diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/60637-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/60637-0.txt | 23787 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 23787 deletions
diff --git a/old/60637-0.txt b/old/60637-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b3b2faa..0000000 --- a/old/60637-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,23787 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Commonplace Book, by Various - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: My Commonplace Book - -Author: Various - -Editor: J. T. Hackett - -Release Date: November 5, 2019 [EBook #60637] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY COMMONPLACE BOOK *** - - - - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - MY - COMMONPLACE - BOOK - - J. T. HACKETT - - “_Omne meum, nihil meum_” - - T. FISHER UNWIN LTD - LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE - - _First publication in Great Britain, September, 1919._ - - _Second English Edition, September, 1920._ - - _Third English Edition, January, 1921._ - - - - - _O Memories!_ - _O Past that is!_ - - GEORGE ELIOT. - - * * * * * - -DEDICATED TO MY DEAR FRIEND - -_RICHARD HODGSON_ - -WHO HAS PASSED OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE - - _Of wounds and sore defeat_ - _I made my battle-stay;_ - _Wingèd sandals for my feet_ - _I wove of my delay;_ - _Of weariness and fear_ - _I made my shouting spear;_ - _Of loss, and, doubt, and dread,_ - _And swift oncoming doom_ - _I made a helmet for my head_ - _And a floating plume._ - _From the shutting mist of death,_ - _From the failure of the breath_ - _I made a battle-horn to blow_ - _Across the vales of overthrow._ - _O hearken, love, the battle-horn!_ - _The triumph clear, the silver scorn!_ - _O hearken where the echoes bring,_ - _Down the grey disastrous morn,_ - _Laughter and rallying!_[1] - - WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY. - - * * * * * - - _I cannot but remember such things were,_ - _That were most precious to me._ - - MACBETH, IV, 3. - - - - -PREFACE[2] - - -A large proportion of the most interesting quotations in this book was -collected between 1874 and 1886. During that period I was under the -influence of Richard Hodgson, who was my close friend from childhood. To -him directly and indirectly this book is largely indebted. - -Hodgson (1855-1905) had a remarkably pure, noble, and lovable character, -and was one of the most gifted men Australia has produced. He is known -in philosophic circles from some early contributions to _Mind_ and other -journals, but is mainly known from his work in psychical research, to -which he devoted the best years of his life. Apart from his great ability -in other directions, he was endowed, even in youth, with fine taste and -a clear and mature literary judgment. This will appear to some extent in -the quotations over his name, and the note on p. 208 will give further -particulars of his career. He was from two to three years older than -myself, and guided me in my early reading. Therefore, indirectly, he has -to do with most of the contents of this book. - -But, more than this, about one-third of the main quotations (not -including the notes which I have only now added) came direct from -Hodgson. He left Australia in 1877, but we maintained a voluminous -correspondence until 1886. This correspondence contained most of the -quotations referred to, and the remainder Hodgson gave me in London -on the only occasion I met him after he left Australia. (After 1886 he -became so immersed in psychical research, and I in legal work, that our -correspondence ceased to be of a literary character.) Thus directly and -indirectly Hodgson has much to do with the book—and, if it had been -practicable, I would have placed his name on the title-page. - -This book is simply one to be taken up at odd moments, like any other -collection of quotations. But there are two reasons why it may have -some special interest. One reason is that it includes passages from a -number of authors who appear to have become forgotten, or, at any rate, -to be passing Lethe-wards. We, who dwell in the underworld,[3] cannot, -of course, have a complete knowledge of what is known or forgotten in -the inner literary circles of England. We can depend only on the books -and periodicals that happen to come to our hands, and perhaps should not -rely too much on such sources of information. Yet I cannot but think -that Robert Buchanan, for example, has become largely forgotten, and -apparently this is the case also with a number of other authors from whom -I quote. Because of this, I have retained all the passages I had from -such authors. - -It must be remembered that this book is not an anthology. A commonplace -book is usually a collection of _reminders_ made by a young man who -cannot afford an extensive library. There is no system in such a -collection. A book is borrowed and extracts made from it; another book by -the same author is _bought_ and no extract made from it. On the one hand -a favourite verse, although well known, is written out for some reason -or other; on the other hand hundreds of beautiful poems are omitted. So -far from this being an anthology, I have, as a matter of course, omitted -many poems that since the seventy-eighty period have become general -favourites; and, as regards the most beautiful gems of our literature, -they are almost all excluded. There are for example, only a few lines -from Shakespeare. - -Some exceptions have, however, been made. In a series of word-pictures, -a few of the best-known passages will be found. A few others have been -included for reasons that will readily appear; they either form part of a -series or the reason is apparent from the notes. Apart from these I have -retained Blanco White’s great sonnet and “The Night has a thousand eyes,” -written by F. W. Bourdillon when an undergraduate at Worcester College, -Oxford, because with regard to these I had an interesting and instructive -experience. I accidentally discovered that of four well-read men (two at -least of them more thorough students of poetry than myself) two were -ignorant of the one poem and two of the other. Seeking an explanation, I -turned to the anthologies. I could not find in any of them Bourdillon’s -little gem until I came to the comparatively recent _Oxford Book of -Victorian Verse_ and _The Spirit of Man_. The Blanco White sonnet I could -find _nowhere_ except in collections of sonnets, which in my opinion are -little read. It will be observed that in anthologies alone can Blanco -White’s one and only poem be kept alive. - -The second reason why this book may have a special interest is that it -may serve as a reminder to my contemporaries of our stirring thoughts and -experiences in the seventies and eighties. How interesting this period -was it is difficult to show in a few lines. In pure literature, books of -value simply poured from the press. In the closing year, 1889, “One who -never turned his back, but marched breast forward” died on the day that -his last book, _Asolando_, was published, leaving Tennyson, an old man of -eighty, the sole survivor of the poets of a great period. At almost the -same moment “Crossing the Bar” was published. - -Apart from literature, the seventies and eighties were an eventful -period in science and religion. Darwinism was still causing its -tremendous upheaval, and the supposed conflict between religion and -science exercised an enormous effect on the minds of men. Evolution had -explained so much of the processes in the history of life, that the -_majority_ of thinkers at that time imagined that no room was left for -the super-natural. Science was supposed to have given a death-blow to -religion, and the greatest wave of materialism ever known in the history -of the world swept over England and Europe. It is strange how many great -thinkers missed what now appears so obvious a fact, that causality still -stood behind all law, and that Darwin, like Newton, had merely helped to -show the method by which the universe is governed. (It seems to me that -James Martineau stood supreme at that time as a man of genius who saw -clearly the inherent defect of the whole materialist movement.) - -However, agnosticism, materialism, positivism flourished and triumphed. -Science, whose dignity had been so long unrecognized, came into her -own, and, in her turn, usurped the same dogmatic superior attitude she -had resented in ecclesiasticism. On the one hand pessimistic literature -and philosophy poured from the press; on the other hand new religions -arose to take the place of the old. Theosophy and spiritualism were in -evidence everywhere (leading in 1882 to the happy result that the Society -for Psychical Research was founded). Harrison, Clifford, Swinburne and -others preached the deification of man. There were discords within, as -well as foes without the church. The severely orthodox fought against -the revelations of Colenso and the higher criticism; Seeley’s _Ecce -Homo_ and a host of other works aroused fierce antagonism; Pius IX, who -had in 1864 published his Syllabus which would have destroyed modern -civilization, proclaimed the infallibility of the Pope in 1870—and in -1872 was deprived of temporal power. Such questions as the literal -interpretation and inerrancy of the Bible were the subjects of intense -conflict—and especially strange is it to remember the dire struggle -of well-intentioned men to maintain the horrible doctrine of eternal -punishment. I imagine that this book will assist to some extent in -recalling the atmosphere and aroma of that remarkable period. - -I have made very little attempt to arrange my quotations—and now wish I -had done less in that direction. The book is intended for casual reading, -and to arrange it under headings would tend to make it _heavy_. The -element of surprise is more calculated to make the book attractive. - -I began the notes that are appended to some of the quotations with the -intention of giving only such short, necessary explanations as would -be of assistance to the inexperienced reader. When, however, I began -to write, I found my pen running away with me. Apart from the usual, -ineffectual efforts of one’s youth, I had never before attempted literary -work, and for the first time experienced the great pleasure there is in -such writing. With the immense variety of subjects in a collection of -quotations, one could continue to write over a series of years; but it -was necessary to keep the book within reasonable bounds, and, therefore, -I had arbitrarily to come to a stop. In these notes I do not claim that -there is much, if any, originality,[4] they are mostly recollections of -old reading. Still they may serve the important purpose of revivifying -old truths (see p. 78). - -I have been astonished at the great deal of work this book has -involved—and also how much I have needed the assistance of my friends. -There were some sixty or seventy quotations in respect to which I had -neglected to give any reference to the authors (for the same reason -as one did not put the names on photographs of old friends—it seemed -impossible that the names could be forgotten). The difficulty of finding -even one such quotation is enormous, and we have no British Museum in -Adelaide, but only some limited public libraries. However, with the help -of my friends I have succeeded in tracing the paternity of most of these -“orphans.” In this and other directions I have had the kind assistance of -many gentlemen. Of these first and foremost comes Mr. G. F. Hassell, the -publisher of the Adelaide edition, who, in his devotion to literature as -well as to his own art of printing, is a worthy representative of the old -Renaissance printers. He has given me every assistance, has gone through -every line, and, as he is both an exceedingly well-read man and also of -a younger generation than myself, I have left it to him to decide what -should be omitted and what retained in this book. Professor Mitchell has -also been so kind as to revise and make suggestions concerning a number -of notes on philosophic and other subjects. Professor Darnley Naylor has -been uniformly good in revising any notes of a classical nature—though -he takes no responsibility whatever for the views I express. Dr. E. -Harold Davies has also helped me with two notes on music, in one instance -correcting a serious mistake I had made. Sir Langdon Bonython, my friend -of many years, has assisted me with practical as well as literary -suggestions, and has thrown open his library to me. Mr. Francis Edwards, -of High Street, Marylebone, has assisted in my search for references to -quotations. Mr. H. Rutherford Purnell, Public Librarian of Adelaide, and -his staff have helped me throughout, and Mr. E. La Touche Armstrong, -Public Librarian of Melbourne, has gone to great trouble on my account. -Miss M. R. Walker has assisted me in various ways, and especially in -preparing the very difficult Index of Subjects. Mr. Sydney Temple Thomas -has lent me a number of important books I specially required. Others -who have helped me in one way or another are two English friends, Mrs. -Caroline Sidgwick and Mrs. Rachael Bray, Messrs. J. R. Fowler, H. W. -Uffindell, S. Talbot Smith and Dr. J. W. Browne, of Adelaide, Professor -Dettmann of New Zealand, Professor Hyslop of New York and Mr. F. C. -Govers of the State War Council, Sydney. - -For permission to include quotations from their works I thank the -following authors: Rev. F. W. Boreham, Mr. F. W. Bourdillon, Mr. -A. J. Edmunds, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. Thomas Hardy, O.M., Professor -Hobhouse, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Mr. E. F. Knight, Mr. R. Le Gallienne, -Mr. W. S. Lilly, Mr. Robert Loveman, Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir Arthur -Quiller-Couch, Professor A. H. Sayce, Mrs. Cronwright Schreiner, Mr. J. -C. Squire, Mr. Herbert Trench, Mr. Samuel Waddington, Mrs. Humphry Ward, -Mr. F. A. Westbury, Mr. F. S. Williamson and Sir Francis Younghusband. - -For extracts from the writings of their relatives I am grateful to Lady -Arnold, Sir Francis Darwin, Mr. Henry James, The Earl of Lytton, Dr. -Greville McDonald, Miss Martineau, Miss Massey, Mr. W. M. Meredith, -Mrs. F. W. H. Myers, the Rev. Conrad Noel, Mr. William M. Rossetti, Sir -Herbert Stephen and Lord Tennyson. Mr. Piddington has also given much -assistance. - -I am indebted to the following for quotations from the works of the -authors named: of Ruskin to the Ruskin Literary Trustees and their -publishers, Messrs. George Allen and Unwin; of Brunton Stephens to -Messrs. Angus and Robertson; of C. S. Calverley to Messrs. G. Bell and -Sons; of George Eliot to Messrs. William Blackwood & Sons; of James -Kenneth Stephen to Messrs. Bowes and Bowes; of Francis Thompson to -Messrs. Burns and Oates; of R. L. Stevenson to Messrs. Chatto and Windus -and to Messrs. Charles Scribner’s Sons; of Robert Buchanan to Messrs. -Chatto and Windus and to Mr. W. E. Martyn; of James Thomson (B.V.) to -Messrs. P. J. and A. E. Dobell; of D. G. Rossetti to Messrs. Ellis; of -Swinburne to Mr. W. Heinemann; of Mr. Le Gallienne, H. D. Lowry, Stephen -Phillips and J. B. Tabb to Mr. John Lane; of R. Loveman to the J. B. -Lippincott Co.; of A. K. H. Boyd, R. Jeffries, W. E. H. Lecky and the -Rev. James Martineau, to Messrs. Longmans Green & Co.; of Alfred Austin, -T. E. Brown, Lewis Carroll, Edward Fitzgerald, F. W. H. Myers, Walter -Pater, Lord Tennyson and Charles Tennyson Turner to Messrs. Macmillan & -Co.; of V. O’Sullivan to Mr. Elkin Matthews; of Mrs. Elizabeth Waterhouse -to Messrs. Methuen & Co.; of Robert Browning to Mr. John Murray; of Dr. -Moncure Conway and Sir Alfred Lyall to Messrs. Paul (Kegan), Trench -Trubner & Co.; of George Gissing to Mr. James B. Pinker; of John Payne -to Mr. O. M. Pritchard, his executor, and to Mr. Thomas Wright; of Sir -Edwin Arnold, P. J. Bailey (Festus) and Coventry Patmore to Messrs. -George Routledge & Sons; of G. Whyte Melville to Messrs. Ward Lock & Co. -(songs and verses); of George MacDonald to Messrs. A. P. Watt & Son; Mr. -Rudyard Kipling’s “L’Envoi” is reprinted from Departmental Ditties, by -kind permission of the author and Messrs. Methuen & Co.; “To the True -Romance” is published by Messrs. Macmillan & Co., to whom I am deeply -indebted, not only for this and the permissions mentioned above, but also -for much assistance in tracing copyrights. Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co., -Mr. John Murray and Messrs. A. P. Watt & Son have been most helpful in -this direction, as have also been Messrs. T. B. Lippincott, the Oxford -University Press and Messrs. Watts & Co. Messrs. Constable & Co. have -generously granted permission for the quotations from George Meredith -and, as the representatives in London of the Houghton Mifflin Co. of -Boston, Mass., have secured the quotations from the works of American -authors published by that Firm, viz., T. B. Aldrich, R. W. Gilder, W. V. -Moody, S. M. B. Piatt, E. M. Thomas, C. D. Warner and the Classics of -Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell and Whittier. Messrs. G. P. Putnam’s Sons -have also given much help; the lines from Anna Reeve Aldrich and R. C. -Rogers are published by their New York House. Mr. Martin Seeker joins -in the consent given by Mr. Squire for the extract from his poems. I -thank the Editor of the Contemporary Review for quotations from the -writings of Professor A. Bain and the Rev. R. F. Littledale; and the -Editor of the Nineteenth Century for some lines by W. M. Hardinge (Greek -Anthology) and an article on Multiplex Personality. I thank also the -Society for Psychical Research for an obituary article by F. W. H. Myers -on Gladstone, printed in the Journal of that Society. - -For any unintentional omissions, oversights, or failures to trace -rights I beg to tender my apologies. The distance of Adelaide from the -centre of publication may, in some measure, serve as an excuse for such -shortcomings. - -_All profits derived from the sale of this book will be paid to the Red -Cross Fund._ - - J. T. HACKETT. - -Adelaide. - - - - -PREFACE TO THE SECOND ENGLISH EDITION. - - -In preparing this edition I have made a great number of more or less -important corrections, alterations and additions. Most of these occupy -only a few lines apiece and, although none call for special mention, they -should together add to the interest and usefulness of this book. For a -number of them I am indebted to Mr. Vernon Rendall, formerly editor of -the _Athenæum_ and _Notes and Queries_. With his wonderfully wide and -exact knowledge of English and classical literature, he gave me much -assistance and I am grateful to him. - -The issue of a Second Edition enables me to thank my friend, Sir John -Cockburn, for his truly remarkable kindness to me. When I sent this -book home from Adelaide to be published, he undertook the heavy work of -seeking the consent of the numerous copyright owners, negotiating with -publishers, and seeing the book through the press. Only those who are -experienced in such matters can realize the _enormous_ amount of time -and labour that all this involved. It is impossible for me to express -adequately my obligations to my friend. He did not include any reference -to himself in the original Preface, in spite of my insistence by letter -and cable. - -In associating his name with this book, I am bound to add that Sir John -disagrees with and, therefore, disapproves of much that I have said in -some notes on the Ancient Greeks. - - J. T. HACKETT. - -London, _September, 1920._ - - - - -PREFACE TO THE THIRD ENGLISH EDITION. - - -This has presumably to be called a new edition, rather than a new issue, -seeing that there are revisions and alterations. But these are not -numerous, and the only ones to which I need call special attention are -the substituted verses on pp. 153-5. - -I am indebted to Mr. Denys Bray for permission to include his daughter’s -verses. - - J. T. HACKETT. - -Mentone, _December, 1920._ - - - - -YOUTH AND AGE - - _Verse, a breeze ’mid blossoms straying,_ - _Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee—_ - _Both were mine! Life went a-maying_ - _With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,_ - _When I was young!_ - - _~When~ I was young?—Ah, woful When!_ - _Ah! for the change ’twixt Now and Then!_ - _This breathing house not built with hands,_ - _This body that does me grievous wrong,_ - _O’er aery cliffs and glittering sands_ - _How lightly ~then~ it flashed along:—_ - _Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,_ - _On winding lakes and rivers wide,_ - _That ask no aid of sail or oar,_ - _That fear no spite of wind or tide!_ - _Nought cared this body for wind or weather_ - _When Youth and I lived in’t together._ - - _Flowers are lovely: Love is flower-like;_ - _Friendship is a sheltering tree;_ - _O! the joys, that came down shower-like,_ - _Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,_ - _Ere I was old!_ - - _~Ere~ I was old? Ah, woful Ere,_ - _Which tells me, Youth’s no longer here!_ - _O Youth! for years so many and sweet_ - _’Tis known that Thou and I were one,_ - _I’ll think it but a fond conceit—_ - _It cannot be, that thou art gone!_ - _Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll’d:—_ - _And thou wert aye a masker bold!_ - _What strange disguise hast now put on_ - _To ~make believe~ that Thou art gone?_ - _I see these locks in silvery slips,_ - _This drooping gait, this alter’d size:_ - _But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips,_ - _And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!_ - _Life is but Thought: so think I will_ - _That Youth and I are house-mates still._ - - _Dew-drops are the gems of morning,_ - _But the tears of mournful eve!_ - _Where no hope is, life’s a warning_ - _That only serves to make us grieve_ - _When we are old:_ - _—That only serves to make us grieve_ - _With oft and tedious taking-leave,_ - _Like some poor nigh-related guest_ - _That may not rudely be dismist,_ - _Yet hath outstay’d his welcome while,_ - _And tells the jest without the smile._ - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - - - -My Commonplace Book - - - Our God and soldier we alike adore, - When at the brink of ruin, not before; - After deliverance both alike requited, - Our God forgotten, and our soldiers slighted. - - FRANCIS QUARLES (1592-1644). - - * * * * * - - In an age of fops and toys, - Wanting wisdom, void of right, - Who shall nerve heroic boys - To hazard all in Freedom’s fight? - ... - So nigh is grandeur to our dust, - So near is God to man, - When Duty whispers low, _Thou must_, - The youth replies, _I can_. - - R. W. EMERSON (_Voluntaries_). - - * * * * * - -ENGLAND - - When I have borne in memory what has tamed - Great Nations, how ennobling thoughts depart - When men change swords for ledgers, and desert - The student’s bower for gold, some fears unnamed - I had, my Country—am I to be blamed? - Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art, - Verily, in the bottom of my heart, - Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. - For dearly must we prize thee; we who find - In thee a bulwark for the cause of men; - And I by my affection was beguiled: - What wonder if a Poet now and then, - Among the many movements of his mind, - Felt for thee as a lover or a child! - - WORDSWORTH (1803). - - * * * * * - - Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record - One death struggle in the darkness ’twixt old systems and the Word; - Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,— - Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, - Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own. - - J. R. LOWELL (_The Present Crisis_). - - * * * * * - - Many loved Truth, and lavished life’s best oil - Amid the dust of books to find her, - Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, - With the cast mantle she hath left behind her. - Many in sad faith sought for her, - Many with crossed hands sighed for her; - But these, our brothers, fought for her, - At life’s dear peril wrought for her, - So loved her that they died for her.... - They saw her plumed and mailed, - With sweet, stern face unveiled, - And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death. - - J. R. LOWELL (_Ode at Harvard Commemoration, - 1865_). - - This Ode was written in memory of the Harvard University men - who had died in the Secession war. Our own brave men are also - fighting in the cause of Truth, against the hideous falsity of - German teaching and morals. - - * * * * * - - The future’s gain - Is certain as God’s truth; but, meanwhile, pain - Is bitter, and tears are salt: our voices take - A sober tone; our very household songs - Are heavy with a nation’s griefs and wrongs; - And innocent mirth is chastened for the sake - Of the brave hearts that nevermore shall beat. - The eyes that smile no more, the unreturning feet! - - J. G. WHITTIER (_In War Time_). - - * * * * * - - PRIEST - - “The glory of Man is his strength, - And the weak man must die,” said the Lord. - - CHORUS - - Hark to the Song of the Sword! - - PRIEST - - Uplift! let it gleam in the sun— - Uplift in the name of the Lord! - - KAISER - - Lo! how it gleams in the light, - Beautiful, bloody, and bright. - Yea, I uplift the Sword - Thus in the name of the Lord! - - THE CHIEFS - - Form ye a circle of fire - Around him, our King and our Sire— - While in the centre he stands, - Kneel with your swords in your hands, - Then with one voice deep and free - Echo like waves of the sea— - “In the name of the Lord!” - - VOICES WITHOUT - - Where is he?—he fades from our sight! - Where the Sword?