall be multiplied, and +man-traps and other engines invented to confine men to the <I>public</I> +road, and walking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to +mean trespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a thing +exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of +it. Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will +walk? I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if +we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not +indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are +very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We +would fain take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual +world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to +travel in the interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we +find it difficult to choose our direction, because it does not yet +exist distinctly in our idea. +</P> + +<P> +When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will +bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, I +find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and +inevitably settle southwest, toward some particular wood or meadow or +deserted pasture or hill in that direction. My needle is slow to +settle,—varies a few degrees, and does not always point due southwest, +it is true, and it has good authority for this variation, but it always +settles between west and south-southwest. The future lies that way to +me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. The +outline which would bound my walks would be, not a circle, but a +parabola, or rather like one of those cometary orbits which have been +thought to be non-returning curves, in this case opening westward, in +which my house occupies the place of the sun. I turn round and round +irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I decide, for a +thousandth time, that I will walk into the southwest or west. Eastward +I go only by force; but westward I go free. Thither no business leads +me. It is hard for me to believe that I shall find fair landscapes or +sufficient wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not +excited by the prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the +forest which I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly +toward the setting sun, and there are no towns nor cities in it of +enough consequence to disturb me. Let me live where I will, on this +side is the city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the +city more and more, and withdrawing into the wilderness. I should not +lay so much stress on this fact, if I did not believe that something +like this is the prevailing tendency of my countrymen. I must walk +toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is +moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. Within +a few years we have witnessed the phenomenon of a south-eastward +migration, in the settlement of Australia; but this affects us as a +retrograde movement, and, judging from the moral and physical character +of the first generation of Australians, has not yet proved a successful +experiment. The eastern Tartars think that there is nothing west +beyond Thibet. "The world ends there," say they; "beyond there is +nothing but a shoreless sea." It is unmitigated East where they live. +</P> + +<P> +We go eastward to realise history and study the works of art and +literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the +future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. The Atlantic is a +Lethean stream, in our passage over which we have had an opportunity to +forget the Old World and its institutions. If we do not succeed this +time, there is perhaps one more chance for the race left before it +arrives on the banks of the Styx; and that is in the Lethe of the +Pacific, which is three times as wide. +</P> + +<P> +I know not how significant it is, or how far it is an evidence of +singularity, that an individual should thus consent in his pettiest +walk with the general movement of the race; but I know that something +akin to the migratory instinct in birds and quadrupeds,—which, in some +instances, is known to have affected the squirrel tribe, impelling them +to a general and mysterious movement, in which they were seen, say +some, crossing the broadest rivers, each on its particular chip, with +its tail raised for a sail, and bridging narrower streams with their +dead,—that something like the <I>furor</I> which affects the domestic +cattle in the spring, and which is referred to a worm in their +tails,—affects both nations and individuals, either perennially or +from time to time. Not a flock of wild geese cackles over our town, +but it to some extent unsettles the value of real estate here, and if I +were a broker I should probably take that disturbance into account. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,<BR> +And palmeres for to seken strange strondes."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a +West as distant and as fair as that into which the sun goes down. He +appears to migrate westward daily, and tempts us to follow him. He is +the Great Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night +of those mountain-ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor +only, which were last gilded by his rays. The island of Atlantis, and +the islands and gardens of the Hesperides, a sort of terrestrial +paradise, appear to have been the Great West of the ancients, enveloped +in mystery and poetry. Who has not seen in imagination, when looking +into the sunset sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation +of all those fables? +</P> + +<P> +Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than any before. He +obeyed it, and found a New World for Castile and Leon. The herd of men +in those days scented fresh pastures from afar. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,<BR> +And now was dropped into the western bay;<BR> +At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue;<BR> +To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Where on the globe can there be found an area of equal extent with that +occupied by the bulk of our States, so fertile and so rich and varied +in its productions, and at the same time so habitable by the European, +as this is? Michaux, who knew but part of them, says that "the species +of large trees are much more numerous in North America than in Europe; +in the United States there are more than one hundred and forty species +that exceed thirty feet in height; in France there are but thirty that +attain this size." Later botanists more than confirm his observations. +Humboldt came to America to realize his youthful dreams of a tropical +vegetation, and he beheld it in its greatest perfection in the +primitive forests of the Amazon, the most gigantic wilderness on the +earth, which he has so eloquently described. The geographer Guyot, +himself a European, goes farther—farther than I am ready to follow +him; yet not when he says: "As the plant is made for the animal, as the +vegetable world is made for the animal world, America is made for the +man of the Old World.… The man of the Old World sets out upon his +way. Leaving the highlands of Asia, he descends from station to +station towards Europe. Each of his steps is marked by a new +civilization superior to the preceding, by a greater power of +development. Arrived at the Atlantic, he pauses on the shore of this +unknown ocean, the bounds of which he knows not, and turns upon his +footprints for an instant." When he has exhausted the rich soil of +Europe, and reinvigorated himself, "then recommences his adventurous +career westward as in the earliest ages." So far Guyot. +</P> + +<P> +From this western impulse coming in contact with the barrier of the +Atlantic sprang the commerce and enterprise of modern times. The +younger Michaux, in his "Travels West of the Alleghanies in 1802," says +that the common inquiry in the newly settled West was, "'From what part +of the world have you come?' As if these vast and fertile regions +would naturally be the place of meeting and common country of all the +inhabitants of the globe." +</P> + +<P> +To use an obsolete Latin word, I might say, <I>Ex Oriente lux; ex +Occidente FRUX</I>. From the East light; from the West fruit. +</P> + +<P> +Sir Francis Head, an English traveller and a Governor-General of +Canada, tells us that "in both the northern and southern hemispheres of +the New World, Nature has not only outlined her works on a larger +scale, but has painted the whole picture with brighter and more costly +colors than she used in delineating and in beautifying the Old +World.… The heavens of America appear infinitely higher, the sky +is bluer, the air is fresher, the cold is intenser, the moon looks +larger, the stars are brighter, the thunder is louder, the lightning is +vivider, the wind is stronger, the rain is heavier, the mountains are +higher, the rivers longer, the forests bigger, the plains broader." +This statement will do at least to set against Buffon's account of this +part of the world and its productions. +</P> + +<P> +Linnaeus said long ago, "Nescio quae facies <I>laeta, glabra</I> plantis +Americanis: I know not what there is of joyous and smooth in the aspect +of American plants;" and I think that in this country there are no, or +at most very few, <I>Africanae bestiae</I>, African beasts, as the Romans +called them, and that in this respect also it is peculiarly fitted for +the habitation of man. We are told that within three miles of the +centre of the East Indian city of Singapore, some of the inhabitants +are annually carried off by tigers; but the traveller can lie down in +the woods at night almost anywhere in North America without fear of +wild beasts. +</P> + +<P> +These are encouraging testimonies. If the moon looks larger here than +in Europe, probably the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of +America appear infinitely higher, and the stars brighter, I trust that +these facts are symbolical of the height to which the philosophy and +poetry and religion of her inhabitants may one day soar. At length, +perchance, the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the +American mind, and the intimations that star it as much brighter. For +I believe that climate does thus react on man—as there is something in +the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow +to greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these +influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his +life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts +will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky—our +understanding more comprehensive and broader, like our plains—our +intellect generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, +our rivers and mountains and forests—and our hearts shall even +correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas. +Perchance there will appear to the traveller something, he knows not +what, of <I>laeta</I> and <I>glabra</I>, of joyous and serene, in our very faces. +Else to what end does the world go on, and why was America discovered? +</P> + +<P> +To Americans I hardly need to say— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Westward the star of empire takes its way."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise +was more favourably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this +country. +</P> + +<P> +Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not confined to New England; though +we may be estranged from the South, we sympathize with the West. There +is the home of the younger sons, as among the Scandinavians they took +to the sea for their inheritance. It is too late to be studying +Hebrew; it is more important to understand even the slang of to-day. +</P> + +<P> +Some months ago I went to see a panorama of the Rhine. It was like a +dream of the Middle Ages. I floated down its historic stream in +something more than imagination, under bridges built by the Romans, and +repaired by later heroes, past cities and castles whose very names were +music to my ears, and each of which was the subject of a legend. There +were Ehrenbreitstein and Rolandseck and Coblentz, which I knew only in +history. They were ruins that interested me chiefly. There seemed to +come up from its waters and its vine-clad hills and valleys a hushed +music as of Crusaders departing for the Holy Land. I floated along +under the spell of enchantment, as if I had been transported to an +heroic age, and breathed an atmosphere of chivalry. +</P> + +<P> +Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and as I +worked my way up the river in the light of to-day and saw the +steam-boats wooding up, counted the rising cities, gazed on the fresh +ruins of Nauvoo, beheld the Indians moving west across the stream, and, +as before I had looked up the Moselle, now looked up the Ohio and the +Missouri and heard the legends of Dubuque and of Wenona's Cliff,—still +thinking more of the future than of the past or present,—I saw that +this was a Rhine stream of a different kind; that the foundations of +castles were yet to be laid, and the famous bridges were yet to be +thrown over the river; and I felt that <I>this was the heroic age +itself</I>, though we know it not, for the hero is commonly the simplest +and obscurest of men. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I +have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of +the World. Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. +The cities import it at any price. Men plough and sail for it. From +the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace +mankind. Our ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus +being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of +every state which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment +and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of +the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and +displaced by the children of the northern forests who were. +</P> + +<P> +I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which +the corn grows. We require an infusion of hemlock-spruce or +arbor-vitae in our tea. There is a difference between eating and +drinking for strength and from mere gluttony. The Hottentots eagerly +devour the marrow of the koodoo and other antelopes raw, as a matter of +course. +</P> + +<P> +Some of our Northern Indians eat raw the marrow of the Arctic reindeer, +as well as various other parts, including the summits of the antlers, +as long as they are soft. And herein, perchance, they have stolen a +march on the cooks of Paris. They get what usually goes to feed the +fire. This is probably better than stall-fed beef and slaughter-house +pork to make a man of. Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization +can endure—as if we lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw. +</P> + +<P> +There are some intervals which border the strain of the wood-thrush, to +which I would migrate,—wild lands where no settler has squatted; to +which, methinks, I am already acclimated. +</P> + +<P> +The African hunter Cumming tells us that the skin of the eland, as well +as that of most other antelopes just killed, emits the most delicious +perfume of trees and grass. I would have every man so much like a wild +antelope, so much a part and parcel of Nature, that his very person +should thus sweetly advertise our senses of his presence, and remind us +of those parts of Nature which he most haunts. I feel no disposition +to be satirical, when the trapper's coat emits the odour of musquash +even; it is a sweeter scent to me than that which commonly exhales from +the merchant's or the scholar's garments. When I go into their +wardrobes and handle their vestments, I am reminded of no grassy plains +and flowery meads which they have frequented, but of dusty merchants' +exchanges and libraries rather. +</P> + +<P> +A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps olive is +a fitter color than white for a man—a denizen of the woods. "The pale +white man!" I do not wonder that the African pitied him. Darwin the +naturalist says, "A white man bathing by the side of a Tahitian was +like a plant bleached by the gardener's art, compared with a fine, dark +green one, growing vigorously in the open fields." +</P> + +<P> +Ben Jonson exclaims,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"How near to good is what is fair!"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +So I would say— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +How near to good is what is <I>wild</I>!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet +subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward +incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew fast and made +infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country or +wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. He would be +climbing over the prostrate stems of primitive forest trees. +</P> + +<P> +Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not +in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. When, +formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm which I had +contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted +solely by a few square rods of impermeable and unfathomable bog—a +natural sink in one corner of it. That was the jewel which dazzled me. +I derive more of my subsistence from the swamps which surround my +native town than from the cultivated gardens in the village. There are +no richer parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromeda +(<I>Cassandra calyculata</I>) which cover these tender places on the earth's +surface. Botany cannot go farther than tell me the names of the shrubs +which grow there—the high-blueberry, panicled andromeda, lamb-kill, +azalea, and rhodora—all standing in the quaking sphagnum. I often +think that I should like to have my house front on this mass of dull +red bushes, omitting other flower plots and borders, transplanted +spruce and trim box, even graveled walks—to have this fertile spot +under my windows, not a few imported barrow-fulls of soil only to cover +the sand which was thrown out in digging the cellar. Why not put my +house, my parlour, behind this plot, instead of behind that meagre +assemblage of curiosities, that poor apology for a Nature and Art, +which I call my front-yard? It is an effort to clear up and make a +decent appearance when the carpenter and mason have departed, though +done as much for the passer-by as the dweller within. The most +tasteful front-yard fence was never an agreeable object of study to me; +the most elaborate ornaments, acorn-tops, or what not, soon wearied and +disgusted me. Bring your sills up to the very edge of the swamp, then +(though it may not be the best place for a dry cellar), so that there +be no access on that side to citizens. Front-yards are not made to +walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me to +dwell in the neighborhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human +art contrived, or else of a Dismal Swamp, I should certainly decide for +the swamp. How vain, then, have been all your labors, citizens, for me! +</P> + +<P> +My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. +Give me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness! In the desert, pure +air and solitude compensate for want of moisture and fertility. The +traveller Burton says of it—"Your <I>morale</I> improves; you become frank +and cordial, hospitable and single-minded.