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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories,
+and Fancies., by Anna Jameson
+
+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/license
+
+
+Title: A Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies.
+       2nd ed.
+
+Author: Anna Jameson
+
+Release Date: May 12, 2012 [EBook #39680]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COMMONPLACE BOOK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller, Turgut Dincer and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+   A
+
+   COMMONPLACE BOOK
+
+   OF
+
+   Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+   A COMMONPLACE BOOK--
+
+   OF
+
+   Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies.
+
+   ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
+
+   PART I.--ETHICS AND CHARACTER.
+
+   PART II.--LITERATURE AND ART.
+
+   BY MRS. JAMESON.
+
+   "Un peu de chaque chose, et rien du tout,--à la française!"--MONTAIGNE.
+
+   With Illustrations and Etchings.
+
+   SECOND EDITION, CORRECTED.
+
+   LONDON:
+   LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.
+   1855.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+I must be allowed to say a few words in explanation of the contents of
+this little volume, which is truly what its name sets forth--a book of
+common-places, and nothing more. If I have never, in any work I have
+ventured to place before the public, aspired to _teach_, (being myself a
+_learner_ in all things,) at least I have hitherto done my best to
+deserve the indulgence I have met with; and it would pain me if it could
+be supposed that such indulgence had rendered me presumptuous or
+careless.
+
+For many years I have been accustomed to make a memorandum of any
+thought which might come across me--(if pen and paper were at hand), and
+to mark (and _remark_) any passage in a book which excited either a
+sympathetic or an antagonistic feeling. This collection of notes
+accumulated insensibly from day to day. The volumes on Shakspeare's
+Women, on Sacred and Legendary Art, and various other productions,
+sprung from seed thus lightly and casually sown, which, I hardly know
+how, grew up and expanded into a regular, readable form, with a
+beginning, a middle, and an end. But what was to be done with the
+fragments which remained--without beginning, and without end--links of a
+hidden or a broken chain? Whether to preserve them or destroy them
+became a question, and one I could not answer for myself. In allowing a
+portion of them to go forth to the world in their original form, as
+unconnected fragments, I have been guided by the wishes of others, who
+deemed it not wholly uninteresting or profitless to trace the path,
+sometimes devious enough, of an "inquiring spirit," even by the little
+pebbles dropped as vestiges by the way side.
+
+A book so supremely egotistical and subjective can do good only in one
+way. It may, like conversation with a friend, open up sources of
+sympathy and reflection; excite to argument, agreement, or disagreement;
+and, like every spontaneous utterance of thought out of an earnest mind,
+suggest far higher and better thoughts than any to be found here to
+higher and more productive minds. If I had not the humble hope of such a
+possible result, instead of sending these memoranda to the printer, I
+should have thrown them into the fire; for I lack that creative faculty
+which can work up the teachings of heart-sorrow and world-experience
+into attractive forms of fiction or of art; and having no intention of
+leaving any such memorials to be published after my death, they must
+have gone into the fire as the only alternative left.
+
+The passages from books are not, strictly speaking, _selected_; they are
+not given here on any principle of choice, but simply because that by
+some process of assimilation they became a part of the individual mind.
+They "found _me_,"--to borrow Coleridge's expression,--"found me in some
+depth of my being;" I did not "find _them_."
+
+For the rest, all those passages which are marked by inverted commas
+must be regarded as borrowed, though I have not always been able to give
+my authority. All passages not so marked are, I dare not say, original
+or new, but at least the unstudied expression of a free discursive mind.
+Fruits, not advisedly plucked, but which the variable winds have shaken
+from the tree: some ripe, some "harsh and crude."
+
+Wordsworth's famous poem of "The Happy Warrior" (of which a new
+application will be found at page 87.), is supposed by Mr. De Quincey to
+have been first suggested by the character of Nelson. It has since been
+applied to Sir Charles Napier (the Indian General), as well as to the
+Duke of Wellington; all which serves to illustrate my position, that the
+lines in question are equally applicable to any man or any woman whose
+moral standard is irrespective of selfishness and expediency.
+
+With regard to the fragment on Sculpture, it may be necessary to state
+that it was written in 1848. The first three paragraphs were inserted in
+the Art Journal for April, 1849. It was intended to enlarge the whole
+into a comprehensive essay on "Subjects fitted for Artistic Treatment;"
+but this being now impossible, the fragment is given as originally
+written; others may think it out, and apply it better than I shall live
+to do.
+
+
+   August, 1854.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+   PART I.
+
+   Ethics and Character.
+
+
+ ETHICAL FRAGMENTS.                                        Page
+
+   Vanity                                                     1
+
+   Truths and Truisms                                         3
+
+   Beauty and Use                                             5
+
+   What is Soul?                                              7
+
+   The Philosophy of Happiness                                9
+
+   Cheerfulness a Virtue                                     10
+
+   Intellect and Sympathy                                    11
+
+   Old Letters                                               12
+
+   The Point of Honour                                       13
+
+   Looking up                                                14
+
+   Authors                                                   14
+
+   Thought and Theory                                        15
+
+   Impulse and Consideration                                 16
+
+   Principle and Expediency                                  16
+
+   Personality of the Evil Principle                         17
+
+   The Catholic Spirit                                       18
+
+   Death-beds                                                19
+
+   Thoughts on a Sermon                                      20
+
+   Love and Fear of God                                      22
+
+   Social Opinion                                            23
+
+   Balzac                                                    23
+
+   Political                                                 24
+
+   Celibacy                                                  25
+
+   Landor's Wise Sayings                                     26
+
+   Justice and Generosity                                    27
+
+   Roman Catholic Converts                                   28
+
+   Stealing and Borrowing                                    28
+
+   Good and Bad                                              29
+
+   Italian Proverb. Greek Saying                             30
+
+   Silent Grief                                              31
+
+   Past and Future                                           32
+
+   Suicide. Countenance                                      33
+
+   Progress and Progression                                  34
+
+   Happiness in Suffering                                    35
+
+   Life in the Future                                        36
+
+   Strength. Youth                                           38
+
+   Moral Suffering                                           40
+
+   The Secret of Peace                                       41
+
+   Motives and Impulses                                      42
+
+   Principle and Passion                                     43
+
+   Dominant Ideas                                            44
+
+   Absence and Death                                         45
+
+   Sydney Smith. Theodore Hook                               46
+
+   Werther and Childe Harold                                 50
+
+   Money Obligations                                         52
+
+   Charity. Truth                                            53
+
+   Women. Men                                                55
+
+   Compensation for Sorrow                                   57
+
+   Religion. Avarice                                         57
+
+   Genius. Mind                                              59
+
+   Hieroglyphical Colours                                    60
+
+   Character                                                 61
+
+   Value of Words                                            62
+
+   Nature and Art                                            64
+
+   Spirit and Form                                           67
+
+   Penal Retribution. The Church                             68
+
+   Woman's Patriotism                                        70
+
+   Doubt. Curiosity                                          71
+
+   Tieck. Coleridge                                          71
+
+   Application of a Bon Mot of Talleyrand                    73
+
+   Adverse Individualities                                   75
+
+   Conflict in Love                                          76
+
+   French Expressions                                        77
+
+   Practical and Contemplative Life                          78
+
+   Joanna Baillie. Macaulay's Ballads                        80
+
+   Cunning                                                   80
+
+   Browning's Paracelsus                                     81
+
+   Men, Women, and Children                                  84
+
+   Letters                                                  100
+
+   Madame de Staël. Dejà                                    103
+
+   Thought too free                                         105
+
+   Good Qualities, not Virtues                              106
+
+   Sense and Phantasy                                       107
+
+   Use the Present                                          108
+
+   Facts                                                    109
+
+   Wise Sayings                                             111
+
+   Pestilence of Falsehood                                  112
+
+   Signs instead of Words. Relations with the World         113
+
+   Milton's Adam and Eve                                    115
+
+   Thoughts, sundry                                         116
+
+ A REVELATION OF CHILDHOOD                                  117
+
+ THE INDIAN HUNTER AND THE FIRE;
+   an Allegory                                              147
+
+ POETICAL FRAGMENTS                                         152
+
+   Theological.
+
+
+ THE HERMIT AND THE MINSTREL                                155
+
+   Pandemonium                                              158
+
+   Southey on the Religious Orders                          162
+
+   Forms in Religion--Image Worship                         164
+
+   Religious Differences                                    165
+
+   Expansive Christianity                                   169
+
+ NOTES FROM VARIOUS SERMONS:--
+
+   A Roman Catholic Sermon                                  172
+
+   Another                                                  176
+
+   Church of England Sermon                                 178
+
+   Another                                                  181
+
+   Dissenting Sermon                                        187
+
+   Father Taylor of Boston                                  188
+
+
+   PART II.
+
+   Literature and Art.
+
+
+ NOTES FROM BOOKS:--
+
+   Dr. Arnold                                               198
+
+   Niebuhr                                                  220
+
+   Lord Bacon                                               230
+
+   Chateaubriand                                            240
+
+   Bishop Cumberland                                        247
+
+   Comte's Philosophy                                       250
+
+   Goethe                                                   261
+
+   Hazlitt's "Liber Amoris"                                 263
+
+   Francis Horner, "The Nightingale"                        267
+
+   Thackeray's "English Humourists"                         271
+
+
+ NOTES ON ART:--
+
+   Analogies                                                276
+
+   Definition of Art                                        279
+
+   No Patriotic Art                                         280
+
+   Verse and Colour                                         280
+
+   Dutch Pictures                                           281
+
+   Morals in Art                                            283
+
+   Physiognomy of Hands                                     288
+
+   Mozart and Chopin                                        289
+
+   Music                                                    293
+
+   Rachel, the Actress                                      294
+
+   English and German Actresses                             298
+
+   Character of Imogen                                      303
+
+   Shakspeare Club                                          305
+
+   "Maria Maddalena"                                        305
+
+   The Artistic Nature                                      307
+
+   Woman's Criticism                                        309
+
+   Artistic Influences                                      310
+
+   The Greek Aphrodite                                      311
+
+   Love, in the Greek Tragedy                               312
+
+   Wilkie's Life and Letters                                313
+
+   Wilhelm Schadow                                          317
+
+   Artist Life                                              321
+
+   Materialism in Art                                       323
+
+   A Fragment on Sculpture, and on certain Characters in
+     History and Poetry, considered as Subjects for Modern
+     Art                                                    326
+
+     Helen of Troy                                          332
+
+     Penelope--Laodamia                                     336
+
+     Hippolytus                                             339
+
+     Iphigenia                                              343
+
+     Eve                                                    347
+
+     Adam                                                   350
+
+     Angels                                                 351
+
+     Miriam--Ruth                                           354
+
+     Christ--Solomon--David                                 355
+
+     Hagar--Rebecca--Rachel--Queen of Sheba                 356
+
+     Lady Godiva                                            357
+
+     Joan of Arc                                            359
+
+     Characters from Shakspeare                             364
+
+     Characters from Spenser                                366
+
+     From Milton. The Lady--Comus--Satan                    367
+
+     From the Italian and Modern Poets                      370
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ETCHINGS.
+
+
+   1. Fruits and Flowers. After an old drawing.
+
+   2. Out of my garden.
+
+   3. Virgin Martyrs. Thought. Memory. Fancy. After Benedetto
+        da Matera.
+
+   4. La Penserosa. After Ambrogio Lorenzette.
+
+   5. La Fille du Feu. From a sketch by Von Schwind.
+
+   6. Laus Dei. Angel after Hans Hemmeling.
+
+   7. Eve and Cain. After Steinle.
+
+   8. Study. After an old print.
+
+   9. The Parcæ. From a sketch by Carstens.
+
+   10. Antique Owlet. In Goethe's collection at Weimar.
+
+
+   *** The woodcuts are inserted to divide the
+   paragraphs and subjects, and are ornamental rather than
+   illustrative. Where the same vignette heads several paragraphs
+   consecutively, it is to signify that the _ideas_ expressed
+   stand in relation to each other.
+
+
+PART I.
+
+Ethics and Character.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Ethical Fragments.
+
+
+1.
+
+Bacon says, how wisely! that "there is often as great vanity in
+withdrawing and retiring men's conceits from the world, as in obtruding
+them." Extreme vanity sometimes hides under the garb of ultra modesty.
+When I see people haunted by the idea of self,--spreading their hands
+before their faces lest they meet the reflection of it in every other
+face, as if the world were to them like a French drawing-room, panelled
+with looking glass,--always fussily putting their obtrusive self behind
+them, or dragging over it a scanty drapery of consciousness, miscalled
+modesty,--always on their defence against compliments, or mistaking
+sympathy for compliment, which is as great an error, and a more vulgar
+one than mistaking flattery for sympathy,--when I see all this, as I have
+seen it, I am inclined to attribute it to the immaturity of the
+character, or to what is worse, a total want of simplicity. To some
+characters fame is like an intoxicating cup placed to the lips,--they do
+well to turn away from it, who fear it will turn their heads. But to
+others, fame is "love disguised," the love that answers to love, in its
+widest most exalted sense. It seems to me, that we should all bring the
+best that is in us (according to the diversity of gifts which God has
+given us), and lay it a reverend offering on the altar of humanity,--if
+not to burn and enlighten, at least to rise in incense to heaven. So
+will the pure in heart, and the unselfish do; and they will not heed if
+those who _can_ bring nothing or _will_ bring nothing, unless they can
+blaze like a beacon, call out "VANITY!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+2.
+
+There are truths which, by perpetual repetition, have subsided into
+passive truisms, till, in some moment of feeling or experience, they
+kindle into conviction, start to life and light, and the truism becomes
+again a vital truth.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+3.
+
+It is well that we obtain what we require at the cheapest possible rate;
+yet those who cheapen goods, or beat down the price of a good article,
+or buy in preference to what is good and genuine of its kind an inferior
+article at an inferior price, sometimes do much mischief. Not only do
+they discourage the production of a better article, but if they be
+anxious about the education of the lower classes they undo with one hand
+what they do with the other; they encourage the mere mechanic and the
+production of what may be produced without effort of mind and without
+education, and they discourage and wrong the skilled workman for whom
+education has done much more and whose education has cost much more.
+
+Every work so merely and basely mechanical, that a man can throw into it
+no part of his own life and soul, does, in the long run, degrade the
+human being. It is only by giving him some kind of mental and moral
+interest in the labour of his hands, making it an exercise of his
+understanding, and an object of his sympathy, that we can really elevate
+the workman; and this is not the case with very cheap production of any
+kind. (Southampton, Dec. 1849.)
+
+
+Since this was written the same idea has been carried out, with far more
+eloquent reasoning, in a noble passage which I have just found in Mr.
+Ruskin's last volume of "The Stones of Venice" (the Sea Stories). As I
+do not _always_ subscribe to his theories of Art, I am the more
+delighted with this anticipation of a moral agreement between us.
+
+"We have much studied and much perfected of late, the great civilised
+invention of the division of labour, only we give it a false name. It is
+not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided, but the men:--divided
+into mere segments of men,--broken into small fragments and crumbs of
+life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man
+is not enough to make a pin or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the
+point of a pin or the head of a nail. Now, it is a good and desirable
+thing truly to make many pins in a day, but if we could only see with
+what crystal sand their points are polished--sand of human soul, much to
+be magnified before it can be discerned for what it is,--we should think
+there might be some loss in it also; and the great cry that rises from
+all our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace-blast, is all in
+very deed for this,--that we manufacture everything there except men,--we
+blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape
+pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single
+living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages; and all the
+evil to which that cry is urging our myriads, can be met only in one
+way,--not by teaching nor preaching; for to teach them is but to show
+them their misery; and to preach to them--if we do nothing more than
+preach,--is to mock at it. It can be met only by a right understanding on
+the part of all classes, of what kinds of labour are good for men,
+raising them and making them happy; by a determined sacrifice of such
+convenience, or beauty or cheapness, as is to be got only by the
+degradation of the workman, and by equally determined demand for the
+products and results of a healthy and ennobling labour." ....
+
+"We are always in these days trying to separate the two (intellect and
+work). We want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always
+working; and we call one a gentleman and the other an operative;
+whereas, the workman ought to be often thinking, and the thinker often
+working, and both should be gentlemen in the best sense. It is only by
+labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labour
+can be made happy; and the two cannot be separated with impunity."
+
+Wordsworth, however, had said the same thing before either of us:
+
+                     "Our life is turn'd
+   Out of her course wherever man is made
+   An offering or a sacrifice,--a tool
+   Or implement,--a passive thing employed
+   As a brute mean, without acknowledgment
+   Of common right or interest in the end,
+   Used or abused as selfishness may prompt.
+   Say what can follow for a rational soul
+   Perverted thus, but weakness in all good
+   And strength in evil?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+And this leads us to the consideration of another mistake, analogous
+with the above, but referable in its results chiefly to the higher, or
+what Mr. Ruskin calls the _thinking_, classes of the community.
+
+It is not good for us to have all that we value of worldly material
+things in the form of money. It is the most vulgar form in which value
+can be invested. Not only books, pictures, and all beautiful things are
+better; but even jewels and trinkets are sometimes to be preferred to
+mere hard money. Lands and tenements are good, as involving duties; but
+still what is valuable in the market sense should sometimes take the
+ideal and the beautiful form, and be dear and lovely and valuable for
+its own sake as well as for its convertible worth in hard gold. I think
+the character would be apt to deteriorate when all its material
+possessions take the form of money, and when money becomes valuable for
+its own sake, or as the mere instrument or representative of power.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+4.
+
+We are told in a late account of Laura Bridgeman, the blind, deaf, and
+dumb girl, that her instructor once endeavoured to explain the
+difference between the material and the immaterial, and used the word
+"soul." She interrupted to ask, "What is soul?"
+
+"That which thinks, feels, hopes, loves,----"
+
+"And _aches_?" she added eagerly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+5.
+
+I was reading to-day in the Notes to Boswell's Life of Johnson that "it
+is a theory which every one knows to be _false in fact_, that virtue in
+real life is always productive of happiness, and vice of misery." I
+should say that all my experience teaches me that the position is not
+false but true: that virtue _does_ produce happiness, and vice _does_
+produce misery. But let us settle the meaning of the words. By
+_happiness_, we do not necessarily mean a state of worldly prosperity.
+By _virtue_, we do not mean a series of good actions which may or may
+not be rewarded, and, if done for reward, lose the essence of virtue.
+Virtue, according to my idea, is the habitual sense of right, and the
+habitual courage to act up to that sense of right, combined with
+benevolent sympathies, the charity which thinketh no evil. This union of
+the highest conscience and the highest sympathy fulfils my notion of
+virtue. Strength is essential to it; weakness incompatible with it.
+Where virtue is, the noblest faculties and the softest feelings are
+predominant; the whole being is in that state of harmony which I call
+happiness. Pain may reach it, passion may disturb it, but there is
+always a glimpse of blue sky above our head; as we ascend in dignity of
+being, we ascend in happiness, which is, in my sense of the word, the
+feeling which connects us with the infinite and with God.
+
+And vice is necessarily misery: for that fluctuation of principle, that
+diseased craving for excitement, that weakness out of which springs
+falsehood, that suspicion of others, that discord with ourselves, with
+the absence of the benevolent propensities,--these constitute misery as a
+state of being. The most miserable person I ever met with in my life had
+12,000_l._ a year; a cunning mind, dexterous to compass its own ends;
+very little conscience, not enough, one would have thought, to vex with
+any retributive pang; but it was the absence of goodness that made the
+misery, obvious and hourly increasing. The perpetual kicking against the
+pricks, the unreasonable _exigéance_ with regard to things, without any
+high standard with regard to persons,--these made the misery. I can speak
+of it as misery who had it daily in my sight for five long years.
+
+I have had arguments, if it be not presumption to call them so, with
+Carlyle on this point. It appeared to me that he confounded happiness
+with pleasure, with self-indulgence. He set aside with a towering scorn
+the idea of living for the sake of happiness, so called: he styled this
+philosophy of happiness, "the philosophy of the frying-pan." But this
+was like the reasoning of a child, whose idea of happiness is plenty of
+sugar-plums. Pleasure, pleasurable sensation, is, as the world goes,
+something to thank God for. I should be one of the last to undervalue
+it; I hope I am one of the last to live for it; and pain is pain, a
+great evil, which I do not like either to inflict or suffer. But
+happiness lies beyond either pain or pleasure--is as sublime a thing as
+virtue itself, indivisible from it; and under this point of view it
+seems a perilous mistake to separate them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+6.
+
+Dante places in his lowest Hell those who in life were melancholy and
+repining without a cause, thus profaning and darkening God's blessed
+sunshine--_Tristi fummo nel' aer dolce_; and in some of the ancient
+Christian systems of virtues and vices, Melancholy is unholy, and a
+vice; Cheerfulness is holy, and a virtue.
+
+Lord Bacon also makes one of the characteristics of moral health and
+goodness to consist in "a constant quick sense of felicity, and a noble
+satisfaction."
+
+What moments, hours, days of exquisite felicity must Christ, our
+Redeemer, have had, though it has become too customary to place him
+before us only in the attitude of pain and sorrow! Why should he be
+always crowned with thorns, bleeding with wounds, weeping over the world
+he was appointed to heal, to save, to reconcile with God? The radiant
+head of Christ in Raphael's Transfiguration should rather be our ideal
+of Him who came "to bind up the broken-hearted, to preach the acceptable
+year of the Lord."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+7.
+
+A profound intellect is weakened and narrowed in general power and
+influence by a limited range of sympathies. I think this is especially
+true of C----: excellent, honest, gifted as he is, he does not do half the
+good he might do, because his sympathies are so confined. And then he
+wants gentleness: he does not seem to acknowledge that "the wisdom that
+is from above is _gentle_." He is a man who carries his bright intellect
+as a light in a dark-lantern; he sees only the objects on which he
+chooses to throw that blaze of light: those he sees vividly, but, as it
+were, exclusively. All other things, though lying near, are dark,
+because perversely he _will_ not throw the light of his mind upon them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+8.
+
+Wilhelm von Humboldt says, "Old letters lose their vitality."
+
+Not true. It is because they retain their vitality that it is so
+dangerous to keep some letters,--so wicked to burn others.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+9.
+
+A Man thinks himself, and is thought by others to be insulted when
+another man gives him the lie. It is an offence to be retracted at once,
+or only to be effaced in blood. To give a woman the lie is not
+considered in the same unpardonable light by herself or others,--is
+indeed a slight thing. Now, whence this difference? Is not truth as
+dear to a woman as to a man? Is the virtue itself, or the reputation of
+it, less necessary to the woman than to the man? If not, what causes
+this distinction,--one so injurious to the morals of both sexes?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+10.
+
+It is good for us to look up, morally and mentally. If I were tired I
+would get some help to hold my head up, as Moses got some one to hold up
+his arms while he prayed.
+
+"Ce qui est moins que moi m'éteint et m'assomme; ce qui est à côté de
+moi m'ennuie et me fatigue. II n'y a que ce qui est au-dessus de moi qui
+me soutienne et m'arrache à moi-même."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+11.
+
+There is an order of writers who, with characters perverted or hardened
+through long practice of iniquity, yet possess an inherent divine sense
+of the good and the beautiful, and a passion for setting it forth, so
+that men's hearts glow with the tenderness and the elevation which live
+not in the heart of the writer,--only in his head.
+
+And there is another class of writers who are excellent in the social
+relations of life, and kindly and true in heart, yet who,
+intellectually, have a perverted pleasure in the ridiculous and
+distorted, the cunning, the crooked, the vicious,--who are never weary of
+holding up before us finished representations of folly and rascality.
+
+Now, which is the worst of these? the former, who do mischief by making
+us mistrust the good? or the latter, who degrade us by making us
+familiar with evil?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+12.
+
+"Thought and theory," said Wordsworth, "must precede all action that
+moves to salutary purposes. Yet action is nobler in itself than either
+thought or theory."
+
+Yes, and no. What we _act_ has its consequences on earth. What we
+_think_, its consequences in heaven. It is not without reason that
+action should be preferred before barren thought; but all action which
+in its result is worth any thing, must result from thought. So the old
+rhymester hath it:
+
+  "He that good thinketh good may do,
+   And God will help him there unto;
+   For was never good work wrought,
+   Without beginning of good thought."
+
+The result of impulse is the positive; the result of consideration the
+negative. The positive is essentially and abstractedly better than the
+negative, though relatively to facts and circumstances it may not be the
+most expedient.
+
+On my observing how often I had had reason to regret not having followed
+the first impulse, O. G. said, "In _good_ minds the first impulses are
+generally right and true, and, when altered or relinquished from regard
+to expediency arising out of complicated relations, I always feel sorry,
+for they remain right. Our first impulses always lean to the positive,
+our second thoughts to the negative; and I have no respect for the
+negative,--it is the vulgar side of every thing."
+
+On the other hand, it must be conceded, that one who stands endowed with
+great power and with great responsibilities in the midst of a thousand
+duties and interests, can no longer take things in this simple fashion;
+for the good first impulse, in its flow, meets, perhaps, some rock, and
+splits upon it; it recoils on the heart, and becomes abortive. Or the
+impulse to do good _here_ becomes injury _there_, and we are forced to
+calculate results; we cannot trust to them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I have not sought to deduce my principles from conventional notions of
+expediency, but have believed that out of the steady adherence to
+certain fixed principles, the right and the expedient _must_ ensue, and
+I believe it still. The moment one begins to solder right and wrong
+together, one's conscience becomes like a piece of plated goods.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It requires merely passive courage and strength to resist, and in some
+cases to overcome evil. But it requires more--it needs bravery and
+self-reliance and surpassing faith--to act out the true inspirations of
+your intelligence and the true impulses of your heart.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Out of the attempt to harmonise our actual life with our aspirations,
+our experience with our faith, we make poetry,--or, it may be, religion.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+F---- used the phrase "_stung into heroism_" as Shelley said, "_cradled
+into poetry_," by wrong.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+13.
+
+Coleridge calls the personal existence of the Evil Principle, "a mere
+fiction, or, at best, an allegory supported by a few popular phrases and
+figures of speech, used incidentally or dramatically by the
+Evangelists." And he says, that "the existence of a personal,
+intelligent, Evil Being, the counterpart and antagonist of God, is in
+direct contradiction to the most express declarations of Holy Writ.
+'_Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?_'--Amos,
+iii. 6. '_I make peace and create evil._'--Isaiah, xlv. 7. This is the
+deep mystery of the abyss of God."
+
+Do our theologians go with him here? I think not: yet, as a theologian,
+Coleridge is constantly appealed to by Churchmen.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+14.
+
+"We find (in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians), every where
+instilled as the essence of all well-being and well-doing, (without
+which the wisest public and political constitution is but a lifeless
+formula, and the highest powers of individual endowment profitless or
+pernicious,) the spirit of a divine sympathy with the happiness and
+rights,--with the peculiarities, gifts, graces, and endowments of other
+minds, which alone, whether in the family or in the Church, can impart
+unity and effectual working together for good in the communities of
+men."
+
+
+"The Christian religion was, in fact, a charter of freedom to the whole
+human race."--_Thom's Discourses on St. Paul's Epistle to the
+Corinthians._
+
+And this is the true Catholic spirit,--the spirit and the teaching of
+Paul,--in contradistinction to the Roman Catholic spirit,--the spirit and
+tendency of Peter, which stands upon forms, which has no respect for
+individuality except in so far as it can imprison this individuality
+within a creed, or use it to a purpose.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+15.
+
+Dr. Baillie once said that "all his observation of death-beds inclined
+him to believe that nature intended that we should go out of the world
+as unconscious as we came into it." "In all my experience," he added, "I
+have not seen one instance in fifty to the contrary."
+
+Yet even in such a large experience the occurrence of "one instance in
+fifty to the contrary" would invalidate the assumption that such was the
+law of nature (or "nature's intention," which, if it means any thing,
+means the same).
+
+The moment in which the spirit meets death is perhaps like the moment in
+which it is embraced by sleep. It never, I suppose, happened to any one
+to be conscious of the immediate transition from the waking to the
+sleeping state.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+16.
+
+_Thoughts on a Sermon._
+
+He is really sublime, this man! with his faith in "the religion of
+pain," and "the deification of sorrow!" But is he therefore right? What
+has he preached to us to-day with all the force of eloquence, all the
+earnestness of conviction? that "pain is the life of God as shown forth
+in Christ;"--"that we are to be crucified to the world and the world to
+us." This perpetual presence of a crucified God between us and a pitying
+redeeming Christ, leads many a mourner to the belief that this world is
+all a Golgotha of pain, and that we are here to crucify each other. Is
+this the law under which we are to live and strive? The missionary
+Bridaine accused himself of sin in that he had preached fasting,
+penance, and the chastisements of God to wretches steeped in poverty and
+dying of hunger; and is there not a similar cruelty and misuse of power
+in the servants of Him who came to bind up the broken-hearted, when
+they preach the necessity, or at least the theory, of moral pain to
+those whose hearts are aching from moral evil?
+
+Surely there is a great difference between the resignation or the
+endurance of a truthful, faithful, loving, hopeful spirit, and this
+dreadful theology of suffering as the necessary and appointed state of
+things! I, for one, will not accept it. Even while most miserable, I
+will believe in happiness; even while I do or suffer evil, I will
+believe in goodness; even while my eyes see not through tears, I will
+believe in the existence of what I do not see--that God is benign, that
+nature is fair, that the world is not made as a prison or a penance.
+While I stand lost in utter darkness, I will yet wait for the return of
+the unfailing dawn,--even though my soul be amazed into such a blind
+perplexity that I know not on which side to look for it, and ask "where
+is the East? and whence the dayspring?" For the East holds its wonted
+place, and the light is withheld only till its appointed time.
+
+God so strengthen me that I may think of pain and sin only as accidental
+apparent discords in his great harmonious scheme of good! Then I am
+ready--I will take up the cross, and hear it bravely, while I _must_; but
+I will lay it down when I can, and in any case I will never lay it on
+another.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+17.
+
+If I fear God it is because I love him, and believe in his love; I
+cannot conceive myself as standing in fear of any spiritual or human
+being in whose love I do not entirely believe. Of that Impersonation of
+Evil, who goes about seeking whom he may devour, the image brings to me
+no fear, only intense disgust and aversion. Yes, it is because of his
+love for me that I fear to offend against God; it is because of his love
+that his displeasure must be terrible. And with regard to human beings,
+only the being I love has the power to give me pain or inspire me with
+fear; only those in whose love I believe, have the power to injure me.
+Take away my love, and you take away my fear: take away _their_ love,
+and you take away the power to do me any harm which can reach me in the
+sources of life and feeling.
+
+
+18.
+
+Social opinion is like a sharp knife. There are foolish people who
+regard it only with terror, and dare not touch or meddle with it. There
+are more foolish people, who, in rashness or defiance, seize it by the
+blade, and get cut and mangled for their pains. And there are wise
+people, who grasp it discreetly and boldly by the handle, and use it to
+carve out their own purposes.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+19.
+
+While we were discussing Balzac's celebrity as a romance writer, she (O.
+G.) said, with a shudder: "His laurels are steeped in the tears of
+women,--every truth he tells has been wrung in tortures from some woman's
+heart."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+20.
+
+Sir Walter Scott, writing in 1831, seems to regard it as a terrible
+misfortune that the whole burgher class in Scotland should be gradually
+preparing for representative reform. "I mean," he says, "the middle and
+respectable classes: when a borough reform comes, which, perhaps, cannot
+long be delayed, ministers will no longer return a member for Scotland
+from the towns." "The gentry," he adds, "will abide longer by _sound_
+principles, for they are needy, and desire advancement for themselves,
+and appointments for their sons and so on. But this is a very hollow
+dependence, and those who sincerely hold ancient opinions are waxing
+old," &c. &c.
+
+With a great deal more, showing the strange moral confusion which his
+political bias had caused in his otherwise clear head and honest mind.
+The sound principles, then, by which educated people are to abide,--over
+the decay of which he laments,--are such as can only be upheld by the
+most vulgar self-interest! If a man should utter openly such sentiments
+in these days, what should we think of him?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the order of absolutism lurk the elements of change and destruction.
+In the unrest of freedom the spirit of change and progress.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+21.
+
+"A single life," said Bacon, "doth well with churchmen, for charity will
+hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool."
+
+Certainly there are men whose charities are limited, if not dried up, by
+their concentrated domestic anxieties and relations. But there are
+others whose charities are more diffused, as well as healthier and
+warmer, through the strength of their domestic affections.
+
+Wordsworth speaks strongly of the evils of ordaining men as clergymen in
+places where they had been born or brought up, or in the midst of their
+own relatives: "Their habits, their manners, their talk, their
+acquaintanceships, their friendships, and let me say, even their
+domestic affections, naturally draw them one way, while their
+professional obligations point out another." If this were true
+universally, or even generally, it would be a strong argument in favour
+of the celibacy of the Roman Catholic clergy, which certainly is one
+element, and not the least, of their power.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+22.
+
+Landor says truly: "Love is a secondary passion in those who love most,
+a primary in those who love least: he who is inspired by it in the
+strongest degree is inspired by honour in a greater."
+
+"Whatever is worthy of being loved for any thing is worthy to be
+preserved."
+
+Again:--"Those are the worst of suicides who voluntarily and prepensely
+stab or suffocate their own fame, when God hath commanded them to stand
+on high for an example."
+
+"Weak motives," he says, "are sufficient for weak minds; whenever we see
+a mind which we believed a stronger than our own moved habitually by
+what appears inadequate, we may be certain that there is--to bring a
+metaphor from the forest--_more top than root_."
+
+Here is another sentence from the same writer--rich in wise sayings:--
+
+"Plato would make wives common to abolish selfishness; the very mischief
+which, above all others, it would directly and immediately bring forth.
+There is no selfishness where there is a wife and family. There the
+house is lighted up by mutual charities; everything achieved for them is
+a victory; everything endured a triumph. How many vices are suppressed
+that there may be no _bad_ example! How many exertions made to recommend
+and inculcate a _good_ one."
+
+True: and I have much more confidence in the charity which begins in the
+home and diverges into a large humanity, than in the world-wide
+philanthropy which begins at the outside of our horizon to converge into
+egotism, of which I could show you many and notable examples.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+All my experience of the world teaches me that in ninety-nine cases out
+of a hundred, the safe side and the just side of a question is the
+generous side and the merciful side. This your mere worldly people do
+not seem to know, and therein make the sorriest and the vulgarest of all
+mistakes. "_Pour être assez bon il faut l'être trop_:" we all need more
+mercy than we deserve.
+
+How often in this world the actions that we condemn are the result of
+sentiments that we love and opinions that we admire!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+23.
+
+A.---- observed in reference to some of her friends who had gone over to
+the Roman Catholic Church, "that the peace and comfort which they had
+sought and found in that mode of faith was like the drugged sleep in
+comparison with the natural sleep: necessary, healing perhaps, where
+there is disease and unrest, not otherwise."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+24.
+
+"A poet," says Coleridge, "ought not to pick nature's pocket. Let him
+borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine
+nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to your
+imagination than your memory."
+
+This advice is even more applicable to the painter, but true perhaps in
+its application to all artists. Raphael and Mozart were, in this sense,
+great borrowers.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+25.
+
+"What is the difference between being good and being bad? the good do
+not yield to temptation and the bad do."
+
+This is often the distinction between the good and the bad in regard to
+act and deed; but it does not constitute the difference between _being_
+good and _being_ bad.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+26.
+
+The Italians say (in one of their characteristic proverbs) _Sospetto
+licenzia Fede_. Lord Bacon interprets the saying "as if suspicion did
+give a passport to faith," which is somewhat obscure and ambiguous. It
+means, that suspicion discharges us from the duty of good faith; and in
+this, its original sense, it is, like many of the old Italian proverbs,
+worldly wise and profoundly immoral.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+27.
+
+IT was well said by Themistocles to the King of Persia, that "speech was
+like cloth of arras opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth
+appear in figure, whereas in thoughts they lie but in packs" (_i. e._
+rolled up or packed up). Dryden had evidently this passage in his mind
+when he wrote those beautiful lines:
+
+  "Speech is the light, the morning of the mind;
+   It spreads the beauteous images abroad,
+   Which else lie furled and shrouded in the soul."
+
+Here the comparison of Themistocles, happy in itself, is expanded into a
+vivid poetical image.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+28.
+
+"Those are the killing griefs that do not speak," is true of some, not
+all characters. There are natures in which the killing grief finds
+utterance while it kills; moods in which we cry aloud, "as the beast
+crieth, expansive not appealing." That is my own nature: so in grief or
+in joy, I say as the birds sing:
+
+  "Und wenn der Mensch in seiner Qual verstummt,
+   Gab mir ein Got zu sagen was ich leide!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+29.
+
+Blessed is the memory of those who have kept themselves unspotted _from_
+the world!--yet more blessed and more dear the memory of those who have
+kept themselves unspotted _in_ the world!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+30.
+
+Everything that ever has been, from the beginning of the world till now,
+belongs to us, is ours, is even a part of us. We belong to the future,
+and shall be a part of it. Therefore the sympathies of _all_ are in the
+past; only the poet and the prophet sympathise with the future.
+
+When Tennyson makes Ulysses say, "I am a part of all that I have seen,"
+it ought to be rather the converse,--"What I have seen becomes a part of
+me."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+31.
+
+In what regards policy--government--the interest of the many is sacrificed
+to the few; in what regards society, the morals and happiness of
+individuals are sacrificed to the many.
+
+
+32.
+
+We spoke to-night of the cowardice, the crime of a particular suicide:
+O. G. agreed as to this instance, but added: "There is a different
+aspect under which suicide might be regarded. It is not always, I think,
+from a want of religion, or in a spirit of defiance, or a want of
+confidence in God that we quit life. It is as if we should flee to the
+feet of the Almighty and embrace his knees, and exclaim, 'O my father!
+take me home! I have endured as long as it was possible; I can endure no
+more, so I come to you!'"
+
+
+Of an amiable man with a disagreeable expressionless face, she said:
+"His countenance always gives me the idea of matter too strong, too hard
+for the soul to pierce through. It is as a plaster mask which I long to
+break (making the gesture with her hand), that I may see the countenance
+of his heart, for that must be beautiful!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+33.
+
+Carlyle said to me: "I want to see some institution to teach a man the
+truth, the worth, the beauty, the heroism of which his present existence
+is capable; where's the use of sending him to study what the Greeks and
+Romans did, and said, and wrote? Do ye think the Greeks and Romans would
+have been what they were, if they had just only studied what the
+Phoenicians did before them?" I should have answered, had I dared: "Yet
+perhaps the Greeks and Romans would not have been what they were if the
+Egyptians and Phoenicians had not been before them."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+34.
+
+Can there be _progress_ which is not _progression_--which does not leave
+a past from which to start--on which to rest our foot when we spring
+forward? No wise man kicks the ladder from beneath him, or obliterates
+the traces of the road through which he has travelled, or pulls down the
+memorials he has built by the way side. We cannot _get on_ without
+linking our present and our future with our past. All reaction is
+destructive--all progress conservative. When we have destroyed that
+which the past built up, what reward have we?--we are forced to fall
+back, and have to begin anew. "Novelty," as Lord Bacon says, "cannot be
+content to add, but it must deface." For this very reason novelty is not
+progress, as the French would try to persuade themselves and us. We gain
+nothing by defacing and trampling down the idols of the past to set up
+new ones in their places--let it be sufficient to leave them behind us,
+measuring our advance by keeping them in sight.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+35.
+
+E---- was compassionating to-day the old and the invalided; those whose
+life is prolonged in spite of suffering; and she seemed, even out of the
+excess of her pity and sympathy, to wish them fairly out of the world;
+but it is a mistake in reasoning and feeling. She does not know how much
+of happiness may consist with suffering, with physical suffering, and
+even with mental suffering.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+36.
+
+"Renoncez dans votre âme, et renoncez y fermement, une fois pour toutes,
+à vouloir vous connaître au-delà de cette existence passagère qui vous
+est imposée, et vous redeviendrez agréable à Dieu, utile aux autres
+hommes, tranquille avec vous-mêmes."
+
+This does not mean "renounce hope or faith in the future." No! But
+renounce that perpetual craving after a selfish interest in the
+unrevealed future life which takes the true relish from the duties and
+the pleasures of this. We can conceive of no future life which is not a
+continuation of this: to anticipate in that _future_ life, _another_
+life, a _different_ life; what is it but to call in doubt our individual
+identity?
+
+If we pray, "O teach us where and what is peace!" would not the answer
+be, "In the grave ye shall have it--not before?" Yet is it not strange
+that those who believe most absolutely in an after-life, yet think of
+the grave as peace? Now, if we carry this life with us--and what other
+life can we carry with us, unless we cease to be ourselves--how shall
+there be peace?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+As to the future, my soul, like Cato's, "shrinks back upon herself and
+startles at destruction;" but I do not think of my own destruction,
+rather of that which I love. That I should cease to be is not very
+intolerable; but that what I love, and do now in my soul possess, should
+cease to be--there is the pang, the terror! I desire that which I love to
+be immortal, whether I be so myself or not.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Is not the idea which most men entertain of another, of an eternal life,
+merely a continuation of this present existence under pleasanter
+conditions? We cannot conceive another state of existence,--we only fancy
+we do so.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I conceive that in all probability we have immortality already. Most
+men seem to divide life and immortality, making them two distinct
+things, when, in fact, they are one and the same. What is immortality
+but a continuation of life--life which is already our own? We have, then,
+begun our immortality even now."
+
+For the same reason, or, rather, through the same want of reasoning by
+which we make _life_ and _immortality_ two (distinct things), do we make
+_time_ and _eternity_ two, which like the others are really one and the
+same. As immortality is but the continuation of life, so eternity is but
+the continuation of time; and what we call time is only that part of
+eternity in which we exist _now_.--_The New Philosophy._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+37.
+
+Strength does not consist only in the _more_ or the _less_. There are
+different sorts of strength as well as different degrees:--The strength
+of marble to resist; the strength of steel to oppose; the strength of
+the fine gold, which you can twist round your finger, but which can bear
+the force of innumerable pounds without breaking.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+38.
+
+Goethe used to say, that while intellectual attainment is progressive,
+it is difficult to be as good when we are old, as we were when young.
+Dr. Johnson has expressed the same thing.
+
+Then are we to assume, that to _do_ good effectively and wisely is the
+privilege of age and experience? To _be_ good, through faith in
+goodness, the privilege of the young.
+
+To preserve our faith in goodness with an extended knowledge of evil, to
+preserve the tenderness of our pity after long contemplation of pain,
+and the warmth of our charity after long experience of falsehood, is to
+be at once good and wise--to understand and to love each other as the
+angels who look down upon us from heaven.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We can sometimes love what we do not understand, but it is impossible
+completely to understand what we do not love.
+
+
+I observe, that in our relations with the people around us, we forgive
+them more readily for what they _do_, which they _can_ help, than for
+what they _are_, which they _cannot_ help.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+39.
+
+"Whence springs the greatest degree of moral suffering?" was a question
+debated this evening, but not settled. It was argued that it would
+depend on the texture of character, its more or less conscientiousness,
+susceptibility, or strength. I thought from two sentiments--from
+_jealousy_, that is, the sense of a wrong endured, in one class of
+characters; from _remorse_, that is, from the sense of a wrong
+inflicted, in another.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+40.
+
+The bread of life is love; the salt of life is work; the sweetness of
+life, poesy; the water of life, faith.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+41.
+
+I have seen triflers attempting to draw out a deep intellect; and they
+reminded me of children throwing pebbles down the well at Carisbrook,
+that they might hear them sound.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+42.
+
+A bond is necessary to complete our being, only we must be careful that
+the bond does not become bondage.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The secret of peace," said A. B., "is the resolution of the lesser into
+the greater;" meaning, perhaps, the due relative appreciation of our
+duties, and the proper placing of our affections: or, did she not rather
+mean, the resolving of the lesser duties and affections into the higher?
+But it is true in either sense.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The love we have for Genius is to common love what the fire on the altar
+is to the fire on the hearth. We cherish it not for warmth or for
+service, but for an offering, as the expression of our worship.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+All love not responded to and accepted is a species of idolatry. It is
+like the worship of a dumb beautiful image we have ourselves set up and
+deified, but cannot inspire with life, nor warm with sympathy.
+No!--though we should consume our own hearts on the altar. Our love of
+God would be idolatry if we did not believe in his love for us--his
+responsive love.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the same moment that we begin to speculate on the possibility of
+cessation or change in any strong affection that we feel, even from that
+moment we may date its death: it has become the _fetch_ of the living
+love.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Motives," said Coleridge, "imply weakness, and the reasoning powers
+imply the existence of evil and temptation. The angelic nature would act
+from impulse alone." This is the sort of angel which Angelico da Fiesole
+conceived and represented, and _he_ only.
+
+Again:--"If a man's conduct can neither be ascribed to the angelic or the
+bestial within him, it must be fiendish. Passion without appetite is
+_fiendish_."
+
+And, he might have added, appetite without passion, _bestial_. Love in
+which is neither appetite nor passion is _angelic_. The union of all is
+human; and according as one or other predominates, does the human being
+approximate to the fiend, the beast, or the angel.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+43.