—all is blacker than night. - Is it finish’d, that loudly ye cry? - Doth he sheathe the great Sword while we die? - O bury us deep, most deep; - Write o’er us, wherever we sleep, - “In the name of the Lord!” - - KAISER - - While I uplift the Sword, - Thus in the name of the Lord, - Why, with mine eyes full of tears, - Am I sick of the song in mine ears? - God of the Israelite, hear; - God of the Teuton, be near; - Strengthen my pulse lest I fail. - Shut out these slain while they wail— - For they come with the voice of the grave - On the glory they give me and gave. - - CHORUS - - In the name of the Lord? Of what Lord? - Where is He, this God of the Sword? - Unfold Him; where hath He His throne? - Is He Lord of the Teuton alone? - Doth He walk on the earth? Doth He tread - On the limbs of the dying and dead? - Unfold Him! We sicken, and long - To look on this God of the strong! - - PRIEST - - Hush! In the name of the Lord, - Kneel ye, and bless ye the Sword! - - R. BUCHANAN (_The Apotheosis of the Sword, - Versailles, 1871_) - - * * * * * - - Short is mine errand to tell, and the end of my desire: - For peace I bear unto thee, and to all the kings of the earth, - Who bear the sword aright, and are crowned with the crown of worth; - But unpeace to the lords of evil, and the battle and the death; - And the edge of the sword to the traitor and the flame to the slanderous - breath: - And I would that the loving were loved, and I would that the weary should - sleep, - And that man should hearken to man, and that he that soweth should reap. - - W. MORRIS (_Sigurd the Volsung, Book III_). - - * * * * * - -SACRIFICE - - Though love repine, and reason chafe, - There came a voice without reply,— - “’Tis man’s perdition to be safe, - When for the truth he ought to die.” - - R. W. EMERSON. - - * * * * * - -GREEKS OR GERMANS? - -Do not imagine that you are fighting about a single issue, freedom or -slavery. You have an empire to lose, and are exposed to danger by reason -of the hatred which your imperial rule has inspired in other states. And -you cannot resign your power, although some timid or unambitious spirits -want you to act justly. For now your empire has become a _despotism_, -a thing which in the opinion of mankind has been unjustly acquired yet -cannot be safely relinquished. The men of whom I speak, if they could -find followers, would soon ruin the state, and, if they were to found a -state of their own, would just as soon ruin that. - - (_Speech by Pericles._) - -I have observed again and again that a democracy cannot govern an empire; -and never more clearly than now, when I see you regretting the sentence -you pronounced on the Mityleneans. Having no fear or suspicion of one -another, you deal with your allies on the same principle. You do not -realize that, whenever you yield to them out of pity, or are prevailed -on by their pleas, you are guilty of a weakness dangerous to yourselves -and receive no gratitude from them. You need to bear in mind that your -empire is a _despotism_ exercised over unwilling subjects who are ever -conspiring against you. They do not obey because of any kindness you show -them: they obey just so far as you show yourselves their masters. They -have no love for you, but are held down by force.... - -You must not be misled by pity, or eloquent pleading or by generosity. -There are no three things more fatal to empire. - - (_Speech by Cleon_) THUCYDIDES, II, 63; III, 37, 40. - - It will be seen that these odious sentiments are attributed - by the impartial Thucydides to his hero Pericles as well as - to the demagogue Cleon. The Greeks were fervent supporters of - Democracy and Equality, but not when it came to dealing either - with foreign states or with their own _women or slaves_. (See - also Socrates and Aristotle, p. 367.) - - * * * * * - -These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the -sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their -country; but he, that stands it _now_, deserves the love and thanks -of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we -have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more -glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: -it is dearness only that gives anything its value. Heaven knows how to -put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so -celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. - - THOMAS PAINE (1776). - - Outside the Bible and other books of religion, I think it - would be difficult to find any single passage in the world’s - literature that produced so wonderful a result as the above - passage of Tom Paine’s. It was the opening paragraph of the - first number of _The Crisis_, and was written by miserable, - flaring candle-light, when Paine was a private in Washington’s - ill-clad, worn-out army at Trenton. The soldiers, who were then - despairing from hardship and defeat, were roused by these words - to such enthusiasm that next day they rushed bravely in and won - the first American victory, which turned the tide of the war of - independence. - - Previously to this, it was through Paine’s pamphlet, _Common - Sense_, that the Americans first saw that separation was the - only remedy for their grievances. Conway tells an amusing story - about _Common Sense_ and _The Rights of Man_. When the Bolton - town crier was sent round to seize these prohibited books, he - reported that he could not find any Rights of Man or Common - Sense anywhere! - - For trying to save the life of Louis XVI during the revolution, - Paine was thrown into the Bastille, and only escaped death by a - curious accident. It was customary for chalk-marks to be made - on the cell-doors of those to be guillotined the following - morning, and these doors opened outwards. When Paine’s door - was marked, it happened to be open, and the mark was made on - the inside, so that, when the door was shut, the mark was not - visible. If Paine had not been a sceptic, this would have - been described in those days as a wonderful interposition of - Providence! - - Conway lays a terrible indictment against Washington. When - Paine, whose services to America, and to Washington himself, - had been so magnificent, was thrown into the Bastille, - Washington could have saved him by a word—but remained silent! - This was no doubt the reason why Paine, after his liberation, - was led to make an unjust attack on Washington’s military and - Presidential work. It was due to this attack on Washington - and the bigotry of the time against the author of _The Age of - Reason_, that Paine fell utterly into disrepute. - - When the Centenary of American independence was celebrated by - an Exhibition at Philadelphia, a bust of Paine was offered to - the city by his admirers, but was promptly declined! And yet - Conway says that on the day, whose centenary was then being - celebrated, Paine was idolized in America above all other men, - Washington included. - - The foregoing notes were made on reading an article on Paine by - Moncure D. Conway in _The Fortnightly_, March, 1879. I think - the fact mentioned in the last paragraph and the town-crier - story do not appear in Conway’s subsequent _Life of Paine_. - - Even at the present day bigotry seems to prevent any proper - recognition of Paine’s fine character and important work. - (The unpleasant flippancy[5] with which he dealt with serious - religious questions is no doubt partly the cause of this.) I - find very inadequate appreciation of him in _The Americana_ - and _The Biographical Dictionary of America_—and also in our - own _Dictionary of National Biography_. The general impression - among the public still probably is that Paine was an atheist; - as a matter of fact, he was a Theist, and his will ends with - the words, “I die in perfect composure and resignation to the - will of my Creator, God.” - - Carlyle’s reference to Paine is amusing: “Nor is our England - without her missionaries. She has her Paine: rebellious - staymaker; unkempt; who feels that he, a single needleman, did, - by his _Common-Sense_ Pamphlet, free America—that he can and - will free all this World; perhaps even the other.” (_French - Revolution._) - - * * * * * - - Buy my English posies! - You that will not turn— - Buy my hot-wood clematis, - Buy a frond o’ fern - Gather’d where the Erskine leaps - Down the road to Lorne— - Buy my Christmas creeper - And I’ll say where you were born! - West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin— - They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn— - Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main— - Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again! - - Buy my English posies! - Ye that have your own - Buy them for a brother’s sake - Overseas, alone. - Weed ye trample underfoot - Floods his heart abrim— - Bird ye never heeded, - O, she calls his dead to him! - Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas; - Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these! - Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land— - Masters of the Seven Seas, O, love and understand! - - RUDYARD KIPLING (_The Flowers_). - - Of the verses in this fine poem which speak for the various - British Dominions I take only the one that represents my own - country. At the time Kipling wrote, the inhabitants of our - beloved mother-country did not seem to fully realize that we - were their kindred—that our fern and clematis made _English - posies_—but no doubt their feeling has altered since we have - fought side by side in mutual defence. However, to us England - was always “home,” and when Kipling wrote this poem he entered - straight into our hearts. - - * * * * * - -FROM THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY - - RUFINUS - - Here lilies, here the rosebud, and here too - The windflower with her petals drenched in dew, - And daffodillies cool, and violets blue. - - MELEAGER - - It’s oh! to be a wild wind—when my lady’s in the sun— - She’d just unbind her neckerchief and take me breathing in, - It’s oh! to be a red rose—just a faintly blushing one— - So she’d pull me with her hand and to her snowy breast I’d win. - - PLATO TO ASTER - - Thou gazest on the stars—a star to me - Thou[6] art—but oh! that I the heavens might be - And with a thousand eyes still gaze on thee! - - PALLADAS - - Breathing the thin breath through our nostrils, we - Live, and a little space the sunlight see— - Even all that live—each being an instrument - To which the generous air its life has lent. - If with the hand one quench our draught of breath, - He sends the stark soul shuddering down to death. - We, that are nothing on our pride are fed, - Seeing, but for a little air, we are as dead. - - AESOPUS - - Is there no help from life save only death? - “Life that such myriad sorrows harboureth - I dare not break, I cannot bear”—one saith. - - “Sweet are stars, sun, and moon, and sea, and earth, - For service and for beauty these had birth, - But all the rest of life is little worth— - - “Yea, all the rest is pain and grief” saith he - “For if it hap some good thing come to me - An evil end befalls it speedily!”[7] - - PHILODEMUS - - I loved—and you. I played—who hath not been - Steeped in such play? If I was mad, I ween - ’Twas for a god and for no earthly queen. - - Hence with it all! Then dark my youthful head, - Where now scant locks of whitening hair instead, - Reminders of a grave old age, are shed. - - I gathered roses while the roses blew, - Playtime is past, my play is ended too. - Awake, my heart! and worthier aims pursue. - - W. M. HARDINGE (_Nineteenth Century_, Nov. 1878). - - My notes tell me nothing of Hardinge, except that he was the - “Leslie” in Mallock’s _New Republic_. Another version of - Plato’s beautiful epigram (which was addressed to “Aster,” or - “Star”) is the following by Professor Darnley Naylor: - - Thou gazest on the stars, my Star; - Oh! might I be - The starry sky with myriad eyes - To gaze on thee! - - The Greek Anthology is a collection of about 4,500 short poems - by about 300 Greek writers, extending over a period of one - thousand seven hundred years, from, say, 700 B.C. to 1000 A.D. - At first these poems were epigrams—using the word “epigram” - in its original sense, as a verse intended to be inscribed on - a tomb or tablet in memory of some dead person or important - event. Later they included poems on any subject, so long as - they contained one fine thought couched in concise language. - Still later any short lyric was included. - - This wonderful collection forms a great treasure-house of - poetry, which gives much insight into the Greek life of the - time, and it also largely influenced English and European - literature. For instance, the first verse of Ben Jonson’s - “Drink to me only with thine eyes,” is taken direct from the - Anthology (Agathias, _Anth. Pal._, V., 261). I may add that - the second verse, in which the poet sends the wreath, not as - a compliment to the lady but as a kindness to the roses which - could not wither if worn by her, is also borrowed from a Greek - source. (Philostratus, _Epistolai Erotikai_.) - - Numberless English and European scholars have attempted the - difficult task of translating or paraphrasing these little - poetic gems into correspondingly poetic and concise language, - but the beauty of the original can never be fully retained. - - * * * * * - -PLATO TO STELLA - - Thou wert the morning star among the living, - Ere thy fair light had fled:— - Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving - New splendour to the dead. - - SHELLEY’S VERSION. - - * * * * * - -PTOLEMY - - I know that we are mortal, the children of a day; - But when I scan the circling spires, the serried stars’ array, - I tread the earth no longer and soar where none hath trod, - To feast in Heaven’s banquet-hall and drink the wine of God. - - H. DARNLEY NAYLOR’S VERSION. - - Although there cannot be absolute certainty, this Ptolemy is no - doubt the great Greek astronomer; and the epigram would date - from about 140 A.D. - - * * * * * - -HERACLEITUS. - - They told me, Heracleitus, they told me you were dead, - They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. - I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I - Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. - - And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, - A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest, - Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake; - For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take. - - WILLIAM (JOHNSON) CORY (1823-1892). - - This is a paraphrase of verses written by Callimachus on - hearing of the death of his friend, the poet Heracleitus (not - the philosopher of that name). - - Francis Thompson (_Sister Songs_) hoped that his “nightingales” - would continue to sing after his death, just as light would - come from a star long after it had ceased to exist: - - Oh! may this treasure-galleon of my verse, - Fraught with its golden passion, oared with cadent rhyme, - Set with a towering press of fantasies, - Drop safely down the time, - Leaving mine islèd self behind it far - Soon to be sunk in the abysm of seas, - (As down the years the splendour voyages - From some long ruined and night-submergèd star). - - * * * * * - -When I consider the shortness of my life, lost in an eternity before -and behind, “passing away as the remembrance of a guest who tarrieth -but a day,” the little space I fill or behold in the infinite immensity -of spaces, of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me—when I -reflect this, I am filled with terror, and wonder why I am _here_ and not -_there_, for there was no reason why it should be the one rather than the -other; why _now_ rather than _then_. Who set me here? By whose command -and rule were this time and place appointed me? How many kingdoms know -nothing of us! The eternal silence of those infinite spaces terrifies me. - - PASCAL (_Pensées_). - - * * * * * - - Ye weep for those who weep? she said, - Ah, fools! I bid you pass them by. - Go weep for those whose hearts have bled - What time their eyes were dry. - Whom sadder can I say? she said. - - E. B. BROWNING (_The Mask_). - - See also Seneca (_Hipp._), _Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes - stupent_, “Light sorrows speak, but deeper ones are dumb.” - - * * * * * - -Star unto star speaks light. - - P. J. BAILEY (_Festus, Scene 1, Heaven_). - - * * * * * - - O love, my love! if I no more should see - Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, - Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,— - How then should sound upon Life’s darkening slope - The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, - The wind of Death’s imperishable wing! - - D. G. ROSSETTI (_Lovesight_). - - * * * * * - -Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart -from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never: they -have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Romola_). - - * * * * * - - Room in all the ages - For our love to grow, - Prayers of both demanded - A little while ago: - - And now a few poor moments, - Between life and death, - May be proven all too ample - For love’s breath. - - RODEN NOEL (_The Pity of It_). - - * * * * * - - There! See our roof, its gilt moulding and groining - Under those spider-webs lying!... - - Is it your moral of Life? - Such a web, simple and subtle, - Weave we on earth here in impotent strife, - Backward and forward each throwing his shuttle, - Death ending all with a knife? - - Over our heads truth and nature— - Still our life’s zigzags and dodges, - Ins and outs, weaving a new legislature— - God’s gold just showing its last where that lodges, - Palled beneath man’s usurpature. - - So we o’ershroud stars and roses, - Cherub and trophy and garland; - Nothings grow something which quietly closes - Heaven’s earnest eye; not a glimpse of the far land - Gets through our comments and glozes. - - R. BROWNING (_Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha_). - - Hugues of Saxe-Gotha is an imaginary name, but it probably - indicates the great Sebastian Bach, who came from that part of - Germany. The “masterpiece, hard number twelve,” referred to - in the poem, may be (Dr. E. Harold Davies tells me) the great - Organ Fugue in F Minor, which is in “five part” counter-point. - - This very interesting poem is written in a half-humorous - fashion, but its intention is quite serious. In a wonderfully - imitative manner,[8] it describes the wrangling and disputing - in a five-voiced fugue (where five persons appear to be taking - part): - - One is incisive, corrosive; - Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant; - Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive; - Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant: - Five ... O Danaïdes, O Sieve! - - (For killing their husbands the fifty Danaïdes were doomed to - pour water everlastingly into a sieve.) - - “Where in all this is the music?” asks Browning. And, although - he is writing humorously, yet, however rank the heresy, he - finds that the fugue, with its elaborate counterpoint, is - wanting in the essentials of true art. He prefers Palestrina’s - simpler and more emotional mode of expression: - - Hugues! I advise _meâ poenâ_[9] - (Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon) - Bid One, Two, Three, Four, Five, clear the arena! - Say the word, straight I unstop the full-organ, - Blare out the _mode Palestrina_. - - In the poem, where occurs the passage quoted, one can vividly - follow the poet’s thought. Music is essentially the language of - feeling, of _emotion_; the fugue is a triumph of _invention_, - and, therefore, the result of _intellect_. Feeling is - elemental, simple, and unanalysable. The subtleties of pure - harmony are the expression of deepness and richness of feeling; - the intricacies of the fugue are artificially constructed and, - therefore, unsuited to the expression of pure emotion. They - represent intellect as against feeling. And essentially in the - moral world, but also in our general outlook upon truth and - nature, the spiritual perception is derived from simple human - emotion rather than intellect; “Thou hast hid these things from - the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” (The - whole of Browning’s poetry teaches that love, not intellect, - is the solution of all moral problems, and the goal of the - universe.) - - In the poem the organist has been playing on the organ in - an old church; and Browning suddenly sees an illustration - of his thought in the fine gilded ceiling covered by thick - cobwebs. The cobwebs that obscure the gold of the ceiling - are the intellectual wranglings that destroy music in the - fugue—and both are symbolical of what occurs in our lives. - Truth and Nature, “God’s gold”—the pure, simple truths of the - higher life—are over us, bright and clear as the noon-day - sun. But by doubts and disputations, warring philosophies and - contending creeds, by strife over non-essentials, casuistries, - self-deceptions, by questions of dogma (often as fine as any - spider’s web), by endless “comments and glozes,” we lose sight - of the elemental truths and clear principles that should guide - our lives. The pure and simple-hearted reach the Mount of - Vision: to them comes the clear sense of Love and Duty. Those - of us who turn our intellects to a perverse use and exclude - the spiritual perception of the soul are like the spiders who - cover up “stars and roses, Cherub and trophy and garland.” - We obscure and forget all noble ideals, abolish God’s high - “legislature,” and follow a lawless life of selfish passion - and sordid ambitions. The Good and Beautiful and True have - been obliterated and forgotten; “God’s gold” is tarnished, His - harmonies lost in discord; and we become morally dead. - - So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul. - Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air; - Cold plashing past it, crystal waters roll; - We visit it by moments, ah, too rare!... - - Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high, - Upon our life a ruling effluence send; - And when it fails, fight as we will, we die, - And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end. - - MATTHEW ARNOLD (_Palladium_). - - * * * * * - -(Referring to the Gorham case) The future historian of opinion will write -of us in this strain: “The people who spoke the language of Shakespeare -were great in the constructive arts: the remains of their vast works -evince an extraordinary power of combining and economizing labour: their -colonies were spread over both hemispheres, and their industry penetrated -to the remotest tribes: they knew how to subjugate nature and to govern -men: but the weakness of their thought presented a strange contrast to -the vigour of their arm; and though they were an earnest people, their -conceptions of human life and its Divine Author seems to have been of -the most puerile nature. Some orations have been handed down—apparently -delivered before one of their most dignified tribunals—in which the -question is discussed: ‘In what way the washing of new-born babes -according to certain rules prevented God’s hating them.’ The curious -feature is, that the discussion turns entirely upon the manner in which -this wetting operated; and no doubt seems to have been entertained by -disputants, judges, or audience, that, without it, a child or other -person dying would fall into the hands of an angry Deity, and be kept -alive for ever to be tortured in a burning cave. Now, all researches -into the contemporary institutions of the island show that its religion -found its chief support among the classes possessing no mean station or -culture, and that the education for the priesthood was the highest which -the country afforded. This strange belief must be taken, therefore, as -the measure, not of popular ignorance, but of their most intellectual -faith. A philosophy and worship embodying such a superstition can present -nothing to reward the labour of research.” - - JAMES MARTINEAU (_Essay on “The Church of England”_). - - In the Gorham case, which went on appeal to the Privy Council, - it was decided that Mr. Gorham’s beliefs, although unusual, - were not repugnant to the doctrines of the Church of England. - His views were that baptism is generally necessary to - salvation, that it is a sign of grace by which God works in - us, but only in those who worthily receive it. In others it is - not effectual. Infants baptized who die before actual sin are - certainly saved, but regeneration does not necessarily follow - on baptism. - - In such matters one question stands out very prominently. - The priest is consecrated to the high office of teaching the - eternal truths of Christ—Love and Duty and Moral Aspiration. - How can he keep those truths in due perspective when his - intellect is engaged in warfare over miserable casuistries. - - And as the strife waxes fiercer among the priests of the Most - High, they call in the aid of hired mercenaries. Think of - the lawyers paid by one side or the other to argue questions - of baptism and prevenient grace! It was precisely this - introduction into religion of legal formalism and technicality, - the arguing from texts and ancient commentaries, the verbal - quibbling and hair-splitting, the “letter” that “killeth” as - against the “spirit” that “giveth life,” which led to Christ’s - bitter invectives against the “Scribes” or lawyers of His day. - - Seeley, in _Ecce Homo_, points out that when Christ summoned - the disciples to him, he required from them only Faith, and not - belief in any specific doctrines. As it was not until later - that they learnt He was to suffer death and rise again, they - could at first have held no belief in the Atonement or the - Resurrection. “Nor,” says Seeley, “do we find Him frequently - examining His followers in their creed, and rejecting one as - a sceptic and another as an infidel.... Assuredly those who - represent Christ as presenting to man an abstruse _theology_, - and saying to them peremptorily: ‘Believe or be damned,’ have - the coarsest conception of the Saviour of the world.” - - As I have read somewhere, “From all barren Orthodoxy, good - Lord, deliver us.”