diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:54:49 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:54:49 -0700 |
| commit | 7f7f890e7feefe6fbd4bc7ca542e470f86ce9fad (patch) | |
| tree | 7325a9965ff21fd5dc26e8778644632fbd426d41 /30944-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '30944-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 30944-h/30944-h.htm | 4427 |
1 files changed, 4427 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/30944-h/30944-h.htm b/30944-h/30944-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..00be1a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/30944-h/30944-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4427 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Lectures Delivered in America in 1874, by Charles Kingsley</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 30%; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Lectures Delivered in America in 1874, by +Charles Kingsley, Edited by Fanny Kingsley + + +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: Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 + + +Author: Charles Kingsley + +Editor: Fanny Kingsley + +Release Date: January 12, 2010 [eBook #30944] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LECTURES DELIVERED IN AMERICA IN +1874*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1875 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">london</span>: +<span class="smcap">printed by</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">spottiswoode and co.</span>, <span +class="smcap">new-street square</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">and parliament street</span></p> +<h1>LECTURES<br /> +DELIVERED IN AMERICA<br /> +<span class="smcap">in</span> 1874</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +CHARLES KINGSLEY, F.L.S., F.G.S.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">rector of +eversley</span>: <span class="smcap">canon of +westminster</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">chaplain in ordinary to the queen and the +prince of wales</span></p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON<br /> +LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.<br /> +1875</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>All rights reserved</i></p> +<h2><!-- page iii--><a name="pageiii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. iii</span>DEDICATION.</h2> +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">to</span><br /> +CYRUS FIELD, J. A. C. GRAY,<br /> +<span class="smcap">and all those valued american friends who +welcomed</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">my husband to their great country</span>,<br +/> +<span class="smcap">and through whose generous kindness he was +enabled</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">in the last year of his life</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">to realise the dreams of his youth</span><br +/> +<span class="smcap">by the sight</span>, <span class="smcap">not +only op the eastern states and cities</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">but of the far west</span>, <span +class="smcap">the rocky mountains</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">and the yo semite valley</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">i dedicate these lectures with deepest +gratitude</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">In Memoriam.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">FANNY E. KINGSLEY.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Byfleet</span>: <i>August</i> 1875.</p> +<h2><!-- page v--><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +v</span>CONTENTS.</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">lect.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">page</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">I.</p> +</td> +<td><p>WESTMINSTER ABBEY</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">II.</p> +</td> +<td><p>THE STAGE AS IT WAS ONCE</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page32">32</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">III.</p> +</td> +<td><p>THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF AMERICA</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page65">65</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IV.</p> +</td> +<td><p>THE SERVANT OF THE LORD</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page98">98</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">V.</p> +</td> +<td><p>ANCIENT CIVILISATION</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page125">125</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<h2><!-- page 1--><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>LECTURE I.<br /> +WESTMINSTER ABBEY.</h2> +<p>Reverence for age, at least so it has long seemed to me, +reverence for age, I say, is a fair test of the vigour of youth; +and, conversely, insolence toward the old and the past, whether +in individuals or in nations, is a sign rather of weakness than +of strength. And the cause, I think, is this. The +rich and strong young natures, which feel themselves capable of +original thought and work, have a corresponding respect for those +who, in the generations gone by, have thought and worked as they +hope to do hereafter. And this temper, understand me, so +far from being servile, or even merely conservative, usually +accompanies true independence of spirit. The young athlete, +like the young race-horse, does not despise, but emulate, his +sire; even though the old victor be long past his prime. +The young soldier admires the old general; <!-- page 2--><a +name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>the young +midshipman the old admiral, just in proportion as he himself is +likely to be a daring and able officer hereafter. The son, +when grown to man’s estate, may say to his father, I look +on you still with all respect and admiration. I have +learnt, and desire always, to learn from you. But you must +be to me now, not a dictator, but an example. You became +what you are by following your own line; and you must let me +rival you, and do you honour, by following mine.</p> +<p>This, I believe, is true of nations as well as of +individuals. I do not hesitate to say that, paradoxical as +it may seem, the most original races—those who have +succeeded best and left their stamp most broadly and permanently +on the human race—have also been the most teachable, +provided they were allowed to learn in their own way and to adapt +to their own purposes any higher ancient civilisation with which +they came in contact. What more striking instances of this +truth—for truth it is—than the reverence of the free +Republican Greek for the old despotic civilisation of Egypt? and +of the free Norseman, our own ancestor, for the old and equally +despotic civilisation of Rome?</p> +<p>These—the two most originative and most progressive +races of Europe—had a faith in, an awe of, the supposed or +real wisdom of the men of old time, which was often exaggerated +into a superstition; but <!-- page 3--><a name="page3"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 3</span>never—thanks to their own innate +force—degenerated into a bondage.</p> +<p>Pardon me this somewhat dry proœmium; and pardon me, +too, if it leads me on to a compliment to the American people, +which I trust you will not think impertinent.</p> +<p>For I have seen, and seen with joy, a like spirit in those +Americans whom it has been my good fortune to meet in my own +land. I mean this:—That I found in them, however +self-teaching and self-determining they might be, that genial +reverence for antiquity which I hold to be the sign of a truly +generous—that is in the right sense of the grand old +word—a truly high-bred, nature. I have been touched, +and deeply touched, at finding so many of them, on landing for +the first time at Liverpool, hurrying off to our quaint old city +of Chester to gaze on its old girdle of walls and towers; Roman, +Mediæval, Caroline; its curious ‘Rows’ of +overhanging houses; its fragments of Roman baths and +inscriptions; its modest little Cathedral; and the—really +very few—relics of English history which it contains. +Even two banners of an old Cheshire regiment which had been in +the Peninsular war were almost as interesting, to some, as an +illuminated Bible of the early Middle Age. More than once +have I had to repress the enthusiasm of some charming lady and +say, ‘But this is nothing. Do not waste your +admiration here. Go on. See the British Museum, <!-- +page 4--><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>its +marbles and its manuscripts—See the French Cathedrals; the +ruins of Provence and Italy; the galleries of Florence, Naples, +Rome.’</p> +<p>‘Ah, but you must remember,’ was the answer, +‘these are the first old things I ever saw.’</p> +<p>A mere sentiment? Yes: but as poets know, and statesmen +ought to know, it is by sentiment, when well directed—as by +sorrow, when well used—by sentiment, I say, great nations +live. When sentiment dies out, and mere prosaic calculation +of loss and profit takes its place, then comes a Byzantine epoch, +a Chinese epoch, decrepitude, and slow decay.</p> +<p>And so the eagerness of those generous young souls was to me a +good augury for the future, of them, and of their native +land. They seemed to me—and I say again it touched +me, often deeply—to be realising to themselves their +rightful place in the community of the civilised nations of all +lands, and of all times—realising to themselves that they +were indeed</p> +<blockquote><p>Heirs of all the ages, foremost in the ranks of +time;</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and minded, therefore, like wise and noble heirs, not to +despise and squander, but to treasure and to use that +inheritance, and the accumulated labours of the mighty dead.</p> +<p>I saw this, I say, at Chester. And therefore I was not +surprised to find the pleasant experience repeated, and to even a +higher degree, at Westminster. <!-- page 5--><a +name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>A pleasant +experience, I say. I know few more agreeable occupations +than showing a party of Americans round our own great Abbey; and +sentimentalising, if you will, in sympathy with them, over +England’s Pantheon.</p> +<p>I pause to confess once more that it is almost an impertinence +in me to pay you such a compliment. You have a right to +answer me—How could it be otherwise?—Are we not +educated people? Has not our taste been trained by native +authors, who were at least civilised enough to value the great +past, without the need of any European crossing the seas to tell +us of its wealth?</p> +<p>If you reprove me thus, I can but say that the reproof is +just, and will remain just, as long as your poets are what they +are; and as long, above all, as you reverence as much in America +as we do in England, the poetry of Mr. Longfellow. He has +not, if I recollect aright, ever employed his muse in +commemorating our great Abbey; but that muse is instinct with all +those lofty and yet tender emotions which the sight of that great +Abbey should call out. He knows, as few know on our side of +the wide water, the effect, chastening and yet ennobling, of such +architecture, consecrated by such associations. He has not +only perceived and drank in all that is purest and noblest in the +now sleeping last ten centuries: but he has combined it, again +and again, with that which is purest <!-- page 6--><a +name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>and noblest in +the waking and yearning present; and combined it organically and +livingly, as leaf and stem combines with flower and fruit. +Yes; as long as the poet who could write both the <i>Belfry of +Bruges</i> and <i>The Village Blacksmith</i> is read among you, +there is no need for me to bid you reverence the past; and little +need, I trust, for me to tell those whom I leave at home to +reverence the present. For it is a fact—of which some +Americans may not be as well aware as they should be—that +your exquisite poet has exercised an influence in Britain it may +be as great as, and certainly more varied than, that which he has +exercised in his native land. With us—as, I presume, +with you—he has penetrated into thousands of Puritan homes, +and awakened tens of thousands of young hearts to the beauty and +the nobleness of the old pre-Reformation age, and of that romance +and art from which their too exclusive hereditary training had, +until his time, shut them out. And he has thus, truly, done +a sacred deed in turning the hearts of the children to their +fathers. That was enough: but that is not the whole. +He has, conversely, turned the hearts of the fathers to the +children. The world-wide humanity of his poems, and, to be +just, of all your American poets who have studied in his school, +has produced throughout Great Britain a just reverence and +affection for the American mind which will have—which has +had already—<!-- page 7--><a name="page7"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 7</span>large social and political +results. Be sure, be sure, that in spite of passing jars, +our empire will never be long unjust to yours, while Mr. +Longfellow and Mr. Lowell remain not merely the household +bards—though that is much—but counsellors, +comforters, and trusted friends to hundreds of thousands of +gentle and earnest souls; from the palace to the parsonage, from +the little village shop to the farm-house on the lonely down.</p> +<p>But there is another American author—who was the delight +of my own youth, and who should have been my teacher also, for he +was a master of our common tongue, and his prose is as graceful +and felicitous as poor Elia’s own, and it is certainly more +manly—another American author, I say, who, with that +high-bred reverence for what is old, has told you already more +about Westminster Abbey, and told it better, than I am likely to +tell it. Need I say that I mean the lamented Washington +Irving? Ah, that our authors had always been as just to you +as he was just to us; and indeed more than just; for in his +courtesy and geniality he saw us somewhat <i>en beau</i>, and +treated old John Bull too much as the poet advises us to treat +young and fair ladies—</p> +<blockquote><p>Be to their faults a little blind,<br /> +Be to their virtues very kind.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But what a charming book is that old +‘Sketch-book.’ <!-- page 8--><a +name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>And what a +charming essay that on our great Abbey, set with such gems of +prose as these,—</p> +<p>‘The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the +square of the cloisters, beaming upon a scanty spot of grass in +the centre, and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage with +a kind of dusty splendour. From between the arcades, the +eye glanced up to a bit of blue sky, or a passing cloud, and +beheld the sun-gilt pinnacles of the Abbey towering into the +azure heaven.’</p> +<p>Or this again, describing the general effect of Henry the +Seventh’s unrivalled chapel,—‘The very walls +are wrought into universal ornament; encrusted with tracery, and +scooped into niches, crowded with the statues of saints and +martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labour of the chisel, +to have been robbed of its weight and density; suspended aloft as +if by magic; and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful +minuteness and airy security of a cobweb.’</p> +<p>‘Dusty splendour,’ ‘airy security,’ +epithets so unexpected, and yet so felicitous, as to be seemingly +accidental. Such are the tokens of that highest art, which +is—to conceal its own existence. After such speech as +that, what have I to tell you of the great old Abbey?</p> +<p>Yet there are one or two things, I dare to say, which +Washington Irving would have written differently had he visited +Westminster, not forty years ago, but now.</p> +<p><!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>I think, in the first place, that if he visited the great +Abbey now, he would not have noticed that look of dilapidation at +which he hints—and perhaps had a right to hint—some +forty years ago. Dilapidation, dirt, and negligence are as +hateful to us now, as to the builder of the newest house +outside. We too, for more than a generation past, have +felt, in common with the rest of England and with all the nations +of Northern Europe, that awakened reverence for Mediæval +Art and Mediæval History, which is—for good and for +evil—the special social phenomenon of our times; the +natural and, on the whole, useful countercheck to that extreme of +revolutionary feeling which issues—as it did in Paris but +three years ago—in utter hatred and renunciation of the +past, and destruction of its monuments.</p> +<p>To preserve, to restore, and, if not, to copy, as a sort of +filial duty, the buildings which our forefathers have left us, is +now held to be the very mark of cultivation and good taste in +Britain. It may be that we carry it too far; that by a +servile and Chinese exactness of imitation we are crippling what +originality of genius may exist among our draughtsmen, sculptors, +architects. But we at least confess thereby that we cannot +invent and create as could our ancestors five hundred years ago; +and as long as that is the case it is more wise in us—as in +any people—to exhaust the signification and power of the +past, and to learn all <!-- page 10--><a name="page10"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 10</span>we can from older schools of art and +thought ere we attempt novelties of our own which, I confess +freely, usually issue in the ugly and the ludicrous.</p> +<p>Be that as it may, we of Westminster Abbey have become, like +other Englishmen, repairers and restorers. Had we not so +become, the nation would have demanded an account of us, as +guardians of its national mausoleum, the building of which our +illustrious Dean has so well said—</p> +<p>‘Of all the characteristics of Westminster Abbey, that +which most endears it to the nation and gives most force to its +name—which has, more than anything else, made it the home +of the people of England and the most venerated fabric of the +English Church—is not so much its glory as the seat of the +coronations, or as the sepulchre of the kings; not so much its +school, or its monastery, or its chapter, or its sanctuary, as +the fact that it is the resting-place of famous Englishmen, from +every rank and creed, and every form of genius. It is not +only Reims Cathedral and St. Denys both in one; but it is what +the Pantheon was intended to be to France—what the Valhalla +is to Germany—what Santa Croce is to Italy. . . It is this +which inspired the saying of Nelson—Victory or Westminster +Abbey. It is this which has intertwined it with so many +eloquent passages of Macaulay. It is this which gives point +to the allusions of recent Nonconformist statesmen, least +inclined to draw illustrations <!-- page 11--><a +name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>from +ecclesiastical buildings. It is this which gives most +promise of vitality to the whole institution. Kings are no +longer buried within its walls; even the splendour of pageants +has ceased to attract. But the desire to be buried in +Westminster Abbey is as strong as ever.</p> +<p>‘This sprang, in the first instance, as a natural +off-shoot from the coronations and interments of the kings. +Had they, like those of France, of Spain, of Austria, of +Russia—been buried far away in some secluded spot, or had +the English nation stood aloof from the English monarchy, it +might have been otherwise. The sepulchral chapels built by +Henry the Third and Henry the Seventh might have stood alone in +their glory. No meaner dust need ever have mingled with the +dust of Plantagenets, Tudors, Stuarts, and Guelphs. . . . +But it has been the peculiar privilege of the kings of England +that neither in life nor in death have they been parted from +their people. As the Council of the Nation and the Courts +of Law have pressed into the Palace of Westminster, and engirdled +the very throne itself, so the ashes of the great citizens of +England have pressed into the sepulchre of the kings, and +surrounded them as with a guard of honour after their +death. We are sometimes inclined bitterly to contrast the +placid dignity of our recumbent kings, with Chatham gesticulating +from the northern transept, or Pitt from the western door, or +Shakspeare <!-- page 12--><a name="page12"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 12</span>leaning on his column in Poet’s +Corner, or Wolfe expiring by the chapel of St. John. But, +in fact, they are, in their different ways, keeping guard over +the shrine of our monarchs and our laws; and their very +incongruity and variety become symbols of that harmonious +diversity in unity which pervades our whole +commonwealth.’</p> +<p>Honoured by such a trust, we who serve God daily in the great +Abbey are not unmindful of the duty which lies on us to preserve +and to restore, to the best of our power, the general fabric; and +to call on government and on private persons to preserve and +restore those monuments, for which they, not we, are +responsible. A stranger will not often enter our Abbey +without finding somewhere or other among its vast arcades, +skilled workmen busy over mosaic, marble, bronze, or +‘storied window richly dight;’ and the very +cloisters, which to Washington Irving’s eye were +‘discoloured with damp, crumbling with age, and crusted +with a coat of hoary moss,’ are being repaired till that +‘rich tracery of the arches, and that leafy beauty of the +roses which adorn the keystones’—of which he +tells—shall be as sharp and bright as they were first, 500 +years ago.</p> +<p>One sentiment, again, which was called up in the mind of your +charming essayist, at the sight of Westminster Abbey, I have not +felt myself: I mean its sadness. ‘What,’ says +he, ‘is this vast assembly of <!-- page 13--><a +name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>sepulchres +but a treasury of humiliation? a huge pile of reiterated homilies +on the emptiness of renown and the certainty of +oblivion.’</p> +<p>So does that ‘mournful magnificence’ of which he +speaks, seem to have weighed on him, that he takes for the motto +of his whole essay, that grand Elizabethan epigram—</p> +<blockquote><p>When I behold, with deep astonishment,<br /> +To famous Westminster how there resort<br /> +Living in brasse or stony monument,<br /> +The Princes and the worthies of all sort;<br /> +Do I not see re-formed nobilitie,<br /> +Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation,<br /> +And look upon offenseless majestie,<br /> +Naked of pomp or earthly domination?<br /> +And how a play-game of a painted stone<br /> +Contents the quiet, now, and silent sprites,<br /> +Whom all the world, which late they stood upon,<br /> +Could not content, nor quench their appetites.<br /> +Life is a frost of cold felicities;<br /> +And death the thaw of all our vanities.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>True, true—who knows it not, who has lived fifty years +in such a world as this?—and yet but half the truth.</p> +<p>Were there no after-life, no juster home beyond the grave, +where each good deed—so spake the most august of +lips—shall in no wise lose its reward—is it nought, +<i>virûm volitare per ora</i>, to live upon the lips of +<!-- page 14--><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +14</span>men, and find an immortality, even for a few centuries, +in their hearts? I know what answer healthy souls have made +in every age to that question; and what they will make to the +end, as long as the respect of their fellow-creatures is, as our +Creator meant that it should be, precious to virtuous men. +And let none talk of ‘the play-game of a painted +stone,’ of ‘the worthless honours of a +bust.’ The worth of honour lies in that same +worthlessness. Fair money wage for fair work done, no wise +man will despise. But that is pay, not honour; the very +preciousness whereof—like the old victor’s parsley +crown in the Greek games—is that it had no value, gave no +pleasure, save that which is imperishable, spiritual, and not to +be represented by gold nor quintessential diamond.</p> +<p>Therefore, to me at least, the Abbey speaks, not of vanity and +disappointment, but of content and peace.</p> +<blockquote><p>The quiet now and silent sprites</p> +</blockquote> +<p>of whom old Christolero sings, they are content; and well for +them that they should be. They have received their +nation’s thanks, and ask no more, save to lie there in +peace. They have had justice done them; and more than one +is there, who had scant justice done him while alive. Even +Castlereagh is there, in spite of Byron’s and of +Shelley’s scorn. It may be that they too have found +out ere now, that there he ought <!-- page 15--><a +name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>to be. +The nation has been just to him who, in such wild times as the +world had not seen for full three hundred years, did his duty +according to his light, and died in doing it; and his sad noble +face looks down on Englishmen as they go by, not with reproach, +but rather with content.</p> +<p>Content, I say, and peace. Peace from their toil, and +peace with their fellow-men. They are at least at +rest. <i>Obdormierunt in pace</i>. They have fallen +asleep in peace. The galled shoulder is freed from the +collar at last. The brave old horse has done his stage and +lain down in the inn. There are no more mistakes now, no +more sores, no more falls; and no more whip, thank God, laid on +too often when it was least needed and most felt.</p> +<p>And there are no more quarrels, too. Old personal feuds, +old party bickerings, old differences of creed, and hatreds in +the name of the God of love—all those are past, in that +world of which the Abbey is to me a symbol and a sacrament. +Pitt and Fox, Warren Hastings and Macaulay, they can afford to be +near to each other in the Abbey; for they understand each other +now elsewhere; and the Romish Abbot’s bones do not stir in +their grave beside the bones of the Protestant Divine whom he, it +may be, would have burned alive on earth.</p> +<p>In the south aisle of Henry the VIIth’s Chapel lies in +royal pomp she who so long was Britain’s <!-- page 16--><a +name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +16</span>bane—‘the daughter of debate, who discord +still did sow’—poor Mary Queen of Scots. But +English and Scots alike have forgotten the streams of noble blood +she cost their nations; and look sadly and pityingly upon her +effigy—why not?</p> +<blockquote><p>Nothing is left of her<br /> +Now but pure womanly.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And in the corresponding aisle upon the north, in a like +tomb—which the voice of the English people demanded from +the son of Mary Stuart—lies even a sadder figure +still—poor Queen Elizabeth. To her indeed, in her +last days, Vanity of vanities—all was vanity. +Tyrone’s rebellion killed her. ‘This fruit have +I of all my labours which I have taken under the +sun’—and with a whole book of Ecclesiastes written on +her mighty heart, the old crowned lioness of England coiled +herself up in her lair, refused food, and died, and took her +place henceforth opposite to her ‘dear cousin’ whom +she really tried to save from herself—who would have slain +her if she could, and whom she had at last, in obedience to the +voice of the people of England, to slay against her will. +They have made up that quarrel now.</p> +<p>Ay, and that tomb is the sacred symbol of a reconciliation +even more pathetic and more strange. Elizabeth +lies—seemingly by her own desire—in the same vault as +her own sister, Mary Tudor. ‘Bloody <!