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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4a02a9b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #53169 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53169) diff --git a/old/53169-0.txt b/old/53169-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 18a02ea..0000000 --- a/old/53169-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3997 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ignorant Essays, by Richard Dowling - -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: Ignorant Essays - -Author: Richard Dowling - -Release Date: September 29, 2016 [EBook #53169] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IGNORANT ESSAYS *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif, MFR and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - - - IGNORANT ESSAYS. - - - - - _IGNORANT_ - - _ESSAYS._ - - [Illustration: text decoration] - - LONDON: - - WARD AND DOWNEY, - - 12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. - - 1887. - - [_All Rights Reserved._] - - RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, - - LONDON AND BUNGAY. - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - -THE ONLY REAL GHOST IN FICTION 1 - -THE BEST TWO BOOKS 30 - -LIES OF FABLE AND ALLEGORY 55 - -MY COPY OF KEATS 83 - -DECAY OF THE SUBLIME 117 - -A BORROWED POET 132 - -THE ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 160 - -A GUIDE TO IGNORANCE 175 - - - - - -IGNORANT ESSAYS. - - - - -THE ONLY REAL GHOST IN FICTION. - - -My most ingenious friend met me one day, and asked me whether I -considered I should be richer if I had the ghost of sixpence or if I had -not the ghost of sixpence. - -“What side do you take?” I inquired, for I knew his disputatious turn. - -“I am ready to take either,” he answered; “but I give preference to the -ghost.” - -“What!” I said. “Give preference to the ghost!” - -“Yes. You see, if I haven’t the ghost of sixpence I have nothing at -all; but if I have the ghost of a sixpence----” - -“Well?” - -“Well, I am the richer by having the ghost of a sixpence.” - -“And do you think when you add one more delusion to those under which -you already labour”--he and I could never agree about the difference -between infinity and zero--“that you will be the better off?” - -“I have not admitted a ghost is a delusion; and even if I had I am not -prepared to grant that a delusion may not be a source of wealth. Look at -the South Sea Bubble.” - -I was willing, so there and then we fell to and were at the question--or -rather, the questions to which it led--for hours, until we finally -emerged upon the crystallization of cast-iron, the possibility of a -Napoleonic restoration, or some other kindred matter. How we wandered -about and writhed in that talk I can no more remember than I can recall -the first articulate words that fell into my life. I know we handled -ghosts (it was broad day and in a public street) with a freedom and -familiarity that must have been painful to spirits of refinement and -reserve. I know we said much about dreams, and compared the phantoms of -the open lids with the phantoms of the closed eyes, and pitted them one -against another like cocks in a main, and I remember that the case of -the dreamer in Boswell’s Johnson came up between us. The case in Boswell -submitted to Johnson as an argument in favour of a man’s reason being -more acute in sleep than in waking, showed the phantom antagonistic able -to floor the dreamer in his proper person. Johnson laughed at such a -delusion, for, he pointed out, only the dreamer was besotted with sleep -he would have perceived that he himself had furnished the confounding -arguments to the shadowy disputant. That is very good, and seems quite -conclusive as far as it goes; but is there nothing beyond what Johnson -saw? Was there no ghostly prompter in the scene? No _suggeritore_ -invisible and inaudible to the dreamer, who put words and notes into the -mouth of the opponent? No thinner shade than the spectral being visible -in the dream? If in our waking hours we are subject to phantoms which -sometimes can be seen and sometimes cannot, why not in our sleeping -hours also? Are all ghosts of like grossness, or do some exist so fine -as to be beyond our carnal apprehension, and within the ken only of the -people of our sleep? If we ponderable mortals are haunted, who can say -that our insubstantial midnight visitors may not know wraiths finer and -subtler than we, may not be haunted as we are? In physical life -parasites have parasites. Why in phantom life should not ghosts have -ghosts? - -The firm, familiar earth--our earth of this time, the earth upon which -we each of us stand at this moment--is thickly peopled with living -tangible folk who can eat, and drink, and talk, and sing, and walk, and -draw cheques, and perform a number of other useful, and hateful, and -amusing actions. In the course of a day a man meets, let us say, forty -people, with whom he exchanges speech. If a man is a busy dreamer, with -how many people in the course of one night does he exchange speech? Ten, -a hundred, a thousand? In the dreaming of one minute by the clock a man -may converse with half the children of Adam since the Fall! The command -of the greatest general alive would not furnish sentries and vedettes -for the army of spirits that might visit one man in the interval between -one beat of the pendulum of Big Ben and another! - -Shortly after that talk with my friend about the ghost of the sixpence, -I was walking alone through one of the narrow lanes in the tangle of -ways between Holborn and Fleet Street, when my eye was caught by the -staring white word “Dreams” on a black ground. The word is, so to speak, -printed in white on the black cover of a paper-bound book, and under the -word “Dreams” are three faces, also printed in white on a black ground. -Two of the faces are those of women: one of a young woman, purporting to -be beautiful, with a star close to her forehead, and the other of a -witch with the long hair and disordered eyes becoming to a person of her -occupation. I dare say these two women are capable not only of -justification, but of the simplest explanation. For all I know to the -contrary, the composition may be taken wholly, or in part, from a -well-known picture, or perhaps some canon of ghostly lore would be -violated if any other design appeared on the cover. About such matters I -know absolutely nothing. The word “Dreams” and the two female faces are -now much less prominent than when I saw the book first, for, Goth that I -am, long ago I dipped a brush in ink and ran a thin wash over the -letters and the two faces; as they were, to use artist’s phrases, in -front of the third face, and killing it. - -The third face is that of a man, a young man clean shaven and handsome, -with no ghastliness or look of austerity. His arms are resting on a -ledge, and extend from one side of the picture to the other. The left -arm lies partly under the right, and the left hand is clenched softly -and retired in half shadow. The right arm rises slightly as it crosses -the picture, and the right wrist and hand ride on the left. The fore and -middle fingers are apart, and point forward and a little downward, -following the sleeve of the other arm. The third finger droops still -more downward, and the little finger, with a ring on it, lies directly -perpendicular along the cuff of the sleeve beneath. The hand is not well -drawn, and yet there is some weird suggestiveness in the purposeless -dispersion of the fingers. - -Fortunately upon my coming across the book, the original cost of which -was one shilling, I had more than the ghost of a sixpence, and for -two-thirds of that sum the book became mine. It is the only art purchase -I ever made on the spur of the moment; I knew nothing of the book then, -and know little of it now. It says it is the cut-down edition of a much -larger work, and what I have read of it is foolish. The worst of the -book is that it does not afford subject for a laugh. Thomas Carlyle is -reported to have said in conversation respecting one of George Eliot’s -latest stories that “it was not amusing, and it was not instructive; it -was only dull--dull.” This book of dreams is only dull. However, there -are some points in it that may be referred to, as this is an idle time. - -“To dream you see an angel or angels is very good, and to dream that you -yourself are one is much better.” The noteworthy thing in connection -with this passage being that nothing is said of the complexion of the -angel or angels! Black or white it is all the same. You have only to -dream of them and be happy. “To dream that you play upon bagpipes, -signifies trouble, contention, and being overthrown at law.” Doubtless -from the certainty, in civilised parts, of being prosecuted by your -neighbours as a public nuisance. I would give a trifle to know a man who -did dream that he played upon the bagpipes. Of course, it is quite -possible he might be an amiable man in other ways. - -“To dream you have a beard long, thick, and unhandsome is of a good -signification to an orator, or an ambassador, lawyer, philosopher or any -who desires to speak well or to learn arts and sciences.” That -“ambassador” gleams like a jewel among the other homely folk. I remember -once seeing a newspaper contents-bill after a dreadful accident with the -words “Death of fifty-seven people and a peer.” “To dream that you have -a brow of brass, copper, marble, or iron signifies irreconcilable hatred -against your enemies.” The man capable of such a dream I should like to -see--but through bars of metal made from his own sleep-zoned forehead. -“If any one dreams that he hath encountered a cat or killed one, he will -commit a thief to prison and prosecute him to the death; for the cat -signifies a common thief.” Mercy on us! Does the magistrate who commits -usually prosecute, and is thieving a hanging matter now? This is -necromancy or nothing; prophecy, inspiration, or something out of the -common indeed. - -“To dream one plays or sees another play on a clavicord, shows the death -of relations, or funeral obsequies.” I now say with feelings of the most -profound gratitude that I never to my knowledge even saw a clavicord. I -do not know what the beastly, ill-omened contrivance is like. The most -recondite musical instrument I ever remember to have performed on is the -Jew’s harp; and although there seems to be something weak, uncandid and -treacherous in the spelling of “clavicord,” I presume the two are not -identical. In any case I am safe, for I have never dreamed of playing -even on the Jew’s harp. Here however is a cheerful promise from a -painful experience--one wants something encouraging after that -terrifying “clavicord.” “For a man to dream that his flesh is full of -corns, shows that a man will grow rich proportionately to his corns.” I -can breathe freely once more, having got away from outlandish musical -instruments and within the influence of the familiar horn. - -As might be expected, it is not useful to dream about the devil. Let -sleeping dogs lie. “To dream of eating human flesh” is also a bad way of -spending the hours of darkness. It is lucky to dream you are a fool. You -see, even in sleep, the virtue of candour brings reward. “To dream that -you lose your keys signifies anger.” And very naturally too. “To dream -you kill your father is a bad sign.” I had made up my mind not to go -beyond the parricide, but I am lured on to quote this, “To dream of -eating mallows, signifies exemption from trouble and dispatch of -business, because this herb renders the body soluble.” I will not say -that Nebuchadnezzar may not at one time have eaten mallows among other -unusual herbs, but I never did. That however is not where the wonder -creeps in. It is at the reason. If you eat mallows you will have no -trouble _because_ this herb renders the body _soluble_. Why is it good -to render the body soluble, and what is the body soluble in? One more -and I am done. “To dream one plays, or sees another play, upon the -virginals, signifies the death of relations, or funeral obsequies.” From -bagpipes, clavicords, and virginals, we hope we may be protected. And -yet if these are the only instruments banned, a person having an -extensive acquaintance with wind and string instruments of the orchestra -may be musical in slumber without harm to himself or threat to his -friends. - -In the interpretation of dreams Artemidorus was the most learned man -that ever lived. He gave the best part of his life to collecting matter -about dreams, and this he afterwards put together in five books. He -might better have spent his time in bottling shadows of the moon. - -It was however for the face of the man on the cover that I bought and -have kept the book. The face is that of a man between thirty and -thirty-five years of age. It is regular and handsome. The forehead leans -slightly forward, and the lower part of the face is therefore a little -foreshortened. It is looking straight out of the picture; the shadows -fall on the left of the face, on the right as it fronts you. The nose is -as long and broad-backed as the nose of the Antinous. The mouth is large -and firm and well-shaping with lips neither thick nor thin. The interval -between the nostrils and verge of the upper lip is short. The chin is -gently pointed and prominent. The outline of the jaws square. The -modelling of the left cheek is defectively emphasised at the line from -above the hollow of the nostrils downward and backward. The brows are -straight, the left one being slightly more arched than the right. The -forehead is low, broad, compact, hard, with clear lines. The lower line -of the temples projects beyond the perpendicular. The hair is thick and -wavy and divided at the left side, depressed rather than divided, for -the parting is visible no further up the head than a splay letter V. - -The eyes are wide open, and notwithstanding the obtuse angle made by the -facial line in the forward pose of the head, they are looking out level -with their own height upon the horizon. There is no curiosity or -speculation in the eyes. There is no wonder or doubt; no fear or joy. -The gaze is heavy. There is a faint smile, the faintest smile the human -face is capable of displaying, about the mouth. There is no light in the -eyes. The expression of the whole face is infinitely removed from -sinister. In it there is kindliness with a touch of wisdom and pity. It -asks no question; desires to say no word. It is the face of one who -beyond all doubt knows things we do not know, things which can scarcely -be shaped into words, things we are in ignorance of. It is not the face -of a charlatan, a seer, or a prophet. - -It is the face of a man once ardent and hopeful, to whom everything that -is to be known has lately been revealed, and who has come away from the -revelation with feelings of unassuageable regret and sorrow for Man. It -says with terrible calmness, “I have seen all, and there is nothing in -it. For your own sakes let me be mute. Live you your lives. _Miserere -nobis!_” - -My belief is that the extraordinary expression of that face is an -accident, a happy chance, a result that the artist never foresaw. Who -drew the cover I cannot tell. No initials appear on it and I have never -made inquiries. Remember that in pictures and poems (I know nothing of -music), what is a miracle to you, has in most cases been a miracle to -the painter or poet also. Any poet can explain how he makes a poem, but -no poet can explain how he makes poetry. He is simply writing a poem and -the poetry glides or rushes in. When it comes he is as much astonished -by it as you are. The poem may cost him infinite trouble, the poetry he -gets as a free gift. He begins a poem to prepare himself for the -reception of poetry or to induce its flow. His poem is only a -lightning-rod to attract a fluid over which he has no control before it -comes to him. There may be a poetic art, such as verse-making, but to -talk about the art of poetry is to talk nonsense. It is men of genteel -intellects who speak of the art of poetry. The man who wrote the _Art of -Poetry_ knew better than to credit the possible existence of any such -art. He himself says the poet is born, not made. - -I am very bad at dates, but I think Le Fanu wrote _Green Tea_ before a -whole community of Canadian nuns were thrown into the most horrible -state of nervous misery by excessive indulgence in that drug. Of all the -horrible tales that are not revolting, _Green Tea_ is I think the most -horrible. The bare statement that an estimable and pious man is haunted -by the ghost of a monkey is at the first blush funny. But if you have -not read the story read it, and see how little of fun is in it. The -horror of the tale lies in the fact that this apparition of a monkey is -the only _probable_ ghost in fiction. I have not the book by me as I -write, and I cannot recall the victim’s name, but he is a clergyman, -and, as far as we know to the contrary, a saint. There is no reason _on -earth_ why he should be pursued by this malignant spectre. He has -committed no crime, no sin even. He labours with all the sincerity of a -holy man to regain his health and exorcise his foe. He is as crimeless -as you or I and infinitely more faultless. He has not deserved his fate, -yet he is driven in the end to cut his throat, and you excuse _that_ -crime by saying he is mad. - -I do not think any additional force is gained in the course of this -unique story by the importation of malignant irreverence to Christianity -in the latter manifestations of the ape. I think the apparition is at -its best and most terrible when it is simply an indifferent pagan, -before it assumes the _rôle_ of antichrist. This ape is at his best as a -mind-destroyer when the clergyman, going down the avenue in the -twilight, raised his eyes and finds the awful presence preceding him -along the top of the wall. There the clergyman reaches the acme of -piteous, unsupportable horror. In the pulpit with the brute, the priest -is fighting against the devil. In the avenue he has not the -strengthening or consoling reflection that he is defending a cause, -struggling against hell. The instant motive enters into the story the -situation ceases to be dramatic and becomes merely theatrical. Every -“converted” tinker will tell you stirring stories of his wrestling with -Satan, forgetting that it takes two to fight, and what a loathsome -creature he himself is. But the conflict between a good man and the -unnecessary apparition of this ape is pathetic, horribly pathetic, and -full of the dramatic despair of the finest tragedy. - -It is desirable at this point to focus some scattered words that have -been set down above. The reason this apparition of the ape appears -probable is _because_ it is unnecessary. Any one can understand why -Macbeth should see that awful vision at the banquet. The apparition of -the murdered dead is little more than was to be expected, and can be -explained in an easy fashion. You or I never committed murder, -therefore we are not liable to be troubled by the ghost of Banquo. In -your life or mine Nemesis is not likely to take heroic dimensions. The -spectres of books, as a rule, only excite our imaginative fears, not our -personal terrors. The spectres of books have and can have nothing to do -with us any more than the sufferings of the Israelites in the desert. -When a person of our acquaintance dies, we inquire the particulars of -his disease, and then discover the predisposing causes, so that we may -prove to ourselves we are not in the same category with him. We do not -deny our liability to contract the disease, we deny our likelihood to -supply the predisposing causes. He died of aneurysm of the aorta: Ah, we -say, induced by the violent exercise he took--we never take violent -exercise. If not of aneurysm of the aorta, but fatty degeneration of the -heart: Ah, induced by the sedentary habits of his latter years--we take -care to secure plenty of exercise. If a man has been careful of his -health and dies, we allege that he took all the robustness out of his -constitution by over-heedfulness; if he has been careless, we say he -took no precautions at all; and from either of these extremes we are -exempt, and therefore we shall live for ever. - -Now here in this story of _Green Tea_ is a ghost which is possible, -probable, almost familiar. It is a ghost without genesis or -justification. The gods have nothing to do with it. Something, an -accident due partly to excessive tea-drinking, has happened to the -clergyman’s nerves, and the ghost of this ape glides into his life and -sits down and abides with him. There is no reason why the ghost should -be an ape. When the victim sees the apparition first he does not know it -to be an ape. He is coming home in an omnibus one night and descries two -gleaming spots of fire in the dark, and from that moment the life of the -poor gentleman becomes a ruin. It is a thing that may happen to you or -me any day, any hour. That is why Le Fanu’s ghost is so horrible. You -and I might drink green tea to the end of our days and suffer from -nothing more than ordinary impaired digestion. But you or I may get a -fall, or a sunstroke, and ever afterwards have some hideous familiar. -To say there can be no such things as ghosts is a paltry blasphemy. It -is a theory of the smug, comfortable kind. A ghost need not wear a white -sheet and have intelligible designs on personal property. A ghost need -not be the spirit of a dead person. A ghost need have no moral mission -whatever. - -I once met a haunted man, a man who had seen a real ghost; a ghost that -had, as the ape, no ascertainable moral mission but to drive his victim -mad. In this case too the victim was a clergyman. He is, I believe, -alive and well now. He has shaken off the incubus and walks a free man. -I was travelling at the time, and accidentally got into chat with him on -the deck of a steamboat by night. We were quite alone in the darkness -and far from land when he told me his extraordinary story. I do not of -course intend retailing it here. I look on it as a private -communication. I asked him what brought him to the mental plight in -which he had found himself, and he answered briefly, “Overwork.” He was -then convalescent, and had been assured by his physicians that with -care the ghost which had been laid would appear no more. The spectre he -saw threatened physical harm, and while he was haunted by it he went in -constant dread of death by violence. It had nothing good or bad to do -with his ordinary life or his sacred calling. It had no foundation on -fact, no basis on justice. He had been for months pursued by the figure -of a man threatening to take away his life. He did not believe this man -had any corporeal existence. He did not know whether the creature had -the power to kill him or not. The figure was there in the attitude of -menace and would not be banished. He knew that no one but himself could -see the murderous being. That ghost was there for him, and there for him -alone. - -Respecting the Canadian nuns whose convent was beleaguered and infested -by ghostly enemies that came not by ones or twos but in battalions, I -had a fancy at the time. I do not intend using the terminologies or -theories of the dissecting room, or the language of physiology found in -books. I am not sure the fancy is wholly my own, but some of it is -original. I shall suppose that the nerves are not only capable of -various conditions of health and disease, but of large structural -alteration in life; structural alteration not yet recorded or observed -in fact; structural alteration which, if you will, exists in life but -disappears instantly at death. In fine, I mean rather to illustrate my -fancy than to describe anything that exists or could exist. Before -letting go the last strand of sense, let me say that talking of nerves -being highly strung is sheer nonsense, and not good nonsense either. The -muscles it is that are highly strung. The poor nerves are merely -insulated wires from the battery in the head. Their tension is no more -affected by the messages that go over them, than an Atlantic cable is -tightened or loosened by the signals indicating fluctuations in the -Stock Exchanges of London and New York. - -The nerves, let us suppose, in their normal condition of health have -three skins over the absolute sentient tissue. In the ideal man in -perfect health, let us say Hodge, the man whose privilege it is to “draw -nutrition, propagate, and rot,” the three skins are always at their -thickest and toughest. Now genius is a disease, and it falls, as ladies -of Mrs. Gamp’s degree say, “on the nerves.” That is, the first of these -skins having been worn away or never supplied by nature, the patient -“sees visions and dreams dreams.” The man of genius is not exactly under -delusions. He does not think he is in China because he is writing of -Canton in London, but his optic nerve, wanting the outer coating, can -build up images out of statistics until the images are as full of line -and colour and as incapable of change at will as the image of a barrel -of cider which occupies Hodge’s retina when it is imminent to his -desires, present to his touch. The sensibility of the nerves of genius -is greater than the sensibility of the nerves of Hodge. Not all the -eloquence of an unabridged dictionary could create an image in Hodge’s -mind of a thing he had never seen. From a brief description a painter of -genius could make a picture--not a likeness of course--of Canton, -although he had never been outside the four corners of these kingdoms. -The painting would not, in all likelihood, be in the least like Canton, -but it would be very like the image formed in the painter’s mind of that -city. In the painter such an image comes and goes at will. He can either -see it or not see it as he pleases. It is the result of the brain -reacting on the nerve. It relies on data and combination. It is his -slave, not his master. Before it can be formed there must be great -increase of sensibility. Hodge is crude silver, the painter is the -polished mirror. The painter can see things which are not, things which -he himself makes in his mind. His invention is at least as vivid as his -memory. - -I suppose then that the man of genius, the painter or poet, is one who, -having lost the first skin, or portion of the first skin of his nerves, -can create and see in his mind’s eye things never seen by the eye of any -other man, and see them as vividly as men of no genius can see objects -of memory. - -Now peel off the second skin. The more exquisitely sensitive or the -innermost skin of the nerve is exposed. Things which the eye of genius -could not invent or even dream of are revealed. A drop of putrid water -under the microscope becomes a lake full of terrifying monsters large -enough to destroy man. Heard through the microphone the sap ascending a -tree becomes loud as a torrent. Seen through a telescope nebulous spots -in the sky become clusters of constellations. Divested of its second -skin the nerve becomes sensitive to influences too rare and fine for the -perception of the optic nerve in a more protected state. Beings that -bear no relation whatever to weight or the law of impenetrability, float -about and flash hither and thither swifter than lightning. The air and -other ponderable matter are nothing to them. They are no more than the -shadows or reflections of action, the imperishable progeny of thought. -Here lies disclosed to the partly emancipated nerve the Canton of the -painter’s vision. Here the city he made to himself is as firm and sturdy -and solid and full of life as the Canton of this day on the southern -coast of China. Here throng the unrecorded visions of all the poets. -Here are the counterfeits of all the dead in all their phases. Here -float the dreams of men, the unbroken scrolls of life and action and -thought complete of all beings, man and beast, that have lived since -time began. In the world of matter nothing is lost; in the world of -spirit nothing is lost either. - -If instead of taking the whole of this imaginary skin off the optic -nerve, we simply injure it ever so slightly, the nerve may become alive -to some of these spirits; and this premature perception of what is -around all of us, but perceived by few, we call seeing ghosts. It may be -objected that all space is not vast enough to afford room for such a -stupendous panorama. When we begin to talk of limits of space to -anything beyond our knowledge and the touch of our inch-tape, we talk -like fools. There is no good in allotting space with a two-foot rule. It -is all the same whether we divide zero into infinity or infinity into -zero. The answer is the same; “I don’t know how many times it goes.” -Take a cubic inch of air outside your window and see the things packed -into it. Here interblent we find all together resistance and light and -sound and odour and flavour. We must stop there, for we have got to the -end, not of what _is_ packed into that cubic inch of air, but to the end -of the things in it revealed to our senses. If we had five more senses -we should find five more qualities; if we had five thousand senses, five -thousand qualities. But even if we had only our own senses in higher -form we should see ghosts. - -If the third skin were removed from the optic nerve all things we now -call opaque would become transparent, owing to the naked nerve being -sensitive to the latent light in every body. The whole round world would -become a crystal ball, the different degrees of what we now call opacity -being indicated merely by a faint chromatic modification. What we now -regard as brilliant sunlight would then be dense shadow. Apocalyptic -ranges of colour would be disclosed, beginning with what is in our -present condition the least faint trace of tint and ascending through a -thousand grades to white, white brighter far than the sun our present -eyes blink upon. Burnished brass flaming in our present sun would then -be the beginning of the chromatic scale descending in the shadow of -yellow, burnished copper of red, burnished tin of black, burnished steel -of blue. So intense then would the sensibility of the optic nerve become -that the satellites attendant on the planets in the system of the suns, -called fixed stars, would blaze brighter than our own moon reflected in -the sea. To the eye matter would cease to be matter in its present, -gross obstructive sense. It would be no more than a delicate transparent -pigment in the wash of a water-colour artist. The gross rotundity of the -earth would be, in the field of the human eye, a variegated transparent -globe of reduced luminousness and enormous scales and chords of colour. -The Milky Way would then be a concave measureless ocean of prismatic -light with pendulous opaline spheres. - -The figures of dreams and ghosts may be as real as we are pleased to -consider ourselves. What arrogance of us to say they are our own -creation! They may look upon themselves as superior to us, as we look -upon ourselves as superior to the jelly-fish. No doubt we are to ghosts -the baser order, the spirits stained with the woad of earth, low -creatures who give much heed to heat and cold, and food and motion. They -are the sky-children, the chosen people. They are nothing but -circumscribed will wedded to incorporeal reasons of the nobler kind, and -with scopes the contemplation of which would split our tenement of clay. -They are the arch-angelic hierarchs of man, the ultimate condition of -the race, the spirit of this planet distilled by the sun. - - - - -THE BEST TWO BOOKS. - - -In no list I met of the best hundred books, when that craze took the -place of spelling-bees and the fifteen puzzle, do I recollect seeing -mention made of my two favourite works. These two books stand completely -apart in my esteem, and if I were asked to name the volume that comes -third, I should have to make a speech of explanation. The first of them -is not in prose or verse, it is not a work of theology or philosophy or -science or art or history or fiction or general literature. It is at -once the most comprehensive and impartial book I know. This paragraph is -assuming the aspect of a riddle. Being in a mild and passionless way a -lover of my species, I am a loather of riddles. So I will go no further -on the downward way, but declare the name, title, and style of my book -to be Nuttall’s _Standard Dictionary_. - -I am well aware there is a great deal to be said against Nuttall’s -_Dictionary_ as a dictionary, but I am not speaking of it in that sense. -I am treating it as a dear companion, a true friend, a _vade mecum_. Let -those who have a liking for discovering spots in the sun glare at the -orb until they have a taste for nothing else but spots in the sun. I -find Nuttall so close to my affections that I can perceive no defects in -him. I cannot bear to hold him at arm’s length, for critical -examination. I hug him close to me, and feel that while I have him I am -almost independent of all other books printed in the English language. - -Cast your eyes along your own bookshelves of English authors; every -word, liberally speaking, that is in each and every volume on your -shelves is in my Nuttall! Here is the juice of the language, from -Shakespeare to Huxley, in a concentrated solution. Here is a book that -starts by telling you that A is a vowel, and does not desert you until -it informs you that zythum is a beverage, a liquor made from malt and -wheat; a fact, I will wager, you never dreamed of before! And between A -and zythum, what a boundless store of learning is disclosed! This is the -only single-volume book I know of which no man living is or ever can be -the master. Charles Lamb would not allow that dictionaries are books at -all. In his days they were white-livered charlatans compared with the -full-blooded enthusiast, Nuttall. - -If such an unkind thing were desirable as to diminish the conceit of a -man of average reading and intelligence, there is no book could be used -with such paralysing effect upon him as this one. It is almost -impossible for any student to realise the infinite capacity for -ignorance with which man is gifted until he is brought face to face with -such a book as Nuttall. The list of words whose meanings are given -occupies 771 very closely printed pages of small type in double column. -The letter A takes up from 1 to 52. How many words unfamiliar to the -ordinary man are to be found in this fifteenth part of the dictionary! -On the top of every folio there occur four words, one at the head of -each column. Barring the right of the candidates in ignorance to guess -from the roots how many well-informed people know or would use any of -the following words--absciss, acidimeter, acroteleutic, adminicular, -adminiculator, adustion, aerie, agrestic, allignment, allision, -ambreine, ampulla, ampullaceous, android, antiphonary, antiphony, -apanthropy, aponeurosis, appellor, aramaic, aretology, armilla, -armillary, asiarch, assentation, asymptote, asymptotical, aurate, -averruncator, aversant, axotomous, or axunge? And yet all these are at -the heads of columns under A alone! Take, now, one column haphazard -perpendicularly, and with the same reservation as before, who would use -antimaniac, antimask, antimasonic, antimeter, antimonite, antinephritic, -antinomian, antinomy, antipathous, antipedobaptist, antiperistaltic, -antiperistasis, or antiphlogistic? The letter A taken along the top of -the pages or down one column is not a good letter for the confusion of -the conceited; because viewed across the top of the page it is pitifully -the prey of prefixes which lead to large families of words, and viewed -down the column (honestly selected at haphazard), it is the bondslave of -one prefix. When, however, one starts a theory, it is not fair to pick -and choose. I have, of course, eschewed derivatives in coming down the -column; across the column I did not do so, as the chance of a prime word -being at the bottom of one column and its derivate at the top of the -next ought to count two in my favour. I am aware this claim may be -disputed; I have disputed it with myself at much too great length to -record here, and I have decided in my own favour. - -Of course the mere reading of the dictionary in a mechanical way would -produce no more effect than the repetition of numerals abstracted from -things. There is no greater suggestiveness in saying a million than in -saying one. But what an enlargement of the human capacity takes place -when a person passes from the idea of one man to the idea of a million -men. Take the first word quoted from the head of the column. I had -wholly forgotten the meaning of absciss. I cannot even now remember -that I ever knew the meaning of it, though of course I must, for I was -supposed to have learned conic sections once. Why any one should be -expected to learn conic sections I cannot guess. As far as I can now -recall, they are the study of certain possible systems and schemes of -lines in a wholly unnecessary figure. I believe the cone was invented by -some one who had conic sections up his sleeve, and devised the miserable -spinning of the triangle merely to gratify his lust of cruelty to the -young. The only one use to which cones are put, as far as I am aware, is -for a weather signal on the sea coast. The only section of a cone put to -any pleasant use is a frustum when it appears in the bark of the cork -tree; and even this conic section is not of much use to pleasure until -it is removed from the bottle. Conic sections are reprehensible in -another way. They are, in the matter of difficulty, nothing better than -impostors. They are really “childlike and bland,” and will, when you -have conquered your schoolboy terror of them, be found agreeable -after-dinner reading. - -But I must return to Nuttall. The systematic study of the book is to be -deplored. It is, like the Essays of Elia, not to be read through at a -sitting, but to be dipped into curiously when one is in the vein. The -charm of Lamb is in the flavour; and one cannot reach the more remote -and finer joys of taste if one eats quickly. There is no cohesion, and -but little thought in Nuttall. It is as a spur, an incentive, to thought -I worship the book, and as a storehouse for elemental lore. You have -known a thing all your life, let us say, and have called it by a -makeshift name. You feel in your heart and soul there must be a more -close-fitting appellation than you employ for it, and you endure a sense -of feebleness and dispersion of mind. One day you are idly glancing -through your Nuttall, and suddenly the clouds, the nebulous mists of a -generalized term, roll away, and out shines, clear and sharply defined, -the particular definition of the thing. From childhood I have, for -example, known a pile-driver, and called it a pile-driver for years and -years. All along something told me pile-driver was no better than a -loose and off-hand way of describing the machine. It partook of the -barbarous nature of a hieroglyphic. You drew, as it were, the figure of -a post, and of a weight descending upon it. The device was much too -pictorial and crude. Moreover, it was, so described, a thing without a -history. To call a pile-driver a pile-driver is no more than to describe -a barn-door cock onomatopoetically as cock-a-doodle-doo--a thing -repellent to a pensive mind. But in looking over Nuttall I accidentally -alighted on this: “Fistuca, fis’--tu-ka, _s._ A machine which is raised -to a given height by pulleys, and then allowed suddenly to fall on the -head of a pile; a monkey (L. a rammer).” Henceforth there is, in my -mind, no need of a picture for the machine. So to speak, the abstract -has become concrete. I would not, of course, dream of using the word -fistuca, but it is a great source of internal consolation to me. -Besides, I attain with it to other eminences of curiosity, which show me -fields of inquiry I never dreamed of before. - -I have not met the word monkey in this sense until now. I look out -monkey in my book, and find one of the meanings “a pile-driver,” and -that the word is derived from the Italian “_monna_, contraction for -_madonna_.” Up to this moment I did not know from what monkey was -derived, although I had heard that from monkey man was derived. All this -sets one off into a delicious doze of thought and keeps one carefully -apart from his work. For “who would fardels bear to groan and sweat -under a weary” load of even pens, when he might lie back and close his -eyes, and drift off to the Rome of Augustus or the Venice of to-day? -Philology as mere philology is colourless, but if one uses the records -of verbal changes as glasses to the past and present, what panchromatic -hues sweep into the pale field of the dictionary! What myriads of dead -men stand up out of their graves, and move once more through scenes of -their former activities! What reimpositions of old times on old earth -take place! What bravery of arms and beauty of women are renewed; what -glowing argosies, long mouldered, sparkle once more in the sun! What -brazen trumpets blare of conquest, and dust of battle roll along the -plain! What plenitude of life, of movement, of man is revealed! A -dictionary is to me the key-note in the orchestra where mankind sit -tuning their reeds for the overture to the final cataclysm of the world. - -My second book would be Whitaker’s _Almanack_. Owing to miserable -ill-luck I have not been able to get a copy of the almanac for this -year. I offered fair round coin of the realm for it before the Jubilee -plague of ugliness fell upon the broad pieces of her most gracious -Majesty. But, alas! no copy was to be had. I was too late in the race. -All the issue had been sold. The last edition of which I have a copy is -that for 1886. I have one for each year of the ten preceding, and I -cannot tell how crippled and humiliated I feel in being without one for -1887. - -This is another of the books that Charles Lamb classes among the -no-books. As in the case of Nuttall, there was no Whitaker in his day, -and certainly no almanac at all as good. At first glance this book may -seem dry and sapless as the elm ready sawn for conversion into parish -coffins. But how can anything be considered dry or dead when two hundred -thousand of its own brothers are at this moment dwelling in useful amity -among our fellowmen? It in one way contrasts unfavourably with almanacs -which can claim a longer life, there are no vaticinations in it. But if -the gift of prophecy were possessed by other almanacs, why did they not -foretell that they would be in the end known as humbugs, and cut their -conceited throats? I freely own I am a bigot in this matter; I have -never given any other almanac a fair chance, and, what is worse, I have -firmly made up my mind not to give any other one any chance at all. What -is the good of being loyal to one’s friends if one’s loyalty is at the -beck of every upstart acquaintance, no matter how great his merits or -how long his purse? I place my faith in Whitaker, and am ready to go to -the stake (provided it is understood that nothing unpleasant takes place -there) chaunting my belief and glorying in my doom. - -If you took away Whitaker’s _Almanack_ from me I do not know how I -should get on. It is a book for diurnal use and permanent reference. One -edition of it ought to be printed on bank note paper for the pocket, and -another on bronze for friezes for the temple of history. It is worth all -the Livys and Tacituses that ever breathed and lied. It is more truthful -than the sun, for that luminary is always eight minutes in advance of -where it seems to be. It is as impartial and veracious as fossilising -mud. It contains infinitely more figures than Madame Tussaud’s, and -teaches of everything above and under the sun, from stellar influences -to sewage. - -How is the daily paper to be understood lacking the aid of Whitaker? Who -is the honourable member for Berborough, of whom the Chanceller of the -Exchequer spoke in such sarcastic terms last night? For what place sits -Mr. Snivel, who made that most edifying speech yesterday? How old is -the Earl of Champagne, who has been appointed Governor of Labuan? Where -is Labuan? What is the value in English money of £T97,000, and 2,784,000 -roubles? What are the chances of a man of forty (yourself) living to be -a hundred? and what is the chance of a woman of sixty-four (your -mother-in-law) dying next year? How much may one deduct from one’s -income with a view to income tax before one needs begin to lie? What -annuity ought a man of your age be able to get for the five thousand -pounds you expect on the death of your mother-in-law? How much will you -have to pay to the state if you article your son to a solicitor or give -him a little capital and start him in an honest business as a -pawnbroker? How old is the judge that charged dead against the prisoner -whom the jury acquitted without leaving the box? What railway company -spends the most money in coal? legal charges? palm oil? Is there -anything now worth a gentleman’s while to smuggle on his return from the -Continent? What is the tonnage of the ironclad rammed yesterday morning -by another ironclad of the Channel squadron? When may one begin to eat -oysters? What was the most remarkable event last year? How much longer -is it likely to pay to breed farmers in England? - -These are only a few, very few, of the queries Whitaker will answer -cheerfully for you. Indeed, you can scarcely frame any questions to -which it will not make a reply of some kind or other. It contains, -moreover, either direct or indirect reference to every man in the United -Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. If you occupy a prominent -official position in any walk in life, you will find yourself herein -mentioned by name. If you are a simple and prudent trader, you will have -your name and your goods described elaborately among the advertisements. -If you come under neither of these heads you are sure to be included, -not distinguished perhaps personally, under the statistics of the Insane -or Criminal classes. - -All the information on the points indicated may be said to lie within -the parochial domain of the book. But it has a larger, a universal -scope, and takes into view all the civilized and half civilized nations -of all the earth. It contains multitudinous facts and figures about -Abyssinia, Afghanistan, Annam, Argentine Republic, Austro-Hungary, -Baluchistan, Belgium, Bokhara, Bolivia, Borneo, Brazil, Bulgaria, -Eastern Roumelia, Burmah, Corea, Central America, Chili, China, Cochin -China, Colombia, Congo State, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, -Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hawaiian Islands, Hayti, Italy, Japan, -Liberia, Madagascar, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, -Oman, Orange Free State, Paraguay, Persia, Peru, Portugal, Roumania, -Russia, Sarawak, Servia, Siam, Sokoto, Spain, Sweden and Norway, -Switzerland, Tibet, Transvaal, Tripoli, Tunis, Turkey, United States, -Uruguay, Venezuela, and Zanzibar! - -The list takes away one’s breath. The mere recital of it leaves one -faint and exhausted. Passing the most elementary knowledge of these -nations and countries through the mind is like looking at a varying -rainbow while the ears are solicited by a thousand tunes. The names, the -mere names, of Mexico and Brazil stop my heart with amazement. The -Aztecs and the Amazon call up such visions of man in decay and nature in -naked strength that I pause like one in a gorgeous wood held in fear by -its unfamiliarity. What has the Amazon done in the ages of its -unlettered history? What did the Aztecs know before they began to revert -to birds? Then Morocco and Tripoli, what memories and mysteries of man! -And Sokoto--of which little is known but the name; and that man was here -before England was dissevered from the mainland of Europe. Turkey, as it -even now lies crippled and shorn, embraces within its stupendous arms -the tombs of the greatest empire of antiquity. Only to think of China is -to grow old beyond the reach of chroniclers. Compared with China, -Turkey, India, and Russia, even Greece and Rome are mushroom states, and -Germany and France virgin soil. - -But when I am in no humour for contemplation and alarms of eld I take up -my Whitaker for 1886, and open it at page 285. There begins the most -incredible romance ever written by man, and what increases its -incredibility is that it happens to be all true. - -At page 285 opens an account of the British Empire. The first article is -on India, and as one reads, taking in history and statistics with -alternate breaths, the heart grows afraid to beat in the breast lest its -motion and sound might dispel the enchantment and bring this “miracle of -rare device” down about one’s head. The opening statement forbids -further progress for a time. When one hears that “the British Empire in -India extends over a territory as large as the continent of Europe -without Russia,” it is necessary to pause and let the capacity of the -mind enlarge in order to take in this stupendous fact with its -stupendous significances. - -Here are 254 millions of people living under the flag of Britain! Here -is a vast country of the East whose history goes back for a thousand -years from this era, which knew Alexander the Great and was the scene of -Tamerlane’s exploits, subject to the little island on the western verge -of modern Europe. Here, paraded in the directest and most prosaic -fashion, are facts and figures that swell out the fancy almost -intolerably. Here is one feudatory state, one dependent province, almost -as populous as the whole empire over which Don Pedro II. reigns in South -America. Here is a public revenue of eighty millions sterling a year, -and Calcutta, including suburbs, with a population close upon a million. -Here are no fewer than fifty-three towns and cities of more than fifty -thousand people each. Here is a gross number of seven hundred and -fourteen thousand towns and villages! Is not this one item incredible? -Just three quarters of a million, not of people or even houses, but of -“towns and villages!” The population of Madras alone is five-sixths of -that of the United Kingdom, that of the North-West Provinces and Oudh -considerably more, and that of Bengal nearly twice as much as England, -Ireland, Scotland, and Wales together. The Native States have many more -inhabitants than any country in Europe, except Russia. Bombay equals -Spain. The Punjaub exceeds Turkey in Asia. Assam exceeds Turkey in -Europe. The Central Provinces about equal Belgium and Holland together; -British Burmah, Switzerland. Berar exceeds Denmark, and all taken -together contain more than the combined populations of the United States -of America, Austria, Germany, France, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Portugal, -Holland, and Belgium! All ours absolutely, or in the feudatory leash; -with more Mohammedans than are to be found in the Sultan’s dominions, -and a larger revenue than is enjoyed by any country on earth except -England, France, United States of America, Austria, and Russia! - -These are facts and figures enough to set one dreaming for a month. This -is not an age for epic poetry. It is exceedingly unlikely any poet in -the present age will seek the framework for his great work in the past. -The past was all very well in its own day until it was found out. -Certitudes in bygone centuries have been shaken. The present time is -wildly volcanic. Now the hidden, throbbing, mad, fierce, upheaving fires -bulge out the crust of earth under fabrics whilom regarded as -indestructible, and split their walls, and warp their pillars, and -choke their domes. It was a good thing for Milton and Dante they lived -and wrote long ago, for the iconoclasts of to-day are trying to build a -great wall across heaven and tear up the sacred pavement of hell. They -tell us the Greek armies were a mob of disorderly and timid cits, and -that speculations as to the reported dealings of Dr. Faustus with any -folk but respectable druggists are too childish for the nursery or -Kaffirs. The golden age is no longer the time that will never come -again. The past is a fire that has burnt out, a flame that has vanished. -To kneel before what has been is to worship impotent shadows. Up to this -man has been wandering in the desert, and until now there have not been -even trustworthy rumours of the land of promise. But to us has come a -voice prophesying good things. The Canaan of the ages is in the future -of time. Taking this age at its own estimate I have long thought the -subject for the finest epic lying within possibility in our era is the -building of the railway to India. Into a history of that undertaking -would flow all the affluents of the ancient world. The stories of -Baalbec and Nineveh that are finished, and of Aleppo and Damascus that -survive, would fall into this prodigious tale of peaceful conquest. The -line would have for marge Assyria on one hand, Egypt on the other; it -would reach from the land of the Buddhist through the land of the -Mohammedan to the land of the Christian. It would be a work undertaken -in honour of the modern god, Progress, through the graves of the oldest -peoples, to link the three great forms of faith. All the action of the -epic would take place on earth, and all the actors would be men. There -would be no need for evolving the god from the machine, for the machine -itself would be the god. It would be the history of man from his birth -till this hour. It would be most fitly written in English, for English -is the most capacious and virile language yet invented by man. - -But a mere mortal, such as I, cannot stay in India always, or even abide -for ever by the way. Although I have _Whitaker’s Almanack_ before me -all the time, I have strayed a little from it. In thinking of the lands -through which that heroic line of railway would pass, I have almost -forgotten the modest volume at my elbow. Yet fragile as it looks, one -volume similar to it will last as long as the Pyramids, will come in -time to be as old as the oldest memory is now; that is, if the ruins of -England endure as long as those of Egypt, for a copy of it lies built up -under Cleopatra’s Needle. - -I turn over the last page of “British India” in my _Almanack_. We are -not yet done with orient lands and seas. The article over-leaf is headed -“Other British Possessions in the East.” Here, if one wants incitement -towards prose or verse, dreaming or doing, commerce or pillage, is -matter to his hand. The places one may read of are--Aden, Socotra, -Ceylon, Hong-Kong, Labuan, British North Borneo, and Cyprus. Then in my -book comes “The Dominion of Canada,” with its territory “about as large -as Europe”! and a revenue equal to Portugal, which discovered and once -held India. After Canada come “Other American Possessions,” including -British Guiana, which, except for the sugar of Demerara, is little heard -of; it occupies a space of earth as large as all Great Britain. So -little do people of inferior education know of this dependency, that -once, when a speaker in the House of Commons spoke of the “island of -Demerara,” there was not a single member present who knew that Demerara -was not an island, but part of the mainland of South America. Last in -the list comes British Honduras, about as big as Wales. - -After America, we have our enormous outlying farm in the southern -hemisphere, “British Possessions in Australasia.” There the land owned -by England is again about the size of Europe! Then follow “British -Possessions in the West Indies,” small in mileage, great in fertility -and richness of produce, and with a population twice that of Eastern -Roumelia. The “British Possessions in Africa” are considerably larger -than France, with about half as many inhabitants as Denmark. The -territories owned in the Southern Atlantic are Ascension, the Falkland -Islands, South Georgia, and St. Helena. This prodigious list ends with -the European Possessions, namely, Malta, Gibraltar, Heligoland, the -Channel Islands, and Isle of Man. - -By this time the hand is tired writing down the mere names of the riches -belonging to Great Britain. Towards the close of my list from Whitaker -my energy drooped, and a feeling of enervating satiety came upon me. I -am surfeited with splendours, and, like a tiger filled with flesh, I -must sleep. But in that sleep what dreams may come! How the imagination -expands and aspires under the stimulus of a page of tabulated figures! -How the fancy is excited, provoked, by the spectacle of an endless sea -in which every quarter of the globe affords a bower for Britannia when -it pleases her aquatic highness to adventure abroad upon the deep, into -the farthest realms of the morning, into the regions of the dropping -sun. Here, in my best two books, are the words of the most copious -language that man ever spoke, and the facts and figures of the greatest -realm over which man ever ruled. _Civis Romanus sum!