+
+I don't mean to say that principle is not a finer thing than passion;
+but passions existed before principles: they came into the world with
+us; principles are superinduced.
+
+There are bad principles as well as bad passions; and more bad
+principles than bad passions. Good principles derive life, and strength,
+and warmth from high and good passions; but principles do not give life,
+they only bind up life into a consistent whole. One great fault in
+education is, the pains taken to inculcate principles rather than to
+train feelings. It is as if we took it for granted that passions could
+_only_ be bad, and are to be ignored or repressed altogether,--the old
+mischievous monkish doctrine.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+44.
+
+It is easy to be humble where humility is a condescension--easy to
+concede where we know ourselves wronged--easy to forgive where vengeance
+is in our power.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"You and I," said H. G., yesterday, "are alike in this:--both of us so
+abhor injustice, that we are ready to fight it with a broomstick if we
+can find nothing better!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+45.
+
+"The wise only _possess_ ideas--the greater part of mankind are
+_possessed by_ them. When once the mind, in despite of the remonstrating
+conscience, has abandoned its free power to a haunting impulse or idea,
+then whatever tends to give depth and vividness to this idea or
+indefinite imagination, increases its despotism, and in the same
+proportion renders the reason and free will ineffectual." This paragraph
+from Coleridge sounds like a _truism_ until we have felt its _truth_.
+
+
+46.
+
+"La Volonté, en se déréglant, devient passion; cette passion continuée
+se change en habitude, et faute de résister à cette habitude elle se
+transforme en besoin."--_St. Augustin_. Which may be rendered--"out of the
+unregulated will, springs _passion_, out of passion gratified, _habit_;
+out of habits unresisted, _necessity_." This, also, is one of the truths
+which become, from the impossibility of disputing or refuting them,
+_truisms_--and little regarded, till the truth makes itself felt.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+47.
+
+I wish I could realise what you call my "_grand_ idea of being
+independent of the absent." I have not a friend worthy the name, whose
+absence is not pain and dread to me;--death itself is terrible only as it
+is absence. At some moments, if I could, I would cease to love those who
+are absent from me, or to speak more correctly, those whose path in life
+diverges from mine--whose dwelling house is far off;--with whom I am
+united in the strongest bonds of sympathy while separated by duties and
+interests by space and time. The presence of those whom we love is as a
+double life; absence, in its anxious longing, and sense of vacancy, is
+as a foretaste of death.
+
+"La mort de nos amis ne compte pas du moment où ils meurent, mais de
+celui où nous cessons de vivre avec eux;" or, it might rather be said,
+_pour eux_; but I think this arises from a want either of _faith_ or
+_faithfulness_.
+
+"La peur des morts est une abominable faiblesse! c'est la plus commune
+et la plus barbare des profanations; _les mères ne la connaissent
+pas_!"--And why? Because the most _faithful_ love is the love of the
+mother for her child.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+48.
+
+At dinner to-day there was an attempt made by two very clever men to
+place Theodore Hook above Sydney Smith. I fought with all my might
+against both. It seems to me that a mind must be strangely warped that
+could ever place on a par two men with aspirations and purposes so
+different, whether we consider them merely as individuals, or called
+before the bar of the public as writers. I do not take to Sydney Smith
+personally, because my nature feels the want of the artistic and
+imaginative in _his_ nature; but see what he has done for humanity, for
+society, for liberty, for truth,--for us women! What has Theodore Hook
+done that has not perished with him? Even as wits--and I have been in
+company with both--I could not compare them; but they say the wit of
+Theodore Hook was only fitted for the company of men--the strongest proof
+that it was not genuine of its kind, that when most bearable, it was
+most superficial. I set aside the other obvious inference, that it
+required to be excited by stimulants and those of the coarsest, grossest
+kind. The wit of Sydney Smith almost always involved a thought worth
+remembering for its own sake, as well as worth remembering for its
+brilliant vehicle: the value of ten thousand pounds sterling of sense
+concentrated into a cut and polished diamond.
+
+It is not true, as I have heard it said, that after leaving the society
+of Sydney Smith you only remembered how much you had laughed, not the
+good things at which you had laughed. Few men--wits by profession--ever
+said so many memorable things as those recorded of Sydney Smith.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+49.
+
+"When we would show any one that he is mistaken our best course is to
+observe on what side he considers the subject,--for his view of it is
+generally right on _this_ side,--and admit to him that he is right so
+far. He will be satisfied with this acknowledgment, that he was not
+wrong in his judgment, but only inadvertent in not looking at the whole
+of the case."--_Pascal._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+50.
+
+"We should reflect," says Jeremy Taylor, preaching against ambition,
+"that whatever tempts the pride and vanity of ambitious persons is not
+so big as the smallest star which we see scattered in disorder and
+unregarded on the pavement of heaven."
+
+Very beautiful and poetical, but certainly no good argument against the
+sin he denounces. The star is inaccessible, and what tempts our pride or
+our ambition is only that which we consider with hope as _accessible_.
+That we look up to the stars not desiring, not aspiring, but only
+loving--therein lies our hearts' truest, holiest, safest _devotion_ as
+contrasted with _ambition_.
+
+It is the "_desire_ of the moth for the star," that leads to its burning
+itself in the candle.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+51.
+
+The brow stamped "with the hieroglyphics of an eternal sorrow," is a
+strong and beautiful expression of Bishop Taylor's.
+
+He says truly: "It is seldom that God sends such calamities upon men as
+men bring upon themselves and suffer willingly." And again: "What will
+not tender women suffer to hide their shame!" What indeed! And again:
+"Nothing is intolerable that is necessary." And again: "Nothing is to be
+esteemed evil which God and nature have fixed with eternal sanctions."
+
+There is not one of these ethical sentences which might not be treated
+as a text and expounded, opening into as many "branches" of
+consideration as ever did a Presbyterian sermon. Yet several involve a
+fallacy, as it seems to me;--others a deeper, wider, and more awful
+signification than Taylor himself seems to have contemplated when he
+uttered them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+52.
+
+The same reasons which rendered Goethe's "Werther" so popular, so
+passionately admired at the time it appeared--just after the seven years'
+war,--helped to render Lord Byron so popular in his time. It was not the
+individuality of "Werther," nor the individuality of "Childe Harold"
+which produced the effect of making them, for a time, a pervading
+power,--a _part_ of the life of their contemporaries. It was because in
+both cases a chord was struck which was ready to vibrate. A phase of
+feeling preexistent, palpitating at the heart of society, which had
+never found expression in any poetic form since the days of Dante, was
+made visible and audible as if by an electric force; words and forms
+were given to a diffused sentiment of pain and resistance, caused by a
+long period of war, of political and social commotion, and of unhealthy
+moral excitement. "Werther" and "Childe Harold" will never perish;
+because, though they have ceased to be the echo of a wide despair, there
+will always be, unhappily, individual minds and hearts to respond to the
+individuality.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Lord Byron has sometimes, to use his own expression, "curdled" a whole
+world of meaning into the compass of one line:--
+
+   "The starry Galileo and his woes."
+
+   "The blind old man of Chio's rocky isle."
+
+Here every word, almost every syllable, paints an idea. Such lines are
+_picturesque_. And I remember another, from Thomson, I think:--
+
+   "Placed far amid the melancholy main."
+
+In general, where words are used in description, the objects and ideas
+flow with the words in succession. But in each of these lines the mind
+takes in a wide horizon, comprising a multitude of objects at once, as
+the eye takes in a picture, with scene, and action, and figures,
+fore-ground and background, all at once. That is the reason I call such
+lines _picturesque_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+53.
+
+I have a great admiration for power, a great terror of
+weakness--especially in my own sex,--yet feel that my love is for those
+who overcome the mental and moral suffering and temptation, through
+excess of tenderness rather than through excess of strength; for those
+whose refinement and softness of nature mingling with high intellectual
+power and the capacity for strong passion, present to me a problem to
+solve, which, when solved, I take to my heart. The question is not,
+which of the two diversities of character be the highest and best, but
+which is most sympathetic with my own.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+54.
+
+C---- told me, that some time ago, when poor Bethune the Scotch poet first
+became known, and was in great hardship, C---- himself had collected a
+little sum (about 30_l._), and sent it to him through his publishers.
+Bethune wrote back to refuse it absolutely, and to say that, while he
+had head and hands, he would not accept _charity_. C---- wrote to him in
+answer, still anonymously, arguing against the principle, as founded in
+false pride, &c. Now poor Bethune is dead, and the money is found
+untouched,--left with a friend to be returned to the donors!
+
+This sort of disgust and terror, which all finely constituted minds feel
+with regard to pecuniary obligation,--my own utter repugnance to it, even
+from the hands of those I most love,--makes one sad to think of. It gives
+one such a miserable impression of our social humanity!
+
+Goethe makes the same remark in the Wilhelm Meister:--"Es ist sonderbar
+welch ein wunderliches Bedenken man sich macht, Geld von Freunden und
+Gönnern anzunehmen, von denen man jede andere Gabe mit Dank und Freude
+empfangen würde."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+55.
+
+"In the celestial hierarchy, according to Dionysius Areopageta, the
+angels of Love hold the first place, the angels of Light the second, and
+the Thrones and Dominations the third. Among terrestrials, the
+Intellects, which act through the imagination upon the heart of man--_i.
+e._ poets and artists--may be accounted first in order; the merely
+scientific intellects the second; and the merely ruling intellects--those
+which apply themselves to the government of mankind, without the aid of
+either science or imagination--will not be disparaged if they are placed
+last."
+
+All government, all exercise of power--no matter in what form--which is
+not based in love and directed by knowledge, is a tyranny. It is not of
+God, and shall not stand.
+
+"A time will come when the operations of charity will no longer be
+carried on by machinery, relentless, ponderous, indiscriminate, but by
+human creatures, watchful, tearful, considerate, and wise."--_Westminster
+Review._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+56.
+
+"Those writers who never go further into a subject than is compatible
+with making what they say indisputably clear to man, woman, and child,
+may be the lights of _this_ age, but they will not be the lights of
+_another_."
+
+
+"It is not always necessary that truth should take a bodily form,--a
+material palpable form. It is sometimes better that it should dwell
+around us spiritually, creating harmony,--sounding through the air like
+the solemn sweet tone of a bell."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+57.
+
+Women are inclined to fall in love with priests and physicians, because
+of the help and comfort they derive from both in perilous moral and
+physical maladies. They believe in the presence of real pity, real
+sympathy, where the tone and look of each have become merely habitual
+and conventional,--I may say professional. On the other hand, women are
+inclined to fall in love with criminal and miserable men out of the pity
+which in our sex is akin to love, and out of the power of bestowing
+comfort or love. "Car les femmes out un instinct céleste pour le
+malheur." So, in the first instance, they love from gratitude or faith;
+in the last, from compassion or hope.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+58.
+
+"Men of all countries," says Sir James Mackintosh, "appear to be more
+alike in their best qualities than the pride of civilisation would be
+willing to allow."
+
+And in their _worst_. The distinction between savage and civilised
+humanity lies not in the _qualities_, but the _habits_.
+
+
+59.
+
+Coleridge notices "the increase in modern times of vicious associations
+with things in themselves indifferent," as a sign of unhealthiness in
+taste, in feeling, in conscience.
+
+The truth of this remark is particularly illustrated in the French
+literature of the last century.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+60.
+
+"And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the
+understanding also after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation,
+a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at
+the moment unpaid loss and unpayable, but the sure years reveal the deep
+remedial force that underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend,
+wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later
+assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates a
+revolution in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or youth
+which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a
+household, or a style of living, and allows the formation of new
+influences that prove of the first importance during the next
+years."--_Emerson._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+61.
+
+Religion, in its general sense, is properly the comprehension and
+acknowledgment of an unseen spiritual power and the soul's allegiance
+to it; and CHRISTIANITY, in its particular sense, is the comprehension
+and appreciation of the personal character of Christ, and the heart's
+allegiance to that.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+62.
+
+Avarice is to the intellect what _sensuality_ is to the morals. It is an
+intellectual form of sensuality, inasmuch as it is the passion for the
+acquisition, the enjoyment in the possession, of a palpable, tangible,
+selfish pleasure; and it would have the same tendency to unspiritualise,
+to degrade, and to harden the higher faculties that a course of grosser
+sensualism would have to corrupt the lower faculties. Both dull the edge
+of all that is fine and tender within us.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+63.
+
+A king or a prince becomes by accident a part of history. A poet or an
+artist becomes by nature and necessity a part of universal humanity.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+As what we call Genius arises out of the disproportionate power and size
+of a certain faculty, so the great difficulty lies in harmonising with
+it the rest of the character.
+
+"Though it burn our house down, who does not venerate fire?" says the
+Hindoo proverb.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+64.
+
+An elegant mind informing a graceful person is like a spirit lamp in an
+alabaster vase, shedding round its own softened radiance and heightening
+the beauty of its medium. An elegant mind in a plain ungraceful person
+is like the same lamp enclosed in a vase of bronze; we may, if we
+approach near enough, rejoice in its influence, though we may not behold
+its radiance.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+65.
+
+Landor, in a passage I was reading to-day, speaks of a language of
+criticism, in which qualities should be graduated by colours; "as, for
+instance, _purple_ might express grandeur and majesty of thought;
+_scarlet_, vigour of expression; _pink_, liveliness; _green_, elegant
+and equable composition, and so on."
+
+_Blue_, then, might express contemplative power? _yellow_, wit?
+_violet_, tenderness? and so on.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+66.
+
+I quoted to A. the saying of a sceptical philosopher: "The world is but
+one enormous WILL, constantly rushing into life."
+
+"Is that," she responded quickly, "another new name for God?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+67.
+
+A death-bed repentance has become proverbial for its fruitlessness, and
+a death-bed forgiveness equally so. They who wait till their own
+death-bed to make reparation, or till their adversary's death-bed to
+grant absolution, seem to me much upon a par in regard to the moral, as
+well as the religious, failure.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+68.
+
+A character endued with a large, vivacious, active intellect and a
+limited range of sympathies, generally remains immature. We can grow
+_wise_ only through the experience which reaches us through our
+sympathies and becomes a part of our life. All other experience may be
+gain, but it remains in a manner extraneous, adds to our possessions
+without adding to our strength, and sharpens our implements without
+increasing our capacity to use them.
+
+
+Not always those who have the quickest, keenest, perception of character
+are the best to deal with it, and perhaps for that very reason. Before
+we can influence or deal with mind, contemplation must be lost in
+sympathy, observation must be merged in love.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+69.
+
+Montaigne, in his eloquent tirade against melancholy, observes that the
+Italians have the same word, _Tristezza_, for melancholy and for
+malignity or wickedness. The noun _Tristo_, "a wretch," has the double
+sense of our English word corresponding with the French noun
+_misérable_. So Judas Iscariot is called _quel tristo_. Our word
+"wretchedness" is not, however, used in the double sense of _tristezza_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"On ne considère pas assez les paroles comme des faits:" that was well
+said!
+
+Since for the purpose of circulation and intercommunication we are
+obliged to coin truth into words, we should be careful not to adulterate
+the coin, to keep it pure, and up to the original standard of
+significance and value, that it may be reconvertible into the truth it
+represents.
+
+If I use a term in a sense wherein I know it is not understood by the
+person I address, then I am guilty of using words (in so far as they
+represent truth), if not to ensnare intentionally, yet to mislead
+consciously; it is like adulterating coin.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Common people," said Johnson, "do not accurately adapt their words to
+their thoughts, nor their thoughts to the objects;"--that is to say, they
+neither apprehend truly nor speak truly--and in this respect children,
+half-educated women, and ill-educated men, are the "common people."
+
+It is one of the most serious mistakes in Education that we are not
+sufficiently careful to habituate children to the accurate use of words.
+Accuracy of language is one of the bulwarks of truth. If we looked into
+the matter we should probably find that all the varieties and
+modifications of conscious and unconscious lying--as exaggeration,
+equivocation, evasion, misrepresentation--might be traced to the early
+misuse of words; therefore the contemptuous, careless tone in which
+people say sometimes "words--words--mere words!" is unthinking and unwise.
+It tends to debase the value of that which is the only medium of the
+inner life between man and man: "Nous ne sommes hommes, et nous ne
+tenons les uns aux autres, que par la parole," said Montaigne.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+70.
+
+"We are happy, good, tranquil, in proportion as our inner life is
+accessible to the external life, and in harmony with it. When we become
+dead to the moving life of Nature around us, to the changes of day and
+night (I do not speak here of the sympathetic influences of our
+fellow-creatures), then we may call ourselves philosophical, but we are
+surely either bad or mad."
+
+"Or perhaps only sad?"
+
+
+There are moments in the life of every contemplative being, when the
+healing power of Nature is felt--even as Wordsworth describes it--felt in
+the blood, in every pulse along the veins. In such moments converse,
+sympathy, the faces, the presence of the dearest, come so near to us,
+they make us shrink; books, pictures, music, anything, any object which
+has passed through the medium of mind, and has been in a manner
+humanised, is felt as an intrusive reflection of the busy, weary,
+thought-worn self within us. Only Nature, speaking through no
+interpreter, gently steals us out of our humanity, giving us a foretaste
+of that more diffused disembodied life which may hereafter be ours.
+Beautiful and genial, and not wholly untrue, were the old superstitions
+which placed a haunting divinity in every grove, and heard a living
+voice responsive in every murmuring stream.
+
+
+This present Sunday I set off with the others to walk to church, but it
+was late; I could not keep up with the pedestrians, and, not to delay
+them, turned back. I wandered down the hill path to the river brink, and
+crossed the little bridge and strolled along, pensive yet with no
+definite or continuous subject of thought. How beautiful it was--how
+tranquil! not a cloud in the blue sky, not a breath of air! "And where
+the dead leaf fell there did it rest;" but so still it was that scarce a
+single leaf did flutter or fall, though the narrow pathway along the
+water's edge was already encumbered with heaps of decaying foliage.
+Everywhere around, the autumnal tints prevailed, except in one sheltered
+place under the towering cliff, where a single tree, a magnificent
+lime, still flourished in summer luxuriance, with not a leaf turned or
+shed. I stood still opposite, looking on it quietly for a long time. It
+seemed to me a happy tree, so fresh and fair and grand, as if its
+guardian Dryad would not suffer it to be defaced. Then I turned, for
+close beside me sounded the soft, interrupted, half-suppressed warble of
+a bird, sitting on a leafless spray, which seemed to bend with its tiny
+weight. Some lines which I used to love in my childhood came into my
+mind, blending softly with the presences around me.
+
+  "The little bird now to salute the morn
+   Upon the naked branches sets her foot,
+   The leaves still lying at the mossy root,
+   And there a silly chirruping doth keep,
+   As if she fain would sing, yet fain would weep;
+   Praising fair summer that too soon is gone,
+   And sad for winter, too soon coming on!" _Drayton._
+
+The river, where I stood, taking an abrupt turn, ran wimpling by; not as
+I had seen it but a few days before,--rolling tumultuously, the dead
+leaves whirling in its eddies, swollen and turbid with the mountain
+torrents, making one think of the kelpies, the water wraiths, and such
+uncanny things,--but gentle, transparent, and flashing in the low
+sunlight; even the barberries, drooping with rich crimson clusters over
+the little pools near the bank, and reflected in them as in a mirror, I
+remember vividly as a part of the exquisite loveliness which seemed to
+melt into my life. For such moments we are grateful: we feel then what
+God _can_ do for us, and what man can not.--_Carolside, November 5th,
+1843._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+71.
+
+"In the early ages of faith, the spirit of Christianity glided into and
+gave a new significance to the forms of heathenism. It was not the forms
+of heathenism which encrusted and overlaid the spirit of Christianity,
+for in that case the spirit would have burst through such extraneous
+formulæ, and set them aside at once and for ever."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+72.
+
+Questions. In the execution of the penal statutes, can the individual
+interest of the convict be reconciled with the interest of society? or
+must the good of the convict and the good of society be considered as
+inevitably and necessarily opposed?--the one sacrificed to the other, and
+at the best only a compromise possible?
+
+This is a question pending at present, and will require wise heads to
+decide it? How would Christ have decided it? When He set the poor
+accused woman free, was He considering the good of the culprit or the
+good of society? and how far are we bound to follow His example? If He
+consigned the wicked to weeping and gnashing of teeth, was it for
+atonement or retribution, punishment or penance? and how far are we
+bound to follow His example?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+73.
+
+I marked the following passage in Montaigne as most curiously applicable
+to the present times, in so far as our religious contests are concerned;
+and I leave it in his quaint old French.
+
+"C'est un effet de la Providence divine de permettre sa saincte Eglise
+être agitée, comme nous la voyons, de tant de troubles et d'orages, pour
+éveiller par ce contraste les âmes pies et les ravoir de l'oisiveté et
+du sommeil ou les avail plongées une si longue tranquillité. Si nous
+contrepèsons la perte que nous avons faite par le nombre de ceux qui se
+sont dévoyés, au gain qui nous vient par nous être remis en haleine,
+ressuscité notre zêle et nos forces à l'occasion de ce combat, je ne
+sais si l'utilité ne surmonte point le dommage."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+74.
+
+"They (the friends of Cassius) were divided in opinion,--some holding
+that servitude was the extreme of evils, and others that tyranny was
+better than civil war."
+
+Unhappy that nation, wherever it may be, where the question is yet
+pending between servitude and civil war! such a nation might be driven
+to solve the problem after the manner of Cassius--with the dagger's
+point.
+
+"Surely," said Moore, "it is wrong for the lovers of liberty to identify
+the principle of resistance to power with such an odious person as the
+devil!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+75.
+
+"Where the question is of a great deal of good to ensue from a small
+injustice, men must pursue the things which are just in present, and
+leave the future to Divine Providence."
+
+This so simple rule of right is seldom attended to as a rule of life
+till we are placed in some strait in which it is forced upon us.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+76.
+
+A woman's patriotism is more of a sentiment than a man's,--more
+passionate: it is only an extension of the domestic affections, and with
+her _la patrie_ is only an enlargement of _home_. In the same manner, a
+woman's idea of fame is always a more extended sympathy, and is much
+more of a presence than an anticipation. To her the voice of fame is
+only the echo--fainter and more distant--of the voice of love.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+77.
+
+"La doute s'introduit dans l'âme qui rêve, la foi descend dans l'âme qui
+souffre."
+
+The reverse is equally true,--and judging from my own experience, I
+should say oftener true.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+78.
+
+"La curiosité est si voisine à la perfidie qu'elle peut enlaidir les
+plus beaux visages."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+79.
+
+When I told Tieck of the death of Coleridge (I had just received the sad
+but not unexpected news in a letter from England), he exclaimed with
+emotion, "A great spirit has passed away from the earth, and has left no
+adequate memorial of its greatness." Speaking of him afterwards he said,
+"Coleridge possessed the creative and inventive spirit of poetry, not
+the productive; he _thought_ too much to produce,--the analytical power
+interfered with the genius: Others with more active faculties seized and
+worked out his magnificent hints and ideas. Walter Scott and Lord Byron
+borrowed the first idea of the form and spirit of their narrative poems
+from Coleridge's 'Christabelle.'" This judgment of one great poet and
+critic passed on another seemed to me worth preserving.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+80.
+
+Coleridge says, "In politics what begins in fear usually ends in folly."
+
+He might have gone farther, and added: In morals what begins in fear
+usually ends in wickedness. In religion what begins in fear usually ends
+in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning
+of all evil.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In another place he says,--
+
+"Talent lying in the understanding is often inherited; genius, being the
+action of reason and imagination, rarely or never."
+
+There seems confusion here, for genius lies not in the amount of
+intellect--it is a quality of the intellect apart from quantity. And the
+distinction between talent and genius is definite. Talent combines and
+uses; genius combines and creates.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Of Sara Coleridge, Mr. Kenyon said very truly and beautifully, "that
+like her father she had the controversial _intellect_ without the
+controversial _spirit_."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+81.
+
+We all remember the famous _bon mot_ of Talleyrand. When seated between
+Madame de Staël and Madame Récamier, and pouring forth gallantry, first
+at the feet of one, then of the other, Madame de Staël suddenly asked
+him if she and Madame Récamier fell into the river, which of the two he
+would save first? "Madame," replied Talleyrand, "je crois que vous savez
+nager!" Now we will match this pretty _bon mot_ with one far prettier,
+and founded on it. Prince S., whom I knew formerly, was one day
+loitering on the banks of the Isar, in the English garden at Munich, by
+the side of the beautiful Madame de V., then the object of his devoted
+admiration. For a while he had been speaking to her of his mother, for
+whom, _vaurien_ as he was, he had ever shown the strongest filial love
+and respect. Afterwards, as they wandered on, he began to pour forth his
+soul to the lady of his love with all the eloquence of passion. Suddenly
+she turned and said to him, "If your mother and myself were both to fall
+into this river, whom would you save first?" "My mother!" he instantly
+replied; and then, looking at her expressively, immediately added, "To
+save _you_ first would be as if I were to save _myself_ first!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+82.
+
+If we were not always bringing ourselves into comparison with others, we
+should know them better.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+83.
+
+There are ways of governing every mind which lies within the circle
+described by our own; the only question is, whether the means required
+be such as we _can_ use? and if so, whether we shall think it right to
+do so?
+
+
+You think I do not know you, or that I mistake you utterly, because I am
+actuated by the impulses of my own nature, rather than by my perception
+of the impulses of yours? It is not so.
+
+
+If we would retain our own consistency, without which there is no moral
+strength, we must stand firm upon our own moral life.
+
+  "Be true unto thyself;
+   And it shall follow as the night to day,
+   Thou canst not then be false to any man."
+
+But to be true to others as well as ourselves, is not merely to allow to
+them the same independence, but to sympathise with it. Unhappily here
+lies the chief difficulty. There are brains so large that they
+unconsciously swamp all individualities which come in contact or too
+near, and brains so small that they cannot take in the conception of any
+other individuality as a whole, only in part or parts. As in Religion,
+where there is a strong, sincere, definite faith, there is generally
+more or less intolerance; so in character, where there is strong
+individuality, self-assurance, and defined principles of action, there
+is usually something hard and intolerant of the individuality of others.
+In some characters we meet with, toleration is a principle of the
+reason, and intolerance a quality of the mind, and then the whole being
+strikes a discord.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+84.
+
+If we can still love those who have made us suffer, we love them all the
+more. It is as if the principle, that conflict is a necessary law of
+progress, were applicable even to love. For there is no love like that
+which has roused up the intensest feelings of our nature,--revealed us to
+ourselves, like lightning suddenly disclosing an abyss,--yet has survived
+all the storm and tumult of such passionate discord and all the terror
+of such a revelation.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+85.
+
+F has much, much to learn! Through power, through passion, through
+feeling we do much, but only through observation, reflection, and
+sympathy we learn much; hence it is that minds highly gifted often
+remain immature. Artist minds especially, so long as they live only or
+chiefly for their art, their faculties bent on creating or representing,
+remain immature on one side--the reasoning and reflecting side of the
+character.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+86.
+
+Said a Frenchman of his adversary, "Il se croit supérieur à moi de toute
+la hauteur de sa bêtise!" There is a mingled felicity, politeness, and
+acrimony, in this phrase quite untranslatable.
+
+
+87.
+
+It is a pity that we have no words to express the French distinction
+between _rêver_ and _rêvasser_. The one implies meditation on a definite
+subject: the other the abandonment of the mind to vague discussion,
+aimless thoughts.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+88.
+
+It seems to me that the conversation of the first converser in the world
+would _tire_ me, _pall_ on me at last, where I am not sure of the
+sincerity. Talk without truth is the hollow brass; talk without love is
+like the tinkling cymbal, and where it does not tinkle it gingles, and
+where it does not gingle, it jars.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+89.
+
+There are few things more striking, more interesting to a thoughtful
+mind, than to trace through all the poetry, literature, and art of the
+Middle Ages that broad ever-present distinction between the practical
+and the contemplative life. This was, no doubt, suggested and kept in
+view by the one grand division of the whole social community into those
+who were devoted to the religious profession (an immense proportion of
+both sexes) and those who were not. All through Dante, all through the
+productions of mediæval art, we find this pervading idea; and we must
+understand it well and keep it in mind, or we shall never be able to
+apprehend the entire beauty and meaning of certain religious groups in
+sculpture and painting, and the significance of the characters
+introduced. Thus, in subjects from the Old Testament, Leah always
+represents the practical, Rachel, the contemplative life. In the New
+Testament, Martha and Mary figure in the same allegorical sense; and
+among the saints we always find St. Catharine and St. Clara patronising
+the religious and contemplative life, while St. Barbara and St. Ursula
+preside over the military or secular existence. It was a part, and a
+very important part, of that beautiful and expressive symbolism through
+which art in all its forms spoke to the popular mind.
+
+For myself, I have the strongest admiration for the _practical_, but the
+strongest sympathy with the _contemplative_ life. I bow to Leah and to
+Martha, but my love is for Rachel and for Mary.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+90.
+
+Bettina does not describe nature, she informs it, with her own life: she
+seems to live in the elements, to exist in the fire, the air, the water,
+like a sylph, a gnome, an elf; she does not contemplate nature, she _is_
+nature; she is like the bird in the air, the fish in the sea, the
+squirrel in the wood. It is one thing to describe nature, and quite
+another unconsciously so to inform nature with a portion of our own
+life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+91.
+
+Joanna Baillie had a great admiration of Macaulay's Roman Ballads.
+"But," said some one, "do you really account them as poetry?" She
+replied, "They _are_ poetry if the sounds of the trumpet be music!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+92.
+
+All my own experience of life teaches me the _contempt_ of cunning, not
+the _fear_. The phrase "profound cunning" has always seemed to me a
+contradiction in terms. I never knew a cunning mind which was not either
+shallow, or on some point diseased. People dissemble sometimes who yet
+hate dissembling, but a "cunning mind" emphatically delights in its own
+cunning, and is the ready prey of cunning. That "pleasure in deceiving
+and aptness to be deceived" usually go together, was one of the wise
+sayings of the wisest of men.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+93.
+
+It was a saying of Paracelsus, that "Those who would understand the
+course of the heavens above must first of all recognise the heaven in
+man:" meaning, I suppose, that all pursuit of knowledge which is not
+accompanied by praise of God and love of our fellow-creatures must turn
+to bitterness, emptiness, foolishness. We must imagine him to have come
+to this conclusion only late in life.
+
+Browning, in that wonderful poem of Paracelsus,--a poem in which there is
+such a profound far-seeing philosophy, set forth with such a luxuriance
+of illustration and imagery, and such a wealth of glorious eloquence,
+that I know nothing to be compared with it since Goethe and
+Wordsworth,--represents his aspiring philosopher as at first impelled
+solely by the appetite to _know_. He asks nothing of men, he despises
+them; but he will serve them, raise them, after a sort of God-like
+fashion, independent of their sympathy, scorning their applause, using
+them like instruments, cheating them like children,--all for their good;
+but it will not do. In Aprile, "who would love infinitely, and be
+beloved," is figured the type of the poet-nature, desiring only beauty,
+resolving all into beauty; while in Paracelsus we have the type of the
+reflecting, the inquiring mind desiring only knowledge, resolving all
+into knowledge, asking nothing more to crown his being. And both find
+out their mistake; both come to feel that love without knowledge is
+blind and weak, and knowledge without love barren and vain.
+
+
+  "I too have sought to KNOW as thou to LOVE,
+   Excluding love as thou refused'st knowledge;
+   Still thou hast beauty and I power. We wake!
+
+          *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Are we not halves of one dissever'd world,
+   Whom this strange chance unites once more? Part?--Never!
+   Till thou, the lover, know, and I, the knower,
+   Love--until both are saved!"
+
+
+After all, perhaps, only the same old world-renowned myth in another
+form--the marriage of Cupid and Psyche; Love and Intelligence long
+parted, long suffering, again embracing, and lighted on by Beauty to an
+immortal union. But to return to our poet. Aprile, exhausted by his own
+aimless, dazzling visions, expires on the bosom of him who knows; and
+Paracelsus, who began with a selfsufficing scorn of his kind, dies a
+baffled and degraded man in the arms of him who loves;--yet wiser in his
+fall than through his aspirations, he dies trusting in the progress of
+humanity so long as humanity is content to be _human_; to _love_ as well
+as to _know_;--to fear, to hope, to worship, as well as to aspire.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+94.
+
+Lord Bacon says: "I like a plantation (in the sense of colony) in a
+_pure_ soil; that is, where people are not displanted to the end to
+plant in others: for else it is rather an extirpation than a
+plantation." (Bacon, who wrote this, counselled to James I. the
+plantation of Ulster exactly on the principle he has here deprecated.)
+
+He adds, "It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of
+people, and wicked condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant"
+(_i. e._ colonise). And it is only now that our politicians are
+beginning to discover and act upon this great moral truth and obvious
+fitness of things!--like Bacon, adopting practically, and from mere
+motives of expediency, a principle they would theoretically abjure!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+95.
+
+Because in real life we cannot, or do not, reconcile the high theory
+with the low practice, we use our wit to render the theory ridiculous,
+and our reason to reconcile us to the practice. We ought to do just the
+reverse.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Many would say, if they spoke the truth, that it had cost them a
+life-long effort to unlearn what they had been taught.
+
+For as the eye becomes blinded by fashion to positive deformity, so
+through social conventionalism the conscience becomes blinded to
+positive immorality.
+
+It is fatal in any mind to make the moral standard for men high and the
+moral standard for women low, or _vice versâ_. This has appeared to me
+the very commonest of all mistakes in men and women who have lived much
+in the world, but _fatal_ nevertheless, and in three ways; first, as
+distorting the moral ideal, so far as it exists in the conscience;
+secondly, as perplexing the bounds, practically, of right and wrong;
+thirdly, as being at variance with the spirit and principles of
+Christianity. Admit these premises, and it follows inevitably that such
+a mistake is _fatal_ in the last degree, as disturbing the consistency
+and the elevation of the character, morally, practically, religiously.
+
+
+Akin to this mistake, or identical with it, is the belief that there are
+essential masculine and feminine virtues and vices. It is not, in fact,
+the quality itself, but the modification of the quality, which is
+masculine or feminine: and on the manner or degree in which these are
+balanced and combined in the individual, depends the perfection of that
+individual character--its approximation to that of Christ. I firmly
+believe that as the influences of religion are extended, and as
+civilisation advances, those qualities which are now admired as
+essentially _feminine_ will be considered as essentially _human_, such
+as gentleness, purity, the more unselfish and spiritual sense of duty,
+and the dominance of the affections over the passions. This is, perhaps,
+what Buffon, speaking as a naturalist, meant, when he said that with
+the progress of humanity, "_Les races se féminisent_;" at least I
+understand the phrase in this sense.
+
+
+A man who requires from his own sex manly direct truth, and laughs at
+the cowardly subterfuges and small arts of women as being _feminine_;--a
+woman who requires from her own sex tenderness and purity, and thinks
+ruffianism and sensuality pardonable in a man as being
+_masculine_,--these have repudiated the Christian standard of morals
+which Christ, in his own person, bequeathed to us--that standard which we
+have accepted as Christians--theoretically at least--and which makes no
+distinction between "the highest, holiest manhood," and the highest,
+holiest womanhood.
+
+I might illustrate this position not only scripturally but
+philosophically, by quoting the axiom of the Greek philosopher
+Antisthenes, the disciple of Socrates,--"The virtue of the man and the
+woman is the same;" which shows a perception of the moral truth, a sort
+of anticipation of the Christian doctrine, even in the pagan times. But
+I prefer an illustration which is at once practical and poetical, and
+plain to the most prejudiced among men or women.
+
+Every reader of Wordsworth will recollect, if he does not know by heart,
+the poem entitled "The Happy Warrior." It has been quoted often as an
+epitome of every manly, soldierly, and elevated quality. I have heard it
+applied to the Duke of Wellington. Those who make the experiment of
+merely substituting the word _woman_ for the word _warrior_, and
+changing the feminine for the masculine pronoun, will find that it reads
+equally well; that almost from beginning to end it is literally as
+applicable to the one sex as to the other. As thus:--
+
+
+CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WOMAN.
+
+   Who is the happy _woman_? Who is _she_
+   That every _woman_ born should wish to be?
+   It is the generous spirit, who, when brought
+   Among the tasks of real life, had wrought
+   Upon the plan that pleased _her_ childish thought;
+   Whose high endeavours are an inward light,
+   That make the path before _her_ always bright:
+   Who, with a natural instinct to discern
+   What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
+   Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
+   But makes _her_ moral being _her_ prime care;
+   Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
+   And Fear, and Sorrow, miserable train!
+   Turns _that_ necessity to glorious gain;
+   In face of these doth exercise a power
+   Which is our human nature's highest dower:
+   Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
+   Of their bad influence, and their good receives;
+   By objects, which might force the soul to abate
+   _Her_ feeling, rendered more compassionate;
+   Is placable--because occasions rise
+   So often that demand such sacrifice;
+   More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure
+   As tempted more; more able to endure,
+   As more exposed to suffering and distress;
+   Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
+   'Tis _she_ whose law is reason; who depends
+   Upon that law as on the best of friends;
+   Whence in a state where men are tempted still
+   To evil for a guard against worse ill,
+   And what in quality or act is best,
+   Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
+   _She_ fixes good on good alone, and owes
+   To virtue every triumph that _she_ knows.
+   Who, if _she_ rise to station of command,
+   Rises by open means; and there will stand
+   On honourable terms, or else retire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+   Who comprehends _her_ trust, and to the same
+   Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
+   And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
+   For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state;
+   Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall
+   Like showers of manna, if they come at all:
+   Whose powers shed round _her_ in the common strife
+   Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
+   A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
+   But who, if _she_ be called upon to face
+   Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
+   Great issue, good or bad for human kind,
+   Is happy as a lover; and attired
+   With sudden brightness, like to one inspired;
+   And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
+   In calmness made, and sees what _she_ foresaw;
+   Or if an unexpected call succeed,
+   Come when it will, is equal to the need!
+
+
+In all these fifty-six lines there is only one line which cannot be
+feminised in its significance,--that which I have filled up with
+asterisks, and which is totally at variance with our ideal of A HAPPY
+WOMAN. It is the line--
+
+   "And in himself possess his own desire."
+
+No woman could exist happily or virtuously in such complete independence
+of all external affections as these words express. "Her desire is to her
+husband,"--this is the sort of subjection prophesied for the daughters of
+Eve. A woman doomed to exist without this earthly rest for her
+affections, does not "in herself possess her own desire;" she turns
+towards God; and if she does not make her life a life of worship, she
+makes it a life of charity, (which in itself is worship,) or she dies a
+spiritual and a moral death. Is it much better with the man who
+concentrates his aspirations in himself? I should think not.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Swift, as a man and a writer, is one of those who had least sympathy
+with women; and I have sometimes thought that the exaggeration, even to
+morbidity, of the coarse and the cruel in his character, arose from this
+want of sympathy; but his strong sense showed him the one great moral
+truth as regards the two sexes, and gave him the courage to avow it.
+
+He says, "I am ignorant of any one quality that is amiable in a woman
+which is not equally so in a man. I do not except even modesty and
+gentleness of nature; nor do I know one vice or folly which is not
+equally detestable in both." Then, remarking that cowardice is an
+_infirmity_ generally allowed to women, he wonders that they should
+fancy it becoming or graceful, or think it worth improving by
+affectation, particularly as it is generally allied to cruelty.
+
+
+Here is a passage from one of Humboldt's letters, which I have seen
+quoted with sympathy and admiration, as applied to the manly character
+only:--
+
+"Masculine independence of mind I hold to be in reality the first
+requisite for the formation of a character of real manly worth. The man
+who suffers himself to be deceived and carried away by his own weakness,
+may be a very amiable person in other respects, but cannot be called a
+good man; such beings should not find favour in the eyes of a woman, for
+a truly beautiful and purely feminine nature should be attracted only by
+what is highest and noblest in the character of man."
+
+
+Now we will take this bit of moral philosophy, and, without the
+slightest alteration of the context, apply it to the female character.
+
+"Feminine independence of mind I hold to be in reality the first
+requisite for the formation of a character of real feminine worth. The
+woman who allows herself to be deceived and carried away by her own
+weakness may be a very amiable person in other respects, but cannot be
+called a good woman; such beings should not find favour in the eyes of a
+man, for the truly beautiful and purely manly nature should be attracted
+only by what is highest and noblest in the character of woman."
+
+
+After reading the above extracts, does it not seem clear, that by the
+exclusive or emphatic use of certain phrases and epithets, as more
+applicable to one sex than to the other, we have introduced a most
+un-christian confusion into the conscience, and have prejudiced it early
+against the acceptance of the larger truth?
+
+It might seem, that where we reject the distinction between masculine
+and feminine virtues, one and the same type of perfection should suffice
+for the two sexes; yet it is clear that the moment we come to consider
+the personality, the same type will not suffice: and it is worth
+consideration that when we place before us the highest type of manhood,
+as exemplified in Christ, we do not imagine him as the father, but as
+the son; and if we think of the most perfect type of womanhood, we never
+can exclude the mother.
+
+
+Montaigne deals with the whole question in his own homely
+straightforward fashion:--
+
+"Je dis que les mâles et les fémelles sont jettés en même moule; sauf
+l'institution et l'usage la différence n'y est pas grande. Platon
+appelle indifféremment les uns et les autres à la société de touts
+études, exercises, charges, et vocations guerrières et paisibles en sa
+république, et le philosophe Antisthènes ôtait toute distinction entre
+leur vertu et la nôtre. Il est bien plus aisé d'accuser un sexe que
+d'excuser l'autre: c'est ce qu'on dit, 'le fourgon se moque de la
+poële.'"
+
+Not that I agree with Plato,--rather would leave all the fighting,
+military and political, if there must be fighting, to the men.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Among the absurdities talked about women, one hears, perhaps, such an
+aphorism as the following quoted with a sort of ludicrous
+complacency,--"The woman's strength consists in her weakness!" as if it
+were not the weakness of a woman which makes her in her violence at once
+so aggravating and so contemptible, in her dissimulation at once so
+shallow and so dangerous, and in her vengeance at once so cowardly and
+so cruel.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I should not say, from my experience of my own sex, that a woman's
+nature is flexible and impressible, though her feelings are. I know
+very few instances of a very inferior man ruling the mind of a superior
+woman, whereas I know twenty--fifty--of a very inferior woman ruling a
+superior man. If he love her, the chances are that she will in the end
+weaken and demoralise him. If a superior woman marry a vulgar or
+inferior man he makes her miserable, but he seldom governs her mind, or
+vulgarises her nature, and if there be love on his side the chances are
+that in the end she will elevate and refine him.
+
+The most dangerous man to a woman is a man of high intellectual
+endowments morally perverted; for in a woman's nature there is such a
+necessity to approve where she admires, and to believe where she
+loves,--a devotion compounded of love and faith is so much a part of her
+being,--that while the instincts remain true and the feelings
+uncorrupted, the conscience and the will may both be led far astray.
+Thus fell "our general mother,"--type of her sex,--overpowered, rather
+than deceived, by the colossal intellect,--half serpent, half angelic.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Coleridge speaks, and with a just indignant scorn, of those who consider
+chastity as if it were a _thing_--a thing which might be lost or kept by
+external accident--a thing of which one might be robbed, instead of a
+state of being. According to law and custom, the chastity of Woman is as
+the property of Man, to whom she is accountable for it, rather than to
+God and her own conscience. Whatever people may say, such is the common,
+the social, the legal view of the case. It is a remnant of Oriental
+barbarism. It tends to much vice, or, at the best, to a low standard of
+morality, in both sexes. This idea of property in the woman survives
+still in our present social state, particularly among the lower orders,
+and is one cause of the ill treatment of wives. All those who are
+particularly acquainted with the manners and condition of the people
+will testify to this; namely, that when a child or any weaker individual
+is ill treated, those standing by will interfere and protect the victim;
+but if the sufferer be _the wife_ of the oppressor, it is a point of
+etiquette to look on, to take no part in the fray, and to leave the
+brute man to do what he likes "with his own." Even the victim herself,
+if she be not pummelled to death, frequently deprecates such an
+interference with the dignity and the rights of her owner. Like the poor
+woman in the "Médecin malgré lui:"--"Voyez un peu cet impertinent qui
+vent empêcher les maris de battre leurs femmes!--et si je veux qu'il me
+batte, moi?"--and so ends by giving her defender a box on the ear.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Au milieu de tous les obstacles que la nature et la société out semés
+sur les pas de la femme, la seule condition de repos pour elle est de
+s'entourer de barrières que les passions ne puissent franchir; incapable
+de s'approprier l'existence, elle est toujours semblable a la Chinoise
+dont les pieds ont été mutilés et pour laquelle toute liberté est un
+leurre, toute espace ouverte une cause de chute. En attendant que
+l'éducation ait donné aux femmes leur véritable place, malheur à celles
+qui brisent les lisses accoutumées! pour elles l'indépendance ne sera,
+comme la gloire, qu'un deuil éclatant du bonheur!"--_B. Constant._
+
+This also is one of those common-places of well-sounding eloquence, in
+which a fallacy is so wrapt up in words we have to dig it out. If this
+be true, it is true only so long as you compress the feet and compress
+the intellect,--no longer.