[10] - - * * * * * - - For while a youth is lost in soaring thought, - And while a maid grows sweet and beautiful, - And while a spring-tide coming lights the earth, - And while a child, and while a flower is born, - And while one wrong cries for redress and finds - A soul to answer, still the world is young! - - LEWIS MORRIS (_Epic of Hades_). - - * * * * * - - Poems are painted window panes. - If one looks from the square into the church, - Dusk and dimness are his gains— - Sir Philistine is left in the lurch! - The sight, so seen, may well enrage him, - Nor anything henceforth assuage him. - - But come just inside what conceals; - Cross the holy threshold quite— - All at once ’tis rainbow-bright, - Device and story flash to light, - A gracious splendour truth reveals. - This to God’s children is full measure, - It edifies and gives you pleasure! - - GOETHE. - - This is George MacDonald’s translation (but never can a - translation of poetry reproduce the original). MacDonald says - of the poem: “This is true concerning every form in which truth - is embodied, whether it be sight or sound, geometric diagram - or scientific formula. Unintelligible, it may be dismal enough - regarded from the outside; prismatic in its revelation of truth - from within.” Among the arts this statement is most applicable - to poetry, and hence the reason why notes are often required to - assist many persons to “come inside,” to enter into the heart - of a poem—to reach the point of vision. - - * * * * * - -DE TEA FABULA - - Do I sleep? Do I dream? - Am I hoaxed by a scout? - Are things what they seem, - Or is Sophists about? - Is our τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι a failure, or is Robert Browning played out? - - Which expressions like these - May be fairly applied - By a party who sees - A Society skied - Upon tea that the Warden of Keble had biled with legitimate pride. - - ’Twas November the third. - And I says to Bill Nye, - “Which it’s true what I’ve heard: - If you’re, so to speak, fly, - There’s a chance of some tea and cheap culture, the sort recommended as - High.” - - Which I mentioned its name - And he ups and remarks: - “If dress-coats is the game - And pow-wow in the Parks, - Then I’m nuts on Sordello and Hohensteil-Schwangau and similar Snarks.” - - Now the pride of Bill Nye - Cannot well be express’d; - For he wore a white tie - And a cut-away vest: - Says I: “Solomon’s lilies ain’t in it, and they was reputed well - dress’d.” - - But not far did we wend, - When we saw Pippa pass - On the arm of a friend - —Dr. Furnivall ’twas, - And he wore in his hat two half-tickets for London, return, second-class. - - “Well,” I thought, “this is odd.” - But we came pretty quick - To a sort of a quad - That was all of red brick, - And I says to the porter: “R. Browning: free passes and kindly look - slick.” - - But says he, dripping tears - In his check handkerchief, - “That symposium’s career’s - Been regrettably brief, - For it went all its pile upon crumpets and busted on gunpowder leaf!” - - Then we tucked up the sleeves - Of our shirts (that were biled), - Which the reader perceives - That our feelings were riled, - And we went for that man till his mother had doubted the traits of her - child. - - Which emotions like these - Must be freely indulged - By a party who sees - A Society bulged - On a reef the existence of which its prospectus had never divulged. - - But I ask: Do I dream? - _Has_ it gone up the spout; - Are things what they seem, - Or is Sophists about? - Is our τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι a failure, or is Robert Browning played out? - - SIR ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH. - - This parody on Bret Harte’s “Plain Language from Truthful - James” was written at the time when the Browning Society at - Keble College, Oxford, came to an end—apparently, according to - these verses, because its funds had been exhausted in afternoon - teas! - - τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι (pronounced _toe tee ane einai_). In Oxford - special attention is paid to Aristotle; and Quiller-Couch, - being an Oxford man, assumes that his readers are familiar - with this phrase. It means “the essential nature of a thing,” - or, literally, “the question what a thing really is.” Such - a Society would be engaged in discovering the true meaning - of Browning’s difficult poems, so that the phrase is as - appropriate as it is amusing in its application. - - The title “De Tea fabula” is a pun on Horace’s “Quid rides? - Mutato nomine _de te Fabula_ narratur” (Sat. 1, 69). “Wherefore - do you laugh? Change but the name, of thee the tale is told.” - Oxford, which Matthew Arnold called the home of lost causes, - still refuses to pronounce Latin correctly, and makes _te_ - rhyme with _fee_, _see_, _bee_. It ought of course to rhyme - with _fay_, _say_, _bay_. Or possibly Sir Arthur has reverted - to the pronunciation of _ea_ which prevailed until the end of - the Eighteenth Century. See Pope’s “Rape of the Lock”: - - Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey, - Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea. - - _Dr. Furnivall_ (1825-1910), an eminent philologist, was the - founder of the society, the first society ever formed to study - the works of a living poet. From the context he may have - specially admired, as he certainly threw special light upon, - Browning’s _Pippa Passes_. - - _Scout_ at Oxford is a (male) college servant. - - * * * * * - - One fine frosty day, - My stomach being empty as your hat. - - R. BROWNING (_Fra Lippo Lippi_). - - The “cheekiest” line I know. - - * * * * * - -TO THE MOON - - The wind is shrill on the hills, and the plover - Wheels up and down with a windy scream; - The birch has loosen’d her bright locks over - The nut-brown pools of the mountain stream: - Yet here I linger in London City, - Thinking of meadows where I was born— - And over the roofs, like a face of pity, - Up comes the Moon, with her dripping horn. - - O Moon, pale Spirit, with dim eyes drinking - The sheen of the Sun as he sweepeth by, - I am looking long in those eyes, and thinking - Of one who hath loved thee longer than I; - I am asking my heart if ye Spirits cherish - The souls that ye witch with a harvest call?— - If the dreams must die when the dreamer perish?— - If it be idle to dream at all? - - The waves of the world roll hither and thither, - The tumult deepens, the days go by, - The dead men vanish—we know not whither, - The live men anguish—we know not why; - The cry of the stricken is smothered never, - The Shadow passes from street to street; - And—o’er us fadeth, for ever and ever, - The still white gleam of thy constant feet. - - The hard men struggle, the students ponder, - The world rolls round on its westward way; - The gleam of the beautiful night up yonder - Is dim on the dreamer’s cheek all day; - The old earth’s voice is a sound of weeping, - Round her the waters wash wild and vast, - There is no calm, there is little sleeping,— - Yet nightly, brightly, thou glimmerest past! - - Another summer, new dreams departed, - And yet we are lingering, thou and I; - I on the earth, with my hope proud-hearted, - Thou, in the void of a violet sky! - Thou art there! I am here! and the reaping and mowing - Of the harvest year is over and done, - And the hoary snow-drift will soon be blowing - Under the wheels of the whirling Sun. - - While tower and turret lie silver’d under, - When eyes are closed and lips are dumb, - In the nightly pause of the human wonder, - From dusky portals I see thee come; - And whoso wakes and beholds thee yonder, - Is witch’d like me till his days shall cease,— - For in his eyes, wheresoever he wander, - Flashes the vision of God’s white Peace. - - R. BUCHANAN. - - * * * * * - -There is no short cut, no patent tramroad, to wisdom: after all the -centuries of invention, the soul’s path lies through the thorny -wilderness which must be still trodden in solitude, with bleeding feet, -with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old time. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_The Lifted Veil_). - - * * * * * - - Let us think less of men and more of God. - Sometimes the thought comes swiftening over us, - Like a small bird winging the still blue air; - And then again, at other times, it rises - Slow, like a cloud, which scales the skies all breathless, - And just overhead lets itself down on us, - Sometimes we feel the wish across the mind - Rush like a rocket tearing up the sky, - That we should join with God, and give the world - The slip: but, while we wish, the world turns round - And peeps us in the face—the wanton world; - We feel it gently pressing down our arm— - The arm we had raised to do for truth such wonders; - We feel it softly bearing on our side— - We feel it touch and thrill us through the body,— - And we are fools, and there’s the end of us. - - P. J. BAILEY (_Festus_). - - * * * * * - - It fell upon a merry May morn, - I’ the perfect prime of that sweet time - When daisies whiten, woodbines climb,— - The dear Babe Christabel was born. - - ... - - Look how a star of glory swims - Down aching silences of space, - Flushing the Darkness till its face - With beating heart of light o’erbrims! - - So brightening came Babe Christabel, - To touch the earth with fresh romance, - And light a Mother’s countenance - With looking on her miracle. - - With hands so flower-like soft, and fair, - She caught at life, with words as sweet - As first spring violets, and feet - As faery-light as feet of air. - - ... - - She grew, a sweet and sinless Child, - In shine and shower,—calm and strife; - A Rainbow on our dark of Life. - From Love’s own radiant heaven down-smiled! - - In lonely loveliness she grew,— - A shape all music, light, and love, - With startling looks, so eloquent of - The spirit burning into view. - - Such mystic lore was in her eyes, - And light of other worlds than ours, - She looked as she had fed on flowers, - And drunk the dews of Paradise[11] - - ... - - Ah! she was one of those who come - With pledgèd promise not to stay - Long, ere the Angels let them stray - To nestle down in earthly home: - - And, thro’ the windows of her eyes, - We often saw her saintly soul, - Serene, and sad, and beautiful, - Go sorrowing for lost Paradise. - - She came—like music in the night - Floating as heaven in the brain, - A moment oped, and shut again, - And all is dark where all was light. - - ... - - In this dim world of clouding cares, - We rarely know, till wildered eyes - See white wings lessening up the skies, - The Angels with us unawares. - - Our beautiful Bird of light hath fled; - Awhile she sat with folded wings— - Sang round us a few hoverings— - Then straightway into glory sped. - - And white-wing’d Angels nurture her; - With heaven’s white radiance robed and crown’d, - And all Love’s purple glory round, - She summers on the Hills of Myrrh. - - Thro’ Childhood’s morning-land, serene - She walked betwixt us twain, like Love; - While, in a robe of light above, - Her better Angel walked unseen,— - - Till Life’s highway broke bleak and wild; - Then, lest her starry garments trail - In mire, heart bleed, and courage fail, - The Angel’s arms caught up the child. - - Her wave of life hath backward roll’d - To the great ocean; on whose shore - We wander up and down, to store - Some treasures of the times of old: - - And aye we seek and hunger on - For precious pearls and relics rare, - Strewn on the sands for us to wear - At heart, for love of her that’s gone. - - GERALD MASSEY (_The Ballad of Babe Christabel_). - - These exquisite verses appear to be forgotten. - - * * * * * - - If you loved only what were worth your love, - Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you: - Make the low nature better by your throes! - Give earth yourself, go up for gain above! - - R. BROWNING (_James Lee’s Wife_). - - * * * * * - - ... He knows with what strange fires He mixed this dust. - - Hereditary bent - That hedges in intent - He knows, be sure, the God who shaped thy brain. - He loves the souls He made, - He knows His own hand laid - On each the mark of some ancestral stain. - - ANNA REEVE ALDRICH. - - * * * * * - - I have lost the dream of Doing, - And the other dream of Done, - The first spring in the pursuing, - The first pride in the Begun,— - First recoil from incompletion, in the face of what is won. - - E. B. BROWNING (_The Lost Bower_). - - It is the saddest of things that we lose our early enthusiasms. - - * * * * * - - The other (maiden) up arose[12] - And her fair lockes, which formerly were bound - Up in one knot, she low adowne did loose: - Which, flowing long and thick her clothed around. - And the ivorie in golden mantle gowned: - So that fair spectacle from him was reft, - Yet that, which reft it, no less faire was found: - So, hid in lockes and waves from looker’s theft, - Nought but her lovely face she for his looking left. - - Withall she laughèd, and she blushed withall, - That blushing to her laughter gave more grace, - And laughter to her blushing. - - SPENSER (_Faerie Queene 2_, XII, 67). - - * * * * * - -I love and honour Epaminondas, but I do not wish to be Epaminondas. Nor -can you excite me to the least uneasiness by saying, “He acted, and thou -sittest still.” I see action to be good when the need is, and sitting -still to be also good. One piece of the tree is cut for a weathercock, -and one for the sleeper of a bridge; the virtue of the wood is apparent -in both. - - R. W. EMERSON (_Spiritual Laws_). - - * * * * * - -You know what a sad and sombre decorum it is that outwardly reigns -through the lands oppressed by Moslem sway. By a strange chance in these -latter days, it happened that, alone of all the places in the land, this -Bethlehem, the native village of our Lord, escaped the moral yoke of the -Mussulmans, and heard again, after ages of dull oppression, the cheering -clatter of social freedom, and the voices of laughing girls. When I was -at Bethlehem, though long after the flight of the Mussulmans, the cloud -of Moslem propriety had not yet come back to cast its cold shadow upon -life. When you reach that gladsome village, pray heaven there still -may be heard there the voice of free innocent girls. Distant at first, -and then nearer and nearer the timid flock will gather round you with -their large burning eyes gravely fixed against yours, so that they see -into your brain; and if you imagine evil against them they will know of -your ill-thought before it is yet well born, and will fly and be gone -in the moment. But presently if you will only look virtuous enough to -prevent alarm, and vicious enough to avoid looking silly, the blithe -maidens will draw nearer and nearer to you; and soon there will be one, -the bravest of the sisters, who will venture right up to your side, and -touch the hem of your coat in playful defiance of the danger; and then -the rest will follow the daring of their youthful leader, and gather -close round you, and hold a shrill controversy on the wondrous formation -that you call a hat, and the cunning of the hands that clothed you with -cloth so fine; and then, growing more profound in their researches, they -will pass from the study of your mere dress to a serious contemplation -of your stately height, and your nut-brown hair, and the ruddy glow -of your English cheeks. And if they catch a glimpse of your ungloved -fingers, then again will they make the air ring with their sweet screams -of delight and amazement, as they compare the fairness of your hand -with the hues of your sunburnt face, or with their own warmer tints. -Instantly the ringleader of the gentle rioters imagines a new sin; with -tremulous boldness she touches, then grasps your hand, and smoothes it -gently betwixt her own, and pries curiously into its make and colour, as -though it were silk of Damascus or shawl of Cashmere. And when they see -you, even then still sage and gentle, the joyous girls will suddenly, -and screamingly, and all at once, explain to each other that you are -surely quite harmless and innocent—a lion that makes no spring—a bear -that never hugs; and upon this faith, one after the other, they will take -your passive hand, and strive to explain it, and make it a theme and -a controversy. But the one—the fairest and the sweetest of all—is yet -the most timid; she shrinks from the daring deeds of her playmates, and -seeks shelter behind their sleeves, and strives to screen her glowing -consciousness from the eyes that look upon her. But her laughing sisters -will have none of this cowardice; they vow that the fair one _shall_ be -their _complice_—_shall_ share their dangers—_shall_ touch the hand of -the stranger; they seize her small wrist and draw her forward by force, -and at last, whilst yet she strives to turn away, and to cover up her -whole soul under the folds of downcast eyelids, they vanquish her utmost -strength, they vanquish her utmost modesty and marry her hand to yours. -The quick pulse springs from her fingers and throbs like a whisper upon -your listening palm. For an instant her large timid eyes are upon you—in -an instant they are shrouded again, and there comes a blush so burning, -that the frightened girls stay their shrill laughter as though they had -played too perilously and harmed their gentle sister. A moment, and all -with a sudden intelligence turn away and fly like deer; yet soon again -like deer they wheel round, and return, and stand, and gaze upon the -danger, until they grow brave once more. - - A. W. KINGLAKE (_Eothen_). - - Let us hope that the present war will be a successful “Crusade” - and that the Turks will disappear from the land which is sacred - to the memory of our Lord. - - * * * * * - -Discedant nunc amores; maneat Amor. - -(Loves, farewell; let Love, the sole, remain.) - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - - Remember me when I am gone away, - Gone far away into the silent land; - When you can no more hold me by the hand, - Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. - Remember me when no more day by day - You tell me of our future that you planned: - Only remember me; you understand - It will be late to counsel then or pray. - Yet if you should forget me for a while - And afterwards remember, do not grieve: - For if the darkness and corruption leave - A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, - Better by far you should forget and smile - Than that you should remember and be sad. - - CHRISTINA ROSSETTI - - Compare Shakespeare’s sonnet LXXI: - - No longer mourn for me when I am dead, - ... for I love you so - That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, - If thinking on me then should make you woe. - - * * * * * - - I saw a son weep o’er a mother’s grave: - “Ay, weep, poor boy—weep thy most bitter tears - That thou shalt smile so soon. We bury Love, - Forgetfulness grows over it like grass; - _That_ is the thing to weep for, not the dead.” - - ALEXANDER SMITH (_A Boy’s Poem_) - - * * * * * - -UNTIL DEATH - - If thou canst love another, be it so. - I would not reach out of my quiet grave - To bind thy heart, if it should choose to go. - Love shall not be a slave.... - - It would not make me sleep more peacefully, - That thou wert waiting all thy life in woe - For my poor sake. What love thou hast for me - Bestow it ere I go.... - - Forget me when I die. The violets - Above my rest will blossom just as blue - Nor miss thy tears—E’en Nature’s self forgets— - But while I live be true. - - F. A. WESTBURY. - - These verses are by a South Australian writer. “Forget me when - I die” is an unpleasing sentiment; yet in “When I am dead, my - dearest,” Christina Rossetti says: - - If thou wilt, remember, - And if thou wilt, forget. - - As regards the latter poem, the curious fact is that it is - read as an exquisite piece of _music_, and not for any poetic - thought it contains. If it _has_ any coherent meaning, it is - that the speaker is indifferent whether or not “her dearest” - will remember her or she will remember him. Yet the haunting - music of the lines has made it a favourite poem, and it finds - a place in all the leading anthologies. Christina Rossetti - is by no means a great poet. (Mr. Gosse’s estimate in the - _Britannica_ is exaggerated), but she had a wonderful gift - of language and metre. Take, for example, the pretty lilt - contained in the simplest words in “Maiden-Song”: - - Long ago and long ago, - And long ago still, - There dwelt three merry maidens - Upon a distant hill. - One was tall Meggan, - And one was dainty May, - But one was fair Margaret, - More fair than I can say, - Long ago and long ago. - - * * * * * - - And yet, dear heart! remembering thee, - Am I not richer than of old? - Safe in thy immortality, - What change can reach the wealth I hold? - What chance can mar the pearl and gold - Thy love hath left in trust for me? - And while in life’s long afternoon, - Where cool and long the shadows grow, - I walk to meet the night that soon - Shall shape and shadow overflow, - I cannot feel that thou art far, - Since near at need the angels are; - And when the sunset gates unbar, - Shall I not see thee waiting stand, - And, white against the evening star, - The welcome of thy beckoning hand? - - JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (_Snow-Bound_). - - * * * * * - - I have a dream—that some day I shall go - At break of dawn adown a rainy street, - A grey old street, and I shall come in the end - To the little house I have known, and stand; and you, - Mother of mine, who watch and wait for me. - Will you not hear my footstep in the street, - And, as of old, be ready at the door, - To give me rest again?... I shall come home. - - H. D. LOWRY. - - * * * * * - - Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind - I turned to share the transport—Oh! with whom - But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb, - That spot which no vicissitude can find? - Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind— - But how could I forget thee? Through what power, - Even for the least division of an hour, - Have I been so beguiled as to be blind - To my most grievous loss!—That thought’s return - Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, - Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, - Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more; - That neither present time, nor years unborn - Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. - - WILLIAM WORDSWORTH - - Written of the poet’s child Catherine, who died in 1812 at - three years of age, and of whom Wordsworth had also written, - “Loving she is, and tractable, though wild.” _Forty years - after_ the death of this child and her brother, who died - about the same time, the poet spoke of them to Aubrey de Vere - with the same acute sense of bereavement as if they had only - recently died. - - * * * * * - -DEATH - - It is not death, that sometime in a sigh - This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight; - That sometime these bright stars, that now reply - In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; - That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, - And all life’s ruddy springs forget to flow; - That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal spright - Be lapp’d in alien clay and laid below; - It is not death to know this,—but to know - That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves - In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go - So duly and so oft—and when grass waves - Over the passed-away, there may be then - No resurrection in the minds of men. - - THOMAS HOOD. - - * * * * * - - A little pain, a little fond regret, - A little shame, and we are living yet, - While love, that should outlive us, lieth dead. - - W. MORRIS. - - * * * * * - - O never rudely will I blame his faith - In the might of stars and angels!... - ... For the stricken heart of Love - This visible nature, and this common world, - Is all too narrow: yea, a deeper import - Lurks in the legend told my infant years - Than lies upon that truth, we live to learn, - For fable is Love’s world, his home, his birth-place: - Delightedly dwells he ’mong fays and talismans, - And spirits; and delightedly believes - Divinities, being himself divine. - The intelligible forms of ancient poets, - The fair humanities of old religion, - The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty, - That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain, - Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring, - Or chasms and wat’ry depths; all these have vanished. - They live no longer in the faith of reason! - But still the heart doth need a language, still - Doth the old instinct bring back the old names, - And to yon starry world they now are gone, - Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth - With man as with their friend; and to the lover - Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky - Shoot influence down: and even at this day - ’Tis Jupiter who brings whate’er is great, - And Venus who brings everything that’s fair. - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_Wallenstein—The Piccolomini_). - - _His faith._—Wallenstein, the great German soldier and - statesman (1583-1634) believed in astrology. - - The “intelligible forms of ancient poets” and “fair humanities - of old religion” are the gods and inferior divinities that - please our fancy. Thus the Greeks peopled the heavens (not very - distant heavens to them) with their gods who visited earth and - mingled with men. There were also the lesser deities, as the - Hours and the Graces; and also the Nymphs—the Nereïds, Naiads, - Orcades and Dryads—who inhabited seas, springs, rivers, and - trees respectively. The Nymphs would correspond somewhat to the - elves, gnomes and fairies of Northern religions. - - Coleridge’s translation of “Wallenstein” (of which “The - Piccolomini” is a portion) is considered a masterpiece. - Schiller was fortunate in having a finer poet than himself to - translate his drama. In the above passage Coleridge greatly - improved on the original; the seven splendid lines beginning - “The intelligible forms of ancient poets” are his and not - Schiller’s; and, therefore, this passage may fairly be ascribed - to him as author. - - * * * * * - - By rose-hung river and light-foot rill - There are who rest not; who think long - Till they discern as from a hill - At the sun’s hour of morning song. - Known of souls only, and those souls free, - The sacred spaces of the sea. - - A. C. SWINBURNE (_Prelude—Songs before - Sunrise_). - - The sea typifies the wider, nobler life of the soul. - - * * * * * - -Je prends mon bien où je le trouve. - -(I take my property wherever I find it.) - - MOLIÈRE (1622-1673). - - This famous saying is quoted in French literature as though - Molière had said, “I admit