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diff --git a/28289-0.txt b/28289-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..41a9a1a --- /dev/null +++ b/28289-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10299 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Essays of "George Eliot", by George +Eliot, Edited by Nathan Sheppard + + +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: The Essays of "George Eliot" + Complete + + +Author: George Eliot + +Editor: Nathan Sheppard + +Release Date: March 9, 2009 [eBook #28289] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSAYS OF "GEORGE ELIOT"*** + + +Transcribed from the 1883 Funk & Wagnalls edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + + + + + THE ESSAYS + OF + “GEORGE ELIOT.” + + + COMPLETE. + + COLLECTED AND ARRANGED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION + ON HER “ANALYSIS OF MOTIVES,” + + BY + NATHAN SHEPPARD, + + EDITOR OF “CHARACTER READINGS FROM GEORGE ELIOT,” AND “THE DICKENS + READER;” AND AUTHOR OF “SHUT UP IN PARIS.” + + * * * * * + + NEW YORK: + FUNK & WAGNALLS, PUBLISHERS, + 10 AND 12 DEY STREET. + + Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by + FUNK & WAGNALLS, + In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. + + + + +CONTENTS. + +PREFACE, 5 +“GEORGE ELIOT’S” ANALYSIS OF MOTIVES, 7 +I.—CARLYLE’S LIFE OF STERLING, 25 +II.—WOMAN IN FRANCE, 31 +III.—EVANGELICAL TEACHING, 64 +IV.—GERMAN WIT, 99 +V.—NATURAL HISTORY OF GERMAN LIFE, 141 +VI.—SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS, 178 +VII.—WORLDLINESS AND OTHER-WORLDLINESS, 205 +VIII.—THE INFLUENCE OF RATIONALISM, 257 +IX.—THE GRAMMAR OF ORNAMENT, 272 +X.—FELIX HOLT’S ADDRESS TO WORKINGMEN, 275 + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Since the death of George Eliot much public curiosity has been excited by +the repeated allusions to, and quotations from, her contributions to +periodical literature, and a leading newspaper gives expression to a +general wish when it says that “this series of striking essays ought to +be collected and reprinted, both because of substantive worth and because +of the light they throw on the author’s literary canons and +predilections.” In fact, the articles which were published anonymously +in _The Westminster Review_ have been so pointedly designated by the +editor, and the biographical sketch in the “Famous Women” series is so +emphatic in its praise of them, and so copious in its extracts from one +and the least important one of them, that the publication of all the +Review and magazine articles of the renowned novelist, without abridgment +or alteration, would seem but an act of fair play to her fame, while at +the same time a compliance with a reasonable public demand. + +Nor are these first steps in her wonderful intellectual progress any the +less, but are all the more noteworthy, for being first steps. “To ignore +this stage,” says the author of the valuable little volume to which we +have just referred—“to ignore this stage in George Eliot’s mental +development would be to lose one of the connecting links in her history.” +Furthermore, “nothing in her fictions excels the style of these papers.” +Here is all her “epigrammatic felicity,” and an irony not surpassed by +Heine himself, while her paper on the poet Young is one of her wittiest +bits of critical analysis. + +Her translation of Status’s “Life of Jesus” was published in 1840, and +her translation of Feuerbach’s “Essence of Christianity” in 1854. Her +translation of Spinoza’s “Ethics” was finished the same year, but remains +unpublished. She was associate editor of _The Westminster Review_ from +1851 to 1853. She was about twenty-seven years of age when her first +translation appeared, thirty-three when the first of these magazine +articles appeared, thirty-eight at the publication of her first story, +and fifty-nine when she finished “Theophrastus Such.” Two years after +she died, at the age of sixty-one. So that George Eliot’s literary life +covered a period of about thirty-two years. + +The introductory chapter on her “Analysis of Motives” first appeared as a +magazine article, and appears here at the request of the publishers, +after having been carefully revised, indeed almost entirely rewritten by +its author. + + + + +“GEORGE ELIOT’S” ANALYSIS OF MOTIVES. + + +George Eliot is the greatest of the novelists in the delineation of +feeling and the analysis of motives. In “uncovering certain human lots, +and seeing how they are woven and interwoven,” some marvellous work has +been done by this master in the two arts of rhetoric and fiction. + +If you say the telling of a story is her forte, you put her below Wilkie +Collins or Mrs. Oliphant; if you say her object is to give a picture of +English society, she is surpassed by Bulwer and Trollope; if she be +called a satirist of society, Thackeray is her superior; if she intends +to illustrate the absurdity of behavior, she is eclipsed by Dickens; but +if the analysis of human motives be her forte and art, she stands first, +and it is very doubtful whether any artist in fiction is entitled to +stand second. She reaches clear in and touches the most secret and the +most delicate spring of human action. She has done this so well, so +apart from the doing of everything else, and so, in spite of doing some +other things indifferently, that she works on a line quite her own, and +quite alone, as a creative artist in fiction. Others have done this +incidentally and occasionally, as Charlotte Brontë and Walter Scott, but +George Eliot does it elaborately, with laborious painstaking, with +purpose aforethought. Scott said of Richardson: “In his survey of the +heart he left neither head, bay, nor inlet behind him until he had traced +its soundings, and laid it down in his chart with all its minute +sinuosities, its depths and its shallows.” + +This is too much to say of Richardson, but it is not too much to say of +George Eliot. She has sounded depths and explored sinuosities of the +human heart which were utterly unknown to the author of “Clarissa +Harlowe.” It is like looking into the translucent brook—you see the +wriggling tad, the darting minnow, the leisurely trout, the motionless +pike, while in the bays and inlets you see the infusoria and animalculæ +as well. + +George Eliot belongs to and is the greatest of the school of artists in +fiction who write fiction as a means to an end, instead of as an end. +And, while she certainly is not a story-teller of the first order, +considered simply as a story-teller, her novels are a striking +illustration of the power of fiction as a means to an end. They remind +us, as few other stories do, of the fact that however inferior the story +may be considered simply as a story, it is indispensable to the +delineation of character. No other form of composition, no discourse, or +essay, or series of independent sketches, however successful, could +succeed in bringing out character equal to the novel. Herein is at once +the justification of the power of fiction. “He spake a parable,” with an +“end” in view which could not be so expeditiously attained by any other +form of address. + +A story of the first-class, with the story as end in itself, and a story +of the first class told as a means to an end, has never been, and it is +not likely ever will be, found together. The novel with a purpose is +fatal to the novel written simply to excite by a plot, or divert by +pictures of scenery, or entertain as a mere panorama of social life. So +intense is George Eliot’s desire to dissect the human heart and discover +its motives, that plot, diction, situations, and even consistency in the +vocabulary of the characters, are all made subservient to it. With her +it is not so much that the characters do thus and so, but why they do +thus and so. Dickens portrays the behavior, George Eliot dissects the +motive of the behavior. Here comes the human creature, says Dickens, now +let us see how he will behave. Here comes the human creature, says +George Eliot, now let us see why he behaves. + +“Suppose,” she says, “suppose we turn from outside estimates of a man, to +wonder with keener interest what is the report of his own consciousness +about his doings, with what hindrances he is carrying on his daily +labors, and with what spirit he wrestles against universal pressure, +which may one day be too heavy for him and bring his heart to a final +pause.” The outside estimate is the work of Dickens and Thackeray, the +inside estimate is the work of George Eliot. + +Observe in the opening pages of the great novel of “Middlemarch” how soon +we pass from the outside dress to the inside reasons for it, from the +costume to the motives which control it and color it. It was “only to +close observers that Celia’s dress differed from her sister’s,” and had +“a shade of coquetry in its arrangements.” Dorothea’s “plain dressing +was due to mixed conditions, in most of which her sister shared.” They +were both influenced by “the pride of being ladies,” of belonging to a +stock not exactly aristocratic, but unquestionably “good.” The very +quotation of the word good is significant and suggestive. There were “no +parcel-tying forefathers” in the Brooke pedigree. A Puritan forefather, +“who served under Cromwell, but afterward conformed and managed to come +out of all political troubles as the proprietor of a respectable family +estate,” had a hand in Dorothea’s “plain” wardrobe. “She could not +reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life involving eternal +consequences with a keen interest in gimp and artificial protrusions of +drapery,” but Celia “had that common-sense which is able to accept +momentous doctrines without any eccentric agitation.” Both were examples +of “reversion.” Then, as an instance of heredity working itself out in +character “in Mr. Brooke, the hereditary strain of Puritan energy was +clearly in abeyance, but in his niece Dorothea it glowed alike through +faults and virtues.” + +Could anything be more natural than for a woman with this passion for, +and skill in, “unravelling certain human lots,” to lay herself out upon +the human lot of woman, with all her “passionate patience of genius?” +One would say this was inevitable. And, for a delineation of what that +lot of woman really is, as made for her, there is nothing in all +literature equal to what we find in “Middlemarch,” “Romola,” “Daniel +Deronda,” and “Janet’s Repentance.” “She was a woman, and could not make +her own lot.” Never before, indeed, was so much got out of the word +“lot.” Never was that little word so hard worked, or well worked. “We +women,” says Gwendolen Harleth, “must stay where we grow, or where the +gardeners like to transplant us. We are brought up like the flowers, to +look as pretty as we can, and be dull without complaining. That is my +notion about the plants, and that is the reason why some of them have got +poisonous.” To appreciate the work that George Eliot has done you must +read her with the determination of finding out the reason why Gwendolen +Harleth “became poisonous,” and Dorothea, with all her brains and +“plans,” a failure; why “the many Theresas find for themselves no epic +life, only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual +grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity.” You must search +these marvellous studies in motives for the key to the blunders of “the +blundering lives” of woman which “some have felt are due to the +inconvenient indefiniteness with which the Supreme power has fashioned +the natures of women.” But as there is not “one level of feminine +incompetence as strict as the ability to count three and no more, the +social lot of woman cannot be treated with scientific certitude.” It is +treated with a dissective delineation in the women of George Eliot +unequalled in the pages of fiction. + +And then woman’s lot, as respects her “social promotion” in matrimony, so +much sought, and so necessary for her to seek, even in spite of her +conscience, and at the expense of her happiness—the unravelling of that +lot would also come very natural to this expert unraveller. And never +have we had the causes of woman’s “blunders” in match-making, and man’s +blunders in love-making, told with such analytic acumen, or with such +pathetic and sarcastic eloquence. It is not far from the question of +woman’s social lot to the question of questions of human life, the +question which has so tremendous an influence upon the fortunes of +mankind and womankind, the question which it is so easy for one party to +“pop” and so difficult for the other party to answer intelligently or +sagaciously. + +Why does the young man fall in love with the young woman who is most +unfit for him of all the young women of his acquaintance, and why does +the young woman accept the young man, or the old man, who is better +adapted to making her life unendurable than any other man of her circle +of acquaintances? Why does the stalwart Adam Bede fall in love with +Hetty Sorrel, “who had nothing more than her beauty to recommend her?” +The delineator of his motives “respects him none the less.” She thinks +that “the deep love he had for that sweet, rounded, dark-eyed Hetty, of +whose inward self he was really very ignorant, came out of the very +strength of his nature, and not out of any inconsistent weakness. Is it +any weakness, pray, to be wrought upon by exquisite music? To feel its +wondrous harmonies searching the subtlest windings of your soul, the +delicate fibres of life which no memory can penetrate, and binding +together your whole being, past and present, in one unspeakable +vibration? If not, then neither is it a weakness to be so wrought upon +by the exquisite curves of a woman’s cheek, and neck, and arms; by the +liquid depth of her beseeching eyes, or the sweet girlish pout of her +lips. For the beauty of a lovely woman is like music—what can one say +more?” And so “the noblest nature is often blinded to the character of +the woman’s soul that beauty clothes.” Hence “the tragedy of human life +is likely to continue for a long time to come, in spite of mental +philosophers who are ready with the best receipts for avoiding all +mistakes of the kind.” + +How simple the motive of the Rev. Edward Casaubon in popping the question +to Dorothea Brooke, how complex her motives in answering the question! +He wanted an amanuensis to “love, honor, and obey” him. She wanted a +husband who would be “a sort of father, and could teach you even Hebrew +if you wished it.” The matrimonial motives are worked to draw out the +character of Dorothea, and nowhere does the method of George Eliot show +to greater advantage than in probing the motives of this fine, strong, +conscientious, blundering young woman, whose voice “was like the voice of +a soul that once lived in an Æolian harp.” She had a theoretic cast of +mind. She was “enamored of intensity and greatness, and rash in +embracing what seemed to her to have those aspects.” The awful divine +had those aspects, and she embraced him. “Certainly such elements in the +character of a marriageable girl tended to interfere with her lot, and +hinder it from being decided, according to custom, by good looks, vanity, +and merely canine affection.” That’s a George Eliot stroke. If the +reader does not see from that what she is driving at he may as well +abandon all hope of ever appreciating her great forte and art. +Dorothea’s goodness and sincerity did not save her from the worst blunder +that a woman can make, while her conscientiousness only made it +inevitable. “With all her eagerness to know the truths of life she +retained very childlike ideas about marriage.” A little of the goose as +well as the child in her conscientious simplicity, perhaps. She “felt +sure she would have accepted the judicious Hooker if she had been born in +time to save him from that wretched mistake he made in matrimony, or John +Milton, when his blindness had come on, or any other great man whose odd +habits it would be glorious piety to endure.” + +True to life, our author furnishes the “great man,” and the “odd habits,” +and the miserable years of “glorious” endurance. “Dorothea looked deep +into the ungauged reservoir of Mr. Casaubon’s mind, seeing reflected +there every quality she herself brought.” They exchanged experiences—he +his desire to have an amanuensis, and she hers, to be one. He told her +in the billy-cooing of their courtship that “his notes made a formidable +range of volumes, but the crowning task would be to condense these +voluminous, still accumulating results, and bring them, like the earlier +vintage of Hippocratic books, to fit a little shelf.” Dorothea was +altogether captivated by the wide embrace of this conception. Here was +something beyond the shallows of ladies’ school literature. Here was a +modern Augustine who united the glories of doctor and saint. Dorothea +said to herself: “His feeling, his experience, what a lake compared to my +little pool!” The little pool runs into the great reservoir. + +Will you take this reservoir to be your husband, and will you promise to +be unto him a fetcher of slippers, a dotter of I’s and crosser of T’s and +a copier and condenser of manuscripts; until death doth you part? I +will. + +They spend their honeymoon in Rome, and on page 211 of Vol. I. we find +poor Dorothea “alone in her apartments, sobbing bitterly, with such an +abandonment to this relief of an oppressed heart as a woman habitually +controlled by pride will sometimes allow herself when she feels securely +alone.” What was she crying about? “She thought her feeling of +desolation was the fault of her own spiritual poverty.” A characteristic +George Eliot probe. Why does not Dorothea give the real reason for her +desolateness? Because she does not know what the real reason +is—conscience makes blunderers of us all. “How was it that in the weeks +since their marriage Dorothea had not distinctly observed, but felt, with +a stifling depression, that the large vistas and wide fresh air which she +had dreamed of finding in her husband’s mind were replaced by anterooms +and winding passages which seemed to lead no whither? I suppose it was +because in courtship everything is regarded as provisional and +preliminary, and the smallest sample of virtue or accomplishment is taken +to guarantee delightful stores which the broad leisure of marriage will +reveal. But, the door-sill of marriage once crossed, expectation is +concentrated on the present. Having once embarked on your marital +voyage, you may become aware that you make no way, and that the sea is +not within sight—that in fact you are exploring an inclosed basin.” So +the ungauged reservoir turns out to be an inclosed basin, but Dorothea +was prevented by her social lot, and perverse goodness, and puritanical +“reversion,” from foreseeing that. She might have been saved from her +gloomy marital voyage “if she could have fed her affection with those +childlike caresses which are the bent of every sweet woman who has begun +by showering kisses on the hard pate of her bald doll, creating a happy +soul within that woodenness from the wealth of her own love.” Then, +perhaps, Ladislaw would have been her first husband instead of her +second, as he certainly was her first and only love. Such are the +chances and mischances in the lottery of matrimony. + +Equally admirable is the diagnosis of Gwendolen Harleth’s motives in +“drifting toward the tremendous decision,” and finally landing in it. +“We became poor, and I was tempted.” Marriage came to her as it comes to +many, as a temptation, and like the deadening drug or the maddening bowl, +to keep off the demon of remorse or the cloud of sorrow, like the forgery +or the robbery to save from want. “The brilliant position she had longed +for, the imagined freedom she would create for herself in marriage”—these +“had come to her hunger like food, with the taint of sacrilege upon it,” +which she “snatched with terror.” Grandcourt “fulfilled his side of the +bargain by giving her the rank and luxuries she coveted.” Matrimony as a +bargain never had and never will have but one result. “She had a root of +conscience in her, and the process of purgatory had begun for her on +earth.” Without the root of conscience it would have been purgatory all +the same. So much for resorting to marriage for deliverance from poverty +or old maidhood. Better be an old maid than an old fool. But how are we +to be guaranteed against “one of those convulsive motiveless actions by +which wretched men and women leap from a temporary sorrow into a lifelong +misery?” Rosamond Lydgate says, “Marriage stays with us like a murder.” +Yes, if she could only have found that out before instead of after her +own marriage! + +But “what greater thing,” exclaims our novelist, “is there for two human +souls than to feel that they are joined for life, to strengthen each +other in all labor, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with +each other in silent, unspeakable memories at the last parting?” + +While a large proportion of her work in the analysis of motives is +confined to woman, she has done nothing more skilful or memorable than +the “unravelling” of Bulstrode’s mental processes by which he “explained +the gratification of his desires into satisfactory agreement with his +beliefs.” If there were no Dorothea in “Middlemarch” the character of +Bulstrode would give that novel a place by itself among the masterpieces +of fiction. The Bulstrode wound was never probed in fiction with more +scientific precision. The pious villain finally finds himself so near +discovery that he becomes conscientious. “His equivocation now turns +venomously upon him with the full-grown fang of a discovered lie.” The +past came back to make the present unendurable. “The terror of being +judged sharpens the memory.” Once more “he saw himself the banker’s +clerk, as clever in figures as he was fluent in speech, and fond of +theological definition. He had striking experience in conviction and +sense of pardon; spoke in prayer-meeting and on religious platforms. +That was the time he would have chosen now to awake in and find the rest +of dream. He remembered his first moments of shrinking. They were +private and were filled with arguments—some of these taking the form of +prayer.” + +Private prayer—but “is private prayer necessarily candid? Does it +necessarily go to the roots of action? Private prayer is inaudible +speech, and speech is representative. Who can represent himself just as +he is, even in his own reflections?” + +Bulstrode’s course up to the time of his being suspected “had, he +thought, been sanctioned by remarkable providences, appearing to point +the way for him to be the agent in making the best use of a large +property.” Providence would have him use for the glory of God the money +he had stolen. “Could it be for God’s service that this fortune should +go to” its rightful owners, when its rightful owners were “a young woman +and her husband who were given up to the lightest pursuits, and might +scatter it abroad in triviality—people who seemed to lie outside the path +of remarkable providences?” + +Bulstrode felt at times “that his action was unrighteous, but how could +he go back? He had mental exercises calling himself naught, laid hold on +redemption and went on in his course of instrumentality.” He was +“carrying on two distinct lives”—a religious one and a wicked one. “His +religious activity could not be incompatible with his wicked business as +soon as he had argued himself into not feeling it incompatible.” + +“The spiritual kind of rescue was a genuine need with him. There may be +coarse hypocrites, who consciously affect beliefs and emotions for the +sake of gulling the world, but Bulstrode was not one of them. He was +simply a man whose desires had been stronger than his theoretic beliefs, +and who had gradually explained the gratification of his desires into +satisfactory agreement with those beliefs.” + +And now Providence seemed to be taking sides against him. “A threatening +Providence—in other words, a public exposure—urged him to a kind of +propitiation which was not a doctrinal transaction. The divine tribunal +had changed its aspect to him. Self-prostration was no longer enough. +He must bring restitution in his hand. By what sacrifice could he stay +the rod? He believed that if he did something right God would stay the +rod, and save him from the consequences of his wrong-doing.” His +religion was “the religion of personal fear,” which “remains nearly at +the level of the savage.” The exposure comes, and the explosion. +Society shudders with hypocritical horror, especially in the presence of +poor Mrs. Bulstrode, who “should have some hint given her, that if she +knew the truth she would have less complacency in her bonnet.” Society +when it is very candid, and very conscientious, and very scrupulous, +cannot “allow a wife to remain ignorant long that the town holds a bad +opinion of her husband.” The photograph of the Middlemarch gossips +sitting upon the case of Mrs. Bulstrode is taken accurately. Equally +accurate, and far more impressive, is the narrative of circumstantial +evidence gathering against the innocent Lydgate and the guilty +Bulstrode—circumstances that will sometimes weave into one tableau of +public odium the purest and the blackest characters. From this tableau +you may turn to that one in “Adam Bede,” and see how circumstances are +made to crush the weak woman and clear the wicked man. And then you can +go to “Romola,” or indeed to almost any of these novels, and see how +wrong-doing may come of an indulged infirmity of purpose, that +unconscious weakness and conscious wickedness may bring about the same +disastrous results, and that repentance has no more effect in averting or +altering the consequences in one case than the other. Tito’s ruin comes +of a feeble, Felix Holt’s victory of an unconquerable, will. Nothing is +more characteristic of George Eliot than her tracking of Tito through all +the motives and counter motives from which he acted. “Because he tried +to slip away from everything that was unpleasant, and cared for nothing +so much as his own safety, he came at last to commit such deeds as make a +man infamous.” So poor Romola tells her son, as a warning, and adds: “If +you make it the rule of your life to escape from what is disagreeable, +calamity may come just the same, and it would be calamity falling on a +base mind, which is the one form of sorrow that has no balm in it.” + +Out of this passion for the analysis of motives comes the strong +character, slightly gnarled and knotted by natural circumstances, as +trees that are twisted and misshapen by storms and floods—or characters +gnarled by some interior force working in conjunction with or in +opposition to outward circumstances. She draws no monstrosities, or +monsters, thus avoiding on the one side romance and on the other +burlesque. She keeps to life—the life that fails from “the meanness of +opportunity,” or is “dispersed among hindrances” or “wrestles” +unavailingly “with universal pressure.” + +Why had Mr. Gilfil in those late years of his beneficent life “more of +the knots and ruggedness of poor human nature than there lay any clear +hint of it in the open-eyed, loving” young Maynard? Because “it is with +men as with trees: if you lop off their finest branches into which they +were pouring their young life-juice, the wounds will be healed over with +some rough boss, some odd excrescence, and what might have been a grand +tree, expanding into liberal shade, is but a whimsical, misshapen trunk. +Many an irritating fault, many an unlovely oddity, has come of a hard +sorrow which has crushed and maimed the nature just when it was expanding +into plenteous beauty; and the trivial, erring life, which we visit with +our harsh blame, may be but as the unsteady motion of a man whose best +limb is withered. The dear old Vicar had been sketched out by nature as +a noble tree. The heart of him was sound, the grain was of the finest, +and in the gray-haired man, with his slipshod talk and caustic tongue, +there was the main trunk of the same brave, faithful, tender nature that +had poured out the finest, freshest forces of its life-current in a first +and only love.” + +Her style is influenced by her purpose—may be said, indeed, to be created +by it. The excellences and the blemishes of the diction come of the end +sought to be attained by it. Its subtleties and obscurities were equally +inevitable. Analytical thinking takes on an analytical phraseology. It +is a striking instance of a mental habit creating a vocabulary. The +method of thought produces the form of rhetoric. Some of the sentences +are mental landscapes. The meaning seems to be in motion on the page. +It is elusive from its very subtlety. It is more our analyst than her +character of Rufus Lyon, who “would fain find language subtle enough to +follow the utmost intricacies of the soul’s pathways.” Mrs. Transome’s +“lancet-edged epigrams” are dull in comparison with her own. She uses +them with startling success in dissecting motive and analyzing feeling. +They deserve as great renown as “Nélaton’s probe.” + +For example: “Examine your words well, and you will find that even when +you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact +truth, especially about your own feelings—much harder than to say +something fine about them which is not the exact truth.” That ought to +make such a revelation of the religious diary-keeper to himself as to +make him ashamed of himself. And this will fit in here: “Our consciences +are not of the same pattern, an inner deliverance of fixed laws—they are +the voice of sensibilities as various as our memories;” and this: “Every +strong feeling makes to itself a conscience of its own—has its own +piety.” + +Who can say that the joints of his armor are not open to this thrust? +“The lapse of time during which a given event has not happened is in the +logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should never +happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition +which makes the event imminent. A man will tell you that he worked in a +mine for forty years unhurt by an accident as a reason why he should +apprehend no danger, though the roof is beginning to sink.” Silas Marner +lost his money through his “sense of security,” which “more frequently +springs from habit than conviction.” He went unrobbed for fifteen years, +which supplied the only needed condition for his being robbed now. A +compensation for stupidity: “If we had a keen vision and feeling of all +ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the +squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar that lies on the +other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well +wadded with stupidity.” Who does not at once recognize “that mixture of +pushing forward and being pushed forward” as “the brief history of most +human beings?” Who has not seen “advancement hindered by impetuous +candor?” or “private grudges christened by the name of public zeal?” or +“a church built with an exuberance of faith and a deficiency of funds?” +or a man “who would march determinedly along the road he thought best, +but who was easily convinced which was best?” or a preacher “whose +oratory was like a Belgian railway horn, which shows praiseworthy +intentions inadequately fulfilled?” + +There is something chemical about such an analysis as this of Rosamond: +“Every nerve and muscle was adjusted to the consciousness that she was +being looked at. She was by nature an actress of parts that entered into +her physique. She even acted her own character, and so well that she did +not know it to be precisely her own!” Nor is the exactness of this any +less cruel: “We may handle extreme opinions with impunity, while our +furniture and our dinner-giving link us to the established order.” Why +not own that “the emptiness of all things is never so striking to us as +when we fail in them?” Is it not better to avoid “following great +reformers beyond the threshold of their own homes?” Does not “our moral +sense learn the manners of good society?” + +The lancet works impartially, because the hand that holds it is the hand +of a conscientious artist. She will endure the severest test you can +apply to an artist in fiction. She does not betray any religious bias in +her novels, which is all the more remarkable now that we find it in these +essays. Nor is it at all remarkable that this bias is so very easily +discovered in the novels by those who have found it in her essays! +Whatever opinions she may have expressed in her critical reviews, she is +not the Evangelical, or the Puritan, or the Jew, or the Methodist, or the +Dissenting Minister, or the Churchman, any more than she is the Radical, +the Liberal, or the Tory, who talks in the pages of her fiction. + +Every side has its say, every prejudice its voice, and every prejudice +and side and vagary even has the philosophical reason given for it, and +the charitable explanation applied to it. She analyzes the religious +motives without obtrusive criticism or acrid cynicism or nauseous +cant—whether of the orthodox or heretical form. + +The art of fiction has nothing more elevated, or more touching, or fairer +to every variety of religious experience, than the delineation of the +motives that actuated Dinah Morris the Methodist preacher, Deronda the +Jew, Dorothea the Puritan, Adam and Seth Bede, and Janet Dempster. + +Who can object to this? “Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, +which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of +instruments, some of them woefully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until +people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable.” +Is it not one of the “mixed results of revivals” that “some gain a +religious vocabulary rather than a religious experience?” Is there a +descendant of the Puritans who will not relish the fair play of this? +“They might give the name of piety to much that was only Puritanic +egoism; they might call many things sin that were not sin, but they had +at least the feeling that sin was to be avoided and resisted, and +color-blindness, which may mistake drab for scarlet, is better than total +blindness, which sees no distinction of color at all.” Is not Adam Bede +justified in saying that “to hear some preachers you’d think a man must +be doing nothing all his life but shutting his eyes and looking at what’s +going on in the inside of him,” or that “the doctrines are like finding +names for your feelings so that you can talk of them when you’ve never +known them?” Read all she has said before you object to anything she has +said. Then see whether you will find fault with her for delineating the +motives of those with whom “great illusions” are mistaken for “great +faith;” of those “whose celestial intimacies do not improve their +domestic manners,” however “holy” they may claim to be; of those who +“contrive to conciliate the consciousness of filthy rags with the best +damask;” of those “whose imitative piety and native worldliness is +equally sincere;” of those who “think the invisible powers will be +soothed by a bland parenthesis here and there, coming from a man of +property”—parenthetical recognition of the Almighty! May not “religious +scruples be like spilled needles, making one afraid of treading or +sitting down, or even eating?” + +But if this is a great mind fascinated with the insoluble enigma of human +motives, it is a mind profoundly in sympathy with those who are puzzling +hopelessly over the riddle or are struggling hopelessly in its toils. +She is “on a level and in the press with them as they struggle their way +along the stony road through the crowd of unloving fellow-men.” She says +“the only true knowledge of our fellows is that which enables us to feel +with them, which gives us a finer ear for the heart-pulses that are +beating under the mere clothes of circumstance and opinion.” No artist +in fiction ever had a finer ear or a more human sympathy for the +straggler who “pushes manfully on” and “falls at last,” leaving “the +crowd to close over the space he has left.” Her extraordinary skill in +disclosing “the peculiar combination of outward with inward facts which +constitute a man’s critical actions,” only makes her the more charitable +in judging them. “Until we know what this combination has been, or will +be, it will be better not to think ourselves wise about” the character +that results. “There is a terrible coercion in our deeds which may first +turn the honest man into a deceiver, and then reconcile him to the +change. And for this reason the second wrong presents itself to him in +the guise of the only practicable right.” There is nothing of the spirit +of “served him right,” or “just what she deserved,” or “they ought to +have known better,” in George Eliot. That is not in her line. The +opposite of that is exactly in her line. This is characteristic of her: +“In this world there are so many of these common, coarse people, who have +no picturesque or sentimental wretchedness! And it is so needful we +should remember their existence, else we may happen to leave them quite +out of our religion and philosophy, and frame lofty theories which only +fit a world of extremes.” She does not leave them out. Her books are +full of them, and of a Christly charity and plea for them. Who can ever +forget little Tiny, “hidden and uncared for as the pulse of anguish in +the breast of the bird that has fluttered down to its nest with the +long-sought food, and has found the nest torn and empty?” There is +nothing in fiction to surpass in pathos the picture of the death of Mrs. +Amos Barton. George Eliot’s fellow-feeling comes of the habit she +ascribes to Daniel Deronda, “the habit of thinking herself imaginatively +into the experience of others.” That is the reason why her novels come +home so pitilessly to those who have had a deep experience of human life. +These are the men and women whom she fascinates and alienates. I know +strong men and brave women who are afraid of her books, and say so. It +is because of her realness, her unrelenting fidelity to human nature and +human life. It is because the analysis is so delicate, subtle, and +far-in. Hence the atmosphere of sadness that pervades her pages. It was +unavoidable. To see only the behavior, as Dickens did, amuses us; to +study only the motive at the root of the behavior, as George Eliot does, +saddens us. The humor of Mrs. Poyser and the wit of Mrs. Transome only +deepen the pathos by relieving it. There is hardly a sarcasm in these +books but has its pensive undertone. + +It is all in the key of “Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon,” and that +would be an appropriate key for a requiem over the grave of George Eliot. + +All her writings are now before the world, and are accessible to all. +They have taken their place, and will keep their place, high among the +writings of those of our age who have made that age illustrious in the +history of the English tongue. + + + + +THE ESSAYS OF “GEORGE ELIOT.” + + +I. CARLYLE’S LIFE OF STERLING. + + +As soon as the closing of the Great Exhibition afforded a reasonable hope +that there would once more be a reading public, “The Life of Sterling” +appeared. A new work by Carlyle must always be among the literary births +eagerly chronicled by the journals and greeted by the public. In a book +of such parentage we care less about the subject than about its +treatment, just as we think the “Portrait of a Lord” worth studying if it +come from the pencil of a Vandyck. The life of John Sterling, however, +has intrinsic interest, even if it be viewed simply as the struggle of a +restless aspiring soul, yearning to leave a distinct impress of itself on +the spiritual development of humanity, with that fell disease which, with +a refinement of torture, heightens the susceptibility and activity of the +faculties, while it undermines their creative force. Sterling, moreover, +was a man thoroughly in earnest, to whom poetry and philosophy were not +merely another form of paper currency or a ladder to fame, but an end in +themselves—one of those finer spirits with whom, amid the jar and hubbub +of our daily life, + + “The melodies abide + Of the everlasting chime.” + +But his intellect was active and rapid, rather than powerful, and in all +his writings we feel the want of a stronger electric current to give that +vigor of conception and felicity of expression, by which we distinguish +the undefinable something called genius; while his moral nature, though +refined and elevated, seems to have been subordinate to his intellectual +tendencies and social qualities, and to have had itself little +determining influence on his life. His career was less exceptional than +his character: a youth marked by delicate health and studious tastes, a +short-lived and not very successful share in the management of the +_Athenæum_, a fever of sympathy with Spanish patriots, arrested before it +reached a dangerous crisis by an early love affair ending in marriage, a +fifteen months’ residence in the West Indies, eight months of curate’s +duty at Herstmonceux, relinquished on the ground of failing health, and +through his remaining years a succession of migrations to the South in +search of a friendly climate, with the occasional publication of an +“article,” a tale, or a poem in _Blackwood_ or elsewhere—this, on the +prosaic background of an easy competence, was what made up the outer +tissue of Sterling’s existence. The impression of his intellectual power +on his personal friends seems to have been produced chiefly by the +eloquence and brilliancy of his conversation; but the mere reader of his +works and letters would augur from them neither the wit nor the _curiosa +felicitas_ of epithet and imagery, which would rank him with the men +whose sayings are thought worthy of perpetuation in books of table-talk +and “ana.” The public, then, since it is content to do without +biographies of much more remarkable men, cannot be supposed to have felt +any pressing demand even for a single life of Sterling; still less, it +might be thought, when so distinguished a writer as Archdeacon Hare had +furnished this, could there be any need for another. But, in opposition +to the majority of Mr. Carlyle’s critics, we agree with him that the +first life is properly the justification of the second. Even among the +readers personally unacquainted with Sterling, those who sympathized with +his ultimate alienation from the Church, rather than with his transient +conformity, were likely to be dissatisfied with the entirely apologetic +tone of Hare’s life, which, indeed, is confessedly an incomplete +presentation of Sterling’s mental course after his opinions diverged from +those of his clerical biographer; while those attached friends (and +Sterling possessed the happy magic that secures many such) who knew him +best during this latter part of his career, would naturally be pained to +have it represented, though only by implication, as a sort of deepening +declension ending in a virtual retraction. Of such friends Carlyle was +the most eminent, and perhaps the most highly valued, and, as co-trustee +with Archdeacon Hare of Sterling’s literary character and writings, he +felt a kind of responsibility that no mistaken idea of his departed +friend should remain before the world without correction. Evidently, +however, his “Life of Sterling” was not so much the conscientious +discharge of a trust as a labor of love, and to this is owing its strong +charm. Carlyle here shows us his “sunny side.” We no longer see him +breathing out threatenings and slaughter as in the Latter-Day Pamphlets, +but moving among the charities and amenities of life, loving and +beloved—a Teufelsdröckh still, but humanized by a Blumine worthy of him. +We have often wished that genius would incline itself more frequently to +the task of the biographer—that when some great or good personage dies, +instead of the dreary three or five volumed compilations of letter, and +diary, and detail, little to the purpose, which two thirds of the reading +public have not the chance, nor the other third the inclination, to read, +we could have a real “Life,” setting forth briefly and vividly the man’s +inward and outward struggles, aims, and achievements, so as to make clear +the meaning which his experience has for his fellows. A few such lives +(chiefly, indeed, autobiographies) the world possesses, and they have, +perhaps, been more influential on the formation of character than any +other kind of reading. But the conditions required for the perfection of +life writing—personal intimacy, a loving and poetic nature which sees the +beauty and the depth of familiar things, and the artistic power which +seizes characteristic points and renders them with lifelike effect—are +seldom found in combination. “The Life of Sterling” is an instance of +this rare conjunction. Its comparatively tame scenes and incidents +gather picturesqueness and interest under the rich lights of Carlyle’s +mind. We are told neither too little nor too much; the facts noted, the +letters selected, are all such as serve to give the liveliest conception +of what Sterling was and what he did; and though the book speaks much of +other persons, this collateral matter is all a kind of scene-painting, +and is accessory to the main purpose. The portrait of Coleridge, for +example, is precisely adapted to bring before us the intellectual region +in which Sterling lived for some time before entering the Church. Almost +every review has extracted this admirable description, in which genial +veneration and compassion struggle with irresistible satire; but the +emphasis of quotation cannot be too often given to the following pregnant +paragraph: + + “The truth is, I now see Coleridge’s talk and speculation was the + emblem of himself. In it, as in him, a ray of heavenly inspiration + struggled, in a tragically ineffectual degree, with the weakness of + flesh and blood. He says once, he ‘had skirted the howling deserts + of infidelity.’ This was evident enough; but he had not had the + courage, in defiance of pain and terror, to press resolutely across + said deserts to the new firm lands of faith beyond; he preferred to + create logical _fata-morganas_ for himself on this hither side, and + laboriously solace himself with these.” + +The above mentioned step of Sterling—his entering the Church—is the point +on which Carlyle is most decidedly at issue with Archdeacon Hare. The +latter holds that had Sterling’s health permitted him to remain in the +Church, he would have escaped those aberrations from orthodoxy, which, in +the clerical view, are to be regarded as the failure and shipwreck of his +career, apparently thinking, like that friend of Arnold’s who recommended +a curacy as the best means of clearing up Trinitarian difficulties, that +“orders” are a sort of spiritual backboard, which, by dint of obliging a +man to look as if he were strait, end by making him so. According to +Carlyle, on the contrary, the real “aberration” of Sterling was his +choice of the clerical profession, which was simply a mistake as to his +true vocation: + + “Sterling,” he says, “was not intrinsically, nor had ever been in the + highest or chief degree, a devotional mind. Of course all excellence + in man, and worship as the supreme excellence, was part of the + inheritance of this gifted man; but if called to define him, I should + say artist, not saint, was the real bent of his being.” + +Again: + + “No man of Sterling’s veracity, had he clearly consulted his own + heart, or had his own heart been capable of clearly responding, and + not been bewildered by transient fantasies and theosophic moonshine, + could have undertaken this function. His heart would have answered, + ‘No, thou canst not. What is incredible to thee, thou shalt not, at + thy soul’s peril, attempt to believe! Elsewhither for a refuge, or + die here. Go to perdition if thou must, but not with a lie in thy + mouth; by the eternal Maker, no!’” + +From the period when Carlyle’s own acquaintance with Sterling commenced, +the Life has a double interest, from the glimpses it gives us of the +writer, as well as of his hero. We are made present at their first +introduction to each other; we get a lively idea of their colloquies and +walks together, and in this easy way, without any heavy disquisition or +narrative, we obtain a clear insight into Sterling’s character and mental +progress. Above all, we are gladdened with a perception of the affinity +that exists between noble souls, in spite of diversity in ideas—in what +Carlyle calls “the logical outcome” of the faculties. This “Life of +Sterling” is a touching monument of the capability human nature possesses +of the highest love, the love of the good and beautiful in character, +which is, after all, the essence of piety. The style of the work, too, +is for the most part at once pure and rich; there are passages of deep +pathos which come upon the reader like a strain of solemn music, and +others which show that aptness of epithet, that masterly power of close +delineation, in which, perhaps, no writer has excelled Carlyle. + +We have said that we think this second “Life of Sterling” justified by +the first; but were it not so, the book would justify itself. + + + +II. WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLÉ. {31} + + +In 1847, a certain Count Leopold Ferri died at Padua, leaving a library +entirely composed of works written by women, in various languages, and +this library amounted to nearly 32,000 volumes. We will not hazard any +conjecture as to the proportion of these volumes which a severe judge, +like the priest in Don Quixote, would deliver to the flames, but for our +own part, most of these we should care to rescue would be the works of +French women. With a few remarkable exceptions, our own feminine +literature is made up of books which could have been better written by +men—books which have the same relation to literature is general, as +academic prize poems have to poetry: when not a feeble imitation, they +are usually an absurd exaggeration of the masculine style, like the +swaggering gait of a bad actress in male attire. Few English women have +written so much like a woman as Richardson’s Lady G. Now we think it an +immense mistake to maintain that there is no sex in literature. Science +has no sex: the mere knowing and reasoning faculties, if they act +correctly, must go through the same process, and arrive at the same +result. But in art and literature, which imply the action of the entire +being, in which every fibre of the nature is engaged, in which every +peculiar modification of the individual makes itself felt, woman has +something specific to contribute. Under every imaginable social +condition, she will necessarily have a class of sensations and +emotions—the maternal ones—which must remain unknown to man; and the fact +of her comparative physical weakness, which, however it may have been +exaggerated by a vicious civilization, can never be cancelled, introduces +a distinctively feminine condition into the wondrous chemistry of the +affections and sentiments, which inevitably gives rise to distinctive +forms and combinations. A certain amount of psychological difference +between man and woman necessarily arises out of the difference of sex, +and instead of being destined to vanish before a complete development of +woman’s intellectual and moral nature, will be a permanent source of +variety and beauty as long as the tender light and dewy freshness of +morning affect us differently from the strength and brilliancy of the +midday sun. And those delightful women of France, who from the beginning +of the seventeenth to the close of the eighteenth century, formed some of +the brightest threads in the web of political and literary history, wrote +under circumstances which left the feminine character of their minds +uncramped by timidity, and unstrained by mistaken effort. They were not +trying to make a career for themselves; they thought little, in many +cases not at all, of the public; they wrote letters to their lovers and +friends, memoirs of their every-day lives, romances in which they gave +portraits of their familiar acquaintances, and described the tragedy or +comedy which was going on before their eyes. Always refined and +graceful, often witty, sometimes judicious, they wrote what they saw, +thought, and felt in their habitual language, without proposing any model +to themselves, without any intention to prove that women could write as +well as men, without affecting manly views or suppressing womanly ones. +One may say, at least with regard to the women of the seventeenth +century, that their writings were but a charming accident of their more +charming lives, like the petals which the wind shakes from the rose in +its bloom. And it is but a twin fact with this, that in France alone +woman has had a vital influence on the development of literature; in +France alone the mind of woman has passed like an electric current +through the language, making crisp and definite what is elsewhere heavy +and blurred; in France alone, if the writings of women were swept away, a +serious gap would be made in the national history. + +Patriotic gallantry may perhaps contend that English women could, if they +had liked, have written as well as their neighbors; but we will leave the +consideration of that question to the reviewers of the literature that +might have been. In the literature that actually is, we must turn to +France for the highest examples of womanly achievement in almost every +department. We confess ourselves unacquainted with the productions of +those awful women of Italy, who held professorial chairs, and were great +in civil and canon law; we have made no researches into the catacombs of +female literature, but we think we may safely conclude that they would +yield no rivals to that which is still unburied; and here, we suppose, +the question of pre-eminence can only lie between England and France. +And to this day, Madame de Sévigné remains the single instance of a woman +who is supreme in a class of literature which has engaged the ambition of +men; Madame Dacier still reigns the queen of blue stockings, though women +have long studied Greek without shame; {33} Madame de Staël’s name still +rises first to the lips when we are asked to mention a woman of great +intellectual power; Madame Roland is still the unrivalled type of the +sagacious and sternly heroic, yet lovable woman; George Sand is the +unapproached artist who, to Jean Jacques’ eloquence and deep sense of +external nature, unites the clear delineation of character and the tragic +depth of passion. These great names, which mark different epochs, soar +like tall pines amidst a forest of less conspicuous, but not less +fascinating, female writers; and beneath these, again, are spread, like a +thicket of hawthorns, eglantines, and honey-suckles, the women who are +known rather by what they stimulated men to write, than by what they +wrote themselves—the women whose tact, wit, and personal radiance created +the atmosphere of the _Salon_, where literature, philosophy, and science, +emancipated from the trammels of pedantry and technicality, entered on a +brighter stage of existence. + +What were the causes of this earlier development and more abundant +manifestation of womanly intellect in France? The primary one, perhaps, +lies in the physiological characteristics of the Gallic race—the small +brain and vivacious temperament which permit the fragile system of woman +to sustain the superlative activity requisite for intellectual +creativeness; while, on the other hand, the larger brain and slower +temperament of the English and Germans are, in the womanly organization, +generally dreamy and passive. The type of humanity in the latter may be +grander, but it requires a larger sum of conditions to produce a perfect +specimen. Throughout the animal world, the higher the organization, the +more frequent is the departure from the normal form; we do not often see +imperfectly developed or ill-made insects, but we rarely see a perfectly +developed, well-made man. And thus the _physique_ of a woman may suffice +as the substratum for a superior Gallic mind, but is too thin a soil for +a superior Teutonic one. Our theory is borne out by the fact that among +our own country-women those who distinguish themselves by literary +production more frequently approach the Gallic than the Teutonic type; +they are intense and rapid rather than comprehensive. The woman of large +capacity can seldom rise beyond the absorption of ideas; her physical +conditions refuse to support the energy required for spontaneous +activity; the voltaic-pile is not strong enough to produce +crystallizations; phantasms of great ideas float through her mind, but +she has not the spell which will arrest them, and give them fixity. +This, more than unfavorable external circumstances, is, we think, the +reason why woman has not yet contributed any new form to art, any +discovery in science, any deep-searching inquiry in philosophy. The +necessary physiological conditions are not present in her. That under +more favorable circumstances in the future, these conditions may prove +compatible with the feminine organization, it would be rash to deny. For +the present, we are only concerned with our theory so far as it presents +a physiological basis for the intellectual effectiveness of French women. + +A secondary cause was probably the laxity of opinion and practice with +regard to the marriage-tie. Heaven forbid that we should enter on a +defence of French morals, most of all in relation to marriage! But it is +undeniable that unions formed in the maturity of thought and feeling, and +grounded only on inherent fitness and mutual attraction, tended to bring +women into more intelligent sympathy with men, and to heighten and +complicate their share in the political drama. The quiescence and +security of the conjugal relation are doubtless favorable to the +manifestation of the highest qualities by persons who have already +attained a high standard of culture, but rarely foster a passion +sufficient to rouse all the faculties to aid in winning or retaining its +beloved object—to convert indolence into activity, indifference into +ardent partisanship, dulness into perspicuity. Gallantry and intrigue +are sorry enough things in themselves, but they certainly serve better to +arouse the dormant faculties of woman than embroidery and domestic +drudgery, especially when, as in the high society of France in the +seventeenth century, they are refined by the influence of Spanish +chivalry, and controlled by the spirit of Italian causticity. The dreamy +and fantastic girl was awakened to reality by the experience of wifehood +and maternity, and became capable of loving, not a mere phantom of her +own imagination, but a living man, struggling with the hatreds and +rivalries of the political arena; she espoused his quarrels, she made +herself, her fortune, and her influence, the stepping-stones of his +ambition; and the languid beauty, who had formerly seemed ready to “die +of a rose,” was seen to become the heroine of an insurrection. The vivid +interest in affairs which was thus excited in woman must obviously have +tended to quicken her intellect, and give it a practical application; and +the very sorrows—the heart-pangs and regrets which are inseparable from a +life of passion—deepened her nature by the questioning of self and +destiny which they occasioned, and by the energy demanded to surmount +them and live on. No wise person, we imagine, wishes to restore the +social condition of France in the seventeenth century, or considers the +ideal programme of woman’s life to be a _marriage de convenance_ at +fifteen, a career of gallantry from twenty to eight-and-thirty, and +penitence and piety for the rest of her days. Nevertheless, that social +condition has its good results, as much as the madly superstitious +Crusades had theirs. + +But the most indisputable source of feminine culture and development in +France was the influence of the _salons_, which, as all the world knows, +were _réunions_ of both sexes, where conversation ran along the whole +gamut of subjects, from the frothiest _vers de société_ to the philosophy +of Descartes. Richelieu had set the fashion of uniting a taste for +letters with the habits of polite society and the pursuits of ambition; +and in the first quarter of the seventeenth century there were already +several hôtels in Paris, varying in social position from the closest +proximity of the Court to the debatable ground of the aristocracy and the +bourgeoisie, which served as a rendezvous for different circles of +people, bent on entertaining themselves either by showing talent or +admiring it. The most celebrated of these rendezvous was the Hôtel de +Rambouillet, which was at the culmination of its glory in 1630, and did +not become quite extinct until 1648, when the troubles of the Fronde +commencing, its _habitués_ were dispersed or absorbed by political +interests. The presiding genius of this _salon_, the Marquise de +Rambouillet, was the very model of the woman who can act as anamalgam to +the most incongruous elements; beautiful, but not preoccupied by +coquetry, or passion; an enthusiastic admirer of talent, but with no +pretensions to talent on her own part; exquisitely refined in language +and manners, but warm and generous withal; not given to entertain her +guests with her own compositions, or to paralyze them by her universal +knowledge. She had once _meant_ to learn Latin, but had been prevented +by an illness; perhaps she was all the better acquainted with Italian and +Spanish productions, which, in default of a national literature, were +then the intellectual pabulum of all cultivated persons in France who are +unable to read the classics. In her mild, agreeable presence was +accomplished that blending of the high-toned chivalry of Spain with the +caustic wit and refined irony of Italy, which issued in the creation of a +new standard of taste—the combination of the utmost exaltation in +sentiment with the utmost simplicity of language. Women are peculiarly +fitted to further such a combination—first, from their greater tendency +to mingle affection and imagination with passion, and thus subtilize it +into sentiment; and next, from that dread of what overtaxes their +intellectual energies, either by difficulty, or monotony, which gives +them an instinctive fondness for lightness of treatment and airiness of +expression, thus making them cut short all prolixity and reject all +heaviness. When these womanly characteristics were brought into +conversational contact with the materials furnished by such minds as +those of Richelieu, Corneille, the Great Condé, Balzac, and Bossuet, it +is no wonder that the result was something piquant and charming. Those +famous _habitués_ of the Hôtel de Rambouillet did not, apparently, first +lay themselves out to entertain the ladies with grimacing “small-talk,” +and then take each other by the sword-knot to discuss matters of real +interest in a corner; they rather sought to present their best ideas in +the guise most acceptable to intelligent and accomplished women. And the +conversation was not of literature only: war, politics, religion, the +lightest details of daily news—everything was admissible, if only it were +treated with refinement and intelligence. The Hôtel de Rambouillet was +no mere literary _réunion_; it included _hommes d’affaires_ and soldiers +as well as authors, and in such a circle women would not become _bas +bleus_ or dreamy moralizers, ignorant of the world and of human nature, +but intelligent observers of character and events. It is easy to +understand, however, that with the herd of imitators who, in Paris and +the provinces, aped the style of this famous _salon_, simplicity +degenerated into affectation, and nobility of sentiment was replaced by +an inflated effort to outstrip nature, so that the _genre précieux_ drew +down the satire, which reached its climax in the _Précieuses Ridicules_ +and _Les Femmes Savantes_, the former of which appeared in 1660, and the +latter in 1673. But Madelon and Caltros are the lineal descendants of +Mademoiselle Scudery and her satellites, quite as much as of the Hôtel de +Rambouillet. The society which assembled every Saturday in her _salon_ +was exclusively literary, and although occasionally visited by a few +persons of high birth, bourgeois in its tone, and enamored of madrigals, +sonnets, stanzas, and _bouts rimés_. The affectation that decks trivial +things in fine language belongs essentially to a class which sees another +above it, and is uneasy in the sense of its inferiority; and this +affectation is precisely the opposite of the original _genre précieux_. + +Another centre from which feminine influence radiated into the national +literature was the Palais du Luxembourg, where Mademoiselle d’Orleans, in +disgrace at court on account of her share in the Fronde, held a little +court of her own, and for want of anything else to employ her active +spirit busied herself with literature. One fine morning it occurred to +this princess to ask all the persons who frequented her court, among whom +were Madame de Sévigné, Madame de la Fayette, and La Rochefoucauld, to +write their own portraits, and she at once set the example. It was +understood that defects and virtues were to be spoken of with like +candor. The idea was carried out; those who were not clever or bold +enough to write for themselves employing the pen of a friend. + + “Such,” says M. Cousin, “was the pastime of Mademoiselle and her + friends during the years 1657 and 1658: from this pastime proceeded a + complete literature. In 1659 Ségrais revised these portraits, added + a considerable number in prose and even in verse, and published the + whole in a handsome quarto volume, admirably printed, and now become + very rare, under the title, ‘Divers Portraits.’ Only thirty copies + were printed, not for sale, but to be given as presents by + Mademoiselle. The work had a prodigious success. That which had + made the fortune of Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s romances—the pleasure + of seeing one’s portrait a little flattered, curiosity to see that of + others, the passion which the middle class always have had and will + have for knowing what goes on in the aristocratic world (at that time + not very easy of access), the names of the illustrious persons who + were here for the first time described physically and morally with + the utmost detail, great ladies transformed all at once into writers, + and unconsciously inventing a new manner of writing, of which no book + gave the slightest idea, and which was the ordinary manner of + speaking of the aristocracy; this undefinable mixture of the natural, + the easy, and at the same time of the agreeable, and supremely + distinguished—all this charmed the court and the town, and very early + in the year 1659 permission was asked of Mademoiselle to give a new + edition of the privileged book for the use of the public in general.” + +The fashion thus set, portraits multiplied throughout France, until in +1688 La Bruyère adopted the form in his “Characters,” and ennobled it by +divesting it of personality. We shall presently see that a still greater +work than La Bruyère’s also owed its suggestion to a woman, whose salon +was hardly a less fascinating resort than the Hôtel de Rambouillet +itself. + +In proportion as the literature of a country is enriched and culture +becomes more generally diffused, personal influence is less effective in +the formation of taste and in the furtherance of social advancement. It +is no longer the coterie which acts on literature, but literature which +acts on the coterie; the circle represented by the word _public_ is ever +widening, and ambition, poising itself in order to hit a more distant +mark, neglects the successes of the salon. What was once lavished +prodigally in conversation is reserved for the volume or the “article,” +and the effort is not to betray originality rather than to communicate +it. As the old coach-roads have sunk into disuse through the creation of +railways, so journalism tends more and more to divert information from +the channel of conversation into the channel of the Press; no one is +satisfied with a more circumscribed audience than that very indeterminate +abstraction “the public,” and men find a vent for their opinions not in +talk, but in “copy.” We read the _Athenæum_ askance at the tea-table, +and take notes from the _Philosophical Journal_ at a soirée; we invite +our friends that we may thrust a book into their hands, and presuppose an +exclusive desire in the “ladies” to discuss their own matters, “that we +may crackle the _Times_” at our ease. In fact, the evident tendency of +things to contract personal communication within the narrowest limits +makes us tremble lest some further development of the electric telegraph +should reduce us to a society of mutes, or to a sort of insects +communicating by ingenious antenna of our own invention. Things were far +from having reached this pass in the last century; but even then +literature and society had outgrown the nursing of coteries, and although +many _salons_ of that period were worthy successors of the Hôtel de +Rambouillet, they were simply a recreation, not an influence. Enviable +evenings, no doubt, were passed in them; and if we could be carried back +to any of them at will, we should hardly know whether to choose the +Wednesday dinner at Madame Geoffrin’s, with d’Alembert, Mademoiselle de +l’Espinasse, Grimm, and the rest, or the graver society which, thirty +years later, gathered round Condorcet and his lovely young wife. The +_salon_ retained its attractions, but its power was gone: the stream of +life had become too broad and deep for such small rills to affect it. + +A fair comparison between the French women of the seventeenth century and +those of the eighteenth would, perhaps, have a balanced result, though it +is common to be a partisan on this subject. The former have more +exaltation, perhaps more nobility of sentiment, and less consciousness in +their intellectual activity—less of the _femme auteur_, which was +Rousseau’s horror in Madame d’Epinay; but the latter have a richer fund +of ideas—not more ingenuity, but the materials of an additional century +for their ingenuity to work upon. The women of the seventeenth century, +when love was on the wane, took to devotion, at first mildly and by +halves, as English women take to caps, and finally without compromise; +with the women of the eighteenth century, Bossuet and Massillon had given +way to Voltaire and Rousseau; and when youth and beauty failed, then they +were thrown on their own moral strength. + +M. Cousin is especially enamored of the women of the seventeenth century, +and relieves himself from his labors in philosophy by making researches +into the original documents which throw light upon their lives. Last +year he gave us some results of these researches in a volume on the youth +of the Duchess de Longueville; and he has just followed it up with a +second volume, in which he further illustrates her career by tracing it +in connection with that of her friend, Madame de Sablé. The materials to +which he has had recourse for this purpose are chiefly two celebrated +collections of manuscript: that of Conrart, the first secretary to the +French Academy, one of those universally curious people who seem made for +the annoyance of contemporaries and the benefit of posterity; and that of +Valant, who was at once the physician, the secretary, and general steward +of Madame de Sablé, and who, with or without her permission, possessed +himself of the letters addressed to her by her numerous correspondents +during the latter part of her life, and of various papers having some +personal or literary interest attached to them. From these stores M. +Cousin has selected many documents previously unedited; and though he +often leaves us something to desire in the arrangement of his materials, +this volume of his on Madame de Sablé is very acceptable to us, for she +interests us quite enough to carry us through more than three hundred +pages of rather scattered narrative, and through an appendix of +correspondence in small type. M. Cousin justly appreciates her character +as “un heureux mélange de raison, d’esprit, d’agrément, et de bonté;” and +perhaps there are few better specimens of the woman who is extreme in +nothing but sympathetic in all things; who affects us by no special +quality, but by her entire being; whose nature has no _tons criards_, but +is like those textures which, from their harmonious blending of all +colors, give repose to the eye, and do not weary us though we see them +every day. Madame de Sablé is also a striking example of the one order +of influence which woman has exercised over literature in France; and on +this ground, as well as intrinsically, she is worth studying. If the +reader agrees with us he will perhaps be inclined, as we are, to dwell a +little on the chief points in her life and character. + +Madeline de Souvré, daughter of the Marquis of Courtenvaux, a nobleman +distinguished enough to be chosen as governor of Louis XIII., was born in +1599, on the threshold of that seventeenth century, the brilliant genius +of which is mildly reflected in her mind and history. Thus, when in 1635 +her more celebrated friend, Mademoiselle de Bourbon, afterward the +Duchess de Longueville, made her appearance at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, +Madame de Sablé had nearly crossed that tableland of maturity which +precedes a woman’s descent toward old age. She had been married in 1614, +to Philippe Emanuel de Laval-Montmorency, Seigneur de Bois-Dauphin, and +Marquis de Sablé, of whom nothing further is known than that he died in +1640, leaving her the richer by four children, but with a fortune +considerably embarrassed. With beauty and high rank added to the mental +attractions of which we have abundant evidence, we may well believe that +Madame de Sablé’s youth was brilliant. For her beauty, we have the +testimony of sober Madame de Motteville, who also speaks of her as having +“beaucoup de lumière et de sincérité;” and in the following passage very +graphically indicates one phase of Madame de Sablé’s character: + + “The Marquise de Sablé was one of those whose beauty made the most + noise when the Queen came into France. But if she was amiable, she + was still more desirous of appearing so; this lady’s self-love + rendered her too sensitive to the regard which men exhibited toward + her. There yet existed in France some remains of the politeness + which Catherine de Medici had introduced from Italy, and the new + dramas, with all the other works in prose and verse, which came from + Madrid, were thought to have such great delicacy, that she (Madame de + Sablé) had conceived a high idea of the gallantry which the Spaniards + had learned from the Moors. + + “She was persuaded that men can, without crime, have tender + sentiments for women—that the desire of pleasing them led men to the + greatest and finest actions—roused their intelligence, and inspired + them with liberality, and all sorts of virtues; but, on the other + hand, women, who were the ornament of the world, and made to be + served and adored, ought not to admit anything from them but their + respectful attentions. As this lady supported her views with much + talent and great beauty, she had given them authority in her time, + and the number and consideration of those who continued to associate + with her have caused to subsist in our day what the Spaniards call + _finezas_.” + +Here is the grand element of the original _femme précieuse_, and it +appears farther, in a detail also reported by Madame de Motteville, that +Madame de Sablé had a passionate admirer in the accomplished Duc de +Montmorency, and apparently reciprocated his regard; but discovering (at +what period of their attachment is unknown) that he was raising a lover’s +eyes toward the queen, she broke with him at once. “I have heard her +say,” tells Madame de Motteville, “that her pride was such with regard to +the Duc de Montmorency, that at the first demonstrations which he gave of +his change, she refused to see him any more, being unable to receive with +satisfaction attentions which she had to share with the greatest princess +in the world.” There is no evidence except the untrustworthy assertion +of Tallement de Réaux, that Madame de Sablé had any other _liaison_ than +this; and the probability of the negative is increased by the ardor of +her friendships. The strongest of these was formed early in life with +Mademoiselle Dona d’Attichy, afterward Comtesse de Maure; it survived the +effervescence of youth, and the closest intimacy of middle age, and was +only terminated by the death of the latter in 1663. A little incident in +this friendship is so characteristic in the transcendentalism which was +then carried into all the affections, that it is worth relating at +length. Mademoiselle d’Attichy, in her grief and indignation at +Richelieu’s treatment of her relative, quitted Paris, and was about to +join her friend at Sablé, when she suddenly discovered that Madame de +Sablé, in a letter to Madame de Rambouillet, had said that her greatest +happiness would be to pass her life with Julie de Rambouillet, afterward +Madame de Montausier. To Anne d’Attichy this appears nothing less than +the crime of _lèse-amitié_. No explanations will appease her: she +refuses to accept the assurance that the offensive expression was used +simply out of unreflecting conformity to the style of the Hôtel de +Rambouillet—that it was mere “_galimatias_.” She gives up her journey, +and writes a letter, which is the only one Madame de Sablé chose to +preserve, when, in her period of devotion, she sacrificed the records of +her youth. Here it is: + + “I have seen this letter in which you tell me there is so much + _galimatias_, and I assure you that I have not found any at all. On + the contrary, I find everything very plainly expressed, and among + others, one which is too explicit for my satisfaction—namely, what + you have said to Madame de Rambouillet, that if you tried to imagine + a perfectly happy life for yourself, it would be to pass it all alone + with Mademoiselle de Rambouillet. You know whether any one can be + more persuaded than I am of her merit; but I confess to you that that + has not prevented me from being surprised that you could entertain a + thought which did so great an injury to our friendship. As to + believing that you said this to one, and wrote it to the other, + simply for the sake of paying them an agreeable compliment, I have + too high an esteem for your courage to be able to imagine that + complaisance would cause you thus to betray the sentiments of your + heart, especially on a subject in which, as they were unfavorable to + me, I think you would have the more reason for concealing them, the + affection which I have for you being so well known to every one, and + especially to Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, so that I doubt whether + she will not have been more sensible of the wrong you have done me, + than of the advantage you have given her. The circumstance of this + letter falling into my hands has forcibly reminded me of these lines + of Bertaut: + + “‘Malheureuse est l’ignorance + Et plus malheureux le savoir.” + + “Having through this lost a confidence which alone rendered life + supportable to me, it is impossible for me to take the journey so + much thought of. For would there be any propriety in travelling + sixty miles in this season, in order to burden you with a person so + little suited to you, that after years of a passion without parallel, + you cannot help thinking that the greatest pleasure of your life + would be to pass it without her? I return, then, into my solitude, + to examine the defects which cause me so much unhappiness, and unless + I can correct them, I should have less joy than confusion in seeing + you.” + +It speaks strongly for the charm of Madame de Sablé’s nature that she was +able to retain so susceptible a friend as Mademoiselle d’Attichy in spite +of numerous other friendships, some of which, especially that with Madame +de Longueville, were far from lukewarm—in spite too of a tendency in +herself to distrust the affection of others toward her, and to wait for +advances rather than to make them. We find many traces of this tendency +in the affectionate remonstrances addressed to her by Madame de +Longueville, now for shutting herself up from her friends, now for +doubting that her letters are acceptable. Here is a little passage from +one of these remonstrances which indicates a trait of Madame de Sablé, +and is in itself a bit of excellent sense, worthy the consideration of +lovers and friends in general: “I am very much afraid that if I leave to +you the care of letting me know when I can see you, I shall be a long +time without having that pleasure, and that nothing will incline you to +procure it me, for I have always observed a certain lukewarmness in your +friendship after our _explanations_, from which I have never seen you +thoroughly recover; and that is why I dread explanations, for however +good they may be in themselves, since they serve to reconcile people, it +must always be admitted, to their shame, that they are at least the +effect of a bad cause, and that if they remove it for a time they +_sometimes leave a certain facility in getting angry again_, which, +without diminishing friendship, renders its intercourse less agreeable. +It seems to me that I find all this in your behavior to me; so I am not +wrong in sending to know if you wish to have me to-day.” It is clear +that Madame de Sablé was far from having what Sainte-Beuve calls the one +fault of Madame Necker—absolute perfection. A certain exquisiteness in +her physical and moral nature was, as we shall see, the source of more +than one weakness, but the perception of these weaknesses, which is +indicated in Madame de Longueville’s letters, heightens our idea of the +attractive qualities which notwithstanding drew from her, at the sober +age of forty, such expressions as these: “I assure you that you are the +person in all the world whom it would be most agreeable to me to see, and +there is no one whose intercourse is a ground of truer satisfaction to +me. It is admirable that at all times, and amidst all changes, the taste +for your society remains in me; and, _if one ought to thank God for the +joys which do not tend to salvation_, I should thank him with all my +heart for having preserved that to me at a time in which he has taken +away from me all others.” + +Since we have entered on the chapter of Madame de Sablé’s weaknesses, +this is the place to mention what was the subject of endless raillery +from her friends—her elaborate precaution about her health, and her dread +of infection, even from diseases the least communicable. Perhaps this +anxiety was founded as much on æsthetic as on physical grounds, on +disgust at the details of illness as much as on dread of suffering: with +a cold in the head or a bilious complaint, the exquisite _précieuse_ must +have been considerably less conscious of being “the ornament of the +world,” and “made to be adored.” Even her friendship, strong as it was, +was not strong enough to overcome her horror of contagion; for when +Mademoiselle de Bourbon, recently become Madame de Longueville, was +attacked by small-pox, Madame de Sablé for some time had not courage to +visit her, or even to see Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, who was assiduous +in her attendance on the patient. A little correspondence _à propos_ of +these circumstances so well exhibits the graceful badinage in which the +great ladies of that day were adepts, that we are attempted to quote one +short letter. + + “_Mlle. de Rambouillet to the Marquise de Sablé_.” + + “Mlle. de Chalais (_dame de compagnie_ to the Marquise) will please + to read this letter to Mme. la Marquise, _out of_ a draught. + + “Madame, I do not think it possible to begin my treaty with you too + early, for I am convinced that between the first proposition made to + me that I should see you, and the conclusion, you will have so many + reflections to make, so many physicians to consult, and so many fears + to surmount, that I shall have full leisure to air myself. The + conditions which I offer to fulfil for this purpose are, not to visit + you until I have been three days absent from the Hôtel de Condé + (where Mme. de Longueville was ill), to choose a frosty day, not to + approach you within four paces, not to sit down on more than one + seat. You may also have a great fire in your room, burn juniper in + the four corners, surround yourself with imperial vinegar, with rue + and wormwood. If you can feel yourself safe under these conditions, + without my cutting off my hair, I swear to you to execute them + religiously; and if you want examples to fortify you, I can tell you + that the Queen consented to see M. Chaudebonne, when he had come + directly from Mme. de Bourbon’s room, and that Mme. d’Aiguillon, who + has good taste in such matters, and is free from reproach on these + points, has just sent me word that if I did not go to see her she + would come to me.” + +Madame de Sablé betrays in her reply that she winces under this raillery, +and thus provokes a rather severe though polite rejoinder, which, added +to the fact that Madame de Longueville is convalescent, rouses her +courage to the pitch of paying the formidable visit. Mademoiselle de +Rambouillet, made aware through their mutual friend Voiture, that her +sarcasm has cut rather too deep, winds up the matter by writing that very +difficult production a perfectly conciliatory yet dignified apology. +Peculiarities like this always deepen with age, and accordingly, fifteen +years later, we find Madame D’Orleans in her “Princesse de Paphlagonia”—a +romance in which she describes her court, with the little quarrels and +other affairs that agitated it—giving the following amusing picture, or +rather caricature, of the extent to which Madame de Sablé carried her +pathological mania, which seems to have been shared by her friend the +Countess de Maure (Mademoiselle d’Attichy). In the romance, these two +ladies appear under the names of Princesse Parthénie and the Reine de +Mionie. + + “There was not an hour in the day in which they did not confer + together on the means of avoiding death, and on the art of rendering + themselves immortal. Their conferences did not take place like those + of other people; the fear of breathing an air which was too cold or + too warm, the dread lest the wind should be too dry or too moist—in + short, the imagination that the weather might not be as temperate as + they thought necessary for the preservation of their health, caused + them to write letters from one room to the other. It would be + extremely fortunate if these notes could be found, and formed into a + collection. I am convinced that they would contain rules for the + regimen of life, precautions even as to the proper time for applying + remedies, and also remedies which Hippocrates and Galen, with all + their science, never heard of. Such a collection would be very + useful to the public, and would be highly profitable to the faculties + of Paris and Montpellier. If these letters were discovered, great + advantages of all kinds might be derived from them, for they were + princesses who had nothing mortal about them but the _knowledge_ that + they were mortal. In their writings might be learned all politeness + in style, and the most delicate manner of speaking on all subjects. + There is nothing with which they were not acquainted; they knew the + affairs of all the States in the world, through the share they had in + all the intrigues of its private members, either in matters of + gallantry, as in other things, on which their advice was necessary; + either to adjust embroilments and quarrels, or to excite them, for + the sake of the advantages which their friends could derive from + them;—in a word, they were persons through whose hands the secrets of + the whole world had to pass. The Princess Parthénie (Mme. de Sablé) + had a palate as delicate as her mind; nothing could equal the + magnificence of the entertainments she gave; all the dishes were + exquisite, and her cleanliness was beyond all that could be imagined. + It was in their time that writing came into use; previously nothing + was written but marriage contracts, and letters were never heard of; + thus it is to them that we owe a practice so convenient in + intercourse.” + +Still later in 1669, when the most uncompromising of the Port Royalists +seemed to tax Madame de Sablé with lukewarmness that she did not join +them at Port-Royal-des-Champs, we find her writing to the stern M. de +Sévigny: “En vérité, je crois que je ne pourrois mieux faire que de tout +quitter et de m’en aller là. Mais que deviendroient ces frayeurs de +n’avoir pas de médicines à choisir, ni de chirurgien pour me saigner?” + +Mademoiselle, as we have seen, hints at the love of delicate eating, +which many of Madame de Sablé’s friends numbered among her foibles, +especially after her religious career had commenced. She had a genius +in_ friandise_, and knew how to gratify the palate without offending the +highest sense of refinement. Her sympathetic nature showed itself in +this as in other things; she was always sending _bonnes bouches_ to her +friends, and trying to communicate to them her science and taste in the +affairs of the table. Madame de Longueville, who had not the luxurious +tendencies of her friend, writes: “Je vous demande au nom de Dieu, que +vous ne me prépariez aucun ragoût. Surtout ne me donnez point de festin. +Au nom de Dieu, qu’il n’y ait rien que ce qu’on peut manger, car vous +savez que c’est inutile pour moi; de plus j’en ai scrupule.” But other +friends had more appreciation of her niceties. Voiture thanks her for +her melons, and assures her that they are better than those of yesterday; +Madame de Choisy hopes that her ridicule of Jansenism will not provoke +Madame de Sablé to refuse her the receipt for salad; and La Rochefoucauld +writes: “You cannot do me a greater charity than to permit the bearer of +this letter to enter into the mysteries of your marmalade and your +genuine preserves, and I humbly entreat you to do everything you can in +his favor. If I could hope for two dishes of those preserves, which I +did not deserve to eat before, I should be indebted to you all my life.” +For our own part, being as far as possible from fraternizing with those +spiritual people who convert a deficiency into a principle, and pique +themselves on an obtuse palate as a point of superiority, we are not +inclined to number Madame de Sablé’s _friandise_ among her defects. M. +Cousin, too, is apologetic on this point. He says: + + “It was only the excess of a delicacy which can be really understood, + and a sort of fidelity to the character of _précieuse_. As the + _précieuse_ did nothing according to common usage, she could not dine + like another. We have cited a passage from Mme. de Motteville, where + Mme. de Sablé is represented in her first youth at the Hôtel de + Rambouillet, maintaining that woman is born to be an ornament to the + world, and to receive the adoration of men. The woman worthy of the + name ought always to appear above material wants, and retain, even in + the most vulgar details of life, something distinguished and + purified. Eating is a very necessary operation, but one which is not + agreeable to the eye. Mme. de Sablé insisted on its being conducted + with a peculiar cleanliness. According to her it was not every woman + who could with impunity be at table in the presence of a lover; the + first distortion of the face, she said, would be enough to spoil all. + Gross meals made for the body merely ought to be abandoned to + _bourgeoises_, and the refined woman should appear to take a little + nourishment merely to sustain her, and even to divert her, as one + takes refreshments and ices. Wealth did not suffice for this: a + particular talent was required. Mme. de Sablé was a mistress in this + art. She had transported the aristocratic spirit, and the _genre + précieux_, good breeding and good taste, even into cookery. Her + dinners, without any opulence, were celebrated and sought after.” + +It is quite in accordance with all this that Madame de Sablé should +delight in fine scents, and we find that she did; for being threatened, +in her Port Royal days, when she was at an advanced age, with the loss of +smell, and writing for sympathy and information to Mère Agnès, who had +lost that sense early in life, she receives this admonition from the +stern saint: “You would gain by this loss, my very dear sister, if you +made use of it as a satisfaction to God, for having had too much pleasure +in delicious scents.” Scarron describes her as + + “La non pareille Bois-Dauphine, + _Entre dames perle très fine_,” + +and the superlative delicacy implied by this epithet seems to have +belonged equally to her personal habits, her affections, and her +intellect. + +Madame de Sablé’s life, for anything we know, flowed on evenly enough +until 1640, when the death of her husband threw upon her the care of an +embarrassed fortune. She found a friend in Réné de Longueil, Seigneur de +Maisons, of whom we are content to know no more than that he helped +Madame de Sablé to arrange her affairs, though only by means of +alienating from her family the estate of Sablé, that his house was her +refuge during the blockade of Paris in 1649, and that she was not +unmindful of her obligations to him, when, subsequently, her credit could +be serviceable to him at court. In the midst of these pecuniary troubles +came a more terrible trial—the loss of her favorite son, the brave and +handsome Guy de Laval, who, after a brilliant career in the campaigns of +Condé, was killed at the siege of Dunkirk, in 1646, when scarcely +four-and-twenty. The fine qualities of this young man had endeared him +to the whole army, and especially to Condé, had won him the hand of the +Chancellor Séguire’s daughter, and had thus opened to him the prospect of +the highest honors. His loss seems to have been the most real sorrow of +Madame de Sablé’s life. Soon after followed the commotions of the +Fronde, which put a stop to social intercourse, and threw the closest +friends into opposite ranks. According to Lenet, who relies on the +authority of Gourville, Madame de Sablé was under strong obligations to +the court, being in the receipt of a pension of 2000 crowns; at all +events, she adhered throughout to the Queen and Mazarin, but being as far +as possible from a fierce partisan, and given both by disposition and +judgment to hear both sides of the question, she acted as a conciliator, +and retained her friends of both parties. The Countess de Maure, whose +husband was the most obstinate of _frondeurs_, remained throughout her +most cherished friend, and she kept up a constant correspondence with the +lovely and intrepid heroine of the Fronde, Madame de Longueville. Her +activity was directed to the extinction of animosities, by bringing about +marriages between the Montagues and Capulets of the Fronde—between the +Prince de Condé, or his brother, and the niece of Mazarin, or between the +three nieces of Mazarin and the sons of three noblemen who were +distinguished leaders of the Fronde. Though her projects were not +realized, her conciliatory position enabled her to preserve all her +friendships intact, and when the political tempest was over, she could +assemble around her in her residence, in the Place Royal, the same +society as before. Madame de Sablé was now approaching her twelfth +_lustrum_, and though the charms of her mind and character made her more +sought after than most younger women, it is not surprising that, sharing +as she did in the religious ideas of her time, the concerns of +“salvation” seemed to become pressing. A religious retirement, which did +not exclude the reception of literary friends or the care for personal +comforts, made the most becoming frame for age and diminished fortune. +Jansenism was then to ordinary Catholicism what Puseyism is to ordinary +Church of Englandism in these days—it was a _récherché_ form of piety +unshared by the vulgar; and one sees at once that it must have special +attractions for the _précieuse_. Madame de Sablé, then, probably about +1655 or ’56, determined to retire to Port Royal, not because she was +already devout, but because she hoped to become so; as, however, she +wished to retain the pleasure of intercourse with friends who were still +worldly, she built for herself a set of apartments at once distinct from +the monastery and attached to it. Here, with a comfortable +establishment, consisting of her secretary, Dr. Valant, Mademoiselle de +Chalais, formerly her _dame de compagnie_, and now become her friend; an +excellent cook; a few other servants, and for a considerable time a +carriage and coachman; with her best friends within a moderate distance, +she could, as M. Cousin says, be out of the noise of the world without +altogether forsaking it, preserve her dearest friendships, and have +before her eyes edifying examples—“vaquer enfin à son aise aux soins de +son salut et à ceux de sa santé.” + +We have hitherto looked only at one phase of Madame de Sablé’s character +and influence—that of the _précieuse_. But she was much more than this: +she was the valuable, trusted friend of noble women and distinguished +men; she was the animating spirit of a society, whence issued a new form +of French literature; she was the woman of large capacity and large +heart, whom Pascal sought to please, to whom Arnauld submitted the +Discourse prefixed to his “Logic,” and to whom La Rochefoucauld writes: +“Vous savez que je ne crois que vous êtes sur de certains chapitres, et +surtout sur les replis da cœur.” The papers preserved by her secretary, +Valant, show that she maintained an extensive correspondence with persons +of various rank and character; that her pen was untiring in the interest +of others; that men made her the depositary of their thoughts, women of +their sorrows; that her friends were as impatient, when she secluded +herself, as if they had been rival lovers and she a youthful beauty. It +is into her ear that Madame de Longueville pours her troubles and +difficulties, and that Madame de la Fayette communicates her little +alarms, lest young Count de St. Paul should have detected her intimacy +with La Rochefoucauld. {53} The few of Madame de Sablé’s letters which +survive show that she excelled in that epistolary style which was the +specialty of the Hôtel de Rambouillet: one to Madame de Montausier, in +favor of M. Périer, the brother-in-law of Pascal, is a happy mixture of +good taste and good sense; but among them all we prefer quoting one to +the Duchess de la Tremouille. It is light and pretty, and made out of +almost nothing, like soap, bubbles. + + “Je croix qu’il n’y a que moi qui face si bien tout le contraire de + ce que je veux faire, car il est vrai qu’il n’y a personne que + j’honore plus que vous, et j’ai si bien fait qu’il est quasi + impossible que vous le puissiez croire. Ce n’estoit pas assez pour + vous persuader que je suis indigne de vos bonnes grâces et de votre + souvenir que d’avoir manqué fort longtemps à vous écrire; il falloit + encore retarder quinze jours à me donner l’honneur de répondre à + votre lettre. En vérité, Madame, cela me fait parôitre si coupable, + que vers tout autre que vous j’aimeroix mieux l’être en effet que + d’entreprendre une chose si difficile qu’ est celle de me justifier. + Mais je me sens si innocente dans mon âme, et j’ai tant d’estime, de + respect et d’affection pour vous, qu’il me semble que vous devez le + connôitre à cent lieues de distance d’ici, encore que je ne vous dise + pas un mot. C’est ce que me donne le courage de vous écrire à cette + heure, mais non pas ce qui m’en a empêché si longtemps. J’ai + commencé, a faillir par force, ayant eu beaucoup de maux, et depuis + je l’ai faite par honte, et je vous avoue que si je n’avois à cette + heure la confiance que vous m’avez donnée en me rassurant, et celle + que je tire de mes propres sentimens pour vous, je n’oserois jamais + entreprendre de vous faire souvenir de moi; mais je m’assure que vous + oublierez tout, sur la protestation que je vous fais de ne me laisser + plus endurcir en mes fautes et de demeurer inviolablement, Madame, + votre, etc.” + +Was not the woman, who could unite the ease and grace indicated by this +letter, with an intellect that men thought worth consulting on matters of +reasoning and philosophy, with warm affections, untiring activity for +others, no ambition as an authoress, and an insight into _confitures_ and +_ragoûts_, a rare combination? No wonder that her _salon_ at Port Royal +was the favorite resort of such women as Madame de la Fayette, Madame de +Montausier, Madame de Longueville, and Madame de Hautefort; and of such +men as Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Nicole, and Domat. The collections of +Valant contain papers which show what were the habitual subjects of +conversation in this salon. Theology, of course, was a chief topic; but +physics and metaphysics had their turn, and still more frequently morals, +taken in their widest sense. There were “Conferences on Calvinism,” of +which an abstract is preserved. When Rohault invented his glass tubes to +serve for the barometrical experiments in which Pascal had roused a +strong interest, the Marquis de Sourdis entertained the society with a +paper entitled “Why Water Mounts in a Glass Tube.” Cartesianism was an +exciting topic here, as well as everywhere else in France; it had its +partisans and opponents, and papers were read containing “Thoughts on the +Opinions of M. Descartes.” These lofty matters were varied by +discussions on love and friendship, on the drama, and on most of the +things in heaven and earth which the philosophy of that day dreamt of. +Morals—generalizations on human affections, sentiments, and conduct—seem +to have been the favorite theme; and the aim was to reduce these +generalizations to their briefest form of expression, to give them the +epigrammatic turn which made them portable in the memory. This was the +specialty of Madame de Sablé’s circle, and was, probably, due to her own +tendency. As the Hôtel de Rambouillet was the nursery of graceful +letter-writing, and the Luxembourg of “portraits” and “characters,” so +Madame de Sablé’s _salon_ fostered that taste for the sententious style, +to which we owe, probably, some of the best _Pensées_ of Pascal, and +certainly, the “Maxims” of La Rochefoucauld. Madame de Sablé herself +wrote maxims, which were circulated among her friends; and, after her +death, were published by the Abbé d’Ailly. They have the excellent sense +and nobility of feeling which we should expect in everything of hers; but +they have no stamp of genius or individual character: they are, to the +“Maxims” of La Rochefoucauld, what the vase moulded in dull, heavy clay +is to the vase which the action of fire has made light, brittle, and +transparent. She also wrote a treatise on Education, which is much +praised by La Rochefoucauld and M. d’Andilly; but which seems no longer +to be found: probably it was not much more elaborate than her so-called +“Treatise on Friendship,” which is but a short string of maxims. Madame +de Sablé’s forte was evidently not to write herself, but to stimulate +others to write; to show that sympathy and appreciation which are as +genial and encouraging as the morning sunbeams. She seconded a man’s wit +with understanding—one of the best offices which womanly intellect has +rendered to the advancement of culture; and the absence of originality +made her all the more receptive toward the originality of others. + +The manuscripts of Pascal show that many of the _Pensées_, which are +commonly supposed to be raw materials for a great work on religion, were +remodelled again and again, in order to bring them to the highest degree +of terseness and finish, which would hardly have been the case if they +had only been part of a quarry for a greater production. Thoughts, which +are merely collected as materials, as stones out of which a building is +to be erected, are not cut into facets, and polished like amethysts or +emeralds. Since Pascal was from the first in the habit of visiting +Madame de Sablé, at Port Royal, with his sister, Madame Périer (who was +one of Madame de Sablé’s dearest friends), we may well suppose that he +would throw some of his jewels among the large and small coin of maxims, +which were a sort of subscription money there. Many of them have an +epigrammatical piquancy, which was just the thing to charm a circle of +vivacious and intelligent women: they seem to come from a La +Rochefoucauld who has been dipped over again in philosophy and wit, and +received a new layer. But whether or not Madame de Sablé’s influence +served to enrich the _Pensées_ of Pascal, it is clear that but for her +influence the “Maxims” of La Rochefoucauld would never have existed. +Just as in some circles the effort is, who shall make the best puns +(_horibile dictu_!), or the best charades, in the _salon_ of Port Royal +the amusement was to fabricate maxims. La Rochefoucauld said, “L’envie +de faire des maximes se gagne comme la rhume.” So far from claiming for +himself the initiation of this form of writing, he accuses Jacques +Esprit, another _habitué_ of Madame de Sablé’s _salon_, of having excited +in him the taste for maxims, in order to trouble his repose. The said +Esprit was an academician, and had been a frequenter of the Hôtel de +Rambouillet. He had already published “Maxims in Verse,” and he +subsequently produced a book called “La Faussete des Vertus Humaines,” +which seems to consist of Rochefoucauldism become flat with an infusion +of sour Calvinism. Nevertheless, La Rochefoucauld seems to have prized +him, to have appealed to his judgment, and to have concocted maxims with +him, which he afterward begs him to submit to Madame Sablé. He sends a +little batch of maxims to her himself, and asks for an equivalent in the +shape of good eatables: “Voilà tout ce que j’ai de maximes; mais comme je +ne donne rien pour rien, je vous demande un potage aux carottes, un +ragoût de mouton,” etc. The taste and the talent enhanced each other; +until, at last, La Rochefoucauld began to be conscious of his +pre-eminence in the circle of maxim-mongers, and thought of a wider +audience. Thus grew up the famous “Maxims,” about which little need be +said. Every at once is now convinced, or professes to be convinced, +that, as to form, they are perfect, and that as to matter, they are at +once undeniably true and miserably false; true as applied to that +condition of human nature in which the selfish instincts are still +dominant, false if taken as a representation of all the elements and +possibilities of human nature. We think La Rochefoucauld himself wavered +as to their universality, and that this wavering is indicated in the +qualified form of some of the maxims; it occasionally struck him that the +shadow of virtue must have a substance, but he had never grasped that +substance—it had never been present to his consciousness. + +It is curious to see La Rochefoucauld’s nervous anxiety about presenting +himself before the public as an author; far from rushing into print, he +stole into it, and felt his way by asking private opinions. Through +Madame de Sablé he sent manuscript copies to various persons of taste and +talent, both men and women, and many of the written opinions which he +received in reply are still in existence. The women generally find the +maxims distasteful, but the men write approvingly. These men, however, +are for the most part ecclesiastics, who decry human nature that they may +exalt divine grace. The coincidence between Augustinianism or Calvinism, +with its doctrine of human corruption, and the hard cynicism of the +maxims, presents itself in quite a piquant form in some of the laudatory +opinions on La Rochefoucauld. One writer says: “On ne pourroit faire une +instruction plus propre à un catechumène pour convertir à Dieu son esprit +et sa volonté . . . Quand il n’y auroit que cet escrit au monde et +l’Evangile je voudrois etre chretien. L’un m’apprendroit à connoistre +mes misères, et l’autre à implorer mon libérateur.” Madame de Maintenon +sends word to La Rochefoucauld, after the publication of his work, that +the “Book of Job” and the “Maxims” are her only reading. + +That Madame de Sablé herself had a tolerably just idea of La +Rochefoucauld’s character, as well as of his maxims, may be gathered not +only from the fact that her own maxims are as full of the confidence in +human goodness which La Rochefoucauld wants, as they are empty of the +style which he possesses, but also from a letter in which she replies to +the criticisms of Madame de Schomberg. “The author,” she says, “derived +the maxim on indolence from his own disposition, for never was there so +great an indolence as his, and I think that his heart, inert as it is, +owes this defect as much to his idleness as his will. It has never +permitted him to do the least action for others; and I think that, amid +all his great desires and great hopes, he is sometimes indolent even on +his own behalf.” Still she must have felt a hearty interest in the +“Maxims,” as in some degree her foster-child, and she must also have had +considerable affection for the author, who was lovable enough to those +who observed the rule of Helvetius, and expected nothing from him. She +not only assisted him, as we have seen, in getting criticisms, and +carrying out the improvements suggested by them, but when the book was +actually published she prepared a notice of it for the only journal then +existing—the _Journal des Savants_. This notice was originally a brief +statement of the nature of the work, and the opinions which had been +formed for and against it, with a moderate eulogy, in conclusion, on its +good sense, wit, and insight into human nature. But when she submitted +it to La Rochefoucauld he objected to the paragraph which stated the +adverse opinion, and requested her to alter it. She, however, was either +unable or unwilling to modify her notice, and returned it with the +following note: + + “Je vous envoie ce que j’ai pu tirer de ma teste pour mettre dans le + _Journal des Savants_. J’y ai mis cet endroit qui vous est le plus + sensible, afin que cela vous fasse surmonter la mauvaise honte qui + vous fit mettre la préface sans y rien retrancher, et je n’ai pas + craint dele mettre, parce que je suis assurée que vous ne le ferez + pas imprimer, quand même le reste vous plairoit. Je vous assure + aussi que je vous serai pins obligée, si vous en usez comme d’une + chose qui servit à vous pour le corriger on pour le jeter au feu. + Nous autres grands auteurs, nous sommes trop riches pour craindre de + rien perdre de nos productions. Mandez-moi ce qu’il vous semble de + ce dictum.” + +La Rochefoucauld availed himself of this permission, and “edited” the +notice, touching up the style, and leaving out the blame. In this +revised form it appeared in the _Journal des Savants_. In some points, +we see, the youth of journalism was not without promise of its future. + +While Madame de Sablé was thus playing the literary confidante to La +Rochefoucauld, and was the soul of a society whose chief interest was the +_belles-lettres_, she was equally active in graver matters. She was in +constant intercourse or correspondence with the devout women of Port +Royal, and of the neighboring convent of the Carmelites, many of whom had +once been the ornaments of the court; and there is a proof that she was +conscious of being highly valued by them in the fact that when the +Princess Marie-Madeline, of the Carmelites, was dangerously ill, not +being able or not daring to visit her, she sent her youthful portrait to +be hung up in the sick-room, and received from the same Mère Agnès, whose +grave admonition we have quoted above, a charming note, describing the +pleasure which the picture had given in the infirmary of “Notre bonne +Mère.” She was interesting herself deeply in the translation of the New +Testament, which was the work of Sacy, Arnauld, Nicole, Le Maître, and +the Duc de Luynes conjointly, Sacy having the principal share. We have +mentioned that Arnauld asked her opinion on the “Discourse” prefixed to +his “Logic,” and we may conclude from this that he had found her judgment +valuable in many other cases. Moreover, the persecution of the Port +Royalists had commenced, and she was uniting with Madame de Longueville +in aiding and protecting her pious friends. Moderate in her Jansenism, +as in everything else, she held that the famous formulary denouncing the +Augustinian doctrine, and declaring it to have been originated by +Jansenius, should be signed without reserve, and, as usual, she had faith +in conciliatory measures; but her moderation was no excuse for inaction. +She was at one time herself threatened with the necessity of abandoning +her residence at Port Royal, and had thought of retiring to a religions +house at Auteuil, a village near Paris. She did, in fact, pass some +summers there, and she sometimes took refuge with her brother, the +Commandeur de Souvré, with Madame de Montausier, or Madame de +Longueville. The last was much bolder in her partisanship than her +friend, and her superior wealth and position enabled her to give the Port +Royalists more efficient aid. Arnauld and Nicole resided five years in +her house; it was under her protection that the translation of the New +Testament was carried on and completed, and it was chiefly through her +efforts that, in 1669, the persecution was brought to an end. Madame de +Sablé co-operated with all her talent and interest in the same direction; +but here, as elsewhere, her influence was chiefly valuable in what she +stimulated others to do, rather than in what she did herself. It was by +her that Madame de Longueville was first won to the cause of Port Royal; +and we find this ardent brave woman constantly seeking the advice and +sympathy of her more timid and self-indulgent, but sincere and judicious +friend. + +In 1669, when Madame de Sablé had at length rest from these anxieties, +she was at the good old age of seventy, but she lived nine years +longer—years, we may suppose, chiefly dedicated to her spiritual +concerns. This gradual, calm decay allayed the fear of death, which had +tormented her more vigorous days; and she died with tranquillity and +trust. It is a beautiful trait of these last moments that she desired +not to be buried with her family, or even at Port Royal, among her +saintly and noble companions—but in the cemetery of her parish, like one +of the people, without pomp or ceremony. + +It is worth while to notice, that with Madame de Sablé, as with some +other remarkable French women, the part of her life which is richest in +interest and results is that which is looked forward to by most of her +sex with melancholy as the period of decline. When between fifty and +sixty, she had philosophers, wits, beauties, and saints clustering around +her; and one naturally cares to know what was the elixir which gave her +this enduring and general attraction. We think it was, in a great +degree, that well-balanced development of mental powers which gave her a +comprehension of varied intellectual processes, and a tolerance for +varied forms of character, which is still rarer in women than in men. +Here was one point of distinction between her and Madame de Longueville; +and an amusing passage, which Sainte-Beuve has disinterred from the +writings of the Abbé St. Pierre, so well serves to indicate, by contrast, +what we regard as the great charm of Madame de Sablé’s mind, that we +shall not be wandering from our subject in quoting it. + + “I one day asked M. Nicole what was the character of Mme. de + Longueville’s intellect; he told me it was very subtle and delicate + in the penetration of character; but very small, very feeble, and + that her comprehension was extremely narrow in matters of science and + reasoning, and on all speculations that did not concern matters of + sentiment. For example, he added, I one day said to her that I could + wager and demonstrate that there were in Paris at least two + inhabitants who had the same number of hairs, although I could not + point out who these two men were. She told me I could never be sure + of it until I had counted the hairs of these two men. Here is my + demonstration, I said: I take it for granted that the head which is + most amply supplied with hairs has not more than 200,000, and the + head which is least so has but one hair. Now, if you suppose that + 200,000 heads have each a different number of hairs, it necessarily + follows that they have each one of the numbers of hairs which form + the series from one to 200,000; for if it were supposed that there + were two among these 200,000 who had the same number of hairs, I + should have gained my wager. Supposing, then, that these 200,000 + inhabitants have all a different number of hairs, if I add a single + inhabitant who has hairs, and who has not more than 200,000, it + necessarily follows that this number of hairs, whatever it may be, + will be contained in the series from one to 200,000, and consequently + will be equal to the number of hairs on one of the previous 200,000 + inhabitants. Now as, instead of one inhabitant more than 200,000, + there are nearly 800,000 inhabitants in Paris, you see clearly that + there must be many heads which have an equal number of hairs, though + I have not counted them. Still Mme. de Longueville could never + comprehend that this equality of hairs could be demonstrated, and + always maintained that the only way of proving it was to count them.” + +Surely, the most ardent admirer of feminine shallowness must have felt +some irritation when he found himself arrested by this dead wall of +stupidity, and have turned with relief to the larger intelligence of +Madame de Sablé, who was not the less graceful, delicate, and feminine +because she could follow a train of reasoning, or interest herself in a +question of science. In this combination consisted her pre-eminent +charm: she was not a genius, not a heroine, but a woman whom men could +more than love—whom they could make their friend, confidante, and +counsellor; the sharer, not of their joys and sorrows only, but of their +ideas and aims. + +Such was Madame de Sablé, whose name is, perhaps, new to some of our +readers, so far does it lie from the surface of literature and history. +We have seen, too, that she was only one among a crowd—one in a firmament +of feminine stars which, when once the biographical telescope is turned +upon them, appear scarcely less remarkable and interesting. Now, if the +reader recollects what was the position and average intellectual +character of women in the high society of England during the reigns of +James the First and the two Charleses—the period through which Madame de +Sablé’s career extends—we think he will admit our position as to the +early superiority of womanly development in France, and this fact, with +its causes, has not merely an historical interest: it has an important +bearing on the culture of women in the present day. Women become +superior in France by being admitted to a common fund of ideas, to common +objects of interest with men; and this must ever be the essential +condition at once of true womanly culture and of true social well-being. +We have no faith in feminine conversazioni, where ladies are eloquent on +Apollo and Mars; though we sympathize with the yearning activity of +faculties which, deprived of their proper material, waste themselves in +weaving fabrics out of cobwebs. Let the whole field of reality be laid +open to woman as well as to man, and then that which is peculiar in her +mental modification, instead of being, as it is now, a source of discord +and repulsion between the sexes, will be found to be a necessary +complement to the truth and beauty of life. Then we shall have that +marriage of minds which alone can blend all the hues of thought and +feeling in one lovely rainbow of promise for the harvest of human +happiness. + + + +III. EVANGELICAL TEACHING: DR. CUMMING. {64} + + +Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than +the average, some rhetorical affluence and great glibness of speech, what +is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most +easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that +Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will +pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as +wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given +piety? Let such a man become an evangelical preacher; he will then find +it possible to reconcile small ability with great ambition, superficial +knowledge with the prestige of erudition, a middling morale with a high +reputation for sanctity. Let him shun practical extremes and be ultra +only in what is purely theoretic; let him be stringent on predestination, +but latitudinarian on fasting; unflinching in insisting on the Eternity +of punishment, but diffident of curtailing the substantial comforts of +Time; ardent and imaginative on the pro-millennial advent of Christ, but +cold and cautious toward every other infringement of the _status quo_. +Let him fish for souls not with the bait of inconvenient singularity, but +with the drag-net of comfortable conformity. Let him be hard and literal +in his interpretation only when he wants to hurl texts at the heads of +unbelievers and adversaries, but when the letter of the Scriptures +presses too closely on the genteel Christianity of the nineteenth +century, let him use his spiritualizing alembic and disperse it into +impalpable ether. Let him preach less of Christ than of Antichrist; let +him be less definite in showing what sin is than in showing who is the +Man of Sin, less expansive on the blessedness of faith than on the +accursedness of infidelity. Above all, let him set up as an interpreter +of prophecy, and rival Moore’s Almanack in the prediction of political +events, tickling the interest of hearers who are but moderately spiritual +by showing how the Holy Spirit has dictated problems and charades for +their benefit, and how, if they are ingenious enough to solve these, they +may have their Christian graces nourished by learning precisely to whom +they may point as the “horn that had eyes,” “the lying prophet,” and the +“unclean spirits.” In this way he will draw men to him by the strong +cords of their passions, made reason-proof by being baptized with the +name of piety. In this way he may gain a metropolitan pulpit; the +avenues to his church will be as crowded as the passages to the opera; he +has but to print his prophetic sermons and bind them in lilac and gold, +and they will adorn the drawing-room table of all evangelical ladies, who +will regard as a sort of pious “light reading” the demonstration that the +prophecy of the locusts whose sting is in their tail, is fulfilled in the +fact of the Turkish commander’s having taken a horse’s tail for his +standard, and that the French are the very frogs predicted in the +Revelations. + +Pleasant to the clerical flesh under such circumstances is the arrival of +Sunday! Somewhat at a disadvantage during the week, in the presence of +working-day interests and lay splendors, on Sunday the preacher becomes +the cynosure of a thousand eyes, and predominates at once over the +Amphitryon with whom he dines, and the most captious member of his church +or vestry. He has an immense advantage over all other public speakers. +The platform orator is subject to the criticism of hisses and groans. +Counsel for the plaintiff expects the retort of counsel for the +defendant. The honorable gentleman on one side of the House is liable to +have his facts and figures shown up by his honorable friend on the +opposite side. Even the scientific or literary lecturer, if he is dull +or incompetent, may see the best part of his audience quietly slip out +one by one. But the preacher is completely master of the situation: no +one may hiss, no one may depart. Like the writer of imaginary +conversations, he may put what imbecilities he pleases into the mouths of +his antagonists, and swell with triumph when he has refuted them. He may +riot in gratuitous assertions, confident that no man will contradict him; +he may exercise perfect free-will in logic, and invent illustrative +experience; he may give an evangelical edition of history with the +inconvenient facts omitted:—all this he may do with impunity, certain +that those of his hearers who are not sympathizing are not listening. +For the Press has no band of critics who go the round of the churches and +chapels, and are on the watch for a slip or defect in the preacher, to +make a “feature” in their article: the clergy are, practically, the most +irresponsible of all talkers. For this reason, at least, it is well that +they do not always allow their discourses to be merely fugitive, but are +often induced to fix them in that black and white in which they are open +to the criticism of any man who has the courage and patience to treat +them with thorough freedom of speech and pen. + +It is because we think this criticism of clerical teaching desirable for +the public good that we devote some pages to Dr. Cumming. He is, as +every one knows, a preacher of immense popularity, and of the numerous +publications in which he perpetuates his pulpit labors, all circulate +widely, and some, according to their title-page, have reached the +sixteenth thousand. Now our opinion of these publications is the very +opposite of that given by a newspaper eulogist: we do _not_ “believe that +the repeated issues of Dr. Cumming’s thoughts are having a beneficial +effect on society,” but the reverse; and hence, little inclined as we are +to dwell on his pages, we think it worth while to do so, for the sake of +pointing out in them what we believe to be profoundly mistaken and +pernicious. Of Dr. Cumming personally we know absolutely nothing: our +acquaintance with him is confined to a perusal of his works, our judgment +of him is founded solely on the manner in which he has written himself +down on his pages. We know neither how he looks nor how he lives. We +are ignorant whether, like St. Paul, he has a bodily presence that is +weak and contemptible, or whether his person is as florid and as prone to +amplification as his style. For aught we know, he may not only have the +gift of prophecy, but may bestow the profits of all his works to feed the +poor, and be ready to give his own body to be burned with as much +alacrity as he infers the everlasting burning of Roman Catholics and +Puseyites. Out of the pulpit he may be a model of justice, truthfulness, +and the love that thinketh no evil; but we are obliged to judge of his +charity by the spirit we find in his sermons, and shall only be glad to +learn that his practice is, in many respects, an amiable _non sequitur_ +from his teaching. + +Dr. Cumming’s mind is evidently not of the pietistic order. There is not +the slightest leaning toward mysticism in his Christianity—no indication +of religious raptures, of delight in God, of spiritual communion with the +Father. He is most at home in the forensic view of Justification, and +dwells on salvation as a scheme rather than as an experience. He insists +on good works as the sign of justifying faith, as labors to be achieved +to the glory of God, but he rarely represents them as the spontaneous, +necessary outflow of a soul filled with Divine love. He is at home in +the external, the polemical, the historical, the circumstantial, and is +only episodically devout and practical. The great majority of his +published sermons are occupied with argument or philippic against +Romanists and unbelievers, with “vindications” of the Bible, with the +political interpretation of prophecy, or the criticism of public events; +and the devout aspiration, or the spiritual and practical exhortation, is +tacked to them as a sort of fringe in a hurried sentence or two at the +end. He revels in the demonstration that the Pope is the Man of Sin; he +is copious on the downfall of the Ottoman empire; he appears to glow with +satisfaction in turning a story which tends to show how he abashed an +“infidel;” it is a favorite exercise with him to form conjectures of the +process by which the earth is to be burned up, and to picture Dr. +Chalmers and Mr. Wilberforce being caught up to meet Christ in the air, +while Romanists, Puseyites, and infidels are given over to gnashing of +teeth. But of really spiritual joys and sorrows, of the life and death +of Christ as a manifestation of love that constrains the soul, of +sympathy with that yearning over the lost and erring which made Jesus +weep over Jerusalem, and prompted the sublime prayer, “Father, forgive +them,” of the gentler fruits of the Spirit, and the peace of God which +passeth understanding—of all this, we find little trace in Dr. Cumming’s +discourses. + +His style is in perfect correspondence with this habit of mind. Though +diffuse, as that of all preachers must be, it has rapidity of movement, +perfect clearness, and some aptness of illustration. He has much of that +literary talent which makes a good journalist—the power of beating out an +idea over a large space, and of introducing far-fetched _à propos_. His +writings have, indeed, no high merit: they have no originality or force +of thought, no striking felicity of presentation, no depth of emotion. +Throughout nine volumes we have alighted on no passage which impressed us +as worth extracting, and placing among the “beauties,” of evangelical +writers, such as Robert Hall, Foster the Essayist, or Isaac Taylor. +Everywhere there is commonplace cleverness, nowhere a spark of rare +thought, of lofty sentiment, or pathetic tenderness. We feel ourselves +in company with a voluble retail talker, whose language is exuberant but +not exact, and to whom we should never think of referring for precise +information or for well-digested thought and experience. His argument +continually slides into wholesale assertion and vague declamation, and in +his love of ornament he frequently becomes tawdry. For example, he tells +us (“Apoc. Sketches,” p. 265) that “Botany weaves around the cross her +amaranthine garlands; and Newton comes from his starry home—Linnæus from +his flowery resting-place—and Werner and Hutton from their subterranean +graves at the voice of Chalmers, to acknowledge that all they learned and +elicited in their respective provinces has only served to show more +clearly that Jesus of Nazareth is enthroned on the riches of the +universe:”—and so prosaic an injunction to his hearers as that they +should choose a residence within an easy distance of church, is +magnificently draped by him as an exhortation to prefer a house “that +basks in the sunshine of the countenance of God.” Like all preachers of +his class, he is more fertile in imaginative paraphrase than in close +exposition, and in this way he gives us some remarkable fragments of what +we may call the romance of Scripture, filling up the outline of the +record with an elaborate coloring quite undreamed of by more literal +minds. The serpent, he informs us, said to Eve, “Can it be so? Surely +you are mistaken, that God hath said you shall die, a creature so fair, +so lovely, so beautiful. It is impossible. _The laws of nature and +physical science tell you that my interpretation is correct_; you shall +not die. I can tell you by my own experience as an angel that you shall +be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (“Apoc. Sketches,” p. 294.) Again, +according to Dr. Cumming, Abel had so clear an idea of the Incarnation +and Atonement, that when he offered his sacrifice “he must have said, ‘I +feel myself a guilty sinner, and that in myself I cannot meet thee alive; +I lay on thine altar this victim, and I shed its blood as my testimony +that mine should be shed; and I look for forgiveness and undeserved mercy +through him who is to bruise the serpent’s head, and whose atonement this +typifies.’” (“Occas. Disc.” vol. i. p. 23.) Indeed, his productions are +essentially ephemeral; he is essentially a journalist, who writes sermons +instead of leading articles, who, instead of venting diatribes against +her Majesty’s Ministers, directs his power of invective against Cardinal +Wiseman and the Puseyites; instead of declaiming on public spirit, +perorates on the “glory of God.” We fancy he is called, in the more +refined evangelical circles, an “intellectual preacher;” by the plainer +sort of Christians, a “flowery preacher;” and we are inclined to think +that the more spiritually minded class of believers, who look with +greater anxiety for the kingdom of God within them than for the visible +advent of Christ in 1864, will be likely to find Dr. Cumming’s +declamatory flights and historico-prophetical exercitations as little +better than “clouts o’ cauld parritch.” + +Such is our general impression from his writings after an attentive +perusal. There are some particular characteristics which we shall +consider more closely, but in doing so we must be understood as +altogether declining any doctrinal discussion. We have no intention to +consider the grounds of Dr. Cumming’s dogmatic system, to examine the +principles of his prophetic exegesis, or to question his opinion +concerning the little horn, the river Euphrates, or the seven vials. We +identify ourselves with no one of the bodies whom he regards it as his +special mission to attack: we give our adhesion neither to Romanism, +Puseyism, nor to that anomalous combination of opinions which he +introduces to us under the name of infidelity. It is simply as +spectators that we criticise Dr. Cumming’s mode of warfare, and we +concern ourselves less with what he holds to be Christian truth than with +his manner of enforcing that truth, less with the doctrines he teaches +than with the moral spirit and tendencies of his teaching. + +One of the most striking characteristics of Dr. Cumming’s writings is +_unscrupulosity of statement_. His motto apparently is, +_Christianitatem_, _quocunque modo_, _Christianitatem_; and the only +system he includes under the term Christianity is Calvinistic +Protestantism. Experience has so long shown that the human brain is a +congenial nidus for inconsistent beliefs that we do not pause to inquire +how Dr. Cumming, who attributes the conversion of the unbelieving to the +Divine Spirit, can think it necessary to co-operate with that Spirit by +argumentative white lies. Nor do we for a moment impugn the genuineness +of his zeal for Christianity, or the sincerity of his conviction that the +doctrines he preaches are necessary to salvation; on the contrary, we +regard the flagrant unveracity that we find on his pages as an indirect +result of that conviction—as a result, namely, of the intellectual and +moral distortion of view which is inevitably produced by assigning to +dogmas, based on a very complex structure of evidence, the place and +authority of first truths. A distinct appreciation of the value of +evidence—in other words, the intellectual perception of truth—is more +closely allied to truthfulness of statement, or the moral quality of +veracity, than is generally admitted. There is not a more pernicious +fallacy afloat, in common parlance, than the wide distinction made +between intellect and morality. Amiable impulses without intellect, man +may have in common with dogs and horses; but morality, which is +specifically human, is dependent on the regulation of feeling by +intellect. All human beings who can be said to be in any degree moral +have their impulses guided, not indeed always by their own intellect, but +by the intellect of human beings who have gone before them, and created +traditions and associations which have taken the rank of laws. Now that +highest moral habit, the constant preference of truth, both theoretically +and practically, pre-eminently demands the co-operation of the intellect +with the impulses, as is indicated by the fact that it is only found in +anything like completeness in the highest class of minds. In accordance +with this we think it is found that, in proportion as religious sects +exalt feeling above intellect, and believe themselves to be guided by +direct inspiration rather than by a spontaneous exertion of their +faculties—that is, in proportion as they are removed from +rationalism—their sense of truthfulness is misty and confused. No one +can have talked to the more enthusiastic Methodists and listened to their +stories of miracles without perceiving that they require no other +passport to a statement than that it accords with their wishes and their +general conception of God’s dealings; nay, they regard as a symptom of +sinful scepticism an inquiry into the evidence for a story which they +think unquestionably tends to the glory of God, and in retailing such +stories, new particulars, further tending to his glory, are “borne in” +upon their minds. Now, Dr. Cumming, as we have said, is no enthusiastic +pietist: within a certain circle—within the mill of evangelical +orthodoxy—his intellect is perpetually at work; but that principle of +sophistication which our friends the Methodists derive from the +predominance of their pietistic feelings, is involved for him in the +doctrine of verbal inspiration; what is for them a state of emotion +submerging the intellect, is with him a formula imprisoning the +intellect, depriving it of its proper function—the free search for +truth—and making it the mere servant-of-all-work to a foregone +conclusion. Minds fettered by this doctrine no longer inquire concerning +a proposition whether it is attested by sufficient evidence, but whether +it accords with Scripture; they do not search for facts, as such, but for +facts that will bear out their doctrine. They become accustomed to +reject the more direct evidence in favor of the less direct, and where +adverse evidence reaches demonstration they must resort to devices and +expedients in order to explain away contradiction. It is easy to see +that this mental habit blunts not only the perception of truth, but the +sense of truthfulness, and that the man whose faith drives him into +fallacies treads close upon the precipice of falsehood. + +We have entered into this digression for the sake of mitigating the +inference that is likely to be drawn from that characteristic of Dr. +Cumming’s works to which we have pointed. He is much in the same +intellectual condition as that professor of Padua; who, in order to +disprove Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s satellites, urged that as there +were only seven metals there could not be more than seven planets—a +mental condition scarcely compatible with candor. And we may well +suppose that if the professor had held the belief in seven planets, and +no more, to be a necessary condition of salvation, his mental condition +would have been so dazed that even if he had consented to look through +Galileo’s telescope, his eyes would have reported in accordance with his +inward alarms rather than with the external fact. So long as a belief in +propositions is regarded as indispensable to salvation, the pursuit of +truth _as such_ is not possible, any more than it is possible for a man +who is swimming for his life to make meteorological observations on the +storm which threatens to overwhelm him. The sense of alarm and haste, +the anxiety for personal safety, which Dr. Cumming insists upon as the +proper religious attitude, unmans the nature, and allows no thorough, +calm thinking no truly noble, disinterested feeling. Hence, we by no +means suspect that the unscrupulosity of statement with which we charge +Dr. Cumming, extends beyond the sphere of his theological prejudices; we +do not doubt that, religion apart, he appreciates and practices veracity. + +A grave general accusation must be supported by details, and in adducing +those we purposely select the most obvious cases of +misrepresentation—such as require no argument to expose them, but can be +perceived at a glance. Among Dr. Cumming’s numerous books, one of the +most notable for unscrupulosity of statement is the “Manual of Christian +Evidences,” written, as he tells us in his Preface, not to give the +deepest solutions of the difficulties in question, but to furnish +Scripture Readers, City Missionaries, and Sunday School Teachers, with a +“ready reply” to sceptical arguments. This announcement that _readiness_ +was the chief quality sought for in the solutions here given, modifies +our inference from the other qualities which those solutions present; and +it is but fair to presume that when the Christian disputant is not in a +hurry Dr. Cumming would recommend replies less ready and more veracious. +Here is an example of what in another place {74} he tells his readers is +“change in their pocket . . . a little ready argument which they can +employ, and therewith answer a fool according to his folly.” From the +nature of this argumentative small coin, we are inclined to think Dr. +Cumming understands answering a fool according to his folly to mean, +giving him a foolish answer. We quote from the “Manual of Christian +Evidences,” p. 62. + + “Some of the gods which the heathen worshipped were among the + greatest monsters that ever walked the earth. Mercury was a thief; + and because he was an expert thief he was enrolled among the gods. + Bacchus was a mere sensualist and drunkard, and therefore he was + enrolled among the gods. Venus was a dissipated and abandoned + courtesan, and therefore she was enrolled among the goddesses. Mars + was a savage, that gloried in battle and in blood, and therefore he + was deified and enrolled among the gods.” + +Does Dr. Cumming believe the purport of these sentences? If so, this +passage is worth handing down as his theory of the Greek myth—as a +specimen of the astounding ignorance which was possible in a metropolitan +preacher, A.D. 1854. And if he does not believe them . . . The inference +must then be, that he thinks delicate veracity about the ancient Greeks +is not a Christian virtue, but only a “splendid sin” of the unregenerate. +This inference is rendered the more probable by our finding, a little +further on, that he is not more scrupulous about the moderns, if they +come under his definition of “Infidels.” But the passage we are about to +quote in proof of this has a worse quality than its discrepancy with +fact. Who that has a spark of generous feeling, that rejoices in the +presence of good in a fellow-being, has not dwelt with pleasure on the +thought that Lord Byron’s unhappy career was ennobled and purified toward +its close by a high and sympathetic purpose, by honest and energetic +efforts for his fellow-men? Who has not read with deep emotion those +last pathetic lines, beautiful as the after-glow of sunset, in which love +and resignation are mingled with something of a melancholy heroism? Who +has not lingered with compassion over the dying scene at Missolonghi—the +sufferer’s inability to make his farewell messages of love intelligible, +and the last long hours of silent pain? Yet for the sake of furnishing +his disciples with a “ready reply,” Dr. Cumming can prevail on himself to +inoculate them with a bad-spirited falsity like the following: + + “We have one striking exhibition of _an infidel’s brightest + thoughts_, in some lines _written in his dying moments_ by a man, + gifted with great genius, capable of prodigious intellectual prowess, + but of worthless principle, and yet more worthless practices—I mean + the celebrated Lord Byron. He says: + + “‘Though gay companions o’er the bowl + Dispel awhile the sense of ill, + Though pleasure fills the maddening soul, + The heart—_the heart_ is lonely still. + + “‘Ay, but to die, and go, alas! + Where all have gone and all must go; + To be the _Nothing_ that I was, + Ere born to life and living woe! + + “‘Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen, + Count o’er thy days from anguish free, + And know, whatever thou hast been, + Tis _something better_ not to be. + + “‘Nay, for myself, so dark my fate + Through every turn of life hath been, + _Man_ and the _world_ so much _I hate_, + I care not when I quit the scene.’” + +It is difficult to suppose that Dr. Cumming can have been so grossly +imposed upon—that he can be so ill-informed as really to believe that +these lines were “written” by Lord Byron in his dying moments; but, +allowing him the full benefit of that possibility, how shall we explain +his introduction of this feebly rabid doggrel as “an infidel’s brightest +thoughts?” + +In marshalling the evidences of Christianity, Dr. Cumming directs most of +his arguments against opinions that are either totally imaginary, or that +belong to the past rather than to the present, while he entirely fails to +meet the difficulties actually felt and urged by those who are unable to +accept Revelation. There can hardly be a stronger proof of misconception +as to the character of free-thinking in the present day, than the +recommendation of Leland’s “Short and Easy Method with the Deists”—a +method which is unquestionably short and easy for preachers disinclined +to reconsider their stereotyped modes of thinking and arguing, but which +has quite ceased to realize those epithets in the conversion of Deists. +Yet Dr. Cumming not only recommends this book, but takes the trouble +himself to write a feebler version of its arguments. For example, on the +question of the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testament +writing’s, he says: “If, therefore, at a period long subsequent to the +death of Christ, a number of men had appeared in the world, drawn up a +book which they christened by the name of the Holy Scripture, and +recorded these things which appear in it as facts when they were only the +fancies of their own imagination, surely the _Jews_ would have instantly +reclaimed that no such events transpired, that no such person as Jesus +Christ appeared in their capital, and that _their_ crucifixion of Him, +and their alleged evil treatment of his apostles, were mere fictions.” +{76} It is scarcely necessary to say that, in such argument as this, Dr. +Cumming is beating the air. He is meeting a hypothesis which no one +holds, and totally missing the real question. The only type of “infidel” +whose existence Dr. Cumming recognizes is that fossil personage who +“calls the Bible a lie and a forgery.” He seems to be ignorant—or he +chooses to ignore the fact—that there is a large body of eminently +instructed and earnest men who regard the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures +as a series of historical documents, to be dealt with according to the +rules of historical criticism, and that an equally large number of men, +who are not historical critics, find the dogmatic scheme built on the +letter of the Scriptures opposed to their profoundest moral convictions. +Dr. Cumming’s infidel is a man who, because his life is vicious, tries to +convince himself that there is no God, and that Christianity is an +imposture, but who is all the while secretly conscious that he is +opposing the truth, and cannot help “letting out” admissions “that the +Bible is the Book of God.” We are favored with the following “Creed of +the Infidel:” + + “I believe that there is no God, but that matter is God, and God is + matter; and that it is no matter whether there is any God or not. I + believe also that the world was not made, but that the world made + itself, or that it had no beginning, and that it will last forever. + I believe that man is a beast; that the soul is the body, and that + the body is the soul; and that after death there is neither body nor + soul. I believe there is no religion, that _natural religion is the + only religion_, _and all religion unnatural_. I believe not in + Moses; I believe in the first philosophers. I believe not in the + evangelists; I believe in Chubb, Collins, Toland, Tindal, and Hobbes. + I believe in Lord Bolingbroke, and I believe not in St. Paul. I + believe not in revelation; _I believe in tradition_; _I believe in + the Talmud_; _I believe in the Koran_; I believe not in the Bible. I + believe in Socrates; I believe in Confucius; I believe in Mahomet; I + believe not in Christ. And lastly, _I believe_ in all unbelief.” + +The intellectual and moral monster whose creed is this complex web of +contradictions, is, moreover, according to Dr. Cumming, a being who +unites much simplicity and imbecility with his Satanic hardihood—much +tenderness of conscience with his obdurate vice. Hear the “proof:” + + “I once met with an acute and enlightened infidel, with whom I + reasoned day after day, and for hours together; I submitted to him + the internal, the external, and the experimental evidences, but made + no impression on his scorn and unbelief. At length I entertained a + suspicion that there was something morally, rather than + intellectually wrong, and that the bias was not in the intellect, but + in the heart; one day therefore I said to him, ‘I must now state my + conviction, and you may call me uncharitable, but duty compels me; + you are living in some known and gross sin.’ _The man’s countenance + became pale_; _he bowed and left me_.”—“Man. of Evidences,” p. 254. + +Here we have the remarkable psychological phenomenon of an “acute and +enlightened” man who, deliberately purposing to indulge in a favorite +sin, and regarding the Gospel with scorn and unbelief, is, nevertheless, +so much more scrupulous than the majority of Christians, that he cannot +“embrace sin and the Gospel simultaneously;” who is so alarmed at the +Gospel in which he does not believe, that he cannot be easy without +trying to crush it; whose acuteness and enlightenment suggest to him, as +a means of crushing the Gospel, to argue from day to day with Dr. +Cumming; and who is withal so naïve that he is taken by surprise when Dr. +Cumming, failing in argument, resorts to accusation, and so tender in +conscience that, at the mention of his sin, he turns pale and leaves the +spot. If there be any human mind in existence capable of holding Dr. +Cumming’s “Creed of the Infidel,” of at the same time believing in +tradition and “believing in all unbelief,” it must be the mind of the +infidel just described, for whose existence we have Dr. Cumming’s _ex +officio_ word as a theologian; and to theologians we may apply what +Sancho Panza says of the bachelors of Salamanca, that they never tell +lies—except when it suits their purpose. + +The total absence from Dr. Cumming’s theological mind of any demarcation +between fact and rhetoric is exhibited in another passage, where he +adopts the dramatic form: + + “Ask the peasant on the hills—and _I have asked amid the mountains of + Braemar and Deeside_—‘How do you know that this book is divine, and + that the religion you profess is true? You never read Paley?’ ‘No, + I never heard of him.’—‘You have never read Butler?’ ‘No, I have + never heard of him.’—‘Nor Chalmers?’ ‘No, I do not know him.’—‘You + have never read any books on evidence?’ ‘No, I have read no such + books.’—‘Then, how do you know this book is true?’ ‘Know it! Tell + me that the Dee, the Clunie, and the Garrawalt, the streams at my + feet, do not run; that the winds do not sigh amid the gorges of these + blue hills; that the sun does not kindle the peaks of Loch-na-Gar; + tell me my heart does not beat, and I will believe you; but do not + tell me the Bible is not divine. I have found its truth illuminating + my footsteps; its consolations sustaining my heart. May my tongue + cleave to my mouth’s roof and my right hand forget its cunning, if I + every deny what is my deepest inner experience, that this blessed + book is the book of God.’”—“Church Before the Flood,” p. 35. + +Dr. Cumming is so slippery and lax in his mode of presentation that we +find it impossible to gather whether he means to assert that this is what +a peasant on the mountains of Braemar _did_ say, or that it is what such +a peasant _would_ say: in the one case, the passage may be taken as a +measure of his truthfulness; in the other, of his judgment. + +His own faith, apparently, has not been altogether intuitive, like that +of his rhetorical peasant, for he tells us (“Apoc. Sketches,” p. 405) +that he has himself experienced what it is to have religious doubts. “I +was tainted while at the University by this spirit of scepticism. I +thought Christianity might not be true. The very possibility of its +being true was the thought I felt I must meet and settle. Conscience +could give me no peace till I had settled it. I read, and I read from +that day, for fourteen or fifteen years, till this, and now I am as +convinced, upon the clearest evidence, that this book is the book of God +as that I now address you.” This experience, however, instead of +impressing on him the fact that doubt may be the stamp of a truth-loving +mind—that _sunt quibus non credidisse honor est_, _et fidei futuræ +pignus_—seems to have produced precisely the contrary effect. It has not +enabled him even to conceive the condition of a mind “perplext in faith +but pure in deeds,” craving light, yearning for a faith that will +harmonize and cherish its highest powers and aspirations, but unable to +find that faith in dogmatic Christianity. His own doubts apparently were +of a different kind. Nowhere in his pages have we found a humble, +candid, sympathetic attempt to meet the difficulties that may be felt by +an ingenuous mind. Everywhere he supposes that the doubter is hardened, +conceited, consciously shutting his eyes to the light—a fool who is to be +answered according to his folly—that is, with ready replies made up of +reckless assertions, of apocryphal anecdotes, and, where other resources +fail, of vituperative imputation. As to the reading which he has +prosecuted for fifteen years—_either_ it has left him totally ignorant of +the relation which his own religions creed bears to the criticism and +philosophy of the nineteenth century, or he systematically blinks that +criticism and that philosophy; and instead of honestly and seriously +endeavoring to meet and solve what he knows to be the real difficulties, +contents himself with setting up popinjays to shoot at, for the sake of +confirming the ignorance and winning the heap admiration of his +evangelical hearers and readers. Like the Catholic preacher who, after +throwing down his cap and apostrophizing it as Luther, turned to his +audience and said, “You see this heretical fellow has not a word to say +for himself,” Dr. Cumming, having drawn his ugly portrait of the infidel, +and put arguments of a convenient quality into his mouth, finds a “short +and easy method” of confounding this “croaking frog.” + +In his treatment of infidels, we imagine he is guided by a mental process +which may be expressed in the following syllogism: Whatever tends to the +glory of God is true; it is for the glory of God that infidels should be +as bad as possible; therefore, whatever tends to show that infidels are +as bad as possible is true. All infidels, he tells us, have been men of +“gross and licentious lives.” Is there not some well-known unbeliever, +David Hume, for example, of whom even Dr. Cumming’s readers may have +heard as an exception? No matter. Some one suspected that he was _not_ +an exception, and as that suspicion tends to the glory of God, it is one +for a Christian to entertain. (See “Man. of Ev.,” p. 73.)