-- page 17--><a +name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>Mary,’ +now, no more. James the First, who had no love for either +of them, has placed at the head of the monument ‘two +lines,’ as has been well said, ‘full of a far deeper +feeling than we should naturally have ascribed to +him’—</p> +<p>‘Fellows in the kingdom, and in the tomb, Here we sleep; +Mary and Elizabeth the sisters; in hope of the +resurrection.’</p> +<p>I make no comment on those words; or on that double +sepulchre. But did I not say well, that the great Abbey was +a place of peace—a place to remind hardworked, purblind, +and often, alas! embittered souls—</p> +<blockquote><p>For Mother Earth she gathers all<br /> +Into her bosom, great and small.<br /> +Ah! could we look into her face,<br /> +We should not shrink from her embrace.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Yes, all old misunderstandings are cleared up by now in that +just world wherein all live to God. They live to God; and +therefore the great Abbey is to me awful indeed, but never +sad. Awful it ought to be, for it is a symbol of both +worlds, the seen and the unseen; and of the veil, as thin as +cobweb, yet opaque as night, which parts the two. Awful it +is; and ought to be—like that with which it grew—the +life of a great nation, growing slowly to manhood, as all great +nations grow, through ignorance <!-- page 18--><a +name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>and +waywardness, often through sin and sorrow; hewing onward a +devious track through unknown wildernesses; and struggling, +victorious, though with bleeding feet, athwart the tangled woods +and thorny brakes of stern experience.</p> +<p>Awful it is; and should be. And, therefore, I at least +do not regret that its very form, outside, should want those +heaven-pointing spires, that delicate lightness, that airy +joyousness, of many a foreign cathedral—even of our own +Salisbury and Lichfield. You will see in its outer shape +little, if any, of that type of architecture which was, as I +believe, copied from scenery with which you, as Americans, must +be even more familiar than were the mediæval architects who +travelled through the German forests and across the Alps to +Rome. True, we have our noble high-pitched snow-roof. +Our architect, like the rest, had seen the mountain ranges jut +black and bare above the snows of winter. He had seen those +snows slip down in sheets, rush down in torrents from the sun, +off the steep slabs of rock which coped the hill-side; and he, +like the rest, has copied in that roof, for use as well as +beauty, the mountain rocks.</p> +<p>But he has not, as many another mediæval architect has +done, decked his roofs as Nature has decked hers, with the spruce +and fir-tree spires, which cling to the hill-side of the crag, +old above young, pinnacle above pinnacle, whorl above whorl; and +clothed with <!-- page 19--><a name="page19"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 19</span>them the sides and summit of the +stone mountain which he had raised, till, like a group of firs +upon an isolated rock, every point of the building should seem in +act to grow toward heaven, and the grey leads of the Minster roof +stand out amid peaks and turrets rich with carven foliage, as the +grey rocks stand out of the primæval woods.</p> +<p>That part of the mediæval builder’s task was left +unfinished, and indeed hardly attempted, by our Westminster +architects, either under Henry III., Edward I., or Henry V.</p> +<p>Their Minster is grand enough by grave height and severe +proportion; and he who enters stooping under that low-browed arch +of the north door, beneath the beetling crag of weatherworn and +crumbling stone, may feel like one who, in some old northern +fairy tale, enters a cave in some lone mountain side where trolls +and dragons guard the hoards of buried kings.</p> +<p>And awful it is, and should be still, inside; under that +vaulted roof a hundred feet above, all more mysterious and more +huge, and yet more soft, beneath the murky London air.</p> +<p>But sad I cannot call it. Nor, I think, would you feel +it sad, when you perceive how richly successive architects have +squandered on it the treasures of their fancy; and made it, so +they say, perhaps the most splendid specimen in the world of one +of those stone <!-- page 20--><a name="page20"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 20</span>forests, in which the men of old +delighted to reproduce those leafy minsters which God, not man, +has built; where they sent the columns aloft like the boles of +giant trees, and wreathed their capitals, sometimes their very +shafts, with vines and flowers; and decked with foliage and with +fruit the bosses above and the corbels below; and sent up out of +those corbels upright shafts along the walls, in likeness of the +trees which sprang out of the rocks above their head; and raised +those walls into great cliffs; and pierced those cliffs with the +arches of the triforium, as with wild creatures’ caves or +hermits’ cells; and represented in the horizontal +string-courses and window-sills the strata of the rocks; and +opened the windows into wide and lofty glades, broken, as in the +forest, by the tracery of stems and boughs, through which were +seen, not only the outer, but the upper world. For they +craved—as all true artists crave—for light and +colour; and had the sky above been one perpetual blue, they might +have been content with it, and left their glass +transparent. But in our dark dank northern clime, rain and +snowstorm, black cloud and grey mist, were all that they were +like to see outside for six months in the year. So they +took such light and colour as nature gave in her few gayer moods, +and set aloft in their stained glass windows the hues of the +noonday and of the sunset, and the purple of the heather, and the +gold of the gorse, and <!-- page 21--><a name="page21"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 21</span>the azure of the bugloss, and the +crimson of the poppy; and among them, in gorgeous robes, the +angels and the saints of heaven, and the memories of heroic +virtues and heroic sufferings, that they might lift up the eyes +and hearts of men for ever out of the dark sad world of the cold +north, with all its coarsenesses and its crimes, towards a realm +of perpetual holiness, amid a perpetual summer of beauty and of +light: as one who, from between the black jaws of a narrow glen, +or from beneath the black shade of gigantic trees, catches a +glimpse of far lands gay with gardens and cottages; and purple +mountain ranges; and the far-off sea; and the hazy horizon +melting into the hazy sky; and finds his soul led forth into an +infinite, at once of freedom and repose.</p> +<p>Awful, and yet not sad; at least to one who is reminded by it, +even in its darkest winter’s gloom, of the primæval +tropic forest at its two most exquisite moments—its too +brief twilight, and its too swift dawn.</p> +<p>Awful, and yet not sad; at least to an Englishman, while right +and left are ranged the statues, the busts, the names, the deeds, +of men who have helped, each in his place, to make my country, +and your country too, that which they are.</p> +<p>For am I not in goodly company? Am I not in very deed +upon my best behaviour? among my betters? and at court? +Among men before whom I <!-- page 22--><a name="page22"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 22</span>should have been ashamed to say or do +a base or foolish thing? Among men who have taught me, have +ennobled me, though they lived centuries since? Men whom I +should have loved had I met them on earth? Men whom I may +meet yet, and tell them how I love them, in some other +world? Men, too, whom I might have hated, and who might +have hated me, had we met on this poor piecemeal earth; but whom +I may learn to regard with justice and with charity in the world +where all shall know, even as they are known? Men, +too—alas! how fast their number grows—whom I have +known, have loved, and lost too soon; and all gleaming out of the +gloom, as every image of the dead should do, in pure white +marble, as if purged from earthly taint? To them, +too—</p> +<blockquote><p>Nothing is left of them<br /> +Now but pure manly.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Yes, while their monuments remind me that they are not dead, +but living—for all live to God—then awed I am, and +humbled; better so: but sad I cannot be in such grand +company.</p> +<p>I said, the men who helped to make my country, and yours +too. It would be an impertinence in me to remind most of +you of that. You know as well as I that you are represented +just as much as the English people, by every monument in that +<!-- page 23--><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +23</span>Abbey earlier than the Civil Wars, and by most monuments +of later date, especially by those of all our literary men. +You know that, and you value the old Abbey accordingly. But +a day may come—a generation may come, in a nation so +rapidly increasing by foreign immigration, as well as by +home-born citizenship—a generation may come who will forget +that fact; and orators arise who will be glad that it should be +forgotten—for awhile. But if you would not that that +evil day should come then teach your children—That the +history and the freedom of America began neither with the War of +Independence, nor with the sailing of the Pilgrim Fathers, nor +with the settlement of Virginia; but 1500 years and more before, +in the days when our common Teutonic ancestors, as free then as +this day, knew how</p> +<blockquote><p>In den Deutschen Forsten<br /> +Wie der Aar zu horsten,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>when Herman smote the Romans in the Teutoburger-Wald, and the +great Cæsar wailed in vain to his slain general, +‘Varus, give me back my legions!’ Teach your +children that the Congress which sits at Washington is as much +the child of Magna Charta as the Parliament which sits at +Westminster; and that when you resisted the unjust demands of an +English king and council, you did but that which the <!-- page +24--><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>free +commons of England held the right to do, and did, not only after, +but before, the temporary tyranny of the Norman kings.</p> +<p>Show them the tombs of English kings; not of those Norman +kings—no Norman king lies buried in our Abbey—there +is no royal interment between Edward the Confessor, the last +English prince of Cerdic’s house, and Henry the Third, the +first of the new English line of kings. Tell them, in +justice to our common forefathers, that those men were no +tyrants, but <i>kings</i>, who swore to keep, and for the most +part did keep, like loyal gentlemen, the ancient English laws, +which they had sworn in Westminster Abbey to maintain; and that +the few of them who persisted in outraging the rights or the +conscience of the free people of England, paid for their perjury +with their crowns, or with their lives. And tell them, too, +in justice to our common ancestors, that there were never wanting +to the kings, the nobles, or the commons of England, since the +days when Simon de Montfort organised the House of Commons in +Westminster Hall, on the 2nd of May, 1258—there were never +wanting, I say, to the kings, the nobles, or the commons of +England, counsellors who dared speak the truth and defend the +right, even at the risk of their own goods and their own +lives.</p> +<p>Remind them, too—or let our monuments remind <!-- page +25--><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +25</span>them—that even in the worst times of the War of +Independence, there were not wanting, here in England, statesmen +who dared to speak out for justice and humanity; and that they +were not only confessed to be the leading men of their own day, +but the very men whom England delighted to honour by places in +her Pantheon. Show them the monuments of Chatham, Pitt, and +Fox—Burke sleeps in peace elsewhere—and remind them +that the great earl, who literally died as much in your service +as in ours, whose fiery invectives against the cruelties of that +old war are, I am proud to say, still common-places for +declamation among our English schoolboys, dared, even when all +was at the worst, to tell the English House of +Lords—‘If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, +while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay +down my arms—never, never, never!’</p> +<p>Yes—an American as well as an Englishman may find +himself in the old Abbey in right good company.</p> +<p>Yes—and I do not hesitate to say, that if you will look +through the monuments erected in that Abbey, since those of Pitt +and Fox—you will find that the great majority commemorate +the children, not of obstruction, but of progress; not of +darkness, but of light.</p> +<p>Holland, Tierney, Mackintosh, Grattan, Peel, Canning, +Palmerston, Isaac Watts, Bell, Wilberforce, Sharp, the Macaulays, +Fowell Buxton, Francis Horner, <!-- page 26--><a +name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>Charles +Buller, Cobden, Watt, Rennell, Telford, Locke, Brunel, Grote, +Thackeray, Dickens, Maurice—men who, each in his own way, +toiled for freedom of some kind; freedom of race, of laws, of +commerce, of locomotion, of production, of speech, of thought, of +education, of human charity, and of sympathy—these are the +men whom England still delights to honour; whose busts around our +walls show that the ancient spirit is not dead, and that we, as +you, are still, as 1500 years ago, the sons of freedom and of +light.</p> +<p>But, beside these statesmen who were just and true to you, and +therefore to their native land, there lie men before whose +monuments I would ask thoughtful Americans to pause—I mean +those of our old fighters, by land and sea. I do not speak +merely of those who lived before our Civil Wars, though they are +indeed our common heritage. And when you look at the noble +monuments of De Vere and Norris, the fathers of the English +infantry, you should remember that your ancestors and mine, or +that of any other Englishman, may have trailed pike and handled +sword side by side under those very men, in those old wars of the +Netherlands, which your own great historian, Mr. Motley, has so +well described; or have sailed together to Cadiz fight, and to +the Spanish Main, with Raleigh or with Drake.</p> +<p>There are those, again, who did their duty two and three +generations later—though one of the noblest of <!-- page +27--><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>them +all, old Admiral Blake, alas! lies we know not where—cast +out, with Cromwell and his heroes, by the fanatics and sycophants +of the Restoration—whom not only we, but Royalty itself, +would now restore, could we recover their noble ashes, to their +rightful resting-place.</p> +<p>And these, if not always our common ancestors, were, often +enough, our common cousins, as in the case of my own family, in +which one brother was settling in New England, to found there a +whole new family of Kingsleys while the other brother was +fighting in the Parliamentary army, and helping to defeat Charles +at Rowton Moor.</p> +<p>But there is another class of warriors’ tombs, which I +ask you, if ever you visit the Abbey, to look on with respect, +and let me say, affection too. I mean the men who did their +duty, by land and sea, in that long series of wars which, +commencing in 1739, ended in 1783, with our recognition of your +right and power to be a free and independent people. Of +those who fought against you I say nought. But I must speak +of those who fought for you—who brought to naught, by sheer +hard blows, that family compact of the House of Bourbon, which +would have been as dangerous to you upon this side of the ocean +as to us upon the other; who smote with a continual stroke the +trans-Atlantic power of Spain, till they placed her once vast and +rich possessions at your mercy to <!-- page 28--><a +name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>this day; and +who—even more important still—prevented the French +from seizing at last the whole valley of the Mississippi, and +girdling your nascent dominion with a hostile frontier, from +Louisiana round to the mouth of the St. Lawrence.</p> +<p>When you see Wolfe’s huge cenotaph, with its curious +bronze bas-relief of the taking of the heights of Abraham, think, +I pray you, that not only for England, but for you, the +‘little red-haired corporal’ conquered and died.</p> +<p>Remember, too, that while your ancestors were fighting well by +land, and Washington and such as he were learning their lesson at +Fort Duquesne and elsewhere better than we could teach them, we +were fighting well where we knew how to fight—at sea. +And when, near to Wolfe’s monument, or in the Nave, you see +such names as Cornwallis, Saumarez, Wager, Vernon—the +conqueror of Portobello—Lord Aubrey Beauclerk, and so +forth—bethink you that every French or Spanish ship which +these men took, and every convoy they cut off, from Toulon to +Carthagena, and from Carthagena to Halifax, made more and more +possible the safe severance from England of the very Colonies +which you were then helping us to defend. And then agree, +like the generous-hearted people which you are, that if, in after +years, we sinned against you—and how heavy were our sins, I +know too well—there was a time, before those evil days, +when <!-- page 29--><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +29</span>we fought for you, and by your side, as the old lion by +the young; even though, like the old lion and the young, we +began, only too soon, tearing each other to pieces over the +division of the prey.</p> +<p>Nay, I will go further, and say this, paradoxical as it may +seem:—When you enter the North Transept from St. +Margaret’s Churchyard you see on your right hand a huge but +not ungraceful naval monument of white marble, inscribed with the +names of Bayne, Blair, Lord Robert Manners—three commanders +of Rodney’s, in the crowning victory of April 12, +1782—fought upon Tropic waters, over which I have sailed, +flushed with the thought that my own grandfather was that day on +board of Rodney’s ship.</p> +<p>Now do you all know what that day’s great fight meant +for you,—fought though it was, while you, alas! were still +at war with us? It meant this. That that +day—followed up, six months after, by Lord Howe’s +relief of Gibraltar—settled, I hold, the fate of the New +World for many a year. True, in one sense, it was settled +already. Cornwallis had already capitulated at York +Town. But even then the old lion, disgraced, bleeding, +fainting, ready to yield—but only to you, of his own kin +and blood—struck, though with failing paw, two such +tremendous blows at his old enemies, as deprived them thenceforth +of any real power in the New World; precipitated that bankruptcy +and ruin which issued in the French and <!-- page 30--><a +name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>Spanish +revolutions; and made certain, as I believe, the coming day when +the Anglo-Saxon race shall be the real masters of the whole New +World.</p> +<p>Of poets and of men of letters I say nought. They are +the heritage, neither of us, nor you, but of the human +race. The mere man of letters may well sleep in the very +centre of that busy civilisation from which he drew his +inspiration: but not the poet—not, at least, the poet of +these days. He goes not to the town, but nature, for his +inspirations, and to nature when he dies he should return. +Such men—artificial, and town-bred—however brilliant, +or even grand at times—as Davenant, Dryden, Cowley, +Congreve, Prior, Gay—sleep fitly in our care here. +Yet even Pope—though one of such in style and +heart—preferred the parish church of the then rural +Twickenham, and Gray the lonely graveyard of Stoke Pogis. +Ben Jonson has a right to lie with us. He was a townsman to +the very heart, and a court-poet too. But Chaucer, Spenser, +Drayton—such are, to my mind, out of place. Chaucer +lies here, because he lived hard by. Spenser through bitter +need and woe. But I should have rather buried Chaucer in +some trim garden, Spenser beneath the forest aisles, and Drayton +by some silver stream—each man’s dust resting where +his heart was set. Happier, it seems to me, are those who +like Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Southey, Scott and Burns, lie +far away, in scenes <!-- page 31--><a name="page31"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 31</span>they knew and loved; fulfilling +Burke’s wise choice: ‘After all I had sooner sleep in +the southern corner of a country churchyard than in the tomb of +all the Capulets.’</p> +<p>Yes—these worthies, one and all, are a token that the +Great Abbey, and all its memories of 800 years, does not belong +to us alone, nor even to the British Empire alone and all its +Colonies, but to America likewise! That when an American +enters beneath that mighty shade, he treads on common and +ancestral ground, as sacred to him as it is to us; the symbol of +common descent, common development, common speech, common creed, +common laws, common literature, common national interests, and I +trust, of a common respect and affection, such as the wise can +only feel toward the wise, and the strong toward the strong.</p> +<p>Is all this sentiment? Remember what I said just now: by +well-used sentiment, and well-used sorrow, great nations +live.</p> +<h2><!-- page 32--><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +32</span>LECTURE II.<br /> +THE STAGE AS IT WAS ONCE.</h2> +<p>What the Stage is now, I presume, all know. I am not +myself a playgoer, but I am informed that, in Europe at least, it +is not in a state to arouse any deep interest or respect in any +cultivated or virtuous person. Meanwhile, keeping fast to +my intention of talking to you only about things worthy of your +interest and respect, because they are good, true, and beautiful, +I wish to tell you what the Stage was once, in a republic of the +past—what it may be again, I sometimes dream, in some +republic of the future.</p> +<p>Let me take you back in fancy some 2314 years—440 years +before the Christian era, and try to sketch for you—alas! +how clumsily—a great, though tiny people, in one of their +greatest moments—in one of the greatest moments, it may be, +of the human race. For surely it is a great and a rare +moment for humanity, when all that is loftiest in it—when +reverence for the Unseen powers, reverence for the heroic dead, +reverence for the father-land; and that reverence, <!-- page +33--><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>too, +for self, which is expressed in stateliness and self-restraint, +in grace and courtesy; when all these, I say, can lend +themselves, even for a day, to the richest enjoyment of +life—to the enjoyment of beauty in form and sound, and of +relaxation, not brutalizing, but ennobling.</p> +<p>Rare, alas! have such seasons been in the history of poor +humanity. But when they have come, they have lifted it up +one stage higher thenceforth. Men, having been such once, +may become such again; and the work which such times have left +behind them becomes immortal.</p> +<blockquote><p>A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Let me take you to the then still unfinished theatre of +Athens, hewn out of the limestone rock on the south-east slope of +the Acropolis.</p> +<p>Above are the new marble buildings of the Parthenon, rich with +the statues and bas-reliefs of Phidias and his scholars, gleaming +white against the blue sky, with the huge bronze statue of +Athené Promachos, fifty feet in height, towering up among +the temples and colonnades. In front, and far below, gleams +the blue sea, and Salamis beyond.</p> +<p>And there are gathered the people of Athens—50,000 of +them, possibly, when the theatre was complete and full. If +it be fine, they all wear garlands <!-- page 34--><a +name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>on their +heads. If the sun be too hot, they wear wide-brimmed straw +hats. And if a storm comes on, they will take refuge in the +porticos beneath; not without wine and cakes, for what they have +come to see will last for many an hour, and they intend to feast +their eyes and ears from sunrise to sunset. On the highest +seats are slaves and freedmen, below them the free citizens; and +on the lowest seats of all are the dignitaries of the +republic—the priests, the magistrates, and the other +χαλοὶ +χἀγαθοὶ—the fair +and good men—as the citizens of the highest rank were +called, and with them foreign ambassadors and distinguished +strangers. What an audience—the rapidest, subtlest, +wittiest, down to the very cobblers and tinkers, the world has +ever seen. And what noble figures on those front seats; +Pericles, with Aspasia beside him, and all his +friends—Anaxagoras the sage, Phidias the sculptor, and many +another immortal artist; and somewhere among the free citizens, +perhaps beside his father Sophroniscus the sculptor, a short, +square, pugnosed boy of ten years old, looking at it all with +strange eyes—‘who will be one day,’ so said the +Pythoness at Delphi, ‘the wisest man in +Greece’—sage, metaphysician, humourist, warrior, +patriot, martyr—for his name is <i>Socrates</i>.</p> +<p>All are in their dresses of office; for this is not merely a +day of amusement, but of religious ceremony; sacred to +Dionysos—Bacchus, the inspiring <!-- page 35--><a +name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>god, who +raises men above themselves, for good—or for evil.</p> +<p>The evil, or at least the mere animal aspect of that +inspiration, was to be seen in forms grotesque and sensuous +enough in those very festivals, when the gayer and coarser part +of the population, in town and country, broke out into frantic +masquerade, of which that silly carnival of Rome is perhaps the +last paltry and unmeaning relic. ‘When,’ as the +learned O. Müller says, ‘the desire of escaping from +self into something new and strange, of living in an imaginary +world, broke forth in a thousand ways; not merely in revelry and +solemn, though fantastic songs, but in a hundred disguises, +imitating the subordinate beings—satyrs, pans, and nymphs, +by whom the god was surrounded, and through whom life seemed to +pass from him into vegetation, and branch off into a variety of +beautiful or grotesque forms—beings who were ever present +to the fancy of the Greeks, as a convenient step by which they +could approach more nearly to the presence of the +Divinity.’ But even out of that seemingly bare chaos, +Athenian genius was learning how to construct, under Eupolis, +Cratinus and Aristophanes, that elder school of comedy, which +remains not only unsurpassed, but unapproachable, save by +Rabelais alone, as the ideal cloudland of masquerading wisdom, in +which the whole universe goes mad—but with a subtle method +in its madness.</p> +<p><!-- page 36--><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +36</span>Yes, so it has been, under some form or other, in every +race and clime—ever since Eve ate of the magic fruit, that +she might be as a god, knowing good and evil, and found, poor +thing, as most have since, that it was far easier and more +pleasant to know the evil than to know the good. But that +theatre was built that men might know therein the good as well as +the evil. To learn the evil, indeed, according to their +light, and the sure vengeance of Até and the Furies which +tracks up the evil-doer. But to learn also the +good—lessons of piety, patriotism, heroism, justice, mercy, +self-sacrifice, and all that comes out of the hearts of men and +women not dragged <i>below</i>, but raised <i>above</i> +themselves; and behind all—at least in the nobler and +earlier tragedies of Æschylus and Sophocles, before +Euripides had introduced the tragedy of mere human passion; that +sensation tragedy, which is the only one the world knows now, and +of which the world is growing rapidly tired—behind all, I +say, lessons of the awful and unfathomable mystery of human +existence, of unseen destiny; of that seemingly capricious +distribution of weal and woe, to which we can find no solution on +this side the grave, for which the old Greek could find no +solution whatsoever.