… In the desert, +spirituous liquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a +mere animal existence." They who have been travelling long on the +steppes of Tartary say: "On reėntering cultivated lands, the agitation, +perplexity, and turmoil of civilization oppressed and suffocated us; +the air seemed to fail us, and we felt every moment as if about to die +of asphyxia." When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, +the thickest and most interminable and, to the citizen, most dismal +swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place,—a <I>sanctum sanctorum</I>. +There is the strength, the marrow of Nature. The wild-wood covers the +virgin mould,—and the same soil is good for men and for trees. A +man's health requires as many acres of meadow to his prospect as his +farm does loads of muck. There are the strong meats on which he feeds. +A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it than by the woods +and swamps that surround it. A township where one primitive forest +waves above while another primitive forest rots below,—such a town is +fitted to raise not only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers +for the coming ages. In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the +rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts +and wild honey. +</P> + +<P> +To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for +them to dwell in or resort to. So it is with man. A hundred years ago +they sold bark in our streets peeled from our own woods. In the very +aspect of those primitive and rugged trees there was, methinks, a +tanning principle which hardened and consolidated the fibres of men's +thoughts. Ah! already I shudder for these comparatively degenerate +days of my native village, when you cannot collect a load of bark of +good thickness; and we no longer produce tar and turpentine. +</P> + +<P> +The civilised nations—Greece, Rome, England—have been sustained by +the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They +survive as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human culture! +little is to be expected of a nation, when the vegetable mould is +exhausted, and it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its +fathers. There the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous +fat, and the philosopher comes down on his marrow-bones. +</P> + +<P> +It is said to be the task of the American "to work the virgin soil," +and that "agriculture here already assumes proportions unknown +everywhere else." I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even +because he redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in +some respects more natural. I was surveying for a man the other day a +single straight line one hundred and thirty-two rods long, through a +swamp, at whose entrance might have been written the words which Dante +read over the entrance to the infernal regions,—"Leave all hope, ye +that enter,"—that is, of ever getting out again; where at one time I +saw my employer actually up to his neck and swimming for his life in +his property, though it was still winter. He had another similar swamp +which I could not survey at all, because it was completely under water, +and nevertheless, with regard to a third swamp, which I did survey from +a distance, he remarked to me, true to his instincts, that he would not +part with it for any consideration, on account of the mud which it +contained. And that man intends to put a girdling ditch round the +whole in the course of forty months, and so redeem it by the magic of +his spade. I refer to him only as the type of a class. +</P> + +<P> +The weapons with which we have gained our most important victories, +which should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not +the sword and the lance, but the bush-whack, the turf-cutter, the +spade, and the bog-hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and +begrimed with the dust of many a hard-fought field. The very winds +blew the Indian's corn-field into the meadow, and pointed out the way +which he had not the skill to follow. He had no better implement with +which to intrench himself in the land than a clam-shell. But the +farmer is armed with plough and spade. +</P> + +<P> +In Literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dulness is but +another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild +thinking in "Hamlet" and the "Iliad," in all the Scriptures and +Mythologies, not learned in the schools, that delights us. As the wild +duck is more swift and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild—the +mallard—thought, which 'mid falling dews wings its way above the fens. +A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and +unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the +prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is a light +which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning's flash, which +perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself,—and not a taper +lighted at the hearthstone of the race, which pales before the light of +common day. +</P> + +<P> +English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake +Poets,—Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, +included—breathes no quite fresh and, in this sense, wild strain. It +is an essentially tame and civilized literature, reflecting Greece and +Rome. Her wilderness is a green wood, her wild man a Robin Hood. +There is plenty of genial love of Nature, but not so much of Nature +herself. Her chronicles inform us when her wild animals, but not when +the wild man in her, became extinct. +</P> + +<P> +The science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry is another thing. The +poet to-day, notwithstanding all the discoveries of science, and the +accumulated learning of mankind, enjoys no advantage over Homer. +</P> + +<P> +Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature? He would be +a poet who could impress the winds and streams into his service, to +speak for him; who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers +drive down stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who +derived his words as often as he used them—transplanted them to his +page with earth adhering to their roots; whose words were so true and +fresh and natural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the +approach of spring, though they lay half-smothered between two musty +leaves in a library,—aye, to bloom and bear fruit there, after their +kind, annually, for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding +Nature. +</P> + +<P> +I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses this +yearning for the Wild. Approached from this side, the best poetry is +tame. I do not know where to find in any literature, ancient or +modern, any account which contents me of that Nature with which even I +am acquainted. You will perceive that I demand something which no +Augustan nor Elizabethan age, which no <I>culture</I>, in short, can give. +Mythology comes nearer to it than anything. How much more fertile a +Nature, at least, has Grecian mythology its root in than English +literature! Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its +soil was exhausted, before the fancy and imagination were affected with +blight; and which it still bears, wherever its pristine vigor is +unabated. All other literatures endure only as the elms which +overshadow our houses; but this is like the great dragon-tree of the +Western Isles, as old as mankind, and, whether that does or not, will +endure as long; for the decay of other literatures makes the soil in +which it thrives. +</P> + +<P> +The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The +valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine having yielded their +crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon, the Platte, +the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce. +Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American liberty has become a +fiction of the past—as it is to some extent a fiction of the +present—the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology. +</P> + +<P> +The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true, though +they may not recommend themselves to the sense which is most common +among Englishmen and Americans to-day. It is not every truth that +recommends itself to the common sense. Nature has a place for the wild +clematis as well as for the cabbage. Some expressions of truth are +reminiscent—others merely <I>sensible</I>, as the phrase is,—others +prophetic. Some forms of disease, even, may prophesy forms of health. +The geologist has discovered that the figures of serpents, griffins, +flying dragons, and other fanciful embellishments of heraldry, have +their prototypes in the forms of fossil species which were extinct +before man was created, and hence "indicate a faint and shadowy +knowledge of a previous state of organic existence." The Hindoos +dreamed that the earth rested on an elephant, and the elephant on a +tortoise, and the tortoise on a serpent; and though it may be an +unimportant coincidence, it will not be out of place here to state, +that a fossil tortoise has lately been discovered in Asia large enough +to support an elephant. I confess that I am partial to these wild +fancies, which transcend the order of time and development. They are +the sublimest recreation of the intellect. The partridge loves peas, +but not those that go with her into the pot. +</P> + +<P> +In short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in a +strain of music, whether produced by an instrument or by the human +voice,—take the sound of a bugle in a summer night, for +instance,—which by its wildness, to speak without satire, reminds me +of the cries emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It is so +much of their wildness as I can understand. Give me for my friends and +neighbors wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a +faint symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet. +</P> + +<P> +I love even to see the domestic animals reassert their native +rights,—any evidence that they have not wholly lost their original +wild habits and vigor; as when my neighbor's cow breaks out of her +pasture early in the spring and boldly swims the river, a cold, grey +tide, twenty-five or thirty rods wide, swollen by the melted snow. It +is the buffalo crossing the Mississippi. This exploit confers some +dignity on the herd in my eyes—already dignified. The seeds of +instinct are preserved under the thick hides of cattle and horses, like +seeds in the bowels of the earth, an indefinite period. +</P> + +<P> +Any sportiveness in cattle is unexpected. I saw one day a herd of a +dozen bullocks and cows running about and frisking in unwieldy sport, +like huge rats, even like kittens. They shook their heads, raised +their tails, and rushed up and down a hill, and I perceived by their +horns, as well as by their activity, their relation to the deer tribe. +But, alas! a sudden loud <I>Whoa!</I> would have damped their ardor at once, +reduced them from venison to beef, and stiffened their sides and sinews +like the locomotive. Who but the Evil One has cried, "Whoa!" to +mankind? Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men, is but a +sort of locomotiveness; they move a side at a time, and man, by his +machinery, is meeting the horse and the ox half-way. Whatever part the +whip has touched is thenceforth palsied. Who would ever think of a +<I>side</I> of any of the supple cat tribe, as we speak of a <I>side</I> of beef? +</P> + +<P> +I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be +made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats +still left to sow before they become submissive members of society. +Undoubtedly, all men are not equally fit subjects for civilization; and +because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are tame by inherited +disposition, this is no reason why the others should have their natures +broken that they may be reduced to the same level. Men are in the main +alike, but they were made several in order that they might be various. +If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly or quite as well +as another; if a high one, individual excellence is to be regarded. +Any man can stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no other man could +serve so rare a use as the author of this illustration did. Confucius +says—"The skins of the tiger and the leopard, when they are tanned, +are as the skins of the dog and the sheep tanned." But it is not the +part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make +sheep ferocious; and tanning their skins for shoes is not the best use +to which they can be put. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +When looking over a list of men's names in a foreign language, as of +military officers, or of authors who have written on a particular +subject, I am reminded once more that there is nothing in a name. The +name Menschikoff, for instance, has nothing in it to my ears more human +than a whisker, and it may belong to a rat. As the names of the Poles +and Russians are to us, so are ours them. It is as if they had been +named by the child's rigmarole—<I>Iery wiery ichery van, +tittle-tol-tan</I>. I see in my mind a herd of wild creatures swarming +over the earth, and to each the herdsman has affixed some barbarous +sound in his own dialect. The names of men are of course as cheap and +meaningless as <I>Bose</I> and <I>Tray</I>, the names of dogs. +</P> + +<P> +Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy, if men were named +merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to +know the genus and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. +We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman +army had a name of his own,—because we have not supposed that he had a +character of his own. +</P> + +<P> +At present our only true names are nicknames. I knew a boy who, from +his peculiar energy, was called "Buster" by his playmates, and this +rightly supplanted his Christian name. Some travellers tell us that an +Indian had no name given him at first, but earned it, and his name was +his fame: and among some tribes he acquired a new name with every new +exploit. It is pitiful when a man bears a name for convenience merely, +who has earned neither name nor fame. +</P> + +<P> +I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me, but still see +men in herds for all them. A familiar name cannot make a man less +strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his +own wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and a +savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours. I see that my +neighbor, who bears the familiar epithet William, or Edwin, takes it +off with his jacket. It does not adhere to him when asleep or in +anger, or aroused by any passion or inspiration. I seem to hear +pronounced by some of his kin at such a time his original wild name in +some jaw-breaking or else melodious tongue. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all +around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the +leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to +that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man—a sort +of breeding in and in, which produces at most a merely English +nobility, a civilization destined to have a speedy limit. +</P> + +<P> +In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a +certain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are +already little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from the +meadows, and deepens the soil—not that which trusts to heating +manures, and improved implements and modes of culture only! +</P> + +<P> +Many a poor sore-eyed student that I have heard of would grow faster, +both intellectually and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very +late, he honestly slumbered a fool's allowance. +</P> + +<P> +There may be an excess even of informing light. Niépce, a Frenchman, +discovered "actinism," that power in the sun's rays which produces a +chemical effect; that granite rocks, and stone structures, and statues +of metal, "are all alike destructively acted upon during the hours of +sunshine, and, but for provisions of Nature no less wonderful, would +soon perish under the delicate touch of the most subtile of the +agencies of the universe." But he observed that "those bodies which +underwent this change during the daylight possessed the power of +restoring themselves to their original conditions during the hours of +night, when this excitement was no longer influencing them." Hence it +has been inferred that "the hours of darkness are as necessary to the +inorganic creation as we know night and sleep are to the organic +kingdom." Not even does the moon shine every night, but gives place to +darkness. +</P> + +<P> +I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more +than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, +but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an +immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the +annual decay of the vegetation which it supports. +</P> + +<P> +There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus +invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and +dusky knowledge—<I>Gramįtica parda</I>, tawny grammar—a kind of mother-wit +derived from that same leopard to which I have referred. +</P> + +<P> +We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It +is said that knowledge is power; and the like. Methinks there is equal +need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will +call Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense: for +what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we +know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? +What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our +negative knowledge. By long years of patient industry and reading of +the newspapers,—for what are the libraries of science but files of +newspapers?