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diff --git a/33356.txt b/33356.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..369927e --- /dev/null +++ b/33356.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6217 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Vagabond in Literature, by Arthur Rickett + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Vagabond in Literature + + +Author: Arthur Rickett + + + +Release Date: August 5, 2010 [eBook #33356] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VAGABOND IN LITERATURE*** + + +Transcribed from the 1906 J. M. Dent & Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: William Hazlitt. From a crayon drawing by W. Bewick executed + in 1822] + + + + + + THE VAGABOND + IN LITERATURE + + + BY + ARTHUR RICKETT + + [Picture: Decorative device] + + WITH + SIX PORTRAITS + + * * * * * + + 1906 + LONDON + J. M. DENT & CO. + 29 & 30 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. + + _All Rights Reserved_ + + TO + MY FRIEND + ALFRED E. FLETCHER + + + + +FOREWORD + + +In the introductory paper to this volume an attempt is made to justify +the epithet "Vagabond" as applied to writers of a certain temperament. +This much may be said here: the term Vagabond is used in no derogatory +sense. Etymologically it signifies a wanderer; and such is the meaning +attached to the term in the following pages. Differing frequently in +character and in intellectual power, a basic similarity of temperament +gives the various writers discussed a remarkable spiritual affinity. For +in each one the wandering instinct is strong. Sometimes it may take a +physical, sometimes an intellectual expression--sometimes both. But +always it shows itself, and always it is opposed to the routine and +conventions of ordinary life. + +These papers are primarily studies in temperament; and the literary +aspects have been subordinated to the personal element. In fact, they +are studies of certain forces in modern literature, viewed from a special +standpoint. And the standpoint adopted may, it is hoped, prove +suggestive, though it does not pretend to be exhaustive. + +If the papers on Hazlitt and De Quincey are more fragmentary than the +others, it is because these writers have been already discussed by the +author in a previous volume. It has been thought unnecessary to repeat +the points raised there, and these studies may be regarded therefore as +at once supplementary and complementary. + +My cordial thanks are due to Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, who has taken so +kindly and friendly an interest in this little volume. He was good +enough to read the proofs, and to express his appreciation, especially of +the Borrow and Thoreau articles, in most generous terms. I had hoped, +indeed, that he would have honoured these slight studies by a prefatory +note, and he had expressed a wish to do so. Unhappily, prior claims upon +his time prevented this. The book deals largely, it will be seen, with +those "Children of the Open Air" about whom the eloquent author of +_Aylwin_ so often has written. I am especially glad, therefore, to quote +(with Mr. Watts-Dunton's permission) his fine sonnet, where the +"Vagabond" spirit in its happiest manifestation is expressed. + + "A TALK ON WATERLOO BRIDGE + "THE LAST SIGHT OF GEORGE BORROW + + "We talked of 'Children of the Open Air,' + Who once on hill and valley lived aloof, + Loving the sun, the wind, the sweet reproof + Of storms, and all that makes the fair earth fair, + Till, on a day, across the mystic bar + Of moonrise, came the 'Children of the Roof,' + Who find no balm 'neath evening's rosiest woof, + Nor dews of peace beneath the Morning Star. + We looked o'er London, where men wither and choke, + Roofed in, poor souls, renouncing stars and skies, + And lore of woods and wild wind prophecies, + Yea, every voice that to their fathers spoke: + And sweet it seemed to die ere bricks and smoke + Leave never a meadow outside Paradise." {0} + + A. R. + +London, _October_, 1906 + + + + +CONTENTS + + INTRODUCTION + THE VAGABOND ELEMENT IN MODERN LITERATURE + I Explanation of the term Vagabond 3 + First note of the Vagabond + temperament--restlessness + II Second note of the Vagabond temperament--a passion 4 + for the Earth + Compare this with a passion for Nature + Browning--William Morris--George Meredith + III Third note of the Vagabond temperament--the note of 6 + aloofness + Illustrate from Borrow, Thoreau, Walt Whitman + IV Bohemianism--its relation to Vagabondage 8 + Charles Lamb--a Bohemian rather than a Vagabond + The decadent movement in Verlaine, Baudelaire + The Russian Vagabond--Tolstoy, Gorky + V The Gothic Revival and Vagabondage 12 + VI Robert Browning and his "Vagabond moods" 13 + Tennyson and William Morris compared + VII Effect of the Vagabond temperament upon Literature 15 + I + WILLIAM HAZLITT + I Discussion of the term "complexity" 19 + Illustration from Herbert Spencer, showing that + complexity is of two kinds: (1) Complexity--the + result of degeneration, e.g. cancer in the body; + (2) Complexity--the consequent of a higher + organism, e.g. dog more complex than dog-fish + Complexity and the Vagabond--Neuroticism and Genius + Genius not necessarily morbid because it may have + sprung from a morbid soil. Illustrate from Hazlitt + II Two opposing tendencies in Hazlitt's temperament: 24 + (1) The austere, individualistic, Puritan strain; + (2) The sensuous, voluptuous strain. Illustrations + of each + III The Inquisitiveness of Hazlitt 28 + No patience with readers who will not quit their + own small back gardens. He is for ranging "over + the hills and far away" + Hazlitt and the Country--Country people--Walking + tours + IV The joyfulness of Hazlitt 31 + The joyfulness of the Vagabond a fundamental + quality + V The styles of Hazlitt and De Quincey compared 32 + The tonic wisdom of Hazlitt + II + THOMAS DE QUINCEY + I The call of the Earth and the call of the Town 37 + Compare De Quincey, Charles Dickens, and Elia + The veil of phantasy in De Quincey's writings + seemed to shut him off from the outside world + II Merits and defects of his style. Not a plastic 40 + style, but in the delineation of certain moods + supremely excellent + Compare De Quincey and Oscar Wilde + _Our Ladies of Sorrow_ and _De Profundis_ + III The intellectual grip behind the shifting 45 + phantasies + De Quincey as critic and historian + IV The humour of De Quincey--not very genuine page 48 + Witty rather than humorous + Humour not characteristic of the Vagabond + V De Quincey--Mystic and Logician 52 + The fascination of his personality + III + GEORGE BORROW + I Dreamers in Literature 57 + Romantic autobiography and _Lavengro_ + Borrow on the subject of autobiography + The Celt and the Saxon in Borrow + His egotism + Little objective feeling in his friendships + A self-absorbed and self-contained nature + The Isopel Berners episode discussed + The coldness of Borrow + II His faculty for seizing on the picturesque and 66 + picaresque elements in the world about him + Illustrations from _The Bible in Spain_ + Illustrations from _Lavengro_ + III Borrow and the Gypsies 75 + Mr. Watts-Dunton's tribute to Borrow + Petulengro + Borrow's faculty for characterization + "How to manage a horse on a journey" + IV Borrow and Thomas Hardy compared 82 + Both drawn to characters not "screened by + convention" + Differences in method of presentment + Borrow's greater affinity with Charles Reade + His distinctive originality + The spacious freshness of his writings + In his company always "a wind on the heath" + IV + HENRY D. THOREAU + I Thoreau and his critics 89 + The Saxon attitude towards him + The Walden episode + Too much has been made of it + He went to Walden not to escape ordinary life, but + to fit himself for ordinary life + II His indebtedness to Emerson 93 + His poetic appreciation of Nature + Thoreau on "Walking"--compare with Hazlitt + "Emersonitis"--examples + III Thoreau and the Indians 97 + The Indians were to Thoreau what the Gypsies were + to Borrow. But he lacked the picturesque vigour of + Borrow + His utterances on the Indian character considered + Thoreau and civilization + Swagger and Vagabondage + IV Thoreau as a thinker 104 + His Orientalism + "Donatello" (?) + His power over animals + Thoreau and children--his fondness for them + This _not_ an argument in favour of sociability + Lewis Carroll + The "unsociability" of the Vagabond in general, and + Thoreau in particular + Thoreau and George Meredith + Similarity in attitude towards the Earth + V + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + I Romance--what is it? 117 + Its twofold character + Romanticism analysed + The elfish character of Stevenson's work + II The "Ariel" element in Stevenson predominant 120 + The "unreality" of his fiction + Light but little heat + III The Romantic and the Artist 123 + Blake--Shelley--Keats--Tennyson + His ideal as an artist + His courageous gaiety + IV His captivating grace 126 + The essays discussed--their merits and defects + His indebtedness to Hazlitt, Lamb, Montaigne + His "private bravado" + V The artist exemplified in three ways: (1) The maker 130 + of phrases; (2) The limner of pictures; (3) The + painter of character. Illustrations + Dickens, Browning, and Stevenson--their love of the + grotesque + Treatment of Nature in fiction from the days of + Mrs. Radcliffe to the present day + Scott--the Brontes--Kingsley--Thomas Hardy + Stevenson moralizes + VI Is the "Shorter Catechist" element a weakness? 137 + Edgar Allan Poe and Stevenson + VI + RICHARD JEFFERIES + I Jefferies, Borrow, and Thoreau 141 + The neuroticism of Jefferies + Distinction between susceptibility and passion + II Jefferies as an artist 143 + He loved the Earth with every nerve of his body + His acute sense of touch + Compare with Keats + Illustrations + His writings, studies, and tactile sensation + Their sensuous charm + III His mysticism 148 + Illustration + Compare with Tennyson + Mysticism and hysteria + The psychology of hysteria + "Yoga" and the Sufis + Oriental ecstasies and the trances of Jefferies + Max Nordau--Professor William James + De Quincey and Jefferies compared + IV Differences between Thoreau and Jefferies 156 + Praise and desire alternate in Jefferies' writings + His joy in the beauty and in the plenitude of the + Earth + V Jefferies as a thinker 158 + "All things seem possible in the open air" + Defect in his Nature creed + His attitude towards the animal creation + "Good sport" + His democratic sympathies--influence of Ruskin + His stoicism + His pride and reserve + Our indebtedness to him + VII + WALT WHITMAN + I The supreme example of the Vagabond in Literature 169 + Mr. Swinburne's verdict + Whitman the pioneer of a new order + No question about a "Return to Nature" with Whitman + He never left it. A spiritual native of the woods + and heath + Yet wild only so far as he is cosmic + His songs no mere paeans of rustic solitudes; they + are songs of the crowded streets as well as of the + country roads; of the men and women of every type, + no less than of the fields and streams + No quarrel with civilisation as such + His "rainproof coat" and "good shoes" + Compare with Borrow's big green gamp + II Whitman's attitude towards Art 173 + Two essentials of Art--Sincerity and Beauty + Whitman's allegiance to Sincerity + Why he has chosen the better part + His occasional failure to seize essentials + Illustrations of his powers as an artist + "On the Beach at Night"--"Reconciliation"--"When + lilacs last on the dooryard bloomed" + Whitman's utterances on Death + Whitman's rude nonchalance deliberate, not due to + carelessness + "I furnish no specimens" + Whitman's treatment of sea + The question of outspokenness in Literature + Mr. Swinburne's dictum + Stevenson's criticism--"A Bull in a China Shop" + "The Children of Adam" + Merits and defects of his Sex Cycle + Whitman and Browning + The poetry of animalism + Whitman, William Morris, and Byron + Mr. Burroughs' eulogy of Whitman discussed + The treatment of love in modern poetry + On the whole the defects of Whitman's sex poems + typical of his defects as a writer generally + Characteristics of Whitman's style + III Whitman's attitude towards Humanity 187 + His faith in the "powerful uneducated person" + The Poet of Democracy + Whitman and Victor Hugo + His affection comprehensive rather than deep + Mr. William Clarke's eulogy discussed + The psychology of the social reformer + Whitman and the average man + His egotism--emptied of condescension + Whitman no demagogue--his plain speaking + The Conservatism and conventionality of the masses + Illustration from Mr. Barrie's _Admirable Crichton_ + Democratic poets other than Whitman--Ebenezer + Elliott, Thomas Hood, and Mrs. Browning + Whitman's larger utterance + Whitman and William Morris compared + Affinity with Tolstoy + IV Whitman's attitude towards Life 198 + No moralist--but a philosophy of a kind + The value of "messages" in Literature + Whitman and Browning compared + Whitman and culture + Whitman and science + Compares here with Tennyson and Browning + Tonic influence of his writings + "I shall be good health to you" + His big, genial sanity + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +WILLIAM HAZLITT _Photogravure Frontispiece_ +From a crayon drawing by W. Bewick, executed in 1822 +THOMAS DE QUINCEY 38 +From an engraving by W. H. More +GEORGE BORROW 60 +From a portrait in the possession of Mr. John Murray. +Reproduced by kind permission of Mr. Murray +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 118 +From a woodcut by R. Bryden +RICHARD JEFFERIES 146 +From a photograph. Reproduced by kind permission of the +London Stereoscopic Company +WALT WHITMAN 172 +From a woodcut by R. Bryden + + + + +INTRODUCTION +THE VAGABOND ELEMENT IN MODERN LITERATURE + + + "There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and + stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the + heath."--_Lavengro_. + + + +I + + +There are some men born with a vagrant strain in the blood, an unsatiable +inquisitiveness about the world beyond their doors. Natural +revolutionaries they, with an ingrained distaste for the routine of +ordinary life and the conventions of civilization. The average +common-sense Englishman distrusts the Vagabond for his want of sympathy +with established law and order. Eccentricity and unconventionality smack +to him always of moral obliquity. And thus it is that the literary +Vagabond is looked at askance. One is reminded of Mr. Pecksniff: "Pagan, +I regret to state," observed that gentleman of the Sirens on one +occasion. Unhappily no one pointed out to this apostle of purity that +the naughtiness of the Sirens was not necessarily connected with +paganism, and that the siren disposition has been found even "in choirs +and places where they sing." + +Restlessness, then, is one of the notes of the Vagabond temperament. + +Sometimes the Vagabond is a physical, sometimes only an intellectual +wanderer; but in any case there is about him something of the primal +wildness of the woods and hills. + +Thus it is we find in the same spiritual brotherhood men so different in +genius and character as Hazlitt, De Quincey, Thoreau, Whitman, Borrow, +Jefferies, Stevenson. + +Thoreau turned his back on civilization, and found a new joy of living in +the woods at Maine. 'Tis the Open Road that inspired Whitman with his +rude, melodic chants. Not the ways of men and women, but the flaunting +"pageant of summer" unlocked the floodgates of Jefferies' heart. Hazlitt +was never so gay, never wrote of books with such relish, as when he was +recounting a country walk. There are few more beautiful passages than +those where he describes the time when he walked between Wrexham and +Llangollen, his imagination aglow with some lines of Coleridge. De +Quincey loved the shiftless, nomadic life, and gloried in uncertainties +and peradventures. A wandering, open-air life was absolutely +indispensable to Borrow's happiness; and Stevenson had a schoolboy's +delight in the make-believe of Romance. + + + +II + + +Another note now discovers itself--a passion for the Earth. All these +men had a passion for the Earth, an intense joy in the open air. This +feeling differs from the Nature-worship of poets like Wordsworth and +Shelly. It is less romantic, more realistic. The attitude is not so +much that of the devotee as that of the lover. There is nothing mystical +or abstract about it. It is direct, personal, intimate. I call it +purposely a passion for the Earth rather than a passion for Nature, in +order to distinguish it from the pronounced transcendentalism of the +romantic poets. + +The poet who has expressed most nearly the attitude of these Vagabonds +towards Nature--more particularly that of Thoreau, Whitman, Borrow, and +Jefferies--is Mr. George Meredith. + +Traces of it may be found in Browning with reference to the "old brown +earth," and in William Morris, who exclaimed-- + + "My love of the earth and the worship of it!" + +but Mr. Meredith has given the completest expression to this +Earth-worship. + +One thinks of Thoreau and Jefferies when reading Melampus-- + + "With love exceeding a simple love of the things + That glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck; + Or change their perch on a beat of quivering wings + From branch to branch, only restful to pipe and peck; + Or, bristled, curl at a touch their snouts in a ball; + Or, cast their web between bramble and thorny hook; + The good physician Melampus, loving them all, + Among them walked, as a scholar who reads a book." + +While that ripe oddity, "Juggling Jerry," would have delighted the +"Romany"-loving Borrow. + +Indeed the Nature philosophy of Mr. Meredith, with its virile joy in the +rich plenitude of Nature and its touch of wildness has more in common +with Thoreau, with Jefferies, with Borrow, and with Whitman than with +Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, or even with Tennyson--the first of our +poets to look upon the Earth with the eyes of the scientist. + + + +III + + +But a passion for the Earth is not sufficient of itself to admit within +the charmed circle of the Vagabond; for there is no marked restlessness +about Mr. Meredith's genius, and he lacks what it seems to me is the +third note of the genuine literary Vagabond--the note of aloofness, of +personal detachment. This it is which separates the Vagabond from the +generality of his fellows. No very prolonged scrutiny of the disposition +of Thoreau, Jefferies, and Borrow is needed to reveal a pronounced +shyness and reserve. Examine this trait more closely, and it will +exhibit a certain emotional coldness towards the majority of men and +women. No one can overlook the chill austerity that marks Thoreau's +attitude in social converse. Borrow, again, was inaccessible to a +degree, save to one or two intimates; even when discovered among +congenial company, with the gipsies or with companions of the road like +Isopel Berners, exhibiting, to me, a genial bleakness that is +occasionally exasperating. + +It was his constitutional reserve that militated against the success of +Jefferies as a writer. He was not easy to get on with, not over fond of +his kind, and rarely seems quite at ease save in the solitude of the +fields. + +Whitman seems at first sight an exception. Surely here was a friendly +man if ever there was one. Yet an examination of his life and writings +will compel us to realize a lack of deep personal feeling in the man. He +loves the People rather than the people. Anyone who will go along with +him is a welcome comrade. This catholic spirit of friendliness is +delightful and attractive in many ways, but it has its drawbacks; it is +not possible perhaps to have both extensity and intensity of emotion. +There is the impartial friendliness of the wind and sun about his +salutations. He loves all men--because they are a part of Nature; but it +is the common human element in men and women themselves that attracts +him. There was less of the Ishmaelite about Whitman than about Thoreau, +Borrow, or Jefferies; but the man whose company he really delighted in +was the "powerful, uneducated man"--the artisan and the mechanic. Those +he loved best were those who had something of the elemental in their +natures--those who lived nearest to the earth. Without denying for a +moment that Whitman was capable of genuine affection, I cannot help +feeling, from the impression left upon me by his writings, and by +accounts given by those who knew him, that what I must call an absence of +human _passion_--not necessarily affection--which seems to characterize +more or less the Vagabond generally, may be detected in Whitman, no less +than in Thoreau and Borrow. It would seem that the passion for the +earth, which made them--to use one of Mr. Watts-Dunton's happy +phrases--"Children of the Open Air," took the place of a passion for +human kind. + +In the papers dealing with these writers these points are discussed at +greater length. For the present reference is made to them in order to +illustrate the characteristics of the Vagabond temperament, and to +vindicate my generic title. + +The characteristics, then, which I find in the Vagabond temperament are +(1) Restlessness--the wandering instinct; this expresses itself mentally +as well as physically. (2) A passion for the Earth--shown not only in +the love of the open air, but in a delight in all manifestations of life. +(3) A constitutional reserve whereby the Vagabond, though rejoicing in +the company of a few kindred souls, is put out of touch with the majority +of men and women. This is a temperamental idiosyncrasy, and must not be +confounded with misanthropy. + +These characteristics are not found in equal degree among the writers +treated of in these pages. Sometimes one predominates, sometimes +another. That is to be expected. But to some extent all these +characteristics prevail. + + + +IV + + +There is a certain type of Vagabondage which may be covered by the term +"Bohemianism." But 'tis of a superficial character mostly, and is in the +nature of a town-made imitation. Graces and picturesqueness it may have +of a kind, but it lacks the rough virility, the sturdy grit, which is the +most attractive quality of the best Vagabond. + +Bohemianism indeed is largely an attitude of dress; Vagabondage an +attitude of spirit. At heart the Bohemian is not really unconventional; +he is not nomadic by instinct as is the Vagabond. + +Take the case of Charles Lamb. There was a man whose habits of life were +pleasantly Bohemian, and whose sympathy with the Vagabond temperament has +made some critics over-hastily class him temperamentally with writers +like Hazlitt and De Quincey. He was not a true Vagabond at all. He was +a Bohemian of the finer order, and his graces of character need no +encomium to-day. But he was certainly not a Vagabond. At heart he was +devoted to convention. When released from his drudgery of clerkship he +confessed frankly how potent an influence routine had been and still was +in his life. This is not the tone of the Vagabond. Even Elia's +wanderings on paper are more apparent than real, and there is a method in +his quaintest fantasies. His discursive essays are arabesques observing +geometrical patterns, and though seemingly careless, follow out cunningly +preconceived designs. He only appears to digress; but all his bypaths +lead back into the high road. Hazlitt, on the other hand, was a genuine +digressionalist; so was De Quincey; so was Borrow. There is all the +difference between their literary mosaic and the arabesques of Lamb. And +should one still doubt how to classify Elia, one could scarcely place him +among the "Children of the Open Air." Make what allowance you like for +his whimsical remarks about the country, it is certain that no passion +for the Earth possessed him. + +One characteristic, however, both the Bohemian and the Vagabond have in +common--that is, restlessness. And although there is a restlessness +which is the outcome of superabundant nervous energy--the restlessness of +Dickens in his earlier years, for instance--yet it must be regarded as, +for the most part, a pathological sign. One of the legacies of the +Industrial Revolution has been the neurotic strain which it has +bequeathed to our countrymen. The stress of life upon the nervous system +in this era of commercialism has produced a spirit of feverish unrest +which, permeating society generally, has visited a few souls with special +intensity. It has never been summed up better than by Ruskin, when, in +one of his scornful flashes, he declared that our two objects in life +were: whatever we have, to get more; and wherever we are, to go somewhere +else. Nervous instability is very marked in the case of Hazlitt and De +Quincey; and there was a strain of morbidity in Borrow, Jefferies, and +Stevenson. + +Far more pronounced in its neurotic character is Modern Bohemianism--as I +prefer to call the "town Vagabond." The decadent movement in literature +has produced many interesting artistic figures, but they lack the grit +and the sanity of outlook which undoubtedly marks the Vagabond. In +France to-day morbidity and Vagabondage are inseparable. + +Gallic Vagabonds, such as Verlaine and Baudelaire, interesting as they +are to men of letters and students of psychology, do not engage our +affections as do the English Vagabonds. We do not take kindly to their +personalities. It is like passing through the hot streets after inhaling +the scent of the woodland. There is something stifling and unhealthy +about the atmosphere, and one turns with relief to the vagabondage of men +like Whitman, who are "enamoured of growth out of doors." + +Of profounder interest is the Russian Vagabond. In Russian Literature +the Vagabond seems to be the rule, not the exception. + +Every great Russian writer has more or less of the Vagabond about him. +Tolstoy, it is true, wears the robe of the Moralist, and Tolstoy the +Ascetic cries down Tolstoy the Artist. But I always feel that the most +enduring part of Tolstoy's work is the work of the Vagabond temperament +that lurks beneath the stern preacher. Political and social exigencies +have driven him to take up a position which is certainly not in harmony +with many traits in his nature. + +In the case of Gorky, of course, we have the Vagabond naked and +unashamed. His novels are fervent defences of the Vagabond. What could +be franker than this?--"I was born outside society, and for that reason I +cannot take in a strong dose of its culture, without soon feeling forced +to get outside it again, to wipe away the infinite complications, the +sickly refinements, of that kind of existence. I like either to go about +in the meanest streets of towns, because, though everything there is +dirty, it is all simple and sincere; or else to wander about in the high +roads and across the fields, because that is always interesting; it +refreshes one morally, and needs no more than a pair of good legs to +carry one." Racial differences mark off in many ways the Russian +Vagabond from his English brother; a strange fatalism, a fierce +melancholy, and a nature of greater emotional intensity; but in the +passage quoted how much in common they have also. + + + +V + + +There were literary Vagabonds in England before the nineteenth century. +Many interesting and picturesque figures--Marlowe's, for instance--arrest +the attention of the student, and to some extent the characteristics +noted may be traced in these. But every century, no less than every +country, has its psychological atmosphere, and the modern literary +Vagabond is quite a distinctive individual. Some I know are inclined to +regard Goldsmith as one of the Vagabond band; but, although a charming +Vagabond in many ways, he did not express his Vagabondage in his +writings. The spirit of his time was not conducive to Vagabond +literature. The spirit of the succeeding age especially favoured the +Vagabond strain. + +The Gothic Revival, and the newly-awakened interest in medievalism, +warmed the imaginations of verse men and prose men alike. The impulse to +wander, to scale some "peak in Darien" for the joy of a "wild surmise," +seized every artist in letters--poet, novelist, essayist. A longing for +the mystic world, a passion for the unknown, surged over men's minds with +the same power and impetuosity as it had done in the days of the +Renaissance. Ordinary life had grown uglier, more sordid; life seemed +crushed in the thraldom of mechanism. Men felt like schoolboys pent up +in a narrow whitewashed room who look out of the windows at the smiling +and alluring world beyond the gates. Small wonder that some who hastened +to escape should enter more thoroughly than more cautious souls into the +unconventional and the changeful. + +The swing of the pendulum was sure to come, and it is not surprising that +the mid-century furnishes fewer instances of literary Vagabonds and of +Vagabond moods. But with the pre-Raphaelite Movement an impulse towards +Vagabondage revived. And the era which started with a De Quincey closed +with a Stevenson. + + + +VI + + +Many writers who cannot be classed among the Vagabonds gave occasional +expression to the Vagabond moods which sweep across every artist's soul +at some time or other. It would be beside my purpose to dwell at length +upon these Vagabond moods, for my chief concern is with the +thorough-going wanderer. Mention may be made in passing, however, of +Robert Browning, whose cordial detestation of Bohemianism is so well +known. Outwardly there was far less of the Vagabond about him than about +Tennyson. However the romantic spirit may have touched his boyhood and +youth, there looked little of it in the staid, correctly dressed, +middle-aged gentleman who attended social functions and cheerfully +followed the life conventional. One recalls his disgust with George Sand +and her Bohemian circle, his hatred for spiritualism, his almost +Philistine horror of the shiftless and lawless elements in life. At the +same time I feel that Mr. Chesterton, in his brilliant monograph of the +poet, has overstated the case when he says that "neither all his +liberality nor all his learning ever made him anything but an Englishman +of the middle class." He had mixed blood in his veins, and the fact that +his grandmother was a Creole is not to be lightly brushed aside by a +Chestertonian paradox. For the Southern blood shows itself from time to +time in an unmistakable manner. It is all very well to say that "he +carried the prejudices of his class (i.e. the middle class) into +eternity!" But we have to reckon with the hot passion of "Time's +Revenges," the daring unconventionality of "Fifine at the Fair," and the +rare sympathy and discernment of the gipsy temperament in "The Flight of +the Duchess." Conventional prejudices Browning undoubtedly had, and +there was a splendid level-headedness about the man which kept in check +the extravagances of Vagabondage. + +But no poet who has studied men and women as he had studied them, +pondering with loving care the curious, the complex, the eccentric, could +have failed to break away at times from the outlook of the middle-class +Englishman. + +Tennyson, on the other hand, looking the handsome Vagabond to the life, +living apart from the world, as if its conventions and routine were +distasteful to him, had scarcely a touch of the Vagabond in his +temperament. That he had no Vagabond moods I will not say; for the poet +who had no Vagabond moods has yet to be born. But he frowned them down +as best he could, and in his writings we can see the typical, cultured, +middle-class Englishman as we certainly fail to see in Browning. A great +deal of Tennyson is merely Philistinism made musical. The romantic +temper scarcely touches him at all; and in those noble +poems--"Lucretius," "Ulysses," "Tithonus"--where his special powers find +their happiest expression, the attitude of mind has nothing in common +with that of the Vagabond. It was classic art, not romantic art, that +attracted Tennyson. + +Compare the "Guinevere" of Tennyson with the "Guenevere" of Morris, and +you realize at once the vast difference that separates Sentimentalism +from Romanticism. And Vagabondage can be approached only through the +gateway of Romanticism. + + + +VII + + +In looking back upon these discursive comments on the Vagabond element in +modern literature, one cannot help asking what is the resultant effect of +the Vagabond temperament upon life and thought. As psychologists no +doubt we are content to examine its peculiarities and extravagances +without troubling to ask how far it has made for sanity and sweetness. + +Yet the question sooner or later rises to our lips. This Vagabond +temperament--is its charm and attractiveness merely superficial? I +cannot think so. I think that on the whole its effect upon our +literature has been salutary and beneficial. + +These more eager, more adventurous spirits express for us the holiday +mood of life. For they are young at heart, inasmuch as they have lived +in the sunshine, and breathed in the fresh, untainted air. They have +indeed scattered "a new roughness and gladness" among men and women, for +they have spoken to us of the simple magic of the Earth. + + + + +I +WILLIAM HAZLITT + + + "He that is weary, let him sit, + My soul would stir + And trade in courtesies and wit, + Quitting the fur + To cold complexions needing it." + + GEORGE HERBERT. + + "Men of the world, who know the world like men, + Who think of something else beside the pen." + + BYRON. + + + +I + + +It is not unusual to hear the epithet "complex" flung with a too ready +alacrity at any character who evinces eccentricity of disposition. In +olden days, when regularity of conduct, and conformity even in small +particulars were regarded as moral essentials, the eccentric enjoyed +short shrift. The stake, the guillotine, or the dungeons of the +Inquisition speedily put an end to the eccentricities. A slight measure +of nonconformity was quite enough to earn the appellation of witch or +wizard. One stood no chance as an eccentric unless the eccentricity was +coupled with unusual force of character. + +Alienists assure us that insanity is on the increase, and it is certain +that modern conditions of life have favoured nervous instabilities of +temperament, which express themselves in eccentricities of conduct. But +nervous instability is one thing, complexity another. The fact that they +may co-exist affords us no excuse for confusing them. We speak of a +man's personality, whereas it would be more correct to speak of his +personalities. + +Much has been written of late years about multi-personalities, until the +impression has spread that the possession of a number of differing +personalities is a special form of insanity. This is quite wrong. The +sane, no less than the insane man has a number of personalities, and the +difference between them lies in the power of co-ordination. The sane man +is like a skilful driver who is able to control his team of horses; +whereas the insane man has lost control of his steeds, and allows first +one and then the other to get the mastery of him. + +The personalities are no more numerous than before, only we are made +aware of their number. + +In a sense, therefore, every human being is complex. Inheritance and +environment have left distinctive characteristics, which, if the power of +co-ordination be weakened, take possession of the individual as +opportunity may determine. We usually apply the term personality to the +resulting blend of the various personalities in his nature. In the case +of sane men and women the personality is a very composite affair. What +we are thinking of frequently when we apply the epithet "complex" is a +certain contradictoriness of temperament, the result of opposing strains +of blood. It is the quality, not the quantities, of the personalities +that affects us. If not altogether happy, the expression may in these +cases pass as a rough indication of the opposing element in their nature. +But when used, as it often is, merely to indicate an eccentricity, the +epithet assumes a restricted significance. A may be far more complex +than B; but his power of co-ordination, what we call his will, is strong, +whereas that of B is weak, so we reserve the term complex for the weaker +individual. But why reserve the term complex for a few literary +decadents who have lost the power of co-ordination, and not apply it to a +mind like Shakespeare's, who was certainly as complex a personality as +ever lived? + +Now I do not deny that it is wrong to apply the term complexity to men of +unstable, nervous equilibrium. What I do deny is the right to apply the +term to these men only, thus disseminating the fallacy--too popular +nowadays--that genius and insanity are inseparable. + +As a matter of fact, if we turn to Spencer's exposition of the +evolutionary doctrine we shall find an illustration ready at hand to show +that complexity is of two kinds. Evolution, as he tells us, is a change +from homogeneity to heterogeneity, from a simple to a complex. Thus a +dog is more complex than a dog-fish, a man than a dog, a Shakespeare +greater than a Shaw. But complexity, though a law of Evolution, is not +_the_ law of Evolution. Mere complexity is not necessarily a sign of a +higher organism. It may be induced by injury, as, for instance, the +presence of a marked growth such as cancer. Here we have a more complex +state, but complexity of this kind is on the road to dissolution and +disintegration. Cancer, in fact, in the body is like disaffection in an +army. The unity is disturbed and differences are engendered. Thus, +given a measure of nervous instability, a complexity may be induced, a +disintegration