</p> +<p>Therefore there was a central object in the old Greek theatre, +most important to it, but which does not exist in our theatres, +and did not in the old <!-- page 37--><a name="page37"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 37</span>Roman; because our tragedies, like +the Roman, are mere plays concerning love, murder, and so forth, +while the Greek were concerning the deepest relations of man to +the Unseen.</p> +<p>The almost circular orchestra, or pit, between the benches and +the stage, was empty of what we call spectators—because it +was destined for the true and ideal spectators—the +representatives of humanity; in its centre was a round platform, +the θυμελη—originally +the altar of Bacchus—from which the leader of these +representatives, the leader of the Chorus, could converse with +the actors on the stage and take his part in the drama; and round +this thymelé the Chorus ranged, with measured dance and +song, chanting, to the sound of a simple flute, odes such as the +world had never heard before or since, save perhaps in the +temple-worship at Jerusalem. A chorus now, as you know, +means merely any number of persons singing in full harmony on any +subject. The Chorus was then in tragedy, and indeed in the +higher comedy, what Schlegel well calls ‘the ideal +spectator,’—a personified reflection on the action +going on, the incorporation into the representation itself of the +sentiments of the poet, as the spokesman of the whole human +race. He goes on to say (and I think truly), ‘that +the Chorus always retained among the Greeks a peculiar national +signification, publicity being, according to <!-- page 38--><a +name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>their +republican notions, essential to the completeness of every +important transaction.’ Thus the Chorus represented +idealised public opinion: not of course, the shifting, hasty +public opinion of the moment—to that it was a conservative +check, and it calmed to soberness and charity—for it was +the matured public opinion of centuries; the experience, and +usually the sad experience, of many generations; the very spirit +of the Greek race.</p> +<p>The Chorus might be composed of what the poet would. Of +ancient citizens, waiting for their sons to come back from the +war, as in the <i>Agamemnon</i> of Æschylus; of sea-nymphs, +as in his <i>Prometheus Bound</i>; even of the very Furies who +hunt the matricide, as in his <i>Eumenides</i>; of Senators as in +the <i>Antigone</i> of Sophocles; or of village farmers as in his +<i>Œdipus at Colonos</i>—and now I have named five of +the greatest poems, as I hold, written by mortal man till Dante +rose. Or it may be the Chorus was composed—as in the +comedies of Aristophanes, the greatest humourist the world has +ever seen—of birds, or of frogs, or even of clouds. +It may rise to the level of Don Quixote, or sink to that of +Sancho Panza; for it is always the incarnation of such wisdom, +heavenly or earthly, as the poet wishes the people to bring to +bear on the subject-matter!</p> +<p>But let the poets themselves, rather than me, speak +awhile. Allow me to give you a few specimens of <!-- page +39--><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>these +choruses—the first as an example of that practical, and yet +surely not un-divine wisdom, by which they supplied the place of +our modern preacher, or essayist, or didactic poet.</p> +<p>Listen to this of the old men’s chorus in the +<i>Agamemnon</i>, in the spirited translation of my friend +Professor Blackie:—</p> +<blockquote><p> ’Twas said of old, and +’tis said to-day,<br /> + That wealth to prosperous stature grown<br /> + Begets a birth of its own:<br /> + That a surfeit of evil by good is prepared,<br /> + And sons must bear what allotment of woe<br /> + Their sires were spared.<br /> + But this I refuse to believe: I know<br /> + That impious deeds conspire<br /> + To beget an offspring of impious deeds<br /> + Too like their ugly sire.<br /> +But whoso is just, though his wealth like a river<br /> +Flow down, shall be scathless: his house shall rejoice<br /> + In an offspring of beauty for ever.</p> +<p> The heart of the haughty delights to +beget<br /> + A haughty heart. From time to time<br /> + In children’s children recurrent appears<br /> + The ancestral crime.<br /> +When the dark hour comes that the gods have decreed<br /> +And the Fury burns with wrathful fires,<br /> + A demon unholy, with ire unabated,<br /> + Lies like black night on the halls of the fated;<br +/> + And the recreant Son plunges guiltily on<br /> + To perfect the guilt of his +Sires.</p> +<p><!-- page 40--><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +40</span>But Justice shines in a lowly cell;<br /> +In the homes of poverty, smoke-begrimed,<br /> +With the sober-minded she loves to dwell.<br /> + But she turns aside<br /> +From the rich man’s house with averted eye,<br /> +The golden-fretted halls of pride<br /> +Where hands with lucre are foul, and the praise<br /> +Of counterfeit goodness smoothly sways;<br /> +And wisely she guides in the strong man’s despite<br /> + All things to an issue of <span +class="smcap">right</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Let me now give you another passage from the +<i>Eumenides</i>—or <i>Furies</i>, of Æschylus.</p> +<p>Orestes, prince of Argos, you must remember, has avenged on +his mother Clytemnestra the murder of his father, king Agamemnon, +on his return from Troy. Pursued by the Furies, he takes +refuge in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and then, still +Fury-haunted, goes to Athens, where Pallas Athené the +warrior-maiden, the tutelary goddess of Athens, bids him refer +his cause to the Areopagus, the highest court of Athens, Apollo +acting as his advocate, and she sitting as umpire in the +midst. The white and black balls are thrown into the urn, +and are equal; and Orestes is only delivered by the decision of +Athené—as the representative of the nearer race of +gods, the Olympians, the friends of man, in whose likeness man is +made. The Furies are the representatives of the older and +darker creed—which yet has a depth of <!-- page 41--><a +name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>truth in +it—of the irreversible dooms which underlie all nature; and +which represent the <i>Law</i>, and not the Gospel, the +consequence of the mere act, independent of the spirit which has +prompted it.</p> +<p>They break out in fury against the overbearing arrogance of +these younger gods. Athené bears their rage with +equanimity, addresses them in the language of kindness, even of +veneration, till these so indomitable beings are unable to +withstand the charm of her mild eloquence. They are to have +a sanctuary in the Athenian land, and to be called no more Furies +(Erinnys), but Eumenides—the +<i>well-conditioned</i>—the kindly goddesses. And all +ends with a solemn procession round the orchestra, with hymns of +blessing, while the terrible Chorus of the Furies, clothed in +black, with blood-stained girdles, and serpents in their hair, in +masks having perhaps somewhat of the terrific beauty of +Medusa-masks, are convoyed to their new sanctuary by a procession +of children, women, and old men in purple robes and torches in +their hands, after Athené and the Furies have sung, in +response to each other, a chorus from which I must beg leave to +give you an extract or two.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center"><i>Eldest Fury</i> +(<i>Leader of the Chorus</i>).</p> +<p>Far from thy dwelling, and far from thy border,<br /> +By the grace of my godhead benignant I order<br /> +The blight which may blacken the bloom of the trees.<br /> +Far from thy border, and far from thy dwelling,<br /> +<!-- page 42--><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +42</span>Be the hot blast which shrivels the bud in its +swelling,<br /> +The seed-rotting taint, and the creeping disease.<br /> +Thy flocks be still doubled, thy seasons be steady,<br /> +And when Hermes is near thee, thy hand be still ready<br /> + The Heaven-dropt bounty to seize.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Athené</i>.</p> +<p>Hear her words, my city’s warders—<br /> +Fraught with blessings, she prevaileth<br /> +With Olympians and Infernals,<br /> +Dread Erinnys much revered.<br /> +Mortal faith she guideth plainly<br /> +To what goal she pleaseth, sending<br /> +Songs to some, to others days<br /> +With tearful sorrows dulled.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Furies</i>.</p> +<p> Far from thy border<br /> + The lawless disorder<br /> +That sateless of evil shall reign;<br /> + Far from thy dwelling,<br /> + The dear blood welling,<br /> +That taints thine own hearth with the slain.<br /> + When slaughter from slaughter<br /> + Shall flow like the water,<br /> +And rancour from rancour shall grow.<br /> + But joy with joy blending,<br /> + Live, each to all lending;<br /> +And hating one-hearted the foe.<br /> + When bliss hath departed;<br /> + From love single-hearted,<br /> +A fountain of healing shall flow.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><!-- page 43--><a +name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +43</span><i>Athené</i>.</p> +<p>Wisely now the tongue of kindness<br /> +Thou hast found, the way of love.<br /> +And these terror-speaking faces<br /> +Now look wealth to me and mine.<br /> +Her so willing, ye more willing,<br /> +Now receive. This land and city,<br /> +On ancient right securely throned,<br /> +Shall shine for evermore.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Furies</i>.</p> +<p>Hail, and all hail, mighty people, be greeted,<br /> +On the sons of Athena shines sunshine the clearest.<br /> +Blest people, near Jove the Olympian seated.<br /> +And dear to the maiden his daughter the dearest.<br /> +Timely wise ’neath the wings of the daughter ye gather,<br +/> +And mildly looks down on her children the Father.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Those of you here who love your country as well as the old +Athenians loved theirs, will feel at once the grand political +significance of such a scene, in which patriotism and religion +become one—and feel, too, the exquisite dramatic effect of +the innocent, the weak, the unwarlike, welcoming among them, +without fear, because without guilt, those ancient snaky-haired +sisters, emblems of all that is most terrible and most +inscrutable, in the destiny of nations, of families, and of +men:</p> +<blockquote><p>To their hallowed habitations<br /> +’Neath Ogygian earth’s foundations<br /> +In that darksome hall<br /> +<!-- page 44--><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +44</span>Sacrifice and supplication<br /> +Shall not fail. In adoration<br /> +Silent worship all.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Listen again, to the gentler patriotism of a gentler poet, +Sophocles himself. The village of Colonos, a mile from +Athens, was his birthplace; and in his <i>Œdipus +Coloneus</i>, he makes his Chorus of village officials sing thus +of their consecrated olive grove:</p> +<blockquote><p> In good hap, stranger, to these +rural seats<br /> + Thou comest, to this region’s blest +retreats,<br /> + Where white Colonos lifts his head,<br /> + And glories in the bounding steed.<br /> +Where sadly sweet the frequent nightingale<br /> + Impassioned pours his evening song,<br /> +And charms with varied notes each verdant vale,<br /> + The ivy’s dark-green boughs among,<br /> + Or sheltered ’neath the clustering vine<br /> + Which, high above him form a bower,<br /> + Safe from the sun or stormy shower,<br /> + Where frolic Bacchus often roves,<br /> +And visits with his fostering nymphs the groves.</p> +<p> Bathed in the dew of heaven each morn,<br /> + Fresh is the fair Narcissus born,<br /> + Of those great gods the crown of old;<br /> + The crocus glitters, robed in gold.<br /> +Here restless fountains ever murmuring glide,<br /> + And as their crispèd streamlets play,<br /> +To feed, Cephisus, thine unfailing tide,<br /> + Fresh verdure marks their winding way.<br /> + Here oft to raise the tuneful song<br /> + The virgin band of Muses deigns,<br /> +And car-borne Aphrodite guides her golden reins.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 45--><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +45</span>Then they go on, this band of village elders, to praise +the gods for their special gifts to that small Athenian +land. They praise Pallas Athené, who gave their +forefathers the olive; then Poseidon—Neptune, as the Romans +call him—who gave their forefathers the horse; and +something more—the ship,—the horse of the sea, as +they, like the old Norse Vikings after them, delighted to call +it.—</p> +<blockquote><p>Our highest vaunt is this—Thy grace,<br /> + Poseidon, we behold.<br /> +The ruling curb, embossed with gold,<br /> +Controls the courser’s managed pace.<br /> +Though loud, oh king, thy billows roar,<br /> +Our strong hands grasp the labouring oar,<br /> +And while the Nereids round it play,<br /> +Light cuts our bounding bark its way.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>What a combination of fine humanities! Dance and song, +patriotism and religion, so often parted among us, have flowed +together into one in these stately villagers; each a small +farmer; each a trained soldier, and probably a trained seaman +also; each a self-governed citizen; and each a cultured +gentleman, if ever there were gentlemen on earth.</p> +<p>But what drama, doing, or action—for such is the meaning +of the word—is going on upon the stage, to be commented on +by the sympathizing Chorus?</p> +<p>One drama, at least, was acted in Athens in that +year—440 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>—which you, I +doubt not, know well—<!-- page 46--><a +name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>that +<i>Antigone</i> of Sophocles, which Mendelssohn has resuscitated, +in our own generation, by setting it to music, divine indeed, +though very different from the music to which it was set, +probably by Sophocles himself, at its first, and for ought we +know, its only representation. For pieces had not then, as +now, a run of a hundred nights and more. The Athenian +genius was so fertile, and the Athenian audience so eager for +novelty, that new pieces were demanded, and were forthcoming, for +each of the great festivals, and if a piece was represented a +second time it was usually after an interval of some years. +They did not, moreover, like the moderns, run every night to some +theatre or other, as a part of the day’s amusement. +Tragedy, and even comedy, were serious subjects, calling out, not +a passing sigh, or passing laugh, but all the higher faculties +and emotions. And as serious subjects were to be expressed +in verse and music, which gave stateliness, doubtless, even to +the richest burlesques of Aristophanes, and lifted them out of +mere street-buffoonery into an ideal fairy land of the grotesque, +how much more stateliness must verse and music have added to +their tragedy! And how much have we lost, toward a true +appreciation of their dramatic art, by losing almost utterly not +only the laws of their melody and harmony, but even the true +metric time of their odes! music and metre, which must have +surely been as noble as their poetry, their sculpture, their +architecture, <!-- page 47--><a name="page47"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 47</span>possessed by the same exquisite sense +of form and of proportion. One thing we can +understand—how this musical form of the drama, which still +remains to us in lower shapes, in the oratorio, in the opera, +must have helped to raise their tragedies into that ideal sphere +in which they all, like the <i>Antigone</i>, live and move. +So ideal and yet so human; nay rather, truly ideal, because truly +human. The gods, the heroes, the kings, the princesses of +Greek tragedy were dear to the hearts of Greek republicans, not +merely as the founders of their states, not merely as the +tutelary deities, many of them, of their country: but as men and +women like themselves, only more vast; with mightier wills, +mightier virtues, mightier sorrows, and often mightier crimes; +their inward free-will battling, as Schlegel has well seen, +against outward circumstance and overruling fate, as every man +should battle, unless he sink to be a brute. ‘In +tragedy,’ says Schlegel—uttering thus a deep and +momentous truth—‘the gods themselves either come +forward as the servants of destiny and mediate executors of its +decrees, or approve themselves godlike only by asserting their +liberty of action and entering upon the same struggles with fate +which man himself has to encounter.’ And I believe +this, that this Greek tragedy, with its godlike men and manlike +gods, and heroes who had become gods by the very vastness of +their humanity, was a preparation, and it may be a necessary +preparation, <!-- page 48--><a name="page48"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 48</span>for the true Christian faith in a Son +of man, who is at once utterly human and utterly divine. +Man is made in the likeness of God—is the root-idea, only +half-conscious, only half-expressed, but instinctive, without +which neither the Greek Tragedies, nor the Homeric Poems, six +hundred years before them, could have been composed. +Doubtless the idea that man was like a god degenerated too often +into the idea that the gods were like men, and as wicked. +But that travestie of a great truth is not confined to those old +Greeks. Some so-called Christian theories—as I +hold—have sinned in that direction as deeply as the +Athenians of old.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, I say, that this long acquiescence in the +conception of godlike struggle, godlike daring, godlike +suffering, godlike martyrdom; the very conception which was so +foreign to the mythologies of any other race—save that of +the Jews, and perhaps of our own Teutonic forefathers—did +prepare, must have prepared, men to receive as most rational and +probable, as the satisfaction of their highest instincts, the +idea of a Being in whom all those partial rays culminated in +clear, pure light; of a Being at once utterly human and utterly +divine; who by struggle, suffering, self-sacrifice, without a +parallel, achieved a victory over circumstance and all the dark +powers which beleaguer man without a parallel likewise.</p> +<p>Take, as an example, the figure which you know <!-- page +49--><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>best—the figure of Antigone herself—devoting +herself to be entombed alone, for the sake of love and +duty. Love of a brother, which she can only prove, alas! by +burying his corpse. Duty to the dead, an instinct depending +on no written law, but springing out of the very depths of those +blind and yet sacred monitions which prove that the true man is +not an animal, but a spirit; fulfilling her holy purpose, +unchecked by fear, unswayed by her sisters’ +entreaties. Hardening her heart magnificently till her fate +is sealed; and then after proving her godlike courage, proving +the tenderness of her womanhood by that melodious wail over her +own untimely death and the loss of marriage joys, which some of +you must know from the music of Mendelssohn, and which the late +Dean Milman has put into English thus—</p> +<blockquote><p>Come, fellow-citizens, and see<br /> +The desolate Antigone.<br /> +On the last path her steps shall tread,<br /> +Set forth, the journey of the dead,<br /> +Watching, with vainly lingering gaze,<br /> +Her last, last sun’s expiring rays,</p> +<p>Never to see it, never more,<br /> +For down to Acheron’s dread shore,<br /> +A living victim am I led<br /> +To Hades’ universal bed.<br /> +To my dark lot no bridal joys<br /> +Belong, nor e’er the jocund noise<br /> +<!-- page 50--><a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +50</span>Of hymeneal chant shall sound for me,<br /> +But death, cold death, my only spouse shall be.</p> +<p>Oh tomb! Oh bridal chamber! Oh deep-delved<br /> +And strongly-guarded mansion! I descend<br /> +To meet in your dread chambers all my kindred,<br /> +Who in dark multitudes have crowded down<br /> +Where Proserpine received the dead. But I,<br /> +The last, and oh how few more miserable,<br /> +Go down, or ere my sands of life are run.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And let me ask you whether the contemplation of such a +self-sacrifice should draw you, should have drawn those who heard +the tale nearer to, or further from, a certain cross which stood +on Calvary some 1800 years ago? May not the tale of +Antigone heard from mother or from nurse have nerved ere now some +martyr-maiden to dare and suffer in an even holier cause?</p> +<p>But to return. This set purpose of the Athenian +dramatists of the best school to set before men a magnified +humanity, explains much in their dramas which seem to us at first +not only strange but faulty. The masks which gave one grand +but unvarying type of countenance to each well-known historic +personage, and thus excluded the play of feature, animated +gesture, and almost all which we now consider as +‘acting’ proper; the thicksoled cothurni which gave +the actor a more than human stature; the poverty (according to +our notions) of the scenery, which usually represented <!-- page +51--><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +51</span>merely the front of a palace or other public place, and +was often though not always unchanged during the whole +performance; the total absence in fact, of anything like that +scenic illusion which most managers of theatres seem now to +consider as their highest achievement; the small number of the +actors, two, or at most three only, being present on the stage at +once,—the simplicity of the action, in which intrigue (in +the play-house sense) and any complication of plot are utterly +absent; all this must have concentrated not the eye of the +spectator on the scene, but his ear upon the voice, and his +emotions on the personages who stood out before him without a +background, sharp-cut and clear as a group of statuary which is +the same, place it where you will, complete in itself—a +world of beauty, independent of all other things and beings save +on the ground on which it needs must stand. It was the +personage rather than his surroundings, which was to be impressed +by every word on the spectator’s heart and intellect; and +the very essence of Greek tragedy is expressed in the still +famous words of Medea—</p> +<blockquote><p>Che resta? Io.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Contrast this with the European drama—especially with +the highest form of it—our own Elizabethan. It +resembles, as has been often said in better words than mine, not +statuary but painting. These dramas affect <!-- page +52--><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +52</span>colour, light, and shadow, background whether of town or +country, description of scenery where scenic machinery is +inadequate, all in fact, which can blend the action and the +actors with the surrounding circumstances, without letting them +altogether melt into the circumstances; which can show them a +part of the great whole, by harmony or discord with the whole +universe, down to the flowers beneath their feet. This, +too, had to be done: how it became possible for even the genius +of a Shakespeare to get it done, I may with your leave hint to +you hereafter. Why it was not given to the Greeks to do it, +I know not.</p> +<p>Let us at least thank them for what they did. One work +was given them, and that one they fulfilled as it had never been +fulfilled before; as it will never need to be fulfilled again; +for the Greeks’ work was done not for themselves alone but +for all races in all times; and Greek Art is the heirloom of the +whole human race; and that work was to assert in drama, lyric, +sculpture, music, gymnastic, the dignity of man—the dignity +of man which they perceived for the most part with their intense +æsthetic sense, through the beautiful in man. Man +with them was divine, inasmuch as he could perceive beauty and be +beautiful himself. Beauty might be physical, +æsthetic, intellectual, moral. But in proportion as a +thing was perfect it revealed its own perfection by its +beauty. Goodness itself was a form—though the highest +form—of beauty. +Καλος <!-- page 53--><a +name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>meant both +the physically beautiful and the morally good; +αἰσχρὸς both the ugly and +the bad.</p> +<p>Out of this root-idea sprang the whole of that Greek +sculpture, which is still, and perhaps ever will be, one of the +unrivalled wonders of the world.</p> +<p>Their first statues, remember, were statues of the gods. +This is an historic fact. Before <span +class="smcap">b.c.</span> 580 there were probably no statues in +Greece save those of deities. But of what form? We +all know that the usual tendency of man has been to represent his +gods as more or less monstrous. Their monstrosity may have +been meant, as it was certainly with the Mexican idols, and +probably those of the Semitic races of Syria and Palestine, to +symbolise the ferocious passions which they attributed to those +objects of their dread, appeasable alone by human +sacrifice. Or the monstrosity, as with the hawk-headed or +cat-headed Egyptian idols, the winged bulls of Nineveh and +Babylon, the many-handed deities of Hindostan—merely +symbolised powers which could not, so the priest and the sculptor +held, belong to mere humanity. Now, of such monstrous forms +of idols, the records in Greece are very few and very +ancient—relics of an older worship, and most probably of an +older race. From the earliest historic period, the Greek +was discerning more and more that the divine could be best +represented by the human; the tendency of his statuary was more +and more to honour that divine, by embodying it in the highest +human beauty.</p> +<p><!-- page 54--><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +54</span>In lonely mountain shrines there still might linger, +feared and honoured, dolls like those black virgins, of unknown +antiquity, which still work wonders on the European +continent. In the mysterious cavern of Phigalia, for +instance, on the Eleatic shore of Peloponnese, there may have +been in remote times—so the legend ran—an old black +wooden image, a woman with a horse’s head and mane, and +serpents growing round her head, who held a dolphin in one hand +and a dove in the other. And this image may have been +connected with old nature-myths about the marriage of Demeter and +Poseidon—that is, of encroachments of the sea upon the +land; and the other myths of Demeter, the earth-mother, may have +clustered round the place, till the Phigalians were +glad—for it was profitable as well as honourable—to +believe that in their cavern Demeter sat mourning for the loss of +Proserpine, whom Pluto had carried down to Hades, and all the +earth was barren till Zeus sent the Fates, or Iris, to call her +forth, and restore fertility to the world. And it may be +true—the legend as Pausanias tells it 600 years +after—that the old wooden idol having been burnt, and the +worship of Demeter neglected till a famine ensued, the +Phigalians, warned by the Oracle of Delphi, hired Onatas, a +contemporary of Polygnotus and Phidias, to make them a bronze +replica of the old idol, from some old copy and from a dream of +his own. The story may be <!