—a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his +memory, and then when in some spring of his life he saunters abroad +into the Great Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to grass like a +horse and leaves all his harness behind in the stable. I would say to +the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, sometimes,—Go to +grass. You have eaten hay long enough. The spring has come with its +green crop. The very cows are driven to their country pastures before +the end of May; though I have heard of one unnatural farmer who kept +his cow in the barn and fed her on hay all the year round. So, +frequently, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge treats +its cattle. +</P> + +<P> +A man's ignorance some times is not only useful, but beautiful,—while +his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides +being ugly. Which is the best man to deal with,—he who knows nothing +about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows +nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he +knows all? +</P> + +<P> +My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head +in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The +highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with +Intelligence. I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to +anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden +revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge +before,—a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth +than are dreamed of in our philosophy. It is the lighting up of the +mist by the sun. Man cannot <I>know</I> in any higher sense than this, any +more than he can look serenely and with impunity in the face of the +sun: <I>Hos ti noōn, ou cheinon noeseis</I>,—"You will not perceive that, +as perceiving a particular thing," say the Chaldean Oracles. +</P> + +<P> +There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we +may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, +but a successful life knows no law. It is an unfortunate discovery +certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before +that we were bound. Live free, child of the mist,—and with respect to +knowledge we are all children of the mist. The man who takes the +liberty to live is superior to all the laws, by virtue of his relation +to the law-maker. "That is active duty," says the Vishnu Purana, +"which is not for our bondage; that is knowledge which is for our +liberation: all other duty is good only unto weariness; all other +knowledge is only the cleverness of an artist." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It is remarkable how few events or crises there are in our histories; +how little exercised we have been in our minds; how few experiences we +have had. I would fain be assured that I am growing apace and rankly, +though my very growth disturb this dull equanimity,—though it be with +struggle through long, dark, muggy nights or seasons of gloom. It +would be well, if all our lives were a divine tragedy even, instead of +this trivial comedy or farce. Dante, Bunyan, and others appear to have +been exercised in their minds more than we: they were subjected to a +kind of culture such as our district schools and colleges do not +contemplate. Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his name, had a +good deal more to live for, aye, and to die for, than they have +commonly. +</P> + +<P> +When, at rare intervals, some thought visits one, as perchance he is +walking on a railroad, then indeed the cars go by without his hearing +them. But soon, by some inexorable law, our life goes by and the cars +return. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Gentle breeze, that wanderest unseen,<BR> +And bendest the thistles round Loira of storms,<BR> +Traveller of the windy glens,<BR> +Why hast thou left my ear so soon?"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +While almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society, few +are attracted strongly to Nature. In their relation to Nature men +appear to me for the most part, notwithstanding their arts, lower than +the animals. It is not often a beautiful relation, as in the case of +the animals. How little appreciation of the beauty of the landscape +there is among us! We have to be told that the Greeks called the world +<I>Kosmos</I>, Beauty, or Order, but we do not see clearly why they did so, +and we esteem it at best only a curious philological fact. +</P> + +<P> +For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border +life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and +transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the State +into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper. +Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a +will-o'-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moon nor +firefly has shown me the causeway to it. Nature is a personality so +vast and universal that we have never seen one of her features. The +walker in the familiar fields which stretch around my native town +sometimes finds himself in another land than is described in their +owners' deeds, as it were in some far-away field on the confines of the +actual Concord, where her jurisdiction ceases, and the idea which the +word Concord suggests ceases to be suggested. These farms which I have +myself surveyed, these bounds which I have set up, appear dimly still +as through a mist; but they have no chemistry to fix them; they fade +from the surface of the glass; and the picture which the painter +painted stands out dimly from beneath. The world with which we are +commonly acquainted leaves no trace, and it will have no anniversary. +</P> + +<P> +I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the +setting sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its +golden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble +hall. I was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and +shining family had settled there in that part of the land called +Concord, unknown to me,—to whom the sun was servant,—who had not gone +into society in the village,—who had not been called on. I saw their +park, their pleasure-ground, beyond through the wood, in Spaulding's +cranberry-meadow. The pines furnished them with gables as they grew. +Their house was not obvious to vision; the trees grew through it. I do +not know whether I heard the sounds of a suppressed hilarity or not. +They seemed to recline on the sunbeams. They have sons and daughters. +They are quite well. The farmer's cart-path, which leads directly +through their hall, does not in the least put them out, as the muddy +bottom of a pool is sometimes seen through the reflected skies. They +never heard of Spaulding, and do not know that he is their +neighbor,—notwithstanding I heard him whistle as he drove his team +through the house. Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives. +Their coat of arms is simply a lichen. I saw it painted on the pines +and oaks. Their attics were in the tops of the trees. They are of no +politics. There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they +were weaving or spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and +hearing was done away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum,—as of +a distant hive in May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. +They had no idle thoughts, and no one without could see their work, for +their industry was not as in knots and excrescences embayed. +</P> + +<P> +But I find it difficult to remember them. They fade irrevocably out of +my mind even now while I speak and endeavor to recall them and +recollect myself. It is only after a long and serious effort to +recollect my best thoughts that I become again aware of their +cohabitancy. If it were not for such families as this, I think I +should move out of Concord. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +We are accustomed to say in New England that few and fewer pigeons +visit us every year. Our forests furnish no mast for them. So, it +would seem, few and fewer thoughts visit each growing man from year to +year, for the grove in our minds is laid waste,—sold to feed +unnecessary fires of ambition, or sent to mill, and there is scarcely a +twig left for them to perch on. They no longer build nor breed with +us. In some more genial season, perchance, a faint shadow flits across +the landscape of the mind, cast by the <I>wings</I> of some thought in its +vernal or autumnal migration, but, looking up, we are unable to detect +the substance of the thought itself. Our winged thoughts are turned to +poultry. They no longer soar, and they attain only to a Shanghai and +Cochin-China grandeur. Those <I>gra-a-ate thoughts</I>, those <I>gra-a-ate +men</I> you hear of! +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +We hug the earth,—how rarely we mount! Methinks we might elevate +ourselves a little more. We might climb a tree, at least. I found my +account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the top +of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for it, for I +discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen +before,—so much more of the earth and the heavens. I might have +walked about the foot of the tree for three-score years and ten, and +yet I certainly should never have seen them. But, above all, I +discovered around me,—it was near the end of June,—on the ends of the +topmost branches only, a few minute and delicate red cone-like +blossoms, the fertile flower of the white pine looking heavenward. I +carried straightway to the village the topmost spire, and showed it to +stranger jurymen who walked the streets,—for it was court-week,—and +to farmers and lumber-dealers and wood-choppers and hunters, and not +one had ever seen the like before, but wondered as at a star dropped +down. Tell of ancient architects finishing their works on the tops of +columns as perfectly as on the lower and more visible parts! Nature +has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only +toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved by them. We see +only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows. The pines +have developed their delicate blossoms on the highest twigs of the wood +every summer for ages, as well over the heads of Nature's red children +as of her white ones; yet scarcely a farmer or hunter in the land has +ever seen them. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed +over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering +the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barn-yard +within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us that +we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of +thought. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours. +There is something suggested by it that is a newer testament,—the +gospel according to this moment. He has not fallen astern; he has got +up early and kept up early, and to be where he is is to be in season, +in the foremost rank of time. It is an expression of the health and +soundness of Nature, a brag for all the world,—healthiness as of a +spring burst forth, a new fountain of the Muses, to celebrate this last +instant of time. Where he lives no fugitive slave laws are passed. +Who has not betrayed his master many times since last he heard that +note? +</P> + +<P> +The merit of this bird's strain is in its freedom from all +plaintiveness. The singer can easily move us to tears or to laughter, +but where is he who can excite in us a pure morning joy? When, in +doleful dumps, breaking the awful stillness of our wooden sidewalk on a +Sunday, or, perchance, a watcher in the house of mourning, I hear a +cockerel crow far or near, I think to myself, "There is one of us well, +at any rate,"—and with a sudden gush return to my senses. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a +meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before +setting, after a cold gray day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, +and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and +on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon and on the leaves of +the shrub-oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched long over +the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was +such a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air +also was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise +of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary +phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and +ever an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest +child that walked there, it was more glorious still. +</P> + +<P> +The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with +all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance as +it has never set before,—where there is but a solitary marsh-hawk to +have his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his +cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the +marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying +stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered +grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never +bathed in such golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The +west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of +Elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving +us home at evening. +</P> + +<P> +So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine +more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our +minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening +light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12a"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ABRAHAM LINCOLN +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +DEMOCRACY +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</I> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>James Russell Lowell, poet, essayist, diplomatist, and scholar, was +born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on February 22, 1819, the son of a +Unitarian minister. Educated at Harvard College, he tried the law, but +soon gave it up for literature. His poem on "The Present Crisis," +written in 1844, was his first really notable production, and one that +made a deep impression on the public mind. In the twenty years of +troubled politics that followed, one finds it constantly quoted. The +year 1848 saw four volumes from Lowell's pen—a book of "Poems," the +"Fable for Critics," "The Biglow Papers," and the "Vision of Sir +Launfal." The second of these exhibited the author as wit and critic, +the third as political reformer, the fourth as poet and mystic; and +these various sides of his personality continue to appear with varying +prominence throughout his career.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>On the retirement of Longfellow from the chair of belles-lettres at +Harvard in 1854, Lowell was elected to succeed him, and by way of +preparation spent the next two years in Europe studying modern +languages and literatures. In 1857 he became the first editor of the +"Atlantic Monthly," and after 1864 he collaborated with Charles Eliot +Norton in the editorship of the "North American Review." Throughout +the period of the war Lowell wrote much both in prose and verse on +behalf of the Union; his work on the "North American" was largely +literary criticism.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>In 1877 Lowell went to Spain as American Minister, and in 1880 to +London, where for five years he represented the United States with +great distinction, and did much to improve the relations of the two +countries. Six years after his return, on August 12, 1891, he died in +Elmwood, the house in Cambridge where he was born.</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +<I>Lowell's literary gifts were so various that it is difficult to say on +which of them his final reputation will rest. But it is certain that +he will long be esteemed for the grace, vivacity, and eloquence of the +prose in which he placed before the world his views of such great +American principles and personalities as are dealt with in the two +following essays on "Democracy" and on "Abraham Lincoln."</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12b"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ABRAHAM LINCOLN +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +1864-1865 +</H3> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +By arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +There have been many painful crises since the impatient vanity of South +Carolina hurried ten prosperous Commonwealths into a crime whose +assured retribution was to leave them either at the mercy of the nation +they had wronged, or of the anarchy they had summoned but could not +control, when no thoughtful American opened his morning paper without +dreading to find that he had no longer a country to love and honor. +Whatever the result of the convulsion whose first shocks were beginning +to be felt, there would still be enough square miles of earth for +elbow-room; but that ineffable sentiment made up of memory and hope, of +instinct and tradition, which swells every man's heart and shapes his +thought, though perhaps never present to his consciousness, would be +gone from it, leaving it common earth and nothing more. Men might +gather rich crops from it, but that ideal harvest of priceless +associations would be reaped no longer; that fine virtue which sent up +messages of courage and security from every sod of it would have +evaporated beyond recall. We should be irrevocably cut off from our +past, and be forced to splice the ragged ends of our lives upon +whatever new conditions chance might leave dangling for us. +</P> + +<P> +We confess that we had our doubts at first whether the patriotism of +our people were not too narrowly provincial to embrace the proportions +of national peril. We felt an only too natural distrust of immense +public meetings and enthusiastic cheers. +</P> + +<P> +That a reaction should follow the holiday enthusiasm with which the war +was entered on, that it should follow soon, and that the slackening of +public spirit should be proportionate to the previous over-tension, +might well be foreseen by all who had studied human nature or history. +Men acting gregariously are always in extremes. As they are one moment +capable of higher courage, so they are liable, the next, to baser +depression, and it is often a matter of chance whether numbers shall +multiply confidence or discouragement. Nor does deception lead more +surely to distrust of men than self-deception to suspicion of +principles. The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all +weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp +mordant of experience. Enthusiasm is good material for the orator, but +the statesman needs something more durable to work in,—must be able to +rely on the deliberate reason and consequent firmness of the people, +without which that presence of mind, no less essential in times of +moral than of material peril, will be wanting at the critical moment. +Would this fervor of the Free States hold out? Was it kindled by a +just feeling of the value of constitutional liberty? Had it body +enough to withstand the inevitable dampening of checks, reverses, +delays? Had our population intelligence enough to comprehend that the +choice was between order and anarchy, between the equilibrium of a +government by law and the tussle of misrule by <I>pronunciamiento</I>? +Could a war be maintained without the ordinary stimulus of hatred and +plunder, and with the impersonal loyalty of principle? These were +serious questions, and with no precedent to aid in answering them. +</P> + +<P> +At the beginning of the war there was, indeed, occasion for the most +anxious apprehension. A President known to be infected with the +political heresies, and suspected of sympathy with the treason, of the +Southern conspirators, had just surrendered the reins, we will not say +of power, but of chaos, to a successor known only as the representative +of a party whose leaders, with long training in opposition, had none in +the conduct of affairs; an empty treasury was called on to supply +resources beyond precedent in the history of finance; the