_ I will sleep. I -will dream that I am alone with my two books. I will speak in this -imperial, this dominant dialect, as I move by sea and land among the -peoples who live under the flag flying above me now. Who would encumber -himself with finite poetry or romance when he may take with him the -uncombined vocabulary, with its infinite possibilities of affinities, -and the history of the countries and the peoples that lie beneath this -flag, and bear in his heart the astounding and exalting -consciousness--_Civis Romanus sum!_ - - - - -LIES OF FABLE AND ALLEGORY. - - -Some little while ago the battered and shattered remains of an old -bookcase with the sedimentary deposit of my own books, reached me after -a journey of many hundred miles from its former resting place. The front -of the bookcase is twisted wirework, which, when I remember it first, -was lined with pink silk. Not a vestige, not a shred of the silk remains -and the half dozen shelves now depend for preservation in position on a -frame as crazy as Her Majesty’s ship _Victory_, and certainly older. The -bookcase had belonged to my grandfather before Trafalgar, and some of -the books I found in it among the sediment were printed before the Great -Fire of London. In all there were about a couple or three hundred books, -none of which would be highly valued by a bibliophile. Owing to my -being in a very modest way a wanderer on the face of the realm, these -books had been out of my possession for nearly twenty years, and dusty -and dilapidated as they were when they reached me I took them in my arms -as long-lost friends. I had finished the last sentence with the word -children, but that would not do for two reasons. These books were not -mine as this one I am now writing is, and long-lost children change more -than they have changed, or more than friends change. Children grow and -outpace us and leave us behind and are not so full of companionable -memories as friends. There is hardly time to make friends of our adult -children before we are beckoned away. The friends we make and keep when -we are young have always twenty years’ start of our children in -friendship. A man may be friendly with his son of five but a father and -son cannot be full friends until the son is twenty years older. - -Again, as to the impropriety of speaking of the books as long-lost -children I have another scruple. I am in great doubt as to whether the -recovery of a long-lost child is at all desirable. A long-lost child -means a young girl or boy of our own who is lost when under ten years of -age and recovered years afterwards. I do not know that the recovery of -the missing one is a cause of gratitude. Remember it is not at all the -child we lost. It is a child alleged or alleging itself to be the child -we lost. It is more correctly not a child at all, but a lad or lass whom -we knew when young, and whose acquaintance we have to make over again. -Our personality has become dim to it, and we have to occupy ourselves -seriously in trying to identify the unwieldy bulk of the stranger with -our memory of the wanderer. When the boy went from us we mourned for him -as dead, and now he comes back to us from the tomb altered all out of -memory. He is not wholly our child. There is an interregnum in our reign -over him and we do not know what manner of king has held sway in our -stead, or, if knowing the usurper, we cannot measure the extent or force -of his influence. How much of this young person is really our very own? -how much the development of untoward fate? Is the memory of our lost one -dearer than the presence of this lad who is half stranger? What we lost -and mourned was ours surely; how much of what we have regained belongs -to us? - -With books no such question arises. They are our very own. They have -suffered no increment, but rather loss. What we remember of them and -find again in them fills us with joy; what we have forgotten and recall -excites a surprise which makes us feel rich. We reproach ourselves with -not having loved them sufficiently well, and swear upon them to endow -them with warmer affection henceforth. In turning over the books in the -old case I lighted upon one which I believe to be the volume that came -earliest into my possession. It is Cobbett’s _Spelling-Book_, and by the -writing on the title page I see it was given to me by my father on the -second of February, 1854. It is in a very battered and tattered -condition. I find a youthful autograph of my own on the fly-leaf, the -Christian name occupying one line, the surname the second; on a third -line is the name of the town, and on a fourth the number of the street -and part of the name of the street, the last being, I blush to say, -ill-spelt. Surely there never was a book hated as I hated this one! At -that time I had declared my unalterable determination of never learning -to read. I possessed, until recently, a copy of Valpy’s Latin Grammar of -about the same date, and I remember I worshipped the Latin Grammar -compared with the Spelling-Book. I knew _rosa_ before I could read words -of two syllables, and at this moment I do not know much more Latin than -I did then. The Spelling-Book was published by Anne Cobbett, at 137, -Strand, in 1849. It is almost incredible that so short a time ago the -atrocious woodcuts could be got in England for love or money. There is -no attempt whatever at overlaying in the printing; the cut pages are all -what are called “flat pulls.” Here and there through the pages of -chilling columns of words of one, two, three or more syllables are -pencil marks indicating the limits of a day’s lesson. What a ruthless -way they had with us children in those days! When I look at those -appalling columns of arid words I applaud my childish determination of -never learning to read if the art were to be acquired only by traversing -those fearful deserts of unintelligible verbiage. Fancy a child of -tender years confronted with antitrinitarian, consubstantiality, -discontinuation, excommunication, extraordinarily, immateriality, -impenetrability, indivisibility, naturalization, plenipotentiary, -recapitulation, supererogation, transubstantiation, valetudinarian, and -volatilization, not one of which is as difficult to spell as one quarter -the words of one syllable, and not one of which could be understood by a -child or would be used by a single man out of a thousand in all his -life. The country had penal settlements then, why in the name of mercy -did they not send children to the settlements and give them a chance to -keep their reason and become useful citizens when their time of -punishment had expired? I am happy to say I find no pencil marks among -those leviathan words above. I suppose I never got into the deep waters -where they “wallowing unwieldy in their gait tempest the ocean.” - -I wonder was the foundation of a lifelong dislike to Cobbett’s writings -laid in me at that early time of my existence? Anyway I do not remember -the day when I did not dislike everything I read of Cobbett’s, and I -dislike everything of his I read now. I wonder, also, was it at that -early date the seed of my hatred of fable or allegory was sown? To me -the fables in the back of that Spelling-Book were always odious, now -they are loathsome. With the cold-blooded “morals” attendant upon them -they are the worst form of literary torture I know. I am aware that the -bulk of them are not original, but Cobbett inserted them in his book, -and I give him full credit for evil intention. Yet in later years it was -not his taste for fable that repelled me but his intense combativeness. -He is never comfortable unless he is mangling some one. It was a pity he -ever left the army. He would have been a credit to his corps at close -quarters with a clubbed musket. Even in the Spelling-Book, intended for -young children, his “Stepping-Stone to Cobbett’s English Grammar” takes -the form of a dialogue, in which he, the “Teacher,” smashes the -unfortunate Scholar and Mr. William. Cobbett sprang from the people and -was a Saxon pure and simple, and the Saxon is the element in the English -people which has been most undistinguished when unmingled with other -blood. The Saxon of fifteen hundred years ago is the yokel of to-day, -and he never was more than a yokel intellectually. The enormous -intellectual fertility of England is owing to successive invasions, and -chiefly to the Norman Conquest. All the great and noble and sweet faces -in English history are Norman, or largely Norman. The awful faces of the -Gibbon type make periods of English history like a night spectral with -evil dreams. - -Does any one past the condition of childhood really like fables? Mind, I -do not say past the years of childhood. But does any one of fully mature -intellect like fables or pleasantly endure allegories? I think not. In -the vigour of all lives there must be _lacunæ_ of intense indolence, -backwaters of the mind, where one is willing to float effortless and -take the things that come as though they were good things rather than -work at the oars in pursuit of novelties. At such times it is easier to -persuade ourselves we are amused by books that we admired when we lacked -experience and discernment than to break new ground and encounter fresh -obstacles. I am leaving out of account the dull worthy people who say -they like a book because other people say they like it. These good -people live in a continual state of self-justification. They are much -more serenely secure in what they imagine to be their opinions than -those travailing souls that really have opinions of their own. Their -life is easy, and in lazy moments one sighs for the repose they enjoy. -But do not the people with active minds often adhere to childish likings -merely from indolence? A certain question they settled in their own -minds when they were ten; it is too much trouble to treat it as an open -matter at thirty. Consistency in a politician is invariably a sign of -stupidity, because no man (outside fundamental questions of morals) can -with credit to his sense remain stationary in opinion for thirty years -where all is change. The very data on which he based an opinion in the -year one are vapourized in the year thirty. The foundation of all -political theories is first principles of some kind, and the only -support a philosophic mind rejects with disdain is a first principle of -any kind. Now, the fables we tolerate, nay, admire as children, are in -imaginative literature what first principles are in that branch of -imaginary philanthropy called politics. It is much easier to say every -man has a right to eight shillings a day than to find out what each -particular man has a right to, or if man has a right to anything at all. -It is much easier to say one does like Fontaine than at thirty years of -age to acquire a disgust of him and his fables. - -The lying insincerity of fables and their morals always shocks me, and -the gross blindness of the fabulist to any view of transactions but that -adopted by him to point his precept, fills me with contempt for him as -an artist. In the Spelling-Book I do not feel myself at liberty to -select the fables as I choose. I will take only one, the first that -comes. It is about the swallow and the sparrow. It is a very bad -specimen for my contention, but as I am the challenger I have not the -choice of weapons, and I accept the first presented by Cobbett. - -A swallow coming back to her old nest in the spring finds it occupied by -a sparrow and his brood of young ones. The swallow demands possession on -the grounds of having built the nest and brought up three broods in it. -The sparrow will not budge. The swallow summons a number of swallows, -and they wall up the sparrow and he and his brood die of hunger. - -The first notice of bias the reader gets is that the swallow is called -she, and the sparrow he. Why? For the dishonest purpose of enlisting -sympathy with the swallow. There is no evidence or statement the sparrow -was aware when taking possession of the nest that it would be reclaimed -by the swallow. How was the sparrow to know that the swallow was not -dead and buried by the mole? The nest was derelict. Again, when the -swallow returned the sparrow had young ones, which it would be dangerous -to remove from the nest. How was the sparrow to know the swallow was -telling the truth, and that the nest was hers? Then, even supposing the -sparrow to be all in the wrong, the punishment was out of all proportion -to the offence. The sparrow had done no harm beyond intruding. He had -not injured the furniture, or burned any of the swallow’s gas, or broken -into the wine-cellar. Justice would have been vindicated by the -expulsion of the intruder and his brood. But what takes place instead? -The door is built up, and the sparrow with his innocent young is -murdered! Surely if this is a fruitful fable, the moral is immoral. This -is the old Mosaic theory of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, -and a little, or rather a great deal more. It is hideously un-Christian. -I believe Cobbett professed Christianity. Why did he put this odious -vengeful story in the forefront of his exemplars of righteous doing? - -But the worst part of the story is in the Moral. “Thus it always is with -the unjust,” says the Chorus of the fabulist. He means that the unjust -are always nailed up in their houses with their blameless children and -starved to death. Now neither Cobbett nor any other sane preacher -believes anything of the kind. This is a lie, pure and simple; a lie no -doubt told with a good object, but a lie all the same. Cobbett had too -much common-sense not to know that it is not always “thus” with the -“unjust.” As a rule, the unjust go scot free when they stop short of -crime. The people who say otherwise are yielding to a feminine, -sentimental weakness. Poetic justice no doubt does exist--in poetry. -Most men are as unjust as they dare be, and most men get on comfortably -from their cradles to their graves. It is only the fools, the men of -ungovernable passions and impulses and the blunderers who suffer. Man is -at heart a rapacious brute. All his centuries of civilization have not -quelled the predatory spirit in him. Any man will become a thief if he -only be sufficiently tempted when he is sufficiently desperate. The -crime of the sparrow in appropriating the swallow’s nest is -intelligible, the crime of the swallow in murdering the sparrow and his -brood is intelligible, the crime of lying committed by the moralist is -abominable. When the child to whom Cobbett lied grows up, he will know -the lie, despise the liar, and have nothing left of the precious fable -but a shaken faith in the words of all men, whether they be liars like -Cobbett and the other moralists, or truth-tellers like the ordinary -everyday folk, who do not pose as teachers and latter-day prophets. It -is very improving to reflect on the freedom these teachers give -themselves in act when enforcing their theories in writing. In order -that Cobbett might exemplify his principles against the credit system, -he signed his name across the face of acceptances for seventy thousand -pounds! - -Cobbett’s Grammar was written for sailors and soldiers and such men. I -gave the only copy of it I ever had to a sailor who had abandoned living -on the sea to live by the sea, who had eschewed the paint-pot and the -stage aboard the merchant service for the palette and stool of the -studio. It is years since I have seen the book, but I remember the -contemptuous way in which the ex-soldier disposes of prosody. He says to -his pupil in effect: You need pay no attention to this branch of -grammar, as it deals only with the _noise_ made by words. Cobbett’s -treatment of prosody does not occupy more than one line or one line and -a half of print. It is briefer than Dr. Johnson’s Syntax: - - “The established practice of grammarians requires that I should - here treat of the Syntax; but our language has so little inflexion, - or variety of terminations, that its construction neither requires - nor admits many rules. Wallis, therefore, has totally neglected it; - and Jonson, whose desire of following the writers upon the learned - languages made him think a syntax indispensably necessary, has - published such petty observations as were better omitted. - - “The verb, as in other languages, agrees with the nominative in - number and person; as _Thou fliest from good; He runs to death_. - - “Our adjectives are invariable. - - “Of two substantives the noun possessive is the genitive; as _His - father’s glory; the sun’s heat_. - - “Verbs transitive require an oblique case; as _He loves me; You - fear him_. - - “All prepositions require an oblique case: _He gave this to me; He - took this from me; He says this of me; He came with me_.” - -That is all the merciful Dr. Samuel Johnson has to say about syntax. Oh, -Lindley Murray! Oh, memories of youth! Does it seem possible that -Johnson could have enjoyed the luxury of speaking in this light and airy -and debonair way of English grammar in his day, and that Lindley Murray -could have matured his awful Grammar in so few years afterwards? -Recollect there were not forty years between the lexicographer and the -grammarian. Could not Lindley Murray have left the unfortunate English -language alone? Johnson says no one need bother about syntax, and -Cobbett says no one need bother about prosody. Thus we have only -orthography and etymology to look after, when in comes Murray and spoils -all! It is doubtful if the language will ever recover the interference -of that Yankee merchant who invented syntax and made the life of dull -school boys and girls a path of thorns and agony. - -An allegory is a fable for fools of larger growth. I am writing in an -off-hand way, and I will not pause to examine the question nicely; but -is there any such thing as a successful allegory? I have no experience -of one. I seem to hear a loud shout of “_The Pilgrim’s Progress_.” Well, -I never could read the book through, and I have tried at least twenty -times. I have put the reading of that book before myself in the most -solemn manner. I have told myself over and over again that I ought to -read it as an educational exercise. In vain. How any man with -imagination can bear the book I do not know. Bunyan had inexhaustible -invention, but no imagination. He saw a reason for things, not the -things themselves. No creation of the imagination can lack consequence -or verisimilitude. On almost every page of the _Progress_ there is -violation of sequence, outrage against verisimilitude. Christian has a -great burden on his back and is in rags. He cannot remove the burden. -(Why?) He is put to bed (with the burden on his back), then he is -troubled in his mind (the burden is forgotten, and the vision altered -completely and fatally); again we are reminded that he has the burden -on his back when he tells Evangelist of it. Why can he not loose the -burden on his back? How is it secured so that he cannot remove it? He -cannot see a wicket gate across a very wide field, but he sees a shining -light (where?), and then he begins to run (burden and all) away from his -wife and children (which is immoral and abhorrent to the laws of God and -man). For the mere selfish ease of his body he deserts his wife and -children, who must be left miserably poor, for is he not in rags? The -neighbours come out and mock at him for running across a field. Why? How -do they know why he runs, and what neighbours are there to come out and -mock at one when one is running across a large field? The Slough of -Despond is in this field (for he has not passed through the wicket -gate), and he does not seem to know of the Slough, or think of avoiding -it. Fancy any man not knowing of such a filthy hole within a field of -his home! How is it that Pliable and Obstinate have no burdens on their -backs? It is not the will of the King that the Slough should be -dangerous to wayfarers: this surely is blasphemy. The whole thing is -grotesquely absurd and impossible to imagine. There is no sobriety in -it, no sobriety of keeping in it; and no matter how wild the effort or -vision of imagination may be there must always be sobriety of keeping in -it or it is delirium not imagination, disease not inspiration. As far as -I can see there is no trace of imagination, or even fancy, in the -_Pilgrim’s Progress_. The story never happened at all. It is a horrible -attempt to tinkerise the Bible. - -One of the things I cannot understand about Macaulay is that he stands -by Bunyan’s silly book. Macaulay was a man of vast reading and -acquirements and of common-sense tastes. He was not a poet, but he was -very nearly one, and ought to have responded in sympathy with poets. In -politics he belonged to that most melancholy of all sects, the Whigs, -and it may be that the spirit of political compromise to which he had -familiarised himself in public life had slipped unknown to him into his -literary briefs. Anyway, he himself says that the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ -is the only book which was promoted from the kitchen to the -drawing-room. There is no difficulty in accounting for the fact that the -book was popular among scullions and cooks, but how it ever gained -currency among people of moderate education and taste cannot be -explained. It is the most dull and tedious and monstrous book of any -note in the English language, and how any man with a gleam of -imagination can like it is more than I can understand. If one has been -familiar with it when young, one may tolerate it on the score of -tenderness--tenderness for memories and laziness in new enterprises; but -I never yet knew any one with even fancy who, meeting it for the first -time after the dawn of adolescence, could even endure it. - -It is like celebrating one’s own apotheosis to drop Bunyan and take up -Spenser. Here we share the air with an immortal god and not a bilious -enthusiast. When I have laid aside the _Spelling-Book_ and the -_Pilgrim’s Progress_, and opened the _Faerie Queen_, I feel as though -the leaden clouds of the north had rolled away, disclosing the blue of -Ægean skies; as though for squalid porridge and buttermilk had been -substituted ambrosia and nectar; as though for fallow and stubble had -drifted under my feet soft meadow-grass dense with flowers; as though -the moist and clayey crags had changed into purple hills, the -green-mantled pools to azure lakes, the narrow waters of a stagnant mere -to the free imperial waves and tides of the ocean. It is better than -escaping out of an East-end slum into the green lanes and roads of -Warwickshire. - -And yet, melancholy truth! the _Faerie Queen_ is most unpopular and most -unreadable. It has with justice, I think, been said that of ten thousand -people who begin the _Faerie Queen_, not ten read half way through it, -and only one arrives at the end. I find by a mark in my copy that I have -got a good deal more than half through it, but that I have not reached -the last line of this most colossal fragment of a poem. What a mercy the -rest of it was drowned in the Irish sea! My _Faerie Queen_ occupies 792 -pages of five stanzas to the page; that is, between thirty-five and -thirty-six thousand verses, two hundred and sixty to seventy thousand -words, or equal in length to a couple of ordinary three-volume novels! -And still it is _unperfite_! I find that although I have owned the book -for twenty years, I have got no further than page 472, so that I have -read only three-fifths of the fragment of this stupendous poem. - -It is not the length alone that defeats the reader. In all the field of -English verse there is no poem of great length that comes upon the mind -with more full and easy flow. The stanza after a long while becomes, no -doubt, monotonous, but it is the monotony of a vast and freightful river -that moves majestically, bearing interminable argosies of infinite -beauty and variety and significance. After one hundred pages one might -put down the book, wearied by the melodious monotony of the imperial -chords. I have never been able to read anything like a hundred, anything -like fifty pages at a time. I think I have rarely exceeded as many -stanzas. Spenser is the poets’ poet, and the _Faerie Queen_ the poets’ -poem, and yet even the poets cannot read it freely and fully, as one -reads Milton or Shakespeare or Shelley or Keats or the readable parts of -Coleridge, all of whom are poets’ poets also. - -The allegory bars the way. One reads on smoothly and joyously about a -wood or a nymph, or a knight or a lady, or a castle or a dragon, and is -half drunk on the wealthy poet’s mead (is not Spenser the wealthiest of -English poets?), when suddenly Dan Allegory comes along and assures you -that it is not a wood or a nymph, or a knight or lady, or a castle or -dragon, but a virtue or a vice posing in property clothes; that in fact -things are not what they seem, but visions are about. Cobbett intended -his fables for little children, and Bunyan his allegory for the company -of the stewpans, but Spenser’s story is for the ears of ladies and of -knights; why then does he try to spoon-feed them with virtuous -sentiment? There is not, as far as I know, a trace of dyspepsia in all -the _Faerie Queen_, and yet he has sicklied it over “with the pale cast -of thought.” In this Vale of Tears there are quite as many virtuous -persons as any reasonable man can desire. Why should our poets--those -rare and exquisite manifestations of our possibilities--turn themselves -into moralists, who are, bless you, as common as grocers, as plentiful -as mediocrity. In fact, nine-tenths of the civilised race of man are -moralists. But poets ought not to be theorists. They are not sent to us -for the purpose of converting us, but for the purpose of delighting us. -They ought to be catholic and pagan. They are among the settled property -of joy to which all mankind are heirs. They come in among the flowers -and colours of the sky and earth, and the vocal rapture of the birds, -and the perfumes of the breeze, and the love of woman and children and -friends and kind. They are sent to us for our mere delight. They never -grow less or fade away or change. They have nothing to do with dynasties -or creeds or codes of manners. They are apart from all bias and strife. -The will of Heaven itself is against poets preaching, for no poet has -ever written hymns that were not a burden upon his reputation as a -singer, and did not weigh him to the ground, compared with his flight -when free and catholic and pagan. - -After entertaining the nightmares of dulness born of Cobbett and Bunyan, -how one’s shoulders swing back, one’s chest opens, and one’s breath -comes with large and ample coolness and joy as one reads-- - - “The ioyous day gan early to appeare; - And fayre Aurora from the deawy bed - Of aged Tithone gan herselfe to reare - With rosy cheekes, for shame as blushing red: - Her golden locks, for hast, were loosely shed - About her eares, when Una her did marke - Clymbe to her charet, all with flowers spred, - From heven high to chace the chearelesse darke; - With mery note her lowd salutes the mountain larke.” - -Or again here-- - - “Then forth he called that his daughter fayre, - The fairest Un’, his onely daughter deare, - His onely daughter and his onely hayre; - Who forth proceeding with sad sober cheare, - As bright as doth the morning starre appeare - Out of the east with flaming lockes bedight, - To tell that dawning day is drawing neare - And to the world does bring long wished light: - So fair and fresh that lady shewd herselfe in sight.” - -Is it not a miserable destiny to be obliged to read stanza after stanza -redolent of such rich perfumed words about the lady, and then to find -that Una is not a mortal or a spirit even--but Truth! An abstraction! A -whim of degrading reason! A figment of a moralist’s heated and -disordered brain. Any Lie of a poet is better than any Truth of a -moralist. Why did Spenser stoop to run on the same intellectual plain as -the accidental teacher? The teacher would have done admirably for Truth, -but all the worthy essayists of England in the “spacious days of Queen -Elizabeth,” put together, could not have written the stanzas about Una -as Spenser saw her. This poaching of poets on the preserves of moralists -is one of the most shameful things in the history of art. - -There are few poets it is harder to select quotations from than Spenser. -The fact is, all the _Faerie Queen_ ought to be quoted except the -blinding allegory. I find that in years of my movement from the opening -of the poem to page 472, the limit I have reached, I have marked a -hundred passages at least, some of them running through pages. In no -other poem--except Shelley’s _Alastor_--do I notice such grievous, -continuous pencil scores. What is one to do? Whither is one to turn? As -I handle the book I am lost in a deeper forest of delight than ever -knight of Gloriana’s trod. Here I find a passage of several stanzas -marked. I am much too lazy to copy them, and the spelling is troublesome -often. But who can resist this?-- - - “---- And, when she spake, - Sweete wordes, like dropping honny, she did shed, - And twixt the perles and rubins softly brake - A silver sound, that heavenly musicke seemed to make. - - * * * * * - - Upon her eyelids many graces sate - Under the shadow of her even browes.” - -I have quoted the three lines and a half of the earlier stanza merely -that they may act as an overture to the last two lines. Surely there are -no two lovelier lines in the language! In the last line the words seem -to melt together of their own propinquity. - -Here is an alexandrine that haunts me night and day-- - - “Sweete is the love that comes alone with willingnesse.” - -As a rule, I hate writing with the books I am speaking of near me; they -fetter one cruelly when they are at hand. There is a tendency to verify -one’s memory, and read up the context of favourite lines. This is -checking to the speed and chilling to the spirits. When I was saying -something about the _Spelling-Book_ and the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, I had -the copies within arm’s length, for I did not know either well enough to -trust to memory. Since I got done with them I have placed them in -distant safety. But one likes to handle Spenser--to have it nigh. My -copy is lying at my left elbow in the blazing sun as I write now. It -seems to me I shall never again look into the _Spelling-Book_ or the -_Pilgrim’s Progress_. Fables and allegories are only foolishnesses fit -for people of weak intellect and children. Well, when I put down this -pen, and before this ink is dry, I shall have resumed my interrupted -reading of the _Faerie Queen_ at page 473. My intellect is too weak and -my heart too childish to resist the seduction of Spenser’s verse. So -much for my own theory of allegory and my respect for my own theory. - - - - -MY COPY OF KEATS. - - -The only copy of Keats I ever owned is a modest volume published by -Edward Moxon and Co. in the year 1861. By writing on its yellow fly-leaf -I find it was given to me four years later, in September 1865. At that -time it was clean and bright, opened with strict impartiality when set -upon its back, and had not learned to respond with alacrity to hasty -searches for favourite passages. - -The binding is now racked and feeble from use; and if, as in army -regulations, service under warm suns is to be taken for longer service -in cooler climes, it may be said that to the exhaustion following -overwork have been added the prejudices of premature age. - -It is not bound as books were bound once upon a time, when they -outlasted the tables and chairs, even the walls; ay, the very races and -names of their owners. The cover is simple plain blue cloth; on the back -is a little patch of printing in gold, with the words Keats’s _Poetical -Works_ in the centre of a twined gilt ribbon and twisted gilt flowers. -The welt at the back is bleached and frayed; the corners of the cover -are battered and turned in. There is a chink between the cover and the -arched back; and the once proud Norman line of that arc is flattened and -degraded, retaining no more of its pristine look of sturdy strength than -a wheaten straw after the threshing. - -In a list of new books preceding the biography of the poet I find the -volume I speak of under the head “POETRY--_Pocket Editions_;” described -as “Keats’s _Poetical Works_. With a Memoir by R. M. Milnes. Price 3_s._ -6_d._ cloth.” It was from no desire to look my gift-horse in the mouth I -alighted upon the penultimate fact disclosed in the description. When I -become owner of any volume my first delight in it is to read the -catalogue of new books annexed, if there be any, before breaking my fast -upon the subject-matter of the writer in my hand--as a poor gentleman -in a spacious restaurant, who, having ordered luncheon, consisting of -bread and cheese, butter, and a half-pint of bitter ale, takes up the -bill of fare and the list of wines, and designs for his imagination a -feast his purse denies to his lips. - -If any owner of a cart of old books in Farringdon Street asked you a -shilling for such a copy of Keats as mine, you would smile at him. You -would think he had acquired the books merely to satisfy his own taste, -and now displayed them to gratify a vanity that was intelligible; you -would feel assured no motive towards commerce could underlie ever so -deeply such a preposterous demand. - -My copy will, I think, last my time. Already it has been in my hands -more than half the years of a generation; and I feel that its severest -trials are over. In days gone by it made journeys with me by sea and -land, and paid long visits to some friends, both when I went myself, and -when I did not go. Change of air and scene have had no beneficial effect -upon it. Journey after journey, and visit after visit, the full cobalt -of the cloth grew darker and dingier, the boards of the cover became -limper and limper, and the stitching at the back more apparent between -the sheets, like the bones and sinews growing outward through the flesh -of a hand waxing old. - -Once, when the book had been on a prolonged excursion away from me, it -returned sadly out of sorts. Had it been a dear friend come back from -India on sick-leave, after an absence from temperate skies of twenty -years, I could not have observed a more disquieting change. The cover -was darkened so that the original hue had almost wholly disappeared, -save at the edges, that, like the Indian veteran’s forehead, were of -startling and unwholesome pallor. Its presence in such guise aroused a -gnawing solicitude which undermined all peace. I could not endure the -symptoms of its speedy decline, the prospect of its dissolution; and to -shield its case from harm and my sensibilities from continual assault, I -wrapped it with sighs and travail of heart in a gritty cover of -substantial brown paper. - -For a while, the consciousness that my book was safe compensated for -the unfamiliarity of its appearance and my constitutional antipathy to -contact with brown paper, even a lively image of which makes me cringe. - -But as days went on the brown paper entered into my soul and rankled. -What! was my Keats to be clad in that wretched union garb, that livery -of poverty acknowledged, that corduroy of the bookshelf? Intolerable! -Should I, who had, like other men, only my time to live, be denied all -friendly sight of the natural seeming of my prime friend? My Keats would -last my time; and why should I hide my friend in an unparticularised -garb, the uniform of the mean or the needy, merely that those who came -after me might enjoy a privilege of which senseless timidity sought to -rob me? No; that should not be. I would cast away the badge of beggary, -and, like a man, face the daily decay of my old companion. I tore the -paper off, threw it upon the fire, and set my disenthralled Keats in its -own proper vesture on the shelf among its comrades and its peers. - -There is no man, how poor soever, who has not some taste which, for his -circumstances, must be regarded as expensive; and in that “sweet -unreasonableness” of human nature, not at all limited to “the Celt,” men -take a kind of foolish pride in their particular extravagances. You know -a man that declares he would sooner go without his dinner than a clean -shirt; another who would prefer one good cigar to a pound of cavendish; -one who would rather travel to the City of winter mornings by train -without an overcoat than by vulgar tramcar in fur and pilot cloth; a -fourth who would more gladly give his right hand than forget his Greek; -a fifth who pays the hire of a piano and does without the beer which as -a Briton is his birthright; a sixth who starves himself and stints his -family for the love of a garden. For my own part, I felt the using of my -Keats without protection of any kind to be beyond my means, but I -gloried in this extravagance. It seemed rich to be thus hand and glove -with the book: to touch it when and where I would, and as much as ever I -liked: to feel assured that even with free using and free lending it -would outlast my short stay here, as the blossoms of the roses in a -friend’s hedge outlast your summer visit. Was it not fine, did it not -strike a chord of kingly generosity, to be able to say to a friend, -“Here is my copy of Keats. Take it, use it, read it. There is plenty of -it for you and me”? I would rather have the lending of my Keats than the -bidding to a banquet. - -So it fell out that my favourite went more among my friends than ever, -and accumulated at a usurious rate all manner of marks and stains, and -defacements, and dog-ears, and other unworded comments, as well as -verbal comments expressed in pencil and ink. It is true that a rolling -stone gathers no moss, but a rolling snowball gathers more snow, and -moss and snow are of about equal value. Oliver Wendell Holmes says, if I -may trust my memory, that only three things improve with years: violins, -wine, and meerschaum pipes. He loves books, and knows books as well as -any man now living--almost as well as Charles Lamb did when he was with -us; and yet Dr. Holmes does not think books worthy of being included in -the list of things that time ripens. Is this ingratitude or -carelessness, or does it mean that books dwell apart, and are no more to -be classed with mere tangible things than angels, or mathematical -points, or the winds of last winter? Is a book to him an ethereal record -of a divine trance? an insubstantial painting of a splendid dream? the -music of a yesterday fruitful in heavenly melody? the echo of a syren’s -song haunting a sea shell? - -Does not De Quincey tell us that, having lent some books to Coleridge, -the poet not only wrote the lender’s name in them, but enriched the -margins with observations and comments on the texts? Who would not give -a tithe of the books he has for one volume so gloriously illuminated? I -remember when I was a lad, among lads, a friend of ours picked up -secondhand Cary’s Dante, in which was written the name of a poet still -living, but who is almost unknown. We loved the living poet for his -work, and when the buyer told us that the Dante bore not only the poet’s -name, but numerous marginal notes and hints in his handwriting, we all -looked upon the happy possessor with eyes of envious respect. The -precious volume was shown to us, not in groups, for in gatherings there -is peril of a profaning laugh, or an unsympathetic sneer. One by one we -were handed the book, on still country roads, upon the tranquil heights -of hills, where we were alone with the brown heather and the plover, or -on some barren cliff above the summer sea. The familiar printed text -sank into insignificance beside the blurred pencil lines. Any one might -buy a fair uncut copy for a crown piece. The text was common -property--“’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands.” But -here before us lay revealed the private workings of a poetic -imagination, fired by contact with a master of the craft. To us this -volume disclosed one of our heroes, clad in the homely garb of prose, -speaking in his own everyday speech, and lifting up his voice in -admiration, wonder, awe, to the colossal demi-god, in whose presence we -had stood humiliated and afeard. - -My Keats has suffered from many pipes, many thumbs, many pencils, many -quills, many pockets. Not one stain, one gape, one blot of these would -I forego for a spick and span copy in all the gorgeous pomp of the -bookbinder’s millinery. These blemishes are aureolæ to me. They are -nimbi around the brows of the gods and demi-gods, who walk in the -triumph of their paternal despot on the clouds metropolitan that -embattle the heights of Parnassus. - -What a harvest of happy memories is garnered in its leaves! How well I -remember the day it got that faint yellow stain on the page where begins -the _Ode on a Grecian Urn_. It was a clear, bright, warm, sunshiny -afternoon late in the month of May. Three of us took a boat and rowed -down a broad blue river, ran the nose of the boat ashore on the gravel -beach of a sequestered island and landed. Pulling was warm work, and we -all climbed a slope, reached the summit, and cast ourselves down on the -long lush cool grass, in the shade of whispering sycamores, and in a -stream of air that came fresh with the cheering spices of the hawthorn -blossom. - -One of our company was the best chamber reader I have ever heard. His -voice was neither very melodious nor very full. Perhaps he was all the -better for this because he made no effort at display. As he read, the -book vanished from his sight, and he leaned over the poet’s shoulder, -saw what the poet saw, and in a voice timid with the sense of -responsibility, and yet elated with a kind of fearing joy, told of what -he saw in words that never hurried, and that, when uttered, always -seemed to hang substantially in the air like banners. - -He discovered and related the poet’s vision rather than simulated -passion to suit the scene. I remember well his reading of the passage: - - “Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave - Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; - Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, - Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve; - She cannot fade though thou hast not thy bliss, - For ever wilt thou love and she be fair!” - -He rehearsed the whole of the ode over and over again as we lay on the -grass watching the vast chestnuts and oaks bending over the river, as -though they had grown aweary of the sun, and longed to glide into the -broad full stream. - -As he read the lines just quoted, he gave us time to hear the murmur, -and to breathe the fragrance of those immortal trees. “Nor ever can -those trees be bare,” in the text has only a semicolon after it. Yet -here he paused, while three wavelets broke upon the beach, as if he -could not tear himself away from contemplating the deathless verdure, -and realising the prodigious edict pronounced upon it. “Bold lover, -never, never canst thou kiss, though winning near the goal.” At the -terrible decree he raised his eyes and gazed with heavy-lidded, hopeless -commiseration at this being, who, still more unhappy than Tithonus, had -to immortality added perpetual youth, with passion for ever strong, and -denial for ever final. - -“Yet do not grieve.” This he uttered as one who pleads forgiveness of a -corpse--merely to try to soothe a conscience sensible of an obligation -that can never now be discharged. “She cannot fade, though thou hast not -thy bliss, for ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!” Here the reader, -with eyes fixed and rayless, seemed by voice and pose to be sunk, -beyond all power of hope, in an abyss of despair. The barren -immutability of the spectacle appeared to weigh upon him more -intolerably than the wreck of a people. He spoke the words in a long -drawn-out whisper, and, after a pause, dropped his head, and did not -resume. - -I recollect that when the illusion he wrought up so fully in my mind had -passed away in that long pause, and when I remembered that the fancy of -the poet was expending itself, not on beings whom he conceived -originally as human, but on the figures of a mere vase, I was seized -with a fierce desire to get up and seek that vase through all the world -until I found it, and then smash it into ten thousand atoms. - -When I had written the last sentence, I took up the volume to decide -where I should recommence, and I “turned the page, and turned the page.” -I lived over again the days not forgotten, but laid aside in memory to -be borne forth in periods of high festival. I could not bring myself -back from the comrades of old, and the marvels of the great magician, to -this poor street, this solitude, and this squalid company of my own -thoughts--thoughts so trivial and so mean compared with the imperial -visions into which I had been gazing, that I was glad for the weariness -which came upon me, and grateful to gray dawn that glimmered against the -blind and absolved me from further obligation for that sitting. - -On turning over the leaves without reading, I find _Hyperion_ opens most -readily of all, and seems to have fared worst from deliberate and -unintentional comment. Much of the wear and tear and pencil marks are to -be set down against myself; for when I take the book with no definite -purpose I turn to _Hyperion_, as a blind man to the warmth of the sun. -Some qualities of the poem I can feel and appreciate; but always in its -presence I am weighed down by the consciousness that my deficiency in -some attribute of perception debars me from undreamed-of privileges. - -I recall one evening in a pine glen, with one man and _Hyperion_. It -would be difficult to match this man or me as readers. I don’t think -there can be ten worse employing the English language to-day. I not -only do not by any inflection of voice expound what I utter, but I am -often incapable of speaking the words before me. I take in a line at a -glance, see its import with my own imagination apart from the verbiage, -which leaves not a shadow of an impression on my mind. When I come to -the next line I grow suddenly alive to the fact that I have to speak off -the former one. I am in a hurry to see what line two has to show; so, -instead of giving the poet’s words for line one, I give my own -description of the vision it has conjured up in my mind. This is bad -enough in all conscience; but the friend of whom I speak now, behaves -even worse. His plan of reading is to stop his voice in the middle of -line one, and proceed to discuss the merits of line two, which he had -read with his eye, but not with his lips, and of which the listener is -ignorant, unless he happen to know the poem by rote. - -On that evening in the glen I pulled out Keats, and turned, at my -friend’s request, to _Hyperion_, and began to read aloud. He was more -patient than mercy’s self; but occasionally, when I did a most -exceptionally bad murder on the text, he would writhe and cry out, and I -would go back and correct myself, and start afresh. - -He had a big burly frame, and a deep full voice that shouted easily, and -some of the comments shouted as I read are indicated by pencil marks in -the margin. The writing was not done then, but much later, when he and I -had shaken hands, and he had gone sixteen thousand miles away. As he was -about to set out on that long journey, he said, “In seven years more -I’ll drop in and have a pipe with you.” It had been seven years since I -saw him before. The notes on the margin are only keys to what was said; -for I fear the comment made was more bulky than the text, and the text -and comment together would far exceed the limits of such an essay as -this. I therefore curtail greatly, and omit much. - -I read down the first page without meeting any interruption; but when I -came in page two on - - “She would have ta’en - Achilles by the hair and bent his neck,” - -he cried out, “Stop! Don’t read the line following. It is bathos -compared with that line and a half. It is paltry and weak beside what -you have read. ‘Ta’en Achilles by the hair and bent his neck.’ By Jove! -can you not see the white muscles start out in his throat, and the look -of rage, defeat and agony on the face of the Greek bruiser? But how flat -falls the next line: ‘Or with a finger stay’d Ixion’s wheel.’ What’s the -good of stopping Ixion’s wheel? Besides, a crowbar would be much better -than a finger. It is a line for children, not for grown men. It exhausts -the subject. It is too literal. There is no question left to ask. But -the vague ‘Ta’en Achilles by the hair and _bent_ his neck’ is perfect. -You can see her knee in the hollow of his back, and her fingers twisted -in his hair. But the image of the goddess dabbling in that river of hell -after Ixion’s wheel is contemptible.” - -He next stopped me at - - “Until at length old Saturn lifted up - His faded eyes, and saw his kingdom gone.” - -“What an immeasurable vision Keats must have had of the old bankrupt -Titan, when he wrote the second line! Taken in the context it is simply -overwhelming. Keats must have sprung up out of his chair as he saw the -gigantic head upraised, and the prodigious grief of the grey-haired god. -But Keats was not happy in the matter of full stops. Here again what -comes after weakens. We get no additional strength out of - - “‘And all the gloom and sorrow of the place - And that fair kneeling Goddess.’ - -The ‘gloom and sorrow’ and the ‘goddess’ are abominably -anticlimacteric.” - - “Yes, there must be a golden victory; - There must be gods thrown down and trumpets blown - Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival - Upon the gold clouds metropolitan, - Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir - Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be - Beautiful things made new, for the surprise - Of the sky-children; I will give command: - Thea! Thea! Thea! where is Saturn?” - -“Read that again!” cried my friend, clinging to the grass and breathing -hard. “Again!” he cried, when I had finished the second time. And then, -before I could proceed, he sprang to his feet, carrying out the action -in the text immediately following: - - “This passion lifted him upon his feet, - And made his hands to struggle in the air.” - -“Come on, John Milton,” cried my friend, excitedly sparring at the -winds,--“come on, and beat that, and we’ll let you put all your -adjectives behind your nouns, and your verb last, and your nominative -nowhere! Why man,”--this being addressed to the Puritan poet--“it -carried Keats himself off his legs; that’s more than anything you ever -wrote when you were old did for you. There’s the smell of midnight oil -off your later spontaneous efforts, John Milton. - -“When Milton went loafing about and didn’t mind much what he was writing -he could give any of them points”--(I deplore the language) “any of -them, ay, Shakespeare himself points in a poem. In a poem, sir” (this -to me), “Milton could give Shakespeare a hundred and one out of a -hundred and lick the Bard easily. How the man who was such a fool as to -write Shakespeare’s poems had the good sense to write Shakespeare’s -plays I can never understand. The most un-Shakesperian poems in the -language are Shakespeare’s. I never read Cowley, but it seems to me -Cowley ought to have written Shakespeare’s poems, and then his obscurity -would have been complete. If Milton only didn’t take the trouble to be -great he would have been greater. As far as I know there are no English -poets who improved when they ceased to be amateurs and became -professional poets, except Wordsworth and Tennyson. Shelley and Keats -were never regular race-horses. They were colts that bolted in their -first race and ran until they dropped. It was a good job Shakespeare -gave up writing rhymes and posing as a poet. It was not until he -despaired of becoming one and took to the drama that he began to feel -his feet and show his pace. If he had suspected he was a great poet he -would have adopted the airs of the profession and been ruined. In his -time no one thought of calling a play a poem--that was what saved the -greatest of all our poets to us. The only two things Shakespeare didn’t -know is that a play may be a poem and that his plays are the finest -poems finite man as he is now constructed can endure. It is all nonsense -to say man shall never look on the like of Shakespeare again. It is not -the poet superior to Shakespeare man now lacks, but the man to apprehend -him.” - -I looked around uneasily, and found, to my great satisfaction, that -there was no stranger in view. My friend occupied a position of -responsibility and trust, and it would be most injurious if a rumour got -abroad that not only did he read and admire verse, but that he held -converse with the shades of departed poets as well. In old days men who -spoke to the vacant air were convicted of necromancy and burned; in our -times men offending in this manner are suspected of poetry and -ostracized. - -As soon as my friend was somewhat calmed, and had cast himself down -again and lit a pipe, I resumed my reading. He allowed me to proceed -without interruption until I came to: - - “His palace bright, - Bastion’d with pyramids of glowing gold, - And touch’d with shade of bronzed obelisks, - Glared a blood-red through all its thousand courts, - Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries; - And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds - Flushed angerly: while sometimes eagles’ wings, - Unseen before by Gods or wondering men, - Darken’d the place; and neighing steeds were heard, - Not heard before by Gods or wondering men.” - -“Prodigious!” he shouted. “Go over that again. Keep the syllables wide -apart. It is a good rule of water-colour sketching not to be too nice -about joining the edges of the tints; this lets the light in. Keep the -syllables as far apart as ever you can, and let the silentness in -between to clear up the music. How the gods and the wondering men must -have wondered! Do you know, I am sure Keats often frightened, terrified -himself with his own visions. You remember he says somewhere he doesn’t -think any one could dare to read some one or another aloud at midnight. -I believe that often in the midnight he sat and cowered before the -gigantic sights and sounds that reigned despotically over his fancy.” - - “O dreams of day and night! - O monstrous forms! O effigies of pain! - O spectres busy in a cold, cold gloom! - O lank-ear’d Phantoms of black-weeded pools! - Why do I know ye? why have I seen ye? why - Is my eternal essence thus distraught - To see and to behold these horrors new? - Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall? - Am I to leave this haven of my rest, - This cradle of my glory, this soft clime, - This calm luxuriance of blissful light, - These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes, - Of all my lucent empire? It is left - Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine. - The blaze, the splendour, and the symmetry - I cannot see--but darkness, death and darkness. - Even here, into my centre of repose, - The shady visions come to domineer, - Insult, and blind and stifle up my pomp-- - Fall!