+
+Here is another:--
+
+"L'expérience lui avait appris que quel que fut leur âge, ou leur
+caractère, toutes les femmes vivaient avec le même rêve, et qu'elles
+avaient toutes au fond du coeur un roman commencé dont elles attendaient
+jusqu'à la mort le héros, comme les juifs attendent le Messie."
+
+This "roman commencé," (et qui ne finit jamais), is true as regards
+women who are idle, and who have not replaced dreams by duties. And what
+are the "barrières" which passion cannot overleap, from the moment it
+has subjugated the will? How fine, how true that scene in Calderon's
+"Magico Prodigioso," where Justina conquers the fiend only by not
+_consenting_ to ill!
+
+                       ----"This agony
+   Of passion which afflicts my heart and soul
+   May sweep imagination in its storm;
+   The will is firm."
+
+And the baffled demon shrinks back,--
+
+  "Woman, thou hast subdued me
+   Only by not owning thyself subdued!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A friend of mine was once using some mincing elegancies of language to
+describe a high degree of moral turpitude, when a man near her
+interposed, with stern sarcasm, "Speak out! Give things their proper
+names! _Half words are the perdition of women!_"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I observe," said Sydney Smith, "that _generally_ about the age of
+forty, women get tired of being virtuous and men of being honest." This
+was said and received with a laugh as one of his good things; but, like
+many of his good things, how dreadfully true! And why? because,
+_generally_, education has made the virtue of the woman and the honesty
+of the man a matter of external opinion, not a law of the inward life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Dante, in his lowest hell, has placed those who have betrayed women; and
+in the lowest deep of the lowest deep those who have betrayed trust.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Inveterate sensuality, which has the effect of utterly stupifying and
+brutifying lower minds, gives to natures more sensitively or more
+powerfully organised a horrible dash of ferocity. For there is an awful
+relation between animal blood-thirstiness and the proneness to
+sensuality, and in some sensualists a sort of feline propensity to
+torment and lacerate the prey they have not the appetite to devour.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"La Chevalerie faisait une tentative qui n'a jamais réussi, quoique
+souvent essayée; la tentative de se servir des passions humaines, et
+particulièrement de l'amour pour conduire l'homme à la vertu. Dans cette
+route l'homme s'arrête toujours en chemin. L'amour inspire beaucoup de
+bons sentiments--le courage, le dévouement, le sacrifice des biens et de
+la vie; mais il ne se sacrifie pas lui-même, et c'est là que la
+faiblesse humaine reprend ses droits."--_St. Marc-Girardin._
+
+
+I am not sure that this well-sounding remark is true--or, if true, it is
+true of the mere passion, not of love in its highest phase, which is
+self-sacrificing, which has its essence in the capability of
+self-sacrifice.
+
+                                "Love was given,
+     Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for this end;
+   For this the passion to excess was driven,
+     That _self_ might be annull'd."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In every mind where there is a strong tendency to fear, there is a
+strong capacity to hate. Those who dwell in fear dwell next door to
+hate; and I think it is the cowardice of women which makes them such
+intense haters.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Our present social opinion says to the man, "You may be a vulgar brutal
+sensualist, and use the basest means to attain the basest ends; but so
+long as you do not offend against conventional good manners you shall be
+held blameless." And to the woman it says, "You shall be guilty of
+nothing but of yielding to the softest impulses of tenderness, of
+relenting pity; but if you cannot add hypocrisy you shall be punished as
+the most desperate criminal."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+96.
+
+"It is worthy of notice that the external expressions appropriated to
+certain feelings undergo change at different periods of life and in
+different constitutions. The child cries and sobs from fear or pain, the
+adult more generally from sudden grief or warm affection, or sympathy
+with the feeling of others."--_Dr. Holland._
+
+Those who have been accustomed to observe the ways of children will
+doubt the accuracy of this remark, though from the high authority of
+one of the most accomplished physiologists of our time. Children cry
+from grief, and from sympathy with grief, at a very early age. I have
+seen an infant in its mother's arms, before it could speak, begin to
+whimper and cry when it looked up in her face, which was disturbed and
+bathed with tears; and that has always appeared to me an exquisite touch
+of most truthful nature in Wordsworth's description of the desolation of
+Margaret:--
+
+                        "Her little child
+   Had from its mother caught the trick of grief,
+   And sighed amid its playthings."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+97.
+
+"LETTERS," said Sir James Mackintosh, "must not be on a subject. Lady
+Mary Wortley's letters on her journey to Constantinople are an admirable
+book of travels, but they are not letters. A meeting to discuss a
+question of science is not conversation, nor are papers written to
+another to inform or discuss, letters. Conversation is relaxation, not
+business, and must never appear to be occupation;--nor must letters."
+
+"A masculine character may be a defect in a female, but a masculine
+genius is still a praise to a writer of whatever sex. The feminine
+graces of Madame de Sevigné's genius are exquisitely charming, but the
+philosophy and eloquence of Madame de Staël are above the distinctions
+of sex."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+98.
+
+OF the wars between Napoleon and the Holy Alliance, Madame de Staël once
+said with most admirable and prophetic sense:--"It is a contest between a
+_man_ who is the enemy of liberty, and a _system_ which is equally its
+enemy." But it is easier to get rid of a man than of a system: witness
+the Russians, who assassinate their czars one after another, but cannot
+get rid of their _system_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+99.
+
+The Empress Elizabeth of Russia during the war with Sweden commanded the
+old Hetman of the Cossacks to come to court on his way to Finland. "If
+the Emperor, your father," said the Hetman, "had taken my advice, your
+Majesty would not now have been annoyed by the Swedes." "What was your
+advice?" asked the Empress. "To put all the nobility to death, and
+transplant the people into Russia." "But that," said the Empress, "would
+have been cruel!" "I do not see that," he replied quietly; "they are all
+dead now, and they would only have been dead if my advice had been
+taken."
+
+Something strangely comprehensive and unanswerable in this barbarian
+logic!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+100.
+
+IT was the Abbé Boileau who said of the Jesuits, that they had
+lengthened the Creed and shortened the Decalogue. The same witty
+ecclesiastic being asked why he always wrote in Latin, took a pinch of
+snuff, and answered gravely, "Why, for fear the bishops should read
+me!"
+
+101.
+
+When Talleyrand once visited a certain reprobate friend of his, who was
+ill of cholera, the patient exclaimed in his agony, "Je sens les
+tourmens de l'enfer!"
+
+"Déjà?" said Talleyrand.
+
+Much in a word! I remember seeing a pretty French vaudeville wherein a
+lady is by some accident or contrivance shut up perforce with a lover
+she has rejected. She frets at the _contretemps_. He makes use of the
+occasion to plead his cause. The cruel fair one will not relent. Still
+he pleads--still she turns away. At length they are interrupted.
+
+"Déjà!" exclaims the lady, in an accent we may suppose to be very
+different from that of Talleyrand; and on the intonation of this one
+word, pronounced as only an accomplished French actress could pronounce
+it, depends the _dénouement_ of the piece.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+102.
+
+Louis XVI. sent a distinguished physician over to England to inquire
+into the management of our hospitals. He praised them much, but added,
+"Il y manque deux choses; nos curés et nos hospitalières;" that is, he
+felt the want of the religious element in the official and medical
+treatment of the sick. A want which, I think, is felt at present and
+will be supplied.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+103.
+
+Those who have the largest horizon of thought, the most extended vision
+in regard to the relation of things, are not remarkable for
+self-reliance and ready judgment. A man who sees limitedly and clearly,
+is more sure of himself, and more direct in his dealings with
+circumstances and with others, than a man whose many-sided capacity
+embraces an immense extent of objects and _objections_,--just as, they
+say, a horse with blinkers more surely chooses his path, and is less
+likely to shy.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+104.
+
+What we truly and earnestly aspire _to be_, that in some sense we _are_.
+The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for the moment
+realises itself.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+105.
+
+There are no such self-deceivers as those who think they reason when
+they only feel.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+106.
+
+There are moments when the liberty of the inner life, opposed to the
+trammels of the outer, becomes too oppressive: moments when we wish that
+our mental horizon were less extended, thought less free; when we long
+to put the discursive soul into a narrow path like a railway, and force
+it to run on in a straight line to some determined goal.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+107.
+
+If the deepest and best affections which God has given us sometimes
+brood over the heart like doves of peace,--they sometimes suck out our
+life-blood like vampires.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+108.
+
+To a Frenchman the words that express things seem often to suffice for
+the things themselves, and he pronounces the words _amour_, _grâce_,
+_sensibilité_, as if with a relish in his mouth--as if he tasted them--as
+if he possessed them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+109.
+
+There are many good qualities, and valuable ones too, which hardly
+deserve the name of virtues. The word Virtue was synonymous in the old
+time with valour, and seems to imply contest; not merely passive
+goodness, but active resistance to evil. I wonder sometimes why it is
+that we so continually hear the phrase, "a virtuous woman," and scarcely
+ever that of a "virtuous man," except in poetry or from the pulpit.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+110.
+
+A Lie, though it be killed and dead, can sting sometimes,--like a dead
+wasp.
+
+
+111.
+
+"On me dit toute la journée dans le monde, telle opinion, telle idée,
+sont _reçues_. On ne sait donc pas qu'en fait d'opinion, et d'idées
+j'aime beaucoup mieux les choses qui sont rejettées que celles qui sont
+reçues?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+112.
+
+"Sense can support herself handsomely in most countries on some
+eighteenpence a day, but for phantasy, planets and solar systems will
+not suffice." And _thence_ do you infer the superiority of sense over
+phantasy? Shallow reasoning! God who made the soul of man of sufficient
+capacity to embrace whole worlds and systems of worlds, gave us thereby
+a foretaste of our immortality.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+113.
+
+"Faith in the _hereafter_ is as necessary for the intellectual as the
+moral character, and to the man of letters as well as to the Christian,
+the present forms but the slightest portion of his
+existence."--_Southey._
+
+Goethe did not think so. "Genutzt dem Augenblick," "_Use_ the present,"
+was _his_ favourite maxim; and always this notion of sacrificing or
+slighting the present seems to me a great mistake. It ought to be the
+most important part of our existence, as it is the only part of it over
+which we have power. It is in the present only that we absolve the past
+and lay the foundation for the future.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+114.
+
+"Je allseitigen, je individueller," is a beautiful significant phrase,
+quite untranslateable, used, I think, by Rahel (Madame Varnhagen). It
+means that the more the mind can multiply on every side its capacities
+of thinking and feeling, the more individual, the more original, that
+mind becomes.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+115.
+
+"I wonder," said C., "that facts should be called _stubborn_ things." I
+wonder, too, seeing you can always oppose a fact with another fact, and
+that nothing is so easy as to twist, pervert, and argue or misrepresent
+a fact into twenty different forms. "Il n'y a rien qui s'arrange aussi
+facilement que les faits,"--Nothing so _tractable_ as facts,--said
+Benjamin Constant. True; so long as facts are only material,--or as one
+should say, mere matter of fact,--you can modify them to a purpose, turn
+them upside down and inside out; but once vivify a fact with a feeling,
+and it stands up before us a living and a very stubborn thing.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+116.
+
+Every human being is born to influence some other human being; or many,
+or all human beings, in proportion to the extent and power of the
+sympathies, rather than of the intellect.
+
+It was said, and very beautifully said, that "one man's wit becomes all
+men's wisdom." Even more true is it that one man's virtue becomes a
+standard which raises our anticipation of possible goodness in all men.
+
+
+117.
+
+It is curious that the memory, most retentive of images, should yet be
+much more retentive of feelings than of facts: for instance, we remember
+with such intense vividness a period of suffering, that it seems even to
+renew itself through the medium of thought; yet, at the same time, we
+perhaps find difficulty in recalling, with any distinctness, the causes
+of that pain.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+118.
+
+"Truth has never manifested itself to me in such a broad stream of light
+as seems to be poured upon some minds. Truth has appeared to my mental
+eye, like a vivid, yet small and trembling star in a storm, now
+appearing for a moment with a beauty that enraptured, now lost in such
+clouds, as, had I less faith, might make me suspect that the previous
+clear sight had been a delusion."--_Blanco White._
+
+Very exquisite in the aptness as well as poetry of the comparison! Some
+walk by daylight, some walk by starlight. Those who see the sun do not
+see the stars; those who see the stars do not see the sun.
+
+He says in another place:--
+
+"I am averse to too much activity of the imagination on the future life.
+I hope to die full of confidence that no evil awaits me: but any picture
+of a future life distresses me. I feel as if an eternity of existence
+were already an insupportable burden on my soul."
+
+How characteristic of that lassitude of the soul and sickness of the
+heart which "asks not happiness, but longs for rest!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+119.
+
+"Those are the worst of suicides who voluntarily and prepensely stab or
+suffocate their fame when God hath commanded them to stand on high for
+an example."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+120.
+
+Carlyle thus apostrophised a celebrated orator, who abused his gift of
+eloquence to insincere purposes of vanity, self-interest, and
+expediency:--"You blasphemous scoundrel! God gave you that gifted tongue
+of yours, and set it between your teeth, to make known your true meaning
+to us, not to be rattled like a muffin-man's bell!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+121.
+
+I think, with Carlyle, that a lie should be trampled on and extinguished
+wherever found. I am for fumigating the atmosphere when I suspect that
+falsehood, like pestilence, breathes around me. A. thinks this is too
+_young_ a feeling, and that as the truth is sure to conquer in the end,
+it is not worth while to fight every separate lie, or fling a torch into
+every infected hole. Perhaps not, so far as we are ourselves concerned;
+but we should think of others. While secure in our own antidote, or wise
+in our own caution, we should not leave the miasma to poison the
+healthful, or the briars to entangle the unwary. There is no occasion
+perhaps for truth to sally forth like a knight-errant tilting at every
+vizor, but neither should she sit self-assured in her tower of strength,
+leaving pitfalls outside her gate for the blind to fall into.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+122.
+
+"There is a way to separate memory from imagination--we may narrate
+without painting. I am convinced that the mind can employ certain
+indistinct signs to represent even its most vivid impressions; that
+instead of picture writing, it can use something like algebraic symbols:
+such is the language of the soul when the paroxysm of pain has passed,
+and the wounds it received formerly are skinned over, not healed:--it is
+a language very opposite to that used by the poet and the
+novel-writer."--_Blanco White._
+
+True; but a language in which the soul can converse only with itself; or
+else a language more conventional than words, and like paper as a tender
+for gold, more capable of being defaced and falsified. There is a
+proverb we have heard quoted: "Speech is silver, silence is golden." But
+better is the silver diffused than the talent of gold buried.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+123.
+
+However distinguished and gifted, mentally and morally, we find that in
+conduct and in our external relations with, society there is ever a
+levelling influence at work. Seldom in our relations with the world, and
+in the ordinary commerce of life, are the best and highest within us
+brought forth; for the whole system of social intercourse is levelling.
+As it is said that law knows no distinction of persons but that which it
+has itself instituted; so of society it may be said, that it allows of
+no distinction but those which it can recognise--external distinctions.
+
+We hear it said that general society--the _world_, as it is called--and a
+public school, are excellent educators; because in one the man, in the
+other the boy, "finds, as the phrase is, his own level." He does not; he
+finds the level of others. _That_ may be good for those below
+mediocrity, but for those above it _bad_: and it is for those we should
+most care, for if once brought down in early life by the levelling
+influence of numbers, they seldom rise again, or only partially. Nothing
+so dangerous as to be perpetually measuring ourselves against what is
+beneath us, feeling our superiority to that which we force ourselves to
+assimilate to. This has been the perdition of many a schoolboy and many
+a man.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+124.
+
+"Il me semble que le plus noble rapport entre le ciel et la terre, le
+plus beau don que Dieu ait fait à l'homme, la pensée, l'inspiration, se
+décompose en quelque sorte dès qu'elle est descendue dans son âme. Elle
+y vient simple et désintéressée; il la reproduit corrompue par tous les
+intérêts auxquels il l'associe; elle lui a été confiée pour la
+multiplier à l'avantage de tous; il la publie au profit de son
+amour-propre."--_Madame de Saint-Aulaire._
+
+There would be much to say about this, for it is not always, nor
+generally, _amour-propre_ or interest; it is the desire of sympathy,
+which impels the artist mind to the utterance in words, or the
+expression in form, of that thought or inspiration which God has sent
+into his soul.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+125.
+
+Milton's Eve is the type of the masculine standard of perfection in
+woman; a graceful figure, an abundance of fine hair, much "coy
+submission," and such a degree of unreasoning wilfulness as shall risk
+perdition.
+
+And the woman's standard for the man is Adam, who rules and demands
+subjection, and is so indulgent that he gives up to blandishment what
+he would refuse to reason, and what his own reason condemns.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+126.
+
+Every subject which excites discussion impels to thought. Every
+expression of a mind humbly seeking truth, not assuming to have found
+it, helps the seeker after truth.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+128.
+
+As a man just released from the rack stands bruised and broken,--bleeding
+at every pore, and dislocated in every limb, and raises his eyes to
+heaven, and says, "God be praised! I suffer no more!" because to that
+past sharp agony the respite comes like peace--like sleep,--so we stand,
+after some great wrench in our best affections, where they have been
+torn up by the root; when the conflict is over, and the tension of the
+heart-strings is relaxed, then comes a sort of rest,--but of what kind?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+129.
+
+To trust religiously, to hope humbly, to desire nobly, to think
+rationally, to will resolutely, and to work earnestly,--may this be
+mine.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A REVELATION OF CHILDHOOD.
+
+(FROM A LETTER.)
+
+
+We are all interested in this great question of popular education; but I
+see others much more sanguine than I am. They hope for some immediate
+good result from all that is thought, written, spoken on the subject day
+after day. I see such results as possible, probable, but far, far off.
+All this talk is of systems and methods, institutions, school houses,
+schoolmasters, schoolmistresses, school books; the ways and the means by
+which we are to instruct, inform, manage, mould, regulate, that which
+lies in most cases beyond our reach--the spirit sent from God. What do we
+know of the mystery of child-nature, child-life? What, indeed, do we
+know of any life? All life we acknowledge to be an awful mystery, but
+child-life we treat as if it were no mystery whatever--just so much
+material placed in our hands to be fashioned to a certain form according
+to our will or our prejudices,--fitted to certain purposes according to
+our notions of expediency. Till we know how to _reverence_ childhood we
+shall do no good. Educators commit the same mistake with regard to
+childhood that theologians commit with regard to our present earthly
+existence; thinking of it, treating of it, as of little value or
+significance in itself, only transient, and preparatory to some
+condition of being which is to follow--as if it were something separate
+from us and to be left behind us as the creature casts its skin. But as
+in the sight of God this life is also something for its own sake, so in
+the estimation of Christ, childhood was something for its own
+sake,--something holy and beautiful in itself, and dear to him. He saw it
+not merely as the germ of something to grow out of it, but as perfect
+and lovely in itself as the flower which precedes the fruit. We
+misunderstand childhood, and we misuse it; we delight in it, and we
+pamper it; we spoil it ingeniously, we neglect it sinfully; at the best
+we trifle with it as a plaything which we can pull to pieces and put
+together at pleasure--ignorant, reckless, presumptuous that we are!
+
+And if we are perpetually making the grossest mistakes in the physical
+and practical management of childhood, how much more in regard to what
+is spiritual! What do we know of that which lies in the minds of
+children? we know only what we put there. The world of instincts,
+perceptions, experiences, pleasures, and pains, lying there without
+self-consciousness,--sometimes helplessly mute, sometimes so imperfectly
+expressed, that we quite mistake the manifestation--what do we know of
+all this? How shall we come at the understanding of it? The child lives,
+and does not contemplate its own life. It can give no account of that
+inward, busy, perpetual activity of the growing faculties and feelings
+which it is of so much importance that we should know. To lead children
+by questionings to think about their own identity, or observe their own
+feelings, is to teach them to be artificial. To waken self-consciousness
+before you awaken conscience is the beginning of incalculable mischief.
+Introspection is always, as a habit, unhealthy: introspection in
+childhood, fatally so. How shall we come at a knowledge of life such as
+it is when it first gushes from its mysterious fountain head? We cannot
+reascend the stream. We all, however we may remember the external scenes
+lived through in our infancy, either do not, or cannot, consult that
+part of our nature which remains indissolubly connected with the inward
+life of that time. We so forget it, that we know not how to deal with
+the child-nature when it comes under our power. We seldom reason about
+children from natural laws, or psychological data. Unconsciously we
+confound our matured experience with our memory: we attribute to
+children what is not possible, exact from them what is
+impossible;--ignore many things which the child has neither words to
+express, nor the will nor the power to manifest. The quickness with
+which children perceive, the keenness with which they suffer, the
+tenacity with which they remember, I have never seen fully appreciated.
+What misery we cause to children, what mischief we do them by bringing
+our own minds, habits, artificial prejudices and senile experiences, to
+bear on their young life, and cramp and overshadow it--it is fearful!
+
+Of all the wrongs and anomalies that afflict our earth, a sinful
+childhood, a suffering childhood, are among the worst.
+
+O ye men! who sit in committees, and are called upon to legislate for
+children,--for children who are the offspring of diseased or degenerate
+humanity, or the victims of a yet more diseased society,--do you, when
+you take evidence from jailors, and policemen, and parish schoolmasters,
+and doctors of divinity, do you ever call up, also, the wise physician,
+the thoughtful physiologist, the experienced mother? You have
+accumulated facts, great blue books full of facts, but till you know in
+what fixed and uniform principles of nature to seek their solution, your
+facts remain a dead letter.
+
+I say nothing here of teaching, though very few in truth understand that
+lowest part of our duty to children. Men, it is generally allowed,
+_teach_ better than women because they have been better taught the
+things they teach. Women _train_ better than men because of their quick
+instinctive perceptions and sympathies, and greater tenderness and
+patience. In schools and in families I would have some things taught by
+men, and some by women: but we will here put aside the art, the act of
+teaching: we will turn aside from the droves of children in national
+schools and reformatory asylums, and turn to the individual child,
+brought up within the guarded circle of a home or a select school,
+watched by an intelligent, a conscientious influence. How shall we deal
+with that spirit which has come out of nature's hands unless we remember
+what we were ourselves in the past? What sympathy can we have with that
+state of being which we regard as immature, so long as we commit the
+double mistake of sometimes attributing to children motives which could
+only spring from our adult experience, and sometimes denying to them the
+same intuitive tempers and feelings which actuate and agitate our
+maturer life? We do not sufficiently consider that our life is not made
+up of separate parts, but is _one_--is a progressive whole. When we talk
+of leaving our childhood behind us, we might as well say that the river
+flowing onward to the sea had left the fountain behind.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+121.
+
+I will here put together some recollections of my own child-life; not
+because it was in any respect an exceptional or remarkable existence,
+but for a reason exactly the reverse, because it was like that of many
+children; at least I have met with many children who throve or suffered
+from the same or similar unseen causes even under external conditions
+and management every way dissimilar. Facts, therefore, which can be
+relied on, may be generally useful as hints towards a theory of conduct
+in education. What I shall say here shall be simply the truth so far as
+it goes; not something between the false and the true, garnished for
+effect,--not something half-remembered, half-imagined,--but plain,
+absolute, matter of fact.
+
+No; certainly I was not an extraordinary child. I have had something to
+do with children, and have met with several more remarkable for
+quickness of talent, and precocity of feeling. If any thing in
+particular, I believe I was particularly naughty,--at least so it was
+said twenty times a day. But looking back now, I do not think I was
+particular even in this respect; I perpetrated not more than the usual
+amount of mischief--so called--which every lively active child perpetrates
+between five and ten years old. I had the usual desire to know, and the
+usual dislike to learn; the usual love of fairy tales, and hatred of
+French exercises. But not of what I learned, but of what I did _not_
+learn; not of what they taught me, but of what they could _not_ teach
+me; not of what was open, apparent, manageable, but of the under
+current, the hidden, the unmanaged or unmanageable, I have to speak, and
+you, my friend, to hear and turn to account, if you will, and how you
+will. As we grow old the experiences of infancy come back upon us with a
+strange vividness. There is a period when the overflowing, tumultuous
+life of our youth rises up between us and those first years; but as the
+torrent subsides in its bed we can look across the impassable gulf to
+that haunted fairy land which we shall never more approach, and never
+more forget!
+
+
+In memory I can go back to a very early age. I perfectly remember being
+sung to sleep, and can remember even the tune which was sung to
+me--blessings on the voice that sang it! I was an affectionate, but not,
+as I now think, a loveable nor an attractive child. I did not, like the
+little Mozart, ask of every one around me, "Do you love me?" The
+instinctive question was, rather, "Can I love you?" Yet certainly I was
+not more than six years old when I suffered from the fear of not being
+loved where I had attached myself, and from the idea that another was
+preferred before me, such anguish as had nearly killed me. Whether those
+around me regarded it as a fit of ill-temper, or a fit of illness, I do
+not know. I could not then have given a name to the pang that fevered
+me. I knew not the cause, but never forgot the suffering. It left a
+deeper impression than childish passions usually do; and the
+recollection was so far salutary, that in after life I guarded myself
+against the approaches of that hateful, deformed, agonising thing which
+men call jealousy, as I would from an attack of cramp or cholera. If
+such self-knowledge has not saved me from the pain, at least it has
+saved me from the demoralising effects of the passion, by a wholesome
+terror, and even a sort of disgust.
+
+With a good temper, there was the capacity of strong, deep, silent
+resentment, and a vindictive spirit of rather a peculiar kind. I
+recollect that when one of those set over me inflicted what then
+appeared a most horrible injury and injustice, the thoughts of vengeance
+haunted my fancy for months: but it was an inverted sort of vengeance. I
+imagined the house of my enemy on fire, and rushed through the flames
+to rescue her. She was drowning, and I leaped into the deep water to
+draw her forth. She was pining in prison, and I forced bars and bolts to
+deliver her. If this were magnanimity, it was not the less vengeance;
+for, observe, I always fancied evil, and shame, and humiliation to my
+adversary; to myself the _rôle_ of superiority and gratified pride. For
+several years this sort of burning resentment against wrong done to
+myself and others, though it took no mean or cruel form, was a source of
+intense, untold suffering. No one was aware of it. I was left to settle
+it; and my mind righted itself I hardly know how: not certainly by
+religious influences--they passed over my mind, and did not at the time
+sink into it,--and as for earthly counsel or comfort, I never had either
+when most needed. And as it fared with me then, so it has been in after
+life; so it has been, _must_ be, with all those who, in fighting out
+alone the pitched battle between principle and passion, will accept no
+intervention between the infinite within them and the infinite above
+them; so it has been, _must_ be, with all strong natures. Will it be
+said that victory in the struggle brings increase of strength? It may be
+so with some who survive the contest; but then, how many sink! how many
+are crippled morally for life! how many, strengthened in some particular
+faculties, suffer in losing the harmony of the character as a whole!
+This is one of the points in which the matured mind may help the
+childish nature at strife with itself. It is impossible to say how far
+this sort of vindictiveness might have penetrated and hardened into the
+character, if I had been of a timid or retiring nature. It was expelled
+at last by no outer influences, but by a growing sense of power and
+self-reliance.
+
+
+In regard to truth--always such a difficulty in education,--I certainly
+had, as a child, and like most children, confused ideas about it. I had
+a more distinct and absolute idea of honour than of truth,--a mistake
+into which our conventional morality leads those who educate and those
+who are educated. I knew very well, in a general way, that to tell a lie
+was _wicked_; to lie for my own profit or pleasure, or to the hurt of
+others, was, according to my infant code of morals, worse than wicked--it
+was _dishonourable_. But I had no compunction about telling
+_fictions_;--inventing scenes and circumstances, which I related as real,
+and with a keen sense of triumphant enjoyment in seeing the listener
+taken in by a most artful and ingenious concatenation of
+impossibilities. In this respect "Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, that liar of
+the first magnitude," was nothing in comparison to me. I must have been
+twelve years old before my conscience was first awakened up to a sense
+of the necessity of truth as a principle, as well as its holiness as a
+virtue. Afterwards, having to set right the minds of others cleared my
+own mind on this and some other important points.
+
+
+I do not think I was naturally obstinate, but remember going without
+food all day, and being sent hungry and exhausted to bed, because I
+would not do some trifling thing required of me. I think it was to
+recite some lines I knew by heart. I was punished as wilfully obstinate:
+but what no one knew then, and what I know now as the fact, was, that
+after refusing to do what was required, and bearing anger and threats in
+consequence, I lost the power to do it. I became stone: the _will_ was
+petrified, and I absolutely _could_ not comply. They might have hacked
+me in pieces before my lips could have unclosed to utterance. The
+obstinacy was not in the mind, but on the nerves; and I am persuaded
+that what we call obstinacy in children, and grownup people, too, is
+often something of this kind, and that it may be increased, by
+mismanagement, by persistence, or what is called firmness, in the
+controlling power, into disease, or something near to it.
+
+
+There was in my childish mind another cause of suffering besides those I
+have mentioned, less acute, but more permanent and always
+unacknowledged. It was fear--fear of darkness and supernatural
+influences. As long as I can remember anything, I remember these horrors
+of my infancy. How they had been awakened I do not know; they were never
+revealed. I had heard other children ridiculed for such fears, and held
+my peace. At first these haunting, thrilling, stifling terrors were
+vague; afterwards the form varied; but one of the most permanent was the
+ghost in Hamlet. There was a volume of Shakspeare lying about, in which
+was an engraving I have not seen since, but it remains distinct in my
+mind as a picture. On one side stood Hamlet with his hair on end,
+literally "like quills upon the fretful porcupine," and one hand with
+all the fingers outspread. On the other strided the ghost, encased in
+armour with nodding plumes; one finger pointing forwards, and all
+surrounded with a supernatural light. O that spectre! for three years it
+followed me up and down the dark staircase, or stood by my bed: only the
+blessed light had power to exorcise it. How it was that I knew, while I
+trembled and quaked, that it was unreal, never cried out, never
+expostulated, never confessed, I do not know. The figure of Apollyon
+looming over Christian, which I had found in an old edition of the
+"Pilgrim's Progress," was also a great torment. But worse, perhaps, were
+certain phantasms without shape, things like the vision in Job--"_A
+spirit passed before my face; it stood still, but I could not discern
+the form thereof_:"--and if not intelligible voices, there were strange
+unaccountable sounds filling the air around with a sort of mysterious
+life. In daylight I was not only fearless, but audacious, inclined to
+defy all power and brave all danger,--that is, all danger I could see. I
+remember volunteering to lead the way through a herd of cattle (among
+which was a dangerous bull, the terror of the neighbourhood) armed only
+with a little stick; but first I said the Lord's Prayer fervently. In
+the ghastly night I never prayed; terror stifled prayer. These visionary
+sufferings, in some form or other, pursued me till I was nearly twelve
+years old. If I had not possessed a strong constitution and a strong
+understanding, which rejected and contemned my own fears, even while
+they shook me, I had been destroyed. How much weaker children suffer in
+this way, I have since known; and have known how to bring them help and
+strength, through sympathy and knowledge, the sympathy that soothes and
+does not encourage--the knowledge that dispels, and does not suggest, the
+evil.
+
+
+People, in general, even those who have been much interested in
+education, are not aware of the sacred duty of _truth_, exact truth in
+their intercourse with children. Limit what you tell them according to
+the measure of their faculties; but let what you say be the truth.
+Accuracy not merely as to fact, but well-considered accuracy in the use
+of words, is essential with children. I have read some wise book on the
+treatment of the insane, in which absolute veracity and accuracy in
+speaking is prescribed as a _curative_ principle; and deception for any
+purpose is deprecated as almost fatal to the health of the patient. Now,
+it is a good sanatory principle, that what is curative is preventive;
+and that an unhealthy state of mind, leading to madness, may, in some
+organisations, be induced by that sort of uncertainty and perplexity
+which grows up where the mind has not been accustomed to truth in its
+external relations. It is like breathing for a continuance an impure or
+confined air.
+
+Of the mischief that may be done to a childish mind by a falsehood
+uttered in thoughtless gaiety, I remember an absurd and yet a painful
+instance. A visitor was turning over, for a little girl, some prints,
+one of which represented an Indian widow springing into the fire kindled
+for the funeral pile of her husband. It was thus explained to the child,
+who asked innocently, whether, if her father died, her mother would be
+burned? The person to whom the question was addressed, a lively, amiable
+woman, was probably much amused by the question, and answered, giddily,
+"Oh, of course,--certainly!" and was believed implicitly. But
+thenceforth, for many weary months, the mind of that child was haunted
+and tortured by the image of her mother springing into the devouring
+flames, and consumed by fire, with all the accessories of the picture,
+particularly the drums beating to drown her cries. In a weaker
+organisation, the results might have been permanent and serious. But to
+proceed.
+
+These terrors I have described had an existence external to myself: I
+had no power over them to shape them by my will, and their power over me
+vanished gradually before a more dangerous infatuation,--the propensity
+to reverie. This shaping spirit of imagination began when I was about
+eight or nine years old to haunt my _inner_ life. I can truly say that,
+from ten years old to fourteen or fifteen, I lived a double existence;
+one outward, linking me with the external sensible world, the other
+inward, creating a world to and for itself, conscious to itself only. I
+carried on for whole years a series of actions, scenes, and adventures;
+one springing out of another, and coloured and modified by increasing
+knowledge. This habit grew so upon me, that there were moments--as when I
+came to some crisis in my imaginary adventures,--when I was not more
+awake to outward things than in sleep,--scarcely took cognisance of the
+beings around me. When punished for idleness by being placed in
+solitary confinement (the worst of all punishments for children), the
+intended penance was nothing less than a delight and an emancipation,
+giving me up to my dreams. I had a very strict and very accomplished
+governess, one of the cleverest women I have ever met with in my life;
+but nothing of this was known or even suspected by her, and I exulted in
+possessing something which her power could not reach. My reveries were
+my real life: it was an unhealthy state of things.
+
+Those who are engaged in the training of children will perhaps pause
+here. It may be said, in the first place, How are we to reach those
+recesses of the inner life which the God who made us keeps from every
+eye but his own? As when we walk over the field in spring we are aware
+of a thousand influences and processes at work of which we have no exact
+knowledge or clear perception, yet must watch and use accordingly,--so it
+is with education. And secondly, it may be asked, if such secret
+processes be working unconscious mischief, where the remedy? The remedy
+is in employment. Then the mother or the teacher echoes with
+astonishment, "Employment! the child is employed from morning till
+night; she is learning a dozen sciences and languages; she has masters
+and lessons for every hour of every day: with her pencil, her piano,
+her books, her companions, her birds, her flowers,--what can she want
+more?" An energetic child even at a very early age, and yet farther as
+the physical organisation is developed, wants something more and
+something better; employment which shall bring with it the bond of a
+higher duty than that which centres in self and self-improvement;
+employment which shall not merely cultivate the understanding, but
+strengthen and elevate the conscience; employment for the higher and
+more generous faculties; employment addressed to the sympathies;
+employment which has the aim of utility, not pretended, but real,
+obvious, direct utility. A girl who as a mere child is not always being
+taught or being amused, whose mind is early restrained by the bond of
+definite duty, and thrown out of the limit of self, will not in after
+years be subject to fancies that disturb or to reveries that absorb, and
+the present and the actual will have that power they ought to have as
+combined in due degree with desire and anticipation.
+
+The Roman Catholic priesthood understand this well: employment, which
+enlists with the spiritual the sympathetic part of our being, is a means
+through which they guide both young and adult minds. Physicians who have
+to manage various states of mental and moral disease understand this
+well; they speak of the necessity of employment (not mere amusement) as
+a curative means, but of employment with the direct aim of usefulness,
+apprehended and appreciated by the patient, else it is nothing. It is
+the same with children. Such employment, chosen with reference to
+utility, and in harmony with the faculties, would prove in many cases
+either preventive or curative. In my own case, as I now think, it would
+have been both.
+
+There was a time when it was thought essential that women should know
+something of cookery, something of medicine, something of surgery. If
+all these things are far better understood now than heretofore, is that
+a reason why a well educated woman should be left wholly ignorant of
+them? A knowledge of what people call "common things"--of the elements of
+physiology, of the conditions of health, of the qualities, nutritive or
+remedial, of substances commonly used as food or medicine, and the most
+economical and most beneficial way of applying both,--these should form a
+part of the system of every girls' school--whether for the higher or the
+lower classes. At present you shall see a girl studying chemistry, and
+attending Faraday's lectures, who would be puzzled to compound a
+rice-pudding or a cup of barley-water: and a girl who could work quickly
+a complicated sum in the Rule of Three, afterwards wasting a fourth of
+her husband's wages through want of management.
+
+In my own case, how much of the practical and the sympathetic in my
+nature was exhausted in airy visions!
+
+As to the stuff out of which my waking dreams were composed, I cannot
+tell you much. I have a remembrance that I was always a princess-heroine
+in the disguise of a knight, a sort of Clorinda or Britomart, going
+about to redress the wrongs of the poor, fight giants, and kill dragons;
+or founding a society in some far-off solitude or desolate island, which
+would have rivalled that of Gonsalez, where there were to be no tears,
+no tasks, and no laws,--except those which I made myself,--no caged birds
+nor tormented kittens.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Enough of the pains, and mistakes, and vagaries of childhood; let me
+tell of some of its pleasures equally unguessed and unexpressed. A
+great, and exquisite source of enjoyment arose out of an early,
+instinctive, boundless delight in external beauty. How this went hand in
+hand with my terrors and reveries, how it could coexist with them, I
+cannot tell now--it was so; and if this sympathy with the external,
+living, beautiful world, had been properly, scientifically cultivated,
+and directed to useful definite purposes, it would have been the best
+remedy for much that was morbid: this was not the case, and we were,
+unhappily for me, too early removed from the country to a town
+residence. I can remember, however, that in very early years the
+appearances of nature did truly "haunt me like a passion;" the stars
+were to me as the gates of heaven; the rolling of the wave to the shore,
+the graceful weeds and grasses bending before the breeze as they grew by
+the wayside; the minute and delicate forms of insects; the trembling
+shadows of boughs and leaves dancing on the ground in the highest noon;
+these were to me perfect pleasures of which the imagery now in my mind
+is distinct. Wordsworth's poem of "The Daffodils," the one beginning--
+
+   "I wandered lonely as a cloud,"
+
+may appear to some unintelligible or overcharged, but to me it was a
+vivid truth, a simple fact; and if Wordsworth had been then in my hands
+I think I must have loved him. It was this intense sense of beauty which
+gave the first zest to poetry: I love it, not because it told me what I
+did not know, but because it helped me to words in which to clothe my
+own knowledge and perceptions, and reflected back the pictures
+unconsciously hoarded up in my mind. This was what made Thomson's
+"Seasons" a favourite book when I first began to read for my own
+amusement, and before I could understand one half of it; St. Pierre's
+"Indian Cottage" ("La Chaumière Indienne") was also charming, either
+because it reflected my dreams, or gave me new stuff for them in
+pictures of an external world quite different from that I
+inhabited,--palm-trees, elephants, tigers, dark-turbaned men with flowing
+draperies; and the "Arabian Nights" completed my Oriental intoxication,
+which lasted for a long time.
+
+I have said little of the impressions left by books, and of my first
+religious notions. A friend of mine had once the wise idea of collecting
+together a variety of evidence as to the impressions left by certain
+books on childish or immature minds: If carried out, it would have been
+one of the most valuable additions to educational experience ever made.
+For myself I did not much care about the books put into my hands, nor
+imbibe much information from them. I had a great taste, I am sorry to
+say, for forbidden books; yet it was not the forbidden books that did
+the mischief, except in their being read furtively. I remember
+impressions of vice and cruelty from some parts of the Old Testament and
+Goldsmith's "History of England," which I shudder to recall. Shakspeare
+was on the forbidden shelf. I had read him all through between seven
+and ten years old. He never did me any moral mischief. He never soiled
+my mind with any disordered image. What was exceptionable and coarse in
+language I passed by without attaching any meaning whatever to it. How
+it might have been if I had read Shakspeare first when I was fifteen or
+sixteen, I do not know; perhaps the occasional coarsenesses and
+obscurities might have shocked the delicacy or puzzled the intelligence
+of that sensitive and inquiring age. But at nine or ten I had no
+comprehension of what was unseemly; what might be obscure in words to
+wordy commentators, was to me lighted up by the idea I found or
+interpreted for myself--right or wrong.
+
+No; I repeat, Shakspeare--bless him!--never did me any moral mischief.
+Though the Witches in Macbeth troubled me,--though the Ghost in Hamlet
+terrified me (the picture that is,--for the spirit in Shakspeare was
+solemn and pathetic, not hideous),--though poor little Arthur cost me an
+ocean of tears,--yet much that was obscure, and all that was painful and
+revolting was merged on the whole in the vivid presence of a new,
+beautiful, vigorous, living world. The plays which I now think the most
+wonderful produced comparatively little effect on my fancy: Romeo and
+Juliet, Othello, Macbeth, struck me then less than the historical plays,
+and far less than the Midsummer Night's Dream and Cymbeline. It may be
+thought, perhaps, that Falstaff is not a character to strike a child, or
+to be understood by a child:--no; surely not. To me Falstaff was not
+witty and wicked--only irresistibly fat and funny; and I remember lying
+on the ground rolling with laughter over some of the scenes in Henry the
+Fourth,--the mock play, and the seven men in buckram. But The Tempest and
+Cymbeline were the plays I liked best and knew best.
+
+Altogether I should say that in my early years books were known to me,
+not as such, not for their general contents, but for some especial image
+or picture I had picked out of them and assimilated to my own mind and
+mixed up with my own life. For example out of Homer's Odyssey (lent to
+me by the parish clerk) I had the picture of Nasicaa and her maidens
+going down in their chariots to wash their linen: so that when the first
+time I went to the Pitti Palace, and could hardly see the pictures
+through blinding tears, I saw _that_ picture of Rubens, which all
+remember who have been at Florence, and it flashed delight and
+refreshment through those remembered childish associations. The Syrens
+and Polypheme left also vivid pictures on my fancy. The Iliad, on the
+contrary, wearied me, except the parting of Hector and Andromache, in
+which the child, scared by its father's dazzling helm and nodding
+crest, remains a vivid image in my mind from that time.
+
+The same parish clerk--a curious fellow in his way--lent me also some
+religious tracts and stories, by Hannah More. It is most certain that
+more moral mischief was done to me by some of these than by all
+Shakspeare's plays together. These so-called pious tracts first
+introduced me to a knowledge of the vices of vulgar life, and the
+excitements of a vulgar religion,--the fear of being hanged and the fear
+of hell became co-existent in my mind; and the teaching resolved itself
+into this,--that it was not by being naughty, but by being found out,
+that I was to incur the risk of both. My fairy world was better!
+
+About Religion:--I was taught religion as children used to be taught it
+in my younger days, and are taught it still in some cases, I
+believe--through the medium of creeds and catechisms. I read the Bible
+too early, and too indiscriminately, and too irreverently. Even the New
+Testament was too early placed in my hands; too early made a lesson
+book, as the custom then was. The _letter_ of the Scriptures--the
+words--were familiarised to me by sermonising and dogmatising, long
+before I could enter into the _spirit_. Meantime, happily, another
+religion was growing up in my heart, which, strangely enough, seemed to
+me quite apart from that which was taught,--which, indeed, I never in
+any way regarded as the same which I was taught when I stood up wearily
+on a Sunday to repeat the collect and say the catechism. It was quite
+another thing. Not only the taught religion and the sentiment of faith
+and adoration were never combined, but it never for years entered into
+my head to combine them; the first remained extraneous, the latter had
+gradually taken root in my life, even from the moment my mother joined
+my little hands in prayer. The histories out of the Bible (the Parables
+especially) were, however, enchanting to me, though my interpretation of
+them was in some instances the very reverse of correct or orthodox. To
+my infant conception our Lord was a being who had come down from heaven
+to make people good, and to tell them beautiful stories. And though no
+pains were spared to _indoctrinate_ me, and all my pastors and masters
+took it for granted that my ideas were quite satisfactory, nothing could
+be more confused and heterodox.
+
+
+It is a common observation that girls of lively talents are apt to grow
+pert and satirical. I fell into this danger when about ten years old.
+Sallies at the expense of certain people, ill-looking, or ill-dressed,
+or ridiculous, or foolish, had been laughed at and applauded in company,
+until, without being naturally malignant, I ran some risk of becoming
+so from sheer vanity.
+
+The fables which appeal to our higher moral sympathies may sometimes do
+as much for us as the truths of science. So thought our Saviour when he
+taught the multitude in parables.
+
+A good clergyman who lived near us, a famous Persian scholar, took it
+into his head to teach me Persian (I was then about seven years old),
+and I set to work with infinite delight and earnestness. All I learned
+was soon forgotten; but a few years afterwards, happening to stumble on
+a volume of Sir William Jones's works--his Persian grammar--it revived my
+Orientalism, and I began to study it eagerly. Among the exercises given
+was a Persian fable or poem--one of those traditions of our Lord which
+are preserved in the East. The beautiful apologue of "St. Peter and the
+Cherries," which Goethe has versified or imitated, is a well known
+example. This fable I allude to was something similar, but I have not
+met with the original these forty years, and must give it here from
+memory.