-- page 55--><a +name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>true. +When Pausanias went thither, in the second century after Christ, +the cave and the fountain, and the sacred grove of oaks, and the +altar outside, which was to be polluted with the blood of no +victim—the only offerings being fruits and honey, and +undressed wool—were still there. The statue was +gone. Some said it had been destroyed by the fall of the +cliff; some were not sure that it had ever been there at +all. And meanwhile Praxiteles had already brought to +perfection (Paus. 1, 2, sec. 4) the ideal of Demeter, +mother-like, as Heré—whom we still call Juno +now—but softer-featured, and her eyes more closed.</p> +<p>And so for mother earth, as for the rest, the best +representation of the divine was the human. Now, conceive +such an idea taking hold, however slowly, of a people of rare +physical beauty, of acutest eye for proportion and grace, with +opportunities of studying the human figure such as exist nowhere +now, save among tropic savages, and gifted, moreover, in that as +in all other matters, with that innate diligence, of which Mr. +Carlyle has said, ‘that genius is only an infinite capacity +of taking pains,’ and we can understand somewhat of the +causes which produced those statues, human and divine, which awe +and shame the artificiality and degeneracy of our modern +so-called civilisation—we can understand somewhat of the +reverence for the human form, of the careful study of every line, +the storing up for use each scattered fragment <!-- page 56--><a +name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>of beauty of +which the artist caught sight, even in his daily walks, and +consecrating it in his memory to the service of him or her whom +he was trying to embody in marble or in bronze. And when +the fashion came in of making statues of victors in the games, +and other distinguished persons, a new element was introduced, +which had large social as well as artistic results. The +sculptor carried his usual reverence into his careful delineation +of the victor’s form, while he obtained in him a model, +usually of the very highest type, for perfecting his idea of some +divinity. The possibility of gaining the right to a statue +gave a fresh impulse to all competitors in the public games, and +through them to the gymnastic training throughout all the states +of Greece, which made the Greeks the most physically able and +graceful, as well as the most beautiful people known to the +history of the human race. A people who, reverencing +beauty, reverenced likewise grace or acted beauty, so utterly and +honestly, that nothing was too humble for a free man to do, if it +were not done awkwardly and ill. As an instance, Sophocles +himself—over and above his poetic genius, one of the most +cultivated gentlemen, as well as one of the most exquisite +musicians, dancers, and gymnasts, and one of the most just, +pious, and gentle of all Greece—could not, by reason of the +weakness of his voice, act in his own plays, as poets were wont +to do, and had to perform only the <!-- page 57--><a +name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>office of +stage-manager. Twice he took part in the action, once as +the blind old Thamyris playing on the harp, and once in his own +lost tragedy, the ‘Nausicaa.’ There in the +scene in which the Princess, as she does in Homer’s +‘Odyssey,’ comes down to the sea-shore with her +maidens to wash the household clothes, and then to play at +ball—Sophocles himself, a man then of middle age, did the +one thing he could do better than any there—and, dressed in +women’s clothes, among the lads who represented the +maidens, played at ball before the Athenian people.</p> +<p>Yes: just 60 years after the representation of the +<i>Antigone</i>, 10,000 Greeks, far on the plains of Babylon, cut +through the whole Persian army, as the railway train cuts through +a herd of buffalo, and then losing all their generals by +treacherous warfare, fought their way north from Babylon to +Trebizond on the Black Sea, under the guidance of a young +Athenian, a pupil of Socrates, who had never served in the army +before. The retreat of Xenophon and his 10,000 will remain +for ever as one of the grandest triumphs of civilisation over +brute force: but what made it possible? That these men, and +their ancestors before them, had been for at least 100 years in +<i>training</i>, physical, intellectual, and moral, which made +their bodies and their minds able to dare and suffer like those +old heroes of whom their tragedy had taught them, and whose +spirits they still believed would help the <!-- page 58--><a +name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>valiant +Greek. And yet that feat, which looks to us so splendid, +attracted, as far as I am aware, no special admiration at the +time. So was the cultivated Greek expected to behave +whenever he came in contact with the uncultivated barbarian.</p> +<p>But from what had sprung in that little state, this exuberance +of splendid life, physical, æsthetic, intellectual, which +made, and will make the name of Athens and of the whole cluster +of Greek republics for ever admirable to civilised man? Had +it sprung from long years of peaceful prosperity? From +infinite making of money and comfort, according to the laws of +so-called political economy, and the dictates of enlightened +selfishness? Not so. But rather out of terror and +agony, and all but utter ruin—and out of a magnificent want +of economy—and the divine daring and folly—of +self-sacrifice.</p> +<p>In Salamis across the strait a trophy stood, and round that +trophy, forty years before, Sophocles the author of +<i>Antigone</i>, then sixteen years of age, the loveliest and +most cultivated lad in Athens, undraped like a faun, with lyre in +hand, was leading the Chorus of Athenian youths, and singing to +Athené, the tutelary goddess, a hymn of triumph for a +glorious victory,—the very symbol of Greece and Athens, +springing up into a joyous second youth after invasion and +desolation, as the grass springs up after the prairie fire has +passed. But the fire had <!-- page 59--><a +name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>been +terrible. It had burnt Athens at least, down to the very +roots. True, while Sophocles was dancing, Xerxes, the great +king of the East, foiled at Salamis, as his father Darius had +been foiled at Marathon ten years before, was fleeing back to +Persia, leaving his innumerable hosts of slaves and mercenaries +to be destroyed piecemeal, by land at Platea, by sea at +Mycalé. The bold hope was over, in which the +Persian, ever since the days of Cyrus, had indulged—that +he, the despot of the East, should be the despot of the West +likewise. It seemed to them as possible, though not as +easy, to subdue the Aryan Greek, as it had been to subdue the +Semite and the Turanian, the Babylonian, and the Syrian; to rifle +his temples, to destroy his idols, carry off his women and +children as colonists into distant lands, as they had been doing +with all the nations of the East. And they had succeeded +with isolated colonies, isolated islands of Greeks, and the +shores of Asia Minor. But when they dared, at last, to +attack the Greek in his own sacred land of Hellas, they found +they had bearded a lion in his den. Nay rather—as +those old Greeks would have said—they had dared to attack +Pallas Athené, the eldest daughter of Zeus—emblem of +that serene and pure divine wisdom, of whom Solomon sang of old: +‘The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before +His works of old. When He prepared the heavens, I was +there, when He appointed the foundation <!-- page 60--><a +name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>of the earth, +then was I by Him, as one brought up with Him, and I was daily +His delight, rejoicing always before him: rejoicing in the +habitable part of His earth; <i>and my delight was with the sons +of men</i>,’—to attack her and her brother Apollo, +Lord of light, and beauty, and culture, and grace, and +inspiration,—to attack them, not in the name of Ormuzd, nor +of any other deity, but in the name of mere brute force and lust +of conquest. The old Persian spirit was gone out of +them. They were the symbols now of nothing save despotism +and self-will, wealth and self-indulgence. They, once the +children of Ormuzd or light, had become the children of Ahriman +or darkness; and therefore it was, as I believe, that +Xerxes’ 1,000 ships, and the two million (or, as some have +it, five million) human beings availed naught against the little +fleets and little battalions of men who believed with a living +belief in Athené and Apollo, and therefore—ponder it +well, for it is true—with a living belief, under whatsoever +confusions and divisions of personality, in a God who loved, +taught, inspired men, a just God who befriended the righteous +cause, the cause of freedom and patriotism, a Deity, the echo of +whose mind and will to man was the song of Athené on +Olympus, when she</p> +<blockquote><p>Chanted of order and right, and of foresight, and +order of peoples;<br /> +Chanted of labour and craft, wealth in the port and the +garner;<br /> +<!-- page 61--><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +61</span>Chanted of valour and fame, and the man who can fall +with the foremost,<br /> +Fighting for children and wife, and the field which his father +bequeathed him.<br /> +Sweetly and cunningly sang she, and planned new lessons for +mortals.<br /> +Happy who hearing obey her, the wise unsullied Athené.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Ah, that they had always obeyed her, those old Greeks. +But meanwhile, as I said, the agony had been extreme. If +Athens had sinned, she had been purged as by fire; and the +fire—surely of God—had been terrible. Northern +Greece had either been laid waste with fire and sword, or had +gone over to the Persian, traitors in their despair. +Attica, almost the only loyal state, had been overrun; the old +men, women, and children had fled to the neighbouring islands, or +to the Peloponnese. Athens itself had been destroyed; and +while young Sophocles was dancing round the trophy at Salamis, +the Acropolis was still a heap of blackened ruins.</p> +<p>But over and above their valour, over and above their loyalty, +over and above their exquisite æsthetic faculty, these +Athenians had a resilience of self-reliant energy, like that of +the French—like that, to do you but justice, of your +Americans after your Chicago fire; and Athens rose from her ashes +to be awhile, not only, as she had nobly earned by suffering and +endurance, the leading state in Greece, but a mighty <!-- page +62--><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>fortress, a rich commercial port, a living centre of +art, poetry, philosophy, such as this earth has never seen before +or since.</p> +<p>On the plateau of that little crag of the Acropolis some 800 +feet in length, by 400 in breadth—about the size and shape +of the Castle Rock at Edinburgh—was gathered, within forty +years of the battle of Salamis, more and more noble beauty than +ever stood together on any other spot of like size.</p> +<p>The sudden relief from crushing pressure, and the joyous +consciousness of well-earned honours, made the whole +spirit-nature of the people blossom out, as it were, into +manifold forms of activity, beauty, research, and raised, in +raising Greece, the whole human race thenceforth.</p> +<p>What might they not have done—looking at what they +actually did—for the whole race of man?</p> +<p>But no—they fell, even more rapidly than they rose, till +their grace and their cultivation, for them they could not lose, +made them the willing ministers to the luxury, the frivolity, the +sentimentality, the vice of the whole old world—the Scapia +or Figaro of the old world—infinitely able, but with all +his ability consecrated to the service of his own base +self. The Greekling—as Juvenal has it—in want +of a dinner, would climb somehow to heaven itself, at the bidding +of his Roman master.</p> +<p>Ah, what a fall! And what was the inherent weakness +which caused that fall?</p> +<p><!-- page 63--><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +63</span>I say at once—want of honesty. The Greek was +not to be depended on; if it suited him, he would lie, betray, +overreach, change sides, and think it no sin. He was the +sharpest of men. Sharp practice, in our modern sense of the +word, was the very element in which he floated. Any scholar +knows it. In the grand times of Marathon and Salamis, down +to the disastrous times of the Peloponnesian war and the thirty +tyrants, no public man’s hands were clean, with the +exception, perhaps, of that Aristides, who was banished because +men were tired of hearing him called the Just. The exciting +cause of the Peloponnesian war, and the consequent downfall of +Athens, was not merely the tyranny she exercised over the states +allied to her, it was the sharp practice of the Athenians, in +misappropriating the tribute paid by the allies to the decoration +of Athens. And in laying the foundations of the Parthenon +was sown, by a just judgment, the seed of ruin for the state +which gloried in it. And if the rulers were such, what were +the people? If the free were such, what were the +slaves?</p> +<p>Hence, weakness at home and abroad, mistrust of generals and +admirals, paralysing all bold and clear action, peculations and +corruptions at home, internecine wars between factions inside +states, and between states or groups of states, revolutions +followed by despotism, and final exhaustion and slavery,— +<!-- page 64--><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>slavery to a people who were coming across the western +sea, hard-headed, hard-hearted, caring nothing for art, or +science, whose pleasures were coarse and cruel, but with a +certain rough honesty, reverence for country, for law, and for +the ties of a family—men of a somewhat old English type, +who had over and above, like the English, the inspiring belief +that they could conquer the whole world, and who very nearly +succeeded in that—as we have, to our great blessing, not +succeeded—I mean, of course, the Romans.</p> +<h2><!-- page 65--><a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +65</span>LECTURE III.<br /> +THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.</h2> +<p>Let me begin this lecture with a scene in the North Atlantic +863 years since.</p> +<p>‘Bjarne Grimolfson was blown with his ship into the +Irish Ocean; and there came worms and the ship began to sink +under them. They had a boat which they had payed with +seals’ blubber, for that the sea-worms will not hurt. +But when they got into the boat they saw that it would not hold +them all. Then said Bjarne, “As the boat will only +hold the half of us, my advice is that we should draw lots who +shall go in her; for that will not be unworthy of our +manhood.” This advice seemed so good that none +gainsaid it; and they drew lots. And the lot fell to Bjarne +that he should go in the boat with half his crew. But as he +got into the boat, there spake an Icelander who was in the ship +and had followed Bjarne from Iceland, “Art thou going to +leave me here, Bjarne?” Quoth Bjarne, “So it +must be.” Then said the man, “Another thing +didst thou promise my father, when I <!-- page 66--><a +name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>sailed with +thee from Iceland, than to desert me thus. For thou saidst +that we both should share the same lot.” Bjarne said, +“And that we will not do. Get thou down into the +boat, and I will get up into the ship, now I see that thou art so +greedy after life.” So Bjarne went up into the ship, +and the man down into the boat; and the boat went on its voyage +till they came to Dublin in Ireland. But most men say that +Bjarne and his comrades perished among the worms; for they were +never heard of after.’</p> +<p>This story may serve as a text for my whole lecture. Not +only does it smack of the sea-breeze and the salt water like all +the finest old Norse sagas: but it gives a glimpse at least, of +the nobleness which underlay the grim and often cruel nature of +the Norseman. It belongs, too, to the culminating epoch, to +the beginning of that era when the Scandinavian peoples had their +great times; when the old fierceness of the worshippers of Thor +and Odin was tempered, without being effeminated by the Faith of +the ‘White Christ,’ till the very men who had been +the destroyers of Western Europe became its civilisers.</p> +<p>It should have, moreover, a special interest to +Americans. For—as American antiquaries are well +aware—Bjarne was on his voyage home from the coast of New +England; possibly from that very Mount Hope Bay, which seems to +have borne the same name in the time of those old Norsemen, as +afterwards in the days <!-- page 67--><a name="page67"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 67</span>of King Philip the last sachem of the +Wampanong Indians. He was going back to Greenland, perhaps +for reinforcements, finding, he and his fellow-captain, Thorfinn, +the Esquimaux who then dwelt in that land too strong for +them. For the Norsemen were then on the very edge of a +discovery, which might have changed the history not only of this +continent but of Europe likewise. They had found and +colonised Iceland and Greenland. They had found Labrador, +and called it Helluland, from its ice-polished rocks. They +had found Nova Scotia seemingly and called it Markland from its +woods. They had found New England and called it Vinland the +Good. A fair land they found it, well wooded, with good +pasturage; so that they had already imported cows, and a bull +whose lowings terrified the Esquimaux. They had found +self-sown corn too, probably maize. The streams were full +of salmon. But they had called the land Vinland, by reason +of its grapes. Quaint enough, and bearing in its very +quaintness the stamp of truth, is the story of the first finding +of the wild fox-grapes. How Leif the Fortunate, almost as +soon as he first landed, missed a little wizened old German +servant of his father’s, Tyrker by name, and was much vexed +thereat, for he had been brought up on the old man’s knee, +and hurrying off to find him met Tyrker coming back twisting his +eyes about—a trick of his—smacking his lips and +talking German to himself in high <!-- page 68--><a +name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +68</span>excitement. And when they get him to talk Norse +again, he says, ‘I have not been far, but I have news for +you. I have found vines and grapes!’ ‘Is +that true, foster-father?’ says Leif. ‘True it +is,’ says the old German, ‘for I was brought up where +there was never any lack of them.’ The saga—as +given by Rafn—has a detailed description of this quaint +personage’s appearance; and it would not be amiss if +American wine-growers should employ an American +sculptor—and there are great American sculptors—to +render that description into marble, and set up little Tyrker in +some public place, as the Silenus of the New World.</p> +<p>Thus the first cargoes homeward from Vinland to Greenland had +been of timber and of raisins, and of vine-stocks which were not +like to thrive.</p> +<p>And more. Beyond Vinland the Good there was said to be +another land, Whiteman’s Land—or Ireland the Mickle, +as some called it. For these Norse traders from Limerick +had found Ari Marson, and Ketla of Ruykjanes, supposed to have +been long since drowned at sea, and said that the people had made +him and Ketla chiefs, and baptised Ari. What is all this? +and what is this, too, which the Esquimaux children taken in +Markland told the Northmen, of a land beyond them where the folk +wore white clothes, and carried flags on poles? Are these +all dreams? or was some part of that great civilisation, the +relics <!-- page 69--><a name="page69"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 69</span>whereof your antiquarians find in so +many parts of the United States, still in existence some 900 +years ago; and were these old Norse cousins of ours upon the very +edge of it? Be that as it may, how nearly did these fierce +Vikings, some of whom seemed to have sailed far south along the +shore, become aware that just beyond them lay a land of fruits +and spices, gold, and gems? The adverse current of the Gulf +Stream, it may be, would have long prevented their getting past +the Bahamas into the Gulf of Mexico; but, sooner or later, some +storm must have carried a Greenland viking to San Domingo, or to +Cuba; and then, as has been well said, some Scandinavian dynasty +might have sat upon the throne of Mexico.</p> +<p>These stories are well known to antiquarians. They may +be found, almost all of them, in Professor Rafn’s +<i>Antiquitates Americanæ</i>. The action in them +stands out often so clear and dramatic, that the internal +evidence of historic truth is irresistible. Thorvald, who, +when he saw what seems to be, they say, the bluff head of +Alderton at the south-east end of Boston Bay, said, ‘Here +should I like to dwell,’ and, shot by an Esquimaux arrow, +bade bury him on that place, with a cross at his head and a cross +at his feet, and call the place Cross Ness for evermore; Gudrida, +the magnificent widow, who wins hearts and sees strange deeds +from Iceland to Greenland, and Greenland to Vinland and back, and +at last, worn out and sad, goes <!-- page 70--><a +name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>off on a +pilgrimage to Rome; Helgi and Finnbogi, the Norwegians, who, like +our Arctic voyagers in after times, devise all sorts of sports +and games to keep the men in humour during the long winter at +Hope; and last, but not least, the terrible Freydisa, who when +the Norse are seized with a sudden panic at the Esquimaux, and +flee from them, as they had three weeks before fled from +Thorfinn’s bellowing bull, turns, when so weak that she +cannot escape, single-handed on the savages, and catching up a +slain man’s sword, puts them all to flight with her fierce +visage and fierce cries—Freydisa the Terrible, who, in +another voyage, persuades her husband to fall on Helgi and +Finnbogi, when asleep, and murder them and all their men; and +then, when he will not murder the five women too, takes up an axe +and slays them all herself, and getting back to Greenland, when +the dark and unexplained tale comes out, lives unpunished, but +abhorred henceforth. All these folks, I say, are no +phantoms, but realities; at least, if I can judge of internal +evidence.</p> +<p>But, beyond them, and hovering on the verge of Mythus and +fairy land, there is a ballad called ‘Finn the Fair,’ +and how</p> +<blockquote><p>An upland Earl had twa braw sons,<br /> + My story to begin;<br /> +The tane was hight Haldane the strong,<br /> + The tither was winsome Finn.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 71--><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +71</span>and so forth; which was still sung, with other +‘rimur,’ or ballads, in the Faroes, at the end of the +last century. Professor Rafn has inserted it, because it +talks of Vinland as a well-known place, and because the brothers +are sent by the princess to slay American kings; but that Rime +has another value.</p> +<p>It is of a beauty so perfect, and yet so like the old Scotch +ballads in its heroic conception of love, and in all its forms +and its qualities, that it is one proof more, to any student of +early European poetry, that we and these old Norsemen are men of +the same blood. Your own Professor Longfellow may know it +far better than I, who am no Norse scholar. But, if he +does, might I beg him to translate it some day, as none but he +can translate? It is so sad, that no tenderness less +exquisite than his can prevent its being painful; and, at least +in its denouement, so naive, that no purity less exquisite than +his can prevent its being dreadful. But the Rime is as +worthy of Mr. Longfellow as he is worthy of the Rime.</p> +<p>If anything more important than is told by Professor Rafn and +Mr. Black <a name="citation71"></a><a href="#footnote71" +class="citation">[71]</a> be now known to the antiquarians of +Massachussets, let me entreat them to pardon my ignorance. +But let me record my opinion that, though somewhat too much may +have been made in past years of certain rock-inscriptions, and +<!-- page 72--><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +72</span>so forth, on this side of the Atlantic, there can be no +reasonable doubt that our own race landed and tried to settle on +the shore of New England six hundred years before their kinsmen, +and, in many cases, their actual descendants, the august Pilgrim +Fathers of the 17th century. And so, as I said, a +Scandinavian dynasty might have been seated now upon the throne +of Mexico. And how was that strange chance lost? +First, of course, by the length and danger of the coasting +voyage. It was one thing to have, like Columbus and +Vespucci, Cortes and Pizarro, the Azores as a half-way port; +another to have Greenland, or even Iceland. It was one +thing to run South West upon Columbus’ track, across the +Mar de Damas, the Ladies Sea, which hardly knows a storm, with +the blazing blue above, the blazing blue below, in an +ever-warming climate, where every breath is life and joy; another +to struggle against the fogs and icebergs, the rocks and +currents, of the dreary North Atlantic. No wonder, then, +that the knowledge of Markland, and Vinland, and Whiteman’s +Land died away in a few generations, and became but fire-side +sagas for the winter nights.</p> +<p>But there were other causes, more honourable to the dogged +energy of the Norse. They were in those very years +conquering and settling nearer home as no other +people—unless, perhaps, the old Ionian Greeks, conquered +and settled.</p> +<p><!-- page 73--><a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +73</span>Greenland, we have seen, they held—the western +side at least—and held it long and well enough to afford, +it is said, 2,600 pounds of walrus’ teeth as yearly tithe +to the Pope, besides Peter’s pence, and to build many a +convent, and church, and cathedral, with farms and homesteads +round; for one saga speaks of Greenland as producing wheat of the +finest quality. All is ruined now, perhaps by gradual +change of climate.</p> +<p>But they had richer fields of enterprise than Greenland, +Iceland, and the Faroes. Their boldest outlaws at that very +time—whether from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, or +Britain—were forming the imperial life-guard of the +Byzantine Emperor, as the once famous Varangers of +Constantinople; and that splendid epoch of their race was just +dawning, of which my lamented friend, the late Sir Edmund Head, +says so well in his preface to Viga Glum’s Icelandic +<i>Saga</i>, ‘The Sagas, of which this tale is one, were +composed for the men who have left their mark in every corner of +Europe; and whose language and laws are at this moment important +elements in the speech and institutions of England, America, and +Australia. There is no page of modern history in which the +influence of the Norsemen and their conquests must not be taken +into account—Russia, Constantinople, Greece, Palestine, +Sicily, the coasts of Africa, Southern Italy, France, the Spanish +Peninsula, <!