--No, by Tellus and her briny robes! - Over the fiery frontier of my realms - I will advance a terrible right arm - Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove, - And bid old Saturn take his throne again.” - -“What more magnificent prelude ever was uttered to oath than the portion -of this speech preceding ‘No, by Tellus’! What more overpowering, -leading up to an overwhelming threat, than the whole passage going -before ‘Over the fiery frontier of my realms I will advance a terrible -right arm’! What menacing deliberativeness there is in this whole -speech, and what utter completeness of ruin to come is indicated by -those words, ‘I will advance a terrible right arm’! You feel no sooner -shall that arm move than ‘rebel Jove’s’ reign will be at an end, and -that chaos will be left for Saturn to rule and fashion once more into -order. Shut up the poem now. That’s plenty of _Hyperion_, and the other -books of it are inferior. There is more labour and more likeness to -_Paradise Lost_.” And so my friend, who is 16,000 miles away, and I -turned from the Titanic theme, and spoke of the local board of -guardians, or some young girl whose beauty was making rich misery in the -hearts of young men in those old days. - -There is no other long poem in the volume bearing any marks which -indicate such close connection with any individual reader as in the case -of _Hyperion_. _Endymion_ boasts only one mark, and that expressing -admiration of the relief afforded from monotony of the heroic couplets -by the introduction in the opening of the double rhyming verses: - - “Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing - Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing--” - -The friend to whom this mark is due never handled the volume, never even -saw it; but once upon a time when he, another man, and I had got -together, and were talking of the “gallipot poet,” the first friend said -he always regarded this couplet as most happily placed where it appears. -So when I reached home I marked my copy at the lines. Now, when I open -the volume and find that mark, it is as good to me as, better than, a -photograph of my friend; for I not only see his face and figure, but -once more he places his index-finger on the table, as we three sit -smoking, and whispers out the six opening lines, ending with the two I -have quoted. Suppose I too should some day go 16,000 miles away from -London, and carry this volume with me, shall I not be able to open it -when I please, and recall what I then saw and heard, what I now see and -hear, as distinctly as though no long interval of ocean or of months lay -between to-night and that hour? - -Can I ever forget my burly tenor friend, who sang and composed songs, -and dinted the line in _The Eve of St. Agnes_, - - “The silver, snarling trumpets ’gan to chide,” - -and declared a hundred times in my unwearied ears that no more happy -epithet than snarling could be found for trumpets? He over and over -again assured me, and over and over again I loved to listen to his fancy -running riot on the line, how he heard and saw brazen and silver and -golden griffins quarrelling in the roof and around his ears as the -trumpets blared through the echoing halls and corridors. He, too, marked - - “The music, yearning like a God in pain.” - -“Keats,” he would say, “seems to have got not only at the spirit of the -music, but at the very flesh and blood of it. He has done one thing for -me,” my friend continued. “Before I read these lines, and others of the -same kind, in Keats, my favourite tunes always represented an emotion of -my own mind. Now they stand for individual characters in scenes, like -descriptions of people in a book. When I hear music now I am with the -Falstaffs or the Romolas, with Quasimodo or Julius Cæsar.” - -I have been regarding the indentures in the volume chronologically. The -next marks of importance in the order of the years occur, one in _The -Eve of St. Agnes_, the other in the _Ode to a Nightingale_. These marks, -more than any others, I regard with grateful memory. They are not the -work of the hand of him for whom I value them. I have good reason to -look on him as a valid friend. For months between him and me there had -existed an acquaintance necessarily somewhat close, but wholly -uninformed with friendship. We spoke to one another as Mr. So-and-so. -Neither of us suspected that the other had any toleration of poets or -poetry. Our commerce had been in mere prose. One day, in mid-winter, -when a chilling fog hung over London, I chanced to go into a room where -he was writing alone. After a formal greeting, I complained of the cold. -He dropped his pen and looked up. “Yes,” he said, “very cold and dark as -night. Do you know the coldest night that ever was?” I answered that I -did not. “It was St. Agnes’s Eve, when - - “‘The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold.’” - -And so we fell to talking about Keats, and talked and talked for hours; -and before the first hour of our talk had passed we had ceased -“Mistering” one another for ever. The fire of his enthusiasm rose higher -and higher as the minutes swept by. He knew one poet personally, for -whose verse I had profound respect, and this poet, he told me, -worshipped Keats. Often in our talks I laid plots for bringing him back -to the simple sentence, “You should hear M. talk about Keats.” The -notion that any one who knew M. could think M. would talk to me about -Keats intoxicated me. “He would not let me listen to him?” I said half -fearfully. “M. would talk to any one about Keats--to even a lawyer.” How -I wished at that moment I was a Lord Chancellor who might stand in M.’s -path. I have, in a way, been near to that poet since. I might almost -have said to him, - - “So near, too! You could hear my sigh, - Or see my case with half an eye; - But must not--there are reasons why.” - -So this friend I speak of now and I came to be great friends indeed. We -often met and held carnivals of verse, carnivals among the starry lamps -of poetry. He had a subtle instinct that saw the jewel, however it might -be set. He owned himself the faculty of the poet, which gave him ripe -knowledge of all matters technical in the setting. - - “Now more than ever seems it rich to die, - To cease upon the midnight with no pain.” - -He would quote these two lines and cry, “Was ever death so pangless as -that spoken of here? ‘To _cease_ upon the midnight!’ Here is no -struggle, no regret, no fear. This death is softer and lighter and -smoother than the falling of the shadow of night upon a desert of -noiseless sand.” - -For a long time the name of one man had been almost daily in my ears. I -had been hearing much through the friend to whom I have last referred -about his intuitive eye and critical acumen. That friend had informed me -of the influence which his opinion carried; and of how this man held -Keats high above poets to whom we have statues of brass, whose names we -give to our streets. My curiosity was excited, and, while my desire to -meet this man was largely mingled with timidity, I often felt a jealous -pang at thinking that many of the people with whom I was acquainted knew -him. At length I became distantly connected with an undertaking in which -he was prominently concerned. Through the instrumentality of one -friendly to us both, we met. It was a sacred night for me, and I sat and -listened, enchanted. After some hours the talk wheeled round upon -sonnets. “Sonnets!” he cried, starting up; “who can repeat the lines -about Cortez in Keats? You all know it.” Some one began to read or -repeat the sonnet. Until coming upon the words, “or like stout Cortez.” -“That’s it, that’s it! Now go on.” - - “Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes - He stared at the Pacific--and all his men - Look’d at each other with a wild surmise-- - Silent, upon a peak in Darien.” - -“‘And all his men looked at each other with a _wild_ surmise,’” he -repeated, “‘_silent_ upon a peak in Darien.’ The most enduring group -ever designed. They are standing there to this day. They will stand -there for ever and for ever; they are immutable. When an artist carves -them you may know that Buonarotti is risen from the dead and is once -more abroad.” - -That portion of a book which is called a preface and put first, is -always the last written. It may be human, but it is not logical, that -when a man starts he does not know what he has to say first, until he -finds out by an elaborate guess of several hundred pages what he wants -to say last. It would be unbecoming of me in a collection of ignorant -essays to affect to know less than a person of average intelligence; but -I am quite sincere when I say I am not aware who the author is of the -great aphorism that “After all, there is a great deal of human nature in -man.” There is, I would venture to say, more human nature than logic in -man. My copy of Keats is no exception to the general rule of books. The -preface ought to precede immediately the colophon. Yet it is in the -forefront of the volume, before even the very title page itself. It -forms no integral part of the volume, and is unknown to the printer or -publisher. It was given to me by a thoughtful and kind-hearted friend at -whose side I worked for a considerable while. One time, years ago, he -took a holiday and vanished, going from among us I knew not whither. On -coming back he presented each of his associates with something out of -his store of spoil. That which now forms the preface to my copy he gave -me. It consists of twelve leaves; twelve myrtle leaves on a spray. When -he was in Rome he bore me in mind and plucked this sprig at the grave of -the poet. It is consoling to remember Keats is buried so far away from -where he was born, when we cannot forget that the abominable infamy of -publishing his love-letters was committed in his own country--here in -England. His spirit was lent to earth only for a little while, and he -gave all of it to us. But we were not satisfied. We must have his -heart’s blood and his heart too. The gentlemen who attacked his poetry -when he was alive really knew no better, and tried, perhaps, to be as -honest as would suit their private ends. But the publication of the dead -man’s love-letters, fifty years after he had passed away, cannot be -attributed even to ignorance. If any money was made out of the book it -would be a graceful act to give it to some church where the burial -ground is scant, and the parish is in need of a Potter’s Field. - -When I take down my copy of Keats, and look through it and beyond it, I -feel that while it is left to me I cannot be wholly shorn of my friends. -It is the only album of photographs I possess. The faces I see in it -are not for any eye but mine. It is my private portrait gallery, in -which hang the portraits of my dearest friends. The marks and blots are -intelligible to no eye but mine; they are the cherished hieroglyphics of -the heart. I close the book; I lock up the hieroglyphics; I feel certain -the book will last my time. Should it survive me and pass into new -hands--into the hands of some boy now unborn, who may pluck out of it -posies of love-phrases for his fresh-cheeked sweetheart--he will know -nothing of the import these marginal notes bore to one who has gone -before him; unless, indeed, out of some cemetery of ephemeral literature -he digs up this key--this Rosetta stone. - - - - -DECAY OF THE SUBLIME. - - -The sublime is dying. It has been pining a long time. At last -dissolution has set in. Nothing can save it but another incursion of -Goths and Huns; and as there are no Goths and Huns handy just now, the -sublime must die out, and die out soon. You can know what a man is by -the company he keeps. You can judge a people by the ideas they retain -more than by the ideas they acquire. The philology of a tongue, from its -cradle to its grave, is the social history of the people who spoke it. -To-day you may mark the progress of civilisation by the decay bf the -sublime. Glance at a few of the nations of earth as they stand. Italy -and Spain still hold with the sublime in literature and art, although, -being exhausted stocks, they cannot produce it any longer. France is -cynical, smart, artistic, but never was and never can be sublime, so -long as vanity rules her; and yet, by the irony of selection, sublime is -one of her favourite words. Central Europe has had her sublime phases, -but cannot be even thought of now in connection with the quality; and -Russia and Turkey are barbarous still. If we come to the active pair of -nationalities in the progress of current civilisation, the United States -and England, we find the sublime in very poor case. - -Young England across the water is the most progressive nation of our -age, because it is the most practical. If ever there was a man who put -his foot on the neck of the sublime, that man is Uncle Sam. His -contribution to the arts is almost nothing. His outrages against -established artistic canons have been innumerable. He owns a new land -without traditions. He laughs at all traditions. He has never raised a -saint or a mummy or a religion (Mormonism he stole from the East), a -crusader, a tyrant, a painter, a sculptor, a musician, a dramatist, an -inquisition, a star chamber, a council of ten. All his efforts have -been in a strictly practical direction, and most of his efforts have -been crowned with success. He has devoted his leisure time, the hours -not spent in cutting down forests or drugging Indians with whisky, to -laughing at the foolish old notions which the foolish old countries -cherish. He had a wonderfully fertile estate of two thousand million -acres, about only one fourth of which is even to this day under direct -human management. In getting these five hundred million acres of land -under him he had met all kinds of ground--valley, forest, mountain, -plain. But in none of these did he find anything but axes and whisky of -the least use. No mountain had been sanctified to him by first earthly -contact with the two Tables of the Law. No plain had been rendered -sacred as that upon which the miraculous manna fell to feed the chosen -people. No inland sea had been the scene of a miraculous draught of -fishes. All the land acquired and cultivated by Uncle Sam came to him by -the right of whisky and the axe. The mountain was nothing more than so -much land placed at a certain angle that made it of little use for -tillage. The plains, the rivers, and inland seas had a simply commercial -value in his eyes. He had no experience of a miracle of any kind, and he -did not see why he should bow down and respect a mountain, that, to him, -was no more than so many thousand acres on an incline unfavourable to -cultivation. Such a condition of the ground was a bore, and he would -have cut down the mountain as he had cut down the Indian and the forest, -if he had known how to accomplish the feat. He saw nothing mystic in the -waters or the moon. Were the rivers and lakes wholesome to drink and -useful for carriage, and well stocked with fish? These were the -questions he asked about the waters. Would there be moonlight enough for -riding and working? was the only question he asked about that “orbèd -maiden with white fire laden whom mortals call the moon.” His notions, -his plains, his rivers, his lakes, were all “big,” but he never thought -of calling them sublime. On his own farm he failed to find any present -trace of the supernatural; and he discovered no trace of the -supernatural in tradition, for there was no tradition once the red man -had been washed into his grave with whisky. Hence Uncle Sam began -treating the supernatural with familiarity, and matters built on the -supernatural with levity. Now without the supernatural the sublime -cannot exist any length of time, if at all. - -It may be urged it is unreasonable to hold that the Americans have done -away with the sublime, since in the history of all nations the earlier -centuries were, as in America, devoted to material affairs. There is one -fact bearing on this which should not be left out of count, namely, that -America did not start from barbarism, or was not raised on a site where -barbarism had overrun a high state of civilisation. The barbarous hordes -of the north effaced the civilisation of old Rome, and raised upon its -ashes a new people, the Italians, who in time led the way in art, as the -old Romans had before them. The Renaissance was a second crop raised off -the same ground by new men. The arts Rome had borrowed from Greece had -been trampled down by Goths, who, when they found themselves in the land -of milk and honey, sat down to enjoy the milk and honey, until suddenly -the germs of old art struck root, and once more all eyes turned to Italy -for principles of beauty. But America started with the civilisation of a -highly civilised age. She did not rear her own civilisation on her own -soil. She did not borrow her arts from any one country. She simply -peopled her virgin plains with the sons of all the earth, who brought -with them the culture of their respective nationalities. She has not -followed the ordinary course of nations, from conflict to power, from -power to prosperity, from prosperity to the arts, luxury, and decay. She -started with prosperity, and the first use she made of her prosperity -was, not to cultivate the fine arts in her own people, but to laugh at -them in others. In the individual man the sense of humour grows with -years. In nations the sense of humour develops with centuries. The -literature of nations begins with battle-songs and hymns, and ends with -burlesques and blasphemies. - -Now although America has begun with burlesques and blasphemies, no one -can for a moment imagine that America is not going to create a noble -literature of her own. She is destined not only to found and build up a -noble literature, but one which will be unique. When she has time, when -she has let most of those idle one thousand five hundred million acres, -she will begin writing her books. By that time she will have running in -her veins choice blood from every race on earth, and it is a matter of -certainty she will give the world many delights now undreamed of. No -other nation on earth will have, or ever has had, such an opportunity of -devoting attention to man in his purely domestic and social relations. -The United States of to-day has, for practical purposes, no foreign -policy. She has no foreign rivals, she is not likely to have foreign -wars, while in her own country she has large bodies of men from every -people on the world. She owns the largest assorted lot of mankind on the -globe, and as years go by we may safely conclude she will add to the -variety and number of her sons. In all this appears no hope for the -sublime. There is no instance in literature of a nation going back from -laughter to heroics. The two may exist side by side. But that is not the -case in America. Up to this hour only one class of transatlantic writers -has challenged the attention of Europe, and that class is humorous and -profane. Emerson, Bryant, Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, Lowell, Holmes, and -Irving are merely Europeans born in America. But Ward, Harte, Twain, and -Breitmann are original and American. - -America is undoubtedly the literary promise-land of the future. It has -done nothing up to this. Its condition has forbidden it to achieve -anything, but great triumphs may be anticipated from it. Crossing the -Atlantic, what do we find in the other great branch of the -English-speaking race? Religious publications head the list by a long -way. They have nothing to do with this subject save in so far as they -are in the line of the sublime. All forms of the Christian and Jewish -creeds are sublime. Looking at the other walks of literature, we find -the death sentence of the sublime written everywhere. With the -exception of Mr. Browning, here or there we have no poet or dramatist -who attempts it. We have elegant trifles and beautiful form in many -volumes of second-rate contemporary verse. There never was a time when -the science of poetry was understood until now. Our critics can tell you -with mathematical certainty the number of poems as distinguished from -pieces of verse every well-known man has written. But we are not -producing any great poetry, and none of the sublime kind. This is the -age of elegant poetic incentive, of exquisite culture, but it is too -dainty. We do not rise much above a poem to a shoe, or an ode to a -ringlet, perfumed with one of Mr. Rimmel’s best admired distillations. -We have a few poets who are continually trying to find out who or what -the deuce they are, and what they meant by being born, and so on; but -then these men are for the eclectic, and not the herd of sensible -people. We have two men who have done noble work, Browning and Tennyson; -but, speaking broadly, we find the sublime nowhere. It is true you -cannot force genius as you force asparagus; and these remarks are not -intended to indict the age with having no poetic faculty or aspiration. -Abundance of poetry of a new and beautiful kind does exist, but it is -not of the lofty kind born to the men of old. - -Turning eyes away from literature, take a few more of the arts. Before -we go farther, let us admit that one art at least never reached sublimer -recorded heights than to-day. The music of the generation just past is, -I believe, in the front rank of the art. It is an art now in the throes -of an enormous transformation. Not using the phrase in its slangy -meaning, the music of the future is sure to touch splendours never -dreamed of by that Raphael of the lyre, Mozart. The only art-Titans now -wrestling are the musicians; not those paltry souls that pad the poor -words of inane burlesques, but the great spirits that sit apart, and -have audiences of the angels. These men, out of their own mouths, assure -us that they catch the far-off murmurs of such imperial tones as never -filled the ear of man yet. They cannot gather up the broken chords they -hear. They admit they have heard no more than a few bars of the great -masters who are close upon us; but, they say, if they only reproduce the -effect these preluding passages have upon them, “Such harmonious madness -from their lips would flow, the world should listen then as they are -listening now.” - -Go to the Royal Academy and look round you. How pretty! How nice! How -pathetic! But would you like to lend your arm to Michael Angelo, and go -round those walls with him? He would prefer the rack, the gridiron of -St. Laurence. It is true there is no necessity for the sublime; but -those men who have been in the awful presence of such dreams as _Night_ -and _Morning_, by that sculptor, must be pardoned if they prefer it to -the art you find in Burlington House. One of our great English poets -said, speaking of the trivial nature of conversation at the beginning of -this century, that if Lord Bacon were alive now, and made a remark in an -ordinary assembly, conversation would stop. If casts of _Night_ and -_Morning_ were placed at the head of the staircase of Burlington House, -no one with appreciation of art would enter the rooms; the strong would -linger for ever round those stupendous groups, and the feeble would be -frighted away. Of course, the vast crowd of art-patrons would pass the -group with only a casual glance, and a protest against having plaster -casts occupying ground which ought to be allotted to original work. - -Read any speech Burke or Grattan ever spoke, and then your _Times_ and -the debate last night. How plain it becomes that from no art has the -sublime so completely vanished as the orator’s. Take those two speakers -above, and run your eye over Cicero and Demosthenes, the four are of the -one school, in the great style. Theirs is the large and universal -eloquence. It is as fresh and beautiful, as pathetic, as sublime now as -when uttered, although the occasions and circumstances are no longer of -interest to man. The statistician and the poltroon and the verbatim -reporter have killed the orator. If any man were to rise in the House -and make a speech in the manner of the ancients, the honourable members -would hurry in from all sides to laugh. A few sessions ago a member rose -in his place, and delivered an oration on a subject not popular with the -House, but in a manner which echoed the grand old style. At once every -seat for which there was a member present at the time was occupied; and -the next morning the daily papers had articles which, while disposing of -the speaker’s cause in a few lines, devoted columns to the manner in -which he had pleaded it. - -To discover what has led to the decay of the sublime is not difficult, -and even in an ignorant essay like this, it may be briefly indicated. -Roughly speaking, it is attributable to the accumulation of certainties. -Any handbook that cribs from Longinus or Burke will tell you the vague -is essential to the sublime. To attain it there must be something half -understood--not fully known, only partly revealed. To attain it detail -must be lost, and only a totality presented to the mind. For instance, -if a great lover of Roman history were suddenly to find himself on the -top of the Coliseum, the most sublime result to be obtained from the -situation would be produced by repeating to himself the simple words, -“This is Rome.” By these words the totality of the city’s grandeur, -influence, power, and enterprises would be vaguely presented to a -scholar’s mind dim in the glow of a multitude of half-revealing -side-lights. If a companion whispered in the scholar’s ears, “This place -would at one time seat a hundred thousand people,” then the particular -is reached, and the sublime vanishes like sunshine against a cloud. Most -of North America has been explored. Africa and Australia have been -traversed. The source of the Nile has been found. We can read the -hieroglyphics. We know the elements now flaming in the sun. Many of the -phenomena in all branches of physiology which were mysteries to our -fathers are familiar commonplaces of knowledge now. We have learned to -foretell the weather. We travel a thousand miles for the hundred -travelled by our fathers. We have daily newspapers to discuss all -matters, clear away mysteries. We have opened the grave for the sublime -with the plough of progress. Though the words stick in my throat, I -must, I daresay, cry, “God speed the plough!” - - - - -A BORROWED POET. - - -Twenty years ago I borrowed, and read for the first time, the poems of -James Clarence Mangan. I then lived in a city containing not one-third -as many people as yearly swell the population of London. The friend of -whom I borrowed the volume in 1866 is still living in his old home, in -the house from which I carried away the book then. I saw him last winter -and he is almost as little aged as the hills he has fronted all that -time. I have had in those years as many homes as an Arab nomad. He still -stays in the old place, and in the gray twilight of dark summer mornings -wakes to hear as of yore the twitter of sparrows and the cawing of rooks -from the other side of the river, and the hoarse hooting of the -steamboat hard by. - -The volume of Mangan now by me I borrowed of another old friend, who -passes most of his day within sight of that familiar river not quite a -hundred yards from the house of the lender of twenty years back. In the -meantime I have seen no other copy of Mangan. - -This latest fact is not much to be wondered at, for I am not -enterprising in the matter of books--rarely buy and rarely borrow, and -have never been in the reading room of the British Museum in my life. -The book may be common to those who know much about books; but I have -seen only the two copies I speak of, and these are of the same edition -and of American origin. I believe a selection from the poems was issued -a few years ago in Dublin, but a copy has not drifted my way. The -title-page of the volume before me is missing, but in a list of -publications at the back I find “_The Poems of James Clarence Mangan_. -Containing German Anthology, Irish Anthology, Apocrypha, and -Miscellaneous Poems. With a Biographical and Critical Introduction, by -John Mitchel. 1 vol. 12mo. Printed on tinted and calendered paper. -Nearly 500 pages. $1.” Beyond all doubt this is the book, and it was -published by Mr. P. M. Haverty, of New York. - -As far as I know, this is the only edition of Mangan which pretends to -be even comprehensive. It does not lay claim to completeness. At the -time the late John Mitchel wrote his introduction he was aware of but -one other edition of Mangan’s poems--the German Anthology, published in -Dublin many years ago. I am nearly sure that since the appearance of -Mitchel’s edition there have been no verses of Mangan’s published in -book form on this side of the Atlantic, except the selections I have -already mentioned, and I do not think any edition whatever has been -published in this country. - -During the twenty years which have elapsed since first I made the -acquaintance of the poems of James Clarence Mangan, I have read much -verse and many criticisms of verse, and yet I don’t remember to have -seen one line about Mangan in any publication issued in England. I -believe two magazine articles have appeared, but I never saw them. -Almost during these years, or within a period which does not extend -back far beyond them, criticism of verse has ceased to be a matter of -personal opinion, and has been elevated or degraded, as you will, into -an exact science. The opinions of old reviewers--the Jeffreys and -Broughams--are now looked on as curiosities of literature. There is as -wide a gulf between the mode of treating poetry now and eighty years ago -as there is between the mode of travelling, or the guess-work that makes -up the physician’s art; and if in a gathering of literary experts any -one were now to apply to a new bard the dogmas of criticism quoted for -or against Byron, Shelley, Keats, and the Lakers in their time, a -silence the reverse of respectful would certainly follow. - -This is not the age of great poetry, but it is the age of “poetical -poetry,” to quote the phrase of one of the finest critics using the -English language--one who has, unfortunately for the culture of that -tongue and those who use it, written lamentably little. The great danger -by which we stand menaced at present is, that our perceptions may become -too exquisite and our poetry too intellectual. This, anyway, is true of -poetry which may at all claim to be an expression of thought. There are -in our time supreme formists in small things, carvers of cameos and -walnut shells, and musical conjurors who make sweet melodies with richly -vowelled syllables. But unfortunately the tendency of the poetic men of -to-day is towards intellectuality, and this is a humiliating decay. In -the times of Queen Elizabeth, when all the poets were Shakespeares, they -cared nothing for their intellects. The intellectual side of a poet’s -mind is an impertinence in his art. - -I do not presume to say what place exactly James Clarence Mangan ought -to occupy on the greater roll of verse-writers, and I am not sure that -he is, in the finest sense of the phrase, a “poetical poet;” but he is, -at all events, the most poetical poet Ireland has produced, when we take -into account the volume and quality of his song. I shall purposely avoid -any reference to him as a translator, except in acting on John Mitchel’s -opinion, and treating one of his “translations” from the Arabic as an -original poem; for during his lifetime he confessed that he had passed -off original poems of his own as translations; and Mitchel assures us -that Mangan did not know Arabic. As this essay does not profess to be -orderly or dignified, or anything more than rambling gossip, put into -writing for no other reason than to introduce to the reader a few pieces -of verse he may not have met before, I cannot do better than insert here -the lines of which I am now speaking: - - -THE TIME OF THE BARMECIDES. - - -I. - - “My eyes are filmed, my beard is grey, - I am bowed with the weight of years; - I would I were stretched in my bed of clay - With my long-lost youth’s compeers! - For back to the past, though the thought brings woe, - My memory ever glides-- - To the old, old time, long, long ago, - The time of the Barmecides! - To the old, old time, long, long ago, - The time of the Barmecides. - - -II. - - “Then youth was mine, and a fierce wild will, - And an iron arm in war, - And a fleet foot high upon Ishkar’s hill, - When the watch-lights glimmered afar, - And a barb as fiery as any I know - That Khoord or Beddaween rides, - Ere my friends lay low--long, long ago, - In the time of the Barmecides; - Ere my friends lay low--long, long ago, - In the time of the Barmecides. - - -III. - - “One golden goblet illumed my board, - One silver dish was there; - At hand my tried Karamanian sword - Lay always bright and bare; - For those were the days when the angry blow - Supplanted the word that chides-- - When hearts could glow--long, long ago, - In the time of the Barmecides; - When hearts could glow--long, long ago, - In the time of the Barmecides. - - -IV. - - “Through city and desert my mates and I - Were free to rove and roam, - Our diapered canopy the deep of the sky, - Or the roof of the palace dome. - Oh, ours was the vivid life to and fro, - Which only sloth derides: - Men spent Life so--long, long ago, - In the time of the Barmecides; - Men spent Life so--long, long ago, - In the time of the Barmecides. - - -V. - - “I see rich Bagdad once again, - With its turrets of Moorish mould, - And the Kalif’s twice five hundred men - Whose binishes flamed with gold. - I call up many a gorgeous show - Which the Pall of Oblivion hides-- - All passed like snow, long, long ago, - With the time of the Barmecides; - All passed like snow, long, long ago, - With the time of the Barmecides. - - -VI. - - “But mine eye is dim, and my beard is grey, - And I bend with the weight of years-- - May I soon go down to the House of Clay, - Where slumber my Youth’s compeers! - For with them and the Past, though the thought wakes woe, - My memory ever abides, - And I mourn for the Times gone long ago, - For the Times of the Barmecides! - I mourn for the Times gone long ago, - For the Times of the Barmecides!” - -This is the poem claimed by Mangan to be from the Arabic. I have no -means of knowing whether it is or not. There is one translation from the -Persian, one from the Ottoman, and according to Mitchel, one from the -Coptic. But seeing that he turned into verse a great number of Irish -poems from prose translations done by another, and that he did not know -a word of that language, I think it may be safely assumed that _The Last -of the Barmecides_ is original. This poem is so old a favourite of mine -that I cannot pretend to be an impartial judge of it. When I hear it (I -can never see a poem I know well and love much) I listen as to the -unchanged voice of an old friend; I wander in a maze of memories; “I see -rich Bagdad once again;” I am once more owner of the magic carpet, and -am floating irresponsibly and at will on the intoxicating atmosphere of -the poets over the enchanted groves, and streams, and hills, and seas of -fairyland, or harkening to voices that years ago ceased to stir in my -ears, gazing at the faces that have long since moulded the face cloth -into blunted memories of the face for the grave. - -On the 20th of June, 1849, Mangan died in the Meath Hospital, Dublin. -Having been born in 1803, he was, in 1849, eight years older than Poe, -who died destitute and forlorn at Baltimore in the same year. Both poets -had been in abject poverty, both had been unfortunate in love, both had -been consummate artists, both had been piteously unlucky in a thousand -ways, and both had died the same year, and in common hospitals. Two more -miserable stories it is impossible to find anywhere. I would recommend -those of sensitive natures to confine their reading to the work these -men did, and not to the misfortunes they laboured under, and the follies -they committed. I think, of the two, Mangan suffered more acutely; for -he never rose up in anger against the world, or those around him, but -glided like an uncomplaining ghost into the grave, where, long before -his death, all his hopes lay buried. He had only a half-hearted pity for -himself. Poe, in his _Raven_, is, all the time of his most pathetic and -terrible complaining, conscious that he complains as becomes a fine -artist. But the raven’s croak does not touch the heart. It appeals to -the intellect; it affects the fancy, the imagination, the ear, the eye. -When Mangan opens his bosom and shows you the ravens that prey upon him, -he cannot repress something like a laugh at the thought that any one -could be interested in him and his woes. See: - - -THE NAMELESS ONE. - - -BALLAD. - - -I. - - “Roll forth, my song, like the rushing river, - That sweeps along to the mighty sea; - God will inspire me while I deliver - My soul of thee! - - -II. - - “Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening - Amid the last homes of youth and eld, - That there was once one whose veins ran lightning - No eye beheld. - - -III. - - “Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour, - How shone for _him_, through his griefs and gloom, - No star of all heaven sends to light our - Path to the tomb. - - -IV. - - “Roll on, my song, and to after ages - Tell how, disdaining all earth can give, - He would have taught men from wisdom’s pages - The way to live. - - -V. - - “And tell how, trampled, derided, hated, - And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong, - He fled for shelter to God, who mated - His soul with song-- - - -VI. - - “With song which alway, sublime or vapid, - Flowed like a rill in the morning beam, - Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid-- - A mountain stream. - - -VII. - - “Tell how the Nameless, condemned for years long - To herd with demons from hell beneath, - Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long - For even death. - - -VIII. - - “Go on to tell how, with genius wasted, - Betrayed in friendship, befooled in love, - With spirit shipwrecked and young hopes blasted, - He still, still strove. - - -IX. - - “Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others, - And some whose hands should have wrought for _him_ - (If children live not for sires and mothers), - His mind grew dim. - - -X. - - “And he fell far through the pit abysmal, - The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns, - And pawned his soul for the devil’s dismal - Stock of returns. - - -XI. - - “But yet redeemed it in days of darkness, - And shapes and signs of the final wrath, - Where death in hideous and ghastly starkness - Stood in his path. - - -XII. - - “And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow, - And want and sickness and houseless nights, - He bides in calmness the silent morrow - That no ray lights. - - -XIII. - - “And lives he still, then? Yes! old and hoary - At thirty-nine, from despair and woe, - He lives enduring what future story - Will never know. - - -XIV. - - “Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble, - Deep in your bosoms! There let him dwell! - He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble, - Here and in hell.” - -The burden of all his song is sad, and in his translations he has chosen -chiefly themes which echoed the harpings of his own soul. He began life -as a copying clerk in an attorney’s office, and had for some time to -support wholly, or in the main, a mother and sister. In Mitchel’s -preface there are many passages almost as fine as the verse of the poet. -Here is one, long as it is, that must find a place. Mitchel is speaking -of the days when Mangan was in the attorney’s office:-- - - “At what age he devoted himself to this drudgery, at what age he - left it, or was discharged from it, does not appear; for his whole - biography documents are wanting, the man having never, for one - moment, imagined that his poor life could interest any surviving - human being, and having never, accordingly, collected his - biographical assets, and appointed a literary executor to take care - of his posthumous fame. Neither did he ever acquire the habit, - common enough among literary men, of dwelling upon his own early - trials, struggles, and triumphs. But those who knew him in after - years can remember with what a shuddering and loathing horror he - spoke--when at rare intervals he could be induced to speak at - all--of his labours with the scrivener and attorney. He was shy and - sensitive, with exquisite sensibilities and fine impulses; eye, - ear, and soul open to all the beauty, music, and glory of heaven - and earth; humble, gentle, and unexacting; modestly craving nothing - in the world but celestial, glorified life, seraphic love, and a - throne among the immortal gods (that’s all); and he was eight or - ten years scribbling deeds, pleadings, and bills in Chancery.” - -There is, I believe, but one portrait of him in existence, and a copy of -it hangs on the wall of the room in which I am writing, a few feet in -front of my eyes. It is not a face easy to describe. Beauty is the chief -characteristic of it. But it is not the beauty that men admire or that -inspires love in women. It is not the face of a poet or a visionary or a -thinker. There is no passion in it; not even the passionate sadness of -his own verse. It is not the face of a man who has suffered greatly, or -rejoiced in ecstasy. It is the face of a fleshless, worn man of forty, -with hair pressed back from the forehead and ear. I have been looking at -it for a long time, trying to find out something positive about it, and -I have failed. It is not interesting. It is the face of a man who is -done with the world and humanity. It is the face of a dead man whose -spirit has passed away, while the body remains alive. The eyes are open, -and have light in them; the face would be more complete if the light -were out, and the lids drawn down and composed for the blind tomb. - -He gives a picture of his mental attitude at about the time this -portrait was taken:-- - - -TWENTY GOLDEN YEARS AGO. - - -I. - - “Oh, the rain, the weary, dreary rain, - How it plashes on the window-sill! - Night, I guess too, must be on the wane, - Strass and Gass around are grown so still. - Here I sit with coffee in my cup-- - Ah, ’twas rarely I beheld it flow - In the tavern where I loved to sup - Twenty golden years ago! - - -II. - - “Twenty years ago, alas!--but stay-- - On my life, ’tis half-past twelve o’clock! - After all, the hours _do_ slip away-- - Come, here goes to burn another block! - For the night, or morn, is wet and cold; - And my fire is dwindling rather low: - I had fire enough, when young and bold - Twenty golden years ago. - - -III. - - “Dear! I don’t feel well at all, somehow: - Few in Weimar dream how bad I am; - Floods of tears grow common with me now, - High-Dutch floods that Reason cannot dam. - Doctors think I’ll neither live nor thrive - If I mope at home so--I don’t know-- - _Am_ I living _now_? I _was_ alive - Twenty golden years ago. - - -IV. - - “Wifeless, friendless, flagonless, alone, - Not quite bookless, though, unless I choose; - Left with naught to do, except to groan, - Not a soul to woo, except the Muse. - Oh, this is hard for _me_ to bear-- - Me who whilom lived so much _en haut_-- - Me who broke all hearts like china-ware, - Twenty golden years ago. - - -V. - - “Perhaps ’tis better;--time’s defacing waves - Long have quenched the radiance of my brow-- - They who curse me nightly from their graves - Scarce could love me were they living now; - But my loneliness hath darker ills-- - Such dun duns as Conscience, Thought, & Co., - Awful Gorgons! Worse than tailors’ bills - Twenty golden years ago. - - -VI. - - “Did I paint a fifth of what I feel, - Oh, how plaintive you would ween I was! - But I won’t, albeit I have a deal - More to wail about than Kerner has! - Kerner’s tears are wept for withered flowers; - Mine for withered hopes; my scroll of woe - Dates, alas! from youth’s deserted bowers, - Twenty golden years ago. - - -VII. - - “Yet, may Deutschland’s bardlings flourish long! - Me, I tweak no beak among them;--hawks - Must not pounce on hawks: besides, in song - I could once beat all of them by chalks. - Though you find me, as I near my goal, - Sentimentalising like Rousseau, - Oh, I had a great Byronian soul - Twenty golden years ago! - - -VIII. - - “Tick-tick, tick-tick!--not a sound save Time’s, - And the wind gust as it drives the rain-- - Tortured torturer of reluctant rhymes, - Go to bed and rest thine aching brain! - Sleep!--no more the dupe of hopes or schemes; - Soon thou sleepest where the thistles blow; - Curious anti-climax to thy dreams - Twenty golden years ago!” - -I find myself now in a great puzzle. I want, first of all, to say I -think it most melancholy that Mangan, when of full age and judgment, -should have thought Byron had “a great Byronian soul.” Observe, he does -not mean that he had a soul greatly like Byron’s, but that he had a soul -like the great soul of Byron. I do not believe Byron had a great soul at -all. I believe he was simply a fine stage-manager of melodrama, the -finest that ever lived, and that as a property-master he was unrivalled; -but that to please no one, himself included, could he have written the -play. I am not descending to so defiling a depth as to talk about -plagiarism. What I wish to say is, that whether Byron stole or not made -not the least difference in the world, for he never by the aid of his -gifts or his thefts wrote a poem. I wanted further to say of Byron that -there was nothing great about him except his vanity. Suddenly I -remembered some words of the critic of whom I spoke a while back, in -dealing with the question of poetical poetry and poems. I took down the -printed page, where I found these lines:-- - - “Mr. Swinburne’s poetry is almost altogether poetical. Not all the - poetry of even the Poets is so, and to one who loves this dear and - intimate quality of which we speak, Coleridge, for instance, is a - poet of some four poems, Wordsworth of some sixteen, Keats of five, - Byron of none, though Byron is _great and eloquent_, but the thing - we prize so much is far away from eloquence. Poetical poetry is the - inner garden; there grows the ‘flower of the mind.’” - -Now, my difficulty is plain. My critic, who is also a poet, says Byron -is great, and I find fault with Mangan for saying Byron had a great -Byronian soul. Here are two of my select authors against me. Plainly, -the best thing I can do is say nothing at all about the matter! - -_Twenty Golden Years Ago_ is by no means a poetical poem, but there is -poetry in it. There is no poetical poem by Mangan. But he has written no -serious verses in which there is not poetry. - -After giving Mangan’s own verse account of what he was like in his own -regard at about forty years of age, I copy what Mitchel saw when the -poet was first pointed out to him:-- - - “Being in the College Library [Trinity, Dublin], and having - occasion for a book in that gloomy apartment of the institution - called the ‘Fagal Library,’ which is the innermost recess of the - stately building, an acquaintance pointed out to me a man perched - on the top of a ladder, with the whispered information that the - figure was Clarence Mangan. It was an unearthly and ghostly figure, - in a brown garment; the same garment (to all appearance), which - lasted till the day of his death. The blanched hair was totally - unkempt; the corpse-like features still as marble; a large book was - in his arms, and all his soul was in the book. I had never heard of - Clarence Mangan before, and knew not for what he was celebrated, - whether as a magician, a poet, or a murderer; yet took a volume and - spread it on a table, not to read, but with the pretence of reading - to gaze on the spectral creature on the ladder.” - -I never met any one who had known Mangan. Mitchel did not know the name -of the woman who lured him on with smiles that seemed to promise love. -He always addressed her in his poems as Frances. Some time ago the name -of the woman was divulged. It is ungallant of me to have forgotten it, -but such is the case. The address at which Mangan visited her was in -Mountpleasant Square, Dublin. At the time I saw the name of the lady I -looked into a directory of 1848 which I happened to have by me, and -found a different name at the address given in the Square. I know the -love affair of the poet took place years before his death in 1849, but -people in quiet and unpretentious houses in Dublin, or correctly -Ranelagh, often live a whole generation in the same house. - -Here I find myself in a second puzzle. So long as I thought merely of -writing this rambling account of “My Borrowed Poet,” I decided upon -trying to say something about the stupidity of women and poets in -general. But I don’t feel in case to do so when I glance up at the face -of Mangan hanging on the wall, and bring myself to realise the fact -that this face now looking so dead and unburied was young and bright and -perhaps cheerful when he went wooing in Ranelagh. - -Instead of saying anything wise and stupid and commonplace about either -poets or women, let me quote here stanzas which must have been written -some day when he saw sunshine among the clouds:-- - - -THE MARINER’S BRIDE. - - “Look, mother! the mariner’s rowing - His galley adown the tide; - I’ll go where the mariner’s going, - And be the mariner’s bride! - - “I saw him one day through the wicket, - I opened the gate and we met-- - As a bird in the fowler’s net, - Was I caught in my own green thicket. - O mother, my tears are flowing, - I’ve lost my maidenly pride-- - I’ll go if the mariner’s going, - And be the mariner’s bride! - - “This Love the tyrant winces, - Alas! an omnipotent might, - He darkens the mind like night, - He treads on the necks of Princes! - O mother, my bosom is glowing, - I’ll go whatever betide, - I’ll go where the mariners going, - And be the mariner’s bride! - - “Yes, mother! the spoiler has reft me - Of reason and self-control; - Gone, gone is my wretched soul, - And only my body is left me! - The winds, O mother, are blowing, - The ocean is bright and wide; - I’ll go where the mariner’s going, - And be the mariner’s bride.” - -This appears among the Apocrypha, and is credited by Mangan to the -“Spanish;” but it is safe to assume when he is so vague that the poem is -original. It is one of the most bright and cheerful he has given us. The -only touch of sorrow we feel is for the poor mother who is about to lose -so impulsive and vivacious a daughter. The time of this delightful -ballad is not clearly defined, but we may be absolutely certain that we -of this moribund nineteenth century will never meet except at a function -of a recondite spiritual medium even the great grandchild of the -Mariner’s Bride. How much more is our devout gratitude due to a good and -pious spiritualist than to any riotous and licentious poet! The former -can give us intercourse with the illustrious defunct of history; the -latter can give us no more than the image of a figment, the phantom of a -shade, the echo of sounds that never vibrated in the ear of man. All -persons who believe the evidence adduced by poets are the victims of -subornation. - -A saw-mill does not seem a good subject for a “copy of verses.” Mangan -died single and in poverty, and was buried by his friends. Listen:-- - - -THE SAW-MILL. - - “My path lay towards the Mourne again, - But I stopped to rest by the hill-side - That glanced adown o’er the sunken glen - Which the Saw-and Water-mills hide, - Which now, as then, - The Saw-and Water-mills hide. - - “And there, as I lay reclined on the hill, - Like a man made by sudden _qualm_ ill, - I heard the water in the Water-mill, - And I saw the saw in the Saw-mill! - As I thus lay still - I saw the saw in the Saw-mill! - - “The saw, the breeze, and the humming bees, - Lulled me into a dreamy reverie, - Till the objects round me--hills, mills, trees, - Seemed grown alive all and every-- - By slow degrees - Took life as it were, all and every! - - “Anon the sound of the waters grew - To a Mourne-ful ditty, - And the song of the tree that the saw sawed through - Disturbed my spirit with pity, - Began to subdue - My spirit with tenderest pity! - - “‘Oh, wanderer, the hour that brings thee back - Is of all meet hours the meetest. - Thou now, in sooth art on the Track, - And nigher to Home than thou weetest; - Thou hast thought Time slack, - But his flight has been of the fleetest! - - “‘For this it is that I dree such pain - As, when wounded, even a plank will; - My bosom is pierced, is rent in twain, - That thine may ever bide tranquil. - May ever remain - Henceforward untroubled and tranquil. - - “‘In a few days more, most Lonely One! - Shall I, as a narrow ark, veil - Thine eyes from the glare of the world and sun - ’Mong the urns of yonder dark vale-- - In the cold and dun - Recesses of yonder dark vale! - - “‘For this grieve not! Thou knowest what thanks - The Weary-souled and Meek owe - To Death!’ I awoke, and heard four planks - Fall down with a saddening echo. - _I heard four planks_ - _Fall down with a hollow echo._” - -This was the epithalamium of James Clarence Mangan sung by himself. - - - - -THE ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. - - -I bought my copy new for fourpence-halfpenny, in Holywell Street. It was -published by George Routledge and Sons, of the Broadway, London. The -little volume is made up of a “Preface,” by Thomas de Quincey; -“Confessions of an English Opium-eater;” and “Notes from the Pocket-book -of a late Opium-eater;” including “Walking Stewart,” “On the Knocking at -the Gates in _Macbeth_,” and “On Suicide.” When it last left my hands it -boasted a paper cover, on which appeared the head of the illustrious -Laker. At my elbow now it lies, divested of its shield; and I sit face -to face with the title-page, as though my author had taken off his hat -and overcoat, and I were asking him which he preferred, clear or thick -soup, while the servant stood behind filling his glass with -Amontillado. How that cover came to be removed I do not know. The last -borrower was of the less destructive sex, and I am at a great loss to -account for the injury. - -I object to the presence of “Walking Stewart,” and “On Suicide,” -otherwise I count my copy perfect. With the exception of _Robinson -Crusoe_ and Poe’s _Tales_ I have read nothing so often as the -_Opium-eater_. Only twice in my life up to five-and-twenty years of age -did I sit up all night to read a book: once when about midnight I came -into possession of _Enoch Arden_, and a second time when, at the same -witching hour I drew a red cloth-bound edition of the _Opium-eater_ out -of my pocket, in my lonely, dreary bedroom, five hundred miles from -where I am now writing. The household were all asleep, and I by no means -strong of nerve. The room was large, the dwelling ghostly. I sat in an -embrasure of one of the windows, with a little table supporting the -candles on one side, and on the other a small movable bookcase. Thus I -was in a kind of dock, only open on one side, that fronting the room. It -was in the beginning of autumn, and a low, warm wind blew the -complaining rain against the pane on a level with my ear. At that time I -had not seen London, and I remember being overpowered and broken before -the spectacle of that sensitive and imaginative boy in the text, hungry -and forlorn, in the unsympathetic mass of innumerable houses, every door -of which was shut against him. - -As I read on and the hour grew late, the succession of splendours and -terrors wrought on my imagination, until I felt cold and exhausted, and -had scarcely strength to sit upright in my chair. My hand trembled, and -my mind became tremulously apprehensive of something vague and awful; I -could not tell what. Sounds of the night which I had heard a thousand -times before, which were as familiar to me as the bell of my parish -church, now assumed dire, uncertain imports. The rattling of the sash -was not the work of the wind, not the work of ghostly hands, but worse -still, of human hands belonging to men in some more dire extremity than -the approach of death. The beating of the rain against the glass was -made to cover voices trying to tell me secrets I could not hear and -live, and which yet I would have given my life to know. - -I cannot tell why I was so exhilarated by terror. The _Confessions_ -alone are not calculated to produce inexplicable disturbance of the -mind. It may be I had eaten little or nothing that day; it may be I had -steeped myself too deeply in nicotine. All I know for certain is that I -was in such a state of abject panic I had not courage to cross the room -to my bed. It was in the dreary, pitiless, raw hour before the dawn I -finished the book. Then I found I durst not rise. I put down the book -and looked at the candles. They would last till daylight. - -I would have given all the world to lie on that bed over there, with my -back secure against it, warmed by it, comforted by it. But that open -space was more terrible to me than if it were filled with flame. I -should have been much more at my ease in the dark, yet I could not bring -myself to blow out the lights; not because I dreaded the darkness, but -because I shrank from encountering the possibilities of that awful -moment of twilight between the full light of the candles and the blank -gloom. - -When I thought of blowing out the lights and imagined the dread of -catching a glimpse of some spectacle of supreme horror, I imprudently -gave my imagination rein, and set myself to find out what would terrify -me most. All at once, and before I had made more than the inquiry of my -mind, I saw in fancy between me and the bed, a thing of unapproachable -terror; I had not been recently reading _Christabel_, and yet it must -have been remotely from that poem I conjured the spectre which so awed -me. I placed out in the open of the room on the floor, between me and -the door, and close to a straight line drawn between me and the bed, a -figure shrouded in a black cloak, from hidden shoulder to invisible -feet. Over the head of this figure was cast a cowl, which completely -concealed the head and face. At any moment the cloak might open and -disclose the body of that figure. I knew the body of that figure was a -“thing to dream of, not to see.” I felt sure I should lose my reason if -the cloak opened and discovered the loathsome body. I had no idea what I -should see, but I knew I should go mad. - -In my dock by the window, and with the light behind my eyes I felt -secure. But at that moment no earthly consideration, no consideration -whatever, would have induced me to face that ghostly form in the flicker -of expiring light. I was not under any delusion. I knew then as well as -I know now that there was no object on which the normal human eye could -exercise itself between me and the bed. I deliberately willed the figure -to appear, and although once I had summoned it I could not dismiss it, I -had complete and self-possessed knowledge that I saw nothing with my -physical eye. Moreover, full of potentiality for terror as that figure -was in its present shape and attitude, it had no dread for me. I was -fascinated by considering possibilities which I knew could not arise so -long as the present circumstances remained unchanged. In other words, I -knew I could trust my reason to keep my imagination in subjection, so -long as my senses were not confused or my attention scared. If I -attempted to extinguish the candles that figure might waver! if I moved -across the floor it might get behind my back, and as I caught sight of -it over my shoulder, the cloak might fall aside! Then I should go mad. -Thus I sat and waited until daylight came. Then I fell asleep in my -chair. - -As I have said, the copy of the _Opium-eater_ I then had was bound in -red cloth. It was a much handsomer book than the humble one published by -Routledge. Since that memorable night many years ago in my high, dreary, -lonely bedroom, I cannot tell you all the copies of the _Opium-eater_ -which have been mine. I remember another, bound in dark blue cloth, with -copious notes. There was a third, the outside seeming of which I forget, -but which I think formed part of two volumes of selections from De -Quincey. I love my little sixpenny volume for one reason chiefly. I can -lend it without fear, and lose it without a pang. Why, the beggarliest -miser alive can’t think much of fourpence-halfpenny! I have already -dispensed a few copies of the _Opium-eater_, price fourpence-halfpenny. -As it lies on my table now, I take no more care of it than one does of -yesterday’s morning paper. When I read it I double it back, to show to -myself how little I value the gross material of the book. Any one coming -in likely to appreciate the book, and who has not read it is welcome to -carry it off as a gift. Yet if I am free with the volume, I am jealous -of the author. I do not mention his name to people I believe unwilling -or unable to worship him becomingly. - -But when I meet a true disciple what prodigal joy environs and suffuses -me! What talks of him I have had, and speechless raptures in hearing of -him! How thick with gold the air of evenings has been, spent with him -and one who loved him! I recall one glorious summer’s day, when an old -friend and I (we were then, alas! years and years younger than we are -to-day), had toiled on through mountain heather for hours, until we were -half-baked by the sun and famished with thirst. Suddenly we came upon -the topmost peak of all the hills, and saw, many miles away, the -unexpected sea. As we stood, shading our eyes with our hands, my -companion chanted out, “Obliquely to the right lay the many-languaged -town of Liverpool; obliquely to the left ‘the multitudinous sea.’” -“Whose is that?” I asked eagerly, notwithstanding my drought. “What -isn’t Shakespeare’s is De Quincey’s.” “Where did you find it?” “In the -_Opium-eater_.” I remember cursing my memory because I had forgotten -that passage. When I got home I looked through the copy I then had, and -could not find the sentence. I wrote to my friend, saying I could not -come upon his quotation. He answered that he now believed it did not -occur in the body of the _Confessions_, but in a note in some edition, -he could not remember which. What a sense of miserable desolation I had -that this edition had never come my way! - -There are only three marks of any kind in my present copy of the -_Confessions_, one dealing with the semi-voluntary power children have -over the coming and going of phantoms painted on the darkness. This mark -is very indistinct, and, as I remember nothing about it, I think it must -have been made by accident. The part indicated by it is only -introductory to an unmarked passage immediately following which has -always fascinated my imagination. It is in the “Pains of Opium,” and -runs:-- - - “In the middle of 1817, I think it was, that this faculty became - positively distressing to me: at night, when I lay awake in bed, - vast processions passed along in mournful pomp, friezes of - never-ending stories, that to my feelings were as sad and solemn as - if they were stories drawn from times before Œdipus and - Priam--before Tyre--before Memphis. And at the same time a - corresponding change took place in my dreams: a theatre seemed - suddenly opened and lighted up within my brain, which presented - nightly spectacles of more than earthly splendour.” - -How thankful we ought to be that it has never been our fate to sit in -that awful theatre of prehistoric woes! There is surely nothing more -appalling in the past than the interminably vain activities of that -mysterious atomie, Egyptian man. Who could bear to look upon the three -hundred thousand ant-like slaves swarming among the colossal monoliths -piled up in thousands for the pyramid of Cheops! The bare thought makes -one start back aghast and shudder. - -I find the next mark opposite another awful passage dealing with -infinity, on this occasion infinity of numbers, not of time:-- - - “The waters now changed their character,--from translucent lakes, - shining like mirrors, they now became seas and oceans. And now came - a tremendous change, which, unfolding itself slowly like a scroll, - through many months, promised an abiding torment; and, in fact, it - never left me until the winding-up of my case. Hitherto the human - face had mixed often in my dreams, but not despotically, not with - any special power of tormenting. But now, that which I have called - the tyranny of the human face began to unfold itself. Perhaps some - part of my London life might be answerable for this. Be that as it - may, now it was that upon the rocking waters of the ocean the human - face began to appear: the sea appeared paved with innumerable - faces, upturned to the heavens--faces imploring, wrathful, - despairing, surged upwards by thousands, by myriads, by - generations, by centuries.” - -Upon closer looking, I see an attempt has been made to erase the mark -opposite this passage. Joining the fact with the faintness of the line -opposite the former quotation I am driven to the conclusion that there -is only one “stetted” note of admiration in the book. It is a whole page -of the little volume. It begins on page 91, and ends on page 92. To show -you how little I care for my copy of the _Confessions_, I shall cut it -out. Even a lawyer would pay me more than fourpence-halfpenny for -copying a page of the book, and, as I have said before, the volume has -no extrinsic value for me. Excepting the Bible, I am not familiar with -any finer passage of so great length in prose in the English language:-- - - “The dream commenced with a music which now I often heard in - dreams; a music of preparation and awakening suspense; a music like - the opening of the Coronation Anthem, and which, like _that_, gave - the feeling of a vast march--of infinite cavalcades filing off--and - the tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty - day--a day of crisis and of final hope for human nature, then - suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some dread - extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where--somehow, I knew not - how--by some beings, I knew not whom--a battle, a strife, an agony - was conducting, was evolving like a great drama, or piece of music; - with which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my confusion - as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, - as is usual in dreams (where, of necessity, we make ourselves - central to every movement), had the power and yet had not the - power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise myself, to - will it; and yet again had not the power, for the weight of twenty - Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. - ‘Deeper than ever plummet sounded,’ I lay inactive. Then, like a - chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake; - some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded or trumpet - had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms; hurryings to and fro; - trepidations of innumerable fugitives, I knew not whether from the - good cause or the bad; darkness and lights; tempest and human - faces; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, - and the features that were all the world to me, and but a moment - allowed, and clasped hands, and heart-breaking partings, and - then--everlasting farewells! and with a sigh such as the caves of - hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of - death, the sound was reverberated--everlasting farewells! and again - and yet again reverberated--everlasting farewells! And I awoke in - struggles, and cried aloud, ‘I will sleep no more!’” - -Upon reading this passage over I am glad I am not familiar with any -finer one in English prose--it would be impossible to endure it. In -these sentences it is not the consummate style alone that overwhelms -one, the matter is nearly as fine as the manner. How tremendously the -numbers and sentences are marshalled! How inevitable, overbearing, -breathless is the onward movement! What awful expectations are aroused, -and shadowy fears vaguely realized! As the spectral pageant moves on -other cohorts of trembling shades join the ghostly legion on the blind -march! All is vaporous, spectral, spiritual, until when we are wound up -to the highest pitch of physical awe and apprehension, we stop suddenly, -arrested by failure of the ground, insufficiency of the road, and are -recalled to life and light and truth and fellowship with the kindly race -of man by the despairing human shriek of incommunicable, inarticulable -agony in the words, “I will sleep no more!” In that despairing cry the -tortured soul abjectly confesses that it has been vanquished and driven -wild by the spirit-world. It is when you contrast the finest passages -in Macaulay with such a passage as this, that you recognise the -difference between a clever writer and a great stylist. - - - - -A GUIDE TO IGNORANCE. - - -For a long time I have had it in my mind to write a guide to ignorance. -I have been withheld partly by a feeling of diffidence and partly by a -want of encouragement from those to whom I mentioned the scheme. I have -submitted a plan of my book to a couple of publishers, but each of these -assured me that such a work would not be popular. In their -straightforward commercial way they told me they could see “no money in -the idea.” I differ from them; I think the book would be greeted with -acclaim and bought with avidity. - -Novelties are, I know, always dangerous speculations except in the form -of clothes, when they are certain of instant and immense adoption. The -mind of man cannot conceive the pattern for trousers’ cloth or the -design for a bonnet that will not be worn. There is nothing too high or -too low to set the fashion to men and women in dress. Conquerors were -crowned with mural wreaths, of which the chimney-pot hat is the lineal -descendant; pigs started the notion of wearing rings in their noses, and -man in the southern seas followed the example; kangaroos were the -earliest pouch-makers and ladies took to carrying reticules. - -But an innovation in the domain of education or thought is a widely -different thing from a frolic in gear. It is easy to set going any craze -which depends merely or mostly on the way of wearing the hair or the -height of the cincture. Hence æstheticism gained many followers in a -little time. But remember it took ages and ages to reconcile people to -wearing any clothes at all. Once you break the ice the immersion in a -new custom may become as rapid as the descent of a round shot into the -sea. The great step was, so to speak, from woad to wampum, with just an -Atlantic of time between the two. If you went to Poole any day this -week and asked him to make you a suit of wampum he would plead no -insuperable difficulty. If you asked him to make you a suit of woad he -would certainly detain you while he inquired as to your sanity and sent -for your friends. Yet it is only one step, one film, from woad to -wampum. - -Up to this time in the history of man there has, with few exceptions, -been an infatuated pursuit of this will-o’-the-wisp, knowledge. Why -should not man now turn his glance to ignorance, if it were only for a -little while and for the sake of fair play? The idea is of course -revolutionary, so also is every other new idea revolutionary, and (I am -not now referring to politics) it is only from revolutionary ideas we -derive what we regard as advantages. The earth and heavens themselves -are revolutionary. Why then should we not fairly examine the chance of a -revolution in the aim of man? - -The disinclination to face new attitudes of thought comes from the -inherent laziness of man, and hence at the outset of my career towards -that guide I should find nearly the whole race against me. Humboldt, who -met people of all climes and races and colours, declares laziness to be -the most common vice of human nature. Hence the initial obstacle is -almost insuperable. But it is only almost, not quite insuperable. Men -can be stirred from indolence only by a prospect of profit in some form. -Even in the Civil Service they are incited to make the effort to -continue living by the hope of greater leisure later in life, for with -years comes promotion and promotion means less labour. - -By a little industry in the pursuit of ignorance greater repose would be -attained in the immediate future. It would be very difficult to prove -that up to this hour progress has been of the slightest use or pleasure -to man. Higher pleasures, higher pains. Complexities of consciousness -are merely a source of distraction from centralisation. The jelly fish -may, after all, be the highest ideal of living things, and we may, if -the phrase be admitted, have been developing backward from him. Of all -the creatures on earth man is the most stuck up. He arrogates -everything to himself and because he can split a flint or make a bow or -gun-barrel he thinks he centres the universe, and insists that the -illimitable deeps of space are focused upon him. Astronomers, a highly -respectable class of people, assert there are now visible to us one -hundred million fixed stars, one hundred million suns like our own. Each -may have its system of planets, such as earth, and each planet again its -attendant satellites. With that splendid magnanimity characteristic of -our race, man would rather pitch the hundred million suns into chaos -than for a moment entertain the idea that he is a humbug and of no use -whatever. And yet after all the jelly-fish may be a worthier fellow than -the best of us. - -I do not of course insist on reversion to the jelly-fish. In this -climate his habits of life are too suggestive of ague and rheumatism. In -fact I do not know that I am urging reversion to anything, even to the -flocks of pastoral man. But I am saying that as myriads of facilities -are given for acquiring knowledge, one humble means ought to be devised -for acquiring ignorance. If I had anywhere met with the encouragement -which I think I merited, I should have undertaken to write the book -myself. - -I should open by saying it was not until I had concluded a long and -painful investigation that I considered myself in any way qualified to -undertake so grave and important a task as writing a guide to ignorance: -that I had not only inquired curiously into my own fitness, but had also -looked about carefully among my friends in the hope of finding some one -better qualified to carry out this important undertaking. But upon -gauging the depth of my own knowledge and considering conscientiously -the capacity of my acquaintances, I came to the conclusion that no man I -knew personally had so close a personal intimacy with ignorance as -myself. There are few branches, I may say no branch, of knowledge except -that of ignorance in which any one of my friends was not more learned -than myself. I was born in such profound ignorance that I had no -personal knowledge of the fact at the time. I had existed for a long -time before I could distinguish between myself and things which were -not. - -As a boy I was averse from study; and since I have grown to manhood I -have acquired so little substantive information that I could write down -in a bold hand on one page of this book every single fact, outside facts -of personal experience, of which I am possessed. - -I know that the Norman invasion occurred in 1066, and the Great Fire in -1666. I know that gunpowder is composed of saltpetre, sulphur, and -charcoal, and sausages of minced meat and bread under the name of Tommy. -I am aware Milton and Shakespeare were poets, and that needle-grinders -are short lived. I know that the primest brands of three-shilling -champagnes are made in London. I can give the Latin for seven words, and -the French for four. I can repeat the multiplication table (with the -pence) up to six times. I know the mere names of a number of people and -things; but, as far as clear and definite information goes, I don’t -believe I could double the above brief list. I am, I think, therefore, -warranted in concluding that few men can have a more close or exhaustive -personal acquaintance with ignorance. If you want learning at secondhand -you must go to the learned: if you want ignorance at first hand you -cannot possibly do better than come to me. - -In the first place let us consider the “Injury of Knowledge.” How much -better off the king would be if he had no knowledge! Suppose his mental -ken had never been directed to any period before the dawn of his own -memory, he would have no disquieting thoughts of the trouble into which -Charles I. or Richard II. drifted. He would be filled with no envy of -the good old King John, who, from four or five ounces of iron in the -form of thumb-screws, and a few hundredweight of rich Jew, filled up the -royal pockets as often as they showed any signs of growing empty. And, -above all, he would be spared the misery of committing dates to memory. -How it must limit the happiness of a constitutional sovereign to know -anything about the constitution! Why should he be burdened with the -consciousness of rights and prerogatives? Would he not be much happier -if he might smoke his cigar in his garden without the fear of the -Speaker or the Lord Chancellor before his eyes? The Commons want their -Speaker, the Lords want their Lord Chancellor--let them have them. The -king wants neither. Why should he be troubled with any knowledge of -either? Although he is a king is he not a man and a brother also? Why -should he be worried out of his life with reasons for all he does? The -king feels he can do no wrong. That ought to be enough for him. Most men -believe the same thing of themselves, but few others share the faith. -The king can do no wrong, then in mercy’s name let the man alone. -Suppose it is a part of my duty to look out of the oriel window at dawn, -noon, and sunset, why should I be bored with cause, reason, and -precedent for this? Let me look out of window if it is my duty to do so; -but, before and after looking out of the window, let me enjoy my life. - -Take the statesman. How knowledge must hamper him! He is absolutely -precluded from acting with decision by the consciousness of the -difficulties which lay in the path of his predecessors. He has to make -up his subject, to get facts and figures from his subordinates and -others. He has to arrange the party manœuvres before he launches his -scheme, by which time all the energy is gone out of him, and he has not -half as much faith in his bill as if he had never looked at the _pros_ -and _cons_. “Never mind manœuvring, but go at them,” said Nelson. The -moment you begin to manœuvre you confess your doubtfulness of -success, unless you can take your adversary at a disadvantage; but if -you fly headlong at his throat, you terrify him by the display of your -confidence and valour. - -The words of Nelson apply still more closely to the general. His -knowledge that fifty years ago the British army was worsted on this -field, unnerves, paralyses him. If he did not know that shells are -explosive and bullets deadly, he would make his dispositions with twice -the confidence, and his temerity would fill the foe with panic. His -simple duty is to defeat the enemy, and knowing anything beyond this -only tends to distract his mind and weaken his arm. In the middle of one -of his Indian battles, and when he thought the conflict had been decided -in favour of British arms, a messenger rode hastily up to the general in -command, who was wiping his reeking forehead on his coat-sleeve: “A -large fresh force of the enemy has appeared in such a place; what is to -be done?” Gough rubbed his forehead with the other sleeve, and shouted -out, “Beat ’em!” Obviously no better command could have been given. What -the English nation wanted the English army to do with the enemy was to -“beat ’em.” In the pictures of the Victoria Cross there is one of a -young dandy officer with an eyeglass in his eye and a sword in his hand, -among the thick of the foe. He knows he is in that place to kill some -one. He is quite ignorant of the fact that the enemy is there to kill -him, and he is taking his time and looking through his eyeglass to try -to find some enticing man through whom to run his sword. One of -Wellington’s most fervent prayers was, “Oh, spare me my dandy officers!” -Now dandies are never very full of knowledge, and yet the greatest Duke -thought more of them than of your learning-begrimed sappers or your -science-bespattered gunners. - -If an advocate at the bar knew one quarter of the law of the land, he -could never get on. In the first place, he would know more than the -judges, and this would prejudice the bench against him. With regard to a -barrister, the best position for him to assume, if he is addressing a -jury, is, “Gentlemen, the indisputable facts of the case, as stated to -you by the witnesses, are so-and-so. In presence of so distinguished a -lawyer as occupies the bench in this court, I do not feel myself -qualified to tell you what the law is; that will be the easy duty of his -lordship.” Even in Chancery cases, the barrister would best insure -success by merely citing the precedent cases, in an off-hand way, “Does -not your lordship think the case of Burke _v._ Hare meets the exact -conditions of the one under consideration?” The indices are all the -pleader need look at. The judge will surely strain a point for one who -does not bore him with extracts and arguments, but leaves all to -himself, and lets the work of the court run smoothly and just as the -president wishes. - -Knowledge is an absolute hindrance to the doctor of medicine. Supposing -he is a man of average intelligence (some doctors are), he is able to -diagnose, let me say, fever. You or I could diagnose fever pretty -well--quick pulse, dry skin, thirst, and so on. But as the doctor leans -over the patient, he is paralysed by the complication of his knowledge. -Such a theory is against feeding up, such a theory against slops, such a -theory against bleeding, such a theory in favour of phlebotomy; there -are the wet and the dry, the hot and the cold methods; and while the -doctor is deliberating, vacillating, or speculating, the patient has -ample opportunity of dying, or nature of stepping in and curing the man, -and thus foiling the doctor. Is there not much more sense and candour in -the method adopted by the Irish hunting dispensary doctor, who, before -starting with the hounds, locked up all drugs, except the Glauber’s -salts, a stone or two of which he left in charge of his servant, with -instructions it was to be meted out impartially to all comers, each -patient receiving an honest fistful as a dose? It is a remarkable fact -that within this century homœopathy has gained a firm hold on an -important section of the community, and yet, notwithstanding the growth -of what the allopathists or regular profession regard as ignorant -quackery, the span of human life has had six years added to it in eighty -years. Still homœopathy is a practical confession of ignorance; for -it says, in effect, “We don’t know exactly what Nature is trying to do, -but let us give her a little help, and trust in luck.” Whereas allopathy -pretended to know everything and to fight Nature. Here, in the result of -years added to man’s life by the development of the ignorant system, we -see once more the superiority of ignorance over knowledge. - -How full of danger to the unwedded men is knowledge owned by the widow! -She has knowledge of the married state, in which she was far removed -from all the troubles and responsibilities of life. She had her -pin-money, her bills paid, stalls taken for her at the opera, agreeable -company around her board, no occasion to face money difficulties. Now -all that is changed. There is no elasticity in her revenue, no margin -for the gratification of her whims; she has to pay her own bills, secure -her own stalls; she cannot very well entertain company often, and all -the unpleasantnesses of business matters press her sorely. Her knowledge -tells her that, if she could secure a second husband, all would be -pleasant again. It may be said that here knowledge is in favour of the -widow. Yes; but it is against the “Community.” Remember, the “Community” -is always a male. - -There is hardly any class or member of the community that does not -suffer drawback or injury from knowledge. As I am giving only a crude -outline of a design, I leave a great deal to the imagination of the -reader. He will easily perceive how much happier and more free would be -the man of business, the girl, the boy, the scientist, the -controversialist, and, above all, the literary man, if each knew little -or nothing, instead of having pressed upon the attention from youth -accumulated experiences, traditions, discoveries, and reasonings of many -centuries. - -To the “Delights of Ignorance,” I should devote the consideration of man -devoid of knowledge under various circumstances and in various -positions. - -By the sea who does not love to lie “propt on beds of amaranth and moly, -how sweet (while warm airs lull, blowing lowly), with half-dropt eyelids -still, beneath a heaven dark and holy, to watch the long bright river -drawing slowly his waters from the purple hill--to hear the dewy echoes -calling from cave to cave through the thick-twined vine--to watch the -emerald-coloured waters falling through many a woven acanthus wreath -divine! Only to see and hear the far-off sparkling brine, only to hear -were sweet, stretched out beneath the pine.” Just so! Is not that much -better than bothering about gravitation and that wretched old clinker -the moon, and the tides, and how sea-water is made up of oxygen and -hydrogen and chloride of sodium and bromide of something else, and fifty -other things, not one of which has a tolerable smell when you meet it in -a laboratory? Isn’t it better than thinking of the number of lighthouses -built on the coast of Albion, and the tonnage which yearly is reported -and cleared at the custom-houses of London, Liverpool, and that -prosperous seaport of Bohemia! Isn’t it much better than improving the -occasion by reading a hand-book on hydraulics or hydrostatics? Who on -the seashore wants to know anything? There will always, down to the last -syllable of recorded time, be finer things unknown about the sea than -can be said about all other matters in the world. Trying to know -anything about the sea is like shooting into the air an arrow attached -to a pennyworth of string with a view to sounding space. If we threw all -the knowledge we have into the ocean the Admiralty standards of -high-water mark would not have to be altered one-millionth part of a -line. - -What a blessing ignorance would be in an inn! Who would not dispense -with a knowledge of all the miseries that follow in the wake of the vat -when one is thirsty, and has before him amber sunset-coloured ale, and -in his hand a capacious, long, cool-meaning churchwarden? Who would at -such a moment cumber his mind with the unit of specific gravity used by -excisemen in testing beer? Who would at such a moment care to calculate -the toll exacted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer before each cool -gulp may thrill with amazing joy the parched gullet? - -Who, when upon a journey, would care to know the precise pressure -required to blow the boiler of the engine to pieces, or the number of -people killed in collisions during the corresponding quarter of last -year? Should we not be better in sickness for not knowing the exact -percentage of deaths in cases of our class? In adversity should we not -be infinitely happier were we in ignorance of the chance we ran of -gaining a good position or of cutting our throats? Should we not enjoy -our prosperity all the more if we were not, morning and evening, -exercised by the fluctuations of the share-list, fluctuations in all -likelihood destined never to increase or diminish our fortunes one -penny? And oh, for ignorance in sleep! For sleep without dream, or -nightmare, or memory! For sleep such as falls upon the body when the -soul is done with it and away! - -But all this is only rambling talk and likely to come to nothing. I fear -I shall never find a publisher for my great work. Upon reading over what -I have written I am impressed by the faintness of the outline it -displays of the book. In fact there is hardly any outline at all. It is -no more clear than the figures thrown by a magic-lantern upon a fog. I -have done nothing more than wave the sacred lamp of ignorance before -your eyes. I daresay my friend the jelly-fish would shake his fat sides -with laughter if he became aware of this futile effort to show how far -we are removed from his state of blissful calm. I feel infinitely -depressed and discouraged. I feel that not only will I not be hailed as -a prophet in my own country, but that the age will have nothing to do -with my scheme. It may be thought by many that there is something like -treason in thus enrolling oneself under the banner of the jelly-fish. -Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Carthage, and Rome have gone back from -knowledge, and even the jelly-fish does not flourish on their sites. But -is the condition of their sites the worse for lacking the jelly-fish? -Perhaps the “silence, and desolation, and dim night” are better in those -places than the blare of trumpets and the tramp of man. So far as we -know man is the only being capable of doing evil or offending heaven. -His absence may by nature be considered very good company. Whatever part -of earth he can handle and move he has turned topsy-turvy. One day earth -will turn on him and wipe him out altogether. - -For me and my great scheme for the book there is no hope. Man has always -been accounted a poor creature when judged by a fellow man whom he does -not appreciate. How can I be expected to go on taking an interest in -man when not the most credulous or the most crafty publisher in London -will as much as look at my _Guide to Ignorance_? I feel that my life is -wasted and that my functions have been usurped by the School Board. I -cool the air with sighs for the days when a philosopher might teach his -disciples in the porch or the grove. I feel as if I could anticipate -earth and turn on man. But some of the genial good nature of the -jelly-fish still lingers in my veins. I will not finally desert man -until man has finally deserted me. I had by me a few scattered essays in -the style of the book I projected in vain. If in them the reader has not -found ample proof of my fitness to inculcate the philosophy of Ignorance -I shall abandon Man to his fate. I have relieved my mind of some of its -teeming store of vacuity. I can scarcely hope I have added to the -reader’s hoard. But it would be consoling to fancy that upon laying down -this book the reader’s mind will if possible be still more empty than -when he took it up. - - RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, - LONDON AND BUNGAY. - - -Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: - -the face of a charletan=> the face of a charlatan {pg 13} - -acccording to Mitchel=> acccording to Mitchel {pg 140} - -are focussed upon him.=> are focused upon him. {pg 179} - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ignorant Essays, by Richard Dowling - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IGNORANT ESSAYS *** - -***** This file should be named 53169-0.txt or 53169-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/1/6/53169/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif, MFR and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: Ignorant Essays - -Author: Richard Dowling - -Release Date: September 29, 2016 [EBook #53169] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IGNORANT ESSAYS *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif, MFR and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" title="" /> -</div> - -<p class="c">IGNORANT ESSAYS.</p> - -<h1>IGNORANT<br /><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">ESSAYS.</span></h1> - -<p class="cb"><img src="images/colophon.jpg" -width="200" -alt="text decoration unavailable." /><br /> -<br /><br /> -LONDON:<br /> -<br /> -WARD AND DOWNEY,<br /> -<br /> -12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.<br /> -<br /> -1887.<br /> -<br /> -[<i>All Rights Reserved.</i>]<br /> -<br /><br /> -<small><span class="smcap">Richard Clay and Sons</span>,<br /> - -LONDON AND BUNGAY.</small></p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr><td> </td><td class="rt"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_ONLY_REAL_GHOST_IN_FICTION">THE ONLY REAL GHOST IN FICTION</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_1">1</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_BEST_TWO_BOOKS">THE BEST TWO BOOKS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_30">30</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#LIES_OF_FABLE_AND_ALLEGORY">LIES OF FABLE AND ALLEGORY</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_55">55</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#MY_COPY_OF_KEATS">MY COPY OF KEATS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_83">83</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#DECAY_OF_THE_SUBLIME">DECAY OF THE SUBLIME</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_117">117</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#A_BORROWED_POET">A BORROWED POET</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_132">132</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_ENGLISH_OPIUM-EATER">THE ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_160">160</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#A_GUIDE_TO_IGNORANCE">A GUIDE TO IGNORANCE</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_175">175</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1"></a>{1}</span> </p> - -<p class="cb"><big><big>IGNORANT ESSAYS.</big></big></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_ONLY_REAL_GHOST_IN_FICTION" id="THE_ONLY_REAL_GHOST_IN_FICTION"></a>THE ONLY REAL GHOST IN FICTION.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">My</span> most ingenious friend met me one day, and asked me whether I -considered I should be richer if I had the ghost of sixpence or if I had -not the ghost of sixpence.</p> - -<p>“What side do you take?” I inquired, for I knew his disputatious turn.</p> - -<p>“I am ready to take either,” he answered; “but I give preference to the -ghost.”</p> - -<p>“What!” I said. “Give preference to the ghost!”</p> - -<p>“Yes. You see, if I haven’t the ghost of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2"></a>{2}</span> sixpence I have nothing at -all; but if I have the ghost of a sixpence——”</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>“Well, I am the richer by having the ghost of a sixpence.”</p> - -<p>“And do you think when you add one more delusion to those under which -you already labour”—he and I could never agree about the difference -between infinity and zero—“that you will be the better off?”</p> - -<p>“I have not admitted a ghost is a delusion; and even if I had I am not -prepared to grant that a delusion may not be a source of wealth. Look at -the South Sea Bubble.”</p> - -<p>I was willing, so there and then we fell to and were at the question—or -rather, the questions to which it led—for hours, until we finally -emerged upon the crystallization of cast-iron, the possibility of a -Napoleonic restoration, or some other kindred matter. How we wandered -about and writhed in that talk I can no more remember than I can recall -the first articulate words that fell into my life. I know we handled -ghosts (it was broad day and in a public street)<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3"></a>{3}</span> with a freedom and -familiarity that must have been painful to spirits of refinement and -reserve. I know we said much about dreams, and compared the phantoms of -the open lids with the phantoms of the closed eyes, and pitted them one -against another like cocks in a main, and I remember that the case of -the dreamer in Boswell’s Johnson came up between us. The case in Boswell -submitted to Johnson as an argument in favour of a man’s reason being -more acute in sleep than in waking, showed the phantom antagonistic able -to floor the dreamer in his proper person. Johnson laughed at such a -delusion, for, he pointed out, only the dreamer was besotted with sleep -he would have perceived that he himself had furnished the confounding -arguments to the shadowy disputant. That is very good, and seems quite -conclusive as far as it goes; but is there nothing beyond what Johnson -saw? Was there no ghostly prompter in the scene? No <i>suggeritore</i> -invisible and inaudible to the dreamer, who put words and notes into the -mouth of the opponent? No thinner shade than the spectral being visible -in the dream? If in our waking<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4"></a>{4}</span> hours we are subject to phantoms which -sometimes can be seen and sometimes cannot, why not in our sleeping -hours also? Are all ghosts of like grossness, or do some exist so fine -as to be beyond our carnal apprehension, and within the ken only of the -people of our sleep? If we ponderable mortals are haunted, who can say -that our insubstantial midnight visitors may not know wraiths finer and -subtler than we, may not be haunted as we are? In physical life -parasites have parasites. Why in phantom life should not ghosts have -ghosts?</p> - -<p>The firm, familiar earth—our earth of this time, the earth upon which -we each of us stand at this moment—is thickly peopled with living -tangible folk who can eat, and drink, and talk, and sing, and walk, and -draw cheques, and perform a number of other useful, and hateful, and -amusing actions. In the course of a day a man meets, let us say, forty -people, with whom he exchanges speech. If a man is a busy dreamer, with -how many people in the course of one night does he exchange speech? Ten, -a hundred, a thousand? In the dreaming of one<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5"></a>{5}</span> minute by the clock a man -may converse with half the children of Adam since the Fall! The command -of the greatest general alive would not furnish sentries and vedettes -for the army of spirits that might visit one man in the interval between -one beat of the pendulum of Big Ben and another!</p> - -<p>Shortly after that talk with my friend about the ghost of the sixpence, -I was walking alone through one of the narrow lanes in the tangle of -ways between Holborn and Fleet Street, when my eye was caught by the -staring white word “Dreams” on a black ground. The word is, so to speak, -printed in white on the black cover of a paper-bound book, and under the -word “Dreams” are three faces, also printed in white on a black ground. -Two of the faces are those of women: one of a young woman, purporting to -be beautiful, with a star close to her forehead, and the other of a -witch with the long hair and disordered eyes becoming to a person of her -occupation. I dare say these two women are capable not only of -justification, but of the simplest explanation. For all I know<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6"></a>{6}</span> to the -contrary, the composition may be taken wholly, or in part, from a -well-known picture, or perhaps some canon of ghostly lore would be -violated if any other design appeared on the cover. About such matters I -know absolutely nothing. The word “Dreams” and the two female faces are -now much less prominent than when I saw the book first, for, Goth that I -am, long ago I dipped a brush in ink and ran a thin wash over the -letters and the two faces; as they were, to use artist’s phrases, in -front of the third face, and killing it.</p> - -<p>The third face is that of a man, a young man clean shaven and handsome, -with no ghastliness or look of austerity. His arms are resting on a -ledge, and extend from one side of the picture to the other. The left -arm lies partly under the right, and the left hand is clenched softly -and retired in half shadow. The right arm rises slightly as it crosses -the picture, and the right wrist and hand ride on the left. The fore and -middle fingers are apart, and point forward and a little downward, -following the sleeve of the other arm. The third finger droops<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7"></a>{7}</span> still -more downward, and the little finger, with a ring on it, lies directly -perpendicular along the cuff of the sleeve beneath. The hand is not well -drawn, and yet there is some weird suggestiveness in the purposeless -dispersion of the fingers.</p> - -<p>Fortunately upon my coming across the book, the original cost of which -was one shilling, I had more than the ghost of a sixpence, and for -two-thirds of that sum the book became mine. It is the only art purchase -I ever made on the spur of the moment; I knew nothing of the book then, -and know little of it now. It says it is the cut-down edition of a much -larger work, and what I have read of it is foolish. The worst of the -book is that it does not afford subject for a laugh. Thomas Carlyle is -reported to have said in conversation respecting one of George Eliot’s -latest stories that “it was not amusing, and it was not instructive; it -was only dull—dull.” This book of dreams is only dull. However, there -are some points in it that may be referred to, as this is an idle time.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8"></a>{8}</span></p> - -<p>“To dream you see an angel or angels is very good, and to dream that you -yourself are one is much better.” The noteworthy thing in connection -with this passage being that nothing is said of the complexion of the -angel or angels! Black or white it is all the same. You have only to -dream of them and be happy. “To dream that you play upon bagpipes, -signifies trouble, contention, and being overthrown at law.” Doubtless -from the certainty, in civilised parts, of being prosecuted by your -neighbours as a public nuisance. I would give a trifle to know a man who -did dream that he played upon the bagpipes. Of course, it is quite -possible he might be an amiable man in other ways.</p> - -<p>“To dream you have a beard long, thick, and unhandsome is of a good -signification to an orator, or an ambassador, lawyer, philosopher or any -who desires to speak well or to learn arts and sciences.” That -“ambassador” gleams like a jewel among the other homely folk. I remember -once seeing a newspaper contents-bill after a dreadful accident with the -words<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9"></a>{9}</span> “Death of fifty-seven people and a peer.” “To dream that you have -a brow of brass, copper, marble, or iron signifies irreconcilable hatred -against your enemies.” The man capable of such a dream I should like to -see—but through bars of metal made from his own sleep-zoned forehead. -“If any one dreams that he hath encountered a cat or killed one, he will -commit a thief to prison and prosecute him to the death; for the cat -signifies a common thief.” Mercy on us! Does the magistrate who commits -usually prosecute, and is thieving a hanging matter now? This is -necromancy or nothing; prophecy, inspiration, or something out of the -common indeed.</p> - -<p>“To dream one plays or sees another play on a clavicord, shows the death -of relations, or funeral obsequies.” I now say with feelings of the most -profound gratitude that I never to my knowledge even saw a clavicord. I -do not know what the beastly, ill-omened contrivance is like. The most -recondite musical instrument I ever remember to have performed on is the -Jew’s harp; and although there seems to be something<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10"></a>{10}</span> weak, uncandid and -treacherous in the spelling of “clavicord,” I presume the two are not -identical. In any case I am safe, for I have never dreamed of playing -even on the Jew’s harp. Here however is a cheerful promise from a -painful experience—one wants something encouraging after that -terrifying “clavicord.” “For a man to dream that his flesh is full of -corns, shows that a man will grow rich proportionately to his corns.” I -can breathe freely once more, having got away from outlandish musical -instruments and within the influence of the familiar horn.</p> - -<p>As might be expected, it is not useful to dream about the devil. Let -sleeping dogs lie. “To dream of eating human flesh” is also a bad way of -spending the hours of darkness. It is lucky to dream you are a fool. You -see, even in sleep, the virtue of candour brings reward. “To dream that -you lose your keys signifies anger.” And very naturally too. “To dream -you kill your father is a bad sign.” I had made up my mind not to go -beyond the parricide, but I am lured on to quote this, “To dream of -eating<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11"></a>{11}</span> mallows, signifies exemption from trouble and dispatch of -business, because this herb renders the body soluble.” I will not say -that Nebuchadnezzar may not at one time have eaten mallows among other -unusual herbs, but I never did. That however is not where the wonder -creeps in. It is at the reason. If you eat mallows you will have no -trouble <i>because</i> this herb renders the body <i>soluble</i>. Why is it good -to render the body soluble, and what is the body soluble in? One more -and I am done. “To dream one plays, or sees another play, upon the -virginals, signifies the death of relations, or funeral obsequies.” From -bagpipes, clavicords, and virginals, we hope we may be protected. And -yet if these are the only instruments banned, a person having an -extensive acquaintance with wind and string instruments of the orchestra -may be musical in slumber without harm to himself or threat to his -friends.</p> - -<p>In the interpretation of dreams Artemidorus was the most learned man -that ever lived. He gave the best part of his life to collecting matter -about dreams, and this he afterwards<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12"></a>{12}</span> put together in five books. He -might better have spent his time in bottling shadows of the moon.</p> - -<p>It was however for the face of the man on the cover that I bought and -have kept the book. The face is that of a man between thirty and -thirty-five years of age. It is regular and handsome. The forehead leans -slightly forward, and the lower part of the face is therefore a little -foreshortened. It is looking straight out of the picture; the shadows -fall on the left of the face, on the right as it fronts you. The nose is -as long and broad-backed as the nose of the Antinous. The mouth is large -and firm and well-shaping with lips neither thick nor thin. The interval -between the nostrils and verge of the upper lip is short. The chin is -gently pointed and prominent. The outline of the jaws square. The -modelling of the left cheek is defectively emphasised at the line from -above the hollow of the nostrils downward and backward. The brows are -straight, the left one being slightly more arched than the right. The -forehead is low, broad, compact, hard, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13"></a>{13}</span> clear lines. The lower line -of the temples projects beyond the perpendicular. The hair is thick and -wavy and divided at the left side, depressed rather than divided, for -the parting is visible no further up the head than a splay letter V.</p> - -<p>The eyes are wide open, and notwithstanding the obtuse angle made by the -facial line in the forward pose of the head, they are looking out level -with their own height upon the horizon. There is no curiosity or -speculation in the eyes. There is no wonder or doubt; no fear or joy. -The gaze is heavy. There is a faint smile, the faintest smile the human -face is capable of displaying, about the mouth. There is no light in the -eyes. The expression of the whole face is infinitely removed from -sinister. In it there is kindliness with a touch of wisdom and pity. It -asks no question; desires to say no word. It is the face of one who -beyond all doubt knows things we do not know, things which can scarcely -be shaped into words, things we are in ignorance of. It is not the face -of a charlatan, a seer, or a prophet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14"></a>{14}</span></p> - -<p>It is the face of a man once ardent and hopeful, to whom everything that -is to be known has lately been revealed, and who has come away from the -revelation with feelings of unassuageable regret and sorrow for Man. It -says with terrible calmness, “I have seen all, and there is nothing in -it. For your own sakes let me be mute. Live you your lives. <i>Miserere -nobis!