plagiarism, but I so improve what - I borrow from others that it becomes my own” (see _Larousse_, - under “_Bien_”). - - “Tho’ old the thought and oft expressed, - ’Tis his at last who says it best.” - - It is, however, an interesting question whether this was the - true meaning intended by Molière. - - The story is told by Grimarest, the first biographer of the - great dramatist. In 1671 Molière produced _Les Fourberies de - Scapin_, in which he had inserted two scenes taken from _Le - Pedant Joué_, of Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655). (They are - the amusing scenes where Geronte repeatedly says, _Que diable - allait-il faire dans cette galère_, “What the deuce was he - doing in that Turkish galley?”) Grimarest says that Cyrano - had used in these scenes what he had overheard from Molière, - and that the latter, when taxed with the plagiarism, replied, - “Je _reprends_ mon bien où je le trouve” (“I _take back_ my - property, wherever I find it”). That is to say, he definitely - _denied_ the plagiarism. - - Voltaire, in a “Life of Molière,” makes a general assertion - (not referring specially to this incident) that all Grimarest’s - stories are false. This must, of course, be far too sweeping - an assertion, and Grimarest is in fact quoted as an authority. - Voltaire himself (1694-1778) uses the saying in the sense given - by Grimarest (_La Pucelle_, Chant III.): - - Cette culotte est mienne; et je prendrai - Ce que fut mien où je le trouverai. - - (“These breeches are mine, and I shall take what was mine - wherever I find it.”) Agnès Sorel had been captured dressed - as a man and wearing the garment in question, which had been - previously stolen from the speaker. - - It seems to me that Grimarest’s story must be accepted, that - Molière claimed the scenes as originally his and denied - plagiarism. There is no evidence to the contrary, and the - saying is given its obvious meaning. (It is word for word as - in the Digest, _Ubi rem meam invenio, ibi vindico_, “Where I - find my own property, I appropriate it.”) But the question then - arises, Why should so commonplace a statement have attained - such notoriety? - - The explanation seems simple. Molière had many jealous and - bitter enemies, who laid every charge they could against - him. He was well known to have borrowed ideas, characters - and scenes in all directions—and his enemies constantly and - persistently attacked him on this ground. Then came his most - glaring plagiarism from a comparatively recent play, written - by a man whose dare-devil exploits had made him a perfect - hero of romance. Molière’s story that Cyrano had previously - stolen the scenes from him would not been have accepted for a - moment. Cyrano had never been known to plagiarize, nor would - it have been natural for a man of his character to do anything - clandestine. Also Molière would have had nothing to support - his statement—and Cyrano was not alive to contradict him. - The conclusion, therefore, seems to be that the dramatist’s - statement was received in Paris with such incredulity, - indignation, and ridicule that it became a byword. - - But if this is so, why have the words been given an entirely - fictitious meaning? The answer seems to lie in the fact that - as Molière’s great genius became realized the desire arose - to remove a blemish from his character. His is the greatest - name in French literature, and almost anything would be - excused in him. (We ourselves pass lightly over plagiarisms - by Shakespeare.) Also, whether morally justified or not, - Molière enriched the world’s literature by his borrowings. - It was, therefore, no serious matter to Frenchmen that he - should have borrowed from Cyrano, but it was a distinct - blemish on his character that he should have denied the fact - and also slandered a dead man. Ordinarily, in such a case, - the story is ignored and forgotten, just as the one improper - act of Sir Walter Scott, his borrowing from Coleridge of the - “Christabel” metre, is usually ignored or slurred over. But - the saying had become rooted in literature and this course - was not practicable. However, there is little that enthusiasm - cannot accomplish by some means or other, and the object in - this instance has been achieved by _reversing the meaning_ - of Molière’s words. If this conjecture is correct, it is an - illustration of what has occurred on a far greater scale in - connection with the Greeks (see Index of Subjects). - - As regards the meaning now given to the saying, Seneca claimed - the same right to borrow at will. _Quidquid bene dictum est - ab ullo, meum est_ (_Ep. XVI_). After advising his reader to - consider the Epistle carefully and see what value it had for - him, he says, “You need not be surprised if I am still free - with other people’s property. But why do I say ‘other people’s - property’? Whatever has been well said by anyone belongs to - me.”[13] - - So also the late Samuel Butler said, “Appropriate things are - meant to be appropriated.” - - * * * * * - - Our finest hope is finest memory, - As they who love in age think youth is blest - Because it has a life to fill with love. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_A Minor Poet_). - - * * * * * - -The disposition to judge every enterprise by its event, and believe in -no wisdom that is not endorsed by success, is apt to grow upon us with -years, till we sympathize with nothing for which we cannot take out a -policy of assurance. - - JAMES MARTINEAU (_Hours of Thought I, 87_). - - * * * * * - -If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think -little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and -Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once -begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. -Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he -thought little of at the time. - - DE QUINCEY (_Murder, as one of the Fine Arts_). - - * * * * * - - For when the mellow autumn flushed - The thickets, where the chestnut fell, - And in the vales the maple blushed, - Another came who knew her well, - - Who sat with her below the pine - And with her through the meadow moved, - And underneath the purpling vine - She sang to him the song I loved. - - N. G. SHEPHERD. - - * * * * * - -Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured him that there wasn’t room to swing a -cat there; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed to me, sitting down on the -foot of the bed, nursing his leg, “You know, Trotwood, I don’t want to -swing a cat. I never do swing a cat. Therefore, what does that signify to -me!” - - DICKENS (_David Copperfield_). - - * * * * * - -(After looking at his watch) “Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told -you butter would not suit the works!” he added, looking angrily at the -March Hare. - -“It was the _best_ butter,” the March Hare replied. - - LEWIS CARROLL (_Alice in Wonderland_). - - * * * * * - -“They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse went on, “and they drew all -manner of things—everything that begins with an M—” - -“Why with an M?” said Alice. - -“Why not?” said the March Hare. - -Alice was silent. - - LEWIS CARROLL (_Alice in Wonderland_). - - * * * * * - -Perhaps, as two negatives make one affirmative, it may be thought -that two layers of moonshine might coalesce into one pancake; and two -Barmecide banquets might be the square root of one poached egg. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - -In a Dublin lunatic asylum, one of the inmates peremptorily ordered a -visitor to take off his hat. Deferentially obeying the order, the visitor -asked why he should remove his hat. The lunatic replied: “Do you not -know, sir, that I am the Crown Prince of Prussia?” Having duly made his -apologies, the visitor proceeded on his round; but, coming upon the -same lunatic, was met with the same demand. Again obeying the order, he -repeated the question: “May I ask why you wish me to take off my hat?” -The lunatic replied: “Are you not aware, sir, that I am the Prince of -Wales?” “But,” said the visitor, “you told me just now you were the -Crown Prince of Prussia.” The lunatic, after scratching his head and -deliberating for a moment, replied: “Ah, but that was by a different -mother.” - -(Another Irish lunatic always lost himself and insisted on looking for -himself under the bed.) - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - These are true stories but localized—another injustice to - Ireland! - - * * * * * - -When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I -were married. - - (_Much Ado About Nothing._) - - * * * * * - -_Pointz._ Come, your reason, Jack,—your reason. - -_Falstaff._ Give you a reason on compulsion! If reasons were as plenty as -blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I. - - (_1 Henry IV_, ii, 4.) - - _Reason_ needs to be given its old pronunciation, “raison” (_or - raisin_) in order to understand Falstaff’s pun. - - * * * * * - -Still I cannot believe in clairvoyance—_because the thing is impossible_. - - SAMUEL ROGERS, 1763-1855 (_Table Talk_). - - Rogers mentions some remarkable facts about the clairvoyant, - Alexis, and ends with this convincing argument. Apart from - clairvoyance (of which I know nothing), Rogers would no doubt - have made a similar reply if some prophet had foretold that - men would one day communicate with each other by wireless - telegraphy; and the same effective argument is to-day opposed - by many to the evidence that the dead communicate with the - living. - - I might follow the eight preceding quotations (which illustrate - “the art of reasoning”) with the well-known story of Charles - Lamb, who, when blamed for coming late to the office, excused - himself on the ground that he always left early. (He also said, - “A man could not have too little to do and too much time to do - it in.”) There is also the reply of Lord Rothschild, when the - cabman told him that his son paid better fares than he did, - “Yes, but He has a rich father, and I haven’t.” - - * * * * * - -TO THE TRUE ROMANCE - - _Thy face is far from this our war,_ - _Our call and counter-cry,_ - _I shall not find Thee quick and kind,_ - _Nor know Thee till I die._ - _Enough for me in dreams to see_ - _And touch Thy garments’ hem:_ - _Thy feet have trod so near to God_ - _I may not follow them._ - - Through wantonness if men profess - They weary of Thy parts, - E’en let them die at blasphemy - And perish with their arts; - But we that love, but we that prove - Thine excellence august, - While we adore discover more - Thee perfect, wise, and just. - - Since spoken word Man’s Spirit stirred - Beyond his belly-need, - What is is Thine of fair design - In thought and craft and deed; - Each stroke aright of toil and fight, - That was and that shall be, - And hope too high, wherefore we die, - Has birth and worth in Thee. - - Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee - To gild his dross thereby, - And knowledge sure that he endure - A child until he die— - For to make plain that man’s disdain - Is but new Beauty’s birth— - For to possess in loneliness - The joy of all the earth. - - As thou didst teach all lovers speech - And Life all mystery, - So shalt Thou rule by every school - Till love and longing die, - Who wast or yet the Lights were set - A whisper in the Void, - Who shalt be sung through planets young - When this is clean destroyed. - - Beyond the bounds our staring rounds, - Across the pressing dark, - The children wise of outer skies - Look hitherward and mark - A light that shifts, a glare that drifts - Rekindling thus and thus, - Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne - Strange tales to them of us. - - Time hath no tide but must abide - The servant of Thy will; - Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme - The ranging stars stand still— - Regent of spheres that lock our fears - Our hopes invisible, - Oh! ’twas certés at Thy decrees - We fashioned Heaven and Hell! - - Pure Wisdom hath no certain path - That lacks thy morning-eyne, - And captains bold by Thee controlled - Most like to God’s design; - Thou art the Voice to kingly boys - To lift them through the fight. - And Comfortress of Unsuccess, - To give the dead good-night. - - A veil to draw ’twixt God, His law, - And Man’s infirmity, - A shadow kind to dumb and blind - The shambles where we die; - A rule to trick th’ arithmetic - Too base of leaguing odds— - The spur of trust, the curb of lust, - Thou handmaid of the Gods! - - O Charity, all patiently - Abiding wrack and scaith! - O Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats - Yet drops no jot of faith! - Devil and brute Thou dost transmute - To higher, lordlier show, - Who art in sooth that lovely Truth - The careless angels know! - - _Thy face is far from this our war,_ - _Our call and counter-cry,_ - _I may not find Thee quick and kind,_ - _Nor know Thee till I die._ - - _Yet may I look with heart unshook_ - _On blow brought home or missed—_ - _Yet may I hear with equal ear_ - _The clarions down the List;_ - _Yet set my lance above mischance_ - _And ride the barrière—_ - _Oh, hit or miss, how little ’tis,_ - _My Lady is not there!_ - - RUDYARD KIPLING. - - All attempts to define poetic imagination, to determine its - scope or prescribe its limits, leave us cold and unsatisfied, - for the simple reason that its variety and range are unlimited. - The aesthetic, moral and spiritual faculties are all in essence - identical, so that no definition of the aesthetic can exclude - the spiritual, and art and poetry spring from the same root as - religion. They all have what Wordsworth calls the “Spirit of - Paradise.”[14] Imagination[15] in its larger sense includes - all those higher faculties of man, all that lifts him above - his material existence. The “True Romance” in this fine poem - is imagination in this complete sense. By our lower perceptive - faculties we see the world of Nature in its material form; - by our higher powers we apprehend its aesthetic, moral and - spiritual beauty. (Man with his consciousness, will, reason, - and also his higher imaginative faculties, is as much part of - _Nature_ as any star or clod, crystal or gas, fly or flower.) - Hence imagination gives us the vision of glory in earth and - sky, the sense of wonder and worship, the emotions of sympathy - and love; it teaches us duty and self sacrifice; it awakens in - us a sense of the mystery of birth, life and death, directing - our thoughts from the finite and material world to the infinite - realm of the spiritual. - - _Verse 4, lines 5, 6._ Our faculties develop, and we realize, - for example, the beauty of Nature which was not apparent to - the Greeks of Plato’s time (see p. 379; see also p. 283). - _Verse 9, l. 5, 6._ Imagination teaches us heroism. In the - italicized verses, “our war” is, of course, the strife of our - material existence: we can face with courage the mischances - of life, seeing that “My Lady Romance,” the soul which is our - higher nature, must persist through life and after death. - (“_Barrière_,” barrier.) - - * * * * * - -We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our future -selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into insipid -misdoing and shabby achievement. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Middlemarch_). - - * * * * * - -The stars make no noise. - - IRISH PROVERB. - - * * * * * - -WHO FANCIED WHAT A PRETTY SIGHT - - Who fancied what a pretty sight - This rock would be if edged around - With living snow-drops? circlet bright! - How glorious to this orchard ground! - Who loved the little rock, and set - Upon its head this coronet? - - Was it the humour of a child? - Or rather of some gentle maid, - Whose brows, the day that she was styled - The Shepherd-queen, were thus arrayed? - Of man mature, or matron sage? - Or old man toying with his age? - - I asked—’twas whispered, “The device - To each and all might well belong: - It is the Spirit of Paradise - That prompts such work, a Spirit strong - That gives to all the self-same bent - Where life is wise and innocent.” - - WORDSWORTH. - - * * * * * - -They who believe in the influences of the stars over the fates of men -are, in feeling at least, nearer the truth than they who regard the -heavenly bodies as related to them merely by a common obedience to an -external law. All that man sees has to do with man. Worlds cannot be -without an intermundane relationship. The community of the centre of -all creation suggests an inter-radiating connection and dependence -of the parts. Else a grander idea is conceivable than that which is -already embodied. The blank, which is only a forgotten life lying behind -the consciousness, and the misty splendour, which is an undeveloped -life lying before it, may be full of mysterious revelations of other -connections with the worlds around us than those of science and -poetry. No shining belt or gleaming moon, no red and green glory in a -self-encircling twin-star, but has a relation with the hidden things of a -man’s soul, and, it may be, with the secret history of his body as well. -They are portions of the living house within which he abides. - - G. MACDONALD (_Phantastes_). - - * * * * * - - O weary time, O life, - Consumed in endless, useless strife - To wash from out the hopeless clay - Of heavy day and heavy day - Some specks of golden love, to keep - Our hearts from madness ere we sleep! - - W. MORRIS (_The Earthly Paradise_). - - To an Australian, a metaphor taken from alluvial gold-mining is - interesting. - - * * * * * - -(Dr. Slop has been uttering terrible curses against Obadiah) I declare, -quoth my Uncle Toby, my heart would not let me curse the devil himself -with so much bitterness.—He is the father of curses, replied Dr. Slop.—So -am not I, replied my uncle.—But he is cursed and damned already to all -eternity, replied Dr. Slop. - -I am sorry for it, quoth my Uncle Toby. - - LAURENCE STERNE (_Tristram Shandy_). - - * * * * * - - _Faust._ If heaven was made for man, ’twas made for me. - - _Good Angel._ Faustus, repent; yet heaven will pity thee. - - _Bad Angel._ Thou art a spirit, God cannot pity thee. - - _Faust._ Be I a devil, yet God may pity me. - - MARLOWE (_Doctor Faustus_). - - * * * * * - - But fare-you-well, Auld Nickie-Ben! - O, wad ye tak a thought and men’! - Ye aiblins might—I dinna ken— - Still hae a stake: - I’m wae to think upo’ yon den, - Ev’n for your sake! - - ROBERT BURNS (_Address to the Deil_). - - * * * * * - -“Shargar, what think ye? Gin the deil war to repent, wad God forgie him?” - -“There’s no sayin’ what folk wad dae till ance they’re tried,” returned -Shargar cautiously. - - GEORGE MACDONALD (_Robert Falconer, ch. xii._) - - There is a passage, I think in one of MacDonald’s novels, where - the question is again put, “Gin the de’il war to repent?” The - reply is to the effect, “Do not wish even him anything so - dreadful. The agony of his repentance would be far worse than - anything he can suffer in hell.” - - Scotus Erigena, a very able Irish theologian and philosopher of - the 9th century, believed that Satan himself must ultimately be - reclaimed, since otherwise God could not in the end conquer and - extinguish sin. He cites Origen and others in support of his - contention. These old and very serious discussions seem more - remote than Plato, but the belief in a personal devil was not - uncommon even in my young days. - - * * * * * - - Hope, whose eyes - Can sound the seas unsoundable, the skies - Inaccessible of eyesight; that can see - What earth beholds not, hear what wind and sea - Hear not, and speak what all these crying in one - Can speak not to the sun. - - SWINBURNE (_Thalassius_). - - * * * * * - -AN EXCELENTE BALADE OF CHARITIE - - In Virgo now the sultry sun did sheene, shine - And hot upon the meads did cast his ray; - The apple reddened from its paly green, - And the soft pear did bend the leafy spray; - The pied chelándry sang the livelong day; goldfinch - ’Twas now the pride, the manhood of the year, - And eke the ground was decked in its most deft aumere. apparel - - The sun was gleaming in the midst of day. - Dead-still the air, and eke the welkin blue, - When from the sea arose in drear array - A heap of clouds of sable sullen hue, - The which full fast unto the woodland drew, - Hiding at once the sunnès festive face, - And the black tempest swelled, and gathered up apace. - - Beneath a holm, fast by a pathway-side holm-oak - Which did unto Saint Godwin’s convent lead, - A hapless pilgrim moaning did abide, - Poor in his view, ungentle in his weed, clothing - Long brimful of the miseries of need. - Where from the hailstorm could the beggar fly? - He had no houses there, nor any convent nigh. - - Look in his gloomèd face, his sprite there scan; - How woe-begone, how withered, dwindled, dead! - Haste to thy church-glebe-house, accursed man! grave - Haste to thy shroud, thy only sleeping bed. - Cold as the clay which will grow on thy head - Are Charity and Love among high elves; - For knights and barons live for pleasure and themselves. - - The gathered storm is ripe; the big drops fall, - The sunburnt meadows smoke, and drink the rain; - The coming ghastness doth the cattle ’pall, gloom, appal - And the full flocks are driving o’er the plain; - Dashed from the clouds, the waters fly again; - The welkin opes; the yellow lightning flies, - And the hot fiery steam in the wide flashings dies. - - List! now the thunder’s rattling noisy sound - Moves slowly on, and then full-swollen clangs, - Shakes the high spire, and lost, expended, drowned, - Still on the frighted ear of terror hangs; - The winds are up; the lofty elmtree swangs; swings - Again the lightning, and the thunder pours, - And the full clouds are burst at once in stony showers. - - Spurring his palfrey o’er the watery plain, - The Abbot of Saint Godwin’s convent came; - His chapournette was drenched with the rain, small round hat - His painted girdle met with mickle shame; - He aynewarde told his bederoll at the same; told his beads - The storm increases, and he drew aside, backwards, - With the poor alms-craver near to the holm to bide. i.e., cursed - - His cope was all of Lincoln cloth so fine, - With a gold button fastened near his chin, - His autremete was edged with golden twine, robe - And his shoe’s peak a noble’s might have been; - Full well it shewèd he thought cost no sin. - The trammels of his palfrey pleased his sight, - For the horse-milliner his head with roses dight. - - “An alms, sir priest!” the drooping pilgrim said, - “Oh! let me wait within your convent-door, - Till the sun shineth high above our head, - And the loud tempest of the air is o’er. - Helpless and old am I, alas! and poor. - No house, no friend, nor money in my pouch, - All that I call my own is this my silver crouche.” crucifix - - “Varlet!” replied the Abbot, “cease your din; - This is no season alms and prayers to give. - My porter never lets a beggar in; - None touch my ring who not in honour live.” - And now the sun with the black clouds did strive, - And shot upon the ground his glaring ray; - The abbot spurred his steed, and eftsoons rode away. - - Once more the sky was black, the thunder rolled, - Fast running o’er the plain a priest was seen; - Not dight full proud, nor buttoned up in gold. - His cope and jape were grey, and eke were clean; short surplice - A Limitor he was of order seen; Begging Friar - And from the pathway-side then turnèd he, - Where the poor beggar lay beneath the holmen tree. - - “An alms, sir priest!” the drooping pilgrim said, - “For sweet Saint Mary and your order’s sake.” - The Limitor then loosened his pouch-thread, - And did thereout a groat of silver take: - The needy pilgrim did for gladness shake, - “Here, take this silver, it may ease thy care, - We are God’s stewards all, naught of our own we bear. - - “But ah! unhappy pilgrim, learn of me. - Scarce any give a rent-roll to their lord; - Here, take my semicope, thou’rt bare, I see. short cloak - ’Tis thine; the saints will give me my reward.” - He left the pilgrim, and his way aborde. went on his way - Virgin and holy Saints, who sit in gloure, glory - Or give the mighty will, or give the good man power! - - THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752-1770). - - The sun would conventionally be said to be in Virgo in August. - - It is sad and strange to think of the amazing story of this - child-genius, who lived in a world of romance but was driven by - destitution to commit suicide at _seventeen_ years of age. The - above was one of the “Rowley forgeries,” but, for the antique - words which Chatterton used (often incorrectly) to imitate - the language of the Fifteenth Century, modern words have been - substituted where possible. - - * * * * * - - I thought once how Theocritus had sung - Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, - Who each one in a gracious hand appears - To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: - And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, - I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, - The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years. - Those of my own life, who by turns had flung - A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware, - So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move - Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; - And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,— - “Guess now who holds thee?”—“Death,” I said. But there, - The silver answer rang.