of the composite personality into the various separate +personalities, that bespeaks a lower, not a higher organism. {21} + +Now all this may seem quite impertinent to our subject, but I have +discussed the point at length because complexity is certainly one of the +marks of the Vagabond, and it is important to make quite clear what is +connoted by that term. + +Recognizing, then, the two types of complexity, the type of complexity +with which I am concerned especially in these papers is the higher type. +I have not selected these writers merely on account of their +eccentricities or deviations from the normal. Mere eccentricity has a +legitimate interest for the scientist, but for the psychologist it is of +no particular moment. Hazlitt is not interesting _because_ he was +afflicted with a morbid egotism; or Borrow _because_ he suffered from +fits of melancholia; or De Quincey _because_ he imagined he was in debt +when he had plenty of money. It was because these neurotic signs were +associated with powerful intellects and exceptional imaginations, and +therefore gave a peculiar and distinctive character to their writings--in +short, because they happened to be men of genius, men of higher complex +organisms than the average individual--that they interest so strongly. + +It seems to me a kind of inverted admiration that is attracted to what is +bizarre and out of the way, and confounds peculiarity with cleverness and +eccentricity with genius. + +The real claim that individuals have upon our appreciation and sympathy +is mental and moral greatness; and the sentimental weakness with the +"oddity" is no more rational, no more to be respected, than a sympathy +which extends to physical monstrosities and sees nothing to admire in a +normal, healthy body. + +It may be urged, of course, by some that I have admitted to a neurotic +strain affecting more or less all the Vagabonds treated of in this +volume, and this being so, it is clear that the morbid tendencies in +their temperament must have conditioned the distinctive character of +their genius. + +Now it is quite true that the soil whence the flower of their genius +sprung was in several cases not without a taint; but it does not follow +that the flower itself is tainted. And here we come upon the fallacy +that seems to me to lie at the basis of the doctrine which makes genius +itself a kind of disease. The soil of the rose garden may be manured +with refuse that Nature uses in bringing forth the lovely bloom of the +rose. But the poisonous character of the refuse has been chemically +transformed in giving vitality to the roses. And so from unhealthy +stock, from temperaments affected by disease, have sprung the roses of +genius--transformed by the mysterious alchemy of the imagination into +pure and lovely things. There are, of course, poisonous flowers, just as +there is a type of genius--not the highest type--that is morbid. But +this does not affect my contention that genius is not necessarily morbid +because it may have sprung from a morbid soil. Hazlitt is a case in +point. His temperament was certainly not free from morbidity, and this +morbidity may be traced in his writings. The most signal instance is the +_Liber Amoris_--an unfortunate chapter of sentimental autobiography which +did irreparable mischief to his reputation. But there is nothing morbid +in Hazlitt at his best; and let it be added that the bulk of Hazlitt's +writings displays a noble sanity. + +Much has been written about his less pleasing idiosyncrasies, and no +writer has been called more frequently to account for deficiencies. It +is time surely that we should recall once more the tribute of Lamb: "I +think William Hazlitt to be in his natural and healthy state one of the +wisest and finest spirits breathing." + + + +II + + +The complexity of Hazlitt's temperament was especially emphasized by the +two strong, opposing tendencies that called for no ordinary power of +co-ordination. I mean the austere, individualistic, Puritan strain that +came from his Presbyterian forefathers; and a sensuous, voluptuous strain +that often ran athwart his Puritanism and occasioned him many a mental +struggle. The general effect of these two dements in his nature was +this: In matters of the intellect the Puritan was uppermost; in the realm +of the emotions you felt the dominant presence of the opposing element. + +In his finest essays one feels the presence at once of the Calvinist and +the Epicurean; not as two incompatibles, but as opposing elements that +have blent together into a noble unity; would-be rivals that have +co-ordinated so that from each the good has been extracted, and the less +worthy sides eliminated. Thus the sweetness of the one and the strength +of the other have combined to give more distinction and power to the +utterance. + +Take this passage from one of his lectures:-- + + "The poet of nature is one who, from the elements of beauty, of + power, and of passion in his own breast, sympathises with whatever is + beautiful, and grand, and impassioned in nature, in its simple + majesty, in its immediate appeal to the senses, to the thoughts and + hearts of all men; so that the poet of nature, by the truth, and + depth, and harmony of his mind, may be said to hold communion with + the very soul of nature; to be identified with, and to foreknow, and + to record, the feelings of all men, at all times and places, as they + are liable to the same impressions; and to exert the same power over + the minds of his readers that nature does. He sees things in their + eternal beauty, for he sees them as they are; he feels them in their + universal interest, for he feels them as they affect the first + principles of his and our common nature. Such was Homer, such was + Shakespeare, whose works will last as long as nature, because they + are a copy of the indestructible forms and everlasting impulses of + feature, welling out from the bosom as from a perennial spring, or + stamped upon the senses by the hand of their Maker. The power of the + imagination in them is the representative power of all nature. It + has its centre in the human soul, and makes the circuit of the + universe." + +And this:-- + + "The child is a poet, in fact, when he first plays at hide-and-seek, + or repeats the story of Jack the Giant-killer; the shepherd boy is a + poet when he first crowns his mistress with a garland of flowers; the + countryman when he stops to look at the rainbow; the city apprentice + when he gazes after the Lord Mayor's show; the miser when he hugs his + gold; the courtier who builds his hopes upon a smile; the savage who + paints his idol with blood; the slave who worships a tyrant, or the + tyrant who fancies himself a god; the vain, the ambitious, the proud, + the choleric man, the hero and the coward, the beggar and the king, + the rich and the poor, the young and the old, all live in a world of + their own making; and the poet does no more than describe what all + the others think and act." + + "Poetry is not a branch of authorship; it is the stuff of which our + life is made." + +The artist is speaking in Hazlitt, but beneath the full, rich exuberance +of the artist, you can detect an under-note of austerity. + +Then again, his memorable utterance about the Dissenting minister from +one of his essays on "Court Influence." + + "A Dissenting minister is a character not so easily to be dispensed + with, and whose place cannot be well supplied. It is a pity that + this character has worn itself out; that that pulse of thought and + feeling has ceased almost to beat in the heart of a nation, who, if + not remarkable for sincerity and plain downright well-meaning, are + remarkable for nothing. But we have known some such, in happier + days, who had been brought up and lived from youth to age in the one + constant belief in God and of His Christ, and who thought all other + things but dross compared with the glory hereafter to be revealed. + Their youthful hopes and vanity had been mortified in them, even in + their boyish days, by the neglect and supercilious regards of the + world; and they turned to look into their own minds for something + else to build their hopes and confidence upon. They were true + priests. They set up an image in their own minds--it was truth; they + worshipped an idol there--it was justice. They looked on man as + their brother, and only bowed the knee to the Highest. Separate from + the world, they walked humbly with their God, and lived in thought + with those who had borne testimony of a good conscience, with the + spirits of just men in all ages. . . . Their sympathy was not with + the oppressors, but the oppressed. They cherished in their + thoughts--and wished to transmit to their posterity--those rights and + privileges for asserting which their ancestors had bled on scaffolds, + or had pined in dungeons, or in foreign climes. Their creed, too, + was 'Glory to God, peace on earth, goodwill to man.' This creed, + since profaned and rendered vile, they kept fast through good report + and evil report. This belief they had, that looks at something out + of itself, fixed as the stars, deep as the firmament; that makes of + its own heart an altar to truth, a place of worship for what is + right, at which it does reverence with praise and prayer like a holy + thing, apart and content; that feels that the greatest Being in the + universe is always near it; and that all things work together for the + good of His creatures, under His guiding hand. This covenant they + kept, as the stars keep their courses; this principle they stuck by, + for want of knowing better, as it sticks by them to the last. It + grows with their growth, it does not wither in their decay. It lives + when the almond-tree flourishes, and is not bowed down with the + tottering knees. It glimmers with the last feeble eyesight, smiles + in the faded cheek like infancy, and lights a path before them to the + grave!" + +Here is a man of Puritan lineage speaking; but is it the voice of +Puritanism only? Surely it is a Puritanism softened and refined, a +Puritanism which is free of those harsh and unpleasing elements that have +too often obscured its finer aspects. I know of no passage in his +writings which for spacious eloquence, nobleness of thought, beauty of +expression, can rival this. It was written in 1818, when Hazlitt was +forty years old, and in the plenitude of his powers. + + + +III + + +But the power of co-ordination was not always exerted; perhaps not always +possible. Had it been so, then Hazlitt would not take his place in this +little band of literary Vagabonds. + +There are times when the Puritan element disappears; and it is Hazlitt +the eager, curious taster of life that is presented to us. For there was +the restless inquisitiveness of the Vagabond about him. This gives such +delightful piquancy to many of his utterances. He ranges far and wide, +and is willing to go anywhere for a fresh sensation that may add to the +interest of his intellectual life. He has no patience with readers who +will not quit their own small back gardens. He is for ranging "over the +hills and far away." + +No sympathy he with the readers who take timid constitutionals in +literature, choosing only the well-worn paths. He is a true son of the +road; the world is before him, and high roads and byways, rough paths and +smooth paths, are equally acceptable, provided they add to his zest and +enjoyment. + +Not that he cares for the new merely because it is new. The essay on +"Reading Old Books" is proof enough of that. A literary ramble must not +merely be novel, it must have some element of beauty about it, or he will +revisit the old haunts of whose beauty he has full cognizance. + +The passion for the Earth which was noted as one of the Vagabond's +characteristics is not so pronounced in Hazlitt and De Quincey as with +the later Vagabonds. But it is unmistakable all the same. There are, he +says, "only three pleasures in life pure and lasting, and all derived +from inanimate things--books, pictures, and the face of Nature." The +somewhat curious use of the word "inanimate" here as applied to the "face +of Nature" scarcely does justice to his intense, vivid appreciation of +the life of the open air; but at any rate it differentiates his attitude +towards Nature from that of Wordsworth and his school. It is a feeling +more direct, more concrete, more personal. + +He has no special liking for country people. On the contrary, he thinks +them a dull, heavy class of people. + +"All country people hate one another," he says. "They have so little +comfort that they envy their neighbours the smallest pleasure and +advantage, and nearly grudge themselves the necessaries of life. From +not being accustomed to enjoyment, they become hardened and averse to +it--stupid, for want of thought, selfish, for want of society." + +No; it is the sheer joy of being in the open, and learning what Whitman +called the "profound lesson of reception," that attracted Hazlitt. "What +I like best," he declares, "is to lie whole mornings on a sunny bank on +Salisbury Plain, without any object before me, neither knowing nor caring +how time passes, and thus, 'with light-winged toys and feathered +idleness, to melt down hours to moments.'" A genuine Vagabond mood this. + +Hazlitt, like De Quincey, had felt the glamour of the city as well as the +glamour of the country; not with the irresistibility of Lamb, but for all +that potently. But an instinct for the open, the craving for pleasant +spaces, and the longing of the hard-driven journalist for the gracious +leisure of the country, these things were paramount with both Hazlitt and +De Quincey. + +In Hazlitt's case there is a touch of wildness, a more primal delight in +the roughness and solitude of country places than we find in De Quincey. + +"One of the pleasantest things," says Hazlitt, in true Vagabond spirit, +"is going on a journey; but I like to go by myself." + +The last touch is not only characteristic of Hazlitt, it touches that +note of reserve verging on anti-social sentiment that was mentioned as +characteristic of the Vagabond. + +He justifies his feeling thus with an engaging frankness: "The soul of a +journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel. Do just as one +pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all impediments and of +all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind; much more to get rid of +others. . . . It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone +heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the point of +yonder rolling cloud I plunge into my past being, and revel there, as the +sunburnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave that wafts him to his +native shore. Then long-forgotten things, like 'sunken wrack and sunless +treasures,' burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be +myself again." + + + +IV + + +Taken on the whole, the English literary Vagabond is a man of joy, not +necessarily a cheerful man. There is a deeper quality about joy than +about cheerfulness. Cheerfulness indeed is almost entirely a physical +idiosyncrasy. It lies on the surface. A man, serious and silent, may be +a joyful man; he can scarcely be a cheerful man. Moody as he was at +times, sour-tempered and whimsical as he could be, yet there was a fine +quality of joy about Hazlitt. It is this quality of joy that gives the +sparkle and relish to his essays. He took the same joy in his books as +in his walks, and he communicates this joy to the reader. He appears +misanthropic at times, and rages violently at the world; but 'tis merely +a passing gust of feeling, and when over, it is easy to see how +superficial it was, so little is his general attitude affected by it. + +The joyfulness of the Vagabond is no mere light-hearted, graceful spirit. +It is of a hardy and virile nature--a quality not to be crushed by +misfortune or sickness. Outwardly, neither the lives of Hazlitt nor De +Quincey were what we would call happy. Both had to fight hard against +adverse fates for many years; both had delicate constitutions, which +entailed weary and protracted periods of feeble health. + +But there was a fundamental serenity about them. At the end of a hard +and fruitless struggle with death, Hazlitt murmured, "Well, I've had a +happy life." De Quincey at the close of his long and varied life showed +the same tranquil stoicism that had carried him through his many +difficulties. + +Joyfulness permeates Thoreau's philosophy of life; and until his system +was shattered by a painful and incurable complaint, Jefferies had the +same splendid capacity for enjoyment, a huge satisfaction in noting the +splendour and rich plenitude of the Earth. Whitman's fine optimism +defied every attack from without and within; and the deliberate happiness +of Stevenson, when temptation to despondency was so strong, is one of his +most attractive characteristics. + +Yet the characteristic belongs to the English race, and it is quite other +with the Russian. Melancholy in his cast of thought, and pessimistic in +his philosophy, the Russian Vagabond presents a striking contrast in this +particular. + + + +V + + +Comparing the styles of Hazlitt and De Quincey, one is struck with the +greater fire and vigour of Hazlitt. + +Indeed, the term which De Quincey applied to certain of his +writings--"impassioned prose"--is really more applicable to many of +Hazlitt's essays. The dream fugues of De Quincey are delicately +imaginative, but real passion is absent from them. The silvery, far-away +tones of the opium-eater do not suggest passion. + +Besides, an elaborate, involved style such as his does not readily convey +passion of any kind. It moves along too slowly, at too leisurely a pace. +On the other hand, the prose of Hazlitt was very frequently literally +"impassioned." It was sharp, concise, the sentences rang out resolutely +and clearly. And no veil of phantasy hung at these times between himself +and the object of his description, as with De Quincey, muffling the voice +and blurring the vision. Defects it had, which there is no necessity to +dwell on here, but there was a passion in Hazlitt's nature and writings +which we do not find in his contemporary. + +Trying beyond doubt as was the wayward element in Hazlitt's disposition, +to his friends it is not without its charm as a literary characteristic. +His bitterness against Coleridge in his later years leads him to dwell +the longer upon the earlier meetings, upon the Coleridge of Wem and +Nether Stowey, and thus his very prejudices leave his readers frequently +as gainers. + +A passing whim, a transient resentment, will be the occasion of some +finely discursive essay on abstract virtues and vices. And, after all, +there is at bottom such noble enthusiasm in the man, and where his +subjects were not living people, and his judgment is not blinded by some +small prejudices, how fair, how just, how large and admirable his view. +His faults and failings were of such a character as to bring upon the +owner their own retribution. He paid heavily for his mistakes. His +splenetic moods and his violent dislikes arose not from a want of +sensibility, but from an excess of sensibility. So I do not think they +need seriously disturb us. After all, the dagger he uses as a critic is +uncommonly like a stage weapon, and does no serious damage. + +Better even than his brilliant, suggestive, if capricious, criticisms are +his discursive essays on men and things. These abound in a tonic wisdom, +a breadth of imagination as welcome as they are rare. + + + + +II +THOMAS DE QUINCEY + + + "In thoughts from the visions of the night when deep sleep falleth on + men."--JOB. + + + +I + + +Although a passion for the Earth is a prevalent note in the character of +the literary Vagabond, yet while harking to the call of the country, he +is by no means deaf to the call of the town. With the exception of +Thoreau, who seemed to have been insensible to any magic save that of the +road and woodland, our literary Vagabonds have all felt and confessed to +the spell of the city. It was not, as in the case of Lamb and Dickens, +the one compelling influence, but it was an influence of no small +potency. + +The first important event in De Quincey's life was the roaming life on +the hillside of North Wales; the second, the wanderings in "stony-hearted +Oxford Street." Later on the spell of London faded away, and a longing +for the country possessed him once more. But the spell of London was +important in shaping his literary life, and must not be under-estimated. +Mention has been made of Lamb and Dickens, to whom the life of the town +meant so much, and whose inspiration they could not forgo without a pang. +But these men were not attracted in the same way as De Quincey. What +drew De Quincey to London was its mystery; whereas it was the stir and +colour of the crowded streets that stirred the imagination of the two +Charles's. We scarcely realize as we read of those harsh experiences, +those bitter struggles with poverty and loneliness, that the man is +writing of his life in London, is speaking of some well-known +thoroughfares. It is like viewing a familiar scene in the moonlight, +when all looks strange and weird. A faint but palpable veil of phantasy +seemed to shut off De Quincey from the outside world. In his most +poignant passages the voice has a ghostly ring; in his most realistic +descriptions there is a dreamlike unreality. A tender and sensitive soul +in his dealings with others, there are no tears in his writings. One has +only to compare the early recorded struggles of Dickens with those of De +Quincey to feel the difference between the two temperaments. The one +passionately concrete, the other dispassionately abstract. De Quincey +will take some heartfelt episode and deck it out in so elaborate a +panoply of rhetoric that the human element seems to have vanished. +Beautiful as are many of the passages describing the pathetic outcast +Ann, the reader is too conscious of the stylist and the full-dress +stylist. + +That he feels what he is writing of, one does not doubt; but he does not +suit his manner to his matter. For expressing subtle emotions, half +shades of thought, no writer is more wonderfully adept than De Quincey. +But when the episode demands simple and direct treatment his elaborate +cadences feel out of place. + +When he pauses in his description to apostrophize, then the disparity +affects one far less; as, for instance, in this apostrophe to +"noble-minded" Ann after recalling how on one occasion she had saved his +life. + + [Picture: Thomas de Quincey] + + "O youthful benefactress! how often in succeeding years, standing in + solitary places, and thinking of thee with grief of heart and perfect + love--how often have I wished that, as in ancient times the curse of + a father was believed to have a supernatural power, and to pursue its + object with a fatal necessity of self-fulfilment, even so the + benediction of a heart oppressed with gratitude might have a like + prerogative; might have power given it from above to chase, to haunt, + to waylay, to pursue thee into the central darkness of a London + brothel, or (if it were possible) even into the darkness of the + grave, there to awaken thee with an authentic message of peace and + forgiveness, and of final reconciliation!" + +Perhaps the passage describing how he befriended the small servant girl +in the half-deserted house in Greek Street is among the happiest, despite +a note of artificiality towards the close:-- + + "Towards nightfall I went down to Greek Street, and found, on taking + possession of my new quarters, that the house already contained one + single inmate--a poor, friendless child, apparently ten years old; + but she seemed hunger-bitten; and sufferings of that sort often make + children look older than they are. From this forlorn child I learned + that she had slept and lived there alone for some time before I came; + and great joy the poor creature expressed when she found that I was + in future to be her companion through the hours of darkness. The + house could hardly be called large--that is, it was not large on each + separate storey; but, having four storeys in all, it was large enough + to impress vividly the sense of its echoing loneliness; and, from the + want of furniture, the noise of the rats made a prodigious uproar on + the staircase and hall; so that, amidst the real fleshly ills of cold + and hunger, the forsaken child had found leisure to suffer still more + from the self-created one of ghosts. Against these enemies I could + promise her protection; human companionship was in itself protection; + but of other and more needful aid I had, alas! little to offer. We + lay upon the floor, with a bundle of law papers for a pillow, but + with no other covering than a large horseman's cloak; afterwards, + however, we discovered in a garret an old sofa-cover, a small piece + of rug, and some fragments of other articles, which added a little to + our comfort. The poor child crept close to me for warmth, and for + security against her ghostly enemies. . . . Apart from her + situation, she was not what would be called an interesting child. + She was neither pretty, nor quick in understanding, nor remarkably + pleasing in manners. But, thank God! even in those years I needed + not the embellishments of elegant accessories to conciliate my + affections. Plain human nature, in its humblest and most homely + apparel, was enough for me; and I loved the child because she was my + partner in wretchedness." + + + +II + + +I cannot agree with Mr. H. S. Salt when, in the course of a clever and +interesting biographical study of De Quincey, {40} he says: "It (in _re_ +style) conveys precisely the sense that is intended, and attains its +effect far less by rhetorical artifice than by an almost faultless +instinct in the choice and use of words." + +In the delineation of certain moods he is supremely excellent. But +surely the style is not a plastic style; and its appeal to the ear rather +than to the pictorial faculty limits its emotional effect upon the +reader. Images pass before his eyes, and he tries to depict them by +cunningly devised phrases; but the veil of phantasy through which he sees +those images has blurred their outline and dimmed their colouring. The +phrase arrests by its musical cadences, by its solemn, mournful music. +Even some of his most admirable pieces--the dream fugues, leave the +reader dissatisfied, when they touch poignant realities like sorrow. +Despite its many beauties, that dream fugue, "Our Ladies of Sorrow," +seems too misty, too ethereal in texture for the intense actuality of the +subject. Compare some of its passages with passages from another +prose-poet, Oscar Wilde, where no veil of phantasy comes between the +percipient and the thing perceived, and it will be strange if the reader +does not feel that the later writer has a finer instinct for the choice +and use of words. + +It would be untrue to say that Wilde's instinct was faultless. A garish +artificiality spoils much of his work; but this was through wilful +perversity. Even in his earlier work--in that wonderful book, _Dorian +Gray_, he realized the compelling charm of simplicity in style. His +fairy stories, _The Happy Prince_, for instance, are little masterpieces +of simple, restrained writing, and in the last things that came from his +pen there is a growing appreciation of the value of simplicity. + +De Quincey never realized this; he recognized one form of art--the +decorative. And although he became a master of that form, it was +inevitable that at times this mode of art should fail in its effect. + +Here is a passage from _Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow_:-- + + "The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachrymarum, Our Lady of + Tears. She it is that night and day raves and moans, calling for + vanished faces. She stood in Rama, where a voice was heard of + lamentation--Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be + comforted. She it was that stood in Bethlehem on the night when + Herod's sword swept its nurseries of Innocents, and the little feet + were stiffened for ever which were heard at times as they trotted + along floors overhead, woke pulses of love in household hearts that + were not unmarked in heaven. Her eyes are sweet and subtle; wild and + sleepy by turns; often times rising to the clouds, often times + challenging the heavens. She wears a diadem round her head. And I + knew by childish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds, + when she heard the sobbing of litanies or the thundering of organs, + and when she beheld the mustering of summer clouds." + +And here is Oscar Wilde in _De Profundis_:-- + + "Prosperity, pleasure, and success, may be rough of grain and common + in fibre, but sorrow is the most sensitive of all created things. + There is nothing that stirs in the whole world of thought to which + sorrow does not vibrate in terrible and exquisite pulsation. . . . + It is a wound that bleeds when any hand but that of love touches it, + and even then must bleed again, though not in pain. Behind joy and + laughter there may be a temperament coarse, hard, and callous. But + behind sorrow there is always sorrow. Pain, unlike pleasure, wears + no mask. Truth in Art is . . . no echo coming from a hollow hill, + any more than it is a silver well of water in the valley that shows + the moon to the moon, and Narcissus to Narcissus. Truth in Art is + the unity of a thing with itself--the soul made incarnate, the body + instinct with spirit. For this reason there is no truth comparable + to sorrow. There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only + truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye or the appetite made + to blind the one and clog the other, but out of sorrow have the + worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star there is + pain." + +I have not quoted these passages in order to pit one style against +another; for each writer sets himself about a different task. A "dream +fugue" demands a treatment other than the simpler, more direct treatment +essential for Wilde's purpose. It is not because De Quincey the artist +chose this especial form for once in order to portray a mood that the +passage merits consideration; but because De Quincey always treated his +emotional experiences as "dream fugues." Of suffering and privation, of +pain and anguish bodily and mental, he had experiences more than the +common lot. But when he tries to show this bleeding reality to us a mist +invariably arises, and we see things "as in a glass darkly." + +There is a certain passage in his Autobiography which affords a key to +this characteristic of his work. + +When quite a boy he had constituted himself imaginary king of an +imaginary kingdom of Gombrom. Speaking of this fancy he writes: "O +reader! do not laugh! I lived for ever under the terror of two separate +wars and two separate worlds; one against the factory boys in a real +world of flesh and blood, of stones and brickbats, of flight and pursuit, +that were anything but figurative; the other in a world purely aerial, +where all the combats and the sufferings were absolute moonshine. And +yet the simple truth is that for anxiety and distress of mind the reality +(which almost every morning's light brought round) was as nothing in +comparison of that Dream Kingdom which rose like a vapour from my own +brain, and which apparently by the fiat of my will could be for ever +dissolved. Ah, but no! I had contracted obligations to Gombrom; I had +submitted my conscience to a yoke; and in secret truth my will had no +autocratic power. Long contemplation of a shadow, earnest study for the +welfare of that shadow, sympathy with the wounded sensibilities of that +shadow under accumulated wrongs; these bitter experiences, nursed by +brooding thought, had gradually frozen that shadow into a region of +reality far denser than the material realities of brass or granite." + +This confession is a remarkable testimony to the reality of De Quincey's +imaginative life. "I had contracted obligations to Gombrom." Yes, +despite his practical experiences with the world, it was Gombrom, "the +moonlight" side of things, that appealed to him. The boys might fling +stones and brickbats, just as the world did later--but though he felt the +onslaught, it moved him far less than did the phantasies of his +imagination. + +There is no necessity to weigh Wilde's experiences of "Our Ladies of +Sorrow" beside those of De Quincey. All we need ask is which impresses +us the more keenly with the actuality of sorrow. And I think there can +be no doubt that it is not De Quincey. + +"The Dream Kingdom that rose like a vapour" from his brain, this it +was--this Vagabond imagination of his--that was the one great reality in +life. It is a mistake to assume, as some have done, that this faculty +for daydreaming was a legacy of the opium-eating. The opium gave an +added brilliance to the dream-life, but it did not create it. He was a +dreamer from his birth--a far more thorough-going dreamer than was ever +Coleridge. There was a strain of insanity about him undoubtedly, and it +says much for his intellectual activity and moral power that the Dream +Kingdom did not disturb his mental life more than it did. Had he never +touched opium to relieve his gastric complaint, he would have been +eccentric--that is, if he had lived. Without some narcotic it is +doubtful whether his highly sensitive organization would have survived +the attacks of disease. As it was, the opium not only eased the pain, +but lifted his imagination above the ugly realities of life, and afforded +a solace in times of loneliness and misery. + + + +III + + +Intellectually he was a man of a conservative turn of mind, with an +ingrained respect for the conventions of life, but temperamentally he was +a restless Vagabond, with a total disregard for the amenities of +civilization, asking for nothing except to live out his own dream-life. +Dealing with him as a writer, you found a shrewd, if wayward critic, with +no little of "John Bull" in his composition. Deal with him as a man, you +found a bright, kindly, nervous little man in a chronic state of +shabbiness, eluding the attention of friends so far as possible, and +wandering about town and country as if he had nothing in common with the +rest of mankind. His Vagabondage is shown best in his purely imaginative +work, and in the autobiographical sketches. + +Small and insignificant in appearance to the casual observer, there was +something arresting, fascinating about the man that touched even the +irascible Carlyle. Much of his work, one can well understand, seemed to +this lover of facts "full of wire-drawn ingenuities." But with all his +contempt for phantasy, there was a touch of the dreamer in Carlyle, and +the imaginative beauty, apart from the fanciful prettiness in De +Quincey's work, would have appealed to him. For there was power, +intellectual grip, behind the shifting fancies, and both as a critic and +historian he has left behind him memorable work. As critic he has been +taken severely to task for his judgments on French writers and on many +lights of eighteenth-century thought. Certainly De Quincey's was not the +type of mind we should go to for an interpretative criticism of the +eighteenth century. Yet we must not forget his admirable appreciation of +Goldsmith. At his best, as in his criticism of Milton and Wordsworth, he +shows a fine, delicate, analytical power, which it is hard to overpraise. + +"Obligations to Gombrom" do not afford the best qualification for the +historian. One can imagine the hair rising in horror on the head of the +late Professor Freeman at the idea of the opium-eater sitting down +seriously to write history. + +Yet he had, like Froude, the power of seizing upon the spectacular side +of great movements which many a more accurate historian has lacked. +Especially striking is his _Revolt of the Tartars_--the flight eastward +of a Tartar nation across the vast steppes of Asia, from Russia to +Chinese territory. Ideas impressed him rather than facts, and episodes +rather than a continuous chain of events. But when he was interested, he +had the power of describing with picturesque power certain dramatic +episodes in a nation's history. + +A characteristic of the literary Vagabond is the eager versatility of his +intellectual interests. He will follow any path that promises to be +interesting, not so much with the scholar's patient investigation as with +the pedestrian's delight in "fresh woods and pastures new." + +A prolific writer for the magazines, it is inevitable that there should +be a measure that is ephemeral in De Quincey's voluminous writings. But +it is impossible not to be struck by the wide range of his intellectual +interests. A mind that is equally at home in the economics of Ricardo +and the transcendentalism of Wordsworth; that can turn with undiminished +zest from Malthus to Kant; that could deal lucidly with the "Logic of +Political Economy," despite the dream-world that finds expression in the +"impassioned prose"; that could delight in such broadly farcical +absurdities as "_Sortilege and Astrology_," and such delicately +suggestive studies as "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth," a mind of +this adventurous and varied type is assuredly a very remarkable one. +That he should touch every subject with equal power was not to be +expected, but the analytic brilliance that characterizes even his +mystical writings enabled him to treat such subjects as political economy +with a sureness of touch and a logical grasp that has astonished those +who had regarded