trees were +yet growing and the iron unmined with which a navy was to be built and +armored; officers without discipline were to make a mob into an army; +and, above all, the public opinion of Europe, echoed and reinforced +with every vague hint and every specious argument of despondency by a +powerful faction at home, was either contemptuously sceptical or +actively hostile. It would be hard to over-estimate the force of this +latter element of disintegration and discouragement among a people +where every citizen at home, and every soldier in the field, is a +reader of newspapers. The pedlers of rumor in the North were the most +effective allies of the rebellion. A nation can be liable to no more +insidious treachery than that of the telegraph, sending hourly its +electric thrill of panic along the remotest nerves of the community, +till the excited imagination makes every real danger loom heightened +with its unreal double. +</P> + +<P> +And even if we look only at more palpable difficulties, the problem to +be solved by our civil war was so vast, both in its immediate relations +and its future consequences; the conditions of its solution were so +intricate and so greatly dependent on incalculable and uncontrollable +contingencies; so many of the data, whether for hope or fear, were, +from their novelty, incapable of arrangement under any of the +categories of historical precedent, that there were moments of crisis +when the firmest believer in the strength and sufficiency of the +democratic theory of government might well hold his breath in vague +apprehension of disaster. Our teachers of political philosophy, +solemnly arguing from the precedent of some petty Grecian, Italian, or +Flemish city, whose long periods of aristocracy were broken now and +then by awkward parentheses of mob, had always taught us that +democracies were incapable of the sentiment of loyalty, of concentrated +and prolonged effort, of far-reaching conceptions; were absorbed in +material interests; impatient of regular, and much more of exceptional +restraint; had no natural nucleus of gravitation, nor any forces but +centrifugal; were always on the verge of civil war, and slunk at last +into the natural almshouse of bankrupt popular government, a military +despotism. Here was indeed a dreary outlook for persons who knew +democracy, not by rubbing shoulders with it lifelong, but merely from +books, and America only by the report of some fellow-Briton, who, +having eaten a bad dinner or lost a carpet-bag here, had written to the +"Times" demanding redress, and drawing a mournful inference of +democratic instability. Nor were men wanting among ourselves who had +so steeped their brains in London literature as to mistake Cockneyism +for European culture, and contempt of their country for cosmopolitan +breadth of view, and who, owing all they had and all they were to +democracy, thought it had an air of high-breeding to join in the +shallow epicedium that our bubble had burst. +</P> + +<P> +But beside any disheartening influences which might affect the timid or +the despondent, there were reasons enough of settled gravity against +any over-confidence of hope. A war—which, whether we consider the +expanse of the territory at stake, the hosts brought into the field, or +the reach of the principles involved, may fairly be reckoned the most +momentous of modern times—was to be waged by a people divided at home, +unnerved by fifty years of peace, under a chief magistrate without +experience and without reputation, whose every measure was sure to be +cunningly hampered by a jealous and unscrupulous minority, and who, +while dealing with unheard-of complications at home, must soothe a +hostile neutrality abroad, waiting only a pretext to become war. All +this was to be done without warning and without preparation, while at +the same time a social revolution was to be accomplished in the +political condition of four millions of people, by softening the +prejudices, allaying the fears, and gradually obtaining the +coöperation, of their unwilling liberators. Surely, if ever there were +an occasion when the heightened imagination of the historian might see +Destiny visibly intervening in human affairs, here was a knot worthy of +her shears. Never, perhaps, was any system of government tried by so +continuous and searching a strain as ours during the last three years; +never has any shown itself stronger; and never could that strength be +so directly traced to the virtue and intelligence of the people,—to +that general enlightenment and prompt efficiency of public opinion +possible only under the influence of a political framework like our +own. We find it hard to understand how even a foreigner should be +blind to the grandeur of the combat of ideas that has been going on +here,—to the heroic energy, persistency, and self-reliance of a nation +proving that it knows how much dearer greatness is than mere power; and +we own that it is impossible for us to conceive the mental and moral +condition of the American who does not feel his spirit braced and +heightened by being even a spectator of such qualities and +achievements. That a steady purpose and a definite aim have been given +to the jarring forces which, at the beginning of the war, spent +themselves in the discussion of schemes which could only become +operative, if at all, after the war was over; that a popular excitement +has been slowly intensified into an earnest national will; that a +somewhat impracticable moral sentiment has been made the unconscious +instrument of a practical moral end; that the treason of covert +enemies, the jealousy of rivals, the unwise zeal of friends, have been +made not only useless for mischief, but even useful for good; that the +conscientious sensitiveness of England to the horrors of civil conflict +has been prevented from complicating a domestic with a foreign +war;—all these results, any one of which might suffice to prove +greatness in a ruler, have been mainly due to the good sense, the good +humor, the sagacity, the large-mindedness, and the unselfish honesty of +the unknown man whom a blind fortune, as it seemed, had lifted from the +crowd to the most dangerous and difficult eminence of modern times. It +is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of +a man is tested; it is by the sagacity to see, and the fearless honesty +to admit, whatever of truth there may be in an adverse opinion, in +order more convincingly to expose the fallacy that lurks behind it, +that a reasoner at length gains for his mere statement of a fact the +force of argument; it is by a wise forecast which allows hostile +combinations to go so far as by the inevitable reaction to become +elements of his own power, that a politician proves his genius for +statecraft; and especially it is by so gently guiding public sentiment +that he seems to follow it, by so yielding doubtful points that he can +be firm without seeming obstinate in essential ones, and thus gain the +advantages of compromise without the weakness of concession; by so +instinctively comprehending the temper and prejudices of a people as to +make them gradually conscious of the superior wisdom of his freedom +from temper and prejudice,—it is by qualities such as these that a +magistrate shows himself worthy to be chief in a commonwealth of +freemen. And it is for qualities such as these that we firmly believe +History will rank Mr. Lincoln among the most prudent of statesmen and +the most successful of rulers. If we wish to appreciate him, we have +only to conceive the inevitable chaos in which we should now be +weltering, had a weak man or an unwise one been chosen in his stead. +</P> + +<P> +"Bare is back," says the Norse proverb, "without brother behind it"; +and this is, by analogy, true of an elective magistracy. The +hereditary ruler in any critical emergency may reckon on the +inexhaustible resources of <I>prestige</I>, of sentiment, of superstition, +of dependent interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully +create all these out of the unwilling material around him, by +superiority of character, by patient singleness of purpose, by +sagacious presentiment of popular tendencies and instinctive sympathy +with the national character. Mr. Lincoln's task was one of peculiar +and exceptional difficulty. Long habit had accustomed the American +people to the notion of a party in power, and of a President as its +creature and organ, while the more vital fact, that the executive for +the time being represents the abstract idea of government as a +permanent principle superior to all party and all private interest, had +gradually become unfamiliar. They had so long seen the public policy +more or less directed by views of party, and often even of personal +advantage, as to be ready to suspect the motives of a chief magistrate +compelled, for the first time in our history, to feel himself the head +and hand of a great nation, and to act upon the fundamental maxim, laid +down by all publicists, that the first duty of a government is to +defend and maintain its own existence. Accordingly, a powerful weapon +seemed to be put into the hands of the opposition by the necessity +under which the administration found itself of applying this old truth +to new relations. Nor were the opposition his only nor his most +dangerous opponents. +</P> + +<P> +The Republicans had carried the country upon an issue in which ethics +were more directly and visibly mingled with politics than usual. Their +leaders were trained to a method of oratory which relied for its effect +rather on the moral sense than the understanding. Their arguments were +drawn, not so much from experience as from general principles of right +and wrong. When the war came, their system continued to be applicable +and effective, for here again the reason of the people was to be +reached and kindled through their sentiments. It was one of those +periods of excitement, gathering, contagious, universal, which, while +they last, exalt and clarify the minds of men, giving to the mere words +<I>country, human rights, democracy</I>, a meaning and a force beyond that +of sober and logical argument. They were convictions, maintained and +defended by the supreme logic of passion. That penetrating fire ran in +and roused those primary instincts that make their lair in the dens and +caverns of the mind. What is called the great popular heart was +awakened, that indefinable something which may be, according to +circumstances, the highest reason or the most brutish unreason. But +enthusiasm, once cold, can never be warmed over into anything better +than cant,—and phrases, when once the inspiration that filled them +with beneficent power has ebbed away, retain only that semblance of +meaning which enables them to supplant reason in hasty minds. Among +the lessons taught by the French Revolution there is none sadder or +more striking than this, that you may make everything else out of the +passions of men except a political system that will work, and that +there is nothing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity +formulated into dogma. It is always demoralizing to extend the domain +of sentiment over questions where it has no legitimate jurisdiction; +and perhaps the severest strain upon Mr. Lincoln was in resisting a +tendency of his own supporters which chimed with his own private +desires, while wholly opposed to his convictions of what would be wise +policy. +</P> + +<P> +The change which three years have brought about is too remarkable to be +passed over without comment, too weighty in its lesson not to be laid +to heart. Never did a President enter upon office with less means at +his command, outside his own strength of heart and steadiness of +understanding, for inspiring confidence in the people, and so winning +it for himself, than Mr. Lincoln. All that was known of him was that +he was a good stump-speaker, nominated for his <I>availability</I>,—that +is, because he had no history,—and chosen by a party with whose more +extreme opinions he was not in sympathy. It might well be feared that +a man past fifty, against whom the ingenuity of hostile partisans could +rake up no accusation, must be lacking in manliness of character, in +decision of principle, in strength of will; that a man who was at best +only the representative of a party, and who yet did not fairly +represent even that, would fail of political, much more of popular, +support. And certainly no one ever entered upon office with so few +resources of power in the past, and so many materials of weakness in +the present, as Mr. Lincoln. Even in that half of the Union which +acknowledged him as President, there was a large and at that time +dangerous minority, that hardly admitted his claim to the office, and +even in the party that elected him there was also a large minority that +suspected him of being secretly a communicant with the church of +Laodicea. All that he did was sure to be virulently attacked as ultra +by one side; all that he left undone, to be stigmatized as proof of +lukewarmness and backsliding by the other. Meanwhile, he was to carry +on a truly colossal war by means of both; he was to disengage the +country from diplomatic entanglements of unprecedented peril +undisturbed by the help or the hindrance of either, and to win from the +crowning dangers of his administration, in the confidence of the +people, the means of his safety and their own. He has contrived to do +it, and perhaps none of our Presidents since Washington has stood so +firm in the confidence of the people as he does after three years of +stormy administration. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lincoln's policy was a tentative one, and rightly so. He laid down +no programme which must compel him to be either inconsistent or unwise, +no cast-iron theorem to which circumstances must be fitted as they +rose, or else be useless to his ends. He seemed to have chosen +Mazarin's motto, <I>Le temps et moi</I>. The <I>moi</I>, to be sure, was not +very prominent at first; but it has grown more and more so, till the +world is beginning to be persuaded that it stands for a character of +marked individuality and capacity of affairs. Time was his +prime-minister, and, we began to think, at one period, his +general-in-chief also. At first he was so slow that he tired out all +those who see no evidence of progress but in blowing up the engine; +then he was so fast, that he took the breath away from those who think +there is no getting on safely while there is a spark of fire under the +boilers. God is the only being who has time enough; but a prudent man, +who knows how to seize occasion, can commonly make a shift to find as +much as he needs. Mr. Lincoln, as it seems to us in reviewing his +career, though we have sometimes in our impatience thought otherwise, +has always waited, as a wise man should, till the right moment brought +up all his reserves. <I>Semper nocuit differre paratis</I> is a sound +axiom, but the really efficacious man will also be sure to know when he +is <I>not</I> ready, and be firm against all persuasion and reproach till he +is. +</P> + +<P> +One would be apt to think, from some of the criticisms made on Mr. +Lincoln's course by those who mainly agree with him in principle, that +the chief object of a statesman should be rather to proclaim his +adhesion to certain doctrines, than to achieve their triumph by quietly +accomplishing his ends. In our opinion, there is no more unsafe +politician than a conscientiously rigid <I>doctrinaire</I>, nothing more +sure to end in disaster than a theoretic scheme of policy that admits +of no pliability for contingencies. True, there is a popular image of +an impossible He, in whose plastic hands the submissive destinies of +mankind become as wax, and to whose commanding necessity the toughest +facts yield with the graceful pliancy of fiction; but in real life we +commonly find that the men who control circumstances, as it is called, +are those who have learned to allow for the influence of their eddies, +and have the nerve to turn them to account at the happy instant. Mr. +Lincoln's perilous task has been to carry a rather shaky raft through +the rapids, making fast the unrulier logs as he could snatch +opportunity, and the country is to be congratulated that he did not +think it his duty to run straight at all hazards, but cautiously to +assure himself with his setting-pole where the main current was, and +keep steadily to that. He is still in wild water, but we have faith +that his skill and sureness of eye will bring him out right at last. +</P> + +<P> +A curious, and, as we think, not inapt parallel might be drawn between +Mr. Lincoln and one of the most striking figures in modern +history,—Henry IV. of France. The career of the latter may be more +picturesque, as that of a daring captain always is; but in all its +vicissitudes there is nothing more romantic than that sudden change, as +by a rub of Aladdin's lamp, from the attorney's office in a country +town of Illinois to the helm of a great nation in times like these. +The analogy between the characters and circumstances of the two men is +in many respects singularly close. Succeeding to a rebellion rather +than a crown, Henry's chief material dependence was the Huguenot party, +whose doctrines sat upon him with a looseness distasteful certainly, if +not suspicious, to the more fanatical among them. King only in name +over the greater part of France, and with his capital barred against +him, it yet gradually became clear to the more far-seeing even of the +Catholic party that he was the only centre of order and legitimate +authority round which France could reorganize itself. While preachers +who held the divine right of kings made the churches of Paris ring with +declamations in favor of democracy rather than submit to the heretic +dog of a Béarnois,—much as our <I>soi-disant</I> Democrats have lately been +preaching the divine right of slavery, and denouncing the heresies of +the Declaration of Independence,—Henry bore both parties in hand till +he was convinced that only one course of action could possibly combine +his own interests and those of France. Meanwhile the Protestants +believed somewhat doubtfully that he was theirs, the Catholics hoped +somewhat doubtfully that he would be theirs, and Henry himself turned +aside remonstrance, advice, and curiosity alike with a jest or a +proverb (if a little <I>high</I>, he liked them none the worse), joking +continually as his manner was. We have seen Mr. Lincoln contemptuously +compared to Sancho Panza by persons incapable of appreciating one of +the deepest pieces of wisdom in the profoundest romance ever written; +namely, that, while Don Quixote was incomparable in theoretic and ideal +statesmanship, Sancho, with his stock of proverbs, the ready money of +human experience, made the best possible practical governor. Henry IV. +was as full of wise saws and modern instances as Mr. Lincoln, but +beneath all this was the thoughtful, practical, humane, and thoroughly +earnest man, around whom the fragments of France were to gather +themselves till she took her place again as a planet of the first +magnitude in the European system. In one respect Mr. Lincoln was more +fortunate than Henry. However some may think him wanting in zeal, the +most fanatical can find no taint of apostasy in any measure of his, nor +can the most bitter charge him with being influenced by motives of +personal interest. The leading distinction between the policies of the +two is one of circumstances. Henry went over to the nation; Mr. +Lincoln has steadily drawn the nation over to him. One left a united +France; the other, we hope and believe, will leave a reunited America. +We leave our readers to trace the further points of difference and +resemblance for themselves, merely suggesting a general similarity +which has often occurred to us. One only point of melancholy interest +we will allow ourselves to touch upon. That Mr. Lincoln is not +handsome nor elegant, we learn from certain English tourists who would +consider similar revelations in regard to Queen Victoria as thoroughly +American in their want of <I>bienséance</I>. It is no concern of ours, nor +does it affect his fitness for the high place he so worthily occupies; +but he is certainly as fortunate as Henry in the matter of good looks, +if we may trust contemporary evidence. Mr. Lincoln has also been +reproached with Americanism by some not unfriendly British critics; +but, with all deference, we cannot say that we like him any the worse +for it, or see in it any reason why he should govern Americans the less +wisely. +</P> + +<P> +People of more sensitive organizations may be shocked, but we are glad +that in this our true war of independence, which is to free us forever +from the Old World, we have had at the head of our affairs a man whom +America made, as God made Adam, out of the very earth, unancestried, +unprivileged, unknown, to show us how much truth, how much magnanimity, +and how much state-craft await the call of opportunity in simple +manhood when it believes in the justice of God and the worth of man. +Conventionalities are all very well in their proper place, but they +shrivel at the touch of nature like stubble in the fire. The genius +that sways a nation by its arbitrary will seems less august to us than +that which multiplies and reinforces itself in the instincts and +convictions of an entire people. Autocracy may have something in it +more melodramatic than this, but falls far short of it in human value +and interest. +</P> + +<P> +Experience would have bred in us a rooted distrust of improvised +statesmanship, even if we did not believe politics to be a science, +which, if it cannot always command men of special aptitude and great +powers, at least demands the long and steady application of the best +powers of such men as it can command to master even its first +principles. It is curious, that, in a country which boasts of its +intelligence, the theory should be so generally held that the most +complicated of human contrivances, and one which every day becomes more +complicated, can be worked at sight by any man able to talk for an hour +or two without stopping to think. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lincoln is sometimes claimed as an example of a ready-made ruler. +But no case could well be less in point; for, besides that he was a man +of such fair-mindedness as is always the raw material of wisdom, he had +in his profession a training precisely the opposite of that to which a +partisan is subjected. His experience as a lawyer compelled him not +only to see that there is a principle underlying every phenomenon in +human affairs, but that there are always two sides to every question, +both of which must be fully understood in order to understand either, +and that it is of greater advantage to an advocate to appreciate the +strength than the weakness of his antagonist's position. Nothing is +more remarkable than the unerring tact with which, in his debate with +Mr. Douglas, he went straight to the reason of the question; nor have +we ever had a more striking lesson in political tactics than the fact, +that, opposed to a man exceptionally adroit in using popular prejudice +and bigotry to his purpose, exceptionally unscrupulous in appealing to +those baser motives that turn a meeting of citizens into a mob of +barbarians, he should yet have won his case before a jury of the +people. Mr. Lincoln was as far as possible from an impromptu +politician. His wisdom was made up of a knowledge of things as well as +of men; his sagacity resulted from a clear perception and honest +acknowledgment of difficulties, which enabled him to see that the only +durable triumph of political opinion is based, not on any abstract +right, but upon so much of justice, the highest attainable at any given +moment in human affairs, as may be had in the balance of mutual +concession. Doubtless he had an ideal, but it was the ideal of a +practical statesman,—to aim at the best, and to take the next best, if +he is lucky enough to get even that. His slow, but singularly +masculine, intelligence taught him that precedent is only another name +for embodied experience, and that it counts for even more in the +guidance of communities of men than in that of the individual life. He +was not a man who held it good public economy to pull down on the mere +chance of rebuilding better. Mr. Lincoln's faith in God was qualified +by a very well-founded distrust of the wisdom of man. Perhaps it was +his want of self-confidence that more than anything else won him the +unlimited confidence of the people, for they felt that there would be +no need of retreat from any position he had deliberately taken. The +cautious, but steady, advance of his policy during the war was like +that of a Roman army. He left behind him a firm road on which public +confidence could follow; he took America with him where he went; what +he gained he occupied, and his advanced posts became colonies. The +very homeliness of his genius was its distinction. His kingship was +conspicuous by its workday homespun. Never was ruler so absolute as +he, nor so little conscious of it; for he was the incarnate +common-sense of the people. With all that tenderness of nature whose +sweet sadness touched whoever saw him with something of its own pathos, +there was no trace of sentimentalism in his speech or action. He seems +to have had but one rule of conduct, always that of practical and +successful politics, to let himself be guided by events, when they were +sure to bring him out where he wished to go, though by what seemed to +unpractical minds, which let go the possible to grasp at the desirable, +a longer road. +</P> + +<P> +Undoubtedly the highest function of statesmanship is by degrees to +accommodate the conduct of communities to ethical laws, and to +subordinate the conflicting self-interests of the day to higher and +more permanent concerns. But it is on the understanding, and not on +the sentiment, of a nation that all safe legislation must be based. +Voltaire's saying, that "a consideration of petty circumstances is the +tomb of great things," may be true of individual men, but it certainly +is not true of governments. It is by a multitude of such +considerations, each in itself trifling, but all together weighty, that +the framers of policy can alone divine what is practicable and +therefore wise. The imputation of inconsistency is one to which every +sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject +himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion. +The course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, +avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking +the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest settle and longest +dwell, following and marking the almost imperceptible slopes of +national tendency, yet always aiming at direct advances, always +recruited from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes bursting open paths +of progress and fruitful human commerce through what seem the eternal +barriers of both. It is loyalty to great ends, even though forced to +combine the small and opposing motives of selfish men to accomplish +them; it is the anchored cling to solid principles of duty and action, +which knows how to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by +it,—that we demand in public men, and not obstinacy in prejudice, +sameness of policy, or a conscientious persistency in what is +impracticable. For the impracticable, however theoretically enticing, +is always politically unwise, sound statesmanship being the application +of that prudence to the public business which is the safest guide in +that of private men. +</P> + +<P> +No doubt slavery was the most delicate and embarrassing question with +which Mr. Lincoln was called on to deal, and it was one which no man in +his position, whatever his opinions, could evade; for, though he might +withstand the clamor of partisans, he must sooner or later yield to the +persistent importunacy of circumstances, which thrust the problem upon +him at every turn and in every shape. +</P> + +<P> +It has been brought against us as an accusation abroad and repeated +here by people who measure their country rather by what is thought of +it than by what it is, that our war has not been distinctly and +avowedly for the extinction of slavery, but a war rather for the +preservation of our national power and greatness, in which the +emancipation of the negro has been forced upon us by circumstances and +accepted as a necessity. We are very far from denying this; nay, we +admit that it is so far true that we were slow to renounce our +constitutional obligations even toward those who had absolved us by +their own act from the letter of our duty. We are speaking of the +government which, legally installed for the whole country, was bound, +so long as it was possible, not to overstep the limits of orderly +prescription, and could not, without abnegating its own very nature, +take the lead in making rebellion an excuse for revolution. There +were, no doubt, many ardent and sincere persons who seemed to think +this as simple a thing to do as to lead off a Virginia reel. They +forgot what should be forgotten least of all in a system like ours, +that the administration for the time being represents not only the +majority which elects it, but the minority as well,—a minority in this +case powerful, and so little ready for emancipation that it was opposed +even to war. Mr. Lincoln had not been chosen as general agent of an +antislavery society, but President of the United States, to perform +certain functions exactly defined by law. Whatever were his wishes, it +was no less duty than policy to mark out for himself a line of action +that would not further distract the country, by raising before their +time questions which plainly would soon enough compel attention, and +for which every day was making the answer more easy. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile he must solve the riddle of this new Sphinx, or be devoured. +Though Mr. Lincoln's policy in this critical affair has not been such +as to satisfy those who demand an heroic treatment for even the most +trifling occasion, and who will not cut their coat according to their +cloth, unless they can borrow the scissors of Atropos, it has been at +least not unworthy of the long-headed king of Ithaca. Mr. Lincoln had +the choice of Bassanio offered him. Which of the three caskets held +the prize that was to redeem the fortunes of the country? There was +the golden one whose showy speciousness might have tempted a vain man; +the silver of compromise, which might have decided the choice of a +merely acute one; and the leaden,—dull and homely looking, as prudence +always is,—yet with something about it sure to attract the eye of +practical wisdom. Mr. Lincoln dallied with his decision perhaps longer +than seemed needful to those on whom its awful responsibility was not +to rest, but when he made it, it was worthy of his cautious but +sure-footed understanding. The moral of the Sphinx-riddle, and it is a +deep one, lies in the childish simplicity of the solution. Those who +fail in guessing it, fail because they are over-ingenious, and cast +about for an answer that shall suit their own notion of the gravity of +the occasion and of their own dignity, rather than the occasion itself. +</P> + +<P> +In a matter which must be finally settled by public opinion, and in +regard to which the ferment of prejudice and passion on both sides has +not yet subsided to that equilibrium of compromise from which alone a +sound public opinion can result, it is proper enough for the private +citizen to press his own convictions with all possible force of +argument and persuasion; but the popular magistrate, whose judgment +must become action, and whose action involves the whole country, is +bound to wait till the sentiment of the people is so far advanced +toward his own point of view, that what he does shall find support in +it, instead of merely confusing it with new elements of division. It +was not unnatural that men earnestly devoted to the saving of their +country, and profoundly convinced that slavery was its only real enemy, +should demand a decided policy round which all patriots might +rally,—and this might have been the wisest course for an absolute +ruler. But in the then unsettled state of the public mind, with a +large party decrying even resistance to the slaveholders' rebellion as +not only unwise, but even unlawful; with a majority, perhaps, even of +the would-be loyal so long accustomed to regard the Constitution as a +deed of gift conveying to the South their own judgment as to policy and +instinct as to right, that they were in doubt at first whether their +loyalty were due to the country or to slavery; and with a respectable +body of honest and influential men who still believed in the +possibility of conciliation,—Mr. Lincoln judged wisely, that, in +laying down a policy in deference to one party, he should be giving to +the other the very fulcrum for which their disloyalty had been waiting. +</P> + +<P> +It behooved a clear-headed man in his position not to yield so far to +an honest indignation against the brokers of treason in the North as to +lose sight of the materials for misleading which were their stock in +trade, and to forget that it is not the falsehood of sophistry which is +to be feared, but the grain of truth mingled with it to make it +specious,—that it is not the knavery of the leaders so much as the +honesty of the followers they may seduce, that gives them power for +evil. It was especially his duty to do nothing which might help the +people to forget the true cause of the war in fruitless disputes about +its inevitable consequences. +</P> + +<P> +The doctrine of state rights can be so handled by an adroit demagogue +as easily to confound the distinction between liberty and lawlessness +in the minds of ignorant persons, accustomed always to be influenced by +the sound of certain words, rather than to reflect upon the principles +which give them meaning. For, though Secession involves the manifest +absurdity of denying to a State the right of making war against any +foreign power while permitting it against the United States; though it +supposes a compact of mutual concessions and guaranties among States +without any arbiter in case of dissension; though it contradicts +common-sense in assuming that the men who framed our government did not +know what they meant when they substituted Union for Confederation; +though it falsifies history, which shows that the main opposition to +the adoption of the Constitution was based on the argument that it did +not allow that independence in the several States which alone would +justify them in seceding;—yet, as slavery was universally admitted to +be a reserved right, an inference could be drawn from any direct attack +upon it (though only in self-defence) to a natural right of resistance, +logical enough to satisfy minds untrained to detect fallacy, as the +majority of men always are, and now too much disturbed by the disorder +of the times to consider that the order of events had any legitimate +bearing on the argument. Though Mr. Lincoln was too sagacious to give +the Northern allies of the Rebels the occasion they desired and even +strove to provoke, yet from the beginning of the war the most +persistent efforts have been made to confuse the public mind as to its +origin and motives, and to drag the people of the loyal States down +from the national position they had instinctively taken to the old +level of party squabbles and antipathies. The wholly unprovoked +rebellion of an oligarchy proclaiming negro slavery the corner-stone of +free institutions, and in the first flush of over-hasty confidence +venturing to parade the logical sequence of their leading dogma, "that +slavery is right in principle, and has nothing to do with difference of +complexion," has been represented as a legitimate and gallant attempt +to maintain the true principles of democracy. The rightful endeavor of +an established government, the least onerous that ever existed, to +defend itself against a treacherous attack on its very existence, has +been cunningly made to seem the wicked effort of a fanatical clique to +force its doctrines on an oppressed population. +</P> + +<P> +Even so long ago as when Mr. Lincoln, not yet convinced of the danger +and magnitude of the crisis, was endeavoring to persuade himself of +Union majorities at the South, and to carry on a war that was half +peace in the hope of a peace that would have been all war,—while he +was still enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law, under some theory that +Secession, however it might absolve States from their obligations, +could not escheat them of their claims under the Constitution, and that +slaveholders in rebellion had alone among mortals the privilege of +having their cake and eating it at the same time,—the enemies of free +government were striving to persuade the people that the war was an +Abolition crusade. To rebel without reason was proclaimed as one of +the rights of man, while it was carefully kept out of sight that to +suppress rebellion is the first duty of government. All the evils that +have come upon the country have been attributed to the Abolitionists, +though it is hard to see how any party can become permanently powerful +except in one of two ways,—either by the greater truth of its +principles, or the extravagance of the party opposed to it. To fancy +the ship of state, riding safe at her constitutional moorings, suddenly +engulfed by a huge kraken of Abolitionism, rising from unknown depths +and grasping it with slimy tentacles, is to look at the natural history +of the matter with the eyes of Pontoppidan. To believe that the +leaders in the Southern treason feared any danger from Abolitionism +would be to deny them ordinary intelligence, though there can be little +doubt that they made use of it to stir the passions and excite the +fears of their deluded accomplices. They rebelled, not because they +thought slavery weak, but because they believed it strong enough, not +to overthrow the government, but to get possession of it; for it +becomes daily clearer that they used rebellion only as a means of +revolution, and if they got revolution, though not in the shape they +looked for, is the American people to save them from its consequences +at the cost of its own existence? The election of Mr. Lincoln, which +it was clearly in their power to prevent had they wished, was the +occasion merely, and