</i>”</p> - -<p>My belief is that the extraordinary expression of that face is an -accident, a happy chance, a result that the artist never foresaw. Who -drew the cover I cannot tell. No initials appear on it and I have never -made inquiries. Remember that in pictures and poems (I know nothing of -music), what is a miracle to you, has in most cases been a miracle to -the painter or poet also. Any poet can explain how he makes a poem, but -no poet can explain how he makes poetry. He is simply writing a poem and -the poetry glides or rushes in. When it comes he is as much astonished -by it as you are. The poem may cost him infinite trouble, the poetry he -gets as a free gift. He begins a poem to prepare himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15"></a>{15}</span> for the -reception of poetry or to induce its flow. His poem is only a -lightning-rod to attract a fluid over which he has no control before it -comes to him. There may be a poetic art, such as verse-making, but to -talk about the art of poetry is to talk nonsense. It is men of genteel -intellects who speak of the art of poetry. The man who wrote the <i>Art of -Poetry</i> knew better than to credit the possible existence of any such -art. He himself says the poet is born, not made.</p> - -<p>I am very bad at dates, but I think Le Fanu wrote <i>Green Tea</i> before a -whole community of Canadian nuns were thrown into the most horrible -state of nervous misery by excessive indulgence in that drug. Of all the -horrible tales that are not revolting, <i>Green Tea</i> is I think the most -horrible. The bare statement that an estimable and pious man is haunted -by the ghost of a monkey is at the first blush funny. But if you have -not read the story read it, and see how little of fun is in it. The -horror of the tale lies in the fact that this apparition of a monkey is -the only <i>probable</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16"></a>{16}</span> ghost in fiction. I have not the book by me as I -write, and I cannot recall the victim’s name, but he is a clergyman, -and, as far as we know to the contrary, a saint. There is no reason <i>on -earth</i> why he should be pursued by this malignant spectre. He has -committed no crime, no sin even. He labours with all the sincerity of a -holy man to regain his health and exorcise his foe. He is as crimeless -as you or I and infinitely more faultless. He has not deserved his fate, -yet he is driven in the end to cut his throat, and you excuse <i>that</i> -crime by saying he is mad.</p> - -<p>I do not think any additional force is gained in the course of this -unique story by the importation of malignant irreverence to Christianity -in the latter manifestations of the ape. I think the apparition is at -its best and most terrible when it is simply an indifferent pagan, -before it assumes the <i>rôle</i> of antichrist. This ape is at his best as a -mind-destroyer when the clergyman, going down the avenue in the -twilight, raised his eyes and finds the awful presence preceding him -along the top of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17"></a>{17}</span> wall. There the clergyman reaches the acme of -piteous, unsupportable horror. In the pulpit with the brute, the priest -is fighting against the devil. In the avenue he has not the -strengthening or consoling reflection that he is defending a cause, -struggling against hell. The instant motive enters into the story the -situation ceases to be dramatic and becomes merely theatrical. Every -“converted” tinker will tell you stirring stories of his wrestling with -Satan, forgetting that it takes two to fight, and what a loathsome -creature he himself is. But the conflict between a good man and the -unnecessary apparition of this ape is pathetic, horribly pathetic, and -full of the dramatic despair of the finest tragedy.</p> - -<p>It is desirable at this point to focus some scattered words that have -been set down above. The reason this apparition of the ape appears -probable is <i>because</i> it is unnecessary. Any one can understand why -Macbeth should see that awful vision at the banquet. The apparition of -the murdered dead is little more than was to be expected, and can be -explained<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18"></a>{18}</span> in an easy fashion. You or I never committed murder, -therefore we are not liable to be troubled by the ghost of Banquo. In -your life or mine Nemesis is not likely to take heroic dimensions. The -spectres of books, as a rule, only excite our imaginative fears, not our -personal terrors. The spectres of books have and can have nothing to do -with us any more than the sufferings of the Israelites in the desert. -When a person of our acquaintance dies, we inquire the particulars of -his disease, and then discover the predisposing causes, so that we may -prove to ourselves we are not in the same category with him. We do not -deny our liability to contract the disease, we deny our likelihood to -supply the predisposing causes. He died of aneurysm of the aorta: Ah, we -say, induced by the violent exercise he took—we never take violent -exercise. If not of aneurysm of the aorta, but fatty degeneration of the -heart: Ah, induced by the sedentary habits of his latter years—we take -care to secure plenty of exercise. If a man has been careful of his -health and dies, we allege that he took all the robustness out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19"></a>{19}</span> his -constitution by over-heedfulness; if he has been careless, we say he -took no precautions at all; and from either of these extremes we are -exempt, and therefore we shall live for ever.</p> - -<p>Now here in this story of <i>Green Tea</i> is a ghost which is possible, -probable, almost familiar. It is a ghost without genesis or -justification. The gods have nothing to do with it. Something, an -accident due partly to excessive tea-drinking, has happened to the -clergyman’s nerves, and the ghost of this ape glides into his life and -sits down and abides with him. There is no reason why the ghost should -be an ape. When the victim sees the apparition first he does not know it -to be an ape. He is coming home in an omnibus one night and descries two -gleaming spots of fire in the dark, and from that moment the life of the -poor gentleman becomes a ruin. It is a thing that may happen to you or -me any day, any hour. That is why Le Fanu’s ghost is so horrible. You -and I might drink green tea to the end of our days and suffer from -nothing more than ordinary impaired digestion. But you or I may get a -fall, or a sunstroke, and ever afterwards<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20"></a>{20}</span> have some hideous familiar. -To say there can be no such things as ghosts is a paltry blasphemy. It -is a theory of the smug, comfortable kind. A ghost need not wear a white -sheet and have intelligible designs on personal property. A ghost need -not be the spirit of a dead person. A ghost need have no moral mission -whatever.</p> - -<p>I once met a haunted man, a man who had seen a real ghost; a ghost that -had, as the ape, no ascertainable moral mission but to drive his victim -mad. In this case too the victim was a clergyman. He is, I believe, -alive and well now. He has shaken off the incubus and walks a free man. -I was travelling at the time, and accidentally got into chat with him on -the deck of a steamboat by night. We were quite alone in the darkness -and far from land when he told me his extraordinary story. I do not of -course intend retailing it here. I look on it as a private -communication. I asked him what brought him to the mental plight in -which he had found himself, and he answered briefly, “Overwork.” He was -then convalescent, and had been assured by his physicians that with -care<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21"></a>{21}</span> the ghost which had been laid would appear no more. The spectre he -saw threatened physical harm, and while he was haunted by it he went in -constant dread of death by violence. It had nothing good or bad to do -with his ordinary life or his sacred calling. It had no foundation on -fact, no basis on justice. He had been for months pursued by the figure -of a man threatening to take away his life. He did not believe this man -had any corporeal existence. He did not know whether the creature had -the power to kill him or not. The figure was there in the attitude of -menace and would not be banished. He knew that no one but himself could -see the murderous being. That ghost was there for him, and there for him -alone.</p> - -<p>Respecting the Canadian nuns whose convent was beleaguered and infested -by ghostly enemies that came not by ones or twos but in battalions, I -had a fancy at the time. I do not intend using the terminologies or -theories of the dissecting room, or the language of physiology found in -books. I am not sure the fancy is wholly my own, but some of it is -original.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22"></a>{22}</span> I shall suppose that the nerves are not only capable of -various conditions of health and disease, but of large structural -alteration in life; structural alteration not yet recorded or observed -in fact; structural alteration which, if you will, exists in life but -disappears instantly at death. In fine, I mean rather to illustrate my -fancy than to describe anything that exists or could exist. Before -letting go the last strand of sense, let me say that talking of nerves -being highly strung is sheer nonsense, and not good nonsense either. The -muscles it is that are highly strung. The poor nerves are merely -insulated wires from the battery in the head. Their tension is no more -affected by the messages that go over them, than an Atlantic cable is -tightened or loosened by the signals indicating fluctuations in the -Stock Exchanges of London and New York.</p> - -<p>The nerves, let us suppose, in their normal condition of health have -three skins over the absolute sentient tissue. In the ideal man in -perfect health, let us say Hodge, the man whose privilege it is to “draw -nutrition, propagate, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23"></a>{23}</span> rot,” the three skins are always at their -thickest and toughest. Now genius is a disease, and it falls, as ladies -of Mrs. Gamp’s degree say, “on the nerves.” That is, the first of these -skins having been worn away or never supplied by nature, the patient -“sees visions and dreams dreams.” The man of genius is not exactly under -delusions. He does not think he is in China because he is writing of -Canton in London, but his optic nerve, wanting the outer coating, can -build up images out of statistics until the images are as full of line -and colour and as incapable of change at will as the image of a barrel -of cider which occupies Hodge’s retina when it is imminent to his -desires, present to his touch. The sensibility of the nerves of genius -is greater than the sensibility of the nerves of Hodge. Not all the -eloquence of an unabridged dictionary could create an image in Hodge’s -mind of a thing he had never seen. From a brief description a painter of -genius could make a picture—not a likeness of course—of Canton, -although he had never been outside the four corners of these kingdoms.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24"></a>{24}</span> -The painting would not, in all likelihood, be in the least like Canton, -but it would be very like the image formed in the painter’s mind of that -city. In the painter such an image comes and goes at will. He can either -see it or not see it as he pleases. It is the result of the brain -reacting on the nerve. It relies on data and combination. It is his -slave, not his master. Before it can be formed there must be great -increase of sensibility. Hodge is crude silver, the painter is the -polished mirror. The painter can see things which are not, things which -he himself makes in his mind. His invention is at least as vivid as his -memory.</p> - -<p>I suppose then that the man of genius, the painter or poet, is one who, -having lost the first skin, or portion of the first skin of his nerves, -can create and see in his mind’s eye things never seen by the eye of any -other man, and see them as vividly as men of no genius can see objects -of memory.</p> - -<p>Now peel off the second skin. The more exquisitely sensitive or the -innermost skin of the nerve is exposed. Things which the eye of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25"></a>{25}</span> genius -could not invent or even dream of are revealed. A drop of putrid water -under the microscope becomes a lake full of terrifying monsters large -enough to destroy man. Heard through the microphone the sap ascending a -tree becomes loud as a torrent. Seen through a telescope nebulous spots -in the sky become clusters of constellations. Divested of its second -skin the nerve becomes sensitive to influences too rare and fine for the -perception of the optic nerve in a more protected state. Beings that -bear no relation whatever to weight or the law of impenetrability, float -about and flash hither and thither swifter than lightning. The air and -other ponderable matter are nothing to them. They are no more than the -shadows or reflections of action, the imperishable progeny of thought. -Here lies disclosed to the partly emancipated nerve the Canton of the -painter’s vision. Here the city he made to himself is as firm and sturdy -and solid and full of life as the Canton of this day on the southern -coast of China. Here throng the unrecorded visions of all the poets. -Here are the counterfeits of all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26"></a>{26}</span> the dead in all their phases. Here -float the dreams of men, the unbroken scrolls of life and action and -thought complete of all beings, man and beast, that have lived since -time began. In the world of matter nothing is lost; in the world of -spirit nothing is lost either.</p> - -<p>If instead of taking the whole of this imaginary skin off the optic -nerve, we simply injure it ever so slightly, the nerve may become alive -to some of these spirits; and this premature perception of what is -around all of us, but perceived by few, we call seeing ghosts. It may be -objected that all space is not vast enough to afford room for such a -stupendous panorama. When we begin to talk of limits of space to -anything beyond our knowledge and the touch of our inch-tape, we talk -like fools. There is no good in allotting space with a two-foot rule. It -is all the same whether we divide zero into infinity or infinity into -zero. The answer is the same; “I don’t know how many times it goes.” -Take a cubic inch of air outside your window and see the things packed -into it. Here interblent we find all together resistance and light and -sound and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27"></a>{27}</span> odour and flavour. We must stop there, for we have got to the -end, not of what <i>is</i> packed into that cubic inch of air, but to the end -of the things in it revealed to our senses. If we had five more senses -we should find five more qualities; if we had five thousand senses, five -thousand qualities. But even if we had only our own senses in higher -form we should see ghosts.</p> - -<p>If the third skin were removed from the optic nerve all things we now -call opaque would become transparent, owing to the naked nerve being -sensitive to the latent light in every body. The whole round world would -become a crystal ball, the different degrees of what we now call opacity -being indicated merely by a faint chromatic modification. What we now -regard as brilliant sunlight would then be dense shadow. Apocalyptic -ranges of colour would be disclosed, beginning with what is in our -present condition the least faint trace of tint and ascending through a -thousand grades to white, white brighter far than the sun our present -eyes blink upon. Burnished<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28"></a>{28}</span> brass flaming in our present sun would then -be the beginning of the chromatic scale descending in the shadow of -yellow, burnished copper of red, burnished tin of black, burnished steel -of blue. So intense then would the sensibility of the optic nerve become -that the satellites attendant on the planets in the system of the suns, -called fixed stars, would blaze brighter than our own moon reflected in -the sea. To the eye matter would cease to be matter in its present, -gross obstructive sense. It would be no more than a delicate transparent -pigment in the wash of a water-colour artist. The gross rotundity of the -earth would be, in the field of the human eye, a variegated transparent -globe of reduced luminousness and enormous scales and chords of colour. -The Milky Way would then be a concave measureless ocean of prismatic -light with pendulous opaline spheres.</p> - -<p>The figures of dreams and ghosts may be as real as we are pleased to -consider ourselves. What arrogance of us to say they are our own -creation! They may look upon themselves as superior to us, as we look -upon ourselves as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29"></a>{29}</span> superior to the jelly-fish. No doubt we are to ghosts -the baser order, the spirits stained with the woad of earth, low -creatures who give much heed to heat and cold, and food and motion. They -are the sky-children, the chosen people. They are nothing but -circumscribed will wedded to incorporeal reasons of the nobler kind, and -with scopes the contemplation of which would split our tenement of clay. -They are the arch-angelic hierarchs of man, the ultimate condition of -the race, the spirit of this planet distilled by the sun.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30"></a>{30}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_BEST_TWO_BOOKS" id="THE_BEST_TWO_BOOKS"></a>THE BEST TWO BOOKS.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> no list I met of the best hundred books, when that craze took the -place of spelling-bees and the fifteen puzzle, do I recollect seeing -mention made of my two favourite works. These two books stand completely -apart in my esteem, and if I were asked to name the volume that comes -third, I should have to make a speech of explanation. The first of them -is not in prose or verse, it is not a work of theology or philosophy or -science or art or history or fiction or general literature. It is at -once the most comprehensive and impartial book I know. This paragraph is -assuming the aspect of a riddle. Being in a mild and passionless way a -lover of my species, I am a loather of riddles. So I will go<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31"></a>{31}</span> no further -on the downward way, but declare the name, title, and style of my book -to be Nuttall’s <i>Standard Dictionary</i>.</p> - -<p>I am well aware there is a great deal to be said against Nuttall’s -<i>Dictionary</i> as a dictionary, but I am not speaking of it in that sense. -I am treating it as a dear companion, a true friend, a <i>vade mecum</i>. Let -those who have a liking for discovering spots in the sun glare at the -orb until they have a taste for nothing else but spots in the sun. I -find Nuttall so close to my affections that I can perceive no defects in -him. I cannot bear to hold him at arm’s length, for critical -examination. I hug him close to me, and feel that while I have him I am -almost independent of all other books printed in the English language.</p> - -<p>Cast your eyes along your own bookshelves of English authors; every -word, liberally speaking, that is in each and every volume on your -shelves is in my Nuttall! Here is the juice of the language, from -Shakespeare to Huxley, in a concentrated solution. Here is a book that -starts by telling you that A is a vowel, and does not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32"></a>{32}</span> desert you until -it informs you that zythum is a beverage, a liquor made from malt and -wheat; a fact, I will wager, you never dreamed of before! And between A -and zythum, what a boundless store of learning is disclosed! This is the -only single-volume book I know of which no man living is or ever can be -the master. Charles Lamb would not allow that dictionaries are books at -all. In his days they were white-livered charlatans compared with the -full-blooded enthusiast, Nuttall.</p> - -<p>If such an unkind thing were desirable as to diminish the conceit of a -man of average reading and intelligence, there is no book could be used -with such paralysing effect upon him as this one. It is almost -impossible for any student to realise the infinite capacity for -ignorance with which man is gifted until he is brought face to face with -such a book as Nuttall. The list of words whose meanings are given -occupies 771 very closely printed pages of small type in double column. -The letter A takes up from 1 to 52. How many words unfamiliar to the -ordinary man are to be found in this fifteenth part of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33"></a>{33}</span> the dictionary! -On the top of every folio there occur four words, one at the head of -each column. Barring the right of the candidates in ignorance to guess -from the roots how many well-informed people know or would use any of -the following words—absciss, acidimeter, acroteleutic, adminicular, -adminiculator, adustion, aerie, agrestic, allignment, allision, -ambreine, ampulla, ampullaceous, android, antiphonary, antiphony, -apanthropy, aponeurosis, appellor, aramaic, aretology, armilla, -armillary, asiarch, assentation, asymptote, asymptotical, aurate, -averruncator, aversant, axotomous, or axunge? And yet all these are at -the heads of columns under A alone! Take, now, one column haphazard -perpendicularly, and with the same reservation as before, who would use -antimaniac, antimask, antimasonic, antimeter, antimonite, antinephritic, -antinomian, antinomy, antipathous, antipedobaptist, antiperistaltic, -antiperistasis, or antiphlogistic? The letter A taken along the top of -the pages or down one column is not a good letter for the confusion of -the conceited; because viewed across the top of the page it is pitifully -the prey of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34"></a>{34}</span> prefixes which lead to large families of words, and viewed -down the column (honestly selected at haphazard), it is the bondslave of -one prefix. When, however, one starts a theory, it is not fair to pick -and choose. I have, of course, eschewed derivatives in coming down the -column; across the column I did not do so, as the chance of a prime word -being at the bottom of one column and its derivate at the top of the -next ought to count two in my favour. I am aware this claim may be -disputed; I have disputed it with myself at much too great length to -record here, and I have decided in my own favour.</p> - -<p>Of course the mere reading of the dictionary in a mechanical way would -produce no more effect than the repetition of numerals abstracted from -things. There is no greater suggestiveness in saying a million than in -saying one. But what an enlargement of the human capacity takes place -when a person passes from the idea of one man to the idea of a million -men. Take the first word quoted from the head of the column. I had -wholly forgotten the meaning of absciss. I cannot even now remember<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35"></a>{35}</span> -that I ever knew the meaning of it, though of course I must, for I was -supposed to have learned conic sections once. Why any one should be -expected to learn conic sections I cannot guess. As far as I can now -recall, they are the study of certain possible systems and schemes of -lines in a wholly unnecessary figure. I believe the cone was invented by -some one who had conic sections up his sleeve, and devised the miserable -spinning of the triangle merely to gratify his lust of cruelty to the -young. The only one use to which cones are put, as far as I am aware, is -for a weather signal on the sea coast. The only section of a cone put to -any pleasant use is a frustum when it appears in the bark of the cork -tree; and even this conic section is not of much use to pleasure until -it is removed from the bottle. Conic sections are reprehensible in -another way. They are, in the matter of difficulty, nothing better than -impostors. They are really “childlike and bland,” and will, when you -have conquered your schoolboy terror of them, be found agreeable -after-dinner reading.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36"></a>{36}</span></p> - -<p>But I must return to Nuttall. The systematic study of the book is to be -deplored. It is, like the Essays of Elia, not to be read through at a -sitting, but to be dipped into curiously when one is in the vein. The -charm of Lamb is in the flavour; and one cannot reach the more remote -and finer joys of taste if one eats quickly. There is no cohesion, and -but little thought in Nuttall. It is as a spur, an incentive, to thought -I worship the book, and as a storehouse for elemental lore. You have -known a thing all your life, let us say, and have called it by a -makeshift name. You feel in your heart and soul there must be a more -close-fitting appellation than you employ for it, and you endure a sense -of feebleness and dispersion of mind. One day you are idly glancing -through your Nuttall, and suddenly the clouds, the nebulous mists of a -generalized term, roll away, and out shines, clear and sharply defined, -the particular definition of the thing. From childhood I have, for -example, known a pile-driver, and called it a pile-driver for years and -years. All along something told me pile-driver<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37"></a>{37}</span> was no better than a -loose and off-hand way of describing the machine. It partook of the -barbarous nature of a hieroglyphic. You drew, as it were, the figure of -a post, and of a weight descending upon it. The device was much too -pictorial and crude. Moreover, it was, so described, a thing without a -history. To call a pile-driver a pile-driver is no more than to describe -a barn-door cock onomatopoetically as cock-a-doodle-doo—a thing -repellent to a pensive mind. But in looking over Nuttall I accidentally -alighted on this: “Fistuca, fis’—tu-ka, <i>s.</i> A machine which is raised -to a given height by pulleys, and then allowed suddenly to fall on the -head of a pile; a monkey (L. a rammer).” Henceforth there is, in my -mind, no need of a picture for the machine. So to speak, the abstract -has become concrete. I would not, of course, dream of using the word -fistuca, but it is a great source of internal consolation to me. -Besides, I attain with it to other eminences of curiosity, which show me -fields of inquiry I never dreamed of before.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38"></a>{38}</span></p> - -<p>I have not met the word monkey in this sense until now. I look out -monkey in my book, and find one of the meanings “a pile-driver,” and -that the word is derived from the Italian “<i>monna</i>, contraction for -<i>madonna</i>.” Up to this moment I did not know from what monkey was -derived, although I had heard that from monkey man was derived. All this -sets one off into a delicious doze of thought and keeps one carefully -apart from his work. For “who would fardels bear to groan and sweat -under a weary” load of even pens, when he might lie back and close his -eyes, and drift off to the Rome of Augustus or the Venice of to-day? -Philology as mere philology is colourless, but if one uses the records -of verbal changes as glasses to the past and present, what panchromatic -hues sweep into the pale field of the dictionary! What myriads of dead -men stand up out of their graves, and move once more through scenes of -their former activities! What reimpositions of old times on old earth -take place! What bravery of arms and beauty of women are renewed; what -glowing argosies, long mouldered,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39"></a>{39}</span> sparkle once more in the sun! What -brazen trumpets blare of conquest, and dust of battle roll along the -plain! What plenitude of life, of movement, of man is revealed! A -dictionary is to me the key-note in the orchestra where mankind sit -tuning their reeds for the overture to the final cataclysm of the world.</p> - -<p>My second book would be Whitaker’s <i>Almanack</i>. Owing to miserable -ill-luck I have not been able to get a copy of the almanac for this -year. I offered fair round coin of the realm for it before the Jubilee -plague of ugliness fell upon the broad pieces of her most gracious -Majesty. But, alas! no copy was to be had. I was too late in the race. -All the issue had been sold. The last edition of which I have a copy is -that for 1886. I have one for each year of the ten preceding, and I -cannot tell how crippled and humiliated I feel in being without one for -1887.</p> - -<p>This is another of the books that Charles Lamb classes among the -no-books. As in the case of Nuttall, there was no Whitaker in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40"></a>{40}</span> day, -and certainly no almanac at all as good. At first glance this book may -seem dry and sapless as the elm ready sawn for conversion into parish -coffins. But how can anything be considered dry or dead when two hundred -thousand of its own brothers are at this moment dwelling in useful amity -among our fellowmen? It in one way contrasts unfavourably with almanacs -which can claim a longer life, there are no vaticinations in it. But if -the gift of prophecy were possessed by other almanacs, why did they not -foretell that they would be in the end known as humbugs, and cut their -conceited throats? I freely own I am a bigot in this matter; I have -never given any other almanac a fair chance, and, what is worse, I have -firmly made up my mind not to give any other one any chance at all. What -is the good of being loyal to one’s friends if one’s loyalty is at the -beck of every upstart acquaintance, no matter how great his merits or -how long his purse? I place my faith in Whitaker, and am ready to go to -the stake (provided it is understood that nothing unpleasant takes place -there)<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41"></a>{41}</span> chaunting my belief and glorying in my doom.</p> - -<p>If you took away Whitaker’s <i>Almanack</i> from me I do not know how I -should get on. It is a book for diurnal use and permanent reference. One -edition of it ought to be printed on bank note paper for the pocket, and -another on bronze for friezes for the temple of history. It is worth all -the Livys and Tacituses that ever breathed and lied. It is more truthful -than the sun, for that luminary is always eight minutes in advance of -where it seems to be. It is as impartial and veracious as fossilising -mud. It contains infinitely more figures than Madame Tussaud’s, and -teaches of everything above and under the sun, from stellar influences -to sewage.</p> - -<p>How is the daily paper to be understood lacking the aid of Whitaker? Who -is the honourable member for Berborough, of whom the Chanceller of the -Exchequer spoke in such sarcastic terms last night? For what place sits -Mr. Snivel, who made that most edifying speech yesterday? How old is -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42"></a>{42}</span> Earl of Champagne, who has been appointed Governor of Labuan? Where -is Labuan? What is the value in English money of £T97,000, and 2,784,000 -roubles? What are the chances of a man of forty (yourself) living to be -a hundred? and what is the chance of a woman of sixty-four (your -mother-in-law) dying next year? How much may one deduct from one’s -income with a view to income tax before one needs begin to lie? What -annuity ought a man of your age be able to get for the five thousand -pounds you expect on the death of your mother-in-law? How much will you -have to pay to the state if you article your son to a solicitor or give -him a little capital and start him in an honest business as a -pawnbroker? How old is the judge that charged dead against the prisoner -whom the jury acquitted without leaving the box? What railway company -spends the most money in coal? legal charges? palm oil? Is there -anything now worth a gentleman’s while to smuggle on his return from the -Continent? What is the tonnage of the ironclad rammed yesterday morning -by another ironclad<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43"></a>{43}</span> of the Channel squadron? When may one begin to eat -oysters? What was the most remarkable event last year? How much longer -is it likely to pay to breed farmers in England?</p> - -<p>These are only a few, very few, of the queries Whitaker will answer -cheerfully for you. Indeed, you can scarcely frame any questions to -which it will not make a reply of some kind or other. It contains, -moreover, either direct or indirect reference to every man in the United -Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. If you occupy a prominent -official position in any walk in life, you will find yourself herein -mentioned by name. If you are a simple and prudent trader, you will have -your name and your goods described elaborately among the advertisements. -If you come under neither of these heads you are sure to be included, -not distinguished perhaps personally, under the statistics of the Insane -or Criminal classes.</p> - -<p>All the information on the points indicated may be said to lie within -the parochial domain of the book. But it has a larger, a universal -scope, and takes into view all the civilized and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44"></a>{44}</span> half civilized nations -of all the earth. It contains multitudinous facts and figures about -Abyssinia, Afghanistan, Annam, Argentine Republic, Austro-Hungary, -Baluchistan, Belgium, Bokhara, Bolivia, Borneo, Brazil, Bulgaria, -Eastern Roumelia, Burmah, Corea, Central America, Chili, China, Cochin -China, Colombia, Congo State, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, -Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hawaiian Islands, Hayti, Italy, Japan, -Liberia, Madagascar, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, -Oman, Orange Free State, Paraguay, Persia, Peru, Portugal, Roumania, -Russia, Sarawak, Servia, Siam, Sokoto, Spain, Sweden and Norway, -Switzerland, Tibet, Transvaal, Tripoli, Tunis, Turkey, United States, -Uruguay, Venezuela, and Zanzibar!</p> - -<p>The list takes away one’s breath. The mere recital of it leaves one -faint and exhausted. Passing the most elementary knowledge of these -nations and countries through the mind is like looking at a varying -rainbow while the ears are solicited by a thousand tunes. The names, the -mere names, of Mexico and Brazil stop my heart<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45"></a>{45}</span> with amazement. The -Aztecs and the Amazon call up such visions of man in decay and nature in -naked strength that I pause like one in a gorgeous wood held in fear by -its unfamiliarity. What has the Amazon done in the ages of its -unlettered history? What did the Aztecs know before they began to revert -to birds? Then Morocco and Tripoli, what memories and mysteries of man! -And Sokoto—of which little is known but the name; and that man was here -before England was dissevered from the mainland of Europe. Turkey, as it -even now lies crippled and shorn, embraces within its stupendous arms -the tombs of the greatest empire of antiquity. Only to think of China is -to grow old beyond the reach of chroniclers. Compared with China, -Turkey, India, and Russia, even Greece and Rome are mushroom states, and -Germany and France virgin soil.</p> - -<p>But when I am in no humour for contemplation and alarms of eld I take up -my Whitaker for 1886, and open it at page 285. There begins the most -incredible romance<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46"></a>{46}</span> ever written by man, and what increases its -incredibility is that it happens to be all true.</p> - -<p>At page 285 opens an account of the British Empire. The first article is -on India, and as one reads, taking in history and statistics with -alternate breaths, the heart grows afraid to beat in the breast lest its -motion and sound might dispel the enchantment and bring this “miracle of -rare device” down about one’s head. The opening statement forbids -further progress for a time. When one hears that “the British Empire in -India extends over a territory as large as the continent of Europe -without Russia,” it is necessary to pause and let the capacity of the -mind enlarge in order to take in this stupendous fact with its -stupendous significances.</p> - -<p>Here are 254 millions of people living under the flag of Britain! Here -is a vast country of the East whose history goes back for a thousand -years from this era, which knew Alexander the Great and was the scene of -Tamerlane’s exploits, subject to the little island on the western verge -of modern Europe. Here,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47"></a>{47}</span> paraded in the directest and most prosaic -fashion, are facts and figures that swell out the fancy almost -intolerably. Here is one feudatory state, one dependent province, almost -as populous as the whole empire over which Don Pedro II. reigns in South -America. Here is a public revenue of eighty millions sterling a year, -and Calcutta, including suburbs, with a population close upon a million. -Here are no fewer than fifty-three towns and cities of more than fifty -thousand people each. Here is a gross number of seven hundred and -fourteen thousand towns and villages! Is not this one item incredible? -Just three quarters of a million, not of people or even houses, but of -“towns and villages!” The population of Madras alone is five-sixths of -that of the United Kingdom, that of the North-West Provinces and Oudh -considerably more, and that of Bengal nearly twice as much as England, -Ireland, Scotland, and Wales together. The Native States have many more -inhabitants than any country in Europe, except Russia. Bombay equals -Spain. The Punjaub exceeds Turkey in Asia. Assam exceeds Turkey in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48"></a>{48}</span> -Europe. The Central Provinces about equal Belgium and Holland together; -British Burmah, Switzerland. Berar exceeds Denmark, and all taken -together contain more than the combined populations of the United States -of America, Austria, Germany, France, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Portugal, -Holland, and Belgium! All ours absolutely, or in the feudatory leash; -with more Mohammedans than are to be found in the Sultan’s dominions, -and a larger revenue than is enjoyed by any country on earth except -England, France, United States of America, Austria, and Russia!</p> - -<p>These are facts and figures enough to set one dreaming for a month. This -is not an age for epic poetry. It is exceedingly unlikely any poet in -the present age will seek the framework for his great work in the past. -The past was all very well in its own day until it was found out. -Certitudes in bygone centuries have been shaken. The present time is -wildly volcanic. Now the hidden, throbbing, mad, fierce, upheaving fires -bulge out the crust of earth under fabrics whilom regarded as -indestructible, and split their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49"></a>{49}</span> walls, and warp their pillars, and -choke their domes. It was a good thing for Milton and Dante they lived -and wrote long ago, for the iconoclasts of to-day are trying to build a -great wall across heaven and tear up the sacred pavement of hell. They -tell us the Greek armies were a mob of disorderly and timid cits, and -that speculations as to the reported dealings of Dr. Faustus with any -folk but respectable druggists are too childish for the nursery or -Kaffirs. The golden age is no longer the time that will never come -again. The past is a fire that has burnt out, a flame that has vanished. -To kneel before what has been is to worship impotent shadows. Up to this -man has been wandering in the desert, and until now there have not been -even trustworthy rumours of the land of promise. But to us has come a -voice prophesying good things. The Canaan of the ages is in the future -of time. Taking this age at its own estimate I have long thought the -subject for the finest epic lying within possibility in our era is the -building of the railway to India. Into a history of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50"></a>{50}</span> that undertaking -would flow all the affluents of the ancient world. The stories of -Baalbec and Nineveh that are finished, and of Aleppo and Damascus that -survive, would fall into this prodigious tale of peaceful conquest. The -line would have for marge Assyria on one hand, Egypt on the other; it -would reach from the land of the Buddhist through the land of the -Mohammedan to the land of the Christian. It would be a work undertaken -in honour of the modern god, Progress, through the graves of the oldest -peoples, to link the three great forms of faith. All the action of the -epic would take place on earth, and all the actors would be men. There -would be no need for evolving the god from the machine, for the machine -itself would be the god. It would be the history of man from his birth -till this hour. It would be most fitly written in English, for English -is the most capacious and virile language yet invented by man.</p> - -<p>But a mere mortal, such as I, cannot stay in India always, or even abide -for ever by the way. Although I have <i>Whitaker’s Almanack</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51"></a>{51}</span> before me -all the time, I have strayed a little from it. In thinking of the lands -through which that heroic line of railway would pass, I have almost -forgotten the modest volume at my elbow. Yet fragile as it looks, one -volume similar to it will last as long as the Pyramids, will come in -time to be as old as the oldest memory is now; that is, if the ruins of -England endure as long as those of Egypt, for a copy of it lies built up -under Cleopatra’s Needle.</p> - -<p>I turn over the last page of “British India” in my <i>Almanack</i>. We are -not yet done with orient lands and seas. The article over-leaf is headed -“Other British Possessions in the East.” Here, if one wants incitement -towards prose or verse, dreaming or doing, commerce or pillage, is -matter to his hand. The places one may read of are—Aden, Socotra, -Ceylon, Hong-Kong, Labuan, British North Borneo, and Cyprus. Then in my -book comes “The Dominion of Canada,” with its territory “about as large -as Europe”! and a revenue equal to Portugal, which discovered<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52"></a>{52}</span> and once -held India. After Canada come “Other American Possessions,” including -British Guiana, which, except for the sugar of Demerara, is little heard -of; it occupies a space of earth as large as all Great Britain. So -little do people of inferior education know of this dependency, that -once, when a speaker in the House of Commons spoke of the “island of -Demerara,” there was not a single member present who knew that Demerara -was not an island, but part of the mainland of South America. Last in -the list comes British Honduras, about as big as Wales.</p> - -<p>After America, we have our enormous outlying farm in the southern -hemisphere, “British Possessions in Australasia.” There the land owned -by England is again about the size of Europe! Then follow “British -Possessions in the West Indies,” small in mileage, great in fertility -and richness of produce, and with a population twice that of Eastern -Roumelia. The “British Possessions in Africa” are considerably larger -than France, with about half as many inhabitants as Denmark. The -territories owned in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53"></a>{53}</span> the Southern Atlantic are Ascension, the Falkland -Islands, South Georgia, and St. Helena. This prodigious list ends with -the European Possessions, namely, Malta, Gibraltar, Heligoland, the -Channel Islands, and Isle of Man.</p> - -<p>By this time the hand is tired writing down the mere names of the riches -belonging to Great Britain. Towards the close of my list from Whitaker -my energy drooped, and a feeling of enervating satiety came upon me. I -am surfeited with splendours, and, like a tiger filled with flesh, I -must sleep. But in that sleep what dreams may come! How the imagination -expands and aspires under the stimulus of a page of tabulated figures! -How the fancy is excited, provoked, by the spectacle of an endless sea -in which every quarter of the globe affords a bower for Britannia when -it pleases her aquatic highness to adventure abroad upon the deep, into -the farthest realms of the morning, into the regions of the dropping -sun. Here, in my best two books, are the words of the most copious -language that man ever spoke, and the facts and figures of the greatest -realm over<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54"></a>{54}</span> which man ever ruled. <i>Civis Romanus sum!</i> I will sleep. I -will dream that I am alone with my two books. I will speak in this -imperial, this dominant dialect, as I move by sea and land among the -peoples who live under the flag flying above me now. Who would encumber -himself with finite poetry or romance when he may take with him the -uncombined vocabulary, with its infinite possibilities of affinities, -and the history of the countries and the peoples that lie beneath this -flag, and bear in his heart the astounding and exalting -consciousness—<i>Civis Romanus sum!</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55"></a>{55}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="LIES_OF_FABLE_AND_ALLEGORY" id="LIES_OF_FABLE_AND_ALLEGORY"></a>LIES OF FABLE AND ALLEGORY.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Some</span> little while ago the battered and shattered remains of an old -bookcase with the sedimentary deposit of my own books, reached me after -a journey of many hundred miles from its former resting place. The front -of the bookcase is twisted wirework, which, when I remember it first, -was lined with pink silk. Not a vestige, not a shred of the silk remains -and the half dozen shelves now depend for preservation in position on a -frame as crazy as Her Majesty’s ship <i>Victory</i>, and certainly older. The -bookcase had belonged to my grandfather before Trafalgar, and some of -the books I found in it among the sediment were printed before the Great -Fire of London. In all there were about a couple or three hundred books, -none<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56"></a>{56}</span> of which would be highly valued by a bibliophile. Owing to my -being in a very modest way a wanderer on the face of the realm, these -books had been out of my possession for nearly twenty years, and dusty -and dilapidated as they were when they reached me I took them in my arms -as long-lost friends. I had finished the last sentence with the word -children, but that would not do for two reasons. These books were not -mine as this one I am now writing is, and long-lost children change more -than they have changed, or more than friends change. Children grow and -outpace us and leave us behind and are not so full of companionable -memories as friends. There is hardly time to make friends of our adult -children before we are beckoned away. The friends we make and keep when -we are young have always twenty years’ start of our children in -friendship. A man may be friendly with his son of five but a father and -son cannot be full friends until the son is twenty years older.</p> - -<p>Again, as to the impropriety of speaking of the books as long-lost -children I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57"></a>{57}</span> another scruple. I am in great doubt as to whether the -recovery of a long-lost child is at all desirable. A long-lost child -means a young girl or boy of our own who is lost when under ten years of -age and recovered years afterwards. I do not know that the recovery of -the missing one is a cause of gratitude. Remember it is not at all the -child we lost. It is a child alleged or alleging itself to be the child -we lost. It is more correctly not a child at all, but a lad or lass whom -we knew when young, and whose acquaintance we have to make over again. -Our personality has become dim to it, and we have to occupy ourselves -seriously in trying to identify the unwieldy bulk of the stranger with -our memory of the wanderer. When the boy went from us we mourned for him -as dead, and now he comes back to us from the tomb altered all out of -memory. He is not wholly our child. There is an interregnum in our reign -over him and we do not know what manner of king has held sway in our -stead, or, if knowing the usurper, we cannot measure the extent or force -of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58"></a>{58}</span> influence. How much of this young person is really our very own? -how much the development of untoward fate? Is the memory of our lost one -dearer than the presence of this lad who is half stranger? What we lost -and mourned was ours surely; how much of what we have regained belongs -to us?</p> - -<p>With books no such question arises. They are our very own. They have -suffered no increment, but rather loss. What we remember of them and -find again in them fills us with joy; what we have forgotten and recall -excites a surprise which makes us feel rich. We reproach ourselves with -not having loved them sufficiently well, and swear upon them to endow -them with warmer affection henceforth. In turning over the books in the -old case I lighted upon one which I believe to be the volume that came -earliest into my possession. It is Cobbett’s <i>Spelling-Book</i>, and by the -writing on the title page I see it was given to me by my father on the -second of February, 1854. It is in a very battered and tattered -condition. I find a youthful autograph of my own on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59"></a>{59}</span> fly-leaf, the -Christian name occupying one line, the surname the second; on a third -line is the name of the town, and on a fourth the number of the street -and part of the name of the street, the last being, I blush to say, -ill-spelt. Surely there never was a book hated as I hated this one! At -that time I had declared my unalterable determination of never learning -to read. I possessed, until recently, a copy of Valpy’s Latin Grammar of -about the same date, and I remember I worshipped the Latin Grammar -compared with the Spelling-Book. I knew <i>rosa</i> before I could read words -of two syllables, and at this moment I do not know much more Latin than -I did then. The Spelling-Book was published by Anne Cobbett, at 137, -Strand, in 1849. It is almost incredible that so short a time ago the -atrocious woodcuts could be got in England for love or money. There is -no attempt whatever at overlaying in the printing; the cut pages are all -what are called “flat pulls.” Here and there through the pages of -chilling columns of words of one, two, three or more syllables are -pencil marks<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60"></a>{60}</span> indicating the limits of a day’s lesson. What a ruthless -way they had with us children in those days! When I look at those -appalling columns of arid words I applaud my childish determination of -never learning to read if the art were to be acquired only by traversing -those fearful deserts of unintelligible verbiage. Fancy a child of -tender years confronted with antitrinitarian, consubstantiality, -discontinuation, excommunication, extraordinarily, immateriality, -impenetrability, indivisibility, naturalization, plenipotentiary, -recapitulation, supererogation, transubstantiation, valetudinarian, and -volatilization, not one of which is as difficult to spell as one quarter -the words of one syllable, and not one of which could be understood by a -child or would be used by a single man out of a thousand in all his -life. The country had penal settlements then, why in the name of mercy -did they not send children to the settlements and give them a chance to -keep their reason and become useful citizens when their time of -punishment had expired? I am happy to say I find no pencil marks among<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61"></a>{61}</span> -those leviathan words above. I suppose I never got into the deep waters -where they “wallowing unwieldy in their gait tempest the ocean.”</p> - -<p>I wonder was the foundation of a lifelong dislike to Cobbett’s writings -laid in me at that early time of my existence? Anyway I do not remember -the day when I did not dislike everything I read of Cobbett’s, and I -dislike everything of his I read now. I wonder, also, was it at that -early date the seed of my hatred of fable or allegory was sown? To me -the fables in the back of that Spelling-Book were always odious, now -they are loathsome. With the cold-blooded “morals” attendant upon them -they are the worst form of literary torture I know. I am aware that the -bulk of them are not original, but Cobbett inserted them in his book, -and I give him full credit for evil intention. Yet in later years it was -not his taste for fable that repelled me but his intense combativeness. -He is never comfortable unless he is mangling some one. It was a pity he -ever left the army. He would have been a credit to his corps at close -quarters with a clubbed musket. Even in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62"></a>{62}</span> the Spelling-Book, intended for -young children, his “Stepping-Stone to Cobbett’s English Grammar” takes -the form of a dialogue, in which he, the “Teacher,” smashes the -unfortunate Scholar and Mr. William. Cobbett sprang from the people and -was a Saxon pure and simple, and the Saxon is the element in the English -people which has been most undistinguished when unmingled with other -blood. The Saxon of fifteen hundred years ago is the yokel of to-day, -and he never was more than a yokel intellectually. The enormous -intellectual fertility of England is owing to successive invasions, and -chiefly to the Norman Conquest. All the great and noble and sweet faces -in English history are Norman, or largely Norman. The awful faces of the -Gibbon type make periods of English history like a night spectral with -evil dreams.