him as merely an inconsequential dreamer of dreams. + + + +IV + + +I cannot agree with Dr. Japp {48} when, in the course of some laudatory +remarks on De Quincey's humour, he says: "It is precisely here that De +Quincey parts company, alike from Coleridge and from Wordsworth; neither +of them had humour." + +In the first place De Quincey's humour never seems to me very genuine. +He could play with ideas occasionally in a queer fantastic way, as in his +elaborate gibe on Dr. Andrew Bell. + + "First came Dr. Andrew Bell. We knew him. Was he dull? Is a wooden + spoon dull? Fishy were his eyes, torpedinous was his manner; and his + main idea, out of two which he really had, related to the moon--from + which you infer, perhaps, that he was lunatic. By no means. It was + no craze, under the influence of the moon, which possessed him; it + was an idea of mere hostility to the moon. . . . His wrath did not + pass into lunacy; it produced simple distraction; and uneasy fumbling + with the idea--like that of an old superannuated dog who longs to + worry, but cannot for want of teeth." + +A clever piece of analytical satire, if you like, but not humorous so +much as witty. Incongruity, unexpectedness, belongs to the essence of +humour. Here there is that cunning display of congruity between the old +dog and the Doctor which the wit is so adroit in evolving. + +Similarly in the essay on "Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts," +the style of clever extravaganza adopted in certain passages is witty, +certainly, but lacks the airy irresponsibility characterizing humour. +Sometimes he indulges in pure clowning, which is humorous in a +heavy-handed way. But grimacing humour is surely a poor kind of humour. + +Without going into any dismal academic discussion on Wit and Humour, I +think it is quite possible to differentiate these two offsprings of +imagination, making Wit the intellectual brother of the twain. +Analytical minds naturally turn to wit, by preference: Impressionistic +minds to humour. Dickens, who had no gift for analysis, and whose +writings are a series of delightful unreflective, personal impressions, +is always humorous, never witty. Reflective writers like George Eliot or +George Meredith are more often witty than humorous. + +I do not rate De Quincey's wit very highly, though it is agreeably +diverting at times, but it was preferable to his humour. + +The second point to be noted against Dr. Japp is his reference to +Coleridge. No one would claim Wordsworth as a humorist, but Coleridge +cannot be dismissed with this comfortable finality. Perhaps he was more +witty than humorous; he also had an analytic mind of rarer quality even +than De Quincey's, and his _Table Talk_ is full of delightful flashes. +But the amusing account he gives of his early journalistic experiences +and the pleasant way in which he pokes fun at himself, can scarcely be +compatible with the assertion that he had "no humour." + +Indeed, it was this quality, I think, which endeared him especially to +Lamb, and it was the absence of this quality which prevented Lamb from +giving that personal attachment to Wordsworth which he held for both +Coleridge and Hazlitt. + +But the comparative absence of humour in De Quincey is another +characteristic of Vagabondage. Humour is largely a product of +civilization, and the Vagabond is only half-civilized. I can see little +genuine humour in either Hazlitt or De Quincey. They had wit to an +extent, it is true, but they had this despite, not because, of their +Vagabondage. Thoreau, notwithstanding flashes of shrewd American wit, +can scarcely be accounted a humorist. Whitman was entirely devoid of +humour. A lack of humour is felt as a serious deficiency in reading the +novels of Jefferies; and the airy wit of Stevenson is scarcely +full-bodied enough to rank him among the humorists. + +This deficiency of humour may be traced to the characteristic attitude of +the Vagabond towards life, which is one of eager curiosity. He is +inquisitive about its many issues, but with a good deal of the child's +eagerness to know how a thing happened, and who this is, and what that +is. Differing in many ways, as did Borrow and De Quincey, we find the +same insatiable curiosity; true, it expressed itself differently, but +there is a basic similarity between the impulse that took Borrow over the +English highways and gave him that zest for travel in other countries, +and the impulse that sent De Quincey wandering over the various roads of +intellectual and emotional inquiry. Thoreau's main reason for his two +years' sojourn in the woods was one of curiosity. He "wanted to know" +what he could find out by "fronting" for a while the essential facts of +life, and he left, as he says, "for as good a reason as I went there. +Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live." In other +words, inquisitiveness inspired the experiment, and inquisitiveness as to +other experiments induced him to terminate the Walden episode. + +Now, in his own way, De Quincey was possibly the most inquisitive of all +the Vagabonds. The complete absence of the imperative mood in his +writings has moved certain moralists like Carlyle to impatience with him. +There is a fine moral tone about his disposition, but his writings are +engagingly unmoral (quite different, of course, from immoral). He has +called himself "an intellectual creature," and this happy epithet exactly +describes him. He collected facts, as an enthusiast collects curios, for +purposes of decoration. He observed them, analysed their features, but +almost always with a view to aesthetic comparisons. + +And to understand De Quincey aright one must follow him in his +multitudinous excursions, not merely rest content with a few fragments of +"impassioned prose," and the avowedly autobiographic writings. For the +autobiography extends through the sixteen volumes of his works. The +writings, no doubt, vary in quality; in many, as in the criticism of +German and French writers, acute discernment and astounding prejudices +jostle one another. But this is no reason for turning impatiently away. +Indeed, it is an additional incentive to proceed, for they supply such +splendid psychological material for illustrating the temperament and +tastes of the writer. And this may confidently be said: There is +"fundamental brainwork" in every article that De Quincey has written. + + + +V + + +What gives his works their especial attraction is not so much the +analytic faculty, interesting as it is, or the mystical turn of mind, as +in the piquant blend of the two. Thus, while he is poking fun at +Astrology or Witchcraft, we are conscious all the time that he retains a +sneaking fondness for the occult. He delights in dreams, omens, and +coincidences. He reminds one at times of the lecturer on +"Superstitions," who, in the midst of a brilliant analysis of its +futility and absurdity, was interrupted by a black cat walking on to the +platform, and was so disturbed by this portent that he brought his +lecture to an abrupt conclusion. + +On the whole the Mystic trampled over the Logician. His poetic +imagination impresses his work with a rich inventiveness, while the +logical faculty, though subsidiary, is utilized for giving form and +substance to the visions. + +It is curious to contrast the stateliness of De Quincey's literary style, +the elaborate full-dress manner, with the extreme simplicity of the man. +One might be tempted to add, surely here the style is _not_ the man. His +friends have testified that he was a gentle, timid, shrinking little man, +and abnormally sensitive to giving offence; and to those whom he cared +for--his family, for instance--he was the incarnation of affection and +tenderness. + +Yet in the writings we see another side, a considerable sprinkle of +sturdy prejudices, no little self-assertion and pugnacity. But there is +no real disparity. The style is the man here as ever. When roused by +opposition he could even in converse show the claws beneath the velvet. +Only the militant, the more aggressive side of the man is expressed more +readily in his writings. And the gentle and amiable side more readily in +personal intimacy. Both the life and the writings are wanted to supply a +complete picture. + +In one respect the records of his life efface a suspicion that haunts the +reader of his works. More than once the reader is apt to speculate as to +how far the arrogance that marks certain of his essays is a superficial +quality, a literary trick; how far a moral trait. The record of his +conversations tends to show that much of this was merely surface. Unlike +Coleridge, unlike Carlyle, he was as willing to listen as to talk; and he +said many of his best things with a delightful unconsciousness that they +were especially good. He never seemed to have the least wish to impress +people by his cleverness or aptness of speech. + +But when all has been said as to the personality of the man as expressed +in his writings--especially his _Confessions_, and to his personality as +interpreted by friends and acquaintances--there remains a measure of +mystery about De Quincey. This is part of his fascination, just as it is +part of the fascination attaching to Coleridge. The frank confidences of +his _Confessions_ hide from view the inner ring of reserve, which gave a +strange impenetrability to his character, even to those who knew and +loved him best. A simple nature and a complex temperament. + +Well, after all, such personalities are the most interesting of all, for +each time we greet them it is with a note of interrogation. + + + + +III +GEORGE BORROW + + + "The common sun, the air, the skies, + To him are opening Paradise." + + GRAY. + + "He had an English look; that is was square + In make, of a complexion white and ruddy." + + BYRON. + + + +I + + +Why is it that almost as soon as we can toddle we eagerly demand a story +of our elders? Why is it that the most excitable little girl, the most +incorrigible little boy can be quieted by a teaspoonful of the jam of +fiction? Why is it that "once upon a time" can achieve what moral +strictures are powerless to effect? + +It is because to most of us the world of imagination is the world that +matters. We live in the "might be's" and "peradventures." Fate may have +cast our lot in prosaic places; have predetermined our lives on humdrum +lines; but it cannot touch our dreams. There we are princes, +princesses--possessed of illimitable wealth, wielding immeasurable power. +Our bodies may traverse the same dismal streets day after day; but our +minds rove luxuriantly through all the kingdoms of the earth. + +Those wonderful eastern stories of the "Flying Horse" and the "Magic +Carpet," symbolize for us the matter-of-fact world and the +matter-of-dream world. Nay, is there any sound distinction between facts +and dreams? After all-- + + "We are such stuff + As dreams are made on, and our little life + Is rounded with a sleep." + +But there are dreams and dreams--dreams by moonlight and dreams by +sunlight. Literature can boast of many fascinating moonlight +dreams--Ancient Mariners and Christabels, Wonder Books and Tanglewood +Tales. And the fairies and goblins, the witches and wizards, were they +not born by moonlight and nurtured under the glimmer of the stars? + +But there are dreams by sunlight and visions at noonday also. Such +dreams thrill us in another but no less unmistakable way, especially when +the dreamer is a Scott, a William Morris, a Borrow. + +And dreamers like Borrow are not content to see visions and dream dreams, +their bodies must participate no less than their minds. They must needs +set forth in quest of the unknown. Hardships and privations deter them +not. Change, variety, the unexpected, these things are to them the very +salt of life. + +This untiring restlessness keeps a Richard Burton rambling over Eastern +lands, turns a Borrow into the high-road and dingle. This bright-eyed +Norfolk giant took more kindly to the roughnesses of life than did +Hazlitt and De Quincey. Quite as neurotic in his way, his splendid +physique makes us think of him as the embodiment of fine health. Illness +and Borrow do not agree. We think of him swinging along the road like +one of Dumas' lusty adventurers, exhibiting his powers of horsemanship, +holding his own with well-seasoned drinkers--especially if the drink be +Norfolk ale--conversing with any picturesque rag-tag and bob-tail he +might happen upon. There is plenty of fresh air in his pages. No +thinker like Hazlitt, no dreamer like De Quincey; but a shrewd observer +with the most amazing knack of ingratiating himself with strangers. + +No need for this romancer to seek distant lands for inspiration. Not +even the villages of Spain and Portugal supplied him with such fine stuff +for romance as Mumper's Dingle. He would get as strange a story out of a +London counting-house or an old apple-woman on London Bridge as did many +a teller of tales out of lonely heaths and stormy seas. + +_Lavengro_ and _The Romany Rye_ are fine specimens of romantic +autobiography. His life was varied enough, abounding in colour; but the +Vagabond is never satisfied with things that merely happen. He is +equally concerned with the things that might happen, with the things that +ought to happen. And so Borrow added to his own personal record from the +storehouse of dreams. Some have blamed him for not adhering to the +actual facts. But does any autobiographer adhere to actual facts? Can +any man, even with the most sensitive feeling for accuracy, confine +himself to a record of what happened? + +Of course not. The moment a man begins to write about himself, to delve +in the past, to ransack the storehouse of his memory; then--if he has +anything of the literary artist about him, and otherwise his book will +not be worth the paper it is written on--he will take in a partner to +assist him. That partner's name is Romance. + +As a revelation of temperament, the _Confessions_ of Rousseau and the +_Memoires_ of Casanova are, one feels, delightfully trustworthy. But no +sane reader ever imagines that he is reading an accurate transcript from +the life of these adventurous gentlemen. The difference between the +editions of De Quincey's _Opium Eater_ is sufficient to show how the +dreams have expanded under popular approbation. + +Borrow himself suggests this romantic method when he says, "What is an +autobiography? Is it a mere record of a man's life, or is it a picture +of the man himself?" Certainly, no one carried the romantic colouring +further than he did. When he started to write his own life in _Lavengro_ +he had no notion of diverging from the strict line of fact. But the +adventurer Vagabond moved uneasily in the guise of the chronicler. He +wanted more elbow-room. He remembered all that he hoped to encounter, +and from hopes it was no far cry to actualities. + +Things might have happened so! Ye gods, they _did_ happen so! And after +all it matters little to us the exact proportion of fact and fiction. +What does matter is that the superstructure he has raised upon the +foundation of fact is as strange and unique as the palace of Aladdin. + +However much he suggested the typical Anglo-Saxon in real life, there was +the true Celt whenever he took pen in hand. + +A stranger blend of the Celt and the Saxon indeed it would be hard to +find. The Celtic side is not uppermost in his temperament--this strong, +assertive, prize-fighting, beer-loving man (a good drinker, but never a +drunkard) seems far more Saxon than anything else. De Quincey had no +small measure of the John Bull in [Picture: George Borrow] his +temperament, and Borrow had a great deal more. The John Bull side was +very obvious. Yet a Celt he was by parentage, and the Celtic part was +unmistakable, though below the surface. If the East Anglian in him had a +weakness for athleticism, boiled mutton and caper sauce, the Celt in him +responded quickly to the romantic associates of Wales. + +Readers of Mr. Watts-Dunton's charming romance _Aylwin_ will recall the +emphasis laid on the passionate love of the Welsh for a tiny strip of +Welsh soil. Borrow understood all this; he had a rare sympathy with the +Cymric Celt. You can trace the Celt in his scenic descriptions, in his +feeling for the spell of antiquity, his restlessness of spirit. And yet +in his appearance there was little to suggest the Celt. Small wonder +that many of his friends spoke of this white-haired giant of six foot +three as if he was first and foremost an excellent athlete. + +Certainly he had in full measure an Englishman's delight and proficiency +in athletics--few better at running, jumping, wrestling, sparring, and +swimming. + +In many respects indeed Borrow will not have realized the fancy picture +of the Englishman as limned by Hawthorne's fancy--the big, hearty, +self-opiniated, beef-eating, ale-drinking John Bull. Save to a few +intimates like Mr. Watts-Dunton and Dr. Hake he seems to have concealed +very effectually the Celtic sympathies in his nature. But no reader of +his books can be blind to this side of his character; and then again, as +in all the literary Vagabonds, it is the complexity of the man's +temperament that attracts and fascinates. + +The man who can delight in the garrulous talk of a country inn, +understand the magic of big solitudes; who can keenly appraise the points +of a horse and feel the impalpable glamour of an old ruin; who will +present an impenetrable reserve to the ordinary stranger and take the +fierce, moody gypsy to his heart; who will break almost every convention +of civilization, yet in the most unexpected way show a sturdy element of +conventionality; a man, in short, of so many bewildering contradictions +and strangely assorted qualities as Borrow cannot but compel interest. + +Many of the contradictory traits were not, as they seemed, the +inconsequential moods of an irresponsible nature, but may be traced to +the fierce egotism of the man. The Vagabond is always an egotist; the +egotism may be often amusing, and is rarely uninteresting. But the +personal point of view, the personal impression, has for him the most +tremendous importance. It makes its possessor abnormally sensitive to +any circumstances, any environment, that may restrict his independence or +prevent the full expression of his personal tastes and whims. Among our +Vagabonds the two most pronounced egotists are Borrow and Whitman. The +secret of their influence, their merits, and their deficiencies lies in +this intense concentration of self. An appreciation of this quality +leads us to comprehend a good deal of Borrow's attitude towards men and +women. Reading _Lavengro_ and _The Romany Rye_ the reader is no less +struck by the remarkable interest that Borrow takes in the +people--especially the rough, uncultured people--whom he comes across, as +in the cheerful indifference with which he loses sight of them and passes +on to fresh characters. There is very little objective feeling in his +friendships; as flesh and blood personages with individualities of their +own--loves, hopes, faiths of their own--he seems to regard them scarcely +at all. They exist chiefly as material for his curiosity and +inquisitiveness. Hence there is a curious selfishness about him--not the +selfishness of a passionate, capricious nature, but the selfishness of a +self-absorbed and self-contained nature. Perhaps there was hidden away +somewhere in his nature a strain of tenderness, of altruistic affection, +which was reserved for a few chosen souls. But the warm human touch is +markedly absent from his writings, despite their undeniable charm. + +Take the Isopel Berners episode. Whether Isopel Berners was a fiction of +the imagination or a character in real life matters not for my purpose. +At any rate the episode, his friendship with this Anglo-Saxon girl of the +road, is one of the distinctive features of both _Lavengro_ and _The +Romany Rye_. The attitude of Borrow towards her may safely be regarded +as a clear indication of the man's character. + +A girl of fine physical presence and many engaging qualities such as were +bound to attract a man of Borrow's type, who had forsaken her friends to +throw in her lot with this fellow-wanderer on the road. Here were the +ready elements of a romance--of a friendship that should burn up with the +consuming power of love the baser elements of self in the man's +disposition, and transform his nature. + +And what does he do? + +He accepts her companionship, just as he might have accepted the +companionship of one of his landlords or ostlers; spends the time he +lived with her in the Dingle in teaching her Armenian, and when at last, +driven to desperation by his calculating coldness, she comes to take +farewell of him, he makes her a perfunctory offer of marriage, which she, +being a girl of fine mettle as well as of strong affection, naturally +declines. She leaves him, and after a few passages of philosophic +regret, he passes on to the next adventure. + +Now Borrow, as we know, was not physically drawn towards the ordinary +gypsy type--the dark, beautiful Celtic women; and it was in girls of the +fair Saxon order such as Isopel Berners that he sought a natural mate. + +Certainly, if any woman was calculated by physique and by disposition to +attract Borrow, Isopel Berners was that woman. And when we find that the +utmost extent of his passion is to make tea for her and instruct her in +Armenian, it is impossible not to be disagreeably impressed by the +unnatural chilliness of such a disposition. Not even Isopel could break +down the barrier of intense egoism that fenced him off from any profound +intimacy with his fellow-creatures. + +Perhaps Dr. Jessop's attack upon him errs in severity, and is to an +extent, as Mr. Watts-Dunton says, "unjust"; but there is surely an +element of truth in his remarks when he says: "Of anything like animal +passion there is not a trace in all his many volumes. Not a hint that he +ever kissed a woman or even took a little child upon his knee." Nor do I +think that the anecdote which Mr. Watts-Dunton relates about the +beautiful gypsy, to whom Borrow read Arnold's poem, goes far to dissipate +the impression of Borrow's insensibility to a woman's charm. + +A passing tribute to the looks of an extraordinarily beautiful girl is +quite compatible with a comparative insensibility to feminine beauty and +feminine graces. That Borrow was devoid of animal passion I do not +believe--nor indeed do his books convey that impression; that he had no +feeling for beauty either would be scarcely compatible with the Celtic +element in his nature. I think it less a case--as Dr. Jessop seems to +think--of want of passion as of a tyrannous egotism that excluded any +element likely to prove troublesome. He would not admit a disturbing +factor--such as the presence of the self-reliant Isopel--into his life. + +No doubt he liked Isopel well enough in his fashion. Otherwise certainly +he would not have made up his mind to marry her. But his own feelings, +his own tastes, his own fancies, came first. He would marry her--oh +yes!--there was plenty of time later on. For the present he could study +her character, amuse himself with her idiosyncrasies, and as a return for +her devotion and faithful affection teach her Armenian. Extremely +touching! + +But the episode of Isopel Berners is only one illustration, albeit a very +significant one, of Borrow's calculating selfishness. No man could prove +a more interesting companion than he; but one cannot help feeling that he +was a sorry kind of friend. + +It may seem strange at first sight, finding this wanderer of the road in +the pay of the Bible Society, and a zealous servant in the cause of +militant Protestantism. But the violent "anti-Popery" side of Borrow is +only another instance of his love of independence. The brooding egotism +that chafed at the least control was not likely to show any sympathy with +sacerdotalism. + +There was no trace of philosophy in Borrow's frankly expressed views on +religious subjects. They were honest and straightforward enough, with +all the vigorous unreflective narrowness of ultra-Protestantism. + +It says much for the amazing charm of Borrow's writing that _The Bible in +Spain_ is very much better than a glorified tract. It must have come as +a surprise to many a grave, pious reader of the Bible Society's +publications. + +And the Bible Society made the Vagabond from the literary point of view. +Borrow's book--_The Zincali_--or an account of the gypsies of Spain, +published in 1841, had brought his name before the public. But _The +Bible in Spain_ (1843) made him famous--doubtless to the relief of +"glorious John Murray," the publisher, who was doubtful about the book's +reception. + +It is a fascinating book, and if lacking the unique flavour of the +romantic autobiographies, _Lavengro_ and _The Romany Rye_, has none the +less many of the characteristics that give all his writings their +distinctive attraction. + + + +II + + +Can we analyse the charm that Borrow's books and Borrow's personality +exercise over us, despite the presence of unpleasing traits which repel? + +In the first place he had the faculty for seizing upon the picturesque +and picaresque elements in the world about him. He had the ready +instinct of the discursive writer for what was dramatically telling. +Present his characters in dramatic form he could not; one and all pass +through the crucible of his temperament before we see them. We feel that +they are genuinely observed, but they are Borrovized. They speak the +language of Borrow. While this is quite true, it is equally true that he +knows exactly how to impress and interest the reader with the personages. + +Take this effective little introduction to one of the characters in _The +Bible in Spain_:-- + + "At length the moon shone out faintly, when suddenly by its beams I + beheld a figure moving before me at a slight distance. I quickened + the pace of the burra, and was soon close at its side. It went on, + neither altering its pace nor looking round for a moment. It was the + figure of a man, the tallest and bulkiest that I had hitherto seen in + Spain, dressed in a manner strange and singular for the country. On + his head was a hat with a low crown and broad brim, very much + resembling that of an English waggoner; about his body was a long + loose tunic or slop, seemingly of coarse ticken, open in front, so as + to allow the interior garments to be occasionally seen; these + appeared to consist of a jerkin and short velveteen pantaloons. I + have said that the brim of the hat was broad, but broad as it was, it + was insufficient to cover an immense bush of coal-black hair, which, + thick and curly, projected on either side; over the left shoulder was + flung a kind of satchel, and in the right hand was held a long staff + or pole. + + "There was something peculiarly strange about the figure, but what + struck me the most was the tranquillity with which it moved along, + taking no heed of me, though, of course, aware of my proximity, but + looking straight forward along the road, save when it occasionally + raised a huge face and large eyes towards the moon, which was now + shining forth in the eastern quarter. + + "'A cold night,' said I at last. 'Is this the way to Talavera?' + + "'It is the way to Talavera, and the night is cold.' + + "'I am going to Talavera,' said I, 'as I suppose you are yourself.' + + "'I am going thither, so are you, _Bueno_.' + + "The tones of the voice which delivered these words were in their way + quite as strange and singular as the figure to which the voice + belonged; they were not exactly the tones of a Spanish voice, and yet + there was something in them that could hardly be foreign; the + pronunciation also was correct, and the language, though singular, + faultless. But I was most struck with the manner in which the last + word, _bueno_, was spoken. I had heard something like it before, but + where or when I could by no means remember. A pause now ensued; the + figure stalking on as before with the most perfect indifference, and + seemingly with no disposition either to seek or avoid conversation. + + "'Are you not afraid,' said I at last, 'to travel these roads in the + dark? It is said that there are robbers abroad.' + + "'Are you not rather afraid,' replied the figure, 'to travel these + roads in the dark--you who are ignorant of the country, who are a + foreigner, an Englishman!' + + "'How is it that you know me to be an Englishman?' demanded I, much + surprised. + + "'That is no difficult matter,' replied the figure; 'the sound of + your voice was enough to tell me that.' + + "'You speak of voices,' said I; 'suppose the tone of your own voice + were to tell me who you are?' + + "'That it will not do,' replied my companion; 'you know nothing about + me--you can know nothing about me.' + + "'Be not sure of that, my friend; I am acquainted with many things of + which you have little idea.' + + "'Por exemplo,' said the figure. + + "'For example,' said I, 'you speak two languages.' + + "The figure moved on, seemed to consider a moment, and then said + slowly, '_Bueno_.' + + "'You have two names,' I continued; 'one for the house and the other + for the street; both are good, but the one by which you are called at + home is the one which you like best.' + + "The man walked on about ten paces, in the same manner as he had + previously done; all of a sudden he turned, and taking the bridle of + the burra gently in his hand, stopped her. I had now a full view of + his face and figure, and those huge features and Herculean form still + occasionally revisit me in my dreams. I see him standing in the + moonshine, staring me in the face with his deep calm eyes. At last + he said-- + + "'Are you then one of us?'" + +An admirable sketch, adroitly conceived and executed beyond doubt, but as +a fragment of dialogue remarkable for its literary skill rather than for +its characterization. + +His instinct for the picturesque never fails him. This is one of the +reasons why, despite his astounding garrulousness, the readers of his +books are never wearied. + +Whether it be a ride in the forest, a tramp on foot, an interview with +some individual who has interested him, the picturesque side is always +presented, and never is he at better advantage than when depicting some +scene of gypsy life. + +Opening _The Bible in Spain_ at random I happen on this description of a +gypsy supper. It is certainly not one of the best or most picturesque, +but as an average sample of his scenic skill it will serve its purpose +well. + + "Hour succeeded hour, and still we sat crouching over the brasero, + from which, by this time, all warmth had departed; the glow had long + since disappeared, and only a few dying sparks were to be + distinguished. The room or hall was now involved in utter darkness; + the women were motionless and still; I shivered and began to feel + uneasy. 'Will Antonio be here to-night?' at length I demanded. + + "'_No tenga usted cuidao_, my London Caloro,' said the gypsy mother, + in an unearthly tone; 'Pepindorio {70} has been here some time.' + + "I was about to rise from my seat and attempt to escape from the + house, when I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder, and in a moment I + heard the voice of Antonio. + + "'Be not afraid, 'tis I, brother; we will have a light anon, and then + supper.' + + "The supper was rude enough, consisting of bread, cheese, and olive. + Antonio, however, produced a leathern bottle of excellent wine; we + dispatched these viands by the light of an earthern lamp which was + placed upon the floor. + + "'Now,' said Antonio to the youngest female, 'bring me the pajandi, + and I will sing a gachapla.' + + "The girl brought the guitar, which with some difficulty the gypsy + tuned, and then, strumming it vigorously, he sang-- + + "I stole a plump and bonny fowl, + But ere I well had dined, + The master came with scowl and growl, + And me would captive bind. + + "My hat and mantle off I threw, + And scour'd across the lea, + Then cried the beng {71} with loud halloo, + Where does the Gypsy flee?" + + "He continued playing and singing for a considerable time, the two + younger females dancing in the meanwhile with unwearied diligence, + whilst the aged mother occasionally snapped her fingers or beat time + on the ground with her stock. At last Antonio suddenly laid down the + instrument. + + "'I see the London Caloro is weary. Enough, enough; to-morrow more + thereof--we will now to the _charipe_' (bed). + + '"With all my heart,' said I; 'where are we to sleep?' + + "'In the stable,' said he, 'in the manger; however cold the stable + may be, we shall be warm enough in the bufa.'" + +Perhaps his power in this direction is more fully appreciated when he +deals with material that promises no such wealth of colour as do gypsy +scenes and wanderings in the romantic South. + +Cheapside and London Bridge suit him fully as well as do Spanish forests +or Welsh mountains. True romancer as he is, he is not dependent on +conventionally picturesque externals for arresting attention; since he +will discover the stuff of adventure wherever his steps may lead him. +The streets of Bagdad in the "golden prime" of Haroun Alraschid are no +more mysterious, more enthralling, than the well-known thoroughfares of +modern London. No ancient sorceress of Eastern story can touch his +imagination more deeply than can an old gypsy woman. A skirmish with a +publisher is fully as exciting as a tilt in a medieval tourney; while the +stories told him by a rural landlord promise as much relish as any of the +tales recounted by Oriental barbers and one-eyed Calenders. + +Thus it is that while the pervasive egotism of the man bewitches us, we +yield readily to the spell of his splendid garrulity. It is of no great +moment that he should take an occasional drink to quench his thirst when +passing along the London streets. But he will continue to make even +these little details interesting. Did he think fit to recount a sneeze, +or to discourse upon the occasion on which he brushed his hair, he would +none the less, I think, have held the reader's attention. + +Here is the episode of a chance drink; it is a drink and nothing more; +but it is not meant to be skipped, and does not deserve to be overlooked. + + "Notwithstanding the excellence of the London pavement, I began, + about nine o'clock, to feel myself thoroughly tired; painfully and + slowly did I drag my feet along. I also felt very much in want of + some refreshment, and I remembered that since breakfast I had taken + nothing. I was in the Strand, and glancing about I perceived that I + was close by an hotel which bore over the door the somewhat + remarkable name of 'Holy Lands.' Without a moment's hesitation I + entered a well-lighted passage, and turning to the left I found + myself in a well-lighted coffee-room, with a well-dressed and + frizzled waiter before me. 