+
+"Jesus," says the story, "arrived one evening at the gates of a certain
+city, and he sent his disciples forward to prepare supper, while he
+himself, intent on doing good, walked through the streets into the
+market place.
+
+"And he saw at the corner of the market some people gathered together
+looking at an object on the ground; and he drew near to see what it
+might be. It was a dead dog, with a halter round his neck, by which he
+appeared to have been dragged through the dirt; and a viler, a more
+abject, a more unclean thing, never met the eyes of man.
+
+"And those who stood by looked on with abhorrence.
+
+"'Faugh!' said one, stopping his nose; 'it pollutes the air.' 'How
+long,' said another, 'shall this foul beast offend our sight?' 'Look at
+his torn hide,' said a third; 'one could not even cut a shoe out of it.'
+'And his ears,' said a fourth, 'all draggled and bleeding!' 'No doubt,'
+said a fifth, 'he hath been hanged for thieving!'
+
+"And Jesus heard them, and looking down compassionately on the dead
+creature, he said, 'Pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth!'
+
+"Then the people turned towards him with amazement, and said among
+themselves, 'Who is this? this must be Jesus of Nazareth, for only HE
+could find something to pity and approve even in a dead dog;' and being
+ashamed, they bowed their heads before him, and went each on his way."
+
+I can recall, at this hour, the vivid, yet softening and pathetic
+impression left on my fancy by this old Eastern story. It struck me as
+exquisitely humorous, as well as exquisitely beautiful. It gave me a
+pain in my conscience, for it seemed thenceforward so easy and so vulgar
+to say satirical things, and so much nobler to be benign and merciful,
+and I took the lesson so home, that I was in great danger of falling
+into the opposite extreme,--of seeking the beautiful even in the midst of
+the corrupt and the repulsive. Pity, a large element in my composition,
+might have easily degenerated into weakness, threatening to subvert
+hatred of evil in trying to find excuses for it; and whether my mind has
+ever completely righted itself, I am not sure.
+
+
+Educators are not always aware, I think, how acute are the perceptions,
+and how permanent the memories, of children. I remember experiments
+tried upon my temper and feelings, and how I was made aware of this, by
+their being repeated, and, in some instances, spoken of, before me.
+Music, to which I was early and peculiarly sensitive, was sometimes made
+the medium of these experiments. Discordant sounds were not only
+hateful, but made me turn white and cold, and sent the blood backward to
+my heart; and certain tunes had a curious effect, I cannot now account
+for: for though, when heard for the first time, they had little effect,
+they became intolerable by repetition; they turned up some hidden
+emotion within me too strong to be borne. It could not have been from
+association, which I believe to be a principal element in the _emotion_
+excited by music. I was too young for that. What associations could such
+a baby have had with pleasure or with pain? Or could it be possible that
+associations with some former state of existence awoke up to sound? That
+our life "hath elsewhere its beginning, and cometh from afar," is a
+belief or at least an instinct, in some minds, which music, and only
+music, seems to thrill into consciousness. At this time, when I was
+about five or six years old, Mrs. Arkwright--she was then Fanny
+Kemble--used to come to our house, and used to entrance me with her
+singing. I had a sort of adoration for her, such as an ecstatic votary
+might have for a Saint Cecilia. I trembled with pleasure when I only
+heard her step. But her voice!--it has charmed hundreds since; whom has
+it ever moved to a more genuine passion of delight than the little child
+that crept silent and tremulous to her side? And she was fond of
+me,--fond of singing to me, and, it must be confessed, fond also of
+playing these experiments on me. The music of "Paul and Virginia" was
+then in vogue, and there was one air--a very simple air--in that opera,
+which, after the first few bars, always made me stop my ears and rush
+out of the room. I became at last aware that this was sometimes done by
+particular desire to please my parents, or amuse and interest others by
+the display of such vehement emotion. My infant conscience became
+perplexed between the reality of the feeling and the exhibition of it.
+People are not always aware of the injury done to children by repeating
+before them things they say, or describing things they do: words and
+actions, spontaneous and unconscious, become thenceforth artificial and
+conscious. I can speak of the injury done to myself, between five and
+eight years old. There was some danger of my becoming a precocious
+actress,--danger of permanent mischief such as I have seen done to other
+children,--but I was saved by the recoil of resistance and resentment
+excited in my mind.
+
+This is enough. All that has been told here refers to a period between
+five and ten years old.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE INDIAN HUNTER AND THE FIRE.
+
+(FROM THE GERMAN.)
+
+
+Once upon a time the lightning from heaven fell upon a tree standing in
+the old primeval forest and kindled it, so that it flamed on high. And
+it happened that a young hunter, who had lost his path in that
+wilderness, beheld the gleam of the flames from a distance, and, forcing
+his way through the thicket, he flung himself down in rapture before the
+blazing tree.
+
+"O divine light and warmth!" he exclaimed, stretching forth his arms.
+"O blessed! O heaven-descended Fire! let me thank thee! let me adore
+thee! Giver of a new existence, quickening thro' every pulse, how lost,
+how cold, how dark have I dwelt without thee! Restorer of my life!
+remain ever near me, and, through thy benign and celestial influence,
+send love and joy to illuminate my soul!"
+
+And the Fire answered and said to him, "It is true that my birth is from
+heaven, but I am now, through mingling with earthly elements, subdued to
+earthly influences; therefore, beware how you choose me for thy friend,
+without having first studied my twofold nature. O youth! take heed lest
+what appear to thee now a blessing, may be turned, at some future time,
+to fiery pain and death." And the youth replied, "No! O no! thou blessed
+Fire, this could never be. Am I then so senseless, so inconstant, so
+thankless? O believe it not! Let me stay near thee; let me be thy
+priest, to watch and tend thee truly. Ofttimes in my wild wintry life,
+when the chill darkness encompassed me, and the ice-blast lifted my
+hair, have I dreamed of the soft summer breath,--of the sunshine that
+should light up the world within me and the world around me. But still
+that time came not. It seemed ever far, far off; and I had perished
+utterly before the light and the warmth had reached me, had it not been
+for thee!"
+
+Thus the youth poured forth his soul, and the Fire answered him in
+murmured tones, while her beams with a softer radiance played over his
+cheek and brow: "Be it so then. Yet do thou watch me constantly and
+minister to me carefully; neglect me not, leave me not to myself, lest
+the light and warmth in which thou so delightest fail thee suddenly, and
+there be no redress; and O watch thyself also! beware lest thou too
+ardently stir up my impatient fiery being! beware lest thou heap too
+much fuel upon me; once more beware, lest, instead of life, and love,
+and joy, I bring thee only death and burning pain!" And the youth
+passionately vowed to keep her behest: and in the beginning all went
+well. How often, for hours together, would he lie gazing entranced
+toward the radiant beneficent Fire, basking in her warmth, and throwing
+now a leafy spray, now a fragment of dry wood, anon a handful of odorous
+gums, as incense, upon the flame, which gracefully curling and waving
+upwards, quivering and sparkling, seemed to whisper in return divine
+oracles; or he fancied he beheld, while gazing into the glowing depths,
+marvellous shapes, fairy visions dancing and glancing along. Then he
+would sing to her songs full of love, and she, responding to the song
+she had herself inspired, sometimes replied, in softest whispers, so
+loving and so low, that even the jealous listening woods could not
+overhear; at other times she would shoot up suddenly in rapturous
+splendour, like a pillar of light, and revealed to him all the wonders
+and the beauties which lay around him, hitherto veiled from his sight.
+
+But at length, as he became accustomed to the glory and the warmth, and
+nothing more was left for the fire to bestow, or her light to reveal,
+then he began to weary and to dream again of the morning, and to long
+for the sun-beams; and it was to him as if the fire stood between him
+and the sun's light, and he reproached her therefore, and he became
+moody and ungrateful; and the fire was no longer the same, but unquiet
+and changeful, sometimes flickering unsteadily, sometimes throwing out a
+lurid glare. And when the youth, forgetful of his ministry, left the
+flame unfed and unsustained, so that ofttimes she drooped and waned, and
+crept in dying gleams along the damp ground, his heart would fail him
+with a sudden remorse, and he would cast on the fuel with such a rough
+and lavish hand that the indignant fire hissed thereat, and burst forth
+in a smoky sullen gleam,--then died away again. Then the youth, half
+sorrowful, half impatient, would remember how bright, how glowing, how
+dazzling was the flame in those former happy days, when it played over
+his chilled and wearied limbs, and shed its warmth upon his brow, and he
+desired eagerly to recall that once inspiring glow. And he stirred up
+the embers violently till they burned him, and then he grew angry, and
+then again he wearied of all the watching and the care which the subtle,
+celestial, tameless element required at his hand: and at length, one day
+in a sullen mood, he snatched up a pitcher of water from the fountain
+and poured it hastily on the yet living flame.----
+
+For one moment it arose blazing towards heaven, shed a last gleam upon
+the pale brow of the youth, and then sank down in darkness extinguished
+for ever!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+PAULINA.
+
+FROM AN UNFINISHED TALE, 1823.
+
+   And think'st thou that the fond o'erflowing love
+     I bear thee in my heart could ever be
+   Repaid by careless smiles that round thee rove,
+     And beam on others as they beam on me?
+
+   Oh, could I speak to thee! could I but tell
+   The nameless thoughts that in my bosom swell,
+   And struggle for expression! or set free
+   From the o'er mastering spirit's proud control
+   The pain that throbs in silence at my soul,
+   Perhaps--yet no--I will not sue, nor bend,
+   To win a heartless pity--Let it end!
+
+   I have been near thee still at morn, at eve;
+   Have mark'd thee in thy joy, have seen thee grieve;
+   Have seen thee gay with triumph, sick with fears,
+   Radiant in beauty, desolate in tears:
+   And communed with thy heart, till I made mine
+   The echo and the mirror unto thine.
+   And I have sat and looked into thine eyes
+   As men on earth look to the starry skies,
+   That seek to read in Heaven their human destinies!
+
+   Too quickly I read mine,--I knew it well,--
+   I judg'd not of thy heart by all it gave,
+   But all that it withheld; and I could tell
+   The very sea-mark where affection's wave
+   Would cease to flow, or flow to ebb again,
+   And knew my lavish love was pour'd in vain,
+   As fruitless streams o'er sandy deserts melt,
+   Unrecompensed, unvalued, and unfelt!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+LINES.--1840.
+
+   Take me, my mother Earth, to thy cold breast,
+   And fold me there in everlasting rest,
+         The long day is o'er!
+         I'm weary, I would sleep--
+         But deep, deep,
+         Never to waken more!
+
+   I have had joy and sorrow; I have proved
+   What life could give; have lov'd, have been belov'd;
+         I am sick, and heart sore,
+         And weary,--let me sleep!
+         But deep, deep,
+         Never to waken more!
+
+   To thy dark chambers, mother Earth, I come,
+   Prepare my dreamless bed in my last home;
+         Shut down the marble door,
+         And leave me,--let me sleep!
+         But deep, deep,
+         Never to waken more!
+
+   Now I lie down,--I close my aching eyes,
+   If on this night another morn must rise,
+         Wake me not, I implore!
+         I only ask to sleep,
+         And deep, deep,
+         Never to waken more!
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Theological Fragments.
+
+
+1.
+
+THE HERMIT AND THE MINSTREL.
+
+(A PARABLE, FROM ST. JEROME.)
+
+
+A certain holy anchorite had passed a long life in a cave of the
+Thebaid, remote from all communion with men; and eschewing, as he would
+the gates of Hell, even the very presence of a woman; and he fasted and
+prayed, and performed many and severe penances; and his whole thought
+was how he should make himself of account in the sight of God, that he
+might enter into his paradise.
+
+And having lived this life for three score and ten years he was puffed
+up with the notion of his own great virtue and sanctity, and, like to
+St. Anthony, he besought the Lord to show him what saint he should
+emulate as greater than himself, thinking perhaps, in his heart, that
+the Lord would answer that none was greater or holier. And the same
+night the angel of God appeared to him, and said, "If thou wouldst excel
+all others in virtue and sanctity, thou must strive to be like a certain
+minstrel who goes begging and singing from door to door."
+
+And the holy man was in great astonishment, and he arose and took his
+staff and ran forth in search of this minstrel; and when he had found
+him he questioned him earnestly, saying, "Tell me, I pray thee, my
+brother, what good works thou hast performed in thy lifetime, and by
+what prayers and penances thou hast made thyself acceptable to God?"
+
+And the man, greatly wondering and ashamed to be so questioned, hung
+down his head as he replied, "I beseech thee, holy father, mock me not!
+I have performed no good works, and as to praying, alas! sinner that I
+am, I am not worthy to pray. I do nothing but go about from door to door
+amusing the people with my viol and my flute."
+
+And the holy man insisted and said, "Nay, but peradventure in the midst
+of this thy evil life thou hast done some good works?" And the minstrel
+replied, "I know of nothing good that I have done." And the hermit,
+wondering more and more, said, "How hast thou become a beggar: hast thou
+spent thy substance in riotous living, like most others of thy calling?"
+and the man answering, said, "Nay; but there was a poor woman whom I
+found running hither and thither in distraction, for her husband and her
+children had been sold into slavery to pay a debt. And the woman being
+very fair, certain sons of Belial pursued after her; so I took her home
+to my hut and protected her from them, and I gave her all I possessed to
+redeem her family, and conducted her in safety to the city, where she
+was reunited to her husband and children. But what of that, my father;
+is there a man who would not have done the same?"
+
+And the hermit, hearing the minstrel speak these words, wept bitterly,
+saying, "For my part, I have not done so much good in all my life; and
+yet they call me a man of God, and thou art only a poor minstrel!"
+
+
+At Vienna, some years ago, I saw a picture by Von Schwind, which was
+conceived in the spirit of this old apologue. It exhibited the lives of
+two twin brothers diverging from the cradle. One of them, by profound
+study, becomes a most learned and skilful physician, and ministers to
+the sick; attaining to great riches and honours through his labours and
+his philanthropy. The other brother, who has no turn for study, becomes
+a poor fiddler, and spends his life in consoling, by his music,
+sufferings beyond the reach of the healing art. In the end, the two
+brothers meet at the close of life. He who had been fiddling through the
+world is sick and worn out: his brother prescribes for him, and is seen
+culling simples for his restoration, while the fiddler touches his
+instrument for the solace of his kind physician.
+
+It is in such representations that painting did once speak, and might
+again speak to the hearts of the people.
+
+Another version of the same thought, we find in De Berenger's pretty
+ballad, "_Les deux Soeurs de Charité_."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+2.
+
+When I was a child, and read Milton for the first time, his Pandemonium
+seemed to me a magnificent place. It struck me more than his Paradise,
+for _that_ was beautiful, but Pandemonium was terrible and beautiful
+too. The wondrous fabric that "from the earth rose like an exhalation
+to the sound of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,"--the splendid piles
+of architecture sweeping line beyond line, "Cornice and frieze with
+bossy sculptures graven,"--realised a certain picture of Palmyra I had
+once seen, and which had taken possession of my imagination: then the
+throne, outshining the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind,--the flood of light
+streaming from "starry lamps and blazing cressets" quite threw the
+flames of perdition into the shade. As it was said of Erskine, that he
+always spoke of Satan with respect, as of a great statesman out of
+place, a sort of leader of the Opposition; so to me the grand arch-fiend
+was a hero, like my _then_ favourite Greeks and Romans, a Cymon, a
+Curtius, a Decius, devoting himself for the good of his country;--such
+was the moral confusion created in my mind. Pandemonium inspired no
+horror; on the contrary, my fancy revelled in the artistic beauty of the
+creation. I felt that I should like to go and see it; so that, in fact,
+if Milton meant to inspire abhorrence, he has failed, even to the height
+of his sublimity. Dante has succeeded better. Those who dwell with
+complacency on the doctrine of eternal punishments must delight in the
+ferocity and the ingenuity of his grim inventions, worthy of a vengeful
+theology. Wicked latitudinarians may shudder and shiver at the images
+called up--grotesque, abominable, hideous--but then Dante himself would
+sternly rebuke them for making their human sympathies a measure for the
+judgments of God, and compassion only a veil for treason and rebellion:--
+
+  "Chi è piu scellerato di colui
+   Ch' al giudicio divin passion porta?"
+
+  "Who can show greater wickedness than he
+   Whose passion by the will of God is moved?"
+
+However, it must be said in favour of Dante's Inferno, that no one ever
+wished to go there.
+
+These be the Christian poets! but they must yield in depth of imagined
+horrors to the Christian Fathers. Tertullian (writing in the second
+century) not only sends the wicked into that dolorous region of despair,
+but makes the endless measureless torture of the doomed a part of the
+joys of the redeemed. The spectacle is to give them the same sort of
+delight as the heathen took in their games, and Pandemonium is to be as
+a vast amphitheatre for the amusement of the New Jerusalem. "How
+magnificent," exclaims this pious doctor of the Church, "will be the
+scale of that game! With what admiration, what laughter, what glee, what
+triumph, shall I behold so many mighty monarchs, who had been given out
+as received into the skies, moaning in unfathomable gloom! Persecutors
+of the Christians liquefying amid shooting spires of flame! Philosophers
+blushing before their disciples amid those ruddy fires! Then," he goes
+on, still alluding to the amphitheatre, "then is the time to hear the
+tragedians doubly pathetic, now that they bewail their own agonies! To
+observe actors released by the fierceness of their torments from all
+restraints on their gestures! Then may we admire the charioteer glowing
+all over in his car of torture, and watch the wrestlers struggling, not
+in the gymnasium but with flames!" And he asks exultingly, "What prætor,
+or consul, or questor, or priest, can purchase you by his munificence a
+game of triumph like this?"
+
+And even more terrible are the imaginations of good Bishop Taylor, who
+distils the essence from all sins, all miseries, all sorrows, all
+terrors, all plagues, and mingles them in one chalice of wrath and
+vengeance to be held to the lips and forced down the unwilling throats
+of the doomed "with violence of devils and accursed spirits!" Are these
+mere words? Did any one ever fancy or try to realise what they express?
+
+
+3.
+
+I was surprised to find this passage in one of Southey's letters:--
+
+
+"A Catholic Establishment would be the best, perhaps the only means of
+civilising Ireland. Jesuits and Benedictines, though they would not
+enlighten the savages, would humanise them and bring the country into
+cultivation. A petition that asked for this, saying plainly, 'We are
+Papists, and will be so, and this is the best thing that can be done for
+us and you too,'--such a petition I would support, considering what the
+present condition of Ireland is, how wretchedly it has always been
+governed, and how hopeless the prospect." (1805.)
+
+
+Southey was thinking of what the religious orders had done for Paraguay;
+whether he would have penned the same sentiments twenty or even ten
+years later, is more than doubtful.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+4.
+
+The old monks and penitents--dirty, ugly, emaciated old fellows they
+were!--spent their days in speaking and preaching of their own and
+others' sinfulness, yet seem to have had ever present before them a
+standard of beauty, brightness, beneficence, aspirations which nothing
+earthly could satisfy, which made their ideas of sinfulness and misery
+_comparative_, and their scale was graduated from themselves _upwards_.
+We philosophers reverse this. We teach and preach the spiritual dignity,
+the lofty capabilities of humanity. Yet, by some mistake, we seem to be
+always speculating on the amount of evil which may or can be endured,
+and on the amount of wickedness which may or must be tolerated; and our
+scale is graduated from ourselves _downwards_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+5.
+
+"So long as the ancient mythology had any separate establishment in the
+empire, the spiritual worship which our religion demands, and so
+essentially implies as only fitting for it, was preserved in its purity
+by means of the salutary contrast; but no sooner had the Church become
+completely triumphant and exclusive, and the parallel of Pagan idolatry
+totally removed, than the old constitutional appetite revived in all its
+original force, and after a short but famous struggle with the
+Iconoclasts, an image worship was established, and consecrated by bulls
+and canons, which, in whatever light it is regarded, differed in no
+respect but the names of its objects from that which had existed for so
+many ages as the chief characteristic of the religious faith of the
+Gentiles."--_H. Nelson Coleridge._
+
+I think, with submission, that it differed in sentiment; for in the
+mythology of the Pagans the worship was to _beauty_, _immortality_, and
+_power_, and in the Christian mythology--if I may call it so--of the
+Middle Ages, the worship was to _purity_, _self-denial_, and _charity_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+6.
+
+"A narrow half-enlightened reason may easily make sport of all those
+forms in which religious faith has been clothed by human imagination,
+and ask why they are retained, and why one should be preferred to
+another? It is sufficient to reply, that some forms there must be if
+Religion is to endure as a social influence, and that the forms already
+in existence are the best, if they are in unison with human sympathies,
+and express, with the breadth and vagueness which every popular
+utterance must from its nature possess, the interior convictions of the
+general mind. What would become of the most sacred truth if all the
+forms which have harboured it were destroyed at once by an unrelenting
+reason, and it were driven naked and shivering about the earth till some
+clever logician had devised a suitable abode for its reception? It is on
+these outward forms of religion that the spirit of artistic beauty
+descends and moulds them into fitting expressions of the invisible grace
+and majesty of spiritual truth."--_Prospective Review_, Feb. 24. 1845.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+7.
+
+"Have not Dying Christs taught fortitude to the virtuous sufferer? Have
+not Holy Families cherished and ennobled domestic affections? The tender
+genius of the Christian morality, even in its most degenerate state, has
+made the Mother and her Child the highest objects of affectionate
+superstition. How much has that beautiful superstition by the pencils of
+great artists contributed to humanise mankind?"--_Sir James Mackintosh_,
+writing in 1802.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+8.
+
+I remember once at Merton College Chapel (May, 1844), while Archdeacon
+Manning was preaching an eloquent sermon on the eternity of reward and
+punishment in the future life, I was looking at the row of windows
+opposite, and I saw that there were seven, all different in pattern and
+construction, yet all harmonising with each other and with the building
+of which they formed a part;--a symbol they might have been of
+differences in the Church of Christ. From the varied windows opposite I
+looked down to the faces of the congregation, all upturned to the
+preacher, with expression how different! Faith, hope, fear, in the open
+mouths and expanded eyelids of some; a sort of silent protest in the
+compressed lips and knitted brows of others; a speculative inquiry and
+interest, or merely admiring acquiescence in others; as the high or low,
+the wide or contracted head prevailed; and all this diversity in
+organisation, in habits of thought, in expression, harmonised for the
+time by one predominant object, one feeling! the hungry sheep looking up
+to be fed! When I sigh over apparent disagreement, let me think of those
+windows in Merton College Chapel, and the same light from heaven
+streaming through them all!--and of that assemblage of human faces,
+uplifted with the same aspiration one and all!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+9.
+
+I have just read the article (by Sterling, I believe), in the "Edinburgh
+Review" for July; and as it chanced, this same evening, Dr. Channing's
+"Discourse on the Church," and Captain Maconochie's "Report on Secondary
+Punishments" from Sydney, came before me.
+
+And as I laid them down, one after another, _this_ thought struck
+me:--that about the same time, in three different and far divided regions
+of the globe, three men, one military, the other an ecclesiastic, the
+third a lawyer, and belonging apparently to different religious
+denominations, all gave utterance to nearly the same sentiments in
+regard to a Christian Church. Channing says, "A church destined to
+endure through all ages, to act on all, to blend itself with new forms
+of society, and with the highest improvements of the race, cannot be
+expected to ordain an immutable mode of administration, but must leave
+its modes of worship and communion to conform themselves silently and
+gradually to the wants and progress of humanity. The rites and
+arrangements which suit one period lose their significance or efficiency
+in another; the forms which minister to the mind _now_ may fetter it
+hereafter, and must give place to its free unfolding," &c., and more to
+the same purpose.
+
+The reviewer says, "We believe that in the judgment of an enlightened
+charity, many Christian societies who are accustomed to denounce each
+others' errors, will at length come to be regarded as members in common
+of one great and comprehensive Church, in which diversity of forms are
+harmonised by an all-pervading unity of spirit." And more to the same
+purpose. The soldier and reformer says, "I believe there may be error
+because there must be imperfection in the religious faith of the best
+among us; but that the degree of this error is not vital in any
+Christian denomination seems demonstrable by the best fruits of
+faith--good works--being evidenced by all."
+
+It is pleasant to see benign spirits divided in opinion, but harmonised
+by faith, thus standing hand in hand upon a shore of peace, and looking
+out together in serene hope for the dawning of a better day, instead of
+rushing forth, each with his own farthing candle, under pretence of
+illuminating the world--every one even more intent on putting out his
+neighbour's light than on guarding his own.
+
+   (Nov. 15. 1841.)
+
+
+While the idea of possible harmony in the universal Church of Christ (by
+which I mean all who accept His teaching and are glad to bear His name)
+is gaining ground theoretically, _practically_ it seems more and more
+distant; since 1841 (when the above was written) the divergence is
+greater than ever; and, as in politics, moderate opinions appear (since
+1848) to merge on either side into the extremes of ultra conservatism
+and ultra radicalism, as fear of the past or hope of the future
+predominate, so it is in the Church. The sort of dualism which prevails
+in politics and religion might give some colour to Lord Lindsay's theory
+of "progress through antagonism."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+10.
+
+I Incline to agree with those who think it a great mistake to consider
+the present conditions or conception of Christianity as complete and
+final: like the human soul to which it was fitted by Divine love and
+wisdom, it has an immeasurable capacity of development, and "The Lord
+hath more truth yet to break forth out of his Holy Word."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+11.
+
+The nations of the present age want not _less_ religion, but _more_.
+They do not wish for less community with the Apostolic times, but for
+more; but above all, they want their wounds healed by a Christianity
+showing a life-renewing vitality allied to reason and conscience, and
+ready and able to reform the social relations of life, beginning with
+the domestic and culminating with the political. They want no negations,
+but positive reconstruction--no conventionality, but an honest _bonâ
+fide_ foundation, deep as the human mind, and a structure free and
+organic as nature. In the meantime let no national form be urged as
+identical with divine truth, let no dogmatic formula oppress conscience
+and reason, and let no corporation of priests, no set of dogmatists, sow
+discord and hatred in the sacred communities of domestic and national
+life. This view cannot be obtained without national efforts, Christian
+education, free institutions, and social reforms. Then no zeal will be
+called Christian which is not hallowed by charity,--no faith Christian
+which is not sanctioned by reason."--_Hippolitus._
+
+"Any author who in our time treats theological and ecclesiastical
+subjects frankly, and therefore with reference to the problems of the
+age, must expect to be ignored, and if that cannot be done, abused and
+reviled."
+
+The same is true of moral subjects on which strong prejudices (or shall
+I say strong _convictions_?) exist in minds not very strong.
+
+It is not perhaps of so much consequence what we believe, as it is
+important that we believe; that we do not affect to believe, and so
+belie our own souls. Belief is _not_ always in our power, but truth is.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+12.
+
+It seems an arbitrary limitation of the design of Christianity to
+assume, as Priestley does, that "it consists solely in the revelation of
+a future life confirmed by the bodily resurrection of Christ." This is
+truly a very material view of Christianity. If I were to be sure of
+annihilation I should not be less certain of the truth of Christianity
+as a system of morals exquisitely adapted for the improvement and
+happiness of man as an individual; and equally adapted to conduce to the
+amelioration and progressive happiness of mankind as a species.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+NOTES FROM VARIOUS SERMONS,
+
+MADE ON THE SPOT;
+
+SHOWING SOME THINGS IN WHICH ALL GOOD MEN ARE AGREED.
+
+
+I.
+
+_From a Roman Catholic Sermon._
+
+
+When travelling in Ireland, I stayed over one Sunday in a certain town
+in the north, and rambled out early in the morning. It was cold and wet,
+the streets empty and quiet, but the sound of voices drew me in one
+direction, down a court where was a Roman Catholic chapel. It was so
+crowded that many of the congregation stood round the door. I remarked
+among them a number of soldiers and most miserable-looking women. All
+made way for me with true national courtesy, and I entered at the moment
+the priest was finishing mass, and about to begin his sermon. There was
+no pulpit, and he stood on the step of the altar; a fine-looking man,
+with a bright face, a sonorous voice, and a _very_ strong Irish accent.
+His text was from Matt. v. 43, 44.
+
+He began by explaining what Christ really meant by the words "Love thy
+neighbour." Then drew a picture in contrast of hatred and dissension,
+commencing with dissension in families, between kindred, and between
+husband and wife. Then made a most touching appeal in behalf of children
+brought up in an atmosphere of contention where no love is. "God help
+them! God pity them! small chance for them of being either good or
+happy! for their young hearts are saddened and soured with strife, and
+they eat their bread in bitterness!"
+
+Then he preached patience to the wives, indulgence to the husbands, and
+denounced scolds and quarrelsome women in a manner that seemed to glance
+at recent events: "When ye are found in the streets vilifying and
+slandering one another, ay, and fighting and tearing each other's hair,
+do ye think ye're women? no, ye're not! ye're devils incarnate, and
+ye'll go where the devils will be fit companions for ye!" &c. (Here some
+women near me, with long black hair streaming down, fell upon their
+knees, sobbing with contrition.) He then went on, in the same strain of
+homely eloquence, to the evils of political and religious hatred, and
+quoted the text, "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live
+peaceably with all men." "I'm a Catholic," he went on, "and I believe in
+the truth of my own religion above all others. I'm convinced, by long
+study and observation, it's the best that is; but what then? Do ye think
+I hate my neighbour because he thinks differently? Do ye think I _mane_
+to force my religion down other people's throats? If I were to preach
+such uncharity to ye, my people, you wouldn't listen to me, ye oughtn't
+to listen to me. Did Jesus Christ force His religion down other people's
+throats? Not He! He endured all, He was kind to all, even to the wicked
+Jews that afterwards crucified Him." "If you say you can't love your
+neighbour because he's your enemy, and has injured you, what does that
+mane? '_ye can't! ye can't!_' as if that excuse will serve God? hav'n't
+ye done more and worse against Him? and didn't He send His only Son into
+the world to redeem ye? My good people, you're all sprung from one
+stock, all sons of Adam, all related to one another. When God created
+Eve, mightn't He have made her out of any thing, a stock or a stone, or
+out of nothing at all, at all? but He took one of Adam's ribs and
+moulded her out of that, and gave her to him, just to show that we're
+all from one original, all related together, men and women, Catholics
+and Protestants, Jews and Turks and Christians; all bone of one bone,
+and flesh of one flesh!" He then insisted and demonstrated that all the
+miseries of life, all the sorrows and mistakes of men, women, and
+children; and, in particular, all the disasters of Ireland, the bankrupt
+landlords, the religious dissensions, the fights domestic and political,
+the rich without thought for the poor, and the poor without food or
+work, all arose from nothing but the want of love. "Down on your knees,"
+he exclaimed, "and ask God's mercy and pardon; and as ye hope to find
+it, ask pardon one of another for every angry word ye have spoken, for
+every uncharitable thought that has come into your minds; and if any man
+or woman have aught against his neighbour, no matter what, let it be
+plucked out of his heart before he laves this place, let it be forgotten
+at the door of this chapel. Let me, your pastor, have no more rason to
+be ashamed of you; as if I were set over wild bastes, instead of
+Christian men and women!"
+
+After more in this fervid strain, which I cannot recollect, he gave his
+blessing in the same earnest heartfelt manner. I never saw a
+congregation more attentive, more reverent, and apparently more touched
+and edified. (1848.)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+II.
+
+_From another Roman Catholic Sermon, delivered in the private chapel of
+a Nobleman._
+
+This Discourse was preached on the festival of St. John the Baptist, and
+was a summary of his doctrine, life, and character. The text was taken
+from St. Luke, iii. 9. to 14.; in which St. John answers the question of
+the people, "what shall we do then?" by a brief exposition of their
+several duties.
+
+"What is most remarkable in all this," said the priest, "is truly that
+there is nothing very remarkable in it. The Baptist required from his
+hearers very simple and very familiar duties,--such as he was not the
+first to preach, such as had been recognised as duties by all religions;
+and do you think that those who were neither Jews nor Christians were
+therefore left without any religion? No! never did God leave any of his
+creatures without religion; they could not utter the words _right_,
+_wrong_,--_beautiful_, _hateful_, without recognising a religion written
+by God on their hearts from the beginning--a religion which existed
+before the preaching of John, before the coming of Christ, and of which
+the appearance of John and the doctrine and sacrifice of Christ, were
+but the fulfilment. For Christ came to _fulfil_ the law, not to destroy
+it. Do you ask what law? Not the law of Moses, but the universal law of
+God's moral truth written in our hearts. It is, my friends, a folly to
+talk of _natural_ religion as of something different from _revealed_
+religion.
+
+"The great proof of the truth of John's mission lies in its
+comprehensiveness: men and women, artisans and soldiers, the rich and
+the poor, the young and the old, gathered to him in the wilderness; and
+he included all in his teaching, for he was sent to all; and the best
+proof of the truth of his teaching lies in its harmony with that law
+already written in the heart and the conscience of men. When Christ came
+afterwards, he preached a doctrine more sublime, with a more
+authoritative voice; but here, also, the best proof we have of the truth
+of that divine teaching lies in this--that he had prepared from the
+beginning the heart and the conscience of man to harmonise with it."
+
+
+This was a very curious sermon; quiet, elegant, and learned, with a good
+deal of sacred and profane history introduced in illustration, which I
+am sorry I cannot remember in detail. It made, however, no appeal to
+feeling or to practice; and after listening to it, we all went in to
+luncheon and discussed our newspapers.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+III.
+
+_Fragments of a Sermon (Anglican Church)._
+
+Text, Luke iv., from the 14th to the 18th, but more especially the 18th
+verse. This sermon was extempore.
+
+
+The preacher began by observing, that our Lord's sermon at Nazareth
+established the second of two principles. By his sermon from the Mount,
+in which he had addressed the multitude in the open air, under the vault
+of the blue heaven alone, he has left to us the principle that all
+places are fitted for the service of God, and that all places may be
+sanctified by the preaching of his truth. While, by his sermon in the
+Synagogue (that which is recorded by St. Luke in this passage), he has
+established the principle, that it is right to set apart a place to
+assemble together in worship and to listen to instruction; and it is
+observable that on this occasion our Saviour taught in the synagogue,
+where there was no sacrifice, no ministry of the priests, as in the
+Temple; but where a portion of the law and the prophets might be read by
+any man; and any man, even a stranger (as he was himself), might be
+called upon to expound.
+
+Then reading impressively the whole of the narrative down to the 32nd
+verse, the preacher closed the sacred volume, and went on to this
+effect:--
+
+"There are two orders of evil in the world--Sin and Crime. Of the second,
+the world takes strict cognisance; of the first, it takes comparatively
+little; yet _that_ is worse in the eyes of God. There are two orders of
+temptation: the temptation which assails our lower nature--our appetites;
+the temptation which assails our higher nature--our intellect. The
+_first_, leading to sin in the body, is punished in the body,--the
+consequence being pain, disease, death. The _second_, leading to sins of
+the soul, as pride chiefly, uncharitableness, selfish sacrifice of
+others to our own interests or purposes,--is punished in the soul--in the
+Hell of the Spirit."
+
+(All this part of his discourse very beautiful, earnest, eloquent; but I
+regretted that he did not follow out the distinction he began with
+between _sin_ and _crime_, and the views and deductions, religious and
+moral, which that distinction leads to.)
+
+He continued to this effect: "Christ said that it was a part of his
+mission to heal the broken-hearted. What is meant by the phrase 'a
+broken heart?'" He illustrated it by the story of Eli, and by the wife
+of Phineas, both of whom died broken in heart; "and our Saviour himself
+died on the cross heart-broken by sorrow rather than by physical
+torture."--
+
+(I lost something here because I was questioning and doubting within
+myself, for I have always had the thought that Christ must have been
+_glad_ to die.)
+
+He went on:--"To heal the broken-hearted is to say to those who are beset
+by the remembrance and the misery of sin, 'My brother, the past is
+past--think not of it to thy perdition; arise and sin no more.'" (All
+this, and more to the same purpose, wonderfully beautiful! and I became
+all soul--subdued to listen.) "There are two ways of meeting the pressure
+of misery and heart-break: first, by trusting to time" (then followed a
+quotation from Schiller's "Wallenstein," in reference to grief, which
+sounded strange, and yet beautiful, from the pulpit, "Was verschmerzte
+nicht der Mensch?"--what cannot man grieve down?); "secondly, by defiance
+and resistance, setting oneself resolutely to endure. But Christ taught
+a different way from either--by _submission_--by the complete surrender of
+our whole being to the will of God.
+
+"The next part of Christ's mission was to preach deliverance to the
+captives." (Then followed a most eloquent and beautiful exposition of
+Christian freedom--of who were free; and who were not free, but properly
+spiritual captives.) "To be content within limitations is freedom; to
+desire beyond those limitations is bondage. The bird which is content
+within her cage is free; the bird which can fly from tree to tree, yet
+desires to soar like the eagle,--the eagle which can ascend to the
+mountain peak yet desires to reach the height of that sun on which his
+eye is fixed,--these are in bondage. The man who is not content within
+his sphere of duties and powers, but feels his faculties, his position,
+his profession; a perpetual trammel,--_he_ is spiritually in bondage. The
+only freedom is the freedom of the soul, content within its external
+limitations, and yet elevated spiritually far above them by the inward
+powers and impulses which lift it up to God."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+IV.
+
+_Recollections of another Church of England Sermon preached extempore._
+
+The text was taken from Matt. xii. 42.: "The Queen of the South shall
+rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it," &c.
+
+
+The preacher began by drawing that distinction between knowledge and
+wisdom which so many comprehend and allow, and so few apply. He then
+described the two parties in the great question of popular education.
+Those who would base all human progress on secular instruction, on
+knowledge in contradistinction to ignorance, as on light opposed to
+darkness;--and the mistake of those who, taking the contrary extreme,
+denounce all secular instruction imparted to the poor as dangerous, or
+contemn it as useless. The error of those who sneer at the triumph of
+intellect he termed a species of idiocy; and the error of those who do
+not see the insufficiency of knowledge, blind presumption. Then he
+contrasted worldly wisdom and spiritual; with a flow of gorgeous
+eloquence he enlarged on the picture of worldly wisdom as exhibited in
+the character of Solomon, and of intellect, and admiration for
+intellect, in the character of the Queen of Sheba. "In what consisted
+the wisdom of Solomon? He made, as the sacred history assures us, three
+thousand proverbs, mostly prudential maxims relating to conduct in life;
+the use and abuse of riches; prosperity and adversity. His acquirements
+in natural philosophy seem to have been confined to the appearances of
+material and visible things; the herbs and trees, the beasts and birds,
+the creeping things and fishes. His political wisdom consisted in
+increasing his wealth, his dominions, and the number of his subjects and
+cities. On his temple he lavished all that art had then accomplished,
+and on his own house a world of riches in gold, and silver, and precious
+things: but all was done for his own glory--nothing for the improvement
+or the happiness of his people, who were ground down by taxes, suffered
+in the midst of all his magnificence, and remained ignorant in spite of
+all his knowledge. Witness the wars, tyrannies, miseries, delusions, and
+idolatries which followed after his death."
+
+"But the Queen of Sheba came not from the uttermost parts of the earth
+to view the magnificence and wonder at the greatness of the King, she
+came to hear his wisdom. She came not to ask anything from him, but to
+prove him with hard questions. No idea of worldly gain, or selfish
+ambition was in her thoughts; she paid even for the pleasure of hearing
+his wise sayings by rare and costly gifts."
+
+"Knowledge is power; but he who worships knowledge not for its own sake,
+but for the power it brings, worships power. Knowledge is riches; but he
+who worships knowledge for the sake of all it bestows, worships riches.
+The Queen of Sheba worshipped knowledge solely for its own sake; and the
+truths which she sought from the lips of Solomon she sought for truth's
+sake. She gave, all she could give, in return, the spicy products of her
+own land, treasures of pure gold, and blessings warm from her heart. The
+man who makes a voyage to the antipodes only to behold the constellation
+of the Southern Cross, the man who sails to the North to see how the
+magnet trembles and varies, these love knowledge for its own sake, and
+are impelled by the same enthusiasm as the Queen of Sheba." He went on
+to analyse the character of Solomon, and did not treat him, I thought,
+with much reverence either as sage or prophet. He remarked that, "of the
+thousand songs of Solomon one only survives, and that both in this song
+and in his proverbs his meaning has often been mistaken; it is supposed
+to be spiritual, and is interpreted symbolically, when in fact the
+plain, obvious, material significance is the true one."
+
+He continued to this effect,--but with a power of language and
+illustration which I cannot render. "We see in Solomon's own description
+of his dominion, his glory, his wealth, his fame, what his boasted
+wisdom achieved; what it could, and what it could not do for him. What
+was the end of all his magnificence? of his worship of the beautiful? of
+his intellectual triumphs? of his political subtlety? of his ships, and
+his commerce, and his chariots, and his horses, and his fame which
+reached to the ends of the earth? All--as it is related--ended in
+feebleness, in scepticism, in disbelief of happiness, in sensualism,
+idolatry, and dotage! The whole 'Book of Ecclesiastes,' fine as it is,
+presents a picture of selfishness and epicurism. This was the King of
+the Jews! the King of those that know! (_Il maestro di color chi
+sanno._) Solomon is a type of worldly wisdom, of desire of knowledge for
+the sake of all that knowledge can give. We imitate him when we would
+base the happiness of a people on knowledge. When we have commanded the
+sun to be our painter, and the lightning to run on our errands, what
+reward have we? Not the increase of happiness, nor the increase of
+goodness; nor--what is next to both--our faith in both."
+
+"It would seem profane to contrast Solomon and Christ had not our
+Saviour himself placed that contrast distinctly before us. He
+consecrated the comparison by applying it--'Behold a greater than Solomon
+is here.' In quoting these words we do not presume to bring into
+comparison the two _natures_, but the two intellects--the two aspects of
+truth. Solomon described the external world; Christ taught the moral
+law. Solomon illustrated the aspects of nature; Christ helped the
+aspirations of the spirit. Solomon left as a legacy the saying that 'in
+much wisdom there is much grief;' and Christ preached to us the lowly
+wisdom which can consecrate grief; making it lead to the elevation of
+our whole being and to ultimate happiness. The two majesties--the two
+kings--how different! Not till we are old, and have suffered, and have
+laid our experience to heart, do we feel the immeasurable distance
+between the teaching of Christ and the teaching of Solomon!"
+
+Then returning to the Queen of Sheba, he treated the character as the
+type of the intellectual woman. He contrasted her rather favourably with
+Solomon. He described with picturesque felicity, her long and toilsome
+journey to see, to admire, the man whose wisdom had made him
+renowned;--the mixture of enthusiasm and humility which prompted her
+desire to learn, to prove the truth of what rumour had conveyed to her,
+to commune with him of all that was in her heart. And she returned to
+her own country rich in wise sayings. But did the final result of all
+this glory and knowledge reach her there? and did it shake her faith in
+him she had bowed to as the wisest of kings and men?
+
+He then contrasted the character of the Queen of Sheba with that of
+Mary, the mother of our Lord, that feminine type of holiness, of
+tenderness, of long-suffering; of sinless purity in womanhood, wifehood,
+and motherhood: and rising to more than usual eloquence and power, he
+prophesied the regeneration of all human communities through the social
+elevation, the intellect, the purity, and the devotion of Woman.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+V.
+
+_From a Sermon (apparently extempore) by a Dissenting Minister._
+
+
+The ascetics of the old times seem to have had a belief that all sin was
+in the body; that the spirit belonged to God, and the body to his
+adversary the devil; and that to contemn, ill-treat, and degrade by
+every means this frame of ours, so wonderfully, so fearfully, so
+exquisitely made, was to please the Being who made it; and who, for
+gracious ends, no doubt, rendered it capable of such admirable
+development of strength and beauty. Miserable mistake!
+
+To some, this body is as a prison from which we are to rejoice to escape
+by any permitted means: to others, it is as a palace to be luxuriously
+kept up and decorated within and without. But what says Paul (Cor. vi.
+19.),--"Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which
+is in you, which ye have from God, and which is not your own?"
+
+Surely not less than a temple is that form which the Divine Redeemer
+took upon him, and deigned, for a season, to inhabit; which he
+consecrated by his life, sanctified by his death, glorified by his
+transfiguration, hallowed and beautified by his resurrection!
+
+It is because they do not recognise _this_ body as a temple, built up by
+God's intelligence, as a fitting sanctuary for the immortal Spirit, and
+_this_ life equally with any other form of life as dedicate to Him, that
+men fall into such opposite extremes of sin:--the spiritual sin which
+contemns the body, and the sensual sin which misuses it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+When I was at Boston I made the acquaintance of Father Taylor, the
+founder of the Sailors' Home in that city. He was considered as the
+apostle of the seamen, and I was full of veneration for him as the
+enthusiastic teacher and philanthropist. But it is not of his virtues or
+his labours that I wish to speak. He struck me in another way, _as a
+poet_; he was a born poet. Until he was five-and-twenty he had never
+learned to read, and his reading afterwards was confined to such books
+as aided him in his ministry. He remained an illiterate man to the last,
+but his mind was teeming with spontaneous imagery, allusion, metaphor.