-- page 74--><a name="page74"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 74</span>England, Scotland, Ireland, and every +rock and island round them, have been visited, and most of them +at one time or the other ruled, by the men of Scandinavia. +The motto on the sword of Roger Guiscard was a proud one:</p> +<blockquote><p>Appulus et Calaber, Siculus mihi servit et +Afer.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Every island, says Sir Edmund Head, and truly—for the +name of almost every island on the coast of England, Scotland, +and Eastern Ireland, ends in either <i>ey</i> or <i>ay</i> or +<i>oe</i>, a Norse appellative, as is the word island +itself—is a mark of its having been, at some time or other, +visited by the Vikings of Scandinavia.</p> +<p>Norway, meanwhile, was convulsed by war; and what perhaps was +of more immediate consequence, Svend Fork-beard, whom we +Englishmen call Sweyn—the renegade from that Christian +Faith which had been forced on him by his German conqueror, the +Emperor Otto II.—with his illustrious son Cnut, whom we +call Canute, were just calling together all the most daring +spirits of the Baltic coasts for the subjugation of England; and +when that great feat was performed, the Scandinavian emigration +was paralysed, probably, for a time by the fearful wars at +home. While the King of Sweden, and St. Olaf Tryggvason, +king of Norway, were setting on Denmark during Cnut’s +pilgrimage to Rome, and Cnut, <!-- page 75--><a +name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>sailing with +a mighty fleet to Norway, was driving St. Olaf into Russia, to +return and fall in the fratricidal battle of +Stiklestead—during, strangely enough, a total eclipse of +the sun—Vinland was like enough to remain still +uncolonised. After Cnut’s short-lived +triumph—king as he was of Denmark, Norway, England, and +half Scotland, and what not of Wendish Folk inside the +Baltic—the force of the Norsemen seems to have been +exhausted in their native lands. Once more only, if I +remember right, did ‘Lochlin,’ really and hopefully +send forth her ‘mailed swarm’ to conquer a foreign +land; and with a result unexpected alike by them and by their +enemies. Had it been otherwise, we might not have been here +this day.</p> +<p>Let me sketch for you once more—though you have heard +it, doubtless, many a time—the tale of that tremendous +fortnight which settled the fate of Britain, and therefore of +North America; which decided—just in those great times when +the decision was to be made—whether we should be on a par +with the other civilised nations of Europe, like them the +‘heirs of all the ages,’ with our share not only of +Roman Christianity and Roman centralisation—a member of the +great comity of European nations, held together in one Christian +bond by the Pope—but heirs also of Roman civilisation, +Roman literature, Roman law; and therefore, in due time, of Greek +philosophy and art. No less a question than this, it seems +to me, <!-- page 76--><a name="page76"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 76</span>hung in the balance during that +fortnight of autumn, 1066.</p> +<p>Poor old Edward the Confessor, holy, weak, and sad, lay in his +new choir of Westminster—where the wicked ceased from +troubling, and the weary were at rest. The crowned ascetic +had left no heir behind. England seemed as a corpse, to +which all the eagles might gather together; and the +South-English, in their utter need, had chosen for their king the +ablest, and it may be the justest, man in Britain—Earl +Harold Godwinsson: himself, like half the upper classes of +England then, of the all-dominant Norse blood; for his mother was +a Danish princess. Then out of Norway, with a mighty host, +came Harold Hardraade, taller than all men, the ideal Viking of +his time. Half-brother of the now dead St. Olaf, severely +wounded when he was but fifteen, at Stiklestead, when Olaf fell, +he had warred and plundered on many a coast. He had been +away to Russia to King Jaroslaf; he had been in the +Emperor’s Varanger guard at Constantinople—and, it +was whispered, had slain a lion there with his bare hands; he had +carved his name and his comrades’ in Runic +characters—if you go to Venice you may see them at this +day—on the loins of the great marble lion, which stood in +his time not in Venice but in Athens. And now, king of +Norway and conqueror, for the time, of Denmark, why should he not +take England, as <!-- page 77--><a name="page77"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 77</span>Sweyn and Canute took it sixty years +before, when the flower of the English gentry perished at the +fatal battle of Assingdune? If he and his half-barbarous +host had conquered, the civilisation of Britain would have been +thrown back, perhaps, for centuries. But it was not to +be.</p> +<p>England <i>was</i> to be conquered by the Norman; but by the +civilised, not the barbaric; by the Norse who had settled, but +four generations before, in the North East of France under Rou, +Rollo, Rolf the Ganger—so-called, they say, because his +legs were so long that, when on horseback, he touched the ground +and seemed to gang, or walk. He and his Norsemen had taken +their share of France, and called it Normandy to this day; and +meanwhile, with that docility and adaptability which marks so +often truly great spirits, they had changed their creed, their +language, their habits, and had become, from heathen and +murderous Berserkers, the most truly civilised people of Europe, +and—as was most natural then—the most faithful allies +and servants of the Pope of Rome. So greatly had they +changed, and so fast, that William Duke of Normandy, the +great-great-grandson of Rolf the wild Viking, was perhaps the +finest gentleman, as well as the most cultivated sovereign, and +the greatest statesman and warrior, in all Europe.</p> +<p>So Harold of Norway came with all his Vikings to Stamford +Bridge by York; and took, by coming, <!-- page 78--><a +name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span>only that +which Harold of England promised him, namely, ‘forasmuch as +he was taller than any other man, seven feet of English +ground.’</p> +<p>The story of that great battle, told with a few inaccuracies, +but told as only great poets tell, you should read, if you have +not read it already, in the <i>Heimskringla</i> of Snorri +Sturluson, the Homer of the North—</p> +<blockquote><p>High feast that day held the birds of the air and +the beasts of the field,<br /> +White-tailed erne and sallow glede,<br /> +Dusky raven, with horny neb,<br /> +And the grey deer, the wolf of the wood.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The bones of the slain, men say, whitened the place for fifty +years to come.</p> +<p>And remember, that on the same day on which that fight +befell—Sept. 27, 1066—William, Duke of Normandy, with +all his French-speaking Norsemen, was sailing across the British +Channel, under the protection of a banner consecrated by the +Pope, to conquer that England which the Norse-speaking Normans +could not conquer.</p> +<p>And now King Harold showed himself a man. He turned at +once from the North of England to the South. He raised the +folk of the Southern, as he had raised those of the Central and +Northern shires; and in sixteen days—after a march which in +those <!-- page 79--><a name="page79"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 79</span>times was a prodigious feat—he +was entrenched upon the fatal down which men called Heathfield +then, and Senlac, but Battle to this day—with William and +his French Normans opposite him on Telham hill.</p> +<p>Then came the battle of Hastings. You all know what +befell upon that day; and how the old weapon was matched against +the new—the English axe against the Norman lance—and +beaten only because the English broke their ranks. If you +wish to refresh your memories, read the tale once more in Mr. +Freeman’s <i>History of England</i>, or Prof. +Creasy’s <i>Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World</i>, or +even, best of all, the late Lord Lytton’s splendid romance +of <i>Harold</i>. And when you go to England, go, as some +of you may have gone already, to Battle; and there from off the +Abbey grounds, or from Mountjoy behind, look down off what was +then ‘The Heathy Field,’ over the long slopes of +green pasture and the rich hop-gardens, where were no hop-gardens +then, and the flat tide-marshes winding between the wooded +heights, towards the southern sea; and imagine for yourselves the +feelings of an Englishman as he contemplates that broad green +sloping lawn, on which was decided the destiny of his native +land. Here, right beneath, rode Taillefer up the slope +before them all, singing the song of Roland, tossing his lance in +air and catching it as it fell, with all the <!-- page 80--><a +name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>Norse +berserker spirit of his ancestors flashing out in him, at the +thought of one fair fight, and then purgatory, or +Valhalla—Taillefer perhaps preferred the latter. +Yonder on the left, in that copse where the red-ochre gully runs, +is Sanguelac, the drain of blood, into which (as the Bayeux +tapestry, woven by Matilda’s maids, still shows) the Norman +knights fell, horse and man, till the gully was bridged with +writhing bodies for those who rode after. Here, where you +stand—the crest of the hill marks where it must have +been—was the stockade on which depended the fate of +England. Yonder, perhaps, stalked out one English squire or +house-carle after another: tall men with long-handled +battle-axes—one specially terrible, with a wooden helmet +which no sword could pierce—who hewed and hewed down knight +on knight, till they themselves were borne to earth at +last. And here, among the trees and ruins of the garden, +kept trim by those who know the treasure which they own, stood +Harold’s two standards of the fighting man and the dragon +of Wessex. And here, close by (for here, for many a +century, stood the high altar of Battle Abbey, where monks sang +masses for Harold’s soul), upon this very spot the +Swan-neck found her hero lover’s corpse. +‘Ah,’ says many an Englishman—and who will +blame him for it—‘how grand to have died beneath that +standard on that day!’ Yes, and how right. And +yet how right, likewise, that the <!-- page 81--><a +name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +81</span>Norman’s cry of Dexaie, ‘God Help,’ +and not the English hurrah, should have won that day, till +William rode up Mountjoye in the afternoon to see the English +army, terrible even in defeat, struggling through copse and marsh +away toward Brede, and, like retreating lions driven into their +native woods, slaying more in the pursuit than they slew even in +the fight.</p> +<p>But so it was to be; for so it ought to have been. You, +my American friends, delight, as I have said already, in seeing +the old places of the old country. Go, I beg you, and look +at that old place, and if you be wise, you will carry back from +it one lesson: that God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts; +nor His ways as our ways.</p> +<p>It was a fearful time which followed. I cannot but +believe that our forefathers had been, in some way or other, +great sinners, or two such conquests as Canute’s and +William’s would not have fallen on them within the short +space of sixty years. They did not want for courage, as +Stanford Brigg and Hastings showed full well. English +swine, their Norman conquerors called them often enough; but +never English cowards. Their ruinous vice, if we are to +trust the records of the time, was what the old monks called +accidia—ἀχηδία—and +ranked it as one of the seven deadly sins: a general careless, +sleepy, comfortable habit of mind, which lets all go <!-- page +82--><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>its +way for good or evil—a habit of mind too often accompanied, +as in the case of the Anglo-Danes, with self-indulgence, often +coarse enough. Huge eaters and huger drinkers, fuddled with +ale, were the men who went down at Hastings—though they +went down like heroes—before the staid and sober Norman out +of France.</p> +<p>But those were fearful times. As long as William lived, +ruthless as he was to all rebels, he kept order and did justice +with a strong and steady hand; for he brought with him from +Normandy the instincts of a truly great statesman. And in +his sons’ time matters grew worse and worse. After +that, in the troubles of Stephen’s reign, anarchy let loose +tyranny in its most fearful form, and things were done which +recall the cruelties of the old Spanish conquistadores in +America. Scott’s charming romance of <i>Ivanhoe</i> +must be taken, I fear, as a too true picture of English society +in the time of Richard I.</p> +<p>And what came of it all? What was the result of all this +misery and wrong?</p> +<p>This, paradoxical as it may seem—that the Norman +conquest was the making of the English people; of the Free +Commons of England.</p> +<p>Paradoxical, but true. First, you must dismiss from your +minds the too common notion that there is now, in England a +governing Norman aristocracy, or that there has been one, at +least since the year <!-- page 83--><a name="page83"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 83</span>1215, when Magna Charta was won from +the Norman John by Normans and by English alike. For the +first victors at Hastings, like the first conquistadores in +America, perished, as the monk chronicles point out, rapidly by +their own crimes; and very few of our nobility can trace their +names back to the authentic Battle Abbey roll. The great +majority of the peers have sprung from, and all have intermarried +with, the Commons; and the peerage has been from the first, and +has become more and more as centuries have rolled on, the prize +of success in life.</p> +<p>The cause is plain. The conquest of England by the +Normans was not one of those conquests of a savage by a civilised +race, or of a cowardly race by a brave race, which results in the +slavery of the conquered, and leaves the gulf of caste between +two races, master and slave. That was the case in France, +and resulted, after centuries of oppression, in the great and +dreadful revolution of 1793, which convulsed not only France but +the whole civilised world. But caste, thank God, has never +existed in England, since at least the first generation after the +Norman conquest.</p> +<p>The vast majority, all but the whole population of England, +have been always free; and free, as they are not where caste +exists, to change their occupations. They could intermarry, +if they were able men, into the ranks above them; as they did +sink, if they <!-- page 84--><a name="page84"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 84</span>were unable men, into the ranks below +them. Any man acquainted with the origin of our English +surnames may verify this fact for himself, by looking at the +names of a single parish or a single street of shops. +There, jumbled together, he will find names marking the noblest +Saxon or Angle blood—Kenward or Kenric, Osgood or Osborne, +side by side with Cordery or Banister—now names of farmers +in my own parish—or other Norman-French names which may be, +like those two last, in Battle Abbey roll—and side by side +the almost ubiquitous Brown, whose ancestor was probably some +Danish or Norwegian housecarle, proud of his name Biorn the bear, +and the ubiquitous Smith or Smythe, the smiter, whose forefather, +whether he now be peasant or peer, assuredly handled the tongs +and hammer at his own forge. This holds true equally in New +England and in Old. When I search through (as I delight to +do) your New England surnames, I find the same jumble of +names—West Saxon, Angle, Danish, Norman, and French-Norman +likewise, many of primæval and heathen antiquity, many of +high nobility, all worked together, as at home, to form the Free +Commoners of England.</p> +<p>If any should wish to know more on this curious and important +subject, let me recommend them to study Ferguson’s +<i>Teutonic Name System</i>, a book from which you will discover +that some of our quaintest, <!-- page 85--><a +name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>and seemingly +most plebeian surnames—many surnames, too, which are +extinct in England, but remain in America—are really +corruptions of good old Teutonic names, which our ancestors may +have carried in the German Forest, before an Englishman set foot +on British soil; from which he will rise with the comfortable +feeling that we English-speaking men, from the highest to the +lowest, are literally kinsmen. Nay, so utterly made up now +is the old blood-feud between Norseman and Englishman, between +the descendants of those who conquered and those who were +conquered, that in the children of our Prince of Wales, after 800 +years, the blood of William of Normandy is mingled with the blood +of the very Harold who fell at Hastings. And so, by the +bitter woes which followed the Norman conquest was the whole +population, Dane, Angle, and Saxon, earl and churl, freeman and +slave, crushed and welded together into one homogeneous mass, +made just and merciful towards each other by the most wholesome +of all teachings, a community of suffering; and if they had been, +as I fear they were, a lazy and a sensual people, were taught</p> +<blockquote><p>That life is not as idle ore,<br /> +But heated hot with burning fears,<br /> +And bathed in baths of hissing tears,<br /> +And battered with the strokes of doom<br /> +To shape and use.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 86--><a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +86</span>But how did these wild Vikings become Christian +men? It is a long story. So staunch a race was sure +to be converted only very slowly. Noble missionaries as +Ansgar, Rembert, and Poppo, had worked for 150 years and more +among the heathens of Denmark. But the patriotism of the +Norseman always recoiled, even though in secret, from the fact +that they were German monks, backed by the authority of the +German emperor; and many a man, like Svend Fork-beard, father of +the great Canute, though he had the Kaiser himself for godfather, +turned heathen once more, the moment he was free, because his +baptism was the badge of foreign conquest, and neither pope nor +Kaiser should lord it over him, body or soul. St. Olaf, +indeed, forced Christianity on the Norse at the sword’s +point, often by horrid cruelties, and perished in the +attempt. But who forced it on the Norsemen of Scotland, +England, Ireland, Neustria, Russia, and all the Eastern +Baltic? It was absorbed and in most cases, I believe, +gradually and willingly, as a gospel and good news to hearts worn +out with the storm of their own passions. And whence came +their Christianity? Much of it, as in the case of the +Danes, and still more of the French Normans, came direct from +Rome, the city which, let them defy its influence as they would, +was still the fount of all theology, as well as of all +civilisation. But I must believe that much of it came <!-- +page 87--><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +87</span>from that mysterious ancient Western Church, the Church +of St. Patric, St. Bridget, St. Columba, which had covered with +rude cells and chapels the rocky islets of the North Atlantic, +even to Iceland itself. Even to Iceland; for when that +island was first discovered, about <span +class="smcap">a.d.</span> 840, the Norsemen found in an isle, on +the east and west and elsewhere, Irish books and bells and wooden +crosses, and named that island Papey, the isle of the +popes—some little colony of monks, who lived by fishing, +and who are said to have left the land when the Norsemen settled +in it. Let us believe, for it is consonant with reason and +experience, that the sight of those poor monks, plundered and +massacred again and again by the ‘mailed swarms of +Lochlin,’ yet never exterminated, but springing up again in +the same place, ready for fresh massacre, a sacred plant which +God had planted, and which no rage of man could trample +out—let us believe, I say, that that sight taught at last +to the buccaneers of the old world that there was a purer +manliness, a loftier heroism, than the ferocious self-assertion +of the Berserker, even the heroism of humility, gentleness, +self-restraint, self-sacrifice. That there was a strength +which was made perfect in weakness; a glory, not of the sword but +of the cross. We will believe that that was the lesson +which the Norsemen learnt, after many a wild and bloodstained +voyage, from the monks of Iona or of <!-- page 88--><a +name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>Derry, which +caused the building of such churches as that which Sightrys, king +of Dublin, raised about the year 1030, not in the Norse but in +the Irish quarter of Dublin: a sacred token of amity between the +new settlers and the natives on the ground of a common +faith. Let us believe, too, that the influence of woman was +not wanting in the good work—that the story of St. Margaret +and Malcolm Canmore was repeated, though inversely, in the case +of many a heathen Scandinavian jarl, who, marrying the princely +daughter of some Scottish chieftain, found in her creed at last +something more precious than herself; while his brother or his +cousin became, at Dublin or Wexford or Waterford, the husband of +some saffron-robed Irish princess, ‘fair as an elf,’ +as the old saying was; ‘some maiden of the three +transcendent hues,’ of whom the old book of Linane +says—</p> +<blockquote><p>Red as the blood which flowed from stricken +deer,<br /> +White as the snow on which that blood ran down,<br /> +Black as the raven who drank up that blood.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>—and possibly, as in the case of Brian Boru’s +mother, had given his fair-haired sister in marriage to some +Irish prince, and could not resist the spell of their new creed, +and the spell too, it may be, of some sister of theirs who had +long given up all thought of earthly marriage to tend the undying +fire of St. Bridget among the consecrated virgins of Kildare.</p> +<p><!-- page 89--><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +89</span>I am not drawing from mere imagination. That such +things must have happened, and happened again and again, is +certain to anyone who knows, even superficially, the documents of +that time. And I doubt not that, in manners as well as in +religion, the Norse were humanised and civilised by their contact +with the Celts, both in Scotland and in Ireland, Both peoples had +valour, intellect, imagination: but the Celt had that which the +burly angular Norse character, however deep and stately, and +however humorous, wanted; namely, music of nature, tenderness, +grace, rapidity, playfulness; just the qualities, combining with +the Scandinavian (and in Scotland with the Angle) elements of +character which have produced, in Ireland and in Scotland, two +schools of lyric poetry second to none in the world.</p> +<p>And so they were converted to what was then a dark and awful +creed; a creed of ascetic self-torture and purgatorial fires for +those who escaped the still more dreadful, because endless, doom +of the rest of the human race. But, because it was a sad +creed, it suited better men, who had, when conscience reawakened +in them, but too good reason to be sad; and the minsters and +cloisters which sprang up over the whole of Northern Europe, and +even beyond it, along the dreary western shores of Greenland +itself, are the symbols of a splendid repentance for their own +sins and for the sins of their forefathers.</p> +<p><!-- page 90--><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +90</span>Gudruna herself, of whom I spoke just now, one of those +old Norse heroines who helped to discover America, though a +historic personage, is a symbolic one likewise, and the pattern +of a whole class. She, too, after many journeys to Iceland, +Greenland, and Winland, goes on a pilgrimage to Rome, to get, I +presume, absolution from the Pope himself for all the sins of her +strange, rich, stormy, wayward life.</p> +<p>Have you not read—many of you surely have—La Motte +Fouqué’s <i>Romance of Sintram</i>? It +embodies all that I would say. It is the spiritual drama of +that early middle age; very sad, morbid if you will, but true to +fact. The Lady Verena ought not, perhaps, to desert her +husband, and shut herself up in a cloister. But so she +would have done in those old days. And who shall judge her +harshly for so doing? When the brutality of the man seems +past all cure, who shall blame the woman if she glides away into +some atmosphere of peace and purity, to pray for him whom neither +warnings nor caresses will amend? It is a sad book, +<i>Sintram</i>. And yet not too sad. For they were a +sad people, those old Norse forefathers of ours. Their +Christianity was sad; their minsters sad; there are few sadder, +though few grander, buildings than a Norman church.</p> +<p>And yet, perhaps, their Christianity did not make them +sad. It was but the other and the healthier <!-- page +91--><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>side +of that sadness which they had as heathens. Read which you +will of the old sagas—heathen or half-Christian—the +Eyrbiggia, Viga Glum, Burnt Niall, Grettir the Strong, and, above +all, Snorri Sturluson’s <i>Heimskringla</i> +itself—and you will see at once how sad they are. +There is, in the old sagas, none of that enjoyment of life which +shines out everywhere in Greek poetry, even through its deepest +tragedies. Not in complacency with Nature’s beauty, +but in the fierce struggle with her wrath, does the Norseman feel +pleasure. Nature to him was not, as in Mr. +Longfellow’s exquisite poem, <a name="citation91"></a><a +href="#footnote91" class="citation">[91]</a> the kind old nurse, +to take him on her knee and whisper to him, ever anew, the story +without an end. She was a weird witch-wife, mother of storm +demons and frost giants, who must be fought with steadily, +warily, wearily, over dreary heaths and snow-capped fells, and +rugged nesses and tossing sounds, and away into the boundless +sea—or who could live?—till he got hardened in the +fight into ruthlessness of need and greed. The poor strip +of flat strath, ploughed and re-ploughed again in the short +summer days, would yield no more; or wet harvests spoiled the +crops, or heavy snows starved the cattle. And so the +Norseman launched his ships when the lands were sown in spring, +and went forth to pillage or to trade, as luck would have, to +summerted, as he himself called it; <!-- page 92--><a +name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>and came +back, if he ever came, in autumn to the women to help at +harvest-time, with blood upon his hand. But had he staid at +home, blood would have been there still. Three out of four +of them had been mixed up in some man-slaying, or had some +blood-feud to avenge among their own kin.</p> +<p>The whole of Scandinavia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Orkney, and +the rest, remind me ever of that terrible picture of the great +Norse painter, Tiddeman, in which two splendid youths, lashed +together, in true Norse duel fashion by the waist, are hewing +each other to death with the short axe, about some hot words over +their ale. The loss of life, and that of the most gallant +of the young, in those days must have been enormous. If the +vitality of the race had not been even more enormous, they must +have destroyed each other, as the Red Indians have done, off the +face of the earth. They lived these Norsemen, not to +live—they lived to die. For what cared they? +Death—what was death to them! what it was to the Jomsburger +Viking, who, when led out to execution, said to the headsman, +‘Die! with all pleasure. We used to question in +Jomsburg whether a man felt when his head was off? Now I +shall know; but if I do, take care, for I shall smite thee with +my knife. And meanwhile, spoil not this long hair of mine; +it is so beautiful.’