'Bring me some claret,' said I, for I was + rather faint than hungry, and I felt ashamed to give a humble order + to so well-dressed an individual. The waiter looked at me for a + moment, then making a low bow he bustled off, and I sat myself down + in the box nearest to the window. Presently the waiter returned, + bearing beneath his left arm a long bottle, and between the fingers + of his right hand two purple glasses; placing the latter on the + table, set the bottle down before me with a bang, and then standing + still appeared to watch my movements. You think I don't know how to + drink a glass of claret, thought I to myself. I'll soon show you how + we drink claret where I come from; and filling one of the glasses to + the brim, I flickered it for a moment between my eyes and the lustre, + and then held it to my nose; having given that organ full time to + test the bouquet of the wine, I applied the glass to my lips. Taking + a large mouthful of the wine, which I swallowed slowly and by degrees + that the palate might likewise have an opportunity of performing its + functions. A second mouthful I disposed of more summarily; then + placing the empty glass upon the table, I fixed my eyes upon the + bottle and said nothing; whereupon the waiter who had been observing + the whole process with considerable attention, made me a bow yet more + low than before, and turning on his heel retired with a smart chuck + of the head, as much as to say, 'It is all right; the young man is + used to claret.'" + +A slight enough incident, but, like every line which Borrow wrote, +intensely temperamental. How characteristic this of the man's attitude: +"You think I don't know how to drink a glass of claret, thought I to +myself." Then with what deliberate pleasure does he record the +theatrical posing for the benefit of the waiter. How he loves to +impress! You are conscious of this in every scene which he describes, +and it is quite useless to resent it. The only way to escape it is by +leaving Borrow unread. And this no wise man can do willingly. + +The insatiable thirst for adventure, the passion for the picturesque and +dramatic, were so constant with him, that it need not surprise us when he +seizes upon every opportunity for mystifying and exciting interest. It +is possible that the "veiled period" in his life about which he hints is +veiled because it was a time of privation and suffering, and he is +consequently anxious to forget it. But I do not think it likely. Nor do +the remarks of Mr. Watts-Dunton on this subject support this theory. +Indeed, Mr. Watts-Dunton, who knew him so intimately, and had ample +occasion to note his love of "making a mystery," hints pretty plainly +that "the veiled period" may well be a pleasant myth invented by Borrow +just for the excitement of it, not because there was anything special to +conceal, or because he wished to regard certain chapters in his life as a +closed book. + + + +III + + +Mention has been made of Borrow's feeling for the picaresque elements in +life. Give him a rogue, a wastrel, any character with a touch of the +untamed about him, and no one delighted him more in exhibiting the +fascinating points of this character and his own power in attracting +these rough, unsocial fellows towards him and eliciting their +confidences. Failing the genuine article, however, Borrow had quite as +remarkable a knack of giving even for conventional people and highly +respectable thoroughfares a roguish and adventurous air. Indeed it was +this sympathy with the picaresque side of life, this thorough +understanding of the gypsy temperament, that gives Borrow's genius its +unique distinction. Other characteristics, though important, are +subsidiary to this. Writers such as Stevenson have given us discursive +books of travel; other Vagabonds have shown an equal zest for the life of +the open air--Thoreau and Whitman, for example. But contact with the +gypsies revealed Borrow to himself, made him aware of his powers. It is +not so much a case of like seeking like, as of like seeking unlike. +Affinities there were, no doubt, between the Romany and the "Gorgio" +Borrow, but they are strong temperamental differences. On the one side +an easy, unconscious nonchalance, a natural vivacity; on the other a +morbid self-consciousness and a pronounced strain of melancholy. And it +was doubtless the contrast that appealed to him so strongly and helped +him to throw off his habitual moody reserve. + +For beneath that unpromising reserve, as a few chosen friends knew, and +as the gypsies knew, there was a frank camaraderie that won their hearts. + +Was he, one naturally asks, when once this barrier of reserve had been +broken down, a lovable man? Certainly he seems to have won the affection +of the gypsies; and the warm admiration of men like Mr. Watts-Dunton +points to an affirmative answer. And yet one hesitates. He attracted +people, that cannot be gainsaid; he won many affections, that also is +uncontrovertible. But to call a man lovable it is not sufficient that he +should win affection, he must retain it. Was Borrow able to do this? +There is the famous case of Isopel to answer in the negative. She loved +him, but she found him out. Was it not so? How else explain the gradual +change of demeanour, and the sad, disillusioned departure. Perhaps at +first the independence of the man, his freedom from sentimentality, +piqued, interested, and attracted her. This is often the case with +women. They may fall in love with an unsentimental man, but they can +never be happy with him. + +Isopel retained a regard for her fellow-comrade of the road, but she +would not be his wife. + +Of his literary friends no one has written so warmly in defence of +Borrow, or shown a more discerning admiration of his qualities than Mr. +Watts-Dunton. + +And yet in the warm tribute which Mr. Watts-Dunton has paid to Borrow I +cannot help feeling that some of the illustrations he gives in +justification of his eulogy are scarcely adequate. It may well be that +he has a wealth of personal reminiscences which he could quote if so +inclined, and make good his asseverations. As it is, one can judge only +by what he tells us. And what does he tell us? + +To show that Borrow took an interest in children, Mr. Watts-Dunton quotes +a story about Borrow and the gipsy child which "Borrow was fond of +telling in support of his anti-tobacco bias." The point of the story +lies in the endeavours of Borrow to dissuade a gypsy woman from smoking +her pipe, whilst his friend pointed out to the woman how the smoke was +injuring the child whom she was suckling. Borrow used his friend's +argument, which obviously appealed to the maternal instinct in order to +persuade the woman to give up her pipe. There is no reason to think that +Borrow was especially concerned for the child's welfare. What concerned +him was a human being poisoning herself with nicotine, and his dislike +particularly to see a woman smoking. After the woman had gone he said to +his friend: "It ought to be a criminal offence for a woman to smoke at +all." And that it was frankly as an anti-tobacco crusader that he +considered the episode, is proved surely by Mr. Watts-Dunton himself, +when he adds: "Whenever he (Borrow) was told, as he sometimes was, that +what brought on the 'horrors' when he lived alone in the Dingle, was the +want of tobacco, this story was certain to come up." + +One cannot accept this as a specially striking instance of Borrow's +interest in children, any more than the passing reference (already noted) +to the extraordinarily beautiful gypsy girl, as an instance of his +susceptibility to feminine charms. + +Failing better illustrations at first hand, one turns toward his books, +where he reveals so many characteristics, and here one is struck by the +want of susceptibility, the obvious lack of interest in the other sex, +showed by his few references to women, and what is even more significant +the absence of any love story in his own life, apart from his books (his +marriage with the well-to-do widow, though a happy one, can scarcely be +called romantic). These things certainly outweigh the trivial incident +which Mr. Watts-Dunton recalls. + +As for the pipe episode, it reminds me of Macaulay's well-known gibe at +the Puritans, who objected to bear-baiting, he says, less because it gave +pain to the bear than because it gave pleasure to the spectators. +Similarly his objection to the pipe seems not so much on account of the +child suffering, as because the woman took pleasure in this "pernicious +habit." + +But enough of fault-finding. After all, Mr. Watts-Dunton has done a +signal service to literature by preferring the claims of Borrow, and has +upheld him loyally against attacks which were too frequently +mean-spirited and unfair. + +Obviously, Borrow was a man of an ingratiating personality, which is a +very different thing from saying that he was a man with an ingratiating +manner. Of all manners, the ingratiating is the one most likely to +arouse suspicion in the minds of all but the most obtuse. An +ingratiating personality, however, is one that without effort and in the +simplest way attracts others, as a magnet attracts iron. Once get Borrow +interested in a man, it followed quite naturally that the man was +interested in Borrow. He might be a rough, unsociable fellow with whom +others found it hard to get on, but Borrow would win his confidence in a +few moments. + +Borrow seemed to know exactly how to approach people, what to say, and +how to say it. Sometimes he may have preferred to stand aloof in moody +reserve; that is another matter. But given the inclination, he had a +genius for companionship, as some men have a genius for friendship. As a +rule it will be found that the Vagabond, the Wanderer, is far better as a +companion than as friend. What he cares for is to smile, chatter, and +pass on. Loyal he may be to those who have done him service, but he is +not ready to encroach upon his own comfort and convenience for any man. +Borrow remained steadfast to his friends, but a personal slight, even if +not intended, he regarded as unforgivable. + +The late Dr. Martineau was at school with him at Norwich, and after a +youthful escapade on Borrow's part, Martineau was selected by the master +as the boy to "horse" Borrow while he was undergoing corporal punishment. +Probably the proceeding was quite as distasteful to the young Martineau +as to the scapegrace. But Borrow never forgot the incident nor forgave +the compulsory participator in his degradation. And years afterwards he +declined to attend a social function when he had ascertained that +Martineau would be there, making a point of deliberately avoiding him. +Another instance this of the morbid egotism of the man. + +Where, however, no whim or caprice stood in the way, Borrow reminds one +of the man who knows as soon as he has tapped the earth with the +"divining rod" whether or no there is water there. Directly he saw a man +he could tell by instinct whether there was stuff of interest there; and +he knew how to elicit it. And never is he more successful than when +dealing with the "powerful, uneducated man." Consequently, no portion of +his writings are more fascinating than when he has to deal with such +figures. Who can forget his delightful pictures of the gypsy--"Mr. +Petulengro"? Especially the famous meeting in _Lavengro_, when he and +the narrator discourse on death. + + "'Life is sweet, brother.' + + "'Do you think so?' + + "'Think so! There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, + moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind + on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother. Who would wish to die?' + + "'I would wish to die.' + + "'You talk like a Gorgio--which is the same as talking like a + fool--were you a Romany chal you would talk wiser. Wish to die + indeed! A Romany chal would wish to live for ever.' + + "'In sickness, Jasper?' + + "'There's the sun and stars, brother.' + + "'In blindness, Jasper?' + + "'There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, + I would gladly live for ever. Dosta, we'll now go to the tents and + put on the gloves; and I'll try to make you feel what a sweet thing + it is to be alive.'" + +Then again there is the inimitable ostler in _The Romany Rye_, whose talk +exhales what Borrow would call "the wholesome smell of the stable." His +wonderful harangues (Borrovized to a less extent than usual) have all the +fine, breathless garrulity of this breed of man, and his unique discourse +on "how to manage a horse on a journey" occupies a delightful chapter. +Here are the opening sentences:-- + + "'When you are a gentleman,' said he, 'should you ever wish to take a + journey on a horse of your own, and you could not have a much better + than the one you have here eating its fill in the box yonder--I + wonder, by the by, how you ever came by it--you can't do better than + follow the advice I am about to give you, both with respect to your + animal and yourself. Before you start, merely give your horse a + couple of handfuls of corn and a little water, somewhat under a + quart, and if you drink a pint of water yourself out of the pail, you + will feel all the better during the whole day; then you may walk and + trot your animal for about ten miles, till you come to some nice inn, + where you may get down, and see your horse led into a nice stall, + telling him not to feed him till you come. If the ostler happens to + be a dog-fancier, and has an English terrier dog like that of mine + there, say what a nice dog it is, and praise its black and fawn; and + if he does not happen to be a dog-fancier, ask him how he's getting + on, and whether he ever knew worse times; that kind of thing will + please the ostler, and he will let you do just what you please with + your own horse, and when your back is turned he'll say to his + comrades what a nice gentleman you are, and how he thinks he has seen + you before; then go and sit down to breakfast, get up and go and give + your horse a feed of corn; chat with the ostler two or three minutes + till your horse has taken the shine out of his oats, which will + prevent the ostler taking any of it away when your back is turned, + for such things are sometimes done--not that I ever did such a thing + myself when I was at the inn at Hounslow; oh, dear me, no! Then go + and finish your breakfast.'" + + + +IV + + +It is interesting to compare Borrow's studies in unvarnished human nature +with the characterizations of novelists like Mr. Thomas Hardy. Both +Borrow and Hardy are drawn especially to rough primal characters, +characters not "screened by conventions." As Mr. Hardy puts it in an +essay contributed to the _Forum_ in 1888. + + "The conduct of the upper classes is screened by conventions, and + thus the real character is not easily seen; if it is seen it must be + pourtrayed subjectively, whereas in the lower walks conduct is a + direct expression of the inner life, and their characters can be + directly pourtrayed through the act." + +Mr. Hardy's rustics differ from Borrow's rustics, however, in the method +of presentment. Mr. Hardy is always the sympathetic, amused observer. +The reader of that delicious pastoral "Under the Greenwood Tree" feels +that he is listening to a man who is recounting something he has +overheard. The account is finely sympathetic, but there is an +unmistakable note of philosophic detachment. The story-teller has +enjoyed his company, but is obviously not of them. That is why he will +gossip to you with such relish of humour. Borrow, on the other hand, +speaks as one of them. He is far less amused by his garrulous ostlers +and whimsical landlords than profoundly interested in them. Then again, +though the Vagabond type appeals to Mr. Hardy, it appeals to him not +because of any temperamental affinity, but because he happens to be a +curious, wistful spectator of human life. He sees in the restless +Vagabond an extreme example of the capricious sport of fate, but while +his heart goes out to him his mind stands aloof. + +Looking at their characterization from the literary point of view, it is +evident that Mr. Hardy is the greater realist. He would give you _an_ +ostler, whereas Borrow gives you _the_ ostler. Borrow knows his man +thoroughly, but he will not trouble about little touches of +individualization. We see the ostler vividly--we do not see the +man--save on the ostler side. With Hardy we should see other aspects +beside the ostler aspect of the man. + +A novelist with whom Borrow has greater affinity is Charles Reade. There +is the same quick, observant, unphilosophical spirit; the same preference +for plain, simple folk, the same love of health and virility. And in +_The Cloister and the Hearth_, one of the great romances of the world, +one feels touches of the same Vagabond spirit as animates _Lavengro_ and +_The Romany Rye_. The incomparable Denys, with his favourite cry, "Le +diable est mort," is a splendid study in genial vagrancy. + +Literary comparisons, though they discover affinities, but serve to +emphasize in the long run the distinctive originality of Borrow's +writings. + +He has himself admitted to the influence of Defoe and Lesage. But though +his manner recalls at times the manner of Defoe, and though the form of +his narrative reminds the reader of the Spanish rogue story, the +psychological atmosphere is vastly different. He may have taken Defoe as +his model just as Thackeray took Fielding; but _Vanity Fair_ is not more +unlike _Tom Jones_ than is _Lavengro_ unlike _Robinson Crusoe_. + +It is idle to seek for the literary parentage of this Vagabond. Better +far to accept him as he is, a wanderer, a rover, a curious taster of +life, at once a mystic and a realist. He may have qualities that repel; +but so full is he of contradictions that no sooner has the frown settled +on the brow than it gives place to a smile. We may not always like him; +never can we ignore him. Provocative, unsatisfying, fascinating--such is +George Borrow. And most fascinating of all is his love of night, day, +sun, moon, and stars, "all sweet things." Cribbed in the close and dusty +purlieus of the city, wearied by the mechanical monotony of the latest +fashionable novel, we respond gladly to the spacious freshness of +_Lavengro_ and _The Romany Rye_. Herein lies the spell of Borrow; for in +his company there is always "a wind on the heath." + + + + +IV +HENRY D. THOREAU + + + "Enter these enchanted woods + You who dare." + + GEORGE MEREDITH. + + + +I + + +Thoreau has suffered badly at the hands of the critics. By some he has +been regarded as a poser, and the Walden episode has been spoken of as a +mere theatrical trick. By others he has been derided as a cold-blooded +hermit, who fled from civilization and the intercourse of his fellows. +Even Mr. Watts-Dunton, the eloquent friend of the Children of the Open +Air, quite recently in his introduction to an edition of _Walden_ has +impugned his sincerity, and leaves the impression that Thoreau was an +uncomfortable kind of egotist. He has not lacked friends, but his +friends have not always written discreetly about him, thus giving the +enemy opportunity to blaspheme. And while not unmindful of Mr. H. S. +Salt's sympathetic biography, nor the admirable monograph by Mr. "H. A. +Page," there is no denying the fact that the trend of modern criticism +has been against him. The sarcastic comments of J. R. Lowell, and the +banter of R. L. Stevenson, however we may disagree with them, are not to +be lightly ignored, coming from critics usually so sane and discerning. + +Since it is the Walden episode, the two years' sojourn in the woods near +Concord, that has provoked the scornful ire of the critics, it may be +well to re-examine that incident. + +From his earliest years Thoreau was a lover of the open air. It was not +merely a poetic appreciation such as Emerson had of the beauties of +nature--though a genuine poetic imagination coloured all that he +wrote--but an intellectual enthusiasm for the wonders of the natural +world, and, most important of all, a deep and tender sympathy with all +created things characteristic of the Eastern rather than the Western +mind. He observed as a naturalist, admired like a poet, loved with the +fervour of a Buddhist; every faculty of his nature did homage to the +Earth. + +Most of us will admit to a sentimental regard for the open air and for +country sights and sounds. But in many cases it reduces itself to a +vague liking for "pretty scenery" and an annual conviction that a change +of air will do us good. And so it is that the man who prefers to live +the greater part of his life in the open is looked upon either as a crank +or a poser. Borrow's taste for adventure, and the picturesque vigour of +his personality, help largely in our minds to condone his wandering +instinct. But the more passive temperament of Thoreau, and the absence +in his writings of any stuff of romance, lead us to feel a kind of +puzzled contempt for the man. + +"He shirks his duty as a citizen," says the practical Englishman; "He +experienced nothing worth mentioning," says the lover of adventure. +Certainly he lacked many of the qualities that make the literary Vagabond +attractive--and for this reason many will deny him the right to a place +among them--but he was neither a skulker nor a hermit. + +In 1839, soon after leaving college, he made his first long jaunt in +company with his brother John. This was a voyage on the Concord and +Merrimac rivers--a pleasant piece of idling turned to excellent literary +account. The volume dealing with it--his first book--gives sufficient +illustration of his practical powers to dissipate the absurd notion that +he was a mere sentimentalist. No literary Vagabond was ever more skilful +with his hands than Thoreau. There was scarcely anything he could not +do, from making lead pencils to constructing a boat. And throughout his +life he supported himself by manual labour whenever occasion demanded. +Had he been so disposed he could doubtless have made a fortune--for he +had all the nimble versatility of the American character, and much of its +shrewdness. His attacks, therefore, upon money-making, and upon the +evils of civilization, are no mere vapourings of an incompetent, but the +honest conviction of a man who believes he has chosen the better part. + +In his _Walk to Wachusett_ there are touches of genial friendliness with +the simple, sincere country folk, and evidence that he was heartily +welcome by them. Such a welcome would not have been vouchsafed to a +cold-blooded recluse. + +The keen enjoyment afforded to mind and body by these outings suggested +to Thoreau the desirability of a longer and more intimate association +with Nature. Walden Wood had been a familiar and favoured spot for many +years, and so he began the building of his tabernacle there. So far from +being a sudden, sensational resolve with an eye to effect, it was the +natural outcome of his passion for the open. + +He had his living to earn, and would go down into Concord from time to +time to sell the results of his handiwork. He was quite willing to see +friends and any chance travellers who visited from other motives than +mere inquisitiveness. On the other hand, the life he proposed for +himself as a temporary experiment would afford many hours of congenial +solitude, when he could study the ways of the animals that he loved and +give free expression to his naturalistic enthusiasms. + +Far too much has been made of the Walden episode. It has been written +upon as if it had represented the totality of Thoreau's life, instead of +being merely an interesting episode. Critics have animadverted upon it, +as if the time had been spent in brooding, self-pity, and sentimental +affectations, as if Thoreau had gone there to escape from his fellow-men. +All this seems to me wide of the mark. Thoreau was always keenly +interested in men and manners; his essays abound in a practical sagacity, +too frequently overlooked. He went to Walden not to escape from ordinary +life, but to fit himself for ordinary life. The sylvan solitudes, as he +knew, had their lessons for him no less than the busy haunts of men. + +Of course it would be idle to deny that he found his greatest happiness +in the woods and fields; it is this touch of wildness that makes of him a +Vagabond. But though not an emotional man, his was not a hard nature so +much as a reserved, self-centred nature, rarely expressing itself in +outward show of feeling. That he was a man capable of strong affection +is shown by his devotion to his brother. Peculiarities of temperament he +had certainly, idiosyncrasies as marked as those of Borrow. These I wish +to discuss later. For the moment I am concerned to defend him from the +criticism that he was a loveless, brooding kind of creature, more +interested in birds and fishes than in his fellow-men. For he was +neither loveless nor brooding, and the characteristics that have proved +most puzzling arose from the mingled strain in his nature of the Eastern +quietist and the shrewd Western. These may now be considered more +leisurely. I will deal with the less important first of all. + + + +II + + +Some of his earlier work suffers somewhat from a too faithful +discipleship of Emerson; but when he had found himself, as he has in +_Walden_, he can break away from this tendency, and there are many lovely +passages untouched by didacticism. + + "The stillness was intense and almost conscious, as if it were a + natural sabbath. The air was so elastic and crystalline that it had + the same effect on the landscape that a glass has on a picture--to + give it an ideal remoteness and perfection. The landscape was bathed + in a mild and quiet light, while the woods and fences chequered and + partitioned it with new regularity, and rough and uneven fields + stretched far away with lawnlike smoothness to the horizon, and the + clouds, finely distinct and picturesque, seemed a fit drapery to hang + over fairyland." + +But while there is the Wordsworthian appreciation of the peaceful moods +of Nature and of the gracious stillnesses, there is the true spirit of +the Vagabond in his Earth-worship. Witness his pleasant "Essay on +Walking":-- + + "We are but faint-hearted crusaders; even the walkers nowadays + undertake no persevering world's end enterprises. Our expeditions + are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearthside + from which we set out. Half of the walk is but retracing our steps. + We should go forth on the shortest walks, perchance, in the spirit of + stirring adventure, never to return, prepared to send back our + embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdom. If you have + paid your debts and made your will and settled all your affairs, and + are a free man, then you are ready for a walk." + +There is a relish in this sprightly abjuration that is transmittible to +all but the dullest mind. The essay can take its place beside Hazlitt's +"On Going a Journey," than which we can give it no higher praise. + +With all his appreciation of the quieter, the gentler aspects of nature, +he has the true hardiness of the child of the road, and has as cheery a +welcome for the east wind as he has for the gentlest of summer breezes. +Here is a little winter's sketch:-- + + "The wonderful purity of Nature at this season is a most pleasing + fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rush of the dead + leaves of autumn are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the + bare fields and trickling woods see what virtue survives. In the + coldest and bleakest places the warmest charities still maintain a + foothold. A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and + nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it; and accordingly + whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places as the tops of + mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan + toughness." + +But Thoreau's pleasant gossips about the woods in Maine, or on the +Concord River, would pall after a time were they not interspersed with +larger utterances and with suggestive illustrations from the Books of the +East. Merely considered as "poet-naturalist" he cannot rank with Gilbert +White for quaint simplicity, nor have his discursive essays the full, +rich note that we find in Richard Jefferies. That his writings show a +sensitive imagination as well as a quick observation the above extracts +will show. But unfortunately he had contracted a bad attack of +Emersonitis, from which as literary writer he never completely recovered. +Salutary as Emerson was to Thoreau as an intellectual irritant, he was +the last man in the world for the discursive Thoreau to take as a +literary model. + +Many fine passages in his writings are spoiled by vocal imitations of the +"voice oracular," which is the more annoying inasmuch as Thoreau was no +weak replica of Emerson intellectually, showing in some respects indeed a +firmer grasp of the realities of life. But for some reason or other he +grew enamoured of certain Emersonian mannerisms, which he used whenever +he felt inclined to fire off a platitude. Sometimes he does it so well +that it is hard to distinguish the disciple from his master. Thus:-- + + "How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not a seedtime of + character?" + +Again:-- + + "Only he can be trusted with goods who can present a face of bronze + to expectations." + +Unimpeachable in sentiment, but too obviously inspired for us to view +them with satisfaction. And Thoreau at his best is so fresh, so +original, that we decline to be put off with literary imitations, however +excellently done. + +And thus it is that Thoreau has been too often regarded as a mere +disciple of Emerson. For this he cannot altogether escape blame, but the +student will soon detect the superficiality of the criticism, and see the +genuine Thoreau beneath the Emersonian veneer. + +Thoreau lacked the integrating genius of Emerson, on the one hand, yet +possessed an eye for concrete facts which the master certainly lacked. +His strength, therefore, lay in another direction, and where Thoreau is +seen at his best is where he is dealing with the concrete experiences of +life, illustrating them from his wide and discursive knowledge of Indian +character and Oriental modes of thought. + + + +III + + +Insufficient attention has been paid, I think, to Thoreau's sympathy with +the Indian character and his knowledge of their ways. + +The Indians were to Thoreau what the gypsies were to Borrow. Appealing +to certain spiritual affinities in the men's natures, they revealed their +own temperaments to them, enabling them to see the distinctiveness of +their powers. Thoreau was never quite able to give this intimate +knowledge such happy literary expression as Borrow. Apprehending the +peculiar charm, the power and limitations of the Indian character, +appreciating its philosophical value, he lacked the picturesque pen of +Borrow to visualize this for the reader. + +A lover of Indian relics from his childhood, he followed the Indians into +their haunts, and conversed with them frequently. Some of the most +interesting passages he has written detail conversations with them. One +feels he knew and understood them; and they no less understood him, and +talked with him as they certainly would not have done with any other +white man. But one would have liked to have heard much more about them. +If only Thoreau could have given us an Indian Petulengro, how interesting +it would have been! + +But, like the Indian, there was a reserve and impenetrability about +Thoreau which prevented him from ever becoming really confidential in +print. If he had but unbended more frequently, and not sifted his +thought so conscientiously before he gave us the benefit of it, he would +certainly have appealed to our affections far more than he does. + +One feels in comparing his writings with the accounts of him by friends +how much that was interesting in the man remains unexpressed in terms of +literature. Partly this is due, no doubt, to his being tormented with +the idea of self-education that he had learnt from Emerson. In a +philosopher and moralist self-education is all very well. But in a +naturalist and in a writer with so much of the Vagabond about him as +Thoreau this sensitiveness about self-culture, this anxiety to eliminate +all the temperamental tares, is blameworthy. + +The care he took to eliminate the lighter element in his work--the flash +of wit, the jocose aside--a care which pursued him to the last, seems to +show that he too often mistook gravity for seriousness. Like Dr. Watts' +bee (which is not Maeterlinck's) he "improved the shining hour," instead +of allowing the shining hour to carry with it its own improvement, none +the less potent for being unformulated. But beside the Emersonian +influence, there is the Puritan strain in Thoreau's nature, which must +not be overlooked. No doubt it also is partly accountable for his +literary silences and austere moods. + +To revert to the Indians. + +If Thoreau does not deal dramatically with his Indians, yet he had much +that is interesting and suggestive to say about them. These are some +passages from _A Week on the Concord_:-- + + "We talk of civilizing the Indians, but that is not the name for his + improvement. By the wary independence and aloofness of his dim + forest-life he preserves his intercourse with his native gods, and is + admitted from time to time to a rare and peculiar society with + Nature. He has glances of starry recognition to which our salons are + strangers. The steady illumination of his genius, dim only because + distant, is like the faint but satisfying light of the stars compared + with the dazzling but ineffectual and short-lived blaze of candles. . + . . We would not always be soothing and taming Nature, breaking the + horse and the ox, but sometimes ride the horse wild and chase the + buffalo. The Indian's intercourse with Nature is at least such as + admits of the greatest independence of each. If he is somewhat of a + stranger in her midst, the gardener is too much of a familiar. There + is something vulgar and foul in the latter's closeness to his + mistress, something noble and cleanly in the former's distance. In + civilization, as in a southern latitude, man degenerates at length + and yields to the incursion of more northern tribes. + + 'Some nations yet shut in + With hills of ice.' + + "There are other savager and more primeval aspects of Nature than our + poets have sung. It is only white man's poetry--Homer and Ossian + even can never revive in London or Boston. And yet behold how these + cities are refreshed by the mere tradition or the imperfectly + transmitted fragrance and flavour of these wild fruits. If one could + listen but for an instant to the chant of the Indian muse, we should + understand why he will not exchange his savageness for civilization. + Nations are not whimsical. Steel and blankets are strong + temptations, but the Indian does well to continue Indian." + +These are no empty generalizations, but the comments of a man who has +observed closely and sympathetically. All of Thoreau's references to +Indian life merit the closest attention. For, as I have said, they help +to explain the man himself. He had a sufficient touch of wildness to be +able to detach himself from the civilized man's point of view. Hence the +life of the woods came so naturally to him. The luxuries, the +excitements, that mean so much to some, Thoreau passed by indifferently. +There is much talk to-day of "the simple life," and the phrase has become +tainted with affectation. Often it means nothing more than a passing fad +on the part of overfed society people who are anxious for a new +sensation. A fad with a moral flavour about it will always commend +itself to a certain section. Certainly it is quite innocuous, but, on +the other hand, it is quite superficial. There is no real intention of +living a simple life any more than there is any deep resolve on the part +of the man who takes the Waters annually to abstain in the future from +over-eating. But with Thoreau the simple life was a vital reality. He +was not devoid of American self-consciousness, and perhaps he pats +himself on the back for his healthy tastes more often than we should +like. But of his fundamental sincerity there can be no question. + +He saw even more clearly than Emerson the futility and debilitating +effect of extravagance and luxury--especially American luxury. And his +whole life was an indignant protest. + +Yet it is a mistake to think (as some do) that he favoured a kind of +Rousseau-like "Return to Nature," without any regard to the conventions +of civilization. "It is not," he states emphatically, "for a man to put +himself in opposition to society, but to maintain himself in whatever +attitude he finds himself through obedience to the laws of his own being, +which will never be one of opposition to a just government. I left the +woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that +I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for +that one." + +This is not the language of a crank, or the words of a man who, as Lowell +unfairly said, seemed "to insist in public in going back to flint and +steel when there is a match-box in his pocket." + +Lowell's criticism of Thoreau, indeed, is quite wide of the mark. It +assumes throughout that Thoreau aimed at "an entire independence of +mankind," when Thoreau himself repeatedly says that he aimed at nothing +of the sort. He made an experiment for the purpose of seeing what a +simple, frugal, open-air life would do for him. The experiment being +made, he returned quietly to the conditions of ordinary life. But he did +not lack self-assurance, and his frank satisfaction with the results of +his experiment was not altogether pleasing to those who had scant +sympathy with his passion for the Earth. + +To be quite fair to Lowell and other hostile critics one must admit that, +genuine as Thoreau was, he had the habit common to all self-contained and +self-opiniated men of talking at times as though his very idiosyncrasies +were rules of conduct imperative upon others. His theory of life was +sound enough, his demand for simple modes of living, for a closer +communion with Nature, for a more sympathetic understanding of the "brute +creation," were reasonable beyond question. But the Emersonian mannerism +(which gives an appearance of dogmatism, when no dogmatism is intended) +starts up from time to time and gives the reader the impression that the +path to salvation traverses Walden, all other paths being negligible, and +that you cannot attain perfection unless you keep a pet squirrel. + +But if a sentence here and there has an annoying flavour of complacent +dogmatism, and if the note of self-assertion grows too loud on occasion +for our sensitive ears, {102} yet his life and writings considered as a +whole do not assuredly favour verdicts so unfavourable as those of Lowell +and Stevenson. + +Swagger and exaggeration may be irritating, but after all the important +thing is whether a man has anything to swagger about, whether the case +which he exaggerates is at heart sane and just. + +Every Vagabond swaggers because he is an egotist more or less, and +relishes keenly the life he has mapped out for himself. But the swagger +is of the harmless kind; it is not really offensive; it is a sort of +childish exuberance that plays over the surface of his mind, without +injuring it, the harmless vanity of one who having escaped from the +schoolhouse of convention congratulates himself on his good luck. + +Swagger of this order you will find in the writings even of that quiet, +unassuming little man De Quincey. Hazlitt had no small measure of it, +and certainly it meets us in the company of Borrow. It is very +noticeable in Whitman--far more so than in Thoreau. Why then does this +quality tend to exasperate more when we find it in _Walden_? Why has +Thoreau's sincerity been impugned and Whitman escaped? Why are Thoreau's +mannerisms greeted with angry frowns, and the mannerisms, say of Borrow, +regarded with good-humoured intolerance? Chiefly, I think, because of +Thoreau's desperate efforts to justify his healthy Vagabondage by +Emersonian formulas. + +I am not speaking of his sane and comprehensive philosophy of life. The +Vagabond has his philosophy of life no less than the moralist, though as +a rule he is content to let it lie implicit in his writings, and is not +anxious to turn it into a