not the cause, of their revolt. Abolitionism, +till within a year or two, was the despised heresy of a few earnest +persons, without political weight enough to carry the election of a +parish constable; and their cardinal principle was disunion, because +they were convinced that within the Union the position of slavery was +impregnable. In spite of the proverb, great effects do not follow from +small causes,—that is, disproportionately small,—but from adequate +causes acting under certain required conditions. To contrast the size +of the oak with that of the parent acorn, as if the poor seed had paid +all costs from its slender strong-box, may serve for a child's wonder; +but the real miracle lies in that divine league which bound all the +forces of nature to the service of the tiny germ in fulfilling its +destiny. Everything has been at work for the past ten years in the +cause of anti-slavery, but Garrison and Phillips have been far less +successful propagandists than the slaveholders themselves, with the +constantly growing arrogance of their pretensions and encroachments. +They have forced the question upon the attention of every voter in the +Free States, by defiantly putting freedom and democracy on the +defensive. But, even after the Kansas outrages, there was no +wide-spread desire on the part of the North to commit aggressions, +though there was a growing determination to resist them. The popular +unanimity in favor of the war three years ago was but in small measure +the result of anti-slavery sentiment, far less of any zeal for +abolition. But every month of the war, every movement of the allies of +slavery in the Free States, has been making Abolitionists by the +thousand. The masses of any people, however intelligent, are very +little moved by abstract principles of humanity and justice, until +those principles are interpreted for them by the stinging commentary of +some infringement upon their own rights, and then their instincts and +passions, once aroused, do indeed derive an incalculable reinforcement +of impulse and intensity from those higher ideas, those sublime +traditions, which have no motive political force till they are allied +with a sense of immediate personal wrong or imminent peril. Then at +last the stars in their courses begin to fight against Sisera. Had any +one doubted before that the rights of human nature are unitary, that +oppression is of one hue the world over, no matter what the color of +the oppressed,—had any one failed to see what the real essence of the +contest was,—the efforts of the advocates of slavery among ourselves +to throw discredit upon the fundamental axioms of the Declaration of +Independence and the radical doctrines of Christianity could not fail +to sharpen his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +While every day was bringing the people nearer to the conclusion which +all thinking men saw to be inevitable from the beginning, it was wise +in Mr. Lincoln to leave the shaping of his policy to events. In this +country, where the rough and ready understanding of the people is sure +at last to be the controlling power, a profound common-sense is the +best genius for statesmanship. Hitherto, the wisdom of the President's +measures has been justified by the fact that they have always resulted +in more firmly uniting public opinion. One of the things particularly +admirable in the public utterances of President Lincoln is a certain +tone of familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult +attainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal +character. There must be something essentially noble in an elective +ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without +forfeiting respect, something very manly in one who can break through +the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the reason +and intelligence of those who have elected him. No higher compliment +was ever paid to a nation than the simple confidence, the fireside +plainness, with which Mr. Lincoln always addresses himself to the +reason of the American people. This was, indeed, a true democrat, who +grounded himself on the assumption that a democracy can think. "Come, +let us reason together about this matter," has been the tone of all his +addresses to the people; and accordingly we have never had a chief +magistrate who so won to himself the love and at the same time the +judgment of his countrymen. To us, that simple confidence of his in +the right-mindedness of his fellow-men is very touching, and its +success is as strong an argument as we have ever seen in favor of the +theory that men can govern themselves. He never appeals to any vulgar +sentiment, he never alludes to the humbleness of his origin; it +probably never occurred to him, indeed, that there was anything higher +to start from than manhood; and he put himself on a level with those he +addressed, not by going down to them, but only by taking it for granted +that they had brains and would come up to a common ground of reason. +In an article lately printed in "The Nation," Mr. Bayard Taylor +mentions the striking fact, that in the foulest dens of the Five Points +he found the portrait of Lincoln. The wretched population that makes +its hive there threw all its votes and more against him, and yet paid +this instinctive tribute to the sweet humanity of his nature. Their +ignorance sold its vote and took its money, but all that was left of +manhood in them recognized its saint and martyr. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lincoln is not in the habit of saying, "This is <I>my</I> opinion, or +<I>my</I> theory," but, "This is the conclusion to which, in my judgment, +the time has come, and to which, accordingly, the sooner we come the +better for us." His policy has been the policy of public opinion based +on adequate discussion and on a timely recognition of the influence of +passing events in shaping the features of events to come. +</P> + +<P> +One secret of Mr. Lincoln's remarkable success in captivating the +popular mind is undoubtedly an unconsciousness of self which enables +him, though under the necessity of constantly using the capital <I>I</I>, to +do it without any suggestion of egotism. There is no single vowel +which men's mouths can pronounce with such difference of effect. That +which one shall hide away, as it were, behind the substance of his +discourse, or, if he bring it to the front, shall use merely to give an +agreeable accent of individuality to what he says, another shall make +an offensive challenge to the self-satisfaction of all his hearers, and +an unwarranted intrusion upon each man's sense of personal importance, +irritating every pore of his vanity, like a dry northeast wind, to a +goose-flesh of opposition and hostility. Mr. Lincoln has never studied +Quinctilian; but he has, in the earnest simplicity and unaffected +Americanism of his own character, one art of oratory worth all the +rest. He forgets himself so entirely in his object as to give his <I>I</I> +the sympathetic and persuasive effect of <I>We</I> with the great body of +his countrymen. Homely, dispassionate, showing all the rough-edged +process of his thought as it goes along, yet arriving at his +conclusions with an honest kind of every-day logic, he is so eminently +our representative man, that, when he speaks, it seems as if the people +were listening to their own thinking aloud. The dignity of his thought +owes nothing to any ceremonial garb of words, but to the manly movement +that comes of settled purpose and an energy of reason that knows not +what rhetoric means. There has been nothing of Cleon, still less of +Strepsiades striving to underbid him in demagogism, to be found in the +public utterances of Mr. Lincoln. He has always addressed the +intelligence of men, never their prejudice, their passion, or their +ignorance. +</P> + +<P> +On the day of his death, this simple Western attorney, who according to +one party was a vulgar joker, and whom the <I>doctrinaires</I> among his own +supporters accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, was the +most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this solely by the hold his +good-humored sagacity had laid on the hearts and understandings of his +countrymen. Nor was this all, for it appeared that he had drawn the +great majority, not only of his fellow-citizens, but of mankind also, +to his side. So strong and so persuasive is honest manliness without a +single quality of romance or unreal sentiment to help it! A civilian +during times of the most captivating military achievement, awkward, +with no skill in the lower technicalities of manners, he left behind +him a fame beyond that of any conqueror, the memory of a grace higher +than that of outward person, and of a gentlemanliness deeper than mere +breeding. Never before that startled April morning did such multitudes +of men shed tears for the death of one they had never seen, as if with +him a friendly presence had been taken away from their lives, leaving +them colder and darker. Never was funeral panegyric so eloquent as the +silent look of sympathy which strangers exchanged when they met on that +day. Their common manhood had lost a kinsman. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12c"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +DEMOCRACY +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +INAUGURAL ADDRESS ON ASSUMING THE PRESIDENCY OF THE<BR> +BIRMINGHAM AND MIDLAND INSTITUTE, BIRMINGHAM,<BR> +ENGLAND, 6 OCTOBER, 1884<BR> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Copyright, 1886. by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL<BR> +Published by arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +He must be a born leader or misleader of men, or must have been sent into +the world unfurnished with that modulating and restraining balance-wheel +which we call a sense of humor, who, in old age, has as strong a +confidence in his opinions and in the necessity of bringing the universe +into conformity with them as he had in youth. In a world the very +condition of whose being is that it should be in perpetual flux, where +all seems mirage, and the one abiding thing is the effort to distinguish +realities from appearances, the elderly man must be indeed of a +singularly tough and valid fibre who is certain that he has any clarified +residuum of experience, any assured verdict of reflection, that deserves +to be called an opinion, or who, even if he had, feels that he is +justified in holding mankind by the button while he is expounding it. +And in a world of daily—nay, almost hourly—journalism, where every +clever man, every man who thinks himself clever, or whom anybody else +thinks clever, is called upon to deliver his judgment point-blank and at +the word of command on every conceivable subject of human thought, or on +what sometimes seems to him very much the same thing, on every +inconceivable display of human want of thought, there is such a +spendthrift waste of all those commonplaces which furnish the permitted +staple of public discourse that there is little chance of beguiling a new +tune out of the one-stringed instrument on which we have been thrumming +so long. In this desperate necessity one is often tempted to think that, +if all the words of the dictionary were tumbled down in a heap and then +all those fortuitous juxtapositions and combinations that made tolerable +sense were picked out and pieced together, we might find among them some +poignant suggestions towards novelty of thought or expression. But, +alas! it is only the great poets who seem to have this unsolicited +profusion of unexpected and incalculable phrase, this infinite variety of +topic. For everybody else everything has been said before, and said over +again after. He who has read his Aristotle will be apt to think that +observation has on most points of general applicability said its last +word, and he who has mounted the tower of Plato to look abroad from it +will never hope to climb another with so lofty a vantage of speculation. +Where it is so simple if not so easy a thing to hold one's peace, why add +to the general confusion of tongues? There is something disheartening, +too, in being expected to fill up not less than a certain measure of +time, as if the mind were an hour-glass, that need only be shaken and set +on one end or the other, as the case may be, to run its allotted sixty +minutes with decorous exactitude. I recollect being once told by the +late eminent naturalist, Agassiz, that when he was to deliver his first +lecture as professor (at Zürich, I believe) he had grave doubts of his +ability to occupy the prescribed three quarters of an hour. He was +speaking without notes, and glancing anxiously from time to time at the +watch that lay before him on the desk. "When I had spoken a half hour," +he said, "I had told them everything I knew in the world, everything! +Then I began to repeat myself," he added, roguishly, "and I have done +nothing else ever since." Beneath the humorous exaggeration of the story +I seemed to see the face of a very serious and improving moral. And yet +if one were to say only what he had to say and then stopped, his audience +would feel defrauded of their honest measure. Let us take courage by the +example of the French, whose exportation of Bordeaux wines increases as +the area of their land in vineyards is diminished. +</P> + +<P> +To me, somewhat hopelessly revolving these things, the undelayable year +has rolled round, and I find myself called upon to say something in this +place, where so many wiser men have spoken before me. Precluded, in my +quality of national guest, by motives of taste and discretion, from +dealing with any question of immediate and domestic concern, it seemed to +me wisest, or at any rate most prudent, to choose a topic of +comparatively abstract interest, and to ask your indulgence for a few +somewhat generalized remarks on a matter concerning which I had some +experimental knowledge, derived from the use of such eyes and ears as +Nature had been pleased to endow me withal, and such report as I had been +able to win from them. The subject which most readily suggested itself +was the spirit and the working of those conceptions of life and polity +which are lumped together, whether for reproach or commendation, under +the name of Democracy. By temperament and education of a conservative +turn, I saw the last years of that quaint Arcadia which French travellers +saw with delighted amazement a century ago, and have watched the change +(to me a sad one) from an agricultural to a proletary population. The +testimony of Balaam should carry some conviction. I have grown to +manhood and am now growing old with the growth of this system of +government in my native land, have watched its advances, or what some +would call its encroachments, gradual and irresistible as those of a +glacier, have been an ear-witness to the forebodings of wise and good and +timid men, and have lived to see those forebodings belied by the course +of events, which is apt to show itself humorously careless of the +reputation of prophets. I recollect hearing a sagacious old gentleman +say in 1840 that the doing away with the property qualification for +suffrage twenty years before had been the ruin of the State of +Massachusetts; that it had put public credit and private estate alike at +the mercy of demagogues. I lived to see that Commonwealth twenty odd +years later paying the interest on her bonds in gold, though it cost her +sometimes nearly three for one to keep her faith, and that while +suffering an unparalleled drain of men and treasure in helping to sustain +the unity and self-respect of the nation. +</P> + +<P> +If universal suffrage has worked ill in our larger cities, as it +certainly has, this has been mainly because the hands that wielded it +were untrained to its use. There the election of a majority of the +trustees of the public money is controlled by the most ignorant and +vicious of a population which has come to us from abroad, wholly +unpractised in self-government and incapable of assimilation by American +habits and methods. But the finances of our towns, where the native +tradition is still dominant and whose affairs are discussed and settled +in a public assembly of the people, have been in general honestly and +prudently administered. Even in manufacturing towns, where a majority of +the voters live by their daily wages, it is not so often the recklessness +as the moderation of public expenditure that surprises an old-fashioned +observer. "The beggar is in the saddle at last," cries Proverbial +Wisdom. "Why, in the name of all former experience, doesn't he ride to +the Devil?" Because in the very act of mounting he ceased to be a beggar +and became part owner of the piece of property he bestrides. The last +thing we need be anxious about is property. It always has friends or the +means of making them. If riches have wings to fly away from their owner, +they have wings also to escape danger. +</P> + +<P> +I hear America sometimes playfully accused of sending you all your +storms, and am in the habit of parrying the charge by alleging that we +are enabled to do this because, in virtue of our protective system, we +can afford to make better bad weather than anybody else. And what wiser +use could we make of it than to export it in return for the paupers which +some European countries are good enough to send over to us who have not +attained to the same skill in the manufacture of them? But bad weather +is not the worst thing that is laid at our door. A French gentleman, not +long ago, forgetting Burke's monition of how unwise it is to draw an +indictment against a whole people, has charged us with the responsibility +of whatever he finds disagreeable in the morals or manners of his +countrymen. If M. Zola or some other competent witness would only go +into the box and tell us what those morals and manners were before our +example corrupted them! But I confess that I find little to interest and +less to edify me in these international bandyings of "You're another." +</P> + +<P> +I shall address myself to a single point only in the long list of +offences of which we are more or less gravely accused, because that +really includes all the rest. It is that we are infecting the Old World +with what seems to be thought the entirely new disease of Democracy. It +is generally people who are in what are called easy circumstances who can +afford the leisure to treat themselves to a handsome complaint, and these +experience an immediate alleviation when once they have found a sonorous +Greek name to abuse it by. There is something consolatory also, +something flattering to their sense of personal dignity, and to that +conceit of singularity which is the natural recoil from our uneasy +consciousness of being commonplace, in thinking ourselves victims of a +malady by which no one had ever suffered before. Accordingly they find +it simpler to class under one comprehensive heading whatever they find +offensive to their nerves, their tastes, their interests, or what they +suppose to be their opinions, and christen it Democracy, much as +physicians label every obscure disease gout, or as cross-grained fellows +lay their ill-temper to the weather. But is it really a new ailment, +and, if it be, is America answerable