</p> +<p>But, oh! what waste. What might not these men <!-- page +93--><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>have +done if they had sought peace, not war; if they had learned a few +centuries sooner to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly +with their God?</p> +<p>And yet one loves them, blood-stained as they are. Your +own poets, men brought up under circumstances, under ideas the +most opposite to theirs, love them, and cannot help it. And +why? It is not merely for their bold daring, it is not +merely for their stern endurance; nor again that they had in them +that shift and thrift, those steady and common-sense business +habits, which made their noblest men not ashamed to go on voyages +of merchandise. Nor is it, again, that grim +humour—humour as of the modern Scotch—which so often +flashes out into an actual jest, but more usually underlies +unspoken all their deeds. Is it not rather that these men +are our forefathers? that their blood runs in the veins of +perhaps three men out of four in any general assembly, whether in +America or in Britain? Startling as the assertion may be, I +believe it to be strictly true.</p> +<p>Be that as it may, I cannot read the stories of your western +men, the writings of Bret Harte, or Colonel John Hay, for +instance, without feeling at every turn that there are the old +Norse alive again, beyond the very ocean which they first +crossed, 850 years ago.</p> +<p>Let me try to prove my point, and end with a story, as I began +with one.</p> +<p><!-- page 94--><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +94</span>It is just 30 years before the Norman conquest of +England, the evening of the battle of Sticklestead. St. +Olaf’s corpse is still lying unburied on the +hillside. The reforming and Christian king has fallen in +the attempt to force Christianity and despotism on the +Conservative and half-heathen party—the free bonders or +yeoman-farmers of Norway. Thormod, his poet,—the man, +as his name means, of thunder mood—who has been standing in +the ranks, at last has an arrow in his left side. He breaks +off the shaft, and thus sore wounded goes up, when all is lost, +to a farm where is a great barn full of wounded. One Kimbe +comes, a man out of the opposite or bonder part. +‘There is great howling and screaming in there,’ he +says. ‘King Olaf’s men fought bravely enough: +but it is a shame brisk young lads cannot bear their +wounds. On what side wert thou in the fight?’ +‘On the best side,’ says the beaten Thormod. +Kimbe sees that Thormod has a gold bracelet on his arm. +‘Thou art surely a king’s man. Give me thy gold +ring and I will hide thee, ere the bonders kill thee.’</p> +<p>Thormod said, ‘Take it, if thou canst get it. I +have lost that which is worth more;’ and he stretched out +his left hand, and Kimbe tried to take it. But Thormod, +swinging his sword, cut off his hand; and it is said Kimbe +behaved no better over his wound than those he had been +blaming.</p> +<p>Then Thormod went into the barn; and after he <!-- page +95--><a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>had +sung his song there in praise of his dead king, he went into an +inner room, where was a fire, and water warming, and a handsome +girl binding up men’s wounds. And he sat down by the +door; and one said to him ‘Why art thou so dead pale? +Why dost thou not call for the leech?’ Then sung +Thormod—</p> +<blockquote><p>I am not blooming; and the fair<br /> +And slender maiden loves to care<br /> +For blooming youths. Few care for me,<br /> +With Fenri’s gold meal I can’t fee;</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and so forth, improvising after the old Norse fashion.</p> +<p>Then Thormod got up and went to the fire, and stood and warmed +himself. And the nurse-girl said to him, ‘Go out man, +and bring some of the split-firewood which lies outside the +door.’ He went out and brought an armful of wood and +threw it down. Then the nurse-girl looked him in the face +and said, ‘Dreadful pale is this man. Why art thou +so?’ Then sang Thormod—</p> +<blockquote><p>Thou wonderest, sweet bloom, at me,<br /> +A man so hideous to see.<br /> +The arrow-drift o’ertook me, girl,<br /> +A fine-ground arrow in the whirl<br /> +Went through me, and I feel the dart<br /> +Sits, lovely lass, too near my heart.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The girl said, ‘Let me see thy wound.’ Then +<!-- page 96--><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +96</span>Thormod sat down, and the girl saw his wounds, and that +which was in his side, and saw that there was a piece of iron in +it; but could not tell where it had gone. In a stone pot +she had leeks and other herbs, and boiled them, and gave the +wounded men of it to eat. But Thormod said, ‘Take it +away; I have no appetite now for my broth.’ Then she +took a great pair of tongs and tried to pull out the iron; but +the wound was swelled, and there was too little to lay hold +of. Now said Thormod, ‘Cut in so deep that thou canst +get at the iron, and give me the tongs.’ She did as +he said. Then took Thormod the gold bracelet off his hand +and gave it the nurse-girl, and bade her do with it what she +liked.</p> +<p>‘It is a good man’s gift,’ said he. +‘King Olaf gave me the ring this morning.’</p> +<p>Then Thormod took the tongs and pulled the iron out. But +on the iron was a barb, on which hung flesh from the heart, some +red, some white. When he saw that, he said, ‘The king +has fed us well. I am fat, even to the heart’s +roots.’ And so leant back and was dead.</p> +<p>I shall not insult your intelligence by any comment or even +epithet of my own. I shall but ask you was not this man +your kinsman? Does not the story sound, allowing for all +change of manners as well as of time and place, like a scene out +of your own Bret Harte or Colonel John Hay’s writings; a +scene of <!-- page 97--><a name="page97"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 97</span>the dry humour the rough heroism of +your own far West? Yes, as long as you have your <i>Jem +Bludsos</i> and <i>Tom Flynns of Virginia City</i>, the old Norse +blood is surely not extinct, the old Norse spirit is not +dead.</p> +<h2><!-- page 98--><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +98</span>LECTURE IV.<br /> +THE SERVANT OF THE LORD.</h2> +<p>I wish to speak to you to-night about one of those old +despotic empires which were in every case the earliest known form +of civilisation. Were I minded to play the cynic or the +mountebank, I should choose some corrupt and effete despotism, +already grown weak and ridiculous by its decay—as did at +last the Roman and then the Byzantine Empire—and, after +raising a laugh at the expense of the old system say, See what a +superior people you are now,—how impossible, under free and +enlightened institutions, is anything so base and so absurd as +went on, even in despotic France before the Revolution of +1793. Well that would be on the whole true, thank God; but +what need is there to say it?</p> +<p>Let us keep our scorn for our own weaknesses, our blame for +our own sins, certain that we shall gain more instruction, though +not more amusement, by hunting out the good which is in anything +than by hunting out its evil. For me, true to that which I +<!-- page 99--><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +99</span>proposed in my last lecture, I have chosen, not the +worst, but the best despotism which I could find in history, +founded and ruled by a truly heroic personage, one whose name has +become a proverb and a legend, that so I might lift up your +minds, even by the contemplation of an old Eastern empire, to see +that it, too, could be a work and ordinance of God, and its hero +the servant of the Lord. For we are almost bound to call +Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, by this august title +for two reasons—First, because the Hebrew Scriptures call +him so; and next, because he proved himself to be such by his +actions and their consequences—at least in the eyes of +those who believe, as I do, in a far-seeing and far-reaching +Providence, by which all human history is—</p> +<blockquote><p>Bound by gold chains unto the throne of God.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His work was very different from any that need be done, or can +be done, in these our days. But while we thank God that +such work is now as unnecessary as impossible; we may thank God +likewise that, when such work was necessary and possible, a man +was raised up to do it; and to do it, as all accounts assert, +better, perhaps, than it had ever been done before or since.</p> +<p>True, the old conquerors, who absorbed nation after nation, +tribe after tribe, and founded empires on their ruins, are now, I +trust, about to be replaced, <!-- page 100--><a +name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>throughout +the world, as here and in Britain at home, by free self-governed +peoples—</p> +<blockquote><p>The old order changeth, giving place to the +new;<br /> +And God fulfils Himself in many ways,<br /> +Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And that custom of conquest and empire and transplantation did +more than once corrupt the world. And yet in it, too, God +may have more than once fulfilled his own designs, as He did, if +Scripture is to be believed, in Cyrus, well surnamed the Great, +the founder of the Persian Empire some 2,400 years ago. For +these empires, it must be remembered, did at least that which the +Roman Empire did among a scattered number of savage tribes, or +separate little races, hating and murdering each other, speaking +different tongues, and worshipping different gods, and losing +utterly the sense of a common humanity, till they looked on the +people who dwelt in the next valley as fiends, to be sacrificed, +if caught, to their own fiends at home. Among such as +these, empires did introduce order, law, common speech, common +interest, the notion of nationality and humanity. They, as +it were, hammered together the fragments of the human race till +they had moulded them into one. They did it cruelly, +clumsily, ill: but was there ever work done on earth, however +noble, which was not—alas, alas!—done somewhat +ill?</p> +<p><!-- page 101--><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>Let me talk to you a little about the old hero. +He and his hardy Persians should be specially interesting to +us. For in them first does our race, the Aryan race, appear +in authentic history. In them first did our race give +promise of being the conquering and civilising race of the future +world. And to the conquests of Cyrus—so strangely are +all great times and great movements of the human family linked to +each other—to his conquests, humanly speaking, is owing the +fact that you are here, and I am speaking to you at this +moment.</p> +<p>It is an oft-told story: but so grand a one that I must sketch +it for you, however clumsily, once more.</p> +<p>In that mountain province called Farsistan, north-east of what +we now call Persia, the dwelling place of the Persians, there +dwelt, in the sixth and seventh centuries before Christ, a hardy +tribe, of the purest blood of Iran, a branch of the same race as +the Celtic, Teutonic, Greek, and Hindoo, and speaking a tongue +akin to theirs. They had wandered thither, said their +legends, out of the far north-east, from off some lofty plateau +of Central Asia, driven out by the increasing cold, which left +them but two months of summer to ten of winter.</p> +<p>They despised at first—would that they had despised +always!—the luxurious life of the dwellers in the plains, +and the effeminate customs of the Medes—a branch of their +own race who had conquered <!-- page 102--><a +name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span>and +intermarried with the Turanian, or Finnish tribes; and adopted +much of their creed, as well as of their morals, throughout their +vast but short-lived Median Empire. ‘Soft +countries,’ said Cyrus himself—so runs the +tale—‘gave birth to small men. No region +produced at once delightful fruits and men of a warlike +spirit.’ Letters were to them, probably then +unknown. They borrowed them in after years, as they +borrowed their art, from Babylonians, Assyrians, and other +Semitic nations whom they conquered. From the age of five +to that of twenty, their lads were instructed but in two +things—to speak the truth and to shoot with the bow. +To ride was the third necessary art, introduced, according to +Xenophon, after they had descended from their mountain fastnesses +to conquer the whole East.</p> +<p>Their creed was simple enough. Ahura Mazda—Ormuzd, +as he has been called since—was the one eternal Creator, +the source of all light and life and good. He spake his +word, and it accomplished the creation of heaven, before the +water, before the earth, before the cow, before the tree, before +the fire, before man the truthful, before the Devas and beasts of +prey, before the whole existing universe; before every good thing +created by Ahura Mazda and springing from Truth.</p> +<p>He needed no sacrifices of blood. He was to be +worshipped only with prayers, with offerings of the <!-- page +103--><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +103</span>inspiring juice of the now unknown herb Homa, and by +the preservation of the sacred fire, which, understand, was not +he, but the symbol—as was light and the sun—of the +good spirit—of Ahura Mazda. They had no images of the +gods, these old Persians; no temples, no altars, so says +Herodotus, and considered the use of them a sign of folly. +They were, as has been well said of them, the Puritans of the old +world. When they descended from their mountain fastnesses, +they became the iconoclasts of the old world; and the later +Isaiah, out of the depths of national shame, captivity and exile, +saw in them brother-spirits, the chosen of the Lord, whose hero +Cyrus, the Lord was holding by his right hand, till all the foul +superstitions and foul effeminacies of the rotten Semitic peoples +of the East, and even of Egypt itself, should be crushed, though +alas! only for a while, by men who felt that they had a +commission from the God of light and truth and purity, to sweep +out all that with the besom of destruction.</p> +<p>But that was a later inspiration. In earlier, and it may +be happier, times, the duty of the good man was to strive against +all evil, disorder, uselessness, incompetence in their more +simple forms. ‘He therefore is a holy man,’ +says Ormuzd in the Zend-avesta, ‘who has built a dwelling +on the earth, in which he maintains fire, cattle, his wife, his +children, and flocks and herds; he who makes the earth produce +barley, he <!-- page 104--><a name="page104"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 104</span>who cultivates the fruits of the +soil, cultivates purity; he advances the law of Ahura Mazda as +much as if he had offered a hundred sacrifices.’</p> +<p>To reclaim the waste, to till the land, to make a corner of +the earth better than they found it, was to these men to rescue a +bit of Ormuzd’s world out of the usurped dominion of +Ahriman; to rescue it from the spirit of evil and disorder for +its rightful owner, the Spirit of Order and of Good.</p> +<p>For they believed in an evil spirit, these old Persians. +Evil was not for them a lower form of good. With their +intense sense of the difference between right and wrong it could +be nothing less than hateful; to be attacked, exterminated, as a +personal enemy, till it became to them at last impersonate and a +person.</p> +<p>Zarathustra, the mystery of evil, weighed heavily on them and +on their great prophet, Zoroaster—splendour of gold, as I +am told his name signifies—who lived, no man knows clearly +when or clearly where, but who lived and lives for ever, for his +works follow him. He, too, tried to solve for his people +the mystery of evil; and if he did not succeed, who has succeeded +yet? Warring against Ormuzd, Ahura Mazda, was Ahriman, +Angra Mainyus, literally the being of an evil mind, the +ill-conditioned being. He was labouring perpetually to +spoil the good work of Ormuzd alike in nature and in man. +He was the <!-- page 105--><a name="page105"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 105</span>cause of the fall of man, the +tempter, the author of misery and death; he was eternal and +uncreate as Ormuzd was. But that, perhaps, was a corruption +of the purer and older Zoroastrian creed. With it, if +Ahriman were eternal in the past, he would not be eternal in the +future. Somehow, somewhen, somewhere, in the day when three +prophets—the increasing light, the increasing truth, and +the existing truth—should arise and give to mankind the +last three books of the Zend-avesta, and convert all mankind to +the pure creed, then evil should be conquered, the creation +become pure again, and Ahriman vanish for ever; and, meanwhile, +every good man was to fight valiantly for Ormuzd, his true lord, +against Ahriman and all his works.</p> +<p>Men who held such a creed, and could speak truth and draw the +bow, what might they not do when the hour and the man +arrived? They were not a <i>big</i> nation. No; but +they were a great nation, even while they were eating +barley-bread and paying tribute to their conquerors the Medes, in +the sterile valleys of Farsistan.</p> +<p>And at last the hour and the man came. The story is half +legendary—differently told by different authors. +Herodotus has one tale, Xenophon another. The first, at +least, had ample means of information. Astyages is the old +shah of the Median Empire, then at the height of its seeming +might and splendour and <!-- page 106--><a +name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>effeminacy. He has married his daughter, the +princess Mandane, to Cambyses, seemingly a vassal-king or prince +of the pure Persian blood. One night the old man is +troubled with a dream. He sees a vine spring from his +daughter, which overshadows all Asia. He sends for the Magi +to interpret; and they tell him that Mandane will have a son who +will reign in his stead. Having sons of his own, and +fearing for the succession, he sends for Mandane, and, when her +child is born, gives it to Harpagus, one of his courtiers, to be +slain. The courtier relents, and hands it over to a +herdsman, to be exposed on the mountains. The herdsman +relents in turn, and brings the babe up as his own child.</p> +<p>When the boy, who goes by the name of Agradates, is grown, he +is at play with the other herd-boys, and they choose him for a +mimic king. Some he makes his guards, some he bids build +houses, some carry his messages. The son of a Mede of rank +refuses, and Agradates has him seized by his guards and chastised +with the whip. The ancestral instincts of command and +discipline are showing early in the lad.</p> +<p>The young gentleman complains to his father, the father to the +old king, who of course sends for the herdsman and his boy. +The boy answers in a tone so exactly like that in which +Xenophon’s Cyrus would have answered, that I must believe +that both Xenophon’s <!-- page 107--><a +name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>Cyrus and +Herodotus’ Cyrus (like Xenophon’s Socrates and +Plato’s Socrates) are real pictures of a real character; +and that Herodotus’ story, though Xenophon says nothing of +it, is true.</p> +<p>He has done nothing, the noble boy says, but what was +just. He had been chosen king in play, because the boys +thought him most fit. The boy whom he had chastised was one +of those who chose him. All the rest obeyed: but he would +not, till at last he got his due reward. ‘If I +deserve punishment for that,’ says the boy, ‘I am +ready to submit.’</p> +<p>The old king looks keenly and wonderingly at the young king, +whose features seem somewhat like his own. Likely enough in +those days, when an Iranian noble or prince would have a quite +different cast of complexion and of face from a Turanian +herdsman. A suspicion crosses him; and by threats of +torture he gets the truth from the trembling herdsman.</p> +<p>To the poor wretch’s rapture the old king lets him go +unharmed. He has a more exquisite revenge to take, and +sends for Harpagus, who likewise confesses the truth. The +wily old tyrant has naught but gentle words. It is best as +it is. He has been very sorry himself for the child, and +Mandane’s reproaches had gone to his heart. +‘Let Harpagus go home and send his son to be a companion to +the new-found prince. To-night there will be great +sacrifices in honour of the <!-- page 108--><a +name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +108</span>child’s safety, and Harpagus is to be a guest at +the banquet.’</p> +<p>Harpagus comes; and after eating his fill, is asked how he +likes the king’s meat? He gives the usual answer; and +a covered basket is put before him, out of which he is to +take—in Median fashion—what he likes. He finds +in it the head and hands and feet of his own son. Like a +true Eastern he shows no signs of horror. The king asks him +if he knew what flesh he had been eating. He answers that +he knew perfectly. That whatever the king did pleased +him.</p> +<p>Like an Eastern courtier, he knew how to dissemble, but not to +forgive, and bided his time. The Magi, to their credit, +told Astyages that his dream had been fulfilled, that +Cyrus—as we must now call the foundling prince—had +fulfilled it by becoming a king in play, and the boy is let to go +back to his father and his hardy Persian life. But Harpagus +does not leave him alone, nor perhaps, do his own thoughts. +He has wrongs to avenge on his grandfather. And it seems +not altogether impossible to the young mountaineer.</p> +<p>He has seen enough of Median luxury to despise it and those +who indulge in it. He has seen his own grandfather with his +cheeks rouged, his eyelids stained with antimony, living a +womanlike life, shut up from all his subjects in the recesses of +a vast seraglio.</p> +<p>He calls together the mountain rulers; makes friends with +Tigranes, an Armenian prince, a vassal <!-- page 109--><a +name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 109</span>of the +Mede, who has his wrongs likewise to avenge. And the two +little armies of foot-soldiers—the Persians had no +cavalry—defeat the innumerable horsemen of the Mede, take +the old king, keep him in honourable captivity, and so change, +one legend says, in a single battle, the fortunes of the whole +East.</p> +<p>And then begins that series of conquests of which we know +hardly anything, save the fact that they were made. The +young mountaineer and his playmates, whom he makes his generals +and satraps, sweep onward towards the West, teaching their men +the art of riding, till the Persian cavalry becomes more famous +than the Median had been. They gather to them, as a +snow-ball gathers in rolling, the picked youth of every tribe +whom they overcome. They knit these tribes to them in +loyalty and affection by that righteousness—that +truthfulness and justice—for which Isaiah in his grandest +lyric strains has made them illustrious to all time; which +Xenophon has celebrated in like manner in that exquisite book of +his—the <i>Cyropædia</i>. The great Lydian +kingdom of Crœsus—Asia Minor as we call it +now—goes down before them. Babylon itself goes down, +after that world-famed siege which ended in Belshazzar’s +feast; and when Cyrus died—still in the prime of life, the +legends seem to say—he left a coherent and well-organised +empire, which stretched from the Mediterranean to Hindostan.</p> +<p>So runs the tale, which to me, I confess, sounds <!-- page +110--><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +110</span>probable and rational enough. It may not do so to +you; for it has not to many learned men. They are inclined +to ‘relegate it into the region of myth;’ in plain +English, to call old Herodotus a liar, or at least a dupe. +What means those wise men can have at this distance of more than +2000 years, of knowing more about the matter than Herodotus, who +lived within 100 years of Cyrus, I for myself, cannot +discover. And I say this without the least wish to +disparage these hypercritical persons. For there +are—and more there ought to be, as long as lies and +superstitions remain on this earth—a class of thinkers who +hold in just suspicion all stories which savour of the +sensational, the romantic, even the dramatic. They know the +terrible uses to which appeals to the fancy and the emotions have +been applied, and are still applied to enslave the intellects, +the consciences, the very bodies of men and women. They +dread so much from experience the abuse of that formula, that a +thing is so beautiful it must be true, that they are inclined to +reply, ‘Rather let us say boldly, it is so beautiful that +it cannot be true. Let us mistrust, or even refuse to +believe <i>à priori</i>, and at first sight, all +startling, sensational, even poetic tales, and accept nothing as +history, which is not as dull as the ledger of a dry goods’ +store.’ But I think that experience, both in nature +and in society, are against that ditch-water philosophy. +The weather, being governed by laws, <!-- page 111--><a +name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 111</span>ought +always to be equable and normal, and yet you have whirlwinds, +droughts, thunderstorms. The share-market, being governed +by laws, ought to be always equable and normal, and yet you have +startling transactions, startling panics, startling disclosures, +and a whole sensational romance of commercial crime and +folly. Which of us has lived to be fifty years old, without +having witnessed in private life sensation tragedies, alas! +sometimes too fearful to be told, or at least sensational +romances, which we shall take care not to tell, because we shall +not be believed? Let the ditch-water philosophy say what it +will, human life is not a ditch, but a wild and roaring river, +flooding its banks, and eating out new channels with many a +landslip. It is a strange world, and man, a strange animal, +guided, it is true, usually by most commonplace motives; but, for +that reason, ready and glad at times to escape from them and +their dulness and baseness; to give vent, if but for a moment, in +wild freedom, to that demoniac element, which, as Goethe says, +underlies his nature and all nature; and to prefer for an hour, +to the normal and respectable ditch-water, a bottle of champagne +or even a carouse on fire-water, let the consequences be what +they may.</p> +<p>How else shall we explain such a phenomenon as those old +crusades? Were they undertaken for any purpose, commercial +or other? Certainly not for lightening an overburdened +population. Nay, is not <!-- page 112--><a +name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>the history +of your own Mormons, and their exodus into the far West, one of +the most startling instances which the world has seen for several +centuries, of the unexpected and incalculable forces which lie +hid in man? Believe me, man’s passions, heated to +igniting point, rather than his prudence cooled down to freezing +point, are the normal causes of all great human movement. +And a truer law of social science than any that political +economists are wont to lay down, is that old ‘Dov’ +é la Donna’ of the Italian judge, who used to ask, +as a preliminary to every case, civil or criminal, which was +brought before him, ‘Dov’ é la +Donna?’ ‘Where is the lady?’ certain, +like a wise old gentleman, that a woman was most probably at the +bottom of the matter.