—“Not Death, but Love.” - - E. B. BROWNING (_Sonnets from the Portuguese_). - - This is the first of the chain of sonnets, which Mrs. Browning - called “Sonnets from the Portuguese.” They tell her own - love-story, and were written in secret and without thought of - publication. Robert Browning learnt of them only the year after - the marriage, and then insisted on their being published. They - include some of the finest sonnets in our language. - - To appreciate this and the other sonnets, it is necessary to - know the beautiful story of the two poets. Mrs. Browning was - six years older than her husband and a life-long invalid, - expecting, as she says in this sonnet, Death rather than Love. - Their marriage was supremely happy, and the great poet, when in - England, used to visit the church in which they were married to - express his thankfulness. He tells the love-story in the next - quotation. - - In these sonnets Mrs. Browning laid bare her innermost feelings. - - Robert Browning, however, in several poems says the privacy of - a poet’s life and feelings should not be bared to the public. - Wordsworth had written in 1827: - - Scorn not the Sonnet.... With this key - Shakespeare unlocked his heart. - - Browning in 1876 (thirty years after the “Sonnets from the - Portuguese” were written) wrote in his poem called _House_: - - “_With this same key_ - _Shakespeare unlocked his heart_”.... - Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he! - - Swinburne comments on these lines: “No whit the less like - Shakespeare, but undoubtedly the less like Browning.” - - * * * * * - - ... Come back with me to the first of all, - Let us lean and love it over again, - Let us now forget and now recall, - Break the rosary in a pearly rain, - And gather what we let fall!... - - Hither we walked then, side by side, - Arm in arm and cheek to cheek, - And still I questioned or replied, - While my heart, convulsed to really speak, - Lay choking in its pride. - - Silent the crumbling bridge we cross, - And pity and praise the chapel sweet, - And care about the fresco’s loss, - And wish for our souls a like retreat, - And wonder at the moss. - - We stoop and look in through the grate, - See the little porch and rustic door, - Read duly the dead builder’s date; - Then cross the bridge that we crossed before, - Take the path again—but wait! - - Oh moment, one and infinite! - The water slips o’er stock and stone; - The West is tender, hardly bright: - How grey at once is the evening grown— - One star, its chrysolite! - - We two stood there with never a third, - But each by each, as each knew well: - The sights we saw and the sounds we heard, - The lights and the shades made up a spell - Till the trouble grew and stirred. - - Oh, the little more, and how much it is! - And the little less, and what worlds away! - How a sound shall quicken content to bliss, - Or a breath suspend the blood’s best play, - And life be a proof of this!... - - A moment after, and hands unseen - Were hanging the night around us fast; - But we knew that a bar was broken between - Life and life: we were mixed at last - In spite of the mortal screen.... - - How the world is made for each of us! - How all we perceive and know in it - Tends to some moment’s product thus, - When a soul declares itself—to wit, - By its fruit, the thing it does!... - - I am named and known by that moment’s feat; - There took my station and degree; - So grew my own small life complete, - As nature obtained her best of me— - One born to love you, sweet! - - And to watch you sink by the fire-side now - Back again, as you mutely sit - Musing by fire-light, that great brow - And the spirit-small hand propping it, - Yonder, my heart knows how! - - R. BROWNING (_By the Fireside_). - - The last verse, describing Mrs. Browning, makes it clear that - the poet is speaking of his own love-story, although the scene - is imaginary. The last two verses are to be read literally, as - an expression of the poet’s firm belief, and not as poetical - exaggeration. - - * * * * * - -You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary to nature. -You do not know what Nature is, or what she can do; and nobody knows. -Wise men are afraid to say that there is anything contrary to nature, -except what is contrary to mathematical truth, as that two and two cannot -make five. There are dozens and hundreds of things in the world which -we should certainly have said were contrary to nature, if we did not -see them going on under our eyes all day long. If people had never seen -little seeds grow into great plants and trees, of quite different shapes -from themselves, and these trees again produce fresh seeds, they would -have said, “The thing cannot be”.... Suppose that no human being had -ever seen or heard of an elephant. And suppose that you described him to -people, and said, “This is the shape, and plan, and anatomy of the beast -... and this is the section of his skull, more like a mushroom than a -reasonable skull of a reasonable or unreasonable beast; yet he is the -wisest of all beasts, and can do everything save read, write, and cast -accounts.” People would surely have said, “Nonsense; your elephant is -contrary to nature,” and have thought you were telling stories—as the -French thought of Le Vaillant when he came back to Paris and said that -he had shot a giraffe; and as the King of the Cannibal Islands thought -of the English sailor, when he said that in his country water turned to -marble, and rain fell as feathers. The truth is that folks’ fancy that -such and such things cannot be, simply because they have not seen them, -is worth no more than a savage’s fancy that there cannot be such a thing -as a locomotive, because he never saw one running wild in the forest. - - CHARLES KINGSLEY (1819-1875) (_Water-Babies_). - - This passage interested us greatly in the old days, and also - another passage drawing a not very satisfactory analogy between - the transformation of insects and our probable transformation - at death. I do not know whether the elephant’s brain warrants - Kingsley’s deduction. - - This book, published in 1863,[16] had a considerable effect - in doing away with the barbarous employment of young children - in mines, factories, brickfields, etc. It called attention - particularly to the chimney-sweep boys of four or five years - of age who had to climb up the narrow chimneys, and who were - simply slaves, neglected and ill-treated by their drunken - masters. We are apt to forget how recently we emerged from - barbarism in many directions, and that we are only now becoming - civilized in other respects, as, for instance, with regard to - the poor, suffering, and ignorant. - - * * * * * - - The worst way to improve the world - Is to condemn it. - - P. J. BAILEY (_Festus_). - - * * * * * - -THE DARK GLASS - - Not I myself know all my love for thee: - How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh - To-morrow’s dower by gage of yesterday? - Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be - As doors and windows bared to some loud sea, - Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray; - And shall my sense pierce love,—the last relay - And ultimate outpost of eternity? - - Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all? - One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand,— - One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand. - Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call - And veriest touch of powers primordial - That any hour-girt life may understand. - - D. G. ROSSETTI. - - * * * * * - -The gods are on the side of the strongest. - - TACITUS (_Hist._ 4, 17). - - De Rabutin, Comte de Bussy, said in 1677, “God is on the side - of the heaviest battalions.” Voltaire again said, in 1770, that - there are far more fools than wise men, “and they say that God - always favours the heaviest battalions” (Letter to Le Riche). - Gibbon wrote, “The winds and waves are always on the side of - the ablest navigators” (Ch. LXVIII). (I owe part of this note - to _King’s Classical and Foreign Quotations_.) - - * * * * * - -THE OCTOPUS - -BY ALGERNON _SINBURN_ - - Strange beauty, eight-limbed and eight-handed, - Whence camest to dazzle our eyes, - With thy bosom bespangled and banded, - With the hues of the seas and the skies? - Is thy name European or Asian, - Oh mystical monster marine, - Part molluscous and partly crustacean, - Betwixt and between? - - Wast thou born to the sound of sea-trumpets? - Hast thou eaten and drunk to excess - Of the sponges—thy muffins and crumpets— - Of the sea-weed—thy mustard and cress? - Wast thou nurtured in caverns of coral, - Remote from reproof or restraint? - Art thou innocent, art thou immoral, - Sinburnian or Saint? - - Lithe limbs curling free as a creeper, - That creeps in a desolate place, - To enrol and envelop the sleeper - In a silent and stealthy embrace; - Cruel beak craning forward to bite us, - Our juices to drain and to drink, - Or to whelm as in waves of Cocytus, - Indelible ink! - - Oh, breast that ’twere rapture to writhe on! - Oh, arms ’twere delicious to feel - Clinging close with the crush of the Python, - When she maketh her murderous meal! - In thy eight-fold embraces enfolden - Let our empty existence escape; - Give us death that is glorious and golden, - Crushed all out of shape! - - Ah, thy red limbs lascivious and luscious, - With death in their amorous kiss! - Cling round us and clasp us and crush us, - With bitings of agonized bliss! - We are sick with the poison of pleasure, - Dispense us the potion of pain; - Ope thy mouth to its uttermost measure, - And bite us again! - - A. C. HILTON (1851-1877) - - This extraordinarily clever parody of Swinburne’s “Dolores” was - written by Arthur Clement Hilton, when he was an undergraduate - at St. John’s, Cambridge. It appeared in _The Light Green_, a - clever but short-lived magazine published in Cambridge in the - early seventies as a rival to _The Dark Blue_, published in - London by Oxford men. Hilton was the main contributor to _The - Light Green_. He died when only twenty-six years of age. This - brilliant young author is not included in _The Dictionary of - National Biography_. - - “The Octopus” is one of the best of English parodies. I had - not seen it for forty years, until I recently found it in Adam - and White’s _Parodies and Imitations_ (1912). In that book, - although the authors presumably had _The Light Green_ to print - from, the punctuation is inferior to that in my copy, and the - word “Dispose” instead of “Dispense” in the third last line - must be a misprint. - - * * * * * - -He seemed to me to be one of those men who have not very extended minds, -but who know what they know very well—shallow streams, and clear because -they are shallow. - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_Table Talk_). - - * * * * * - -To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world -tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. - - R. L. STEVENSON (_Virginibus Puerisque_). - - * * * * * - -Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner. - -(To know all is forgive all.) - - FRENCH PROVERB. - - This proverb is said to have originated from a sentence in Mme. - de Staël’s _Corinne, Tout comprendre rend très-indulgent_, - “Understanding everything makes one very forgiving.” - - * * * * * - -The true life of the human community is planted deep in the private -affections of its members; in the greatness of its individual minds; -in the pure severities of its domestic conscience; in the noble and -transforming thoughts that fertilize its sacred nooks. Who can observe, -without astonishment, the durable action of men truly great on the -history of the world, and the evanescence of vast military revolutions, -once threatening all things with destruction? How often is it the fate -of the former to be invisible for an age, and then live for ever; of the -latter, to sweep a generation from the earth, and then vanish with slight -trace? - - JAMES MARTINEAU (_The Outer and the Inner Temple_). - - Wars seem to leave little trace except where they result in the - immigration and settlement of a tribe or nation. Otherwise they - appear to cancel one another. The present war will probably - destroy the only trace of the Franco-Prussian war, and, with - respect to Turkey, Poland, and other countries, will no doubt - cancel the effects of many tremendous conflicts of past - centuries. - - * * * * * - -A century ago men were following, with bated breath, the march of -Napoleon, and waiting with feverish impatience for the latest news of -the wars. And all the while, in their own homes, babies were being -born. But who could think about _babies_? Everybody was thinking about -_battles_. In one year, lying midway between Trafalgar and Waterloo, -there stole into the world a host of heroes! During that one year, 1809, -Mr. Gladstone was born in Liverpool; Alfred Tennyson was born at the -Somersby rectory and Oliver Wendell Holmes made his first appearance in -Massachusetts. On the very self-same day of that self-same year Charles -Darwin made his debut at Shrewsbury, and Abraham Lincoln drew his first -breath in old Kentucky. Music was enriched by the advent of Frederic -Chopin at Warsaw, and of Felix Mendelssohn at Hamburg. Within the same -year, too, Samuel Morley was born in Homerton, Edward Fitzgerald in -Woodbridge, Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Durham, and Frances Kemble in -London. But nobody thought of babies. Everybody was thinking of battles. -Yet, viewing that age in the truer perspective which the distance of a -hundred years enables us to command, we may well ask ourselves, “Which of -the battles of 1809 mattered more than the babies of 1809?” ... - -We fancy that God can only manage His world by big battalions abroad, -when all the while He is doing it by beautiful babies at home. When a -wrong wants righting, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent wants -opening, God sends a baby into the world to do it. That is why, long, -long ago, a babe was born in Bethlehem. - - FRANK W. BOREHAM (_Mountains in the Mist_). - - * * * * * - -REINFORCEMENTS - - When little boys with merry noise - In the meadows shout and run; - And little girls, sweet woman buds, - Brightly open in the sun; - I may not of the world despair, - Our God despaireth not, I see; - For blithesomer in Eden’s air - These lads and maidens could not be. - - Why were they born, if Hope must die? - Wherefore this health, if Truth should fail? - And why such Joy, if Misery - Be conquering us and must prevail? - Arouse! our spirit may not droop! - These young ones fresh from Heaven are; - Our God hath sent another troop, - And means to carry on the war. - - THOMAS TOKE LYNCH (1818-1871). - - * * * * * - - O wind, a word with you before you pass; - What did you to the Rose that on the grass - Broken she lies and pale, who loved you so? - - * * * * * - - THE WIND - - Roses must live and love, and winds must blow. - - PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON (_The Rose and the Wind_). - - * * * * * - -WHAT OF THE DARKNESS? - - What of the Darkness? Is it very fair? - Are there great calms, and find ye silence there? - Like soft-shut lilies all your faces glow - With some strange peace our faces never know, - With some great faith our faces never dare: - Dwells it in Darkness? Do ye find it there? - - Is it a Bosom where tired heads may lie? - Is it a Mouth to kiss our weeping dry? - Is it a Hand to still the pulse’s leap? - Is it a Voice that holds the runes of sleep? - Day shows us not such comfort anywhere: - Dwells it in Darkness? Do ye find it there? - - Out of the Day’s deceiving light we call, - Day, that shows man so great and God so small. - That hides the stars and magnifies the grass; - O is the Darkness too a lying glass - Or, undistracted, do ye find truth there? - What of the Darkness? Is it very fair? - - R. LE GALLIENNE. - - These lines were written of _the blind_, but become even more - beautiful and true if applied to a different subject, _the - dead_. - - * * * * * - -Continuing the work of creation, _i.e._, co-operating as instruments of -Providence in bringing order out of disorder ... is only a part of the -mission of mankind, and the time will come again when its due rank will -be assigned to contemplation and the calm culture of reverence and love. -Then poetry will resume her equality with prose.... But that time is not -yet, and the crowning glory of Wordsworth is that he has borne witness -to it and kept alive its traditions in an age, which, but for him, would -have lost sight of it entirely. - - J. S. MILL. - - In that utilitarian period the figure of the great poet stands - out in sheer sublimity. Apart from the depressing atmosphere - of the time, one needs to remember how serenely he continued - to deliver his high message in spite of the most deadly want - of appreciation. At thirty he received £10 from his poems and - nothing more until he was sixty-five! The quotation is from a - letter in Caroline Fox’s _Journals_. - - * * * * * - -My sarcastic friend says, with the utmost gravity, that no man with less -than a thousand pounds a year can afford to have private opinions upon -certain important subjects. He admits that he has known it done upon -eight hundred a year; but only by very prudent people with small families. - - SIR A. HELPS (_Companions of my Solitude_). - - * * * * * - -’Tis an old theme, this Divine Love, and it cannot be exhausted. Men have -not outlived it, angels cannot outlearn it. It swayed the ancient world -by many a fair god and goddess; its light has been cast over ages of -Christian controversy and warfare; it is still the guiding Star of the -Sea to each voyager after the nobler faith. The youth leaves the old -shore of belief, only because love has left it. His starved affections -will no longer accept stone, though pulverized flour-like and artfully -kneaded, for bread. Their white sails fill the purple and the sombre -seas, and they hail each other to ask for the summer-land, where faith -climbs to beauty, and the lost bowers of childhood’s trust may be found -again. - - MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY (1832-1907). - - This fine writer was a Unitarian minister, but afterwards - became a “Free-thinker.” - - * * * * * - - There are in this loud stunning tide - Of human care and crime, - With whom the melodies abide - Of th’ everlasting chime; - Who carry music in their heart - Through dusky lane and wrangling mart. - Plying their daily task with busier feet, - Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat. - - JOHN KEBLE (_The Christian Year_, “_St. - Matthew._”) - - * * * * * - -THE DARK COMPANION - - There is an orb that mocked the lore of sages - Long time with mystery of strange unrest; - The steadfast law that rounds the starry ages - Gave doubtful token of supreme behest; - - But they who knew the ways of God unchanging, - Concluded some far influence unseen— - Some kindred sphere through viewless others ranging, - Whose strong persuasions spanned the void between; - - And knowing it alone through perturbation - And vague disquiet of another star, - They named it, till the day of revelation, - “The Dark Companion”—darkly guessed afar. - - But when, through new perfection of appliance, - Faith merged at length in undisputed sight, - The mystic mover was revealed to science, - No Dark Companion, but—a speck of light: - - No Dark Companion, but a sun of glory: - No fell disturber, but a bright compeer: - The shining complement that crowned the story: - The golden link that made the meaning clear. - - Oh, Dark Companion, journeying ever by us, - Oh, grim Perturber of our works and ways, - Oh, potent Dread, unseen, yet ever nigh us, - Disquieting all the tenor of our days— - - Oh, Dark Companion, Death, whose wide embraces - Overtake remotest change of clime and skies— - Oh, Dark Companion, Death, whose grievous traces - Are scattered shreds of riven enterprise— - - Thou, too, in this wise, when, our eyes unsealing, - The clearer day shall change our faith to sight, - Shalt show thyself, in that supreme revealing, - No Dark Companion, but a thing of light: - - No ruthless wrecker of harmonious order: - No alien heart of discord and caprice: - A beckoning light upon the Blissful Border: - A kindred element of law and peace. - - So, too, our strange unrest in this our dwelling, - The trembling that thou joinest with our mirth, - Are by thy magnet-communing compelling - Our spirits farther from the scope of earth. - - So, doubtless, when beneath thy potence swerving, - ’Tis that thou lead’st us by a path unknown, - Our seeming deviations all subserving - The perfect orbit round the central throne. - - ... - - The night wind moans. The Austral wilds are round me. - The loved who live—ah, God! how few they are! - I looked above; and Heaven in mercy found me - This parable of comfort in a star. - - J. BRUNTON STEPHENS (_Convict Once and other - Poems_). - - The “Dark Companion” is no doubt the star known as the - “Companion of Sirius.” Certain peculiarities in the motion of - Sirius led Bessel in 1844 to the belief that it had an obscure - companion, with which it was in revolution. The position of - the companion having been ascertained by calculation, it was - at last found in 1862. It is equal in mass to our sun but is - obscured by the brilliancy of Sirius, which is the brightest - of the fixed stars. Brunton Stephens’ poem was published in - Melbourne in 1873. - - * * * * * - -SEQUEL TO “MY QUEEN” - - “_When and where shall I earliest meet her_,” etc. - - Yes, but the years run circling fleeter, - Ever they pass me—I watch, I wait— - Ever I dream, and awake to meet her; - She cometh never, or comes too late. - - Should I press on? for the day grows shorter— - Ought I to linger? the far end nears; - Ever ahead have I looked, and sought her - On the bright sky-line of the gathering years. - - Now that the shadows are eastward sloping, - As I screen mine eyes from the slanting sun, - Cometh a thought—It is past all hoping, - Look not ahead, she is missed and gone. - - Here on the ridge of my upward travel, - Ere the life-line dips to the darkening vales, - Sadly I turn, and would fain unravel - The entangled maze of a search that fails. - - When and where have I seen and passed her? - What are the words I forgot to say? - Should we have met had a boat rowed faster? - Should we have loved, had I stayed that day? - - Was it her face that I saw, and started, - Gliding away in a train that crossed? - Was it her form that I once, faint-hearted, - Followed awhile in a crowd and lost? - - Was it there she lived, when the train went sweeping - Under the moon through the landscape hushed? - Somebody called me, I woke from sleeping, - Saw but a hamlet—and on we rushed. - - Listen and linger—She yet may find me - In the last faint flush of the waning light— - Never a step on the path behind me; - I must journey alone, to the lonely night. - - But is there somewhere on earth, I wonder, - A fading figure, with eyes that wait, - Who says, as she stands in the distance yonder, - “He cometh never, or comes too late?” - - SIR ALFRED LYALL. - - * * * * * - - Too late for love, too late for joy, - Too late, too late! - You loitered on the road too long, - You trifled at the gate: - The enchanted dove upon her branch - Died without a mate; - The enchanted princess in her tower - Slept, died, behind the grate; - Her heart was starving all this while - You made it wait. - - Ten years ago, five years ago, - One year ago, - Even then you had arrived in time, - Though somewhat slow; - Then you had known her living face - Which now you cannot know: - The frozen fountain would have leaped, - The buds gone on to blow, - The warm south wind would have awaked - To melt the snow. - - CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (_The Prince’s Progress_). - - * * * * * - - Where waitest thou, - Lady I am to love? Thou comest not! - Thou knowest of my sad and lonely lot; - I looked for thee ere now!... - - Where art thou, sweet? - I long for thee, as thirsty lips for streams! - Oh, gentle promised Angel of my dreams, - Why do we never meet? - - Thou art as I,— - Thy soul doth wait for mine, as mine for thee; - We cannot live apart; must meeting be - Never before we die ...? - - SIR EDWIN ARNOLD (_À Ma Future_). - - * * * * * - - Mild is the parting year, and sweet - The odour of the falling spray; - Life passes on more rudely fleet, - And balmless is its closing day. - - I wait its close, I court its gloom, - But mourn that never must there fall - Or on my breast or on my tomb - The tear that would have sooth’d it all. - - W. S. LANDOR. - - * * * * * - -The devil has made the stuff of our life and God makes the hem. - - VICTOR HUGO (_By the King’s Command_). - - * * * * * - -I think, I said, I can make it plain that there are at least six -personalities distinctly to be recognized as taking part in a dialogue -between John and Thomas. - - Three Johns: The real John—known only to his Maker. John’s - ideal John—never the real one, and often very unlike him. - Thomas’s ideal John—never the real John, nor John’s John, but - often very unlike either. - - Three Thomases: The real Thomas. Thomas’s ideal Thomas. John’s - ideal Thomas. - -Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a -platform balance; but the other two are just as important in the -conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and -ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men the gift -of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly conceives -himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks from the point -of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him to be an artful -rogue, we will say; therefore he _is_, so far as Thomas’s attitude in -the conversation is concerned, an artful rogue, though really simple and -stupid. The same conditions apply to the three Thomases. It follows that, -until a man can be found who knows himself as his Maker knows him, or -who sees himself as others see him, there must be at least six persons -engaged in every dialogue between two. Of these the least important, -philosophically speaking, is the one that we have called the real person. -No wonder two disputants often get angry, when there are six of them -talking and listening all at the same time. - -(A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made by -a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me at -table. A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable little known to -boarding-houses, was on its way to me _via_ this unlettered Johannes. He -appropriated the three that remained in the basket, remarking that there -was just one apiece for him. I convinced him that his practical inference -was hasty and illogical, but in the meantime he had eaten the peaches.) - - O. W. HOLMES (_Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_). - - * * * * * - - When aweary of your mirth, - From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh, - And, feeling kindly unto all the earth, - Grudge every minute as it passes by, - Made the more mindful that the sweet days die— - Remember me a little then, I pray, - The idle singer of an empty day. - - W. MORRIS (_The Earthly Paradise_). - - * * * * * - -A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER. - - Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun, - Which was my sin, though it were done before? - Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run, - And do run still, though still I do deplore?