for it? Even if she were, would it +account for the phylloxera, and hoof-and-mouth disease, and bad harvests, +and bad English, and the German bands, and the Boers, and all the other +discomforts with which these later days have vexed the souls of them that +go in chariots? Yet I have seen the evil example of Democracy in America +cited as the source and origin of things quite as heterogeneous and quite +as little connected with it by any sequence of cause and effect. Surely +this ferment is nothing new. It has been at work for centuries, and we +are more conscious of it only because in this age of publicity, where the +newspapers offer a rostrum to whoever has a grievance, or fancies that he +has, the bubbles and scum thrown up by it are more noticeable on the +surface than in those dumb ages when there was a cover of silence and +suppression on the cauldron. Bernardo Navagero, speaking of the +Provinces of Lower Austria in 1546, tells us that "in them there are five +sorts of persons, Clergy, Barons, Nobles, Burghers, and Peasants. Of +these last no account is made, <I>because they have no voice in the Diet</I>." +[1] +</P> + +<P> +Nor was it among the people that subversive or mistaken doctrines had +their rise. A Father of the Church said that property was theft many +centuries before Proudhon was born. Bourdaloue reaffirmed it. +Montesquieu was the inventor of national workshops, and of the theory +that the State owed every man a living. Nay, was not the Church herself +the first organized Democracy? A few centuries ago the chief end of man +was to keep his soul alive, and then the little kernel of leaven that +sets the gases at work was religious, and produced the Reformation. Even +in that, far-sighted persons like the Emperor Charles V. saw the germ of +political and social revolution. Now that the chief end of man seems to +have become the keeping of the body alive, and as comfortably alive as +possible, the leaven also has become wholly political and social. But +there had also been social upheavals before the Reformation and +contemporaneously with it, especially among men of Teutonic race. The +Reformation gave outlet and direction to an unrest already existing. +Formerly the immense majority of men—our brothers—knew only their +sufferings, their wants, and their desires. They are beginning now to +know their opportunity and their power. All persons who see deeper than +their plates are rather inclined to thank God for it than to bewail it, +for the sores of Lazarus have a poison in them against which Dives has no +antidote. +</P> + +<P> +There can be no doubt that the spectacle of a great and prosperous +Democracy on the other side of the Atlantic must react powerfully on the +aspirations and political theories of men in the Old World who do not +find things to their mind; but, whether for good or evil, it should not +be overlooked that the acorn from which it sprang was ripened on the +British oak. Every successive swarm that has gone out from this +<I>officina gentium</I> has, when left to its own instincts—may I not call +them hereditary instincts?—assumed a more or less thoroughly democratic +form. This would seem to show, what I believe to be the fact, that the +British Constitution, under whatever disguises of prudence or decorum, is +essentially democratic. England, indeed, may be called a monarchy with +democratic tendencies, the United States a democracy with conservative +instincts. People are continually saying that America is in the air, and +I am glad to think it is, since this means only that a clearer conception +of human claims and human duties is beginning to be prevalent. The +discontent with the existing order of things, however, pervaded the +atmosphere wherever the conditions were favorable, long before Columbus, +seeking the back door of Asia, found himself knocking at the front door +of America. I say wherever the conditions were favorable, for it is +certain that the germs of disease do not stick or find a prosperous field +for their development and noxious activity unless where the simplest +sanitary precautions have been neglected. "For this effect defective +comes by cause," as Polonius said long ago. It is only by instigation of +the wrongs of men that what are called the Rights of Man become turbulent +and dangerous. It is then only that they syllogize unwelcome truths. It +is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the revolts +of intelligence:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The wicked and the weak rebel in vain,<BR> +Slaves by their own compulsion."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Had the governing classes in France during the last century paid as much +heed to their proper business as to their pleasures or manners, the +guillotine need never have severed that spinal marrow of orderly and +secular tradition through which in a normally constituted state the brain +sympathizes with the extremities and sends will and impulsion thither. +It is only when the reasonable and practicable are denied that men demand +the unreasonable and impracticable: only when the possible is made +difficult that they fancy the impossible to be easy. Fairy tales are +made out of the dreams of the poor. No; the sentiment which lies at the +root of democracy is nothing new. I am speaking always of a sentiment, a +spirit, and not of a form of government; for this was but the outgrowth +of the other and not its cause. This sentiment is merely an expression +of the natural wish of people to have a hand, if need be a controlling +hand, in the management of their own affairs. What is new is that they +are more and more gaining that control, and learning more and more how to +be worthy of it. What we used to call the tendency or drift—what we are +being taught to call more wisely the evolution of things—has for some +time been setting steadily in this direction. There is no good in +arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east +wind is to put on your overcoat. And in this case, also, the prudent +will prepare themselves to encounter what they cannot prevent. Some +people advise us to put on the brakes, as if the movement of which we are +conscious were that of a railway train running down an incline. But a +metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive +one home and imbed it in the memory. Our disquiet comes of what nurses +and other experienced persons call growing-pains, and need not seriously +alarm us. They are what every generation before us—certainly every +generation since the invention of printing—has gone through with more or +less good fortune. To the door of every generation there comes a +knocking, and unless the household, like the Thane of Cawdor and his +wife, have been doing some deed without a name, they need not shudder. +It turns out at worst to be a poor relation who wishes to come in out of +the cold. The porter always grumbles and is slow to open. "Who's there, +in the name of Beelzebub?" he mutters. Not a change for the better in +our human housekeeping has ever taken place that wise and good men have +not opposed it,—have not prophesied with the alderman that the world +would wake up to find its throat cut in consequence of it. The world, on +the contrary, wakes up, rubs its eyes, yawns, stretches itself, and goes +about its business as if nothing had happened. Suppression of the slave +trade, abolition of slavery, trade unions,—at all of these excellent +people shook their heads despondingly, and murmured "Ichabod." But the +trade unions are now debating instead of conspiring, and we all read +their discussions with comfort and hope, sure that they are learning the +business of citizenship and the difficulties of practical legislation. +</P> + +<P> +One of the most curious of these frenzies of exclusion was that against +the emancipation of the Jews. All share in the government of the world +was denied for centuries to perhaps the ablest, certainly the most +tenacious, race that had ever lived in it—the race to whom we owed our +religion and the purest spiritual stimulus and consolation to be found in +all literature—a race in which ability seems as natural and hereditary +as the curve of their noses, and whose blood, furtively mingling with the +bluest bloods in Europe, has quickened them with its own indomitable +impulsion. We drove them into a corner, but they had their revenge, as +the wronged are always sure to have it sooner or later. They made their +corner the counter and banking-house of the world, and thence they rule +it and us with the ignobler sceptre of finance. Your grandfathers mobbed +Priestley only that you might set up his statue and make Birmingham the +headquarters of English Unitarianism. We hear it said sometimes that +this is an age of transition, as if that made matters clearer; but can +any one point us to an age that was not? If he could, he would show us +an age of stagnation. The question for us, as it has been for all before +us, is to make the transition gradual and easy, to see that our points +are right so that the train may not come to grief. For we should +remember that nothing is more natural for people whose education has been +neglected than to spell evolution with an initial "r." A great man +struggling with the storms of fate has been called a sublime spectacle; +but surely a great man wrestling with these new forces that have come +into the world, mastering them and controlling them to beneficent ends, +would be a yet sublimer. Here is not a danger, and if there were it +would be only a better school of manhood, a nobler scope for ambition. I +have hinted that what people are afraid of in democracy is less the thing +itself than what they conceive to be its necessary adjuncts and +consequences. It is supposed to reduce all mankind to a dead level of +mediocrity in character and culture, to vulgarize men's conceptions of +life, and therefore their code of morals, manners, and conduct—to +endanger the rights of property and possession. But I believe that the +real gravamen of the charges lies in the habit it has of making itself +generally disagreeable by asking the Powers that Be at the most +inconvenient moment whether they are the powers that ought to be. If the +powers that be are in a condition to give a satisfactory answer to this +inevitable question, they need feel in no way discomfited by it. +</P> + +<P> +Few people take the trouble of trying to find out what democracy really +is. Yet this would be a great help, for it is our lawless and uncertain +thoughts, it is the indefiniteness of our impressions, that fill +darkness, whether mental or physical, with spectres and hobgoblins. +Democracy is nothing more than an experiment in government, more likely +to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which must +stand or fall on its own merits as others have done before it. For there +is no trick of perpetual motion in politics any more than in mechanics. +President Lincoln defined democracy to be "the government of the people +by the people for the people." This is a sufficiently compact statement +of it as a political arrangement. Theodore Parker said that "Democracy +meant not 'I'm as good as you are,' but 'You're as good as I am.'" And +this is the ethical conception of it, necessary as a complement of the +other; a conception which, could it be made actual and practical, would +easily solve all the riddles that the old sphinx of political and social +economy who sits by the roadside has been proposing to mankind from the +beginning, and which mankind have shown such a singular talent for +answering wrongly. In this sense Christ was the first true democrat that +ever breathed, as the old dramatist Dekker said he was the first true +gentleman. The characters may be easily doubled, so strong is the +likeness between them. A beautiful and profound parable of the Persian +poet Jellaladeen tells us that "One knocked at the Beloved's door, and a +voice asked from within 'Who is there?' and he answered 'It is I.' Then +the voice said, 'This house will not hold me and thee;' and the door was +not opened. Then went the lover into the desert and fasted and prayed in +solitude, and after a year he returned and knocked again at the door; and +again the voice asked 'Who is there?' and he said 'It is thyself;' and +the door was opened to him." But that is idealism, you will say, and +this is an only too practical world. I grant it; but I am one of those +who believe that the real will never find an irremovable basis till it +rests on the ideal. It used to be thought that a democracy was possible +only in a small territory, and this is doubtless true of a democracy +strictly defined, for in such all the citizens decide directly upon every +question of public concern in a general assembly. An example still +survives in the tiny Swiss canton of Appenzell. But this immediate +intervention of the people in their own affairs is not of the essence of +democracy; it is not necessary, nor indeed, in most cases, practicable. +Democracies to which Mr. Lincoln's definition would fairly enough apply +have existed, and now exist, in which, though the supreme authority +reside in the people, yet they can act only indirectly on the national +policy. This generation has seen a democracy with an imperial +figurehead, and in all that have ever existed the body politic has never +embraced all the inhabitants included within its territory, the right to +share in the direction of affairs has been confined to citizens, and +citizenship has been further restricted by various limitations, sometimes +of property, sometimes of nativity, and always of age and sex. +</P> + +<P> +The framers of the American Constitution were far from wishing or +intending to found a democracy in the strict sense of the word, though, +as was inevitable, every expansion of the scheme of government they +elaborated has been in a democratical direction. But this has been +generally the slow result of growth, and not the sudden innovation of +theory; in fact, they had a profound disbelief in theory, and knew better +than to commit the folly of breaking with the past. They were not +seduced by the French fallacy that a new system of government could be +ordered like a new suit of clothes. They would as soon have thought of +ordering a new suit of flesh and skin. It is only on the roaring loom of +time that the stuff is woven for such a vesture of their thought and +experience as they were meditating. They recognized fully the value of +tradition and habit as the great allies of permanence and stability. +They all had that distaste for innovation which belonged to their race, +and many of them a distrust of human nature derived from their creed. +The day of sentiment was over, and no dithyrambic affirmations or +fine-drawn analyses of the Rights of Man would serve their present turn. +This was a practical question, and they addressed themselves to it as men +of knowledge and judgment should. Their problem was how to adapt English +principles and precedents to the new conditions of American life, and +they solved it with singular discretion. They put as many obstacles as +they could contrive, not in the way of the people's will, but of their +whim. With few exceptions they probably admitted the logic of the then +accepted syllogism,—democracy, anarchy, despotism. But this formula was +framed upon the experience of small cities shut up to stew within their +narrow walls, where the number of citizens made but an inconsiderable +fraction of the inhabitants, where every passion was reverberated from +house to house and from man to man with gathering rumor till every +impulse became gregarious and therefore inconsiderate, and every popular +assembly needed but an infusion of eloquent sophistry to turn it into a +mob, all the more dangerous because sanctified with the formality of +law.[2] +</P> + +<P> +Fortunately their case was wholly different. They were to legislate for +a widely scattered population and for States already practised in the +discipline of a partial independence. They had an unequalled opportunity +and enormous advantages. The material they had to work upon was already +democratical by instinct and habitude. It was tempered to their hands by +more than a century's schooling in self-government. They had but to give +permanent and conservative form to a ductile mass. In giving impulse and +direction to their new institutions, especially in supplying them with +checks and balances, they had a great help and safeguard in their federal +organization. The different, sometimes conflicting, interests and social +systems of the several States made existence as a Union and coalescence +into a nation conditional on a constant practice of moderation and +compromise. The very elements of disintegration were the best guides in +political training. Their children learned the lesson of compromise only +too well, and it was the application of it to a question of fundamental +morals that cost us our civil war. We learned once for all that +compromise makes a good umbrella but a poor roof; that it is a temporary +expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in +statesmanship. +</P> + +<P> +Has not the trial of democracy in America proved, on the whole, +successful? If it had not, would the Old World be vexed with any fears +of its proving contagious? This trial would have been less severe could +it have been made with a people homogeneous in race, language, and +traditions, whereas the United States have been called on to absorb and +assimilate enormous masses of foreign population, heterogeneous in all +these respects, and drawn mainly from that class which might fairly say +that the world was not their friend, nor the world's law. The previous +condition too often justified the traditional Irishman, who, landing in +New York and asked what his politics were, inquired if there was a +Government there, and on being told that there was, retorted, "Thin I'm +agin it!" We have taken from Europe the poorest, the most ignorant, the +most turbulent of her people, and have made them over into good citizens, +who have added to our wealth, and who are ready to die in defence of a +country and of institutions which they know to be worth dying for. The +exceptions have been (and they are lamentable exceptions) where these +hordes of ignorance and poverty have coagulated in great cities. But the +social system is yet to seek which has not to look the same terrible wolf +in the eyes. On the other hand, at this very moment Irish peasants are +buying up the worn-out farms of Massachusetts, and making them productive +again by the same virtues of industry and thrift that once made them +profitable to the English ancestors of the men who are deserting them. +To have achieved even these prosaic results (if you choose to call them +so), and that out of materials the most discordant,—I might say the most +recalcitrant,—argues a certain beneficent virtue in the system that +could do it, and is not to be accounted for by mere luck. +</P> + +<P> +Carlyle said scornfully that America meant only roast turkey every day +for everybody. He forgot that States, as Bacon said of wars, go on their +bellies. As for the security of property, it should be tolerably well +secured in a country where every other man hopes to be rich, even though +the only property qualification be the ownership of two hands that add to +the general wealth. Is it not the best security for anything to interest +the largest possible number of persons in its preservation and the +smallest in its division? In point of fact, far-seeing men count the +increasing power of wealth and its combinations as one of the chief +dangers with which the institutions of the United States are threatened +in the not distant future. The right of individual property is no doubt +the very corner-stone of civilization as hitherto understood, but I am a +little impatient of being told that property is entitled to exceptional +consideration because it bears all the burdens of the State. It bears +those, indeed, which can most easily be borne, but poverty pays with its +person the chief expenses of war, pestilence, and famine. Wealth should +not forget this, for poverty is beginning to think of it now and then. +Let me not be misunderstood. I see as clearly as any man possibly can, +and rate as highly, the value of wealth, and of hereditary wealth, as the +security of refinement, the feeder of all those arts that ennoble and +beautify life, and as making a country worth living in. Many an +ancestral hall here in England has been a nursery of that culture which +has been of example and benefit to all. Old gold has a civilizing virtue +which new gold must grow old to be capable of secreting. +</P> + +<P> +I should not think of coming before you to defend or to criticise any +form of government. All have their virtues, all their defects, and all +have illustrated one period or another in the history of the race, with +signal services to humanity and culture. There is not one that could +stand a cynical cross-examination by an experienced criminal lawyer, +except that of a perfectly wise and perfectly good despot, such as the +world has never seen, except in that white-haired king of Browning's who +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">"Lived long ago</SPAN><BR> +In the morning of the world,<BR> +When Earth was nearer Heaven than now."