—If we were +unable to imagine this kind of self-sophistication, we should be obliged +to suppose that, relying on the ignorance of his evangelical disciples, +he fed them with direct and conscious falsehoods. “Voltaire,” he informs +them, “declares there is no God;” he was “an antitheist, that is one who +deliberately and avowedly opposed and hated God; who swore in his +blasphemy that he would dethrone him;” and “advocated the very depths of +the lowest sensuality.” With regard to many statements of a similar +kind, equally at variance with truth, in Dr. Cumming’s volumes, we +presume that he has been misled by hearsay or by the second-hand +character of his acquaintance with free-thinking literature. An +evangelical preacher is not obliged to be well-read. Here, however, is a +case which the extremest supposition of educated ignorance will not +reach. Even books of “evidences” quote from Voltaire the line— + + “Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer;” + +even persons fed on the mere whey and buttermilk of literature must know +that in philosophy Voltaire was nothing if not a theist—must know that he +wrote not against God, but against Jehovah, the God of the Jews, whom he +believed to be a false God—must know that to say Voltaire was an atheist +on this ground is as absurd as to say that a Jacobite opposed hereditary +monarchy because he declared the Brunswick family had no title to the +throne. That Dr. Cumming should repeat the vulgar fables about +Voltaire’s death is merely what we might expect from the specimens we +have seen of his illustrative stories. A man whose accounts of his own +experience are apocryphal is not likely to put borrowed narratives to any +severe test. + +The alliance between intellectual and moral perversion is strikingly +typified by the way in which he alternates from the unveracious to the +absurd, from misrepresentation to contradiction. Side by side with the +abduction of “facts” such as those we have quoted, we find him arguing on +one page that the Trinity was too grand a doctrine to have been conceived +by man, and was _therefore_ Divine; and on another page, that the +Incarnation _had_ been preconceived by man, and is _therefore_ to be +accepted as Divine. But we are less concerned with the fallacy of his +“ready replies” than with their falsity; and even of this we can only +afford space for a very few specimens. Here is one: “There is a +_thousand times_ more proof that the gospel of John was written by him +than there is that the _Αναβασις_ was written by Xenophon, or the Ars +Poetica by Horace.” If Dr. Cumming had chosen Plato’s Epistles or +Anacreon’s Poems instead of the Anabasis or the Ars Poetica, he would +have reduced the extent of the falsehood, and would have furnished a +ready reply which would have been equally effective with his +Sunday-school teachers and their disputants. Hence we conclude this +prodigality of misstatement, this exuberance of mendacity, is an +effervescence of zeal _in majorem gloriam Dei_. Elsewhere he tells us +that “the idea of the author of the ‘Vestiges’ is, that man is the +development of a monkey, that the monkey is the embryo man, so that _if +you keep a baboon long enough_, _it will develop itself into a man_.” +How well Dr. Cumming has qualified himself to judge of the ideas in “that +very unphilosophical book,” as he pronounces it, may be inferred from the +fact that he implies the author of the “Vestiges” to have _originated_ +the nebular hypothesis. + +In the volume from which the last extract is taken, even the hardihood of +assertion is surpassed by the suicidal character of the argument. It is +called “The Church before the Flood,” and is devoted chiefly to the +adjustment of the question between the Bible and Geology. Keeping within +the limits we have prescribed to ourselves, we do not enter into the +matter of this discussion; we merely pause a little over the volume in +order to point out Dr. Cumming’s mode of treating the question. He first +tells us that “the Bible has not a single scientific error in it;” that +“_its slightest intimations of scientific principles or natural phenomena +have in every instance been demonstrated to be exactly and strictly +true_,” and he asks: + + “How is it that Moses, with no greater education than the Hindoo or + the ancient philosopher, has written his book, touching science at a + thousand points, so accurately that scientific research has + discovered no flaws in it; and yet in those investigations which have + taken place in more recent centuries, it has not been shown that he + has committed one single error, or made one solitary assertion which + can be proved by the maturest science, or by the most eagle-eyed + philosopher, to be incorrect, scientifically or historically?” + +According to this the relation of the Bible to science should be one of +the strong points of apologists for revelation: the scientific accuracy +of Moses should stand at the head of their evidences; and they might urge +with some cogency, that since Aristotle, who devoted himself to science, +and lived many ages after Moses, does little else than err ingeniously, +this fact, that the Jewish Lawgiver, though touching science at a +thousand points, has written nothing that has not been “demonstrated to +be exactly and strictly true,” is an irrefragable proof of his having +derived his knowledge from a supernatural source. How does it happen, +then, that Dr. Cumming forsakes this strong position? How is it that we +find him, some pages further on, engaged in reconciling Genesis with the +discoveries of science, by means of imaginative hypotheses and feats of +“interpretation?” Surely, that which has been demonstrated to be exactly +and strictly true does not require hypothesis and critical argument, in +order to show that it may _possibly_ agree with those very discoveries by +means of which its exact and strict truth has been demonstrated. And why +should Dr. Cumming suppose, as we shall presently find him supposing, +that men of science hesitate to accept the Bible, because it appears to +contradict their discoveries? By his own statement, that appearance of +contradiction does not exist; on the contrary, it has been demonstrated +that the Bible precisely agrees with their discoveries. Perhaps, +however, in saying of the Bible that its “slightest intimations of +scientific principles or natural phenomena have in every instance been +demonstrated to be exactly and strictly true,” Dr. Cumming merely means +to imply that theologians have found out a way of explaining the biblical +text so that it no longer, in their opinion, appears to be in +contradiction with the discoveries of science. One of two things, +therefore: either he uses language without the slightest appreciation of +its real meaning, or the assertions he makes on one page are directly +contradicted by the arguments he urges on another. + +Dr. Cumming’s principles—or, we should rather say, confused notions—of +biblical interpretation, as exhibited in this volume, are particularly +significant of his mental calibre. He says (“Church before the Flood,” +p. 93): “Men of science, who are full of scientific investigation and +enamored of scientific discovery, will hesitate before they accept a book +which, they think, contradicts the plainest and the most unequivocal +disclosures they have made in the bowels of the earth, or among the stars +of the sky. To all these we answer, as we have already indicated, there +is not the least dissonance between God’s written book and the most +mature discoveries of geological science. One thing, however, there may +be: _there may be a contradiction between the discoveries of geology and +our preconceived interpretations of the Bible_. But this is not because +the Bible is wrong, but because our interpretation is wrong.” (The +italics in all cases are our own.) + +Elsewhere he says: “It seems to me plainly evident that the record of +Genesis, when read fairly, and not in the light of our prejudices—_and +mind you_, _the essence of Popery is to read the Bible in the light of +our opinions_, _instead of viewing our opinions in the light of the +Bible_, _in its plain and obvious sense_—falls in perfectly with the +assertion of geologists.” + +On comparing these two passages, we gather that when Dr. Cumming, under +stress of geological discovery, assigns to the biblical text a meaning +entirely different from that which, on his own showing, was universally +ascribed to it for more than three thousand years, he regards himself as +“viewing his opinions in the light of the Bible in its plain and obvious +sense!” Now he is reduced to one of two alternatives: either he must +hold that the “plain and obvious meaning” of the whole Bible differs from +age to age, so that the criterion of its meaning lies in the sum of +knowledge possessed by each successive age—the Bible being an elastic +garment for the growing thought of mankind; or he must hold that some +portions are amenable to this criterion, and others not so. In the +former case, he accepts the principle of interpretation adopted by the +early German rationalists; in the latter case he has to show a further +criterion by which we can judge what parts of the Bible are elastic and +what rigid. If he says that the interpretation of the text is rigid +wherever it treats of doctrines necessary to salvation, we answer, that +for doctrines to be necessary to salvation they must first be true; and +in order to be true, according to his own principle, they must be founded +on a correct interpretation of the biblical text. Thus he makes the +necessity of doctrines to salvation the criterion of infallible +interpretation, and infallible interpretation the criterion of doctrines +being necessary to salvation. He is whirled round in a circle, having, +by admitting the principle of novelty in interpretation, completely +deprived himself of a basis. That he should seize the very moment in +which he is most palpably betraying that he has no test of biblical truth +beyond his own opinion, as an appropriate occasion for flinging the +rather novel reproach against Popery that its essence is to “read the +Bible in the light of our opinions,” would be an almost pathetic +self-exposure, if it were not disgusting. Imbecility that is not even +meek, ceases to be pitiable, and becomes simply odious. + +Parenthetic lashes of this kind against Popery are very frequent with Dr. +Cumming, and occur even in his more devout passages, where their +introduction must surely disturb the spiritual exercises of his hearers. +Indeed, Roman Catholics fare worse with him even than infidels. Infidels +are the small vermin—the mice to be bagged _en passant_. The main object +of his chase—the rats which are to be nailed up as trophies—are the Roman +Catholics. Romanism is the masterpiece of Satan; but reassure +yourselves! Dr. Cumming has been created. Antichrist is enthroned in the +Vatican; but he is stoutly withstood by the Boanerges of Crown-court. +The personality of Satan, as might be expected, is a very prominent tenet +in Dr. Cumming’s discourses; those who doubt it are, he thinks, +“generally specimens of the victims of Satan as a triumphant seducer;” +and it is through the medium of this doctrine that he habitually +contemplates Roman Catholics. They are the puppets of which the devil +holds the strings. It is only exceptionally that he speaks of them as +fellow-men, acted on by the same desires, fears, and hopes as himself; +his _rule_ is to hold them up to his hearers as foredoomed instruments of +Satan and vessels of wrath. If he is obliged to admit that they are “no +shams,” that they are “thoroughly in earnest”—that is because they are +inspired by hell, because they are under an “infra-natural” influence. +If their missionaries are found wherever Protestant missionaries go, this +zeal in propagating their faith is not in them a consistent virtue, as it +is in Protestants, but a “melancholy fact,” affording additional evidence +that they are instigated and assisted by the devil. And Dr. Cumming is +inclined to think that they work miracles, because that is no more than +might be expected from the known ability of Satan who inspires them. +{86a} He admits, indeed, that “there is a fragment of the Church of +Christ in the very bosom of that awful apostasy,” {86b} and that there +are members of the Church of Rome in glory; but this admission is rare +and episodical—is a declaration, _pro formâ_, about as influential on the +general disposition and habits as an aristocrat’s profession of +democracy. + +This leads us to mention another conspicuous characteristic of Dr. +Cumming’s teaching—the _absence of genuine charity_. It is true that he +makes large profession of tolerance and liberality within a certain +circle; he exhorts Christians to unity; he would have Churchmen +fraternize with Dissenters, and exhorts these two branches of God’s +family to defer the settlement of their differences till the millennium. +But the love thus taught is the love of the _clan_, which is the +correlative of antagonism to the rest of mankind. It is not sympathy and +helpfulness toward men as men, but toward men as Christians, and as +Christians in the sense of a small minority. Dr. Cumming’s religion may +demand a tribute of love, but it gives a charter to hatred; it may enjoin +charity, but it fosters all uncharitableness. If I believe that God +tells me to love my enemies, but at the same time hates His own enemies +and requires me to have one will with Him, which has the larger scope, +love or hatred? And we refer to those pages of Dr. Cumming’s in which he +opposes Roman Catholics, Puseyites, and infidels—pages which form the +larger proportion of what he has published—for proof that the idea of God +which both the logic and spirit of his discourses keep present to his +hearers, is that of a God who hates his enemies, a God who teaches love +by fierce denunciations of wrath—a God who encourages obedience to his +precepts by elaborately revealing to us that his own government is in +precise opposition to those precepts. We know the usual evasions on this +subject. We know Dr. Cumming would say that even Roman Catholics are to +be loved and succored as men; that he would help even that “unclean +spirit,” Cardinal Wiseman, out of a ditch. But who that is in the +slightest degree acquainted with the action of the human mind will +believe that any genuine and large charity can grow out of an exercise of +love which is always to have an _arrière-pensée_ of hatred? Of what +quality would be the conjugal love of a husband who loved his spouse as a +wife, but hated her as a woman? It is reserved for the regenerate mind, +according to Dr. Cumming’s conception of it, to be “wise, amazed, +temperate and furious, loyal and neutral, in a moment.” Precepts of +charity uttered with a faint breath at the end of a sermon are perfectly +futile, when all the force of the lungs has been spent in keeping the +hearer’s mind fixed on the conception of his fellow-men not as +fellow-sinners and fellow-sufferers, but as agents of hell, as automata +through whom Satan plays his game upon earth—not on objects which call +forth their reverence, their love, their hope of good even in the most +strayed and perverted, but on a minute identification of human things +with such symbols as the scarlet whore, the beast out of the abyss, +scorpions whose sting is in their tails, men who have the mark of the +beast, and unclean spirits like frogs. You might as well attempt to +educate the child’s sense of beauty by hanging its nursery with the +horrible and grotesque pictures in which the early painters represented +the Last Judgment, as expect Christian graces to flourish on that +prophetic interpretation which Dr. Cumming offers as the principal +nutriment of his flock. Quite apart from the critical basis of that +interpretation, quite apart from the degree of truth there may be in Dr. +Cumming’s prognostications—questions into which we do not choose to +enter—his use of prophecy must be _à priori_ condemned in the judgment of +right-minded persons, by its results as testified in the net moral effect +of his sermons. The best minds that accept Christianity as a divinely +inspired system, believe that the great end of the Gospel is not merely +the saving but the educating of men’s souls, the creating within them of +holy dispositions, the subduing of egoistical pretensions, and the +perpetual enhancing of the desire that the will of God—a will synonymous +with goodness and truth—may be done on earth. But what relation to all +this has a system of interpretation which keeps the mind of the Christian +in the position of a spectator at a gladiatorial show, of which Satan is +the wild beast in the shape of the great red dragon, and two thirds of +mankind the victims—the whole provided and got up by God for the +edification of the saints? The demonstration that the Second Advent is +at hand, if true, can have no really holy, spiritual effect; the highest +state of mind inculcated by the Gospel is resignation to the disposal of +God’s providence—“Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; whether we die, +we die unto the Lord”—not an eagerness to see a temporal manifestation +which shall confound the enemies of God and give exaltation to the +saints; it is to dwell in Christ by spiritual communion with his nature, +not to fix the date when He shall appear in the sky. Dr. Cumming’s +delight in shadowing forth the downfall of the Man of Sin, in +prognosticating the battle of Gog and Magog, and in advertising the +pre-millennial Advent, is simply the transportation of political passions +on to a so-called religious platform; it is the anticipation of the +triumph of “our party,” accomplished by our principal men being “sent +for” into the clouds. Let us be understood to speak in all seriousness. +If we were in search of amusement, we should not seek for it by examining +Dr. Cumming’s works in order to ridicule them. We are simply discharging +a disagreeable duty in delivering our opinion that, judged by the highest +standard even of orthodox Christianity, they are little calculated to +produce— + + “A closer walk with God, + A calm and heavenly frame;” + +but are more likely to nourish egoistic complacency and pretension, a +hard and condemnatory spirit toward one’s fellow-men, and a busy +occupation with the minutiæ of events, instead of a reverent +contemplation of great facts and a wise application of great principles. +It would be idle to consider Dr. Cumming’s theory of prophecy in any +other light; as a philosophy of history or a specimen of biblical +interpretation, it bears about the same relation to the extension of +genuine knowledge as the astrological “house” in the heavens bears to the +true structure and relations of the universe. + +The slight degree in which Dr. Cumming’s faith is imbued with truly human +sympathies is exhibited in the way he treats the doctrine of Eternal +Punishment. Here a little of that readiness to strain the letter of the +Scriptures which he so often manifests when his object is to prove a +point against Romanism, would have been an amiable frailty if it had been +applied on the side of mercy. When he is bent on proving that the +prophecy concerning the Man of Sin, in the Second Epistle to the +Thessalonians, refers to the Pope, he can extort from the innocent word +_καθισαι_ the meaning _cathedrize_, though why we are to translate “He as +God cathedrizes in the temple of God,” any more than we are to translate +“cathedrize here, while I go and pray yonder,” it is for Dr. Cumming to +show more clearly than he has yet done. But when rigorous literality +will favor the conclusion that the greater proportion of the human race +will be eternally miserable—_then_ he is rigorously literal. + +He says: “The Greek words, _εις_, _τους αιώνας των αιώνων_, here +translated ‘everlasting,’ signify literally ‘unto the ages of ages,’ αιει +ων, ‘always being,’ that is, everlasting, ceaseless existence. Plato +uses the word in this sense when he says, ‘The gods that live forever.’ +_But I must also admit_ that this word is used several times in a limited +extent—as for instance, ‘The everlasting hills.’ Of course this does not +mean that there never will be a time when the hills will cease to stand; +the expression here is evidently figurative, but it implies eternity. +The hills shall remain as long as the earth lasts, and no hand has power +to remove them but that Eternal One which first called them into being; +_so the state of the soul_ remains the same after death as long as the +soul exists, and no one has power to alter it. The same word is often +applied to denote the existence of God—‘the Eternal God.’ Can we limit +the word when applied to him? Because occasionally used in a limited +sense, we must not infer it is always so. ‘Everlasting’ plainly means in +Scripture ‘without end;’ it is only to be explained figuratively when it +is evident it cannot be interpreted in any other way.” + +We do not discuss whether Dr. Cumming’s interpretation accords with the +meaning of the New Testament writers: we simply point to the fact that +the text becomes elastic for him when he wants freer play for his +prejudices, while he makes it an adamantine barrier against the admission +that mercy will ultimately triumph—that God, _i.e._, Love, will be all in +all. He assures us that he does not “delight to dwell on the misery of +the lost:” and we believe him. That misery does not seem to be a +question of feeling with him, either one way or the other. He does not +merely resign himself to the awful mystery of eternal punishment; he +contends for it. Do we object, he asks, {90} to everlasting happiness? +then why object to everlasting misery?—reasoning which is perhaps felt to +be cogent by theologians who anticipate the everlasting happiness for +themselves, and the everlasting misery for their neighbors. + +The compassion of some Christians has been glad to take refuge in the +opinion that the Bible allows the supposition of annihilation for the +impenitent; but the rigid sequence of Dr. Cumming’s reasoning will not +admit of this idea. He sees that flax is made into linen, and linen into +paper; that paper, when burned, partly ascends as smoke and then again +descends in rain, or in dust and carbon. “Not one particle of the +original flax is lost, although there may be not one particle that has +not undergone an entire change: annihilation is not, but change of form +is. _It will be thus with our bodies at the resurrection_. The death of +the body means not annihilation. _Not one feature of the face_ will be +annihilated.” Having established the perpetuity of the body by this +close and clear analogy, namely, that _as_ there is a total change in the +particles of flax in consequence of which they no longer appear as flax, +_so_ there will _not_ be a total change in the particles of the human +body, but they will reappear as the human body, he does not seem to +consider that the perpetuity of the body involves the perpetuity of the +soul, but requires separate evidence for this, and finds such evidence by +begging the very question at issue—namely, by asserting that the text of +the Scripture implies “the perpetuity of the punishment of the lost, and +the consciousness of the punishment which they endure.” Yet it is +drivelling like this which is listened to and lauded as eloquence by +hundreds, and which a Doctor of Divinity can believe that he has his +“reward as a saint” for preaching and publishing! + +One more characteristic of Dr. Cumming’s writings, and we have done. +This is the _perverted moral judgment_ that everywhere reigns in them. +Not that this perversion is peculiar to Dr. Cumming: it belongs to the +dogmatic system which he shares with all evangelical believers. But the +abstract tendencies of systems are represented in very different degrees, +according to the different characters of those who embrace them; just as +the same food tells differently on different constitutions: and there are +certain qualities in Dr. Cumming that cause the perversion of which we +speak to exhibit itself with peculiar prominence in his teaching. A +single extract will enable us to explain what we mean: + + “The ‘thoughts’ are evil. If it were possible for human eye to + discern and to detect the thoughts that flutter around the heart of + an unregenerate man—to mark their hue and their multitude, it would + be found that they are indeed ‘evil.’ We speak not of the thief, and + the murderer, and the adulterer, and such like, whose crimes draw + down the cognizance of earthly tribunals, and whose unenviable + character it is to take the lead in the paths of sin; but we refer to + the men who are marked out by their practice of many of the seemliest + moralities of life—by the exercise of the kindliest affections, and + the interchange of the sweetest reciprocities—and of these men, if + unrenewed and unchanged, we pronounce that their thoughts are evil. + To ascertain this, we must refer to the object around which our + thoughts ought continually to circulate. The Scriptures assert that + this object is _the glory of God_; that for this we ought to think, + to act, and to speak; and that in thus thinking, acting, and + speaking, there is involved the purest and most endearing bliss. Now + it will be found true of the most amiable men, that with all their + good society and kindliness of heart, and all their strict and + unbending integrity, they never or rarely think of the glory of God. + The question never occurs to them—Will this redound to the glory of + God? Will this make his name more known, his being more loved, his + praise more sung? And just inasmuch as their every thought comes + short of this lofty aim, in so much does it come short of good, and + entitle itself to the character of evil. If the glory of God is not + the absorbing and the influential aim of their thoughts, then they + are evil; but God’s glory never enters into their minds. They are + amiable, because it chances to be one of the constitutional + tendencies of their individual character, left uneffaced by the Fall; + and _they are just and upright_, _because they have perhaps no + occasion to be otherwise_, _or find it subservient to their interests + to maintain such a character_.”—“Occ. Disc.” vol. i. p. 8. + +Again we read (Ibid. p. 236): + + “There are traits in the Christian character which the mere worldly + man cannot understand. He can understand the outward morality, but + he cannot understand the inner spring of it; he can understand + Dorcas’ liberality to the poor, but he cannot penetrate the ground of + Dorcas’ liberality. _Some men give to the poor because they are + ostentatious_, _or because they think the poor will ultimately avenge + their __neglect_; _but the Christian gives to the poor_, _not only + because he has sensibilities like other men_, but because inasmuch as + ye did it to the least of these my brethren ye did it unto me.” + +Before entering on the more general question involved in these +quotations, we must point to the clauses we have marked with italics, +where Dr. Cumming appears to express sentiments which, we are happy to +think, are not shared by the majority of his brethren in the faith. Dr. +Cumming, it seems, is unable to conceive that the natural man can have +any other motive for being just and upright than that it is useless to be +otherwise, or that a character for honesty is profitable; according to +his experience, between the feelings of ostentation and selfish alarm and +the feeling of love to Christ, there lie no sensibilities which can lead +a man to relieve want. Granting, as we should prefer to think, that it +is Dr. Cumming’s exposition of his sentiments which is deficient rather +than his sentiments themselves, still, the fact that the deficiency lies +precisely here, and that he can overlook it not only in the haste of oral +delivery but in the examination of proof-sheets, is strongly significant +of his mental bias—of the faint degree in which he sympathizes with the +disinterested elements of human feeling, and of the fact, which we are +about to dwell upon, that those feelings are totally absent from his +religious theory. Now, Dr. Cumming invariably assumes that, in +fulminating against those who differ from him, he is standing on a moral +elevation to which they are compelled reluctantly to look up; that his +theory of motives and conduct is in its loftiness and purity a perpetual +rebuke to their low and vicious desires and practice. It is time he +should be told that the reverse is the fact; that there are men who do +not merely cast a superficial glance at his doctrine, and fail to see its +beauty or justice, but who, after a close consideration of that doctrine, +pronounce it to be subversive of true moral development, and therefore +positively noxious. Dr. Cumming is fond of showing up the teaching of +Romanism, and accusing it of undermining true morality: it is time he +should be told that there is a large body, both of thinkers and practical +men, who hold precisely the same opinion of his own teaching—with this +difference, that they do not regard it as the inspiration of Satan, but +as the natural crop of a human mind where the soil is chiefly made up of +egoistic passions and dogmatic beliefs. + +Dr. Cumming’s theory, as we have seen, is that actions are good or evil +according as they are prompted or not prompted by an exclusive reference +to the “glory of God.” God, then, in Dr. Cumming’s conception, is a +being who has no pleasure in the exercise of love and truthfulness and +justice, considered as affecting the well-being of his creatures; He has +satisfaction in us only in so far as we exhaust our motives and +dispositions of all relation to our fellow-beings, and replace sympathy +with men by anxiety for the “glory of God.” The deed of Grace Darling, +when she took a boat in the storm to rescue drowning men and women, was +not good if it was only compassion that nerved her arm and impelled her +to brave death for the chance of saving others; it was only good if she +asked herself—Will this redound to the glory of God? The man who endures +tortures rather than betray a trust, the man who spends years in toil in +order to discharge an obligation from which the law declares him free, +must be animated not by the spirit of fidelity to his fellow-man, but by +a desire to make “the name of God more known.” The sweet charities of +domestic life—the ready hand and the soothing word in sickness, the +forbearance toward frailties, the prompt helpfulness in all efforts and +sympathy in all joys, are simply evil if they result from a +“constitutional tendency,” or from dispositions disciplined by the +experience of suffering and the perception of moral loveliness. A wife +is not to devote herself to her husband out of love to him and a sense of +the duties implied by a close relation—she is to be a faithful wife for +the glory of God; if she feels her natural affections welling up too +strongly, she is to repress them; it will not do to act from natural +affection—she must think of the glory of God. A man is to guide his +affairs with energy and discretion, not from an honest desire to fulfil +his responsibilities as a member of society and a father, but—that “God’s +praise may be sung.” Dr. Cumming’s Christian pays his debts for the +glory of God; were it not for the coercion of that supreme motive, it +would be evil to pay them. A man is not to be just from a feeling of +justice; he is not to help his fellow-men out of good-will to his +fellow-men; he is not to be a tender husband and father out of affection: +all these natural muscles and fibres are to be torn away and replaced by +a patent steel-spring—anxiety for the “glory of God.” + +Happily, the constitution of human nature forbids the complete prevalence +of such a theory. Fatally powerful as religious systems have been, human +nature is stronger and wider than religious systems, and though dogmas +may hamper, they cannot absolutely repress its growth: build walls round +the living tree as you will, the bricks and mortar have by and by to give +way before the slow and sure operation of the sap. But next to the +hatred of the enemies of God which is the principle of persecution, there +perhaps has been no perversion more obstructive of true moral development +than this substitution of a reference to the glory of God for the direct +promptings of the sympathetic feelings. Benevolence and justice are +strong only in proportion as they are directly and inevitably called into +activity by their proper objects; pity is strong only because we are +strongly impressed by suffering; and only in proportion as it is +compassion that speaks through the eyes when we soothe, and moves the arm +when we succor, is a deed strictly benevolent. If the soothing or the +succor be given because another being wishes or approves it, the deed +ceases to be one of benevolence, and becomes one of deference, of +obedience, of self-interest, or vanity. Accessory motives may aid in +producing an _action_, but they presuppose the weakness of the direct +motive; and conversely, when the direct motive is strong, the action of +accessory motives will be excluded. If, then, as Dr. Cumming inculcates, +the glory of God is to be “the absorbing and the influential aim” in our +thoughts and actions, this must tend to neutralize the human sympathies; +the stream of feeling will be diverted from its natural current in order +to feed an artificial canal. The idea of God is really moral in its +influence—it really cherishes all that is best and loveliest in man—only +when God is contemplated as sympathizing with the pure elements of human +feeling, as possessing infinitely all those attributes which we recognize +to be moral in humanity. In this light, the idea of God and the sense of +His presence intensify all noble feeling, and encourage all noble effort, +on the same principle that human sympathy is found a source of strength: +the brave man feels braver when he knows that another stout heart is +beating time with his; the devoted woman who is wearing out her years in +patient effort to alleviate suffering or save vice from the last stages +of degradation, finds aid in the pressure of a friendly hand which tells +her that there is one who understands her deeds, and in her place would +do the like. The idea of a God who not only sympathizes with all we feel +and endure for our fellow-men, but who will pour new life into our too +languid love, and give firmness to our vacillating purpose, is an +extension and multiplication of the effects produced by human sympathy; +and it has been intensified for the better spirits who have been under +the influence of orthodox Christianity, by the contemplation of Jesus as +“God manifest in the flesh.” But Dr. Cumming’s God is the very opposite +of all this: he is a God who instead of sharing and aiding our human +sympathies, is directly in collision with them; who instead of +strengthening the bond between man and man, by encouraging the sense that +they are both alike the objects of His love and care, thrusts himself +between them and forbids them to feel for each other except as they have +relation to Him. He is a God who, instead of adding his solar force to +swell the tide of those impulses that tend to give humanity a common life +in which the good of one is the good of all, commands us to check those +impulses, lest they should prevent us from thinking of His glory. It is +in vain for Dr. Cumming to say that we are to love man for God’s sake: +with the conception of God which his teaching presents, the love of man +for God’s sake involves, as his writings abundantly show, a strong +principle of hatred. We can only love one being for the sake of another +when there is an habitual delight in associating the idea of those two +beings—that is, when the object of our indirect love is a source of joy +and honor to the object of our direct love; but according to Dr. +Cumming’s theory, the majority of mankind—the majority of his +neighbors—are in precisely the opposite relation to God. His soul has no +pleasure in them, they belong more to Satan than to Him, and if they +contribute to His glory, it is against their will. Dr. Cumming then can +only love _some_ men for God’s sake; the rest he must in consistency +_hate_ for God’s sake. + +There must be many, even in the circle of Dr. Cumming’s admirers, who +would be revolted by the doctrine we have just exposed, if their natural +good sense and healthy feeling were not early stifled by dogmatic +beliefs, and their reverence misled by pious phrases. But as it is, many +a rational question, many a generous instinct, is repelled as the +suggestion of a supernatural enemy, or as the ebullition of human pride +and corruption. This state of inward contradiction can be put an end to +only by the conviction that the free and diligent exertion of the +intellect, instead of being a sin, is part of their responsibility—that +Right and Reason are synonymous. The fundamental faith for man is, faith +in the result of a brave, honest, and steady use of all his faculties: + + “Let knowledge grow from more to more, + But more of reverence in us dwell; + That mind and soul according well + May make one music as before, + But vaster.” + +Before taking leave of Dr. Cumming, let us express a hope that we have in +no case exaggerated the unfavorable character of the inferences to be +drawn from his pages. His creed often obliges him to hope the worst of +men, and exert himself in proving that the worst is true; but thus far we +are happier than he. We have no theory which requires us to attribute +unworthy motives to Dr. Cumming, no opinions, religious or irreligious, +which can make it a gratification to us to detect him in delinquencies. +On the contrary, the better we are able to think of him as a man, while +we are obliged to disapprove him as a theologian, the stronger will be +the evidence for our conviction, that the tendency toward good in human +nature has a force which no creed can utterly counteract, and which +insures the ultimate triumph of that tendency over all dogmatic +perversions. + + + +IV. GERMAN WIT: HENRY HEINE. {99} + + +“Nothing,” says Goethe, “is more significant of men’s character than what +they find laughable.” The truth of this observation would perhaps have +been more apparent if he had said _culture_ instead of character. The +last thing in which the cultivated man can have community with the vulgar +is their jocularity; and we can hardly exhibit more strikingly the wide +gulf which separates him from them, than by comparing the object which +shakes the diaphragm of a coal-heaver with the highly complex pleasure +derived from a real witticism. That any high order of wit is exceedingly +complex, and demands a ripe and strong mental development, has one +evidence in the fact that we do not find it in boys at all in proportion +to their manifestation of other powers. Clever boys generally aspire to +the heroic and poetic rather than the comic, and the crudest of all their +efforts are their jokes. Many a witty man will remember how in his +school days a practical joke, more or less Rabelaisian, was for him the +_ne plus ultra_ of the ludicrous. It seems to have been the same with +the boyhood of the human race. The history and literature of the ancient +Hebrews gives the idea of a people who went about their business and +their pleasure as gravely as a society of beavers; the smile and the +laugh are often mentioned metaphorically, but the smile is one of +complacency, the laugh is one of scorn. Nor can we imagine that the +facetious element was very strong in the Egyptians; no laughter lurks in +the wondering eyes and the broad calm lips of their statues. Still less +can the Assyrians have had any genius for the comic: the round eyes and +simpering satisfaction of their ideal faces belong to a type which is not +witty, but the cause of wit in others. The fun of these early races was, +we fancy, of the after-dinner kind—loud-throated laughter over the +wine-cup, taken too little account of in sober moments to enter as an +element into their Art, and differing as much from the laughter of a +Chamfort or a Sheridan as the gastronomic enjoyment of an ancient Briton, +whose dinner had no other “removes” than from acorns to beech-mast and +back again to acorns, differed from the subtle pleasures of the palate +experienced by his turtle-eating descendant. In fact they had to live +seriously through the stages which to subsequent races were to become +comedy, as those amiable-looking preadamite amphibia which Professor Owen +has restored for us in effigy at Sydenham, took perfectly _au sérieux_ +the grotesque physiognomies of their kindred. Heavy experience in their +case, as in every other, was the base from which the salt of future wit +was to be made. + +Humor is of earlier growth than Wit, and it is in accordance with this +earlier growth that it has more affinity with the poetic tendencies, +while Wit is more nearly allied to the ratiocinative intellect. Humor +draws its materials from situations and characteristics; Wit seizes on +unexpected and complex relations. Humor is chiefly representative and +descriptive; it is diffuse, and flows along without any other law than +its own fantastic will; or it flits about like a will-of-the-wisp, +amazing us by its whimsical transitions. Wit is brief and sudden, and +sharply defined as a crystal; it does not make pictures, it is not +fantastic; but it detects an unsuspected analogy or suggests a startling +or confounding inference. Every one who has had the opportunity of +making the comparison will remember that the effect produced on him by +some witticisms is closely akin to the effect produced on him by subtle +reasoning which lays open a fallacy or absurdity, and there are persons +whose delight in such reasoning always manifests itself in laughter. +This affinity of wit with ratiocination is the more obvious in proportion +as the species of wit is higher and deals less with less words and with +superficialities than with the essential qualities of things. Some of +Johnson’s most admirable witticisms consist in the suggestion of an +analogy which immediately exposes the absurdity of an action or +proposition; and it is only their ingenuity, condensation, and +instantaneousness which lift them from reasoning into Wit—they are +_reasoning raised to a higher power_. On the other hand, Humor, in its +higher forms, and in proportion as it associates itself with the +sympathetic emotions, continually passes into poetry: nearly all great +modern humorists may be called prose poets. + +Some confusion as to the nature of Humor has been created by the fact +that those who have written most eloquently on it have dwelt almost +exclusively on its higher forms, and have defined humor in general as the +_sympathetic_ presentation of incongruous elements in human nature and +life—a definition which only applies to its later development. A great +deal of humor may coexist with a great deal of barbarism, as we see in +the Middle Ages; but the strongest flavor of the humor in such cases will +come, not from sympathy, but more probably from triumphant egoism or +intolerance; at best it will be the love of the ludicrous exhibiting +itself in illustrations of successful cunning and of the _lex talionis_ +as in _Reineke Fuchs_, or shaking off in a holiday mood the yoke of a too +exacting faith, as in the old Mysteries. Again, it is impossible to deny +a high degree of humor to many practical jokes, but no sympathetic nature +can enjoy them. Strange as the genealogy may seem, the original +parentage of that wonderful and delicious mixture of fun, fancy, +philosophy, and feeling, which constitutes modern humor, was probably the +cruel mockery of a savage at the writhings of a suffering enemy—such is +the tendency of things toward the good and beautiful on this earth! +Probably the reason why high culture demands more complete harmony with +its moral sympathies in humor than in wit, is that humor is in its nature +more prolix—that it has not the direct and irresistible force of wit. +Wit is an electric shock, which takes us by violence, quite independently +of our predominant mental disposition; but humor approaches us more +deliberately and leaves us masters of ourselves. Hence it is, that while +coarse and cruel humor has almost disappeared from contemporary +literature, coarse and cruel wit abounds; even refined men cannot help +laughing at a coarse _bon mot_ or a lacerating personality, if the +“shock” of the witticism is a powerful one; while mere fun will have no +power over them if it jar on their moral taste. Hence, too, it is, that +while wit is perennial, humor is liable to become superannuated. + +As is usual with definitions and classifications, however, this +distinction between wit and humor does not exactly represent the actual +fact. Like all other species, Wit and Humor overlap and blend with each +other. There are _bon mots_, like many of Charles Lamb’s, which are a +sort of facetious hybrids, we hardly know whether to call them witty or +humorous; there are rather lengthy descriptions or narratives, which, +like Voltaire’s “Micromégas,” would be more humorous if they were not so +sparkling and antithetic, so pregnant with suggestion and satire, that we +are obliged to call them witty. We rarely find wit untempered by humor, +or humor without a spice of wit; and sometimes we find them both united +in the highest degree in the same mind, as in Shakespeare and Molière. A +happy conjunction this, for wit is apt to be cold, and thin-lipped, and +Mephistophelean in men who have no relish for humor, whose lungs do never +crow like Chanticleer at fun and drollery; and broad-faced, rollicking +humor needs the refining influence of wit. Indeed, it may be said that +there is no really fine writing in which wit has not an implicit, if not +an explicit, action. The wit may never rise to the surface, it may never +flame out into a witticism; but it helps to give brightness and +transparency, it warns off from flights and exaggerations which verge on +the ridiculous—in every _genre_ of writing it preserves a man from +sinking into the _genre ennuyeux_. And it is eminently needed for this +office in humorous writing; for as humor has no limits imposed on it by +its material, no law but its own exuberance, it is apt to become +preposterous and wearisome unless checked by wit, which is the enemy of +all monotony, of all lengthiness, of all exaggeration. + +Perhaps the nearest approach Nature has given us to a complete analysis, +in which wit is as thoroughly exhausted of humor as possible, and humor +as bare as possible of wit, is in the typical Frenchman and the typical +German. Voltaire, the intensest example of pure wit, fails in most of +his fictions from his lack of humor. “Micromégas” is a perfect tale, +because, as it deals chiefly with philosophic ideas and does not touch +the marrow of human feeling and life, the writer’s wit and wisdom were +all-sufficient for his purpose. Not so with “Candide.” Here Voltaire +had to give pictures of life as well as to convey philosophic truth and +satire, and here we feel the want of humor. The sense of the ludicrous +is continually defeated by disgust, and the scenes, instead of presenting +us with an amusing or agreeable picture, are only the frame for a +witticism. On the other hand, German humor generally shows no sense of +measure, no instinctive tact; it is either floundering and clumsy as the +antics of a leviathan, or laborious and interminable as a Lapland day, in +which one loses all hope that the stars and quiet will ever come. For +this reason, Jean Paul, the greatest of German humorists, is unendurable +to many readers, and frequently tiresome to all. Here, as elsewhere, the +German shows the absence of that delicate perception, that sensibility to +gradation, which is the essence of tact and taste, and the necessary +concomitant of wit. All his subtlety is reserved for the region of +metaphysics. For _Identität_ in the abstract no one can have an acuter +vision, but in the concrete he is satisfied with a very loose +approximation. He has the finest nose for _Empirismus_ in philosophical +doctrine, but the presence of more or less tobacco smoke in the air he +breathes is imperceptible to him. To the typical German—_Vetter +Michel_—it is indifferent whether his door-lock will catch, whether his +teacup be more or less than an inch thick; whether or not his book have +every other leaf unstitched; whether his neighbor’s conversation be more +or less of a shout; whether he pronounce _b_ or _p_, _t_ or _d_; whether +or not his adored one’s teeth be few and far between. He has the same +sort of insensibility to gradations in time. A German comedy is like a +German sentence: you see no reason in its structure why it should ever +come to an end, and you accept the conclusion as an arrangement of +Providence rather than of the author. We have heard Germans use the word +_Langeweile_, the equivalent for ennui, and we have secretly wondered +_what_ it can be that produces ennui in a German. Not the longest of +long tragedies, for we have known him to pronounce that _höchst fesselnd_ +(_so_ enchaining!); not the heaviest of heavy books, for he delights in +that as _gründlich_ (deep, Sir, deep!); not the slowest of journeys in a +_Postwagen_, for the slower the horses, the more cigars he can smoke +before he reaches his journey’s end. German ennui must be something as +superlative as Barclay’s treble X, which, we suppose, implies an +extremely unknown quantity of stupefaction. + +It is easy to see that this national deficiency in nicety of perception +must have its effect on the national appreciation and exhibition of +Humor. You find in Germany ardent admirers of Shakespeare, who tell you +that what they think most admirable in him is his _Wortspiel_, his verbal +quibbles; and one of these, a man of no slight culture and refinement, +once cited to a friend of ours Proteus’s joke in “The Two Gentlemen of +Verona”—“Nod I? why that’s Noddy,” as a transcendant specimen of +Shakespearian wit. German facetiousness is seldom comic to foreigners, +and an Englishman with a swelled cheek might take up _Kladderadatsch_, +the German Punch, without any danger of agitating his facial muscles. +Indeed, it is a remarkable fact that, among the five great races +concerned in modern civilization, the German race is the only one which, +up to the present century, had contributed nothing classic to the common +stock of European wit and humor; for _Reineke Fuchs_ cannot be regarded +as a peculiarly Teutonic product. Italy was the birthplace of Pantomime +and the immortal Pulcinello; Spain had produced Cervantes; France had +produced Rabelais and Molière, and classic wits innumerable; England had +yielded Shakspeare and a host of humorists. But Germany had borne no +great comic dramatist, no great satirist, and she has not yet repaired +the omission; she had not even produced any humorist of a high order. +Among her great writers, Lessing is the one who is the most specifically +witty. We feel the implicit influence of wit—the “flavor of +mind”—throughout his writings; and it is often concentrated into pungent +satire, as every reader of the _Hamburgische Dramaturgie_ remembers. +Still Lessing’s name has not become European through his wit, and his +charming comedy, _Minna von Barnhelm_, has won no place on a foreign +stage. Of course we do not pretend to an exhaustive acquaintance with +German literature; we not only admit—we are sure that it includes much +comic writing of which we know nothing. We simply state the fact, that +no German production of that kind, before the present century, ranked as +European; a fact which does not, indeed, determine the _amount_ of the +national facetiousness, but which is quite decisive as to its _quality_. +Whatever may be the stock of fun which Germany yields for home +consumption, she has provided little for the palate of other lands. All +honor to her for the still greater things she has done for us! She has +fought the hardest fight for freedom of thought, has produced the +grandest inventions, has made magnificent contributions to science, has +given us some of the divinest poetry, and quite the divinest music in the +world. No one reveres and treasures the products of the German mind more +than we do. To say that that mind is not fertile in wit is only like +saying that excellent wheat land is not rich pasture; to say that we do +not enjoy German facetiousness is no more than to say that, though the +horse is the finest of quadrupeds, we do not like him to lay his hoof +playfully on our shoulder. Still, as we have noticed that the pointless +puns and stupid jocularity of the boy may ultimately be developed into +the epigrammatic brilliancy and polished playfulness of the man; as we +believe that racy wit and chastened delicate humor are inevitably the +results of invigorated and refined mental activity, we can also believe +that Germany will, one day, yield a crop of wits and humorists. + +Perhaps there is already an earnest of that future crop in the existence +of Heinrich Heine, a German born with the present century, who, to +Teutonic imagination, sensibility, and humor, adds an amount of _esprit_ +that would make him brilliant among the most brilliant of Frenchmen. +True, this unique German wit is half a Hebrew; but he and his ancestors +spent their youth in German air, and were reared on _Wurst_ and +_Sauerkraut_, so that he is as much a German as a pheasant is an English +bird, or a potato an Irish vegetable. But whatever else he may be, Heine +is one of the most remarkable men of this age: no echo, but a real voice, +and therefore, like all genuine things in this world, worth studying; a +surpassing lyric poet, who has uttered our feelings for us in delicious +song; a humorist, who touches leaden folly with the magic wand of his +fancy, and transmutes it into the fine gold of art—who sheds his sunny +smile on human tears, and makes them a beauteous rainbow on the cloudy +background of life; a wit, who holds in his mighty hand the most +scorching lightnings of satire; an artist in prose literature, who has +shown even more completely than Goethe the possibilities of German prose; +and—in spite of all charges against him, true as well as false—a lover of +freedom, who has spoken wise and brave words on behalf of his fellow-men. +He is, moreover, a suffering man, who, with all the highly-wrought +sensibility of genius, has to endure terrible physical ills; and as such +he calls forth more than an intellectual interest. It is true, alas! +that there is a heavy weight in the other scale—that Heine’s magnificent +powers have often served only to give electric force to the expression of +debased feeling, so that his works are no Phidian statue of gold, and +ivory, and gems, but have not a little brass, and iron, and miry clay +mingled with the precious metal. The audacity of his occasional +coarseness and personality is unparalleled in contemporary literature, +and has hardly been exceeded by the license of former days. Hence, +before his volumes are put within the reach of immature minds, there is +need of a friendly penknife to exercise a strict censorship. Yet, when +all coarseness, all scurrility, all Mephistophelean contempt for the +reverent feelings of other men, is removed, there will be a plenteous +remainder of exquisite poetry, of wit, humor, and just thought. It is +apparently too often a congenial task to write severe words about the +transgressions committed by men of genius, especially when the censor has +the advantage of being himself a man of _no_ genius, so that those +transgressions seem to him quite gratuitous; _he_, forsooth, never +lacerated any one by his wit, or gave irresistible piquancy to a coarse +allusion, and his indignation is not mitigated by any knowledge of the +temptation that lies in transcendent power. We are also apt to measure +what a gifted man has done by our arbitrary conception of what he might +have done, rather than by a comparison of his actual doings with our own +or those of other ordinary men. We make ourselves overzealous agents of +heaven, and demand that our brother should bring usurious interest for +his five Talents, forgetting that it is less easy to manage five Talents +than two. Whatever benefit there may be in denouncing the evil, it is +after all more edifying, and certainly more cheering, to appreciate the +good. Hence, in endeavoring to give our readers some account of Heine +and his works, we shall not dwell lengthily on his failings; we shall not +hold the candle up to dusty, vermin-haunted corners, but let the light +fall as much as possible on the nobler and more attractive details. Our +sketch of Heine’s life, which has been drawn from various sources, will +be free from everything like intrusive gossip, and will derive its +coloring chiefly from the autobiographical hints and descriptions +scattered through his own writings. Those of our readers who happen to +know nothing of Heine will in this way be making their acquaintance with +the writer while they are learning the outline of his career. + +We have said that Heine was born with the present century; but this +statement is not precise, for we learn that, according to his certificate +of baptism, he was born December 12th, 1799. However, as he himself +says, the important point is that he was born, and born on the banks of +the Rhine, at Düsseldorf, where his father was a merchant. In his +“Reisebilder” he gives us some recollections, in his wild poetic way, of +the dear old town where he spent his childhood, and of his schoolboy +troubles there. We shall quote from these in butterfly fashion, sipping +a little nectar here and there, without regard to any strict order: + + “I first saw the light on the banks of that lovely stream, where + Folly grows on the green hills, and in autumn is plucked, pressed, + poured into casks, and sent into foreign lands. Believe me, I + yesterday heard some one utter folly which, in anno 1811, lay in a + bunch of grapes I then saw growing on the Johannisberg. . . . Mon + Dieu! if I had only such faith in me that I could remove mountains, + the Johannisberg would be the very mountain I should send for + wherever I might be; but as my faith is not so strong, imagination + must help me, and it transports me at once to the lovely Rhine. . . . + I am again a child, and playing with other children on the + Schlossplatz, at Düsseldorf on the Rhine. Yes, madam, there was I + born; and I note this expressly, in case, after my death, seven + cities—Schilda, Krähwinkel, Polkwitz, Bockum, Dülken, Göttingen, and + Schöppenstädt—should contend for the honor of being my birthplace. + Düsseldorf is a town on the Rhine; sixteen thousand men live there, + and many hundred thousand men besides lie buried there. . . . . Among + them, many of whom my mother says, that it would be better if they + were still living; for example, my grandfather and my uncle, the old + Herr von Geldern and the young Herr von Geldern, both such celebrated + doctors, who saved so many men from death, and yet must die + themselves. And the pious Ursula, who carried me in her arms when I + was a child, also lies buried there and a rosebush grows on her + grave; she loved the scent of roses so well in life, and her heart + was pure rose-incense and goodness. The knowing old Canon, too, lies + buried there. Heavens, what an object he looked when I last saw him! + _He was made up of nothing but mind and plasters_, and nevertheless + studied day and night, as if he were alarmed lest the worms should + find an idea too little in his head. And the little William lies + there, and for this I am to blame. We were schoolfellows in the + Franciscan monastery, and were playing on that side of it where the + Düssel flows between stone walls, and I said, ‘William, fetch out the + kitten that has just fallen in’—and merrily he went down on to the + plank which lay across the brook, snatched the kitten out of the + water, but fell in himself, and was dragged out dripping and dead. + _The kitten lived to a good old age_. . . . Princes in that day were + not the tormented race as they are now; the crown grew firmly on + their heads, and at night they drew a nightcap over it, and slept + peacefully, and peacefully slept the people at their feet; and when + the people waked in the morning, they said, ‘Good morning, father!’ + and the princes answered, ‘Good morning, dear children!’ But it was + suddenly quite otherwise; for when we awoke one morning at + Düsseldorf, and were ready to say, ‘Good morning, father!’ lo! the + father was gone away; and in the whole town there was nothing but + dumb sorrow, everywhere a sort of funeral disposition; and people + glided along silently to the market, and read the long placard placed + on the door of the Town Hall. It was dismal weather; yet the lean + tailor, Kilian, stood in his nankeen jacket which he usually wore + only in the house, and his blue worsted stockings hung down so that + his naked legs peeped out mournfully, and his thin lips trembled + while he muttered the announcement to himself. And an old soldier + read rather louder, and at many a word a crystal tear trickled down + to his brave old mustache. I stood near him and wept in company, and + asked him, ‘_Why we wept_?’ He answered, ‘The Elector has + abdicated.’ And then he read again, and at the words, ‘for the + long-manifested fidelity of my subjects,’ and ‘hereby set you free + from your allegiance,’ he wept more than ever. It is strangely + touching to see an old man like that, with faded uniform and scarred + face, weep so bitterly all of a sudden. While we were reading, the + electoral arms were taken down from the Town Hall; everything had + such a desolate air, that it was as if an eclipse of the sun were + expected. . . . I went home and wept, and wailed out, ‘The Elector + has abdicated!’ In vain my mother took a world of trouble to explain + the thing to me. I knew what I knew; I was not to be persuaded, but + went crying to bed, and in the night dreamed that the world was at an + end.” + +The next morning, however, the sun rises as usual, and Joachim Murat is +proclaimed Grand Duke, whereupon there is a holiday at the public school, +and Heinrich (or Harry, for that was his baptismal name, which he +afterward had the good taste to change), perched on the bronze horse of +the Electoral statue, sees quite a different scene from yesterday’s: + + “The next day the world was again all in order, and we had school as + before, and things were got by heart as before—the Roman emperors, + chronology, the nouns in _im_, the _verba irregularia_, Greek, + Hebrew, geography, mental arithmetic!—heavens! my head is still dizzy + with it—all must be learned by heart! And a great deal of this came + very conveniently for me in after life. For if I had not known the + Roman kings by heart, it would subsequently have been quite + indifferent to me whether Niebuhr had proved or had not proved that + they never really existed. . . . But oh! the trouble I had at school + with the endless dates. And with arithmetic it was still worse. + What I understood best was subtraction, for that has a very practical + rule: ‘Four can’t be taken from three, therefore I must borrow one.’ + But I advise every one in such a case to borrow a few extra pence, + for no one can tell what may happen. . . . As for Latin, you have no + idea, madam, what a complicated affair it is. The Romans would never + have found time to conquer the world if they had first had to learn + Latin. Luckily for them, they already knew in their cradles what + nouns have their accusative in _im_. I, on the contrary, had to + learn them by heart in the sweat of my brow; nevertheless, it is + fortunate for me that I know them . . . and the fact that I have them + at my finger-ends if I should ever happen to want them suddenly, + affords me much inward repose and consolation in many troubled hours + of life. . . . Of Greek I will not say a word, I should get too much + irritated. The monks in the Middle Ages were not so far wrong when + they maintained that Greek was an invention of the devil. God knows + the suffering I endured over it. . . . With Hebrew it went somewhat + better, for I had always a great liking for the Jews, though to this + very hour they crucify my good name; but I could never get on so far + in Hebrew as my watch, which had much familiar intercourse with + pawnbrokers, and in this way contracted many Jewish habits—for + example, it wouldn’t go on Saturdays.” + +Heine’s parents were apparently not wealthy, but his education was cared +for by his uncle, Solomon Heine, a great banker in Hamburg, so that he +had no early pecuniary disadvantages to struggle with. He seems to have +been very happy in his mother, who was not of Hebrew but of Teutonic +blood; he often mentions her with reverence and affection, and in the +“Buch der Lieder” there are two exquisite sonnets addressed to her, which +tell how his proud spirit was always subdued by the charm of her +presence, and how her love was the home of his heart after restless weary +ramblings: + + “Wie mächtig auch mein stolzer Muth sich blähe, + In deiner selig süssen, trauten Nahe + Ergreift mich oft ein demuthvolles Zagen. + + * * * * * + + Und immer irrte ich nach Liebe, immer + Nach Liebe, doch die Liebe fand ich nimmer, + Und kehrte um nach Hause, krank und trübe. + Doch da bist du entgegen mir gekommen, + Und ach! was da in deinem Aug’ geschwommen, + Das war die süsse, langgesuchte Liebe.” + +He was at first destined for a mercantile life, but Nature declared too +strongly against this plan. “God knows,” he has lately said in +conversation with his brother, “I would willingly have become a banker, +but I could never bring myself to that pass. I very early discerned that +bankers would one day be the rulers of the world.” So commerce was at +length given up for law, the study of which he began in 1819 at the +University of Bonn. He had already published some poems in the corner of +a newspaper, and among them was one on Napoleon, the object of his +youthful enthusiasm. This poem, he says in a letter to St. Réné +Taillandier, was written when he was only sixteen. It is still to be +found in the “Buch der Lieder” under the title “Die Grenadiere,” and it +proves that even in its earliest efforts his genius showed a strongly +specific character. + +It will be easily imagined that the germs of poetry sprouted too +vigorously in Heine’s brain for jurisprudence to find much room there. +Lectures on history and literature, we are told, were more diligently +attended than lectures on law. He had taken care, too, to furnish his +trunk with abundant editions of the poets, and the poet he especially +studied at that time was Byron. At a later period, we find his taste +taking another direction, for he writes, “Of all authors, Byron is +precisely the one who excites in me the most intolerable emotion; whereas +Scott, in every one of his works, gladdens my heart, soothes, and +invigorates me.” Another indication of his bent in these Bonn days was a +newspaper essay, in which he attacked the Romantic school; and here also +he went through that chicken-pox of authorship—the production of a +tragedy. Heine’s tragedy—_Almansor_—is, as might be expected, better +than the majority of these youthful mistakes. The tragic collision lies +in the conflict between natural affection and the deadly hatred of +religion and of race—in the sacrifice of youthful lovers to the strife +between Moor and Spaniard, Moslem and Christian. Some of the situations +are striking, and there are passages of considerable poetic merit; but +the characters are little more than shadowy vehicles for the poetry, and +there is a want of clearness and probability in the structure. It was +published two years later, in company with another tragedy, in one act, +called _William Ratcliffe_, in which there is rather a feeble use of the +Scotch second-sight after the manner of the Fate in the Greek tragedy. +We smile to find Heine saying of his tragedies, in a letter to a friend +soon after their publication: “I know they will be terribly cut up, but I +will confess to you in confidence that they are very good, better than my +collection of poems, which are not worth a shot.” Elsewhere he tells us, +that when, after one of Paganini’s concerts, he was passionately +complimenting the great master on his violin-playing. Paganini +interrupted him thus: “But how were you pleased with my _bows_?” + +In 1820 Heine left Bonn for Göttingen. He there pursued his omission of +law studies, and at the end of three months he was rusticated for a +breach of the laws against duelling. While there, he had attempted a +negotiation with Brockhaus for the printing of a volume of poems, and had +endured the first ordeal of lovers and poets—a refusal. It was not until +a year after that he found a Berlin publisher for his first volume of +poems, subsequently transformed, with additions, into the “Buch der +Lieder.” He remained between two and three years at Berlin, and the +society he found there seems to have made these years an important epoch +in his culture. He was one of the youngest members of a circle which +assembled at the house of the poetess Elise von Hohenhausen, the +translator of Byron—a circle which included Chamisso, Varnhagen, and +Rahel (Varnhagen’s wife). For Rahel, Heine had a profound admiration and +regard; he afterward dedicated to her the poems included under the tide +“Heimkehr;” and he frequently refers to her or quotes her in a way that +indicates how he valued her influence. According to his friend F. von +Hohenhausen, the opinions concerning Heine’s talent were very various +among his Berlin friends, and it was only a small minority that had any +presentiment of his future fame. In this minority was Elise von +Hohenhausen, who proclaimed Heine as the Byron of Germany; but her +opinion was met with much head-shaking and opposition. We can imagine +how precious was such a recognition as hers to the young poet, then only +two or three and twenty, and with by no means an impressive personality +for superficial eyes. Perhaps even the deep-sighted were far from +detecting in that small, blonde, pale young man, with quiet, gentle +manners, the latent powers of ridicule and sarcasm—the terrible talons +that were one day to be thrust out from the velvet paw of the young +leopard. + +It was apparently during this residence in Berlin that Heine united +himself with the Lutheran Church. He would willingly, like many of his +friends, he tells us, have remained free from all ecclesiastical ties if +the authorities there had not forbidden residence in Prussia, and +especially in Berlin, to every one who did not belong to one of the +positive religions recognized by the State. + + “As Henry IV. once laughingly said, ‘_Paris vaut bien une messe_,’ so + I might with reason say, ‘_Berlin vaut bien une prêche_;’ and I could + afterward, as before, accommodate myself to the very enlightened + Christianity, filtrated from all superstition, which could then be + had in the churches of Berlin, and which was even free from the + divinity of Christ, like turtle-soup without turtle.” + +At the same period, too, Heine became acquainted with Hegel. In his +lately published “Geständnisse” (Confessions) he throws on Hegel’s +influence over him the blue light of demoniacal wit, and confounds us by +the most bewildering double-edged sarcasms; but that influence seems to +have been at least more wholesome than the one which produced the mocking +retractations of the “Geständnisse.” Through all his self-satire, we +discern that in those days he had something like real earnestness and +enthusiasm, which are certainly not apparent in his present theistic +confession of faith. + + “On the whole, I never felt a strong enthusiasm for this philosophy, + and conviction on the subject was out of question. I never was an + abstract thinker, and I accepted the synthesis of the Hegelian + doctrine without demanding any proof; since its consequences + flattered my vanity. I was young and proud, and it pleased my + vainglory when I learned from Hegel that the true God was not, as my + grandmother believed, the God who lives in heaven, but myself here + upon earth. This foolish pride had not in the least a pernicious + influence on my feelings; on the contrary, it heightened these to the + pitch of heroism. I was at that time so lavish in generosity and + self-sacrifice that I must assuredly have eclipsed the most brilliant + deeds of those good _bourgeois_ of virtue who acted merely from a + sense of duty, and simply obeyed the laws of morality.” + +His sketch of Hegel is irresistibly amusing; but we must warn the reader +that Heine’s anecdotes are often mere devices of style by which he +conveys his satire or opinions. The reader will see that he does not +neglect an opportunity of giving a sarcastic lash or two, in passing, to +Meyerbeer, for whose music he has a great contempt. The sarcasm conveyed +in the substitution of _reputation_ for _music_ and _journalists_ for +_musicians_, might perhaps escape any one unfamiliar with the sly and +unexpected turns of Heine’s ridicule. + + “To speak frankly, I seldom understood him, and only arrived at the + meaning of his words by subsequent reflection. I believe he wished + not to be understood; and hence his practice of sprinkling his + discourse with modifying parentheses; hence, perhaps, his preference + for persons of whom he knew that they did not understand him, and to + whom he all the more willingly granted the honor of his familiar + acquaintance. Thus every one in Berlin wondered at the intimate + companionship of the profound Hegel with the late Heinrich Beer, a + brother of Giacomo Meyerbeer, who is universally known by his + reputation, and who has been celebrated by the cleverest journalists. + This Beer, namely Heinrich, was a thoroughly stupid fellow, and + indeed was afterward actually declared imbecile by his family, and + placed under guardianship, because instead of making a name for + himself in art or in science by means of his great fortune, he + squandered his money on childish trifles; and, for example, one day + bought six thousand thalers’ worth of walking-sticks. This poor man, + who had no wish to pass either for a great tragic dramatist, or for a + great star-gazer, or for a laurel-crowned musical genius, a rival of + Mozart and Rossini, and preferred giving his money for + walking-sticks—this degenerate Beer enjoyed Hegel’s most confidential + society; he was the philosopher’s bosom friend, his Pylades, and + accompanied him everywhere like his shadow. The equally witty and + gifted Felix Mendelssohn once sought to explain this phenomenon, by + maintaining that Hegel did not understand Heinrich Beer. I now + believe, however, that the real ground of that intimacy consisted in + this—Hegel was convinced that no word of what he said was understood + by Heinrich Beer; and he could therefore, in his presence, give + himself up to all the intellectual outpourings of the moment. In + general, Hegel’s conversation was a sort of monologue, sighed forth + by starts in a noiseless voice; the odd roughness of his expressions + often struck me, and many of them have remained in my memory. One + beautiful starlight evening we stood together at the window, and I, a + young man of one-and-twenty, having just had a good dinner and + finished my coffee, spoke with enthusiasm of the stars, and called + them the habitations of the departed. But the master muttered to + himself, ‘The stars! hum! hum! The stars are only a brilliant + leprosy on the face of the heavens.’ ‘For God’s sake,’ I cried, ‘is + there, then, no happy place above, where virtue is rewarded after + death?’ But he, staring at me with his pale eyes, said, cuttingly, + ‘So you want a bonus for having taken care of your sick mother, and + refrained from poisoning your worthy brother?’ At these words he + looked anxiously round, but appeared immediately set at rest when he + observed that it was only Heinrich Beer, who had approached to invite + him to a game at whist.” + +In 1823 Heine returned to Göttingen to complete his career as a +law-student, and this time he gave evidence of advanced mental maturity, +not only by producing many of the charming poems subsequently included in +the “Reisebilder,” but also by prosecuting his professional studies +diligently enough to leave Göttingen, in 1825, as _Doctor juris_. +Hereupon he settled at Hamburg as an advocate, but his profession seems +to have been the least pressing of his occupations. In those days a +small blonde young man, with the brim of his hat drawn over his nose, his +coat flying open, and his hands stuck in his trousers pockets, might be +seen stumbling along the streets of Hamburg, staring from side to side, +and appearing to have small regard to the figure he made in the eyes of +the good citizens. Occasionally an inhabitant more literary than usual +would point out this young man to his companion as _Heinrich Heine_; but +in general the young poet had not to endure the inconveniences of being a +lion. His poems were devoured, but he was not asked to devour flattery +in return. Whether because the fair Hamburgers acted in the spirit of +Johnson’s advice to Hannah More—to “consider what her flattery was worth +before she choked him with it”—or for some other reason, Heine, according +to the testimony of August Lewald, to whom we owe these particulars of +his Hamburg life, was left free from the persecution of tea-parties. +Not, however, from another persecution of Genius—nervous headaches, which +some persons, we are told, regarded as an improbable fiction, intended as +a pretext for raising a delicate white hand to his forehead. It is +probable that the sceptical persons alluded to were themselves untroubled +with nervous headaches, and that their hands were _not_ delicate. Slight +details, these, but worth telling about a man of genius, because they +help us to keep in mind that he is, after all, our brother, having to +endure the petty every-day ills of life as we have; with this difference, +that his heightened sensibility converts what are mere insect stings for +us into scorpion stings for him. + +It was, perhaps, in these Hamburg days that Heine paid the visit to +Goethe, of which he gives us this charming little picture: + + “When I visited him in Weimar, and stood before him, I involuntarily + glanced at his side to see whether the eagle was not there with the + lightning in his beak. I was nearly speaking Greek to him; but, as I + observed that he understood German, I stated to him in German that + the plums on the road between Jena and Weimar were very good. I had + for so many long winter nights thought over what lofty and profound + things I would say to Goethe, if ever I saw him. And when I saw him + at last, I said to him, that the Saxon plums were very good! And + Goethe smiled.” + +During the next few years Heine produced the most popular of all his +works—those which have won him his place as the greatest of living German +poets and humorists. Between 1826 and 1829 appeared the four volumes of +the “Reisebilder” (Pictures of Travel) and the “Buch der Lieder” (Book of +Songs), a volume of lyrics, of which it is hard to say whether their +greatest charm is the lightness and finish of their style, their vivid +and original imaginativeness, or their simple, pure sensibility. In his +“Reisebilder” Heine carries us with him to the Hartz, to the isle of +Norderney, to his native town Düsseldorf, to Italy, and to England, +sketching scenery and character, now with the wildest, most fantastic +humor, now with the finest idyllic sensibility—letting his thoughts +wander from poetry to politics, from criticism to dreamy reverie, and +blending fun, imagination, reflection, and satire in a sort of exquisite, +ever-varying shimmer, like the hues of the opal. + +Heine’s journey to England did not at all heighten his regard for the +English. He calls our language the “hiss of egoism (_Zischlaute des +Egoismus_); and his ridicule of English awkwardness is as merciless +as—English ridicule of German awkwardness. His antipathy toward us seems +to have grown in intensity, like many of his other antipathies; and in +his “Vermischte Schriften” he is more bitter than ever. Let us quote one +of his philippics, since bitters are understood to be wholesome: + + “It is certainly a frightful injustice to pronounce sentence of + condemnation on an entire people. But with regard to the English, + momentary disgust might betray me into this injustice; and on looking + at the mass I easily forget the many brave and noble men who + distinguished themselves by intellect and love of freedom. But + these, especially the British poets, were always all the more + glaringly in contrast with the rest of the nation; they were isolated + martyrs to their national relations; and, besides, great geniuses do + not belong to the particular land of their birth: they scarcely + belong to this earth, the Golgotha of their sufferings. The mass—the + English blockheads, God forgive me!—are hateful to me in my inmost + soul; and I often regard them not at all as my fellow-men, but as + miserable automata—machines, whose motive power is egoism. In these + moods, it seems to me as if I heard the whizzing wheelwork by which + they think, feel, reckon, digest, and pray: their praying, their + mechanical Anglican church-going, with the gilt Prayer-book under + their arms, their stupid, tiresome Sunday, their awkward piety, is + most of all odious to me. I am firmly convinced that a blaspheming + Frenchman is a more pleasing sight for the Divinity than a praying + Englishman.” + +On his return from England Heine was employed at Munich in editing the +_Allgemeinen Politischen Annalen_, but in 1830 he was again in the north, +and the news of the July Revolution surprised him on the island of +Heligoland. He has given us a graphic picture of his democratic +enthusiasm in those days in some letters, apparently written from +Heligoland, which he has inserted in his book on Börne. We quote some +passages, not only for their biographic interest as showing a phase of +Heine’s mental history, but because they are a specimen of his power in +that kind of dithyrambic writing which, in less masterly hands, easily +becomes ridiculous: + + “The thick packet of newspapers arrived from the Continent with these + warm, glowing-hot tidings. They were sunbeams wrapped up in + packing-paper, and they inflamed my soul till it burst into the + wildest conflagration. . . . It is all like a dream to me; especially + the name Lafayette sounds to me like a legend out of my earliest + childhood. Does he really sit again on horseback, commanding the + National Guard? I almost fear it may not be true, for it is in + print. I will myself go to Paris, to be convinced of it with my + bodily eyes. . . . It must be splendid, when he rides through the + street, the citizen of two worlds, the godlike old man, with his + silver locks streaming down his sacred shoulder. . . . He greets, + with his dear old eyes, the grandchildren of those who once fought + with him for freedom and equality. . . . It is now sixty years since + he returned from America with the Declaration of Human Rights, the + decalogue of the world’s new creed, which was revealed to him amid + the thunders and lightnings of cannon. . . . And the tricolored flag + waves again on the towers of Paris, and its streets resound with the + Marseillaise! . . . It is all over with my yearning for repose. I + now know again what I will do, what I ought to do, what I must do. . + . . I am the son of the Revolution, and seize again the hallowed + weapons on which my mother pronounced her magic benediction. . . . + Flowers! flowers! I will crown my head for the death-fight. And the + lyre too, reach me the lyre, that I may sing a battle-song. . . . + Words like flaming stars, that shoot down from the heavens, and burn + up the palaces, and illuminate the huts. . . . Words like bright + javelins, that whirr up to the seventh heaven and strike the pious + hypocrites who have skulked into the Holy of Holies. . . . I am all + joy and song, all sword and flame! Perhaps, too, all delirium. . . . + One of those sunbeams wrapped in brown paper has flown to my brain, + and set my thoughts aglow. In vain I dip my head into the sea. No + water extinguishes this Greek fire: . . . Even the poor Heligolanders + shout for joy, although they have only a sort of dim instinct of what + has occurred. The fisherman who yesterday took me over to the little + sand island, which is the bathing-place here, said to me smilingly, + ‘The poor people have won!’ Yes; instinctively the people comprehend + such events, perhaps, better than we, with all our means of + knowledge. Thus Frau von Varnhagen once told me that when the issue + of the Battle of Leipzig was not yet known, the maid-servant suddenly + rushed into the room with the sorrowful cry, ‘The nobles have won!’ . + . . This morning another packet of newspapers is come, I devour them + like manna. Child that I am, affecting details touch me yet more + than the momentous whole. Oh, if I could but see the dog Medor. . . + . The dog Medor brought his master his gun and cartridge-box, and + when his master fell, and was buried with his fellow-heroes in the + Court of the Louvre, there stayed the poor dog like a monument of + faithfulness, sitting motionless on the grave, day and night, eating + but little of the food that was offered him—burying the greater part + of it in the earth, perhaps as nourishment for his buried master!” + +The enthusiasm which was kept thus at boiling heat by imagination, cooled +down rapidly when brought into contact with reality. In the same book he +indicates, in his caustic way, the commencement of that change in his +political _temperature_—for it cannot be called a change in opinion—which +has drawn down on him immense vituperation from some of the patriotic +party, but which seems to have resulted simply from the essential +antagonism between keen wit and fanaticism. + + “On the very first days of my arrival in Paris I observed that things + wore, in reality, quite different colors from those which had been + shed on them, when in perspective, by the light of my enthusiasm. + The silver locks which I saw fluttering so majestically on the + shoulders of Lafayette, the hero of two worlds, were metamorphosed + into a brown perruque, which made a pitiable covering for a narrow + skull. And even the dog Medor, which I visited in the Court of the + Louvre, and which, encamped under tricolored flags and trophies, very + quietly allowed himself to be fed—he was not at all the right dog, + but quite an ordinary brute, who assumed to himself merits not his + own, as often happens with the French; and, like many others, he made + a profit out of the glory of the Revolution. . . . He was pampered + and patronized, perhaps promoted to the highest posts, while the true + Medor, some days after the battle, modestly slunk out of sight, like + the true people who created the Revolution.” + +That it was not merely interest in French politics which sent Heine to +Paris in 1831, but also a perception that German air was not friendly to +sympathizers in July revolutions, is humorously intimated in the +“Geständnisse.” + + “I had done much and suffered much, and when the sun of the July + Revolution arose in France, I had become very weary, and needed some + recreation. Also, my native air was every day more unhealthy for me, + and it was time I should seriously think of a change of climate. I + had visions: the clouds terrified me, and made all sorts of ugly + faces at me. It often seemed to me as if the sun were a Prussian + cockade; at night I dreamed of a hideous black eagle, which gnawed my + liver; and I was very melancholy. Add to this, I had become + acquainted with an old Berlin Justizrath, who had spent many years in + the fortress of Spandau, and he related to me how unpleasant it is + when one is obliged to wear irons in winter. For myself I thought it + very unchristian that the irons were not warmed a trifle. If the + irons were warmed a little for us they would not make so unpleasant + an impression, and even chilly natures might then bear them very + well; it would be only proper consideration, too, if the fetters were + perfumed with essence of roses and laurels, as is the case in this + country (France). I asked my Justizrath whether he often got oysters + to eat at Spandau? He said, No; Spandau was too far from the sea. + Moreover, he said meat was very scarce there, and there was no kind + of _volaille_ except flies, which fell into one’s soup. . . . Now, as + I really needed some recreation, and as Spandau is too far from the + sea for oysters to be got there, and the Spandau fly-soup did not + seem very appetizing to me, as, besides all this, the Prussian chains + are very cold in winter, and could not be conducive to my health, I + resolved to visit Paris.” + +Since this time Paris has been Heine’s home, and his best prose works +have been written either to inform the Germans on French affairs or to +inform the French on German philosophy and literature. He became a +correspondent of the _Allgemeine Zeitung_, and his correspondence, which +extends, with an interruption of several years, from 1831 to 1844, forms +the volume entitled “Französische Zustände” (French Affairs), and the +second and third volume of his “Vermischte Schriften.” It is a witty and +often wise commentary on public men and public events: Louis Philippe, +Casimir Périer, Thiers, Guizot, Rothschild, the Catholic party, the +Socialist party, have their turn of satire and appreciation, for Heine +deals out both with an impartiality which made his less favorable +critics—Börne, for example—charge him with the rather incompatible sins +of reckless caprice and venality. Literature and art alternate with +politics: we have now a sketch of George Sand or a description of one of +Horace Vernet’s pictures; now a criticism of Victor Hugo or of Liszt; now +an irresistible caricature of Spontini or Kalkbrenner; and occasionally +the predominant satire is relieved by a fine saying or a genial word of +admiration. And all is done with that airy lightness, yet precision of +touch, which distinguishes Heine beyond any living writer. The charge of +venality was loudly made against Heine in Germany: first, it was said +that he was paid to write; then, that he was paid to abstain from +writing; and the accusations were supposed to have an irrefragable basis +in the fact that he accepted a stipend from the French government. He +has never attempted to conceal the reception of that stipend, and we +think his statement (in the “Vermischte Schriften”) of the circumstances +under which it was offered and received, is a sufficient vindication of +himself and M. Guizot from any dishonor in the matter. + +It may be readily imagined that Heine, with so large a share of the +Gallic element as he has in his composition, was soon at his ease in +Parisian society, and the years here were bright with intellectual +activity and social enjoyment. “His wit,” wrote August Lewald, “is a +perpetual gushing fountain; he throws off the most delicious descriptions +with amazing facility, and sketches the most comic characters in +conversations.” Such a man could not be neglected in Paris, and Heine +was sought on all sides—as a guest in distinguished salons, as a possible +proselyte in the circle of the Saint Simonians. His literary +productiveness seems to have been furthered by his congenial life, which, +however, was soon to some extent embittered by the sense of exile; for +since 1835 both his works and his person have been the object of +denunciation by the German governments. Between 1833 and 1845 appeared +the four volumes of the “Salon,” “Die Romantische Schule” (both written, +in the first instance, in French), the book on Börne, “Atta Troll,” a +romantic poem, “Deutschland,” an exquisitely humorous poem, describing +his last visit to Germany, and containing some grand passages of serious +writing; and the “Neue Gedichte,” a collection of lyrical poems. Among +the most interesting of his prose works are the second volume of the +“Salon,” which contains a survey of religion and philosophy in Germany, +and the “Romantische Schule,” a delightful introduction to that phase of +German literature known as the Romantic school. The book on Börne, which +appeared in 1840, two years after the death of that writer, excited great +indignation in Germany, as a wreaking of vengeance on the dead, an insult +to the memory of a man who had worked and suffered in the cause of +freedom—a cause which was Heine’s own. Börne, we may observe +parenthetically for the information of those who are not familiar with +recent German literature, was a remarkable political writer of the +ultra-liberal party in Germany, who resided in Paris at the same time +with Heine: a man of stern, uncompromising partisanship and bitter humor. +Without justifying Heine’s production of this book, we see excuses for +him which should temper the condemnation passed on it. There was a +radical opposition of nature between him and Börne; to use his own +distinction, Heine is a Hellene—sensuous, realistic, exquisitely alive to +the beautiful; while Börne was a Nazarene—ascetic, spiritualistic, +despising the pure artist as destitute of earnestness. Heine has too +keen a perception of practical absurdities and damaging exaggerations +ever to become a thoroughgoing partisan; and with a love of freedom, a +faith in the ultimate triumph of democratic principles, of which we see +no just reason to doubt the genuineness and consistency, he has been +unable to satisfy more zealous and one-sided liberals by giving his +adhesion to their views and measures, or by adopting a denunciatory tone +against those in the opposite ranks. Börne could not forgive what he +regarded as Heine’s epicurean indifference and artistic dalliance, and he +at length gave vent to his antipathy in savage attacks on him through the +press, accusing him of utterly lacking character and principle, and even +of writing under the influence of venal motives. To these attacks Heine +remained absolutely mute—from contempt according to his own account; but +the retort, which he resolutely refrained from making during Börne’s +life, comes in this volume published after his death with the +concentrated force of long-gathering thunder. The utterly inexcusable +part of the book is the caricature of Börne’s friend, Madame Wohl, and +the scurrilous insinuations concerning Börne’s domestic life. It is +said, we know not with how much truth, that Heine had to answer for these +in a duel with Madame Wohl’s husband, and that, after receiving a serious +wound, he promised to withdraw the offensive matter from a future +edition. That edition, however, has not been called for. Whatever else +we may think of the book, it is impossible to deny its transcendent +talent—the dramatic vigor with which Börne is made present to us, the +critical acumen with which he is characterized, and the wonderful play of +wit, pathos, and thought which runs through the whole. But we will let +Heine speak for himself, and first we will give part of his graphic +description of the way in which Börne’s mind and manners grated on his +taste: + + “To the disgust which, in intercourse with Börne, I was in danger of + feeling toward those who surrounded him, was added the annoyance I + felt from his perpetual talk about politics. Nothing but political + argument, and again political argument, even at table, where he + managed to hunt me out. At dinner, when I so gladly forget all the + vexations of the world, he spoiled the best dishes for me by his + patriotic gall, which he poured as a bitter sauce over everything. + Calf’s feet, _à la maître d’hôtel_, then my innocent _bonne bouche_, + he completely spoiled for me by Job’s tidings from Germany, which he + scraped together out of the most unreliable newspapers. And then his + accursed remarks, which spoiled one’s appetite! . . . This was a sort + of table-talk which did not greatly exhilarate me, and I avenged + myself by affecting an excessive, almost impassioned indifference for + the object of Börne’s enthusiasm. For example, Börne was indignant + that immediately on my arrival in Paris I had nothing better to do + than to write for German papers a long account of the Exhibition of + Pictures. I omit all discussion as to whether that interest in Art + which induced me to undertake this work was so utterly irreconcilable + with the revolutionary interests of the day; but Börne saw in it a + proof of my indifference toward the sacred cause of humanity, and I + could in my turn spoil the taste of his patriotic _sauerkraut_ for + him by talking all dinner-time of nothing but pictures, of Robert’s + ‘Reapers,’ Horace Vernet’s ‘Judith,’ and Scheffer’s ‘Faust.’ . . . + That I never thought it worth while to discuss my political + principles with him it is needless to say; and once when he declared + that he had found a contradiction in my writings, I satisfied myself + with the ironical answer, ‘You are mistaken, _mon cher_; such + contradictions never occur in my works, for always before I begin to + write, I read over the statement of my political principles in my + previous writings, that I may not contradict myself, and that no one + may be able to reproach me with apostasy from my liberal + principles.’” + +And here is his own account of the spirit in which the book was written: + + “I was never Börne’s friend, nor was I ever his enemy. The + displeasure which he could often excite in me was never very + important, and he atoned for it sufficiently by the cold silence + which I opposed to all his accusations and raillery. While he lived + I wrote not a line against him, I never thought about him, I ignored + him completely; and that enraged him beyond measure. If I now speak + of him, I do so neither out of enthusiasm nor out of uneasiness; I am + conscious of the coolest impartiality. I write here neither an + apology nor a critique, and as in painting the man I go on my own + observation, the image I present of him ought perhaps to be regarded + as a real portrait. And such a monument is due to him—to the great + wrestler who, in the arena of our political games, wrestled so + courageously, and earned, if not the laurel, certainly the crown of + oak leaves. I give an image with his true features, without + idealization—the more like him the more honorable for his memory. He + was neither a genius nor a hero; he was no Olympian god. He was a + man, a denizen of this earth; he was a good writer and a great + patriot. . . . Beautiful, delicious peace, which I feel at this + moment in the depths of my soul! Thou rewardest me sufficiently for + everything I have done and for everything I have despised. . . . I + shall defend myself neither from the reproach of indifference nor + from the suspicion of venality. I have for years, during the life of + the insinuator, held such self-justification unworthy of me; now even + decency demands silence. That would be a frightful + spectacle!—polemics between Death and Exile! Dost thou stretch out + to me a beseeching hand from the grave? Without rancor I reach mine + toward thee. . . . See how noble it is and pure! It was never soiled + by pressing the hands of the mob, any more than by the impure gold of + the people’s enemy. In reality thou hast never injured me. . . . In + all thy insinuations there is not a _louis d’or’s_ worth of truth.” + +In one of these years Heine was married, and, in deference to the +sentiments of his wife, married according to the rites of the Catholic +Church. On this fact busy rumor afterward founded the story of his +conversion to Catholicism, and could of course name the day and spot on +which he abjured Protestanism. In his “Geständnisse” Heine publishes a +denial of this rumor; less, he says, for the sake of depriving the +Catholics of the solace they may derive from their belief in a new +convert, than in order to cut off from another party the more spiteful +satisfaction of bewailing his instability: + + “That statement of time and place was entirely correct. I was + actually on the specified day in the specified church, which was, + moreover, a Jesuit church, namely, St. Sulpice; and I then went + through a religious act. But this act was no odious abjuration, but + a very innocent conjugation; that is to say, my marriage, already + performed, according to the civil law there received the + ecclesiastical consecration, because my wife, whose family are + staunch Catholics, would not have thought her marriage sacred enough + without such a ceremony. And I would on no account cause this + beloved being any uneasiness or disturbance in her religious views.” + +For sixteen years—from 1831 to 1847—Heine lived that rapid concentrated +life which is known only in Paris; but then, alas! stole on the “days of +darkness,” and they were to be many. In 1847 he felt the approach of the +terrible spinal disease which has for seven years chained him to his bed +in acute suffering. The last time he went out of doors, he tells us, was +in May, 1848: + + “With difficulty I dragged myself to the Louvre, and I almost sank + down as I entered the magnificent hall where the ever-blessed goddess + of beauty, our beloved Lady of Milo, stands on her pedestal. At her + feet I lay long, and wept so bitterly that a stone must have pitied + me. The goddess looked compassionately on me, but at the same time + disconsolately, as if she would say, Dost thou not see, then, that I + have no arms, and thus cannot help thee?” + +Since 1848, then, this poet, whom the lovely objects of Nature have +always “haunted like a passion,” has not descended from the second story +of a Parisian house; this man of hungry intellect has been shut out from +all direct observation of life, all contact with society, except such as +is derived from visitors to his sick-room. The terrible nervous disease +has affected his eyes; the sight of one is utterly gone, and he can only +raise the lid of the other by lifting it with his finger. Opium alone is +the beneficent genius that stills his pain. We hardly know whether to +call it an alleviation or an intensification of the torture that Heine +retains his mental vigor, his poetic imagination, and his incisive wit; +for if this intellectual activity fills up a blank, it widens the sphere +of suffering. His brother described him in 1851 as still, in moments +when the hand of pain was not too heavy on him, the same Heinrich Heine, +poet and satirist by turns. In such moments he would narrate the +strangest things in the gravest manner. But when he came to an end, he +would roguishly lift up the lid of his right eye with his finger to see +the impression he had produced; and if his audience had been listening +with a serious face, he would break into Homeric laughter. We have other +proof than personal testimony that Heine’s disease allows his genius to +retain much of its energy, in the “Romanzero,” a volume of poems +published in 1851, and written chiefly during the three first years of +his illness; and in the first volume of the “Vermischte Schriften,” also +the product of recent years. Very plaintive is the poet’s own +description of his condition, in the epilogue to the “Romanzero:” + + “Do I really exist? My body is so shrunken that I am hardly anything + but a voice; and my bed reminds me of the singing grave of the + magician Merlin, which lies in the forest of Brozeliand, in Brittany, + under tall oaks whose tops soar like green flames toward heaven. + Alas! I envy thee those trees and the fresh breeze that moves their + branches, brother Merlin, for no green leaf rustles about my + mattress-grave in Paris, where early and late I hear nothing but the + rolling of vehicles, hammering, quarrelling, and piano-strumming. A + grave without repose, death without the privileges of the dead, who + have no debts to pay, and need write neither letters nor books—that + is a piteous condition. Long ago the measure has been taken for my + coffin and for my necrology, but I die so slowly that the process is + tedious for me as well as my friends. But patience: everything has + an end. You will one day find the booth closed where the puppet-show + of my humor has so often delighted you.” + +As early as 1850 it was rumored that since Heine’s illness a change had +taken place in his religious views; and as rumor seldom stops short of +extremes, it was soon said that he had become a thorough pietist, +Catholics and Protestants by turns claiming him as a convert. Such a +change in so uncompromising an iconoclast, in a man who had been so +zealous in his negations as Heine, naturally excited considerable +sensation in the camp he was supposed to have quitted, as well as in that +he was supposed to have joined. In the second volume of the “Salon,” and +in the “Romantische Schule,” written in 1834 and ’35, the doctrine of +Pantheism is dwelt on with a fervor and unmixed seriousness which show +that Pantheism was then an animating faith to Heine, and he attacks what +he considers the false spiritualism and asceticism of Christianity as the +enemy of true beauty in Art, and of social well-being. Now, however, it +was said that Heine had recanted all his heresies; but from the fact that +visitors to his sick-room brought away very various impressions as to his +actual religious views, it seemed probable that his love of mystification +had found a tempting opportunity for exercise on this subject, and that, +as one of his friends said, he was not inclined to pour out unmixed wine +to those who asked for a sample out of mere curiosity. At length, in the +epilogue to the “Romanzero,” dated 1851, there appeared, amid much +mystifying banter, a declaration that he had embraced Theism and the +belief in a future life, and what chiefly lent an air of seriousness and +reliability to this affirmation was the fact that he took care to +accompany it with certain negations: + + “As concerns myself, I can boast of no particular progress in + politics; I adhered (after 1848) to the same democratic principles + which had the homage of my youth, and for which I have ever since + glowed with increasing fervor. In theology, on the contrary, I must + accuse myself of retrogression, since, as I have already confessed, I + returned to the old superstition—to a personal God. This fact is, + once for all, not to be stifled, as many enlightened and well-meaning + friends would fain have had it. But I must expressly contradict the + report that my retrograde movement has carried me as far as to the + threshold of a Church, and that I have even been received into her + lap. No: my religious convictions and views have remained free from + any tincture of ecclesiasticism; no chiming of bells has allured me, + no altar candles have dazzled me. I have dallied with no dogmas, and + have not utterly renounced my reason.” + +This sounds like a serious statement. But what shall we say to a convert +who plays with his newly-acquired belief in a future life, as Heine does +in the very next page? He says to his reader: + + “Console thyself; we shall meet again in a better world, where I also + mean to write thee better books. I take for granted that my health + will there be improved, and that Swedenborg has not deceived me. He + relates, namely, with great confidence, that we shall peacefully + carry on our old occupations in the other world, just as we have done + in this; that we shall there preserve our individuality unaltered, + and that death will produce no particular change in our organic + development. Swedenborg is a thoroughly honorable fellow, and quite + worthy of credit in what he tells us about the other world, where he + saw with his own eyes the persons who had played a great part on our + earth. Most of them, he says, remained unchanged, and busied + themselves with the same things as formerly; they remained + stationary, were old-fashioned, _rococo_—which now and then produced + a ludicrous effect. For example, our dear Dr. Martin Luther kept + fast by his doctrine of Grace, about which he had for three hundred + years daily written down the same mouldy arguments—just in the same + way as the late Baron Ekstein, who during twenty years printed in the + _Allgemeine Zeitung_ one and the same article, perpetually chewing + over again the old cud of Jesuitical doctrine. But, as we have said, + all persons who once figured here below were not found by Swedenborg + in such a state of fossil immutability: many had considerably + developed their character, both for good and evil, in the other + world; and this gave rise to some singular results. Some who had + been heroes and saints on earth had _there_ sunk into scamps and + good-for-nothings; and there were examples, too, of a contrary + transformation. For instance, the fumes of self-conceit mounted to + Saint Anthony’s head when he learned what immense veneration and + adoration had been paid to him by all Christendom; and he who here + below withstood the most terrible temptations was now quite an + impertinent rascal and dissolute gallows-bird, who vied with his pig + in rolling himself in the mud. The chaste Susanna, from having been + excessively vain of her virtue, which she thought indomitable, came + to a shameful fall, and she who once so gloriously resisted the two + old men, was a victim to the seductions of the young Absalom, the son + of David. On the contrary, Lot’s daughters had in the lapse of time + become very virtuous, and passed in the other world for models of + propriety: the old man, alas! had stuck to the wine-flask.” + +In his “Geständnisse,” the retractation of former opinions and profession +of Theism are renewed, but in a strain of irony that repels our sympathy +and baffles our psychology. Yet what strange, deep pathos is mingled +with the audacity of the following passage! + + “What avails it me, that enthusiastic youths and maidens crown my + marble bust with laurel, when the withered hands of an aged nurse are + pressing Spanish flies behind my ears? What avails it me, that all + the roses of Shiraz glow and waft incense for me? Alas! Shiraz is + two thousand miles from the Rue d’Amsterdam, where, in the wearisome + loneliness of my sick-room, I get no scent, except it be, perhaps, + the perfume of warmed towels. Alas! God’s satire weighs heavily on + me. The great Author of the universe, the Aristophanes of Heaven, + was bent on demonstrating, with crushing force, to me, the little, + earthly, German Aristophanes, how my wittiest sarcasms are only + pitiful attempts at jesting in comparison with His, and how miserably + I am beneath him in humor, in colossal mockery.” + +For our own part, we regard the paradoxical irreverence with which Heine +professes his theoretical reverence as pathological, as the diseased +exhibition of a predominant tendency urged into anomalous action by the +pressure of pain and mental privation—as a delirium of wit starved of its +proper nourishment. It is not for us to condemn, who have never had the +same burden laid on us; it is not for pigmies at their ease to criticise +the writhings of the Titan chained to the rock. + +On one other point we must touch before quitting Heine’s personal +history. There is a standing accusation against him in some quarters of +wanting political principle, of wishing to denationalize himself, and of +indulging in insults against his native country. Whatever ground may +exist for these accusations, that ground is not, so far as we see, to be +found in his writings. He may not have much faith in German revolutions +and revolutionists; experience, in his case as in that of others, may +have thrown his millennial anticipations into more distant perspective; +but we see no evidence that he has ever swerved from his attachment to +the principles of freedom, or written anything which to a philosophic +mind is incompatible with true patriotism. He has expressly denied the +report that he wished to become naturalized in France; and his yearning +toward his native land and the accents of his native language is +expressed with a pathos the more reliable from the fact that he is +sparing in such effusions. We do not see why Heine’s satire of the +blunders and foibles of his fellow-countrymen should be denounced as a +crime of _lèse-patrie_, any more than the political caricatures of any +other satirist. The real offences of Heine are his occasional coarseness +and his unscrupulous personalities, which are reprehensible, not because +they are directed against his fellow-countrymen, but because they are +_personalities_. That these offences have their precedents in men whose +memory the world delights to honor does not remove their turpitude, but +it is a fact which should modify our condemnation in a particular case; +unless, indeed, we are to deliver our judgments on a principle of +compensation—making up for our indulgence in one direction by our +severity in another. On this ground of coarseness and personality, a +true bill may be found against Heine; _not_, we think, on the ground that +he has laughed at what is laughable in his compatriots. Here is a +specimen of the satire under which we suppose German patriots wince: + + “Rhenish Bavaria was to be the starting-point of the German + revolution. Zweibrücken was the Bethlehem in which the infant + Saviour—Freedom—lay in the cradle, and gave whimpering promise of + redeeming the world. Near his cradle bellowed many an ox, who + afterward, when his horns were reckoned on, showed himself a very + harmless brute. It was confidently believed that the German + revolution would begin in Zweibrücken, and everything was there ripe + for an outbreak. But, as has been hinted, the tender-heartedness of + some persons frustrated that illegal undertaking. For example, among + the Bipontine conspirators there was a tremendous braggart, who was + always loudest in his rage, who boiled over with the hatred of + tyranny, and this man was fixed on to strike the first blow, by + cutting down a sentinel who kept an important post. . . . . ‘What!’ + cried the man, when this order was given him—‘What!—me! Can you + expect so horrible, so bloodthirsty an act of me? I—_I_, kill an + innocent sentinel? I, who am the father of a family! And this + sentinel is perhaps also father of a family. One father of a family + kill another father of a family? Yes. Kill—murder!’” + +In political matters Heine, like all men whose intellect and taste +predominate too far over their impulses to allow of their becoming +partisans, is offensive alike to the aristocrat and the democrat. By the +one he is denounced as a man who holds incendiary principles, by the +other as a half-hearted “trimmer.” He has no sympathy, as he says, with +“that vague, barren pathos, that useless effervescence of enthusiasm, +which plunges, with the spirit of a martyr, into an ocean of +generalities, and which always reminds me of the American sailor, who had +so fervent an enthusiasm for General Jackson, that he at last sprang from +the top of a mast into the sea, crying, “_I die for General Jackson_!” + + “But thou liest, Brutus, thou liest, Cassius, and thou, too, liest, + Asinius, in maintaining that my ridicule attacks those ideas which + are the precious acquisition of Humanity, and for which I myself have + so striven and suffered. No! for the very reason that those ideas + constantly hover before the poet in glorious splendor and majesty, he + is the more irresistibly overcome by laughter when he sees how + rudely, awkwardly, and clumsily those ideas are seized and mirrored + in the contracted minds of contemporaries. . . . There are mirrors + which have so rough a surface that even an Apollo reflected in them + becomes a caricature, and excites our laughter. _But we laugh then + only at the caricature_, _not at the god_.” + +For the rest, why should we demand of Heine that he should be a hero, a +patriot, a solemn prophet, any more than we should demand of a gazelle +that it should draw well in harness? Nature has not made him of her +sterner stuff—not of iron and adamant, but of pollen of flowers, the +juice of the grape, and Puck’s mischievous brain, plenteously mixing also +the dews of kindly affection and the gold-dust of noble thoughts. It is, +after all, a _tribute_ which his enemies pay him when they utter their +bitterest dictum, namely, that he is “_nur Dichter_”—only a poet. Let us +accept this point of view for the present, and, leaving all consideration +of him as a man, look at him simply as a poet and literary artist. + +Heine is essentially a lyric poet. The finest products of his genius are + + “Short swallow flights of song that dip + Their wings in tears, and skim away;” + +and they are so emphatically songs that, in reading them, we feel as if +each must have a twin melody born in the same moment and by the same +inspiration. Heine is too impressible and mercurial for any sustained +production; even in his short lyrics his tears sometimes pass into +laughter and his laughter into tears; and his longer poems, “Atta Troll” +and “Deutschland,” are full of Ariosto-like transitions. His song has a +wide compass of notes; he can take us to the shores of the Northern Sea +and thrill us by the sombre sublimity of his pictures and dreamy fancies; +he can draw forth our tears by the voice he gives to our own sorrows, or +to the sorrows of “Poor Peter;” he can throw a cold shudder over us by a +mysterious legend, a ghost story, or a still more ghastly rendering of +hard reality; he can charm us by a quiet idyl, shake us with laughter at +his overflowing fun, or give us a piquant sensation of surprise by the +ingenuity of his transitions from the lofty to the ludicrous. This last +power is not, indeed, essentially poetical; but only a poet can use it +with the same success as Heine, for only a poet can poise our emotion and +expectation at such a height as to give effect to the sudden fall. +Heine’s greatest power as a poet lies in his simple pathos, in the +ever-varied but always natural expression he has given to the tender +emotions. We may perhaps indicate this phase of his genius by referring +to Wordsworth’s beautiful little poem, “She dwelt among the untrodden +ways;” the conclusion— + + “She dwelt alone, and few could know + When Lucy ceased to be; + But she is in her grave, and, oh! + The difference to me”— + +is entirely in Heine’s manner; and so is Tennyson’s poem of a dozen +lines, called “Circumstance.” Both these poems have Heine’s pregnant +simplicity. But, lest this comparison should mislead, we must say that +there is no general resemblance between either Wordsworth, or Tennyson, +and Heine. Their greatest qualities lie quite a way from the light, +delicate lucidity, the easy, rippling music, of Heine’s style. The +distinctive charm of his lyrics may best be seen by comparing them with +Goethe’s. Both have the same masterly, finished simplicity and rhythmic +grace; but there is more thought mingled with Goethe’s feeling—his +lyrical genius is a vessel that draws more water than Heine’s, and, +though it seems to glide along with equal ease, we have a sense of +greater weight and force, accompanying the grace of its movements. + +But for this very reason Heine touches our hearts more strongly; his +songs are all music and feeling—they are like birds that not only enchant +us with their delicious notes, but nestle against us with their soft +breasts, and make us feel the agitated beating of their hearts. He +indicates a whole sad history in a single quatrain; there is not an image +in it, not a thought; but it is beautiful, simple, and perfect as a “big +round tear”—it is pure feeling, breathed in pure music: + + “Anfangs wollt’ ich fast verzagen + Und ich glaubt’ ich trug es nie, + Und ich hab’ es doch getragen— + Aber fragt mich nur nicht, wie.” {134} + +He excels equally in the more imaginative expression of feeling: he +represents it by a brief image, like a finely cut cameo; he expands it +into a mysterious dream, or dramatizes it in a little story, half ballad, +half idyl; and in all these forms his art is so perfect that we never +have a sense of artificiality or of unsuccessful effort; but all seems to +have developed itself by the same beautiful necessity that brings forth +vine-leaves and grapes and the natural curls of childhood. Of Heine’s +humorous poetry, “Deutschland” is the most charming specimen—charming, +especially, because its wit and humor grow out of a rich loam of thought. +“Atta Troll” is more original, more various, more fantastic; but it is +too great a strain on the imagination to be a general favorite. We have +said that feeling is the element in which Heine’s poetic genius +habitually floats; but he can occasionally soar to a higher region, and +impart deep significance to picturesque symbolism; he can flash a sublime +thought over the past and into the future; he can pour forth a lofty +strain of hope or indignation. Few could forget, after once hearing +them, the stanzas at the close of “Deutschland,” in which he warns the +King of Prussia not to incur the irredeemable hell which the injured poet +can create for him—the _singing flames_ of a Dante’s _terza rima_! + + “Kennst du die Hölle des Dante nicht, + Die schrecklichen Terzetten? + Wen da der Dichter hineingesperrt + Den kann kein Gott mehr retten. + + “Kein Gott, kein Heiland, erlöst ihn je + Aus diesen singenden Flammen! + Nimm dich in Acht, das wir dich nicht + Zu solcher Hölle verdammen.” {135} + +As a prosaist, Heine is, in one point of view, even more distinguished +than as a poet. The German language easily lends itself to all the +purposes of poetry; like the ladies of the Middle Ages, it is gracious +and compliant to the Troubadours. But as these same ladies were often +crusty and repulsive to their unmusical mates, so the German language +generally appears awkward and unmanageable in the hands of prose writers. +Indeed, the number of really fine German prosaists before Heine would +hardly have exceeded the numerating powers of a New Hollander, who can +count three and no more. Persons the most familiar with German prose +testify that there is an extra fatigue in reading it, just as we feel an +extra fatigue from our walk when it takes us over ploughed clay. But in +Heine’s hands German prose, usually so heavy, so clumsy, so dull, +becomes, like clay in the hands of the chemist, compact, metallic, +brilliant; it is German in an _allotropic_ condition. No dreary +labyrinthine sentences in which you find “no end in wandering mazes +lost;” no chains of adjectives in linked harshness long drawn out; no +digressions thrown in as parentheses; but crystalline definiteness and +clearness, fine and varied rhythm, and all that delicate precision, all +those felicities of word and cadence, which belong to the highest order +of prose. And Heine has proved—what Madame de Stäel seems to have +doubted—that it is possible to be witty in German; indeed, in reading +him, you might imagine that German was pre-eminently the language of wit, +so flexible, so subtle, so piquant does it become under his management. +He is far more an artist in prose than Goethe. He has not the breadth +and repose, and the calm development which belong to Goethe’s style, for +they are foreign to his mental character; but he excels Goethe in +susceptibility to the manifold qualities of prose, and in mastery over +its effects. Heine is full of variety, of light and shadow: he +alternates between epigrammatic pith, imaginative grace, sly allusion, +and daring piquancy; and athwart all these there runs a vein of sadness, +tenderness, and grandeur which reveals the poet. He continually throws +out those finely chiselled sayings which stamp themselves on the memory, +and become familiar by quotation. For example: “The People have time +enough, they are immortal; kings only are mortal.”—“Wherever a great soul +utters its thoughts, there is Golgotha.”—“Nature wanted to see how she +looked, and she created Goethe.”—“Only the man who has known bodily +suffering is truly a _man_; his limbs have their Passion history, they +are spiritualized.” He calls Rubens “this Flemish Titan, the wings of +whose genius were so strong that he soared as high as the sun, in spite +of the hundred-weight of Dutch cheeses that hung on his legs.” Speaking +of Börne’s dislike to the calm creations of the true artist, he says, “He +was like a child which, insensible to the glowing significance of a Greek +statue, only touches the marble and complains of cold.” + +The most poetic and specifically humorous of Heine’s prose writings are +the “Reisebilder.” The comparison with Sterne is inevitable here; but +Heine does not suffer from it, for if he falls below Sterne in raciness +of humor, he is far above him in poetic sensibility and in reach and +variety of thought. Heine’s humor is never persistent, it never flows on +long in easy gayety and drollery; where it is not swelled by the tide of +poetic feeling, it is continually dashing down the precipice of a +witticism. It is not broad and unctuous; it is aërial and sprite-like, a +momentary resting-place between his poetry and his wit. In the +“Reisebilder” he runs through the whole gamut of his powers, and gives us +every hue of thought, from the wildly droll and fantastic to the sombre +and the terrible. Here is a passage almost Dantesque in conception: + + “Alas! one ought in truth to write against no one in this world. + Each of us is sick enough in this great lazaretto, and many a + polemical writing reminds me involuntarily of a revolting quarrel, in + a little hospital at Cracow, of which I chanced to be a witness, and + where it was horrible to hear how the patients mockingly reproached + each other with their infirmities: how one who was wasted by + consumption jeered at another who was bloated by dropsy; how one + laughed at another’s cancer in the nose, and this one again at his + neighbor’s locked-jaw or squint, until at last the delirious + fever-patient sprang out of bed and tore away the coverings from the + wounded bodies of his companions, and nothing was to be seen but + hideous misery and mutilation.” + +And how fine is the transition in the very next chapter, where, after +quoting the Homeric description of the feasting gods, he says: + + “Then suddenly approached, panting, a pale Jew, with drops of blood + on his brow, with a crown of thorns on his head, and a great cross + laid on his shoulders; and he threw the cross on the high table of + the gods, so that the golden cups tottered, and the gods became dumb + and pale, and grew ever paler, till they at last melted away into + vapor.” + +The richest specimens of Heine’s wit are perhaps to be found in the works +which have appeared since the “Reisebilder.” The years, if they have +intensified his satirical bitterness, have also given his wit a finer +edge and polish. His sarcasms are so subtly prepared and so slily +allusive, that they may often escape readers whose sense of wit is not +very acute; but for those who delight in the subtle and delicate flavors +of style, there can hardly be any wit more irresistible than Heine’s. We +may measure its force by the degree in which it has subdued the German +language to its purposes, and made that language brilliant in spite of a +long hereditary transmission of dulness. As one of the most harmless +examples of his satire, take this on a man who has certainly had his +share of adulation: + + “Assuredly it is far from my purpose to depreciate M. Victor Cousin. + The titles of this celebrated philosopher even lay me under an + obligation to praise him. He belongs to that living pantheon of + France which we call the peerage, and his intelligent legs rest on + the velvet benches of the Luxembourg. I must indeed sternly repress + all private feelings which might seduce me into an excessive + enthusiasm. Otherwise I might be suspected of servility; for M. + Cousin is very influential in the State by means of his position and + his tongue. This consideration might even move me to speak of his + faults as frankly as of his virtues. Will he himself disapprove of + this? Assuredly not. I know that we cannot do higher honor to great + minds than when we throw as strong a light on their demerits as on + their merits. When we sing the praises of a Hercules, we must also + mention that he once laid aside the lion’s skin and sat down to the + distaff: what then? he remains notwithstanding a Hercules! So when + we relate similar circumstances concerning M. Cousin, we must + nevertheless add, with discriminating eulogy: _M. Cousin_, _if he has + sometimes sat twaddling at the distaff_, _has never laid aside the + lion’s skin_. . . . It is true that, having been suspected of + demagogy, he spent some time in a German prison, just as Lafayette + and Richard Cœur de Lion. But that M. Cousin there in his leisure + hours studied Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ is to be doubted on + three grounds. First, this book is written in German. Secondly, in + order to read this book, a man must understand German. Thirdly, M. + Cousin does not understand German. . . . I fear I am passing unawares + from the sweet waters of praise into the bitter ocean of blame. Yes, + on one account I cannot refrain from bitterly blaming M. + Cousin—namely, that he who loves truth far more than he loves Plato + and Tenneman is unjust to himself when he wants to persuade us that + he has borrowed something from the philosophy of Schelling and Hegel. + Against this self-accusation I must take M. Cousin under my + protection. On my word and conscience! this honorable man has not + stolen a jot from Schelling and Hegel, and if he brought home + anything of theirs, it was merely their friendship. That does honor + to his heart. But there are many instances of such false + self-accusation in psychology. I knew a man who declared that he had + stolen silver spoons at the king’s table; and yet we all knew that + the poor devil had never been presented at court, and accused himself + of stealing these spoons to make us believe that he had been a guest + at the palace. No! In German philosophy M. Cousin has always kept + the sixth commandment; here he has never pocketed a single idea, not + so much as a salt-spoon of an idea. All witnesses agree in attesting + that in this respect M. Cousin is honor itself. . . . I prophesy to + you that the renown of M. Cousin, like the French Revolution, will go + round the world! I hear some one wickedly add: Undeniably the renown + of M. Cousin is going round the world, and _it has already taken its + departure from France_.” + +The following “symbolical myth” about Louis Philippe is very +characteristic of Heine’s manner: + + “I remember very well that immediately on my arrival (in Paris) I + hastened to the Palais Royal to see Louis Philippe. The friend who + conducted me told me that the king now appeared on the terrace only + at stated hours, but that formerly he was to be seen at any time for + five francs. ‘For five francs!’ I cried with amazement; ‘does he + then show himself for money?’ ‘No, but he is shown for money, and it + happens in this way: There is a society of _claqueurs_, _marchands de + contremarques_, and such riff-raff, who offered every foreigner to + show him the king for five francs: if he would give ten francs, he + might see the king raise his eyes to heaven, and lay his hand + protestingly on his heart; if he would give twenty francs, the king + would sing the Marseillaise. If the foreigner gave five francs, they + raised a loud cheering under the king’s windows, and His Majesty + appeared on the terrace, bowed, and retired. If ten francs, they + shouted still louder, and gesticulated as if they had been possessed, + when the king appeared, who then, as a sign of silent emotion, raised + his eyes to heaven and laid his hand on his heart. English visitors, + however, would sometimes spend as much as twenty francs, and then the + enthusiasm mounted to the highest pitch; no sooner did the king + appear on the terrace than the Marseillaise was struck up and roared + out frightfully, until Louis Philippe, perhaps only for the sake of + putting an end to the singing, bowed, laid his hand on his heart, and + joined in the Marseillaise. Whether, as is asserted, he beat time + with his foot, I cannot say.’” + +One more quotation, and it must be our last: + + “Oh the women! We must forgive them much, for they love much—and + many. Their hate is properly only love turned inside out. Sometimes + they attribute some delinquency to us, because they think they can in + this way gratify another man. When they write, they have always one + eye on the paper and the other on a man; and this is true of all + authoresses, except the Countess Hahn-Hahn, who has only one eye.” + + + +V. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF GERMAN LIFE. {141} + + +It is an interesting branch of psychological observation to note the +images that are habitually associated with abstract or collective +terms—what may be called the picture-writing of the mind, which it +carries on concurrently with the more subtle symbolism of language. +Perhaps the fixity or variety of these associated images would furnish a +tolerably fair test of the amount of concrete knowledge and experience +which a given word represents, in the minds of two persons who use it +with equal familiarity. The word _railways_, for example, will probably +call up, in the mind of a man who is not highly locomotive, the image +either of a “Bradshaw,” or of the station with which he is most familiar, +or of an indefinite length of tram-road; he will alternate between these +three images, which represent his stock of concrete acquaintance with +railways. But suppose a man to have had successively the experience of a +“navvy,” an engineer, a traveller, a railway director and shareholder, +and a landed proprietor in treaty with a railway company, and it is +probable that the range of images which would by turns present themselves +to his mind at the mention of the _word_ “railways,” would include all +the essential facts in the existence and relations of the _thing_. Now +it is possible for the first-mentioned personage to entertain very +expanded views as to the multiplication of railways in the abstract, and +their ultimate function in civilization. He may talk of a vast network +of railways stretching over the globe, of future “lines” in Madagascar, +and elegant refreshment-rooms in the Sandwich Islands, with none the less +glibness because his distinct conceptions on the subject do not extend +beyond his one station and his indefinite length of tram-road. But it is +evident that if we want a railway to be made, or its affairs to be +managed, this man of wide views and narrow observation will not serve our +purpose. + +Probably, if we could ascertain the images called up by the terms “the +people,” “the masses,” “the proletariat,” “the peasantry,” by many who +theorize on those bodies with eloquence, or who legislate without +eloquence, we should find that they indicate almost as small an amount of +concrete knowledge—that they are as far from completely representing the +complex facts summed up in the collective term, as the railway images of +our non-locomotive gentleman. How little the real characteristics of the +working-classes are known to those who are outside them, how little their +natural history has been studied, is sufficiently disclosed by our Art as +well as by our political and social theories. Where, in our picture +exhibitions, shall we find a group of true peasantry? What English +artist even attempts to rival in truthfulness such studies of popular +life as the pictures of Teniers or the ragged boys of Murillo? Even one +of the greatest painters of the pre-eminently realistic school, while, in +his picture of “The Hireling Shepherd,” he gave us a landscape of +marvellous truthfulness, placed a pair of peasants in the foreground who +were not much more real than the idyllic swains and damsels of our +chimney ornaments. Only a total absence of acquaintance and sympathy +with our peasantry could give a moment’s popularity to such a picture as +“Cross Purposes,” where we have a peasant girl who looks as if she knew +L. E. L.’s poems by heart, and English rustics, whose costume seems to +indicate that they are meant for ploughmen, with exotic features that +remind us of a handsome _primo tenore_. Rather than such cockney +sentimentality as this, as an education for the taste and sympathies, we +prefer the most crapulous group of boors that Teniers ever painted. But +even those among our painters who aim at giving the rustic type of +features, who are far above the effeminate feebleness of the “Keepsake” +style, treat their subjects under the influence of traditions and +prepossessions rather than of direct observation. The notion that +peasants are joyous, that the typical moment to represent a man in a +smock-frock is when he is cracking a joke and showing a row of sound +teeth, that cottage matrons are usually buxom, and village children +necessarily rosy and merry, are prejudices difficult to dislodge from the +artistic mind, which looks for its subjects into literature instead of +life. The painter is still under the influence of idyllic literature, +which has always expressed the imagination of the cultivated and +town-bred, rather than the truth of rustic life. Idyllic ploughmen are +jocund when they drive their team afield; idyllic shepherds make bashful +love under hawthorn bushes; idyllic villagers dance in the checkered +shade and refresh themselves, not immoderately, with spicy nut-brown ale. +But no one who has seen much of actual ploughmen thinks them jocund; no +one who is well acquainted with the English peasantry can pronounce them +merry. The slow gaze, in which no sense of beauty beams, no humor +twinkles, the slow utterance, and the heavy, slouching walk, remind one +rather of that melancholy animal the camel than of the sturdy countryman, +with striped stockings, red waistcoat, and hat aside, who represents the +traditional English peasant. Observe a company of haymakers. When you +see them at a distance, tossing up the forkfuls of hay in the golden +light, while the wagon creeps slowly with its increasing burden over the +meadow, and the bright green space which tells of work done gets larger +and larger, you pronounce the scene “smiling,” and you think these +companions in labor must be as bright and cheerful as the picture to +which they give animation. Approach nearer, and you will certainly find +that haymaking time is a time for joking, especially if there are women +among the laborers; but the coarse laugh that bursts out every now and +then, and expresses the triumphant taunt, is as far as possible from your +conception of idyllic merriment. That delicious effervescence of the +mind which we call fun has no equivalent for the northern peasant, except +tipsy revelry; the only realm of fancy and imagination for the English +clown exists at the bottom of the third quart pot. + +The conventional countryman of the stage, who picks up pocket-books and +never looks into them, and who is too simple even to know that honesty +has its opposite, represents the still lingering mistake, that an +unintelligible dialect is a guarantee for ingenuousness, and that +slouching shoulders indicate an upright disposition. It is quite true +that a thresher is likely to be innocent of any adroit arithmetical +cheating, but he is not the less likely to carry home his master’s corn +in his shoes and pocket; a reaper is not given to writing +begging-letters, but he is quite capable of cajoling the dairymaid into +filling his small-beer bottle with ale. The selfish instincts are not +subdued by the sight of buttercups, nor is integrity in the least +established by that classic rural occupation, sheep-washing. To make men +moral something more is requisite than to turn them out to grass. + +Opera peasants, whose unreality excites Mr. Ruskin’s indignation, are +surely too frank an idealization to be misleading; and since popular +chorus is one of the most effective elements of the opera, we can hardly +object to lyric rustics in elegant laced boddices and picturesque motley, +unless we are prepared to advocate a chorus of colliers in their pit +costume, or a ballet of charwomen and stocking-weavers. But our social +novels profess to represent the people as they are, and the unreality of +their representations is a grave evil. The greatest benefit we owe to +the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelist, is the extension of our +sympathies. Appeals founded on generalizations and statistics require a +sympathy ready-made, a moral sentiment already in activity; but a picture +of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial +and the selfish into that attention to what is a part from themselves, +which may be called the raw material of moral sentiment. When Scott +takes us into Luckie Mucklebackit’s cottage, or tells the story of “The +Two Drovers;” when Wordsworth sings to us the reverie of “Poor Susan;” +when Kingsley shows us Alton Locke gazing yearningly over the gate which +leads from the highway into the first wood he ever saw; when Hornung +paints a group of chimney-sweepers—more is done toward linking the higher +classes with the lower, toward obliterating the vulgarity of +exclusiveness, than by hundreds of sermons and philosophical +dissertations. Art is the nearest thing to life; it is a mode of +amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow-men +beyond the bounds of our personal lot. All the more sacred is the task +of the artist when he undertakes to paint the life of the People. +Falsification here is far more pernicious than in the more artificial +aspects of life. It is not so very serious that we should have false +ideas about evanescent fashions—about the manners and conversation of +beaux and duchesses; but it _is_ serious that our sympathy with the +perennial joys and struggles, the toil, the tragedy, and the humor in the +life of our more heavily laden fellow-men, should be perverted, and +turned toward a false object instead of the true one. + +This perversion is not the less fatal because the misrepresentation which +give rise to it has what the artist considers a moral end. The thing for +mankind to know is, not what are the motives and influences which the +moralist thinks _ought_ to act on the laborer or the artisan, but what +are the motives and influences which _do_ act on him. We want to be +taught to feel, not for the heroic artisan or the sentimental peasant, +but for the peasant in all his coarse apathy, and the artisan in all his +suspicious selfishness. + +We have one great novelist who is gifted with the utmost power of +rendering the external traits of our town population; and if he could +give us their psychological character—their conception of life, and their +emotions—with the same truth as their idiom and manners, his books would +be the greatest contribution Art has ever made to the awakening of social +sympathies. But while he can copy Mrs. Plornish’s colloquial style with +the delicate accuracy of a sun-picture, while there is the same startling +inspiration in his description of the gestures and phrases of “Boots,” as +in the speeches of Shakespeare’s mobs or numskulls, he scarcely ever +passes from the humorous and external to the emotional and tragic, +without becoming as transcendent in his unreality as he was a moment +before in his artistic truthfulness. But for the precious salt of his +humor, which compels him to reproduce external traits that serve in some +degree as a corrective to his frequently false psychology, his +preternaturally virtuous poor children and artisans, his melodramatic +boatmen and courtesans, would be as obnoxious as Eugène Sue’s idealized +proletaires, in encouraging the miserable fallacy that high morality and +refined sentiment can grow out of harsh social relations, ignorance, and +want; or that the working-classes are in a condition to enter at once +into a millennial state of _altruism_, wherein every one is caring for +everyone else, and no one for himself. + +If we need a true conception of the popular character to guide our +sympathies rightly, we need it equally to check our theories, and direct +us in their application. The tendency created by the splendid conquests +of modern generalization, to believe that all social questions are merged +in economical science, and that the relations of men to their neighbors +may be settled by algebraic equations—the dream that the uncultured +classes are prepared for a condition which appeals principally to their +moral sensibilities—the aristocractic dilettantism which attempts to +restore the “good old times” by a sort of idyllic masquerading, and to +grow feudal fidelity and veneration as we grow prize turnips, by an +artificial system of culture—none of these diverging mistakes can coexist +with a real knowledge of the people, with a thorough study of their +habits, their ideas, their motives. The landholder, the clergyman, the +mill-owner, the mining-agent, have each an opportunity for making +precious observations on different sections of the working-classes, but +unfortunately their experience is too often not registered at all, or its +results are too scattered to be available as a source of information and +stimulus to the public mind generally. If any man of sufficient moral +and intellectual breadth, whose observations would not be vitiated by a +foregone conclusion, or by a professional point of view, would devote +himself to studying the natural history of our social classes, especially +of the small shopkeepers, artisans, and peasantry—the degree in which +they are influenced by local conditions, their maxims and habits, the +points of view from which they regard their religious teachers, and the +degree in which they are influenced by religious doctrines, the +interaction of the various classes on each other, and what are the +tendencies in their position toward disintegration or toward +development—and if, after all this study, he would give us the result of +his observation in a book well nourished with specific facts, his work +would be a valuable aid to the social and political reformer. + +What we are desiring for ourselves has been in some degree done for the +Germans by Riehl, the author of the very remarkable books, the titles of +which are placed at the head of this article; and we wish to make these +books known to our readers, not only for the sake of the interesting +matter they contain, and the important reflections they suggest, but also +as a model for some future or actual student of our own people. By way +of introducing Riehl to those who are unacquainted with his writings, we +will give a rapid sketch from his picture of the German Peasantry, and +perhaps this indication of the mode in which he treats a particular +branch of his subject may prepare them to follow us with more interest +when we enter on the general purpose and contents of his works. + +In England, at present, when we speak of the peasantry we mean scarcely +more than the class of farm-servants and farm-laborers; and it is only in +the most primitive districts, as in Wales, for example, that farmers are +included under the term. In order to appreciate what Riehl says of the +German peasantry, we must remember what the tenant-farmers and small +proprietors were in England half a century ago, when the master helped to +milk his own cows, and the daughters got up at one o’clock in the morning +to brew—when the family dined in the kitchen with the servants, and sat +with them round the kitchen fire, in the evening. In those days, the +quarried parlor was innocent of a carpet, and its only specimens of art +were a framed sampler and the best tea-board; the daughters even of +substantial farmers had often no greater accomplishment in writing and +spelling than they could procure at a dame-school; and, instead of +carrying on sentimental correspondence, they were spinning their future +table-linen, and looking after every saving in butter and eggs that might +enable them to add to the little stock of plate and china which they were +laying in against their marriage. In our own day, setting aside the +superior order of farmers, whose style of living and mental culture are +often equal to that of the professional class in provincial towns, we can +hardly enter the least imposing farm-house without finding a bad piano in +the “drawing-room,” and some old annuals, disposed with a symmetrical +imitation of negligence, on the table; though the daughters may still +drop their _h’s_, their vowels are studiously narrow; and it is only in +very primitive regions that they will consent to sit in a covered vehicle +without springs, which was once thought an advance in luxury on the +pillion. + +The condition of the tenant-farmers and small proprietors in Germany is, +we imagine, about on a par, not, certainly, in material prosperity, but +in mental culture and habits, with that of the English farmers who were +beginning to be thought old-fashioned nearly fifty years ago, and if we +add to these the farm servants and laborers we shall have a class +approximating in its characteristics to the _Bauernthum_, or peasantry, +described by Riehl. + +In Germany, perhaps more than in any other country, it is among the +peasantry that we must look for the historical type of the national +_physique_. In the towns this type has become so modified to express the +personality of the individual that even “family likeness” is often but +faintly marked. But the peasants may still be distinguished into groups, +by their physical peculiarities. In one part of the country we find a +longer-legged, in another a broader-shouldered race, which has inherited +these peculiarities for centuries. For example, in certain districts of +Hesse are seen long faces, with high foreheads, long, straight noses, and +small eyes, with arched eyebrows and large eyelids. On comparing these +physiognomies with the sculptures in the church of St. Elizabeth, at +Marburg, executed in the thirteenth century, it will be found that the +same old Hessian type of face has subsisted unchanged, with this +distinction only, that the sculptures represent princes and nobles, whose +features then bore the stamp of their race, while that stamp is now to be +found only among the peasants. A painter who wants to draw mediæval +characters with historic truth must seek his models among the peasantry. +This explains why the old German painters gave the heads of their +subjects a greater uniformity of type than the painters of our day; the +race had not attained to a high degree of individualization in features +and expression. It indicates, too, that the cultured man acts more as an +individual, the peasant more as one of a group. Hans drives the plough, +lives, and thinks, just as Kunz does; and it is this fact that many +thousands of men are as like each other in thoughts and habits as so many +sheep or oysters, which constitutes the weight of the peasantry in the +social and political scale. + +In the cultivated world each individual has his style of speaking and +writing. But among the peasantry it is the race, the district, the +province, that has its style—namely, its dialect, its phraseology, its +proverbs, and its songs, which belong alike to the entire body of the +people. This provincial style of the peasant is again, like his +_physique_, a remnant of history, to which he clings with the utmost +tenacity. In certain parts of Hungary there are still descendants of +German colonists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who go about +the country as reapers, retaining their old Saxon songs and manners, +while the more cultivated German emigrants in a very short time forget +their own language, and speak Hungarian. Another remarkable case of the +same kind is that of the Wends, a Slavonic race settled in Lusatia, whose +numbers amount to 200,000, living either scattered among the German +population or in separate parishes. They have their own schools and +churches, and are taught in the Slavonic tongue. The Catholics among +them are rigid adherents of the Pope; the Protestants not less rigid +adherents of Luther, or _Doctor_ Luther, as they are particular in +calling him—a custom which a hundred years ago was universal in +Protestant Germany. The Wend clings tenaciously to the usages of his +Church, and perhaps this may contribute not a little to the purity in +which he maintains the specific characteristics of his race. German +education, German law and government, service in the standing army, and +many other agencies, are in antagonism to his national exclusiveness; but +the _wives_ and _mothers_ here, as elsewhere, are a conservative +influence, and the habits temporarily laid aside in the outer world are +recovered by the fireside. The Wends form several stout regiments in the +Saxon army; they are sought far and wide, as diligent and honest +servants; and many a weakly Dresden or Leipzig child becomes thriving +under the care of a Wendish nurse. In their villages they have the air +and habits of genuine sturdy peasants, and all their customs indicate +that they have been from the first an agricultural people. For example, +they have traditional modes of treating their domestic animals. Each cow +has its own name, generally chosen carefully, so as to express the +special qualities of the animal; and all important family events are +narrated to the _bees_—a custom which is found also in