+One might almost say of him,
+
+             "He could not ope
+   His mouth, but out there flew a trope!"
+
+These images and allusions had a freshness, an originality, and
+sometimes an oddity that was quite startling, and they were generally,
+but not always, borrowed from his former profession--that of a sailor.
+
+
+One day we met him in the street. He told us in a melancholy voice that
+he had been burying a child, and alluded almost with emotion to the
+great number of infants he had buried lately. Then after a pause,
+striking his stick on the ground and looking upwards, he added, "There
+must be something wrong somewhere! there's a storm brewing, when the
+doves are all flying aloft!"
+
+
+One evening in conversation with me, he compared the English and the
+Americans to Jacob's vine, which, planted on one side of the wall, grew
+over it and hung its boughs and clusters on the other side,--"but it is
+still the same vine, nourished from the same root!"
+
+
+On one occasion when I attended his chapel, the sermon was preceded by a
+long prayer in behalf of an afflicted family, one of whose members had
+died or been lost in a whaling expedition to the South Seas. In the
+midst of much that was exquisitely pathetic and poetical, refined ears
+were startled by such a sentence as this,--"Grant, O Lord! that this rod
+of chastisement be sanctified, every twig of it, to the edification of
+their souls!"
+
+
+Then immediately afterwards he prayed that the Divine Comforter might be
+near the bereaved father "when his aged heart went forth from his bosom
+to flutter round the far southern grave of his boy!" Praying for others
+of the same family who were on the wide ocean, he exclaimed, stretching
+forth his arms, "O save them! O guard them! thou angel of the deep!"
+
+
+On another occasion, speaking of the insufficiency of the moral
+principles without religious feelings, he exclaimed, "Go heat your ovens
+with snowballs! What! shall I send you to heaven with such an icicle in
+your pocket? I might as well put a millstone round your neck to teach
+you to swim!"
+
+
+He was preaching against violence and cruelty:--"Don't talk to me," said
+he, "of the savages! a ruffian in the midst of Christendom is the savage
+of savages. He is as a man freezing in the sun's heat, groping in the
+sun's light, a straggler in paradise, an alien in heaven!"
+
+In his chapel all the principal seats in front of the pulpit and down
+the centre aisle were filled by the sailors. We ladies, and gentlemen,
+and strangers, whom curiosity had brought to hear him, were ranged on
+each side; he would on no account allow us to take the best places. On
+one occasion, as he was denouncing hypocrisy, luxury, and vanity, and
+other vices of more civilised life, he said emphatically, "I don't mean
+_you_ before me here," looking at the sailors; "I believe you are wicked
+enough, but honest fellows in some sort, for you profess less, not more,
+than you practise; but I mean to touch _starboard_ and _larboard_
+there!" stretching out both hands with the forefinger extended, and
+looking at us on either side till we quailed.
+
+
+He compared the love of God in sending Christ upon earth to that of the
+father of a seaman who sends his eldest and most beloved son, the hope
+of the family, to bring back the younger one, lost on his voyage, and
+missing when his ship returned to port.
+
+
+Alluding to the carelessness of Christians, he used the figure of a
+mariner, steering into port through a narrow dangerous channel, "false
+lights here, rocks there, shifting sand banks on one side, breakers on
+the other; and who, instead of fixing his attention to keep the head of
+his vessel right, and to obey the instructions of the pilot as he sings
+out from the wheel, throws the pilot overboard, lashes down the helm,
+and walks the deck whistling, with his hands in the pockets of his
+jacket." Here, suiting the action to the word, he put on a true
+sailor-like look of defiant jollity;--changed in a moment to an
+expression of horror as he added, "See! See! she drifts to destruction!"
+
+
+One Sunday he attempted to give to his sailor congregation an idea of
+Redemption. He began with an eloquent description of a terrific storm at
+sea, rising to fury through all its gradations; then, amid the waves, a
+vessel is seen labouring in distress and driving on a lee shore. The
+masts bend and break, and go overboard; the sails are rent, the helm
+unshipped, they spring a leak! the vessel begins to fill, the water
+gains on them; she sinks deeper, deeper, _deeper! deeper!_ He bent over
+the pulpit repeating the last words again and again; his voice became
+low and hollow. The faces of the sailors as they gazed up at him with
+their mouths wide open, and their eyes fixed, I shall never forget.
+Suddenly stopping, and looking to the farthest end of the chapel as into
+space, he exclaimed, with a piercing cry of exultation, "A life boat! a
+life boat!" Then looking down upon his congregation, most of whom had
+sprung to their feet in an ecstasy of suspense, he said in a deep
+impressive tone, and extending his arms, "_Christ is that life boat!_"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+VII.
+
+RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
+
+
+"It is true, that science has not made Nature as expressive of God in
+the first instance, or to the beginner in religion, as it was in earlier
+times. Science reveals a rigid, immutable order; and this to common
+minds looks much like self-subsistence, and does not manifest
+intelligence, which is full of life, variety, and progressive operation.
+Men, in the days of their ignorance, saw an immediate Divinity
+accomplishing an immediate purpose, or expressing an immediate feeling,
+in every sudden, striking change of nature--in a storm, the flight of a
+bird, &c.; and Nature, thus interpreted, became the sign of a present,
+deeply interested Deity. Science undoubtedly brings vast aids, but it is
+to _prepared_ minds, to those who have begun in another school. The
+greatest aid it yields consists in the revelation it makes of the
+Infinite. It aids us not so much by showing us marks of design in this
+or that particular thing as by showing the _Infinite_ in the _finite_.
+Science does this office when it unfolds to us the unity of the
+universe, which thus becomes the sign, the efflux of one unbounded
+intelligence, when it reveals to us in every work of Nature infinite
+connections, the influences of all-pervading laws--when it shows us in
+each created thing unfathomable, unsearchable depths, to which our
+intelligence is altogether unequal. Thus Nature explored by science is a
+witness of the Infinite. It is also a witness to the same truth by its
+beauty; for what is so undefined, so mysterious as beauty?"--_Dr.
+Channing._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+Literature and Art.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Notes from Books.
+
+
+1.
+
+"A great advantage is derived from the occasional practice of reading
+together, for each person selects different beauties and starts
+different objections: while the same passage perhaps awakens in each
+mind a different train of associated ideas, or raises different images
+for the purposes of illustration."--_Francis Horner._
+
+
+2.
+
+"C'est ainsi que je poursuis la communication de quelque esprit fameux,
+non afin qu'il m'enseigne mais afin que je le connaisse, et que le
+connaissant, s'il le faut, je l'imite."--_Montaigne._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+DR. ARNOLD.
+
+3.
+
+I sat up till half-past two this morning reading Dr. Arnold's "Life and
+Letters," and have my soul full of him to-day.
+
+On the whole I cannot say that the perusal of this admirable book has
+changed any notion in my mind, or added greatly to my stock of ideas.
+There was no height of inspiration, or eloquence, or power, to which I
+looked _up_; no profound depth of thought or feeling into which I looked
+_down_; no _new_ lights; no _new_ guides; no absolutely _new_ aspects of
+things human or spiritual.
+
+On the other hand, I never read a book of the kind with a more
+harmonious sense of pleasure and _approbation_,--if the word be not from
+me presumptuous. While I read page after page, the mind which was
+unfolded before me seemed to me a brother's mind--the spirit, a kindred
+spirit. It was the improved, the elevated, the enlarged, the enriched,
+the every-way superior reflection of my own intelligence, but it was
+certainly _that_. I felt it so from beginning to end. Exactly the
+reverse was the feeling with which I laid down the Life and Letters of
+Southey. I was instructed, amused, interested; I profited and admired;
+but with the _man_ Southey I had no sympathies: my mind stood off from
+his; the poetical intellect attracted, the material of the character
+repelled me. I liked the embroidery, but the texture was disagreeable,
+repugnant. Now with regard to Dr. Arnold, my entire sympathy with the
+character, with the _material_ of the character, did not extend to all
+its manifestations. I liked the texture better than the
+embroidery;--perhaps, because of my feminine organisation.
+
+Nor did my admiration of the intellect extend to the acceptance of _all_
+the opinions which emanated from it; perhaps because from the manner
+these were enunciated, or merely touched upon (in letters chiefly), I
+did not comprehend clearly the reasoning on which they may have been
+founded. Perhaps, if I had done so, I must have respected them more,
+perhaps have been convinced by them; so large, so candid, so rich in
+knowledge, and apparently so logical, was the mind which admitted them.
+
+And yet this excellent, admirable man, seems to have _feared_ God, in
+the common-place sense of the word fear. He considered the Jews as out
+of the pale of equality; he was against their political emancipation
+from a hatred of Judaism. He subscribed to the Athanasian Creed, which
+stuck even in George the Third's orthodox throat. He believed in what
+Coleridge could not admit, in the existence of the spirit of evil as a
+person. He had an idea that the Church _of God_ may be destroyed by an
+Antichrist; he speaks of such a consummation as possible, as probable,
+as impending; as if any institution really from God could be destroyed
+by an adverse power!--and he thought that a lawyer could not be a
+Christian.
+
+
+4.
+
+Certain passages filled me with astonishment as coming from a churchman,
+particularly what he says of the sacraments (vol. ii. pp. 75. 113.); and
+in another place, where he speaks of "the _pestilent_ distinction
+between clergy and laity;" and where he says, "I hold that one form of
+Church government is exactly as much according to Christ's will as
+another." And in another place he speaks of the Anglican Church (with
+reference to Henry VIII. as its father, and Elizabeth as its
+foster-mother), as "the child of regal and aristocratical selfishness
+and unprincipled tyranny, who has never dared to speak boldly to the
+great, but has contented herself with lecturing the poor;" but he forgot
+at the moment the trial of the bishops in James's time, and their noble
+stand against regal authority.
+
+
+5.
+
+With regard to conservatism (vol. ii. pp. 19. 62.), he seems to mean--as
+I understand the whole passage,--that it is a good _instinct_ but a bad
+_principle_. Yet as a principle is it, as he says, "always wrong?"
+Though as the adversary of progress, it must be always wrong, yet as the
+adversary of change it _may_ be sometimes right.
+
+
+6.
+
+He remarks that most of those who are above sectarianism are in general
+indifferent to Christianity, while almost all who profess to value
+Christianity seem, when they are brought to the test, to care only for
+their own sect. "Now," he adds, "it is manifest to me, that all our
+education must be Christian, and not be sectarian." Yet the whole aim of
+education up to this time has been, in this country, eminently
+sectarian, and every statesman who has attempted to place it on a
+broader basis has been either wrecked or stranded.
+
+"All sects," he says in another place, "have had among them marks of
+Christ's Catholic Church in the graces of his Spirit and the confession
+of his name," and he seems to wish that some one would compile a book
+showing side by side what professors of all sects have done for the good
+of Christ's Church,--the martyrdoms, the missionary labours of
+Catholics, Protestants, Arians, &c.; "a grand field," he calls it,--and
+so it were; but it lies fallow up to this time.
+
+
+7.
+
+"the philosophy of medicine, I imagine, is at zero; our practice is
+empirical, and seems hardly more than a course of guessing, more or less
+happy." In another place (vol. ii. p. 72.), he says, "yet I honour
+medicine as the most beneficent of all professions."
+
+
+8.
+
+He says (vol. ii. p. 42.), "Narrow-mindedness tends to wickedness,
+because it does not extend its watchfulness to every part of our moral
+nature." "Thus, a man may have one or more virtues, such as are
+according to his favourite ideas, in great perfection; and still be
+nothing, because these ideas are his idols, and, worshipping them with
+all his heart, there is a portion of his heart, more or less
+considerable, left without its proper object, guide, and nourishment;
+and so this portion is left to the dominion of evil," &c.
+
+(One might ask _how_, if a man worship these ideas with _all_ his heart,
+a portion could be left? but the sense is so excellent, I cannot quarrel
+with a slight inaccuracy in the expression. I never quite understood
+before why it is difficult to subscribe to the truth of the phrase "He
+is a good but a narrow-minded man," but _felt_ the incompatibility.)
+
+
+9.
+
+He says "the word _useful_ implies the idea of good robbed of its
+nobleness." Is this true? the _useful_ is the _good_ applied to
+practical purposes; it need not, therefore, be less noble. The nobleness
+lies in the spirit in which it is so applied.
+
+
+10.
+
+Benthamism (what _is_ it?), Puritanism, Judaism, how he hates them! I
+suppose, because he _fears_ God and _fears_ for the Church of God.
+Hatred of all kinds seems to originate in fear.
+
+
+11.
+
+What he says of conscience, very remarkable!
+
+"Men get embarrassed by the common cases of a misguided conscience: but
+a compass may be out of order as well as a conscience; and you can trace
+the deranging influence on the latter quite as surely as on the former.
+The needle may point due south if you hold a powerful magnet in that
+direction; still the compass, generally speaking, is a true and sure
+guide," &c.; and then he adds, "he who believes his conscience to be
+God's law, by obeying it obeys God."
+
+I think there would be much to say about all this passage relating to
+conscience, nor am I sure that I quite understand it. Derangement of the
+intellect is madness; is not derangement of the conscience also madness?
+might it not be induced, as we bring on a morbid state of the other
+faculties, by over use and abuse? by giving it more than its due share
+of power in the commonwealth of the mind? It should preside, not
+tyrannise; rule, not exercise a petty cramping despotism. A healthy
+courageous conscience gives to the powers, instincts, impulses, fair
+play; and having once settled the order of government with a strong
+hand, is not always meddling though always watchful.
+
+Then again, how is conscience "God's law?" Conscience is not the law,
+but the interpreter of the law; it does not teach the difference between
+right and wrong, it only impels us to do what we believe to be right,
+and smites us when we _think_ we have been wrong. How is it that many
+have done wrong, and every day do wrong for conscience' sake?--and does
+that sanctify the wrong in the eyes of God, as well as in those of John
+Huss?[1]
+
+
+12.
+
+"Prayer," he says, "and kindly intercourse with the poor, are the two
+great safeguards of spiritual life--its more than food and raiment."
+
+True; but there is something higher than this fed and clothed spiritual
+life; something more difficult, yet less conscious.
+
+
+13.
+
+In allusion to Coleridge, he says very truly, that the power of
+contemplation becomes diseased and perverted when it is the main
+employment of life. But to the same great intellect he does beautiful
+justice in another passage. "Coleridge seemed to me to love truth
+really, and, therefore, truth presented herself to him, not negatively,
+as she does to many minds, who can see that the objections against her
+are unfounded, and therefore that she is to be received; but she filled
+him, as it were, heart and mind, imbuing him with her very self, so that
+all his being comprehended her fully, and loved her ardently; and that
+seems to me to be true wisdom."
+
+
+14.
+
+Very fine is a passage wherein he speaks against meeting what is wrong
+and bad with negatives, with merely proving the wrong to be wrong, and
+the false to be false, without substituting for either the positively
+good and true.
+
+
+15.
+
+He contrasts as the two forms of the present danger to the Church and to
+society, the prevalent epicurean atheism, and the lying and formal
+spirit of priestcraft. He seems to have had an impression that the
+Church of God may be "utterly destroyed"(?), or, he asks, "must we look
+forward for centuries to come to the mere alternations of infidelity and
+superstition, scepticism, and Newmanism?" It is very curious to see two
+such men as Arnold and Carlyle both overwhelmed with a terror of the
+magnitude of the mischiefs they see impending over us. They are
+oppressed with the anticipation of evil as with a sense of personal
+calamity. Something alike, perhaps, in the temperaments of these two
+extraordinary men;--large conscientiousness, large destructiveness, and
+small hope: there was great mutual sympathy and admiration.
+
+
+16.
+
+Very admirable what he says in favour of comprehensive reading, against
+exclusive reading in one line of study. He says, "Preserve proportion in
+your reading, keep your view of men and things extensive, and depend
+upon it a mixed knowledge is not a superficial one; as far as it goes
+the views that it gives are true; but he who reads deeply in one class
+of writers only, gets views which are almost sure to be perverted, and
+which are not only _narrow but false_."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+17.
+
+All his descriptions of natural scenery and beauty show his intense
+sensibility to them, but nowhere is there a trace of the love or the
+comprehension of art, as the reflection from the mind of man of the
+nature and the beauty he so loved. Thus, after dwelling on a scene of
+exquisite natural beauty, he says, "Much more beautiful, because made
+truly after God's own image, are the forms and colours of kind, and
+wise, and holy thoughts, words, and actions;" that is to say--although he
+knew not or made not the application--ART, in the high sense of the word,
+for that is the embodying in beautiful hues and forms, what is kind,
+wise, and holy; in one word--_good_. In fact, he says himself, art,
+physical science, and natural history, were not included within the
+reach of his mind; the first for want of taste, the second for want of
+time, and the third for want of inclination.
+
+
+18.
+
+He says, "The whole subject of the brute creation is to me one of such
+painful mystery, that I dare not approach it." This is very striking
+from such a man. How deep, consciously or unconsciously, does this
+feeling lie in many minds!
+
+Bayle had already termed the acts, motives, and feelings of the lower
+order of animals, "un des plus profonds abîmes sur quoi notre raison
+peut s'exerciser."
+
+There is nothing, as I have sometimes thought, in which men so blindly
+sin as in their appreciation and treatment of the whole lower order of
+creatures. It is affirmed that love and mercy towards animals are not
+inculcated by any direct precept of Christianity, but surely they are
+included in its spirit; yet it has been remarked that cruelty towards
+animals is far more common in Western Christendom than in the East. With
+the Mahometan and Brahminical races humanity to animals, and the
+sacredness of life in all its forms, is much more of a religious
+principle than among ourselves.
+
+Bacon, in his "Advancement of Learning," does not think it beneath his
+philosophy to point out as a part of human morals, and a condition of
+human improvement, justice and mercy to the lower animals--"the extension
+of a noble and excellent principle of compassion to the creatures
+subject to man." "The Turks," he says, "though a cruel and sanguinary
+nation both in descent and discipline, give alms to brutes, and suffer
+them not to be tortured."
+
+It should seem as if the primitive Christians, by laying so much stress
+upon a future life in contradistinction to this life, and placing the
+lower creatures out of the pale of hope, placed them at the same time
+out of the pale of sympathy, and thus laid the foundation for this utter
+disregard of animals in the light of our fellow creatures. The
+definition of virtue among the early Christians was the same as
+Paley's--that it was good performed for the sake of ensuring everlasting
+happiness--which of course excluded all the so-called brute creatures.
+Kind, loving, submissive, conscientious, much enduring, we know them to
+be; but because we deprive them of all stake in the future, because they
+have no selfish calculated aim, these are not virtues; yet if we say "a
+_vicious_ horse," why not say a _virtuous_ horse?
+
+The following passage, bearing curiously enough on the most abstruse
+part of the question, I found in Hallam's Literature of the Middle
+Ages:--"Few," he says, "at present, who believe in the immateriality of
+the human soul, would deny the same to an elephant; but it must be owned
+that the discoveries of zoology have pushed this to consequences which
+some might not readily adopt. The spiritual being of a sponge revolts a
+little our prejudices; yet there is no resting-place, and we must admit
+this, or be content to sink ourselves into a mass of medullary fibre.
+Brutes have been as slowly emancipated in philosophy as some classes of
+mankind have been in civil polity; their souls, we see, were almost
+universally disputed to them at the end of the seventeenth century, even
+by those who did not absolutely bring them down to machinery. Even
+within the recollection of many, it was common to deny them any kind of
+reasoning faculty, and to solve their most sagacious actions by the
+vague word instinct. We have come of late years to think better of our
+humble companions; and, as usual in similar cases, the preponderant bias
+seems rather too much of a levelling character."
+
+When natural philosophers speak of "the higher reason and more limited
+instincts of man," as compared with animals, do they mean savage man or
+cultivated man? In the savage man the instincts have a power, a range, a
+certitude, like those of animals. As the mental faculties become
+expanded and refined the instincts become subordinate. In tame animals
+are the instincts as strong as in wild animals? Can we not, by a process
+of training, substitute an entirely different set of motives and habits?
+
+Why, in managing animals, do men in general make brutes of themselves to
+address what is most _brute_ in the lower creature, as if it had not
+been demonstrated that in using our higher faculties, our reason and
+benevolence, we develop sympathetically higher powers in _them_, and in
+subduing them through what is best within us, raise them and bring them
+nearer to ourselves?
+
+In general the more we can gather of facts, the nearer we are to the
+elucidation of theoretic truth. But with regard to animals, the
+multiplication of facts only increases our difficulties and puts us to
+confusion.
+
+"Can we otherwise explain animal instincts than by supposing that the
+Deity himself is virtually the active and present moving principle
+within them? If we deny them _soul_, we must admit that they have some
+spirit direct from God, what we call _unerring_ instinct, which holds
+the place of it." This is the opinion which Newton adopts. Then are we
+to infer that the reason of man removes him further from God than the
+animals, since we cannot offend God in our instincts, only in our
+reason? and that the superiority of the human animal lies in the power
+of sinning? Terrible power! terrible privilege! out of which we deduce
+the law of progress and the necessity for a future life.
+
+The following passage bearing on the subject is from Bentham:--
+
+"The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those
+rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand
+of tyranny. It may come one day to be recognised that the number of
+legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the _os sacrum_,
+are reasons insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the caprice
+of a tormentor. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line?
+is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But
+a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational as well
+as a more conversable animal than an infant of a day, a week, or even a
+month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The
+question is not, 'can they reason?' nor 'can they speak?' but 'can they
+suffer?'"
+
+I do not remember ever to have heard the kind and just treatment of
+animals enforced upon Christian principles or made the subject of a
+sermon.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+19.
+
+Once, when I was at Vienna, there was a dread of hydrophobia, and orders
+were given to massacre all the dogs which were found unclaimed or
+uncollared in the city or suburbs. Men were employed for this purpose,
+and they generally carried a short heavy stick, which they flung at the
+poor proscribed animal with such certain aim as either to kill or maim
+it mortally at one blow. It happened one day that, close to the edge of
+the river, near the Ferdinand's-Brücke, one of these men flung his stick
+at a wretched dog, but with such bad aim that it fell into the river.
+The poor animal, following his instinct or his teaching, immediately
+plunged in, redeemed the stick, and laid it down at the feet of its
+owner, who, snatching it up, dashed out the creature's brains.
+
+I wonder what the Athenians would have done to such a man? they who
+banished the judge of the Areopagus because he flung away the bird which
+had sought shelter in his bosom?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+20.
+
+I return to Dr. Arnold. He laments the neglect of our cathedrals and the
+absurd confusion in so many men's minds "between what is really Popery,
+and what is but wisdom and beauty adopted by the Roman Catholics and
+neglected by us."
+
+
+21.
+
+He says, "Then, only, can opportunities of evil be taken from us, when
+we lose also all opportunity of doing or becoming good." An obvious,
+even common place thought, well and tersely expressed. The inextricable
+co-relation and apparent antagonism of good and evil were never more
+strongly put.
+
+
+22.
+
+The defeat of Varus by the Germans, and the defeat of the moors by
+Charles Martel, he ranked as the two most important battles in the
+history of the world. I see why. The first, because it decided whether
+the north of Europe was to be completely Latinised; the second, because
+it decided whether all Europe was to be completely Mahomedanised.
+
+
+23.
+
+"How can he who labours hard for his daily bread--hardly and with
+doubtful success--be made wise and good, and therefore how can he be made
+happy? This question undoubtedly the Church was meant to solve; for
+Christ's kingdom was to undo the evil of Adam's sin; but the Church has
+not solved it nor attempted to do so, and no one else has gone about it
+rightly. How shall the poor man find time to be educated?"
+
+This question, which "the Church has not yet solved," men have now set
+their wits to solve for themselves.
+
+
+24.
+
+When in Italy he writes:--"It is almost awful to look at the beauty which
+surrounds me and then think of moral evil. It seems as if heaven and
+hell, instead of being separated by a great gulf from us and from each
+other, were close at hand and on each other's confines."
+
+"Might but the sense of moral evil be as strong in me as is my delight
+in external beauty!"
+
+A prayer I echo, Amen! if by the _sense_ he mean the abhorrence of it;
+otherwise, to be perpetually haunted with the perception of moral evil
+were dreadful; yet, on the other hand, I am half ashamed sometimes of a
+conscious shrinking within myself from the sense of moral evil, merely
+as I should shrink from external filth and deformity, as hateful to
+perception and recollection, rather than as hateful to God and
+subversive of goodness.
+
+
+25.
+
+Here is a very striking passage. He says, "A great school is very
+trying; it never can present images of rest and peace; and when the
+spring and activity of youth are altogether unsanctified by anything
+pure and elevated in its desires, it becomes a spectacle that is
+dizzying and almost more morally distressing than the shouts and gambols
+of a set of lunatics. It is very startling to see so much of sin
+combined with so little of sorrow. In a parish, amongst the poor,
+whatever of sin exists there is sure also to be enough of suffering:
+poverty, sickness, and old age are mighty tamers and chastisers. But,
+with boys of the richer classes, one sees nothing but plenty, health,
+and youth; and these are really awful to behold, when one must feel that
+they are unblessed. On the other hand, few things are more beautiful
+than when one does see all holy and noble thoughts and principles, not
+the forced growth of pain, or infirmity, or privation, but springing up
+as by God's immediate planting, in a sort of garden of all that is fresh
+and beautiful; full of so much hope for this world as well as for
+heaven."
+
+To this testimony of a schoolmaster let us add the testimony of a
+schoolboy. De Quincey thus describes in himself the transition from
+boyhood to manhood: "Then first and suddenly were brought powerfully
+before me the change which was worked in the aspects of society by the
+presence of woman; woman, pure, thoughtful, noble, coming before me as
+Pandora crowned with perfections. Right over against this ennobling
+spectacle, with equal suddenness, I placed the odious spectacle of
+schoolboy society--no matter in what region of the earth,--schoolboy
+society, so frivolous in the matter of its disputes, often so brutal in
+the manner; so childish and yet so remote from simplicity; so foolishly
+careless, and yet so revoltingly selfish; dedicated ostensibly to
+learning, and yet beyond any section of human beings so conspicuously
+ignorant."
+
+There is a reverse to this picture, as I hope and believe. If I have met
+with those who looked back on their school-days with horror, as having
+first contaminated them with "evil communication," I have met with
+others whose remembrances were all of sunshine, of early friendships, of
+joyous sports.
+
+Nor do I think that a large school composed wholly of girls is in any
+respect better. In the low languid tone of mind, the petulant tempers,
+the small spitefulnesses, the cowardly concealments, the compressed or
+ill-directed energies, the precocious vanities and affectations, many
+such congregations of _Femmelettes_ would form a worthy pendant to the
+picture of boyish turbulence and vulgarity drawn by De Quincey.
+
+I am convinced from my own recollections, and from all I have learned
+from experienced teachers in large schools, that one of the most fatal
+mistakes in the training of children has been the too early separation
+of the sexes. I say, _has been_, because I find that everywhere this
+most dangerous prejudice has been giving way before the light of truth
+and a more general acquaintance with that primal law of nature, which
+ought to teach us that the more we can assimilate on a large scale the
+public to the domestic training, the better for all. There exists still,
+the impression--in the higher classes especially--that in early education,
+the mixture of the two sexes would tend to make the girls masculine and
+the boys effeminate, but experience shows us that it is all the other
+way. Boys learn a manly and protecting tenderness, and the girls become
+at once more feminine and more truthful. Where this association has
+begun early enough, that is, before five years old, and has been
+continued till about ten or twelve, it has uniformly worked well; on
+this point the evidence is unanimous and decisive. So long ago as 1812,
+Francis Horner, in describing a school he visited at Enmore, near
+Bridgewater, speaks with approbation of the boys and the girls standing
+up together in the same class: it is the first mention, I find, of this
+innovation on the old collegiate, or charity-school plan,--itself a
+continuation of the monkish discipline. He says, "I liked much the
+placing the boys and girls together at an early age; it gave the boys a
+new spur to emulation." When I have seen a class of girls stand up
+together, there has been a sort of empty tittering, a vacancy in the
+faces, an inertness, which made it, as I thought, very up-hill work for
+the teacher; so when it was a class of boys, there has been often a
+sluggishness--a tendency to ruffian tricks--requiring perpetual effort on
+the part of the master. In teaching a class of boys and girls,
+accustomed to stand up together, there is little or nothing of this.
+They are brighter, readier, better behaved; there is a kind of mutual
+influence working for good; and if there be emulation, it is not mingled
+with envy or jealousy. Mischief, such as might be apprehended, is in
+this case far less likely to arise than where boys and girls, habitually
+separated from infancy, are first thrown together, just at the age when
+the feelings are first awakened and the association has all the
+excitement of novelty. A very intelligent schoolmaster assured me that
+he had had more trouble with a class of fifty boys, than with a school
+of three hundred boys and girls together (in the midst of whom I found
+him); and that there were no inconveniences resulting which a wise and
+careful and efficient superintendence could not control. "There is,"
+said he, "not only more emulation, more quickness of brain, but
+altogether a superior healthiness of tone, body and mind, where the boys
+and girls are trained together till about ten years old; and it extends
+into their after life:--I should say because it is in accordance with the
+laws of God in forming us with mutual sympathies, moral and
+intellectual, and mutual dependence for help from the very beginning of
+life."
+
+What is curious enough, I find many people--fathers, mothers,
+teachers,--who are agreed that in the schools for the lower classes, the
+two sexes may be safely and advantageously associated, yet have a sort
+of horror of the idea of such an innovation in schools for the higher
+classes. One would like to know the reason for such a distinction,
+instead of being encountered, as is usual, by a sneer or a vile
+innuendo.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+NIEBUHR.
+
+LIFE AND LETTERS, 1852.
+
+26.
+
+In a letter to a young student in philology there are noble passages in
+which I truly sympathise. He says, among other things: "I wish you had
+less pleasure in satires, not excepting those of Horace. Turn to the
+works which elevate the heart, in which you contemplate great men and
+great events, and live in a higher world. Turn away from those which
+represent the mean and contemptible side of ordinary circumstances and
+degenerate days: they are not suitable for the young, who in ancient
+times would not have been suffered to have them in their hands. Homer,
+Æschylus, Sophocles, Pindar,--these are the poets for youth." And again:
+"Do not read the ancient authors in order to make æsthetic reflections
+on them, but in order to drink in their spirit and to fill your soul
+with their thoughts; and in order to gain that by reading which you
+would have gained by reverently listening to the discourses of great
+men."
+
+We should turn to works of art with the same feeling.
+
+On the whole, all my own educational experience has shown me the
+dangerous--in some cases fatal--effects on the childish intellect, where
+precocious criticism was encouraged, and where caricatures and ugly
+disproportioned figures, expressing vile or ridiculous emotions, were
+placed before the eyes of children, as a means of amusement.
+
+If I were a legislator I would forbid travesties and ridiculous
+burlesques of Shakspeare's finest and most serious dramas to be acted
+in our theatres. That this has been done and recently (as in the case of
+the Merchant of Venice) seems to me a national disgrace.
+
+
+27.
+
+It is strange, confounding, to hear Niebuhr speak thus of Goethe:--
+
+"I am inclined to think that Goethe is utterly destitute of
+susceptibility to impressions from the fine arts."(!!) He afterwards
+does more justice to Goethe--certainly one of the profoundest critics in
+art who ever lived; although I am inclined to think that his was an
+educated perception rather than a natural sensibility. Niebuhr's
+criticism on Goethe's Italian travels,--on Goethe's want of sympathy with
+the people,--his regarding the whole country and nation simply as a sort
+of bazaar of art and antiquities, an exhibition of beauty and a
+recreation for himself: his habit of surveying all moral and
+intellectual greatness, all that speaks to the heart, with a kind of
+patronising superiority, as if created for his use,--and finding
+amusement in the folly, degeneracy, and corruption of the people;--all
+this appears to me admirable, and so far I had strong sympathy with
+Niebuhr; for I well remember that in reading Goethe's "Italianische
+Reise," I had the same perception of the artless and the superficial in
+point of feeling, in the midst of so much that was fine and valuable in
+criticism. It is well to be artistic in art, but not to walk about the
+world _en artiste_, studying humanity, and the deepest human interests,
+as if they were _art_.
+
+Niebuhr afterwards says, in speaking of Rome, "I am sickened here of
+art, as I should be of sweetmeats instead of bread." So it _must_ be
+where art is separated wholly from morals.
+
+
+28.
+
+He speaks of the "wretched superstition," and the "utter incapacity for
+piety" in the people of the Roman States.
+
+Superstition and the want of piety go together; and the combination is
+not peculiar to the Italians, nor to the Roman Catholic faith.
+
+
+29.
+
+In speaking of the education of his son, he deprecates the learning by
+rote of hymns. "To a happy child, hymns deploring the misery of human
+life are without meaning." (And worse.) "So likewise to a good child are
+those expressing self-accusation and contrition." (He might have added,
+and self-applause.)
+
+I am quite sure, from my own experience of children who have been
+allowed to learn penitential psalms and hymns, that they think of
+wickedness as a sort of thing which gives them self-importance.
+
+
+30.
+
+"Only what the mind takes in willingly can it assimilate with itself,
+and make its own, part of its life."
+
+A truism of the greatest value in education; but who thinks of it when
+cramming children's minds with all sorts of distasteful heterogeneous
+things?
+
+
+31.
+
+"When reflection has become too one-sided and too domineering over a
+deeply feeling heart, it is apt to lead us into errors in our treatment
+of others."
+
+And all that follows--very wise! for the want of this reflection leaves
+us stranded and wrecked through feeling and perception merely.
+
+
+32.
+
+Very curious and interesting, as a trait of character and feeling, is
+the passage in which he represents himself, in the dangerous confinement
+of his second wife, as praying to his first wife for succour. "In my
+terrible anxiety," he says, "I prayed most earnestly, and entreated my
+Milly, too, for help. I comforted Gretchen by telling her that Milly
+would send help. When she was at the worst, she sighed out, 'Ah, cannot
+your Amelia send me a blessing?'"
+
+This is curious from a Protestant and a philosopher. It shows that there
+may be something nearly allied to our common nature in the Roman
+Catholic invocation to the saints, and to the souls of the dead.
+
+
+33.
+
+Niebuhr, speaking of a lady (Madame von der Recke, I think,--the "Elise"
+of Goethe) who had patronised him, says, "I will receive roses and
+myrtles from female hands, but no laurels."
+
+This makes one smile; for most of the laurels which Niebuhr will receive
+in this country will be through female hands--through the admirable
+translation and arrangement of his life and letters by Susanna
+Winkworth.
+
+
+34.
+
+The following I read with cordial agreement:--"While I am ready to adopt
+any well-grounded opinion" (regarding, I suppose, mere facts, or
+speculations as to things), "my inmost soul revolts against receiving
+the judgment of others respecting persons; and whenever I have done so I
+have bitterly repented of it."
+
+
+35.
+
+He says, "I cannot worship the abstraction of Virtue. She only charms me
+when she addresses herself to my heart, and speaks thus the love from
+which she springs. I really love nothing but what actually exists."
+
+What _does_ actually exist to us but that which we believe in? and where
+we strongly love do we not believe sometimes in the _unreal_? is it not
+_then_ the existing and the actual to us?
+
+
+36.
+
+"A faculty of a quite peculiar kind, and for which we have no word, is
+the recognition of the incomprehensible. It is something which
+distinguishes the seer from the ordinary learned man."
+
+But in religion this is _faith_. Does Niebuhr admit this kind of faith,
+"the recognition of the incomprehensible," in philosophy, and not in
+religion? for he often complains of the want in himself of any faith but
+an historic faith.
+
+
+37.
+
+"In times of good fortune it is easy to appear great--nay, even to act
+greatly; but in misfortune very difficult. The greatest man will commit
+blunders in misfortune, because the want of proportion between his means
+and his ends progressively increases, and his inward strength is
+exhausted in fruitless efforts."
+
+This is true; but under all extremes of good or evil fortune we are apt
+to commit mistakes, because the tide of the mind does not flow equally,
+but rushes along impetuously in a flood, or brokenly and distractedly in
+a rocky channel, where its strength is exhausted in conflict and pain.
+The extreme pressure of circumstances will produce extremes of feeling
+in minds of a sensitive rather than a firm cast.
+
+
+38.
+
+This next passage is curious as a scholar's opinion of "free trade" in
+the year 1810; though I believe the phrase "free trade" was not even
+invented at that time--certainly not in use in the statesman's
+vocabulary.
+
+"I presume you will admit that commerce is a good thing, and the first
+requisite in the life of any nation. It appears to me, that this much
+has now been palpably demonstrated, namely, that an advanced and
+complicated social condition like this in which we live can only be
+maintained by establishing mutual relationships between the most remote
+nations; and that the limitation of commerce would, like the sapping of
+a main pillar, inevitably occasion the fall of the whole edifice; and
+also that commerce is so essentially beneficial and in accordance with
+man's nature, that the well-being of each nation is an advantage to all
+the nations that stand in connection with it."
+
+It is strange how long we have been (forty years, and more) in
+recognising these simple principles; and in Germany, where they were
+first enunciated, they are not recognised yet.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+CHARACTER OF DEMADES.
+
+(FROM NIEBUHR's LECTURES.)
+
+
+39.
+
+"By his wit and his talent, and more especially by his gift as an
+improvisatore, he rose so high that he exercised a great influence upon
+the people, and sometimes was more popular even than Demosthenes. With a
+shamelessness amounting to honesty, he bluntly told the people
+everything he felt and what all the populace felt with him. When hearing
+such a man the populace felt at their ease: he gave them the feeling
+that they might be wicked without being disgraced, and this excites with
+such people a feeling of gratitude. There is a remarkable passage in
+Plato, where he shows that those who deliver hollow speeches, without
+being in earnest, have no power or influence; whereas others, who are
+devoid of mental culture, but say in a straightforward manner what they
+think and feel, exercise great power. It was this which in the
+eighteenth century gave the materialist philosophy in France such
+enormous influence with the higher classes; for they were told there was
+no need to be ashamed of the vulgarest sensuality; formerly people had
+been ashamed, but now a man learned that he might be a brutal
+sensualist, provided he did not offend against elegant manners and
+social conventionalism. People rejoiced at hearing a man openly and
+honestly say what they themselves felt. Demades was a remarkable
+character. He was not a bad man; and I like him much better than
+Eschines."
+
+What an excuse, what a sanction is here for the demagogues who direct
+the worst passions of men to the worst and the most selfish purposes,
+and the most debasing consequences! Demades "not a bad man?" then what
+_is_ a bad man?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+LORD BACON.
+
+(1849.)
+
+
+40.
+
+"It was not the pure knowledge of nature and universality, but it was
+the proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in man to give the
+law unto himself, which was the form of the first temptation."
+
+But, in this sense, the first temptation is only the type of the
+perpetual and ever-present temptation--the temptation into which we are
+to fall through necessity, that we may rise through love.
+
+
+41.
+
+Here is an excellent passage--a severe commentary on the unsound,
+un-christian, unphilosophical distinction between morals and politics in
+government:--
+
+"Although men bred in learning are perhaps to seek in points of
+convenience and reasons of state and accommodations for the present,
+yet, on the other hand, to recompense this they are perfect in those
+same plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral virtue which,
+if they be well and watchfully pursued, there will be seldom use of
+those other expedients, no more than of physic in a sound, well-directed
+body."
+
+
+42.
+
+"Now (in the time of Lord Bacon, that is,) now sciences are delivered to
+be believed and accepted, and not to be farther discovered; and
+therefore, sciences stand at a clog, and have done for many ages."
+
+In the present time, this is true only, or especially, of theology as an
+art, and divinity as a science; so made by the schoolmen of former ages,
+and not yet emancipated.
+
+
+43.
+
+"Generally he perceived in men of devout simplicity this opinion, that
+the secrets of nature were the secrets of God, part of that glory into
+which man is not to press too boldly."
+
+God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given
+us on this side of the grave. But not the less will he keep his own
+secrets from us. Has he not proved it? who has opened that door to the
+knowledge of a future being which it has pleased him to keep shut fast,
+though watched by hope and by faith?
+
+
+44.
+
+The Christian philosophy of these latter times appears to be
+foreshadowed in the following sentence, where he speaks of such as have
+ventured to deduce and confirm the truth of the Christian religion from
+the principles and authorities of philosophers: "Thus with great pomp
+and solemnity celebrating the intermarriage of faith and sense as a
+lawful conjunction, and soothing the minds of men with a pleasing
+variety of matter, though, at the same time, rashly and unequally
+intermixing things divine and things human."
+
+This last common-place distinction seems to me, however, unworthy of
+Bacon. It should be banished--utterly set aside. Things which are divine
+should be human, and things which are human, divine; not as a mixture,
+"a medley," in the sense of Bacon's words, but an interfusion; for
+nothing that we esteem divine can be anything to us but as we make it
+_ours_, _i. e._ humanise it; and our humanity were a poor thing but for
+"the divinity that stirs within us." We do injury to our own nature--we
+misconceive our relations to the Creator, to his universe, and to each
+other, so long as we separate and studiously keep wide apart the
+_divine_ and the _human_.
+
+
+45.
+
+"Let no man, upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied
+moderation, think or maintain that a man can search too far or be too
+well studied either in the book of God's word or the book of God's
+works." Well advised! But then he goes on to warn men that they do not
+"unwisely mingle or confound their learnings together:" mischievous this
+contradistinction between God's word and God's works; since both, if
+emanating from him, must be equally true. And if there be one truth,
+then, to borrow his own words in another place, "the voice of nature
+will consent, whether the voice of man do so or not."
+
+
+46.
+
+Apropos to education--here is a good illustration: "Were it not better
+for a man in a fair room to set up one great light or branching
+candlestick of lights, than to go about with a rushlight into every dark
+corner?"
+
+And here is another: "It is one thing to set forth what ground lieth
+unmanured, and another to correct ill husbandry in that which _is_
+manured."
+
+47.
+
+"It is without all controversy that learning doth make the minds of men
+gentle and generous, amiable, and pliant to government, whereas
+ignorance maketh them churlish, thwarting, and mutinous."
+
+
+48.
+
+"An impatience of doubt and an unadvised haste to assertion without due
+and mature suspension of the judgment, is an error in the conduct of the
+understanding."
+
+"In contemplation, if a man begin with certainties he shall end in
+doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in
+certainties." Well said and profoundly true.
+
+This is a celebrated and often-cited passage; an admitted principle in
+theory. I wish it were oftener applied in practice,--more especially in
+education. For it seems to me that in teaching children we ought not to
+be perpetually dogmatising. We ought not to be ever placing before them
+only the known and the definite; but to allow the unknown, the
+uncertain, the indefinite, to be suggested to their minds: it would do
+more for the growth of a truly religious feeling than all the catechisms
+of scientific facts and creeds of theological definitions that ever were
+taught in cut and dried question and answer. Why should not the young
+candid mind be allowed to reflect on the unknown, as such? on the
+doubtful, as such--open to inquiry and liable to discussion? Why will
+teachers suppose that in confessing their own ignorance or admitting
+uncertainties they must diminish the respect of their pupils, or their
+faith in truth? I should say from my own experience that the effect is
+just the reverse. I remember, when a child, hearing a very celebrated
+man profess his ignorance on some particular subject, and I felt
+awe-struck--it gave me a perception of the infinite,--as when looking up
+at the starry sky. What we unadvisedly cram into a child's mind in the
+same form it has taken in our own, does not always healthily or
+immediately assimilate; it dissolves away in doubts, or it hardens into
+prejudice, instead of mingling with the life as truth ought to do. It is
+the early and habitual surrendering of the mind to authority, which
+makes it afterwards so ready for deception of all kinds.
+
+
+49.
+
+He speaks of "legends and narrations of miracles wrought by martyrs,
+hermits, monks, which, though they have had passage for a time by the
+ignorance of the people, the superstitious simplicity of some, and the
+politic toleration of others, holding them but as divine poesies; yet
+after a time they grew up to be esteemed but as old wives' fables, to
+the great scandal and detriment of religion."
+
+Very ambiguous, surely. Does he mean that it was to the great scandal
+and detriment of religion that they existed at all? or that they came to
+be regarded as old wives' fables?
+
+
+50.
+
+He says, farther on, "though truth and error are carefully to be
+separated, yet rarities and reports that seem incredible are not to be
+suppressed or denied to the memory of men."
+
+"For it is not yet known in what cases and how far effects attributed to
+superstition do participate of natural causes."
+
+
+51.
+
+"To be speculative with another man to the end to know how to work him
+or wind him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and not
+entire and ingenuous; which, as in friendship, it is a want of
+_integrity_, so towards princes or superiors it is a want of _duty_."
+(No occasion, surely, for the distinction here drawn; inasmuch as the
+want of integrity involves the want of _every_ duty.)
+
+Then he speaks of "the stooping to points of necessity and convenience
+and outward basenesses," as to be accounted "submission to the occasion,
+not to the person." Vile distinction! an excuse to himself for his
+dedication to the King, and his flattery of Carr and Villiers.