</p> - -<p>Does any one past the condition of childhood really like fables? Mind, I -do not say past the years of childhood. But does any one of fully mature -intellect like fables or pleasantly endure allegories? I think not. In -the vigour of all lives there must be <i>lacunæ</i> of intense indolence,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63"></a>{63}</span> -backwaters of the mind, where one is willing to float effortless and -take the things that come as though they were good things rather than -work at the oars in pursuit of novelties. At such times it is easier to -persuade ourselves we are amused by books that we admired when we lacked -experience and discernment than to break new ground and encounter fresh -obstacles. I am leaving out of account the dull worthy people who say -they like a book because other people say they like it. These good -people live in a continual state of self-justification. They are much -more serenely secure in what they imagine to be their opinions than -those travailing souls that really have opinions of their own. Their -life is easy, and in lazy moments one sighs for the repose they enjoy. -But do not the people with active minds often adhere to childish likings -merely from indolence? A certain question they settled in their own -minds when they were ten; it is too much trouble to treat it as an open -matter at thirty. Consistency in a politician is invariably a sign of -stupidity, because no man (outside fundamental questions<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64"></a>{64}</span> of morals) can -with credit to his sense remain stationary in opinion for thirty years -where all is change. The very data on which he based an opinion in the -year one are vapourized in the year thirty. The foundation of all -political theories is first principles of some kind, and the only -support a philosophic mind rejects with disdain is a first principle of -any kind. Now, the fables we tolerate, nay, admire as children, are in -imaginative literature what first principles are in that branch of -imaginary philanthropy called politics. It is much easier to say every -man has a right to eight shillings a day than to find out what each -particular man has a right to, or if man has a right to anything at all. -It is much easier to say one does like Fontaine than at thirty years of -age to acquire a disgust of him and his fables.</p> - -<p>The lying insincerity of fables and their morals always shocks me, and -the gross blindness of the fabulist to any view of transactions but that -adopted by him to point his precept, fills me with contempt for him as -an artist.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65"></a>{65}</span> In the Spelling-Book I do not feel myself at liberty to -select the fables as I choose. I will take only one, the first that -comes. It is about the swallow and the sparrow. It is a very bad -specimen for my contention, but as I am the challenger I have not the -choice of weapons, and I accept the first presented by Cobbett.</p> - -<p>A swallow coming back to her old nest in the spring finds it occupied by -a sparrow and his brood of young ones. The swallow demands possession on -the grounds of having built the nest and brought up three broods in it. -The sparrow will not budge. The swallow summons a number of swallows, -and they wall up the sparrow and he and his brood die of hunger.</p> - -<p>The first notice of bias the reader gets is that the swallow is called -she, and the sparrow he. Why? For the dishonest purpose of enlisting -sympathy with the swallow. There is no evidence or statement the sparrow -was aware when taking possession of the nest that it would be reclaimed -by the swallow. How was the sparrow to know that the swallow was not -dead and buried by the mole? The nest was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66"></a>{66}</span> derelict. Again, when the -swallow returned the sparrow had young ones, which it would be dangerous -to remove from the nest. How was the sparrow to know the swallow was -telling the truth, and that the nest was hers? Then, even supposing the -sparrow to be all in the wrong, the punishment was out of all proportion -to the offence. The sparrow had done no harm beyond intruding. He had -not injured the furniture, or burned any of the swallow’s gas, or broken -into the wine-cellar. Justice would have been vindicated by the -expulsion of the intruder and his brood. But what takes place instead? -The door is built up, and the sparrow with his innocent young is -murdered! Surely if this is a fruitful fable, the moral is immoral. This -is the old Mosaic theory of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, -and a little, or rather a great deal more. It is hideously un-Christian. -I believe Cobbett professed Christianity. Why did he put this odious -vengeful story in the forefront of his exemplars of righteous doing?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67"></a>{67}</span></p> - -<p>But the worst part of the story is in the Moral. “Thus it always is with -the unjust,” says the Chorus of the fabulist. He means that the unjust -are always nailed up in their houses with their blameless children and -starved to death. Now neither Cobbett nor any other sane preacher -believes anything of the kind. This is a lie, pure and simple; a lie no -doubt told with a good object, but a lie all the same. Cobbett had too -much common-sense not to know that it is not always “thus” with the -“unjust.” As a rule, the unjust go scot free when they stop short of -crime. The people who say otherwise are yielding to a feminine, -sentimental weakness. Poetic justice no doubt does exist—in poetry. -Most men are as unjust as they dare be, and most men get on comfortably -from their cradles to their graves. It is only the fools, the men of -ungovernable passions and impulses and the blunderers who suffer. Man is -at heart a rapacious brute. All his centuries of civilization have not -quelled the predatory spirit in him. Any man will become a thief if he -only be sufficiently tempted when he is sufficiently<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68"></a>{68}</span> desperate. The -crime of the sparrow in appropriating the swallow’s nest is -intelligible, the crime of the swallow in murdering the sparrow and his -brood is intelligible, the crime of lying committed by the moralist is -abominable. When the child to whom Cobbett lied grows up, he will know -the lie, despise the liar, and have nothing left of the precious fable -but a shaken faith in the words of all men, whether they be liars like -Cobbett and the other moralists, or truth-tellers like the ordinary -everyday folk, who do not pose as teachers and latter-day prophets. It -is very improving to reflect on the freedom these teachers give -themselves in act when enforcing their theories in writing. In order -that Cobbett might exemplify his principles against the credit system, -he signed his name across the face of acceptances for seventy thousand -pounds!</p> - -<p>Cobbett’s Grammar was written for sailors and soldiers and such men. I -gave the only copy of it I ever had to a sailor who had abandoned living -on the sea to live by the sea, who had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69"></a>{69}</span> eschewed the paint-pot and the -stage aboard the merchant service for the palette and stool of the -studio. It is years since I have seen the book, but I remember the -contemptuous way in which the ex-soldier disposes of prosody. He says to -his pupil in effect: You need pay no attention to this branch of -grammar, as it deals only with the <i>noise</i> made by words. Cobbett’s -treatment of prosody does not occupy more than one line or one line and -a half of print. It is briefer than Dr. Johnson’s Syntax:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“The established practice of grammarians requires that I should -here treat of the Syntax; but our language has so little inflexion, -or variety of terminations, that its construction neither requires -nor admits many rules. Wallis, therefore, has totally neglected it; -and Jonson, whose desire of following the writers upon the learned -languages made him think a syntax indispensably necessary, has -published such petty observations as were better omitted.</p> - -<p>“The verb, as in other languages, agrees with the nominative in -number and person; as <i>Thou fliest from good; He runs to death</i>.</p> - -<p>“Our adjectives are invariable.</p> - -<p>“Of two substantives the noun possessive is the genitive; as <i>His -father’s glory; the sun’s heat</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70"></a>{70}</span></p> - -<p>“Verbs transitive require an oblique case; as <i>He loves me; You -fear him</i>.</p> - -<p>“All prepositions require an oblique case: <i>He gave this to me; He -took this from me; He says this of me; He came with me</i>.”</p></div> - -<p>That is all the merciful Dr. Samuel Johnson has to say about syntax. Oh, -Lindley Murray! Oh, memories of youth! Does it seem possible that -Johnson could have enjoyed the luxury of speaking in this light and airy -and debonair way of English grammar in his day, and that Lindley Murray -could have matured his awful Grammar in so few years afterwards? -Recollect there were not forty years between the lexicographer and the -grammarian. Could not Lindley Murray have left the unfortunate English -language alone? Johnson says no one need bother about syntax, and -Cobbett says no one need bother about prosody. Thus we have only -orthography and etymology to look after, when in comes Murray and spoils -all! It is doubtful if the language will ever recover the interference -of that Yankee merchant who invented syntax and made the life of dull -school boys and girls a path of thorns and agony.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71"></a>{71}</span></p> - -<p>An allegory is a fable for fools of larger growth. I am writing in an -off-hand way, and I will not pause to examine the question nicely; but -is there any such thing as a successful allegory? I have no experience -of one. I seem to hear a loud shout of “<i>The Pilgrim’s Progress</i>.” Well, -I never could read the book through, and I have tried at least twenty -times. I have put the reading of that book before myself in the most -solemn manner. I have told myself over and over again that I ought to -read it as an educational exercise. In vain. How any man with -imagination can bear the book I do not know. Bunyan had inexhaustible -invention, but no imagination. He saw a reason for things, not the -things themselves. No creation of the imagination can lack consequence -or verisimilitude. On almost every page of the <i>Progress</i> there is -violation of sequence, outrage against verisimilitude. Christian has a -great burden on his back and is in rags. He cannot remove the burden. -(Why?) He is put to bed (with the burden on his back), then he is -troubled in his mind (the burden is forgotten, and the vision altered -completely and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72"></a>{72}</span> fatally); again we are reminded that he has the burden -on his back when he tells Evangelist of it. Why can he not loose the -burden on his back? How is it secured so that he cannot remove it? He -cannot see a wicket gate across a very wide field, but he sees a shining -light (where?), and then he begins to run (burden and all) away from his -wife and children (which is immoral and abhorrent to the laws of God and -man). For the mere selfish ease of his body he deserts his wife and -children, who must be left miserably poor, for is he not in rags? The -neighbours come out and mock at him for running across a field. Why? How -do they know why he runs, and what neighbours are there to come out and -mock at one when one is running across a large field? The Slough of -Despond is in this field (for he has not passed through the wicket -gate), and he does not seem to know of the Slough, or think of avoiding -it. Fancy any man not knowing of such a filthy hole within a field of -his home! How is it that Pliable and Obstinate have no burdens on their -backs? It is not the will of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73"></a>{73}</span> the King that the Slough should be -dangerous to wayfarers: this surely is blasphemy. The whole thing is -grotesquely absurd and impossible to imagine. There is no sobriety in -it, no sobriety of keeping in it; and no matter how wild the effort or -vision of imagination may be there must always be sobriety of keeping in -it or it is delirium not imagination, disease not inspiration. As far as -I can see there is no trace of imagination, or even fancy, in the -<i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>. The story never happened at all. It is a horrible -attempt to tinkerise the Bible.</p> - -<p>One of the things I cannot understand about Macaulay is that he stands -by Bunyan’s silly book. Macaulay was a man of vast reading and -acquirements and of common-sense tastes. He was not a poet, but he was -very nearly one, and ought to have responded in sympathy with poets. In -politics he belonged to that most melancholy of all sects, the Whigs, -and it may be that the spirit of political compromise to which he had -familiarised himself in public life had slipped unknown to him into his -literary<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74"></a>{74}</span> briefs. Anyway, he himself says that the <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i> -is the only book which was promoted from the kitchen to the -drawing-room. There is no difficulty in accounting for the fact that the -book was popular among scullions and cooks, but how it ever gained -currency among people of moderate education and taste cannot be -explained. It is the most dull and tedious and monstrous book of any -note in the English language, and how any man with a gleam of -imagination can like it is more than I can understand. If one has been -familiar with it when young, one may tolerate it on the score of -tenderness—tenderness for memories and laziness in new enterprises; but -I never yet knew any one with even fancy who, meeting it for the first -time after the dawn of adolescence, could even endure it.</p> - -<p>It is like celebrating one’s own apotheosis to drop Bunyan and take up -Spenser. Here we share the air with an immortal god and not a bilious -enthusiast. When I have laid aside the <i>Spelling-Book</i> and the -<i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, and opened the <i>Faerie Queen</i>, I feel as though -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75"></a>{75}</span> leaden clouds of the north had rolled away, disclosing the blue of -Ægean skies; as though for squalid porridge and buttermilk had been -substituted ambrosia and nectar; as though for fallow and stubble had -drifted under my feet soft meadow-grass dense with flowers; as though -the moist and clayey crags had changed into purple hills, the -green-mantled pools to azure lakes, the narrow waters of a stagnant mere -to the free imperial waves and tides of the ocean. It is better than -escaping out of an East-end slum into the green lanes and roads of -Warwickshire.</p> - -<p>And yet, melancholy truth! the <i>Faerie Queen</i> is most unpopular and most -unreadable. It has with justice, I think, been said that of ten thousand -people who begin the <i>Faerie Queen</i>, not ten read half way through it, -and only one arrives at the end. I find by a mark in my copy that I have -got a good deal more than half through it, but that I have not reached -the last line of this most colossal fragment of a poem. What a mercy the -rest of it was drowned in the Irish sea! My <i>Faerie Queen</i> occupies<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76"></a>{76}</span> 792 -pages of five stanzas to the page; that is, between thirty-five and -thirty-six thousand verses, two hundred and sixty to seventy thousand -words, or equal in length to a couple of ordinary three-volume novels! -And still it is <i>unperfite</i>! I find that although I have owned the book -for twenty years, I have got no further than page 472, so that I have -read only three-fifths of the fragment of this stupendous poem.</p> - -<p>It is not the length alone that defeats the reader. In all the field of -English verse there is no poem of great length that comes upon the mind -with more full and easy flow. The stanza after a long while becomes, no -doubt, monotonous, but it is the monotony of a vast and freightful river -that moves majestically, bearing interminable argosies of infinite -beauty and variety and significance. After one hundred pages one might -put down the book, wearied by the melodious monotony of the imperial -chords. I have never been able to read anything like a hundred, anything -like fifty pages at a time. I think I have rarely exceeded as many -stanzas. Spenser is the poets’ poet, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77"></a>{77}</span> the <i>Faerie Queen</i> the poets’ -poem, and yet even the poets cannot read it freely and fully, as one -reads Milton or Shakespeare or Shelley or Keats or the readable parts of -Coleridge, all of whom are poets’ poets also.</p> - -<p>The allegory bars the way. One reads on smoothly and joyously about a -wood or a nymph, or a knight or a lady, or a castle or a dragon, and is -half drunk on the wealthy poet’s mead (is not Spenser the wealthiest of -English poets?), when suddenly Dan Allegory comes along and assures you -that it is not a wood or a nymph, or a knight or lady, or a castle or -dragon, but a virtue or a vice posing in property clothes; that in fact -things are not what they seem, but visions are about. Cobbett intended -his fables for little children, and Bunyan his allegory for the company -of the stewpans, but Spenser’s story is for the ears of ladies and of -knights; why then does he try to spoon-feed them with virtuous -sentiment? There is not, as far as I know, a trace of dyspepsia in all -the <i>Faerie Queen</i>, and yet he has sicklied it over “with the pale cast -of thought.” In this Vale of Tears<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78"></a>{78}</span> there are quite as many virtuous -persons as any reasonable man can desire. Why should our poets—those -rare and exquisite manifestations of our possibilities—turn themselves -into moralists, who are, bless you, as common as grocers, as plentiful -as mediocrity. In fact, nine-tenths of the civilised race of man are -moralists. But poets ought not to be theorists. They are not sent to us -for the purpose of converting us, but for the purpose of delighting us. -They ought to be catholic and pagan. They are among the settled property -of joy to which all mankind are heirs. They come in among the flowers -and colours of the sky and earth, and the vocal rapture of the birds, -and the perfumes of the breeze, and the love of woman and children and -friends and kind. They are sent to us for our mere delight. They never -grow less or fade away or change. They have nothing to do with dynasties -or creeds or codes of manners. They are apart from all bias and strife. -The will of Heaven itself is against poets preaching, for no poet has -ever written hymns that were not a burden upon his reputation as a -singer,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79"></a>{79}</span> and did not weigh him to the ground, compared with his flight -when free and catholic and pagan.</p> - -<p>After entertaining the nightmares of dulness born of Cobbett and Bunyan, -how one’s shoulders swing back, one’s chest opens, and one’s breath -comes with large and ample coolness and joy as one reads—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“The ioyous day gan early to appeare;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And fayre Aurora from the deawy bed<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Of aged Tithone gan herselfe to reare<br /></span> -<span class="i1">With rosy cheekes, for shame as blushing red:<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Her golden locks, for hast, were loosely shed<br /></span> -<span class="i1">About her eares, when Una her did marke<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Clymbe to her charet, all with flowers spred,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">From heven high to chace the chearelesse darke;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">With mery note her lowd salutes the mountain larke.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">Or again here—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Then forth he called that his daughter fayre,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The fairest Un’, his onely daughter deare,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">His onely daughter and his onely hayre;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Who forth proceeding with sad sober cheare,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">As bright as doth the morning starre appeare<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Out of the east with flaming lockes bedight,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">To tell that dawning day is drawing neare<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And to the world does bring long wished light:<br /></span> -<span class="i1">So fair and fresh that lady shewd herselfe in sight.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80"></a>{80}</span></p> - -<p>Is it not a miserable destiny to be obliged to read stanza after stanza -redolent of such rich perfumed words about the lady, and then to find -that Una is not a mortal or a spirit even—but Truth! An abstraction! A -whim of degrading reason! A figment of a moralist’s heated and -disordered brain. Any Lie of a poet is better than any Truth of a -moralist. Why did Spenser stoop to run on the same intellectual plain as -the accidental teacher? The teacher would have done admirably for Truth, -but all the worthy essayists of England in the “spacious days of Queen -Elizabeth,” put together, could not have written the stanzas about Una -as Spenser saw her. This poaching of poets on the preserves of moralists -is one of the most shameful things in the history of art.</p> - -<p>There are few poets it is harder to select quotations from than Spenser. -The fact is, all the <i>Faerie Queen</i> ought to be quoted except the -blinding allegory. I find that in years of my movement from the opening -of the poem to page 472, the limit I have reached, I have marked a -hundred passages at least, some<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81"></a>{81}</span> of them running through pages. In no -other poem—except Shelley’s <i>Alastor</i>—do I notice such grievous, -continuous pencil scores. What is one to do? Whither is one to turn? As -I handle the book I am lost in a deeper forest of delight than ever -knight of Gloriana’s trod. Here I find a passage of several stanzas -marked. I am much too lazy to copy them, and the spelling is troublesome -often. But who can resist this?—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">“—— And, when she spake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweete wordes, like dropping honny, she did shed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And twixt the perles and rubins softly brake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A silver sound, that heavenly musicke seemed to make.<br /></span> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span><br /> -<span class="i0">Upon her eyelids many graces sate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under the shadow of her even browes.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>I have quoted the three lines and a half of the earlier stanza merely -that they may act as an overture to the last two lines. Surely there are -no two lovelier lines in the language! In the last line the words seem -to melt together of their own propinquity.</p> - -<p>Here is an alexandrine that haunts me night and day—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Sweete is the love that comes alone with willingnesse.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82"></a>{82}</span></p> - -<p>As a rule, I hate writing with the books I am speaking of near me; they -fetter one cruelly when they are at hand. There is a tendency to verify -one’s memory, and read up the context of favourite lines. This is -checking to the speed and chilling to the spirits. When I was saying -something about the <i>Spelling-Book</i> and the <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, I had -the copies within arm’s length, for I did not know either well enough to -trust to memory. Since I got done with them I have placed them in -distant safety. But one likes to handle Spenser—to have it nigh. My -copy is lying at my left elbow in the blazing sun as I write now. It -seems to me I shall never again look into the <i>Spelling-Book</i> or the -<i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>. Fables and allegories are only foolishnesses fit -for people of weak intellect and children. Well, when I put down this -pen, and before this ink is dry, I shall have resumed my interrupted -reading of the <i>Faerie Queen</i> at page 473. My intellect is too weak and -my heart too childish to resist the seduction of Spenser’s verse. So -much for my own theory of allegory and my respect for my own theory.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83"></a>{83}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="MY_COPY_OF_KEATS" id="MY_COPY_OF_KEATS"></a>MY COPY OF KEATS.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> only copy of Keats I ever owned is a modest volume published by -Edward Moxon and Co. in the year 1861. By writing on its yellow fly-leaf -I find it was given to me four years later, in September 1865. At that -time it was clean and bright, opened with strict impartiality when set -upon its back, and had not learned to respond with alacrity to hasty -searches for favourite passages.</p> - -<p>The binding is now racked and feeble from use; and if, as in army -regulations, service under warm suns is to be taken for longer service -in cooler climes, it may be said that to the exhaustion following -overwork have been added the prejudices of premature age.</p> - -<p>It is not bound as books were bound once upon a time, when they -outlasted the tables and chairs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84"></a>{84}</span> even the walls; ay, the very races and -names of their owners. The cover is simple plain blue cloth; on the back -is a little patch of printing in gold, with the words Keats’s <i>Poetical -Works</i> in the centre of a twined gilt ribbon and twisted gilt flowers. -The welt at the back is bleached and frayed; the corners of the cover -are battered and turned in. There is a chink between the cover and the -arched back; and the once proud Norman line of that arc is flattened and -degraded, retaining no more of its pristine look of sturdy strength than -a wheaten straw after the threshing.</p> - -<p>In a list of new books preceding the biography of the poet I find the -volume I speak of under the head “<span class="smcap">Poetry</span>—<i>Pocket Editions</i>;” described -as “Keats’s <i>Poetical Works</i>. With a Memoir by R. M. Milnes. Price 3<i>s.</i> -6<i>d.</i> cloth.” It was from no desire to look my gift-horse in the mouth I -alighted upon the penultimate fact disclosed in the description. When I -become owner of any volume my first delight in it is to read the -catalogue of new books annexed, if there be any, before breaking my fast -upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85"></a>{85}</span> subject-matter of the writer in my hand—as a poor gentleman -in a spacious restaurant, who, having ordered luncheon, consisting of -bread and cheese, butter, and a half-pint of bitter ale, takes up the -bill of fare and the list of wines, and designs for his imagination a -feast his purse denies to his lips.</p> - -<p>If any owner of a cart of old books in Farringdon Street asked you a -shilling for such a copy of Keats as mine, you would smile at him. You -would think he had acquired the books merely to satisfy his own taste, -and now displayed them to gratify a vanity that was intelligible; you -would feel assured no motive towards commerce could underlie ever so -deeply such a preposterous demand.</p> - -<p>My copy will, I think, last my time. Already it has been in my hands -more than half the years of a generation; and I feel that its severest -trials are over. In days gone by it made journeys with me by sea and -land, and paid long visits to some friends, both when I went myself, and -when I did not go. Change of air and scene have had no beneficial effect -upon it. Journey after<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86"></a>{86}</span> journey, and visit after visit, the full cobalt -of the cloth grew darker and dingier, the boards of the cover became -limper and limper, and the stitching at the back more apparent between -the sheets, like the bones and sinews growing outward through the flesh -of a hand waxing old.</p> - -<p>Once, when the book had been on a prolonged excursion away from me, it -returned sadly out of sorts. Had it been a dear friend come back from -India on sick-leave, after an absence from temperate skies of twenty -years, I could not have observed a more disquieting change. The cover -was darkened so that the original hue had almost wholly disappeared, -save at the edges, that, like the Indian veteran’s forehead, were of -startling and unwholesome pallor. Its presence in such guise aroused a -gnawing solicitude which undermined all peace. I could not endure the -symptoms of its speedy decline, the prospect of its dissolution; and to -shield its case from harm and my sensibilities from continual assault, I -wrapped it with sighs and travail of heart in a gritty cover of -substantial brown paper.</p> - -<p>For a while, the consciousness that my book<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87"></a>{87}</span> was safe compensated for -the unfamiliarity of its appearance and my constitutional antipathy to -contact with brown paper, even a lively image of which makes me cringe.</p> - -<p>But as days went on the brown paper entered into my soul and rankled. -What! was my Keats to be clad in that wretched union garb, that livery -of poverty acknowledged, that corduroy of the bookshelf? Intolerable! -Should I, who had, like other men, only my time to live, be denied all -friendly sight of the natural seeming of my prime friend? My Keats would -last my time; and why should I hide my friend in an unparticularised -garb, the uniform of the mean or the needy, merely that those who came -after me might enjoy a privilege of which senseless timidity sought to -rob me? No; that should not be. I would cast away the badge of beggary, -and, like a man, face the daily decay of my old companion. I tore the -paper off, threw it upon the fire, and set my disenthralled Keats in its -own proper vesture on the shelf among its comrades and its peers.</p> - -<p>There is no man, how poor soever, who has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88"></a>{88}</span> not some taste which, for his -circumstances, must be regarded as expensive; and in that “sweet -unreasonableness” of human nature, not at all limited to “the Celt,” men -take a kind of foolish pride in their particular extravagances. You know -a man that declares he would sooner go without his dinner than a clean -shirt; another who would prefer one good cigar to a pound of cavendish; -one who would rather travel to the City of winter mornings by train -without an overcoat than by vulgar tramcar in fur and pilot cloth; a -fourth who would more gladly give his right hand than forget his Greek; -a fifth who pays the hire of a piano and does without the beer which as -a Briton is his birthright; a sixth who starves himself and stints his -family for the love of a garden. For my own part, I felt the using of my -Keats without protection of any kind to be beyond my means, but I -gloried in this extravagance. It seemed rich to be thus hand and glove -with the book: to touch it when and where I would, and as much as ever I -liked: to feel assured that even with free using and free lending it -would outlast my short stay here, as the blossoms<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89"></a>{89}</span> of the roses in a -friend’s hedge outlast your summer visit. Was it not fine, did it not -strike a chord of kingly generosity, to be able to say to a friend, -“Here is my copy of Keats. Take it, use it, read it. There is plenty of -it for you and me”? I would rather have the lending of my Keats than the -bidding to a banquet.</p> - -<p>So it fell out that my favourite went more among my friends than ever, -and accumulated at a usurious rate all manner of marks and stains, and -defacements, and dog-ears, and other unworded comments, as well as -verbal comments expressed in pencil and ink. It is true that a rolling -stone gathers no moss, but a rolling snowball gathers more snow, and -moss and snow are of about equal value. Oliver Wendell Holmes says, if I -may trust my memory, that only three things improve with years: violins, -wine, and meerschaum pipes. He loves books, and knows books as well as -any man now living—almost as well as Charles Lamb did when he was with -us; and yet Dr. Holmes does not think books worthy of being included in -the list of things that time ripens. Is this ingratitude<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90"></a>{90}</span> or -carelessness, or does it mean that books dwell apart, and are no more to -be classed with mere tangible things than angels, or mathematical -points, or the winds of last winter? Is a book to him an ethereal record -of a divine trance? an insubstantial painting of a splendid dream? the -music of a yesterday fruitful in heavenly melody? the echo of a syren’s -song haunting a sea shell?</p> - -<p>Does not De Quincey tell us that, having lent some books to Coleridge, -the poet not only wrote the lender’s name in them, but enriched the -margins with observations and comments on the texts? Who would not give -a tithe of the books he has for one volume so gloriously illuminated? I -remember when I was a lad, among lads, a friend of ours picked up -secondhand Cary’s Dante, in which was written the name of a poet still -living, but who is almost unknown. We loved the living poet for his -work, and when the buyer told us that the Dante bore not only the poet’s -name, but numerous marginal notes and hints in his handwriting, we all -looked upon the happy possessor with eyes of envious<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91"></a>{91}</span> respect. The -precious volume was shown to us, not in groups, for in gatherings there -is peril of a profaning laugh, or an unsympathetic sneer. One by one we -were handed the book, on still country roads, upon the tranquil heights -of hills, where we were alone with the brown heather and the plover, or -on some barren cliff above the summer sea. The familiar printed text -sank into insignificance beside the blurred pencil lines. Any one might -buy a fair uncut copy for a crown piece. The text was common -property—“<span class="leftspc">’</span>twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands.” But -here before us lay revealed the private workings of a poetic -imagination, fired by contact with a master of the craft. To us this -volume disclosed one of our heroes, clad in the homely garb of prose, -speaking in his own everyday speech, and lifting up his voice in -admiration, wonder, awe, to the colossal demi-god, in whose presence we -had stood humiliated and afeard.</p> - -<p>My Keats has suffered from many pipes, many thumbs, many pencils, many -quills, many pockets. Not one stain, one gape, one<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92"></a>{92}</span> blot of these would -I forego for a spick and span copy in all the gorgeous pomp of the -bookbinder’s millinery. These blemishes are aureolæ to me. They are -nimbi around the brows of the gods and demi-gods, who walk in the -triumph of their paternal despot on the clouds metropolitan that -embattle the heights of Parnassus.</p> - -<p>What a harvest of happy memories is garnered in its leaves! How well I -remember the day it got that faint yellow stain on the page where begins -the <i>Ode on a Grecian Urn</i>. It was a clear, bright, warm, sunshiny -afternoon late in the month of May. Three of us took a boat and rowed -down a broad blue river, ran the nose of the boat ashore on the gravel -beach of a sequestered island and landed. Pulling was warm work, and we -all climbed a slope, reached the summit, and cast ourselves down on the -long lush cool grass, in the shade of whispering sycamores, and in a -stream of air that came fresh with the cheering spices of the hawthorn -blossom.</p> - -<p>One of our company was the best chamber reader I have ever heard. His -voice was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93"></a>{93}</span> neither very melodious nor very full. Perhaps he was all the -better for this because he made no effort at display. As he read, the -book vanished from his sight, and he leaned over the poet’s shoulder, -saw what the poet saw, and in a voice timid with the sense of -responsibility, and yet elated with a kind of fearing joy, told of what -he saw in words that never hurried, and that, when uttered, always -seemed to hang substantially in the air like banners.</p> - -<p>He discovered and related the poet’s vision rather than simulated -passion to suit the scene. I remember well his reading of the passage:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">She cannot fade though thou hast not thy bliss,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">For ever wilt thou love and she be fair!”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>He rehearsed the whole of the ode over and over again as we lay on the -grass watching the vast chestnuts and oaks bending over the river, as -though they had grown aweary of the sun, and longed to glide into the -broad full stream.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94"></a>{94}</span></p> - -<p>As he read the lines just quoted, he gave us time to hear the murmur, -and to breathe the fragrance of those immortal trees. “Nor ever can -those trees be bare,” in the text has only a semicolon after it. Yet -here he paused, while three wavelets broke upon the beach, as if he -could not tear himself away from contemplating the deathless verdure, -and realising the prodigious edict pronounced upon it. “Bold lover, -never, never canst thou kiss, though winning near the goal.” At the -terrible decree he raised his eyes and gazed with heavy-lidded, hopeless -commiseration at this being, who, still more unhappy than Tithonus, had -to immortality added perpetual youth, with passion for ever strong, and -denial for ever final.</p> - -<p>“Yet do not grieve.” This he uttered as one who pleads forgiveness of a -corpse—merely to try to soothe a conscience sensible of an obligation -that can never now be discharged. “She cannot fade, though thou hast not -thy bliss, for ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!” Here the reader, -with eyes fixed and rayless, seemed by voice and pose to be sunk, -beyond<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95"></a>{95}</span> all power of hope, in an abyss of despair. The barren -immutability of the spectacle appeared to weigh upon him more -intolerably than the wreck of a people. He spoke the words in a long -drawn-out whisper, and, after a pause, dropped his head, and did not -resume.</p> - -<p>I recollect that when the illusion he wrought up so fully in my mind had -passed away in that long pause, and when I remembered that the fancy of -the poet was expending itself, not on beings whom he conceived -originally as human, but on the figures of a mere vase, I was seized -with a fierce desire to get up and seek that vase through all the world -until I found it, and then smash it into ten thousand atoms.</p> - -<p>When I had written the last sentence, I took up the volume to decide -where I should recommence, and I “turned the page, and turned the page.” -I lived over again the days not forgotten, but laid aside in memory to -be borne forth in periods of high festival. I could not bring myself -back from the comrades of old, and the marvels of the great magician, to -this poor street, this solitude, and this squalid company of my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96"></a>{96}</span> own -thoughts—thoughts so trivial and so mean compared with the imperial -visions into which I had been gazing, that I was glad for the weariness -which came upon me, and grateful to gray dawn that glimmered against the -blind and absolved me from further obligation for that sitting.</p> - -<p>On turning over the leaves without reading, I find <i>Hyperion</i> opens most -readily of all, and seems to have fared worst from deliberate and -unintentional comment. Much of the wear and tear and pencil marks are to -be set down against myself; for when I take the book with no definite -purpose I turn to <i>Hyperion</i>, as a blind man to the warmth of the sun. -Some qualities of the poem I can feel and appreciate; but always in its -presence I am weighed down by the consciousness that my deficiency in -some attribute of perception debars me from undreamed-of privileges.</p> - -<p>I recall one evening in a pine glen, with one man and <i>Hyperion</i>. It -would be difficult to match this man or me as readers. I don’t think -there can be ten worse employing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97"></a>{97}</span> English language to-day. I not -only do not by any inflection of voice expound what I utter, but I am -often incapable of speaking the words before me. I take in a line at a -glance, see its import with my own imagination apart from the verbiage, -which leaves not a shadow of an impression on my mind. When I come to -the next line I grow suddenly alive to the fact that I have to speak off -the former one. I am in a hurry to see what line two has to show; so, -instead of giving the poet’s words for line one, I give my own -description of the vision it has conjured up in my mind. This is bad -enough in all conscience; but the friend of whom I speak now, behaves -even worse. His plan of reading is to stop his voice in the middle of -line one, and proceed to discuss the merits of line two, which he had -read with his eye, but not with his lips, and of which the listener is -ignorant, unless he happen to know the poem by rote.</p> - -<p>On that evening in the glen I pulled out Keats, and turned, at my -friend’s request, to <i>Hyperion</i>, and began to read aloud. He was more -patient than mercy’s self; but occasionally,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98"></a>{98}</span> when I did a most -exceptionally bad murder on the text, he would writhe and cry out, and I -would go back and correct myself, and start afresh.</p> - -<p>He had a big burly frame, and a deep full voice that shouted easily, and -some of the comments shouted as I read are indicated by pencil marks in -the margin. The writing was not done then, but much later, when he and I -had shaken hands, and he had gone sixteen thousand miles away. As he was -about to set out on that long journey, he said, “In seven years more -I’ll drop in and have a pipe with you.” It had been seven years since I -saw him before. The notes on the margin are only keys to what was said; -for I fear the comment made was more bulky than the text, and the text -and comment together would far exceed the limits of such an essay as -this. I therefore curtail greatly, and omit much.</p> - -<p>I read down the first page without meeting any interruption; but when I -came in page two on</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">“She would have ta’en<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Achilles by the hair and bent his neck,”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99"></a>{99}</span></p> - -<p class="nind">he cried out, “Stop! Don’t read the line following. It is bathos -compared with that line and a half. It is paltry and weak beside what -you have read. ‘Ta’en Achilles by the hair and bent his neck.’ By Jove! -can you not see the white muscles start out in his throat, and the look -of rage, defeat and agony on the face of the Greek bruiser? But how flat -falls the next line: ‘Or with a finger stay’d Ixion’s wheel.’ What’s the -good of stopping Ixion’s wheel? Besides, a crowbar would be much better -than a finger. It is a line for children, not for grown men. It exhausts -the subject. It is too literal. There is no question left to ask. But -the vague ‘Ta’en Achilles by the hair and <i>bent</i> his neck’ is perfect. -You can see her knee in the hollow of his back, and her fingers twisted -in his hair. But the image of the goddess dabbling in that river of hell -after Ixion’s wheel is contemptible.”</p> - -<p>He next stopped me at</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Until at length old Saturn lifted up<br /></span> -<span class="i1">His faded eyes, and saw his kingdom gone.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>“What an immeasurable vision Keats must<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a>{100}</span> have had of the old bankrupt -Titan, when he wrote the second line! Taken in the context it is simply -overwhelming. Keats must have sprung up out of his chair as he saw the -gigantic head upraised, and the prodigious grief of the grey-haired god. -But Keats was not happy in the matter of full stops. Here again what -comes after weakens. We get no additional strength out of</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“<span class="leftspc">‘</span>And all the gloom and sorrow of the place<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And that fair kneeling Goddess.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">The ‘gloom and sorrow’ and the ‘goddess’ are abominably -anticlimacteric.”</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Yes, there must be a golden victory;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">There must be gods thrown down and trumpets blown<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Upon the gold clouds metropolitan,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Beautiful things made new, for the surprise<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Of the sky-children; I will give command:<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Thea! Thea! Thea! where is Saturn?”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a>{101}</span></p> - -<p>“Read that again!” cried my friend, clinging to the grass and breathing -hard. “Again!” he cried, when I had finished the second time. And then, -before I could proceed, he sprang to his feet, carrying out the action -in the text immediately following:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">“This passion lifted him upon his feet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And made his hands to struggle in the air.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>“Come on, John Milton,” cried my friend, excitedly sparring at the -winds,—“come on, and beat that, and we’ll let you put all your -adjectives behind your nouns, and your verb last, and your nominative -nowhere! Why man,”—this being addressed to the Puritan poet—“it -carried Keats himself off his legs; that’s more than anything you ever -wrote when you were old did for you. There’s the smell of midnight oil -off your later spontaneous efforts, John Milton.</p> - -<p>“When Milton went loafing about and didn’t mind much what he was writing -he could give any of them points”—(I deplore the language) “any of -them, ay, Shakespeare himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a>{102}</span> points in a poem. In a poem, sir” (this -to me), “Milton could give Shakespeare a hundred and one out of a -hundred and lick the Bard easily. How the man who was such a fool as to -write Shakespeare’s poems had the good sense to write Shakespeare’s -plays I can never understand. The most un-Shakesperian poems in the -language are Shakespeare’s. I never read Cowley, but it seems to me -Cowley ought to have written Shakespeare’s poems, and then his obscurity -would have been complete. If Milton only didn’t take the trouble to be -great he would have been greater. As far as I know there are no English -poets who improved when they ceased to be amateurs and became -professional poets, except Wordsworth and Tennyson. Shelley and Keats -were never regular race-horses. They were colts that bolted in their -first race and ran until they dropped. It was a good job Shakespeare -gave up writing rhymes and posing as a poet. It was not until he -despaired of becoming one and took to the drama that he began to feel -his feet and show his pace. If he had suspected he was a great poet he -would have adopted the airs of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a>{103}</span> the profession and been ruined. In his -time no one thought of calling a play a poem—that was what saved the -greatest of all our poets to us. The only two things Shakespeare didn’t -know is that a play may be a poem and that his plays are the finest -poems finite man as he is now constructed can endure. It is all nonsense -to say man shall never look on the like of Shakespeare again. It is not -the poet superior to Shakespeare man now lacks, but the man to apprehend -him.”</p> - -<p>I looked around uneasily, and found, to my great satisfaction, that -there was no stranger in view. My friend occupied a position of -responsibility and trust, and it would be most injurious if a rumour got -abroad that not only did he read and admire verse, but that he held -converse with the shades of departed poets as well. In old days men who -spoke to the vacant air were convicted of necromancy and burned; in our -times men offending in this manner are suspected of poetry and -ostracized.</p> - -<p>As soon as my friend was somewhat calmed, and had cast himself down -again and lit a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a>{104}</span> pipe, I resumed my reading. He allowed me to proceed -without interruption until I came to:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">“His palace bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bastion’d with pyramids of glowing gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And touch’d with shade of bronzed obelisks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Glared a blood-red through all its thousand courts,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flushed angerly: while sometimes eagles’ wings,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unseen before by Gods or wondering men,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Darken’d the place; and neighing steeds were heard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not heard before by Gods or wondering men.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>“Prodigious!” he shouted. “Go over that again. Keep the syllables wide -apart. It is a good rule of water-colour sketching not to be too nice -about joining the edges of the tints; this lets the light in. Keep the -syllables as far apart as ever you can, and let the silentness in -between to clear up the music. How the gods and the wondering men must -have wondered! Do you know, I am sure Keats often frightened, terrified -himself with his own visions. You remember he says somewhere he doesn’t -think any one could dare to read some one or another aloud at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a>{105}</span> midnight. -I believe that often in the midnight he sat and cowered before the -gigantic sights and sounds that reigned despotically over his fancy.”</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">“O dreams of day and night!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O monstrous forms! O effigies of pain!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O spectres busy in a cold, cold gloom!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O lank-ear’d Phantoms of black-weeded pools!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why do I know ye? why have I seen ye? why<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is my eternal essence thus distraught<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To see and to behold these horrors new?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Am I to leave this haven of my rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This cradle of my glory, this soft clime,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This calm luxuriance of blissful light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all my lucent empire? It is left<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The blaze, the splendour, and the symmetry<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I cannot see—but darkness, death and darkness.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even here, into my centre of repose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shady visions come to domineer,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Insult, and blind and stifle up my pomp—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fall!—No, by Tellus and her briny robes!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Over the fiery frontier of my realms<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I will advance a terrible right arm<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And bid old Saturn take his throne again.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a>{106}</span></p> - -<p>“What more magnificent prelude ever was uttered to oath than the portion -of this speech preceding ‘No, by Tellus’! What more overpowering, -leading up to an overwhelming threat, than the whole passage going -before ‘Over the fiery frontier of my realms I will advance a terrible -right arm’! What menacing deliberativeness there is in this whole -speech, and what utter completeness of ruin to come is indicated by -those words, ‘I will advance a terrible right arm’! You feel no sooner -shall that arm move than ‘rebel Jove’s’ reign will be at an end, and -that chaos will be left for Saturn to rule and fashion once more into -order. Shut up the poem now. That’s plenty of <i>Hyperion</i>, and the other -books of it are inferior. There is more labour and more likeness to -<i>Paradise Lost</i>.” And so my friend, who is 16,000 miles away, and I -turned from the Titanic theme, and spoke of the local board of -guardians, or some young girl whose beauty was making rich misery in the -hearts of young men in those old days.