Westphalia. +Whether by the help of the bees or not, the Wend farming is especially +prosperous; and when a poor Bohemian peasant has a son born to him he +binds him to the end of a long pole and turns his face toward Lusatia, +that he may be as lucky as the Wends, who live there. + +The peculiarity of the peasant’s language consists chiefly in his +retention of historical peculiarities, which gradually disappear under +the friction of cultivated circles. He prefers any proper name that may +be given to a day in the calendar, rather than the abstract date, by +which he very rarely reckons. In the baptismal names of his children he +is guided by the old custom of the country, not at all by whim and fancy. +Many old baptismal names, formerly common in Germany, would have become +extinct but for their preservation among the peasantry, especially in +North Germany; and so firmly have they adhered to local tradition in this +matter that it would be possible to give a sort of topographical +statistics of proper names, and distinguish a district by its rustic +names as we do by its Flora and Fauna. The continuous inheritance of +certain favorite proper names in a family, in some districts, forces the +peasant to adopt the princely custom of attaching a numeral to the name, +and saying, when three generations are living at once, Hans I., II., and +III.; or—in the more antique fashion—Hans the elder, the middle, and the +younger. In some of our English counties there is a similar adherence to +a narrow range of proper names, and a mode of distinguishing collateral +branches in the same family, you will hear of Jonathan’s Bess, Thomas’s +Bess, and Samuel’s Bess—the three Bessies being cousins. + +The peasant’s adherence to the traditional has much greater inconvenience +than that entailed by a paucity of proper names. In the Black Forest and +in Hüttenberg you will see him in the dog-days wearing a thick fur cap, +because it is an historical fur cap—a cap worn by his grandfather. In +the Wetterau, that peasant girl is considered the handsomest who wears +the most petticoats. To go to field-labor in seven petticoats can be +anything but convenient or agreeable, but it is the traditionally correct +thing, and a German peasant girl would think herself as unfavorably +conspicuous in an untraditional costume as an English servant-girl would +now think herself in a “linsey-wolsey” apron or a thick muslin cap. In +many districts no medical advice would induce the rustic to renounce the +tight leather belt with which he injures his digestive functions; you +could more easily persuade him to smile on a new communal system than on +the unhistorical invention of braces. In the eighteenth century, in +spite of the philanthropic preachers of potatoes, the peasant for years +threw his potatoes to the pigs and the dogs, before he could be persuaded +to put them on his own table. However, the unwillingness of the peasant +to adopt innovations has a not unreasonable foundation in the fact that +for him experiments are practical, not theoretical, and must be made with +expense of money instead of brains—a fact that is not, perhaps, +sufficiently taken into account by agricultural theorists, who complain +of the farmer’s obstinacy. The peasant has the smallest possible faith +in theoretic knowledge; he thinks it rather dangerous than otherwise, as +is well indicated by a Lower Rhenish proverb—“One is never too old to +learn, said an old woman; so she learned to be a witch.” + +Between many villages an historical feud, once perhaps the occasion of +much bloodshed, is still kept up under the milder form of an occasional +round of cudgelling and the launching of traditional nicknames. An +historical feud of this kind still exists, for example, among many +villages on the Rhine and more inland places in the neighborhood. +_Rheinschnacke_ (of which the equivalent is perhaps “water-snake”) is the +standing term of ignominy for the inhabitant of the Rhine village, who +repays it in kind by the epithet “karst” (mattock), or “kukuk” (cuckoo), +according as the object of his hereditary hatred belongs to the field or +the forest. If any Romeo among the “mattocks” were to marry a Juliet +among the “water-snakes,” there would be no lack of Tybalts and Mercutios +to carry the conflict from words to blows, though neither side knows a +reason for the enmity. + +A droll instance of peasant conservatism is told of a village on the +Taunus, whose inhabitants, from time immemorial, had been famous for +impromptu cudgelling. For this historical offence the magistrates of the +district had always inflicted the equally historical punishment of +shutting up the most incorrigible offenders, not in prison, but in their +own pig-sty. In recent times, however, the government, wishing to +correct the rudeness of these peasants, appointed an “enlightened” man as +a magistrate, who at once abolished the original penalty above mentioned. +But this relaxation of punishment was so far from being welcome to the +villagers that they presented a petition praying that a more energetic +man might be given them as a magistrate, who would have the courage to +punish according to law and justice, “as had been beforetime.” And the +magistrate who abolished incarceration in the pig-sty could never obtain +the respect of the neighborhood. This happened no longer ago than the +beginning of the present century. + +But it must not be supposed that the historical piety of the German +peasant extends to anything not immediately connected with himself. He +has the warmest piety toward the old tumble-down house which his +grandfather built, and which nothing will induce him to improve, but +toward the venerable ruins of the old castle that overlooks his village +he has no piety at all, and carries off its stones to make a fence for +his garden, or tears down the gothic carving of the old monastic church, +which is “nothing to him,” to mark off a foot-path through his field. It +is the same with historical traditions. The peasant has them fresh in +his memory, so far as they relate to himself. In districts where the +peasantry are unadulterated, you can discern the remnants of the feudal +relations in innumerable customs and phrases, but you will ask in vain +for historical traditions concerning the empire, or even concerning the +particular princely house to which the peasant is subject. He can tell +you what “half people and whole people” mean; in Hesse you will still +hear of “four horses making a whole peasant,” or of “four-day and +three-day peasants;” but you will ask in vain about Charlemagne and +Frederic Barbarossa. + +Riehl well observes that the feudal system, which made the peasant the +bondman of his lord, was an immense benefit in a country, the greater +part of which had still to be colonized—rescued the peasant from +vagabondage, and laid the foundation of persistency and endurance in +future generations. If a free German peasantry belongs only to modern +times, it is to his ancestor who was a serf, and even, in the earliest +times, a slave, that the peasant owes the foundation of his independence, +namely, his capability of a settled existence—nay, his unreasoning +persistency, which has its important function in the development of the +race. + +Perhaps the very worst result of that unreasoning persistency is the +peasant’s inveterate habit of litigation. Every one remembers the +immortal description of Dandle Dinmont’s importunate application to +Lawyer Pleydell to manage his “bit lawsuit,” till at length Pleydell +consents to help him to ruin himself, on the ground that Dandle may fall +into worse hands. It seems this is a scene which has many parallels in +Germany. The farmer’s lawsuit is his point of honor; and he will carry +it through, though he knows from the very first day that he shall get +nothing by it. The litigious peasant piques himself, like Mr. +Saddletree, on his knowledge of the law, and this vanity is the chief +impulse to many a lawsuit. To the mind of the peasant, law presents +itself as the “custom of the country,” and it is his pride to be versed +in all customs. _Custom with him holds the place of sentiment_, _of +theory_, _and in many cases of affection_. Riehl justly urges the +importance of simplifying law proceedings, so as to cut off this vanity +at its source, and also of encouraging, by every possible means, the +practice of arbitration. + +The peasant never begins his lawsuit in summer, for the same reason that +he does not make love and marry in summer—because he has no time for that +sort of thing. Anything is easier to him than to move out of his +habitual course, and he is attached even to his privations. Some years +ago a peasant youth, out of the poorest and remotest region of the +Westerwald, was enlisted as a recruit, at Weilburg in Nassau. The lad, +having never in his life slept in a bed, when he had got into one for the +first time began to cry like a child; and he deserted twice because he +could not reconcile himself to sleeping in a bed, and to the “fine” life +of the barracks: he was homesick at the thought of his accustomed poverty +and his thatched hut. A strong contrast, this, with the feeling of the +poor in towns, who would be far enough from deserting because their +condition was too much improved! The genuine peasant is never ashamed of +his rank and calling; he is rather inclined to look down on every one who +does not wear a smock frock, and thinks a man who has the manners of the +gentry is likely to be rather windy and unsubstantial. In some places, +even in French districts, this feeling is strongly symbolized by the +practice of the peasantry, on certain festival days, to dress the images +of the saints in peasant’s clothing. History tells us of all kinds of +peasant insurrections, the object of which was to obtain relief for the +peasants from some of their many oppressions; but of an effort on their +part to step out of their hereditary rank and calling, to become gentry, +to leave the plough and carry on the easier business of capitalists or +government functionaries, there is no example. + +The German novelists who undertake to give pictures of peasant-life fall +into the same mistake as our English novelists: they transfer their own +feelings to ploughmen and woodcutters, and give them both joys and +sorrows of which they know nothing. The peasant never questions the +obligation of family ties—he questions _no custom_—but tender affection, +as it exists among the refined part of mankind, is almost as foreign to +him as white hands and filbert-shaped nails. That the aged father who +has given up his property to his children on condition of their +maintaining him for the remainder of his life, is very far from meeting +with delicate attentions, is indicated by the proverb current among the +peasantry—“Don’t take your clothes off before you go to bed.” Among +rustic moral tales and parables, not one is more universal than the story +of the ungrateful children, who made their gray-headed father, dependent +on them for a maintenance, eat at a wooden trough because he shook the +food out of his trembling hands. Then these same ungrateful children +observed one day that their own little boy was making a tiny wooden +trough; and when they asked him what it was for, he answered—that his +father and mother might eat out of it, when he was a man and had to keep +them. + +Marriage is a very prudential affair, especially among the peasants who +have the largest share of property. Politic marriages are as common +among them as among princes; and when a peasant-heiress in Westphalia +marries, her husband adopts her name, and places his own after it with +the prefix _geborner_ (_née_). The girls marry young, and the rapidity +with which they get old and ugly is one among the many proofs that the +early years of marriage are fuller of hardships than of conjugal +tenderness. “When our writers of village stories,” says Riehl, +“transferred their own emotional life to the peasant, they obliterated +what is precisely his most predominant characteristic, namely, that with +him general custom holds the place of individual feeling.” + +We pay for greater emotional susceptibility too often by nervous diseases +of which the peasant knows nothing. To him headache is the least of +physical evils, because he thinks head-work the easiest and least +indispensable of all labor. Happily, many of the younger sons in peasant +families, by going to seek their living in the towns, carry their hardy +nervous system to amalgamate with the overwrought nerves of our town +population, and refresh them with a little rude vigor. And a return to +the habits of peasant life is the best remedy for many moral as well as +physical diseases induced by perverted civilization. Riehl points to +colonization as presenting the true field for this regenerative process. +On the other side of the ocean a man will have the courage to begin life +again as a peasant, while at home, perhaps, opportunity as well as +courage will fail him. _Apropos_ of this subject of emigration, he +remarks the striking fact, that the native shrewdness and mother-wit of +the German peasant seem to forsake him entirely when he has to apply them +under new circumstances, and on relations foreign to his experience. +Hence it is that the German peasant who emigrates, so constantly falls a +victim to unprincipled adventurers in the preliminaries to emigration; +but if once he gets his foot on the American soil he exhibits all the +first-rate qualities of an agricultural colonist; and among all German +emigrants the peasant class are the most successful. + +But many disintegrating forces have been at work on the peasant +character, and degeneration is unhappily going on at a greater pace than +development. In the wine districts especially, the inability of the +small proprietors to bear up under the vicissitudes of the market, or to +insure a high quality of wine by running the risks of a late vintage and +the competition of beer and cider with the inferior wines, have tended to +produce that uncertainty of gain which, with the peasant, is the +inevitable cause of demoralization. The small peasant proprietors are +not a new class in Germany, but many of the evils of their position are +new. They are more dependent on ready money than formerly; thus, where a +peasant used to get his wood for building and firing from the common +forest, he has now to pay for it with hard cash; he used to thatch his +own house, with the help perhaps of a neighbor, but now he pays a man to +do it for him; he used to pay taxes in kind, he now pays them in money. +The chances of the market have to be discounted, and the peasant falls +into the hands of money-lenders. Here is one of the cases in which +social policy clashes with a purely economical policy. + +Political vicissitudes have added their influence to that of economical +changes in disturbing that dim instinct, that reverence for traditional +custom, which is the peasant’s principle of action. He is in the midst +of novelties for which he knows no reason—changes in political geography, +changes of the government to which he owes fealty, changes in +bureaucratic management and police regulations. He finds himself in a +new element before an apparatus for breathing in it is developed in him. +His only knowledge of modern history is in some of its results—for +instance, that he has to pay heavier taxes from year to year. His chief +idea of a government is of a power that raises his taxes, opposes his +harmless customs, and torments him with new formalities. The source of +all this is the false system of “enlightening” the peasant which has been +adopted by the bureaucratic governments. A system which disregards the +traditions and hereditary attachments of the peasant, and appeals only to +a logical understanding which is not yet developed in him, is simply +disintegrating and ruinous to the peasant character. The interference +with the communal regulations has been of this fatal character. Instead +of endeavoring to promote to the utmost the healthy life of the Commune, +as an organism the conditions of which are bound up with the historical +characteristics of the peasant, the bureaucratic plan of government is +bent on improvement by its patent machinery of state-appointed +functionaries and off-hand regulations in accordance with modern +enlightenment. The spirit of communal exclusiveness—the resistance to +the indiscriminate establishment of strangers, is an intense traditional +feeling in the peasant. “This gallows is for us and our children,” is +the typical motto of this spirit. But such exclusiveness is highly +irrational and repugnant to modern liberalism; therefore a bureaucratic +government at once opposes it, and encourages to the utmost the +introduction of new inhabitants in the provincial communes. Instead of +allowing the peasants to manage their own affairs, and, if they happen to +believe that five and four make eleven, to unlearn the prejudice by their +own experience in calculation, so that they may gradually understand +processes, and not merely see results, bureaucracy comes with its “Ready +Reckoner” and works all the peasant’s sums for him—the surest way of +maintaining him in his stupidity, however it may shake his prejudice. + +Another questionable plan for elevating the peasant is the supposed +elevation of the clerical character by preventing the clergyman from +cultivating more than a trifling part of the land attached to his +benefice; that he may be as much as possible of a scientific theologian, +and as little as possible of a peasant. In this, Riehl observes, lies +one great source of weakness to the Protestant Church as compared with +the Catholic, which finds the great majority of its priests among the +lower orders; and we have had the opportunity of making an analogous +comparison in England, where many of us can remember country districts in +which the great mass of the people were christianized by illiterate +Methodist and Independent ministers, while the influence of the parish +clergyman among the poor did not extend much beyond a few old women in +scarlet cloaks and a few exceptional church-going laborers. + +Bearing in mind the general characteristics of the German peasant, it is +easy to understand his relation to the revolutionary ideas and +revolutionary movements of modern times. The peasant, in Germany as +elsewhere, is a born grumbler. He has always plenty of grievances in his +pocket, but he does not generalize those grievances; he does not complain +of “government” or “society,” probably because he has good reason to +complain of the burgomaster. When a few sparks from the first French +Revolution fell among the German peasantry, and in certain villages of +Saxony the country people assembled together to write down their demands, +there was no glimpse in their petition of the “universal rights of man,” +but simply of their own particular affairs as Saxon peasants. Again, +after the July revolution of 1830, there were many insignificant peasant +insurrections; but the object of almost all was the removal of local +grievances. Toll-houses were pulled down; stamped paper was destroyed; +in some places there was a persecution of wild boars, in others, of that +plentiful tame animal, the German _Rath_, or councillor who is never +called into council. But in 1848 it seemed as if the movements of the +peasants had taken a new character; in the small western states of +Germany it seemed as if the whole class of peasantry was in insurrection. +But, in fact, the peasant did not know the meaning of the part he was +playing. He had heard that everything was being set right in the towns, +and that wonderful things were happening there, so he tied up his bundle +and set off. Without any distinct object or resolution, the country +people presented themselves on the scene of commotion, and were warmly +received by the party leaders. But, seen from the windows of ducal +palaces and ministerial hotels, these swarms of peasants had quite +another aspect, and it was imagined that they had a common plan of +co-operation. This, however, the peasants have never had. Systematic +co-operation implies general conceptions, and a provisional subordination +of egoism, to which even the artisans of towns have rarely shown +themselves equal, and which are as foreign to the mind of the peasant as +logarithms or the doctrine of chemical proportions. And the +revolutionary fervor of the peasant was soon cooled. The old mistrust of +the towns was reawakened on the spot. The Tyrolese peasants saw no great +good in the freedom of the press and the constitution, because these +changes “seemed to please the gentry so much.” Peasants who had given +their voices stormily for a German parliament asked afterward, with a +doubtful look, whether it were to consist of infantry or cavalry. When +royal domains were declared the property of the State, the peasants in +some small principalities rejoiced over this, because they interpreted it +to mean that every one would have his share in them, after the manner of +the old common and forest rights. + +The very practical views of the peasants with regard to the demands of +the people were in amusing contrast with the abstract theorizing of the +educated townsmen. The peasant continually withheld all State payments +until he saw how matters would turn out, and was disposed to reckon up +the solid benefit, in the form of land or money, that might come to him +from the changes obtained. While the townsman was heating his brains +about representation on the broadest basis, the peasant asked if the +relation between tenant and landlord would continue as before, and +whether the removal of the “feudal obligations” meant that the farmer +should become owner of the land! + +It is in the same naïve way that Communism is interpreted by the German +peasantry. The wide spread among them of communistic doctrines, the +eagerness with which they listened to a plan for the partition of +property, seemed to countenance the notion that it was a delusion to +suppose the peasant would be secured from this intoxication by his love +of secure possession and peaceful earnings. But, in fact, the peasant +contemplated “partition” by the light of an historical reminiscence +rather than of novel theory. The golden age, in the imagination of the +peasant, was the time when every member of the commune had a right to as +much wood from the forest as would enable him to sell some, after using +what he wanted in firing—in which the communal possessions were so +profitable that, instead of his having to pay rates at the end of the +year, each member of the commune was something in pocket. Hence the +peasants in general understood by “partition,” that the State lands, +especially the forests, would be divided among the communes, and that, by +some political legerdemain or other, everybody would have free fire-wood, +free grazing for his cattle, and over and above that, a piece of gold +without working for it. That he should give up a single clod of his own +to further the general “partition” had never entered the mind of the +peasant communist; and the perception that this was an essential +preliminary to “partition” was often a sufficient cure for his Communism. + +In villages lying in the neighborhood of large towns, however, where the +circumstances of the peasantry are very different, quite another +interpretation of Communism is prevalent. Here the peasant is generally +sunk to the position of the proletaire living from hand to mouth: he has +nothing to lose, but everything to gain by “partition.” The coarse +nature of the peasant has here been corrupted into bestiality by the +disturbance of his instincts, while he is as yet incapable of principles; +and in this type of the degenerate peasant is seen the worst example of +ignorance intoxicated by theory. + +A significant hint as to the interpretation the peasants put on +revolutionary theories may be drawn from the way they employed the few +weeks in which their movements were unchecked. They felled the forest +trees and shot the game; they withheld taxes; they shook off the +imaginary or real burdens imposed on them by their mediatized princes, by +presenting their “demands” in a very rough way before the ducal or +princely “Schloss;” they set their faces against the bureaucratic +management of the communes, deposed the government functionaries who had +been placed over them as burgomasters and magistrates, and abolished the +whole bureaucratic system of procedure, simply by taking no notice of its +regulations, and recurring to some tradition—some old order or disorder +of things. In all this it is clear that they were animated not in the +least by the spirit of modern revolution, but by a purely narrow and +personal impulse toward reaction. + +The idea of constitutional government lies quite beyond the range of the +German peasant’s conceptions. His only notion of representation is that +of a representation of ranks—of classes; his only notion of a deputy is +of one who takes care, not of the national welfare, but of the interests +of his own order. Herein lay the great mistake of the democratic party, +in common with the bureaucratic governments, that they entirely omitted +the peculiar character of the peasant from their political calculations. +They talked of the “people” and forgot that the peasants were included in +the term. Only a baseless misconception of the peasant’s character could +induce the supposition that he would feel the slightest enthusiasm about +the principles involved in the reconstitution of the Empire, or even +about the reconstitution itself. He has no zeal for a written law, as +such, but only so far as it takes the form of a living law—a tradition. +It was the external authority which the revolutionary party had won in +Baden that attracted the peasants into a participation of the struggle. + +Such, Riehl tells us, are the general characteristics of the German +peasantry—characteristics which subsist amid a wide variety of +circumstances. In Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and Brandenburg the peasant +lives on extensive estates; in Westphalia he lives in large isolated +homesteads; in the Westerwald and in Sauerland, in little groups of +villages and hamlets; on the Rhine land is for the most part parcelled +out among small proprietors, who live together in large villages. Then, +of course, the diversified physical geography of Germany gives rise to +equally diversified methods of land-culture; and out of these various +circumstances grow numerous specific differences in manner and character. +But the generic character of the German peasant is everywhere the same; +in the clean mountain hamlet and in the dirty fishing village on the +coast; in the plains of North Germany and in the backwoods of America. +“Everywhere he has the same historical character—everywhere custom is his +supreme law. Where religion and patriotism are still a naïve instinct, +are still a sacred _custom_, there begins the class of the German +Peasantry.” + + * * * * * + +Our readers will perhaps already have gathered from the foregoing +portrait of the German peasant that Riehl is not a man who looks at +objects through the spectacles either of the doctrinaire or the dreamer; +and they will be ready to believe what he tells us in his Preface, +namely, that years ago he began his wanderings over the hills and plains +of Germany for the sake of obtaining, in immediate intercourse with the +people, that completion of his historical, political, and economical +studies which he was unable to find in books. He began his +investigations with no party prepossessions, and his present views were +evolved entirely from his own gradually amassed observations. He was, +first of all, a pedestrian, and only in the second place a political +author. The views at which he has arrived by this inductive process, he +sums up in the term—_social-political-conservatism_; but his conservatism +is, we conceive, of a thoroughly philosophical kind. He sees in European +society _incarnate history_, and any attempt to disengage it from its +historical elements must, he believes, be simply destructive of social +vitality. {164} What has grown up historically can only die out +historically, by the gradual operation of necessary laws. The external +conditions which society has inherited from the past are but the +manifestation of inherited internal conditions in the human beings who +compose it; the internal conditions and the external are related to each +other as the organism and its medium, and development can take place only +by the gradual consentaneous development of both. Take the familiar +example of attempts to abolish titles, which have been about as effective +as the process of cutting off poppy-heads in a cornfield. _Jedem +Menschem_, says Riehl, _ist sein Zopf angeboren_, _warum soll denn der +sociale Sprachgebrauch nicht auch sein Zopf haben_?—which we may +render—“As long as snobism runs in the blood, why should it not run in +our speech?” As a necessary preliminary to a purely rational society, +you must obtain purely rational men, free from the sweet and bitter +prejudices of hereditary affection and antipathy; which is as easy as to +get running streams without springs, or the leafy shade of the forest +without the secular growth of trunk and branch. + +The historical conditions of society may be compared with those of +language. It must be admitted that the language of cultivated nations is +in anything but a rational state; the great sections of the civilized +world are only approximatively intelligible to each other, and even that +only at the cost of long study; one word stands for many things, and many +words for one thing; the subtle shades of meaning, and still subtler +echoes of association, make language an instrument which scarcely +anything short of genius can wield with definiteness and certainty. +Suppose, then, that the effect which has been again and again made to +construct a universal language on a rational basis has at length +succeeded, and that you have a language which has no uncertainty, no +whims of idiom, no cumbrous forms, no fitful simmer of many-hued +significance, no hoary Archaisms “familiar with forgotten years”—a patent +deodorized and non-resonant language, which effects the purpose of +communication as perfectly and rapidly as algebraic signs. Your language +may be a perfect medium of expression to science, but will never express +_life_, which is a great deal more than science. With the anomalies and +inconveniences of historical language you will have parted with its music +and its passions, and its vital qualities as an expression of individual +character, with its subtle capabilities of wit, with everything that +gives it power over the imagination; and the next step in simplification +will be the invention of a talking watch, which will achieve the utmost +facility and despatch in the communication of ideas by a graduated +adjustment of ticks, to be represented in writing by a corresponding +arrangement of dots. A melancholy “language of the future!” The sensory +and motor nerves that run in the same sheath are scarcely bound together +by a more necessary and delicate union than that which binds men’s +affections, imagination, wit and humor, with the subtle ramifications of +historical language. Language must be left to grow in precision, +completeness, and unity, as minds grow in clearness, comprehensiveness, +and sympathy. And there is an analogous relation between the moral +tendencies of men and the social conditions they have inherited. The +nature of European men has its roots intertwined with the past, and can +only be developed by allowing those roots to remain undisturbed while the +process of development is going on until that perfect ripeness of the +seed which carries with it a life independent of the root. This vital +connection with the past is much more vividly felt on the Continent than +in England, where we have to recall it by an effort of memory and +reflection; for though our English life is in its core intensely +traditional, Protestantism and commerce have modernized the face of the +land and the aspects of society in a far greater degree than in any +continental country: + + “Abroad,” says Ruskin, “a building of the eighth or tenth century + stands ruinous in the open streets; the children play round it, the + peasants heap their corn in it, the buildings of yesterday nestle + about it, and fit their new stones in its rents, and tremble in + sympathy as it trembles. No one wonders at it, or thinks of it as + separate, and of another time; we feel the ancient world to be a real + thing; and one with the new; antiquity is no dream; it is rather the + children playing about the old stones that are the dream. But all is + continuous; and the words “from generation to generation” + understandable here.” + +This conception of European society as incarnate history is the +fundamental idea of Riehl’s books. After the notable failure of +revolutionary attempts conducted from the point of view of abstract +democratic and socialistic theories, after the practical demonstration of +the evils resulting from a bureaucratic system, which governs by an +undiscriminating, dead mechanism, Riehl wishes to urge on the +consideration of his countrymen a social policy founded on the special +study of the people as they are—on the natural history of the various +social ranks. He thinks it wise to pause a little from theorizing, and +see what is the material actually present for theory to work upon. It is +the glory of the Socialists—in contrast with the democratic doctrinaires +who have been too much occupied with the general idea of “the people” to +inquire particularly into the actual life of the people—that they have +thrown themselves with enthusiastic zeal into the study at least of one +social group, namely, the factory operatives; and here lies the secret of +their partial success. But, unfortunately, they have made this special +duty of a single fragment of society the basis of a theory which quietly +substitutes for the small group of Parisian proletaires or English +factory-workers the society of all Europe—nay, of the whole world. And +in this way they have lost the best fruit of their investigations. For, +says Riehl, the more deeply we penetrate into the knowledge of society in +its details, the more thoroughly we shall be convinced that _a universal +social policy has no validity except on paper_, and can never be carried +into successful practice. The conditions of German society are +altogether different from those of French, of English, or of Italian +society; and to apply the same social theory to these nations +indiscriminately is about as wise a procedure as Triptolemus Yellowley’s +application of the agricultural directions in Virgil’s “Georgics” to his +farm in the Shetland Isles. + +It is the clear and strong light in which Riehl places this important +position that in our opinion constitutes the suggestive value of his +books for foreign as well as German readers. It has not been +sufficiently insisted on, that in the various branches of Social Science +there is an advance from the general to the special, from the simple to +the complex, analogous with that which is found in the series of the +sciences, from Mathematics to Biology. To the laws of quantity comprised +in Mathematics and Physics are superadded, in Chemistry, laws of quality; +to these again are added, in Biology, laws of life; and lastly, the +conditions of life in general branch out into its special conditions, or +Natural History, on the one hand, and into its abnormal conditions, or +Pathology, on the other. And in this series or ramification of the +sciences, the more general science will not suffice to solve the problems +of the more special. Chemistry embraces phenomena which are not +explicable by Physics; Biology embraces phenomena which are not +explicable by Chemistry; and no biological generalization will enable us +to predict the infinite specialities produced by the complexity of vital +conditions. So Social Science, while it has departments which in their +fundamental generality correspond to mathematics and physics, namely, +those grand and simple generalizations which trace out the inevitable +march of the human race as a whole, and, as a ramification of these, the +laws of economical science, has also, in the departments of government +and jurisprudence, which embrace the conditions of social life in all +their complexity, what may be called its Biology, carrying us on to +innumerable special phenomena which outlie the sphere of science, and +belong to Natural History. And just as the most thorough acquaintance +with physics, or chemistry, or general physiology, will not enable you at +once to establish the balance of life in your private vivarium, so that +your particular society of zoophytes, mollusks, and echinoderms may feel +themselves, as the Germans say, at ease in their skin; so the most +complete equipment of theory will not enable a statesman or a political +and social reformer to adjust his measures wisely, in the absence of a +special acquaintance with the section of society for which he legislates, +with the peculiar characteristics of the nation, the province, the class +whose well-being he has to consult. In other words, a wise social policy +must be based not simply on abstract social science, but on the natural +history of social bodies. + +Riehl’s books are not dedicated merely to the argumentative maintenance +of this or of any other position; they are intended chiefly as a +contribution to that knowledge of the German people on the importance of +which he insists. He is less occupied with urging his own conclusions +than with impressing on his readers the facts which have led him to those +conclusions. In the volume entitled “Land und Leute,” which, though +published last, is properly an introduction to the volume entitled “Die +Bürgerliche Gesellschaft,” he considers the German people in their +physical geographical relations; he compares the natural divisions of the +race, as determined by land and climate, and social traditions, with the +artificial divisions which are based on diplomacy; and he traces the +genesis and influences of what we may call the ecclesiastical geography +of Germany—its partition between Catholicism and Protestantism. He shows +that the ordinary antithesis of North and South Germany represents no +real ethnographical distinction, and that the natural divisions of +Germany, founded on its physical geography are threefold—namely, the low +plains, the middle mountain region, and the high mountain region, or +Lower, Middle, and Upper Germany; and on this primary natural division +all the other broad ethnographical distinctions of Germany will be +found to rest. The plains of North or Lower Germany include all the +seaboard the nation possesses; and this, together with the fact that they +are traversed to the depth of 600 miles by navigable rivers, makes them +the natural seat of a trading race. Quite different is the geographical +character of Middle Germany. While the northern plains are marked off +into great divisions, by such rivers as the Lower Rhine, the Weser, and +the Oder, running almost in parallel lines, this central region is cut up +like a mosaic by the capricious lines of valleys and rivers. Here is the +region in which you find those famous roofs from which the rain-water +runs toward two different seas, and the mountain-tops from which you may +look into eight or ten German states. The abundance of water-power and +the presence of extensive coal-mines allow of a very diversified +industrial development in Middle Germany. In Upper Germany, or the high +mountain region, we find the same symmetry in the lines of the rivers as +in the north; almost all the great Alpine streams flow parallel with the +Danube. But the majority of these rivers are neither navigable nor +available for industrial objects, and instead of serving for +communication they shut off one great tract from another. The slow +development, the simple peasant life of many districts is here determined +by the mountain and the river. In the south-east, however, industrial +activity spreads through Bohemia toward Austria, and forms a sort of +balance to the industrial districts of the Lower Rhine. Of course, the +boundaries of these three regions cannot be very strictly defined; but an +approximation to the limits of Middle Germany may be obtained by +regarding it as a triangle, of which one angle lies in Silesia, another +in Aix-la-Chapelle, and a third at Lake Constance. + +This triple division corresponds with the broad distinctions of climate. +In the northern plains the atmosphere is damp and heavy; in the southern +mountain region it is dry and rare, and there are abrupt changes of +temperature, sharp contrasts between the seasons, and devastating storms; +but in both these zones men are hardened by conflict with the roughness +of the climate. In Middle Germany, on the contrary, there is little of +this struggle; the seasons are more equable, and the mild, soft air of +the valleys tends to make the inhabitants luxurious and sensitive to +hardships. It is only in exceptional mountain districts that one is here +reminded of the rough, bracing air on the heights of Southern Germany. +It is a curious fact that, as the air becomes gradually lighter and rarer +from the North German coast toward Upper Germany, the average of suicides +regularly decreases. Mecklenburg has the highest number, then Prussia, +while the fewest suicides occur in Bavaria and Austria. + +Both the northern and southern regions have still a large extent of waste +lands, downs, morasses, and heaths; and to these are added, in the south, +abundance of snow-fields and naked rock; while in Middle Germany culture +has almost over-spread the face of the land, and there are no large +tracts of waste. There is the same proportion in the distribution of +forests. Again, in the north we see a monotonous continuity of +wheat-fields, potato-grounds, meadow-lands, and vast heaths, and there is +the same uniformity of culture over large surfaces in the southern +table-lands and the Alpine pastures. In Middle Germany, on the contrary, +there is a perpetual variety of crops within a short space; the diversity +of land surface and the corresponding variety in the species of plants +are an invitation to the splitting up of estates, and this again +encourages to the utmost the motley character of the cultivation. + +According to this threefold division, it appears that there are certain +features common to North and South Germany in which they differ from +Central Germany, and the nature of this difference Riehl indicates by +distinguishing the former as _Centralized Land_ and the latter as +_Individualized Land_; a distinction which is well symbolized by the fact +that North and South Germany possess the great lines of railway which are +the medium for the traffic of the world, while Middle Germany is far +richer in lines for local communication, and possesses the greatest +length of railway within the smallest space. Disregarding +superficialities, the East Frieslanders, the Schleswig-Holsteiners, the +Mecklenburghers, and the Pomeranians are much more nearly allied to the +old Bavarians, the Tyrolese, and the Styrians than any of these are +allied to the Saxons, the Thuringians, or the Rhinelanders. Both in +North and South Germany original races are still found in large masses, +and popular dialects are spoken; you still find there thoroughly peasant +districts, thorough villages, and also, at great intervals, thorough +cities; you still find there a sense of rank. In Middle Germany, on the +contrary, the original races are fused together or sprinkled hither and +thither; the peculiarities of the popular dialects are worn down or +confused; there is no very strict line of demarkation between the country +and the town population, hundreds of small towns and large villages being +hardly distinguishable in their characteristics; and the sense of rank, +as part of the organic structure of society, is almost extinguished. +Again, both in the north and south there is still a strong ecclesiastical +spirit in the people, and the Pomeranian sees Antichrist in the Pope as +clearly as the Tyrolese sees him in Doctor Luther; while in Middle +Germany the confessions are mingled, they exist peaceably side by side in +very narrow space, and tolerance or indifference has spread itself widely +even in the popular mind. And the analogy, or rather the causal relation +between the physical geography of the three regions and the development +of the population goes still further: + + “For,” observes Riehl, “the striking connection which has been + pointed out between the local geological formations in Germany and + the revolutionary disposition of the people has more than a + metaphorical significance. Where the primeval physical revolutions + of the globe have been the wildest in their effects, and the most + multiform strata have been tossed together or thrown one upon the + other, it is a very intelligible consequence that on a land surface + thus broken up, the population should sooner develop itself into + small communities, and that the more intense life generated in these + smaller communities should become the most favorable nidus for the + reception of modern culture, and with this a susceptibility for its + revolutionary ideas; while a people settled in a region where its + groups are spread over a large space will persist much more + obstinately in the retention of its original character. The people + of Middle Germany have none of that exclusive one-sidedness which + determines the peculiar genius of great national groups, just as this + one-sidedness or uniformity is wanting to the geological and + geographical character of their land.” + +This ethnographical outline Riehl fills up with special and typical +descriptions, and then makes it the starting-point for a criticism of the +actual political condition of Germany. The volume is full of vivid +pictures, as well as penetrating glances into the maladies and tendencies +of modern society. It would be fascinating as literature if it were not +important for its facts and philosophy. But we can only commend it to +our readers, and pass on to the volume entitled “Die Bürgerliche +Gesellschaft,” from which we have drawn our sketch of the German +peasantry. Here Riehl gives us a series of studies in that natural +history of the people which he regards as the proper basis of social +policy. He holds that, in European society, there are _three natural +ranks or estates_: the hereditary landed aristocracy, the citizens or +commercial class, and the peasantry or agricultural class. By _natural +ranks_ he means ranks which have their roots deep in the historical +structure of society, and are still, in the present, showing vitality +above ground; he means those great social groups which are not only +distinguished externally by their vocation, but essentially by their +mental character, their habits, their mode of life—by the principle they +represent in the historical development of society. In his conception of +the “Fourth Estate” he differs from the usual interpretation, according +to which it is simply equivalent to the Proletariat, or those who are +dependent on daily wages, whose only capital is their skill or bodily +strength—factory operatives, artisans, agricultural laborers, to whom +might be added, especially in Germany, the day-laborers with the quill, +the literary proletariat. This, Riehl observes, is a valid basis of +economical classification, but not of social classification. In his +view, the Fourth Estate is a stratum produced by the perpetual abrasion +of the other great social groups; it is the sign and result of the +decomposition which is commencing in the organic constitution of society. +Its elements are derived alike from the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, and +the peasantry. It assembles under its banner the deserters of historical +society, and forms them into a terrible army, which is only just awaking +to the consciousness of its corporate power. The tendency of this Fourth +Estate, by the very process of its formation, is to do away with the +distinctive historical character of the other estates, and to resolve +their peculiar rank and vocation into a uniform social relation founded +on an abstract conception of society. According to Riehl’s +classification, the day-laborers, whom the political economist designates +as the Fourth Estate, belong partly to the peasantry or agricultural +class, and partly to the citizens or commercial class. + +Riehl considers, in the first place, the peasantry and aristocracy as the +“Forces of social persistence,” and, in the second, the bourgeoisie and +the “fourth Estate” as the “Forces of social movement.” + +The aristocracy, he observes, is the only one among these four groups +which is denied by others besides Socialists to have any natural basis as +a separate rank. It is admitted that there was once an aristocracy which +had an intrinsic ground of existence, but now, it is alleged, this is an +historical fossil, an antiquarian relic, venerable because gray with age. +It what, it is asked, can consist the peculiar vocation of the +aristocracy, since it has no longer the monopoly of the land, of the +higher military functions, and of government offices, and since the +service of the court has no longer any political importance? To this +Riehl replies, that in great revolutionary crises, the “men of progress” +have more than once “abolished” the aristocracy. But, remarkably enough, +the aristocracy has always reappeared. This measure of abolition showed +that the nobility were no longer regarded as a real class, for to abolish +a real class would be an absurdity. It is quite possible to contemplate +a voluntary breaking up of the peasant or citizen class in the +socialistic sense, but no man in his senses would think of straightway +“abolishing” citizens and peasants. The aristocracy, then, was regarded +as a sort of cancer, or excrescence of society. Nevertheless, not only +has it been found impossible to annihilate an hereditary nobility by +decree, but also the aristocracy of the eighteenth century outlived even +the self-destructive acts of its own perversity. A life which was +entirely without object, entirely destitute of functions, would not, says +Riehl, be so persistent. He has an acute criticism of those who conduct +a polemic against the idea of an hereditary aristocracy while they are +proposing an “aristocracy of talent,” which after all is based on the +principle of inheritance. The Socialists are, therefore, only consistent +in declaring against an aristocracy of talent. “But when they have +turned the world into a great Foundling Hospital they will still be +unable to eradicate the ‘privileges of birth.’” We must not follow him +in his criticism, however; nor can we afford to do more than mention +hastily his interesting sketch of the mediæval aristocracy, and his +admonition to the German aristocracy of the present day, that the +vitality of their class is not to be sustained by romantic attempts to +revive mediæval forms and sentiments, but only by the exercise of +functions as real and salutary for actual society as those of the +mediæval aristocracy were for the feudal age. “In modern society the +divisions of rank indicate _division of labor_, according to that +distribution of functions in the social organism which the historical +constitution of society has determined. In this way the principle of +differentiation and the principle of unity are identical.” + +The elaborate study of the German bourgeoisie, which forms the next +division of the volume, must be passed over, but we may pause a moment to +note Riehl’s definition of the social _Philister_ (Philistine), an +epithet for which we have no equivalent, not at all, however, for want of +the object it represents. Most people who read a little German know that +the epithet _Philister_ originated in the _Burschen-leben_, or +Student-life of Germany, and that the antithesis of _Bursch_ and +_Philister_ was equivalent to the antithesis of “gown” and “town;” but +since the word has passed into ordinary language it has assumed several +shades of significance which have not yet been merged into a single, +absolute meaning; and one of the questions which an English visitor in +Germany will probably take an opportunity of asking is, “What is the +strict meaning of the word _Philister_?” Riehl’s answer is, that the +_Philister_ “is one who is indifferent to all social interests, all +public life, as distinguished from selfish and private interests; he has +no sympathy with political and social events except as they affect his +own comfort and prosperity, as they offer him material for amusement or +opportunity for gratifying his vanity. He has no social or political +creed, but is always of the opinion which is most convenient for the +moment. He is always in the majority, and is the main element of +unreason and stupidity in the judgment of a “discerning public.” It +seems presumptuous in us to dispute Riehl’s interpretation of a German +word, but we must think that, in literature, the epithet _Philister_ has +usually a wider meaning than this—includes his definition and something +more. We imagine the _Philister_ is the personification of the spirit +which judges everything from a lower point of view than the subject +demands; which judges the affairs of the parish from the egotistic or +purely personal point of view; which judges the affairs of the nation +from the parochial point of view, and does not hesitate to measure the +merits of the universe from the human point of view. At least this must +surely be the spirit to which Goethe alludes in a passage cited by Riehl +himself, where he says that the Germans need not be ashamed of erecting a +monument to him as well as to Blucher; for if Blucher had freed them from +the French, he (Goethe) had freed them from the nets of the _Philister_: + + “Ihr mögt mirimmer ungescheut + Gleich Blüchern Denkmal setzen! + Von Franzosen hat er euch befreit, + Ich von Philister-netzen.” + +Goethe could hardly claim to be the apostle of public spirit; but he is +eminently the man who helps us to rise to a lofty point of observation, +so that we may see things in their relative proportions. + +The most interesting chapters in the description of the “Fourth Estate,” +which concludes the volume, are those on the “Aristocratic Proletariat” +and the “Intellectual Proletariat.” The Fourth Estate in Germany, says +Riehl, has its centre of gravity not, as in England and France, in the +day laborers and factory operatives, and still less in the degenerate +peasantry. In Germany the _educated_ proletariat is the leaven that sets +the mass in fermentation; the dangerous classes there go about, not in +blouses, but in frock coats; they begin with the impoverished prince and +end in the hungriest _littérateur_. The custom that all the sons of a +nobleman shall inherit their father’s title necessarily goes on +multiplying that class of aristocrats who are not only without function +but without adequate provision, and who shrink from entering the ranks of +the citizens by adopting some honest calling. The younger son of a +prince, says Riehl, is usually obliged to remain without any vocation; +and however zealously he may study music, painting, literature, or +science, he can never be a regular musician, painter, or man of science; +his pursuit will be called a “passion,” not a “calling,” and to the end +of his days he remains a dilettante. “But the ardent pursuit of a fixed +practical calling can alone satisfy the active man.” Direct legislation +cannot remedy this evil. The inheritance of titles by younger sons is +the universal custom, and custom is stronger than law. But if all +government preference for the “aristocratic proletariat” were withdrawn, +the sensible men among them would prefer emigration, or the pursuit of +some profession, to the hungry distinction of a title without rents. + +The intellectual proletaires Riehl calls the “church militant” of the +Fourth Estate in Germany. In no other country are they so numerous; in +no other country is the trade in material and industrial capital so far +exceeded by the wholesale and retail trade, the traffic and the usury, in +the intellectual capital of the nation. _Germany yields more +intellectual produce than it can use and pay for_. + + “This over-production, which is not transient but permanent, nay, is + constantly on the increase, evidences a diseased state of the + national industry, a perverted application of industrial powers, and + is a far more pungent satire on the national condition than all the + poverty of operatives and peasants. . . . Other nations need not envy + us the preponderance of the intellectual proletariat over the + proletaires of manual labor. For man more easily becomes diseased + from over-study than from the labor of the hands; and it is precisely + in the intellectual proletariat that there are the most dangerous + seeds of disease. This is the group in which the opposition between + earnings and wants, between the ideal social position and the real, + is the most hopelessly irreconcilable.” + +We must unwillingly leave our readers to make acquaintance for themselves +with the graphic details with which Riehl follows up this general +statement; but before quitting these admirable volumes, let us say, lest +our inevitable omissions should have left room for a different +conclusion, that Riehl’s conservatism is not in the least tinged with the +partisanship of a class, with a poetic fanaticism for the past, or with +the prejudice of a mind incapable of discerning the grander evolution of +things to which all social forms are but temporarily subservient. It is +the conservatism of a clear-eyed, practical, but withal large-minded +man—a little caustic, perhaps, now and then in his epigrams on democratic +doctrinaires who have their nostrum for all political and social +diseases, and on communistic theories which he regards as “the despair of +the individual in his own manhood, reduced to a system,” but nevertheless +able and willing to do justice to the elements of fact and reason in +every shade of opinion and every form of effort. He is as far as +possible from the folly of supposing that the sun will go backward on the +dial because we put the hands of our clock backward; he only contends +against the opposite folly of decreeing that it shall be mid-day while in +fact the sun is only just touching the mountain-tops, and all along the +valley men are stumbling in the twilight. + + + +VI. SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. + + +Silly Novels by Lady Novelists are a genus with many species, determined +by the particular quality of silliness that predominates in them—the +frothy, the prosy, the pious, or the pedantic. But it is a mixture of +all these—a composite order of feminine fatuity—that produces the largest +class of such novels, which we shall distinguish as the +_mind-and-millinery_ species. The heroine is usually an heiress, +probably a peeress in her own right, with perhaps a vicious baronet, an +amiable duke, and an irresistible younger son of a marquis as lovers in +the foreground, a clergyman and a poet sighing for her in the middle +distance, and a crowd of undefined adorers dimly indicated beyond. Her +eyes and her wit are both dazzling; her nose and her morals are alike +free from any tendency to irregularity; she has a superb _contralto_ and +a superb intellect; she is perfectly well dressed and perfectly +religious; she dances like a sylph, and reads the Bible in the original +tongues. Or it may be that the heroine is not an heiress—that rank and +wealth are the only things in which she is deficient; but she infallibly +gets into high society, she has the triumph of refusing many matches and +securing the best, and she wears some family jewels or other as a sort of +crown of righteousness at the end. Rakish men either bite their lips in +impotent confusion at her repartees, or are touched to penitence by her +reproofs, which, on appropriate occasions, rise to a lofty strain of +rhetoric; indeed, there is a general propensity in her to make speeches, +and to rhapsodize at some length when she retires to her bedroom. In her +recorded conversations she is amazingly eloquent, and in her unrecorded +conversations amazingly witty. She is understood to have a depth of +insight that looks through and through the shallow theories of +philosophers, and her superior instincts are a sort of dial by which men +have only to set their clocks and watches, and all will go well. The men +play a very subordinate part by her side. You are consoled now and then +by a hint that they have affairs, which keeps you in mind that the +working-day business of the world is somehow being carried on, but +ostensibly the final cause of their existence is that they may accompany +the heroine on her “starring” expedition through life. They see her at a +ball, and they are dazzled; at a flower-show, and they are fascinated; on +a riding excursion, and they are witched by her noble horsemanship; at +church, and they are awed by the sweet solemnity of her demeanor. She is +the ideal woman in feelings, faculties, and flounces. For all this she +as often as not marries the wrong person to begin with, and she suffers +terribly from the plots and intrigues of the vicious baronet; but even +death has a soft place in his heart for such a paragon, and remedies all +mistakes for her just at the right moment. The vicious baronet is sure +to be killed in a duel, and the tedious husband dies in his bed +requesting his wife, as a particular favor to him, to marry the man she +loves best, and having already dispatched a note to the lover informing +him of the comfortable arrangement. Before matters arrive at this +desirable issue our feelings are tried by seeing the noble, lovely, and +gifted heroine pass through many _mauvais moments_, but we have the +satisfaction of knowing that her sorrows are wept into embroidered +pocket-handkerchiefs, that her fainting form reclines on the very best +upholstery, and that whatever vicissitudes she may undergo, from being +dashed out of her carriage to having her head shaved in a fever, she +comes out of them all with a complexion more blooming and locks more +redundant than ever. + +We may remark, by the way, that we have been relieved from a serious +scruple by discovering that silly novels by lady novelists rarely +introduce us into any other than very lofty and fashionable society. We +had imagined that destitute women turned novelists, as they turned +governesses, because they had no other “ladylike” means of getting their +bread. On this supposition, vacillating syntax, and improbable incident +had a certain pathos for us, like the extremely supererogatory +pincushions and ill-devised nightcaps that are offered for sale by a +blind man. We felt the commodity to be a nuisance, but we were glad to +think that the money went to relieve the necessitous, and we pictured to +ourselves lonely women struggling for a maintenance, or wives and +daughters devoting themselves to the production of “copy” out of pure +heroism—perhaps to pay their husband’s debts or to purchase luxuries for +a sick father. Under these impressions we shrank from criticising a +lady’s novel: her English might be faulty, but we said to ourselves her +motives are irreproachable; her imagination may be uninventive, but her +patience is untiring. Empty writing was excused by an empty stomach, and +twaddle was consecrated by tears. But no! This theory of ours, like +many other pretty theories, has had to give way before observation. +Women’s silly novels, we are now convinced, are written under totally +different circumstances. The fair writers have evidently never talked to +a tradesman except from a carriage window; they have no notion of the +working-classes except as “dependents;” they think five hundred a year a +miserable pittance; Belgravia and “baronial halls” are their primary +truths; and they have no idea of feeling interest in any man who is not +at least a great landed proprietor, if not a prime minister. It is clear +that they write in elegant boudoirs, with violet-colored ink and a ruby +pen; that they must be entirely indifferent to publishers’ accounts, and +inexperienced in every form of poverty except poverty of brains. It is +true that we are constantly struck with the want of verisimilitude in +their representations of the high society in which they seem to live; but +then they betray no closer acquaintance with any other form of life. If +their peers and peeresses are improbable, their literary men, +tradespeople, and cottagers are impossible; and their intellect seems to +have the peculiar impartiality of reproducing both what they _have_ seen +and heard, and what they have _not_ seen and heard, with equal +unfaithfulness. + +There are few women, we suppose, who have not seen something of children +under five years of age, yet in “Compensation,” a recent novel of the +mind-and-millinery species, which calls itself a “story of real life,” we +have a child of four and a half years old talking in this Ossianic +fashion: + + “‘Oh, I am so happy, dear grand mamma;—I have seen—I have seen such a + delightful person; he is like everything beautiful—like the smell of + sweet flowers, and the view from Ben Lemond;—or no, _better than + that_—he is like what I think of and see when I am very, very happy; + and he is really like mamma, too, when she sings; and his forehead is + like _that distant sea_,’ she continued, pointing to the blue + Mediterranean; ‘there seems no end—no end; or like the clusters of + stars I like best to look at on a warm fine night. . . . Don’t look + so . . . your forehead is like Loch Lomond, when the wind is blowing + and the sun is gone in; I like the sunshine best when the lake is + smooth. . . . So now—I like it better than ever . . . It is more + beautiful still from the dark cloud that has gone over it, _when the + sun suddenly lights up all the colors of the forests and shining + purple rocks_, _and it is all reflected in the waters below_.’” + +We are not surprised to learn that the mother of this infant phenomenon, +who exhibits symptoms so alarmingly like those of adolescence repressed +by gin, is herself a phœnix. We are assured, again and again, that she +had a remarkably original in mind, that she was a genius, and “conscious +of her originality,” and she was fortunate enough to have a lover who was +also a genius and a man of “most original mind.” + +This lover, we read, though “wonderfully similar” to her “in powers and +capacity,” was “infinitely superior to her in faith and development,” and +she saw in him “‘Agape’—so rare to find—of which she had read and admired +the meaning in her Greek Testament; having, _from her great facility in +learning languages_, read the Scriptures in their original _tongues_.” +Of course! Greek and Hebrew are mere play to a heroine; Sanscrit is no +more than _a_ _b_ _c_ to her; and she can talk with perfect correctness +in any language, except English. She is a polking polyglot, a Creuzer in +crinoline. Poor men. There are so few of you who know even Hebrew; you +think it something to boast of if, like Bolingbroke, you only “understand +that sort of learning and what is writ about it;” and you are perhaps +adoring women who can think slightingly of you in all the Semitic +languages successively. But, then, as we are almost invariably told that +a heroine has a “beautifully small head,” and as her intellect has +probably been early invigorated by an attention to costume and +deportment, we may conclude that she can pick up the Oriental tongues, to +say nothing of their dialects, with the same aërial facility that the +butterfly sips nectar. Besides, there can be no difficulty in conceiving +the depth of the heroine’s erudition when that of the authoress is so +evident. + +In “Laura Gay,” another novel of the same school, the heroine seems less +at home in Greek and Hebrew but she makes up for the deficiency by a +quite playful familiarity with the Latin classics—with the “dear old +Virgil,” “the graceful Horace, the humane Cicero, and the pleasant Livy;” +indeed, it is such a matter of course with her to quote Latin that she +does it at a picnic in a very mixed company of ladies and gentlemen, +having, we are told, “no conception that the nobler sex were capable of +jealousy on this subject. And if, indeed,” continues the biographer of +Laura Gray, “the wisest and noblest portion of that sex were in the +majority, no such sentiment would exist; but while Miss Wyndhams and Mr. +Redfords abound, great sacrifices must be made to their existence.” Such +sacrifices, we presume, as abstaining from Latin quotations, of extremely +moderate interest and applicability, which the wise and noble minority of +the other sex would be quite as willing to dispense with as the foolish +and ignoble majority. It is as little the custom of well-bred men as of +well-bred women to quote Latin in mixed parties; they can contain their +familiarity with “the humane Cicero” without allowing it to boil over in +ordinary conversation, and even references to “the pleasant Livy” are not +absolutely irrepressible. But Ciceronian Latin is the mildest form of +Miss Gay’s conversational power. Being on the Palatine with a party of +sight-seers, she falls into the following vein of well-rounded remark: +“Truth can only be pure objectively, for even in the creeds where it +predominates, being subjective, and parcelled out into portions, each of +these necessarily receives a hue of idiosyncrasy, that is, a taint of +superstition more or less strong; while in such creeds as the Roman +Catholic, ignorance, interest, the basis of ancient idolatries, and the +force of authority, have gradually accumulated on the pure truth, and +transformed it, at last, into a mass of superstition for the majority of +its votaries; and how few are there, alas! whose zeal, courage, and +intellectual energy are equal to the analysis of this accumulation, and +to the discovery of the pearl of great price which lies hidden beneath +this heap of rubbish.” We have often met with women much more novel and +profound in their observations than Laura Gay, but rarely with any so +inopportunely long-winded. A clerical lord, who is half in love with +her, is alarmed by the daring remarks just quoted, and begins to suspect +that she is inclined to free-thinking. But he is mistaken; when in a +moment of sorrow he delicately begs leave to “recall to her memory, a +_depôt_ of strength and consolation under affliction, which, until we are +hard pressed by the trials of life, we are too apt to forget,” we learn +that she really has “recurrence to that sacred depôt,” together with the +tea-pot. There is a certain flavor of orthodoxy mixed with the parade of +fortunes and fine carriages in “Laura Gay,” but it is an orthodoxy +mitigated by study of “the humane Cicero,” and by an “intellectual +disposition to analyze.” + +“Compensation” is much more heavily dosed with doctrine, but then it has +a treble amount of snobbish worldliness and absurd incident to tickle the +palate of pious frivolity. Linda, the heroine, is still more speculative +and spiritual than Laura Gay, but she has been “presented,” and has more +and far grander lovers; very wicked and fascinating women are +introduced—even a French _lionne_; and no expense is spared to get up as +exciting a story as you will find in the most immoral novels. In fact, +it is a wonderful _pot pourri_ of Almack’s, Scotch second-sight, Mr. +Rogers’s breakfasts, Italian brigands, death-bed conversions, superior +authoresses, Italian mistresses, and attempts at poisoning old ladies, +the whole served up with a garnish of talk about “faith and development” +and “most original minds.” Even Miss Susan Barton, the superior +authoress, whose pen moves in a “quick, decided manner when she is +composing,” declines the finest opportunities of marriage; and though old +enough to be Linda’s mother (since we are told that she refused Linda’s +father), has her hand sought by a young earl, the heroine’s rejected +lover. Of course, genius and morality must be backed by eligible offers, +or they would seem rather a dull affair; and piety, like other things, in +order to be _comme il faut_, must be in “society,” and have admittance to +the best circles. + +“Rank and Beauty” is a more frothy and less religious variety of the +mind-and-millinery species. The heroine, we are told, “if she inherited +her father’s pride of birth and her mother’s beauty of person, had in +herself a tone of enthusiastic feeling that, perhaps, belongs to her age +even in the lowly born, but which is refined into the high spirit of wild +romance only in the far descended, who feel that it is their best +inheritance.” This enthusiastic young lady, by dint of reading the +newspaper to her father, falls in love with the _prime minister_, who, +through the medium of leading articles and “the _resumé_ of the debates,” +shines upon her imagination as a bright particular star, which has no +parallax for her living in the country as simple Miss Wyndham. But she +forthwith becomes Baroness Umfraville in her own right, astonishes the +world with her beauty and accomplishments when she bursts upon it from +her mansion in Spring Gardens, and, as you foresee, will presently come +into contact with the unseen _objet aimé_. Perhaps the words “prime +minister” suggest to you a wrinkled or obese sexagenarian; but pray +dismiss the image. Lord Rupert Conway has been “called while still +almost a youth to the first situation which a subject can hold in the +_universe_,” and even leading articles and a _resumé_ of the debates have +not conjured up a dream that surpasses the fact. + + “The door opened again, and Lord Rupert Conway entered. Evelyn gave + one glance. It was enough; she was not disappointed. It seemed as + if a picture on which she had long gazed was suddenly instinct with + life, and had stepped from its frame before her. His tall figure, + the distinguished simplicity of his air—it was a living Vandyke, a + cavalier, one of his noble cavalier ancestors, or one to whom her + fancy had always likened him, who long of yore had with an Umfraville + fought the Paynim far beyond the sea. Was this reality?” + +Very little like it, certainly. + +By and by it becomes evident that the ministerial heart is touched. Lady +Umfraville is on a visit to the Queen at Windsor, and— + + “The last evening of her stay, when they returned from riding, Mr. + Wyndham took her and a large party to the top of the Keep, to see the + view. She was leaning on the battlements, gazing from that ‘stately + height’ at the prospect beneath her, when Lord Rupert was by her + side. ‘What an unrivalled view!’ exclaimed she. + + “‘Yes, it would have been wrong to go without having been up here. + You are pleased with your visit?’ + + “‘Enchanted! A Queen to live and die under, to live and die for!’ + + “‘Ha!’ cried he, with sudden emotion, and with a _eureka_ expression + of countenance, as if he had _indeed found a heart in unison with his + own_.” + +The “_eureka_ expression of countenance” you see at once to be prophetic +of marriage at the end of the third volume; but before that desirable +consummation there are very complicated misunderstandings, arising +chiefly from the vindictive plotting of Sir Luttrel Wycherley, who is a +genius, a poet, and in every way a most remarkable character indeed. He +is not only a romantic poet, but a hardened rake and a cynical wit; yet +his deep passion for Lady Umfraville has so impoverished his epigrammatic +talent that he cuts an extremely poor figure in conversation. When she +rejects him, he rushes into the shrubbery and rolls himself in the dirt; +and on recovering, devotes himself to the most diabolical and laborious +schemes of vengeance, in the course of which he disguises himself as a +quack physician and enters into general practice, foreseeing that Evelyn +will fall ill, and that he shall be called in to attend her. At last, +when all his schemes are frustrated, he takes leave of her in a long +letter, written, as you will perceive from the following passage, +entirely in the style of an eminent literary man: + + “Oh, lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure, will you ever cast one + thought upon the miserable being who addresses you? Will you ever, + as your gilded galley is floating down the unruffled stream of + prosperity, will you ever, while lulled by the sweetest music—thine + own praises—hear the far-off sigh from that world to which I am + going?” + +On the whole, however, frothy as it is, we rather prefer “Rank and +Beauty” to the two other novels we have mentioned. The dialogue is more +natural and spirited; there is some frank ignorance and no pedantry; and +you are allowed to take the heroine’s astounding intellect upon trust, +without being called on to read her conversational refutations of +sceptics and philosophers, or her rhetorical solutions of the mysteries +of the universe. + +Writers of the mind-and-millinery school are remarkably unanimous in +their choice of diction. In their novels there is usually a lady or +gentleman who is more or less of a upas tree; the lover has a manly +breast; minds are redolent of various things; hearts are hollow; events +are utilized; friends are consigned to the tomb; infancy is an engaging +period; the sun is a luminary that goes to his western couch, or gathers +the rain-drops into his refulgent bosom; life is a melancholy boon; +Albion and Scotia are conversational epithets. There is a striking +resemblance, too, in the character of their moral comments, such, for +instance, as that “It is a fact, no less true than melancholy, that all +people, more or less, richer or poorer, are swayed by bad example;” that +“Books, however trivial, contain some subjects from which useful +information may be drawn;” that “Vice can too often borrow the language +of virtue;” that “Merit and nobility of nature must exist, to be +accepted, for clamor and pretension cannot impose upon those too well +read in human nature to be easily deceived;” and that “In order to +forgive, we must have been injured.” There is doubtless a class of +readers to whom these remarks appear peculiarly pointed and pungent; for +we often find them doubly and trebly scored with the pencil, and delicate +hands giving in their determined adhesion to these hardy novelties by a +distinct _très vrai_, emphasized by many notes of exclamation. The +colloquial style of these novels is often marked by much ingenious +inversion, and a careful avoidance of such cheap phraseology as can be +heard every day. Angry young gentlemen exclaim, “’Tis ever thus, +methinks;” and in the half hour before dinner a young lady informs her +next neighbor that the first day she read Shakespeare she “stole away +into the park, and beneath the shadow of the greenwood tree, devoured +with rapture the inspired page of the great magician.” But the most +remarkable efforts of the mind-and-millinery writers lie in their +philosophic reflections. The authoress of “Laura Gay,” for example, +having married her hero and heroine, improves the event by observing that +“if those sceptics, whose eyes have so long gazed on matter that they can +no longer see aught else in man, could once enter with heart and soul, +into such bliss as this, they would come to say that the soul of man and +the polypus are not of common origin, or of the same texture.” Lady +novelists, it appears, can see something else besides matter; they are +not limited to phenomena, but can relieve their eyesight by occasional +glimpses of the _noumenon_, and are, therefore, naturally better able +than any one else to confound sceptics, even of that remarkable but to us +unknown school which maintains that the soul of man is of the same +texture as the polypus. + +The most pitiable of all silly novels by lady novelists are what we may +call the _oracular_ species—novels intended to expound the writer’s +religious, philosophical, or moral theories. There seems to be a notion +abroad among women, rather akin to the superstition that the speech and +actions of idiots are inspired, and that the human being most entirely +exhausted of common-sense is the fittest vehicle of revelation. To judge +from their writings, there are certain ladies who think that an amazing +ignorance, both of science and of life, is the best possible +qualification for forming an opinion on the knottiest moral and +speculative questions. Apparently, their recipe for solving all such +difficulties is something like this: Take a woman’s head, stuff it with a +smattering of philosophy and literature chopped small, and with false +notions of society baked hard, let it hang over a desk a few hours every +day, and serve up hot in feeble English when not required. You will +rarely meet with a lady novelist of the oracular class who is diffident +of her ability to decide on theological questions—who has any suspicion +that she is not capable of discriminating with the nicest accuracy +between the good and evil in all church parties—who does not see +precisely how it is that men have gone wrong hitherto—and pity +philosophers in general that they have not had the opportunity of +consulting her. Great writers, who have modestly contented themselves +with putting their experience into fiction, and have thought it quite a +sufficient task to exhibit men and things as they are, she sighs over as +deplorably deficient in the application of their powers. “They have +solved no great questions”—and she is ready to remedy their omission by +setting before you a complete theory of life and manual of divinity in a +love story, where ladies and gentlemen of good family go through genteel +vicissitudes, to the utter confusion of Deists, Puseyites, and +ultra-Protestants, and to the perfect establishment of that peculiar view +of Christianity which either condenses itself into a sentence of small +caps, or explodes into a cluster of stars on the three hundred and +thirtieth page. It is true, the ladies and gentlemen will probably seem +to you remarkably little like any you have had the fortune or misfortune +to meet with, for, as a general rule, the ability of a lady novelist to +describe actual life and her fellow-men is in inverse proportion to her +confident eloquence about God and the other world, and the means by which +she usually chooses to conduct you to true ideas of the invisible is a +totally false picture of the visible. + +As typical a novel of the oracular kind as we can hope to meet with, is +“The Enigma: a Leaf from the Chronicles of the Wolchorley House.” The +“enigma” which this novel is to solve is certainly one that demands +powers no less gigantic than those of a lady novelist, being neither more +nor less than the existence of evil. The problem is stated and the +answer dimly foreshadowed on the very first page. The spirited young +lady, with raven hair, says, “All life is an inextricable confusion;” and +the meek young lady, with auburn hair, looks at the picture of the +Madonna which she is copying, and—“_There_ seemed the solution of that +mighty enigma.” The style of this novel is quite as lofty as its +purpose; indeed, some passages on which we have spent much patient study +are quite beyond our reach, in spite of the illustrative aid of italics +and small caps; and we must await further “development” in order to +understand them. Of Ernest, the model young clergyman, who sets every +one right on all occasions, we read that “he held not of marriage in the +marketable kind, after a social desecration;” that, on one eventful +night, “sleep had not visited his divided heart, where tumultuated, in +varied type and combination, the aggregate feelings of grief and joy;” +and that, “for the _marketable_ human article he had no toleration, be it +of what sort, or set for what value it might, whether for worship or +class, his upright soul abhorred it, whose ultimatum, the self-deceiver, +was to him THE _great spiritual lie_, ‘living in a vain show, deceiving +and being deceived;’ since he did not suppose the phylactery and enlarged +border on the garment to be _merely_ a social trick.” (The italics and +small caps are the author’s, and we hope they assist the reader’s +comprehension.) Of Sir Lionel, the model old gentleman, we are told that +“the simple ideal of the middle age, apart from its anarchy and +decadence, in him most truly seemed to live again, when the ties which +knit men together were of heroic cast. The first-born colors of pristine +faith and truth engraven on the common soul of man, and blent into the +wide arch of brotherhood, where the primæval law of _order_ grew and +multiplied each perfect after his kind, and mutually interdependent.” +You see clearly, of course, how colors are first engraven on the soul, +and then blent into a wide arch, on which arch of colors—apparently a +rainbow—the law of order grew and multiplied, each—apparently the arch +and the law—perfect after his kind? If, after this, you can possibly +want any further aid toward knowing what Sir Lionel was, we can tell you +that in his soul “the scientific combinations of thought could educe no +fuller harmonies of the good and the true than lay in the primæval pulses +which floated as an atmosphere around it!” and that, when he was sealing +a letter, “Lo! the responsive throb in that good man’s bosom echoed back +in simple truth the honest witness of a heart that condemned him not, as +his eye, bedewed with love, rested, too, with something of ancestral +pride, on the undimmed motto of the family—‘LOIAUTE.’” + +The slightest matters have their vulgarity fumigated out of them by the +same elevated style. Commonplace people would say that a copy of +Shakespeare lay on a drawing-room table; but the authoress of “The +Enigma,” bent on edifying periphrasis, tells you that there lay on the +table, “that fund of human thought and feeling, which teaches the heart +through the little name, ‘Shakespeare.’” A watchman sees a light burning +in an upper window rather longer than usual, and thinks that people are +foolish to sit up late when they have an opportunity of going to bed; +but, lest this fact should seem too low and common, it is presented to us +in the following striking and metaphysical manner: “He marvelled—as a man +_will_ think for others in a necessarily separate personality, +consequently (though disallowing it) in false mental premise—how +differently _he_ should act, how gladly _he_ should prize the rest so +lightly held of within.” A footman—an ordinary Jeames, with large calves +and aspirated vowels—answers the door-bell, and the opportunity is seized +to tell you that he was a “type of the large class of pampered menials, +who follow the curse of Cain—‘vagabonds’ on the face of the earth, and +whose estimate of the human class varies in the graduated scale of money +and expenditure. . . . These, and such as these, O England, be the false +lights of thy morbid civilization!” We have heard of various “false +lights,” from Dr. Cumming to Robert Owen, from Dr. Pusey to the +Spirit-rappers, but we never before heard of the false light that +emanates from plush and powder. + +In the same way very ordinary events of civilized life are exalted into +the most awful crises, and ladies in full skirts and _manches à la +Chinoise_, conduct themselves not unlike the heroines of sanguinary +melodramas. Mrs. Percy, a shallow woman of the world, wishes her son +Horace to marry the auburn-haired Grace, she being an heiress; but he, +after the manner of sons, falls in love with the raven-haired Kate, the +heiress’s portionless cousin; and, moreover, Grace herself shows every +symptom of perfect indifference to Horace. In such cases sons are often +sulky or fiery, mothers are alternately manœuvring and waspish, and the +portionless young lady often lies awake at night and cries a good deal. +We are getting used to these things now, just as we are used to eclipses +of the moon, which no longer set us howling and beating tin kettles. We +never heard of a lady in a fashionable “front” behaving like Mrs. Percy +under these circumstances. Happening one day to see Horace talking to +Grace at a window, without in the least knowing what they are talking +about, or having the least reason to believe that Grace, who is mistress +of the house and a person of dignity, would accept her son if he were to +offer himself, she suddenly rushes up to them and clasps them both, +saying, “with a flushed countenance and in an excited manner”—“This is +indeed happiness; for, may I not call you so, Grace?—my Grace—my Horace’s +Grace!—my dear children!” Her son tells her she is mistaken, and that he +is engaged to Kate, whereupon we have the following scene and tableau: + + “Gathering herself up to an unprecedented height (!) her eyes + lightening forth the fire of her anger: + + “‘Wretched boy!’ she said, hoarsely and scornfully, and clenching her + hand, ‘Take then the doom of your own choice! Bow down your + miserable head and let a mother’s—’ + + “‘Curse not!’ spake a deep low voice from behind, and Mrs. Percy + started, scared, as though she had seen a heavenly visitant appear, + to break upon her in the midst of her sin. + + “Meantime Horace had fallen on his knees, at her feet, and hid his + face in his hands. + + “Who then, is she—who! Truly his ‘guardian spirit’ hath stepped + between him and the fearful words, which, however unmerited, must + have hung as a pall over his future existence;—a spell which could + not be unbound—which could not be unsaid. + + “Of an earthly paleness, but calm with the still, iron-bound calmness + of death—the only calm one there—Katherine stood; and her words smote + on the ear in tones whose appallingly slow and separate intonation + rung on the heart like a chill, isolated tolling of some fatal knell. + + “‘He would have plighted me his faith, but I did not accept it; you + cannot, therefore—you _dare_ not curse him. And here,’ she + continued, raising her hand to heaven, whither her large dark eyes + also rose with a chastened glow, which, for the first time, + _suffering_ had lighted in those passionate orbs—‘here I promise, + come weal, come woe, that Horace Wolchorley and I do never + interchange vows without his mother’s sanction—without his mother’s + blessing!’” + +Here, and throughout the story, we see that confusion of purpose which is +so characteristic of silly novels written by women. It is a story of +quite modern drawing-room society—a society in which polkas are played +and Puseyism discussed; yet we have characters, and incidents, and traits +of manner introduced, which are mere shreds from the most heterogeneous +romances. We have a blind Irish harper, “relic of the picturesque bards +of yore,” startling us at a Sunday-school festival of tea and cake in an +English village; we have a crazy gypsy, in a scarlet cloak, singing +snatches of romantic song, and revealing a secret on her death-bed which, +with the testimony of a dwarfish miserly merchant, who salutes strangers +with a curse and a devilish laugh, goes to prove that Ernest, the model +young clergyman, is Kate’s brother; and we have an ultra-virtuous Irish +Barney, discovering that a document is forged, by comparing the date of +the paper with the date of the alleged signature, although the same +document has passed through a court of law and occasioned a fatal +decision. The “Hall” in which Sir Lionel lives is the venerable +country-seat of an old family, and this, we suppose, sets the imagination +of the authoress flying to donjons and battlements, where “lo! the warder +blows his horn;” for, as the inhabitants are in their bedrooms on a night +certainly within the recollection of Pleaceman X. and a breeze springs +up, which we are at first told was faint, and then that it made the old +cedars bow their branches to the greensward, she falls into this mediæval +vein of description (the italics are ours): “The banner _unfurled it_ at +the sound, and shook its guardian wing above, while the startled owl +_flapped her_ in the ivy; the firmament looking down through her ‘argus +eyes’— + + ‘Ministers of heaven’s mute melodies.’ + +And lo! two strokes tolled from out the warder tower, and ‘Two o’clock’ +re-echoed its interpreter below.” + +Such stories as this of “The Enigma” remind us of the pictures clever +children sometimes draw “out of their own head,” where you will see a +modern villa on the right, two knights in helmets fighting in the +foreground, and a tiger grinning in a jungle on the left, the several +objects being brought together because the artist thinks each pretty, and +perhaps still more because he remembers seeing them in other pictures. + +But we like the authoress much better on her mediæval stilts than on her +oracular ones—when she talks of the _Ich_ and of “subjective” and +“objective,” and lays down the exact line of Christian verity, between +“right-hand excesses and left-hand declensions.” Persons who deviate +from this line are introduced with a patronizing air of charity. Of a +certain Miss Inshquine she informs us, with all the lucidity of italics +and small caps, that “_function_, not _form_, AS _the inevitable outer +expression of the spirit in this tabernacle age_, weakly engrossed her.” +And _à propos_ of Miss Mayjar, an evangelical lady who is a little too +apt to talk of her visits to sick women and the state of their souls, we +are told that the model clergyman is “not one to disallow, through the +_super_ crust, the undercurrent toward good in the _subject_, or the +positive benefits, nevertheless, to the _object_.” We imagine the +double-refined accent and protrusion of chin which are feebly represented +by the italics in this lady’s sentences! We abstain from quoting any of +her oracular doctrinal passages, because they refer to matters too +serious for our pages just now. + +The epithet “silly” may seem impertinent, applied to a novel which +indicates so much reading and intellectual activity as “The Enigma,” but +we use this epithet advisedly. If, as the world has long agreed, a very +great amount of instruction will not make a wise man, still less will a +very mediocre amount of instruction make a wise woman. And the most +mischievous form of feminine silliness is the literary form, because it +tends to confirm the popular prejudice against the more solid education +of women. + +When men see girls wasting their time in consultations about bonnets and +ball dresses, and in giggling or sentimental love-confidences, or +middle-aged women mismanaging their children, and solacing themselves +with acrid gossip, they can hardly help saying, “For Heaven’s sake, let +girls be better educated; let them have some better objects of +thought—some more solid occupations.” But after a few hours’ +conversation with an oracular literary woman, or a few hours’ reading of +her books, they are likely enough to say, “After all, when a woman gets +some knowledge, see what use she makes of it! Her knowledge remains +acquisition instead of passing into culture; instead of being subdued +into modesty and simplicity by a larger acquaintance with thought and +fact, she has a feverish consciousness of her attainments; she keeps a +sort of mental pocket-mirror, and is continually looking in it at her own +‘intellectuality;’ she spoils the taste of one’s muffin by questions of +metaphysics; ‘puts down’ men at a dinner-table with her superior +information; and seizes the opportunity of a _soirée_ to catechise us on +the vital question of the relation between mind and matter. And then, +look at her writings! She mistakes vagueness for depth, bombast for +eloquence, and affectation for originality; she struts on one page, rolls +her eyes on another, grimaces in a third, and is hysterical in a fourth. +She may have read many writings of great men, and a few writings of great +women; but she is as unable to discern the difference between her own +style and theirs as a Yorkshireman is to discern the difference between +his own English and a Londoner’s: rhodomontade is the native accent of +her intellect. No—the average nature of women is too shallow and feeble +a soil to bear much tillage; it is only fit for the very lightest crops.” + +It is true that the men who come to such a decision on such very +superficial and imperfect observation may not be among the wisest in the +world; but we have not now to contest their opinion—we are only pointing +out how it is unconsciously encouraged by many women who have volunteered +themselves as representatives of the feminine intellect. We do not +believe that a man was ever strengthened in such an opinion by +associating with a woman of true culture, whose mind had absorbed her +knowledge instead of being absorbed by it. A really cultured woman, like +a really cultured man, is all the simpler and the less obtrusive for her +knowledge; it has made her see herself and her opinions in something like +just proportions; she does not make it a pedestal from which she flatters +herself that she commands a complete view of men and things, but makes it +a point of observation from which to form a right estimate of herself. +She neither spouts poetry nor quotes Cicero on slight provocation; not +because she thinks that a sacrifice must be made to the prejudices of +men, but because that mode of exhibiting her memory and Latinity does not +present itself to her as edifying or graceful. She does not write books +to confound philosophers, perhaps because she is able to write books that +delight them. In conversation she is the least formidable of women, +because she understands you, without wanting to make you aware that you +_can’t_ understand her. She does not give you information, which is the +raw material of culture—she gives you sympathy, which is its subtlest +essence. + +A more numerous class of silly novels than the oracular (which are +generally inspired by some form of High Church or transcendental +Christianity) is what we may call the _white neck-cloth_ species, which +represent the tone of thought and feeling in the Evangelical party. This +species is a kind of genteel tract on a large scale, intended as a sort +of medicinal sweetmeat for Low Church young ladies; an Evangelical +substitute for the fashionable novel, as the May Meetings are a +substitute for the Opera. Even Quaker children, one would think, can +hardly have been denied the indulgence of a doll; but it must be a doll +dressed in a drab gown and a coal-scuttle-bonnet—not a worldly doll, in +gauze and spangles. And there are no young ladies, we imagine—unless +they belong to the Church of the United Brethren, in which people are +married without any love-making—who can dispense with love stories. +Thus, for Evangelical young ladies there are Evangelical love stories, in +which the vicissitudes of the tender passion are sanctified by saving +views of Regeneration and the Atonement. These novels differ from the +oracular ones, as a Low Churchwoman often differs from a High +Churchwoman: they are a little less supercilious and a great deal more +ignorant, a little less correct in their syntax and a great deal more +vulgar. + +The Orlando of Evangelical literature is the young curate, looked at from +the point of view of the middle class, where cambric bands are understood +to have as thrilling an effect on the hearts of young ladies as +epaulettes have in the classes above and below it. In the ordinary type +of these novels the hero is almost sure to be a young curate, frowned +upon, perhaps by worldly mammas, but carrying captive the hearts of their +daughters, who can “never forget _that_ sermon;” tender glances are +seized from the pulpit stairs instead of the opera-box; _tête-à-têtes_ +are seasoned with quotations from Scripture instead of quotations from +the poets; and questions as to the state of the heroine’s affections are +mingled with anxieties as to the state of her soul. The young curate +always has a background of well-dressed and wealthy if not fashionable +society—for Evangelical silliness is as snobbish as any other kind of +silliness—and the Evangelical lady novelist, while she explains to you +the type of the scapegoat on one page, is ambitious on another to +represent the manners and conversations of aristocratic people. Her +pictures of fashionable society are often curious studies, considered as +efforts of the Evangelical imagination; but in one particular the novels +of the White Neck-cloth School are meritoriously realistic—their favorite +hero, the Evangelical young curate, is always rather an insipid +personage. + +The most recent novel of this species that we happen to have before us is +“The Old Grey Church.” It is utterly tame and feeble; there is no one +set of objects on which the writer seems to have a stronger grasp than on +any other; and we should be entirely at a loss to conjecture among what +phases of life her experience has been gained, but for certain vulgarisms +of style which sufficiently indicate that she has had the advantage, +though she has been unable to use it, of mingling chiefly with men and +women whose manners and characters have not had all their bosses and +angles rubbed down by refined conventionalism. It is less excusable in +an Evangelical novelist than in any other, gratuitously to seek her +subjects among titles and carriages. The real drama of +Evangelicalism—and it has abundance of fine drama for any one who has +genius enough to discern and reproduce it—lies among the middle and lower +classes; and are not Evangelical opinions understood to give an especial +interest in the weak things of the earth, rather than in the mighty? +Why, then, cannot our Evangelical lady novelists show us the operation of +their religious views among people (there really are many such in the +world) who keep no carriage, “not so much as a brass-bound gig,” who even +manage to eat their dinner without a silver fork, and in whose mouths the +authoress’s questionable English would be strictly consistent? Why can +we not have pictures of religious life among the industrial classes in +England, as interesting as Mrs. Stowe’s pictures of religious life among +the negroes? Instead of this pious ladies nauseate us with novels which +remind us of what we sometimes see in a worldly woman recently +“converted;”—she is as fond of a fine dinner-table as before, but she +invites clergymen instead of beaux; she thinks as much of her dress as +before, but she adopts a more sober choice of colors and patterns; her +conversation is as trivial as before, but the triviality is flavored with +gospel instead of gossip. In “The Old Grey Church” we have the same sort +of Evangelical travesty of the fashionable novel, and of course the +vicious, intriguing baronet is not wanting. It is worth while to give a +sample of the style of conversation attributed to this high-born rake—a +style that, in its profuse italics and palpable innuendoes, is worthy of +Miss Squeers. In an evening visit to the ruins of the Colosseum, +Eustace, the young clergyman, has been withdrawing the heroine, Miss +Lushington, from the rest of the party, for the sake of a _tête-à-tête_. +The baronet is jealous, and vents his pique in this way: + + “There they are, and Miss Lushington, no doubt, quite safe; for she + is under the holy guidance of Pope Eustace the First, who has, of + course, been delivering to her an edifying homily on the wickedness + of the heathens of yore, who, as tradition tells us, in this very + place let loose the wild _beastises_ on poor St. Paul!—Oh, no! by the + bye, I believe I am wrong, and betraying my want of clergy, and that + it was not at all St. Paul, nor was it here. But no matter, it would + equally serve as a text to preach from, and from which to diverge to + the degenerate _heathen_ Christians of the present day, and all their + naughty practices, and so end with an exhortation to ‘come but from + among them, and be separate;’—and I am sure, Miss Lushington, you + have most scrupulously conformed to that injunction this evening, for + we have seen nothing of you since our arrival. But every one seems + agreed it has been a _charming party of pleasure_, and I am sure we + all feel _much indebted_ to Mr. Gray for having _suggested_ it; and + as he seems so capital a cicerone, I hope he will think of something + else equally agreeable to _all_.” + +This drivelling kind of dialogue, and equally drivelling narrative, +which, like a bad drawing, represents nothing, and barely indicates what +is meant to be represented, runs through the book; and we have no doubt +is considered by the amiable authoress to constitute an improving novel, +which Christian mothers will do well to put into the hands of their +daughters. But everything is relative; we have met with American +vegetarians whose normal diet was dry meal, and who, when their appetite +wanted stimulating, tickled it with _wet_ meal; and so, we can imagine +that there are Evangelical circles in which “The Old Grey Church” is +devoured as a powerful and interesting fiction. + +But perhaps the least readable of silly women’s novels are the +_modern-antique_ species, which unfold to us the domestic life of Jannes +and Jambres, the private love affairs of Sennacherib, or the mental +struggles and ultimate conversion of Demetrius the silversmith. From +most silly novels we can at least extract a laugh; but those of the +modern-antique school have a ponderous, a leaden kind of fatuity, under +which we groan. What can be more demonstrative of the inability of +literary women to measure their own powers than their frequent assumption +of a task which can only be justified by the rarest concurrence of +acquirement with genius? The finest effort to reanimate the past is of +course only approximative—is always more or less an infusion of the +modern spirit into the ancient form— + + Was ihr den Geist der Zeiten heisst, + Das ist im Grund der Herren eigner Geist, + In dem die Zeiten sich bespiegeln. + +Admitting that genius which has familiarized itself with all the relics +of an ancient period can sometimes, by the force of its sympathetic +divination, restore the missing notes in the “music of humanity,” and +reconstruct the fragments into a whole which will really bring the remote +past nearer to us, and interpret it to our duller apprehension—this form +of imaginative power must always be among the very rarest, because it +demands as much accurate and minute knowledge as creative vigor. Yet we +find ladies constantly choosing to make their mental mediocrity more +conspicuous by clothing it in a masquerade of ancient names; by putting +their feeble sentimentality into the mouths of Roman vestals or Egyptian +princesses, and attributing their rhetorical arguments to Jewish +high-priests and Greek philosophers. A recent example of this heavy +imbecility is “Adonijah, a Tale of the Jewish Dispersion,” which forms +part of a series, “uniting,” we are told, “taste, humor, and sound +principles.” “Adonijah,” we presume, exemplifies the tale of “sound +principles;” the taste and humor are to be found in other members of the +series. We are told on the cover that the incidents of this tale are +“fraught with unusual interest,” and the preface winds up thus: “To those +who feel interested in the dispersed of Israel and Judea, these pages may +afford, perhaps, information on an important subject, as well as +amusement.” Since the “important subject” on which this book is to +afford information is not specified, it may possibly lie in some esoteric +meaning to which we have no key; but if it has relation to the dispersed +of Israel and Judea at any period of their history, we believe a +tolerably well-informed school-girl already knows much more of it than +she will find in this “Tale of the Jewish Dispersion.” “Adonijah” is +simply the feeblest kind of love story, supposed to be instructive, we +presume, because the hero is a Jewish captive and the heroine a Roman +vestal; because they and their friends are converted to Christianity +after the shortest and easiest method approved by the “Society for +Promoting the Conversion of the Jews;” and because, instead of being +written in plain language, it is adorned with that peculiar style of +grandiloquence which is held by some lady novelists to give an antique +coloring, and which we recognize at once in such phrases as these:—“the +splendid regnal talent, undoubtedly, possessed by the Emperor Nero”—“the +expiring scion of a lofty stem”—“the virtuous partner of his couch”—“ah, +by Vesta!”—and “I tell thee, Roman.” Among the quotations which serve at +once for instruction and ornament on the cover of this volume, there is +one from Miss Sinclair, which informs us that “Works of imagination are +_avowedly_ read by men of science, wisdom, and piety;” from which we +suppose the reader is to gather the cheering inference that Dr. Daubeny, +Mr. Mill, or Mr. Maurice may openly indulge himself with the perusal of +“Adonijah,” without being obliged to secrete it among the sofa cushions, +or read it by snatches under the dinner-table. + + * * * * * + +“Be not a baker if your head be made of butter,” says a homely proverb, +which, being interpreted, may mean, let no woman rush into print who is +not prepared for the consequences. We are aware that our remarks are in +a very different tone from that of the reviewers who, with perennial +recurrence of precisely similar emotions, only paralleled, we imagine, in +the experience of monthly nurses, tell one lady novelist after another +that they “hail” her productions “with delight.” We are aware that the +ladies at whom our criticism is pointed are accustomed to be told, in the +choicest phraseology of puffery, that their pictures of life are +brilliant, their characters well drawn, their style fascinating, and +their sentiments lofty. But if they are inclined to resent our plainness +of speech, we ask them to reflect for a moment on the chary praise, and +often captious blame, which their panegyrists give to writers whose works +are on the way to become classics. No sooner does a woman show that she +has genius or effective talent, than she receives the tribute of being +moderately praised and severely criticised. By a peculiar thermometric +adjustment, when a woman’s talent is at zero, journalistic approbation is +at the boiling pitch; when she attains mediocrity, it is already at no +more than summer heat; and if ever she reaches excellence, critical +enthusiasm drops to the freezing point. Harriet Martineau, Currer Bell, +and Mrs. Gaskell have been treated as cavalierly as if they had been men. +And every critic who forms a high estimate of the share women may +ultimately take in literature, will on principle abstain from any +exceptional indulgence toward the productions of literary women. For it +must be plain to every one who looks impartially and extensively into +feminine literature that its greatest deficiencies are due hardly more to +the want of intellectual power than to the want of those moral qualities +that contribute to literary excellence—patient diligence, a sense of the +responsibility involved in publication, and an appreciation of the +sacredness of the writer’s art. In the majority of women’s books you see +that kind of facility which springs from the absence of any high +standard; that fertility in imbecile combination or feeble imitation +which a little self-criticism would check and reduce to barrenness; just +as with a total want of musical ear people will sing out of tune, while a +degree more melodic sensibility would suffice to render them silent. The +foolish vanity of wishing to appear in print, instead of being +counterbalanced by any consciousness of the intellectual or moral +derogation implied in futile authorship, seems to be encouraged by the +extremely false impression that to write _at all_ is a proof of +superiority in a woman. On this ground we believe that the average +intellect of women is unfairly represented by the mass of feminine +literature, and that while the few women who write well are very far +above the ordinary intellectual level of their sex, the many women who +write ill are very far below it. So that, after all, the severer critics +are fulfilling a chivalrous duty in depriving the mere fact of feminine +authorship of any false prestige which may give it a delusive attraction, +and in recommending women of mediocre faculties—as at least a negative +service they can render their sex—to abstain from writing. + +The standing apology for women who become writers without any special +qualification is that society shuts them out from other spheres of +occupation. Society is a very culpable entity, and has to answer for the +manufacture of many unwholesome commodities, from bad pickles to bad +poetry. But society, like “matter,” and Her Majesty’s Government, and +other lofty abstractions, has its share of excessive blame as well as +excessive praise. Where there is one woman who writes from necessity, we +believe there are three women who write from vanity; and besides, there +is something so antispetic in the mere healthy fact of working for one’s +bread, that the most trashy and rotten kind of feminine literature is not +likely to have been produced under such circumstances. “In all labor +there is profit;” but ladies’ silly novels, we imagine, are less the +result of labor than of busy idleness. + +Happily, we are not dependent on argument to prove that Fiction is a +department of literature in which women can, after their kind, fully +equal men. A cluster of great names, both living and dead, rush to our +memories in evidence that women can produce novels not only fine, but +among the very finest—novels, too, that have a precious speciality, lying +quite apart from masculine aptitudes and experience. No educational +restrictions can shut women out from the materials of fiction, and there +is no species of art which is so free from rigid requirements. Like +crystalline masses, it may take any form, and yet be beautiful; we have +only to pour in the right elements—genuine observation, humor, and +passion. But it is precisely this absence of rigid requirement which +constitutes the fatal seduction of novel-writing to incompetent women. +Ladies are not wont to be very grossly deceived as to their power of +playing on the piano; here certain positive difficulties of execution +have to be conquered, and incompetence inevitably breaks down. Every art +which had its absolute _technique_ is, to a certain extent, guarded from +the intrusions of mere left-handed imbecility. But in novel-writing +there are no barriers for incapacity to stumble against, no external +criteria to prevent a writer from mistaking foolish facility for mastery. +And so we have again and again the old story of La Fontaine’s ass, who +pats his nose to the flute, and, finding that he elicits some sound, +exclaims, “Moi, aussie, je joue de la flute”—a fable which we commend, at +parting, to the consideration of any feminine reader who is in danger of +adding to the number of “silly novels by lady novelists.” + + + +VII. WORLDLINESS AND OTHER-WORLDLINESS: THE POET YOUNG. {205} + + +The study of men, as they have appeared in different ages and under +various social conditions, may be considered as the natural history of +the race. Let us, then, for a moment imagine ourselves, as students of +this natural history, “dredging” the first half of the eighteenth century +in search of specimens. About the year 1730 we have hauled up a +remarkable individual of the species _divine_—a surprising name, +considering the nature of the animal before us, but we are used to +unsuitable names in natural history. Let us examine this individual at +our leisure. He is on the verge of fifty, and has recently undergone his +metamorphosis into the clerical form. Rather a paradoxical specimen, if +you observe him narrowly: a sort of cross between a sycophant and a +psalmist; a poet whose imagination is alternately fired by the “Last Day” +and by a creation of peers, who fluctuates between rhapsodic applause of +King George and rhapsodic applause of Jehovah. After spending “a foolish +youth, the sport of peers and poets,” after being a hanger-on of the +profligate Duke of Wharton, after aiming in vain at a parliamentary +career, and angling for pensions and preferment with fulsome dedications +and fustian odes, he is a little disgusted with his imperfect success, +and has determined to retire from the general mendicancy business to a +particular branch; in other words, he has determined on that renunciation +of the world implied in “taking orders,” with the prospect of a good +living and an advantageous matrimonial connection. And no man can be +better fitted for an Established Church. He personifies completely her +nice balance of temporalities and spiritualities. He is equally +impressed with the momentousness of death and of burial fees; he +languishes at once for immortal life and for “livings;” he has a fervid +attachment to patrons in general, but on the whole prefers the Almighty. +He will teach, with something more than official conviction, the +nothingness of earthly things; and he will feel something more than +private disgust if his meritorious efforts in directing men’s attention +to another world are not rewarded by substantial preferment in this. His +secular man believes in cambric bands and silk stockings as +characteristic attire for “an ornament of religion and virtue;” hopes +courtiers will never forget to copy Sir Robert Walpole; and writes +begging letters to the King’s mistress. His spiritual man recognizes no +motives more familiar than Golgotha and “the skies;” it walks in +graveyards, or it soars among the stars. His religion exhausts itself in +ejaculations and rebukes, and knows no medium between the ecstatic and +the sententious. If it were not for the prospect of immortality, he +considers, it would be wise and agreeable to be indecent or to murder +one’s father; and, heaven apart, it would be extremely irrational in any +man not to be a knave. Man, he thinks, is a compound of the angel and +the brute; the brute is to be humbled by being reminded of its “relation +to the stalls,” and frightened into moderation by the contemplation of +death-beds and skulls; the angel is to be developed by vituperating this +world and exalting the next; and by this double process you get the +Christian—“the highest style of man.” With all this, our new-made divine +is an unmistakable poet. To a clay compounded chiefly of the worldling +and the rhetorician, there is added a real spark of Promethean fire. He +will one day clothe his apostrophes and objurgations, his astronomical +religion and his charnel-house morality, in lasting verse, which will +stand, like a Juggernaut made of gold and jewels, at once magnificent and +repulsive: for this divine is Edward Young, the future author of the +“Night Thoughts.” + +It would be extremely ill-bred in us to suppose that our readers are not +acquainted with the facts of Young’s life; they are among the things that +“every one knows;” but we have observed that, with regard to these +universally known matters, the majority of readers like to be treated +after the plan suggested by Monsieur Jourdain. When that distinguished +_bourgeois_ was asked if he knew Latin, he implied, “Oui, mais faîtes +comme si je ne le savais pas.” Assuming, then, as a polite writer +should, that our readers know everything about Young, it will be a direct +_sequitur_ from that assumption that we should proceed as if they knew +nothing, and recall the incidents of his biography with as much +particularity as we may without trenching on the space we shall need for +our main purpose—the reconsideration of his character as a moral and +religious poet. + +Judging from Young’s works, one might imagine that the preacher had been +organized in him by hereditary transmission through a long line of +clerical forefathers—that the diamonds of the “Night Thoughts” had been +slowly condensed from the charcoal of ancestral sermons. Yet it was not +so. His grandfather, apparently, wrote himself _gentleman_, not _clerk_; +and there is no evidence that preaching had run in the family blood +before it took that turn in the person of the poet’s father, who was +quadruply clerical, being at once rector, prebendary, court chaplain, and +dean. Young was born at his father’s rectory of Upham in 1681. We may +confidently assume that even the author of the “Night Thoughts” came into +the world without a wig; but, apart from Dr. Doran’s authority, we should +not have ventured to state that the excellent rector “kissed, _with +dignified emotion_, his only son and intended namesake.” Dr. Doran +doubtless knows this, from his intimate acquaintance with clerical +physiology and psychology. He has ascertained that the paternal emotions +of prebendaries have a sacerdotal quality, and that the very chyme and +chyle of a rector are conscious of the gown and band. + +In due time the boy went to Winchester College, and subsequently, though +not till he was twenty-two, to Oxford, where, for his father’s sake, he +was befriended by the wardens of two colleges, and in 1708, three years +after his father’s death, nominated by Archbishop Tenison to a law +fellowship at All Souls. Of Young’s life at Oxford in these years, +hardly anything is known. His biographer, Croft, has nothing to tell us +but the vague report that, when “Young found himself independent and his +own master at All Souls, he was not the ornament to religion and morality +that he afterward became,” and the perhaps apocryphal anecdote, that +Tindal, the atheist, confessed himself embarrassed by the originality of +Young’s arguments. Both the report and the anecdote, however, are borne +out by indirect evidence. As to the latter, Young has left us sufficient +proof that he was fond of arguing on the theological side, and that he +had his own way of treating old subjects. As to the former, we learn +that Pope, after saying other things which we know to be true of Young, +added, that he passed “a foolish youth, the sport of peers and poets;” +and, from all the indications we possess of his career till he was nearly +fifty, we are inclined to think that Pope’s statement only errs by +defect, and that he should rather have said, “a foolish youth and +_middle_ age.” It is not likely that Young was a very hard student, for +he impressed Johnson, who saw him in his old age, as “not a great +scholar,” and as surprisingly ignorant of what Johnson thought “quite +common maxims” in literature; and there is no evidence that he filled +either his leisure or his purse by taking pupils. His career as an +author did not commence till he was nearly thirty, even dating from the +publication of a portion of the “Last Day,” in the _Tatler_; so that he +could hardly have been absorbed in composition. But where the fully +developed insect is parasitic, we believe the larva is usually parasitic +also, and we shall probably not be far wrong in supposing that Young at +Oxford, as elsewhere, spent a good deal of his time in hanging about +possible and actual patrons, and accommodating himself to the habits with +considerable flexibility of conscience and of tongue; being none the less +ready, upon occasion, to present himself as the champion of theology and +to rhapsodize at convenient moments in the company of the skies or of +skulls. That brilliant profligate, the Duke of Wharton, to whom Young +afterward clung as his chief patron, was at this time a mere boy; and, +though it is probable that their intimacy had commenced, since the Duke’s +father and mother were friends of the old dean, that intimacy ought not +to aggravate any unfavorable inference as to Young’s Oxford life. It is +less likely that he fell into any exceptional vice than that he differed +from the men around him chiefly in his episodes of theological advocacy +and rhapsodic solemnity. He probably sowed his wild oats after the +coarse fashion of his times, for he has left us sufficient evidence that +his moral sense was not delicate; but his companions, who were occupied +in sowing their own oats, perhaps took it as a matter of course that he +should be a rake, and were only struck with the exceptional circumstance +that he was a pious and moralizing rake. + +There is some irony in the fact that the two first poetical productions +of Young, published in the same year, were his “Epistles to Lord +Lansdowne,” celebrating the recent creation of peers—Lord Lansdowne’s +creation in particular; and the “Last Day.” Other poets besides Young +found the device for obtaining a Tory majority by turning twelve +insignificant commoners into insignificant lords, an irresistible +stimulus to verse; but no other poet showed so versatile an enthusiasm—so +nearly equal an ardor for the honor of the new baron and the honor of the +Deity. But the twofold nature of the sycophant and the psalmist is not +more strikingly shown in the contrasted themes of the two poems than in +the transitions from bombast about monarchs to bombast about the +resurrection, in the “Last Day” itself. The dedication of the poem to +Queen Anne, Young afterward suppressed, for he was always ashamed of +having flattered a dead patron. In this dedication, Croft tells us, “he +gives her Majesty praise indeed for her victories, but says that the +author is more pleased to see her rise from this lower world, soaring +above the clouds, passing the first and second heavens, and leaving the +fixed stars behind her; nor will he lose her there, he says, but keep her +still in view through the boundless spaces on the other side of creation, +in her journey toward eternal bliss, till he behold the heaven of heavens +open, and angels receiving and conveying her still onward from the +stretch of his imagination, which tires in her pursuit, and falls back +again to earth.” + +The self-criticism which prompted the suppression of the dedication did +not, however, lead him to improve either the rhyme or the reason of the +unfortunate couplet— + + “When other Bourbons reign in other lands, + And, if men’s sins forbid not, other Annes.” + +In the “Epistle to Lord Lansdowne” Young indicates his taste for the +drama; and there is evidence that his tragedy of “Busiris” was “in the +theatre” as early as this very year, 1713, though it was not brought on +the stage till nearly six years later; so that Young was now very +decidedly bent on authorship, for which his degree of B.C.L., taken in +this year, was doubtless a magical equipment. Another poem, “The Force +of Religion; or, Vanquished Love,” founded on the execution of Lady Jane +Grey and her husband, quickly followed, showing fertility in feeble and +tasteless verse; and on the Queen’s death, in 1714, Young lost no time in +making a poetical lament for a departed patron a vehicle for extravagant +laudation of the new monarch. No further literary production of his +appeared until 1716, when a Latin oration, which he delivered on the +foundation of the Codrington Library at All Souls, gave him a new +opportunity for displaying his alacrity in inflated panegyric. + +In 1717 it is probable that Young accompanied the Duke of Wharton to +Ireland, though so slender are the materials for his biography that the +chief basis for this supposition is a passage in his “Conjectures on +Original Composition,” written when he was nearly eighty, in which he +intimates that he had once been in that country. But there are many +facts surviving to indicate that for the next eight or nine years Young +was a sort of _attaché_ of Wharton’s. In 1719, according to legal +records, the Duke granted him an annuity, in consideration of his having +relinquished the office of tutor to Lord Burleigh, with a life annuity of +£100 a year, on his Grace’s assurances that he would provide for him in a +much more ample manner. And again, from the same evidence, it appears +that in 1721 Young received from Wharton a bond for £600, in compensation +of expenses incurred in standing for Parliament at the Duke’s desire, and +as an earnest of greater services which his Grace had promised him on his +refraining from the spiritual and temporal advantages of taking orders, +with a certainty of two livings in the gift of his college. It is clear, +therefore, that lay advancement, as long as there was any chance of it, +had more attractions for Young than clerical preferment; and that at this +time he accepted the Duke of Wharton as the pilot of his career. + +A more creditable relation of Young’s was his friendship with Tickell, +with whom he was in the habit of interchanging criticisms, and to whom in +1719—the same year, let us note, in which he took his doctor’s degree—he +addressed his “Lines on the Death of Addison.” Close upon these followed +his “Paraphrase of part of the Book of Job,” with a dedication to Parker, +recently made Lord Chancellor, showing that the possession of Wharton’s +patronage did not prevent Young from fishing in other waters. He knew +nothing of Parker, but that did not prevent him from magnifying the new +Chancellor’s merits; on the other hand, he _did_ know Wharton, but this +again did not prevent him from prefixing to his tragedy, “The Revenge,” +which appeared in 1721, a dedication attributing to the Duke all virtues, +as well as all accomplishments. In the concluding sentence of this +dedication, Young naïvely indicates that a considerable ingredient in his +gratitude was a lively sense of anticipated favors. “My present fortune +is his bounty, and my future his care; which I will venture to say will +always be remembered to his honor; since he, I know, intended his +generosity as an encouragement to merit, through his very pardonable +partiality to one who bears him so sincere a duty and respect, I happen +to receive the benefit of it.” Young was economical with his ideas and +images; he was rarely satisfied with using a clever thing once, and this +bit of ingenious humility was afterward made to do duty in the +“Instalment,” a poem addressed to Walpole: + + “Be this thy partial smile, from censure free, + ’Twas meant for merit, though it fell on me.” + +It was probably “The Revenge” that Young was writing when, as we learn +from Spence’s anecdotes, the Duke of Wharton gave him a skull with a +candle fixed in it, as the most appropriate lamp by which to write +tragedy. According to Young’s dedication, the Duke was “accessory” to +the scenes of this tragedy in a more important way, “not only by +suggesting the most beautiful incident in them, but by making all +possible provision for the success of the whole.” A statement which is +credible, not indeed on the ground of Young’s dedicatory assertion, but +from the known ability of the Duke, who, as Pope tells us, possessed + + “each gift of Nature and of Art, + And wanted nothing but an honest heart.” + +The year 1722 seems to have been the period of a visit to Mr. Dodington, +of Eastbury, in Dorsetshire—the “pure Dorsetian downs” celebrated by +Thomson—in which Young made the acquaintance of Voltaire; for in the +subsequent dedication of his “Sea Piece” to “Mr. Voltaire,” he recalls +their meeting on “Dorset Downs;” and it was in this year that Christopher +Pitt, a gentleman-poet of those days, addressed an “Epistle to Dr. Edward +Young, at Eastbury, in Dorsetshire,” which has at least the merit of this +biographical couplet: + + “While with your Dodington retired you sit, + Charm’d with his flowing Burgundy and wit.” + +Dodington, apparently, was charmed in his turn, for he told Dr. Wharton +that Young was “far superior to the French poet in the variety and +novelty of his _bon-mots_ and repartees.” Unfortunately, the only +specimen of Young’s wit on this occasion that has been preserved to us is +the epigram represented as an extempore retort (spoken aside, surely) to +Voltaire’s criticism of Milton’s episode of sin and death: + + “Thou art so witty, profligate, and thin, + At once, we think thee Milton, Death, and Sin;”— + +an epigram which, in the absence of “flowing Burgundy,” does not strike +us as remarkably brilliant. Let us give Young the benefit of the doubt +thrown on the genuineness of this epigram by his own poetical dedication, +in which he represents himself as having “soothed” Voltaire’s “rage” +against Milton “with gentle rhymes;” though in other respects that +dedication is anything but favorable to a high estimate of Young’s wit. +Other evidence apart, we should not be eager for the after-dinner +conversation of the man who wrote: + + “Thine is the Drama, how renown’d! + Thine Epic’s loftier trump to sound;— + _But let Arion’s sea-strung harp be mine_; + _But where’s his dolphin_? _Know’st thou where_? + _May that be found in thee_, _Voltaire_!” + +The “Satires” appeared in 1725 and 1726, each, of course, with its +laudatory dedication and its compliments insinuated among the rhymes. +The seventh and last is dedicated to Sir Robert Walpole, is very short, +and contains nothing in particular except lunatic flattery of George the +First and his prime minister, attributing that royal hog’s late escape +from a storm at sea to the miraculous influence of his grand and virtuous +soul—for George, he says, rivals the angels: + + “George, who in foes can soft affections raise, + And charm envenom’d satire into praise. + Nor human rage alone his pow’r perceives, + But the mad winds and the tumultuous waves, + Ev’n storms (Death’s fiercest ministers!) forbear, + And in their own wild empire learn to spare. + Thus, Nature’s self, supporting Man’s decree, + Styles Britain’s sovereign, sovereign of the sea.” + +As for Walpole, what _he_ felt at this tremendous crisis + + “No powers of language, but his own, can tell, + His own, which Nature and the Graces form, + At will, to raise, or hush, the civil storm.” + +It is a coincidence worth noticing, that this seventh Satire was +published in 1726, and that the warrant of George the First, granting +Young a pension of £200 a year from Lady-day, 1725, is dated May 3d, +1726. The gratitude exhibited in this Satire may have been chiefly +prospective, but the “Instalment,” a poem inspired by the thrilling event +of Walpole’s installation as Knight of the Garter, was clearly written +with the double ardor of a man who has got a pension and hopes for +something more. His emotion about Walpole is precisely at the same pitch +as his subsequent emotion about the Second Advent. In the “Instalment” +he says: + + “With invocations some their hearts inflame; + _I need no muse_, _a Walpole is my theme_.” + +And of God coming to judgment, he says, in the “Night Thoughts:” + + “I find my inspiration is my theme; + _The grandeur of my subject is my muse_.” + +Nothing can be feebler than this “Instalment,” except in the strength of +impudence with which the writer professes to scorn the prostitution of +fair fame, the “profanation of celestial fire.” + +Herbert Croft tells us that Young made more than three thousand pounds by +his “Satires”—a surprising statement, taken in connection with the +reasonable doubt he throws on the story related in Spence’s “Anecdotes,” +that the Duke of Wharton gave Young £2000 for this work. Young, however, +seems to have been tolerably fortunate in the pecuniary results of his +publications; and, with his literary profits, his annuity from Wharton, +his fellowship, and his pension, not to mention other bounties which may +be inferred from the high merits he discovers in many men of wealth and +position, we may fairly suppose that he now laid the foundation of the +considerable fortune he left at his death. + +It is probable that the Duke of Wharton’s final departure for the +Continent and disgrace at Court in 1726, and the consequent cessation of +Young’s reliance on his patronage, tended not only to heighten the +temperature of his poetical enthusiasm for Sir Robert Walpole, but also +to turn his thoughts toward the Church again, as the second-best means of +rising in the world. On the accession of George the Second, Young found +the same transcendent merits in him as in his predecessor, and celebrated +them in a style of poetry previously unattempted by him—the Pindaric ode, +a poetic form which helped him to surpass himself in furious bombast. +“Ocean, an Ode: concluding with a Wish,” was the title of this piece. He +afterward pruned it, and cut off, among other things, the concluding +Wish, expressing the yearning for humble retirement, which, of course, +had prompted him to the effusion; but we may judge of the rejected +stanzas by the quality of those he has allowed to remain. For example, +calling on Britain’s dead mariners to rise and meet their “country’s +full-blown glory” in the person of the new King, he says: + + “What powerful charm + Can Death disarm? + Your long, your iron slumbers break? + _By Jove_, _by Fame_, + _By George’s name_, + Awake! awake! awake! awake!” + +Soon after this notable production, which was written with the ripe folly +of forty-seven, Young took orders, and was presently appointed chaplain +to the King. “The Brothers,” his third and last tragedy, which was +already in rehearsal, he now withdrew from the stage, and sought +reputation in a way more accordant with the decorum of his new +profession, by turning prose writer. But after publishing “A True +Estimate of Human Life,” with a dedication to the Queen, as one of the +“most shining representatives” of God on earth, and a sermon, entitled +“An Apology for Princes; or, the Reverence due to Government,” preached +before the House of Commons, his Pindaric ambition again seized him, and +he matched his former ode by another, called “Imperium Pelagi, a Naval +Lyric; written in imitation of Pindar’s spirit, occasioned by his +Majesty’s return from Hanover, 1729, and the succeeding Peace.” Since he +afterward suppressed this second ode, we must suppose that it was rather +worse than the first. Next came his two “Epistles to Pope, concerning +the Authors of the Age,” remarkable for nothing but the audacity of +affectation with which the most servile of poets professes to despise +servility. + +In 1730 Young was presented by his college with the rectory of Welwyn, in +Hertfordshire, and, in the following year, when he was just fifty, he +married Lady Elizabeth Lee, a widow with two children, who seems to have +been in favor with Queen Caroline, and who probably had an income—two +attractions which doubtless enhanced the power of her other charms. +Pastoral duties and domesticity probably cured Young of some bad habits; +but, unhappily, they did not cure him either of flattery or of fustian. +Three more odes followed, quite as bad as those of his bachelorhood, +except that in the third he announced the wise resolution of never +writing another. It must have been about this time, since Young was now +“turned of fifty,” that he wrote the letter to Mrs. Howard (afterward +Lady Suffolk), George the Second’s mistress, which proves that he used +other engines, besides Pindaric ones, in “besieging Court favor.” The +letter is too characteristic to be omitted: + + “Monday Morning. + + “MADAM: I know his Majesty’s goodness to his servants, and his love + of justice in general, so well, that I am confident, if his Majesty + knew my case, I should not have any cause to despair of his gracious + favor to me. + + “Abilities. Want. + + Good Manners. Sufferings } + + Service. and } for his + Majesty. + + Age. Zeal } + + _These_, madam, are the proper points of consideration in the person + that humbly hopes his Majesty’s favor. + + “As to _Abilities_, all I can presume to say is, I have done the best + I could to improve them. + + “As to _Good manners_, I desire no favor, if any just objection lies + against them. + + “As for _Service_, I have been near seven years in his Majesty’s and + never omitted any duty in it, which few can say. + + “As for _Age_, I am turned of fifty. + + “As for _Want_, I have no manner of preferment. + + “As for _Sufferings_, I have lost £300 per ann. by being in his + Majesty’s service; as I have shown in a _Representation_ which his + Majesty has been so good as to read and consider. + + “As for _Zeal_, I have written nothing without showing my duty to + their Majesties, and some pieces are dedicated to them. + + “This, madam, is the short and true state of my case. They that make + their court to the ministers, and not their Majesties, succeed + better. If my case deserves some consideration, and you can serve me + in it, I humbly hope and believe you will: I shall, therefore, + trouble you no farther; but beg leave to subscribe myself, with + truest respect and gratitude, + + “Yours, etc., + EDWARD YOUNG. + + “P.S. I have some hope that my Lord Townshend is my friend; if + therefore soon, and before he leaves the court, you had an + opportunity of mentioning me, with that favor you have been so good + to show, I think it would not fail of success; and, if not, I shall + owe you more than any.”—“Suffolk Letters,” vol. i. p. 285. + +Young’s wife died in 1741, leaving him one son, born in 1733. That he +had attached himself strongly to her two daughters by her former +marriage, there is better evidence in the report, mentioned by Mrs. +Montagu, of his practical kindness and liberality to the younger, than in +his lamentations over the elder as the “Narcissa” of the “Night +Thoughts.” “Narcissa” had died in 1735, shortly after marriage to Mr. +Temple, the son of Lord Palmerston; and Mr. Temple himself, after a +second marriage, died in 1740, a year before Lady Elizabeth Young. +These, then, are the three deaths supposed to have inspired “The +Complaint,” which forms the three first books of the “Night Thoughts:” + + “Insatiate archer, could not one suffice? + Thy shaft flew thrice: and thrice my peace was slain: + And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill’d her horn.” + +Since we find Young departing from the truth of dates, in order to +heighten the effect of his calamity, or at least of his climax, we need +not be surprised that he allowed his imagination great freedom in other +matters besides chronology, and that the character of “Philander” can, by +no process, be made to fit Mr. Temple. The supposition that the +much-lectured “Lorenzo” of the “Night Thoughts” was Young’s own son is +hardly rendered more absurd by the fact that the poem was written when +that son was a boy, than by the obvious artificiality of the characters +Young introduces as targets for his arguments and rebukes. Among all the +trivial efforts of conjectured criticism, there can hardly be one more +futile than the attempts to discover the original of those pitiable +lay-figures, the “Lorenzos” and “Altamonts” of Young’s didactic prose and +poetry. His muse never stood face to face with a genuine living human +being; she would have been as much startled by such an encounter as a +necromancer whose incantations and blue fire had actually conjured up a +demon. + +The “Night Thoughts” appeared between 1741 and 1745. Although he +declares in them that he has chosen God for his “patron” henceforth, this +is not at all to the prejudice of some half dozen lords, duchesses, and +right honorables who have the privilege of sharing finely-turned +compliments with their co-patron. The line which closed the Second Night +in the earlier editions— + + “Wits spare not Heaven, O Wilmington!—nor thee”— + +is an intense specimen of that perilous juxtaposition of ideas by which +Young, in his incessant search after point and novelty, unconsciously +converts his compliments into sarcasms; and his apostrophe to the moon as +more likely to be favorable to his song if he calls her “fair Portland of +the skies,” is worthy even of his Pindaric ravings. His ostentatious +renunciation of worldly schemes, and especially of his twenty-years’ +siege of Court favor, are in the tone of one who retains some hope in the +midst of his querulousness. + +He descended from the astronomical rhapsodies of his “Ninth Night,” +published in 1745, to more terrestrial strains in his “Reflections on the +Public Situation of the Kingdom,” dedicated to the Duke of Newcastle; but +in this critical year we get a glimpse of him through a more prosaic and +less refracting medium. He spent a part of the year at Tunbridge Wells; +and Mrs. Montagu, who was there too, gives a very lively picture of the +“divine Doctor” in her letters to the Duchess of Portland, on whom Young +had bestowed the superlative bombast to which we have recently alluded. +We shall borrow the quotations from Dr. Doran, in spite of their length, +because, to our mind, they present the most agreeable portrait we possess +of Young: + + “I have great joy in Dr. Young, whom I disturbed in a reverie. At + first he started, then bowed, then fell back into a surprise; then + began a speech, relapsed into his astonishment two or three times, + forgot what he had been saying; began a new subject, and so went on. + I told him your grace desired he would write longer letters; to which + he cried ‘Ha!’ most emphatically, and I leave you to interpret what + it meant. He has made a friendship with one person here, whom I + believe you would not imagine to have been made for his bosom friend. + You would, perhaps, suppose it was a bishop or dean, a prebend, a + pious preacher, a clergyman of exemplary life, or, if a layman, of + most virtuous conversation, one that had paraphrased St. Matthew, or + wrote comments on St. Paul. . . . You would not guess that this + associate of the doctor’s was—old Cibber! Certainly, in their + religious, moral, and civil character, there is no relation; but in + their dramatic capacity there is some.—Mrs. Montagu was not aware + that Cibber, whom Young had named not disparagingly in his Satires, + was the brother of his old school-fellow; but to return to our hero. + ‘The waters,’ says Mrs. Montagu, ‘have raised his spirits to a fine + pitch, as your grace will imagine, when I tell you how sublime an + answer he made to a very vulgar question. I asked him how long he + stayed at the Wells; he said, ‘As long as my rival stayed;—as long as + the sun did.’ Among the visitors at the Wells were Lady Sunderland + (wife of Sir Robert Sutton), and her sister, Mrs. Tichborne. ‘He did + an admirable thing to Lady Sunderland: on her mentioning Sir Robert + Sutton, he asked her where Sir Robert’s lady was; on which we all + laughed very heartily, and I brought him off, half ashamed, to my + lodgings, where, during breakfast, he assured me he had asked after + Lady Sunderland, because he had a great honor for her; and that, + having a respect for her sister, he designed to have inquired after + her, if we had not put it out of his head by laughing at him. You + must know, Mrs. Tichborne sat next to Lady Sunderland. It would have + been admirable to have had him finish his compliment in that manner.’ + . . . ‘His expressions all bear the stamp of novelty, and his + thoughts of sterling sense. He practises a kind of philosophical + abstinence. . . . He carried Mrs. Rolt and myself to Tunbridge, five + miles from hence, where we were to see some fine old ruins. First + rode the doctor on a tall steed, decently caparisoned in dark gray; + next, ambled Mrs. Rolt on a hackney horse; . . . then followed your + humble servant on a milk-white palfrey. I rode on in safety, and at + leisure to observe the company, especially the two figures that + brought up the rear. The first was my servant, valiantly armed with + two uncharged pistols; the last was the doctor’s man, whose uncombed + hair so resembled the mane of the horse he rode, one could not help + imagining they were of kin, and wishing, for the honor of the family, + that they had had one comb betwixt them. On his head was a velvet + cap, much resembling a black saucepan, and on his side hung a little + basket. At last we arrived at the King’s Head, where the loyalty of + the doctor induced him to alight; and then, knight-errant-like, he + took his damsels from off their palfreys, and courteously handed us + into the inn.’ . . . The party returned to the Wells; and ‘the silver + Cynthia held up her lamp in the heavens’ the while. ‘The night + silenced all but our divine doctor, who sometimes uttered things fit + to be spoken in a season when all nature seems to be hushed and + hearkening. I followed, gathering wisdom as I went, till I found, by + my horse’s stumbling, that I was in a bad road, and that the blind + was leading the blind. So I placed my servant between the doctor and + myself; which he not perceiving, went on in a most philosophical + strain, to the great admiration of my poor clown of a servant, who, + not being wrought up to any pitch of enthusiasm, nor making any + answer to all the fine things he heard, the doctor, wondering I was + dumb, and grieving I was so stupid, looked round and declared his + surprise.’” + +Young’s oddity and absence of mind are gathered from other sources +besides these stories of Mrs. Montagu’s, and gave rise to the report that +he was the original of Fielding’s “Parson Adams;” but this Croft denies, +and mentions another Young, who really sat for the portrait, and who, we +imagine, had both more Greek and more genuine simplicity than the poet. +His love of chatting with Colley Cibber was an indication that the old +predilection for the stage survived, in spite of his emphatic contempt +for “all joys but joys that never can expire;” and the production of “The +Brothers,” at Drury Lane in 1753, after a suppression of fifteen years, +was perhaps not entirely due to the expressed desire to give the proceeds +to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The author’s profits +were not more than £400—in those days a disappointing sum; and Young, as +we learn from his friend Richardson, did not make this the limit of his +donation, but gave a thousand guineas to the Society. “I had some talk +with him,” says Richardson, in one of his letters, “about this great +action. ‘I always,’ said he, ‘intended to do something handsome for the +Society. Had I deferred it to my demise, I should have given away my +son’s money. All the world are inclined to pleasure; could I have given +myself a greater by disposing of the sum to a different use, I should +have done it.’” Surely he took his old friend Richardson for “Lorenzo!” + +His next work was “The Centaur not Fabulous; in Six Letters to a Friend, +on the Life in Vogue,” which reads very much like the most objurgatory +parts of the “Night Thoughts” reduced to prose. It is preceded by a +preface which, though addressed to a lady, is in its denunciations of +vice as grossly indecent and almost as flippant as the epilogues written +by “friends,” which he allowed to be reprinted after his tragedies in the +latest edition of his works. We like much better than “The Centaur,” +“Conjectures on Original Composition,” written in 1759, for the sake, he +says, of communicating to the world the well-known anecdote about +Addison’s deathbed, and with the exception of his poem on Resignation, +the last thing he ever published. + +The estrangement from his son, which must have embittered the later years +of his life, appears to have begun not many years after the mother’s +death. On the marriage of her second daughter, who had previously +presided over Young’s household, a Mrs. Hallows, understood to be a woman +of discreet age, and the daughter (a widow) of a clergyman who was an old +friend of Young’s, became housekeeper at Welwyn. Opinions about ladies +are apt to differ. “Mrs. Hallows was a woman of piety, improved by +reading,” says one witness. “She was a very coarse woman,” says Dr. +Johnson; and we shall presently find some indirect evidence that her +temper was perhaps not quite so much improved as her piety. Servants, it +seems, were not fond of remaining long in the house with her; a satirical +curate, named Kidgell, hints at “drops of juniper” taken as a cordial +(but perhaps he was spiteful, and a teetotaller); and Young’s son is said +to have told his father that “an old man should not resign himself to the +management of anybody.” The result was, that the son was banished from +home for the rest of his father’s life-time, though Young seems never to +have thought of disinheriting him. + +Our latest glimpses of the aged poet are derived from certain letters of +Mr. Jones, his curate—letters preserved in the British Museum, and +happily made accessible to common mortals in Nichols’s “Anecdotes.” Mr. +Jones was a man of some literary activity and ambition—a collector of +interesting documents, and one of those concerned in the “Free and Candid +Disquisitions,” the design of which was “to point out such things in our +ecclesiastical establishment as want to be reviewed and amended.” On +these and kindred subjects he corresponded with Dr. Birch, occasionally +troubling him with queries and manuscripts. We have a respect for Mr. +Jones. Unlike any person who ever troubled _us_ with queries or +manuscripts, he mitigates the infliction by such gifts as “a fat pullet,” +wishing he “had anything better to send; but this depauperizing vicarage +(of Alconbury) too often checks the freedom and forwardness of my mind.” +Another day comes a “pound canister of tea,” another, a “young fatted +goose.” Clearly, Mr. Jones was entirely unlike your literary +correspondents of the present day; he forwarded manuscripts, but he had +“bowels,” and forwarded poultry too. His first letter from Welwyn is +dated June, 1759, not quite six years before Young’s death. In June, +1762, he expresses a wish to go to London “this summer. But,” he +continues: + + “My time and pains are almost continually taken up here, and . . . I + have been (I now find) a considerable loser, upon the whole, by + continuing here so long. The consideration of this, and the + inconveniences I sustained, and do still experience, from my late + illness, obliged me at last to acquaint the Doctor (Young) with my + case, and to assure him that I plainly perceived the duty and + confinement here to be too much for me; for which reason I must (I + said) beg to be at liberty to resign my charge at Michaelmas. I + began to give him these notices in February, when I was very ill; and + now I perceive, by what he told me the other day, that he is in some + difficulty: for which reason he is at last (he says) resolved to + advertise, _and even_ (_which is much wondered at_) _to raise the + salary considerably __higher_. (What he allowed my predecessors was + 20_l._ per annum; and now he proposes 50_l._, as he tells me.) I + never asked him to raise it for me, though I well knew it was not + equal to the duty; nor did I say a word about myself when he lately + suggested to me his intentions upon this subject.” + +In a postscript to this letter he says: + + “I may mention to you farther, as a friend that may be trusted, that + in all likelihood the poor old gentleman will not find it a very easy + matter, unless by dint of money, _and force upon himself_, to procure + a man that he can like for his next curate, _nor one that will stay + with him so long as I have done_. Then, his great age will recur to + people’s thoughts; and if he has any foibles, either in temper or + conduct, they will be sure not to be forgotten on this occasion by + those who know him; and those who do not will probably be on their + guard. On these and the like considerations, it is by no means an + eligible office to be seeking out for a curate for him, as he has + several times wished me to do; and would, if he knew that I am now + writing to you, wish your assistance also. But my best friends here, + _who well foresee the probable consequences_, and wish me well, + earnestly dissuade me from complying: and I will decline the office + with as much decency as I can: but high salary will, I suppose, fetch + in somebody or other, soon.” + +In the following July he writes: + + “The old gentleman here (I may venture to tell you freely) seems to + me to be in a pretty odd way of late—moping, dejected, self-willed, + and as if surrounded with some perplexing circumstances. Though I + visit him pretty frequently for short intervals, I say very little to + his affairs, not choosing to be a party concerned, especially in + cases of so critical and tender a nature. There is much mystery in + almost all his temporal affairs, as well as in many of his + speculative theories. Whoever lives in this neighborhood to see his + exit will probably see and hear some very strange things. Time will + show;—I am afraid, not greatly to his credit. There is thought to be + _an irremovable obstruction to his happiness within his walls_, _as + well as another without them_; but the former is the more powerful, + and like to continue so. He has this day been trying anew to engage + me to stay with him. No lucrative views can tempt me to sacrifice my + liberty or my health, to such measures as are proposed here. _Nor do + I like to __have to do with persons whose word and honor cannot be + depended on_. So much for this very odd and unhappy topic.” + +In August Mr. Jones’s tone is slightly modified. Earnest entreaties, not +lucrative considerations, have induced him to cheer the Doctor’s dejected +heart by remaining at Welwyn some time longer. The Doctor is, “in +various respects, a very unhappy man,” and few know so much of these +respects as Mr. Jones. In September he recurs to the subject: + + “My ancient gentleman here is still full of trouble, which moves my + concern, though it moves only the secret laughter of many, and some + untoward surmises in disfavor of him and his household. The loss of + a very large sum of money (about 200_l._) is talked of; whereof this + vill and neighborhood is full. Some disbelieve; others says, ‘_It is + no wonder_, _where about eighteen or more servants are sometimes + taken and dismissed in the course of a year_.’ The gentleman himself + is allowed by all to be far more harmless and easy in his family than + some one else who hath too much the lead in it. This, among others, + was one reason for my late motion to quit.” + +No other mention of Young’s affairs occurs until April 2d, 1765, when he +says that Dr. Young is very ill, attended by two physicians. + + “Having mentioned this young gentleman (Dr. Young’s son), I would + acquaint you next, that he came hither this morning, having been sent + for, as I am told, by the direction of Mrs. Hallows. Indeed, she + intimated to me as much herself. And if this be so, I must say, that + it is one of the most prudent Acts she ever did, or could have done + in such a case as this; as it may prove a means of preventing much + confusion after the death of the Doctor. I have had some little + discourse with the son: he seems much affected, and I believe really + is so. He earnestly wishes his father might be pleased to ask after + him; for you must know he has not yet done this, nor is, in my + opinion, like to do it. And it has been said farther, that upon a + late application made to him on the behalf of his son, he desired + that no more might be said to him about it. How true this may be I + cannot as yet be certain; all I shall say is, it seems not improbable + . . . I heartily wish the ancient man’s heart may prove tender toward + his son; _though_, _knowing him so well_, _I can scarce hope to hear + such desirable news_.” + +Eleven days later he writes: + + “I have now the pleasure to acquaint you, that the late Dr. Young, + though he had for many years kept his son at a distance from him, yet + has now at last left him all his possessions, after the payment of + certain legacies; so that the young gentleman (who bears a fair + character, and behaves well, as far as I can hear or see) will, I + hope, soon enjoy and make a prudent use of a handsome fortune. The + father, on his deathbed, and since my return from London, was applied + to in the tenderest manner, by one of his physicians, and by another + person, to admit the son into his presence, to make submission, + intreat forgiveness, and obtain his blessing. As to an interview + with his son, he intimated that he chose to decline it, as his + spirits were then low and his nerves weak. With regard to the next + particular, he said, ‘_I heartily forgive him_;’ and upon ‘mention of + this last, he gently lifted up his hand, and letting it gently fall, + pronounced these words, ‘_God bless him_!’ . . . I know it will give + you pleasure to be farther informed that he was pleased to make + respectful mention of me in his will; expressing his satisfaction in + my care of his parish, _bequeathing to me a handsome legacy_, and + appointing me to be one of his executors.” + +So far Mr. Jones, in his confidential correspondence with a “friend, who +may be trusted.” In a letter communicated apparently by him to the +_Gentleman’s Magazine_, seven years later, namely, in 1782, on the +appearance of Croft’s biography of Young, we find him speaking of “the +ancient gentleman” in a tone of reverential eulogy, quite at variance +with the free comments we have just quoted. But the Rev. John Jones was +probably of opinion, with Mrs. Montagu, whose contemporary and +retrospective letters are also set in a different key, that “the +interests of religion were connected with the character of a man so +distinguished for piety as Dr. Young.” At all events, a subsequent +quasi-official statement weighs nothing as evidence against contemporary, +spontaneous, and confidential hints. + +To Mrs. Hallows, Young left a legacy of £1000, with the request that she +would destroy all his manuscripts. This final request, from some unknown +cause, was not complied with, and among the papers he left behind him was +the following letter from Archbishop Secker, which probably marks the +date of his latest effort after preferment: + + “DEANERY OF ST. PAUL’S, July 8, 1758. + + “Good DR. YOUNG: I have long wondered that more suitable notice of + your great merit hath not been taken by persons in power. But how to + remedy the omission I see not. No encouragement hath ever been given + me to mention things of this nature to his Majesty. And therefore, + in all likelihood, the only consequence of doing it would be + weakening the little influence which else I may possibly have on some + other occasions. _Your fortune and your reputation set you above the + need of advancement_; _and your sentiments above that concern for + it_, _on your own account_, which, on that of the public, is + sincerely felt by + + “Your loving Brother, + + “THO. CANT.” + +The loving brother’s irony is severe! + +Perhaps the least questionable testimony to the better side of Young’s +character is that of Bishop Hildesley, who, as the vicar of a parish near +Welwyn, had been Young’s neighbor for upward of twenty years. The +affection of the clergy for each other, we have observed, is, like that +of the fair sex, not at all of a blind and infatuated kind; and we may +therefore the rather believe them when they give each other any +extra-official praise. Bishop Hildesley, then writing of Young to +Richardson, says: + + “The impertinence of my frequent visits to him was amply rewarded; + forasmuch as, I can truly say, he never received me but with + agreeable open complacency; and I never left him but with profitable + pleasure and improvement. He was one or other, the most modest, the + most patient of contradiction, and the most informing and + entertaining I ever conversed with—at least, of any man who had so + just pretensions to pertinacity and reserve.” + +Mr. Langton, however, who was also a frequent visitor of Young’s, +informed Boswell— + + “That there was an air of benevolence in his manner; but that he + could obtain from him less information than he had hoped to receive + from one who had lived so much in intercourse with the brightest men + of what had been called the Augustan age of England; and that he + showed a degree of eager curiosity concerning the common occurrences + that were then passing, which appeared somewhat remarkable in a man + of such intellectual stores, of such an advanced age, and who had + retired from life with declared disappointment in his expectations.” + +The same substance, we know, will exhibit different qualities under +different tests; and, after all, imperfect reports of individual +impressions, whether immediate or traditional, are a very frail basis on +which to build our opinion of a man. One’s character may be very +indifferently mirrored in the mind of the most intimate neighbor; it all +depends on the quality of that gentleman’s reflecting surface. + +But, discarding any inferences from such uncertain evidence, the outline +of Young’s character is too distinctly traceable in the well-attested +facts of his life, and yet more in the self-betrayal that runs through +all his works, for us to fear that our general estimate of him may be +false. For, while no poet seems less easy and spontaneous than Young, no +poet discloses himself more completely. Men’s minds have no hiding-place +out of themselves—their affectations do but betray another phase of their +nature. And if, in the present view of Young, we seem to be more intent +on laying bare unfavorable facts than on shrouding them in “charitable +speeches,” it is not because we have any irreverential pleasure in +turning men’s characters “the seamy side without,” but because we see no +great advantage in considering a man as he was _not_. Young’s +biographers and critics have usually set out from the position that he +was a great religious teacher, and that his poetry is morally sublime; +and they have toned down his failings into harmony with their conception +of the divine and the poet. For our own part, we set out from precisely +the opposite conviction—namely, that the religious and moral spirit of +Young’s poetry is low and false, and we think it of some importance to +show that the “Night Thoughts” are the reflex of the mind in which the +higher human sympathies were inactive. This judgment is entirely opposed +to our youthful predilections and enthusiasm. The sweet garden-breath of +early enjoyment lingers about many a page of the “Night Thoughts,” and +even of the “Last Day,” giving an extrinsic charm to passages of stilted +rhetoric and false sentiment; but the sober and repeated reading of +maturer years has convinced us that it would hardly be possible to find a +more typical instance than Young’s poetry, of the mistake which +substitutes interested obedience for sympathetic emotion, and baptizes +egoism as religion. + + * * * * * + +Pope said of Young, that he had “much of a sublime genius without +common-sense.” The deficiency Pope meant to indicate was, we imagine, +moral rather than intellectual: it was the want of that fine sense of +what is fitting in speech and action, which is often eminently possessed +by men and women whose intellect is of a very common order, but who have +the sincerity and dignity which can never coexist with the selfish +preoccupations of vanity or interest. This was the “common-sense” in +which Young was conspicuously deficient; and it was partly owing to this +deficiency that his genius, waiting to be determined by the highest +prize, fluttered uncertainly from effort to effort, until, when he was +more than sixty, it suddenly spread its broad wing, and soared so as to +arrest the gaze of other generations besides his own. For he had no +versatility of faculty to mislead him. The “Night Thoughts” only differ +from his previous works in the degree and not in the kind of power they +manifest. Whether he writes prose or poetry, rhyme or blank verse, +dramas, satires, odes, or meditations, we see everywhere the same +Young—the same narrow circle of thoughts, the same love of abstractions, +the same telescopic view of human things, the same appetency toward +antithetic apothegm and rhapsodic climax. The passages that arrest us in +his tragedies are those in which he anticipates some fine passage in the +“Night Thoughts,” and where his characters are only transparent shadows +through which we see the bewigged _embonpoint_ of the didactic poet, +excogitating epigrams or ecstatic soliloquies by the light of a candle +fixed in a skull. Thus, in “The Revenge,” “Alonzo,” in the conflict of +jealousy and love that at once urges and forbids him to murder his wife, +says: + + “This vast and solid earth, that blazing sun, + Those skies, through which it rolls, must all have end. + What then is man? The smallest part of nothing. + Day buries day; month, month; and year the year! + Our life is but a chain of many deaths. + Can then Death’s self be feared? Our life much rather: + _Life is the desert_, _life the solitude_; + Death joins us to the great majority; + ’Tis to be born to Plato and to Cæsar; + ’Tis to be great forever; + ’Tis pleasure, ’tis ambition, then, to die.” + +His prose writings all read like the “Night Thoughts,” either diluted +into prose or not yet crystallized into poetry. For example, in his +“Thoughts for Age,” he says: + + “Though we stand on its awful brink, such our leaden bias to the + world, we turn our faces the wrong way; we are still looking on our + old acquaintance, _Time_; though now so wasted and reduced, that we + can see little more of him than his wings and his scythe: our age + enlarges his wings to our imagination; and our fear of death, his + scythe; as Time himself grows less. His consumption is deep; his + annihilation is at hand.” + +This is a dilution of the magnificent image— + + “Time in advance behind him hides his wings, + And seems to creep decrepit with his age. + Behold him when past by! What then is seen + But his proud pinions, swifter than the winds?” + +Again: + + “A requesting Omnipotence? What can stun and confound thy reason + more? What more can ravish and exalt thy heart? It cannot but + ravish and exalt; it cannot but gloriously disturb and perplex thee, + to take in all _that_ suggests. Thou child of the dust! Thou speck + of misery and sin! How abject thy weakness! how great is thy power! + Thou crawler on earth, and possible (I was about to say) controller + of the skies! Weigh, and weigh well, the wondrous truths I have in + view: which cannot be weighed too much; which the more they are + weighed, amaze the more; which to have supposed, before they were + revealed, would have been as great madness, and to have presumed on + as great sin, as it is now madness and sin not to believe.” + +Even in his Pindaric odes, in which he made the most violent efforts +against nature, he is still neither more nor less than the Young of the +“Last Day,” emptied and swept of his genius, and possessed by seven +demons of fustian and bad rhyme. Even here his “Ercles’ Vein” alternates +with his moral platitudes, and we have the perpetual text of the “Night +Thoughts:” + + “Gold pleasure buys; + But pleasure dies, + For soon the gross fruition cloys; + Though raptures court, + The sense is short; + But virtue kindles living joys;— + + “Joys felt alone! + Joys asked of none! + Which Time’s and fortune’s arrows miss: + Joys that subsist, + Though fates resist, + An unprecarious, endless bliss! + + “Unhappy they! + And falsely gay! + Who bask forever in success; + A constant feast + Quite palls the taste, + _And long enjoyment is distress_.” + +In the “Last Day,” again, which is the earliest thing he wrote, we have +an anticipation of all his greatest faults and merits. Conspicuous among +the faults is that attempt to exalt our conceptions of Deity by vulgar +images and comparisons, which is so offensive in the later “Night +Thoughts.” In a burst of prayer and homage to God, called forth by the +contemplation of Christ coming to judgment, he asks, Who brings the +change of the seasons? and answers: + + “Not the great Ottoman, or Greater Czar; + Not Europe’s arbitress of peace and war!” + +Conceive the soul in its most solemn moments, assuring God that it +doesn’t place his power below that of Louis Napoleon or Queen Victoria! + +But in the midst of uneasy rhymes, inappropriate imagery, vaulting +sublimity that o’erleaps itself, and vulgar emotions, we have in this +poem an occasional flash of genius, a touch of simple grandeur, which +promises as much as Young ever achieved. Describing the on-coming of the +dissolution of all things, he says: + + “No sun in radiant glory shines on high; + _No light but from the terrors of the sky_.” + +And again, speaking of great armies: + + “Whose rear lay wrapt in night, while breaking dawn + Rous’d the broad front, and call’d the battle on.” + +And this wail of the lost souls is fine: + + “And this for sin? + Could I offend if I had never been? + But still increas’d the senseless, happy mass, + Flow’d in the stream, _or shiver’d in the grass_? + Father of mercies! Why from silent earth + Didst thou awake and curse me into birth? + Tear me from quiet, ravish me from night, + And make a thankless present of thy light? + Push into being a reverse of Thee, + And _animate a clod with misery_?” + +But it is seldom in Young’s rhymed poems that the effect of a felicitous +thought or image is not counteracted by our sense of the constraint he +suffered from the necessities of rhyme—that “Gothic demon,” as he +afterward called it, “which, modern poetry tasting, became mortal.” In +relation to his own power, no one will question the truth of this dictum, +that “blank verse is verse unfallen, uncurst; verse reclaimed, +reinthroned in the true language of the gods; who never thundered nor +suffered their Homer to thunder in rhyme.” His want of mastery in rhyme +is especially a drawback on the effects of his Satires; for epigrams and +witticisms are peculiarly susceptible to the intrusion of a superfluous +word, or to an inversion which implies constraint. Here, even more than +elsewhere, the art that conceals art is an absolute requisite, and to +have a witticism presented to us in limping or cumbrous rhythm is as +counteractive to any electrifying effect as to see the tentative grimaces +by which a comedian prepares a grotesque countenance. We discern the +process, instead of being startled by the result. + +This is one reason why the Satires, read _seriatim_, have a flatness to +us, which, when we afterward read picked passages, we are inclined to +disbelieve in, and to attribute to some deficiency in our own mood. But +there are deeper reasons for that dissatisfaction. Young is not a +satirist of a high order. His satire has neither the terrible vigor, the +lacerating energy of genuine indignation, nor the humor which owns loving +fellowship with the poor human nature it laughs at; nor yet the personal +bitterness which, as in Pope’s characters of Sporus and Atticus, insures +those living touches by virtue of which the individual and particular in +Art becomes the universal and immortal. Young could never describe a +real, complex human being; but what he _could_ do with eminent success +was to describe, with neat and finished point, obvious _types_, of +manners rather than of character—to write cold and clever epigrams on +personified vices and absurdities. There is no more emotion in his +satire than if he were turning witty verses on a waxen image of Cupid or +a lady’s glove. He has none of these felicitious epithets, none of those +pregnant lines, by which Pope’s Satires have enriched the ordinary speech +of educated men. Young’s wit will be found in almost every instance to +consist in that antithetic combination of ideas which, of all the forms +of wit, is most within reach of a clever effort. In his gravest +arguments, as well as in his lightest satire, one might imagine that he +had set himself to work out the problem, how much antithesis might be got +out of a given subject. And there he completely succeeds. His neatest +portraits are all wrought on this plan. “Narcissus,” for example, who + + “Omits no duty; nor can Envy say + He miss’d, these many years, the Church or Play: + He makes no noise in Parliament, ’tis true; + But pays his debts, and visit when ’tis due; + His character and gloves are ever clean, + And then he can out-bow the bowing Dean; + A smile eternal on his lip he wears, + Which equally the wise and worthless shares. + In gay fatigues, this most undaunted chief, + Patient of idleness beyond belief, + Most charitably lends the town his face + For ornament in every public place; + As sure as cards he to th’ assembly comes, + And is the furniture of drawing-rooms: + When Ombre calls, his hand and heart are free, + And, joined to two, he fails not—to make three; + Narcissus is the glory of his race; + For who does nothing with a better grace? + To deck my list by nature were designed + Such shining expletives of human kind, + Who want, while through blank life they dream along, + Sense to be right and passion to be wrong.” + +It is but seldom that we find a touch of that easy slyness which gives an +additional zest to surprise; but here is an instance: + + “See Tityrus, with merriment possest, + Is burst with laughter ere he hears the jest, + What need he stay, for when the joke is o’er, + His _teeth_ will be no whiter than before.” + +Like Pope, whom he imitated, he sets out with a psychological mistake as +the basis of his satire, attributing all forms of folly to one +passion—the love of fame, or vanity—a much grosser mistake, indeed, than +Pope’s, exaggeration of the extent to which the “ruling passion” +determines conduct in the individual. Not that Young is consistent in +his mistake. He sometimes implies no more than what is the truth—that +the love of fame is the cause, not of all follies, but of many. + +Young’s satires on women are superior to Pope’s, which is only saying +that they are superior to Pope’s greatest failure. We can more +frequently pick out a couplet as successful than an entire sketch. Of +the too emphatic “Syrena” he says: + + “Her judgment just, her sentence is too strong; + Because she’s right, she’s ever in the wrong.” + +Of the diplomatic “Julia:” + + “For her own breakfast she’ll project a scheme, + Nor take her tea without a stratagem.” + +Of “Lyce,” the old painted coquette: + + “In vain the cock has summoned sprites away; + She walks at noon and blasts the bloom of day.” + +Of the nymph, who, “gratis, clears religious mysteries:” + + “’Tis hard, too, she who makes no use but chat + Of her religion, should be barr’d in that.” + +The description of the literary _belle_, “Daphne,” well prefaces that of +“Stella,” admired by Johnson: + + “With legs toss’d high, on her sophee she sits, + Vouchsafing audience to contending wits: + Of each performance she’s the final test; + One act read o’er, she prophecies the rest; + And then, pronouncing with decisive air, + Fully convinces all the town—_she’s fair_. + Had lonely Daphne Hecatessa’s face, + How would her elegance of taste decrease! + Some ladies’ judgment in their features lies, + And all their genius sparkles in their eyes. + But hold, she cries, lampooner! have a care; + Must I want common sense because I’m fair? + O no; see Stella: her eyes shine as bright + As if her tongue was never in the right; + And yet what real learning, judgment, fire! + She seems inspir’d, and can herself inspire. + How then (if malice ruled not all the fair) + _Could Daphne publish_, _and could she forbear_?” + +After all, when we have gone through Young’s seven Satires, we seem to +have made but an indifferent meal. They are a sort of fricassee, with +some little solid meat in them, and yet the flavor is not always piquant. +It is curious to find him, when he pauses a moment from his satiric +sketching, recurring to his old platitudes: + + “Can gold calm passion, or make reason shine? + Can we dig peace or wisdom from the mine? + Wisdom to gold prefer;”— + +platitudes which he seems inevitably to fall into, for the same reason +that some men are constantly asserting their contempt for +criticism—because he felt the opposite so keenly. + +The outburst of genius in the earlier books of the “Night Thoughts” is +the more remarkable, that in the interval between them and the Satires he +had produced nothing but his Pindaric odes, in which he fell far below +the level of his previous works. Two sources of this sudden strength +were the freedom of blank verse and the presence of a genuine emotion. +Most persons, in speaking of the “Night Thoughts,” have in their minds +only the two or three first Nights, the majority of readers rarely +getting beyond these, unless, as Wilson says, they “have but few books, +are poor, and live in the country.” And in these earlier Nights there is +enough genuine sublimity and genuine sadness to bribe us into too +favorable a judgment of them as a whole. Young had only a very few +things to say or sing—such as that life is vain, that death is imminent, +that man is immortal, that virtue is wisdom, that friendship is sweet, +and that the source of virtue is the contemplation of death and +immortality—and even in his two first Nights he had said almost all he +had to say in his finest manner. Through these first outpourings of +“complaint” we feel that the poet is really sad, that the bird is singing +over a rifled nest; and we bear with his morbid picture of the world and +of life, as the Job-like lament of a man whom “the hand of God hath +touched.” Death has carried away his best-beloved, and that “silent +land” whither they are gone has more reality for the desolate one than +this world which is empty of their love: + + “This is the desert, this the solitude; + How populous, how vital is the grave!” + +Joy died with the loved one: + + “The disenchanted earth + Lost all her lustre. Where her glitt’ring towers? + Her golden mountains, where? All darkened down + To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears: + _The great magician’s dead_!” + +Under the pang of parting, it seems to the bereaved man as if love were +only a nerve to suffer with, and he sickens at the thought of every joy +of which he must one day say—“_it __was_.” In its unreasoning anguish, +the soul rushes to the idea of perpetuity as the one element of bliss: + + “O ye blest scenes of permanent delight!— + Could ye, so rich in rapture, fear an end,— + That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy, + And quite unparadise the realms of light.” + +In a man under the immediate pressure of a great sorrow, we tolerate +morbid exaggerations; we are prepared to see him turn away a weary eye +from sunlight and flowers and sweet human faces, as if this rich and +glorious life had no significance but as a preliminary of death; we do +not criticise his views, we compassionate his feelings. And so it is +with Young in these earlier Nights. There is already some artificiality +even in his grief, and feeling often slides into rhetoric, but through it +all we are thrilled with the unmistakable cry of pain, which makes us +tolerant of egoism and hyperbole: + + “In every varied posture, place, and hour, + How widow’d every thought of every joy! + Thought, busy thought! too busy for my peace! + Through the dark postern of time long elapsed + Led softly, by the stillness of the night,— + Led like a murderer (and such it proves!) + Strays (wretched rover!) o’er the pleasing past,— + In quest of wretchedness, perversely strays; + And finds all desert now; and meets the ghosts + Of my departed joys.” + +But when he becomes didactic, rather than complaining—when he ceases to +sing his sorrows, and begins to insist on his opinions—when that distaste +for life which we pity as a transient feeling is thrust upon us as a +theory, we become perfectly cool and critical, and are not in the least +inclined to be indulgent to false views and selfish sentiments. + +Seeing that we are about to be severe on Young’s failings and failures, +we ought, if a reviewer’s space were elastic, to dwell also on his +merits—on the startling vigor of his imagery—on the occasional grandeur +of his thought—on the piquant force of that grave satire into which his +meditations continually run. But, since our “limits” are rigorous, we +must content ourselves with the less agreeable half of the critic’s duty; +and we may the rather do so, because it would be difficult to say +anything new of Young, in the way of admiration, while we think there are +many salutary lessons remaining to be drawn from his faults. + +One of the most striking characteristics of Young is his _radical +insincerity as a poetic artist_. This, added to the thin and artificial +texture of his wit, is the true explanation of the paradox—that a poet +who is often inopportunely witty has the opposite vice of bombastic +absurdity. The source of all grandiloquence is the want of taking for a +criterion the true qualities of the object described or the emotion +expressed. The grandiloquent man is never bent on saying what he feels +or what he sees, but on producing a certain effect on his audience; hence +he may float away into utter inanity without meeting any criterion to +arrest him. Here lies the distinction between grandiloquence and genuine +fancy or bold imaginativeness. The fantastic or the boldly imaginative +poet may be as sincere as the most realistic: he is true to his own +sensibilities or inward vision, and in his wildest flights he never +breaks loose from his criterion—the truth of his own mental state. Now, +this disruption of language from genuine thought and feeling is what we +are constantly detecting in Young; and his insincerity is the more likely +to betray him into absurdity, because he habitually treats of +abstractions, and not of concrete objects or specific emotions. He +descants perpetually on virtue, religion, “the good man,” life, death, +immortality, eternity—subjects which are apt to give a factitious +grandeur to empty wordiness. When a poet floats in the empyrean, and +only takes a bird’s-eye view of the earth, some people accept the mere +fact of his soaring for sublimity, and mistake his dim vision of earth +for proximity to heaven. Thus: + + “His hand the good man fixes on the skies, + And bids earth roll, nor feels her idle whirl,” + +may, perhaps, pass for sublime with some readers. But pause a moment to +realize the image, and the monstrous absurdity of a man’s grasping the +skies, and hanging habitually suspended there, while he contemptuously +bids the earth roll, warns you that no genuine feeling could have +suggested so unnatural a conception. Again, + + “See the man immortal: him, I mean, + Who lives as such; whose heart, full bent on Heaven, + Leans all that way, his bias to the stars.” + +This is worse than the previous example: for you can at least form some +imperfect conception of a man hanging from the skies, though the position +strikes you as uncomfortable and of no particular use; but you are +utterly unable to imagine how his heart can lean toward the stars. +Examples of such vicious imagery, resulting from insincerity, may be +found, perhaps, in almost every page of the “Night Thoughts.” But simple +assertions or aspirations, undisguised by imagery, are often equally +false. No writer whose rhetoric was checked by the slightest truthful +intentions could have said— + + “An eye of awe and wonder let me roll, + And roll forever.” + +Abstracting the more poetical associations with the eye, this is hardly +less absurd than if he had wished to stand forever with his mouth open. + +Again: + + “Far beneath + A soul immortal is a mortal joy.” + +Happily for human nature, we are sure no man really believes that. Which +of us has the impiety not to feel that our souls are only too narrow for +the joy of looking into the trusting eyes of our children, of reposing on +the love of a husband or a wife—nay, of listening to the divine voice of +music, or watching the calm brightness of autumnal afternoons? But Young +could utter this falsity without detecting it, because, when he spoke of +“mortal joys,” he rarely had in his mind any object to which he could +attach sacredness. He was thinking of bishoprics, and benefices, of +smiling monarchs, patronizing prime ministers, and a “much indebted +muse.” Of anything between these and eternal bliss he was but rarely and +moderately conscious. Often, indeed, he sinks very much below even the +bishopric, and seems to have no notion of earthly pleasure but such as +breathes gaslight and the fumes of wine. His picture of life is +precisely such as you would expect from a man who has risen from his bed +at two o’clock in the afternoon with a headache and a dim remembrance +that he has added to his “debts of honor:” + + “What wretched repetition cloys us here! + What periodic potions for the sick, + Distemper’d bodies, and distemper’d minds?” + +And then he flies off to his usual antithesis: + + “In an eternity what scenes shall strike! + Adventures thicken, novelties surprise!” + +“Earth” means lords and levees, duchesses and Dalilahs, South-Sea dreams, +and illegal percentage; and the only things distinctly preferable to +these are eternity and the stars. Deprive Young of this antithesis, and +more than half his eloquence would be shrivelled up. Place him on a +breezy common, where the furze is in its golden bloom, where children are +playing, and horses are standing in the sunshine with fondling necks, and +he would have nothing to say. Here are neither depths of guilt nor +heights of glory; and we doubt whether in such a scene he would be able +to pay his usual compliment to the Creator: + + “Where’er I turn, what claim on all applause!” + +It is true that he sometimes—not often—speaks of virtue as capable of +sweetening life, as well as of taking the sting from death and winning +heaven; and, lest we should be guilty of any unfairness to him, we will +quote the two passages which convey this sentiment the most explicitly. +In the one he gives “Lorenzo” this excellent recipe for obtaining +cheerfulness: + + “Go, fix some weighty truth; + Chain down some passion; do some generous good; + Teach Ignorance to see, or Grief to smile; + Correct thy friend; befriend thy greatest foe; + Or, with warm heart, and confidence divine, + Spring up, and lay strong hold on Him who made thee.” + +The other passage is vague, but beautiful, and its music has murmured in +our minds for many years: + + “The cuckoo seasons sing + The same dull note to such as nothing prize + But what those seasons from the teeming earth + To doting sense indulge. But nobler minds, + Which relish fruit unripened by the sun, + Make their days various; various as the dyes + On the dove’s neck, which wanton in his rays. + On minds of dove-like innocence possess’d, + On lighten’d minds that bask in Virtue’s beams, + Nothing hangs tedious, nothing old revolves + In that for which they long, for which they live. + Their glorious efforts, winged with heavenly hopes, + Each rising morning sees still higher rise; + Each bounteous dawn its novelty presents + To worth maturing, new strength, lustre, fame; + While Nature’s circle, like a chariot wheel, + Boiling beneath their elevated aims, + Makes their fair prospect fairer every hour; + Advancing virtue in a line to bliss.” + +Even here, where he is in his most amiable mood, you see at what a +telescopic distance he stands from mother Earth and simple human +joys—“Nature’s circle rolls beneath.” Indeed, we remember no mind in +poetic literature that seems to have absorbed less of the beauty and the +healthy breath of the common landscape than Young’s. His images, often +grand and finely presented—witness that sublimely sudden leap of thought, + + “Embryos we must be till we burst the shell, + _Yon ambient azure shell_, and spring to life”— + +lie almost entirely within that circle of observation which would be +familiar to a man who lived in town, hung about the theatres, read the +newspaper, and went home often by moon and starlight. + +There is no natural object nearer than the moon that seems to have any +strong attraction for him, and even to the moon he chiefly appeals for +patronage, and “pays his court” to her. It is reckoned among the many +deficiencies of “Lorenzo” that he “never asked the moon one question”—an +omission which Young thinks eminently unbecoming a rational being. He +describes nothing so well as a comet, and is tempted to linger with fond +detail over nothing more familiar than the day of judgment and an +imaginary journey among the stars. Once on Saturn’s ring he feels at +home, and his language becomes quite easy: + + “What behold I now? + A wilderness of wonders burning round, + Where larger suns inhabit higher spheres; + Perhaps _the villas of descending gods_!” + +It is like a sudden relief from a strained posture when, in the “Night +Thoughts,” we come on any allusion that carries us to the lanes, woods, +or fields. Such allusions are amazingly rare, and we could almost count +them on a single hand. That we may do him no injustice, we will quote +the three best: + + “Like _blossom’d trees o’erturned by vernal storm_, + Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay. + + * * * * * + + “In the same brook none ever bathed him twice: + To the same life none ever twice awoke. + We call the brook the same—the same we think + Our life, though still more rapid in its flow; + Nor mark the much irrevocably lapsed + And mingled with the sea.” + + * * * * * + + “The crown of manhood is a winter joy; + An evergreen that stands the northern blast, + And blossoms in the rigor of our fate.” + +The adherence to abstractions, or to the personification of abstractions, +is closely allied in Young to the _want of genuine emotion_. He sees +virtue sitting on a mount serene, far above the mists and storms of +earth; he sees Religion coming down from the skies, with this world in +her left hand and the other world in her right; but we never find him +dwelling on virtue or religion as it really exists—in the emotions of a +man dressed in an ordinary coat, and seated by his fireside of an +evening, with his hand resting on the head of his little daughter, in +courageous effort for unselfish ends, in the internal triumph of justice +and pity over personal resentment, in all the sublime self-renunciation +and sweet charities which are found in the details of ordinary life. +Now, emotion links itself with particulars, and only in a faint and +secondary manner with abstractions. An orator may discourse very +eloquently on injustice in general, and leave his audience cold; but let +him state a special case of oppression, and every heart will throb. The +most untheoretic persons are aware of this relation between true emotion +and particular facts, as opposed to general terms, and implicitly +recognize it in the repulsion they feel toward any one who professes +strong feeling about abstractions—in the interjectional “Humbug!” which +immediately rises to their lips. Wherever abstractions appear to excite +strong emotion, this occurs in men of active intellect and imagination, +in whom the abstract term rapidly and vividly calls up the particulars it +represents, these particulars being the true source of the emotion; and +such men, if they wished to express their feeling, would be infallibly +prompted to the presentation of details. Strong emotion can no more be +directed to generalities apart from particulars, than skill in figures +can be directed to arithmetic apart from numbers. Generalities are the +refuge at once of deficient intellectual activity and deficient feeling. + +If we except the passages in “Philander,” “Narcissa,” and “Lucia,” there +is hardly a trace of human sympathy, of self-forgetfulness in the joy or +sorrow of a fellow-being, throughout this long poem, which professes to +treat the various phases of man’s destiny. And even in the “Narcissa” +Night, Young repels us by the low moral tone of his exaggerated lament. +This married step-daughter died at Lyons, and, being a Protestant, was +denied burial, so that her friends had to bury her in secret—one of the +many miserable results of superstition, but not a fact to throw an +educated, still less a Christian man, into a fury of hatred and +vengeance, in contemplating it after the lapse of five years. Young, +however, takes great pains to simulate a bad feeling: + + “Of grief + And indignation rival bursts I pour’d, + Half execration mingled with my pray’r; + Kindled at man, while I his God adored; + Sore grudg’d the savage land her sacred dust; + Stamp’d the cursed soil; _and with humanity_ + (_Denied Narcissa_) _wish’d them all a grave_.” + +The odiously bad taste of this last clause makes us hope that it is +simply a platitude, and not intended as witticism, until he removes the +possibility of this favorable doubt by immediately asking, “Flows my +resentment into guilt?” + +When, by an afterthought, he attempts something like sympathy, he only +betrays more clearly his want of it. Thus, in the first Night, when he +turns from his private griefs to depict earth as a hideous abode of +misery for all mankind, and asks, + + “What then am I, who sorrow for myself?” + +he falls at once into calculating the benefit of sorrowing for others: + + “More generous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts; + _And conscious virtue mitigates the pang_. + Nor virtue, more than prudence, bids me give + Swollen thought a second channel.” + +This remarkable negation of sympathy is in perfect consistency with +Young’s theory of ethics: + + “Virtue is a crime, + A crime of reason, if it costs us pain + Unpaid.” + +If there is no immortality for man— + + “Sense! take the rein; blind Passion, drive us on; + And Ignorance! befriend us on our way. . . + Yes; give the pulse full empire; live the Brute, + Since as the brute we die. The sum of man, + Of godlike man, to revel and to rot.” + + * * * * * + + “If this life’s gain invites him to the deed, + Why not his country sold, his father slain?” + + * * * * * + + “Ambition, avarice, by the wise disdain’d, + Is perfect wisdom, while mankind are fools, + And think a turf or tombstone covers all.” + + * * * * * + + “Die for thy country, thou romantic fool! + Seize, seize the plank thyself, and let her sink.” + + * * * * * + + “As in the dying parent dies the child, + Virtue with Immortality expires. + Who tells me he denies his soul immortal, + _Whate’er his boost_, _has told me he’s a knave_. + _His duty ’tis to love himself alone_. + _Nor care though mankind perish if he smiles_.” + +We can imagine the man who “denies his soul immortal,” replying, “It is +quite possible that _you_ would be a knave, and love yourself alone, if +it were not for your belief in immortality; but you are not to force upon +me what would result from your own utter want of moral emotion. I am +just and honest, not because I expect to live in another world, but +because, having felt the pain of injustice and dishonesty toward myself, +I have a fellow-feeling with other men, who would suffer the same pain if +I were unjust or dishonest toward them. Why should I give my neighbor +short weight in this world, because there is not another world in which I +should have nothing to weigh out to him? I am honest, because I don’t +like to inflict evil on others in this life, not because I’m afraid of +evil to myself in another. The fact is, I do _not_ love myself alone, +whatever logical necessity there may be for that in your mind. I have a +tender love for my wife, and children, and friends, and through that love +I sympathize with like affections in other men. It is a pang to me to +witness the sufferings of a fellow-being, and I feel his suffering the +more acutely because he is _mortal_—because his life is so short, and I +would have it, if possible, filled with happiness and not misery. +Through my union and fellowship with the men and women I _have_ seen, I +feel a like, though a fainter, sympathy with those I have _not_ seen; and +I am able so to live in imagination with the generations to come, that +their good is not alien to me, and is a stimulus to me to labor for ends +which may not benefit myself, but will benefit them. It is possible that +you may prefer to ‘live the brute,’ to sell your country, or to slay your +father, if you were not afraid of some disagreeable consequences from the +criminal laws of another world; but even if I could conceive no motive +but my own worldly interest or the gratification of my animal desire, I +have not observed that beastliness, treachery, and parricide are the +direct way to happiness and comfort on earth. And I should say, that if +you feel no motive to common morality but your fear of a criminal bar in +heaven, you are decidedly a man for the police on earth to keep their eye +upon, since it is matter of world-old experience that fear of distant +consequences is a very insufficient barrier against the rush of immediate +desire. Fear of consequences is only one form of egoism, which will +hardly stand against half a dozen other forms of egoism bearing down upon +it. And in opposition to your theory that a belief in immortality is the +only source of virtue, I maintain that, so far as moral action is +dependent on that belief, so far the emotion which prompts it is not +truly moral—is still in the stage of egoism, and has not yet attained the +higher development of sympathy. In proportion as a man would care less +for the rights and welfare of his fellow, if he did not believe in a +future life, in that proportion is he wanting in the genuine feelings of +justice and benevolence; as the musician who would care less to play a +sonata of Beethoven’s finely in solitude than in public, where he was to +be paid for it, is wanting in genuine enthusiasm for music.” + +Thus far might answer the man who “denies himself immortal;” and, +allowing for that deficient recognition of the finer and more indirect +influences exercised by the idea of immortality which might be expected +from one who took up a dogmatic position on such a subject, we think he +would have given a sufficient reply to Young and other theological +advocates who, like him, pique themselves on the loftiness of their +doctrine when they maintain that “virtue with immortality expires.” We +may admit, indeed, that if the better part of virtue consists, as Young +appears to think, in contempt for mortal joys, in “meditation of our own +decease,” and in “applause” of God in the style of a congratulatory +address to Her Majesty—all which has small relation to the well-being of +mankind on this earth—the motive to it must be gathered from something +that lies quite outside the sphere of human sympathy. But, for certain +other elements of virtue, which are of more obvious importance to +untheological minds—a delicate sense of our neighbor’s rights, an active +participation in the joys and sorrows of our fellow-men, a magnanimous +acceptance of privation or suffering for ourselves when it is the +condition of good to others, in a word, the extension and intensification +of our sympathetic nature—we think it of some importance to contend that +they have no more direct relation to the belief in a future state than +the interchange of gases in the lungs has to the plurality of worlds. +Nay, to us it is conceivable that in some minds the deep pathos lying in +the thought of human mortality—that we are here for a little while and +then vanish away, that this earthly life is all that is given to our +loved ones and to our many suffering fellow-men—lies nearer the fountains +of moral emotion than the conception of extended existence. And surely +it ought to be a welcome fact, if the thought of _mortality_, as well as +of immortality, be favorable to virtue. Do writers of sermons and +religious novels prefer that men should be vicious in order that there +may be a more evident political and social necessity for printed sermons +and clerical fictions? Because learned gentlemen are theological, are we +to have no more simple honesty and good-will? We can imagine that the +proprietors of a patent water-supply have a dread of common springs; but, +for our own part, we think there cannot be too great a security against a +lack of fresh water or of pure morality. To us it is a matter of unmixed +rejoicing that this latter necessary of healthful life is independent of +theological ink, and that its evolution is insured in the interaction of +human souls as certainly as the evolution of science or of art, with +which, indeed, it is but a twin ray, melting into them with undefinable +limits. + +To return to Young. We can often detect a man’s deficiencies in what he +admires more clearly than in what he contemns—in the sentiments he +presents as laudable rather than in those he decries. And in Young’s +notion of what is lofty he casts a shadow by which we can measure him +without further trouble. For example, in arguing for human immortality, +he says: + + “First, what is _true ambition_? The pursuit + Of glory _nothing less than man can share_. + + * * * * + + The Visible and Present are for brutes, + A slender portion, and a narrow bound! + These Reason, with an energy divine, + O’erleaps, and claims the Future and Unseen; + The vast Unseen, the Future fathomless! + When the great soul buoys up to this high point, + Leaving gross Nature’s sediments below, + Then, and then only, Adam’s offspring quits + The sage and hero of the fields and woods, + Asserts his rank, and rises into man.” + +So, then, if it were certified that, as some benevolent minds have tried +to infer, our dumb fellow-creatures would share a future existence, in +which it is to be hoped we should neither beat, starve, nor maim them, +our ambition for a future life would cease to be “lofty!” This is a +notion of loftiness which may pair off with Dr. Whewell’s celebrated +observation, that Bentham’s moral theory is low because it includes +justice and mercy to brutes. + +But, for a reflection of Young’s moral personality on a colossal scale, +we must turn to those passages where his rhetoric is at its utmost +stretch of inflation—where he addresses the Deity, discourses of the +Divine operations, or describes the last judgment. As a compound of +vulgar pomp, crawling adulation, and hard selfishness, presented under +the guise of piety, there are few things in literature to surpass the +Ninth Night, entitled “Consolation,” especially in the pages where he +describes the last judgment—a subject to which, with naïve self-betrayal, +he applies phraseology, favored by the exuberant penny-a-liner. Thus, +when God descends, and the groans of hell are opposed by “shouts of joy,” +much as cheers and groans contend at a public meeting where the +resolutions are _not_ passed unanimously, the poet completes his climax +in this way: + + “Hence, in one peal of loud, eternal praise, + The _charmed spectators_ thunder their applause.” + +In the same taste he sings: + + “Eternity, the various sentence past, + Assigns the sever’d throng distinct abodes, + _Sulphureous_ or _ambrosial_.” + +Exquisite delicacy of indication! He is too nice to be specific as to +the interior of the “sulphureous” abode; but when once half the human +race are shut up there, hear how he enjoys turning the key on them! + + “What ensues? + The deed predominant, the deed of deeds! + Which makes a hell of hell, a _heaven of heaven_! + The goddess, with determin’d aspect turns + Her adamantine key’s enormous size + Through Destiny’s inextricable wards, + _Deep driving every bolt_ on both their fates. + Then, from the crystal battlements of heaven, + Down, down she hurls it through the dark profound, + Ten thousand, thousand fathom; there to rust + And ne’er unlock her resolution more. + The deep resounds; and Hell, through all her glooms, + Returns, in groans, the melancholy roar.” + +This is one of the blessings for which Dr. Young thanks God “most:” + + “For all I bless thee, most, for the severe; + Her death—my own at hand—_the fiery gulf_, + _That flaming bound of wrath omnipotent_! + _It thunders_;—_but it thunders to preserve_; + . . . its wholesome dread + Averts the dreaded pain; _its hideous groans_ + _Join Heaven’s sweet Hallelujahs in Thy praise_, + Great Source of good alone! How kind in all! + In vengeance kind! Pain, Death, Gehenna, _save_” . . . + +_i.e._, save _me_, Dr. Young, who, in return for that favor, promise to +give my divine patron the monopoly of that exuberance in laudatory +epithet, of which specimens may be seen at any moment in a large number +of dedications and odes to kings, queens, prime ministers, and other +persons of distinction. _That_, in Young’s conception, is what God +delights in. His crowning aim in the “drama” of the ages, is to +vindicate his own renown. The God of the “Night Thoughts” is simply +Young himself “writ large”—a didactic poet, who “lectures” mankind in the +antithetic hyperbole of mortal and immortal joys, earth and the stars, +hell and heaven; and expects the tribute of inexhaustible “applause.” +Young has no conception of religion as anything else than egoism turned +heavenward; and he does not merely imply this, he insists on it. +Religion, he tells us, in argumentative passages too long to quote, is +“ambition, pleasure, and the love of gain,” directed toward the joys of +the future life instead of the present. And his ethics correspond to his +religion. He vacillates, indeed, in his ethical theory, and shifts his +position in order to suit his immediate purpose in argument; but he never +changes his level so as to see beyond the horizon of mere selfishness. +Sometimes he insists, as we have seen, that the belief in a future life +is the only basis of morality; but elsewhere he tells us— + + “In self-applause is virtue’s golden prize.” + +Virtue, with Young, must always squint—must never look straight toward +the immediate object of its emotion and effort. Thus, if a man risks +perishing in the snow himself rather than forsake a weaker comrade, he +must either do this because his hopes and fears are directed to another +world, or because he desires to applaud himself afterward! Young, if we +may believe him, would despise the action as folly unless it had these +motives. Let us hope he was not so bad as he pretended to be! The tides +of the divine life in man move under the thickest ice of theory. + +Another indication of Young’s deficiency in moral, _i.e._, in sympathetic +emotion, is his unintermitting habit of pedagogic moralizing. On its +theoretic and perceptive side, morality touches science; on its emotional +side, Art. Now, the products of Art are great in proportion as they +result from that immediate prompting of innate power which we call +Genius, and not from labored obedience to a theory or rule; and the +presence of genius or innate prompting is directly opposed to the +perpetual consciousness of a rule. The action of faculty is imperious, +and excludes the reflection _why_ it should act. In the same way, in +proportion as morality is emotional, _i.e._, has affinity with Art, it +will exhibit itself in direct sympathetic feeling and action, and not as +the recognition of a rule. Love does not say, “I ought to love”—it +loves. Pity does not say, “It is right to be pitiful”—it pities. +Justice does not say, “I am bound to be just”—it feels justly. It is +only where moral emotion is comparatively weak that the contemplation of +a rule or theory habitually mingles with its action; and in accordance +with this, we think experience, both in literature and life, has shown +that the minds which are pre-eminently didactic—which insist on a +“lesson,” and despise everything that will not convey a moral, are +deficient in sympathetic emotion. A certain poet is recorded to have +said that he “wished everything of his burned that did not impress some +moral; even in love-verses, it might be flung in by the way.” What poet +was it who took this medicinal view of poetry? Dr. Watts, or James +Montgomery, or some other singer of spotless life and ardent piety? Not +at all. It was _Waller_. A significant fact in relation to our +position, that the predominant didactic tendency proceeds rather from the +poet’s perception that it is good for other men to be moral, than from +any overflow of moral feeling in himself. A man who is perpetually +thinking in apothegms, who has an unintermittent flux of admonition, can +have little energy left for simple emotion. And this is the case with +Young. In his highest flights of contemplation and his most wailing +soliloquies he interrupts himself to fling an admonitory parenthesis at +“Lorenzo,” or to hint that “folly’s creed” is the reverse of his own. +Before his thoughts can flow, he must fix his eye on an imaginary +miscreant, who gives unlimited scope for lecturing, and recriminates just +enough to keep the spring of admonition and argument going to the extent +of nine books. It is curious to see how this pedagogic habit of mind +runs through Young’s contemplation of Nature. As the tendency to see our +own sadness reflected in the external world has been called by Mr. Ruskin +the “pathetic fallacy,” so we may call Young’s disposition to see a +rebuke or a warning in every natural object, the “pedagogic fallacy.” To +his mind, the heavens are “forever _scolding_ as they shine;” and the +great function of the stars is to be a “lecture to mankind.” The +conception of the Deity as a didactic author is not merely an implicit +point of view with him; he works it out in elaborate imagery, and at +length makes it the occasion of his most extraordinary achievement in the +“art of sinking,” by exclaiming, _à propos_, we need hardly say, of the +nocturnal heavens, + + “Divine Instructor! Thy first volume this + For man’s perusal! all in CAPITALS!” + +It is this pedagogic tendency, this sermonizing attitude of Young’s mind, +which produces the wearisome monotony of his pauses. After the first two +or three nights he is rarely singing, rarely pouring forth any continuous +melody inspired by the spontaneous flow of thought or feeling. He is +rather occupied with argumentative insistence, with hammering in the +proofs of his propositions by disconnected verses, which he puts down at +intervals. The perpetual recurrence of the pause at the end of the line +throughout long passages makes them as fatiguing to the ear as a +monotonous chant, which consists of the endless repetition of one short +musical phrase. For example: + + “Past hours, + If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight, + If folly bound our prospect by the grave, + All feeling of futurity be numb’d, + All godlike passion for eternals quench’d, + All relish of realities expired; + Renounced all correspondence with the skies; + Our freedom chain’d; quite wingless our desire; + In sense dark-prison’d all that ought to soar; + Prone to the centre; crawling in the dust; + Dismounted every great and glorious aim; + Enthralled every faculty divine, + Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world.” + +How different from the easy, graceful melody of Cowper’s blank verse! +Indeed, it is hardly possible to criticise Young without being reminded +at every step of the contrast presented to him by Cowper. And this +contrast urges itself upon us the more from the fact that there is, to a +certain extent, a parallelism between the “Night Thoughts” and the +“Task.” In both poems the author achieves his greatest in virtue of the +new freedom conferred by blank verse; both poems are professionally +didactic, and mingle much satire with their graver meditations; both +poems are the productions of men whose estimate of this life was formed +by the light of a belief in immortality, and who were intensely attached +to Christianity. On some grounds we might have anticipated a more morbid +view of things from Cowper than from Young. Cowper’s religion was +dogmatically the more gloomy, for he was a Calvinist; while Young was a +“low” Arminian, believing that Christ died for all, and that the only +obstacle to any man’s salvation lay in his will, which he could change if +he chose. There was real and deep sadness involved in Cowper’s personal +lot; while Young, apart from his ambitious and greedy discontent, seems +to have had no great sorrow. + +Yet, see how a lovely, sympathetic nature manifests itself in spite of +creed and circumstance! Where is the poem that surpasses the “Task” in +the genuine love it breathes, at once toward inanimate and animate +existence—in truthfulness of perception and sincerity of presentation—in +the calm gladness that springs from a delight in objects for their own +sake, without self-reference—in divine sympathy with the lowliest +pleasures, with the most short-lived capacity for pain? Here is no +railing at the earth’s “melancholy map,” but the happiest lingering over +her simplest scenes with all the fond minuteness of attention that +belongs to love; no pompous rhetoric about the inferiority of the +“brutes,” but a warm plea on their behalf against man’s inconsiderateness +and cruelty, and a sense of enlarged happiness from their companionship +in enjoyment; no vague rant about human misery and human virtue, but that +close and vivid presentation of particular sorrows and privations, of +particular deeds and misdeeds, which is the direct road to the emotions. +How Cowper’s exquisite mind falls with the mild warmth of morning +sunlight on the commonest objects, at once disclosing every detail, and +investing every detail with beauty! No object is too small to prompt his +song—not the sooty film on the bars, or the spoutless teapot holding a +bit of mignonette that serves to cheer the dingy town-lodging with a +“hint that Nature lives;” and yet his song is never trivial, for he is +alive to small objects, not because his mind is narrow, but because his +glance is clear and his heart is large. Instead of trying to edify us by +supercilious allusions to the “brutes” and the “stalls,” he interests us +in that tragedy of the hen-roost when the thief has wrenched the door, + + “Where Chanticleer amidst his harem sleeps + _In unsuspecting pomp_;” + +in the patient cattle, that on the winter’s morning + + “Mourn in corners where the fence + Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep + _In unrecumbent sadness_;” + +in the little squirrel, that, surprised by him in his woodland walk, + + “At once, swift as a bird, + Ascends the neighboring beech; there whisks his brush, + And perks his ears, and stamps, and cries aloud, + With all the prettiness of feign’d alarm + And anger insignificantly fierce.” + +And then he passes into reflection, not with curt apothegm and snappish +reproof, but with that melodious flow of utterance which belongs to +thought when it is carried along in a stream of feeling: + + “The heart is hard in nature, and unfit + For human fellowship, as being void + Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike + To love and friendship both, that is not pleased + With sight of animals enjoying life, + Nor feels their happiness augment his own.” + +His large and tender heart embraces the most every-day forms of human +life—the carter driving his team through the wintry storm; the cottager’s +wife who, painfully nursing the embers on her hearth, while her infants +“sit cowering o’er the sparks,” + + “Retires, content to quake, so they be warm’d;” + +or the villager, with her little ones, going out to pick + + “A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook;” + +and he compels our colder natures to follow his in its manifold +sympathies, not by exhortations, not by telling us to meditate at +midnight, to “indulge” the thought of death, or to ask ourselves how we +shall “weather an eternal night,” _but by presenting to us the object of +his compassion truthfully and lovingly_. And when he handles greater +themes, when he takes a wider survey, and considers the men or the deeds +which have a direct influence on the welfare of communities and nations, +there is the same unselfish warmth of feeling, the same scrupulous +truthfulness. He is never vague in his remonstrance or his satire, but +puts his finger on some particular vice or folly which excites his +indignation or “dissolves his heart in pity,” because of some specific +injury it does to his fellow-man or to a sacred cause. And when he is +asked why he interests himself about the sorrows and wrongs of others, +hear what is the reason he gives. Not, like Young, that the movements of +the planets show a mutual dependence, and that + + “Thus man his sovereign duty learns in this + Material picture of benevolence,” + +or that— + + “More generous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts, + And conscious virtue mitigates the pang.” + +What is Cowper’s answer, when he imagines some “sage, erudite, profound,” +asking him “What’s the world to you?” + + “Much. _I was born of woman_, _and drew milk_ + _As sweet as charity from human breasts_. + I think, articulate, I laugh and weep, + And exercise all functions of a man. + How then should I and any man that lives + Be strangers to each other?” + +Young is astonished that men can make war on each other—that any one can +“seize his brother’s throat,” while + + “The Planets cry, ‘Forbear.’” + +Cowper weeps because + + “There is no flesh in man’s obdurate heart: + _It does not feel for man_.” + +Young applauds God as a monarch with an empire and a court quite superior +to the English, or as an author who produces “volumes for man’s perusal.” +Cowper sees his father’s love in all the gentle pleasures of the home +fireside, in the charms even of the wintry landscape, and thinks— + + “Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds + Of flavor or of scent in fruit or flower, + Or what he views of beautiful or grand + In nature, from the broad, majestic oak + To the green blade that twinkles in the sun, + _Prompts with remembrance of a present God_.” + +To conclude—for we must arrest ourselves in a contrast that would lead us +beyond our bounds. Young flies for his utmost consolation to the day of +judgment, when + + “Final Ruin fiercely drives + Her ploughshare o’er creation;” + +when earth, stars, and sun are swept aside, + + “And now, all dross removed, Heaven’s own pure day, + Full on the confines of our ether, flames: + While (dreadful contrast!) far (how far!) beneath, + Hell, bursting, belches forth her blazing seas, + And storms suphureous; her voracious jaws + Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey,” + +Dr. Young and similar “ornaments of religion and virtue” passing of +course with grateful “applause” into the upper region. Cowper finds his +highest inspiration in the Millennium—in the restoration of this our +beloved home of earth to perfect holiness and bliss, when the Supreme + + “Shall visit earth in mercy; shall descend + Propitious in his chariot paved with love; + And what his storms have blasted and defaced + For man’s revolt, shall with a smile repair.” + +And into what delicious melody his song flows at the thought of that +blessedness to be enjoyed by future generations on earth! + + “The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks + Shout to each other, and the mountains tops + From distant mountains catch the flying joy; + Till, nation after nation taught the strain, + Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round!” + +The sum of our comparison is this: In Young we have the type of that +deficient human sympathy, that impiety toward the present and the +visible, which flies for its motives, its sanctities, and its religion, +to the remote, the vague, and the unknown: in Cowper we have the type of +that genuine love which cherishes things in proportion to their nearness, +and feels its reverence grow in proportion to the intimacy of its +knowledge. + + + +VIII. THE INFLUENCE OF RATIONALISM. {257} + + +There is a valuable class of books on great subjects which have something +of the character and functions of good popular lecturing. They are not +original, not subtle, not of close logical texture, not exquisite either +in thought or style; but by virtue of these negatives they are all the +more fit to act on the average intelligence. They have enough of +organizing purpose in them to make their facts illustrative, and to leave +a distinct result in the mind even when most of the facts are forgotten; +and they have enough of vagueness and vacillation in their theory to win +them ready acceptance from a mixed audience. The vagueness and +vacillation are not devices of timidity; they are the honest result of +the writer’s own mental character, which adapts him to be the instructor +and the favorite of “the general reader.” For the most part, the general +reader of the present day does not exactly know what distance he goes; he +only knows that he does not go “too far.” Of any remarkable thinker, +whose writings have excited controversy, he likes to have it said that +“his errors are to be deplored,” leaving it not too certain what those +errors are; he is fond of what may be called disembodied opinions, that +float in vapory phrases above all systems of thought or action; he likes +an undefined Christianity which opposes itself to nothing in particular, +an undefined education of the people, an undefined amelioration of all +things: in fact, he likes sound views—nothing extreme, but something +between the excesses of the past and the excesses of the present. This +modern type of the general reader may be known in conversation by the +cordiality with which he assents to indistinct, blurred statements: say +that black is black, he will shake his head and hardly think it; say that +black is not so very black, he will reply, “Exactly.” He has no +hesitation, if you wish it, even to get up at a public meeting and +express his conviction that at times, and within certain limits, the +radii of a circle have a tendency to be equal; but, on the other hand, he +would urge that the spirit of geometry may be carried a little too far. +His only bigotry is a bigotry against any clearly defined opinion; not in +the least based on a scientific scepticism, but belonging to a lack of +coherent thought—a spongy texture of mind, that gravitates strongly to +nothing. The one thing he is staunch for is, the utmost liberty of +private haziness. + +But precisely these characteristics of the general reader, rendering him +incapable of assimilating ideas unless they are administered in a highly +diluted form, make it a matter of rejoicing that there are clever, +fair-minded men, who will write books for him—men very much above him in +knowledge and ability, but not too remote from him in their habits of +thinking, and who can thus prepare for him infusions of history and +science that will leave some solidifying deposit, and save him from a +fatal softening of the intellectual skeleton. Among such serviceable +writers, Mr. Lecky’s “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of +Rationalism in Europe” entitles him to a high place. He has prepared +himself for its production by an unusual amount of well-directed reading; +he has chosen his facts and quotations with much judgment; and he gives +proof of those important moral qualifications, impartiality, seriousness, +and modesty. This praise is chiefly applicable to the long chapter on +the history of Magic and Witchcraft, which opens the work, and to the two +chapters on the antecedents and history of Persecution, which occur, the +one at the end of the first volume, the other at the beginning of the +second. In these chapters Mr. Lecky has a narrower and better-traced +path before him than in other portions of his work; he is more occupied +with presenting a particular class of facts in their historical sequence, +and in their relation to certain grand tide-marks of opinion, than with +disquisition; and his writing is freer than elsewhere from an apparent +confusedness of thought and an exuberance of approximative phrases, which +can be serviceable in no other way than as diluents needful for the sort +of reader we have just described. + +The history of magic and witchcraft has been judiciously chosen by Mr. +Lecky as the subject of his first section on the Declining Sense of the +Miraculous, because it is strikingly illustrative of a position with the +truth of which he is strongly impressed, though he does not always treat +of it with desirable clearness and precision, namely, that certain +beliefs become obsolete, not in consequence of direct arguments against +them, but because of their incongruity with prevalent habits of thought. +Here is his statement of the two “classes of influences” by which the +mass of men, in what is called civilized society, get their beliefs +gradually modified: + + “If we ask why it is that the world has rejected what was once so + universally and so intensely believed, why a narrative of an old + woman who had been seen riding on a broomstick, or who was proved to + have transformed herself into a wolf, and to have devoured the flocks + of her neighbors, is deemed so entirely incredible, most persons + would probably be unable to give a very definite answer to the + question. It is not because we have examined the evidence and found + it insufficient, for the disbelief always precedes, when it does not + prevent, examination. It is rather because the idea of absurdity is + so strongly attached to such narratives, that it is difficult even to + consider them with gravity. Yet at one time no such improbability + was felt, and hundreds of persons have been burnt simply on the two + grounds I have mentioned. + + “When so complete a change takes place in public opinion, it may be + ascribed to one or other of two causes. It may be the result of a + controversy which has conclusively settled the question, establishing + to the satisfaction of all parties a clear preponderance of argument + or fact in favor of one opinion, and making that opinion a truism + which is accepted by all enlightened men, even though they have not + themselves examined the evidence on which it rests. Thus, if any one + in a company of ordinarily educated persons were to deny the motion + of the earth, or the circulation of the blood, his statement would be + received with derision, though it is probable that some of his + audience would be unable to demonstrate the first truth, and that + very few of them could give sufficient reasons for the second. They + may not themselves be able to defend their position; but they are + aware that, at certain known periods of history, controversies on + those subjects took place, and that known writers then brought + forward some definite arguments or experiments, which were ultimately + accepted by the whole learned world as rigid and conclusive + demonstrations. It is possible, also, for as complete a change to be + effected by what is called the spirit of the age. The general + intellectual tendencies pervading the literature of a century + profoundly modify the character of the public mind. They form a new + tone and habit of thought. They alter the measure of probability. + They create new attractions and new antipathies, and they eventually + cause as absolute a rejection of certain old opinions as could be + produced by the most cogent and definite arguments.” + +Mr. Lecky proceeds to some questionable views concerning the evidences of +witchcraft, which seem to be irreconcilable even with his own remarks +later on; but they lead him to the statement, thoroughly made out by his +historical survey, that “movement was mainly silent, unargumentative, and +insensible; that men came gradually to disbelieve in witchcraft, because +they came gradually to look upon it as absurd; and that this new tone of +thought appeared, first of all, in those who were least subject to +theological influences, and soon spread through the educated laity, and, +last of all, took possession of the clergy.” + +We have rather painful proof that this “second class of influences,” with +a vast number go hardly deeper than Fashion, and that witchcraft to many +of us is absurd only on the same ground that our grandfathers’ gigs are +absurd. It is felt preposterous to think of spiritual agencies in +connection with ragged beldames soaring on broomsticks, in an age when it +is known that mediums of communication with the invisible world are +usually unctuous personages dressed in excellent broadcloth, who soar +above the curtain-poles without any broomstick, and who are not given to +unprofitable intrigues. The enlightened imagination rejects the figure +of a witch with her profile in dark relief against the moon and her +broomstick cutting a constellation. No undiscovered natural laws, no +names of “respectable” witnesses, are invoked to