gospel. But he did not always realize the +difference between moral characteristics and temperamental peculiarities, +and many of his admirers have done him ill service by trying to make of +his very Vagabondage (admirable enough in its way) a rule of faith for +all and sundry. Indeed, I think that much of the resentment expressed +against Thoreau by level-headed critics is due to the unwise eulogy of +friends. + +Thoreau has become an object of worship to the crank, and in our +annoyance with the crank--who is often a genuine reformer destitute of +humour--we are apt to jumble up devotee and idol together. Idol-worship +never does any good to the idol. + + + +IV + + +As a thinker Thoreau is suggestive and stimulating, except when he tries +to systematize. Naturally I think he had a discursive and inquisitive, +rather than a profound and analytical mind. He was in sympathy with +Eastern modes of regarding life; and the pantheistic tendency of his +religious thought, especially his care and reverence for all forms of +life, suggest the devout Buddhist. The varied references scattered +throughout his writings to the Sacred Books of the East show how +Orientalism affected him. + +Herein we touch upon the most attractive side of the man; for it is this +Orientalism, I think, in his nature that explains his regard for, and his +sympathy with, the birds and animals. + +The tenderness of the Buddhist towards the lower creation is not due to +sentimentalism, nor is it necessarily a sign of sensitiveness of feeling. +In his profoundly interesting study of the Burmese people Mr. Fielding +Hall has summed up admirably the teaching of Buddha: "Be in love with all +things, not only with your fellows, but with the whole world, with every +creature that walks the earth, with the birds in the air, with the +insects in the grass. All life is akin to man." The oneness of life is +realized by the Eastern as it seldom is by the Western. The love that +stirs in your heart kindled the flower into beauty, and broods in the +great silent pools of the forest. + +But Nature is not always kind. That he cannot help feeling. She +inspires fear as well as love. She scatters peace and consolation, but +can scatter also pain and death. All forms of life are more or less +sacred. The creatures of the forest whose ferocity and cunning are +manifest, may they not be inhabited by some human spirit that has misused +his opportunities in life? Thus they have an affinity with us, and are +signs of what we may become. + +And if a measure of sacredness attaches to all life, however unfriendly +and harmful it may seem, the gentler forms of life are especially to be +objects of reverence and affection. + +In one particular, however, Thoreau's attitude towards the earth and all +that therein is differed from the Buddhist, inasmuch as the fear that +enters into the Eastern's Earth-worship was entirely purged from his +mind. Mr. Page has instituted a suggestive comparison between Thoreau +and St. Francis d'Assisi. Certainly the rare magnetic attraction which +Thoreau seemed to have exercised over his "brute friends" was quite as +remarkable as the power attributed to St. Francis, and it is true to say +that in both cases the sympathy for animals is constantly justified by a +reference to a dim but real brotherhood. The brutes are "undeveloped +men"; they await their transformation and stand on their defence; and it +is very easy to see that inseparably bound up with this view there are +certain elements of mysticism common to the early saint and the American +"hut builder." {106} + +And yet, perhaps, Mr. Page presses the analogy between the medieval saint +and the American "poet-naturalist" too far. St. Francis had an ardent, +passionate nature, and whether leading a life of dissipation or tending +to the poor, there is about him a royal impulsiveness, a passionate +abandonment, pointing to a temperament far removed from Thoreau's. + +Prodigal in his charities, riotous in his very austerities, his +tenderness towards the animals seems like the overflowing of a finely +sensitive and artistic nature. With Thoreau one feels in the presence of +a more tranquil, more self-contained spirit; his affection is the +affection of a kindly scientist who is intensely interested in the ways +and habits of birds, beasts, and fishes; one who does not give them the +surplus of the love he bears towards his fellow-men so much as a care and +love which he does not extend so freely towards his fellows. I do not +mean that he was apathetic, especially when his fellow-creatures were in +trouble; his eloquent defence of John Brown, his kindliness towards +simple folk, are sufficient testimony on this score. But on the whole +his interest in men and women was an abstract kind of interest; he showed +none of the personal curiosity and eager inquisitiveness about them that +he showed towards the denizens of the woods and streams. And if you are +not heartily interested in your fellow-men you will not love them very +deeply. + +I am not sure that Hawthorne was so far out in his characterization +"Donatello"--the creature half-animal, half-man, which he says was +suggested by Thoreau. It does not pretend to realize all his +characteristics, nor do justice to his fine qualities. None the less in +its picture of a man with a flavour of the wild and untameable about +him--whose uncivilized nature brings him into a close and vital intimacy +with the animal world, we detect a real psychological affinity with +Thoreau. May not Thoreau's energetic rebukes of the evils of +civilization have received an added zest from his instinctive repugnance +to many of the civilized amenities valued by the majority? + +Many of Thoreau's admirers--including Mr. Page and Mr. Salt--defend him +stoutly against the charge of unsociability, and they see in this feeling +for the brute creation an illustration of his warm humanitarianism. +"Thoreau loves the animals," says Mr. Page, "because they are manlike and +seem to yearn toward human forms." It seems to me that Thoreau's +affection was a much simpler affair than this. He was drawn towards them +because _he_ felt an affinity with them--an affinity more compelling in +its attraction than the affinity of the average human person. + +No doubt he felt, as Shelley did when he spoke of "birds and even +insects" as his "kindred," that this affinity bespoke a wider brotherhood +of feeling than men are usually ready to acknowledge. But this is not +the same as loving animals _because_ they are manlike. He loved them +surely because they were _living_ things, and he was drawn towards all +living things, not because he detected any semblance to humankind in +them. The difference between these two attitudes is not easy to define +clearly; but it is a real, not a nominal difference. + +It is argued, however, as another instance of Thoreau's undervalued +sociability, that he was very fond of children. That he was fond of +children may be admitted, and some of the pleasantest stories about him +relate to his rambles with children. His huckleberry parties were justly +famous, if report speaks true. "His resources for entertainment," says +Mr. Moncure Conway, "were inexhaustible. He would tell stories of the +Indians who once dwelt thereabouts till the children almost looked to see +a red man skulking with his arrow and stone, and every plant or flower on +the bank or in the water, and every fish, turtle, frog, lizard about was +transformed by the wand of his knowledge from the low form into which the +spell of our ignorance had reduced it into a mystic beauty." + +Emerson and his children frequently accompanied him on these expeditions. +"Whom shall we ask?" demanded Emerson's little daughter. "All children +from six to sixty," replied her father. + + "Thoreau," writes Mr. Conway in his _Reminiscences_, "was the guide, + for he knew the precise locality of every variety of berry." + + "Little Edward Emerson, on one occasion, carrying a basket of fine + huckleberries, had a fall and spilt them all. Great was his + distress, and offers of berries could not console him for the loss of + those gathered by himself. But Thoreau came, put his arm round the + troubled child, and explained to him that if the crop of + huckleberries was to continue it was necessary that some should be + scattered. Nature had provided that little boys and girls should now + and then stumble and sow the berries. 'We shall,' he said, 'have a + grand lot of bushes and berries on this spot, and we shall owe them + to you.' Edward began to smile." + +Thoreau evidently knew how to console a child, no less than how to make +friends with a squirrel. But his fondness for children is no more an +argument for his sociability, than his fondness for birds or squirrels. +As a rule it will be found, I think, that a predilection for children is +most marked in men generally reserved and inaccessible. Lewis Carroll, +for instance, to take a famous recent example, was the reverse of a +sociable man. Shy, reserved, even cold in ordinary converse, he would +expand immediately when in the company of children. Certainly he +understood them much better than he did their elders. Like Thoreau, +moreover, Lewis Carroll was a lover of animals. + +Social adaptability was not a characteristic of Thackeray, his moroseness +and reserve frequently alienating people; yet no one was more devoted to +children, or a more delightful friend to them. + +So far from being an argument in favour of its possessor's sociability, +it seems to be a tolerable argument against it. It is not hard to +understand why. When analysed this fondness for children is much the +same in quality as the fondness for animals. A man is drawn towards +children because there is something fresh, unsophisticated, and elemental +about them. It has no reference to their moral qualities, though the +aesthetic element plays a share. Thoreau knew how to comfort little +Edward Emerson just as he knew how to cheer the squirrel that sought a +refuge in his waistcoat. This fondness, however, must not be confused +with the paternal instinct. A man may desire to have children, realize +that desire, interest himself in their welfare, and yet not be really +fond of them. As children they may not attract him, but he regards them +as possibilities for perpetuating the family and for enhancing its +prestige. + +A good deal of nonsense is talked about the purity and innocence of +childhood. Children are consequently brought up in a morbidly +sentimental atmosphere that makes of them too quickly little prigs or +little hypocrites. I do not believe, however, that any man or woman who +is genuinely fond of children is moved by this artificial point of view. +The innocence and purity of children is a middle-class convention. None +but the unreal sentimentalist really believes in it. What attracts us +most in children is naturalness and simplicity. We note in them the +frank predominance of the instinctive life, and they charm us in many +ways just as young animals do. + +Lewis Carroll's biographer speaks of "his intense admiration for the +white innocence and uncontaminated spirituality of childhood." + +If this be true then it shows that the Rev. C. L. Dodgson had a great +deal to learn about children, who are, or should be, healthy little +pagans. But though his liking for them may not have been free of the +sentimental taint, there is abundant proof that other less debatable +qualities in childhood appealed to him with much greater force. + +"Uncontaminated spirituality," forsooth. I would as soon speak of the +uncontaminated spirituality of a rabbit. I am sure rabbits are a good +deal more lovable than some children. + +Thoreau's love of children, then, seems to be only a fresh instance of +his attraction towards simpler, more elemental forms of life. Men and +women not ringed round by civilized conventions, children who have the +freshness and wildness of the woods about them; such were the human +beings that interested him. + +Such an attitude has its advantages as well as its limitations. It calls +neither for the censorious blame visited upon Thoreau by some of the +critics nor the indiscriminate eulogy bestowed on him by others. + +The Vagabond who withdraws himself to any extent from the life of his +day, who declines to conform to many of its arbitrary conventions, +escapes much of the fret and tear, the heart-aching and the +disillusionment that others share in. He retains a freshness, a +simplicity, a joyfulness, not vouchsafed to those who stay at home and +never wander beyond the prescribed limits. He exhibits an individuality +which is more genuinely the legitimate expression of his temperament. It +is not warped, crossed, suppressed, as many are. + +And this is why the literary Vagabond is such excellent company, having +wandered from the beaten track he has much to tell others of us who have +stayed at home. There is a wild luxuriance about his character that is +interesting and fascinating--if you are not thrown for too long in his +company. The riotous growth of eccentricities and idiosyncrasies are +picturesque enough, though you must expect to find thorns and briars. + +On the other hand, we must beware of sentimentalizing the Vagabond, and +to present him as an ideal figure--as some enthusiasts have done--seems +to me a mistake. As a wholesome bitter corrective to the monotonous +sweet of civilization he is admirable enough. Of his tonic influence in +literature there can be no question. But it is well for the Vagabond to +be in the minority. Perhaps these considerations should come at the +close of the series of Vagabond studies, but they arise naturally when +considering Thoreau--for Thoreau is one of the few Vagabonds whom his +admirers have tried to canonize. Not content with the striking qualities +which the Vagabond naturally exhibits, some of his admirers cannot rest +without dragging in other qualities to which he has no claim. Why try to +prove that Thoreau was really a most sociable character, that Whitman was +the profoundest philosopher of his day, that Jefferies was--deep down--a +conventionally religious man? Why, oh why, may we not leave them in +their pleasant wildness without trying to make out that they were the +best company in the world for five-o'clock teas and chapel meetings? + +For--and it is well to admit it frankly--the Vagabond loses as well as +gains by his deliberate withdrawal from the world. No man can live to +himself without some injury to his character. The very cares and +worries, the checks and clashings, consequent on meeting other +individualities tend to keep down the egotistic elements in a man's +nature. The necessary give and take, the sacrifice of self-interests, +the little abnegations, the moral adjustment following the appreciation +of other points of view; all these things are good for men and women. +Yes, and it is good even to mix with very conventional people--I do not +say live with them--however distasteful it may be, for the excessive +caution, the prudential, opportunistic qualities they exhibit, serve a +useful purpose in the scheme of things. The ideal thing, no doubt, is to +mix with as many types, as many varieties of the human species, as +possible. Browning owes his great power as a poet to his tireless +interest in all sorts and conditions of men and women. + +It is idle to pretend then that Thoreau lost nothing by his experiments, +and by the life he fashioned for himself. Nature gives us plenty of +choice; we are invited to help ourselves, but everything must be paid +for. There are drawbacks as well as compensations; and the most a man +can do is to strike a balance. + +And in Thoreau's case the balance was a generous one. + +Better than his moralizing, better than his varied culture, was his +intimacy with Nature. Moralists are plentiful, scholars abound, but men +in close, vital sympathy with the Earth, a sympathy that comprehends +because it loves, and loves because it comprehends, are rare. Let us +make the most of them. + +In one of his most striking Nature poems Mr. George Meredith exclaims:-- + + "Enter these enchanted woods, + You who dare. + Nothing harms beneath the leaves + More than waves a swimmer cleaves. + Toss your heart up with the lark, + Foot at peace with mouse and worm, + Fair you fare, + Only at a dread of dark + Quaver, and they quit their form: + Thousand eyeballs under hoods + Have you by the hair. + Enter these enchanted woods, + You who dare." + +So to understand Nature you must trust her, otherwise she will remain at +heart fearsome and cryptic. + + "You must love the light so well + That no darkness will seem fell; + Love it so you could accost + Fellowly a livid ghost." + +Mr. Meredith requires us to approach Nature with an unswerving faith in +her goodness. + +No easy thing assuredly; and to some minds this attitude will express a +facile optimism. Approve it or reject it, however, as we may, 'tis a +philosophy that can claim many and diverse adherents, for it is no dusty +formula of academic thought, but a message of the sunshine and the winds. +Talk of suffering and death to the Vagabond, and he will reply as did +Petulengro, "Life is sweet, brother." Not that he ignores other matters, +but it is sufficient for him that "life is sweet." And after all he +speaks as to what he has known. + + + + +V +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + + "Choice word and measured phrase above the reach + Of ordinary man." + + WORDSWORTH (_Revolution and Independence_). + + "Variety's the very spice of life + That gives it all its flavour." + + COWPER. + + . . . "In his face, + There shines a brilliant and romantic grace, + A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace + Of passion and impudence and energy. + Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck, + Most vain, most generous, sternly critical, + Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist: + A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, + Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all, + And something of the Shorter Catechist. + + W. E. HENLEY. + + + +I + + +Romance! At times it passes athwart our vision, yet no sooner seen than +gone; at times it sounds in our ears, only to tremble into silence ere we +realize it; at times it touches our lips, and is felt in the blood, but +our outstretched arms gather naught but the vacant air. The scent of a +flower, the splendour of a sunrise, the glimmer of a star, and it wakens +into being. Sometimes when standing in familiar places, speaking on +matters of every day, suddenly, unexpectedly, it manifests its presence. +A turn of the head, a look in the eye, an inflection of the voice, and +this strange, indefinable thing stirs within us. Or, it may be, we are +alone, traversing some dusty highway of thought, when in a flash some +long-forgotten memory starts at our very feet, and we realize that +Romance is alive. + +I would fain deem Romance a twin--a brother and sister. The one fair and +radiant with the sunlight, strong and clean-fibred, warm of blood and +joyous of spirit; a creature of laughter and delight. I would fancy him +regarding the world with clear, shining eyes, faintly parted lips, a +buoyant expectancy in every line of his tense figure. Ready for anything +and everything; the world opening up before him like a white, alluring +road; tasting curiously every adventure, as a man plucks fruit by the +wayside, knowing no horizon to his outlook, no end to his journey, no +limit to his enterprise. + +As such I see one of the twins. And the other? Dark and wonderful; the +fragrance of poesy about her hair, the magic of mystery in her +unfathomable eyes. Sweet is her voice and her countenance is comely. A +creature of moonlight and starshine. She follows in the wake of her +brother; but his ways are not her ways. Away, out of sound of his mellow +laughter, she is the spirit that haunts lonely places. There is no price +by which you may win her, no entreaty to which she will respond. Compel +her you cannot, woo her you may not. Yet, uninvited, unbidden, she will +steal into the garret, gaunt in its lonesome ugliness, and bend over the +wasted form of some poor literary hack, until his dreams reflect the +beauty of her presence. + +And yet, when one's fancy has run riot in order to recall Romance, how +much remains that cannot be put [Picture: Robert Louis Stevenson] into +words. One thing, however, is certain. Romance must be large and +generous enough to comprehend the full-blooded geniality of a Scott, the +impalpable mystery of a Coleridge or Shelley, to extend a hand to the +sun-tanned William Morris, and the lover of twilight, Nathaniel +Hawthorne. + +Borrow was a Romantic, so is Stevenson. Scott was a Romantic, likewise +Edgar Allan Poe. If Romance be not a twin, then it must change its form +and visage wondrously to appeal to temperaments so divergent. But if +Romance be a twin (the conceit will serve our purpose) then one may +realize how Scott and Borrow followed in the brother's wake; Stevenson +and Poe being drawn rather towards the sister. + +In the case of Stevenson it may seem strange that one who wrote stirring +adventures, who delighted boys of all ages with _Treasure Island_ and +_Black Arrow_ (oh, excellent John Silver!), and followed in the steps of +Sir Walter in _The Master of Ballantrae_ and _Catriona_, should not be +associated with the adventurous brother. But Scott and Stevenson have +really nothing in common, beyond a love for the picturesque--and there is +nothing distinctive in that. It is an essential qualification in the +equipment of every Romantic. Adventures, as such, did not appeal to +Stevenson, I think; it was the spice of mystery in them that attracted +him. Watch him and you will find he is not content until he has thrown +clouds of phantasy over his pictures. His longer stories have no +unity--they are disconnected episodes strung lightly together, and this +is why his short stories impress us far more with their power and +brilliance. + +_Markheim_ and _Jekyll and Hyde_ do not oppress the imagination in the +same way as do Poe's tales of horror; but they show the same passion for +the dark corners of life, the same fondness for the gargoyles of Art. +This is Romance on its mystic side. + +Throughout his writings--I say nothing of his letters, which stand in a +different category--one can hear + + "The horns of Elfland faintly blowing." + +Sometimes the veil of phantasy is shaken by a peal of impish laughter, as +if he would say, "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" but the attitude +that persists--breaks there must be, and gusty moods, or it would not be +Stevenson--is the attitude of the Romantic who loves rather the night +side of things. + + + +II + + +Much has been written about the eternal boy in Stevenson. I confess that +this does not strike me as a particularly happy criticism. In a +superficial sort of way it is, of course, obvious enough; he was fond of +"make-believe"; took a boyish delight in practical joking; was ever ready +for an adventure. But so complex and diverse his temperament that it is +dangerous to seize on one aspect and say, "There is the real Stevenson." +Ariel, Hamlet, and the Shorter Catechist cross and recross his pages as +we read them. Probably each reader of Stevenson retains most clearly one +special phase. It is the Ariel in Stevenson that outlasts for me the +other moods. If any one phase can be said to strike the keynote of his +temperament, it is the whimsical, freakish, but kindly Ariel--an Ariel +bound in service to the Prospero of fiction--never quite happy, longing +for his freedom, yet knowing that he must for a while serve his master. +One can well understand why John Addington Symonds dubbed Stevenson +"sprite." This elfish dement in Stevenson is most apparent in his +letters and stories. + +The figures in his stories are less flesh-and-blood persons than the +shapes--some gracious, some terrifying--that the Ariel world invoke. It +is not that Stevenson had no grip on reality; his grip-hold on life was +very firm and real. Beneath the light badinage, the airy, graceful wit +that plays over his correspondence, there is a steel-like tenacity. But +in his stories he leaves the solid earth for a phantastic world of his +own. He does so deliberately: he turns his back on reality, has dealings +with phantom passions. His historical romances are like ghostly editions +of Scott. There is light, but little heat in his fictions. They charm +our fancy, but do not seize upon our imagination. Stevenson's novels +remind one of an old _Punch_ joke about the man who chose a wife to match +his furniture. Stevenson chooses his personages to match his +furniture--his cunningly-woven tapestries of style; and the result is +that we are too conscious of the tapestry on the wall, too little +conscious of the people who move about the rooms. If only Stevenson had +suited his style to his matter, as he does in his letters, which are +written in fine Vagabond spirit--his romances would have seemed less +artificial. I say _seemed_, for it was the stylist that stood in the way +of the story-teller. Stevenson's sense of character was keen enough, +particularly in his ripe, old "disreputables." But much of his +remarkable psychology was lost, it seems to me, by the lack of dramatic +presentment. + +Borrow's characters do not speak Borrow so emphatically as do Stevenson's +characters speak Stevenson. And with Stevenson it matters more. +Borrow's picturesque, vivid, but loose, loquacious style, fits his +subject-matter on the whole very well. But Stevenson's delicate, +nervous, mannerized style suits but ill some of the scenes he is +describing. If it suits, it suits by a happy accident, as in the +delightful sentimentality, _Providence and the Guitar_. + +To appraise Stevenson's merits as a Romantic one has to read him after +reading Scott, Dumas, Victor Hugo; or, better still, to peruse these +giants after dallying with Ariel. + +We realize then what it is that we had vaguely missed in Stevenson--the +human touch. These men believe in the figments of their imagination, and +make us believe in them. + +Stevenson is obviously sceptical as to their reality; we can almost see a +furtive smile upon his lip as he writes. But there is nothing unreal +about the man, whatever we feel of the Artist. + +In his critical comments on men and matters, especially when Hamlet and +the Shorter Catechist come into view, we shall find a vigorous sanity, a +shrewd yet genial outlook, that seems to say there is no make-believe +_here_; _here_ I am not merely amusing myself; here, honestly and +heartily admitted, you may find the things that life has taught me. + + + +III + + +Stevenson had many sides, but there were two especially that reappear +again and again, and were the controlling forces in his nature. One was +the Romantic element, the other the Artistic. It may be thought that +these twain have much in common; but it is not so. In poetry the first +gives us a Blake, a Shelley; the second a Keats, a Tennyson. Variety, +fresh points of view, these are the breath of life to the Romantic. But +for the Artist there is one constant, unchanging ideal. The Romantic +ventures out of sheer love of the venture, the other out of sheer love +for some definite end in view. It is not usual to find them coexisting +as they did in Stevenson, and their dual existence gives an added +piquancy and interest to his work. It is the Vagabond Romantic in him +that leads him into so many byways and secret places, that sends him +airily dancing over the wide fields of literature; ever on the move, +making no tabernacle for himself in any one grove. And it is the Artist +who gives that delicacy of finish, that exquisitive nicety of touch, to +the veriest trifle that he essays. The matter may be beggarly, the +manner is princely. + +Mark the high ideal he sets before him: "The Artist works entirely upon +honour. The Public knows little or nothing of those merits in its quest +of which you are condemned to spend the bulk of your endeavours. Merits +of design, the merit of first-hand energy, the merit of a certain cheap +accomplishment, which a man of the artistic temper easily acquires; these +they can recognize, and these they value. But to those more exquisite +refinements of proficiency and finish, which the Artist so ardently +desires and so keenly feels, for which (in the vigorous words of Balzac) +he must toil 'like a miner buried in a landslip,' for which day after day +he recasts and revises and rejects, the gross mass of the Public must be +ever blind. To those lost pains, suppose you attain the highest point of +merit, posterity may possibly do justice; suppose, as is so probable, +that you fail by even a hair's breadth of the highest, rest certain they +shall never be observed. Under the shadow of this cold thought alone in +his studio the Artist must preserve from day to day his constancy to the +ideal." {124a} + +An exacting ideal, but one to which Stevenson was as faithful as a +Calvinist to his theology. The question arises, however; is the +fastidiousness, the patient care of the Artist, consistent with +Vagabondage? Should one not say the greater the stylist, the lesser the +Vagabond? + +This may be admitted. And thus it is that in the letters alone do we +find the Vagabond temperament of Stevenson fully asserting itself. +Elsewhere 'tis held in check. As Mr. Sidney Colvin justly says: {124b} +"In his letters--excepting a few written in youth, and having more or +less the character of exercises, and a few in after years which were +intended for the public eye--Stevenson, the deliberate artist is scarcely +forthcoming at all. He does not care a fig for order, or logical +sequence, or congruity, or for striking a key of expression and keeping +it, but becomes simply the most spontaneous and unstudied of human +beings. He will write with the most distinguished eloquence on one day, +with simple good sense and good feeling on a second, with flat triviality +on another, and with the most slashing, often ultra-colloquial vehemency +on a fourth, or will vary through all these moods, and more, in one and +the same letter." + +Fresh and spontaneous his letters invariably appear; with a touch of the +invalid's nervous haste, but never lacking in courage, and with nothing +of the querulousness which we connect with chronic ill-health. Weak and +ailing, shadowed by death for many years before the end, Stevenson showed +a fine fortitude, which will remain in the memory of his friends as his +most admirable character. With the consistency of Mark Tapley (and with +less talk about it) he determined to be jolly in all possible +circumstances. Right to the end his wonderful spirits, his courageous +gaiety attended him; the frail body grew frailer, but the buoyant +intellect never failed him, or if it did so the failure was momentary, +and in a moment he was recovered. + +No little of his popularity is due to the desperate valour with which he +contested the ground with death, inch by inch, and died, as Buckle and +John Richard Green had done, in the midst of the work that he would not +quit. Romance was by him to the last, gladdening his tired body with her +presence; and if towards the end weariness and heart-sickness seized him +for a spell, yet the mind soon resumed its mastery over weakness. In a +prayer which he had written shortly before his death he had petitioned: +"Give us to awake with smiles, give us to labour smiling; as the sun +lightens the world, so let our lovingkindness make bright this house of +our habitation." Assuredly in his case this characteristic petition had +been realized; the prevalent sunniness of his disposition attended him to +the last. + + + +IV + + +Of all our writers there has been none to whom the epithet "charming" has +been more frequently applied. Of late the epithet has become a kind of +adjectival maid-of-all-work, and has done service where a less emphatic +term would have done far better. But in Stevenson's case the epithet is +fully justified. Of all the literary Vagabonds he is the most +captivating. Not the most interesting; the most arresting, one may +admit. There is greater power in Hazlitt; De Quincey is more unique; the +"prophetic scream" of Whitman is more penetrating. But not one of them +was endowed with such wayward graces of disposition as Stevenson. +Whatever you read of his you think invariably of the man. Indeed the +personal note in his work is frequently the most interesting thing about +it. I mean that what attracts and holds us is often not any originality, +any profundity, nothing specially inherent in the matter of his speech, +but a bewitchingly delightful manner. + +Examine his attractive essays, _Virginibus Puerisque_ and _Familiar +Studies of Men and Books_, and this quality will manifest itself. There +is no pleasanter essay than the one on "Walking Tours"; it dresses up +wholesome truths with so pleasant and picturesque a wit; it is so +whimsical, yet withal so finely suggestive, that the reader who cannot +yield to its fascination should consult a mental specialist. + +For instance:-- + + "It must not be imagined that a walking tour, as some would have us + fancy, is merely a better or worse way of seeing the country. There + are many ways of seeing landscape quite as good; and none more vivid, + in spite of canting dilettantes, than from a railway train. But + landscape on a walking tour is quite accessory. He who is indeed of + the brotherhood does not voyage in quest of the picturesque, but of + certain jolly humours--of the hope and spirit with which the march + begins at morning, and the peace and spiritual repletion of the + evening's rest. He cannot tell whether he puts his knapsack on or + takes it off with more delight. The excitement of the departure puts + him in key for that of the arrival. Whatever he does will be further + rewarded in the sequel; and so pleasure leads on to pleasure in an + endless chain." + +An admirable opening, full of the right relish. And the wit and relish +are maintained down to the last sentence. But it cannot fail to awaken +memories of the great departed in the reader of books. "Now to be +properly enjoyed," counsels Stevenson, "a walking tour should be gone +upon alone. . . . a walking tour should be gone upon alone because +freedom is of the essence," and so on in the same vein for twenty or +thirty lines. One immediately recalls Hazlitt--"On Going a Journey": +"One of the pleasantest things is going on a journey; but I like to go by +myself. . . . The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to +think, feel, do just as one pleases." + +A suspicion seizes the mind of the reader, and he will smile darkly to +himself. But Stevenson is quite ready for him. "A strong flavour of +Hazlitt, you think?" he seems to say, then with the frank ingenuousness +of one who has confessed to "playing the sedulous ape," he throws in a +quotation from this very essay of Hazlitt's and later on gives us more +Hazlitt. It is impossible to resent it; it is so openly done, there is +such a charming effrontery about the whole thing. And yet, though much +that he says is obviously inspired by Hazlitt, he will impart that +flavour of his own less mordant personality to the discourse. + +If you turn to another, the "Truth of Intercourse," it is hard to feel +that it would have thrived had not Elia given up his "Popular Fallacies." +There is an unmistakable echo in the opening paragraph: "Among sayings +that have a currency, in spite of being wholly false upon the face of +them, for the sake of a half-truth upon another subject which is +accidentally combined with the error, one of the grossest and broadest +conveys the monstrous proposition that it is easy to tell the truth and +hard to tell a lie. I wish heartily it were!" Similarly in other essays +the influence of Montaigne is strongly felt; and although Stevenson never +fails to impart the flavour of his own individuality to his +discourses--for he is certainly no mere copyist--one realizes the +unwisdom of those enthusiastic admirers who have bracketed him with Lamb, +Montaigne, and Hazlitt. These were men of the primary order; whereas +Stevenson with all his grace and charm is assuredly of the secondary +order. And no admiration for his attractive personality and captivating +utterances should blind us to this fact. + +As a critic of books his originality is perhaps more pronounced, but wise +and large though many of his utterances are, here again it is the +pleasant wayward Vagabond spirit that gives salt and flavour to them. +There are many critics less brilliant, less attractive in their speech, +in whose judgment I should place greater reliance. Sometimes, as in the +essay on "Victor Hugo's Romances," his own temperament stands in the way; +at other times, as in his "Thoreau" article, there is a vein of wilful +capriciousness, even of impish malice, that distorts his judgment. +Neither essays can be passed over; in each there is power and shrewd +flashes of discernment, and both are extremely interesting. One cannot +say they are satisfying. Stevenson does scant justice to the +extraordinary passion, the Titanic strength, of Hugo; and in the case of +Thoreau he dwells too harshly upon the less gracious aspects of the +"poet-naturalist." + +It is only fair to say, however, that in the case of Thoreau he made +generous amends in the preface to the Collected Essays. Both the +reconsidered verdict and the original essay are highly characteristic of +the man. Other men have said equally harsh things of Thoreau. Stevenson +alone had the fairness, the frank, childlike spirit to go back upon +himself. These are the things that endear us to Stevenson, and make it +impossible