</p> +<p>Strangeness? Romance? Did any of you ever +read—if you have not you should read—Archbishop +Whately’s <i>Historic Doubts about the Emperor Napoleon the +First</i>? Therein the learned and witty Archbishop proved, +as early as 1819, by fair use of the criticism of Mr. Hume and +the Sceptic School, that the whole history of the great Napoleon +ought to be treated by wise men as a myth and a romance, that +there is little or no evidence of his having existed at all; and +that the story of his strange successes and strange defeats was +probably invented by our Government in order to pander to the +vanity of the English nation.</p> +<p><!-- page 113--><a name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +113</span>I will say this, which Archbishop Whately, in a late +edition, foreshadows, wittily enough—that if one or two +thousand years hence, when the history of the late Emperor +Napoleon the Third, his rise and fall, shall come to be subjected +to critical analysis by future Philistine historians of New +Zealand or Australia, it will be proved by them to be utterly +mythical, incredible, monstrous—and that all the more, the +more the actual facts remain to puzzle their unimaginative +brains. What will they make, two thousand years hence, of +the landing at Boulogne with the tame eagle? Will not that, +and stranger facts still, but just as true, be relegated to the +region of myth, with the dream of Astyages, and the young and +princely herdsman playing at king over his fellow-slaves?</p> +<p>But enough of this. To me, these bits of romance often +seem the truest, as well as the most important, portions of +history.</p> +<p>When old Herodotus tells me how, King Astyages having guarded +the frontier, Harpagus sent a hunter to young Cyrus with a +fresh-killed hare, telling him to open it in private; and how, +sewn up in it was the letter, telling him that the time to rebel +was come, I am inclined to say, That must be true. So +beneath the dignity of history, so quaint and unexpected, it is +all the more likely <i>not</i> to have been invented.</p> +<p>So with that other story—How young Cyrus <!-- page +114--><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +114</span>giving out that his grandfather had made him general of +the Persians, summoned them all, each man with a sickle in his +hand, into a prairie full of thorns, and bade them clear it in +one day; and how when they, like loyal men, had finished, he bade +them bathe, and next day he took them into a great meadow and +feasted them with corn and wine, and all that his father’s +farm would yield, and asked them which day they liked best; and, +when they answered as was to be expected, how he opened his +parable and told them, ‘Choose, then, to work for the +Persians like slaves, or to be free with me.’</p> +<p>Such a tale sounds to me true. It has the very savour of +the parables of the Old Testament; as have, surely, the dreams of +the old Sultan, with which the tale begins. Do they not put +us in mind of the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar, in the Book of +Daniel?</p> +<p>Such stories are actually so beautiful that they are very +likely to be true. Understand me, I only say likely; the +ditch-water view of history is not all wrong. Its advocates +are right in saying great historic changes are not produced +simply by one great person, by one remarkable event. They +have been preparing, perhaps, for centuries. They are the +result of numberless forces, acting according to laws, which +might have been foreseen, and will be foreseen, when the science +of History is more perfectly understood.</p> +<p><!-- page 115--><a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +115</span>For instance, Cyrus could not have conquered the Median +Empire at a single blow, if first that empire had not been +utterly rotten; and next, if he and his handful of Persians had +not been tempered and sharpened, by long hardihood, to the finest +cutting edge.</p> +<p>Yes, there were all the materials for the +catastrophe—the cannon, the powder, the shot. But to +say that the Persians must have conquered the Medes, even if +Cyrus had never lived, is to say, as too many philosophers seem +to me to say, that, given cannon, powder, and shot, it will fire +itself off some day if we only leave it alone long enough.</p> +<p>It may be so. But our usual experience of Nature and +Fact is, that spontaneous combustion is a rare and exceptional +phenomenon; that if a cannon is to be fired, someone must arise +and pull the trigger. And I believe that in Society and +Politics, when a great event is ready to be done, someone must +come and do it—do it, perhaps, half unwittingly, by some +single rash act—like that first fatal shot fired at Fort +Sumter—which makes, as by an electric spark, a whole nation +flash into enduring flame.</p> +<p>But to return to Cyrus and his Persians.</p> +<p>I know not whether the <i>Cyropædia</i> is much read in +your schools and universities. But it is one of the books +which I should like to see, either in a translation or its own +exquisite Greek, in the hands of every <!-- page 116--><a +name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>young +man. It is not all fact. It is but a historic +romance. But it is better than history. It is an +ideal book, like Sidney’s <i>Arcadia</i> or Spenser’s +<i>Fairy Queen</i>—the ideal self-education of an ideal +hero. And the moral of the book—ponder it well, all +young men who have the chance or the hope of exercising authority +among your fellow-men, the noble and most Christian moral of that +heathen book is this: that the path to solid and beneficent +influence over our fellow-men lies, not through brute force, not +through cupidity, but through the highest morality; through +justice, truthfulness, humanity, self-denial, modesty, courtesy, +and all which makes man or woman lovely in the eyes of mortals or +of God.</p> +<p>Yes, the <i>Cyropædia</i> is a noble book, about a noble +personage. But I cannot forget that there are nobler words +by far concerning that same noble personage, in the magnificent +series of Hebrew Lyrics, which begins, ‘Comfort ye, comfort +ye, my people, saith the Lord’—in which the inspired +poet, watching the rise of Cyrus and his Puritans, and the fall +of Babylon, and the idolatries of the East, and the coming +deliverance of his own countrymen, speaks of the Persian hero in +words so grand that they have been often enough applied, and with +all fitness, to one greater than Cyrus, and than all +men:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Who raised up the righteous man from the East,<br +/> +And called him to attend his steps?<br /> +<!-- page 117--><a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +117</span>Who subdued nations at his presence,<br /> +And gave him dominion over kings?<br /> +And made them like the dust before his sword,<br /> +And the driven stubble before his bow?<br /> +He pursueth them, he passeth in safety,<br /> +By a way never trodden before by his feet.<br /> +Who hath performed and made these things,<br /> +Calling the generations from the beginning?<br /> +I, Jehovah, the first and the last, I am the same.</p> +<p>Behold my servant, whom I will uphold;<br /> +My chosen, in whom my soul delighteth;<br /> +I will make my spirit rest upon him,<br /> +And he shall publish judgment to the nations.<br /> +He shall not cry aloud, nor clamour,<br /> +Nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets.<br /> +The bruised reed he shall not break,<br /> +And the smoking flax he shall not quench.<br /> +He shall publish justice, and establish it.<br /> +His force shall not be abated, nor broken,<br /> +Until he has firmly seated justice in the earth,<br /> +And the distant nations shall wait for his Law.<br /> +Thus saith the God, even Jehovah,<br /> +Who created the heavens, and stretched them out;<br /> +Who spread abroad the earth, and its produce,<br /> +I, Jehovah, have called thee for a righteous end,<br /> +And I will take hold of thy hand, and preserve thee,<br /> +And I will give thee for a covenant to the people,<br /> +And for a light to the nations;<br /> +To open the eyes of the blind,<br /> +To bring the captives out of prison,<br /> +And from the dungeon those who dwell in darkness.<br /> +I am Jehovah—that is my name;<br /> +<!-- page 118--><a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +118</span>And my glory will I not give to another,<br /> +Nor my praise to the graven idols.</p> +<p>Who saith to Cyrus—Thou art my shepherd,<br /> +And he shall fulfil all my pleasure:<br /> +Who saith to Jerusalem—Thou shalt be built;<br /> +And to the Temple—Thou shalt be founded.<br /> +Thus saith Jehovah to his anointed,<br /> +To Cyrus whom I hold fast by his right hand,<br /> +That I may subdue nations under him,<br /> +And loose the loins of kings;<br /> +That I may open before him the two-leaved doors,<br /> +And the gates shall not be shut;<br /> +I will go before thee<br /> +And bring the mountains low.<br /> +The gates of brass will I break in sunder,<br /> +And the bars of iron hew down.<br /> +And I will give thee the treasures of darkness,<br /> +And the hoards hid deep in secret places,<br /> +That thou mayest know that I am Jehovah.<br /> +I have surnamed thee, though thou knowest not me.<br /> +I am Jehovah and none else:<br /> +Beside me there is no God.<br /> +I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me,<br /> +That they may know from the rising of the sun,<br /> +And from the west, that there is none beside me;<br /> +I am Jehovah, and none else;<br /> +Forming light, and creating darkness;<br /> +Forming peace, and creating evil.<br /> +I, Jehovah, make all these.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This is the Hebrew prophet’s conception of the great +Puritan of the Old World who went forth with <!-- page 119--><a +name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>such a +commission as this, to destroy the idols of the East, while</p> +<blockquote><p>The isles saw that, and feared,<br /> +And the ends of the earth were afraid;<br /> +They drew near, they came together;<br /> +Everyone helped his neighbour,<br /> +And said to his brother, Be of good courage.</p> +<p>The carver encouraged the smith,<br /> +He that smoothed with the hammer<br /> +Him that smote on the anvil;<br /> +Saying of the solder, It is good;<br /> +And fixing the idol with nails, lest it be moved;</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But all in vain; for as the poet goes on—</p> +<blockquote><p>Bel bowed down, and Nebo stooped;<br /> +Their idols were upon the cattle,<br /> +A burden to the weary beast.<br /> +They stoop, they bow down together;<br /> +They could not deliver their own charge;<br /> +Themselves are gone into captivity.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And what, to return, what was the end of the great Cyrus and +of his empire?</p> +<p>Alas, alas! as with all human glory, the end was not as the +beginning.</p> +<p>We are scarce bound to believe positively the story how Cyrus +made one war too many, and was cut off in the Scythian deserts, +falling before the arrows of mere savages; and how their queen, +Tomyris, poured blood down the throat of the dead corpse, with +the <!-- page 120--><a name="page120"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 120</span>words, ‘Glut thyself with the +gore for which thou hast thirsted.’ But it may be +true—for Xenophon states it expressly, and with +detail—that Cyrus, from the very time of his triumph, +became an Eastern despot, a sultan or a shah, living apart from +his people in mysterious splendour, in the vast fortified palace +which he built for himself; and imitating and causing his nobles +and satraps to imitate, in all but vice and effeminacy, the very +Medes whom he had conquered. And of this there is no +doubt—that his sons and their empire ran rapidly through +that same vicious circle of corruption to which all despotisms +are doomed, and became within 250 years, even as the Medes, the +Chaldeans, the Lydians, whom they had conquered, children no +longer of Ahura Mazda, but of Ahriman, of darkness and not of +light, to be conquered by Alexander and his Greeks even more +rapidly and more shamefully than they had conquered the East.</p> +<p>This is the short epic of the Persian Empire, ending alas! as +all human epics are wont to end, sadly, if not shamefully.</p> +<p>But let me ask you, Did I say too much, when I said, that to +these Persians we owe that we are here to-night?</p> +<p>I do not say that without them we should not have been +here. God, I presume, when He is minded to do anything has +more than one way of doing it.</p> +<p>But that we are to-night the last link in a chain of <!-- page +121--><a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +121</span>causes and effects which reaches as far back as the +emigration of the Persians southward from the plateau of Pamir, +we cannot doubt.</p> +<p>For see. By the fall of Babylon and its empire the Jews +were freed from their captivity—large numbers of them at +least—and sent home to their own Jerusalem. What +motives prompted Cyrus, and Darius after him, to do that +deed?</p> +<p>Those who like to impute the lowest motives may say if they +will, that Daniel and the later Isaiah found it politic to +worship the rising sun, and flatter the Persian conquerors: and +that Cyrus and Darius in turn were glad to see Jerusalem rebuilt, +as an impregnable frontier fortress between them and Egypt. +Be it so; I, who wish to talk of things noble, pure, lovely and +of good report, would rather point you once more to the +magnificent poetry of the later Isaiah which commences at the +40th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, and say—There, upon the +very face of the document, stands written the fact that the +sympathy between the faithful Persian and the faithful +Jew—the two Puritans of the Old World, the two haters of +lies, idolatries, superstitions—was actually as intense as +it ought to have been, as it must have been.</p> +<p>Be that as it may, the return of the Jews to Jerusalem +preserved for us the Old Testament, while it restored to them a +national centre, a sacred city, like that of Delphi to the +Greeks, Rome to the Romans, Mecca <!-- page 122--><a +name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 122</span>to the +Muslim, loyalty to which prevented their being utterly absorbed +by the more civilised Eastern races among whom they had been +scattered abroad as colonies of captives.</p> +<p>Then another, and a seemingly needful link of cause and effect +ensued: Alexander of Macedon destroyed the Persian Empire, and +the East became Greek, and Alexandria, rather than Jerusalem, +became the head-quarters of Jewish learning. But for that +very cause, the Scriptures were not left inaccessible to the mass +of mankind, like the old Pehlevi liturgies of the Zend-avesta, or +the old Sanscrit Vedas, in an obsolete and hieratic tongue, but +were translated into, and continued in, the then all but +world-wide Hellenic speech, which was to the ancient world what +French is to the modern.</p> +<p>Then the East became Roman, without losing its Greek +speech. And under the wide domination of that later Roman +Empire—which had subdued and organised the whole known +world, save the Parthian descendants of those old Persians, and +our old Teutonic forefathers, in their German forests and on +their Scandinavian shores—that Divine book was carried far +and wide, East and West, and South, from the heart of Abyssinia +to the mountains of Armenia, and to the isles of the ocean, +beyond Britain itself to Ireland and to the Hebrides.</p> +<p>And that book—so strangely coinciding with the <!-- page +123--><a name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +123</span>old creed of the earlier Persians—that book, long +misunderstood, long overlain by the dust, and overgrown by the +parasitic fungi of centuries, that book it was which sent to +these trans-Atlantic shores the founders of your great +nation. That book gave them their instinct of freedom, +tempered by reverence for Law. That book gave them their +hatred of idolatry; and made them not only say but act upon their +own words, with these old Persians and with the Jewish prophets +alike, Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou wouldst not; then said +we, Lo, we come. In the volume of the book it is written of +us, that we come to do thy will, O God. Yes, long and +fantastic is the chain of causes and effects, which links you +here to the old heroes who came down from Central Asia, because +the land had grown so wondrous cold, that there were ten months +of winter to two of summer; and when simply after warmth and +life, and food for them and for their flocks, they wandered forth +to found and help to found a spiritual kingdom.</p> +<p>And even in their migration, far back in these dim and mystic +ages, have we found the earliest link of the long chain? +Not so. What if the legend of the change of climate be the +dim recollection of an enormous physical fact? What if it, +and the gradual depopulation of the whole north of Asia be owing, +as geologists now suspect, to the slow and age-long uprise of the +whole of Siberia, thrusting the warm Arctic <!-- page 124--><a +name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span>sea further +and further to the northward, and placing between it and the +Highlands of Thibet an ever-increasing breadth of icy land, +destroying animals, and driving whole races southward, in search +of the summer and the sun?</p> +<p>What if the first link in the chain, as yet conceivable by +man, should be the cosmic changes in the distribution of land and +water, which filled the mouths of the Siberian rivers with frozen +carcases of woolly mammoth and rhinoceros; and those again, doubt +it not, of other revolutions, reaching back and back, and on and +on, into the infinite unknown. Why not? For so are +all human destinies</p> +<blockquote><p>Bound with gold chains unto the throne of God.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><!-- page 125--><a name="page125"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 125</span>LECTURE V.<br /> +ANCIENT CIVILISATION.</h2> +<p>There is a theory abroad in the world just now about the +origin of the human race, which has so many patent and powerful +physiological facts to support it that we must not lightly say +that it is absurd or impossible; and that is, that man’s +mortal body and brain were derived from some animal and ape-like +creature. Of that I am not going to speak now. My +subject is—How this creature called man, from whatever +source derived, became civilised, rational, and moral. And +I am sorry to say there is tacked on by many to the first theory, +another which does not follow from it, and which has really +nothing to do with it, and it is this—that man, with all +his wonderful and mysterious aspirations, always unfulfilled yet +always precious, at once his torment and his joy, his very hope +of everlasting life—that man, I say, developed himself, +unassisted, out of a state of primæval brutishness, simply +by calculations of pleasure and pain, by observing what actions +would <!-- page 126--><a name="page126"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 126</span>pay in the long run and what would +not; and so learnt to conquer his selfishness by a more refined +and extended selfishness, and exchanged his brutality for +worldliness, and then, in a few instances, his worldliness for +next-worldliness. I hope I need not say that I do not +believe this theory. If I did, I could not be a Christian, +I think, nor a philosopher either. At least, if I thought +that human civilisation had sprung from such a dunghill as that, +I should, in honour to my race, say nothing about it, here or +elsewhere.</p> +<p>Why talk of the shame of our ancestors? I want to talk +of their honour and glory. I want to talk, if I talk at +all, about great times, about noble epochs, noble movements, +noble deeds, and noble folk; about times in which the human +race—it may be through many mistakes, alas! and sin, and +sorrow and bloodshed—struggled up one step higher on those +great stairs which, as we hope, lead upward towards the far-off +city of God; the perfect polity, the perfect civilisation, the +perfect religion, which is eternal in the heavens.</p> +<p>Of great men, then, and noble deeds I want to speak. I +am bound to do so first, in courtesy to my hearers. For in +choosing such a subject I took for granted a nobleness and +greatness of mind in them which can appreciate and enjoy the +contemplation of that which is lofty and heroic, and that which +is useful indeed, <!-- page 127--><a name="page127"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 127</span>though not to the purses merely or +the mouths of men, but to their intellects and spirits; that +highest philosophy which, though she can (as has been sneeringly +said of her) bake no bread, can at least do this—and she +alone—make men worthy to eat the bread which God has given +them.</p> +<p>I am bound to speak on such subjects, because I have never yet +met, or read of, the human company who did not require, now and +then at least, being reminded of such times and such +personages—of whatsoever things are just, pure, true, +lovely, and of good report, if there be any manhood and any +praise to think, as St. Paul bids us all, of such things, that we +may keep up in our minds as much as possible a lofty standard, a +pure ideal, instead of sinking to the mere selfish standard which +judges all things, even those of the world to come, by profit and +by loss, and into that sordid frame of mind in which a man grows +to believe that the world is constructed of bricks and timber, +and kept going by the price of stocks.</p> +<p>We are all tempted, and the easier and more prosperous we are, +the more we are tempted, to fall into that sordid and shallow +frame of mind. Sordid even when its projects are most +daring, its outward luxuries most refined; and shallow, even when +most acute, when priding itself most on its knowledge of human +nature, and of the secret springs which, so it dreams, move the +actions and make the history of <!-- page 128--><a +name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span>nations and +of men. All are tempted that way, even the +noblest-hearted. <i>Adhæsit pavimento venter</i>, +says the old psalmist. I am growing like the snake, +crawling in the dust, and eating the dust in which I crawl. +I try to lift up my eyes to the heavens, to the true, the +beautiful, the good, the eternal nobleness which was before all +time, and shall be still when time has past away. But to +lift up myself is what I cannot do. Who will help me? +Who will quicken me? as our old English tongue has it. Who +will give me life? The true, pure, lofty human life which I +did <i>not</i> inherit from the primæval ape, which the +ape-nature in me is for ever trying to stifle, and make me that +which I know too well I could so easily become—a cunninger +and more dainty-featured brute? Death itself, which seems +at times so fair, is fair because even it may raise me up and +deliver me from the burden of this animal and mortal +body—</p> +<blockquote><p>’Tis life, not death, for which I pant;<br +/> +’Tis life, whereof my nerves are scant;<br /> +More life, and fuller, that I want.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Man? I am a man not by reason of my bones and muscles, +nerves and brain, which I have in common with apes and dogs and +horses. I am a man—thou art a man or woman—not +because we have a flesh—God forbid! but because there is a +spirit in us, a divine spark and ray, which nature did not give, +and <!-- page 129--><a name="page129"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 129</span>which nature cannot take away. +And therefore, while I live on earth, I will live to the spirit, +not to the flesh, that I may be, indeed, a <i>man</i>; and this +same gross flesh, this animal ape-nature in me, shall be the very +element in me which I will renounce, defy, despise; at least, if +I am minded to be, not a merely higher savage, but a truly higher +civilised man. Civilisation with me shall mean, not more +wealth, more finery, more self-indulgence—even more +æsthetic and artistic luxury; but more virtue, more +knowledge, more self-control, even though I earn scanty bread by +heavy toil; and when I compare the Cæsar of Rome or the +great king, whether of Egypt, Babylon, or Persia, with the hermit +of the <i>Thebaid</i>, starving in his frock of camel’s +hair, with his soul fixed on the ineffable glories of the unseen, +and striving, however wildly and fantastically, to become an +angel and not an ape, I will say the hermit, and not the +Cæsar, is the civilised man.</p> +<p>There are plenty of histories of civilisation and theories of +civilisation abroad in the world just now, and which profess to +show you how the primæval savage has, or at least may have, +become the civilised man. For my part, with all due and +careful consideration, I confess I attach very little value to +any of them: and for this simple reason that we have no +facts. The facts are lost.</p> +<p>Of course, if you assume a proposition as certainly <!-- page +130--><a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +130</span>true, it is easy enough to prove that proposition to be +true, at least to your own satisfaction. If you assert with +the old proverb, that you may make a silk purse out of a +sow’s ear, you will be stupider than I dare suppose anyone +here to be, if you cannot invent for yourselves all the +intermediate stages of the transformation, however +startling. And, indeed, if modern philosophers had stuck +more closely to this old proverb, and its defining verb +‘make,’ and tried to show how some person or +persons—let them be who they may—men, angels, or +gods—made the sow’s ear into the silk purse, and the +savage into the sage—they might have pleaded that they were +still trying to keep their feet upon the firm ground of actual +experience. But while their theory is, that the sow’s +ear grew into a silk purse of itself, and yet unconsciously and +without any intention of so bettering itself in life; why, I +think that those who have studied the history which lies behind +them, and the poor human nature which is struggling, and sinning, +and sorrowing and failing around them, and which seems on the +greater part of this planet going downwards and not upwards, and +by no means bettering itself, save in the increase of +opera-houses, liquor-bars, and gambling-tables, and that which +pertaineth thereto; then we, I think, may be excused if we say +with the old Stoics—ἐπέχω—I +withhold my judgment. I know nothing about the <!-- page +131--><a name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +131</span>matter yet; and you, O my imaginative, though learned +friends, know I suspect very little either.</p> +<blockquote><p>Eldest of things, Divine Equality:</p> +</blockquote> +<p>so sang poor Shelley, and with a certain truth. For, if, +as I believe, the human race sprang from a single pair, there +must have been among their individual descendants an equality far +greater than any which has been known on earth during historic +times. But that equality was at best, the infantile +innocence of the primary race, which faded away in the race as +quickly, alas! as it does in the individual child. +Divine—therefore it was one of the first blessings which +man lost; one of the last, I fear, to which he will return; that +to which civilisation, even at its best yet known, has not yet +attained, save here and there for short periods; but towards +which it is striving as an ideal goal, and, as I trust, not in +vain.