</p> - -<p>There is no other long poem in the volume<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a>{107}</span> bearing any marks which -indicate such close connection with any individual reader as in the case -of <i>Hyperion</i>. <i>Endymion</i> boasts only one mark, and that expressing -admiration of the relief afforded from monotony of the heroic couplets -by the introduction in the opening of the double rhyming verses:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing—”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>The friend to whom this mark is due never handled the volume, never even -saw it; but once upon a time when he, another man, and I had got -together, and were talking of the “gallipot poet,” the first friend said -he always regarded this couplet as most happily placed where it appears. -So when I reached home I marked my copy at the lines. Now, when I open -the volume and find that mark, it is as good to me as, better than, a -photograph of my friend; for I not only see his face and figure, but -once more he places his index-finger on the table, as we three sit -smoking, and whispers out the six opening lines, ending<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a>{108}</span> with the two I -have quoted. Suppose I too should some day go 16,000 miles away from -London, and carry this volume with me, shall I not be able to open it -when I please, and recall what I then saw and heard, what I now see and -hear, as distinctly as though no long interval of ocean or of months lay -between to-night and that hour?</p> - -<p>Can I ever forget my burly tenor friend, who sang and composed songs, -and dinted the line in <i>The Eve of St. Agnes</i>,</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“The silver, snarling trumpets ’gan to chide,”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">and declared a hundred times in my unwearied ears that no more happy -epithet than snarling could be found for trumpets? He over and over -again assured me, and over and over again I loved to listen to his fancy -running riot on the line, how he heard and saw brazen and silver and -golden griffins quarrelling in the roof and around his ears as the -trumpets blared through the echoing halls and corridors. He, too, marked</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“The music, yearning like a God in pain.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a>{109}</span></p> - -<p class="nind">“Keats,” he would say, “seems to have got not only at the spirit of the -music, but at the very flesh and blood of it. He has done one thing for -me,” my friend continued. “Before I read these lines, and others of the -same kind, in Keats, my favourite tunes always represented an emotion of -my own mind. Now they stand for individual characters in scenes, like -descriptions of people in a book. When I hear music now I am with the -Falstaffs or the Romolas, with Quasimodo or Julius Cæsar.”</p> - -<p>I have been regarding the indentures in the volume chronologically. The -next marks of importance in the order of the years occur, one in <i>The -Eve of St. Agnes</i>, the other in the <i>Ode to a Nightingale</i>. These marks, -more than any others, I regard with grateful memory. They are not the -work of the hand of him for whom I value them. I have good reason to -look on him as a valid friend. For months between him and me there had -existed an acquaintance necessarily somewhat close, but wholly -uninformed with friendship. We spoke to one another as Mr. So-and-so. -Neither of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a>{110}</span> us suspected that the other had any toleration of poets or -poetry. Our commerce had been in mere prose. One day, in mid-winter, -when a chilling fog hung over London, I chanced to go into a room where -he was writing alone. After a formal greeting, I complained of the cold. -He dropped his pen and looked up. “Yes,” he said, “very cold and dark as -night. Do you know the coldest night that ever was?” I answered that I -did not. “It was St. Agnes’s Eve, when</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“<span class="leftspc">‘</span>The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold.’<span class="leftspc">”</span><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">And so we fell to talking about Keats, and talked and talked for hours; -and before the first hour of our talk had passed we had ceased -“Mistering” one another for ever. The fire of his enthusiasm rose higher -and higher as the minutes swept by. He knew one poet personally, for -whose verse I had profound respect, and this poet, he told me, -worshipped Keats. Often in our talks I laid plots for bringing him back -to the simple sentence, “You should hear M. talk about Keats.” The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a>{111}</span> -notion that any one who knew M. could think M. would talk to me about -Keats intoxicated me. “He would not let me listen to him?” I said half -fearfully. “M. would talk to any one about Keats—to even a lawyer.” How -I wished at that moment I was a Lord Chancellor who might stand in M.’s -path. I have, in a way, been near to that poet since. I might almost -have said to him,</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“So near, too! You could hear my sigh,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Or see my case with half an eye;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">But must not—there are reasons why.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>So this friend I speak of now and I came to be great friends indeed. We -often met and held carnivals of verse, carnivals among the starry lamps -of poetry. He had a subtle instinct that saw the jewel, however it might -be set. He owned himself the faculty of the poet, which gave him ripe -knowledge of all matters technical in the setting.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Now more than ever seems it rich to die,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">To cease upon the midnight with no pain.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">He would quote these two lines and cry, “Was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a>{112}</span> ever death so pangless as -that spoken of here? ‘To <i>cease</i> upon the midnight!’ Here is no -struggle, no regret, no fear. This death is softer and lighter and -smoother than the falling of the shadow of night upon a desert of -noiseless sand.”</p> - -<p>For a long time the name of one man had been almost daily in my ears. I -had been hearing much through the friend to whom I have last referred -about his intuitive eye and critical acumen. That friend had informed me -of the influence which his opinion carried; and of how this man held -Keats high above poets to whom we have statues of brass, whose names we -give to our streets. My curiosity was excited, and, while my desire to -meet this man was largely mingled with timidity, I often felt a jealous -pang at thinking that many of the people with whom I was acquainted knew -him. At length I became distantly connected with an undertaking in which -he was prominently concerned. Through the instrumentality of one -friendly to us both, we met. It was a sacred night for me, and I sat and -listened, enchanted. After some hours the talk wheeled<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a>{113}</span> round upon -sonnets. “Sonnets!” he cried, starting up; “who can repeat the lines -about Cortez in Keats? You all know it.” Some one began to read or -repeat the sonnet. Until coming upon the words, “or like stout Cortez.” -“That’s it, that’s it! Now go on.”</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He stared at the Pacific—and all his men<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Silent, upon a peak in Darien.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="leftspc">‘</span>And all his men looked at each other with a <i>wild</i> surmise,’<span class="leftspc">”</span> he -repeated, “<span class="leftspc">‘</span><i>silent</i> upon a peak in Darien.’ The most enduring group -ever designed. They are standing there to this day. They will stand -there for ever and for ever; they are immutable. When an artist carves -them you may know that Buonarotti is risen from the dead and is once -more abroad.”</p> - -<p>That portion of a book which is called a preface and put first, is -always the last written. It may be human, but it is not logical, that -when a man starts he does not know what he has to say first, until he -finds out by an elaborate guess<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a>{114}</span> of several hundred pages what he wants -to say last. It would be unbecoming of me in a collection of ignorant -essays to affect to know less than a person of average intelligence; but -I am quite sincere when I say I am not aware who the author is of the -great aphorism that “After all, there is a great deal of human nature in -man.” There is, I would venture to say, more human nature than logic in -man. My copy of Keats is no exception to the general rule of books. The -preface ought to precede immediately the colophon. Yet it is in the -forefront of the volume, before even the very title page itself. It -forms no integral part of the volume, and is unknown to the printer or -publisher. It was given to me by a thoughtful and kind-hearted friend at -whose side I worked for a considerable while. One time, years ago, he -took a holiday and vanished, going from among us I knew not whither. On -coming back he presented each of his associates with something out of -his store of spoil. That which now forms the preface to my copy he gave -me. It consists of twelve leaves; twelve myrtle leaves on a spray.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a>{115}</span> When -he was in Rome he bore me in mind and plucked this sprig at the grave of -the poet. It is consoling to remember Keats is buried so far away from -where he was born, when we cannot forget that the abominable infamy of -publishing his love-letters was committed in his own country—here in -England. His spirit was lent to earth only for a little while, and he -gave all of it to us. But we were not satisfied. We must have his -heart’s blood and his heart too. The gentlemen who attacked his poetry -when he was alive really knew no better, and tried, perhaps, to be as -honest as would suit their private ends. But the publication of the dead -man’s love-letters, fifty years after he had passed away, cannot be -attributed even to ignorance. If any money was made out of the book it -would be a graceful act to give it to some church where the burial -ground is scant, and the parish is in need of a Potter’s Field.</p> - -<p>When I take down my copy of Keats, and look through it and beyond it, I -feel that while it is left to me I cannot be wholly shorn of my friends. -It is the only album of photographs I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a>{116}</span> possess. The faces I see in it -are not for any eye but mine. It is my private portrait gallery, in -which hang the portraits of my dearest friends. The marks and blots are -intelligible to no eye but mine; they are the cherished hieroglyphics of -the heart. I close the book; I lock up the hieroglyphics; I feel certain -the book will last my time. Should it survive me and pass into new -hands—into the hands of some boy now unborn, who may pluck out of it -posies of love-phrases for his fresh-cheeked sweetheart—he will know -nothing of the import these marginal notes bore to one who has gone -before him; unless, indeed, out of some cemetery of ephemeral literature -he digs up this key—this Rosetta stone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a>{117}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="DECAY_OF_THE_SUBLIME" id="DECAY_OF_THE_SUBLIME"></a>DECAY OF THE SUBLIME.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> sublime is dying. It has been pining a long time. At last -dissolution has set in. Nothing can save it but another incursion of -Goths and Huns; and as there are no Goths and Huns handy just now, the -sublime must die out, and die out soon. You can know what a man is by -the company he keeps. You can judge a people by the ideas they retain -more than by the ideas they acquire. The philology of a tongue, from its -cradle to its grave, is the social history of the people who spoke it. -To-day you may mark the progress of civilisation by the decay bf the -sublime. Glance at a few of the nations of earth as they stand. Italy -and Spain still hold with the sublime in literature and art, although, -being exhausted stocks, they cannot produce it any longer. France is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a>{118}</span> -cynical, smart, artistic, but never was and never can be sublime, so -long as vanity rules her; and yet, by the irony of selection, sublime is -one of her favourite words. Central Europe has had her sublime phases, -but cannot be even thought of now in connection with the quality; and -Russia and Turkey are barbarous still. If we come to the active pair of -nationalities in the progress of current civilisation, the United States -and England, we find the sublime in very poor case.</p> - -<p>Young England across the water is the most progressive nation of our -age, because it is the most practical. If ever there was a man who put -his foot on the neck of the sublime, that man is Uncle Sam. His -contribution to the arts is almost nothing. His outrages against -established artistic canons have been innumerable. He owns a new land -without traditions. He laughs at all traditions. He has never raised a -saint or a mummy or a religion (Mormonism he stole from the East), a -crusader, a tyrant, a painter, a sculptor, a musician, a dramatist, an -inquisition, a star chamber, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a>{119}</span> council of ten. All his efforts have -been in a strictly practical direction, and most of his efforts have -been crowned with success. He has devoted his leisure time, the hours -not spent in cutting down forests or drugging Indians with whisky, to -laughing at the foolish old notions which the foolish old countries -cherish. He had a wonderfully fertile estate of two thousand million -acres, about only one fourth of which is even to this day under direct -human management. In getting these five hundred million acres of land -under him he had met all kinds of ground—valley, forest, mountain, -plain. But in none of these did he find anything but axes and whisky of -the least use. No mountain had been sanctified to him by first earthly -contact with the two Tables of the Law. No plain had been rendered -sacred as that upon which the miraculous manna fell to feed the chosen -people. No inland sea had been the scene of a miraculous draught of -fishes. All the land acquired and cultivated by Uncle Sam came to him by -the right of whisky and the axe. The mountain was nothing more than so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a>{120}</span> -much land placed at a certain angle that made it of little use for -tillage. The plains, the rivers, and inland seas had a simply commercial -value in his eyes. He had no experience of a miracle of any kind, and he -did not see why he should bow down and respect a mountain, that, to him, -was no more than so many thousand acres on an incline unfavourable to -cultivation. Such a condition of the ground was a bore, and he would -have cut down the mountain as he had cut down the Indian and the forest, -if he had known how to accomplish the feat. He saw nothing mystic in the -waters or the moon. Were the rivers and lakes wholesome to drink and -useful for carriage, and well stocked with fish? These were the -questions he asked about the waters. Would there be moonlight enough for -riding and working? was the only question he asked about that “orbèd -maiden with white fire laden whom mortals call the moon.” His notions, -his plains, his rivers, his lakes, were all “big,” but he never thought -of calling them sublime. On his own farm he failed to find any present -trace of the supernatural;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a>{121}</span> and he discovered no trace of the -supernatural in tradition, for there was no tradition once the red man -had been washed into his grave with whisky. Hence Uncle Sam began -treating the supernatural with familiarity, and matters built on the -supernatural with levity. Now without the supernatural the sublime -cannot exist any length of time, if at all.</p> - -<p>It may be urged it is unreasonable to hold that the Americans have done -away with the sublime, since in the history of all nations the earlier -centuries were, as in America, devoted to material affairs. There is one -fact bearing on this which should not be left out of count, namely, that -America did not start from barbarism, or was not raised on a site where -barbarism had overrun a high state of civilisation. The barbarous hordes -of the north effaced the civilisation of old Rome, and raised upon its -ashes a new people, the Italians, who in time led the way in art, as the -old Romans had before them. The Renaissance was a second crop raised off -the same ground by new men. The arts Rome had borrowed from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a>{122}</span> Greece had -been trampled down by Goths, who, when they found themselves in the land -of milk and honey, sat down to enjoy the milk and honey, until suddenly -the germs of old art struck root, and once more all eyes turned to Italy -for principles of beauty. But America started with the civilisation of a -highly civilised age. She did not rear her own civilisation on her own -soil. She did not borrow her arts from any one country. She simply -peopled her virgin plains with the sons of all the earth, who brought -with them the culture of their respective nationalities. She has not -followed the ordinary course of nations, from conflict to power, from -power to prosperity, from prosperity to the arts, luxury, and decay. She -started with prosperity, and the first use she made of her prosperity -was, not to cultivate the fine arts in her own people, but to laugh at -them in others. In the individual man the sense of humour grows with -years. In nations the sense of humour develops with centuries. The -literature of nations begins with battle-songs and hymns, and ends with -burlesques and blasphemies.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a>{123}</span></p> - -<p>Now although America has begun with burlesques and blasphemies, no one -can for a moment imagine that America is not going to create a noble -literature of her own. She is destined not only to found and build up a -noble literature, but one which will be unique. When she has time, when -she has let most of those idle one thousand five hundred million acres, -she will begin writing her books. By that time she will have running in -her veins choice blood from every race on earth, and it is a matter of -certainty she will give the world many delights now undreamed of. No -other nation on earth will have, or ever has had, such an opportunity of -devoting attention to man in his purely domestic and social relations. -The United States of to-day has, for practical purposes, no foreign -policy. She has no foreign rivals, she is not likely to have foreign -wars, while in her own country she has large bodies of men from every -people on the world. She owns the largest assorted lot of mankind on the -globe, and as years go by we may safely conclude she will add to the -variety and number<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a>{124}</span> of her sons. In all this appears no hope for the -sublime. There is no instance in literature of a nation going back from -laughter to heroics. The two may exist side by side. But that is not the -case in America. Up to this hour only one class of transatlantic writers -has challenged the attention of Europe, and that class is humorous and -profane. Emerson, Bryant, Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, Lowell, Holmes, and -Irving are merely Europeans born in America. But Ward, Harte, Twain, and -Breitmann are original and American.</p> - -<p>America is undoubtedly the literary promise-land of the future. It has -done nothing up to this. Its condition has forbidden it to achieve -anything, but great triumphs may be anticipated from it. Crossing the -Atlantic, what do we find in the other great branch of the -English-speaking race? Religious publications head the list by a long -way. They have nothing to do with this subject save in so far as they -are in the line of the sublime. All forms of the Christian and Jewish -creeds are sublime. Looking at the other walks of literature, we find -the death sentence<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a>{125}</span> of the sublime written everywhere. With the -exception of Mr. Browning, here or there we have no poet or dramatist -who attempts it. We have elegant trifles and beautiful form in many -volumes of second-rate contemporary verse. There never was a time when -the science of poetry was understood until now. Our critics can tell you -with mathematical certainty the number of poems as distinguished from -pieces of verse every well-known man has written. But we are not -producing any great poetry, and none of the sublime kind. This is the -age of elegant poetic incentive, of exquisite culture, but it is too -dainty. We do not rise much above a poem to a shoe, or an ode to a -ringlet, perfumed with one of Mr. Rimmel’s best admired distillations. -We have a few poets who are continually trying to find out who or what -the deuce they are, and what they meant by being born, and so on; but -then these men are for the eclectic, and not the herd of sensible -people. We have two men who have done noble work, Browning and Tennyson; -but, speaking broadly, we find the sublime nowhere.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a>{126}</span> It is true you -cannot force genius as you force asparagus; and these remarks are not -intended to indict the age with having no poetic faculty or aspiration. -Abundance of poetry of a new and beautiful kind does exist, but it is -not of the lofty kind born to the men of old.</p> - -<p>Turning eyes away from literature, take a few more of the arts. Before -we go farther, let us admit that one art at least never reached sublimer -recorded heights than to-day. The music of the generation just past is, -I believe, in the front rank of the art. It is an art now in the throes -of an enormous transformation. Not using the phrase in its slangy -meaning, the music of the future is sure to touch splendours never -dreamed of by that Raphael of the lyre, Mozart. The only art-Titans now -wrestling are the musicians; not those paltry souls that pad the poor -words of inane burlesques, but the great spirits that sit apart, and -have audiences of the angels. These men, out of their own mouths, assure -us that they catch the far-off murmurs of such imperial tones as never -filled the ear of man yet. They cannot gather up the broken chords they -hear.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a>{127}</span> They admit they have heard no more than a few bars of the great -masters who are close upon us; but, they say, if they only reproduce the -effect these preluding passages have upon them, “Such harmonious madness -from their lips would flow, the world should listen then as they are -listening now.”</p> - -<p>Go to the Royal Academy and look round you. How pretty! How nice! How -pathetic! But would you like to lend your arm to Michael Angelo, and go -round those walls with him? He would prefer the rack, the gridiron of -St. Laurence. It is true there is no necessity for the sublime; but -those men who have been in the awful presence of such dreams as <i>Night</i> -and <i>Morning</i>, by that sculptor, must be pardoned if they prefer it to -the art you find in Burlington House. One of our great English poets -said, speaking of the trivial nature of conversation at the beginning of -this century, that if Lord Bacon were alive now, and made a remark in an -ordinary assembly, conversation would stop. If casts of <i>Night</i> and -<i>Morning</i> were placed at the head of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a>{128}</span> staircase of Burlington House, -no one with appreciation of art would enter the rooms; the strong would -linger for ever round those stupendous groups, and the feeble would be -frighted away. Of course, the vast crowd of art-patrons would pass the -group with only a casual glance, and a protest against having plaster -casts occupying ground which ought to be allotted to original work.</p> - -<p>Read any speech Burke or Grattan ever spoke, and then your <i>Times</i> and -the debate last night. How plain it becomes that from no art has the -sublime so completely vanished as the orator’s. Take those two speakers -above, and run your eye over Cicero and Demosthenes, the four are of the -one school, in the great style. Theirs is the large and universal -eloquence. It is as fresh and beautiful, as pathetic, as sublime now as -when uttered, although the occasions and circumstances are no longer of -interest to man. The statistician and the poltroon and the verbatim -reporter have killed the orator. If any man were to rise in the House -and make a speech in the manner of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a>{129}</span> ancients, the honourable members -would hurry in from all sides to laugh. A few sessions ago a member rose -in his place, and delivered an oration on a subject not popular with the -House, but in a manner which echoed the grand old style. At once every -seat for which there was a member present at the time was occupied; and -the next morning the daily papers had articles which, while disposing of -the speaker’s cause in a few lines, devoted columns to the manner in -which he had pleaded it.</p> - -<p>To discover what has led to the decay of the sublime is not difficult, -and even in an ignorant essay like this, it may be briefly indicated. -Roughly speaking, it is attributable to the accumulation of certainties. -Any handbook that cribs from Longinus or Burke will tell you the vague -is essential to the sublime. To attain it there must be something half -understood—not fully known, only partly revealed. To attain it detail -must be lost, and only a totality presented to the mind. For instance, -if a great lover of Roman history were suddenly to find himself on the -top of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a>{130}</span> Coliseum, the most sublime result to be obtained from the -situation would be produced by repeating to himself the simple words, -“This is Rome.” By these words the totality of the city’s grandeur, -influence, power, and enterprises would be vaguely presented to a -scholar’s mind dim in the glow of a multitude of half-revealing -side-lights. If a companion whispered in the scholar’s ears, “This place -would at one time seat a hundred thousand people,” then the particular -is reached, and the sublime vanishes like sunshine against a cloud. Most -of North America has been explored. Africa and Australia have been -traversed. The source of the Nile has been found. We can read the -hieroglyphics. We know the elements now flaming in the sun. Many of the -phenomena in all branches of physiology which were mysteries to our -fathers are familiar commonplaces of knowledge now. We have learned to -foretell the weather. We travel a thousand miles for the hundred -travelled by our fathers. We have daily newspapers to discuss all -matters, clear away mysteries. We have opened the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a>{131}</span> grave for the sublime -with the plough of progress. Though the words stick in my throat, I -must, I daresay, cry, “God speed the plough!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a>{132}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="A_BORROWED_POET" id="A_BORROWED_POET"></a>A BORROWED POET.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Twenty</span> years ago I borrowed, and read for the first time, the poems of -James Clarence Mangan. I then lived in a city containing not one-third -as many people as yearly swell the population of London. The friend of -whom I borrowed the volume in 1866 is still living in his old home, in -the house from which I carried away the book then. I saw him last winter -and he is almost as little aged as the hills he has fronted all that -time. I have had in those years as many homes as an Arab nomad. He still -stays in the old place, and in the gray twilight of dark summer mornings -wakes to hear as of yore the twitter of sparrows and the cawing of rooks -from the other side of the river, and the hoarse hooting of the -steamboat hard by.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a>{133}</span></p> - -<p>The volume of Mangan now by me I borrowed of another old friend, who -passes most of his day within sight of that familiar river not quite a -hundred yards from the house of the lender of twenty years back. In the -meantime I have seen no other copy of Mangan.</p> - -<p>This latest fact is not much to be wondered at, for I am not -enterprising in the matter of books—rarely buy and rarely borrow, and -have never been in the reading room of the British Museum in my life. -The book may be common to those who know much about books; but I have -seen only the two copies I speak of, and these are of the same edition -and of American origin. I believe a selection from the poems was issued -a few years ago in Dublin, but a copy has not drifted my way. The -title-page of the volume before me is missing, but in a list of -publications at the back I find “<i>The Poems of James Clarence Mangan</i>. -Containing German Anthology, Irish Anthology, Apocrypha, and -Miscellaneous Poems. With a Biographical and Critical Introduction, by -John Mitchel. 1 vol. 12mo. Printed on tinted and calendered paper. -Nearly 500 pages. $1.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a>{134}</span> Beyond all doubt this is the book, and it was -published by Mr. P. M. Haverty, of New York.</p> - -<p>As far as I know, this is the only edition of Mangan which pretends to -be even comprehensive. It does not lay claim to completeness. At the -time the late John Mitchel wrote his introduction he was aware of but -one other edition of Mangan’s poems—the German Anthology, published in -Dublin many years ago. I am nearly sure that since the appearance of -Mitchel’s edition there have been no verses of Mangan’s published in -book form on this side of the Atlantic, except the selections I have -already mentioned, and I do not think any edition whatever has been -published in this country.</p> - -<p>During the twenty years which have elapsed since first I made the -acquaintance of the poems of James Clarence Mangan, I have read much -verse and many criticisms of verse, and yet I don’t remember to have -seen one line about Mangan in any publication issued in England. I -believe two magazine articles have appeared, but I never saw them. -Almost during these<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a>{135}</span> years, or within a period which does not extend -back far beyond them, criticism of verse has ceased to be a matter of -personal opinion, and has been elevated or degraded, as you will, into -an exact science. The opinions of old reviewers—the Jeffreys and -Broughams—are now looked on as curiosities of literature. There is as -wide a gulf between the mode of treating poetry now and eighty years ago -as there is between the mode of travelling, or the guess-work that makes -up the physician’s art; and if in a gathering of literary experts any -one were now to apply to a new bard the dogmas of criticism quoted for -or against Byron, Shelley, Keats, and the Lakers in their time, a -silence the reverse of respectful would certainly follow.</p> - -<p>This is not the age of great poetry, but it is the age of “poetical -poetry,” to quote the phrase of one of the finest critics using the -English language—one who has, unfortunately for the culture of that -tongue and those who use it, written lamentably little. The great danger -by which we stand menaced at present is, that our perceptions may become -too exquisite and our poetry<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a>{136}</span> too intellectual. This, anyway, is true of -poetry which may at all claim to be an expression of thought. There are -in our time supreme formists in small things, carvers of cameos and -walnut shells, and musical conjurors who make sweet melodies with richly -vowelled syllables. But unfortunately the tendency of the poetic men of -to-day is towards intellectuality, and this is a humiliating decay. In -the times of Queen Elizabeth, when all the poets were Shakespeares, they -cared nothing for their intellects. The intellectual side of a poet’s -mind is an impertinence in his art.</p> - -<p>I do not presume to say what place exactly James Clarence Mangan ought -to occupy on the greater roll of verse-writers, and I am not sure that -he is, in the finest sense of the phrase, a “poetical poet;” but he is, -at all events, the most poetical poet Ireland has produced, when we take -into account the volume and quality of his song. I shall purposely avoid -any reference to him as a translator, except in acting on John Mitchel’s -opinion, and treating one of his “translations” from the Arabic as an -original<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a>{137}</span> poem; for during his lifetime he confessed that he had passed -off original poems of his own as translations; and Mitchel assures us -that Mangan did not know Arabic. As this essay does not profess to be -orderly or dignified, or anything more than rambling gossip, put into -writing for no other reason than to introduce to the reader a few pieces -of verse he may not have met before, I cannot do better than insert here -the lines of which I am now speaking:</p> - -<h3>THE TIME OF THE BARMECIDES.</h3> - -<h4>I.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“My eyes are filmed, my beard is grey,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I am bowed with the weight of years;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I would I were stretched in my bed of clay<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With my long-lost youth’s compeers!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">For back to the past, though the thought brings woe,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My memory ever glides—<br /></span> -<span class="i1">To the old, old time, long, long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The time of the Barmecides!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">To the old, old time, long, long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The time of the Barmecides.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a>{138}</span></p> - -<h4>II.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Then youth was mine, and a fierce wild will,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And an iron arm in war,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And a fleet foot high upon Ishkar’s hill,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When the watch-lights glimmered afar,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And a barb as fiery as any I know<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That Khoord or Beddaween rides,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Ere my friends lay low—long, long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the time of the Barmecides;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Ere my friends lay low—long, long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the time of the Barmecides.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>III.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“One golden goblet illumed my board,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">One silver dish was there;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">At hand my tried Karamanian sword<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lay always bright and bare;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">For those were the days when the angry blow<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Supplanted the word that chides—<br /></span> -<span class="i1">When hearts could glow—long, long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the time of the Barmecides;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">When hearts could glow—long, long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the time of the Barmecides.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>IV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Through city and desert my mates and I<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Were free to rove and roam,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a>{139}</span><br /></span> -<span class="i1">Our diapered canopy the deep of the sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or the roof of the palace dome.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Oh, ours was the vivid life to and fro,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which only sloth derides:<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Men spent Life so—long, long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the time of the Barmecides;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Men spent Life so—long, long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the time of the Barmecides.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>V.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“I see rich Bagdad once again,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With its turrets of Moorish mould,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And the Kalif’s twice five hundred men<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whose binishes flamed with gold.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I call up many a gorgeous show<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which the Pall of Oblivion hides—<br /></span> -<span class="i1">All passed like snow, long, long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With the time of the Barmecides;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">All passed like snow, long, long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With the time of the Barmecides.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>VI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“But mine eye is dim, and my beard is grey,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And I bend with the weight of years—<br /></span> -<span class="i1">May I soon go down to the House of Clay,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where slumber my Youth’s compeers!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a>{140}</span><br /></span> -<span class="i1">For with them and the Past, though the thought wakes woe,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My memory ever abides,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And I mourn for the Times gone long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For the Times of the Barmecides!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I mourn for the Times gone long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For the Times of the Barmecides!”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>This is the poem claimed by Mangan to be from the Arabic. I have no -means of knowing whether it is or not. There is one translation from the -Persian, one from the Ottoman, and according to Mitchel, one from the -Coptic. But seeing that he turned into verse a great number of Irish -poems from prose translations done by another, and that he did not know -a word of that language, I think it may be safely assumed that <i>The Last -of the Barmecides</i> is original. This poem is so old a favourite of mine -that I cannot pretend to be an impartial judge of it. When I hear it (I -can never see a poem I know well and love much) I listen as to the -unchanged voice of an old friend; I wander in a maze of memories; “I see -rich Bagdad once again;” I am once more owner of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a>{141}</span> the magic carpet, and -am floating irresponsibly and at will on the intoxicating atmosphere of -the poets over the enchanted groves, and streams, and hills, and seas of -fairyland, or harkening to voices that years ago ceased to stir in my -ears, gazing at the faces that have long since moulded the face cloth -into blunted memories of the face for the grave.</p> - -<p>On the 20th of June, 1849, Mangan died in the Meath Hospital, Dublin. -Having been born in 1803, he was, in 1849, eight years older than Poe, -who died destitute and forlorn at Baltimore in the same year. Both poets -had been in abject poverty, both had been unfortunate in love, both had -been consummate artists, both had been piteously unlucky in a thousand -ways, and both had died the same year, and in common hospitals. Two more -miserable stories it is impossible to find anywhere. I would recommend -those of sensitive natures to confine their reading to the work these -men did, and not to the misfortunes they laboured under, and the follies -they committed. I think, of the two, Mangan suffered more acutely; for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a>{142}</span> -he never rose up in anger against the world, or those around him, but -glided like an uncomplaining ghost into the grave, where, long before -his death, all his hopes lay buried. He had only a half-hearted pity for -himself. Poe, in his <i>Raven</i>, is, all the time of his most pathetic and -terrible complaining, conscious that he complains as becomes a fine -artist. But the raven’s croak does not touch the heart. It appeals to -the intellect; it affects the fancy, the imagination, the ear, the eye. -When Mangan opens his bosom and shows you the ravens that prey upon him, -he cannot repress something like a laugh at the thought that any one -could be interested in him and his woes. See:</p> - -<h3>THE NAMELESS ONE.</h3> - -<p class="c">BALLAD.</p> - -<h4>I.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Roll forth, my song, like the rushing river,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That sweeps along to the mighty sea;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">God will inspire me while I deliver<br /></span> -<span class="i8">My soul of thee!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a>{143}</span></p> - -<h4>II.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Amid the last homes of youth and eld,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">That there was once one whose veins ran lightning<br /></span> -<span class="i8">No eye beheld.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>III.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">How shone for <i>him</i>, through his griefs and gloom,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">No star of all heaven sends to light our<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Path to the tomb.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>IV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Roll on, my song, and to after ages<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Tell how, disdaining all earth can give,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">He would have taught men from wisdom’s pages<br /></span> -<span class="i8">The way to live.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>V.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“And tell how, trampled, derided, hated,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">He fled for shelter to God, who mated<br /></span> -<span class="i8">His soul with song—<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a>{144}</span></p> - -<h4>VI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“With song which alway, sublime or vapid,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Flowed like a rill in the morning beam,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid—<br /></span> -<span class="i8">A mountain stream.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>VII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Tell how the Nameless, condemned for years long<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To herd with demons from hell beneath,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long<br /></span> -<span class="i8">For even death.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>VIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Go on to tell how, with genius wasted,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Betrayed in friendship, befooled in love,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">With spirit shipwrecked and young hopes blasted,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">He still, still strove.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>IX.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And some whose hands should have wrought for <i>him</i><br /></span> -<span class="i1">(If children live not for sires and mothers),<br /></span> -<span class="i8">His mind grew dim.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a>{145}</span></p> - -<h4>X.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“And he fell far through the pit abysmal,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And pawned his soul for the devil’s dismal<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Stock of returns.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“But yet redeemed it in days of darkness,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And shapes and signs of the final wrath,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where death in hideous and ghastly starkness<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Stood in his path.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And want and sickness and houseless nights,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">He bides in calmness the silent morrow<br /></span> -<span class="i8">That no ray lights.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“And lives he still, then? Yes! old and hoary<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At thirty-nine, from despair and woe,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">He lives enduring what future story<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Will never know.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a>{146}</span></p> - -<h4>XIV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Deep in your bosoms! There let him dwell!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Here and in hell.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>The burden of all his song is sad, and in his translations he has chosen -chiefly themes which echoed the harpings of his own soul. He began life -as a copying clerk in an attorney’s office, and had for some time to -support wholly, or in the main, a mother and sister. In Mitchel’s -preface there are many passages almost as fine as the verse of the poet. -Here is one, long as it is, that must find a place. Mitchel is speaking -of the days when Mangan was in the attorney’s office:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“At what age he devoted himself to this drudgery, at what age he -left it, or was discharged from it, does not appear; for his whole -biography documents are wanting, the man having never, for one -moment, imagined that his poor life could interest any surviving -human being, and having never, accordingly, collected his -biographical assets, and appointed a literary executor to take care -of his posthumous fame. Neither did he ever acquire the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a>{147}</span> habit, -common enough among literary men, of dwelling upon his own early -trials, struggles, and triumphs. But those who knew him in after -years can remember with what a shuddering and loathing horror he -spoke—when at rare intervals he could be induced to speak at -all—of his labours with the scrivener and attorney. He was shy and -sensitive, with exquisite sensibilities and fine impulses; eye, -ear, and soul open to all the beauty, music, and glory of heaven -and earth; humble, gentle, and unexacting; modestly craving nothing -in the world but celestial, glorified life, seraphic love, and a -throne among the immortal gods (that’s all); and he was eight or -ten years scribbling deeds, pleadings, and bills in Chancery.”</p></div> - -<p>There is, I believe, but one portrait of him in existence, and a copy of -it hangs on the wall of the room in which I am writing, a few feet in -front of my eyes. It is not a face easy to describe. Beauty is the chief -characteristic of it. But it is not the beauty that men admire or that -inspires love in women. It is not the face of a poet or a visionary or a -thinker. There is no passion in it; not even the passionate sadness of -his own verse. It is not the face of a man who has suffered greatly, or -rejoiced in ecstasy. It is the face of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a>{148}</span> fleshless, worn man of forty, -with hair pressed back from the forehead and ear. I have been looking at -it for a long time, trying to find out something positive about it, and -I have failed. It is not interesting. It is the face of a man who is -done with the world and humanity. It is the face of a dead man whose -spirit has passed away, while the body remains alive. The eyes are open, -and have light in them; the face would be more complete if the light -were out, and the lids drawn down and composed for the blind tomb.</p> - -<p>He gives a picture of his mental attitude at about the time this -portrait was taken:—</p> - -<h3>TWENTY GOLDEN YEARS AGO.</h3> - -<h4>I.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Oh, the rain, the weary, dreary rain,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">How it plashes on the window-sill!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Night, I guess too, must be on the wane,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Strass and Gass around are grown so still.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Here I sit with coffee in my cup—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ah, ’twas rarely I beheld it flow<br /></span> -<span class="i1">In the tavern where I loved to sup<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Twenty golden years ago!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a>{149}</span></p> - -<h4>II.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Twenty years ago, alas!—but stay—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">On my life, ’tis half-past twelve o’clock!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">After all, the hours <i>do</i> slip away—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Come, here goes to burn another block!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">For the night, or morn, is wet and cold;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And my fire is dwindling rather low:<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I had fire enough, when young and bold<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Twenty golden years ago.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>III.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Dear! I don’t feel well at all, somehow:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Few in Weimar dream how bad I am;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Floods of tears grow common with me now,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">High-Dutch floods that Reason cannot dam.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Doctors think I’ll neither live nor thrive<br /></span> -<span class="i2">If I mope at home so—I don’t know—<br /></span> -<span class="i1"><i>Am</i> I living <i>now</i>? I <i>was</i> alive<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Twenty golden years ago.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>IV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Wifeless, friendless, flagonless, alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Not quite bookless, though, unless I choose;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Left with naught to do, except to groan,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Not a soul to woo, except the Muse.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Oh, this is hard for <i>me</i> to bear—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Me who whilom lived so much <i>en haut</i>—<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Me who broke all hearts like china-ware,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Twenty golden years ago.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a>{150}</span></p> - -<h4>V.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Perhaps ’tis better;—time’s defacing waves<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Long have quenched the radiance of my brow—<br /></span> -<span class="i1">They who curse me nightly from their graves<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Scarce could love me were they living now;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">But my loneliness hath darker ills—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Such dun duns as Conscience, Thought, & Co.,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Awful Gorgons! Worse than tailors’ bills<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Twenty golden years ago.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>VI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Did I paint a fifth of what I feel,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Oh, how plaintive you would ween I was!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">But I won’t, albeit I have a deal<br /></span> -<span class="i2">More to wail about than Kerner has!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Kerner’s tears are wept for withered flowers;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Mine for withered hopes; my scroll of woe<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Dates, alas! from youth’s deserted bowers,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Twenty golden years ago.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>VII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Yet, may Deutschland’s bardlings flourish long!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Me, I tweak no beak among them;—hawks<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Must not pounce on hawks: besides, in song<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I could once beat all of them by chalks.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Though you find me, as I near my goal,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sentimentalising like Rousseau,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Oh, I had a great Byronian soul<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Twenty golden years ago!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a>{151}</span></p> - -<h4>VIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Tick-tick, tick-tick!—not a sound save Time’s,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the wind gust as it drives the rain—<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Tortured torturer of reluctant rhymes,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Go to bed and rest thine aching brain!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Sleep!