to be angry with any of his paradoxes and extravagant capers. +Who but Stevenson would have written thus: "The most temperate of living +critics once marked a passage of my own with a cross and the words, 'This +seems nonsense.' It not only seemed, it was so. It was a private +bravado of my own which I had so often repeated to keep up my spirits +that I had grown at last wholly to believe it, and had ended by setting +it down as a contribution to the theory of life." + +Touched by this confidence, one reads Stevenson--especially the +letters--with a more discerning eye, a more compassionate understanding; +and if at times one feels the presence of the Ariel too strong, and longs +for a more human, less elfin personality, then the thought that we are +dealing with deliberate "bravado" may well check our impatience. + +Men who suffer much are wont to keep up a brave front by an appearance of +indifference. + + + +V + + +To turn now to another side of Stevenson--Stevenson the Artist, the +artificer of phrases, the limner of pictures. His power here is shown in +a threefold manner--in deft and happy phrasing, in skilful +characterization, in delicately suggestive scenic descriptions. + +This, for instance, as an instance of the first:-- + + "The victim begins to shrink spiritually; he develops a fancy for + parlours with a regulated atmosphere, and takes his morality on the + principle of tin shoes and tepid milk. The care of one important + body or soul becomes so engrossing that all the noises of the outer + world begin to come thin and faint into the parlour with the + regulated temperature; and the tin shoes go equally forward over + blood and ruin" (_New Arabian Nights_). + +Or this:-- + + "Whitman, like a large, shaggy dog, just unchained, scouring the + beaches of the world, and baying at the moon" (_Men and Books_). + +Or this:-- + + "To have a catchword in your mouth is not the same thing as to hold + an opinion; still less is it the same thing as to have made one for + yourself. There are too many of these catchwords in the world for + people to rap out upon you like an oath by way of an argument. They + have a currency as intellectual counters, and many respectable + persons pay their way with nothing else" (_Virginibus Puerisque_). + +In his characterization he is at his best--like Scott and Borrow--when +dealing with the picaresque elements in life. His rogues are depicted +with infinite gusto and admirable art, and although even they, in common +with most of his characters, lack occasionally in substance and objective +reality, yet when he has to illustrate a characteristic he will do so +with a sure touch. + +Take, for instance, this sketch of Herrick in _The Ebb Tide_--the weak, +irresolute rascal, with just force enough to hate himself. He essays to +end his ignominious career in the swift waters:-- + + . . . "Let him lie down with all races and generations of men in the + house of sleep. It was easy to say, easy to do. To stop swimming; + there was no mystery in that, if he could do it. Could he? + + "And he could not. He knew it instantly. He was instantly aware of + an opposition in his members, unanimous and invincible, clinging to + life with a single and fixed resolve, finger by finger, sinew by + sinew; something that was at once he and not he--at once within and + without him; the shutting of some miniature valve within the brain, + which a single manly thought would suffice to open--and the grasp of + an external fate ineluctable to gravity. To any man there may come + at times a consciousness that there blows, through all the + articulations of his body, the wind of a spirit not wholly his; that + his mind rebels; that another girds him, and carries him whither he + would not. It came even to Herrick with the authority of a + revelation--there was no escape possible. The open door was closed + in his recreant face. He must go back into the world and amongst men + without illusion. He must stagger on to the end with the pack of his + responsibility and disgrace, until a cold, a blow--a merciful chance + blow--or the more merciful hangman should dismiss him from his + infamy. + + "There were men who could commit suicide; there were men who could + not; and he was one who could not. His smile was tragic. He could + have spat upon himself." + +Profoundly dissimilar in many ways, one psychological link binds together +Dickens, Browning, and Stevenson--a love of the grotesque, a passion for +the queer, phantastic sides of life. Each of them relished the tang of +roughness, and in Browning's case the relish imparts itself to his style. +Not so with Stevenson. He will delve with the others for curious +treasure; but not until it is fairly wrought and beaten into a thing of +finished beauty will he allow you to get a glimpse of it. + +This is different from Browning, who will fling his treasures at you with +all the mud upon them. But I am not sure that Stevenson's is always the +better way. He may save you soiling your fingers; but the real +attractiveness of certain things is inseparable from their uncouthness, +their downright ugliness. Sometimes you feel that a plainer setting +would have shown off the jewel to better advantage. Otherwise one has +nothing but welcome for such memorable figures as John Silver, the +Admiral in _The Story of a Lie_, Master Francis Villon, and a goodly +company beside. + +It is impossible even in such a cursory estimate of Stevenson as this to +pass over his vignettes of Nature. And it is the more necessary to +emphasize these, inasmuch as the Vagabond's passion for the Earth is +clearly discernible in these pictures. They are no Nature sketches as +imagined by a mere "ink-bottle feller"--to use a phrase of one of Mr. +Hardy's rustics. One of Stevenson's happiest recollections was an "open +air" experience when he slept on the earth. He loved the largeness of +the open air, and his intense joy in natural sights and sounds bespeaks +the man of fine, even hectic sensibility, whose nerves quiver for the +benison of the winds and sunshine. + +Ever since the days of Mrs. Radcliffe, who used the stormier aspects of +Nature with such effect in her stories, down to Mr. Thomas Hardy, whose +massive scenic effects are so remarkable, Nature has been regarded as a +kind of "stage property" by the novelist. + +To the great writers the Song of the Earth has proved an inspiration only +second to the "Song of Songs," and the lesser writer has imitated as best +he could so effective a decoration. But there is no mistaking the +genuine lover of the Earth. He does not--as Oscar Wilde wittily said of +a certain popular novelist--"frighten the evening sky into violent +chromo-lithographic effects"; he paints the sunrises and sunsets with a +loving fidelity which there is no mistaking. Nor are all the times and +seasons of equal interest in his eyes. If we look back at the masters of +fiction (ay, and mistresses too) in the past age, we shall note how each +one has his favourite aspect, how each responds more readily to one +special mood of the ancient Earth. + +Mention has been made of Mrs. Radcliffe. Extravagant and absurd as her +stories are in many ways, she was a genuine lover of Nature, especially +of its grand and sublime aspects. Her influence may be traced in Scott, +still more in Byron. The mystic side of Nature finds its lovers chiefly +in the poets, in Coleridge and in Shelley. But at a later date Nathaniel +Hawthorne found in the mysticism of the Earth his finest inspiration; +while throughout the novels of Charlotte and Emily Bronte wail the bleak +winds of the North, and the grey storm-clouds are always hurrying past. +Even in Dickens there is more snow than sunshine, and we hear more of +"the winds that would be howling at all hours" than of the brooding peace +and quiet of summer days. Charles Kingsley is less partial towards the +seasons, and cares less about the mysticism than the physical influences +of Nature. + +In our own day Mr. George Meredith has reminded us of the big geniality +of the Earth; and the close relationship of the Earth and her moods with +those who live nearest to her has found a faithful observer in Mr. Hardy. + +Stevenson differs from Meredith and Hardy in this. He looks at her +primarily with the eye of the artist. They look at her primarily with +the eye of the scientific philosopher. + +Here is a twilight effect from _The Return of the Native_:-- + + "The sombre stretch of rounds and hollows seemed to rise and meet the + evening gloom in pure sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as + rapidly as the heavens precipitated it. . . . The place became full + of a watchful intentness now; for when other things sank brooding to + sleep, the heath appeared slowly to awake and listen. Every night + its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it had waited thus + unmoved during so many centuries, through the crises of so many + things, that it could only be imagined to await one last crisis--the + final overthrow. . . . Twilight combined with the scenery of Egdon + Heath to evolve a thing majestic without severity, impressive without + showiness, emphatic in its admonitions, grand in its simplicity." + +Contrast with this a twilight piece from Stevenson:-- + + "The sky itself was of a ruddy, powerful, nameless changing colour, + dark and glossy like a serpent's back. The stars by innumerable + millions stuck boldly forth like lamps. The milky way was bright, + like a moonlit cloud; half heaven seemed milky way. The greater + luminaries shone each more clearly than a winter's moon. Their light + was dyed in every sort of colour--red, like fire; blue, like steel; + green, like the tracks of sunset; and so sharply did each stand forth + in its own lustre that there was no appearance of that flat, + star-spangled arch we know so well in pictures, but all the hollow of + heaven was one chaos of contesting luminaries--a hurly-burly of + stars. Against this the hill and rugged tree-tops stood out redly + dark." + +Each passage has a fresh beauty that removes it from the perfunctory +tributes of the ordinary writer. But the difference between the Artist +and the Philosopher is obvious. Not that Mr. Hardy has no claims as an +artist. Different as their styles are, and although Stevenson has a more +fastidious taste for words, the large, deliberate, massive art of Hardy +is equally effective in its fashion. That, however, by the way. The +point is that Mr. Hardy never rests _as_ an artist--he is quite as +concerned with the philosophic as with the pictorial aspects of the +scene. Stevenson rejoices as a Romantic; admires like an Artist. + + + +VI + + +But if Stevenson does not care to philosophize over Nature--herein +parting company with Thoreau as well as Hardy--he can moralize on +occasion, and with infinite relish too. + +"Something of the Shorter Catechist," as his friend Henley so acutely +said. There is the Moralist in his essays, in some of the short +stories--_Jekyll and Hyde_ is a morality in disguise, and unblushingly so +is _A Christmas Sermon_. + +Some of his admirers have deplored this tendency in Stevenson; have +shaken their heads gloomily over his Scottish ancestry, and spoken as +apologetically about the moralizing as if it had been kleptomania. + +Well, there it is as glaring and apparent as Borrow's big green gamp or +De Quincey's insularity. "What business has a Vagabond to moralize?" +asks the reader. Yet there is a touch of the Moralist in every Vagabond +(especially the English-speaking Vagabond), and its presence in Stevenson +gives an additional piquancy to his work. The _Lay Morals_ and the +_Christmas Sermon_ may not exhilarate some readers greatly, but there is +a fresher note, a larger utterance in the _Fables_. And even if you do +not care for Stevenson's "Hamlet" and "Shorter Catechist" moods, is it +wise, even from the artistic point of view, to wish away that side of his +temperament? Was it the absence of the "Shorter Catechist" in Edgar +Allan Poe that sent him drifting impotently across the world, brilliant, +unstable, aspiring, grovelling; a man of many fine qualities and +extraordinary intensity of imagination, but tragically weak where he +ought to have been strong? And was it the "Shorter Catechist" in +Stevenson that gave him that grip-hold of life's possibilities, imbued +him with his unfailing courage, and gave him as Artist a strenuous +devotion to an ideal that accompanied him to the end? Or was it so +lamentable a defect as certain critics allege? I wonder. + + + + +VI +RICHARD JEFFERIES + + + "Noises of river and of grove + And moving things in field and stall + And night birds' whistle shall be all + Of the world's speech that we shall hear." + + WILLIAM MORRIS. + + "The poetry of earth is never dead." + + KEATS. + + + +I + + +The longing of a full, sensuous nature for fairer dreams of beauty than +come within its ken; the delight of a passionate soul in the riotous +wealth of the Earth, the luxuriant prodigality of the Earth; the +hysterical joy of the invalid in the splendid sanity of the +sunlight--these are the sentiments that well up from the writings of +Richard Jefferies. + +By comparison with him, Thoreau's Earth-worship seems quite a stolid +affair, and even Borrow's frank enjoyment of the open air has a strangely +apathetic touch about it. + +No doubt he felt more keenly than did the Hermit of Walden, or the +Norfolk giant, but it was not so much passionate intensity as nervous +susceptibility. He had the sensitive quivering nerves of the neurotic +which respond to the slightest stimulus. Of all the "Children of the +Open Air" Jefferies was the most sensitive; but for all that I would not +say that he felt more deeply than Thoreau, Borrow, or Stevenson. + +Some people are especially susceptible by constitution to pain or +pleasure, but it would be rash to assume hastily that on this account +they have more deeply emotional natures. That they express their +feelings more readily is no guarantee that they feel more deeply. + +In other words, there is a difference between susceptibility and passion. + +Whether a man has passion--be it of love or hate--can be judged only by +his general attitude towards his fellow-beings, and by the stability of +the emotion. + +Now Jefferies certainly had keener sympathies with humankind than +Thoreau, and these sympathies intensified as the years rolled by. Few +men have espoused more warmly the cause of the agricultural labourer. +Perhaps Hodge has never experienced a kinder advocate than Jefferies. To +accuse him of superficiality of emotion would be unfair; for he was a man +with much natural tenderness in his disposition. + +All that I wish to protest against is the assumption made by some that +because he has written so feelingly about Hodge, because he has shown so +quick a response to the beauties of the natural world, he was therefore +gifted with a deep nature, as has been claimed for him by some of his +admirers. + +One of the characteristics that differentiates the Vagabond writer from +his fellows is, I think, a lack of passion--always excepting a passion +for the earth, a quality lacking human significance. In their human +sympathies they vary: but in no case, not even with Whitman, as I hope to +show in my next paper, is there a _passion_ for humankind. There may be +curiosity about certain types, as with Borrow and Stevenson; a delight in +simple natures, as with Thoreau; a broad, genial comradeship with all and +sundry, as in the case of Whitman; but never do you find depth, +intensity. + +Jefferies then presents to my mind all the characteristics of the +Vagabond, his many graces and charms, his notable deficiencies, +especially the absence of emotional stability. This trait is, of course, +more pronounced in some Vagabonds than in others; but it belongs to his +inmost being. Eager, curious, adventurous; tasting this experience and +that; his emotions share with his intellect in a chronic restless +transition. More easily felt than defined is the lack of permanence in +his nature; his emotions flame fitfully and in gusts, rather than with +steady persistence. Finally, despite the tenderness and kindliness he +can show, the egotistic elements absorb too much of his nature. A great +egotist can never be a great lover. + +This may seem a singularly ungracious prelude to a consideration of +Richard Jefferies; but whatever it may seem it is quite consistent with a +hearty admiration for his genius, and a warm appreciation of the man. +Passion he had of a kind, but it was the rapt, self-centred passion of +the mystic. + +He interests us both as an artist and as a thinker. It will be useful, +therefore, to keep these points of view as separate as possible in +studying his writings. + + + +II + + +Looking at him first of all as an artist, the most obvious thing that +strikes a reader is his power to convey sensuous impressions. He loved +the Earth, not as some have done with the eye or ear only, but with every +nerve of his body. His scenic pictures are more glowing, more ardent +than those of Thoreau. There was more of the poet, less of the +naturalist in Jefferies. Perhaps it would have been juster to call +Thoreau a poetic naturalist, and reserved the term poet-naturalist for +Jefferies. Be that as it may, no one can read Jefferies--especially such +books as _Wild Life in a Southern County_, or _The Life of the Fields_, +without realizing the keen sensibility of the man to the sensuous +impressions of Nature. + +Again and again in reading Jefferies one is reminded of the poet Keats. +There is the same physical frailty of constitution and the same rare +susceptibility to every manifestation of beauty. There is, moreover, the +same intellectual devotion to beauty which made Keats declare Truth and +Beauty to be one. And the likeness goes further still. + +The reader who troubles to compare the sensuous imagery of the three +great Nature poets--Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, will realize an +individual difference in apprehending the beauties of the natural world. +Wordsworth worships with his ear, Shelley with his eye, Keats with his +sense of touch. Sound, colour, feeling--these things inform the poetry +of these great poets, and give them their special individual charm. + +Now, in Jefferies it is not so much the colour of life, or the sweet +harmonies of the Earth, that he celebrates, though of course these things +find a place in his prose songs. It is the "glory of the sum of things" +that diffuses itself and is felt by every nerve in his body. + +Take, for instance, the opening to _Wild Life in a Southern County_:-- + + "The inner slope of the green fosse is inclined at an angle pleasant + to recline on, with the head just below the edge, in the summer + sunshine. A faint sound as of a sea heard in a dream--a sibilant + "sish-sish"--passes along outside, dying away and coming again as a + fresh wave of the wind rushes through the bennets and the dry grass. + There is the happy hum of bees--who love the hills--as they speed by + laden with their golden harvest, a drowsy warmth, and the delicious + odour of wild thyme. Behind, the fosse sinks and the rampart rises + high and steep--two butterflies are wheeling in uncertain flight over + the summit. It is only necessary to raise the head a little way, and + the cod breeze refreshes the cheek--cool at this height, while the + plains beneath glow under the heat." + +This, too, from _The Life of the Fields_:-- + + "Green rushes, long and thick, standing up above the edge of the + ditch, told the hour of the year, as distinctly as the shadow on the + dial the hour of the day. Green and thick and sappy to the touch, + they felt like summer, soft and elastic, as if full of life, mere + rushes though they were. On the fingers they left a green scent; + rushes have a separate scent of green, so, too, have ferns very + different to that of grass or leaves. Rising from brown sheaths, the + tall stems, enlarged a little in the middle like classical columns, + and heavy with their sap and freshness, leaned against the hawthorn + sprays. From the earth they had drawn its moisture, and made the + ditch dry; some of the sweetness of the air had entered into their + fibres, and the rushes--the common rushes--were full of beautiful + summer." + +Jefferies' writings are studies in tactile sensation. This is what +brings him into affinity with Keats, and this is what differentiates him +from Thoreau, with whom he had much in common. Of both Jefferies and +Thoreau it might be said what Emerson said of his friend, that they "saw +as with a microscope, heard as with an ear-trumpet." As lovers of the +open air and of the life of the open air, every sense was preternaturally +quickened. But though both observed acutely, Jefferies alone felt +acutely. + +"To me," he says, "colour is a sort of food; every spot of colour is a +drop of wine to the spirit." + +It took many years for him to realize where exactly his strength as a +writer lay. In early and later life he again and again essayed the novel +form, but, superior as were his later fictions--_Amaryllis at the Fair_, +for instance, to such crude stuff as _The Scarlet Shawl_--it is as a +prose Nature poet that he will be remembered. + +He knew and loved the Earth; the atmosphere of the country brought into +play all the faculties of his nature. Lacking in social gifts, reserved +and shy to an extreme, he neither knew much about men and women, nor +cared to know much. With a few exceptions--for the most part studies of +his own kith and kin--the personages of his stories are shadow people; +less vital realities than the trees, the flowers, the birds, of whom he +has to speak. + +But where he writes of what he has felt, what he has [Picture: Richard +Jefferies] realized, then, like every fine artist, he transmits his +enthusiasm to others. Sometimes, maybe, he is so full of his subject, so +engrossed with the wonders of the Earth, that the words come forth in a +torrent, impetuous, overwhelming. He writes like a man beside himself +with sheer joy. _The Life of the Fields_ gives more than physical +pleasure, more than an imaginative delight, it is a religion--the old +religion of Paganism. He has, as Sir Walter Besant truly said, "communed +so much with Nature, that he is intoxicated with her fulness and her +beauty. He lies upon the turf, and feels the embrace of the great round +world." {147} + +Even apart from fiction, his earlier work varied greatly in quality. +With the publication of _The Game-keeper at Home_, it was clear that a +new force had entered English literature. A man of temperamental +sympathies with men like Borrow and Thoreau, nevertheless with a power +and individuality of his own. But if increasing years brought +comparative recognition, they brought also fresh physical infirmities. +The last few years of his life were one prolonged agony, and yet his +finest work was done in them, and that splendid prose-poem, "The Pageant +of Summer," was dictated in the direst possible pain. As the physical +frame grew weaker the passion for the Earth grew in intensity; and in his +writing there is all that desperate longing for the great healing forces +of Nature, that ecstasy in the glorious freedom of the open air, +characteristic of the sick man. + +At its best Jefferies' style is rich in sensuous charm, and remarkable no +less for its eloquence of thought than for its wealth of observation. + + + +III + + +One characteristic of his art is of especial interest; I mean the +mystical quality which he imparts to certain of his descriptions of +Nature. The power of mystic suggestion is a rare one; even poets like +Keats and Shelley could not always command it successfully--and perhaps +Blake, Coleridge, and Rossetti alone of our poets possessed it in the +highest degree. It is comparatively an easy matter to deal with the +mysticism of the night. The possibilities of darkness readily impress +the imagination. But the mysticism of the sunlight--the mysticism not of +strange shapes, but of familiar things of every day, this, though felt by +many, is the most difficult thing in the world to suggest in words. + +The "visions" of Jefferies, his moods of emotional exaltation, recall not +only the opium dream of De Quincey, but the ecstasies of the old Mystics. +The theological colouring is not present, but there is the same sharpened +condition of the senses, the same spiritual hunger for a fuller life, the +same sense of physical detachment from the body. + +In that fascinating volume of autobiography _The Story of my Heart_, +Jefferies gives many remarkable instances of these visions. Here is +one:-- + + "I looked at the hills, at the dewy grass, and then up through the + elm branches to the sky. In a moment all that was behind me--the + house, the people, the sound--seemed to disappear and to leave me + alone. Involuntarily I drew a long breath, then I breathed slowly. + My thought, or inner conscience, went up through the illumined sky, + and I was lost in a moment of exaltation. This lasted only a very + short time, only a part of a second, and while it lasted there was no + formulated wish. I was absorbed. I drank the beauty of the morning. + I was exalted." + +One is reminded of Tennyson's verses:-- + + "Moreover, something is or seems, + That touches me with mystic gleams, + Like glimpses of forgotten dreams-- + + "Of something felt, like something here; + Of something done, I know not where; + Such as no knowledge may declare." {149} + +"Ah!" says the medical man, with a wise shake of the head, "this mental +condition is a common enough phenomenon, though only on rare occasions +does it express itself in literature. It is simple hysteria." + +The transcendentalist who has regarded this state of mind as a spiritual +revelation, and looked upon its possessor as one endowed with special +powers of intuition, is indignant with this physiological explanation. +He is more indignant when the medical man proceeds to explain the +ecstatic trances of saints, those whom one may call professional mystics. +"Brutal materialism," says the transcendentalist. + +Now although hysteria is commonly regarded as a foolish exhibition of +weakness on the part of some excitable men and women, there is absolutely +no scientific reason why any stigma should attach to this phenomenon. +Nor is there any reason why the explanation should be considered as +derogatory and necessarily connected with a materialistic view of the +Universe. + +For what is hysteria? It is an abnormal condition of the nervous system +giving rise to certain physiological and psychical manifestations. With +the physiological ones we are not concerned, but the psychical +manifestation should be of the greatest interest to all students of +literature who are also presumably students of life. The artistic +temperament is always associated with a measure of nervous instability. +And where there is nervous instability there will always be a tendency to +hysteria. This tendency may be kept in check by other faculties. But it +is latent--ready to manifest itself in certain conditions of health or +under special stress of excitement. It does not follow that every +hysterical person has the artistic temperament; for nervous instability +may be the outcome of nervous disease, epilepsy, insanity, or even simple +neuroticism in the parents. But so powerful is the influence of the +imagination over the body, that the vivid imagination connoted by the +artistic temperament controls the nervous system, and when it reaches a +certain intensity expresses itself in some abnormal way. And it is the +abnormal psychical condition that is of so much significance in +literature and philosophy. + +This psychical condition is far commoner in the East than in the West. +Indeed in India, training in mystical insight goes by the name of Yoga. +{151a} The passive, contemplative temperament of the Oriental favours +this ecstatic condition. + + "The science of the Sufis," says a Persian philosopher of the + eleventh century, {151b} "aims at detaching the heart from all that + is not God, and at giving to it for sole occupation the meditation of + the divine being. . . . Just as the understanding is a stage of + human life in which an eye opens to discuss various intellectual + objects uncomprehended by sensation; just so in the prophetic the + sight is illumined by a light which uncovers hidden things and + objects which the intellect fails to reach. The chief properties of + prophetism are perceptible only during the transport by those who + embrace the Sufi life. The prophet is endowed with qualities to + which you possess nothing analogous, and which consequently you + cannot possibly understand. How should you know their true + nature?--what one can comprehend? But the transport which one + attains by the method of the Sufis is like an immediate perception, + as if one touched the objects with one's hand." + +It is worthy of note how that every ecstatic condition is marked by the +same characteristics; and in the confession of Jefferies, the admissions +of Tennyson, and in the utterance of religious mystics of every kind, two +factors detach themselves. The vision or state of mind is one of +expectant wonder. Something that cannot be communicated in words thrills +the entire being. That is one characteristic. The other is that this +exaltation, this revelation to the senses, is one that appeals wholly to +sensation. It can be felt; it cannot be apprehended by any intellectual +formulae. It can never be reduced to logical shape. And the reference +to "touch" in the quotation just made will remind the reader of the +important part played by the tactile sense in Jefferies' aesthetic +appreciations. + +We are not concerned here with any of the philosophical speculations +involved in these "trance conditions." All that concerns us is the +remarkable literature that has resulted from this well-ascertained +psychical condition. How far the condition is the outcome of forces +beyond our immediate ken which compel recognition from certain +imaginative minds, how far it is a question of physical disturbance; or, +in other words, how far these visions are objective realities, how far +subjective, are questions that he beyond the scope of the present paper. +One thing, however, is indisputable; they have exercised a great +fascination over men of sensitive, nervous temperaments, and are often +remarkable for the wider significance they have given to our ideals of +beauty. + +The fact that mysticism may arise out of morbid conditions of health does +not justify us, I think, in looking upon it with Max Nordau as "the fruit +of a degenerate brain." Such a criticism is at one with the linking of +genius with insanity--an argument already broached in the paper dealing +with Hazlitt. + +Professor William James--who certainly holds no brief for the +mystic--makes the interesting suggestion that "these mystical flights are +inroads from the subconscious life of the cerebral activity, correlative +to which we as yet know nothing." {153a} + + "As a rule," he says elsewhere, "mystical states merely add a + super-sensuous meaning to the ordinary outward data of consciousness. + They are excitements like the emotions of love or ambition, gifts to + our spirit by means of which facts already objectively before us fall + into a new expressiveness, and make a new connection with our active + life. They do not contradict these facts as such, or deny anything + that our senses have immediately seized." + +The connection between mysticism and hysteria, and the psychological +importance of hysteria, merits the fullest consideration in dealing with +the writings of these literary Vagabonds. Stevenson's mysticism is more +speculative than that of Jefferies; the intellectual life played a +greater share in his case, but it is none the less marked; and quite +apart from, perhaps even transcending, their literary interest is the +psychological significance of stories like _Markheim_ and _The Strange +Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. + +A medical friend of Jefferies, Dr. Samuel Jones, {153b} has said, when +speaking of his "ecstasies": "His is not the baneful, sensuous De Quincey +opium-deliriation; he felt a purer delight than that which inspired the +visions of Kubla Khan; he saw 'no damsel with a dulcimer,' but thrilled +with yearning unspeakable for the 'fuller soul,' and felt in every +trembling fibre of his frame the consciousness of incarnate immortality." + +This attempt to exalt Jefferies at the expense of De Quincey and +Coleridge seems to me unfortunate. Enough has been said already in the +remarks on De Quincey to show that the dreams of De Quincey were no mere +opium dreams. De Quincey was a born dreamer, and from his earliest days +had visions and ecstatic moods. The opium which he took (primarily at +any rate to relieve pain, not, as Dr. Jones suggests, to excite sensuous +imagery) undoubtedly intensified the dream faculty, but it did not +produce it. + +I confess that I do not know quite what the Doctor means by preferring +the "purer delight" of the Jefferies exaltation to the vision that +produced _Kubla Khan_. If he implies that opium provoked the one and +that "the pure breath of Nature" (to use his own phrase) inspired the +other, and that the latter consequently is the purer delight, then I +cannot follow his reasoning. + +A vision is not the less "pure" because it has been occasioned by a drug. +One of the sublimest spiritual experiences that ever happened to a man +came to John Addington Symonds after a dose of chloroform. Nitrous +oxide, ether, Indian hemp, opium, these things have been the means of +arousing the most wonderful states of ecstatic feeling. + +Then why should _Kubla Khan_ be rated as a less "pure" delight than one +of the experiences retailed in _The Story of my Heart_? Is our +imagination so restricted that it cannot enjoy both the subtleties of +Coleridge and the fuller muse of Jefferies? + +The healing power of Nature has never found happier expression than in +_The Story of my Heart_. In words of simple eloquence he tells us how he +cured the weariness and bitterness of spirit by a journey to the +seashore. + + "The inner nature was faint, all was dry and tasteless; I was weary + for the pure fresh springs of thought. Some instinctive feeling + uncontrollable drove me to the sea. . . . Then alone I went down to + the sea. I stood where the foam came to my feet, and looked out over + the sunlit waters. The great earth bearing the richness of the + harvest, and its hills golden with corn, was at my back; its strength + and firmness under me. The great sun shone above, the wide sea was + before me. The wind came sweet and strong from the waves. The life + of the earth and the sea, the glow of the sun filled me; I touched + the surge with my hand, I lifted my face to the sun, I opened my lips + to the wind. I prayed aloud in the roar of the waves--my soul was + strong as the sea, and prayed with the sea's might. Give me fulness + of life like to the sea and the sun, and to the earth and the air; + give me fulness of physical life, mind equal and beyond their + fulness; give me a greatness and perfection of soul higher than all + things; give me my inexpressible desire which swells in me like a + tide--give it to me with all the force of the sea." + +Those who know Jefferies only by his quieter passages of leisurely +observation are surprised when they find such a swirl of passionate +longing in his autobiography. + + + +IV + + +The points of affinity between Thoreau and Jefferies are sufficiently +obvious; and yet no two writers who have loved the Earth, and found their +greatest happiness in the life of the woods and fields, as did these two +men, have expressed this feeling so variously. Thoreau, quiet, passive, +self-contained, has seized upon the large tranquillity of Nature, the +coolness and calm, "the central piece subsisting at the heart of endless +agitation." Interspersed with his freshly observed comments on the +myriad life about him are moral reflections, shrewd criticism of men and +things, quaint and curious illustrations from his scholarly knowledge. +But although he may not always talk of the Earth, there is the flavour of +the Earth, the sweetness and naturalness of the Earth, about his finest +utterances. + +Jefferies, feverish, excitable, passionate, alive to the glorious +plenitude of the Earth, has seized upon the exceeding beauty, and the +healing beauty of natural things. No scholar like Thoreau, he brings no +system of thought, as did the American, for Nature to put into shape. +Outside of Nature all is arid and profitless to him. He comes to her +with empty hands, and seeks for what she may give him. To Thoreau the +Earth was a kind and gracious sister; to Jefferies an all-sufficing +mistress. + +The reader who passes from Thoreau to Jefferies need have no fear that he +will be wearied with the same point of view. On the contrary, he will +realize with pleasure how differently two genuine lovers of the Earth can +express their affection. + +In Jefferies' song of praise, his song of desire--praise and desire +alternate continually in his writings--there are two aspects of the Earth +upon which he dwells continually--the exceeding beauty of the Earth, and +the exceeding plenitude of the Earth. Apostrophes to the beauty have +been quoted already; let this serve as an illustration of the other +aspect:-- + + "Everything," {157a} he exclaims, "on a scale of splendid waste. + Such noble broadcast, open-armed waste is delicious to behold. Never + was there such a lying proverb as 'Enough is as good as a feast.' + {157b} Give me the feast; give me squandered millions of seeds, + luxurious carpets