— - When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done; - For I have more. - - Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won - Others to sin, and made my sins their door? - Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun - A year or two, but wallowed in a score?— - When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done; - For I have more. - - I have a sin of fear, that when I’ve spun - My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; - But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son - Shall shine, as He Shines now and heretofore; - And having done that, Thou hast done: - I fear no more. - - JOHN DONNE (1573-1631). - - In line (1) the reference is to the old doctrine that the guilt - of Adam and Eve’s “original sin” tainted all generations of - man; (3) “run,” ran; (8) his sin—the example he has set—is the - door which opened to others the way of sin. - - In this fine poem there are _puns_. In the last verse one pun - is on the words “Son” and “Sun,” Christ being the “Sun of - righteousness who arises with healing in his wings” (_Malachi_ - iv, 2). Also in the fifth, eleventh, and seventeenth lines, - the play is on the last word “done” and the poet’s name Donne, - which was pronounced _dun_.[17] (It was occasionally written - Dun, Dunne, or Done: see Grierson’s _Poems of John Donne_, Vol. - II, pp. lvii, lxxvii, lxxxvii, 8 and 12. Contrariwise, the - adjective “dun,” dull-brown, was spelt _donne_ in the poet’s - time.) We are accustomed only to the jocular use of puns, but - here there is a serious intention to give two meanings to one - expression. Such a use of puns was one of the “quaint conceits” - of that period of our literature, and it is found also in - serious Persian poetry. - - * * * * * - -Very likely female pelicans like so to bleed under the selfish little -beaks of their young ones: it is certain that women do. There must be -some sort of pleasure, which we men don’t understand, which accompanies -the pain of being scarified. - - THACKERAY (_Pendennis_). - - * * * * * - -The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing -but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they -are gone. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Felix Holt_). - - * * * * * - -LET IT BE THERE. - - Not there, not there! - Not in that nook, that ye deem so fair;— - Little reck I of the bright, blue sky, - And the stream that floweth so murmuringly, - And the bending boughs, and the breezy air— - Not there, good friends, not there! - - In the city churchyard, where the grass - Groweth rank and black, and where never a ray - Of that self-same sun doth find its way - Through the heaped-up houses’ serried mass— - Where the only sounds are the voice of the throng, - And the clatter of wheels as they rush along— - Or the plash of the rain, or the wind’s hoarse cry, - Or the busy tramp of the passer-by, - Or the toll of the bell on the heavy air— - Good friends, let it be _there_! - - I am old, my friends—I am very old— - Fourscore and five—and bitter cold - Were that air on the hill-side far away; - Eighty full years, content, I trow, - Have I lived in the home where ye see me now, - And trod those dark streets day by day, - Till my soul doth love them; I love them all, - Each battered pavement, and blackened wall, - Each court and corner. Good sooth! to me - They are all comely and fair to see— - They have _old faces_—each one doth tell - A tale of its own, that doth like me well, - Sad or merry, as it may be, - From the quaint old book of my history. - And, friends, when this weary pain is past, - Fain would I lay me to rest at last - In their very midst; full sure am I, - How dark soever be earth and sky, - I shall sleep softly—I shall know - That the things I loved so here below - Are about me still—so never care - That my last home looketh all bleak and bare— - Good friends, let it be _there_! - - THOMAS WESTWOOD (1814-1888). - - * * * * * - -Every man hath his gift, one a cup of wine, another heart’s blood. - - HAFIZ. - - Some poets sing of wine or sensuous enjoyment, but Hafiz pours - out his heart’s blood in song. Presumably wine and blood are - contrasted because of their similar appearance. - - * * * * * - -The devil could drive woman out of Paradise; but the devil himself cannot -drive the Paradise out of a woman. - - G. MACDONALD (_Robert Falconer_). - - * * * * * - -THE PULLEY - - When God at first made man, - Having a glass of blessings standing by, - “Let us,” said He, “pour on him all we can; - Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie, - Contract into a span.” - - So strength first made a way, - Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure; - When almost all was out, God made a stay, - Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure, - _Rest_ in the bottom lay. - - “For if I should,” said He, - “Bestow this jewel also on My creature, - He would adore My gifts instead of Me, - And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature: - So both should losers be. - - “Yet let him keep the rest, - But keep them with repining restlessness; - Let him be rich and weary, that at least, - If goodness lead him not, yet weariness - May toss him to My breast.” - - GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1633). - - “The Pulley” because by the desire for rest after toil and - tribulation God _draws man up_ to Himself. - - * * * * * - -(Darwin’s _Origin of Species_ was published in November, 1859.) At -the Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1860 Huxley had on -Thursday, June 28, directly contradicted Professor Owen’s statement that -a gorilla’s brain differed more from a man’s than it did from the brain -of the lowest of the Quadrumana (apes, monkeys, and lemurs). He was thus -marked out as the champion of evolution. On the Saturday, although the -public were not admitted, the members crowded the room to suffocation, -anxious to hear the brilliant controversialist, Bishop Wilberforce, take -part in the debate. An unimportant paper was read bearing upon Darwinism, -and a discussion followed. The Bishop, inspired by Owen, began his -speech. He spoke in dulcet tones, persuasive manner, and with well-turned -periods, but ridiculing Darwin badly and Huxley savagely. “In a light, -scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there was nothing in the -idea of evolution: rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons had always been. -Then, turning to Huxley, with a smiling insolence, he begged to know, -_was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his -descent from a monkey_.” - -As he said this, Huxley turned to his neighbour and said, “The Lord -hath delivered him into mine hands!” On rising to speak, he first -gave a forcible and eloquent reply to the scientific part of the -Bishop’s argument. Then “he stood before us and spoke those tremendous -words—words, which no one seems sure of now, nor, I think, could remember -just after they were spoken, for their meaning took away our breath, -though it left us in no doubt as to what it was. “He was not ashamed to -have a monkey for his ancestor: but he would be ashamed to be connected -with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth.” No one doubted -his meaning, and the effect was tremendous. One lady fainted and had -to be carried out; I, for one, jumped out of my seat.” (_Macmillan’s_, -1898.) There is no verbatim report of this incident, but the varying -accounts agree in outline. - - (_Extracted from Life of Huxley._) - - One object of this book is to bring back the memories of the - seventy-eighties—and of overwhelming interest at the time was - the alleged conflict between religion and science. Through - Darwin’s great discovery and Herbert Spencer’s world-wide - extension of the evolution theory, so much was found covered - by law that men were blinded to the fact that the essential - question of causality, lying behind all law, was still - untouched. - - The important and thrilling incident referred to above took - place in 1860, when I was two years old, but it was still an - absorbing topic thirteen or fourteen years later, and is one of - my most vivid recollections. - - Wilberforce (1805-1873) was a great Churchman and, indeed, - has been said to be the greatest prelate of his age, although - his nickname “Soapy Sam” led to a popular depreciation of his - merits. (This epithet originally meant that he was evasive - on certain questions, but it took a further meaning from his - persuasive eloquence.) In this instance he meddled with a - subject of which he was ignorant. Owen, who instigated him to - make this attack on Darwin and Huxley had at first welcomed - the theory of evolution, but quailed before the orthodox - indignation against the necessary extension of that theory to - the origin of man. Huxley (1825-1895) was thirty-five years of - age when he thus showed himself a strong debater and a power in - the scientific world. - - * * * * * - -On tracing the line of life backwards, we see it approaching more and -more to what we call the purely physical condition. We come at length -to those organisms which I have compared to drops of oil suspended in a -mixture of alcohol and water. We reach the _protogenes_ of Haeckel, in -which we have “a type distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only -by its finely granular character.” Can we pause here? We break a magnet -and find two poles in each of its fragments. We continue the process -of breaking; but however small the parts, each carries with it, though -enfeebled, the polarity of the whole. And when we can break no longer, we -prolong the intellectual vision to the polar molecules. Are we not urged -to do _something_ similar in the case of life?... Believing, as I do, in -the continuity of nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our microscopes -cease to be of use. Here the vision of the mind authoritatively -supplements the vision of the eye. By a necessity engendered and -justified by science I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence, -and _discern in that Matter_ which we, in our ignorance of its latent -powers, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, -have hitherto covered with opprobrium, _the promise and potency of all -terrestrial Life_. - -(Referring to the question of inquiring into the mystery of our origin). -Here, however, I touch a theme too great for me to handle, but which will -assuredly be handled by the loftiest minds, _when you and I, like streaks -of morning cloud, shall have melted into the infinite azure of the past_. - - JOHN TYNDALL. - - The italics are mine. - - As in the preceding quotation the subject is the alleged - conflict between religion and science, which occupied so large - a space in our life and thought in the seventies and eighties. - The above are the two passages from Tyndall’s presidential - address at the Belfast meeting of the British Association in - 1874, which caused an immense sensation. The Belfast Address, - like Huxley’s smashing reply to Bishop Wilberforce, was useful - in showing that all scientific questions must be considered - with an open mind, free of theological bias, and also in - adding testimony to the importance and value of Darwin’s - investigation. Although fifteen years had passed since _The - Origin of Species_ was published, this was still necessary. (At - that very time Professor McCoy, afterwards Sir Frederick McCoy, - F.R.S., when lecturing at the Melbourne University to his - students, of whom I was one, was still making inane jokes about - evolution and our monkey cousins.) - - But, while the world was in ferment over the question of - man’s alleged kinship with the monkey, there came the further - startling fact that the President of the British Association - also proclaimed his belief in _materialism_ and, inferentially, - that there was no life after death. Englishmen had not before - realized how widely materialism had spread through England - and Europe. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that - a _majority_ at least of the leading thinkers had become - materialists. - - In travelling outside science into metaphysics, Tyndall - betrayed a lamentable ignorance of the latter—a parallel case - to that of Bishop Wilberforce when he attempted to meddle with - science. Martineau, referring to the first quotation above, - wrote: “There is no magic in the superlatively little to draw - from the universe its last secret. Size is but relative, - magnified or dwindled by a glass, variable with the organ of - perception: to one being, the speck which only the microscope - can show us may be a universe; to another, the solar system but - a molecule; and in the passing from the latter to the former - you reach no end of search or beginning of things. You merely - substitute a miniature of nature for its life-size without at - all showing whence the features arise.” - - * * * * * - -THE NEW GOSPEL - - _HAECKELIUS loquitur_: - - The ages have passed and come with the beat of a measureless tread - And piled up their palace-dome on the dust of the ageless dead, - Since the atom of life first glowed in the breast of eternal time, - And shaped for itself its abode in the womb of the shapeless slime; - And the years matured its form with slow, unwearying toil. - Moulded by sun and storm, and rich with the centuries’ spoil, - Till the face of the earth was fair, and life grew up into mind, - And breathed its earliest prayer to its god in the dawn or wind, - And called itself by the name of man, the master and lord, - Who conquers the strength of flame and tempers the spear and sword; - For the world grows wiser by war, and death is the law of life, - The lowermost rock in the scar is red with the stains of strife. - Burst thro’ the bounds of sight, and measure the least of things, - Plummet the infinite and make to thy fancy wings; - From crystal, and coral, and weed, up to man in his noblest race, - The weaker shall fail in his need, and the stronger shall hold his place! - - _RENANUS loquitur_: - - Ah! leave me yet a little while, to watch - The golden glory of the dying day, - Till all the purple mountains gleam and catch - The last faint light that slowly steals away. - - Too soon the night is on us; aye, too soon - We know the cloud is born of blinding mist: - The throne, whereon the gods sate crowned at noon - With ruby rays and liquid amethyst, - - Is but a vapour, dim and grey, a streak - Of hollow rain that freezes in its fall, - A dull, cold shape that settles on the peak, - Icy and stifling as a dead man’s pall. - - The world’s old faith is fairest in its death, - For death is fairer oftentimes than life; - No vulgar passion quivers in the breath: - The dead forget their weariness and strife. - - Say not that death is even as decay, - A hideous charnel choked with rotting dust; - The cold white lips are beautiful as spray - Cast on an iceberg by the northern gust. - - The memories of the past are diadem’d - About the brow and folded on the eyes; - The weary lids beneath are bent and gemm’d - With charmèd dreams and mystic reveries. - - Once more she sits in her imperial chair, - And kings and Cæsars kneel before her feet, - And clouds of incense fill the heavy air, - And shouts of homage echo thro’ the street. - - Or yet, again, she stretches forth the hand, - And men are done to death at her desire; - The smoke of burning cities dims the land, - And limbs are torn or shrivelled in the fire. - - Once more the scene is shifted, and the gleam - Of eastern suns about her brow is curled; - Once more she roams a maiden by the stream, - Despised of men, the Magdalen of the world. - - So scene on scene floats lightly, as a haze - That comes and goes with sudden gust and lull: - Limned with the sunset hues of other days, - They are but dreams; yet dreams are beautiful. - - ARCHIBALD HENRY SAYCE (_Academy, Dec. 5, 1885_). - - As in the two preceding quotations, the subject is the - supposed conflict of religion and science. Haeckel (born 1834, - recently dead) was the most ruthless of all the biologists in - accounting for evolution and all progress by a struggle for - existence. Renan (1823-1892), the French writer, whose love of - Christianity survived his belief in it, speaks of the passing - away of the old faith as “the golden glory of the dying day,” - and says that in its death it will be more beautiful than in - its life, when it led to passion, persecution and war. The - penultimate verse refers to the time when temporal power was - removed from the church, and she reverted to the humility, and - also the beauty, of primitive Christianity when it came in its - morning glory from the East. - - The fact that these fine verses are by the great philologist - and archæologist, Professor Sayce, who has not publicly - appeared in the rôle of a poet, adds greatly to their interest. - The few verses he has published have mostly appeared over the - initials “A.H.S.” in the old _Academy_ (the present periodical - is a different concern), and he was not known to the public as - the author. - - Anything about Professor Sayce must be interesting to the - reader, and I, therefore, need not apologize for mentioning - the following incidents, which, I imagine, are known only - among his friends. In 1870, during the Franco-German War, Mr. - Sayce was ordered to be shot at Nantes as a German spy, and - only escaped “by the skin of his teeth.” It was just before - Gambetta had flown in his balloon out of Paris, and there was - no recognized Government in the country. Nantes was full of - fugitives, and bands of Uhlans were in the neighbourhood. Mr. - Sayce was arrested when walking round the old citadel examining - its walls—not realizing that it was occupied by French troops. - Fortunately, some ladies of the garrison came in during his - examination to see the interesting young prisoner and, after - Mr. Sayce had been placed against the wall and a soldier told - off to shoot him, they prevailed upon the Commandant to give - him a second examination, which ended in his acquittal. - - Mr. Sayce was also among the Carlists in the Carlist war of - 1873, and was present at some of the so-called battles which, - he says, were dangerous only to the onlookers. He also once had - a pitched battle with Bedouins in Syria. - - Professor Sayce (he became Professor in 1876) has also the - proud distinction of being the only person known to have - survived the bite of the Egyptian cerastes asp, which is - supposed to have killed Cleopatra. He accidentally trod on - the reptile in the desert some three or four miles north of - Assouan and was bitten in the leg. Luckily, he happened to - be just outside the dahabieh in which he was travelling with - three Oxford friends, one of them the late Master of Balliol. - The cook had a small pair of red-hot tongs, with which he had - been preparing lunch, and Professor Sayce was able to burn - the bitten leg down to the bone within two minutes after the - accident; thus saving his life at the expense of a few weeks’ - lameness. - - * * * * * - - But hark! a sound is stealing on my ear— - A soft and silvery sound—I know it well. - Its tinkling tells me that a time is near - Precious to me—it is the Dinner Bell. - O blessed Bell! Thou bringest beef and beer, - Thou bringest good things more than tongue may tell: - Seared is, of course, my heart—but unsubdued - Is, and shall be, my appetite for food. - - I go. Untaught and feeble is my pen; - But on one statement I may safely venture: - That few of our most highly gifted men - Have more appreciation of the trencher. - I go. One pound of British beef, and then - What Mr. Swiveller called a “modest quencher”; - That, “home-returning,” I may “soothly say,” - “Fate cannot touch me: I have dined to-day.” - - C. S. CALVERLEY (_Beer_). - - These are the two last verses of a parody on Byron. In each of - the last three lines there is a literary reference. The first, - of course, is to the happy-go-lucky Dick Swiveller of Dickens’s - _Old Curiosity Shop_. - - The next reference is to the amusing story about Sir Walter - Scott that became known about the time Calverley was writing - (1862). Scott, in his description of Melrose Abbey by moonlight - (“Lay of the Last Minstrel”) says: - - If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, - Go visit it by the pale moonlight; - For the gay beams of lightsome day - Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey.... - - Yet there can be no doubt that _he himself had never seen_ the - Abbey by moonlight! He further tells his readers that they can - - _Home returning, soothly_ swear - Was never scene so sad and fair. - - They, having seen it, can “soothly” (_i.e._, _truthfully_) - swear to its beauty, which was more than he himself could! - - Calverley’s last line is from Sydney Smith’s “Recipe for a - Salad”: - - Oh, herbaceous treat! - ’Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat; - Back to the world he’d turn his fleeting soul, - And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl; - Serenely full the epicure would say, - “Fate cannot harm me—I have dined to-day.” - - This again is an adaptation of Dryden’s “Imitation of Horace” - (Book III, Ode 29): - - Happy the man, and happy he alone, - He who can call to-day his own; - He who, secure within, can say, - To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have liv’d to-day. - - * * * * * - - We may live without poetry, music and art; - We may live without conscience, and live without heart: - We may live without friends; we may live without books; - But civilized man can not live without cooks. - - He may live without books—what is knowledge but grieving? - He may live without hope—what is hope but deceiving? - He may live without love—what is passion but pining? - But where is the man that can live without dining? - - EARL OF LYTTON, “OWEN MEREDITH” (1831-1891) - (_Lucile_). - - * * * * * - - “A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said, - “Is what we chiefly need: - Pepper and vinegar besides - Are very good indeed— - Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear, - We can begin to feed.” - - LEWIS CARROLL (_The Walrus and the Carpenter_). - - * * * * * - - That all-softening, overpowering knell, - The tocsin of the soul—the dinner bell. - - BYRON (_Don Juan_). - - * * * * * - - First of the first, - Such I pronounce Pompilia, then as now - Perfect in whiteness: stoop thou down, my child.. - My rose, I gather for the breast of God.. - And surely not so very much apart, - Need I place thee, my warrior-priest.. - In thought, word and deed, - How throughout all thy warfare thou wast pure, - I find it easy to believe: and if - At any fateful moment of the strange - Adventure, the strong passion of that strait, - Fear and surprise may have revealed too much,— - As when a thundrous midnight, with black air - That burns, rain-drops that blister, breaks a spell, - Draws out the excessive virtue of some sheathed - Shut unsuspected flower that hoards and hides - Immensity of sweetness,—so, perchance, - Might the surprise and fear release too much - The perfect beauty of the body and soul - Thou savedst in thy passion for God’s sake, - He who is Pity. Was the trial sore? - Temptation sharp? Thank God a second time! - Why comes temptation but for man to meet - And master and make crouch beneath his feet, - And so be pedestaled in triumph? - - R. BROWNING (_The Ring and the Book, X_). - - A young handsome priest, who had led a gay life, was moved by - pure motives to rescue a beautiful young wife from a dreadful - husband, and he travelled with her for three days to Rome. - The husband was following with an armed band, the priest was - risking disgrace, and the girl was risking death. The mutual - danger would in itself tend to draw the fugitives too closely - together; but also the girl had shown herself doubly lovable, - for the strain and stress had revealed in her a very beautiful - nature—just as a midnight thunder-storm opens and draws rich - scent from - - Some sheathed - Shut unsuspected flower that hoards and hides - Immensity of sweetness. - - Coleridge has a similar illustration, “Quarrels of anger ending - in tears are favourable to love in its spring tide, as plants - are found to grow very rapidly after a thunderstorm with - rain”—(Allsop’s _Letters, etc., of Coleridge_). Coleridge died - in 1834, and “The Ring and the Book” was published in 1868-9: - it is curious that both poets should have been impressed with - a fact that appears to have been only recently recognized. - In the seventies Lemström proved that plants thrive under - electricity; but I think it is only a few years ago that in - some agricultural experiments in Germany it was found that - electricity was of no benefit to the crops _without rain or - other moisture_. - - The quotation is from the fine judgment which the Pope delivers. - - * * * * * - -He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sun-beams out of -cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed and let out -to warm the air in raw, inclement summers. - - SWIFT (_Gulliver’s Travels_). - - * * * * * - -A child of our grandmother Eve, a female, or, for thy more sweet -understanding, a woman. - - (_Love’s Labour Lost, I, 1._) - - * * * * * - -The whole World was made for man, but the twelfth part of man for woman: -Man is the whole World, and the Breath of God; Woman the rib and crooked -piece of man. - - SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682) (_Religio Medici_). - - * * * * * - - Give me but what this ribband bound, - Take all the rest the sun goes round! - - EDMUND WALLER (1606-1687) (_On a Girdle_). - - * * * * * - -A woman is the most inconsistent compound of obstinacy and self-sacrifice -that I am acquainted with. - - J. P. F. RICHTER (_Flower, Fruit and Thorn Pieces_). - - * * * * * - - If she be made of white and red - Her faults will ne’er be known. - - (_Love’s Labour Lost, I, 2_). - - * * * * * - -God made the world in six days, and then he rested. He then made man and -rested again. He then made woman and, since then, neither man, woman, nor -anything else has rested. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - - Thou art my life, my love, my heart, - The very eyes of me. - - ROBERT HERRICK (_To Anthea_). - - * * * * * - - As perchance carvers do not faces make, - But that away, which hid them there, do take: - Let crosses so take what hid Christ in thee, - And be his Image, or not his, but He. - - JOHN DONNE (_The Cross_). - - As sculptors chisel away the marble that hides the statue - within, so let “crosses” or afflictions remove the impurities - which hide the Christ in us, so that we shall become His image, - or not His _image_, but _Himself_. - - * * * * * - -What is experience? A little cottage made with the _débris_ of those -palaces of gold and marble which we call our _illusions_. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - - He has outsoared the shadow of our night; - Envy and calumny and hate and pain, - And that unrest which men miscall delight, - Can touch him not and torture not again; - From the contagion of the world’s slow stain. - He is secure, and now can never mourn - A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain; - Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn, - With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. - - SHELLEY (_Adonaïs, an Elegy on Keats, XL_). - - This verse is engraved on Shelley’s own monument in the Priory - Church at Christchurch, Hampshire. - - * * * * * - -A loose, slack, not well-dressed youth met Mr. Green and myself in a lane -near Highgate. Green knew him and spoke. It was Keats. He was introduced -to me, and stayed a minute or so. After he had left us a little way, he -came back and said, “Let me carry away the memory, Coleridge, of having -pressed your hand!” “There is death in that hand,” I said to Green, when -Keats was gone; yet this was, I believe, before the consumption showed -itself distinctly. - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_Table Talk_). - - This was about 1819. It is pathetic, this meeting of two great - poets, Keats who was to die two years afterwards at the early - age of twenty-six, and Coleridge, whose few brilliant years - of poetic life had long previously ended in slavery to the - opium-habit. - - * * * * * - -THE BALLAD OF JUDAS ISCARIOT - - ’Twas the body of Judas Iscariot - Lay in the Field of Blood; - ’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot - Beside the body stood. - - Black was the earth by night, - And black was the sky; - Black, black were the broken clouds, - Tho’ the red Moon went by.... - - ’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot, - So grim, and gaunt, and gray, - Raised the body of Judas Iscariot, - And carried it away. - - ... - - For days and nights he wandered on - Upon an open plain, - And the days went by like blinding mist, - And the nights like rushing rain. - - He wandered east, he wandered west, - And heard no human sound; - For months and years, in grief and tears, - He wandered round and round.... - - ... - - ’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot, - Strange, and sad, and tall, - Stood all alone at dead of night - Before a lighted hall. - - And the wold was white with snow, - And his foot-marks black and damp, - And the ghost of the silvern Moon arose, - Holding her yellow lamp. - - And the icicles were on the eaves, - And the walls were deep with white, - And the shadows of the guests within - Pass’d on the window light. - - The shadows of the wedding guests - Did strangely come and go, - And the body of Judas Iscariot - Lay stretch’d along the snow. - - The body of Judas Iscariot - Lay stretched along the snow; - ’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot - Ran swiftly to and fro. - - To and fro, and up and down, - He ran so swiftly there, - As round and round the frozen Pole - Glideth the lean white bear. - - ’Twas the Bridegroom sat at the table-head, - And the lights burnt bright and clear— - “Oh, who is that,” the Bridegroom said, - “Whose weary feet I hear?” - - ’Twas one look’d from the lighted hall, - And answered soft and slow, - “It is a wolf runs up and down - With a black track in the snow.” - - The Bridegroom in his robe of white - Sat at the table-head— - “Oh, who is that who moans without?” - The blessed Bridegroom said. - - ’Twas one looked from the lighted hall, - And answered fierce and low - “’Tis the soul of Judas Iscariot - Gliding to and fro.” - - ’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot - Did hush itself and stand. - And saw the Bridegroom at the door - With a light in his hand. - - The Bridegroom stood in the open door, - And he was clad in white, - And far within the Lord’s Supper - Was spread so broad and bright. - - The Bridegroom shaded his eyes and look’d, - And his face was bright to see— - “What dost thou here at the Lord’s Supper - With thy body’s sins?” said he. - - ’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot - Stood black, and sad, and bare— - “I have wandered many nights and days; - There is no light elsewhere.” - - ’Twas the wedding guests cried out within, - And their eyes were fierce and bright— - “Scourge the soul of Judas Iscariot - Away into the night!” - - The Bridegroom stood in the open door, - And he waved hands still and slow, - And the third time that he waved his hands - The air was thick with snow. - - And of every flake of falling snow, - Before it touched the ground, - There came a dove, and a thousand doves - Made sweet sound. - - ’Twas the body of Judas Iscariot - Floated away full fleet, - And the wings of the doves that bare it off - Were like its winding-sheet. - - ’Twas the Bridegroom stood at the open door, - And beckon’d, smiling sweet; - ’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot - Stole in, and fell at his feet. - - “The Holy Supper is spread within, - And the many candles shine, - And I have waited long for thee - Before I poured the wine!” - - The supper wine is poured at last, - The lights burn bright and fair, - Iscariot washes the Bridegroom’s feet, - And dries them with his hair. - - ROBERT BUCHANAN. - - See reference to Buchanan in the Preface. - - * * * * * - - Now, as of old, - Man by himself is priced: - For thirty pieces Judas sold - Himself, not Christ. - - HESTER CHOLMONDELEY. - - I learn from the _New Statesman_ reviewer of the first English - Edition that these lines were by Hester, a gifted sister of - Mary Cholmondeley. She died at 22. - - * * * * * - -The world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought -grows old and worn with usage it should, like current coin, be called in, -and, from the mint of genius, reissued fresh and new. - - ALEXANDER SMITH (_On the Writing of Essays_). - - * * * * * - -It is the calling of great men, not so much to preach new truths, as to -rescue from oblivion those old truths which it is our wisdom to remember -and our weakness to forget. - - SYDNEY SMITH. - - * * * * * - -In philosophy equally as in poetry it is the highest and most useful -prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, -while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very -circumstances of their universal admission. Extremes meet. Truths, of all -others the most awful and interesting, are too often considered as so -true, that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the -dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded -errors. - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_Aids to Reflection_). - - * * * * * - - I have given no man of my fruit to eat, - I trod the grapes, I have drunken the wine. - Had you eaten and drunken and found it sweet, - This wild new growth of the corn and vine, - This wine and bread without lees or leaven, - We had grown as gods, as the gods in heaven, - Souls fair to look upon, goodly to greet, - One splendid spirit, your soul and mine. - - In the change of years, in the coil of things, - In the clamour and rumour of life to be, - We, drinking love at the furthest springs, - Covered with love as a covering tree, - We had grown as gods, as the gods above, - Filled from the heart to the lips with love, - Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings, - O love, my love, had you loved but me! - - We had stood as the sure stars stand, and moved - As the moon moves, loving the world; and seen - Grief collapse as a thing disproved, - Death consume as a thing unclean, - Twain halves of a perfect heart, made fast - Soul to soul while the years fell past; - Had you loved me once, as you have not loved; - Had the chance been with us that has not been. - - SWINBURNE (_The Triumph of Time_). - - * * * * * - - But she is far away - Now; nor the hours of night grown hoar - Bring yet to me, long gazing from the door, - The wind-stirred robe of roseate grey - And rose-crown of the hour that leads the day - When we shall meet once more. - - Oh sweet her bending grace - Then when I kneel beside her feet; - And sweet her eyes o’erhanging heaven; and sweet - The gathering folds of her embrace; - And her fall’n hair at last shed round my face - When breaths and tears shall meet ... - - Ah! by a colder wave - On deathlier airs the hour must come - Which to thy heart, my love, shall call me home. - Between the lips of the low cave - Against that night the lapping waters lave, - And the dark lips are dumb. - - But there Love’s self doth stand, - And with Life’s weary wings far-flown, - And with Death’s eyes that make the water moan, - Gathers the water in his hand: - And they that drink know nought of sky or land - But only love alone. - - D. G. ROSSETTI (_The Stream’s Secret_). - - * * * * * - - Behold, my lord, what monsters muster here, - With Angels’ faces, and harmful, hellish hearts, - With smiling looks, and deep deceitful thoughts, - With tender skins, and stony cruel minds.... - The younger sort come piping on apace - In whistles made of fine enticing wood, - Till they have caught the birds for whom they brided. - The elder sort go stately stalking on, - And on their backs they bear both land and fee, - Castles and Towers, revénues and receipts, - Lordships and manors, fines, yea farms and all. - What should these be? (Speak you, my lovely lord!) - They be not men: for why? they have no beards. - They be no boys, which wear such side-long gowns. - What be they? women, masking in men’s weeds, - With dutchkin doublets and with jerkins jagged, - With Spanish spangs and ruffs set out of France. - They be so sure even _Wo_ to _Men_ indeed. - High time it were for my poor muse to wink, - Since all the hands, all paper, pen and ink, - Which ever yet this wretched world possessed, - Cannot describe this Sex in colours due. - - GASCOIGNE (_The Steele Glas_, 1576). - - * * * * * - -I’m not denying the women are foolish: God Almighty made ’em to match the -men. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Adam Bede_). - - * * * * * - - They are slaves who fear to speak - For the fallen and the weak; - They are slaves who will not choose - Hatred, scoffing and abuse, - Rather than in silence shrink - From the truth they needs must think; - They are slaves who dare not be - In the right with two or three. - - J. R. LOWELL (_Stanzas on Freedom_). - - * * * * * - -The Baptist might be in the Wilderness shouting to the poor, who were -listening with all their might and faith to the preacher’s awful accents -and denunciations of wrath or woe or salvation; and our friend the -Sadducee would turn his sleek mule with a shrug and a smile from the -crowd, and go home to the shade of his terrace, and muse, over preacher -and audience, and turn to his roll of Plato, or his pleasant Greek -song-book babbling of honey and Hybla, and nymphs and fountains and love. -To what, we say, does this scepticism lead? It leads a man to a shameful -loneliness and selfishness, so to speak—the more shameful, because it -is so good-humoured and conscienceless and serene. Conscience! What is -conscience? Why accept remorse? What is public or private faith? Myths -alike enveloped in enormous tradition. If seeing and acknowledging the -lies of the world, Arthur, as see them you can with only too fatal a -clearness, you submit to them without any protest farther than a laugh: -if, plunged yourself in easy sensuality, you allow the whole wretched -world to pass groaning by you unmoved: if the fight for the truth is -taking place, and all men of honour are on the ground armed on the one -side or the other, and you alone are to lie on your balcony and smoke -your pipe out of the noise and the danger, you had better have died, or -never have been at all, than such a sensual coward. - - W. M. THACKERAY (_Pendennis, XXIII_). - - * * * * * - -What a monstrous spectre is this man, the disease of the agglutinated -dust, lifting alternate feet or lying drugged with slumber; killing, -feeding, growing, bringing forth small copies of himself; grown upon with -hair like grass, fitted with eyes that move and glitter in his face; -a thing to set children screaming;—and yet looked at nearlier, known -as his fellows know him, how surprising are his attributes! Poor soul, -here for so little, cast among so many hardships, filled with desires -so incommensurate and so inconsistent, savagely surrounded, savagely -descended, irremediably condemned to prey upon his fellow lives: who -should have blamed him had he been of a piece with his destiny and a -being merely barbarous? And we look and behold him instead filled with -imperfect virtues: infinitely childish, often admirably valiant, often -touchingly kind; sitting down, amidst his momentary life, to debate of -right and wrong and the attributes of the deity; rising up to do battle -for an egg or die for an idea; singling out his friends and his mate with -cordial affection; bringing forth in pain, rearing with long-suffering -solicitude, his young. To touch the heart of his mystery, we find in him -one thought, strange to the point of lunacy: the thought of duty; the -thought of something owing to himself, to his neighbour, to his God; an -ideal of decency, to which he would rise if it were possible; a limit of -shame, below which, if it be possible, he will not stoop. - - R. L. STEVENSON (_Pulvis et Umbra_). - - * * * * * - - Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear - The Godhead’s most benignant grace; - Nor know we anything so fair - As is the smile upon thy face: - Flowers laugh before thee on their beds - And fragrance in thy footing treads; - Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; - And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. - - WORDSWORTH (_Ode to Duty_). - - * * * * * - -A CHARGE. - - If thou has squander’d years to grave a gem - Commission’d by thy absent Lord, and while - ’Tis incomplete, - Others would bribe thy needy skill to them— - Dismiss them to the street! - - Should’st thou at last discover Beauty’s grove, - At last be panting on the fragrant verge, - But in the track, - Drunk with divine possession, thou meet Love— - Turn at her bidding back. - - When round thy ship in tempest Hell appears, - And every spectre mutters up more dire - To snatch control - And loose to madness thy deep-kennell’d Fears— - Then to the helm, O Soul! - - Last; if upon the cold green-mantling sea - Thou cling, alone with Truth, to the last spar, - Both castaway, - And one must perish—let it not be he - Whom thou art sworn to obey! - - HERBERT TRENCH (_Born 1865_). - - * * * * * - -Human nature, trained in the School of Christianity, throws away as false -the delineation of piety in the disguise of Hebe, and declares that there -is something higher than happiness—that thought which is ever full of -care and truth is better far—that all true and disinterested affection, -which often is called to mourn, is better still—that the devoted -allegiance of conscience to duty and to God—which ever has in it more of -penitence than of joy—is noblest of all. - - JAMES MARTINEAU (_Endeavours after the Christian Life, p. 42_). - - * * * * * - -There is in man a _Higher_ than Love of Happiness; he can do without -Happiness, and instead thereof find Blessedness! Was it not to preach -forth this same _Higher_ that sages and martyrs, the poet and the priest, -in all times have spoken and suffered; bearing testimony, through life -and through death, of the Godlike that is in Man, and how in the Godlike -only has he Strength and Freedom? Which God-inspired Doctrine art thou -also honoured to be taught; O Heavens! and broken with manifold merciful -Afflictions, even till thou become contrite and learn it! O thank thy -Destiny for these; thankfully bear what yet remain; thou hadst need of -them; the Self in thee needed to be annihilated.... Love not Pleasure; -love God. This is the EVERLASTING YEA, wherein all contradiction is -solved; wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him.... To the -_Worship of Sorrow_, ascribe what origin and genesis thou pleasest, has -not that Worship originated, and been generated? Is it not _here_? Feel -it in thy heart, and then say whether it is of God! This is Belief; all -else is Opinion.... Do the Duty which liest nearest thee, which thou -knowest to be a Duty. The Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was -never yet occupied by man. Yes here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, -despicable Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy -Ideal: work it out therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free. The -Ideal is in thyself. - - THOMAS CARLYLE (_Sartor Resartus_). - - The belief that the sense of duty and moral aspiration arise - from within ourselves, and are the cause rather than the result - of sociological evolution is far more widespread to-day than in - what Carlyle calls his “atheistical century.” The “Everlasting - Yea” is opposed to the “Everlasting No” of nescience. - - * * * * * - - He that hath found some fledged bird’s nest may know - At first sight, if the bird be flown; - But what fair well or grove he sings in now - That is to him unknown. - - HENRY VAUGHAN (_Friends Departed_). - - For the subject of the verse see title of poem. - - * * * * * - - Must it last for ever, - The passionate endeavour, - Ah, have ye, there in heaven, hearts to throb and still aspire? - In the life you know now, - Rendered white as snow now, - Do fresher glory-heights arise, and beckon higher—higher? - Are you dreaming, dreaming, - Is your soul still roaming, - Still gazing upward as we gazed, of old in the autumn gloaming? - - But ah, that pale moon roaming - Thro’ fleecy mists of gloaming, - Furrowing with pearly edge the jewel-powder’d sky, - And ah, the days departed - With your friendship gentle-hearted, - And ah, the dream we dreamt that night, together you and I! - Is it fashioned wisely, - To help us or to blind us, - That at each height we gain we turn, and behold a heaven behind us? - - R. BUCHANAN (_To David in Heaven_). - - David Gray was a young poet and a great friend of Buchanan’s. - Another verse in the poem is: - - In some heaven star-lighted, - Are you now united - Unto the poet-spirits that you loved of English race? - Is Chatterton still dreaming? - And, to give it stately seeming, - Has the music of his last strong song passed into Keats’s face? - Is Wordsworth there? and Spenser? - Beyond the grave’s black portals, - Can the grand eye of Milton _see_ the glory he sang to mortals? - - * * * * * - - What would one have? - In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance— - Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, - Meted on each side by the angel’s reed, - For Leonard, Rafael, Angelo and me - To cover. - - ROBERT BROWNING (_Andrea del Sarto_). - - Andrea del Sarto says that, but for certain unfortunate - circumstances, he might have reached the high eminence of - Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michael Angelo. In heaven he - may have another chance to compete with them. - - * * * * * - - Their noon-day never knows - What names immortal are: - ’Tis night alone that shows - How star surpasseth star. - - J. B. TABB (_Fame_). - - * * * * * - - But O, that deep romantic chasm which slanted - Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! - A savage place! as holy and enchanted - As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted - By woman wailing for her demon-lover! - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_Kubla Khan_). - - This and the five following quotations and others through the - book are from a small collection of word-pictures, that I had - begun to put together. They are mostly well-known. - - * * * * * - - Behold the Nereïds under the green sea, - Their wavering limbs borne on the wind-like stream, - Their white arms lifted o’er their streaming hair - With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns, - Hastening to grace their mighty sister’s joy. - - SHELLEY (_Prometheus Unbound_). - - * * * * * - - Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns - The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds - To dying ears, when unto dying eyes - The casement slowly grows a glimmering square: - So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. - - TENNYSON (_The Princess_). - - * * * * * - - “But show me the child thou callest mine, - Is she out to-night in the ghost’s sunshine?” - - “In St. Peter’s Church she is playing on, - At hide-and-seek, with Apostle John. - - When the moonbeams right through the window go, - Where the twelve are standing in glorious show, - - She says the rest of them do not stir, - But one comes down to play with her.” - - G. MACDONALD (_Phantastes_). - - It is a ghost-child who is playing in the great cathedral. - - * * * * * - - Golden head by golden head, - Like two pigeons in one nest - Folded in each other’s wings, - They lay down in their curtained bed. - - CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (_Goblin Market_). - - * * * * * - - Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn; - The cow’s in the meadow, the sheep in the corn; - Is this the way you mind your sheep, - Under the haycock fast asleep? - - _Nursery Rhyme._ - - Edward Fitzgerald, quoting this in “Euphranor,” says the - “meadow” is the grass reserved for meadowing, or mowing. - - * * * * * - -THE FEAST OF ADONIS. - -_Gorgo._ Is Praxinoë at home? - -_Praxinoë._ My dear Gorgo, at last! Yes, here I am. Euno, find a -chair—get a cushion for it. - -_Gorgo._ It will do beautifully as it is. - -_Praxinoë._ Do sit down. - -_Gorgo._ Oh, this gad-about spirit! I could hardly get to you, Praxinoë, -through all the crowd and all the carriages. Nothing but heavy boots, -nothing but men in uniform. And what a journey it is! My dear child, you -really live _too_ far off. - -_Praxinoë._ It is all that insane husband of mine. He has chosen to come -out here to the end of the world, and take a hole of a place—for a house -it is not—on purpose that you and I might not be neighbours. He is always -just the same—anything to quarrel with one! anything for spite! - -_Gorgo._ My dear, don’t talk so of your husband before the little fellow. -Just see how astonished he looks at you. (_Talking to the child._) Never -mind, Zopyrio my pet, she is not talking about papa. (Good heavens, the -child does really understand.) Pretty papa! - -_Praxinoë._ That “pretty papa” of his the other day (though I told him -beforehand to mind what he was about), when I sent him to a shop to -buy soap and rouge, brought me home salt instead; stupid, great, big, -interminable animal! - -_Gorgo._ Mine is just the fellow to him. But never mind now, get on your -things and let us be off to the palace to see the Adonis. I hear the -Queen’s decorations are something splendid. - -_Praxinoë._ “In grand people’s houses everything is grand.” What things -you have seen in Alexandria! What a deal you will have to tell to anybody -who has never been there! - -_Gorgo._ Come, we ought to be going. - -_Praxinoë._ “Every day is a holiday to people who have nothing to do.” -Eunoë, pick up your work; and take care, you lazy girl, how you leave -it lying about again; the cats find it just the bed they like. Come, -stir yourself, fetch me some water, quick! I wanted the water first, -and the girl brings me the soap. Never mind; give it me. Not all that, -extravagant! Now pour out the water—stupid! Why don’t you take care of my -dress? That will do. I have got my hands washed as it pleased God. Where -is the key of the large wardrobe? Bring it here—quick! - -_Gorgo._ Praxinoë, you can’t think how well that dress, made full, as -you have got it, suits you. Tell me, how much did it cost—the dress by -itself, I mean? - -_Praxinoë._ Don’t talk of it, Gorgo: more than eight guineas of good hard -money. And about the work on it, I have almost worn my life out. - -_Gorgo._ Well, you couldn’t have done better. - -_Praxinoë._ Thank you. Bring me my shawl, and put my hat properly on my -head—_properly_. No, child (_to her little boy_,) I am not going to take -you; there’s a bogey on horseback who bites. Cry as much as you like; -I’m not going to have you lamed for life. Now we’ll start. Nurse take -the little one and amuse him; call the dog in, and shut the street door. -(_They go out._) Good heavens! what a crowd of people! How on earth are -we ever to get through all this? They are like ants: you can’t count -them. My dearest Gorgo, what will become of us? Here are the Royal Horse -Guards. My good man, don’t ride over me! Look at that bay horse rearing -bolt upright; what a vicious one! Eunoë, you mad girl, do take care!