—no more the dupe of hopes or schemes;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Soon thou sleepest where the thistles blow;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Curious anti-climax to thy dreams<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Twenty golden years ago!”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>I find myself now in a great puzzle. I want, first of all, to say I -think it most melancholy that Mangan, when of full age and judgment, -should have thought Byron had “a great Byronian soul.” Observe, he does -not mean that he had a soul greatly like Byron’s, but that he had a soul -like the great soul of Byron. I do not believe Byron had a great soul at -all. I believe he was simply a fine stage-manager of melodrama, the -finest that ever lived, and that as a property-master he was unrivalled; -but that to please no one, himself included, could he have written the -play. I am not descending to so defiling a depth as to talk about -plagiarism. What I wish to say is, that whether Byron stole<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a>{152}</span> or not made -not the least difference in the world, for he never by the aid of his -gifts or his thefts wrote a poem. I wanted further to say of Byron that -there was nothing great about him except his vanity. Suddenly I -remembered some words of the critic of whom I spoke a while back, in -dealing with the question of poetical poetry and poems. I took down the -printed page, where I found these lines:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Mr. Swinburne’s poetry is almost altogether poetical. Not all the -poetry of even the Poets is so, and to one who loves this dear and -intimate quality of which we speak, Coleridge, for instance, is a -poet of some four poems, Wordsworth of some sixteen, Keats of five, -Byron of none, though Byron is <i>great and eloquent</i>, but the thing -we prize so much is far away from eloquence. Poetical poetry is the -inner garden; there grows the ‘flower of the mind.’<span class="leftspc">”</span></p></div> - -<p>Now, my difficulty is plain. My critic, who is also a poet, says Byron -is great, and I find fault with Mangan for saying Byron had a great -Byronian soul. Here are two of my select authors against me. Plainly, -the best thing I can do is say nothing at all about the matter!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a>{153}</span></p> - -<p><i>Twenty Golden Years Ago</i> is by no means a poetical poem, but there is -poetry in it. There is no poetical poem by Mangan. But he has written no -serious verses in which there is not poetry.</p> - -<p>After giving Mangan’s own verse account of what he was like in his own -regard at about forty years of age, I copy what Mitchel saw when the -poet was first pointed out to him:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Being in the College Library [Trinity, Dublin], and having -occasion for a book in that gloomy apartment of the institution -called the ‘Fagal Library,’ which is the innermost recess of the -stately building, an acquaintance pointed out to me a man perched -on the top of a ladder, with the whispered information that the -figure was Clarence Mangan. It was an unearthly and ghostly figure, -in a brown garment; the same garment (to all appearance), which -lasted till the day of his death. The blanched hair was totally -unkempt; the corpse-like features still as marble; a large book was -in his arms, and all his soul was in the book. I had never heard of -Clarence Mangan before, and knew not for what he was celebrated, -whether as a magician, a poet, or a murderer; yet took a volume and -spread it on a table, not to read, but with the pretence of reading -to gaze on the spectral creature on the ladder.”</p></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a>{154}</span></p> - -<p>I never met any one who had known Mangan. Mitchel did not know the name -of the woman who lured him on with smiles that seemed to promise love. -He always addressed her in his poems as Frances. Some time ago the name -of the woman was divulged. It is ungallant of me to have forgotten it, -but such is the case. The address at which Mangan visited her was in -Mountpleasant Square, Dublin. At the time I saw the name of the lady I -looked into a directory of 1848 which I happened to have by me, and -found a different name at the address given in the Square. I know the -love affair of the poet took place years before his death in 1849, but -people in quiet and unpretentious houses in Dublin, or correctly -Ranelagh, often live a whole generation in the same house.</p> - -<p>Here I find myself in a second puzzle. So long as I thought merely of -writing this rambling account of “My Borrowed Poet,” I decided upon -trying to say something about the stupidity of women and poets in -general. But I don’t feel in case to do so when I glance up at the face -of Mangan hanging on the wall, and bring<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a>{155}</span> myself to realise the fact -that this face now looking so dead and unburied was young and bright and -perhaps cheerful when he went wooing in Ranelagh.</p> - -<p>Instead of saying anything wise and stupid and commonplace about either -poets or women, let me quote here stanzas which must have been written -some day when he saw sunshine among the clouds:—</p> - -<h3>THE MARINER’S BRIDE.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Look, mother! the mariner’s rowing<br /></span> -<span class="i3">His galley adown the tide;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I’ll go where the mariner’s going,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">And be the mariner’s bride!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“I saw him one day through the wicket,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">I opened the gate and we met—<br /></span> -<span class="i3">As a bird in the fowler’s net,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Was I caught in my own green thicket.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">O mother, my tears are flowing,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">I’ve lost my maidenly pride—<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I’ll go if the mariner’s going,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">And be the mariner’s bride!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a>{156}</span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“This Love the tyrant winces,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Alas! an omnipotent might,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">He darkens the mind like night,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">He treads on the necks of Princes!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">O mother, my bosom is glowing,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">I’ll go whatever betide,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I’ll go where the mariners going,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">And be the mariner’s bride!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Yes, mother! the spoiler has reft me<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Of reason and self-control;<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Gone, gone is my wretched soul,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And only my body is left me!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The winds, O mother, are blowing,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">The ocean is bright and wide;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I’ll go where the mariner’s going,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">And be the mariner’s bride.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>This appears among the Apocrypha, and is credited by Mangan to the -“Spanish;” but it is safe to assume when he is so vague that the poem is -original. It is one of the most bright and cheerful he has given us. The -only touch of sorrow we feel is for the poor mother who is about to lose -so impulsive and vivacious a daughter. The time of this delightful -ballad is not clearly defined, but we may be absolutely<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a>{157}</span> certain that we -of this moribund nineteenth century will never meet except at a function -of a recondite spiritual medium even the great grandchild of the -Mariner’s Bride. How much more is our devout gratitude due to a good and -pious spiritualist than to any riotous and licentious poet! The former -can give us intercourse with the illustrious defunct of history; the -latter can give us no more than the image of a figment, the phantom of a -shade, the echo of sounds that never vibrated in the ear of man. All -persons who believe the evidence adduced by poets are the victims of -subornation.</p> - -<p>A saw-mill does not seem a good subject for a “copy of verses.” Mangan -died single and in poverty, and was buried by his friends. Listen:—</p> - -<h3>THE SAW-MILL.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“My path lay towards the Mourne again,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But I stopped to rest by the hill-side<br /></span> -<span class="i1">That glanced adown o’er the sunken glen<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which the Saw-and Water-mills hide,<br /></span> -<span class="i5">Which now, as then,<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a>{158}</span> The Saw-and Water-mills hide.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“And there, as I lay reclined on the hill,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like a man made by sudden <i>qualm</i> ill,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I heard the water in the Water-mill,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And I saw the saw in the Saw-mill!<br /></span> -<span class="i5">As I thus lay still<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I saw the saw in the Saw-mill!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“The saw, the breeze, and the humming bees,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lulled me into a dreamy reverie,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Till the objects round me—hills, mills, trees,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Seemed grown alive all and every—<br /></span> -<span class="i5">By slow degrees<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Took life as it were, all and every!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Anon the sound of the waters grew<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To a Mourne-ful ditty,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And the song of the tree that the saw sawed through<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Disturbed my spirit with pity,<br /></span> -<span class="i5">Began to subdue<br /></span> -<span class="i2">My spirit with tenderest pity!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“<span class="leftspc">‘</span>Oh, wanderer, the hour that brings thee back<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Is of all meet hours the meetest.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Thou now, in sooth art on the Track,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And nigher to Home than thou weetest;<br /></span> -<span class="i5">Thou hast thought Time slack,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But his flight has been of the fleetest!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a>{159}</span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“<span class="leftspc">‘</span>For this it is that I dree such pain<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As, when wounded, even a plank will;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">My bosom is pierced, is rent in twain,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That thine may ever bide tranquil.<br /></span> -<span class="i5">May ever remain<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Henceforward untroubled and tranquil.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“<span class="leftspc">‘</span>In a few days more, most Lonely One!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shall I, as a narrow ark, veil<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Thine eyes from the glare of the world and sun<br /></span> -<span class="i2">’Mong the urns of yonder dark vale—<br /></span> -<span class="i5">In the cold and dun<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Recesses of yonder dark vale!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“<span class="leftspc">‘</span>For this grieve not! Thou knowest what thanks<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The Weary-souled and Meek owe<br /></span> -<span class="i1">To Death!’ I awoke, and heard four planks<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Fall down with a saddening echo.<br /></span> -<span class="i5"><i>I heard four planks</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Fall down with a hollow echo.</i>”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>This was the epithalamium of James Clarence Mangan sung by himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a>{160}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_ENGLISH_OPIUM-EATER" id="THE_ENGLISH_OPIUM-EATER"></a>THE ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">I bought</span> my copy new for fourpence-halfpenny, in Holywell Street. It was -published by George Routledge and Sons, of the Broadway, London. The -little volume is made up of a “Preface,” by Thomas de Quincey; -“Confessions of an English Opium-eater;” and “Notes from the Pocket-book -of a late Opium-eater;” including “Walking Stewart,” “On the Knocking at -the Gates in <i>Macbeth</i>,” and “On Suicide.” When it last left my hands it -boasted a paper cover, on which appeared the head of the illustrious -Laker. At my elbow now it lies, divested of its shield; and I sit face -to face with the title-page, as though my author had taken off his hat -and overcoat, and I were asking him which he preferred, clear or thick -soup, while the servant stood behind filling his glass<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a>{161}</span> with -Amontillado. How that cover came to be removed I do not know. The last -borrower was of the less destructive sex, and I am at a great loss to -account for the injury.</p> - -<p>I object to the presence of “Walking Stewart,” and “On Suicide,” -otherwise I count my copy perfect. With the exception of <i>Robinson -Crusoe</i> and Poe’s <i>Tales</i> I have read nothing so often as the -<i>Opium-eater</i>. Only twice in my life up to five-and-twenty years of age -did I sit up all night to read a book: once when about midnight I came -into possession of <i>Enoch Arden</i>, and a second time when, at the same -witching hour I drew a red cloth-bound edition of the <i>Opium-eater</i> out -of my pocket, in my lonely, dreary bedroom, five hundred miles from -where I am now writing. The household were all asleep, and I by no means -strong of nerve. The room was large, the dwelling ghostly. I sat in an -embrasure of one of the windows, with a little table supporting the -candles on one side, and on the other a small movable bookcase. Thus I -was in a kind of dock, only open on one side, that fronting the room. It -was in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a>{162}</span> the beginning of autumn, and a low, warm wind blew the -complaining rain against the pane on a level with my ear. At that time I -had not seen London, and I remember being overpowered and broken before -the spectacle of that sensitive and imaginative boy in the text, hungry -and forlorn, in the unsympathetic mass of innumerable houses, every door -of which was shut against him.</p> - -<p>As I read on and the hour grew late, the succession of splendours and -terrors wrought on my imagination, until I felt cold and exhausted, and -had scarcely strength to sit upright in my chair. My hand trembled, and -my mind became tremulously apprehensive of something vague and awful; I -could not tell what. Sounds of the night which I had heard a thousand -times before, which were as familiar to me as the bell of my parish -church, now assumed dire, uncertain imports. The rattling of the sash -was not the work of the wind, not the work of ghostly hands, but worse -still, of human hands belonging to men in some more dire extremity than -the approach of death. The beating<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a>{163}</span> of the rain against the glass was -made to cover voices trying to tell me secrets I could not hear and -live, and which yet I would have given my life to know.</p> - -<p>I cannot tell why I was so exhilarated by terror. The <i>Confessions</i> -alone are not calculated to produce inexplicable disturbance of the -mind. It may be I had eaten little or nothing that day; it may be I had -steeped myself too deeply in nicotine. All I know for certain is that I -was in such a state of abject panic I had not courage to cross the room -to my bed. It was in the dreary, pitiless, raw hour before the dawn I -finished the book. Then I found I durst not rise. I put down the book -and looked at the candles. They would last till daylight.</p> - -<p>I would have given all the world to lie on that bed over there, with my -back secure against it, warmed by it, comforted by it. But that open -space was more terrible to me than if it were filled with flame. I -should have been much more at my ease in the dark, yet I could not bring -myself to blow out the lights;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a>{164}</span> not because I dreaded the darkness, but -because I shrank from encountering the possibilities of that awful -moment of twilight between the full light of the candles and the blank -gloom.</p> - -<p>When I thought of blowing out the lights and imagined the dread of -catching a glimpse of some spectacle of supreme horror, I imprudently -gave my imagination rein, and set myself to find out what would terrify -me most. All at once, and before I had made more than the inquiry of my -mind, I saw in fancy between me and the bed, a thing of unapproachable -terror; I had not been recently reading <i>Christabel</i>, and yet it must -have been remotely from that poem I conjured the spectre which so awed -me. I placed out in the open of the room on the floor, between me and -the door, and close to a straight line drawn between me and the bed, a -figure shrouded in a black cloak, from hidden shoulder to invisible -feet. Over the head of this figure was cast a cowl, which completely -concealed the head and face. At any moment the cloak might open and -disclose the body of that figure. I knew the body<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a>{165}</span> of that figure was a -“thing to dream of, not to see.” I felt sure I should lose my reason if -the cloak opened and discovered the loathsome body. I had no idea what I -should see, but I knew I should go mad.</p> - -<p>In my dock by the window, and with the light behind my eyes I felt -secure. But at that moment no earthly consideration, no consideration -whatever, would have induced me to face that ghostly form in the flicker -of expiring light. I was not under any delusion. I knew then as well as -I know now that there was no object on which the normal human eye could -exercise itself between me and the bed. I deliberately willed the figure -to appear, and although once I had summoned it I could not dismiss it, I -had complete and self-possessed knowledge that I saw nothing with my -physical eye. Moreover, full of potentiality for terror as that figure -was in its present shape and attitude, it had no dread for me. I was -fascinated by considering possibilities which I knew could not arise so -long as the present circumstances remained unchanged. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a>{166}</span> other words, I -knew I could trust my reason to keep my imagination in subjection, so -long as my senses were not confused or my attention scared. If I -attempted to extinguish the candles that figure might waver! if I moved -across the floor it might get behind my back, and as I caught sight of -it over my shoulder, the cloak might fall aside! Then I should go mad. -Thus I sat and waited until daylight came. Then I fell asleep in my -chair.</p> - -<p>As I have said, the copy of the <i>Opium-eater</i> I then had was bound in -red cloth. It was a much handsomer book than the humble one published by -Routledge. Since that memorable night many years ago in my high, dreary, -lonely bedroom, I cannot tell you all the copies of the <i>Opium-eater</i> -which have been mine. I remember another, bound in dark blue cloth, with -copious notes. There was a third, the outside seeming of which I forget, -but which I think formed part of two volumes of selections from De -Quincey. I love my little sixpenny volume for one reason chiefly. I can -lend it without fear, and lose it without a pang.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a>{167}</span> Why, the beggarliest -miser alive can’t think much of fourpence-halfpenny! I have already -dispensed a few copies of the <i>Opium-eater</i>, price fourpence-halfpenny. -As it lies on my table now, I take no more care of it than one does of -yesterday’s morning paper. When I read it I double it back, to show to -myself how little I value the gross material of the book. Any one coming -in likely to appreciate the book, and who has not read it is welcome to -carry it off as a gift. Yet if I am free with the volume, I am jealous -of the author. I do not mention his name to people I believe unwilling -or unable to worship him becomingly.</p> - -<p>But when I meet a true disciple what prodigal joy environs and suffuses -me! What talks of him I have had, and speechless raptures in hearing of -him! How thick with gold the air of evenings has been, spent with him -and one who loved him! I recall one glorious summer’s day, when an old -friend and I (we were then, alas! years and years younger than we are -to-day), had toiled on through mountain heather for hours, until we were -half-baked<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a>{168}</span> by the sun and famished with thirst. Suddenly we came upon -the topmost peak of all the hills, and saw, many miles away, the -unexpected sea. As we stood, shading our eyes with our hands, my -companion chanted out, “Obliquely to the right lay the many-languaged -town of Liverpool; obliquely to the left ‘the multitudinous sea.’<span class="leftspc">”</span> -“Whose is that?” I asked eagerly, notwithstanding my drought. “What -isn’t Shakespeare’s is De Quincey’s.” “Where did you find it?” “In the -<i>Opium-eater</i>.” I remember cursing my memory because I had forgotten -that passage. When I got home I looked through the copy I then had, and -could not find the sentence. I wrote to my friend, saying I could not -come upon his quotation. He answered that he now believed it did not -occur in the body of the <i>Confessions</i>, but in a note in some edition, -he could not remember which. What a sense of miserable desolation I had -that this edition had never come my way!</p> - -<p>There are only three marks of any kind in my present copy of the -<i>Confessions</i>, one dealing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a>{169}</span> with the semi-voluntary power children have -over the coming and going of phantoms painted on the darkness. This mark -is very indistinct, and, as I remember nothing about it, I think it must -have been made by accident. The part indicated by it is only -introductory to an unmarked passage immediately following which has -always fascinated my imagination. It is in the “Pains of Opium,” and -runs:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“In the middle of 1817, I think it was, that this faculty became -positively distressing to me: at night, when I lay awake in bed, -vast processions passed along in mournful pomp, friezes of -never-ending stories, that to my feelings were as sad and solemn as -if they were stories drawn from times before Œdipus and -Priam—before Tyre—before Memphis. And at the same time a -corresponding change took place in my dreams: a theatre seemed -suddenly opened and lighted up within my brain, which presented -nightly spectacles of more than earthly splendour.”</p></div> - -<p>How thankful we ought to be that it has never been our fate to sit in -that awful theatre of prehistoric woes! There is surely nothing more -appalling in the past than the interminably vain activities of that -mysterious<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a>{170}</span> atomie, Egyptian man. Who could bear to look upon the three -hundred thousand ant-like slaves swarming among the colossal monoliths -piled up in thousands for the pyramid of Cheops! The bare thought makes -one start back aghast and shudder.</p> - -<p>I find the next mark opposite another awful passage dealing with -infinity, on this occasion infinity of numbers, not of time:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“The waters now changed their character,—from translucent lakes, -shining like mirrors, they now became seas and oceans. And now came -a tremendous change, which, unfolding itself slowly like a scroll, -through many months, promised an abiding torment; and, in fact, it -never left me until the winding-up of my case. Hitherto the human -face had mixed often in my dreams, but not despotically, not with -any special power of tormenting. But now, that which I have called -the tyranny of the human face began to unfold itself. Perhaps some -part of my London life might be answerable for this. Be that as it -may, now it was that upon the rocking waters of the ocean the human -face began to appear: the sea appeared paved with innumerable -faces, upturned to the heavens—faces imploring, wrathful, -despairing, surged upwards by thousands, by myriads, by -generations, by centuries.”</p></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a>{171}</span></p> - -<p>Upon closer looking, I see an attempt has been made to erase the mark -opposite this passage. Joining the fact with the faintness of the line -opposite the former quotation I am driven to the conclusion that there -is only one “stetted” note of admiration in the book. It is a whole page -of the little volume. It begins on page 91, and ends on page 92. To show -you how little I care for my copy of the <i>Confessions</i>, I shall cut it -out. Even a lawyer would pay me more than fourpence-halfpenny for -copying a page of the book, and, as I have said before, the volume has -no extrinsic value for me. Excepting the Bible, I am not familiar with -any finer passage of so great length in prose in the English language:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“The dream commenced with a music which now I often heard in -dreams; a music of preparation and awakening suspense; a music like -the opening of the Coronation Anthem, and which, like <i>that</i>, gave -the feeling of a vast march—of infinite cavalcades filing off—and -the tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty -day—a day of crisis and of final hope for human nature, then -suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some dread -extremity. Somewhere,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a>{172}</span> I knew not where—somehow, I knew not -how—by some beings, I knew not whom—a battle, a strife, an agony -was conducting, was evolving like a great drama, or piece of music; -with which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my confusion -as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, -as is usual in dreams (where, of necessity, we make ourselves -central to every movement), had the power and yet had not the -power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise myself, to -will it; and yet again had not the power, for the weight of twenty -Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. -‘Deeper than ever plummet sounded,’ I lay inactive. Then, like a -chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake; -some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded or trumpet -had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms; hurryings to and fro; -trepidations of innumerable fugitives, I knew not whether from the -good cause or the bad; darkness and lights; tempest and human -faces; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, -and the features that were all the world to me, and but a moment -allowed, and clasped hands, and heart-breaking partings, and -then—everlasting farewells! and with a sigh such as the caves of -hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of -death, the sound was reverberated—everlasting farewells! and again -and yet again reverberated—everlasting farewells! And I awoke in -struggles, and cried aloud, ‘I will sleep no more!’<span class="leftspc">”</span></p></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a>{173}</span></p> - -<p>Upon reading this passage over I am glad I am not familiar with any -finer one in English prose—it would be impossible to endure it. In -these sentences it is not the consummate style alone that overwhelms -one, the matter is nearly as fine as the manner. How tremendously the -numbers and sentences are marshalled! How inevitable, overbearing, -breathless is the onward movement! What awful expectations are aroused, -and shadowy fears vaguely realized! As the spectral pageant moves on -other cohorts of trembling shades join the ghostly legion on the blind -march! All is vaporous, spectral, spiritual, until when we are wound up -to the highest pitch of physical awe and apprehension, we stop suddenly, -arrested by failure of the ground, insufficiency of the road, and are -recalled to life and light and truth and fellowship with the kindly race -of man by the despairing human shriek of incommunicable, inarticulable -agony in the words, “I will sleep no more!” In that despairing cry the -tortured soul abjectly confesses that it has been vanquished and driven -wild by the spirit-world.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a>{174}</span> It is when you contrast the finest passages -in Macaulay with such a passage as this, that you recognise the -difference between a clever writer and a great stylist.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a>{175}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="A_GUIDE_TO_IGNORANCE" id="A_GUIDE_TO_IGNORANCE"></a>A GUIDE TO IGNORANCE.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">For</span> a long time I have had it in my mind to write a guide to ignorance. -I have been withheld partly by a feeling of diffidence and partly by a -want of encouragement from those to whom I mentioned the scheme. I have -submitted a plan of my book to a couple of publishers, but each of these -assured me that such a work would not be popular. In their -straightforward commercial way they told me they could see “no money in -the idea.” I differ from them; I think the book would be greeted with -acclaim and bought with avidity.</p> - -<p>Novelties are, I know, always dangerous speculations except in the form -of clothes, when they are certain of instant and immense adoption. The -mind of man cannot conceive the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a>{176}</span> pattern for trousers’ cloth or the -design for a bonnet that will not be worn. There is nothing too high or -too low to set the fashion to men and women in dress. Conquerors were -crowned with mural wreaths, of which the chimney-pot hat is the lineal -descendant; pigs started the notion of wearing rings in their noses, and -man in the southern seas followed the example; kangaroos were the -earliest pouch-makers and ladies took to carrying reticules.</p> - -<p>But an innovation in the domain of education or thought is a widely -different thing from a frolic in gear. It is easy to set going any craze -which depends merely or mostly on the way of wearing the hair or the -height of the cincture. Hence æstheticism gained many followers in a -little time. But remember it took ages and ages to reconcile people to -wearing any clothes at all. Once you break the ice the immersion in a -new custom may become as rapid as the descent of a round shot into the -sea. The great step was, so to speak, from woad to wampum, with just an -Atlantic<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a>{177}</span> of time between the two. If you went to Poole any day this -week and asked him to make you a suit of wampum he would plead no -insuperable difficulty. If you asked him to make you a suit of woad he -would certainly detain you while he inquired as to your sanity and sent -for your friends. Yet it is only one step, one film, from woad to -wampum.</p> - -<p>Up to this time in the history of man there has, with few exceptions, -been an infatuated pursuit of this will-o’-the-wisp, knowledge. Why -should not man now turn his glance to ignorance, if it were only for a -little while and for the sake of fair play? The idea is of course -revolutionary, so also is every other new idea revolutionary, and (I am -not now referring to politics) it is only from revolutionary ideas we -derive what we regard as advantages. The earth and heavens themselves -are revolutionary. Why then should we not fairly examine the chance of a -revolution in the aim of man?</p> - -<p>The disinclination to face new attitudes of thought comes from the -inherent laziness of man, and hence at the outset of my career<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a>{178}</span> towards -that guide I should find nearly the whole race against me. Humboldt, who -met people of all climes and races and colours, declares laziness to be -the most common vice of human nature. Hence the initial obstacle is -almost insuperable. But it is only almost, not quite insuperable. Men -can be stirred from indolence only by a prospect of profit in some form. -Even in the Civil Service they are incited to make the effort to -continue living by the hope of greater leisure later in life, for with -years comes promotion and promotion means less labour.</p> - -<p>By a little industry in the pursuit of ignorance greater repose would be -attained in the immediate future. It would be very difficult to prove -that up to this hour progress has been of the slightest use or pleasure -to man. Higher pleasures, higher pains. Complexities of consciousness -are merely a source of distraction from centralisation. The jelly fish -may, after all, be the highest ideal of living things, and we may, if -the phrase be admitted, have been developing backward from him. Of all -the creatures on earth man is the most stuck<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a>{179}</span> up. He arrogates -everything to himself and because he can split a flint or make a bow or -gun-barrel he thinks he centres the universe, and insists that the -illimitable deeps of space are focused upon him. Astronomers, a highly -respectable class of people, assert there are now visible to us one -hundred million fixed stars, one hundred million suns like our own. Each -may have its system of planets, such as earth, and each planet again its -attendant satellites. With that splendid magnanimity characteristic of -our race, man would rather pitch the hundred million suns into chaos -than for a moment entertain the idea that he is a humbug and of no use -whatever. And yet after all the jelly-fish may be a worthier fellow than -the best of us.</p> - -<p>I do not of course insist on reversion to the jelly-fish. In this -climate his habits of life are too suggestive of ague and rheumatism. In -fact I do not know that I am urging reversion to anything, even to the -flocks of pastoral man. But I am saying that as myriads of facilities -are given for acquiring<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a>{180}</span> knowledge, one humble means ought to be devised -for acquiring ignorance. If I had anywhere met with the encouragement -which I think I merited, I should have undertaken to write the book -myself.</p> - -<p>I should open by saying it was not until I had concluded a long and -painful investigation that I considered myself in any way qualified to -undertake so grave and important a task as writing a guide to ignorance: -that I had not only inquired curiously into my own fitness, but had also -looked about carefully among my friends in the hope of finding some one -better qualified to carry out this important undertaking. But upon -gauging the depth of my own knowledge and considering conscientiously -the capacity of my acquaintances, I came to the conclusion that no man I -knew personally had so close a personal intimacy with ignorance as -myself. There are few branches, I may say no branch, of knowledge except -that of ignorance in which any one of my friends was not more learned -than myself. I was born in such profound ignorance<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a>{181}</span> that I had no -personal knowledge of the fact at the time. I had existed for a long -time before I could distinguish between myself and things which were -not.</p> - -<p>As a boy I was averse from study; and since I have grown to manhood I -have acquired so little substantive information that I could write down -in a bold hand on one page of this book every single fact, outside facts -of personal experience, of which I am possessed.</p> - -<p>I know that the Norman invasion occurred in 1066, and the Great Fire in -1666. I know that gunpowder is composed of saltpetre, sulphur, and -charcoal, and sausages of minced meat and bread under the name of Tommy. -I am aware Milton and Shakespeare were poets, and that needle-grinders -are short lived. I know that the primest brands of three-shilling -champagnes are made in London. I can give the Latin for seven words, and -the French for four. I can repeat the multiplication table (with the -pence) up to six times. I know the mere names of a number of people and -things; but, as far as clear and definite information goes, I don’t -believe I could<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a>{182}</span> double the above brief list. I am, I think, therefore, -warranted in concluding that few men can have a more close or exhaustive -personal acquaintance with ignorance. If you want learning at secondhand -you must go to the learned: if you want ignorance at first hand you -cannot possibly do better than come to me.</p> - -<p>In the first place let us consider the “Injury of Knowledge.” How much -better off the king would be if he had no knowledge! Suppose his mental -ken had never been directed to any period before the dawn of his own -memory, he would have no disquieting thoughts of the trouble into which -Charles I. or Richard II. drifted. He would be filled with no envy of -the good old King John, who, from four or five ounces of iron in the -form of thumb-screws, and a few hundredweight of rich Jew, filled up the -royal pockets as often as they showed any signs of growing empty. And, -above all, he would be spared the misery of committing dates to memory. -How it must limit the happiness of a constitutional sovereign to know -anything about the constitution! Why should he be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a>{183}</span> burdened with the -consciousness of rights and prerogatives? Would he not be much happier -if he might smoke his cigar in his garden without the fear of the -Speaker or the Lord Chancellor before his eyes? The Commons want their -Speaker, the Lords want their Lord Chancellor—let them have them. The -king wants neither. Why should he be troubled with any knowledge of -either? Although he is a king is he not a man and a brother also? Why -should he be worried out of his life with reasons for all he does? The -king feels he can do no wrong. That ought to be enough for him. Most men -believe the same thing of themselves, but few others share the faith. -The king can do no wrong, then in mercy’s name let the man alone. -Suppose it is a part of my duty to look out of the oriel window at dawn, -noon, and sunset, why should I be bored with cause, reason, and -precedent for this? Let me look out of window if it is my duty to do so; -but, before and after looking out of the window, let me enjoy my life.</p> - -<p>Take the statesman. How knowledge must<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a>{184}</span> hamper him! He is absolutely -precluded from acting with decision by the consciousness of the -difficulties which lay in the path of his predecessors. He has to make -up his subject, to get facts and figures from his subordinates and -others. He has to arrange the party manœuvres before he launches his -scheme, by which time all the energy is gone out of him, and he has not -half as much faith in his bill as if he had never looked at the <i>pros</i> -and <i>cons</i>. “Never mind manœuvring, but go at them,” said Nelson. The -moment you begin to manœuvre you confess your doubtfulness of -success, unless you can take your adversary at a disadvantage; but if -you fly headlong at his throat, you terrify him by the display of your -confidence and valour.</p> - -<p>The words of Nelson apply still more closely to the general. His -knowledge that fifty years ago the British army was worsted on this -field, unnerves, paralyses him. If he did not know that shells are -explosive and bullets deadly, he would make his dispositions with twice -the confidence, and his temerity would fill the foe<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a>{185}</span> with panic. His -simple duty is to defeat the enemy, and knowing anything beyond this -only tends to distract his mind and weaken his arm. In the middle of one -of his Indian battles, and when he thought the conflict had been decided -in favour of British arms, a messenger rode hastily up to the general in -command, who was wiping his reeking forehead on his coat-sleeve: “A -large fresh force of the enemy has appeared in such a place; what is to -be done?” Gough rubbed his forehead with the other sleeve, and shouted -out, “Beat ’em!” Obviously no better command could have been given. What -the English nation wanted the English army to do with the enemy was to -“beat ’em.” In the pictures of the Victoria Cross there is one of a -young dandy officer with an eyeglass in his eye and a sword in his hand, -among the thick of the foe. He knows he is in that place to kill some -one. He is quite ignorant of the fact that the enemy is there to kill -him, and he is taking his time and looking through his eyeglass to try -to find some enticing man through whom to run his sword. One of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a>{186}</span> -Wellington’s most fervent prayers was, “Oh, spare me my dandy officers!” -Now dandies are never very full of knowledge, and yet the greatest Duke -thought more of them than of your learning-begrimed sappers or your -science-bespattered gunners.</p> - -<p>If an advocate at the bar knew one quarter of the law of the land, he -could never get on. In the first place, he would know more than the -judges, and this would prejudice the bench against him. With regard to a -barrister, the best position for him to assume, if he is addressing a -jury, is, “Gentlemen, the indisputable facts of the case, as stated to -you by the witnesses, are so-and-so. In presence of so distinguished a -lawyer as occupies the bench in this court, I do not feel myself -qualified to tell you what the law is; that will be the easy duty of his -lordship.” Even in Chancery cases, the barrister would best insure -success by merely citing the precedent cases, in an off-hand way, “Does -not your lordship think the case of Burke <i>v.</i> Hare meets the exact -conditions of the one under consideration?” The indices<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a>{187}</span> are all the -pleader need look at. The judge will surely strain a point for one who -does not bore him with extracts and arguments, but leaves all to -himself, and lets the work of the court run smoothly and just as the -president wishes.</p> - -<p>Knowledge is an absolute hindrance to the doctor of medicine. Supposing -he is a man of average intelligence (some doctors are), he is able to -diagnose, let me say, fever. You or I could diagnose fever pretty -well—quick pulse, dry skin, thirst, and so on. But as the doctor leans -over the patient, he is paralysed by the complication of his knowledge. -Such a theory is against feeding up, such a theory against slops, such a -theory against bleeding, such a theory in favour of phlebotomy; there -are the wet and the dry, the hot and the cold methods; and while the -doctor is deliberating, vacillating, or speculating, the patient has -ample opportunity of dying, or nature of stepping in and curing the man, -and thus foiling the doctor. Is there not much more sense and candour in -the method adopted by the Irish hunting<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a>{188}</span> dispensary doctor, who, before -starting with the hounds, locked up all drugs, except the Glauber’s -salts, a stone or two of which he left in charge of his servant, with -instructions it was to be meted out impartially to all comers, each -patient receiving an honest fistful as a dose? It is a remarkable fact -that within this century homœopathy has gained a firm hold on an -important section of the community, and yet, notwithstanding the growth -of what the allopathists or regular profession regard as ignorant -quackery, the span of human life has had six years added to it in eighty -years. Still homœopathy is a practical confession of ignorance; for -it says, in effect, “We don’t know exactly what Nature is trying to do, -but let us give her a little help, and trust in luck.” Whereas allopathy -pretended to know everything and to fight Nature. Here, in the result of -years added to man’s life by the development of the ignorant system, we -see once more the superiority of ignorance over knowledge.</p> - -<p>How full of danger to the unwedded men is knowledge owned by the widow! -She has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a>{189}</span> knowledge of the married state, in which she was far removed -from all the troubles and responsibilities of life. She had her -pin-money, her bills paid, stalls taken for her at the opera, agreeable -company around her board, no occasion to face money difficulties. Now -all that is changed. There is no elasticity in her revenue, no margin -for the gratification of her whims; she has to pay her own bills, secure -her own stalls; she cannot very well entertain company often, and all -the unpleasantnesses of business matters press her sorely. Her knowledge -tells her that, if she could secure a second husband, all would be -pleasant again. It may be said that here knowledge is in favour of the -widow. Yes; but it is against the “Community.” Remember, the “Community” -is always a male.</p> - -<p>There is hardly any class or member of the community that does not -suffer drawback or injury from knowledge. As I am giving only a crude -outline of a design, I leave a great deal to the imagination of the -reader. He will easily perceive how much happier and more free would be -the man of business, the girl, the boy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a>{190}</span> the scientist, the -controversialist, and, above all, the literary man, if each knew little -or nothing, instead of having pressed upon the attention from youth -accumulated experiences, traditions, discoveries, and reasonings of many -centuries.</p> - -<p>To the “Delights of Ignorance,” I should devote the consideration of man -devoid of knowledge under various circumstances and in various -positions.</p> - -<p>By the sea who does not love to lie “propt on beds of amaranth and moly, -how sweet (while warm airs lull, blowing lowly), with half-dropt eyelids -still, beneath a heaven dark and holy, to watch the long bright river -drawing slowly his waters from the purple hill—to hear the dewy echoes -calling from cave to cave through the thick-twined vine—to watch the -emerald-coloured waters falling through many a woven acanthus wreath -divine! Only to see and hear the far-off sparkling brine, only to hear -were sweet, stretched out beneath the pine.” Just so! Is not that much -better than bothering about gravitation and that wretched old clinker -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a>{191}</span> moon, and the tides, and how sea-water is made up of oxygen and -hydrogen and chloride of sodium and bromide of something else, and fifty -other things, not one of which has a tolerable smell when you meet it in -a laboratory? Isn’t it better than thinking of the number of lighthouses -built on the coast of Albion, and the tonnage which yearly is reported -and cleared at the custom-houses of London, Liverpool, and that -prosperous seaport of Bohemia! Isn’t it much better than improving the -occasion by reading a hand-book on hydraulics or hydrostatics? Who on -the seashore wants to know anything? There will always, down to the last -syllable of recorded time, be finer things unknown about the sea than -can be said about all other matters in the world. Trying to know -anything about the sea is like shooting into the air an arrow attached -to a pennyworth of string with a view to sounding space. If we threw all -the knowledge we have into the ocean the Admiralty standards of -high-water mark would not have to be altered one-millionth part of a -line.</p> - -<p>What a blessing ignorance would be in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a>{192}</span> an inn! Who would not dispense -with a knowledge of all the miseries that follow in the wake of the vat -when one is thirsty, and has before him amber sunset-coloured ale, and -in his hand a capacious, long, cool-meaning churchwarden? Who would at -such a moment cumber his mind with the unit of specific gravity used by -excisemen in testing beer? Who would at such a moment care to calculate -the toll exacted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer before each cool -gulp may thrill with amazing joy the parched gullet?</p> - -<p>Who, when upon a journey, would care to know the precise pressure -required to blow the boiler of the engine to pieces, or the number of -people killed in collisions during the corresponding quarter of last -year? Should we not be better in sickness for not knowing the exact -percentage of deaths in cases of our class? In adversity should we not -be infinitely happier were we in ignorance of the chance we ran of -gaining a good position or of cutting our throats? Should we not enjoy -our prosperity all the more if we were not, morning<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a>{193}</span> and evening, -exercised by the fluctuations of the share-list, fluctuations in all -likelihood destined never to increase or diminish our fortunes one -penny? And oh, for ignorance in sleep! For sleep without dream, or -nightmare, or memory! For sleep such as falls upon the body when the -soul is done with it and away!</p> - -<p>But all this is only rambling talk and likely to come to nothing. I fear -I shall never find a publisher for my great work. Upon reading over what -I have written I am impressed by the faintness of the outline it -displays of the book. In fact there is hardly any outline at all. It is -no more clear than the figures thrown by a magic-lantern upon a fog. I -have done nothing more than wave the sacred lamp of ignorance before -your eyes. I daresay my friend the jelly-fish would shake his fat sides -with laughter if he became aware of this futile effort to show how far -we are removed from his state of blissful calm. I feel infinitely -depressed and discouraged. I feel that not only will I not be hailed as -a prophet in my own<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a>{194}</span> country, but that the age will have nothing to do -with my scheme. It may be thought by many that there is something like -treason in thus enrolling oneself under the banner of the jelly-fish. -Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Carthage, and Rome have gone back from -knowledge, and even the jelly-fish does not flourish on their sites. But -is the condition of their sites the worse for lacking the jelly-fish? -Perhaps the “silence, and desolation, and dim night” are better in those -places than the blare of trumpets and the tramp of man. So far as we -know man is the only being capable of doing evil or offending heaven. -His absence may by nature be considered very good company. Whatever part -of earth he can handle and move he has turned topsy-turvy. One day earth -will turn on him and wipe him out altogether.</p> - -<p>For me and my great scheme for the book there is no hope. Man has always -been accounted a poor creature when judged by a fellow man whom he does -not appreciate. How can I be expected to go on taking an interest in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a>{195}</span> -man when not the most credulous or the most crafty publisher in London -will as much as look at my <i>Guide to Ignorance</i>? I feel that my life is -wasted and that my functions have been usurped by the School Board. I -cool the air with sighs for the days when a philosopher might teach his -disciples in the porch or the grove. I feel as if I could anticipate -earth and turn on man. But some of the genial good nature of the -jelly-fish still lingers in my veins. I will not finally desert man -until man has finally deserted me. I had by me a few scattered essays in -the style of the book I projected in vain. If in them the reader has not -found ample proof of my fitness to inculcate the philosophy of Ignorance -I shall abandon Man to his fate. I have relieved my mind of some of its -teeming store of vacuity. I can scarcely hope I have added to the -reader’s hoard. But it would be consoling to fancy that upon laying down -this book the reader’s mind will if possible be still more empty than -when he took it up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a>{196}</span></p> - -<p class="c"><small> -<span class="smcap">Richard Clay and Sons</span>,<br /> -LONDON AND BUNGAY.</small> -</p> - -<p><a name="transcrib" id="transcrib"></a></p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="padding:2%;border:3px dotted gray;"> -<tr><th align="center">Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:</th></tr> -<tr><td align="left">the face of a charletan=> the face of a charlatan {pg 13}</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left">acccording to Mitchel=> acccording to Mitchel {pg 140}</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left">are focussed upon him.=> are focused upon him. {pg 179}</td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ignorant Essays, by Richard Dowling - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IGNORANT ESSAYS *** - -***** This file should be named 53169-h.htm or 53169-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/1/6/53169/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif, MFR and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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