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The English race, if they did not invent government by discussion, have +at least carried it nearest to perfection in practice. It seems a very +safe and reasonable contrivance for occupying the attention of the +country, and is certainly a better way of settling questions than by push +of pike. Yet, if one should ask it why it should not rather be called +government by gabble, it would have to fumble in its pocket a good while +before it found the change for a convincing reply. As matters stand, +too, it is beginning to be doubtful whether Parliament and Congress sit +at Westminster and Washington or in the editors' rooms of the leading +journals, so thoroughly is everything debated before the authorized and +responsible debaters get on their legs. And what shall we say of +government by a majority of voices? To a person who in the last century +would have called himself an Impartial Observer, a numerical +preponderance seems, on the whole, as clumsy a way of arriving at truth +as could well be devised, but experience has apparently shown it to be a +convenient arrangement for determining what may be expedient or advisable +or practicable at any given moment. Truth, after all, wears a different +face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were +agreed. She is said to lie at the bottom of a well, for the very reason, +perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own image at +the bottom, and is persuaded not only that he has seen the goddess, but +that she is far better-looking than he had imagined. +</P> + +<P> +The arguments against universal suffrage are equally unanswerable. +"What," we exclaim, "shall Tom, Dick, and Harry have as much weight in +the scale as I?" Of course, nothing could be more absurd. And yet +universal suffrage has not been the instrument of greater unwisdom than +contrivances of a more select description. Assemblies could be mentioned +composed entirely of Masters of Arts and Doctors in Divinity which have +sometimes shown traces of human passion or prejudice in their votes. +Have the Serene Highnesses and Enlightened Classes carried on the +business of Mankind so well, then, that there is no use in trying a less +costly method? The democratic theory is that those Constitutions are +likely to prove steadiest which have the broadest base, that the right to +vote makes a safety-valve of every voter, and that the best way of +teaching a man how to vote is to give him the chance of practice. For +the question is no longer the academic one, "Is it wise to give every man +the ballot?" but rather the practical one, "Is it prudent to deprive +whole classes of it any longer?" It may be conjectured that it is +cheaper in the long run to lift men up than to hold them down, and that +the ballot in their hands is less dangerous to society than a sense of +wrong in their heads. At any rate this is the dilemma to which the drift +of opinion has been for some time sweeping us, and in politics a dilemma +is a more unmanageable thing to hold by the horns than a wolf by the +ears. It is said that the right of suffrage is not valued when it is +indiscriminately bestowed, and there may be some truth in this, for I +have observed that what men prize most is a privilege, even if it be that +of chief mourner at a funeral. But is there not danger that it will be +valued at more than its worth if denied, and that some illegitimate way +will be sought to make up for the want of it? Men who have a voice in +public affairs are at once affiliated with one or other of the great +parties between which society is divided, merge their individual hopes +and opinions in its safer, because more generalized, hopes and opinions, +are disciplined by its tactics, and acquire, to a certain degree, the +orderly qualities of an army. They no longer belong to a class, but to a +body corporate. Of one thing, at least, we may be certain, that, under +whatever method of helping things to go wrong man's wit can contrive, +those who have the divine right to govern will be found to govern in the +end, and that the highest privilege to which the majority of mankind can +aspire is that of being governed by those wiser than they. Universal +suffrage has in the United States sometimes been made the instrument of +inconsiderate changes, under the notion of reform, and this from a +misconception of the true meaning of popular government. One of these +has been the substitution in many of the States of popular election for +official selection in the choice of judges. The same system applied to +military officers was the source of much evil during our civil war, and, +I believe, had to be abandoned. But it has been also true that on all +great questions of national policy a reserve of prudence and discretion +has been brought out at the critical moment to turn the scale in favor of +a wiser decision. An appeal to the reason of the people has never been +known to fail in the long run. It is, perhaps, true that, by effacing +the principle of passive obedience, democracy, ill understood, has +slackened the spring of that ductility to discipline which is essential +to "the unity and married calm of States." But I feel assured that +experience and necessity will cure this evil, as they have shown their +power to cure others. And under what frame of policy have evils ever +been remedied till they became intolerable, and shook men out of their +indolent indifference through their fears? +</P> + +<P> +We are told that the inevitable result of democracy is to sap the +foundations of personal independence, to weaken the principle of +authority, to lessen the respect due to eminence, whether in station, +virtue, or genius. If these things were so, society could not hold +together. Perhaps the best forcing-house of robust individuality would +be where public opinion is inclined to be most overbearing, as he must be +of heroic temper who should walk along Piccadilly at the height of the +season in a soft hat. As for authority, it is one of the symptoms of the +time that the religious reverence for it is declining everywhere, but +this is due partly to the fact that state-craft is no longer looked upon +as a mystery, but as a business, and partly to the decay of superstition, +by which I mean the habit of respecting what we are told to respect +rather than what is respectable in itself. There is more rough and +tumble in the American democracy than is altogether agreeable to people +of sensitive nerves and refined habits, and the people take their +political duties lightly and laughingly, as is, perhaps, neither +unnatural nor unbecoming in a young giant. Democracies can no more jump +away from their own shadows than the rest of us can. They no doubt +sometimes make mistakes and pay honor to men who do not deserve it. But +they do this because they believe them worthy of it, and though it be +true that the idol is the measure of the worshipper, yet the worship has +in it the germ of a nobler religion. But is it democracies alone that +fall into these errors? I, who have seen it proposed to erect a statue +to Hudson, the railway king, and have heard Louis Napoleon hailed as the +saviour of society by men who certainly had no democratic associations or +leanings, am not ready to think so. But democracies have likewise their +finer instincts. I have also seen the wisest statesman and most pregnant +speaker of our generation, a man of humble birth and ungainly manners, of +little culture beyond what his own genius supplied, become more absolute +in power than any monarch of modern times through the reverence of his +countrymen for his honesty, his wisdom, his sincerity, his faith in God +and man, and the nobly humane simplicity of his character. And I +remember another whom popular respect enveloped as with a halo, the least +vulgar of men, the most austerely genial, and the most independent of +opinion. Wherever he went he never met a stranger, but everywhere +neighbors and friends proud of him as their ornament and decoration. +Institutions which could bear and breed such men as Lincoln and Emerson +had surely some energy for good. No, amid all the fruitless turmoil and +miscarriage of the world, if there be one thing steadfast and of +favorable omen, one thing to make optimism distrust its own obscure +distrust, it is the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and +more beautiful than themselves. The touchstone of political and social +institutions is their ability to supply them with worthy objects of this +sentiment, which is the very tap-root of civilization and progress. +There would seem to be no readier way of feeding it with the elements of +growth and vigor than such an organization of society as will enable men +to respect themselves, and so to justify them in respecting others. +</P> + +<P> +Such a result is quite possible under other conditions than those of an +avowedly democratical Constitution. For I take it that the real essence +of democracy was fairly enough defined by the First Napoleon when he said +that the French Revolution meant "la carričre ouverte aux talents"—a +clear pathway for merit of whatever kind. I should be inclined to +paraphrase this by calling democracy that form of society, no matter what +its political classification, in which every man had a chance and knew +that he had it. If a man can climb, and feels himself encouraged to +climb, from a coalpit to the highest position for which he is fitted, he +can well afford to be indifferent what name is given to the government +under which he lives. The Bailli of Mirabeau, uncle of the more famous +tribune of that name, wrote in 1771: "The English are, in my opinion, a +hundred times more agitated and more unfortunate than the very Algerines +themselves, because they do not know and will not know till the +destruction of their over-swollen power, which I believe very near, +whether they are monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, and wish to play +the part of all three." +</P> + +<P> +England has not been obliging enough to fulfil the Bailli's prophecy, and +perhaps it was this very carelessness about the name, and concern about +the substance of popular government, this skill in getting the best out +of things as they are, in utilizing all the motives which influence men, +and in giving one direction to many impulses, that has been a principal +factor of her greatness and power. Perhaps it is fortunate to have an +unwritten Constitution, for men are prone to be tinkering the work of +their own hands, whereas they are more willing to let time and +circumstance mend or modify what time and circumstance have made. All +free governments, whatever their name, are in reality governments by +public opinion, and it is on the quality of this public opinion that +their prosperity depends. It is, therefore, their first duty to purify +the element from which they draw the breath of life. With the growth of +democracy grows also the fear, if not the danger, that this atmosphere +may be corrupted with poisonous exhalations from lower and more malarious +levels, and the question of sanitation becomes more instant and pressing. +Democracy in its best sense is merely the letting in of light and air. +Lord Sherbrooke, with his usual epigrammatic terseness, bids you educate +your future rulers. But would this alone be a sufficient safeguard? To +educate the intelligence is to enlarge the horizon of its desires and +wants. And it is well that this should be so. But the enterprise must +go deeper and prepare the way for satisfying those desires and wants in +so far as they are legitimate. What is really ominous of danger to the +existing order of things is not democracy (which, properly understood, is +a conservative force), but the Socialism, which may find a fulcrum in it. +If we cannot equalize conditions and fortunes any more than we can +equalize the brains of men—and a very sagacious person has said that +"where two men ride of a horse one must ride behind"—we can yet, +perhaps, do something to correct those methods and influences that lead +to enormous inequalities, and to prevent their growing more enormous. It +is all very well to pooh-pooh Mr. George and to prove him mistaken in his +political economy. I do not believe that land should be divided because +the quantity of it is limited by nature. Of what may this not be said? +<I>A fortiori</I>, we might on the same principle insist on a division of +human wit, for I have observed that the quantity of this has been even +more inconveniently limited. Mr. George himself has an inequitably large +share of it. But he is right in his impelling motive; right, also, I am +convinced, in insisting that humanity makes a part, by far the most +important part, of political economy; and in thinking man to be of more +concern and more convincing than the longest columns of figures in the +world. For unless you include human nature in your addition, your total +is sure to be wrong and your deductions from it fallacious. Communism +means barbarism, but Socialism means, or wishes to mean, coöperation and +community of interests, sympathy, the giving to the hands not so large a +share as to the brains, but a larger share than hitherto in the wealth +they must combine to produce—means, in short, the practical application +of Christianity to life, and has in it the secret of an orderly and +benign reconstruction. State Socialism would cut off the very roots in +personal character—self-help, forethought, and frugality—which nourish +and sustain the trunk and branches of every vigorous Commonwealth. +</P> + +<P> +I do not believe in violent changes, nor do I expect them. Things in +possession have a very firm grip. One of the strongest cements of +society is the conviction of mankind that the state of things into which +they are born is a part of the order of the universe, as natural, let us +say, as that the sun should go round the earth. It is a conviction that +they will not surrender except on compulsion, and a wise society should +look to it that this compulsion be not put upon them. For the individual +man there is no radical cure, outside of human nature itself, for the +evils to which human nature is heir. The rule will always hold good that +you must +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Be your own palace or the world's your gaol."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +But for artificial evils, for evils that spring from want of thought, +thought must find a remedy somewhere. There has been no period of time +in which wealth has been more sensible of its duties than now. It builds +hospitals, it establishes missions among the poor, it endows schools. It +is one of the advantages of accumulated wealth, and of the leisure it +renders possible, that people have time to think of the wants and sorrows +of their fellows. But all these remedies are partial and palliative +merely. It is as if we should apply plasters to a single pustule of the +small-pox with a view of driving out the disease. The true way is to +discover and to extirpate the germs. As society is now constituted these +are in the air it breathes, in the water it drinks, in things that seem, +and which it has always believed, to be the most innocent and healthful. +The evil elements it neglects corrupt these in their springs and pollute +them in their courses. Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering +that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come. The +world has outlived much, and will outlive a great deal more, and men have +contrived to be happy in it. It has shown the strength of its +constitution in nothing more than in surviving the quack medicines it has +tried. In the scales of the destinies brawn will never weigh so much as +brain. Our healing is not in the storm or in the whirlwind, it is not in +monarchies, or aristocracies, or democracies, but will be revealed by the +still small voice that speaks to the conscience and the heart, prompting +us to a wider and wiser humanity. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[1] Below the Peasants, it should be remembered, was still another even +more helpless class, the servile farm-laborers. The same witness informs +us that of the extraordinary imposts the Peasants paid nearly twice as +much in proportion to their estimated property as the Barons, Nobles, and +Burghers together. Moreover, the upper classes were assessed at their +own valuation, while they arbitrarily fixed that of the Peasants, who had +no voice, ("Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti." Serie I., tomo i., pp. +378, 379, 389.) +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[2] The effect of the electric telegraph in reproducing this trooping of +emotion and perhaps of opinion is yet to be measured. The effect of +Darwinism as a disintegrator of humanitarianism is also to be reckoned +with. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Harvard Classics Volume 28, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARVARD CLASSICS VOLUME 28 *** + +***** This file should be named 21962-h.htm or 21962-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/9/6/21962/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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