make us feel our +presumption in questioning the diabolic intimacies of that obsolete old +woman, for it is known now that the undiscovered laws, and the witnesses +qualified by the payment of income tax, are all in favor of a different +conception—the image of a heavy gentleman in boots and black coat-tails +foreshortened against the cornice. Yet no less a person than Sir Thomas +Browne once wrote that those who denied there were witches, inasmuch as +they thereby denied spirits also, were “obliquely and upon consequence a +sort, not of infidels, but of atheists.” At present, doubtless, in +certain circles, unbelievers in heavy gentlemen who float in the air by +means of undiscovered laws are also taxed with atheism; illiberal as it +is not to admit that mere weakness of understanding may prevent one from +seeing how that phenomenon is necessarily involved in the Divine origin +of things. With still more remarkable parallelism, Sir Thomas Browne +goes on: “Those that, to refute their incredulity, desire to see +apparitions, shall questionless never behold any, nor have the power to +be so much as witches. The devil hath made them already in a heresy as +capital as witchcraft, _and to appear to them were but to convert them_.” +It would be difficult to see what has been changed here, but the mere +drapery of circumstance, if it were not for this prominent difference +between our own days and the days of witchcraft, that instead of +torturing, drowning, or burning the innocent, we give hospitality and +large pay to—the highly distinguished medium. At least we are safely rid +of certain horrors; but if the multitude—that “farraginous concurrence of +all conditions, tempers, sexes, and ages”—do not roll back even to a +superstition that carries cruelty in its train, it is not because they +possess a cultivated reason, but because they are pressed upon and held +up by what we may call an external reason—the sum of conditions resulting +from the laws of material growth, from changes produced by great +historical collisions shattering the structures of ages and making new +highways for events and ideas, and from the activities of higher minds no +longer existing merely as opinions and teaching, but as institutions and +organizations with which the interests, the affections, and the habits of +the multitude are inextricably interwoven. No undiscovered laws +accounting for small phenomena going forward under drawing-room tables +are likely to affect the tremendous facts of the increase of population, +the rejection of convicts by our colonies, the exhaustion of the soil by +cotton plantations, which urge even upon the foolish certain questions, +certain claims, certain views concerning the scheme of the world, that +can never again be silenced. If right reason is a right representation +of the co-existence and sequences of things, here are co-existences and +sequences that do not wait to be discovered, but press themselves upon us +like bars of iron. No séances at a guinea a head for the sake of being +pinched by “Mary Jane” can annihilate railways, steamships, and electric +telegraphs, which are demonstrating the interdependence of all human +interests, and making self-interest a duct for sympathy. These things +are part of the external Reason to which internal silliness has +inevitably to accommodate itself. + +Three points in the history of magic and witchcraft are well brought out +by Mr. Lecky. First, that the cruelties connected with it did not begin +until men’s minds had ceased to repose implicitly in a sacramental system +which made them feel well armed against evil spirits; that is, until the +eleventh century, when there came a sort of morning dream of doubt and +heresy, bringing on the one side the terror of timid consciences, and on +the other the terrorism of authority or zeal bent on checking the rising +struggle. In that time of comparative mental repose, says Mr. Lecky, + + “All those conceptions of diabolical presence; all that + predisposition toward the miraculous, which acted so fearfully upon + the imaginations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, existed; + but the implicit faith, the boundless and triumphant credulity with + which the virtue of ecclesiastical rites was accepted, rendered them + comparatively innocuous. If men had been a little less + superstitious, the effects of their superstition would have been much + more terrible. It was firmly believed that any one who deviated from + the strict line of orthodoxy must soon succumb beneath the power of + Satan; but as there was no spirit of rebellion or doubt, this + persuasion did not produce any extraordinary terrorism.” + +The Church was disposed to confound heretical opinion with sorcery; false +doctrine was especially the devil’s work, and it was a ready conclusion +that a denier or innovator had held consultation with the father of lies. +It is a saying of a zealous Catholic in the sixteenth century, quoted by +Maury in his excellent work, “De la Magie”—“_Crescit cum magia hæresis_, +_cum hæresi magia_.” Even those who doubted were terrified at their +doubts, for trust is more easily undermined than terror. Fear is earlier +born than hope, lays a stronger grasp on man’s system than any other +passion, and remains master of a larger group of involuntary actions. A +chief aspect of man’s moral development is the slow subduing of fear by +the gradual growth of intelligence, and its suppression as a motive by +the presence of impulses less animally selfish; so that in relation to +invisible Power, fear at last ceases to exist, save in that interfusion +with higher faculties which we call awe. + +Secondly, Mr. Lecky shows clearly that dogmatic Protestantism, holding +the vivid belief in Satanic agency to be an essential of piety, would +have felt it shame to be a whit behind Catholicism in severity against +the devil’s servants. Luther’s sentiment was that he would not suffer a +witch to live (he was not much more merciful to Jews); and, in spite of +his fondness for children, believing a certain child to have been +begotten by the devil, he recommended the parents to throw it into the +river. The torch must be turned on the worst errors of heroic minds—not +in irreverent ingratitude, but for the sake of measuring our vast and +various debt to all the influences which have concurred, in the +intervening ages, to make us recognize as detestable errors the honest +convictions of men who, in mere individual capacity and moral force, were +very much above us. Again, the Scotch Puritans, during the comparatively +short period of their ascendency, surpassed all Christians before them in +the elaborate ingenuity of the tortures they applied for the discovery of +witchcraft and sorcery, and did their utmost to prove that if Scotch +Calvinism was the true religion, the chief “note” of the true religion +was cruelty. It is hardly an endurable task to read the story of their +doings; thoroughly to imagine them as a past reality is already a sort of +torture. One detail is enough, and it is a comparatively mild one. It +was the regular profession of men called “prickers” to thrust long pins +into the body of a suspected witch in order to detect the insensible spot +which was the infallible sign of her guilt. On a superficial view one +would be in danger of saying that the main difference between the +teachers who sanctioned these things and the much-despised ancestors who +offered human victims inside a huge wicker idol, was that they arrived at +a more elaborate barbarity by a longer series of dependent propositions. +We do not share Mr. Buckle’s opinion that a Scotch minister’s groans were +a part of his deliberate plan for keeping the people in a state of +terrified subjection; the ministers themselves held the belief they +taught, and might well groan over it. What a blessing has a little false +logic been to the world! Seeing that men are so slow to question their +premises, they must have made each other much more miserable, if pity had +not sometimes drawn tender conclusions not warranted by Major and Minor; +if there had not been people with an amiable imbecility of reasoning +which enabled them at once to cling to hideous beliefs, and to be +conscientiously inconsistent with them in their conduct. There is +nothing like acute deductive reasoning for keeping a man in the dark: it +might be called the _technique_ of the intellect, and the concentration +of the mind upon it corresponds to that predominance of technical skill +in art which ends in degradation of the artist’s function, unless new +inspiration and invention come to guide it. + +And of this there is some good illustration furnished by that third node +in the history of witchcraft, the beginning of its end, which is treated +in an interesting manner by Mr. Lecky. It is worth noticing, that the +most important defences of the belief in witchcraft, against the growing +scepticism in the latter part of the sixteenth century and in the +seventeenth, were the productions of men who in some departments were +among the foremost thinkers of their time. One of them was Jean Bodin, +the famous writer on government and jurisprudence, whose “Republic,” +Hallam thinks, had an important influence in England, and furnished “a +store of arguments and examples that were not lost on the thoughtful +minds of our countrymen.” In some of his views he was original and bold; +for example, he anticipated Montesquieu in attempting to appreciate the +relations of government and climate. Hallam inclines to the opinion that +he was a Jew, and attached Divine authority only to the Old Testament. +But this was enough to furnish him with his chief data for the existence +of witches and for their capital punishment; and in the account of his +“Republic,” given by Hallam, there is enough evidence that the sagacity +which often enabled him to make fine use of his learning was also often +entangled in it, to temper our surprise at finding a writer on political +science of whom it could be said that, along with Montesquieu, he was +“the most philosophical of those who had read so deeply, the most learned +of those who had thought so much,” in the van of the forlorn hope to +maintain the reality of witchcraft. It should be said that he was +equally confident of the unreality of the Copernican hypothesis, on the +ground that it was contrary to the tenets of the theologians and +philosophers and to common-sense, and therefore subversive of the +foundations of every science. Of his work on witchcraft, Mr. Lecky says: + + “The ‘Démonomanie des Sorciers’ is chiefly an appeal to authority, + which the author deemed on this subject so unanimous and so + conclusive, that it was scarcely possible for any sane man to resist + it. He appealed to the popular belief in all countries, in all ages, + and in all religions. He cited the opinions of an immense multitude + of the greatest writers of pagan antiquity, and of the most + illustrious of the Fathers. He showed how the laws of all nations + recognized the existence of witchcraft; and he collected hundreds of + cases which had been investigated before the tribunals of his own or + of other countries. He relates with the most minute and + circumstantial detail, and with the most unfaltering confidence, all + the proceedings at the witches’ Sabbath, the methods which the + witches employed in transporting themselves through the air, their + transformations, their carnal intercourse with the devil, their + various means of injuring their enemies, the signs that lead to their + detection, their confessions when condemned, and their demeanor at + the stake.” + +Something must be allowed for a lawyer’s affection toward a belief which +had furnished so many “cases.” Bodin’s work had been immediately +prompted by the treatise “De Prestigiis Dænionum,” written by John Wier, +a German physician, a treatise which is worth notice as an example of a +transitional form of opinion for which many analogies may be found in the +history both of religion and science. Wier believed in demons, and in +possession by demons, but his practice as a physician had convinced him +that the so-called witches were patients and victims, that the devil took +advantage of their diseased condition to delude them, and that there was +no consent of an evil will on the part of the women. He argued that the +word in Leviticus translated “witch” meant “poisoner,” and besought the +princes of Europe to hinder the further spilling of innocent blood. +These heresies of Wier threw Bodin into such a state of amazed +indignation that if he had been an ancient Jew instead of a modern +economical one, he would have rent his garments. “No one had ever heard +of pardon being accorded to sorcerers;” and probably the reason why +Charles IX. died young was because he had pardoned the sorcerer, Trios +Echelles! We must remember that this was in 1581, when the great +scientific movement of the Renaissance had hardly begun—when Galileo was +a youth of seventeen, and Kepler a boy of ten. + +But directly afterward, on the other side, came Montaigne, whose +sceptical acuteness could arrive at negatives without any apparatus of +method. A certain keen narrowness of nature will secure a man from many +absurd beliefs which the larger soul, vibrating to more manifold +influences, would have a long struggle to part with. And so we find the +charming, chatty Montaigne—in one of the brightest of his essays, “Des +Boiteux,” where he declares that, from his own observation of witches and +sorcerers, he should have recommended them to be treated with curative +hellebore—stating in his own way a pregnant doctrine, since taught more +gravely. It seems to him much less of a prodigy that men should lie, or +that their imaginations should deceive them, than that a human body +should be carried through the air on a broomstick, or up a chimney by +some unknown spirit. He thinks it a sad business to persuade oneself +that the test of truth lies in the multitude of believers—“en une prosse +où les fols surpassent de tant les sages en nombre.” Ordinarily, he has +observed, when men have something stated to them as a fact, they are more +ready to explain it than to inquire whether it is real: “ils passent +pardessus les propositions, mais ils examinent les conséquences; _ils +laissent les choses_, _et courent aux causes_.” There is a sort of +strong and generous ignorance which is as honorable and courageous as +science—“ignorance pour laquelle concevoir il n’y a pas moins de science +qu’à concevoir la science.” And _à propos_ of the immense traditional +evidence which weighed with such men as Bodin, he says—“As for the proofs +and arguments founded on experience and facts, I do not pretend to +unravel these. What end of a thread is there to lay hold of? I often +cut them as Alexander did his knot. _Après tout_, _c’est mettre ses +conjectures â bien haut prix_, _que d’en faire cuire un homme tout dif_.” + +Writing like this, when it finds eager readers, is a sign that the +weather is changing; yet much later, namely, after 1665, when the Royal +Society had been founded, our own Glanvil, the author of the “Scepsis +Scientifica,” a work that was a remarkable advance toward the true +definition of the limits of inquiry, and that won him his election as +fellow of the society, published an energetic vindication of the belief +in witchcraft, of which Mr. Lecky gives the following sketch: + + “The ‘Sadducismus Triumphatus,’ which is probably the ablest book + ever published in defence of the superstition, opens with a striking + picture of the rapid progress of the scepticism in England. + Everywhere, a disbelief in witchcraft was becoming fashionable in the + upper classes; but it was a disbelief that arose entirely from a + strong sense of its antecedent improbability. All who were opposed + to the orthodox faith united in discrediting witchcraft. They + laughed at it, as palpably absurd, as involving the most grotesque + and ludicrous conceptions, as so essentially incredible that it would + be a waste of time to examine it. This spirit had arisen since the + Restoration, although the laws were still in force, and although + little or no direct reasoning had been brought to bear upon the + subject. In order to combat it, Glanvil proceeded to examine the + general question of the credibility of the miraculous. He saw that + the reason why witchcraft was ridiculed was, because it was a phase + of the miraculous and the work of the devil; that the scepticism was + chiefly due to those who disbelieved in miracles and the devil; and + that the instances of witchcraft or possession in the Bible were + invariably placed on a level with those that were tried in the law + courts of England. That the evidence of the belief was overwhelming, + he firmly believed; and this, indeed, was scarcely disputed; but, + until the sense of _à priori_ improbability was removed, no possible + accumulation of facts would cause men to believe it. To that task he + accordingly addressed himself. Anticipating the idea and almost the + words of modern controversialists, he urged that there was such a + thing as a credulity of unbelief; and that those who believed so + strange a concurrence of delusions, as was necessary on the + supposition of the unreality of witchcraft, were far more credulous + than those who accepted the belief. He made his very scepticism his + principal weapon; and, analyzing with much acuteness the _à priori_ + objections, he showed that they rested upon an unwarrantable + confidence in our knowledge of the laws of the spirit world; that + they implied the existence of some strict analogy between the + faculties of men and of spirits; and that, as such analogy most + probably did not exist, no reasoning based on the supposition could + dispense men from examining the evidence. He concluded with a large + collection of cases, the evidence of which was, as he thought, + incontestable.” + +We have quoted this sketch because Glanvil’s argument against the _à +priori_ objection of absurdity is fatiguingly urged in relation to other +alleged marvels which, to busy people seriously occupied with the +difficulties of affairs, of science, or of art, seem as little worthy of +examination as aëronautic broomsticks. And also because we here see +Glanvil, in combating an incredulity that does not happen to be his own, +wielding that very argument of traditional evidence which he had made the +subject of vigorous attack in his “Scepsis Scientifica.” But perhaps +large minds have been peculiarly liable to this fluctuation concerning +the sphere of tradition, because, while they have attacked its +misapplications, they have been the more solicited by the vague sense +that tradition is really the basis of our best life. Our sentiments may +be called organized traditions; and a large part of our actions gather +all their justification, all their attraction and aroma, from the memory +of the life lived, of the actions done, before we were born. In the +absence of any profound research into psychological functions or into the +mysteries of inheritance, in the absence of any comprehensive view of +man’s historical development and the dependence of one age on another, a +mind at all rich in sensibilities must always have had an indefinite +uneasiness in an undistinguishing attack on the coercive influence of +tradition. And this may be the apology for the apparent inconsistency of +Glanvil’s acute criticism on the one side, and his indignation at the +“looser gentry,” who laughed at the evidences for witchcraft on the +other. We have already taken up too much space with this subject of +witchcraft, else we should be tempted to dwell on Sir Thomas Browne, who +far surpassed Glanvil in magnificent incongruity of opinion, and whose +works are the most remarkable combination existing, of witty sarcasm +against ancient nonsense and modern obsequiousness, with indications of a +capacious credulity. After all, we may be sharing what seems to us the +hardness of these men, who sat in their studies and argued at their ease +about a belief that would be reckoned to have caused more misery and +bloodshed than any other superstition, if there had been no such thing as +persecution on the ground of religious opinion. + +On this subject of Persecution, Mr. Lecky writes his best: with clearness +of conception, with calm justice, bent on appreciating the necessary +tendency of ideas, and with an appropriateness of illustration that could +be supplied only by extensive and intelligent reading. Persecution, he +shows, is not in any sense peculiar to the Catholic Church; it is a +direct sequence of the doctrines that salvation is to be had only within +the Church, and that erroneous belief is damnatory—doctrines held as +fully by Protestant sects as by the Catholics; and in proportion to its +power, Protestantism has been as persecuting as Catholicism. He +maintains, in opposition to the favorite modern notion of persecution +defeating its own object, that the Church, holding the dogma of exclusive +salvation, was perfectly consequent, and really achieved its end of +spreading one belief and quenching another, by calling in the aid of the +civil arm. Who will say that governments, by their power over +institutions and patronage, as well as over punishment, have not power +also over the interests and inclinations of men, and over most of those +external conditions into which subjects are born, and which make them +adopt the prevalent belief as a second nature? Hence, to a sincere +believer in the doctrine of exclusive salvation, governments had it in +their power to save men from perdition; and wherever the clergy were at +the elbow of the civil arm, no matter whether they were Catholic or +Protestant, persecution was the result. “Compel them to come in” was a +rule that seemed sanctioned by mercy, and the horrible sufferings it led +men to inflict seemed small to minds accustomed to contemplate, as a +perpetual source of motive, the eternal unmitigated miseries of a hell +that was the inevitable destination of a majority among mankind. + +It is a significant fact, noted by Mr. Lecky, that the only two leaders +of the Reformation who advocated tolerance were Zuinglius and Socinus, +both of them disbelievers in exclusive salvation. And in corroboration +of other evidence that the chief triumphs of the Reformation were due to +coercion, he commends to the special attention of his readers the +following quotation from a work attributed without question to the famous +Protestant theologian, Jurieu, who had himself been hindered, as a +Protestant, from exercising his professional functions in France, and was +settled as pastor at Rotterdam. It should be remembered that Jurieu’s +labors fell in the latter part of the seventeenth century and in the +beginning of the eighteenth, and that he was the contemporary of Bayle, +with whom he was in bitter controversial hostility. He wrote, then, at a +time when there was warm debate on the question of Toleration; and it was +his great object to vindicate himself and his French fellow-Protestants +from all laxity on this point. + + “Peut on nier que le panganisme est tombé dans le monde par + l’autorité des empereurs Romains? On peut assurer sans temerité que + le paganisme seroit encore debout, et que les trois quarts de + l’Europe seroient encore payens si Constantin et ses successeurs + n’avaient employé leur autorité pour l’abolir. Mais, je vous prie, + de quelles voies Dieu s’est il servi dans ces derniers siècles pour + rétablir la veritable religion dans l’Occident? _Les rois de Suède_, + _ceux de Danemarck_, _ceux d’Angleterre_, _les magistrats souverains + de Suisse_, _des Païs Bas_, _des villes livres d’Allemagne_, _les + princes électeurs_, _et autres princes souverains de l’empire_, + _n’ont ils pas emploié leur autorité pour abbattre le Papisme_?” + +Indeed, wherever the tremendous alternative of everlasting torments is +believed in—believed in so that it becomes a motive determining the +life—not only persecution, but every other form of severity and gloom are +the legitimate consequences. There is much ready declamation in these +days against the spirit of asceticism and against zeal for doctrinal +conversion; but surely the macerated form of a Saint Francis, the fierce +denunciations of a Saint Dominic, the groans and prayerful wrestlings of +the Puritan who seasoned his bread with tears and made all pleasurable +sensation sin, are more in keeping with the contemplation of unending +anguish as the destiny of a vast multitude whose nature we share, than +the rubicund cheerfulness of some modern divines, who profess to unite a +smiling liberalism with a well-bred and tacit but unshaken confidence in +the reality of the bottomless pit. But, in fact, as Mr. Lecky maintains, +that awful image, with its group of associated dogmas concerning the +inherited curse, and the damnation of unbaptized infants, of heathens, +and of heretics, has passed away from what he is fond of calling “the +realizations” of Christendom. These things are no longer the objects of +practical belief. They may be mourned for in encyclical letters; bishops +may regret them; doctors of divinity may sign testimonials to the +excellent character of these decayed beliefs; but for the mass of +Christians they are no more influential than unrepealed but forgotten +statutes. And with these dogmas has melted away the strong basis for the +defence of persecution. No man now writes eager vindications of himself +and his colleagues from the suspicion of adhering to the principle of +toleration. And this momentous change, it is Mr. Lecky’s object to show, +is due to that concurrence of conditions which he has chosen to call “the +advance of the Spirit of Rationalism.” + +In other parts of his work, where he attempts to trace the action of the +same conditions on the acceptance of miracles and on other chief phases +of our historical development, Mr. Lecky has laid himself open to +considerable criticism. The chapters on the “Miracles of the Church,” +the æsthetic, scientific, and moral development of Rationalism, the +Secularization of Politics, and the Industrial History of Rationalism, +embrace a wide range of diligently gathered facts; but they are nowhere +illuminated by a sufficiently clear conception and statement of the +agencies at work, or the mode of their action, in the gradual +modification of opinion and of life. The writer frequently impresses us +as being in a state of hesitation concerning his own standing-point, +which may form a desirable stage in private meditation but not in +published exposition. Certain epochs in theoretic conception, certain +considerations, which should be fundamental to his survey, are introduced +quite incidentally in a sentence or two, or in a note which seems to be +an afterthought. Great writers and their ideas are touched upon too +slightly and with too little discrimination, and important theories are +sometimes characterized with a rashness which conscientious revision will +correct. There is a fatiguing use of vague or shifting phrases, such as +“modern civilization,” “spirit of the age,” “tone of thought,” +“intellectual type of the age,” “bias of the imagination,” “habits of +religious thought,” unbalanced by any precise definition; and the spirit +of rationalism is sometimes treated of as if it lay outside the specific +mental activities of which it is a generalized expression. Mr. Curdle’s +famous definition of the dramatic unities as “a sort of a general +oneness,” is not totally false; but such luminousness as it has could +only be perceived by those who already knew what the unities were. Mr. +Lecky has the advantage of being strongly impressed with the great part +played by the emotions in the formation of opinion, and with the high +complexity of the causes at work in social evolution; but he frequently +writes as if he had never yet distinguished between the complexity of the +conditions that produce prevalent states of mind and the inability of +particular minds to give distinct reasons for the preferences or +persuasions produced by those states. In brief, he does not +discriminate, or does not help his reader to discriminate, between +objective complexity and subjective confusion. But the most +muddle-headed gentleman who represents the spirit of the age by +observing, as he settles his collar, that the development theory is quite +“the thing” is a result of definite processes, if we could only trace +them. “Mental attitudes,” and “predispositions,” however vague in +consciousness, have not vague causes, any more than the “blind motions of +the spring” in plants and animals. + +The word “Rationalism” has the misfortune, shared by most words in this +gray world, of being somewhat equivocal. This evil may be nearly +overcome by careful preliminary definition; but Mr. Lecky does not supply +this, and the original specific application of the word to a particular +phase of biblical interpretation seems to have clung about his use of it +with a misleading effect. Through some parts of his book he appears to +regard the grand characteristic of modern thought and civilization, +compared with ancient, as a radiation in the first instance from a change +in religious conceptions. The supremely important fact, that the gradual +reduction of all phenomena within the sphere of established law, which +carries as a consequence the rejection of the miraculous, has its +determining current in the development of physical science, seems to have +engaged comparatively little of his attention; at least, he gives it no +prominence. The great conception of universal regular sequence, without +partiality and without caprice—the conception which is the most potent +force at work in the modification of our faith, and of the practical form +given to our sentiments—could only grow out of that patient watching of +external fact, and that silencing of preconceived notions, which are +urged upon the mind by the problems of physical science. + +There is not room here to explain and justify the impressions of +dissatisfaction which have been briefly indicated, but a serious writer +like Mr. Lecky will not find such suggestions altogether useless. The +objections, even the misunderstandings, of a reader who is not careless +or ill-disposed, may serve to stimulate an author’s vigilance over his +thoughts as well as his style. It would be gratifying to see some future +proof that Mr. Lecky has acquired juster views than are implied in the +assertion that philosophers of the sensational school “can never rise to +the conception of the disinterested;” and that he has freed himself from +all temptation to that mingled laxity of statement and ill-pitched +elevation of tone which are painfully present in the closing pages of his +second volume. + + + +IX. THE GRAMMAR OF ORNAMENT. {272} + + +The inventor of movable types, says the venerable Teufelsdröckh, was +disbanding hired armies, cashiering most kings and senates, and creating +a whole new democratic world. Has any one yet said what great things are +being done by the men who are trying to banish ugliness from our streets +and our homes, and to make both the outside and inside of our dwellings +worthy of a world where there are forests and flower-tressed meadows, and +the plumage of birds; where the insects carry lessons of color on their +wings, and even the surface of a stagnant pool will show us the wonders +of iridescence and the most delicate forms of leafage? They, too, are +modifying opinions, for they are modifying men’s moods and habits, which +are the mothers of opinions, having quite as much to do with their +formation as the responsible father—Reason. Think of certain hideous +manufacturing towns where the piety is chiefly a belief in copious +perdition, and the pleasure is chiefly gin. The dingy surface of wall +pierced by the ugliest windows, the staring shop-fronts, paper-hangings, +carpets, brass and gilt mouldings, and advertising placards, have an +effect akin to that of malaria; it is easy to understand that with such +surroundings there is more belief in cruelty than in beneficence, and +that the best earthly bliss attainable is the dulling of the external +senses. For it is a fatal mistake to suppose that ugliness which is +taken for beauty will answer all the purposes of beauty; the subtle +relation between all kinds of truth and fitness in our life forbids that +bad taste should ever be harmless to our moral sensibility or our +intellectual discernment; and—more than that—as it is probable that fine +musical harmonies have a sanative influence over our bodily organization, +it is also probable that just coloring and lovely combinations of lines +may be necessary to the complete well-being of our systems apart from any +conscious delight in them. A savage may indulge in discordant chuckles +and shrieks and gutturals, and think that they please the gods, but it +does not follow that his frame would not be favorably wrought upon by the +vibrations of a grand church organ. One sees a person capable of +choosing the worst style of wall-paper become suddenly afflicted by its +ugliness under an attack of illness. And if an evil state of blood and +lymph usually goes along with an evil state of mind, who shall say that +the ugliness of our streets, the falsity of our ornamentation, the +vulgarity of our upholstery, have not something to do with those bad +tempers which breed false conclusions? + +On several grounds it is possible to make a more speedy and extensive +application of artistic reform to our interior decoration than to our +external architecture. One of these grounds is that most of our ugly +buildings must stand; we cannot afford to pull them down. But every year +we are decorating interiors afresh, and people of modest means may +benefit by the introduction of beautiful designs into stucco ornaments, +paper-hangings, draperies, and carpets. Fine taste in the decoration of +interiors is a benefit that spreads from the palace to the clerk’s house +with one parlor. + +All honor, then, to the architect who has zealously vindicated the claim +of internal ornamentation to be a part of the architect’s function, and +has labored to rescue that form of art which is most closely connected +with the sanctities and pleasures of our hearths from the hands of +uncultured tradesmen. All the nation ought at present to know that this +effort is peculiarly associated with the name of Mr. Owen Jones; and +those who are most disposed to dispute with the architect about his +coloring must at least recognize the high artistic principle which has +directed his attention to colored ornamentation as a proper branch of +architecture. One monument of his effort in this way is his “Grammar of +Ornament,” of which a new and cheaper edition has just been issued. The +one point in which it differs from the original and more expensive +edition, viz., the reduction in the size of the pages (the amount of +matter and number of plates are unaltered), is really an advantage; it is +now a very manageable folio, and when the reader is in a lounging mood +may be held easily on the knees. It is a magnificent book; and those who +know no more of it than the title should be told that they will find in +it a pictorial history of ornamental design, from its rudimentary +condition as seen in the productions of savage tribes, through all the +other great types of art—the Egyptian, Assyrian, ancient Persian, Greek, +Roman, Byzantine, Arabian, Moresque, Mohammedan-Persian, Indian, Celtic, +Mediæval, Renaissance, Elizabethan, and Italian. The letter-press +consists, first, of an introductory statement of fundamental principles +of ornamentation—principles, says the author, which will be found to have +been obeyed more or less instinctively by all nations in proportion as +their art has been a genuine product of the national genius; and, +secondly, of brief historical essays, some of them contributed by other +eminent artists, presenting a commentary on each characteristic series of +illustrations, with the useful appendage of bibliographical lists. + +The title “Grammar of Ornament” is so far appropriate that it indicates +what Mr. Owen Jones is most anxious to be understood concerning the +object of his work, namely, that it is intended to illustrate +historically the application of principles, and not to present a +collection of models for mere copyists. The plates correspond to +examples in syntax, not to be repeated parrot-like, but to be studied as +embodiments of syntactical principles. There is a logic of form which +cannot be departed from in ornamental design without a corresponding +remoteness from perfection; unmeaning, irrelevant lines are as bad as +irrelevant words or clauses, that tend no whither. And as a suggestion +toward the origination of fresh ornamental design, the work concludes +with some beautiful drawings of leaves and flowers from nature, that the +student, tracing in them the simple laws of form which underlie an +immense variety in beauty, may the better discern the method by which the +same laws were applied in the finest decorative work of the past, and may +have all the clearer prospect of the unexhausted possibilities of +freshness which lie before him, if, refraining from mere imitation, he +will seek only such likeness to existing forms of ornamental art as +arises from following like principles of combination. + + + +X. ADDRESS TO WORKING MEN, BY FELIX HOLT. + + +Fellow-Workmen: I am not going to take up your time by complimenting you. +It has been the fashion to compliment kings and other authorities when +they have come into power, and to tell them that, under their wise and +beneficent rule, happiness would certainly overflow the land. But the +end has not always corresponded to that beginning. If it were true that +we who work for wages had more of the wisdom and virtue necessary to the +right use of power than has been shown by the aristocratic and mercantile +classes, we should not glory much in that fact, or consider that it +carried with it any near approach to infallibility. + +In my opinion, there has been too much complimenting of that sort; and +whenever a speaker, whether he is one of ourselves or not, wastes our +time in boasting or flattery, I say, let us hiss him. If we have the +beginning of wisdom, which is, to know a little truth about ourselves, we +know that as a body we are neither very wise nor very virtuous. And to +prove this, I will not point specially to our own habits and doings, but +to the general state of the country. Any nation that had within it a +majority of men—and we are the majority—possessed of much wisdom and +virtue, would not tolerate the bad practices, the commercial lying and +swindling, the poisonous adulteration of goods, the retail cheating, and +the political bribery which are carried on boldly in the midst of us. A +majority has the power of creating a public opinion. We could groan and +hiss before we had the franchise: if we had groaned and hissed in the +right place, if we had discerned better between good and evil, if the +multitude of us artisans, and factory hands, and miners, and laborers of +all sorts, had been skilful, faithful, well-judging, industrious, +sober—and I don’t see how there can be wisdom and virtue anywhere without +these qualities—we should have made an audience that would have shamed +the other classes out of their share in the national vices. We should +have had better members of Parliament, better religious teachers, +honester tradesmen, fewer foolish demagogues, less impudence in infamous +and brutal men; and we should not have had among us the abomination of +men calling themselves religious while living in splendor on ill-gotten +gains. I say, it is not possible for any society in which there is a +very large body of wise and virtuous men to be as vicious as our society +is—to have as low a standard of right and wrong, to have so much belief +in falsehood, or to have so degrading, barbarous a notion of what +pleasure is, or of what justly raises a man above his fellows. +Therefore, let us have none with this nonsense about our being much +better than the rest of our countrymen, or the pretence that that was a +reason why we ought to have such an extension of the franchise as has +been given to us. The reason for our having the franchise, as I want +presently to show, lies somewhere else than in our personal good +qualities, and does not in the least lie in any high betting chance that +a delegate is a better man than a duke, or that a Sheffield grinder is a +better man than any one of the firm he works for. + +However, we have got our franchise now. We have been sarcastically +called in the House of Commons the future masters of the country; and if +that sarcasm contains any truth, it seems to me that the first thing we +had better think of is, our heavy responsibility; that is to say, the +terrible risk we run of working mischief and missing good, as others have +done before us. Suppose certain men, discontented with the irrigation of +a country which depended for all its prosperity on the right direction +being given to the waters of a great river, had got the management of the +irrigation before they were quite sure how exactly it could be altered +for the better, or whether they could command the necessary agency for +such on alteration. Those men would have a difficult and dangerous +business on their hands; and the more sense, feeling, and knowledge they +had, the more they would be likely to tremble rather than to triumph. +Our situation is not altogether unlike theirs. For general prosperity +and well-being is a vast crop, that like the corn in Egypt can be come +at, not at all by hurried snatching, but only by a well-judged patient +process; and whether our political power will be any good to us now we +have got it, must depend entirely on the means and materials—the +knowledge, ability, and honesty we have at command. These three things +are the only conditions on which we can get any lasting benefit, as every +clever workman among us knows: he knows that for an article to be worth +much there must be a good invention or plan to go upon, there must be a +well-prepared material, and there must be skilful and honest work in +carrying out the plan. And by this test we may try those who want to be +our leaders. Have they anything to offer us besides indignant talk? +When they tell us we ought to have this, that, or the other thing, can +they explain to us any reasonable, fair, safe way of getting it? Can +they argue in favor of a particular change by showing us pretty closely +how the change is likely to work? I don’t want to decry a just +indignation; on the contrary, I should like it to be more thorough and +general. A wise man, more than two thousand years ago, when he was asked +what would most tend to lessen injustice in the world, said, “If every +bystander felt as indignant at a wrong as if he himself were the +sufferer.” Let us cherish such indignation. But the long-growing evils +of a great nation are a tangled business, asking for a good deal more +than indignation in order to be got rid of. Indignation is a fine +war-horse, but the war-horse must be ridden by a man: it must be ridden +by rationality, skill, courage, armed with the right weapons, and taking +definite aim. + +We have reason to be discontented with many things, and, looking back +either through the history of England to much earlier generations or to +the legislation and administrations of later times, we are justified in +saying that many of the evils under which our country now suffers are the +consequences of folly, ignorance, neglect, or self-seeking in those who, +at different times have wielded the powers of rank, office, and money. +But the more bitterly we feel this, the more loudly we utter it, the +stronger is the obligation we lay on ourselves to beware, lest we also, +by a too hasty wresting of measures which seem to promise an immediate +partial relief, make a worse time of it for our own generation, and leave +a bad inheritance to our children. The deepest curse of wrong-doing, +whether of the foolish or wicked sort, is that its effects are difficult +to be undone. I suppose there is hardly anything more to be shuddered at +than that part of the history of disease which shows how, when a man +injures his constitution by a life of vicious excess, his children and +grandchildren inherit diseased bodies and minds, and how the effects of +that unhappy inheritance continue to spread beyond our calculation. This +is only one example of the law by which human lives are linked together; +another example of what we complain of when we point to our pauperism, to +the brutal ignorance of multitudes among our fellow countrymen, to the +weight of taxation laid on us by blamable wars, to the wasteful channels +made for the public money, to the expense and trouble of getting justice, +and call these the effects of bad rule. This is the law that we all bear +the yoke of, the law of no man’s making, and which no man can undo. +Everybody now sees an example of it in the case of Ireland. We who are +living now are sufferers by the wrong-doing of those who lived before us; +we are the sufferers by each other’s wrong-doing; and the children who +come after us are and will be sufferers from the same causes. Will any +man say he doesn’t care for that law—it is nothing to him—what he wants +is to better himself? With what face then will he complain of any +injury? If he says that in politics or in any sort of social action he +will not care to know what are likely to be the consequences to others +besides himself, he is defending the very worst doings that have brought +about his discontent. He might as well say that there is no better rule +needful for men than that each should tug and drive for what will please +him, without caring how that tugging will act on the fine widespread +network of society in which he is fast meshed. If any man taught that as +a doctrine, we should know him for a fool. But there are men who act +upon it; every scoundrel, for example, whether he is a rich religious +scoundrel who lies and cheats on a large scale, and will perhaps come and +ask you to send him to Parliament, or a poor pocket-picking scoundrel, +who will steal your loose pence while you are listening round the +platform. None of us are so ignorant as not to know that a society, a +nation is held together by just the opposite doctrine and action—by the +dependence of men on each other and the sense they have of a common +interest in preventing injury. And we working men are, I think, of all +classes the last that can afford to forget this; for if we did we should +be much like sailors cutting away the timbers of our own ship to warm our +grog with. For what else is the meaning of our trades-unions? What else +is the meaning of every flag we carry, every procession we make, every +crowd we collect for the sake of making some protest on behalf of our +body as receivers of wages, if not this: that it is our interest to stand +by each other, and that this being the common interest, no one of us will +try to make a good bargain for himself without considering what will be +good for his fellows? And every member of a union believes that the +wider he can spread his union, the stronger and surer will be the effect +of it. So I think I shall be borne out in saying that a working man who +can put two and two together, or take three from four and see what will +be the remainder, can understand that a society, to be well off, must be +made up chiefly of men who consider the general good as well as their +own. + +Well, but taking the world as it is—and this is one way we must take it +when we want to find out how it can be improved—no society is made up of +a single class: society stands before us like that wonderful piece of +life, the human body, with all its various parts depending on one +another, and with a terrible liability to get wrong because of that +delicate dependence. We all know how many diseases the human body is apt +to suffer from, and how difficult it is even for the doctors to find out +exactly where the seat or beginning of the disorder is. That is because +the body is made up of so many various parts, all related to each other, +or likely all to feel the effect if any one of them goes wrong. It is +somewhat the same with our old nations or societies. No society ever +stood long in the world without getting to be composed of different +classes. Now, it is all pretence to say that there is no such thing as +class interest. It is clear that if any particular number of men get a +particular benefit from any existing institution, they are likely to band +together, in order to keep up that benefit and increase it, until it is +perceived to be unfair and injurious to another large number, who get +knowledge and strength enough to set up a resistance. And this, again, +has been part of the history of every great society since history began. +But the simple reason for this being, that any large body of men is +likely to have more of stupidity, narrowness, and greed than of +farsightedness and generosity, it is plain that the number who resist +unfairness and injury are in danger of becoming injurious in their turn. +And in this way a justifiable resistance has become a damaging +convulsion, making everything worse instead of better. This has been +seen so often that we ought to profit a little by the experience. So +long as there is selfishness in men; so long as they have not found out +for themselves institutions which express and carry into practice the +truth, that the highest interest of mankind must at last be a common and +not a divided interest; so long as the gradual operation of steady causes +has not made that truth a part of every man’s knowledge and feeling, just +as we now not only know that it is good for our health to be cleanly, but +feel that cleanliness is only another word for comfort, which is the +under-side or lining of all pleasure; so long, I say as men wink at their +own knowingness, or hold their heads high because they have got an +advantage over their fellows; so long class interest will be in danger of +making itself felt injuriously. No set of men will get any sort of power +without being in danger of wanting more than their right share. But, on +the other hand, it is just as certain that no set of men will get angry +at having less than their right share, and set up a claim on that ground, +without falling into just the same danger of exacting too much, and +exacting it in wrong ways. It’s human nature we have got to work with +all round, and nothing else. That seems like saying something very +commonplace—nay, obvious; as if one should say that where there are hands +there are mouths. Yet, to hear a good deal of the speechifying and to +see a good deal of the action that go forward, one might suppose it was +forgotten. + +But I come back to this: that, in our old society, there are old +institutions, and among them the various distinctions and inherited +advantages of classes, which have shaped themselves along with all the +wonderful slow-growing system of things made up of our laws, our +commerce, and our stores of all sorts, whether in material objects, such +as buildings and machinery, or in knowledge, such as scientific thought +and professional skill. Just as in that case I spoke of before, the +irrigation of a country, which must absolutely have its water distributed +or it will bear no crop; there are the old channels, the old banks, and +the old pumps, which must be used as they are until new and better have +been prepared, or the structure of the old has been gradually altered. +But it would be fool’s work to batter down a pump only because a better +might be made, when you had no machinery ready for a new one: it would be +wicked work, if villages lost their crops by it. Now the only safe way +by which society can be steadily improved and our worst evils reduced, is +not by any attempt to do away directly with the actually existing class +distinctions and advantages, as if everybody could have the same sort of +work, or lead the same sort of life (which none of my hearers are stupid +enough to suppose), but by the turning of class interests into class +functions or duties. What I mean is, that each class should be urged by +the surrounding conditions to perform its particular work under the +strong pressure of responsibility to the nation at large; that our public +affairs should be got into a state in which there should be no impunity +for foolish or faithless conduct. In this way the public judgment would +sift out incapability and dishonesty from posts of high charge, and even +personal ambition would necessarily become of a worthier sort, since the +desires of the most selfish men must be a good deal shaped by the +opinions of those around them; and for one person to put on a cap and +bells, or to go about dishonest or paltry ways of getting rich that he +may spend a vast sum of money in having more finery than his neighbors, +he must be pretty sure of a crowd who will applaud him. Now, changes can +only be good in proportion as they help to bring about this sort of +result: in proportion as they put knowledge in the place of ignorance, +and fellow-feeling in the place of selfishness. In the course of that +substitution class distinctions must inevitably change their character, +and represent the varying duties of men, not their varying interests. +But this end will not come by impatience. “Day will not break the sooner +because we get up before the twilight.” Still less will it come by mere +undoing, or change merely as change. And moreover, if we believed that +it would be unconditionally hastened by our getting the franchise, we +should be what I call superstitious men, believing in magic, or the +production of a result by hocus-pocus. Our getting the franchise will +greatly hasten that good end in proportion only as every one of us has +the knowledge, the foresight, the conscience, that will make him +well-judging and scrupulous in the use of it. The nature of things in +this world has been determined for us beforehand, and in such a way that +no ship can be expected to sail well on a difficult voyage, and reach the +right port, unless it is well manned: the nature of the winds and the +waves, of the timbers, the sails, and the cordage, will not accommodate +itself to drunken, mutinous sailors. + +You will not suspect me of wanting to preach any cant to you, or of +joining in the pretence that everything is in a fine way, and need not be +made better. What I am striving to keep in our minds is the care, the +precaution, with which we should go about making things better, so that +the public order may not be destroyed, so that no fatal shock may be +given to this society of ours, this living body in which our lives are +bound up. After the Reform Bill of 1832 I was in an election riot, which +showed me clearly, on a small scale, what public disorder must always be; +and I have never forgotten that the riot was brought about chiefly by the +agency of dishonest men who professed to be on the people’s side. Now, +the danger hanging over change is great, just in proportion as it tends +to produce such disorder by giving any large number of ignorant men, +whose notions of what is good are of a low and brutal sort, the belief +that they have got power into their hands, and may do pretty much as they +like. If any one can look round us and say that he sees no signs of any +such danger now, and that our national condition is running along like a +clear broadening stream, safe not to get choked with mud, I call him a +cheerful man: perhaps he does his own gardening, and seldom taken +exercise far away from home. To us who have no gardens, and often walk +abroad, it is plain that we can never get into a bit of a crowd but we +must rub clothes with a set of roughs, who have the worst vices of the +worst rich—who are gamblers, sots, libertines, knaves, or else mere +sensual simpletons and victims. They are the ugly crop that has sprung +up while the stewards have been sleeping; they are the multiplying brood +begotten by parents who have been left without all teaching save that of +a too craving body, without all well-being save the fading delusions of +drugged beer and gin. They are the hideous margin of society, at one +edge drawing toward it the undesigning ignorant poor, at the other +darkening imperceptibly into the lowest criminal class. Here is one of +the evils which cannot be got rid of quickly, and against which any of us +who have got sense, decency, and instruction have need to watch. That +these degraded fellow-men could really get the mastery in a persistent +disobedience to the laws and in a struggle to subvert order, I do not +believe; but wretched calamities must come from the very beginning of +such a struggle, and the continuance of it would be a civil war, in which +the inspiration on both sides might soon cease to be even a false notion +of good, and might become the direct savage impulse of ferocity. We have +all to see to it that we do not help to rouse what I may call the savage +beast in the breasts of our generation—that we do not help to poison the +nation’s blood, and make richer provision for bestiality to come. We +know well enough that oppressors have sinned in this way—that oppression +has notoriously made men mad; and we are determined to resist oppression. +But let us, if possible, show that we can keep sane in our resistance, +and shape our means more and more reasonably toward the least harmful, +and therefore the speediest, attainment of our end. Let us, I say, show +that our spirits are too strong to be driven mad, but can keep that sober +determination which alone gives mastery over the adaptation of means. +And a first guarantee of this sanity will be to act as if we understood +that the fundamental duty of a government is to preserve order, to +enforce obedience of the laws. It has been held hitherto that a man can +be depended on as a guardian of order only when he has much money and +comfort to lose. But a better state of things would be, that men who had +little money and not much comfort should still be guardians of order, +because they had sense to see that disorder would do no good, and had a +heart of justice, pity, and fortitude, to keep them from making more +misery only because they felt some misery themselves. There are +thousands of artisans who have already shown this fine spirit, and have +endured much with patient heroism. If such a spirit spread, and +penetrated us all, we should soon become the masters of the country in +the best sense and to the best ends. For, the public order being +preserved, there can be no government in future that will not be +determined by our insistance on our fair and practicable demands. It is +only by disorder that our demands will be choked, that we shall find +ourselves lost among a brutal rabble, with all the intelligence of the +country opposed to us, and see government in the shape of guns that will +sweep us down in the ignoble martyrdom of fools. + +It has been a too common notion that to insist much on the preservation +of order is the part of a selfish aristocracy and a selfish commercial +class, because among these, in the nature of things, have been found the +opponents of change. I am a Radical; and, what is more, I am not a +Radical with a title, or a French cook, or even an entrance into fine +society. I expect great changes, and I desire them. But I don’t expect +them to come in a hurry, by mere inconsiderate sweeping. A Hercules with +a big besom is a fine thing for a filthy stable, but not for weeding a +seed-bed, where his besom would soon make a barren floor. + +That is old-fashioned talk, some one may say. We know all that. + +Yes, when things are put in an extreme way, most people think they know +them; but, after all, they are comparatively few who see the small +degrees by which those extremes are arrived at, or have the resolution +and self-control to resist the little impulses by which they creep on +surely toward a fatal end. Does anybody set out meaning to ruin himself, +or to drink himself to death, or to waste his life so that he becomes a +despicable old man, a superannuated nuisance, like a fly in winter. Yet +there are plenty, of whose lot this is the pitiable story. Well now, +supposing us all to have the best intentions, we working men, as a body, +run some risk of bringing evil on the nation in that unconscious +manner—half hurrying, half pushed in a jostling march toward an end we +are not thinking of. For just as there are many things which we know +better and feel much more strongly than the richer, softer-handed classes +can know or feel them; so there are many things—many precious +benefits—which we, by the very fact of our privations, our lack of +leisure and instruction, are not so likely to be aware of and take into +our account. Those precious benefits form a chief part of what I may +call the common estate of society: a wealth over and above buildings, +machinery, produce, shipping, and so on, though closely connected with +these; a wealth of a more delicate kind, that we may more unconsciously +bring into danger, doing harm and not knowing that we do it. I mean that +treasure of knowledge, science, poetry, refinement of thought, feeling, +and manners, great memories and the interpretation of great records, +which is carried on from the minds of one generation to the minds of +another. This is something distinct from the indulgences of luxury and +the pursuit of vain finery; and one of the hardships in the lot of +working men is that they have been for the most part shut out from +sharing in this treasure. It can make a man’s life very great, very full +of delight, though he has no smart furniture and no horses: it also +yields a great deal of discovery that corrects error, and of invention +that lessens bodily pain, and must at least make life easier for all. + +Now the security of this treasure demands, not only the preservation of +order, but a certain patience on our part with many institutions and +facts of various kinds, especially touching the accumulation of wealth, +which from the light we stand in, we are more likely to discern the evil +than the good of. It is constantly the task of practical wisdom not to +say, “This is good, and I will have it,” but to say, “This is the less of +two unavoidable evils, and I will bear it.” And this treasure of +knowledge, which consists in the fine activity, the exalted vision of +many minds, is bound up at present with conditions which have much evil +in them. Just as in the case of material wealth and its distribution we +are obliged to take the selfishness and weaknesses of human nature into +account, and however we insist that men might act better, are forced, +unless we are fanatical simpletons, to consider how they are likely to +act; so in this matter of the wealth that is carried in men’s minds, we +have to reflect that the too absolute predominance of a class whose wants +have been of a common sort, who are chiefly struggling to get better and +more food, clothing, shelter, and bodily recreation, may lead to hasty +measures for the sake of having things more fairly shared, which, even if +they did not fail of their object, would at last debase the life of the +nation. Do anything which will throw the classes who hold the treasures +of knowledge—nay, I may say, the treasure of refined needs—into the +background, cause them to withdraw from public affairs, stop too suddenly +any of the sources by which their leisure and ease are furnished, rob +them of the chances by which they may be influential and pre-eminent, and +you do something as short-sighted as the acts of France and Spain when in +jealousy and wrath, not altogether unprovoked, they drove from among them +races and classes that held the traditions of handicraft and agriculture. +You injure your own inheritance and the inheritance of your children. +You may truly say that this which I call the common estate of society has +been anything but common to you; but the same may be said, by many of us, +of the sunlight and the air, of the sky and the fields, of parks and +holiday games. Nevertheless that these blessings exist makes life +worthier to us, and urges us the more to energetic, likely means of +getting our share in them; and I say, let us watch carefully, lest we do +anything to lessen this treasure which is held in the minds of men, while +we exert ourselves, first of all, and to the very utmost, that we and our +children may share in all its benefits. Yes; exert ourselves to the +utmost, to break the yoke of ignorance. If we demand more leisure, more +ease in our lives, let us show that we don’t deserve the reproach of +wanting to shirk that industry which, in some form or other, every man, +whether rich or poor, should feel himself as much bound to as he is bound +to decency. Let us show that we want to have some time and strength left +to us, that we may use it, not for brutal indulgence, but for the +rational exercise of the faculties which make us men. Without this no +political measures can benefit us. No political institution will alter +the nature of Ignorance, or hinder it from producing vice and misery. +Let Ignorance start how it will, it must run the same round of low +appetites, poverty, slavery, and superstition. Some of us know this +well—nay, I will say, feel it; for knowledge of this kind cuts deep; and +to us it is one of the most painful facts belonging to our condition that +there are numbers of our fellow-workmen who are so far from feeling in +the same way, that they never use the imperfect opportunities already +offered them for giving their children some schooling, but turn their +little ones of tender age into bread-winners, often at cruel tasks, +exposed to the horrible infection of childish vice. Of course, the +causes of these hideous things go a long way back. Parents’ misery has +made parents’ wickedness. But we, who are still blessed with the hearts +of fathers and the consciences of men—we who have some knowledge of the +curse entailed on broods of creatures in human shape, whose enfeebled +bodies and dull perverted minds are mere centres of uneasiness in whom +even appetite is feeble and joy impossible—I say we are bound to use all +the means at our command to help in putting a stop to this horror. Here, +it seems to me, is a way in which we may use extended co-operation among +us to the most momentous of all purposes, and make conditions of +enrolment that would strengthen all educational measures. It is true +enough that there is a low sense of parental duties in the nation at +large, and that numbers who have no excuse in bodily hardship seem to +think it a light thing to beget children, to bring human beings with all +their tremendous possibilities into this difficult world, and then take +little heed how they are disciplined and furnished for the perilous +journey they are sent on without any asking of their own. This is a sin +shared in more or less by all classes; but there are sins which, like +taxation, fall the heaviest on the poorest, and none have such galling +reasons as we working men to try and rouse to the utmost the feeling of +responsibility in fathers and mothers. We have been urged into +co-operation by the pressure of common demands. In war men need each +other more; and where a given point has to be defended, fighters +inevitably find themselves shoulder to shoulder. So fellowship grows, so +grow the rules of fellowship, which gradually shape themselves to +thoroughness as the idea of a common good becomes more complete. We feel +a right to say, If you will be one of us, you must make such and such a +contribution—you must renounce such and such a separate advantage—you +must set your face against such and such an infringement. If we have any +false ideas about our common good, our rules will be wrong, and we shall +be co-operating to damage each other. But, now, here is a part of our +good, without which everything else we strive for will be worthless—I +mean the rescue of our children. Let us demand from the members of our +unions that they fulfil their duty as parents in this definite matter, +which rules can reach. Let us demand that they send their children to +school, so as not to go on recklessly, breeding a moral pestilence among +us, just as strictly as we demand that they pay their contributions to a +common fund, understood to be for a common benefit. While we watch our +public men, let us watch one another as to this duty, which is also +public, and more momentous even than obedience to sanitary regulations. +While we resolutely declare against the wickedness in high places, let us +set ourselves also against the wickedness in low places, not quarrelling +which came first, or which is the worse of the two—not trying to settle +the miserable precedence of plague or famine, but insisting unflinchingly +on remedies once ascertained, and summoning those who hold the treasure +of knowledge to remember that they hold it in trust, and that with them +lies the task of searching for new remedies, and finding the right +methods of applying them. + +To find right remedies and right methods. Here is the great function of +knowledge: here the life of one man may make a fresh era straight away, +in which a sort of suffering that has existed shall exist no more. For +the thousands of years down to the middle of the sixteenth century that +human limbs had been hacked and amputated, nobody knew how to stop the +bleeding except by searing the ends of the vessels with red-hot iron. +But then came a man named Ambrose Paré, and said, “Tie up the arteries!” +That was a fine word to utter. It contained the statement of a method—a +plan by which a particular evil was forever assuaged. Let us try to +discern the men whose words carry that sort of kernel, and choose such +men to be our guides and representatives—not choose platform swaggerers, +who bring us nothing but the ocean to make our broth with. + +To get the chief power into the hands of the wisest, which means to get +our life regulated according to the truest principles mankind is in +possession of, is a problem as old as the very notion of wisdom. The +solution comes slowly, because men collectively can only be made to +embrace principles, and to act on them, by the slow stupendous teaching +of the world’s events. Men will go on planting potatoes, and nothing +else but potatoes, till a potato disease comes and forces them to find +out the advantage of a varied crop. Selfishness, stupidity, sloth, +persist in trying to adapt the world to their desires, till a time comes +when the world manifests itself as too decidedly inconvenient to them. +Wisdom stands outside of man and urges itself upon him, like the marks of +the changing seasons, before it finds a home within him, directs his +actions, and from the precious effects of obedience begets a +corresponding love. + +But while still outside of us, wisdom often looks terrible, and wears +strange forms, wrapped in the changing conditions of a struggling world. +It wears now the form of wants and just demands in a great multitude of +British men: wants and demands urged into existence by the forces of a +maturing world. And it is in virtue of this—in virtue of this presence +of wisdom on our side as a mighty fact, physical and moral, which must +enter into and shape the thoughts and actions of mankind—that we working +men have obtained the suffrage. Not because we are an excellent +multitude, but because we are a needy multitude. + +But now, for our own part, we have seriously to consider this outside +wisdom which lies in the supreme unalterable nature of things, and watch +to give it a home within us and obey it. If the claims of the unendowed +multitude of working men hold within them principles which must shape the +future, it is not less true that the endowed classes, in their +inheritance from the past, hold the precious material without which no +worthy, noble future can be moulded. Many of the highest uses of life +are in their keeping; and if privilege has often been abused, it has also +been the nurse of excellence. Here again we have to submit ourselves to +the great law of inheritance. If we quarrel with the way in which the +labors and earnings of the past have been preserved and handed down, we +are just as bigoted, just as narrow, just as wanting in that religion +which keeps an open ear and an obedient mind to the teachings of fact, as +we accuse those of being, who quarrel with the new truths and new needs +which are disclosed in the present. The deeper insight we get into the +causes of human trouble, and the ways by which men are made better and +happier, the less we shall be inclined to the unprofitable spirit and +practice of reproaching classes as such in a wholesale fashion. Not all +the evils of our condition are such as we can justly blame others for; +and, I repeat, many of them are such as no changes of institutions can +quickly remedy. To discern between the evils that energy can remove and +the evils that patience must bear, makes the difference between manliness +and childishness, between good sense and folly. And more than that, +without such discernment, seeing that we have grave duties toward our own +body and the country at large, we can hardly escape acts of fatal +rashness and injustice. + +I am addressing a mixed assembly of workmen, and some of you may be as +well or better fitted than I am to take up this office. But they will +not think it amiss in me that I have tried to bring together the +considerations most likely to be of service to us in preparing ourselves +for the use of our new opportunities. I have avoided touching on special +questions. The best help toward judging well on these is to approach +them in the right temper without vain expectation, and with a resolution +which is mixed with temperance. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{31} 1. “Madame de Sablé. Etudes sur les Femmes illustres et la +Société du XVIIe siècle.” Par M. Victor Cousin. Paris: Didier. 2. +“Portraits de Femmes.” Par C. A. Sainte-Beuve. Paris: Didier. 3. “Les +Femmes de la Revolutions.” Par J. Michelet. + +{33} Queen Christina, when Mme. Dacier (then Mlle. Le Fèvre) sent her a +copy of her edition of “Callimachus,” wrote in reply: “Mais vous, de qui +on m’assure que vous êtes une belle et agréable fille, n’avez vous pas +honte d’être si savante?” + +{53} The letter to which we allude has this charming little touch: “Je +hais comme la mort que les gens de son age puissent croire que j’ai des +galanteries. Il semble qu’on leur parait cent ans des qu’on est plus +vieille qu’eux, et ils sont tout propre à s’étonner qu’il y ait encore +question des gens.” + +{64} 1. “The Church before the Flood.” By the Rev. John Cumming, D.D. +2. “Occasional Discourses.” By the Rev. John Cumming, D.D. In two +vols. 3. “Signs of the Times; or, Present, Past, and Future.” By the +Rev. John Cumming, D.D. 4. “The Finger of God.” By the Rev. John +Cumming, D.D. 5. “Is Christianity from God? or, a Manual of Christian +Evidence, for Scripture-Readers, City Missionaries, Sunday-School +Teachers, etc.” By the Rev. John Cumming, D.D. 6. “Apocalyptic +Sketches; or, Lectures on the Book of Revelation.” First Series. By the +Rev. John Cumming, D.D. 7. “Apocalyptic Sketches.” Second Series. By +the Rev. John Cumming, D.D. 8 “Prophetic Studies; or, Lectures on the +Book of Daniel.” By the Rev. John Cumming, D.D. + +{74} “Lect. on Daniel,” p. 6. + +{76} “Man of Ev.” p. 81. + +{86a} “Signs of the Times,” p. 38. + +{86b} “Apoc. Sketches,” p. 243. + +{90} “Man. of Christ. Ev.” p. 184. + +{99} 1. “Heinrich Heine’s Sämmtliche Werke.” Philadelphia: John Weik. +1855. 2. “Vermischte Schriften von Heinrich Heine.” Hamburg: Hoffman +und Campe. 1854. + +{134} At first I was almost in despair, and I thought I could never bear +it, and yet I have borne it—only do not ask me _how_? + +{135} It is not fair to the English reader to indulge in German +quotations, but in our opinion poetical translations are usually worse +than valueless. For those who think differently, however, we may mention +that Mr. Stores Smith has published a modest little book, containing +“Selections from the Poetry of Heinrich Heine,” and that a meritorious +(American) translation of Heine’s complete works, by Charles Leland, is +now appearing in shilling numbers. + +{141} 1. “Die Bürgerliche Gesellschaft.” Von W. H. Riehl. Dritte +Auflage. 1855. 2. “Land und Leute.” Von W. H. Riehl. Dritte Auflage. +1856. + +{164} Throughout this article in our statement of Riehl’s opinions we +must be understood not as quoting Riehl, but as interpreting and +illustrating him. + +{205} 1. “Young’s Works.” 1767. 2. “Johnson’s Lives of the Poets.” +Edited by Peter Cunningham Murray: 1854. 3. “Life of Edward Young, +LL.D.” By Dr. Doran. Prefixed to “Night Thoughts.” Routledge: 1853. +4. _Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1782. 5. “Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes.” +Vol. I. 6. “Spence’s Anecdotes.” + +{257} “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in +Europe.” By W. E. H. Lecky, M.A. Longman & Co., London. + +{272} “The Grammar of Ornament.” By Owen Jones, Architect. Illustrated +by Examples from various Styles of Ornament. Onto hundred and twelve +plates. 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