</p> +<p>The eldest of things which we see actually as history, is not +equality, but an already developed hideous inequality, trying to +perpetuate itself, and yet by a most divine and gracious law, +destroying itself by the very means which it uses to keep itself +alive.</p> +<p>‘There were giants in the earth in those days, And +Nimrod began to be a mighty one in the earth’—</p> +<blockquote><p>A mighty hunter; and his game was man.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>No; it is not equality which we see through the dim mists of +bygone ages.</p> +<p><!-- page 132--><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +132</span>What we do see, is—I know not whether you will +think me superstitious or old-fashioned, but so I hold—very +much what the earlier books of the Bible show us under symbolic +laws. Greek histories, Roman histories, Egyptian histories, +Eastern histories, inscriptions, national epics, legends, +fragments of legends—in the New World as in the +Old—all tell the same story. Not the story without an +end, but the story without a beginning. As in the Hindoo +cosmogony, the world stands on an elephant, and the elephant on a +tortoise, and the tortoise on—what? No man +knows. I do not know. I only assert deliberately; +waiting, as Napoleon says, till the world come round to me, that +the tortoise does not stand—as is held by certain +anthropologists, some honoured by me, some personally dear to +me—upon the savages who chipped flints and fed on mammoth +and reindeer in North-western Europe, shortly after the age of +ice, a few hundred thousand years ago. These sturdy little +fellows—the kinsmen probably of the Esquimaux and +Lapps—could have been but the avant-couriers, or more +probably the fugitives from the true mass of +mankind—spreading northward from the Tropics, into climes +becoming, after the long catastrophe of the age of ice, once more +genial enough to support men who knew what decent comfort was, +and were strong enough to get the same, by all means fair or +foul. No. The tortoise of the human race does not +stand on a <!-- page 133--><a name="page133"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 133</span>savage. The savage may stand +on an ape-like creature. I do not say that he does +not. I do not say that he does. I do not know; and no +man knows. But at least I say that the civilised man and +his world stand not upon creatures like to any savage now known +upon the earth. For first, it seems to be most unlikely; +and next, and more important to an inductive philosopher, there +is no proof of it. I see no savages becoming really +civilised men—that is—not merely men who will ape the +outside of our so-called civilisation, even absorb a few of our +ideas; not merely that; but truly civilised men who will think +for themselves, invent for themselves, act for themselves; and +when the sacred lamp of light and truth has been passed into +their hands, carry it on unextinguished, and transmit it to their +successors without running back every moment to get it relighted +by those from whom they received it: and who are +bound—remember that—patiently and lovingly to relight +it for them; to give freely to all their fellow-men of that which +God has given to them and to their ancestors; and let God, not +man, be judge of how much the Red Indian or the Polynesian, the +Caffre or the Chinese, is capable of receiving and of using.</p> +<p>Moreover, in history there is no record, absolutely no record, +as far as I am aware, of any savage tribe civilising +itself. It is a bold saying. I stand by my assertion: +most happy to find myself confuted, even <!-- page 134--><a +name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 134</span>in a single +instance; for my being wrong would give me, what I can have no +objection to possess, a higher opinion than I have now, of the +unassisted capabilities of my fellow-men.</p> +<p>But civilisation must have begun somewhen, somewhere, with +some person, or some family, or some nation; and how did it +begin?</p> +<p>I have said already that I do not know. But I have had +my dream—like the philosopher—and as I have not been +ashamed to tell it elsewhere, I shall not be ashamed to tell it +here. And it is this:—</p> +<p>What if the beginnings of true civilisation in this unique, +abnormal, diseased, unsatisfied, incomprehensible, and truly +miraculous and supernatural race we call man, had been literally, +and in actual fact, miraculous and supernatural likewise? +What if that be the true key to the mystery of humanity and its +origin? What if the few first chapters of the most ancient +and most sacred book should point, under whatever symbols, to the +actual and the only possible origin of civilisation, the +education of a man, or a family by beings of some higher race +than man? What if the old Puritan doctrine of Election +should be even of a deeper and wider application than divines +have been wont to think? What if individuals, if peoples, +have been chosen out from time to time for a special +illumination, that they might be the lights of the earth, and the +salt of the world? What if they have, <!-- page 135--><a +name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>each in +their turn, abused that divine teaching to make themselves the +tyrants, instead of the ministers, of the less enlightened? +To increase the inequalities of nature by their own selfishness, +instead of decreasing them, into the equality of grace, by their +own self-sacrifice? What if the Bible after all was right, +and even more right than we were taught to think?</p> +<p>So runs my dream. If, after I have confessed to it, you +think me still worth listening to, in this enlightened 19th +century, I will go on.</p> +<p>At all events, what we see at the beginning of all known and +half-known history, is not savagery, but high civilisation, at +least of an outward and material kind. Do you demur? +Then recollect, I pray you, that the three oldest peoples known +to history on this planet are Egypt, China, Hindostan. The +first glimpses of the world are always like those which the book +of Genesis gives us; like those which your own continent gives +us. As it was 400 years ago in America, so it was in North +Africa and in Asia 4,000 years ago, or 40,000 for aught I +know. Nay, if anyone should ask—And why not 400,000 +years ago, on Miocene continents long sunk beneath the Tropic +sea? I for one have no rejoinder save—We have no +proofs as yet.</p> +<p>There loom up, out of the darkness of legend, into the as yet +dim dawn of history, what the old <!-- page 136--><a +name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 136</span>Arabs call +Races of pre-Adamite Sultans—colossal monarchies, with +fixed and often elaborate laws, customs, creeds; with +aristocracies, priesthoods—seemingly always of a superior +and conquering race; with a mass of common folk, whether free or +half-free, composed of older conquered races; of imported slaves, +too, and their descendants.</p> +<p>But whence comes the royal race, the aristocracy, the +priesthood? You enquire, and you find that they usually +know not themselves. They are usually—I had almost +dared to say, always—foreigners. They have crossed +the neighbouring mountains. They have come by sea, like +Dido to Carthage, like Manco Cassae and Mama Bello to America, +and they have sometimes forgotten when. At least they are +wiser, stronger, fairer, than the aborigines. They are to +them—as Jacques Cartier was to the Indians of +Canada—as gods. They are not sure that they are not +descended from gods. They are the Children of the Sun, or +what not. The children of light, who ray out such light as +they have, upon the darkness of their subjects. They are at +first, probably, civilisers, not conquerors. For, if +tradition is worth anything—and we have nothing else to go +upon—they are at first few in number. They come as +settlers, or even as single sages. It is, in all tradition, +not the many who influence the few, but the few who influence the +many.</p> +<p>So aristocracies, in the true sense, are formed. But +<!-- page 137--><a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +137</span>the higher calling is soon forgotten. The purer +light is soon darkened in pride and selfishness, luxury and lust; +as in Genesis, the sons of God see the daughters of men, that +they are fair; and they take them wives of all that they +choose. And so a mixed race springs up and increases, +without detriment at first to the commonwealth. For, by a +well-known law of heredity, the cross between two races, probably +far apart, produces at first a progeny possessing the forces, +and, alas! probably the vices of both. And when the sons of +God go in to the daughters of men, there are giants in the earth +in those days, men of renown. The Roman empire, remember, +was never stronger than when the old Patrician blood had mingled +itself with that of every nation round the Mediterranean.</p> +<p>But it does not last. Selfishness, luxury, ferocity, +spread from above, as well as from below. The just +aristocracy of virtue and wisdom becomes an unjust one of mere +power and privilege; that again, one of mere wealth, corrupting +and corrupt; and is destroyed, not by the people from below, but +by the monarch from above. The hereditary bondsmen may +know</p> +<blockquote><p>Who would be free,<br /> +Himself must strike the blow.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But they dare not, know not how. The king must do it for +them. He must become the State. ‘Better one +tyrant,’ as Voltaire said, ‘than many.’ +Better <!-- page 138--><a name="page138"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 138</span>stand in fear of one lion far away, +than of many wolves, each in the nearest wood. And so arise +those truly monstrous Eastern despotisms, of which modern Persia +is, thank God, the only remaining specimen; for Turkey and Egypt +are too amenable of late years to the influence of the free +nations to be counted as despotisms pure and +simple—despotisms in which men, instead of worshipping a +God-man, worship the hideous counterfeit, a +<i>Man-god</i>—a poor human being endowed by public opinion +with the powers of deity, while he is the slave of all the +weaknesses of humanity. But such, as an historic fact, has +been the last stage of every civilisation—even that of +Rome, which ripened itself upon this earth the last in ancient +times, and, I had almost said, until this very day, except among +the men who speak Teutonic tongues, and who have preserved +through all temptations, and reasserted through all dangers, the +free ideas which have been our sacred heritage ever since Tacitus +beheld us, with respect and awe, among our German forests, and +saw in us the future masters of the Roman Empire.</p> +<p>Yes, it is very sad, the past history of mankind. But +shall we despise those who went before us, and on whose +accumulated labours we now stand?</p> +<p>Shall we not reverence our spiritual ancestors? Shall we +not show our reverence by copying them, at least whenever, as in +those old Persians, we see in <!-- page 139--><a +name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 139</span>them +manliness and truthfulness, hatred of idolatries, and devotion to +the God of light and life and good? And shall we not feel +pity, instead of contempt, for their ruder forms of government, +their ignorances, excesses, failures—so excusable in men +who, with little or no previous teaching, were trying to solve +for themselves for the first time the deepest social and +political problems of humanity.</p> +<p>Yes, those old despotisms, we trust, are dead and never to +revive. But their corpses are the corpses, not of our +enemies, but of our friends and predecessors, slain in the +world-old fight of Ormuzd against Ahriman—light against +darkness, order against disorder. Confusedly they fought, +and sometimes ill: but their corpses piled the breach and filled +the trench for us, and over their corpses we step on to what +should be to us an easy victory—what may be to us, yet, a +shameful ruin.</p> +<p>For if we be, as we are wont to boast, the salt of the earth +and the light of the world, what if the salt should lose its +savour? What if the light which is in us should become +darkness? For myself, when I look upon the responsibilities +of the free nations of modern times, so far from boasting of that +liberty in which I delight—and to keep which I freely, too, +could die—I rather say, in fear and trembling, God help us +on whom He has laid so heavy a burden as to make us free; +responsible, each individual of us, not <!-- page 140--><a +name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 140</span>only to +ourselves, but to Him and all mankind. For if we fall we +shall fall I know not whither, and I dare not think.</p> +<p>How those old despotisms, the mighty empires of old time, +fell, we know, and we can easily explain. Corrupt, +luxurious, effeminate, eaten out by universal selfishness and +mutual fear, they had at last no organic coherence. The +moral anarchy within showed through, at last burst through, the +painted skin of prescriptive order which held them +together. Some braver and abler, and usually more virtuous +people, often some little, hardy, homely mountain tribe, saw that +the fruit was ripe for gathering; and, caring nought for superior +numbers—and saying with German Alaric when the Romans +boasted of their numbers, ‘The thicker the hay the easier +it is mowed—struck one brave blow at the huge inflated +wind-bag—as Cyrus and his handful of Persians struck at the +Medes; as Alexander and his handful of Greeks struck afterwards +at the Persians—and behold, it collapsed upon the +spot. And then the victors took the place of the conquered; +and became in their turn an aristocracy, and then a despotism; +and in their turn rotted down and perished. And so the +vicious circle repeated itself, age after age, from Egypt and +Assyria to Mexico and Peru.</p> +<p>And therefore, we, free peoples as we are, have need to watch, +and sternly watch, ourselves. Equality of some kind or +other is, as I said, our natural and seemingly <!-- page 141--><a +name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>inevitable +goal. But which equality? For there are two—a +true one and a false; a noble and a base; a healthful and a +ruinous. There is the truly divine equality, and there is +the brute equality of sheep and oxen, and of flies and +worms. There is the equality which is founded on mutual +envy. The equality which respects others, and the equality +which asserts itself. The equality which longs to raise all +alike, and the equality which desires to pull down all +alike. The equality which says—Thou art as good as I, +and it may be better too, in the sight of God. And the +equality which says—I am as good as thou, and will +therefore see if I cannot master thee.</p> +<p>Side by side, in the heart of every free man, and every free +people, are the two instincts struggling for the mastery, called +by the same name, but bearing the same relation to each other as +Marsyas to Apollo, the Satyr to the God. Marsyas and +Apollo, the base and the noble, are, as in the old Greek legend, +contending for the prize. And the prize is no less an one +than all free people of this planet.</p> +<p>In proportion as that nobler idea conquers, and men unite in +the equality of mutual respect and mutual service, they move one +step further towards realising on earth that Kingdom of God of +which it is written—‘The despots of the nations +exercise dominion over them, and they that exercise authority +over them are called benefactors. But he that will be great +among you let him be the servant of all.’</p> +<p><!-- page 142--><a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +142</span>And in proportion as that base idea conquers, and +selfishness, not self-sacrifice, is the ruling spirit of a State, +men move on, one step forward towards realising that kingdom of +the devil upon earth, ‘Every man for himself and the devil +take the hindmost.’ Only, alas! in that evil equality +of envy and hate, there is no hindmost, and the devil takes them +all alike.</p> +<p>And so is a period of discontent, revolution, internecine +anarchy, followed by a tyranny endured, as in old Rome, by men +once free, because tyranny will at least do for them, what they +were too lazy and greedy and envious to do for themselves.</p> +<blockquote><p>And all because they have forgot<br /> +What ’tis to be a man—to curb and spurn<br /> +The tyrant in us: the ignobler self<br /> +Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute;<br /> +And owns no good save ease, no ill save pain,<br /> +No purpose, save its share in that wild war<br /> +In which, through countless ages, living things<br /> +Compete in internecine greed. Ah, loving God,<br /> +Are we as creeping things, which have no lord?<br /> +That we are brutes, great God, we know too well;<br /> +Apes daintier-featured; silly birds, who flaunt<br /> +Their plumes, unheeding of the fowler’s step;<br /> +Spiders, who catch with paper, not with webs;<br /> +Tigers, who slay with cannon and sharp steel,<br /> +Instead of teeth and claws:—all these we are.<br /> +Are we no more than these, save in degree?<br /> +Mere fools of nature, puppets of strong lusts,<br /> +Taking the sword, to perish by the sword<br /> +<!-- page 143--><a name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +143</span>Upon the universal battle-field,<br /> +Even as the things upon the moor outside?</p> +<p> The heath eats up green grass and delicate +herbs;<br /> +The pines eat up the heath; the grub the pine;<br /> +The finch the grub; the hawk the silly finch;<br /> +And man, the mightiest of all beasts of prey,<br /> +Eats what he lists. The strong eat up the weak;<br /> +The many eat the few; great nations, small;<br /> +And he who cometh in the name of all<br /> +Shall, greediest, triumph by the greed of all,<br /> +And, armed by his own victims, eat up all.<br /> +While ever out of the eternal heavens<br /> +Looks patient down the great magnanimous God,<br /> +Who, Master of all worlds, did sacrifice<br /> +All to Himself? Nay: but Himself to all;<br /> +Who taught mankind, on that first Christmas Day,<br /> +What ’tis to be a man—to give, not take;<br /> +To serve, not rule; to nourish, not devour;<br /> +To lift, not crush; if need, to die, not live.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>‘He that cometh in the name of all’—the +popular military despot—the ‘saviour of his +country’—he is our internecine enemy on both sides of +the Atlantic, whenever he arises—the inaugurator of that +Imperialism, that Cæsarism into which Rome sank, when not +her liberties merely, but her virtues, were decaying out of +her—the sink into which all wicked States, whether +republics or monarchies, are sure to fall, simply because men +must eat and drink for to-morrow they die. The Military and +Bureaucratic Despotism which <!-- page 144--><a +name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>keeps the +many quiet, as in old Rome, by <i>panem et +Circenses</i>—bread and games—or if need be, +Pilgrimages; that the few may make money, eat, drink, and be +merry, as long as it can last. That, let it ape as it +may—as did the Cæsars of old Rome at first—as +another Emperor did even in our own days—the forms of dead +freedom, really upholds an artificial luxury by brute force; and +consecrates the basest of all aristocracies, the aristocracy of +the money bag, by the divine sanction of the bayonet.</p> +<p>That at all risks, even at the price of precious blood, the +free peoples of the earth must ward off from them; for, makeshift +and stop-gap as it is, it does not even succeed in what it tries +to do. It does not last. Have we not seen that it +does not, cannot last? How can it last. This +falsehood, like all falsehoods, must collapse at one touch of +Ithuriel’s spear of truth and fact. And—</p> +<p>‘Then saw I the end of these men. Namely, how Thou +dost set them in slippery places, and casteth them down.</p> +<p>‘Suddenly do they perish, and come to a fearful +end. Yea, like as a dream when one awaketh, so shalt Thou +make their image to vanish out of the city.’</p> +<p>Have we not seen that too, though, thank God, neither in +England nor in the United States?</p> +<p>And then? What then? None knows, and none can +know.</p> +<p><!-- page 145--><a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +145</span>The future of France and Spain, the future of the +Tropical Republics of Spanish America, is utterly blank and dark; +not to be prophesied, I hold, by mortal man, simply because we +have no like cases in the history of the past whereby to judge +the tendencies of the present. Will they revive? +Under the genial influences of free institutions will the good +seed which is in them take root downwards, and bear fruit +upwards? and make them all what that fair France has been, in +spite of all her faults, so often in past years—a joy and +an inspiration to all the nations round? Shall it be +thus? God grant it may; but He, and He alone, can +tell. We only stand by, watching, if we be wise, with pity +and with fear, the working out of a tremendous new social +problem, which must affect the future of the whole civilised +world.</p> +<p>For if the agonising old nations fail to regenerate +themselves, what can befall? What, when even Imperialism +has been tried and failed, as fail it must? What but that +lower depth within the lowest deep?</p> + +<blockquote><p> That +last dread mood<br /> +Of sated lust, and dull decrepitude.<br /> +No law, no art, no faith, no hope, no God.<br /> +When round the freezing founts of life in peevish ring,<br /> +Crouched on the bare-worn sod,<br /> +Babbling about the unreturning spring,<br /> +And whining for dead creeds, which cannot save,<br /> +The toothless nations shiver to their grave.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 146--><a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +146</span>And we, who think we stand, let us take heed lest we +fall. Let us accept, in modesty and in awe, the +responsibility of our freedom, and remember that that freedom can +be preserved only in one old-fashioned way. Let us remember +that the one condition of a true democracy is the same as the one +condition of a true aristocracy, namely, virtue. Let us +teach our children, as grand old Lilly taught our forefathers 300 +years ago—‘It is virtue, gentlemen, yea, virtue that +maketh gentlemen; that maketh the poor rich, the subject a king, +the lowborn noble, the deformed beautiful. These things +neither the whirling wheel of fortune can overturn, nor the +deceitful cavillings of worldlings separate, neither sickness +abate, nor age abolish.’</p> +<p>Yes. Let us teach our children thus on both sides of the +Atlantic. For if they—which God forbid—should +grow corrupt and weak by their own sins, there is no hardier race +now left on earth to conquer our descendants and bring them back +to reason, as those old Jews were brought, by bitter shame and +woe. And all that is before them and the whole civilised +world, would be long centuries of anarchy such as the world has +not seen for ages—a true Ragnarok, a twilight of the very +gods, an age such as the wise woman foretold in the old +Voluspà.</p> +<blockquote><p>When brethren shall be<br /> +Each other’s bane,<br /> +<!-- page 147--><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +147</span>And sisters’ sons rend<br /> +The ties of kin.<br /> +Hard will be that age,<br /> +An age of bad women,<br /> +An axe-age, a sword-age,<br /> +Shields oft cleft in twain,<br /> +A storm-age, a wolf-age,<br /> +Ere earth meet its doom.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>So sang, 2,000 years ago, perhaps, the great unnamed +prophetess of our own race, of what might be, if we should fail +mankind and our own calling and election.</p> +<p>God grant that day may never come. But God grant, also, +that if that day does come, then may come true also what that +wise Vala sang, of the day when gods, and men, and earth should +be burnt up with fire.</p> +<blockquote><p>When slaked Surtur’s flame is,<br /> +Still the man and the maiden,<br /> +Hight Valour and Life,<br /> +Shall keep themselves hid<br /> +In the wood of remembrance.<br /> +The dew of the dawning<br /> +For food it shall serve them;<br /> +From them spring new peoples.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>New peoples. For after all is said, the ideal form of +human society is democracy.</p> +<p>A nation—and, were it even possible, a whole <!-- page +148--><a name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +148</span>world—of free men, lifting free foreheads to God +and Nature; calling no man master—for one is their master, +even God; knowing and obeying their duties towards the Maker of +the Universe, and therefore to each other, and that not from +fear, nor calculation of profit or loss, but because they loved +and liked it, and had seen the beauty of righteousness and trust +and peace; because the law of God was in their hearts, and +needing at last, it may be, neither king nor priest, for each man +and each woman, in their place, were kings and priests to +God. Such a nation—such a society. What nobler +conception of mortal existence can we form? Would not that +be, indeed, the kingdom of God come on earth?</p> +<p>And tell me not that that is impossible—too fair a dream +to be ever realised. All that makes it impossible is the +selfishness, passions, weaknesses, of those who would be blest +were they masters of themselves, and therefore of circumstances; +who are miserable because, not being masters of themselves, they +try to master circumstance, to pull down iron walls with weak and +clumsy hands, and forget that he who would be free from tyrants +must first be free from his worst tyrant, self.</p> +<p>But tell me not that the dream is impossible. It is so +beautiful that it must be true. If not now, nor centuries +hence, yet still hereafter. God would never, as I hold, +have inspired man with that rich imagination <!-- page 149--><a +name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 149</span>had he not +meant to translate, some day, that imagination into fact.</p> +<p>The very greatness of the idea, beyond what a single mind or +generation can grasp, will ensure failure on +failure,—follies, fanaticisms, disappointments, even +crimes, bloodshed, hasty furies, as of children baulked of their +holiday.</p> +<p>But it will be at last fulfilled, filled full, and perfected; +not perhaps here, or among our peoples, or any people which now +exist on earth: but in some future civilisation—it may be +in far lands beyond the sea—when all that you and we have +made and done shall be as the forest-grown mounds of the old +nameless civilisers of the Mississippi valley.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">london</span>: +<span class="smcap">printed by</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">spottiswoode and co.</span>, <span +class="smcap">new-street square</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">and parliament street</span></p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote71"></a><a href="#citation71" +class="footnote">[71]</a> Black, translator of +Mallett’s <i>Northern Antiquities</i>, Supplementary +Chapter I., and Rafn’s <i>Antiquitates +Americanæ</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote91"></a><a href="#citation91" +class="footnote">[91]</a> On the Fiftieth Birthday of +Agassiz.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LECTURES DELIVERED IN AMERICA IN +1874***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 30944-h.htm or 30944-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/9/4/30944 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +</pre></body> +</html> |