+
+
+52.
+
+Our English Universities are only now beginning to show some sign
+(reluctant sign) of submitting to that re-examination which the great
+philosopher recommended two hundred and fifty years ago, when he says:
+"Inasmuch as most of the usages and orders of the universities were
+derived from more obscure times, it is the more requisite they be
+reexamined"--and more to the same purpose.
+
+
+53.
+
+"If that great Workmaster (God) had been of a human disposition, he
+would have cast the stars into some pleasant and beautiful works and
+orders like the frets in the roofs of houses; whereas, one can scarce
+find a posture in square or triangle or straight line amongst such an
+infinite number, so differing an harmony there is between the spirit of
+man and the spirit of nature."
+
+Perhaps if our human vision could be removed to a sufficient distance to
+contemplate the whole of what we now see in part, what appears disorder
+might appear beautiful order. The stars which now appear as if flung
+about at random, would perhaps be resolved into some exquisitely
+beautiful and regular edifice. The fly on the cornice, "whose feeble ray
+scarce spreads an inch around," might as well discuss the proportions of
+the Parthenon as we the true figure and frame of God's universe.
+
+I remember seeing, through Lord Rosse's telescope, one of those nebulæ
+which have hitherto appeared like small masses of vapour floating about
+in space. I saw it composed of thousands upon thousands of brilliant
+stars, and the effect to the eye--to mine at least--was as if I had had my
+hand full of diamonds, and suddenly unclosing it, and flinging them
+forth, they were dispersed as from a centre, in a kind of partly
+irregular, partly fan-like form; and I had a strange feeling of suspense
+and amazement while I looked, because they did not change their relative
+position, did not fall--though in act to fall--but seemed fixed in the
+very attitude of being flung forth into space;--it was most wondrous and
+beautiful to see!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+54.
+
+It is pleasant to me to think that Bacon's stupendous intellect believed
+in the moral progress of human societies, because it is my own belief,
+and one that I would not for worlds resign. I indeed believe that each
+human being must here (or hereafter?) work out his own peculiar moral
+life: but also that the whole race has a progressive moral life: just as
+in our solar system every individual planet moves in its own orbit,
+while the whole system moves on together; we know not whither, we know
+not round what centre--"_ma pur si muove!_"
+
+
+55.
+
+Yet he says in another place, with equal wit and sublimity, "Every
+obtaining of a desire hath a _show_ of advancement, as motion in a
+circle hath a _show_ of progression." Perhaps our movement may be
+_spiral_? and every revolution may bring us nearer and nearer to some
+divine centre in which we may be absorbed at last?
+
+
+56.
+
+He refers in this following passage to that theory of the angelic
+existences which we see expressed in ancient symbolic Art, first by
+variation of colour only, and later, by variety of expression and form.
+He says,--"We find, as far as credit is to be given to the celestial
+hierarchy of that supposed Dionysius, the senator of Athens, that the
+first place or degree is given to the Angels of Love, which are called
+Seraphim; the second to the Angels of Light, which are termed Cherubim;
+and the third, and so following, to Thrones, Principalities, and the
+rest (which are all angels of power and ministry); so as the angels of
+knowledge and illumination are placed before the angels of office and
+domination."
+
+--But the Angels of LOVE are first and over all. In other words, we have
+here in due order of precedence, 1. LOVE, 2. KNOWLEDGE, 3. POWER,--the
+angelic Trinity, which, in unity, is our idea of GOD.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+CHATEAUBRIAND.
+
+("MEMOIRES D'OUTRE TOMBE." 1851.)
+
+
+57.
+
+Chateaubriand tells us that when his mother and sisters urged him to
+marry, he resisted strongly--he thought it too early; he says, with a
+peculiar naïveté, "Je ne me sentais aucune qualité de mari: toutes mes
+illusions étaient vivantes, rien n'était épuisé en moi, l'énergie même
+de mon existence avait doublé par mes courses," &c.
+
+So then the "_existence épuisé_" is to be kept for the wife! "_la vie
+usée_"--"_la jeunesse abusée_," is good enough to make a husband!
+Chateaubriand, who in many passages of his book piques himself on his
+morality, seems quite unconscious that he has here given utterance to a
+sentiment the most profoundly immoral, the most fatal to both sexes,
+that even his immoral age had ever the effrontery to set forth.
+
+
+58.
+
+"Il paraît qu'on n'apprend pas à mourir en tuant les autres."
+
+Nor do we learn to suffer by inflicting pain: nothing so patient as
+pity.
+
+
+59.
+
+"Le cynisme des moeurs ramène dans la société, en annihilant le sens
+moral, une sorte de barbares; ces barbares de la civilisation, propres à
+détruire comme les Goths, n'ont pas la puissance de fonder comme eux;
+ceux-ci étaient les énormes enfants d'une nature vierge; ceux-là sont
+les avortons monstrueux d'une nature dépravée."
+
+We too often make the vulgar mistake that undisciplined or overgrown
+passions are a sign of strength; they are the signs of immaturity, of
+"enormous childhood."--And the distinction (above) is well drawn and
+true. The real savage is that monstrous, malignant, abject thing,
+generated out of the rottenness and ferment of civilisation. And yet
+extremes meet: I remember seeing on the shores of Lake Huron some
+Indians of a distant tribe of Chippawas, who in appearance were just
+like those fearful abortions of humanity which crawl out of the
+darkness, filth, and ignorance of our great towns, just so miserable, so
+stupid, so cruel,--only, perhaps, less _wicked_.
+
+
+60.
+
+Chateaubriand was always comparing himself with Lord Byron--he hints more
+than once, that Lord Byron owed some of his inspiration to the perusal
+of his works--more especially to Renée. In this he was altogether
+mistaken.
+
+
+61.
+
+"Une intelligence supérieure n'enfante pas le mal sans douleur, parceque
+ce n'est pas son fruit naturel, et qu'elle ne devait pas le porter."
+
+
+62.
+
+Madame de Coeslin (whom he describes as an impersonation of aristocratic
+_morgue_ and all the pretension and prejudices of the _ancien régime_),
+"lisant dans un journal la mort de plusieurs rois, elle ôta ses lunettes
+et dit en se mouchant, 'Il y a donc une _épizootie sur ces bêtes à
+couronne_!"
+
+I once counted among my friends an elderly lady of high rank, who had
+spent the whole of a long life in intimacy with royal and princely
+personages. In three different courts she had filled offices of trust
+and offices of dignity. In referring to her experience she never either
+moralised or generalised; but her scorn of "ces bêtes à couronne," was
+habitually expressed with just such a cool epigrammatic bluntness as
+that of Madame de Coeslin.
+
+
+63.
+
+"L'aristocratie a trois âges successifs; l'âge des supériorités, l'âge
+des priviléges, l'âge des vanités; sortie du premier, elle dégénère dans
+le second et s'éteint dans le dernier."
+
+In Germany they are still in the first epoch. In England we seem to have
+arrived at the second. In France they are verging on the third.
+
+
+64.
+
+Chateaubriand says of himself:--
+
+"Dans le premier moment d'une offense je la sens à peine; mais elle se
+grave dans ma mémoire; son souvenir au lieu de décroître, s'augmente
+avec le temps. Il dort dans mon coeur des mois, des années entières,
+puis il se réveille à la moindre circonstance avec une force nouvelle,
+et ma blessure devient plus vive que le prémier jour: mais si je ne
+pardonne point à mes ennemis je ne leur fais aucun mal; je suis
+_rancunier_ et ne suis point _vindicatif_."
+
+A very nice and true distinction in point of feeling and character, yet
+hardly to be expressed in English. We always attach the idea of
+malignity to the word _rancour_, whereas the French words _rancune_,
+_rancunier_, express the relentless without the vengeful or malignant
+spirit.
+
+Such characters make me turn pale, as I have done at sight of a tomb in
+which an offending wretch had been buried alive. There is in them always
+something acute and deep and indomitable in the internal and exciting
+emotion; slow, scrupulous, and timid in the external demonstration.
+Cordelia is such a character.
+
+
+65.
+
+Chateaubriand says of his friend Pelletrie,--"Il n'avait pas précisément
+des vices, mais il était rongé d'une vermine de petits défauts dont on
+ne pouvait l'épurer." I know such a man; and if he had committed a
+murder every morning, and a highway robbery every night,--if he had
+killed his father and eaten him with any possible sauce, he could not
+be more intolerable, more detestable than he is!
+
+
+66.
+
+"Un homme nous protège par ce qu'il vaut; une femme par ce que vous
+valez: voilà pourquoi de ces deux empires l'un est si odieux, l'autre si
+doux."
+
+
+67.
+
+He says of Madame Roland, "Elle avait du caractère plutôt que du génie;
+le premier peut donner le second, le second ne peut donner le premier."
+What does the man mean? this is a mistake surely. What the French call
+_caractère_ never could give genius, nor genius, _caractère_. _Au
+reste_, I am not sure that Madame Roland--admirable creature!--had genius;
+but for talent, and _caractère_--first rate.
+
+
+68.
+
+"Soyons doux si nous voulons être regrettés. La hauteur du génie et les
+qualités supérieures ne sont pleurées que des anges."
+
+"Veillons bien sur notre caractère. Songeons que nous pouvons avec un
+attachement profond n'en pas moins empoisonner des jours que nous
+rachéterions au prix de tout notre sang. Quand nos amis sont descendus
+dans la tombe, quels moyens avons nous de réparer nos torts? nos
+inutiles regrets, nos vains repentirs, sont ils un remède aux peines que
+nous leurs avons faites? Ils auraient mieux aimé de nous un sourire
+pendant leur vie que toutes nos larmes après leur mort."
+
+
+69.
+
+"L'amour est si bien la félicité qu'il est poursuivi de la chimère
+d'être toujours; il ne veut prononcer que des serments irrévocables; au
+défaut de ses joies, il cherche à éterniser ses douleurs; ange tombé, il
+parle encore le langage qu'il parlait au séjour incorruptible; son
+espérance est de ne cesser jamais. Dans sa double nature et dans sa
+double illusion, ici-bas il prétend se perpétuer par d'immortelles
+pensées et par des générations intarissables."
+
+
+70.
+
+Madame d'Houdetot, after the death of Saint Lambert, always before she
+went to bed used to rap three times with her slipper on the floor,
+saying,--"Bon soir, mon ami; bon soir, bon soir!"
+
+So then, she thought of her lover as gone _down_--not _up_?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+BISHOP CUMBERLAND.
+
+BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH IN 1691.
+
+
+71.
+
+Bishop Cumberland founds the law of God, as revealed in the Scriptures,
+upon the general law of nature. He does not attempt to found the laws of
+nature upon the Bible. "We believe," he says, "in the truth of
+Scripture, because it promotes and illustrates the fundamental laws of
+nature in the government of the world."
+
+Then does the Bishop mean here that the Bible is not the WORD nor the
+WILL of God, but the exposition of the WORD and the record of the WILL,
+so far as either could be rendered communicable to human comprehension
+through the medium of human language and intelligence?
+
+There is a striking passage in Bunsen's Hippolytus, which may be
+considered with reference to this opinion of the Bishop.
+
+He (Bunsen) says, that "what relates the history of 'the word of God'
+in his humanity, and in this world, and what records its teachings, and
+warnings, and promises (that is, the Bible?) was mistaken for 'the word
+of God' itself, in its proper sense."
+
+Does he mean that we deem erroneously the collection of writings we call
+the Bible to be "the word of God;" whereas, in fact, it is "the history,
+the record of the word of God?" that is, of all that God has spoken to
+man--in various revelations--through human life--by human deeds?--because
+this is surely a most important and momentous distinction.
+
+
+72.
+
+According to Bishop Cumberland, _benevolence_, in its large sense,--that
+is, a regard for all GOOD, universal and particular,--is the primary law
+of nature; and _justice_ is one form, and a secondary form, of this law:
+a moral virtue, not a law of nature,--if I understand his meaning
+rightly.
+
+Then which would he place _highest_, the law of nature or the moral law?
+
+If you place them in contradistinction, then are we to conclude that the
+law of nature _precedes_ the moral law, but that the moral law
+_supersedes_ the law of nature? Yet no law of nature (as I understand
+the word) _can_ be superseded, though the moral law may be based upon
+it, and in that sense may be _above_ it.
+
+
+73.
+
+In this following passage the Bishop seems to have anticipated what in
+more modern times has been called the "_greatest happiness principle_."
+He says:--
+
+"The good of all rational beings is a complex whole, being nothing but
+the aggregate of good enjoyed by each." "We can only act in our proper
+spheres, labouring to do good, but this labour will be fruitless, or
+rather mischievous, if we do not keep in mind the higher gradations
+which terminate in universal benevolence. Thus, no man must seek his own
+pleasure or advantage otherwise than as his family permits; or provide
+for his family to the detriment of his country; or promote the good of
+his country at the expense of mankind; or serve mankind, if it were
+possible, without regard to the majesty of God."
+
+
+74.
+
+Paley deems the recognition of a future state so essential that he even
+makes the definition of virtue to consist in this, that it is good
+performed for the sake of everlasting happiness. That is to say, he
+makes it a sort of bargain between God and man, a contract, or a
+covenant, instead of that obedience to a primal law, from which if we
+stray in will, we do so at the necessary expense of our happiness.
+Bishop Cumberland has no reference to this doctrine of Paley's;--seems,
+indeed, to set it aside altogether, as contrary to the essence of
+virtue.
+
+
+On the whole, this good Bishop appears to have treated ethics not as an
+ecclesiastic, but as Bacon treated natural philosophy;--the pervading
+spirit is the perpetual appeal to experience, and not to authority.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+COMTE'S PHILOSOPHY.
+
+1852.
+
+
+75.
+
+Comte makes out three elements of progress, "les philosophes, les
+prolétaires, et les femmes;"--types of intellect, material activity, and
+sentiment.
+
+From Woman, he says, is to proceed the preponderance of the social
+duties and affections over egotism and ambition. (La prépondérance de la
+sociabilité sur la personalité.) He adds:--"Ce sexe est certainement
+supérieure au notre quant à l'attribut le plus fondamentale de l'espèce
+humaine, la tendence de faire prévaloir la _sociabilité_ sur la_
+personalité_."
+
+
+76.
+
+"S'il ne fallait _qu'aimer_ comme dans l'Utopie Chrétienne, sur une vie
+future affranchie de toute égoïste necessité matérielle, la femme
+régnerait; mais il faut surtout _agir_ et _penser_ pour combattre contre
+les rigueurs de notre vraie destinée: dès-lors l'homme doit commander
+malgré sa moindre moralité."
+
+"Malgré?" Sometimes man commands _because_ of the "moindre moralité:"--it
+spares much time in scruples.
+
+
+77.
+
+"L'influence feminine devient l'auxiliaire indispensable de tout pouvoir
+spirituel, comme le moyen âge l'a tant montré."
+
+
+"Au moyen âge la Catholicisme occidentale ébaucha la systématisation de
+la puissance morale en superposant à l'ordre pratique une libre autorité
+spirituelle, habituellement secondée par les femmes."
+
+
+78.
+
+"La Force, proprement dite, c'est ce qui régit les actes, sans régler
+les volontés."
+
+Herein lies a distinction between Force and Power; for Power, properly
+so called, does both.
+
+
+79.
+
+He insists throughout on the predominance of _sociabilité_ over
+_personalité_--and what is that but the Christian law philosophised?
+and again, "Il n'y a de directement morale dans notre nature que
+l'amour." Where did he get this, if not in the Epistle of St. John?
+
+"Celui qui se croirait indépendant des autres dans ses affections, ses
+pensées, ou ses actes, ne pourrait même formuler un tel blasphème sans
+une contradiction immédiate--puisque son langage même ne lui appartient
+pas."
+
+
+80.
+
+He says that if the women regret the age of chivalry, it is not for the
+external homage then paid to them, but because "l'élément le plus moral
+de l'humanité" (woman, to wit), "doit préférer à tout autre le seul
+régime qui érigea directement en principe la préponderance de la morale
+sur la politique. Si elles regrettent leur douce influence antérieure,
+c'est surtout comme s'effaçant aujourd'hui sous un grossier égoïsme.
+
+"Leurs voeux spontanés seconderont toujours les efforts directes des
+philosophes et des prolétaires pour transformer enfin les débats
+politiques en transactions sociales en faisant prévaloir les _dévoirs_
+sur les _droits_."
+
+This is admirable; for we are all inclined to think more about our
+_rights_ (and our wrongs too) than about our _duties_.
+
+
+81.
+
+"Si donc aimer nous satisfait mieux que d'être aimé, cela constate la
+supériorité naturelle des affections désintéressées."
+
+Meaning--what is true--that the love we bear to another, much more fills
+the whole soul and is more a possession of an actuating principle, than
+the love of another for us:--but both are necessary to the complement of
+our moral life. The first is as the air we breathe; the last is as our
+daily bread.
+
+
+82.
+
+He says that the only true and firm friendship is that between man and
+woman, because it is the only affection "exempte de toute concurrence
+actuelle ou possible."
+
+In this I am inclined to agree with him, and to regret that our
+conventional morality or immorality, and the too early severance of the
+two sexes in education, place men and women in such a relation to each
+other, socially, as to render such friendships difficult and rare.
+
+
+83.
+
+"En vérité l'amour ne saurait être profond, s'il n'est pas pur."
+
+Christianity, he says, "a favorisé l'essor de la véritable passion,
+tandisque le polythéisme consacrait surtout les appétits."
+
+He is speaking here as teacher, philosopher, and legislator, not as poet
+or sentimentalist. Perhaps it will come to be recognised sooner or
+later, that what people are pleased to call the _romance_ of life is
+founded on the deepest and most immutable laws of our being, and that
+any system of ecclesiastical polity, or civil legislation, or moral
+philosophy, which takes no account of the primal instincts and
+affections, which are the springs of life and on which God made the
+continuation of his world to depend, _must_ of necessity fail.
+
+I have just read a volume of Psychological Essays by one of the most
+celebrated of living surgeons, and closed the book with a feeling of
+amazement: a long life spent in physiological experiences, dissecting
+dead bodies, and mending broken bones, has then led him, at last, to
+some of the most obvious, most commonly known facts in mental
+philosophy? So some of our profound politicians, after a long life spent
+in governing and reforming men, may arrive, _at last_, at some of the
+commonest facts in social morals.
+
+
+84.
+
+He contends for the indissolubility of marriage, and against divorce;
+and he thinks that education should be in the hands of women to the age
+of ten or twelve, "Afin que le coeur y prévale toujours sur l'esprit:"
+all very excellent principles, but supposing a _hypothetical_ social and
+moral state, from which we are as yet far removed. What he says,
+however, of the indissolubility of the marriage bond is so beautiful and
+eloquent, and so in accordance with my own moral theories, that I cannot
+help extracting it from a mass of heavy and sometimes unintelligible
+matter. He begins by laying it down as a principle that the
+"amélioration morale de l'homme constitue la principale mission de la
+femme," and that "une telle destination indique aussitôt que le lien
+conjugal doit être unique et indissoluble, afin que les relations
+domestiques puissent acquérir la plénitude et la fixité qu'exige leur
+efficacité morale." This, however, supposes the holiest and completest
+of all bonds to be sealed on terms of equality, not that the latter end
+of a man's life, _la vie usée et la jeunesse épuisée_, are to be tacked
+on to the beginning of a woman's fresh and innocent existence; for then
+influences are reversed, and instead of the amelioration of the
+masculine, we have the demoralisation of the feminine, nature. He
+supposes the possibility of circumstances which demand a personal
+separation, but even then _sans permettre un nouveau mariage_. In such a
+case his religion imposes on the innocent victim (whether man or woman)
+"une chasteté compatible d'ailleurs avec la plus profonde tendresse. Si
+cette condition lui semble rigoureuse, il doit l'accepter, d'abord, en
+vue de l'ordre général; puis, comme une juste conséquence de son erreur
+primitive."
+
+There would be much to say upon all this, if it were worth while to
+discuss a theory which it is not possible to reduce to general practice.
+We cannot imagine the possibility of a second marriage where the first,
+though perhaps unhappy or early ruptured, has been, not a personal
+relation only, but an interfusion of our moral being,--of the deepest
+impulses of life--with those of another; _these_ we cannot have a second
+time to surrender to a second object;--but this might be left to Nature
+and her holy instincts to settle. However, he goes on in a strain of
+eloquence and dignity, quite unusual with him, to this effect:--"Ce n'est
+que par l'assurance d'une inaltérable perpetuité que les liens intimes
+peuvent acquérir la consistance et la plénitude indispensable à leur
+efficacité morale. La plus méprisable des sectes éphémères que suscita
+l'anarchie moderne (the Mormons, for instance?) me parait être celle qui
+voulut ériger l'inconstance en condition de bonheur.".... "Entre deux
+êtres aussi complexes et aussi divers que l'homme et la femme, ce n'est
+pas trop de toute la vie pour se bien connaître et s'aimer dignement.
+Loin de taxer d'illusion la haute idée que deux vrais époux se forment
+souvent l'un de l'autre, je l'ai presque toujours attribuée à
+l'appréciation plus profonde que procure seule une pleine intimité, que
+d'ailleurs développe des qualités inconnues aux indifférents. On doit
+même regarder comme très-honorable pour notre espèce, cette grande
+estime que ses membres s'inspirent mutuellement quand ils s'étudient
+beaucoup. _Car la haine et l'indifférence mériteraient seules le
+reproche d'aveuglement qu'une appréciation superficielle applique à
+l'amour._ Il faut donc juger pleinement conforme à la nature humaine
+l'institution qui prolonge au-delà du tombeau l'indentification de deux
+dignes époux."
+
+He lays down as one of the primal instincts of human kind "_l'homme doit
+nourrir la femme_." This may have been, as he says, a universal
+_instinct_; perhaps it ought to be one of our social ordinations;
+perhaps it may be so at some future time; but we know that it is not a
+present fact; that the woman must in many cases maintain herself or
+perish, and she asks nothing more than to be allowed to do so.
+
+However, I agree with Comte that the position of a woman, enriched and
+independent by her own labour, is anomalous and seldom happy. It is a
+remark I have heard somewhere, and it appears to me true, that there
+exists no being so hard, so keen, so calculating, so unscrupulous, so
+merciless in money matters as the wife of a Parisian shopkeeper, where
+she holds the purse and manages the concern, as is generally the case.
+
+
+85.
+
+Here is a passage wherein he attacks that egotism which with many good
+people enters so largely into the notion of another world:--which Paley
+inculcated, and which Coleridge ridiculed, when he spoke of "_this_
+worldliness," and the "_other_ worldliness."
+
+"La sagesse sacerdotale, digne organe de l'instinct public, y avait
+intimement rattaché les principales obligations sociales à titre de
+condition indispensable du salut personnel: mais la récompense infinie
+promise ainsi à tous les sacrifices ne pouvait jamais permettre une
+affection pleinement désinteressée."
+
+This perpetual iteration of a system of future reward and punishment, as
+a principle of our religion and a motive of action, has in some sort
+demoralised Christianity; especially in minds where love is not a chief
+element, and which do not love Christ for his love's sake, but for his
+power's sake, and because judgment and punishment are supposed to be in
+his hand.
+
+
+86.
+
+Putting the test of revelation out of the question, and dealing with the
+philosopher philosophically, the best refutation of Comte's system is
+contained in the following criticism: it seems to me final.
+
+"In limiting religion to the relations in which we stand to each other,
+and towards _Humanity_, Comte omits one very important consideration.
+Even upon his own showing, this _Humanity_ can only be the _supreme
+being_ of _our_ planet, it cannot be the _Supreme Being_ of the
+Universe. Now, although in this our terrestrial sojourn, all we can
+distinctly know must be limited to the sphere of our planet; yet,
+standing on this ball and looking forth into infinitude, we know that it
+is but an atom of the infinitude, and that the humanity we worship
+_here_, cannot extend its dominion _there_. If our relations to humanity
+may be systematised into a cultus, and made a religion as they have
+formerly been made a morality, and if the whole of our practical
+priesthood be limited to this religion, there will, nevertheless remain
+for us, outlying this terrestrial sphere,--the sphere of the infinite, in
+which our thoughts must wander, and our emotions will follow our
+thoughts; so that besides the religion of humanity there must ever be a
+religion of the Universe. Or, to bring this conception within ordinary
+language, there must ever remain the old distinctions between _religion_
+and _morality_, our relations to God, and our relations towards man. The
+only difference being, that in the _old_ theology moral precepts were
+inculcated with a view to a celestial habitat; in the _new_, the moral
+precepts are inculcated with a view to the general progress of the
+race."--_Westminster Review._
+
+
+In fact the doctrine of the non-plurality of worlds as recently set
+forth by an eminent professor and D. D. would exactly harmonise with
+Comte's "Culte du Positif," as not merely limiting our sympathies to
+this one form of intellectual being, but our religious notions to this
+one habitable orb.
+
+But to those who take other views, the argument above contains the
+_philosophical_ objection to Comte's _system_, as such; and I repeat,
+that it seems to me unanswerable; but there are excellent things in his
+theory, notwithstanding;--things that make us pause and think. In some
+parts it is like Christianity with Christ, as a _personalité_, omitted.
+For Christ the humanised divine, he substitutes an abstract deified
+humanity. 1854.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+GOETHE.
+
+(DICHTUNG UND WAHRHEIT.)
+
+
+87.
+
+"As a man embraces the determination to become a soldier and go to the
+wars, bravely resolved to bear dangers, and difficulties, and wounds,
+and death itself, but at the same time never anticipating the particular
+form in which those evils may surprise us in an extremely unpleasant
+manner;--just so we rush into authorship!"
+
+
+88.
+
+Goethe says of Lavater, "that the conception of humanity which had been
+formed in himself, and in his own humanity, was so akin to the living
+image of Christ, that it was impossible for him to conceive how a man
+could live and breathe without being a Christian. He had, so to speak, a
+physical affinity with Christianity; it was to him a necessity, not
+only morally, but from organisation."
+
+Lavater's individual feeling was, perhaps, but an anticipation of that
+which may become general, universal. As we rise in the scale of being,
+as we become more gentle, spiritualised, refined, and intelligent, will
+not our "physical affinity" with the religion of Christ become more and
+more apparent, till it is less a doctrine than a principle of life? So
+its Divine Author knew, who prepared it for us, and is preparing and
+moulding us through progressive improvement to comprehend and receive
+it.
+
+
+89.
+
+Goethe speaks of "polishing up life with the varnish of fiction;" the
+artistic turn of the man's mind showed itself in this love of creating
+an effect in his own eyes and in the eyes of others. But what can
+fiction--what can poetry do for life, but present some one or two out of
+the multitudinous aspects of that grand, beautiful, terrible, and
+infinite mystery? or by _life_, does he mean here the mere external
+forms of society?--for it is not clear.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+HAZLITT'S "LIBER AMORIS."
+
+1827.
+
+
+90.
+
+Is love, like faith, ennobled through its own depth and fervour and
+sincerity? or is it ennobled through the nobility, and degraded through
+the degradation of its object? Is it with love as with worship? Is it a
+_religion_, and holy when the object is pure and good? Is it a
+_superstition_, and unholy when the object is impure and unworthy?
+
+
+Of all the histories I have read of the aberrations of human passion,
+nothing ever so struck me with a sort of amazed and painful pity as
+Hazlitt's "Liber Amoris." The man was in love with a servant girl, who
+in the eyes of others possessed no particular charms of mind or person,
+yet did the mighty love of this strong, masculine, and gifted being,
+lift her into a sort of goddess-ship; and make his idolatry in its
+intense earnestness and reality assume something of the sublimity of an
+act of faith, and in its expression take a flight equal to anything that
+poetry or fiction have left us. It was all so terribly real, he sued
+with such a vehemence, he suffered with such resistance, that the
+powerful intellect reeled, tempest-tost, and might have foundered but
+for the gift of expression. He might have said like Tasso--like Goethe
+rather--"Gab mir ein Gott zu sagen was ich leide!" And this faculty of
+utterance, eloquent utterance, was perhaps the only thing which saved
+life, or reason, or both. In such moods of passion, the poor uneducated
+man, dumb in the midst of the strife and the storm, unable to comprehend
+his intolerable pain or make it comprehended, throws himself in a blind
+fury on the cause of his torture, or hangs himself in his neckcloth.
+
+
+91.
+
+Hazlitt takes up his pen, dips it in fire and thus he writes:--
+
+
+"Perfect love has this advantage in it, that it leaves the possessor of
+it nothing farther to desire. There is one object (at least), in which
+the soul finds absolute content;--for which it seeks to live or dares to
+die. The heart has, as it were, filled up the moulds of the
+imagination; the truth of passion keeps pace with, and outvies, the
+extravagance of mere language. There are no words so fine, no flattery
+so soft, that there is not a sentiment beyond them that it is impossible
+to express, at the bottom of the heart where true love is. What idle
+sounds the common phrases _adorable creature_, _divinity_, _angel_, are!
+What a proud reflection it is to have a feeling answering to all these,
+rooted in the breast, unalterable, unutterable, to which all other
+feelings are light and vain! Perfect love reposes on the object of its
+choice, like the halcyon on the wave, and the air of heaven is around
+it!"
+
+
+92.
+
+"She stood (while I pleaded my cause before her with all the earnestness
+and fondness in the world) with the tears trickling from her eye-lashes,
+her head drooping, her attitude fixed, with the finest expression that
+ever was seen of mixed regret, pity, and stubborn resolution, but
+without speaking a word--without altering a feature. _It was like a
+petrifaction of a human face in the softest moment of passion._"
+
+
+93.
+
+"Shall I not love her," he exclaims, "for herself alone, in spite of
+fickleness and folly? to love her for her regard for me, is not to love
+her but myself. She has robbed me of herself, shall she also rob me of
+my love of her? did I not live on her smile? is it less sweet because it
+is withdrawn from me? Did I not adore her every grace? and does she bend
+less enchantingly because she has turned from me to another? Is my love
+then in the power of fortune or of her caprice? No, I will have it
+lasting as it is pure; and I will make a goddess of her, and build a
+temple to her in my heart, and worship her on indestructible altars, and
+raise statues to her, and my homage shall be unblemished as her
+unrivalled symmetry of form. And when that fails, the memory of it shall
+survive, and my bosom shall be proof to scorn as hers has been to pity;
+and I will pursue her with an unrelenting love, and sue to be her slave
+and tend her steps without notice, and without reward; and serve her
+living, and mourn for her when dead; and thus my love will have shown
+itself superior to her hate, and I shall triumph and then die. This is
+my idea of the only true and heroic love, and such is mine for her."
+
+
+Hazlitt, when he wrote all this, seemed to himself full of high and calm
+resolve. The hand did not fail, the pen did not stagger over the paper
+in a formless scrawl, yet the brain was reeling like a tower in an
+earthquake. "Passion," as it has been well said, "when in a state of
+solemn and omnipotent vehemence, always appears to be calmness to him
+whom it domineers;" not unfrequently to others also, as the tide at its
+highest flood looks tranquil, and "neither way inclines."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+THE NIGHTINGALE.
+
+
+94.
+
+Reading the Life and Letters of Francis Horner, in the midst of a
+correspondence about Statistics and Bullion, and Political Economy, and
+the Balance of Parties, I came upon the following exquisite passage in a
+letter to his friend Mrs. Spencer:--
+
+"I was amused by your interrogatory to me about the Nightingale's note.
+You meant to put me in a dilemma with my politics on one side and my
+gallantry on the other. Of course you consider it as a plaintive note,
+and you were in hopes that no idolater of Charles Fox would venture to
+agree with that opinion. In this difficulty I must make the best escape
+I can by saying, that it seems to me neither cheerful nor
+melancholy,--but always according to the circumstances in which you hear
+it, the scenery, your own temper of mind, and so on. I settled it so
+with myself early in this month, when I heard them every night and all
+day long at Wells. In daylight, when all the other birds are in active
+concert, the Nightingale only strikes you as the most active, emulous,
+and successful of the whole band. At night, especially if it is a calm
+one, with light enough to give you a wide indistinct view, the solitary
+music of this bird takes quite another character, from all the
+associations of the scene, from the languor one feels at the close of
+the day, and from the stillness of spirits and elevation of mind which
+comes upon one when walking out at that time. But it is not always
+so--different circumstances will vary in every possible way the effect.
+Will the Nightingale's note sound alike to the man who is going on an
+adventure to meet his mistress (supposing he heeds it at all), and when
+he loiters along upon his return? The last time I heard the Nightingale
+it was an experiment of another sort. It was after a thunderstorm in a
+mild night, while there was silent lightning opening every few minutes,
+first on one side of the heavens then on the other. The careless little
+fellow was piping away in the midst of all this terror. To _me_, there
+was no melancholy in his note, but a sort of sublimity; yet it was the
+same song which I had heard in the morning, and which then seemed
+nothing but bustle."
+
+And in the same spirit Portia moralises:--
+
+   The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
+   When every goose is cackling, would be thought
+   No better a musician than the wren.
+   How many things by season, seasoned are
+   To their right praise and true perfection!
+
+Nor will Coleridge allow the song of the nightingale to be always
+plaintive,--"most musical, most _melancholy_;" he defies the epithet
+though it be Milton's.
+
+               'Tis the _merry_ nightingale,
+   That crowds and hurries and precipitates
+   With thick fast warble his delicious notes,
+   As he were fearful that an April night
+   Would be too short for him to utter forth
+   His love-chaunt, and disburthen his full soul
+   Of all its music.
+
+As a poetical commentary on these beautiful passages, every reader of
+Joanna Baillie will remember the night scene in De Montfort, where the
+cry of the Owl suggests such different feelings and associations to the
+two men who listen to it, under such different circumstances. To De
+Montfort it is the screech-owl, foreboding death and horror,--and he
+stands and shudders at the "instinctive wailing." To Rezenvelt it is the
+sound which recalls his boyish days, when he merrily mimicked the
+night-bird till it returned him cry for cry,--and he pauses to listen
+with a fanciful delight.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+THACKERAY'S LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH HUMORISTS
+
+(1833.)
+
+
+95.
+
+A Lecture should not read like an essay; and, therefore, it surprises me
+that these lectures so carefully prepared, so skilfully adapted to meet
+the requirements of oral delivery, should be such agreeable reading. As
+_lectures_, they wanted only a little more point, and emphasis and
+animation on the part of the speaker: as _essays_, they atone in
+eloquence and earnestness for what they want in finish and purity of
+style.
+
+Genius and sunshine have this in common that they are the two most
+precious gifts of heaven to earth, and are dispensed equally to the just
+and the unjust. What struck me most in these lectures, when I heard
+them, (and it strikes me now in turning over the written pages,) is
+this: we deal here with writers and artists, yet the purpose, from
+beginning to end, is not artistic nor critical, but moral. Thackeray
+tells us himself that he has not assembled his hearers to bring them
+better acquainted with the writings of these writers, or to illustrate
+the wit of these wits, or to enhance the humour of these humourists;--no;
+but to deal justice on the men as _men_--to tell us how _they_ lived, and
+loved, suffered and made suffer, who still have power to pain or to
+please; to settle _their_ claims to our praise or blame, our love or
+hate, whose right to fame was settled long ago, and remains undisputed.
+This is his purpose. Thus then he has laid down and acted on the
+principle that "morals have something to do with art;" that there is a
+moral account to be settled with men of genius; that the power and the
+right remains with us to do justice on those who being dead yet rule our
+spirits from their urns; to try them by a standard which perhaps neither
+themselves, nor those around them, would have admitted. Did Swift when
+he bullied men, lampooned women, trampled over decency and humanity,
+flung round him filth and fire, did he anticipate the time when before a
+company of intellectual men, and thinking, feeling women, in both
+hemispheres, he should be called up to judgment, hands bound,
+tongue-tied? Where be now his gibes? and where his terrors? Thackeray
+turns him forth, a spectacle, a lesson, a warning; probes the lacerated
+self-love, holds up to scorn, or pity more intolerable, the miserable
+egotism, the half-distempered brain. O Stella! O Vanessa! are you not
+avenged?
+
+Then Sterne--how he takes to pieces his feigned originality, his feigned
+benevolence, his feigned misanthropy--all feigned!--the licentious parson,
+the trader in sentiment, the fashionable lion of his day, the man
+without a heart for those who loved him, without a conscience for those
+who trusted him! yet the same man who gave us the pathos of "Le Fevre,"
+and the humours of "Uncle Toby!" Sad is it? ungrateful is it? ungracious
+is it?--well, it cannot be helped; you cannot stifle the conscience of
+humanity. You might as well exclaim against any natural result of any
+natural law. Fancy a hundred years hence some brave, honest,
+human-hearted Thackeray standing up to discourse before our
+great-great-grandchildren in the same spirit, with the same stern truth,
+on the wits, and the poets and the artists of the present time! Hard is
+your fate, O ye men and women of genius! very hard and pitiful, if ye
+must be subjected to the scalpel of such a dissector! You, gifted
+sinner, whoever you may be, walking among us now in all the impunity of
+conventional forbearance, dealing in oracles and sentimentalisms,
+performing great things, teaching good things, you are set up as one of
+the lights of the world:--Lo! another time comes; the torch is taken out
+of your hand, and held up to your face. What! is it a mask, and not a
+face? "Off, off ye lendings!" O God! how much wiser, as well as better,
+not to study how to _seem_, but how to _be_! How much wiser and better,
+not to have to shudder before the truth as it oozes out from a thousand
+unguessed, unguarded apertures, staining your lawn or your ermine; not
+to have to tremble at the thought of that future Thackeray, who "shall
+pluck out the heart of your mystery," and shall anatomise you, and
+deliver lectures upon you, to illustrate the standard of morals and
+manners in Queen Victoria's reign!
+
+In these lectures, some fine and feeling and discriminative passages on
+character, make amends for certain offences and inconsistencies in the
+novels; I mean especially in regard to the female portraits. No woman
+resents his Rebecca--inimitable Becky!--no woman but feels and
+acknowledges with a shiver the completeness of that wonderful and
+finished artistic creation; but every woman resents the selfish inane
+Amelia, and would be inclined to quote and to apply the author's own
+words when speaking of 'Tom Jones:'--"I can't say that I think Amelia a
+virtuous character. I can't say but I think Mr. Thackeray's evident
+liking and admiration for his Amelia shows that the great humourist's
+moral sense was blunted by his life, and that here in art and ethics
+there is a great error. If it be right to have a heroine whom we are to
+admire, let us take care at least that she is admirable."
+
+Laura, in 'Pendennis,' is a yet more fatal mistake. She is drawn with
+every generous feeling, every good gift. We do not complain that she
+loves that poor creature Pendennis, for she loved him in her childhood.
+She grew up with that love in her heart; it came between her and the
+perception of his faults; it is a necessity indivisible from her nature.
+Hallowed, through its constancy, therein alone would lie its best
+excuse, its beauty and its truth. But Laura, faithless to that first
+affection; Laura, waked up to the appreciation of a far more manly and
+noble nature, in love with Warrington, and then going back to Pendennis,
+and marrying _him_! Such infirmity might be true of some women, but not
+of such a woman as Laura; we resent the inconsistency, the indelicacy of
+the portrait.
+
+And then Lady Castlewood,--so evidently a favourite of the author, what
+shall we say of her? The virtuous woman, _par excellence_, who "never
+sins and never forgives," who never resents, nor relents, nor repents;
+the mother, who is the rival of her daughter; the mother, who for years
+is the _confidante_ of a man's delirious passion for her own child, and
+then consoles him by marrying him herself! O Mr. Thackeray! this will
+never do! such women _may_ exist, but to hold them up as examples of
+excellence, and fit objects of our best sympathies, is a fault, and
+proves a low standard in ethics and in art. "When an author presents to
+us a heroine whom we are called upon to admire, let him at least take
+care that she is admirable." If in these, and in some other instances,
+Thackeray has given us cause of offence, in the lectures we may thank
+him for some amends: he has shown us what he conceives true womanhood
+and true manliness ought to be; so with this expression of gratitude,
+and a far deeper debt of gratitude left unexpressed, I close his book,
+and say, good night!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Notes on Art.
+
+
+96.
+
+Sometimes, in thoughtful moments, I am struck by those beautiful
+analogies between things apparently dissimilar--those awful
+approximations between things apparently far asunder--which many people
+would call fanciful and imaginary, but they seem to bring all God's
+creation, spiritual and material, into one comprehensive whole; they
+give me, thus associated, a glimpse, a perception of that overwhelming
+unity which we call the universe, the multitudinous ONE.
+
+Thus the principle of the highest ideal in art, as conceived by the
+Greeks, and unsurpassed in its purity and beauty, lay in considering
+well the characteristics which distinguish the _human_ form from the
+brute form; and then, in rendering the human form, the first aim was to
+soften down, or, if possible, throw out wholly, those characteristics
+which belong to the brute nature, or are common to the brute and the
+man; and the next, to bring into prominence and even enlarge the
+proportions of those manifestations of forms which distinguish humanity;
+till, at last, the _human_ merged into the _divine_, and the God in
+look, in limb, in feature, stood revealed.
+
+Let us now suppose this broad principle which the Greeks applied to
+form, ethically carried out, and made the basis of all education--the
+training of men as a race. Suppose we started with the general axiom
+that all propensities which we have in common with the lower animals are
+to be kept subordinate, and so far as is consistent with the truth of
+nature refined away; and that all the qualities which elevate, all the
+aspirations which ally us with the spiritual, are to be cultivated and
+rendered more and more prominent, till at last the human being, in
+faculties as well as form, approaches the God-like--I only
+say--suppose?----
+
+Again: it has been said of natural philosophy (Zoology) that in order to
+make any real progress in the science, as such, we must more and more
+disregard _differences_, and more and more attend to the obscured but
+essential conditions which are revealed in _resemblances_, in the
+constant and similar relations of primitive structure. Now if the same
+principle were carried out in theology, in morals, in art, as well as in
+science, should we not come nearer to the essential truth in _all_?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+97.
+
+"There is an instinctive sense of propriety and reality in every mind;
+and it is not true, as some great authority has said, that in art we are
+satisfied with contemplating the work without thinking of the artist. On
+the contrary, the artist himself is one great object in the work. It is
+as embodying the energies and excellences of the human mind, as
+exhibiting the efforts of genius, as symbolising high feeling, that we
+most value the creations of art; without design the representations of
+art are merely fantastical, and without the thought of a design acting
+upon fixed principles in accordance with a high standard of goodness and
+truth, half the charm of design is lost."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+98.
+
+"Art, used collectively for painting, sculpture, architecture, and
+music, is the mediatress between, and reconciler of, nature and man. It
+is, therefore, the power of humanising nature, of infusing the thoughts
+and passions of man into everything which is the object of his
+contemplation. Colour, form, motion, sound, are the elements which it
+combines, and it stamps them into unity in the mould of a _moral_ idea."
+
+This is Coleridge's definition:--Art then is nature, _humanised_; and in
+proportion as humanity is elevated by the interfusion into our life of
+noble aims and pure affections will art be spiritualised and moralised.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+99.
+
+If faith has elevated art, superstition has everywhere debased it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+100.
+
+Goethe observes that there is no patriotic art and no patriotic
+science--that both are universal.
+
+There is, however, _national_ art, but not _national_ science: we say
+"national art," "natural science."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+101.
+
+"Verse is in itself music, and the natural symbol of that union of
+passion with thought and pleasure, which constitutes the essence of all
+poetry as contradistinguished from history civil or
+natural."--_Coleridge._
+
+In the arts of design, colour is to form what verse is to prose--a more
+harmonious and luminous vehicle of the thought.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+102.
+
+Subjects and representations in art not elevated nor interesting in
+themselves, become instructive and interesting to higher minds from the
+_manner_ in which they have been treated; perhaps because they have
+passed through the medium of a higher mind in taking form.
+
+This is one reason, though we are not always conscious of it, that the
+Dutch pictures of common and vulgar life give us a pleasure apart from
+their wonderful finish and truth of detail. In the mind of the artist
+there must have been the power to throw himself into a sphere _above_
+what he represents. Adrian Brouwer, for instance, must have been
+something far better than a sot; Ostade something higher than a boor;
+though the habits of both led them into companionship with sots and
+boors. In the most farcical pictures of Jan Steen there is a depth of
+feeling and observation which remind me of the humour of Goldsmith; and
+Teniers, we know, was in his habits a refined gentleman; the brilliant
+elegance of his pencil contrasting with the grotesque vulgarity of his
+subjects. To a thinking mind, some of these Dutch pictures of character
+are full of material for thought, pathetic even where least sympathetic:
+no doubt, because of a latent sympathy with the artist, apart from his
+subject.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+103.
+
+Coleridge says,--"Every human feeling is greater and larger than the
+exciting cause." (A philosophical way of putting Rochefoucauld's neatly
+expressed apophthegm: "Nous ne sommes jamais ni si heureux ni si
+malheureux que nous l'imaginons.") "A proof," he proceeds, "that man is
+designed for a higher state of existence; and this is deeply implied in
+music, in which there is always something more and beyond the immediate
+expression."