of petals, green mountains of oak leaves. The + greater the waste the greater the enjoyment--the nearer the approach + to real life. Casuistry is of no avail; the fact is obvious; Nature + flings treasures abroad, puffs them with open lips along on every + breeze; piles up lavish layers of them in the free, open air, packs + countless numbers together in the needles of a fir tree. Prodigality + and superfluity are stamped on everything she does." + +This is no chance passage, no casual thought. Again and again Jefferies +returns to the richness and plenty of the Earth. And his style, suiting +itself to the man's temperament, is rich and overflowing, splendidly +diffuse, riotously exulting, until at times there is the very incoherence +of passion about it. + +Thus, in looking at the man's artistic work, its form of expression, its +characteristic notes, something of the man's way of thinking has +impressed itself upon us. + + + +V + + +It may be well to gather up the scattered impressions, and to look at the +thought that underlies his fervid utterances. Beginning as merely an +interested observer of Nature, his attitude becomes more enthusiastic, as +knowledge grows of her ways, and what began in observation ends in +aspiration. The old cry, "Return to Nature," started by Rousseau, caught +by the poets of the "Romantic Revival" in England, and echoed by the +essayists of New England, fell into silence about the middle of last +century. It had inspired a splendid group of Nature poets; and for a +time it was felt some new gospel was needed. Scientific and +philosophical problems took possession of men's minds; the intellectual +and emotional life of the nation centred more and more round the life of +the city. For a time this was, perhaps, inevitable. For a time Nature +regarded through the eyes of fresh scientific thought had lost her charm. +Even the poets who once had been content to worship, now began to +criticize. Tennyson qualified his homage with reproachings. Arnold +carried his books of philosophy into her presence. But at last men tired +of this questioning attitude. America produced a Whitman; and in England +William Morris and Richard Jefferies--among others--cried out for a +simpler, freer, more childlike attitude. + +"All things seem possible," declared Jefferies, "in the open air." To +live according to Nature was, he assured his countrymen, no poet's fancy, +but a creed of life. He spoke from his own experience; life in the open, +tasting the wild sweetness of the Earth, had brought him his deepest +happiness; and he cried aloud in his exultation, bidding others do +likewise. "If you wish your children," says he, "to think deep things, +to know the holiest emotions, take them to the woods and hills, and give +them the freedom of the meadows." On the futility of bookish learning, +the ugliness and sordidness of town life, he is always discoursing. His +themes were not fresh ones; every reformer, every prophet of the age had +preached from the same text. And none had put the case for Nature more +forcibly than Wordsworth when he lamented-- + + "The world is too much with us." + +But the plea for saner ways of living cannot be urged too often, and if +Jefferies in his enthusiasm exaggerates the other side of the picture, +pins his faith over much on solitudes and in self-communion, too little +on the gregarious instincts of humankind, yet no reformer can make any +impression on his fellows save by a splendid one-sidedness. + +The defect of his Nature creed which calls for the most serious criticism +is not the personal isolation on which he seems to insist. We herd +together so much--some unhappily by necessity, some by choice, that it +would be a refreshing thing, and a wholesome thing, for most of us to be +alone, more often face to face with the primal forces of Nature. + +The serious defect in his thought seems to me to lie in his attitude +towards the animal creation. It is summed up in his remark: "There is +nothing human in any living Animal. All Nature, the Universe as far as +we see, is anti- or ultra-human outside, and has no concern with man." +In this statement he shows how entirely he has failed to grasp the secret +of the compelling power of the Earth--a secret into which Thoreau entered +so fully. + +Why should the elemental forces of Nature appeal so strongly to us? Why +does the dweller in the open air feel that an unseen bond of sympathy +binds him to the lowest forms of sentient life? Why is a St. Francis +tender towards animals? Why does a Thoreau take a joy in the company of +the birds, the squirrels, and feel a sense of companionship in the very +flowers? Nay, more: what is it that gives a Jefferies this sense of +communion? why, if the Earth has no "concern with man," should it soothe +with its benison, and fire his being with such ecstatic rapture? If this +doctrine of a Universal Brotherhood is a sentimental figment, the +foundation is swept away at once of Jefferies' Nature creed. His sense +of happiness, his delight in the Earth, may no doubt afford him +consolation, but it is an irrational comfort, an agreeable delusion. + +And yet no one can read a book of Jefferies without realizing that here +is no sickly fancy--however sickness may have imparted a hectic colouring +here and there--but that the instinct of the Artist is more reliable than +the theory of the Thinker. Undoubtedly his Nature creed is less +comprehensive than Thoreau's. Jefferies regarded many animals as "good +sport"; Thoreau as good friends. "Hares," he says, "are almost formed on +purpose to be good sport." The remark speaks volumes. A man who could +say that has but a poor philosophic defence to offer for his rapt +communion with Nature. + +How can you have communion with something "anti- or ultra-human"? The +large utterance, "All things seem possible in the open air" dwindles down +rather meanly when the speaker looks at animals from the sportsman's +point of view. Against his want of sympathy with the lower forms of +creation one must put his warm-hearted plea for the agricultural poor. +In his youth there was a certain harsh intolerance about his attitude +towards his fellows, but he made ample amends in _Hodge and his Master_, +still more in _The Dewy Morn_, for the narrow individualism of his +earlier years. + +One might criticize certain expressions as extravagant when he lashed out +against the inequalities in society. But after all there is only a +healthy Vagabond flavour about his fling at "modern civilization," and +the genuine humanitarian feeling is very welcome. Some of his +unpublished "Notes on the Labour Question" (quoted by Mr. Salt in his +able study of Jefferies) are worthy of Ruskin. This, for instance, is +vigorously put:-- + + "'But they are paid to do it,' says Comfortable Respectability (which + hates anything in the shape of a 'question,' glad to slur it over + somehow). They are paid to do it. Go down into the pit yourself, + Comfortable Respectability, and try it, as I have done, just one hour + of a summer's day, then you will know the preciousness of a vulgar + pot of beer! Three and sixpence a day is the price of these brawny + muscles, the price of the rascally sherry you parade before your + guests in such pseudo-generous profusion. One guinea a week--that is + one stall at the Opera. But why do they do it? Because Hunger and + Thirst drive them. These are the fearful scourges, the whips worse + than the knout, which lie at the back of Capital, and give it its + power. Do you suppose these human beings, with minds, and souls, and + feelings, would not otherwise repose on the sweet sward, and hearken + to the song-birds as you may do on your lawn at Cedar Villa?" + +Really the passage might have come out of _Fors Clavigera_; it is +Ruskinian not only in sentiment, but in turn of expression. Ruskin +impressed Jefferies very considerably, one would gather, and did much to +open up his mind and broaden his sympathies. Making allowance for +certain inconsistencies of mood, hope for and faith in the future, and +weary scepticism, there is a fine stoicism about the philosophy of +Jefferies. His was not the temperament of which optimists are made. His +own terrible ill-health rendered him keenly sensitive to the pain and +misery of the world. His deliberate seclusion from his fellow-men--more +complete in some ways than Thoreau's, though not so ostensible--threw him +back upon his own thoughts, made him morbidly introspective. + +Then the aesthetic Idealism which dominated him made for melancholy, as +it invariably does. The Worshipper at the shrine of Beauty is always +conscious that + + ". . . . In the very temple of Delight + Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine." + +He realizes the tragic ineffectuality of his aspiration-- + + "The desire of the moth for the star," + +as Shelley expresses it, and in this line of poetry the mood finds +imperishable expression. + +But the melancholy that visits the Idealist--the Worshipper of Beauty--is +not by any means a mood of despair. The moth may not attain the star, +but it feels there is a star to be attained. In other words, an intimate +sense of the beauty of the world carries within it, however faintly, +however overlaid with sick longing, a secret hope that some day things +will shape themselves all right. + +And thus it is that every Idealist, bleak and wintry as his mood may be, +is conscious of the latency of spring. Every Idealist, like the man in +the immortal allegory of Bunyan, has a key in his bosom called Promise. +This it is that keeps from madness. And so while Jefferies will +exclaim:-- + + "The whole and the worst the pessimist can say is far beneath the + least particle of the truth, so immense is the misery of man." He + will also declare, "There lives on in me an impenetrable belief, + thought burning like the sun, that there is yet something to be + found, something real, something to give each separate personality + sunshine and flowers in its own existence now." + +It is a mistake to attach much importance to Jefferies' attempts to +systematize his views on life. He lacked the power of co-ordinating his +impressions, and is at his best when giving free play to the instinctive +life within him. No Vagabond writer can excel him in the expression of +feeling; and yet perhaps no writer is less able than he to account for, +to give a rational explanation of his feelings. He is rarely +satisfactory when he begins to explain. Thoreau's lines about himself +seem to me peculiarly applicable to Jefferies:-- + + "I am a parcel of vain strivings tied + By a chance bond together, + Dangling this way and that, their links + Were made so loose and wide + Methinks + For milder weather. + + "A bunch of violets without their roots + And sorrel intermixed, + Encircled by a wisp of straw + Once coiled about their shoots, + The law + By which I'm fixed. + + "Some tender buds were left upon my stem + In mimicry of life, + But ah, the children will not know + Till Time has withered them, + The woe + With which they're rife." + +Jefferies was a brave man, with a rare supply of resolution and patience. +His life was one long struggle against overwhelming odds. "Three great +giants," as he puts it--"disease, despair, and poverty." Not only was +his physical health against him, but his very idiosyncrasies all +conspired to hinder his success. His pride and reserve would not permit +him to take help from his friends. He even shrank from their sympathy. +His years of isolation, voluntary isolation, put him out of touch with +human society. His socialistic tendencies never made him social. His +was a kind of abstract humanitarianism. A man may feel tenderly, +sympathize towards humanity, yet shrink from human beings. Misanthropy +did not inspire him; he did not dislike his fellow-men; it was simply +that they bewildered and puzzled him; he could not get on with them. So +it will be seen that he had not the consolation some men take in the +sympathy and co-operation of their fellows. After all, this is more a +defect of temperament than a fault of character, and he had to pay the +penalty. Realizing this, it is impossible to withhold admiration for the +pluck and courage of the man. As a lover of Nature, and an artist in +prose, he needs no encomium to-day. In his eloquent "Eulogy" Sir Walter +Besant gave fitting expression to the debt of gratitude we owe this +poet-naturalist--this passionate interpreter of English country life. + +What Borrow achieved for the stirring life of the road, Jefferies has +done for the brooding life of the fields. What Thoreau did for the woods +at Maine and the waters of Merrimac, Jefferies did for the Wiltshire +streams and the Sussex hedgerows. He has invested the familiar scenery +of Southern England with a new glamour, a tenderer sanctity; has arrested +our indifferent vision, our careless hearing, turned our languid +appreciation into a comprehending affection. + +Ardent, shy, impressionable, proud, stout-hearted pagan and wistful +idealist; one of the most pathetic and most interesting figures in modern +literature. + + + + +VII +WALT WHITMAN + + + "So will I sing on, fast as fancies come; + Rudely the verse being as the mood it paints." + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + "A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays + And confident to-morrows." + + WORDSWORTH. + + + +I + + +The "good gray poet" is the supreme example of the Vagabond in +literature. It is quite possible for one not drawn towards the Vagabond +temperament to admire Stevenson, for Stevenson was a fine artist; to take +delight in the vigorous "John Bullism" of _Lavengro_; to sympathize with +the natural mysticism of Jefferies; the Puritan austerity of Thoreau. In +short, there are aspects in the writings of the other "Vagabonds" in this +volume which command attention quite apart from the characteristics +specifically belonging to the literary Vagabond. + +But it is not possible to view Whitman apart from his Vagabondage. He is +proud of it, glories in it, and flings it in your face. Others, whatever +strain of wildness they may have had, whatever sympathies they may have +felt for the rough sweetness of the earth, however unconventional their +habits, accepted at any rate the recognized conventions of literature. +As men, as thinkers, they were unconventional; as artists conventional. +They retained at any rate the literary garments of civilized society. + +Not so Whitman. He is the Orson of literature. Unconventionality he +carries out to its logical conclusion, and strides stark naked among our +academies of learning. A strange, uncouth, surprising figure, it is +impossible to ignore him however much he may shock our susceptibilities. + +Many years ago Mr. Swinburne greeted him as "a strong-winged soul with +prophetic wings"; subsequently he referred to him as a "drunken +apple-woman reeling in a gutter." For this right-about-face he has been +upbraided by Whitman's admirers. Certainly it is unusual to find any +reader starting out to bless and ending with a curse. Usually it is the +precedent of Balaam that is followed. But Mr. Swinburne's mingled +feelings typify the attitude of every one who approaches the poet, though +few of us can express ourselves so resourcefully as the author of _Poems +and Ballads_. + +There may be some students who accept Whitman without demur at the outset +on his own terms. All I can say is that I never heard of one. However +broad-minded you may consider yourself, however catholic in your +sympathies, Whitman is bound to get athwart some pet prejudice, to +discover some shred of conventionality. Gaily, heedlessly, you start out +to explore his writings, just as you might start on a walking tour. He +is in touch with the primal forces of Nature, you hear. "So much the +better," say you; "civilization has ceased to charm." "You are enamoured +of wildness." Thus men talk before camping out, captivated by the +picturesque and healthy possibilities, and oblivious to the +inconveniences of roughing it. + +But just as some amount of training is wanted before a walking tour, or a +period of camping out, so is it necessary to prepare yourself for a +course of Whitman. And this, not because there is any exotic mystery +about Whitman, not because there are any intellectual subtleties about +his work, as there are in Browning, but because he is the pioneer of a +new order, and the pioneer always challenges the old order; our tastes +require adjusting before they can value it properly. + +There is no question about a "Return to Nature" with Whitman. He never +left it. Thoreau quitted the Emersonian study to get fresh inspiration +from the woods. Even Jefferies, bred up in the country, carried about +with him the delicate susceptibilities of the neurotic modern. Borrow +retained a firm grip-hold of many conventions of the city. But Whitman? +It was no case with him of a sojourn in the woods, or a ramble on the +heath. He was a spiritual native of the woods and heath; not, as some +seem to think, because he was a kind of wild barbarian who loved the +rough and uncouth, and could be found only in unfrequented parts, but +because he was in touch with the elemental everywhere. The wildness of +Whitman, the barbarian aspects of the man, have been overrated. He is +wild only in so far as he is cosmic, and the greater contains the less. +He loves the rough and the smooth, not merely the rough. His songs are +no mere paeans of rustic solitudes; they are songs of the crowded +streets, as well of the country roads; of men and women--of every +type--no less than of the fields and the streams. In fact, he seeks the +elemental everywhere. Thoreau found it in the Indian, Borrow in the +gypsies, Whitman, with a finer comprehensiveness, finds it in the +multitude. His business is to bring it to the surface, to make men and +women rejoice in--not shrink from--the great primal forces of life. But +he is not for moralizing-- + + "I give nothing as duties, + What others give as duties I give as loving impulses. + (Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?)" + +He has no quarrel with civilization as such. The teeming life of the +town is as wonderful to him as the big solitude of the Earth. Carlyle's +pleasantry about the communistic experiments of the American +Transcendentalists would have no application for him. "A return to +Acorns and expecting the Golden Age to arrive." + +Here is no exclusive child of Nature:-- + + "I tramp a perpetual journey, . . . + My signs are a rainproof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the + woods . . . + I have no chair, no church, no philosophy." + +People talk of Whitman as if he relied entirely on the "staff cut from +the woods"; they forget his rainproof coat and good shoes. Assuredly he +has no mind to cut himself adrift from the advantages of civilization. + +The rainproof coat, indeed, reminds one of Borrow's green gamp, which +caused such distress to his friends and raised doubts in the minds of Mr. +Watts-Dunton and Dr. Hake as to whether he was a genuine child of +[Picture: Walt Whitman] the open air. {173} No one would cavil at that +term as applied to Whitman--yet one must not forget the "rainproof coat." + +In regarding the work of Whitman there are three aspects which strike one +especially. His attitude towards Art, towards Humanity, towards Life. + + + +II + + +First of all, Whitman's attitude towards Art. + +For the highest art two essentials are required--Sincerity and Beauty. +The tendency of modern literature has been to ignore the first and to +make the second all-sufficient. The efforts of the artist have been +concentrated upon the workmanship, and too often he has been satisfied +with a merely technical excellence. + +It is a pleasant and attractive pastime, this playing with words. Grace, +charm, and brilliance are within the reach of the artificer's endeavour. +But a literature which is the outcome of the striving after beauty of +form, without reference to the sincerity of substance, is like a posy of +flowers torn away from their roots. Lacking vitality, it will speedily +perish. + +No writer has seen this more clearly than Whitman, and if in his vigorous +allegiance to Sincerity he has seemed oblivious at times to the existence +of Beauty, yet he has chosen the better part. And for this reason. +Beauty will follow in the wake of Sincerity, whether sought for or no, +and the writer whose one passion it is to see things as they are, and to +disentangle from the transient and fleeting the great truths of life, +finds that in achieving a noble sincerity he has also achieved the +highest beauty. + +The great utterances of the world are beautiful, because they are true. +Whereas the artist who is determined to attain beauty at all costs will +obtain beauty of a kind--"silver-grey, placid and perfect," as Andrea del +Sarto said, but the highest beauty it will not be, for that is no mere +question of manner, but a perfect blend of manner and matter. + +It will no doubt be urged that, despite his sincerity, there is a good +deal in Whitman that is not beautiful. And this must be frankly +conceded. But this will be found only when he has failed to separate the +husk from the kernel. Whitman's sincerity is never in question, but he +does not always appreciate the difference between accuracy and truth, +between the accidental and the essential. For instance, lines like +these-- + + "The six framing men, two in the middle, and two at each end, + carefully bearing on their shoulders a heavy stick for a cross-beam." + +or physiological detail after this fashion:-- + + "Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws and the jaw + hinges, + Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition, + Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck sheer. + Strong shoulders, manly beard, hind shoulders, and the ample size + round of the chest, + Upper arm, armpit, elbow socket, lower arms, arm sinews, arm bones. + Wrist and wrist joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, + finger joints, finger nails, etc., etc." + +The vital idea lying beneath these accumulated facts is lost sight of by +the reader who has to wade through so many accurate non-essentials. + +It is well, I think, to seize upon the weakness of Whitman's literary +style at the outset, for it explains so much that is irritating and +disconcerting. + +_Leaves of Grass_ he called his book, and the name is more significant +than one at first realizes. For there is about it not only the +sweetness, the freshness, the luxuriance of the grass; but its prolific +rankness--the wheat and the tares grow together. + +It has, I know, been urged by some of Whitman's admirers that his power +as a writer does not depend upon his artistic methods or non-artistic +methods, and he himself protested against his _Leaves_ being judged +merely as literature. And so there has been a tendency to glorify his +very inadequacies, to hold him up as a poet who has defied successfully +the unwritten laws of Art. + +This is to do him an ill service. If Whitman's work be devoid of Art, +then it possesses no durability. Literature is an art just as much as +music, painting, or sculpture. And if a man, however fine, however +inspiring his ideas may be, has no power to shape them--to express them +in colour, in sound, in form, in words--to seize upon the essentials and +use no details save as suffice to illustrate these essentials, then his +work will not last. For it has no vitality. + +In other words, Whitman must be judged ultimately as an artist, for Art +alone endures. And on the whole he can certainly bear the test. His art +was not the conventional art of his day, but art it assuredly was. + +In his best utterances there are both sincerity and beauty. + +Who could deny the title of artist to the man who wrote those noble +verses, "On the Beach at Night"?-- + + "On the beach at night, + Stands a child with her father, + Watching the east, the autumn sky. + + "Up through the darkness, + While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading, + Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky, + Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east, + Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter, + And nigh at hand, only a very little above, + Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades. + + "From the beach the child holding the hand of her father, + Those burial clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all + Watching, silently weeps. + + "Weep not, child, + Weep not, my darling, + With these kisses let me remove your tears, + The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious, + They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in + apparition, + Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the + Pleiades shall emerge, + They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall + shine out again, + The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they + endure, + The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall + again shine. + + "Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter? + Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars? + + "Something there is, + (With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper, + I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection) + Something there is more immortal even than the stars, + (Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away) + Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter, + Longer than sun or any revolving satellite, + Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades." + +or those touching lines, "Reconciliation"?-- + + "Word over all beautiful as the sky, + Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be + utterly lost, + That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly + Wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world; + For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, + I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin-- + I draw near-- + Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the + coffin." + +Again, take that splendid dirge in memory of President Lincoln, majestic +in its music, spacious and grand in its treatment. It is too long for +quotation, but the opening lines, with their suggestive beauty, and the +Song to Death, may be instanced. + + "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed, + And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, + I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. + Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring + Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, + And thought of him I love. + + "O powerful western fallen star! + O shades of night--O moody, tearful night! + O great star disappear'd--O the black murk that hides the star! + O cruel hands that hold me powerless--O helpless soul of me! + O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul! + + "In the dooryard fronting an old farmhouse near the whitewash'd + palings, + Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich + green, + With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong + I love. + With every leaf a miracle--and from this bush in the dooryard, + With delicate coloured blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich + green, + A sprig with its flower I break. + + * * * * * + + "Come lovely and soothing death, + Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, + In the day, in the night, to all, to each, + Sooner or later delicate death. + + "Prais'd be the fathomless universe, + For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, + And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise! + For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. + + "Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, + Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? + Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, + I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come + unfalteringly. + + * * * * * + + "The night in silence under many a star, + The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, + And the soul-turning to thee, O vast and well-veil'd death, + And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. + + "Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, + Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the + prairies wide, + Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, + I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O death." + +This is not only Art, but great Art. So fresh in their power, so +striking in their beauty, are Whitman's utterances on Death that they +take their place in our memories beside the large utterances of +Shakespeare, Milton, and Shelley. + +It is a mistake to think that where Whitman fails in expression it is +through carelessness; that he was a great poet by flashes, and that had +he taken more pains he would have been greater still. We have been +assured by those who knew him intimately that he took the greatest care +over his work, and would wait for days until he could get what he felt to +be the right word. + +To the student who comes fresh to a study of Whitman it is conceivable +that the rude, strong, nonchalant utterances may seem like the work of an +inspired but careless and impatient artist. It is not so. It is done +deliberately. + +"I furnish no specimens," he says; "I shower them by exhaustless laws, +fresh and modern continually, as Nature does." + +He is content to be suggestive, to stir your imagination, to awaken your +sympathies. And when he fails, he fails as Wordsworth did, because he +lacked the power of self-criticism, lacked the faculty of humour--that +saving faculty which gives discrimination, and intuitively protects the +artist from confusing pathos with bathos, the grand and the grandiose. +Nowhere is this more apparent than in his treatment of Sex. Frankness, +outspokenness on the primal facts of life are to be welcomed in +literature. All the great masters--Shakespeare, Dante, Dostoievsky, +Tolstoy, have dealt openly and fearlessly with the elemental passions. +There is nothing to deplore in this, and Mr. Swinburne was quite right +when he contended that the domestic circle is not to be for all men and +writers the outer limit of their world of work. So far from regretting +that Whitman claimed right to equal freedom when speaking of the primal +fact of procreation as when speaking of sunrise, sunsetting, and the +primal fact of death, every clean-minded man and woman should rejoice in +the poet's attitude. For he believed and gloried in the separate +personalities of man and woman, claiming manhood and womanhood as the +poet's province, exulting in the potentialities of a healthy sexual life. +He was angry, as well he might be, with the furtive snigger which greets +such matters as motherhood and fatherhood with the prurient +unwholesomeness of a mind that can sigh sentimentally over the "roses and +raptures of Vice" and start away shamefaced from the stark +passions--stripped of all their circumlocutions. He certainly realized +as few have done the truth of that fine saying of Thoreau's, that "for +him to whom sex is impure there are no flowers in Nature." + +But at the same time I cannot help feeling that Stevenson was right when +he said that Whitman "loses our sympathy in the character of a poet by +attracting too much of our attention--that of a Bull in a China Shop." +{180} + +His aim is right enough; it is to his method one may take objection. Not +on the score of morality. Whitman's treatment of passion is not immoral; +it is simply like Nature herself--unmoral. What shall we say then about +his sex cycle, "Children of Adam"? Whitman, in his anxiety to speak out, +freely, simply, naturally, to vindicate the sanity of coarseness, the +poetry of animalism, seems to me to have bungled rather badly. There are +many fine passages in his "Song of the Body Electric" and "Spontaneous +Me," but much of it impresses me as bad art, and is consequently +ineffectual in its aim. The subject demands a treatment at once strong +and subtle--I do not mean finicking--and subtlety is a quality not +vouchsafed to Whitman. Lacking it, he is often unconsciously comic where +he should be gravely impressive. "A man's body is sacred, and a woman's +body is sacred." True; but the sacredness is not displayed by making out +a tedious inventory of the various parts of the body. Says Whitman in +effect: "The sexual life is to be gloried in, not to be treated as if it +were something shameful." Again true; but is there not a danger of +missing the glory by discoursing noisily on the various physiological +manifestations. Sex is not the more wonderful for being appraised by the +big drum. + +The inherent beauty and sanctity of Sex lies surely in its superb +unconsciousness; it is a matter for two human beings drawn towards one +another by an indefinable, world-old attraction; scream about it, caper +over it, and you begin to make it ridiculous, for you make it +self-conscious. + +Animalism merely as a scientific fact serves naught to the poet, unless +he can show also what is as undeniable as the bare fact--its poetry, its +coarseness, and its mystery go together. Browning has put it in a +line:-- + + ". . . savage creatures seek + Their loves in wood and plain--_and GOD renews_ + _His ancient rapture_." + +It is the "rapture" and the mystery which Whitman misses in many of his +songs of Sex. + +There is no need to give here any theological significance to the word +"God." Let the phrase stand for the mystic poetry of animalism. Whitman +has no sense of mystery. + +I have another objection against "The Children of Adam." The loud, +self-assertive, genial, boastful style of Whitman suits very well many of +his democratic utterances, his sweeping cosmic emotions. But here it +gives one the impression of a kind of showman, who with a flourishing +stick is shouting out to a gaping crowd the excellences of manhood and +womanhood. Deliberately he has refrained from the mood of imaginative +fervour which alone could give a high seriousness to his treatment--a +high seriousness which is really indispensable. And his rough, slangy, +matter-of-fact comments give an atmosphere of unworthy vulgarity to his +subject. Occasionally he is carried away by the sheer imaginative beauty +of the subject, then note how different the effect:-- + + "Have you ever loved the body of a woman, + Have you ever loved the body of a man, + Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all + Nations and times all over the earth?" + + "If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred, + And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted, + And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body is + More beautiful than the most beautiful face." + +If only all had been of this quality. But interspersed with lines of +great force and beauty are cumbrous irrelevancies, wholly superfluous +details. + +William Morris has also treated the subject of Sex in a frank, open +fashion. And there is in his work something of the easy, deliberate +spaciousness that we find in Whitman. But Morris was an artist first and +foremost, and he never misses the _poetry_ of animalism; as readers of +the "Earthly Paradise" and the prose romances especially know full well. + +It is not then because Whitman treats love as an animal passion that I +take objection to much in his "Children of Adam." There are poets enough +and to spare who sing of the sentimental aspects of love. We need have +no quarrel with Whitman's aim as expressed by Mr. John Burroughs: "To put +in his sex poems a rank and healthy animality, and to make them as frank +as the shedding of pollen by the trees, strong even to the point of +offence." All we ask is for him to do so as a poet, not as a mere +physiologist. And when he speaks one moment as a physiologist, next as a +poet; at one time as a lover, at another as a showman, the result is not +inspiring. "He could not make it pleasing," remarks Mr. Burroughs, "a +sweet morsel to be rolled under the tongue; that would have been levity +and sin, as in Byron and the other poets . . . He would sooner be +bestial than Byronic, he would sooner shock by his frankness than inflame +by his suggestion." This vague linking together of "Byron and the other +poets" is not easy to understand. In the first place, not one of the +moderns has treated love from the same standpoint. Shelley, for +instance, is transcendental, Byron elemental, Tennyson sentimental; +Rossetti looks at the soul through the body, Browning regards the body +through the soul. There is abundant variety in the treatment. Then, +again, why Byron should be singled out especially for opprobrium I fail +to see, for love is to him the fierce elemental passion it is for +Whitman. As for frankness, the episode of Haidee and Don Juan does not +err on the side of reticence. Nor is it pruriently suggestive. It is a +splendid piece of poetic animalism. Let us be fair to Byron. His work +may in places be disfigured by an unworthy cynicism; his treatment of +sexual problems be marred by a shallow flippancy. But no poet had a +finer appreciation of the essential poetry of animalism than he, and much +of his cynicism, after all, is by way of protest against the same narrow +morality at which Whitman girds. To single Byron out as a poet +especially obnoxious in his treatment of love, and to condemn him so +sweepingly, seems to me scarcely defensible. To extol unreservedly the +rankness and coarseness of "The Children of Adam," and to have no word of +commendation, say, for so noble a piece of naturalism as the story of +Haidee, seems to me lacking in fairness. Besides, it suggests that the +_only_ treatment in