+
+But not music only, every production of art ought to excite emotions
+greater and thoughts larger than itself. Thoughts and emotions which
+never perhaps were in the mind of the artist, never were anticipated,
+never were intended by him--may be strongly suggested by his work. This
+is an important part of the morals of art, which we must never lose
+sight of. Art is not only for pleasure and profit, but for good and for
+evil.
+
+Goethe (in the _Dichtung und Wahrheit_) describes the reception of Marie
+Antoinette at Strasbourg, where she passed the frontier to enter her new
+kingdom. She was then a lovely girl of sixteen. He relates that on
+visiting before her arrival the reception room on the bridge over the
+Rhine, where her German attendants were to deliver her into the hands of
+the French authorities, he found the walls hung with tapestries
+representing the ominous story of Jason and Medea--of all the marriages
+on record the most fearful, the most tragic in its consequences. "What!"
+he exclaims, his poetical imagination struck with the want of moral
+harmony, "was there among these French architects and decorators no man
+who could perceive that pictures represent things,--that they have a
+meaning in themselves,--that they can impress sense and feeling,--that
+they can awaken presentiments of good or evil?" But, as he tells us, his
+exclamations of horror were met by the mockery of his French companions,
+who assured him that it was not everybody's concern to look for
+significance in pictures.
+
+These self-same tapestries of the story of Jason and Medea were after
+the Restoration presented by Louis XVIII. to George IV., and at present
+they line the walls of the Ball-room in Windsor Castle. We might repeat,
+with some reason, the question of Goethe; for if pictures have a
+significance, and speak to the imagination, what has the tragedy of
+Jason and Medea to do in a ball-room?
+
+
+Goethe, who thus laid down the principle that works of art speak to the
+feelings and the conscience, and can awaken associations tending to good
+and evil, by some strange inconsistency places art and artists out of
+the sphere of morals. He speaks somewhere with contempt and ridicule of
+those who take their conscience and their morality with them to an opera
+or a picture gallery. Yet surely he is wrong. Why should we not? Are our
+conscience and our morals like articles of dress which we can take off
+and put on again as we fancy it convenient or expedient?--shut up in a
+drawer and leave behind us when we visit a theatre or a gallery of art?
+or are they not rather a part of ourselves--our very life--to graduate the
+worth, to fix the standard of all that mingles with our life? The idea
+that what we call _taste_ in art has something quite distinctive from
+conscience, is one cause that the popular notions concerning the
+productions of art are abandoned to such confusion and uncertainty; that
+simple people regard _taste_ as something forensic, something to be
+learned, as they would learn a language, and mastered by a study of
+rules and a dictionary of epithets; and they look up to a professor of
+taste, just as they would look up to a professor of Greek or of Hebrew.
+Either they listen to judgments lightly and confidently promulgated with
+a sort of puzzled faith and a surrender of their own moral sense, which
+are pitiable; as if art also had its infallible church and its hierarchy
+of dictators!--or they fly into the opposite extreme, and seeing
+themselves deceived and misled, fall away into strange heresies. All
+from ignorance of a few laws simple in their form, yet infinite in their
+application;--_natural_ laws we must call them, though here applied to
+art.
+
+In my younger days I have known men conspicuous for their want of
+elevated principle, and for their dissipated habits, held up as arbiters
+and judges of art; but it was to them only another form of epicurism and
+self-indulgence; and I have seen them led into such absurd and fatal
+mistakes for want of the power to distinguish and to generalise, that I
+have despised their judgment, and have come to the conclusion that a
+really high standard of taste and a low standard of morals are
+incompatible with each other.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+104.
+
+"The fact of the highest artistic genius having manifested itself in a
+polytheistic age, and among a people whose moral views were essentially
+degraded, has, we think, fostered the erroneous notion that the sphere
+of art has no connection with that of morality. The Greeks, with
+penetrative insight, dilated the essential characteristics of man's
+organism as a vehicle of superior intelligence, while their intense
+sympathy with physical beauty made them alive to its most subtle
+manifestations; and reproducing their impressions through the medium of
+art, they have given birth to models of the human form, which reveal its
+highest possibilities, and the excellence of which depends upon their
+being individual expressions of ideal truth. Thus, too, in their
+descriptions of nature, instead of multiplying insignificant details,
+they seized instinctively upon the characteristic features of her
+varying aspects, and not unfrequently embodied a finished picture in one
+comprehensive and harmonious word. In association with their marvellous
+genius, however, we find a cruelty, a treachery, and a licence which
+would be revolting if it were not for the historical interest which
+attaches to every genuine record of a bygone age. Their low moral
+standard cannot excite surprise when we consider the debasing tendency
+of their worship, the objects of their adoration being nothing more than
+their own degraded passions invested with some of the attributes of
+deity. Now, among the modifications of thought introduced by
+Christianity, there is perhaps none more pregnant with important results
+than the harmony which it has established between religion and
+morality. The great law of right and wrong has acquired a sacred
+character, when viewed as an expression of the divine will; it takes its
+rank among the eternal verities, and to ignore it in our delineations of
+life, or to represent sin otherwise than as treason against the supreme
+ruler, is to retain in modern civilisation one of the degrading elements
+of heathenism. Conscience is as great a fact of our inner life as the
+sense of beauty, and the harmonious action of both these instinctive
+principles is essential to the highest enjoyment of art, for any
+internal dissonance disturbs the repose of the mind, and thereby
+shatters the image mirrored in its depths."--_A. S._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+105.
+
+"Mais vous autres artistes, vous ne considerez pour la plupart dans les
+oeuvres que la beauté ou la singularité de l'exécution, sans vous
+pénétrer de l'idée dont cet oeuvre est la forme; ainsi votre intelligence
+adore souvent l'expression d'un sentiment que votre coeur repousserait
+s'il en avait la conscience."--_George Sand._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+106.
+
+Lavater told Goethe that on a certain occasion when he held the velvet
+bag in the church as collector of the offerings, he tried to observe
+only the hands; and he satisfied himself that in every individual, the
+shape of the hand and of the fingers, the action and sentiment in
+dropping the gift into the bag, were distinctly different and
+individually characteristic.
+
+What then shall we say of Van Dyck, who painted the hands of his men and
+women, not from individual nature, but from a model hand--his own very
+often?--and every one who considers for a moment will see in Van Dyck's
+portraits, that, however well painted and elegant the hands, they in
+very few instances harmonise with the _personalité_;--that the position
+is often affected, and as if intended for display,--the display of what
+is in itself a positive fault, and from which some little knowledge of
+comparative physiology would have saved him.
+
+There are hands of various character; the hand to catch, and the hand to
+hold; the hand to clasp, and the hand to grasp. The hand that has
+worked or could work, and the hand that has never done anything but hold
+itself out to be kissed, like that of Joanna of Arragon in Raphael's
+picture.
+
+Let any one look at the hands in Titian's portrait of old Paul IV.:
+though exquisitely modelled, they have an expression which reminds us of
+claws; they belong to the face of that grasping old man, and could
+belong to no other.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+107.
+
+Mozart and Chopin, though their genius was differently developed, were
+alike in some things: in nothing more than this, that the artistic
+element in both minds wholly dominated over the social and practical,
+and that their art was the element in which they moved and lived,
+through which they felt and thought. I doubt whether either of them
+could have said, "_D'abord je suis homme et puis je suis artiste_;"
+whereas this could have been said with truth by Mendelsohn and by
+Litzst. In Mendelsohn the enormous creative power was modified by the
+intellect and the conscience. Litzst has no creative power.
+
+Litzst has thus drawn the character of Chopin:--"Rien n'était plus pur et
+plus exalté en même temps que ses pensées; rien n'était plus tenace,
+plus exclusif, et plus minutieusement dévoué que ses affections. Mais
+cet être ne comprenait que ce qui était identique à lui-même:--le reste
+n'existait pour lui que comme une sorte de rêve fâcheux, auquel il
+essayait de se soustraire en vivant au milieu du monde. Toujours perdu
+dans ses rêveries, la réalité lui deplaisait. Enfant il ne pouvait
+toucher à un instrument tranchant sans se blesser; homme il ne pouvait
+se trouver en face d'un homme différent de lui, sans se heurter contre
+cette contradiction vivante."
+
+"Ce qui le préservait d'un antagonisme perpétuel c'était l'habitude
+volontaire et bientôt invétérée de ne point voir, de ne pas entendre ce
+qui lui deplaisait: en général sans toucher à ses affections
+personelles, les êtres qui ne pensaient pas comme lui devenaient à ses
+yeux comme des espèces de fantômes; et comme il était d'une politesse
+charmante, on pouvait prendre pour une bienveillance courtoise ce qui
+n'était chez lui qu'un froid dédain--une aversion insurmontable."
+
+
+108.
+
+The father of Mozart was a man of high and strict religious principle.
+He had a conviction--in his case more truly founded than is usual--that
+he was the father of a great, a surpassing genius, and consequently of a
+being unfortunate in this, that he must be in advance of his age,
+exposed to error, to envy, to injustice, to strife; and to do his duty
+to his son demanded large faith and large firmness. But because he _did_
+estimate this sacred trust as a duty to be discharged, not only with
+respect to his gifted son, but to the God who had so endowed him; so, in
+spite of many mistakes, the earnest straightforward endeavour to do
+right in the parent seems to have saved Mozart's moral life, and to have
+given that completeness to the productions of his genius, which the
+harmony of the moral and creative faculties alone can bestow.
+
+
+"The modifying power of circumstances on Mozart's style, is an
+interesting consideration. Whatever of striking, of new or beautiful he
+met with in the works of others left its impression on him; and he often
+reproduced these efforts, not servilely, but mingling his own nature and
+feelings with them in a manner not less surprising than delightful."
+
+This is true equally of Shakespeare and of Raphael, both of whom adapted
+or rather adopted much from their precursors in the way of material to
+work upon; and whose incomparable originality consisted in the
+interfusion of their own great individual genius with every subject
+they touched, so that it became theirs, and could belong to no other.
+
+
+The Figaro was composed at Vienna. The Don Juan and Clemenza di Tito at
+Prague;--which I note because the localities are so characteristic of the
+operas. Cimarosa's Matrimonio Segreto was composed at Prague; it was on
+the fortification of the Hradschin one morning at sun-rise that he
+composed the _Pria che spunti in ciel l'aurora_.
+
+
+When called upon to describe his method of composing, what Mozart said
+of himself was very striking from its _naïveté_ and truth. "I do not,"
+he said, "aim at originality. I do not know in what my originality
+consists. Why my productions take from my hand that particular form or
+style which makes them _Mozartish_, and different from the works of
+other composers is probably owing to the same cause which makes my nose
+this or that particular shape; makes it, in short, Mozart's nose, and
+different from other people's."
+
+Yet, as a composer, Mozart was as _objective_, as dramatic, as
+Shakspeare and Raphael; Chopin, in comparison, was wholly
+_subjective_,--the Byron of Music.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+109.
+
+Talking once with Adelaide Kemble, after she had been singing in the
+"Figaro," she compared the music to the bosom of a full blown rose in
+its voluptuous, intoxicating richness. I said that some of Mozart's
+melodies seemed to me not so much composed, but found--found on some
+sunshiny day in Arcadia, among nymphs and flowers. "Yes," she replied,
+with ready and felicitous expression, "not _inventions_, but
+_existences_."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+110.
+
+Old George the Third, in his blindness and madness, once insisted on
+making the selection of pieces for the concert of ancient music (May,
+1811),--it was soon after the death of the Princess Amelia. "The
+programme included some of the finest passages in Handel's 'Samson,'
+descriptive of blindness; the 'Lamentation of Jephthah,' for his
+daughter; Purcel's 'Mad Tom,' and closed with 'God save the King,' to
+make sure the application of all that went before."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+111.
+
+Every one who remembers what Madlle. Rachel was seven or eight years
+ago, and who sees her now (1853), will allow that she has made no
+progress in any of the essential excellences of her art:--a certain proof
+that she is not a great artist in the true sense of the word. She is a
+finished actress, but she is nothing more, and nothing better; not
+enough the artist ever to forget or conceal her art; consequently there
+is a want somewhere, which a mind highly toned and of quick perceptions
+feels from beginning to end. The parts in which she once excelled--the
+Phêdre and the Hermione, for instance--have become formalised and hard,
+like studies cast in bronze; and when she plays a new part it has no
+freshness. I always go to see her whenever I can. I admire her as what
+she is--the Parisian actress, practised in every trick of her _métier_. I
+admire what she does, I think how well it is all _done_, and am inclined
+to clap and applaud her drapery, perfect and ostentatiously studied in
+every fold, just with the same feeling that I applaud herself.
+
+As to the last scene of Adrienne Lecouvreur, (which those who are
+_avides de sensation_, athirst for painful emotion, go to see as they
+would drink a dram, and critics laud as a miracle of art,) it is
+altogether a mistake and a failure; it is beyond the just limits of
+terror and pity--beyond the legitimate sphere of _art_. It reminds us of
+the story of Gentil Bellini and the Sultan. The Sultan much admired
+Bellini's picture of the decollation of John the Baptist, but informed
+him that it was inaccurate--surgically--for the tendons and muscles ought
+to shrink where divided; and then calling for one of his slaves, he drew
+his scimitar, and striking off the head of the wretch, gave the
+horror-struck artist a lesson in practical anatomy. So we might possibly
+learn from Rachel's imitative representation, (studied in an hospital as
+they say,) how poison acts on the frame, and how the limbs and features
+writhe into death; but if she were a great moral artist she would feel
+that what is allowed to be true in painting, is true in art generally;
+that mere imitation, such as the vulgar delight in, and hold up their
+hands to see, is the vulgarest and easiest aim of the imitative arts,
+and that between the true interpretation of poetry in art and such base
+mechanical means to the lowest ends, there lies an immeasurable
+distance.
+
+I am disposed to think that Rachel has not genius, but talent, and that
+her talent, from what I see year after year, has a downward
+tendency,--there is not sufficient moral seasoning to save it from
+corruption. I remember that when I first saw her in Hermione she
+reminded me of a serpent, and the same impression continues. The long
+meagre form with its graceful undulating movements, the long narrow face
+and features, the contracted jaw, the high brow, the brilliant
+supernatural eyes which seem to glance every way at once; the sinister
+smile; the painted red lips, which look as though they had lapped, or
+could lap, blood; all these bring before me the idea of a Lamia, the
+serpent nature in the woman's form. In Lydia, and in Athalie, she
+touches the extremes of vice and wickedness with such a masterly
+lightness and precision, that I am full of wondering admiration for the
+actress. There is not a turn of her figure, not an expression in her
+face, not a fold in her gorgeous drapery, that is not a study; but
+withal such a consciousness of her art, and such an ostentation of the
+means she employs, that the power remains always _extraneous_, as it
+were, and exciting only to the senses and the intellect.
+
+Latterly she has become a hard mannerist. Her face, once so flexible,
+has lost the power of expressing the nicer shades and softer gradations
+of feeling; so much so, that they write dramas for her with
+supernaturally wicked and depraved heroines to suit her especial powers.
+I conceive that an artist could not sink lower in degradation. Yet to
+satisfy the taste of a Parisian audience and the ambition of a Parisian
+actress this was not enough, and wickedness required the piquancy of
+immediate approximation with innocence. In the Valeria she played two
+characters, and appeared on the stage alternately as a miracle of vice
+and a miracle of virtue: an abandoned prostitute and a chaste matron.
+There was something in this contrasted impersonation, considered simply
+in relation to the aims and objects of art, so revolting, that I sat in
+silent and deep disgust, which was partly deserved by the audience which
+could endure the exhibition.
+
+It is the entire absence of the high poetic and moral element which
+distinguishes Rachel as an actress, and places her at such an
+immeasurable distance from Mrs. Siddons, that it shocks me to hear them
+named together.
+
+
+112.
+
+It is no reproach to a capital actress to play effectively a very wicked
+character. Mrs. Siddons played the abandoned Milwood as carefully, as
+completely as she played Hermoine and Constance; but if it had required
+a perpetual succession of Calistas and Milwoods to call forth her
+highest powers, what should we think of the woman and the artist?
+
+
+113.
+
+When dramas and characters are invented to suit the particular talent of
+a particular actor or actress, it argues rather a limited range of the
+artistic power; though within that limit the power may be great and the
+talent genuine.
+
+
+Thus for Liston and for Miss O'Neil, so distinguished in their
+respective lines of Comedy and Tragedy, characters were especially
+constructed and plays written, which have not been acted since their
+time.
+
+
+114.
+
+A celebrated German actress (who has quitted the stage for many years)
+speaking of Rachel, said that the reason she must always stop short of
+the highest place in art, is because she is nothing but an actress--that
+only; and has no aims in life, has no duties, feelings, employments,
+sympathies, but those which centre in herself in the interests of her
+art;--which thus ceases to be _art_ and becomes a _métier_.
+
+This reminded me of what Pauline Viardot once said to me:--"D'abord je
+suis _femme_, avec les dévoirs, les affections, les sentiments d'une
+femme; et puis je suis _artiste_."
+
+
+115.
+
+The same German actress whose opinion I have quoted, told me that the
+Leonora and the Iphigenia of Goethe were the parts she preferred to
+play. The Thekla and the Beatrice of Schiller next. (In all these she
+excelled.) The parts easiest to her, requiring no effort scarcely, were
+Jerta (in Houwald's Tragedy, "Die Schuld"), and Clärchen in Egmont; of
+the character of Jerta, she said beautifully:--"Ich habe es nicht
+gespielt, Ich habe es gesagt!" (I did not _play_ it, I _uttered_ it.)
+This was extremely characteristic of the woman.
+
+I once asked Mrs. Siddons, which of her great characters she preferred
+to play? She replied, after a moment's consideration, and in her rich
+deliberate emphatic tones:--"Lady Macbeth is the character I have most
+_studied_." She afterwards said that she had played the character during
+thirty years, and scarcely acted it once, without carefully reading
+over the part and generally the whole play in the morning; and that she
+never read over the play without finding something new in it;
+"something," she said, "which had not struck me so much as it _ought_ to
+have struck me."
+
+
+Of Mrs. Pritchard, who preceded Mrs. Siddons in the part of Lady
+Macbeth, it was well known that she had never read the play. She merely
+studied her own part as written out by the stage-copyist; of the other
+parts she knew nothing but the _cues_.
+
+
+116.
+
+When I asked Mrs. Henry Siddons, which of her characters she preferred
+playing? she said at once "Imogen, in Cymbeline, was the character I
+played with most ease to myself, and most success as regarded the
+public; it cost no effort."
+
+This was confirmed by others. A very good judge said of her--"In some of
+her best parts, as Juliet, Rosalind, and Lady Townley, she may have been
+approached or equalled. In Viola and Imogen she was never equalled. In
+the grace and simplicity of the first, in the refinement and shy but
+impassioned tenderness of the last, _I_ at least have never seen any one
+to be compared to her. She hardly seemed to _act_ these parts; they came
+naturally to her."
+
+This reminds me of another anecdote of the same accomplished actress and
+admirable woman. The people of Edinburgh, among whom she lived, had so
+identified her with all that was gentle, refined and noble, that they
+did not like to see her play wicked parts. It happened that Godwin went
+down to Edinburgh with a tragedy in his pocket, which had been accepted
+by the theatre there, and in which Mrs. Henry Siddons was to play the
+principal part--that of a very wicked woman (I forget the name of the
+piece). He was warned that it risked the success of his play, but her
+conception of the part was so just and spirited, that he persisted. At
+the rehearsal she stopped in the midst of one of her speeches and said,
+with great _naïveté_, "I am afraid, Mr. Godwin, the people will not
+endure to hear me say this!" He replied coolly, "My dear, you cannot be
+always young and pretty--you must come to this at last,--go on." He
+mistook her meaning and the feeling of "the people." The play failed;
+and the audience took care to discriminate between their disapprobation
+of the piece and their admiration for the actress.
+
+
+117.
+
+Madame Schroeder Devrient told me that she sung with most pleasure to
+herself in the "Fidelio;" and in this part I have never seen her
+equalled.
+
+Fanny Kemble told me the part she had played with most pleasure to
+herself, was Camiola, in Massinger's "Maid of Honour." It was an
+exquisite impersonation, but the play itself ineffective and not
+successful, because of the weak and worthless character of the hero.
+
+
+118.
+
+Mrs. Charles Kean told me that she had played with great ease and
+pleasure to herself, the part of Ginevra, in Leigh Hunt's "Legend of
+Florence." She _made_ the part (as it is technically termed), and it was
+a very complete and beautiful impersonation.
+
+
+These answers appear to me psychologically, as well as artistically,
+interesting, and worth preserving.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+119.
+
+Mrs. Siddons, when looking over the statues in Lord Lansdowne's gallery,
+told him that one mode of expressing intensity of feeling was suggested
+to her by the position of some of the Egyptian statues with the arms
+close down at the sides and the hands clenched. This is curious, for the
+attitude in the Egyptian gods is intended to express repose. As the
+expression of intense passion self-controlled, it might be appropriate
+to some characters and not to others. Rachel, as I recollect, uses it in
+the Phêdre:--Madame Rettich uses it in the Medea. It would not be
+characteristic in Constance.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+120.
+
+On a certain occasion when Fanny Kemble was reading Cymbeline, a lady
+next to me remarked that Imogen ought not to utter the words "Senseless
+linen!--happier therein than I!" aloud, and to Pisanio,--that it detracted
+from the strength of the feeling, and that they should have been uttered
+aside, and in a low, intense whisper. "Iachimo," she added, "might
+easily have won a woman who could have laid her heart so bare to a mere
+attendant!"
+
+On my repeating this criticism to Fanny Kemble, she replied just as I
+had anticipated: "Such criticism is the mere expression of the natural
+emotions or character of the critic. _She_ would have spoken the words
+in a whisper; _I_ should have made the exclamation aloud. If there had
+been a thousand people by, I should not have cared for them--I should not
+have been conscious of their presence. I should have exclaimed before
+them all, 'Senseless linen!--happier therein than I!'"
+
+And thus the artist fell into the same mistake of which she accused her
+critic--she made Imogen utter the words aloud, because _she_ would have
+done so herself. This sort of subjective criticism in both was quite
+feminine; but the question was not how either A. B. or F. K. would have
+spoken the words, but what would have been most natural in such a woman
+as Imogen?
+
+And most undoubtedly the first criticism was as exquisitely true and
+just as it was delicate. Such a woman as Imogen would _not_ have uttered
+those words aloud. She would have uttered them in a whisper, and turning
+her face from her attendant. With such a woman, the more intense the
+passion, the more conscious and the more veiled the expression.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+121.
+
+I read in the life of Garrick that, "about 1741, a taste for Shakespeare
+had lately been revived by the encouragement of some distinguished
+persons of taste of both sexes; but more especially by the ladies who
+formed themselves into a society, called the 'Shakespeare Club.'" There
+exists a Shakespeare Society at this present time, but I do not know
+that any ladies are members of it, or allowed to be so.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+122.
+
+The "Maria Maddalena" of Friedrich Hebbel is a domestic tragedy. It
+represents the position of a young girl in the lower class of society-a
+character of quiet goodness and feeling, in a position the most usual,
+circumstances the most common-place. The representation is from the
+life, and set forth with a truth which in its naked simplicity, almost
+hardness, becomes most tragic and terrible. Around this girl, portrayed
+with consummate delicacy, is a group of men. First her father, an honest
+artisan, coarse, harsh, despotic. Then a light-minded, good-natured,
+dissipated brother, and two suitors. All these love her according to
+their masculine individuality. To the men of her own family she is as a
+part of the furniture--something they are accustomed to see--necessary to
+the daily well-being of the house, without whom the fire would not be on
+the hearth, nor the soup on the table; and they are proud of her charms
+and good qualities as belonging to them. By her lovers she is loved as
+an object they desire to possess--and dispute with each other. But no one
+of all these thinks of _her_--of what she thinks, feels, desires,
+suffers, is, or may be. Nor does she seem to think of it herself, until
+the storm falls upon her, enwraps her, overwhelms her. Then she stands
+in the midst of the beings around her, and who are one and all in a kind
+of external relation to her, completely alone. In her grief, in her
+misery, in her amazement, her perplexity, her terror, there is no one to
+take thought for her, no one to help, no one to sympathise. Each is
+self-occupied, self-satisfied. And so she sinks down and perishes, and
+they stand wondering at what they had not the sense to see, wringing
+their hands over the irremediable. It is the Lucy Ashton of vulgar life.
+
+The manners and characters of this play are essentially German; but the
+_stuff_--the material of the piece--the relative position of the
+personages, might be true of any place in this christian, civilised
+Europe. The whole is wonderfully, painfully natural, and strikes home to
+the heart, like Hood's "Bridge of Sighs." It was a surprise to me that
+such a piece should have been acted, and with applause, at the Court
+Theatre at Vienna; but I believe it has not been given since 1849.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+123.
+
+Here is a very good analysis of the artistic nature: "Il ressent une
+véritable émotion, mais il s'arrange pour la montrer. Il fait un peu ce
+que faisait cet acteur de l'antiquité qui, venant de perdre son fils
+unique et jouant quelque temps après le rôle d'Electre embrassant l'urne
+d'Oreste, prit entre ses mains l'urne qui contenait les cendres de son
+enfant, et joua sa propre douleur, dit Aulus Gellius, au lieu de jouer
+celle de son rôle. Ce melange de l'émotion naturelle et de l'émotion
+théatrale est plus fréquent qu'on ne croit, surtout à certaines époques
+quand le raffinement de l'Education fait que l'homme ne sent pas
+seulement ses émotions, mais qu'il sent aussi l'effet qu'elles peuvent
+produire. Beaucoup de gens alors, sont naturellement comédiens; c'est à
+dire qu'ils donnent un rôle à leurs passions: ils sentent en dehors au
+lieu de sentir en dedans; leurs émotions sont _en relief_ au lieu d'être
+_en profondeur_."--_St. Marc Girardin._
+
+I think Margaret Fuller must have had the above passage in her mind when
+she worked out this happy illustration into a more finished form. She
+says:--"The difference between the artistic nature and the unartistic
+nature in the hour of emotion, is this: in the first the feeling is a
+cameo, in the last an intaglio. Raised in relief and shaped _out_ of the
+heart in the first; cut _into_ the heart, and hardly perceptible till
+you take the impression, in the last."
+
+And to complete this fanciful and beautiful analogy, we might add, that
+because the artistic nature is demonstrative, it is sometimes thought
+insincere; and insincere it _is_ where the form is hollow in proportion
+as it is cast outward, as in the casts and electrotype copies of the
+solid sculpture. And because the unartistic nature is undemonstrative,
+it is sometimes thought cold, unreal; for of this also there are
+imitations; and in passing the touch over certain intaglios, we feel by
+contact that they are not so deep as we supposed.
+
+God defend us from both! from the hollowness that imitates solidity,
+and the shallowness that imitates depth!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+124.
+
+Goethe said of some woman, "She knew something of devotion and love, but
+of the pure admiration for a glorious piece of man's handiwork--of a mere
+sympathetic veneration for the creation of the human intellect--she could
+form no idea."
+
+This may have been true of the individual woman referred to; but that
+female critics look for something in a production of art beyond the mere
+handiwork, and that "our sympathetic veneration for a creation of human
+intellect," is often dependent on our moral associations, is not a
+reproach to us. Nor, if I may presume to say so, does it lessen the
+value of our criticism, where it can be referred to principles. Women
+have a sort of unconscious logic in these matters.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+125.
+
+"When fiction," says Sir James Mackintosh, "represents a degree of ideal
+excellence superior to any virtue which is observed in real life, the
+effect is perfectly analogous to that of a model of ideal beauty in the
+fine arts."
+
+That is to say--As the Apollo exalts our idea of possible beauty, in
+form, so the moral ideal of man or woman exalts our idea of possible
+virtue, provided it be _consistent_ as a whole. If we gave the Apollo a
+god-like head and face and left a part of his frame below perfection,
+the elevating effect of the whole would be immediately destroyed, though
+the figure might be more according to the standard of actual nature.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+126.
+
+"In Dante, as in Shakespeare, every man selects by instinct that which
+assimilates with the course of his own previous occupations and
+interests." (_Merivale._) True, not of Dante and Shakespeare only, but
+of all books worth reading; and not merely of books and authors, but of
+all productions of mind in whatever form which speak to mind; all works
+of art, from which we _imbibe_, as it were, what is sympathetic with our
+individuality. The more universal the sympathies of the writer or the
+artist, the more of such individualities will be included in his domain
+of power.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+127.
+
+The distinction so cleverly and beautifully drawn by the Germans (by
+Lessing first I believe) between "Bildende" and "Redende Kunst" is not
+to be rendered into English without a lengthy paraphrase. It places in
+immediate contradistinction the art which is evolved in _words_, and the
+art which is evolved in _forms_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+128.
+
+Venus, or rather the Greek Aphrodite, in the sublime fragment of
+Eschylus (the Danaïdes) is a grand, severe, and pure conception; the
+principle eternal of beauty, of love, and of fecundity--or the law of the
+continuation of being through beauty and through love. Such a
+conception is no more like the Ovidean Roman Venus than the Venus of
+Milo is like the Venus de Medicis.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+129.
+
+In the Greek tragedy, love figures as one of the laws of nature--not as a
+power, or a passion; these are the aspects given to it by the Christian
+imagination.
+
+Yet this higher idea of love _did_ exist among the ancients--only we must
+not seek it in their poetry, but in their philosophy. Thus we find it in
+Plato, set forth as a beautiful philosophical theory; not as a passion,
+to influence life, nor as a poetic feeling, to adorn and exalt it. Nor
+do we moderns owe this idea of a mystic, elevated, and elevating love to
+the Greek philosophy. I rather agree with those who trace it to the
+mingling of Christianity with the manners of the old Germans, and their
+(almost) superstitious reverence for womanhood. In the Middle Ages,
+where morals were most depraved, and women most helpless and oppressed,
+there still survived the theory formed out of the combination of the
+Christian spirit, and the Germanic customs; and when in the 15th
+century Plato became the fashion, then the theory became a science, and
+what had been religion became again philosophy. This sort of speculative
+love became to real love what theology became to religion; it was a
+thesis to be talked about and argued in universities, sung in sonnets,
+set forth in art; and so being kept as far as possible from all bearings
+on our moral life, it ceased to find consideration either as a primæval
+law of God, or as a moral motive influencing the duties and habits of
+our existence; and thus we find the social code in regard to it
+diverging into all the vagaries of celibacy on one hand, and all the
+vilenesses of profligacy on the other.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+130.
+
+Wilkie's "Life and Letters" have not helped me much. His opinions and
+criticisms on his own art are sensible, not suggestive. I find, however,
+one or two passages strongly illustrative of the value of _truth_ as a
+principle in art, and the sort of _vitality_ it gives to scenery and
+objects.
+
+He writes, when travelling in Holland, to his friend, Sir George
+Beaumont;--
+
+"One of the first circumstances that struck me wherever I went was what
+you had prepared me for; the resemblance that everything bore to the
+Dutch and Flemish pictures. On leaving Ostend, not only the people,
+houses, trees, but whole tracks of country reminded me of Teniers, and
+on getting further into the country this was only relieved by the
+pictures of Rubens and Wouvermans, or some other masters taking his
+place.
+
+"I thought I could trace the particular districts in Holland where
+Ostade, Cuyp, and Rembrandt had studied, and could almost fancy the spot
+where the pictures of other masters had been painted. Indeed nothing
+seemed new to me in the whole country; and what one could not help
+wondering at, was, that these old masters should have been able to draw
+the materials of so beautiful a variety of art, from so contracted and
+monotonous a theme."
+
+Their variety arose out of their truthfulness. I had the same feeling
+when travelling in Holland and Belgium. It was to me a perpetual
+succession of reminiscences, and so it has been with others. Rubens and
+Rembrandt (as landscape painters)--Cuyp, Hobbima, were continually in my
+mind; occasionally the yet more poetical Ruysdaal; but who ever thinks
+of Wouvermans, or Bergham, or Karel du Jardin, as national or natural
+painters? their scenery is all _got up_ like the scenery in a ballet,
+and I can conceive nothing more tiresome than a room full of their
+pictures, elegant as they are.
+
+
+131.
+
+Again, writing from Jerusalem, Wilkie says, "Nothing here requires
+revolution in our opinions of the finest works of art: with all their
+discrepancies of detail, they are yet constantly recalled by what is
+here before us. The background of the Heliodorus of Raphael is a Syrian
+building; the figures in the Lazarus of Sebastian del Piombo are a
+Syrian people; and the indescribable tone of Rembrandt is brought to
+mind at every turn, whether in the street, the Synagogue, or the
+Sepulchre." And again: "The painter we are always referring to, as one
+who has most truly given the eastern people, is Rembrandt."
+
+He partly contradicts this afterwards, but says, that Venetian art
+reminds him of Syria. Now, the Venetians were in constant communication
+with the East; all their art has a tinge of orientalism. As to
+Rembrandt, he must have been in familiar intercourse with the Jew
+merchants and Jewish families settled in the Dutch commercial towns; he
+painted them frequently as portraits, and they perpetually appear in his
+compositions.
+
+
+132.
+
+In the following passage Wilkie seems unconsciously to have anticipated
+the invention (or rather the _discovery_) of the Daguerreotype, and some
+of its results. He says:--"If by an operation of mechanism, animated
+nature could be copied with the accuracy of a cast in plaster, a tracing
+on a wall, or a reflection in a glass, without modification, and without
+the proprieties and graces of art, all that utility could desire would
+be perfectly attained, but it would be at the expense of almost every
+quality which renders art delightful."
+
+One reason why the Daguerreotype portraits are in general so
+unsatisfactory may perhaps be traced to a natural law, though I have not
+heard it suggested. It is this: every object that we behold we see not
+with the eye only, but with the soul; and this is especially true of the
+human countenance, which in so far as it is the expression of mind we
+see through the medium of our own individual mind. Thus a portrait is
+satisfactory in so far as the painter has sympathy with his subject, and
+delightful to us in proportion as the resemblance reflected through
+_his_ sympathies is in accordance with _our own_. Now in the
+Daguerreotype there is no such medium, and the face comes before us
+without passing through the human mind and brain to our apprehension.
+This may be the reason why a Daguerreotype, however beautiful and
+accurate, is seldom satisfactory or agreeable, and that while we
+acknowledge its truth as to fact, it always leaves something for the
+sympathies to desire.
+
+
+133.
+
+He says, "One thing alone seems common in all the stages of early art;
+the desire of making all other excellences tributary to the expression
+of thought and sentiment."
+
+The early painters had _no other_ excellences except those of thought
+and expression; therefore could not sacrifice what they did not possess.
+They drew incorrectly, coloured ineffectively, and were ignorant of
+perspective.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+134.
+
+When at Dusseldorf, I found the President of the Academy, Wilhelm
+Schadow, employed on a church picture in three compartments; Paradise
+in the centre; on the right side, Purgatory; on the left side, Hell. He
+explained to me that he had not attempted to paint the interior of
+Paradise as the sojourn of the blessed, because he could imagine no kind
+of occupation or delight which, prolonged to eternity, would not be
+wearisome. He had therefore represented the exterior of Paradise, where
+Christ, standing on the threshold with outstretched arms, receives and
+welcomes those who enter. (This was better and in finer taste than the
+more common allegory of St. Peter and his keys.) On one side of the
+door, the Virgin Mary and a group of guardian angels encourage those who
+approach. Among these we distinguish a martyr who has died for the
+truth, and a warrior who has fought for it. A care-worn, penitent mother
+is presented by her innocent daughter. Those who were "in the world and
+the world knew them not," are here acknowledged--and eyes dim with
+weeping, and heads bowed with shame, are here uplifted, and bright with
+the rapturous gleam which shone through the portals of Paradise.
+
+The idea of Purgatory, he told me, was suggested by a vision or dream
+related by St. Catherine of Genoa, in which she beheld a great number of
+men and women shut up in a dark cavern; angels descending from heaven,
+liberate them from time to time, and they are borne away one after
+another from darkness, pain, and penance, into life and light--again to
+behold the face of their Maker--reconciled and healed. In his picture,
+Schadow has represented two angels bearing away a liberated soul. Below
+in the fore-ground groups of sinners are waiting, sadly, humbly, but not
+unhopefully, the term of their bitter penance. Among these he had placed
+a group of artists and poets who, led away by temptation, had abused
+their glorious gifts to wicked or worldly purposes;--Titian, Ariosto,
+and, rather to my surprise, the beautiful, lamenting spirit of Byron.
+Then, what was curious enough, as types of ambition, Lady Macbeth and
+her husband, who, it seems, were to be ultimately saved, I do not know
+why--unless for the love of Shakespeare.
+
+Hell, like all the hells I ever saw, was a failure. There was the usual
+amount of fire and flames, dragons and serpents, ghastly, despairing
+spirits, but nothing of original or powerful conception. When I looked
+in Schadow's face, so beautiful with benevolence, I wondered _how_ he
+could--but in truth he could _not_--realise to himself the idea of a hell;
+all the materials he had used were borrowed and common-place.
+
+But among his cartoons for pictures already painted, there was one
+charming idea of quite a different kind. It was for an altar, and he
+called it "THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE." Above, the sacrificed Redeemer lies
+extended in his mother's arms. The pure abundant Waters of Salvation,
+gushing from the rock beneath their feet, are received into a great
+cistern. Saints, martyrs, teachers of the truth, are standing round,
+drinking or filling their vases, which they present to each other. From
+the cistern flows a stream, at which a family of poor peasants are
+drinking with humble, joyful looks; and as the stream divides and flows
+away through flowery meadows, little sportive children stoop to drink of
+it, scooping up the water in their tiny hands, or sipping it with their
+rosy smiling lips. A beautiful and significant allegory beautifully
+expressed, and as intelligible to the people as any in the "Pilgrim's
+Progress."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+135.
+
+Haydon discussed "High Art" as if it depended solely on the knowledge
+and the appreciation of _form_. In this lay his great mistake. Form is
+but the vehicle of the highest art.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+136.
+
+Southey says that the Franciscan Order "excluded all art, all
+science;--no pictures might profane their churches." This is a most
+extraordinary instance of ignorance in a man of Southey's universal
+learning. Did he forget Friar Bacon? had he not heard of that museum of
+divine pictures, the Franciscan church and convent at Assisi? And that
+some of the greatest mathematicians, architects, mosaic workers,
+carvers, and painters, of the 13th and 14th centuries were Franciscan
+friars?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+137.
+
+Wordsworth's remark on Sir Joshua Reynolds as a painter, that "he lived
+too much for the age and the people among whom he lived," is hardly
+just; as a portrait-painter he could not well do otherwise; his
+profession was to represent the people among whom he lived. An artist
+who takes the higher, the creative and imaginative walks of art, and who
+thinks he can, at the same time, live for and with the age, and for the
+passing and clashing interests of the world, and the frivolities of
+society, does so at a great risk: there must be perilous discord between
+the inner and the outer life--such discord as wears and irritates the
+whole physical and moral being. Where the original material of the
+character is not strong, the artistic genius will be gradually
+enfeebled and conventionalised, through flattery, through sympathy,
+through misuse. If the material be strong, the result may perhaps be
+worse; the genius may be demoralised and the mind lose its balance. I
+have seen in my time instances of both.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+138.
+
+"The man," says Coleridge, "who reads a work meant for immediate effect
+on one age, with the notions and feelings of another, may be a refined
+gentleman but a very sorry critic."
+
+This is especially true with regard to art: but Coleridge should have
+put in the word, _only_, ("only the notions and feelings of another
+age,") for a very great pleasure lies in the power of throwing ourselves
+into the sentiments and notions of one age, while feeling _with_ them,
+and reflecting _upon_ them, with the riper critical experience which
+belongs to another age.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+139.
+
+A _good_ taste in art feels the presence or the absence of merit; a
+_just_ taste discriminates the degree,--the _poco-più_ and the
+_poco-meno_. A _good_ taste rejects faults; a _just_ taste selects
+excellences. A _good_ taste is often unconscious; a _just_ taste is
+always conscious. A _good_ taste may be lowered or spoilt; a _just_
+taste can only go on refining more and more.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+140.
+
+Artists are interesting to me as men. Their work, as the product of
+mind, should lead us to a knowledge of their own being; else, as I have
+often said and written, our admiration of art is a species of atheism.
+To forget the soul in its highest manifestation is like forgetting God
+in his creation.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+141.
+
+"Les images peints du corps humain, dans les figures où domine par trop
+le savoir anatomique, en révèlant trop clairement à l'homme les secrets
+de sa structure, lui en découvrent aussi par trop ce qu'on pourrait
+appeler le point de vue _matériel_, ou, si l'on veut, _animal_."
+
+This is the fault of Michal-Angelo; yet I have sometimes thought that
+his very materialism, so grand, and so peculiar in character, may have
+arisen out of his profound religious feeling, his stern morality, his
+lofty conceptions of our _mortal_, as well as _immortal_ destinies. He
+appears to have beheld the human form only in a pure and sublime point
+of view; not as the animal man, but as the habitation, fearfully and
+wondrously constructed, for the spirit of man,--
+
+           "The outward shape,
+   And unpolluted temple of the mind."
+
+This is the reason that Michal-Angelo's materialism affects us so
+differently from that of Rubens. In the first, the predominance of form
+attains almost a moral sublimity. In the latter, the predominance of
+flesh and blood is debased into physical grossness. Michal-Angelo
+believed in the resurrection of THE BODY, emphatically; and in his Last
+Judgment the dead rise like Titans, strong to contend and mighty to
+suffer. It is the apotheosis of form. In Ruben's picture of the same
+subject (at Munich) the bodily presence of resuscitated life is
+revolting, reminding us of the text of St. Paul--"Flesh and blood shall
+_not_ inherit the kingdom of God." Both pictures are _æsthetically_
+false, but _artistically_ miracles, and should thus be considered and
+appreciated.
+
+I have never looked on those awful figures in the Medici Chapel without
+thinking what stupendous intellects must inhabit such stupendous
+forms--terrible in their quietude; but they are supernatural, rather than
+divine.
+
+   "Heidnische Ruhe und Christliche Milde, sie bleiben Dir fremde;
+    Alt-testamentisch bist Du, Zürnender, wie ist Dein Gott!"
+
+John Edward Taylor, in his profound and beautiful essay "MICHAEL-ANGELO,
+A POET," says truly that "Dante worshipped the philosophy of religion,
+and Michael-Angelo adored the philosophy of art." The religion of the
+one and the art of the other were evolved in a strange combination of
+mysticism, materialism, and moral grandeur. The two men were congenial
+in character and in genius.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+A FRAGMENT ON SCULPTURE.
+
+
+AND ON CERTAIN CHARACTERS IN HISTORY AND POETRY CONSIDERED AS
+SUBJECTS OF MODERN ART.
+
+1848.
+
+
+I Should begin by admitting the position laid down by Frederick
+Schlegel, that art and nature are not identical. "Men," he says,
+"traduce nature, who falsely give her the epithet of artistic;" for
+though nature comprehends all art, art cannot comprehend all nature.
+Nature, in her sources of pleasures and contemplation is infinite; and
+art, as her reflection in human works, finite. Nature is boundless in
+her powers, exhaustless in her variety; the powers of art and its
+capabilities of variety in production are bounded on every side. Nature
+herself, the infinite, has circumscribed the bounds of finite art; the
+one is the divinity; the other, the priestess. And if poetic art in the
+_interpreting_ of nature share in her infinitude, yet in _representing_
+nature through material, form, and colour, she is,--oh, how limited!
+
+
+If each of the forms of poetic art has its law of limitation as
+determined as the musical scale, narrowest of all are the limitations of
+sculpture, to which, notwithstanding, we give the highest place; and it
+is in regard to sculpture, we find most frequently those mistakes which
+arise from a want of knowledge of the true principles of art.
+
+Admitting, then, as necessary and immutable, the limitations of the art
+of sculpture as to the management of the material in giving form and
+expression; its primal laws of repose and simplicity; its rejection of
+the complex and conventional; its bounded capabilities as to choice of
+subject; must we also admit, with some of the most celebrated critics of
+art, that there is but one style of sculpture, the Greek? And that every
+deviation from pure Greek art must be regarded as a depravation and
+perversion of the powers and subjects of sculpture? I do not see that
+this follows.
+
+
+It is absolute that Greek art reached long ago the term of its
+development. In so far as regards the principles of beauty and
+execution, it can go no farther. We may stand and look at the relics of
+the Parthenon in awe and in despair; we can do neither more, nor better.
+But we have not done with Greek sculpture. What in it is purely _ideal_,
+is eternal; what is conventional, is in accordance with the primal
+conditions of all imitative art. Therefore though it may have reached
+the point at which development stops, and though its capability of
+adaptation be limited by necessary laws; still its all-beautiful, its
+immortal imagery is ever near us and around us; still "doth the old
+feeling bring back the old names," and with the old names, the forms;
+still, in those old familiar forms we continue to clothe all that is
+loveliest in visible nature; still, in all our associations with Greek
+art--
+
+  "'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great,
+   And Venus who brings every thing that's fair."
+
+That the supreme beauty of Greek art--that the majestic significance of
+the classical myths--will ever be to the educated mind and eye as things
+indifferent and worn out, I cannot believe.
+
+
+But on the other hand it may well be doubted whether the impersonation
+of the Greek allegories in the purest forms of Greek art will ever give
+intense pleasure to the people, or ever speak home to the hearts of the
+men and women of these times. And this not from the want of an innate
+taste and capacity in the minds of the masses--not because ignorance has
+"frozen the genial current in their souls"--not merely through a vulgar
+preference for mechanical imitation of common and familiar forms; but
+from other causes not transient--not accidental. A classical education is
+not now, as heretofore, the _only_ education given; and through an
+honest and intense sympathy with the life of their own experience, and
+through a dislike to vicious associations, though clothed in classical
+language and classical forms, _thence_ is it that the people have turned
+with a sense of relief from gods and goddesses, Ledas and Antiopes, to
+shepherds and shepherdesses, groups of Charity, and young ladies in the
+character of Innocence,--harmless, picturesque inanities, bearing the
+same relation to classical sculpture that Watts's hymns bear to Homer
+and Sophocles.
+
+
+Classical attainments of any kind are rare in our English sculptors;
+therefore it is, that we find them often quite familiar with the
+conventional treatment and outward forms of the usual subjects of Greek
+art, without much knowledge of the original poetical conception, its
+derivation, or its significance; and equally without any real
+appreciation of the idea of which the form is but the vehicle. Hence
+they do not seem to be aware how far this original conception is
+capable of being varied, modified, _animated_ as it were, with an
+infusion of fresh life, without deviating from its essential truth, or
+transgressing those narrow limits, within which all sculpture must be
+bounded in respect to action and attitude. To express _character_ within
+these limits is the grand difficulty. We must remember that too much
+value given to the head as the seat of mind, too much expression given
+to the features as the exponents of character, must diminish the
+importance of those parts of the form on which sculpture mainly depends
+for its effect on the imagination. To convey the idea of a complete
+individuality in a single figure, and under these restrictions, is the
+problem to be solved by the sculptor who aims at originality, yet feels
+his aspirations restrained by a fine taste and circumscribed by certain
+inevitable associations.
+
+
+It is therefore a question open to argument and involving considerations
+of infinite delicacy and moment, in morals and in art, whether the old
+Greek legends, endued as they are with an imperishable vitality derived
+from their abstract youth, may not be susceptible of a treatment in
+modern art analogous to that which they have received in modern poetry,
+where the significant myth, or the ideal character, without losing its
+classic grace, has been animated with a purer sentiment, and developed
+into a higher expressiveness. Wordsworth's Dion and Laodomia; Shelley's
+version of the Hymn to Mercury; Goethe's Iphigenia; Lord Byron's
+Prometheus; Keats's Hyperion; Barry Cornwall's Proserpina; are instances
+of what I mean in poetry. To do the same thing in art, requires that our
+sculptors should stand in the same relation to Phidias and Praxiteles,
+that our greatest poets bear to Homer or Euripides; that they should be
+themselves poets and interpreters, not mere translators and imitators.
+
+Further, we all know, that there is often a necessity for conveying
+abstract ideas in the forms of art. We have then recourse to allegory;
+yet allegorical statues are generally cold and conventional and
+addressed to the intellect merely. Now there are occasions, in which an
+abstract quality or thought is far more impressively and intelligibly
+conveyed by an _impersonation_ than by a _personification_. I mean, that
+Aristides might express the idea of justice; Penelope, that of conjugal
+faith; Jonathan and David (or Pylades and Orestes), friendship; Rizpah,
+devotion to the memory of the dead; Iphigenia, the voluntary sacrifice
+for a good cause; and so of many others; and such figures would have
+this advantage, that with the significance of a symbol they would
+combine all the powers of a sympathetic reality.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+HELEN.
+
+I have never seen any statue of Helen, ancient or modern. Treated in the
+right spirit, I can hardly conceive a diviner subject for a sculptor. It
+would be a great mistake to represent the Greek Helen merely as a
+beautiful and alluring woman. This, at least, is not the Homeric
+conception of the character, which has a wonderful and fascinating
+individuality, requiring the utmost delicacy and poetic feeling to
+comprehend, and rare artistic skill to realise. The oft-told story of
+the Grecian painter, who, to create a Helen, assembled some twenty of
+the fairest models he could find, and took from each a limb or a
+feature, in order to compose from their separate beauties an ideal of
+perfection,--this story, if it were true, would only prove that even
+Zeuxis could make a great mistake. Such a combination of heterogeneous
+elements would be psychologically and artistically false, and would
+never give us a Helen.
+
+She has become the ideal type of a fatal, faithless, dissolute woman;
+but according to the Greek myth, she is _predestined_,--at once the
+instrument and the victim of that fiat of the gods which had long before
+decreed the destruction of Troy, and _her_ to be the cause. She must not
+only be supremely beautiful,--"a daughter of the gods, divinely tall, and
+most divinely fair!"--but as the offspring of Zeus (the title by which
+she is so often designated in the Iliad), as the sister of the great
+twin demi-gods Castor and Pollux, she should have the heroic lineaments
+proper to her Olympian descent, touched with a pensive shade; for she
+laments the calamities which her fatal charms have brought on all who
+have loved her, all whom she has loved:--
+
+  "Ah! had I died ere to these shores I fled,
+   False to my country and my nuptial bed!"
+
+She shrinks from the reproachful glances of those whom she has injured;
+and yet, as it is finely intimated, wherever she appears her resistless
+loveliness vanquishes every heart, and changes curses into blessings.
+Priam treats her with paternal tenderness; Hector with a sort of
+chivalrous respect.
+
+  "If some proud brother eyed me with disdain,
+   Or scornful sister with her sweeping train,
+   Thy gentle accents softened all my pain;
+   Nor was it e'er my fate from thee to find
+   A deed ungentle or a word unkind."
+
+Helen, standing on the walls of Troy, and looking sadly over the battle
+plain, where the heroes of her forfeited country, her kindred and her
+friends, are assembled to fight and bleed for her sake, brings before us
+an image full of melancholy sweetness as well as of consummate beauty.
+Another passage in which she upbraids Venus as the cause of her
+fault--not as a mortal might humbly expostulate with an immortal, but
+almost on terms of equality, and even with bitterness,--is yet more
+characteristic. "For what," she asks, tauntingly, "am I reserved? To
+what new countries am I destined to carry war and desolation? For what
+new lover must I break a second vow? Let me go hence! and if Paris
+lament my absence, let Venus console him, and for his sake ascend the
+skies no more!" A regretful pathos should mingle with her conscious
+beauty and her half-celestial dignity; and, to render her truly, her
+Greek elegance should be combined with a deeper and more complex
+sentiment than Greek art has usually sought to express.
+
+I am speaking here of Homer's Helen--the Helen of the Iliad, not the
+Helen of the tragedians--not the Helen who for two thousand years has
+merely served "to point a moral;" and an artist who should think to
+realise the true Homeric conception, should beware of counterfeits, for
+such are abroad.[2]
+
+There is a wild Greek myth that it was not the real Helen, but the
+phantom of Helen, who fled with Paris, and who caused the destruction of
+Troy; while Helen herself was leading, like Penelope, a pattern life at
+Memphis. I must confess I prefer the proud humility, the pathetic
+elegance of Homer's Helen, to such jugglery.
+
+It may flatter the pride of virtue, or it may move our religious
+sympathies, to look on the forlorn abasement of the Magdalene as the
+emblem of penitence; but there are associations connected with
+Helen--"sad Helen," as she calls herself, and as I conceive the
+character,--which have a deep tragic significance; and surely there are
+localities for which the impersonation of classical art would be better
+fitted than that of sacred art.
+
+I do not know of any existing statue of Helen. Nicetas mentions among
+the relics of ancient art destroyed when Constantinople was sacked by
+the Latins in 1202, a bronze statue of Helen, with long hair flowing to
+the waist; and there is mention of an Etruscan figure of her, with wings
+(expressive of her celestial origin, for the Etruscans gave all their
+gods and demi-gods wings): in Müller I find these two only. There are
+likewise busts; and the story of Helen, and the various events of her
+life, occur perpetually on the antique gems, bas-reliefs, and painted
+vases. The most frequent subject is her abduction by Paris. A beautiful
+subject for a bas-relief, and one I believe not yet treated, would be
+Helen and Priam mourning over the lifeless form of Hector; yet the
+difficulty of preserving the simple sculptural treatment, and at the
+same time discriminating between this and other similar funereal groups,
+would render it perhaps a better subject for a picture, as admitting
+then of such scenery and accessories as would at once determine the
+signification.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+   PENELOPE.        ALCESTIS.        LAODAMIA.
+
+Statues of Penelope and Helen might stand in beautiful and expressive
+contrast; but it is a contrast which no profane or prosaic hand should
+attempt to realise. Penelope is all woman in her tenderness and her
+truth; Helen, half a goddess in the midst of error and remorse.
+
+Nor is Penelope the only character which might stand as a type of
+conjugal fidelity in contrasted companionship with Helen: Alcestis, who
+died for her husband; or, better still, Laodamia, whose intense love
+and longing recalled hers from the shades below, are susceptible of the
+most beautiful statuesque treatment; only we must bear in mind that the
+leading _motif_ in the Alcestis is _duty_, in the Laodamia, _love_.
+
+I remember a bas-relief in the Vatican, which represents Hermes
+restoring Protesilaus to his mourning wife. The interview was granted
+for three hours only; and when the hero was taken from her a second
+time, she died on the threshhold of her palace. This is a frequent and
+appropriate subject for sarcophagi and funereal vases. But there exists,
+I believe, no single statue commemorative of the wife's passionate
+devotion.
+
+The modern sculptor should penetrate his fancy with the sentiment of
+Wordsworth's Laodamia.
+
+
+While the pen is in my hand I may remark that two of the stanzas in the
+Laodamia have been altered, and, as it seems to me, not improved, since
+the first edition. Originally the poem opened thus:
+
+  "With sacrifice, before the rising morn
+   Perform'd, my slaughter'd lord have I required;
+   And in thick darkness, amid shades forlorn,
+   Him of the infernal Gods have I desired:
+   Celestial pity I again implore;
+   Restore him to my sight--great Jove, restore!"
+
+Altered thus, and comparatively flat:--
+
+  "With sacrifice before the rising morn
+   Vows have I made, by fruitless hope inspired;
+   And from the infernal Gods, mid shades forlorn
+   Of night, my slaughtered lord have I required:
+   Celestial pity I again implore;
+   Restore him to my sight--great Jove, restore!"
+
+In the early edition the last stanza but one stood thus:--
+
+
+  "Ah! judge her gently who so deeply loved!
+   Her who, in reason's spite, yet without crime,
+   Was in a trance of passion thus removed;
+   Delivered from the galling yoke of time,
+   And these frail elements,--to gather flowers
+   Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers!"
+
+In the later editions thus altered, and, to my taste, spoiled:--
+
+  "By no weak pity might the Gods be moved;
+   She who thus perish'd not without the crime
+   Of lovers that in Reason's spite have loved,
+   Was doomed to wander in a grosser clime
+   Apart from happy ghosts, that gather flowers
+   Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers."
+
+Altered, probably, because Virgil has introduced the shade of Laodamia
+among the criminal and unhappy lovers,--an instance of extraordinary bad
+taste in the Roman poet; whatever may have been her faults, she surely
+deserved to be placed in better company than Phædra and Pasiphäe.
+Wordsworth's intuitive feeling and taste were true in the first
+instance, and he might have trusted to them. In my own copy of
+Wordsworth I have been careful to mark the original reading in justice
+to the _original_ Laodamia.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+   HIPPOLYTUS.      NEOPTOLEMUS.
+
+I have never met with a statue, ancient or modern, of Hippolytus; the
+finest possible ideal of a Greek youth, touched with some individual
+characteristics which are peculiarly fitted for sculpture. He is a
+hunter, not a warrior; a tamer of horses, not a combatant with spear and
+shield. He should have the slight, agile build of a young Apollo, but
+nothing of the God's effeminacy; on the contrary, there should be an
+infusion of the severe beauty of his Amazonian mother, with that
+sedateness and modesty which should express the votary and companion of
+Diana; while, as the fated victim of Venus, whom he had contemned, and
+of his stepmother Phædra, whom he had repulsed, there should be a kind
+of melancholy in his averted features. A hound and implements of the
+chase would be the proper accessories, and the figure should be
+undraped, or nearly so.
+
+A sculptor who should be tempted to undertake this fine, and, as I
+think, untried subject--at least as a single figure--must begin by putting
+Racine out of his mind, whose "Seigneur Hippolyte" makes sentimental
+love to the "Princesse Aricie," and must penetrate his fancy with the
+conception of Euripides.
+
+
+I find in Schlegel's "Essais littéraires," a few lines which will assist
+the fancy of the artist, in representing the person and character of
+Hippolytus.
+
+"Quant à l'Hippolyte d'Euripide il a une teinte si divine que pour le
+sentir dignement il faut, pour ainsi dire, être initié dans les mystères
+de la beauté, avoir respiré l'air de la Grèce. Rappelez vous ce que
+l'antiquité nous a transmis de plus accompli parmi les images d'une
+jeunesse héroïque, les Dioscures de Monte-Cavallo, le Méléagre et
+l'Apollon du Vatican. Le caractère d'Hippolyte occupe dans la poësie à
+peu près la même place que ces statues dans la sculpture." "On peut
+remarquer dans plusieurs beautés idéales de l'antique que les anciens
+voulant créer une image perfectionnée de la nature humaine ont fondu les
+nuances du caractère d'un sexe avec celui de l'autre; que Junon, Pallas,
+Diane, out une majesté, une sévérité mâle; qu' Apollon, Mercure,
+Bacchus, au contraire, ont quelque chose de la grace et de la douceur
+des femmes. De même nous voyons dans la beauté héroïque et vierge
+d'Hippolyte l'image de sa mère l'Amazone et le reflet de Diane dans un
+mortel."
+
+(The last lines are especially remarkable, and are an artistic
+commentary on what I have ventured to touch upon ethically at page 85.)
+
+
+The story of Hippolytus is to be found in bas-reliefs and gems; it
+occurs on a particularly fine sarcophagus now preserved in the cathedral
+at Agrigentum, of which there is a cast in the British Museum.
+
+Under the heroic and classical form, Hippolytus conveys the same idea of
+manly chastity and self-control which in sacred art would be suggested
+by the figure of Joseph, the son of Jacob.
+
+A noble companion to the Hippolytus would be Neoptolemus, the son of
+Achilles. He is the young Greek warrior, strong and bold and brave; a
+fine ideal type of generosity and truth. The conception, as I imagine
+it, should be taken from the Philoctetes of Sophocles, where
+Neoptolemus, indignant at the craft of Ulysses, discloses the trick of
+which he had been made the unwilling instrument, and restores the fatal,
+envenomed arrows to Philoctetes. The celebrated lines in the Iliad
+spoken by Achilles--
+
+  "Who dares think one thing and another tell
+   My soul detests him as the gates of hell!"
+
+should give the leading characteristic _motif_ in the figure of his son.
+There should be something of remorseful pity in the very youthful
+features; the form ought to be heroically treated, that is, undraped,
+and he should hold the arrows in his hand.
+
+Neoptolemus, as the savage avenger of his father's death, slaying the
+grey-haired Priam at the foot of the altar, and carrying off Andromache,
+is, of course, quite a different version of the character. He then
+figures as Pyrrhus--
+
+  "The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
+   Black as his purpose, did the night resemble."
+
+The fine moral story of Neoptolemus and Philoctetes is figured on the
+Etruscan vases. Of the young, truth-telling, Greek hero I find no single
+statue.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+IPHIGENIA.
+
+I have often been surprised that we have no statue of this eminently
+beautiful subject. We have the story of Iphigenia constantly repeated in
+gems and bas-reliefs; the most celebrated example extant being the
+Medici Vase. But no single figure of Iphigenia, as the Greek ideal of
+heroic maidenhood and self-devotion, exists, I believe, in antique
+sculpture. The small and rather feebly elegant statuette by Christian
+Tieck is the only modern example I have seen.
+
+Iphigenia may be represented under two very different aspects, both
+beautiful.
+
+First, as the Iphigenia in Aulis; the victim sacrificed to obtain a fair
+wind for the Grecian fleet detained on its way to Troy. Extreme youth
+and grace, with a tender resignation not devoid of dignity, should be
+the leading characteristics; for we must bear in mind that Iphigenia,
+while regretting life and the "lamp-bearing day," and "the beloved
+light," and her Argive home and her "Mycenian handmaids," dies
+willingly, as the Greek girl ought to die, for the good of her country.
+She begins, indeed, with a prayer for pity, with lamentations for her
+untimely end, but she resumes her nobler self; and all her sentiments,
+when she is brought forth, crowned for sacrifice, are worthy of the
+daughter of Agamemnon. She even exults that she is called upon to perish
+for the good of Greece, and to avenge the cause of right on the Spartan
+Helen. "I give," she exclaims, "my life for Greece! sacrifice me--and let
+Troy perish!" When her mother weeps, she reproves those tears: "It is
+not well, O my mother! that I should love life too much. Think that thou
+hast brought me forth for the common good of Greece, not for thyself
+only!" She glories in her anticipated renown, not vainly, since, while
+the world endures, and far as the influences of literature and art
+extend, her story and her name shall live. The scene in Euripides should
+be taken as the basis of the character--the finest scene in his finest
+drama. The tradition that Iphigenia was not really sacrificed, but
+snatched away from the altar by Diana, and a hind substituted in her
+place, should be present to the fancy of the artist, when he sets
+himself to represent the majestic resignation of the consecrated virgin;
+as adding a touch of the marvellous and ideal to the Greek elegance and
+simplicity of the conception.
+
+The _picture_ of Iphigenia as drawn by Tennyson is wonderfully vivid;
+but it wants the Greek dignity and statuesque feeling; it is
+emphatically a picture, all over colour and light, and crowded with
+accessories. He represents her as encountering Helen in the land of
+Shadows, and, turning from her "with sick and scornful looks averse,"
+for she remembers the tragedy at Aulis.
+
+  "My youth (she said) was blasted with a curse:
+     This woman was the cause!
+   I was cut off from hope in that sad place
+     Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears.
+   My father held his hand upon his face;
+     I, blinded with my tears,
+   Essayed to speak; my voice came thick with sighs
+     As in a dream; dimly I could descry
+   The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes
+     Waiting to see me die.
+   The tall masts quiver'd as they lay afloat,
+     The temples and the people and the shore;
+   One drew a sharp knife thro' my tender throat
+     Slowly--and nothing more."
+
+The famous picture of the sacrifice of Iphigenia by Timanthes, the theme
+of admiration and criticism for the last two thousand years, which every
+writer on art deems it proper to mention in praise or in blame, could
+hardly have been more vivid or more terrible than this.
+
+The analogous idea, that of heroic resignation and self-devotion in a
+great cause, would be conveyed in sacred art by the figure of Jephtha's
+daughter; she too regrets the promises of life, but dies not the less
+willingly. "My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do
+to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch
+as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the
+children of Ammon." And for a single statue, Jephtha's daughter would be
+a fine subject--one to task the powers of our best sculptors; the
+_sentiment_ would be the same as the Iphigenia, but the _treatment_
+altogether different.
+
+
+For the Iphigenia in Tauris I think the modern sculptor would do well to
+set aside the character as represented by Euripides, and rather keep in
+view the conception of Goethe.[3] In his hand it has lost nothing of its
+statuesque elegance and simplicity, and has gained immeasurably in moral
+dignity and feminine tenderness. The Iphigenia in Tauris is no longer
+young, but she is still the consecrated virgin; no more the victim, but
+herself the priestess of those very rites by which she was once fated to
+perish. While Euripides has depicted her as stern and astute, Goethe has
+made her the impersonation of female devotedness, and mild, but
+unflinching integrity. She is like the young Neoptolemus when she
+disdains to use the stratagem which Pylades had suggested, when
+she dares to speak the truth, and trust to it alone for help and safety.
+The scene in which she is haunted by the recollection of her doomed
+ancestry, and mutters over the song of the Parcæ on that far-off sullen
+shore, is sublime, but incapable of representation in plastic art. It
+should, however, be well studied, as helping the artist to the abstract
+conception of the character as a whole.
+
+Carstens made a design, suggested by this tragedy, of the Three Parcæ
+singing their fatal mysterious song. A model of one of the figures (that
+of Atropos) used to stand in Goethe's library, and a cast from this is
+before me while I write: every one who sees it takes it for an antique.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+EVE.
+
+I have but a few words to say of Eve. As she is the only undraped figure
+which is allowable in sacred art, the sculptors have multiplied
+representations of her, more or less finely imagined; but what I
+conceive to be the true type has seldom, very seldom, been attained. The
+remarks which follow are, however, suggestive, not critical.
+
+It appears to me--and I speak it with reverence--that the Miltonic type is
+not the highest conceivable, nor the best fitted for sculptural
+treatment. Milton has evidently lavished all his power on this fairest
+of created beings; but he makes her too nymph-like--too goddess-like. In
+one place he compares her to a Wood-nymph, Oread, or Dryad of the
+groves; in another to Diana's self, "though not, as she, with bow and
+quiver armed." The scriptural conception of our first parent is not like
+this; it is ampler, grander, nobler far. I fancy her the sublime ideal
+of maternity. It may be said that this idea of her predestined
+motherhood should not predominate in the conception of Eve before the
+Fall: but I think it should.
+
+It is most beautifully imagined by Milton that Eve, separated from her
+mate, her Adam, is weak, and given over to the merely womanish nature,
+for only when linked together and supplying the complement to each
+other's _moral_ being, can man or woman be strong; but we must also
+remember that the "spirited sly snake," in tempting Eve, even when he
+finds her alone, uses no vulgar allurements. "Ye shall be as Gods,
+knowing good and evil." Milton, indeed, seasons his harangue with
+flattery: but for this he has no warrant in Scripture.
+
+As the Eve of Paradise should be majestically sinless, so after the Fall
+she should not cower and wail like a disappointed girl. Her infinite
+fault, her infinite woe, her infinite penitence, should have a touch of
+grandeur. She has paid the inevitable price for that mighty knowledge of
+good and evil she so coveted; that terrible predestined experience--she
+has found it, or it has found her;--and she wears her crown of grief as
+erst her crown of innocence.
+
+I think the noble picture of Eve in Mrs. Browning's Drama of Exile, as
+that of the Mother of our redemption not less than the Mother of
+suffering humanity, might be read and considered with advantage by a
+modern sculptor.
+
+                             "Rise, woman, rise
+   To thy peculiar and best altitudes
+   Of doing good and of resisting ill!
+   Something thou hast to bear through womanhood;
+   Peculiar suffering answering to the sin,
+   Some pang paid down for each new human life;
+   Some weariness in guarding such a life,
+   Some coldness from the guarded; some mistrust
+   From those thou hast too well served; from those beloved
+   Too loyally, some treason. But go, thy love
+   Shall chant to itself its own beatitudes
+   After its own life-working!
+   I bless thee to the desert and the thorns,
+   To the elemental change and turbulence,
+   And to the solemn dignities of grief;
+   To each one of these ends, and to this end
+   Of Death and the hereafter!
+   _Eve._                     I accept,
+   For me and for my daughters, this high part
+   Which lowly shall be counted!"
+
+The figure of Eve in Raphael's design (the one engraved by Marc Antonio)
+is exquisitely statuesque as well as exquisitely beautiful. In the
+moment that she presents the apple to Adam she looks--perhaps she ought
+to look--like the _Venus Vincitrice_ of the antique time; but I am not
+sure; and, at all events, the less of the classical sentiment the
+better.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+ADAM.
+
+I have seen no statue of Adam; but surely he is a fine subject, either
+alone or as the companion of Eve; and the Miltonic type is here
+all-sufficient, combining the heroic ideal of Greek art with something
+higher still--
+
+   "Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure,"
+
+whence true authority in men--in fact, essential manliness.
+
+Goethe had the idea that Adam ought to be represented with a spade, as
+the progenitor of all who till the ground, and partially draped with a
+deerskin, that is, after the Fall; which would be well: but he adds that
+Adam should have a child at his feet in the act of strangling a serpent.
+This appears to me objectionable and ambiguous; if admissible at all,
+the accessory figure would be a fitter accompaniment for Eve.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+ANGELS.
+
+Angels, properly speaking, are neither winged men nor winged children.
+Wings, in ancient art, were the symbols of a divine nature; and the
+early Greeks, who humanised their gods and goddesses, and deified
+humanity through the perfection of the forms, at first distinguished the
+divine and the human by giving wings to all the celestial beings; thus
+lifting them above the earth. Our religious idea of angels is altogether
+different. Give to the child-form wings, in other words, give to the
+child-nature, innocent, and pure, the adjuncts of wisdom and power, and
+thus you realise the idea of the angel as Raphael conceived it. It is
+so difficult to imagine in the adult form the union of perfect purity
+and perfect wisdom, the absence of experience and suffering, and the
+capacity of thinking and feeling, a condition of being in which all
+conscious _motive_ is lost in the _impulse_ to good, that it remains a
+problem in art. The angels of Angelico da Fiesole, who are not only
+winged, but convey the idea of movement only by the wings, not by the
+limbs, are exquisite, as fitted to minister to us in heaven, but hardly
+as fitted to keep watch and ward for us on earth--
+
+   "Against foul fiends to aid us militant."
+
+The feminine element always predominates in the conception of angels,
+though they are supposed to be masculine: I doubt whether it ought to be
+so.
+
+
+While these sheets are going through the press, I find the following
+beautiful passage relative to angels in the last number of "Fraser's
+Magazine":--
+
+"It is safer, even, and perhaps more orthodox and scriptural, to
+'impersonate' time and space, strength and love, and even the laws of
+nature, than to give us any more angel worlds, which are but dead
+skeletons of Dante's creations without that awful and living reality
+which they had in his mind; or to fill children's books, as the High
+Church party are doing now, with pictures and tales of certain winged
+hermaphrodites, in whom one cannot think (even by the extremest stretch
+of charity) that the writers or draughtsmen really believe, while one
+sees them servilely copying mediæval forms, and intermingling them with
+the ornaments of an extinct architecture; thus confessing _naïvely_ to
+every one but themselves, that they accept the whole notion as an
+integral portion of a creed, to which, if they be members of the Church
+of England, they cannot well belong, seeing that it was, happily for us,
+expelled both by law and by conscience at the Reformation."
+
+This is eloquent and true; but not the less true it is, that if we have
+to represent in art those "spiritual beings who walk this earth unseen,
+both when we sleep and when we wake"--beings, who (as the author of the
+above passage seems to believe) may be intimately connected with the
+phenomena of the universe--we must have a type, a bodily type, under
+which to represent them; and as we cannot do this from knowledge, we
+must do it symbolically. Angels, as we figure them, are _symbols_ of
+moral and spiritual existences elevated above ourselves--we do not
+believe in the forms, we only accept their significance. I should be
+glad to see a better impersonation than the impossible creatures
+represented in art; but till some artist-poet, or poet-artist, has
+invented such an impersonation, we must employ that which is already
+familiarised to the eye and hallowed to the fancy without imposing on
+the understanding.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+   MIRIAM.        RUTH.
+
+Both the Old and the New Testament abound in sculptural subjects; but
+fitly to deal with the Old Testament required a Michal-Angelo. Beautiful
+as are the gates of Ghiberti they are hardly what the Germans would call
+"alt-testamentische," they are so essentially elegant and graceful, and
+the old Hebrew legends and personages are so tremendous. Even Miriam and
+Ruth dilate into a sort of grandeur. In representation I always fancy
+them above life-size.
+
+
+I doubt whether the same artist who could conceive the Prophets would be
+able to represent the Apostles, or that the same hand which gave us
+Moses could give us Christ. Michal-Angelo's idea of Christ, both in
+painting and sculpture is, to me, revolting.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+   CHRIST.      SOLOMON.       DAVID.
+
+I do not like the idea of Moses and Christ placed together. Much finer
+in artistic and moral contrast would be the two teachers,--Christ as the
+divine and spiritual law-giver, Solomon as the type of worldly wisdom.
+They should stand side by side, or be seated each on his throne, a
+crowned King, with book and sceptre--but how different in character!
+
+
+We have multiplied statues of David. I have never seen one which
+realised the finest conception of his character, either as Hero, King,
+Prophet, or Poet. In general he figures as the slayer of Goliath, and is
+always too feeble and boyish. David, singing to his lute before Saul;
+David as the musician and poet, young, beautiful, half-draped,
+heaven-inspired, exorcising by his art the dark spirit of evil which
+possessed the jealous King:--this would be a theme for an artist, and
+would as finely represent the power of sacred song as a figure of St.
+Cecilia. But the sentiment should not be that of a young Apollo, or an
+Orpheus; therein would lie the chief difficulty.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+   HAGAR.       REBEKAH.       RACHEL.
+
+I remember to have seen fine statues of Hagar holding her pitcher, of
+Rebekah contemplating her bracelet, and of Rachel as the shepherdess.
+But I would have a different version; Hagar as the poor cast-away,
+driven forth with her boy into the wilderness; Rebekah as the exulting
+bride; and Rachel as the mild, pensive wife. They would represent, in a
+very complete manner, contrasted phases of the destiny of Woman,
+connected together by our religious associations, and appealing to our
+deepest human sympathies.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+THE QUEEN OF SHEBA.
+
+The Queen of Sheba would be a fine subject for a single statue, as the
+religious type of the queenly, intellectual woman, the treatment being
+kept as far as possible from that of a Pallas or a Muse.
+
+
+The journey of the Queen of the South to visit Solomon would be a
+capital subject for a processional bas-relief, and as a _pendant_ to the
+journey of "the Wise Men of the East," to visit a greater than Solomon.
+The latter has been perpetually treated from the fourth century. Of the
+journey of the Queen of Sheba I have seen, as yet, no example.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+LADY GODIVA.
+
+With regard to statuesque subjects from modern history and
+poetry,--_Romantic Sculpture_, as it is styled,--the taste both of the
+public and the artist evidently sets in this direction. That the
+treatment of such subjects should not be classical is admitted; but in
+the development of this romantic tendency there is cause to fear that we
+may be inundated with all kinds of picturesque vagaries and violations
+of the just laws and limits of art.
+
+
+I remember, however, a circumstance which makes me hopeful as to the
+progress of feeling; knowledge may come hereafter. I remember about
+twenty years ago proposing the figure and story of Lady Godiva as
+beautiful subjects for sculpture and painting. There were present on
+that occasion, among others, two artists and a poet. The two artists
+laughed outright, and the poet extemporised an epigram upon Peeping Tom.
+If I were to propose Lady Godiva as a subject now[4], I believe it would
+be received with a far different feeling even by those very men. If I
+were Queen of England I would have it painted in Fresco in my council
+chamber. There should be seen the palfrey with its rich housings, and
+near it, as preparing to mount, the noble lady should stand, timid, but
+resolved: her veil should lie on the ground; the drapery just falling
+from her fair limbs and partly sustained by one hand, while with the
+other she loosens her golden tresses. A bevy of waiting-maids, with
+averted faces, disappear hurriedly beneath the massive porch of the
+Saxon palace, which forms the background, with sky and trees seen
+through openings in the heavy architecture. This is the picturesque
+version of the story; but there are many others. As a single statue, the
+figure of Lady Godiva affords an opportunity for the legitimate
+treatment of the undraped female form, sanctified by the purest, the
+most elevated associations;--by woman's tearful pride and man's respect
+and gratitude.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+JOAN OF ARC.
+
+Shakspeare, who is so horribly unjust to Joan of Arc, has put a sublime
+speech into her mouth where she answers Burgundy who had accused her of
+sorcery,--
+
+  "Because you want the grace that others have.
+   You judge it straight a thing impossible
+   To compass wonders but by help of devils!"
+
+The whole theory of popular superstition comprised in three lines!
+
+But Joan herself--how at her name the whole heart seems to rise up in
+resentment, not so much against her cowardly executioners as against
+those who have so wronged her memory! Never was a character,
+historically pure, bright, definite, and perfect in every feature and
+outline, so abominably treated in poetry and fiction,--perhaps for this
+reason, that she was in herself so exquisitely wrought, so complete a
+specimen of the heroic, the poetic, the romantic, that she could not be
+touched by art or modified by fancy, without being in some degree
+profaned. As to art, I never saw yet any representation of "Jeanne la
+grande Pastoure," (except, perhaps, the lovely statue by the Princess of
+Wurtemburg,) which I could endure to look at--and even that gives us the
+contemplative simplicity, but not the power, intellect, and energy,
+which must have formed so large a part of the character. Then as to the
+poets, what shall be said of them? First Shakspeare, writing for the
+English stage, took up the popular idea of the character as it prevailed
+in England in his own time. Into the hypothesis that the greater part of
+Henry VI. is not by Shakspeare, there is no occasion to enter here; the
+original conception of the character of Joan of Arc may not be his, but
+he has left it untouched in its principal features. The English hated
+the memory of the French Heroine because she had caused the loss of
+France and had humiliated us as a nation; and our chroniclers revenged
+themselves and healed their wounded self-love by imputing her victories
+to witchcraft. Shakspeare, giving her the attributes which the
+historians of his time assigned to her, represents her as a warlike,
+arrogant sorceress--a "monstrous woman"--attended and assisted by demons.
+I pass over the depraved and perverse spirit in which Voltaire profaned
+this divine character. A theme which a patriot poet would have
+approached as he would have approached an altar, he has made a vehicle
+for the most licentious parody that ever disgraced a national
+literature. Schiller comes next, and hardly seems to me more excusable.
+Not only has he missed the character, he has deliberately falsified both
+character and fact. His "Johanna" might have been called by any other
+name; and the scene of his tragedy might have been placed anywhere in
+the wide world with just the same probability and truth. Schiller and
+Goethe held a principle that all considerations were to yield before the
+proprieties of art. But Milton speaks somewhere of those "faultless
+proprieties of nature" which never can be violated with impunity: and
+Art can never move freely but in the domain of nature and of truth. All
+the fine writing in Schiller's "Maid of Orleans" can never reconcile me
+to its absolute and revolting falsehood. The sublime, simple-hearted
+girl who to the last moment regarded herself as set apart by God to do
+His work, he makes the victim of an insane passion for a young
+Englishman. In the love-sick classical heroines of Corneille and Racine
+there is nothing more Frenchified, more absurd, more revolting. Then he
+makes her die victorious on the field of battle defending the
+oriflamme;--far, far more glorious as well as more pathetic her real
+death--but it offended against Schiller's æsthetic conception of the
+dignity of tragedy.
+
+Lastly, we have Southey's epic: what shall be said of it?--even what he
+said of the Lusiad of Camoens, "that it is read with little emotion, and
+remembered with little pleasure." No. I do not wish to see Joan turned
+into a heroine of tragedy or tale, because, as it seems to me, the whole
+life and death of this martyred girl is too near us, and too
+historically distinct, and, I will add, too sacred, to be dressed out in
+romantic prose or verse. What Walter Scott might have made of her I do
+not know--something marvellously picturesque and life-like, no doubt--and
+yet I am glad he did not try his hand on her. But she remains a
+legitimate and most admirable subject for representative art; and as yet
+nothing has been done in sculpture to fix the ideal and heroic in her
+character, nor in painting, worthy of her exploits. There exists no
+contemporary portrait of her except in the brief description of her in
+the old French Chronicle of the Siege of Orleans, where it is said that
+her figure was tall and slender, her bust fine, her hair and eyes black;
+that she wore her hair short, and could never be persuaded to put on a
+head-piece, and farther (and in this respect both Schiller and Southey
+have wronged her), that she had never slain a man, using her consecrated
+sword merely to defend herself. I should like to see a fine equestrian
+statue of her by one of our best English sculptors, set up in a
+conspicuous place among us, as a national expiation.
+
+Southey mentions that in the beginning of the last war, about 1795, when
+popular feeling, excited almost to frenzy, raged against France, a
+pantomime, or ballet, was performed at Covent Garden, from the story of
+Joan of Arc, at the conclusion of which she is carried away by demons,
+like a female Don Juan. This denouement caused such a storm of
+indignation, that the author--one James Cross--was obliged, after the
+first two or three representations, to change the demons into angels,
+and send her straight into Heaven:--an anecdote pleasant to record as
+illustrating the sure ultimate triumph of truth over falsehood; of all
+the better sympathies over prejudice and wrong;--in spite of history,
+and, what is more, in spite of Shakspeare!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+CHARACTERS FROM SHAKSPEARE.
+
+Joan of Arc is not, however, a Shakspearian character; and, in fact,
+there are very few of his personages susceptible of sculptural
+treatment. They are too dramatic, too profound, too complex in their
+essential nature where they are tragic; too many-sided and picturesque
+where they are comic.
+
+For instance, the attempt to condense into marble such light,
+evanescent, quaint creations as those in "The Midsummer's Night's Dream"
+is better avoided; we feel that a marble fairy must be a heavy
+absurdity. Oberon and Titania might perhaps float along in a bas-relief;
+but we cannot put away the thought that they have reality without
+substantiality, and we do not like to see them, or Ariel, or Caliban
+fixed in the definite forms of sculpture.
+
+There are, however, a few of Shakspeare's characters which appear to me
+beautifully adapted for statuesque treatment: Perdita holding her
+flowers; Miranda lingering on the shore; might well replace the
+innumerable "Floras" and "Nymphs preparing to bathe," which people the
+_atéliers_ of our sculptors. Cordelia has something of marble quietude
+about her; and Hermione is a statue ready made. And, by the way, it is
+observable that Shakspeare represents Hermione as a _coloured_ statue.
+Paulina will not allow it to be touched, because "the colour is not yet
+dry." Again,--
+
+  "Would you not deem those veins
+   Did verily bear blood?
+
+  "The very life seems warm upon her lips,
+   The fixture of her eye hath motion in't,
+   And we are mocked by Art!
+   The ruddiness upon her lip is wet,
+
+  "You'll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own
+   With oily painting."
+
+I think it possible to model small ornamental statuettes and groups from
+some few of the scenes in Shakspeare's plays; but this is quite
+different from life-size figures of Hamlet, Othello, Shylock, Macbeth,
+which must either have the look of real individual portraiture, or
+become mere idealisations of certain qualities; and Shakspeare's
+creations are neither the one nor the other.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+CHARACTERS FROM SPENSER.
+
+Spenser is so essentially a picturesque poet, he depends for his rich
+effects so much on the combination of colour and imagery, and multiplied
+accessories, that one feels--at least _I_ feel, on laying down a volume
+of the "Fairie Queene" dazzled as if I had been walking in a gallery of
+pictures. His "Masque of Cupid," for instance, although a procession of
+poetical creations, could not be transferred to a bas-relief without
+completely losing its Spenserian character--its wondrous glow of colour.
+Thus Cupid "uprears himself exulting from the back of the ravenous
+lion;" removes the bandage from his eyes, that he may look round on his
+victims; "shakes the darts which his right hand doth strain full
+dreadfully," and "claps on high his coloured wings twain." This
+certainly is not the Greek Cupid, nor the Cupid of sculpture; it is the
+Spenserian Cupid. So of his Una, so of his Britomart, and the Red Cross
+Knight and Sir Guyon: one might make elegant _statuesque_ impersonations
+of the allegories they involve, as of Truth, Chastity, Faith,
+Temperance; but then they would lose immediately their Spenserian
+character and sentiment, and must become something altogether different.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+   THE LADY.        COMUS.
+
+It is not so with Milton. The "Lady" in Comus, whether she stands
+listening to the echos of her own sweet voice, or motionless as marble
+under the spell of the "false enchanter," _looking_ that divine reproof
+which in the poem she _speaks_,--
+
+  "I hate when vice can bolt her arguments,
+   And virtue has no tongue to check her pride"--
+
+is a subject perfectly fitted for sculpture, and never, so far as I
+know, executed. It would be a far more appropriate ornament for a lady's
+_boudoir_ than French statues of MODESTY, which generally have the
+effect of making one feel very much ashamed.[5]
+
+Sabrina has been beautifully treated by Marshall.
+
+It is difficult to render Comus without making him too like a Bacchus or
+an Apollo. He is neither.
+
+He represents not the beneficent, but the intoxicating and brutifying
+power of wine. His joviality should not be that of a God, but with
+something mischievous, bestial, Faun-like; and he should have, with the
+Dionysian grace, a dash of the cunning and malignity of his Mother
+Circe. These characteristics should be in the mind of the artist. The
+panther's skin, the coronal of vine leaves, and, instead of the Thyrsus,
+the magician's wand, are the proper accessories. It is also worth
+notice, that in the antique representations Comus has wings as a
+demigod, and in a picture described by Philostratus (a night scene) he
+lies crouched in a drunken sleep. Little use, however, is made of him in
+the antique myths, and the Miltonic conception is that which should be
+embodied by the modern sculptor.
+
+
+Il Penseroso and L'Allegro, if embodied in sculpture as poetical
+abstractions (either masculine or feminine) of Melancholy and Mirth,
+would cease to be Miltonic, for the conceptions of the poet are
+essentially picturesque, and expressed in both cases by a luxuriant
+accumulation of images and accessories, not to be brought within the
+limits of plastic art without the most tasteless confusion and
+inconsistency.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+SATAN.
+
+The religious idea of a Satan--the impersonation of that mixture of the
+bestial, the malignant, the impious, and the hopeless, which constitute
+THE FIEND, the enemy of all that is human and divine--I conceive to be
+quite unfitted for the purpose of sculpture. Danton's attempt
+degenerates into grim caricature. Milton's Satan--"the archangel
+ruined,"--is however a strictly poetical creation, and capable of the
+most poetical statuesque treatment. But we must remember that, if it be
+a gross mistake, religious and artistic, to conceive the Messiah under
+the form of a larger, stronger humanity, with a _physique_ like that of
+a wrestler, (as M. Angelo has done in the Last Judgement) it is equally
+a mistake to conceive the lost angel, our spiritual adversary, under any
+such coarse Herculean lineaments. There can be no image of the Miltonic
+Satan without the elements of beauty, "though changed by pale ire, envy,
+and despair!" Colossal he may be, vast as Mount Athos; but it is not
+necessary to express this that he should be hewn out of Mount Athos, or
+look like the giant Polypheme! His proportions, his figure, his
+features--like his power--are angelic. As the Hero--for he is so--of the
+"Paradise Lost," the subject is open to poetic treatment; but I am not
+aware that as yet it has been poetically treated.
+
+Of the Italian poetry and history, and all the wondrous and lovely
+shapes which come thronging out of that Elysian land,--I can say nothing
+now,--or only this,--that after all I am not _quite_ sure that I am right
+about Spenser. For, at first view, what poet seems less amenable to
+statuesque treatment than Dante? One would have imagined that only a
+preternatural fusion of Michal-Angelo and Rembrandt could fitly render
+the murky recesses and ghastly and monstrous inhabitants of the Inferno,
+or attempt to shadow forth the dazzling mysteries of the Paradiso. Yet
+see what Flaxman has achieved! His designs are legitimate bas-reliefs,
+not pictures in outline. He has been true to his own art, and all that
+could be done within the limitations of his art he has accomplished. It
+is a translation of Dante's _ideas_ into sculpture, with every thing
+_peculiarly_ Dantesque in the treatment, set aside.
+
+Now as to our more modern poets.--From amid the long array of beautiful
+subjects which seem to move in succession before the fancy, there are
+two which stand out prominent in their beauty. First, Lord Byron's
+"Myrrha," who with her Ionian elegance is susceptible of the purest
+classical treatment. She should hold a torch; but not with the air of a
+Mænad, nor of a Thais about to fire Persepolis. The sentiment should be
+deeper and quieter.
+
+                   "Dost thou think
+   A Greek girl dare not do for love that which
+   An Indian widow does for custom?"
+
+Ion in Talfourd's Tragedy--the boy-hero, in all the tenderness of extreme
+youth, already self-devoted and touched with a melancholy grace and an
+elevation beyond his years--is so essentially statuesque, that I am
+surprised that no sculptor has attempted it; perhaps because, in this
+instance, as in that of Myrrha, the popular realisation of both
+characters as subjects of formative art has been spoiled by theatrical
+trappings and associations.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] "_Sancta Simplicitas!_" was the exclamation of Huss to the woman
+who, when he was burned at the stake, in her religious zeal brought a
+faggot to light the pile.
+
+[2] Canova's bust of Helen is such a counterfeit; whereas the Helen of
+Gibson is, for a mere head, singularly characteristic.
+
+[3] There is a fine translation of the German Iphigenia by Miss
+Swanwick. (Dramatic Works of Goethe. Bohn, 1850.)
+
+[4] 1848. At the moment I transcribe this (1854), a very charming statue
+of the Lady Godiva (suggested, I believe, by Tennyson's poem) stands in
+the Exhibition of the Royal Academy.
+
+[5] For example, the statue of Modesty executed for Josephine's boudoir.
+
+
+   LONDON:
+   A. and G. A. SPOTTISWOODE,
+   New-street-Square.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Commonplace Book of Thoughts,
+Memories, and Fancies., by Anna Jameson
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