literature of the sexual life is a coarse, unpleasing +treatment, which I do not suppose Mr. Burroughs really holds. Whitman +has vindicated, and vindicated finely, the inherent truth and beauty of +animalism. But so has William Morris, so has Dante Gabriel Rossetti, so +has poor flouted Byron. And I will go further, and say that these other +poets have succeeded often where Whitman has failed; they have shown the +beauty and cosmic significance, when Whitman has been merely cataloguing +the stark facts. + +It may be objected, of course, that Whitman does not aim in his sex poems +at imaginative beauty, that he aims at sanity and wholesomeness; that +what he speaks--however rank--makes for healthy living. May be; I am not +concerned to deny it. What I do deny is the implication that the +wholesomeness of a fact is sufficient justification for its treatment in +literature. There are a good many disagreeable things that are wholesome +enough, there are many functions of the body that are entirely healthy. +But one does not want them enshrined in Art. + +To attack Whitman on the score of morality is unjustifiable; his sex +poems are simply unmoral. But had he flouted his art less flagrantly in +them they would have been infinitely more powerful and convincing, and +given the Philistines less opportunity for blaspheming. + +I have dwelt at this length upon Whitman's treatment of Sex largely +because it illustrates his strength and weakness as a literary artist. +In some of his poems--those dealing with Democracy, for instance--we have +Whitman at his best. In others, certainly a small proportion, we get +sheer, unillumined doggerel. In his sex poems there are great and fine +ideas, moments of inspiration, flashes of beauty, combined with much that +is trivial and tiresome. + +But this I think is the inevitable outcome of his style. The style, like +the man, is large, broad, sweeping, tolerant; the sense of "mass and +multitude" is remarkable; he aims at big effects, and the quality of +vastness in his writings struck John Addington Symonds as his most +remarkable characteristic. {186} This vast, rolling, processional style +is splendidly adapted for dealing with the elemental aspects of life, +with the vital problems of humanity. He sees everything in bulk. His +range of vision is cosmic. The very titles are suggestive of his point +of view--"A Song of the Rolling Earth," "A Song of the Open Road," "A +Song for Occupation," "Gods." There are no detailed effects, no delicate +points of light and shade in his writings, but huge panoramic effects. +It is a great style, it is an impressive style, but it is obviously not a +plastic style, nor a versatile style. Its very merits necessarily carry +with them corresponding defects. The massiveness sometimes proves mere +unwieldiness, the virile strength tends to coarseness, the eye fixed on +certain broad distant effects misses the delicate by-play of colour and +movement in the foreground. The persistent unconventionality of metre +and rhythm becomes in time a mannerism as pronounced as the mannerism of +Tennyson and Swinburne. + +I do not urge these things in disparagement of Whitman. No man can take +up a certain line wholeheartedly and uncompromisingly without incurring +the disabilities attaching to all who concentrate on one great issue. + +And if sometimes he is ineffectual, if on occasion he is merely strident +in place of authoritative, how often do his utterances carry with them a +superb force and a conviction which compel us to recognize the sagacious +genius of the man. + + + +III + + +Indeed, it is when we examine Whitman's attitude towards Humanity that we +realize best his strength and courage. For it is here that his qualities +find their fittest artistic expression. Nothing in Whitman's view is +common or unclean. All things in the Universe, rightly considered, are +sweet and good. Carrying this view into social politics, Whitman +declares for absolute social equality. And this is done in no +doctrinaire spirit, but because of Whitman's absolute faith and trust in +man and woman--not the man and woman overridden by the artifices of +convention, but the "powerful uneducated person." Whitman finds his +ideal not in Society (with a capital S), but in artisans and mechanics. +He took to his heart the mean, the vulgar, the coarse, not idealizing +their weaknesses, but imbuing them with his own strength and vigour. + + "I am enamoured of growth out of doors, + Of men that live among cattle, or taste of the ocean or woods, + Of the builder and steerers of ships, and the wielders of axes, and + The drivers of horses. + I can eat and sleep with them week in week out." + +Such are his comrades. And well he knows them. For many years of his +life he was roving through country and city, coming into daily contact +with the men and women about whom he has sung. Walt Whitman--farm boy, +school teacher, printer, editor, traveller, mechanic, nurse in the army +hospital, Government clerk. Truly our poet has graduated as few have +done in the school of Life. No writer of our age has better claims to be +considered the Poet of Democracy. + +But he was no sentimentalist. More tolerant and passive in disposition +than Victor Hugo, he had the same far-seeing vision when dealing with the +people. He recognized their capacity for good, their unconquerable +faith, their aspirations, their fine instincts; but he recognized also +their brutality and fierceness. He would have agreed with Spencer's +significant words: "There is no alchemy by which you can get golden +conduct out of leaden instincts"; but he would have denied Spencer's +implication that leaden instincts ruled the Democracy. And he was right. +There is more real knowledge of men and women in _Leaves of Grass_ and +_Les Miserables_ than in all the volumes of the Synthetic Philosophy. +Thus Whitman announces his theme:-- + + "Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, + Cheerful, for freest action formed under the laws divine. + The modern man I sing." + +"Whitman," wrote the late Mr. William Clarke, in his stimulating study of +the Poet, {188} "sings of the Modern Man as workman, friend, citizen, +brother, comrade, as pioneer of a new social order, as both material and +spiritual, final and most subtle, compound of spirit and nature, firmly +planted on this rolling earth, and yet 'moving about in worlds not +realized.' As representative democratic bard Whitman exhibits complete +freedom from unconventionality, a very deep human love for all, faith in +the rationality of the world, courage, energy, and the instincts of +solidarity." + +In the introductory essay to this volume some remarks were made about the +affections of the literary Vagabond in general and of Whitman in +particular, which call now for an ampler treatment, especially as on this +point I find myself, apparently, at issue with so many able and +discerning critics of Whitman. I say apparently because a consideration +of the subject may show that the difference, though real, is not so +fundamental as it appears to be. + +That Whitman entertained a genuine affection for men and women is, of +course, too obvious to be gainsaid. His noble work in the hospitals, his +tenderness towards criminals and outcasts--made known to us through the +testimony of friends--show him to be a man of comprehensive sympathies. +No man of a chill and calculating nature could have written as he did, +and, although his writings are not free of affectation, the strenuous, +fundamental sincerity of the man impresses every line. + +But was it, to quote William Clarke, "a _very deep_ human love"? This +seems to me a point of psychological interest. A man may exhibit +kindliness and tenderness towards his fellow-creatures without showing +any deep personal attachment. In fact, the wider a man's sympathies are +the less room is there for any strong individual feeling. His friend, +Mr. Donaldson, has told us that he never remembers Whitman shedding a +tear of grief over the death of any friend. Tears of joy he shed often; +but no tear of sorrow, of personal regret. It is true that Mr. Donaldson +draws no particular inference from this fact. It seems to me highly +significant. The absence of intense emotion is no argument truly for +insensibility; but to a man of large, sweeping sympathies such as Whitman +the loss of a particular friend did not strike home as it would do in men +of subtler temperaments. + +Cosmic emotions leave no room for those special manifestations of +concentrated feeling in individual instances which men with a narrower +range of sympathies frequently show. + +For in denying that Whitman was a man capable of "a very deep human +love," no moral censure is implied. If not deep, it was certainly +comprehensive; and rarely, if ever, do the two qualities coexist. Depth +of feeling is not to be found in men of the tolerant, passive type; it is +the intolerant, comparatively narrow-minded man who loves deeply; the man +of few friends, not the man who takes the whole human race to his heart +in one colossal embrace. Narrowness may exist, of course, without +intensity. But intensity of temperament always carries with it a certain +forceful narrowness. Such a man, strongly idiosyncratic, with his +sympathies running in a special groove, is capable of one or two +affections that absorb his entire nature. Those whom he cares for are so +subtly bound up with the peculiarities of his temperament that they +become a part of his very life. And if they go, so interwoven are their +personalities with the fibres of his being, that part of his life goes +with them. To such the death of an intimate friend is a blow that +shatters them beyond recovery. Courage and endurance, indeed, they may +show, and the undiscerning may never note how fell the blow has been. +But though the healing finger of Time will assuage the wound, the scars +they will carry to their dying day. + +As a rule, such men, lovable as they may be to the few, are not of the +stuff of which social reformers are made. They feel too keenly, too +sensitively, are guided too much by individual temperamental preferences. +It is of no use for any man who has to deal with coarse-grained humanity, +with all sorts and conditions of men, to be fastidious in his tastes. A +certain bluntness, a certain rude hardiness, a certain evenness of +disposition is absolutely necessary. We are told of Whitman by one of +his most ardent admirers that his life was "a pleased, uninterested +saunter through the world--no hurry, no fever, no strife, hence no +bitterness, no depression, no wasted energies . . . in all his tastes and +attractions always aiming to live thoroughly in the free nonchalant +spirit of the day." + +Yes; this is the type of man wanted as a social pioneer, as a poet of the +people. A man who felt more acutely, for whom the world was far too +terrible a place for sauntering, would be quite unfitted for Whitman's +task. It was essential that he should have lacked deep individual +affection. Something had to be sacrificed for the work he had before +him, and we need not lament that he had no predilection for those +intimate personal ties that mean so much to some. + +A man who has to speak a word of cheer to so many can ill afford to +linger with the few. He is not even concerned to convert you to his way +of thinking. He throws out a hint, a suggestion, the rest you must do +for yourself. + +"I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual +look upon you, and then averts his face. Leaving you to prove and define +it. Expecting the main things from you." + +Nowhere are Whitman's qualities more admirably shown than in his attitude +towards the average human being. As a rule the ordinary man is not a +person whom the Poet delights to honour. He is concerned with the +exceptional, the extraordinary type. Whitman's attitude then is of +special interest. + + "I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you; + None has understood you, but I understand you; + None has done justice to you--you have not done justice to yourself. + None but has found you imperfect; I only find no imperfection in you. + None but would subordinate you; I only am he who will never consent + to subordinate you." + + * * * * * + + "Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure + of all; + From the head of the centre figure, spreading a nimbus of + gold-coloured light. + But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of + gold-coloured light. + From My hand, from the brain of every man and woman it streams + effulgently flowing for ever. + O! I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you! + You have not known what you are; you have slumbered upon yourself all + your time. . . ." + +And so on, in a vein of courageous cheer, spoken with the big, obtrusive, +genial egotism that always meets us in Whitman's writings. Whitman's +egotism proves very exasperating to some readers, but I do not think it +should trouble us much. After all it is the egotism of a simple, +natural, sincere nature; there is no self-satisfied smirk about it, no +arrogance. He is conscious of his powers, and is quite frank in letting +you know this. Perhaps his boisterous delight in his own prowess may jar +occasionally on the nerves; but how much better than the affected +humility of some writers. And the more you study his writings the less +does this egotism affect even the susceptible. Your ears get attuned to +the pitch of the voice, you realize that the big drum is beaten with a +purpose. For it must be remembered that it is an egotism entirely +emptied of condescension. He is vain certainly, but mainly because he +glories in the common heritage, because he feels he is one of the common +people. He is proud assuredly, but it is pride that exults in traits +that he shares in common with the artist, the soldier, and the sailor. +He is no writer who plays down to the masses, who will prophesy fair +things--like the mere demagogue--in order to win their favour. And it is +a proof of his plain speaking, of his fearless candour, that for the most +part the very men for whom he wrote care little for him. + +Conventionality rules every class in the community. Whitman's gospel of +social equality is not altogether welcome to the average man. One +remembers Mr. Barrie's pleasant satire of social distinction in _The +Admirable Crichton_, where the butler resents his radical master's +suggestion that no real difference separates employer and employed. He +thinks it quite in keeping with the eternal fitness of things that his +master should assert the prerogative of "Upper Dog," and points out how +that there are many social grades below stairs, and that an elaborate +hierarchy separates the butler at one end from the "odds and ends" at the +other. + +In like manner the ordinary citizen resents Whitman's genuine democratic +spirit, greatly preferring the sentimental Whiggism of Tennyson. + +Whitman reminds us by his treatment of the vulgar, the ordinary, the +commonplace, that he signalizes a new departure in literature. Of poets +about the people there have been many, but he is the first genuine Poet +_of_ the People. + +Art is in its essence aristocratic, it strives after selectness, eschews +the trivial and the trite. There is, therefore, in literature always a +tendency towards conservatism; the literary artist grows more and more +fastidious in his choice of words; the cheap and vulgar must be +rigorously excluded, and only those words carrying with them stately and +beautiful associations are to be countenanced. Thus Classicism in Art +constantly needs the freshening, broadening influence of Romanticism. + +What Conservatism and Liberalism are to Politics Classicism and +Romanticism are to Art. Romantic revolutions have swept over literature +before the nineteenth century, and Shakespeare was the first of our great +Romantics. Then with the reaction Formalism and Conservatism crept in +again. But the Romantic Revival at the beginning of the nineteenth +century went much further than previous ones. Out of the throes of the +Industrial Revolution had been born a lusty, clamorous infant that +demanded recognition--the new Demos. And it claimed not only recognition +in politics, but recognition in literature. Wordsworth and Shelley +essayed to speak for it with varying success; but Wordsworth was too +exclusive, and Shelley--the most sympathetic of all our poets till the +coming of Browning--was too ethereal in his manner. Like his own +skylark, he sang to us poised midway between earth and heaven; a more +emphatically flesh and blood personage was wanted. + +Here and there a writer of genuine democratic feeling, like Ebenezer +Elliott, voiced the aspirations of the people, but only on one side. +Thomas Hood and Mrs. Browning sounded a deeper note; but the huge, +clamorous populace needed a yet fuller note, a more penetrating insight, +a more forceful utterance. And in America, with its seething +democracy--a democracy more urgent, more insistent than our own--it found +its spokesman. That it did not recognize him, and is only just beginning +to do so, is not remarkable. It did not recognize him, for it had +scarcely recognized itself. Only dimly did it realize its wants and +aspirations. Whitman divined them; he is the Demos made articulate. + +And not only did he sweep away the Conservative traditions and +conventions of literature, he endeavoured to overthrow the aristocratic +principle that underlies it. Selectness he would replace with +simplicity. No doubt he went too far. That is of small moment. +Exaggeration and over-emphasis have their place in the scheme of things. +A thunderstorm may be wanted to clear the air, and if it does +incidentally some slight damage to crops and trees it is of no use +grumbling. + +But in the main Whitman's theory of Art was very true and finely +suggestive, and is certainly not the view of a man who cares for nothing +but the wild and barbaric. + + "The art of Art, the glory of expression, and the sunshine of the + light of letters is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity, + nothing can make up for excess or for the lack of definiteness. To + carry on the heave of impulse, and pierce intellectual depths, and + give all subjects their articulations, are powers neither common nor + very uncommon. But to speak in literature with the perfect rectitude + and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachableness + of the sentiment of trees in the woods, and grass by the woodside, is + the flawless triumph of Art." + +A fitting attitude for a Poet of Democracy, one likely to bring him into +direct contact with the broad, variegated stream of human life. + +What perhaps he did not realize so clearly is that Nature, no less than +Art, exercises the selective facility, and corrects her own riotous +extravagance. And thus on occasion he falls into the very +indefiniteness, the very excess he deprecates. + +The way in which his Art and democratic spirit correspond suggests +another, though less unconventional poet of the Democracy--William +Morris. The spaciousness the directness, the tolerance that characterise +Whitman's work are to be found to Morris. Morris had no eclectic +preferences either in Art or Nature. A wall paper, a tapestry, an epic +were equally agreeable tasks; and a blade of grass delighted him as fully +as a sunset. So with men. He loved many, but no one especially. +Catholicity rather than intensity characterised his friendships. And, +like Whitman, he could get on cheerfully enough with surprisingly +unpleasant people, provided they were working for the cause in which he +was interested. {197} That is the secret. Whitman and Morris loved the +Cause. They looked at things in the mass, at people in the mass. This +is the true democratic spirit. They had no time, nor must it be +confessed any special interest--in the individual as such. What I have +said about Whitman's affection being comprehensive rather than intense +applies equally to Morris. Why? Because it is the way of the Democrat +and the Social Reformer. To such the individual suggests a whole class, +a class suggests the race. Whitman is always speaking to man as man, +rarely does he touch on individual men. If he does so, it is only to +pass on to some cosmic thoughts suggested by the particular instance. + +Perhaps the most inspiring thing about Whitman's attitude towards +humanity is his thorough understanding of the working classes, and his +quick discernment of the healthy naturalism that animates them. He +neither patronizes them nor idealizes them; he sees their faults, which +are obvious enough; but he also sees, what is not so obvious, their fine +independence of spirit, their eager thirst for improvement, for ampler +knowledge, for larger opportunities, and their latent idealism. + +No doubt there is more independence, greater vigour, less servility, in +America than in England; but the men he especially delights in, the +artisan or mechanic, represent the best of the working classes in either +country. + +In this respect Whitman and Tolstoy, differing in so many ways, join +hands. In the "powerful uneducated person" they see the salvation of +society, the renovation of its anaemic life. + + + +IV + + +Whitman is no moralist, and has no formal philosophy to offer. But the +modern spirit which always seeks after some "criticism of life" does not +forsake even the Vagabond. He is certainly the only Vagabond, with the +exception of Thoreau, who has felt himself charged with a message for his +fellows. The popular tendency is to look for a "message" in all literary +artists, and the result is that the art in question is knocked sometimes +out of all shape in order to wrest from it some creed or ethical +teaching. And as the particular message usually happens to be something +that especially appeals to the seeker, the number of conflicting messages +wrung from the unfortunate literary artist are somewhat disconcerting. + +But in Whitman's case the task of the message hunter is quite simple. +Whitman never leaves us in doubt what he believes in, and what ideas he +wishes to propagate. It is of course easy--perhaps inevitable--that with +a writer whose method it is to hint, suggest, indicate, rather than +formulate, elaborate, codify, the student should read in more than was +intended. And, after all, as George Eliot said, "The words of Genius +bear a wider meaning than the thought which prompted them." But at any +rate there is no mistaking the general outline of his thought, for his +outlook upon life is as distinctive as Browning's, and indeed possesses +many points of similarity. But in speaking of Whitman's message one +thing must be borne in mind. Whitman's work must not be adjudged merely +as a special blend of Altruism and Individualism. No man ever works, it +has been well said {199}--not even if philanthropy be his trade--from the +primary impulse to help or console other people, any more than his body +performs its functions for the sake of other people. And what Professor +Nettleship says of Browning might be applied with equal truth to Whitman. +His work consists "not in his being a teacher, or even wanting to be one, +but in his doing exactly the work he liked best and could not help +doing." And Whitman's stimulating thought is not the less true for that, +for it is the spontaneous expression of his personality, just as fully as +a melody or picture is an expression of an artist's personality. He +could no more help being a teacher than he could help breathing. And his +teaching must be valued not in accordance with the philosophy of the +schools, not by comparison with the ethics of the professional moralist, +but as the natural and inevitable outcome of his personality and +temperament. + +As a panacea for social evils Whitman believes in the remedial power of +comradeship in a large-hearted charity. + + "You felons on trial in courts, + You convicts in prison cells, you sentenced assassins chained and + handcuffed with iron, + Who am I, too, that I am not on trial or in prison? + Me ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chained + With iron, or my ankles with iron?" + +Mark the watchful impassiveness with which he gazes at the ugly side of +life. + + "I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all + oppression and shame; + I hear convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves, + remorseful after deeds done; + + * * * * * + + I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny; + I see martyrs and prisoners-- + I observe a famine at sea--I observe the sailors casting lots who + shall be killed, to preserve the lives of the rest; + I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon + labourers, the poor, and upon negroes and the like; + All these--all the meanness and agony without end, I sit and look out + upon, + See, hear, and am silent." + +No one is too base, too degraded for Whitman's affection. This is no +mere book sentiment with him; and many stories are told of his tenderness +and charity towards the "dregs of humanity." That a man is a human being +is enough for Whitman. However he may have fallen there is something in +him to appeal to. He would have agreed with Browning that-- + + "Beneath the veriest ash there hides a spark of soul, + Which, quickened by Love's breath, may yet pervade the whole + O' the grey, and free again be fire; of worth the same + Howe'er produced, for great or little flame is flame." + +Like Browning, also, Whitman fears lassitude and indifference more than +the turmoil of passion. He glories in the elemental. At present he +thinks we are too fearful of coarseness and rankness, lay too much stress +on refinement. And so he delights in "unrefinement," glories in the +woods, air-sweetness, sun-tan, brawn. + + "_So long_! + I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual bold, + And I announce an did age that shall lightly and joyfully meet its + translation." + +Cultured conventions, of which we make so much, distress him. They tend, +he argues, to enervation, to a poor imitative, self-conscious art, to an +artificial, morbid life. + +His curative methods were heroic; but who can say that they were not +needed, or that they were mischievous? + +Certainly in aiming first of all at sincerity he has attained that noble +beauty which is born of strength. Nature, as he saw, was full of vital +loveliness by reason of her very power. The average literary artist is +always seeking for the loveliness, aiming after beauty of form, without a +care whether what he is saying has the ring of sincerity and truth, +whether it is in touch with the realities of Nature. And in his +super-refinements he misses the beauty that flashes forth from the rough, +savage songs of Whitman. + +Whitman does not decry culture. But he places first the educative +influence of Nature. "The best Culture," he says, "will always be that +of the manly and courageous instincts and loving perception, and of +self-respect." + +No advocate of lawlessness he; the influence of modern sciences informs +every line that he has written. + +As Mr. Burroughs very justly says: "Whitman's relation to science is +fundamental and vital. It is the soil under his feet. He comes into a +world from which all childish fear and illusion has been expelled. He +exhibits the religious and poetic faculties perfectly adjusted to a +scientific, industrial, democratic age, and exhibits them more fervent +and buoyant than ever before. We have gained more than we have lost. +The world is anew created by science and democracy, and he pronounces it +good with the joy and fervour of the old faith." + +In this respect Mr. Burroughs thinks that Whitman shared with Tennyson +the glory of being one of the two poets in our time who have drawn +inspiration from this source. Certainly no poet of our time has made +finer use as an artist of scientific facts than the late Laureate. + +But Tennyson seems scarcely to have drawn inspiration from science as did +Browning, if we look at the thought underlying the verse. On the whole +scientific discoveries depressed rather than cheered him, whereas from +_Paracelsus_ onwards Browning accepts courageously all the results of +modern science, and, as in the case of Whitman, it enlarged his moral and +spiritual horizon. + +But he was not a philosopher as Browning was; indeed, there is less of +the philosopher about Whitman than about any poet of our age. His method +is quite opposed to the philosophic. It is instinctive, suggestive, and +as full of contradictions as Nature herself. You can no more extract a +philosophy from his sweeping utterances than you can from a tramp over +the hills. + +But, like a tramp over the hills, Whitman fits every reader who +accompanies him for a stronger and more courageous outlook. It is not +easy to say with Whitman as in the case of many writers: "This line +quickened my imagination, that passage unravelled my perplexities." It +is the general effect of his writings that exercises such a remarkable +tonic influence. Perhaps he has never indicated this cumulative power +more happily than in the lines that conclude his "Song of Myself." + + "You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean, + But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, + And filter and fibre your blood. + + "Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged. + Missing me one place search another, + I stop somewhere waiting for you." + +Yes; that is Whitman's secret--"Good health." To speak of him as did his +biographer, Dr. Bucke, as "perhaps the most advanced nature the world has +yet produced," to rank him, as some have done, with the world's greatest +moral teachers, beside Jesus and Socrates, seems to me the language of +hysterical extravagant. Nay, more, it misses surely the special +significant of his genius. + +In his religious thought, his artistic feelings, his affections, there is +breadth of sympathy, sanity of outlook, but an entire absence of +intensity, of depth. + +We shall scan his pages vainly for the profound aspiration, the subtle +spiritual insight of our greatest religious teachers. In his +indifference to form, his insensibility to the noblest music, we shall +realize his artistic limitations. + +Despite his genial comradeship, the more intimate, the more delicate +experiences of friendship are not to be found in his company. Delicacy, +light and shade, subtlety, intensity, for these qualities you must not +seek Whitman. But that is no reason for neglecting him. The Modern and +Ancient world are rich in these other qualities, and the special need of +the present day is not intensity so much as sanity, not subtlety so much +as breadth. + +In one of his clever phrases Mr. Havelock Ellis has described Whitman "as +a kind of Titanic Undine." {204} Perhaps it is a good thing for us that +he never "found his soul." In an age of morbid self-introspection there +is something refreshing in an utterance like this, where he praises the +animals because-- + + "They do not screech and whine about their condition, + They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, + They do not make me sick discussing their duty to GOD." + +In a feverish, restless age it is well to feel the presence of that +large, passive, tolerant figure. There is healing in the cool, firm +touch of his hand; healing in the careless, easy self-confidence of his +utterance. He has spoken to us of "the amplitude of the earth, and the +coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the +earth." And he has done this with the rough outspokenness of the +elements, with the splendid audacity of Nature herself. Brawn, sun-tan, +air-sweetness are things well worth the having, for they mean good +health. That is why we welcome the big, genial sanity of Walt Whitman, +for he has about him the rankness and sweetness of the Earth. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES + + +(Some of the most noteworthy books and articles dealing with the authors +discussed in this volume are indicated below.) + +WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830). + +_Memoirs_, by William Carew Hazlitt. _Four Generations of a Literary +Family_, by W. C. Hazlitt (1897). _William Hazlitt_, by Augustine +Birrell. _William Hazlitt_, by Alexander Ireland (Frederick Warne & Co., +1889). + +THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859). + +_De Quincey_, by David Masson (Macmillan & Co.). _De Quincey and his +Friends_, by James Hogg (1895). _De Quincey_, by H. S. Salt ("Bell's +Miniature Series of Great Writers"). + +GEORGE BORROW (1803-81). + +_Life and Letters_ (2 vols.), by Dr. Knapp. Introductions to _Lavengro_ +(Frederick Warne & Co.), _The Romany Rye_ (Frederick Warne & Co.), _Wild +Wales_ (J. M. Dent & Co.), by Theodore Watts-Dunton. Article in +Chambers's _Cyclopedia of English Literature_. "Reminiscences of George +Borrow" (_Athenaeum_, Sept. 3, 10, 1881). + +HENRY D. THOREAU (1817-62). + +_Thoreau_, _his Life and Aims_, by H. A. Page (Chatto & Windus). +_Thoreau_, by H. S. Salt ("Great Writers Series"). Essays by R. L. +Stevenson (_Familiar Studies of Men and Books_), and J. R. Lowell (_My +Study Window_). + +The best edition of Thoreau's writings is published by the Riverside +Press, Cambridge, U.S.A. Some useful volumes of selections are issued by +Walter Scott, Limited, with good introductions by Will. H. Dricks. +_Walden_, with introduction by Theodore Watts-Dunton (Henry Froude). + +R. L. STEVENSON (1850-94). + +_Letters of R. L. Stevenson to his Family and Friends_ (2 vols.), by +Sidney Colvin, with introduction. _R. L. Stevenson_, by L. Cope Cornford +(Blackwood & Son). + +RICHARD JEFFERIES (1848-87). + +_Eulogy of Richard Jefferies_, by Walter Besant (1888). _Nature in +Books_, by P. Anderson Graham (Methuen, 1891). _Richard Jefferies_, by +H. S. Salt (Swan Sonnenschein, 1894). _Dictionary of National +Biography_. Chambers's _Cyclopedia of English Literature_. + +WALT WHITMAN (1819-92). + +_Walt Whitman_, by William Clarke (Swan Sonnenschein). Essay by R. L. +Stevenson (_Familiar Studies of Men and Books_). _Walt Whitman_: _a +Study_, by J. Addington Symonds. _Walt Whitman_, by R. M. Bucke +(Philadelphia). _Walt Whitman_, by John Burroughs (Constable). _The New +Spirit_ (Essay on Whitman), by Havelock Ellis (Walter Scott). The best +edition of _Leaves of Grass_, published by David McKay, Philadelphia. + + * * * * * + + PLYMOUTH + WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. + PRINTERS + + + + +SOME PRESS APPRECIATIONS +of +"PERSONAL FORCES +IN MODERN LITERATURE" + + +(NEWMAN--MARTINEAU--HUXLEY--WORDSWORTH--KEATS--ROSSETTI--DICKENS-- +HAZLITT--DE QUINCEY) + + BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +"The agreeable work of a man of taste and many sympathies."--_The +Athenaeum_. + +"It is delightful to come across a book so careful, to enlightened, and +so full of fresh comments."--_The Tribune_. + +"A brilliant contribution to critical literature." + + _The Clarion_. + +"Clever monographs."--_The Outlook_. + +"Always suggestive and stimulating." + + _The Morning Leader_. + +"Mr. Rickett writes capably, sanely, and vividly, with a just perception +of the distinctive quality of his subjects and considerable power in +presenting them in an interesting and engaging way."--_The Daily News_. + +"Mr. Rickett is a sound critic and he has a scholarly acquaintance with +his subjects." + + "CLAUDIUS CLEAR" in _The British Weekly_. + +"An acute, sympathetic, and original critic." + + _The Glasgow Herald_. + + * * * * * + + J. M. DENT & CO. 29 & 30 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. + + + + +Footnotes + + +{0} _The Coming of Love and Other Poems_, by Theodore Watts-Dunton (John +Lane). + +{21} For an excellent summary of this doctrine, vide _Introduction to +Herbert Spencer_, by W. H. Hudson. + +{40} _Thomas De Quincey_, by H. S. Salt (Bell's Miniature Biographies). + +{48} _De Quincey's Life and Writings_, p. 456, by A. H. Japp, LL.D. + +{70} The gypsy word for Antonio. + +{71} Devil. + +{102} It is a peculiarly American trait. The same thing dominates +Whitman. Saxon egotism and Yankee egotism are quite distinctive +products. + +{106} _Thoreau_, by H. A. Page. + +{124a} _Later Essays_. + +{124b} Introduction, _The Letters of Robert Lents Stevenson_. + +{147} _The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies_ by Walter Besant. + +{149} Perhaps even more remarkable is the abnormal state of +consciousness described in the "Ancient Sage." + +{151a} _Six Systems of Indian Philosophy_, by F. Max Muller. + +{151b} Quoted by Professor William James, _Varieties of Religions +Experiences_, p. 402. + +{153a} _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 427. + +{153b} Vide _Richard Jefferies_, by H. S. Salt. + +{157a} _The Life of the Fields_, p. 72. + +{157b} Curious similarity of thought here with Elia's "popular fallacy," +though probably quite uninspired by Lamb. Jefferies was no great reader. +It is said that he knew little or nothing of Thoreau. + +{173} _Vide_ Introduction to Borrow's _The Romany Rye_, by Theodore +Watts-Dunton. + +{180} _Familiar Studies of Men and Books_, by R. L. Stevenson. + +{186} _Walt Whitman_, a study, by J. A. Symonds. + +{188} _Walt Whitman_, by William Clarke, p. 79. + +{197} Vide _Life of William Morris_ by J. W. Mackail. + +{199} _Robert Browning_: _Essays and Thought_, by John T. Nettleship. + +{204} _The New Spirit_, by Havelock Ellis. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VAGABOND IN LITERATURE*** + + +******* This file should be named 33356.txt or 33356.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/3/3/5/33356 + + + +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. 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