—that -horse will certainly be the death of the man on his back. How glad I am -now, that I left the child safe at home. - -_Gorgo._ All right, Praxinoë, we are safe behind them; and they have gone -on to where they are stationed. - -_Praxinoë._ Well, yes, I begin to revive again. From the time I was a -little girl I have had more horror of horses and snakes than of anything -else in the world. Let us get on; here’s a great crowd coming this way -upon us. - -_Gorgo_ (_to an old woman_). Mother, are you from the palace? - -_Old woman._ Yes, my dears. - -_Gorgo._ Has one a tolerable chance of getting there? - -_Old woman._ My pretty young lady, the Greeks got to Troy by dint of -trying hard; trying will do anything in this world. - -_Gorgo._ The old creature has delivered an oracle and disappeared. - -_Praxinoë._ Women can tell you everything about everything, even about -Jupiter’s marriage with Juno! - -_Gorgo._ Look, Praxinoë, what a squeeze at the palace gates. - -_Praxinoë._ Tremendous! Take hold of me, Gorgo; and you, Eunoë, take hold -of Eutychis!—tight hold, or you’ll be lost. Here we go in all together. -Hold tight to us, Eunoë! Oh, dear! oh, dear! Gorgo, there’s my scarf torn -right in two. For heaven’s sake, my good man, as you hope to be saved, -take care of my dress! - -_Stranger._ I’ll do what I can, but it doesn’t depend upon me. - -_Praxinoë._ What heaps of people! They push like a drove of pigs. - -_Stranger._ Don’t be frightened, ma’am, we are all right. - -_Praxinoë._ May you be all right, my dear sir, to the last day you live, -for the care you have taken of us! What a kind, considerate man! There is -Eunoë jammed in a squeeze. Push, you goose, push! Capital! We are all of -us the right side of the door, as the bridegroom said when he had locked -himself in with the bride. - -_Gorgo._ Praxinoë, come this way. Do but look at that work, how delicate -it is!—how exquisite! Why, the gods might wear it in heaven. - -_Praxinoë._ Goddess of Spinning, what hands were hired to do that work? -Who designed those beautiful patterns? They seem to stand up and move -about, as if they were real—as if they were living things, and not -needlework. Well, man is a wonderful creature! And look, look, how -charming _he_ lies there on his silver couch, with just a soft down on -his cheeks, that beloved Adonis—Adonis, whom one loves even though he is -dead! - -_Another stranger._ You wretched women, do stop your incessant chatter! -Like turtles, you go on for ever. - -_Gorgo._ Lord, where does the man come from? What is it to you if we -_are_ chatterboxes? Order about your own servants! - -_Praxinoë._ Oh, honey-sweet Proserpine, let us have no more masters than -the one we’ve got! We don’t the least care for _you_; pray don’t trouble -yourself for nothing. - -_Gorgo._ Be quiet, Praxinoë! That first-rate singer, the Argive woman’s -daughter, is going to sing the _Adonis_ hymn. She is the same who was -chosen to sing the dirge last year. We are sure to have something -first-rate from _her_. She is going through her airs and graces ready to -begin. - - THEOCRITUS (_Fifteenth Idyll_). - - This is Matthew Arnold’s translation of a _poem_ by Theocritus, - who lived in the Third Century B.C., 2,200 years ago, (see - Arnold’s Essay on _Pagan and Mediaeval Religious Sentiment_). I - have altered a few words and also omitted part because of its - length. - - Gorgo, a lady of Alexandria, calls on her friend Praxinoë, to - take her to the Festival of Adonis. Greek ladies were allowed - to go out on Festival days if veiled and attended, and, - therefore, Gorgo and Praxinoë take with them their respective - maids, Eutychis and Eunoë, who would no doubt be slave-girls. - - Some curious facts may be noted. The wife is kept in seclusion - and the husband does the marketing, buying among other things - her _rouge_. Observe how perfunctory are the pretty lady’s - ablutions (the soap, by the way, is in the form of paste). - The little boy represents the ruling sex and will be removed - at an early age from her control. She is disposed to rebel - against her lord and master, but takes the utmost care of the - important boy-child. While the ladies with their slaves make - up their own dresses, the designs and the finest needlework - are done by men. The Greek woman in Athens was practically - uneducated and regarded as an inferior being; but these ladies - were Dorian Greeks and would no doubt be better treated and - have somewhat more freedom—especially in Alexandria, which was - a colony and, therefore, probably less conservative. Although - no doubt veiled, their eyes would be visible and, as seen in - the East to-day, a pretty woman can always manage to show - her beauty, if she chooses. It will be seen that one man is - polite to the two young, pretty, richly-dressed ladies, and - saves them from being crushed by the crowd, while another is a - crusty, grumpy person, who treats them with some rudeness and, - in the original, ridicules their Dorian pronunciation. Praxinoë - is most grateful to the polite man for what would now be an - ordinary act of courtesy. - - As regards the conversation Andrew Lang says: “Nothing can be - more gay and natural than the chatter of the women, which has - changed no more in two thousand years than the song of birds.” - - * * * * * - - I have seen - A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract - Of inland ground, applying to his ear - The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell; - To which, in silence hushed, his very soul - Listened intensely; and his countenance soon - Brightened with joy; for from within were heard - Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed - Mysterious union with its native sea. - Even such a shell the universe itself - Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times, - I doubt not, when to you it doth impart - Authentic tidings of invisible things; - Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power; - And central peace, subsisting at the heart - Of endless agitation. - - WORDSWORTH (_The Excursion_). - - * * * * * - -Marriage is a desperate thing; the Frogs in Aesop were extreme wise: they -had a great mind to some Water, but they would not leap into the Well, -because they could not get out again. - - * * * * * - -’Tis reason a Man that will have a Wife should be at the Charge of her -Trinkets, and pay all the Scores she sets on him. He that will keep a -Monkey, ’tis fit he should pay for the Glasses he breaks. - - SELDEN (_Table Talk_). - - * * * * * - -When you’re a married man, Samivel, you’ll understand a good many things -as you don’t understand now; but vether it’s worth while goin’ through so -much to learn so little, as the charity-boy said wen he got to the end of -the alphabet, is a matter o’ taste. _I_ rayther think it isn’t. - - CHARLES DICKENS (_Pickwick Papers_). - - * * * * * - -Matrimony is the only game of chance the clergy favour. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - -A man, who admires a fine woman, has yet no more reason to wish himself -her husband, than one, who admired the Hesperian fruit, would have had to -wish himself the dragon that kept it. - - ALEXANDER POPE. - - * * * * * - - You wish, Paula, to marry Priscus. I am not surprised; - You are wise; Priscus will not marry you and he is wise. - - MARTIAL, IX, 5. - - * * * * * - -IN THE TWILIGHT. - - Men say the sullen instrument, - That, from the Master’s bow, - With pangs of joy or woe, - Feels music’s soul through every fibre sent, - Whispers the ravished strings - More than he knew or meant; - Old summers in its memory glow; - The secrets of the wind it sings; - It hears the April-loosened springs; - And mixes with its mood - All it dreamed when it stood - In the murmurous pine-wood, - Long ago! - - The magical moonlight then - Steeped every bough and cone; - The roar of the brook in the glen - Came dim from the distance blown; - The wind through its glooms sang low, - And it swayed to and fro - With delight as it stood - In the wonderful wood, - Long ago! - - O my life, have we not had seasons - That only said, Live and rejoice? - That asked not for causes and reasons, - But made us all feeling and voice? - When we went with the winds in their blowing, - When Nature and we were peers, - And we seemed to share in the flowing - Of the inexhaustible years? - Have we not from the earth drawn juices - Too fine for earth’s sordid uses? - Have I heard, have I seen - All I feel and I know? - Doth my heart overween? - Or could it have been - Long ago? - - Sometimes a breath floats by me, - An odour from Dreamland sent, - That makes the ghost seem nigh me - Of a splendour that came and went, - Of a life lived somewhere, I know not - In what diviner sphere, - Of memories that stay not and go not, - Like music heard once by an ear - That cannot forget or reclaim it, - A something so shy, it would shame it - To make it a show, - A something too vague, could I name it, - For others to know, - As if I had lived it or dreamed it, - As if I had acted or schemed it, - Long ago! - - And yet, could I live it over, - This life that stirs in my brain - Could I be both maiden and lover, - Moon and tide, bee and clover, - As I seem to have been, once again, - Could I but speak and show it, - This pleasure more sharp than pain, - That baffles and lures me so, - The world should not lack a poet, - Such as it had - In the ages glad, - Long ago. - - J. R. LOWELL. - - * * * * * - -I am especially pleased with their _freundin_ (the German word meaning -a female friend), which unlike the _amica_ of the Romans, is seldom -used but in its best and purest sense. Now I know it will be said that -a friend is already something more than a friend, when a man feels an -anxiety to express to himself that this friend is a female; but this I -deny—in that sense at least in which the objection will be made. I would -hazard the impeachment of heresy, rather than abandon my belief that -there is a sex in our souls as well as in their perishable garments; and -he who does not feel it, never truly loved a sister—nay, is not capable -even of loving a wife as she deserves to be loved, if she indeed be -worthy of that holy name. - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_Biographia Literaria_, Letter to a Lady). - - Coleridge also says: “The qualities of the sexes correspond. - The man’s courage is loved by the woman, whose fortitude again - is coveted by the man. His vigorous intellect is answered by - her infallible tact. Can it be true what is so constantly - affirmed, that there is no sex in souls?—I doubt it, I doubt it - exceedingly.”—_Table Talk._ - - But surely Coleridge might have found the best proof of his - contention in the nature of children, the small boy who fights - with his fists, plays with tin soldiers and despises “girls,” - and the girl-child who loves her doll and her pretty clothes. - See next quotation. - - * * * * * - - O thou most dear! - Who art thy sex’s complex harmony - God-set more facilely; - To thee may love draw near - Without one blame or fear. - Unchidden save by his humility: - Thou Perseus’ Shield wherein I view secure - The mirrored Woman’s fateful-fair allure! - Whom Heaven still leaves a twofold dignity, - As girlhood gentle, and as boyhood free; - With whom no most diaphanous webs enwind - The barèd limbs of the rebukeless mind. - Wild Dryad, all unconscious of thy tree, - With which indissólubly - The tyrannous time shall one day make thee whole; - Whose frank arms pass unfretted through its bole - Who wear’st thy femineity - Light as entrailèd blossoms, that shalt find - It erelong silver shackles unto thee. - Thou whose young sex is yet but in thy soul;— - As hoarded in the vine - Hang the gold skins of undelirious wine, - As air sleeps, till it toss its limbs in breeze;— - In whom the mystery which lures and sunders; - Grapples and thrusts apart; endears, estranges, - —The dragon to its own Hesperides— - Is gated under slow-revolving changes, - Manifold doors of heavy-hingèd years. - So once, ere Heaven’s eyes were filled with wonders - To see Laughter rise from Tears, - Lay in beauty not yet mighty, - Conchèd in translucencies, - The antenatal Aphodrite, - Caved magically under magic seas; - Caved dreamlessly beneath the dreamful seas. - - FRANCIS THOMPSON (_Sister Songs_). - - Francis Thompson is one of the “difficult” poets who repay - study. Here he says that, in the young girl, sex appears in - a less complex form than in the woman and, just as Perseus - could safely look at the reflection on his shield of the - fatal Medusa’s head, so we can freely view womanhood in the - girl-child. Nothing conceals her open, innocent, feminine - nature. She is the Dryad, the Nymph who lives in the tree and - is born and dies with it, but is as yet unconscious of the - tree, that is, of her sex. Her “young sex is yet but in her - soul,” and is like the juice of the grape which has not yet - fermented into wine, or the calm air which sleeps undisturbed. - The mystery of womanhood, which attracts and yet, in its own - protection, repulses man, will not come to her until after - the changes of years. It is the Aphrodite lying in unawakened - beauty before she rises as a goddess from the sea. (“Facilely” - appears to have the strained meaning “easy to understand” or - “simply”; the word “gated,” “confined,” is a curious use of a - university word: the Oxford or Cambridge undergraduate, who - has misbehaved, may be “gated” for a period, _i.e._, confined - to the precincts of his own college.) “The dragon to its - own Hesperides”—the Hesperides were maidens who guarded the - golden apples of love and fruitfulness, which Earth had given - to Hera on her marriage to Zeus. The maidens were protected - by a dragon. Here the dragon is the maiden’s own sensitive - reserve and self-protecting nature, which enable her to protect - herself. (“Conchèd,” Aphrodite is lying in her shell.) - - * * * * * - -Women, as they are like riddles in being unintelligible, so generally -resemble them in this, that they please us no longer when once we know -them. - - ALEXANDER POPE. - - * * * * * - -Compare the ancient with the modern world; “Look on this picture, and -on that.” One broad distinction in the characters of men forces itself -into prominence. Among all the men of the ancient heathen world there -were scarcely one or two to whom we might venture to apply the epithet -“holy.” In other words, there were not more than one or two, if any, who -besides being virtuous in their actions were possessed with an unaffected -enthusiasm of goodness, and besides abstaining from vice regarded even a -vicious thought with horror. Probably no one will deny that in Christian -countries this higher-toned goodness, which we call holiness, has -existed. Few will maintain that it has been exceedingly rare. Perhaps the -truth is, that there has scarcely been a town in any Christian country -since the time of Christ where a century has passed without exhibiting a -character of such elevation that his mere presence has shamed the bad and -made the good better, and has been felt at times like the presence of God -Himself. And if this be so, has Christ failed? or can Christianity die? - - SIR J. R. SEELEY (_Ecce Homo_). - - The quotation from Hamlet should read, “Look here, upon this - picture, and on this.” - - * * * * * - -DAY - - Waking one morning - In a pleasant land, - By a river flowing - Over golden sand:— - - Whence flow ye, waters, - O’er your golden sand? - We come flowing - From the Silent Land. - - Whither flow ye, waters, - O’er your golden sand? - We go flowing - To the Silent Land. - - And what is this fair realm? - A grain of golden sand - In the great darkness - Of the Silent Land. - - JAMES THOMSON (“B.V.”) - - * * * * * - - For there is not a lie, spite of God’s high decree, - But has made its nest sure on some branch of our tree, - And has some vested right to exist in the land: - And many will have it the tree could not stand, - If the sticks, straws, and feathers, that sheltered the wrong, - Were swept from the boughs they have cumbered so long. - - W. C. SMITH (_Borland Hall_). - - * * * * * - -I shall be old and ugly one day, and I shall look for man’s chivalrous -help, but I shall not find it. The bees are very attentive to the flowers -till their honey is done, and then they fly over them. - - OLIVE SCHREINER (_The Story of an African Farm_). - - * * * * * - -There are some of us who in after years say to Fate “Now deal us your -hardest blow, give us what you will; but let us never again suffer as we -suffered when we were children.” - - OLIVE SCHREINER (_The Story of an African Farm_). - - * * * * * - -Il n’a jamais fait couler larmes à personne sauf à sa mort. - -(He never caused any one to shed tears, except at his death.) - - _B. Seebohm’s Life of Grellet._ - - Epitaph on Pétion, President of Hayti about 1816. - - * * * * * - -... that pleasureless yielding to the small solicitations of -circumstance, which is a commoner history of perdition than any single -momentous bargain. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Middlemarch_). - - * * * * * - -If there are two things not to be hidden—love and a cough—I say there -is a third, and that is ignorance, when one is obliged to do something -besides wagging his head. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Romola_—Nello speaking). - - George Eliot is quoting the Latin proverb, _Amor tussisque - non celantur_. It is also found in George Herbert’s _Jacula - Prudentum_, 1640. The same proverb appears with all sorts of - variations, “love and a sneeze,” “love and smoke,” “love and - a red nose,” “love and poverty,” etc., being the things that - cannot be hidden. “Love and murder will out” (Congreve, _The - Double Dealer_, Act IV, 2). (I took these instances from some - collection of proverbs.) - - * * * * * - - We Men, who in our morn of youth defied - The elements, must vanish;—be it so! - Enough, if something from our hands have power - To live, and act, and serve the future hour: - And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, - Through love, through hope, and faith’s transcendent dower, - We feel that we are greater than we know. - - WORDSWORTH (_After-Thought_). - - * * * * * - - You can’t turn curds to milk again, - Nor Now, by wishing, back to Then; - And, having tasted stolen honey, - You can’t buy innocence for money. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Felix Holt_). - - * * * * * - - The gods are brethren. Wheresoe’er - They set their shrines of love or fear - In Grecian woods, by banks of Nile, - Where cold snows sleep or roses smile, - The gods are brethren. Zeus the Sire - Was fashioned of the self-same fire - As Odin, He, whom Ind brought forth, - Hath his pale kinsman east and north; - And more than one, since life began, - Hath known Christ’s agony for Man. - The gods are brethren. Kin by fate, - In gentleness as well as hate, - ’Mid heights that only Thought may climb - They come, they go; they are, or seem; - Each, rainbow’d from the rack of Time, - Casts broken lights across God’s Dream. - - R. BUCHANAN (_Balder the Beautiful_). - - * * * * * - -“You remember Tom Martin, Neddy? Bless my dear eyes,” said Mr. Roker, -shaking his head slowly from side to side, and gazing abstractedly out -of the grated window before him, as if he were fondly recalling some -peaceful scene of his early youth; “it seems but yesterday that he -whopped the coal-heaver down Fox-under-the-hill, by the wharf there. -I think I can see him now, a-coming up the Strand between the two -street-keepers, a little sobered by his bruising, with a patch o’ winegar -and brown paper over his right eyelid, and that ’ere lovely bull-dog, as -pinned the little boy arterwards, a-following at his heels. What a rum -thing Time is, ain’t it, Neddy?” - - CHARLES DICKENS (_Pickwick Papers_). - - Mr. Roker is a turnkey in the Fleet prison. - - * * * * * - -THE COURTIN’ - - God makes sech nights, all white an’ still - Fur’z you can look or listen, - Moonshine an’ snow on field an’ hill, - All silence an’ all glisten. - - Zekle crep’ up quite unbeknown - An’ peeked in thru’ the winder, - An’ there sot Huldy all alone, - ’Ith no one nigh to hender. - - A fireplace filled the room’s one side - With half a cord o’ wood in— - There warn’t no stoves (till comfort died) - To bake ye to a puddin’. - - The wa’nut logs shot sparkles out - Towards the pootiest, bless her, - An’ leetle flames danced all about - The chiny on the dresser.... - - The very room, coz she was in, - Seemed warm from floor to ceilin’, - An’ she looked full ez rosy agin - Ez the apples she was peelin’.... - - He was six foot o’ man, A1, - Clear grit an’ human natur’; - None couldn’t quicker pitch a ton - Nor dror a furrer straighter. - - He’d sparked it with full twenty gals, - He’d squired ’em, danced ’em, druv ’em, - Fust this one, an’ then thet, by spells— - All is, he couldn’t love ’em. - - But long o’ her his veins ’ould run - All crinkly like curled maple, - The side she breshed felt full o’ sun - Ez a south slope in Ap’il. - - She thought no v’ice hed sech a swing - Ez hisn in the choir; - My! when he made Ole Hundred ring, - She _knowed_ the Lord was nigher. - - An’ she’d blush scarlit, right in prayer, - When her new meetin’-bunnet - Felt somehow thru’ its crown a pair - O’ blue eyes sot upon it. - - Thet night, I tell ye, she looked _some_! - She seemed to ’ve gut a new soul, - For she felt sartin-sure he’d come, - Down to her very shoe-sole. - - She heered a foot, an’ knowed it tu, - A-raspin’ on the scraper,— - All ways to once her feelins flew - Like sparks in burnt-up paper. - - He kin’ o’ l’itered on the mat, - Some doubtfle o’ the sekle, sequel. - His heart kep’ goin’ pity-pat, - But hern went pity Zekle. - - An’ yit she gin her cheer a jerk - Ez though she wished him furder, - An’ on her apples kep’ to work, - Parin’ away like murder. - - “You want to see my Pa, I s’pose?” - “Wal ... no ... I come designin’”— - “To see my Ma? She’s sprinklin’ clo’es - Agin to-morrer’s i’nin’.” - - To say why gals acts so or so, - Or don’t, ’ould be presumin’; - Mebby to mean _yes_ an’ say _no_ - Comes nateral to women. - - He stood a spell on one foot fust, - Then stood a spell on t’other, - An’ on which one he felt the wust - He couldn’t ha’ told ye nuther. - - Sez he, “I’d better call agin;” - Sez she, “Think likely, Mister;” - Thet last word pricked him like a pin, - An’ ... Wal he up an’ kist her. - - When Ma bimeby upon ’em slips, - Huldy sot pale ez ashes, - All kin’ o’ smily roun’ the lips - An’ teary roun’ the lashes.... - - The blood clost roun’ her heart felt glued - Too tight for all expressin’, - Till mother see how metters stood, - An’ gin ’em both her blessin’. - - Then her red come back like the tide, - Down to the Bay o’ Fundy, - An’ all I know is they was cried - In meetin’ come nex’ Sunday. - - J. RUSSELL LOWELL - - * * * * * - -What is the life of man? Is it not to turn from side to side? From sorrow -to sorrow? To button up one cause of vexation and unbutton another? - - STERNE (_Tristram Shandy_). - - * * * * * - -I know thy heart by heart. - - P. J. BAILEY (_Festus_). - - * * * * * - -HERBERT SPENCER’S “FIRST PRINCIPLES.” - -Mr. Spencer’s genesis of the universe from chaos to the Crimean War ... -For our own part, we must confess that this new book of Genesis appears -to us no more credible than the old. - - J. MARTINEAU (_Science, Nescience, and Faith_). - - * * * * * - -JAMES MILL. - -Did the facts of consciousness stand, as he represents them, his method -would work. He satisfactorily explains—the wrong human nature. - - J. MARTINEAU (_Essay on John Stuart Mill_). - - * * * * * - -(Referring to those who insist on the _practical_ as against the -_theoretical_.) This solitary term (“practical”) serves a large number of -persons as a substitute for all patient and steady thought; and, at all -events, instead of meaning that which is useful as opposed to that which -is useless, it constantly signifies that of which the use is grossly and -immediately palpable, as distinguished from that of which the usefulness -can only be discerned after attention and exertion. - - SIR HENRY MAINE. - - * * * * * - -(Men are) dragged along the physiological history, because easy to -conceive, and baffled by the spiritual, because it has no pictures to -help it. - - J. MARTINEAU (_Hours of Thought_, I, 100). - - * * * * * - -As psychology comprises all our sensibilities, pleasures, affections, -aspirations, capacities, it is thought on that ground to have a special -nobility and greatness, and a special power of evoking in the student -the feelings themselves. The mathematician, dealing with conic sections, -spirals, and differential equations, is in danger of being ultimately -resolved into a function or a co-efficient: the metaphysician, by -investigating conscience, must become conscientious; driving fat oxen is -the way to grow fat. - - ALEXANDER BAIN (1818-1903) (_Contemporary Review_, April 1877). - - * * * * * - -There is a crude absurd materialism abroad which hasn’t yet learned -the fundamental difference between Mind and Matter. It is altogether -incomprehensible how any material processes can beget sensations and -feelings and thoughts; it is altogether incomprehensible how _you_ arose -or _I_ arose. Listen to Spencer:—“Were we compelled to choose between the -alternatives of translating mental phenomena into physical phenomena, -or of translating physical phenomena into mental phenomena, the latter -alternative would seem the more preferable of the two.... Hence though -of the two it seems easier to translate so-called Matter into so-called -Spirit, than to translate so-called Spirit into so-called Matter (which -latter is, indeed, wholly impossible), yet no translation can carry us -beyond our symbols.” - - RICHARD HODGSON (_Letter, March 21, 1880_). - - * * * * * - -_Clown._ What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl? - -_Malvolio._ That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. - -_Clown._ What thinkest thou of his opinion? - -_Malvolio._ I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion. - -_Clown._ Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness. - - SHAKESPEARE (_Twelfth Night_, IV, 2). - - * * * * * - -As the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily -said to a niece of King Gorboduc, “That, that is, is.” - - SHAKESPEARE (_Twelfth Night_, IV, 2). - - * * * * * - -WHAT IS LOVE? - -The passion which unites the sexes ... is the most compound, and -therefore the most powerful of all the feelings. Added to the purely -physical elements of it are, first, those highly complex impressions -produced by personal beauty.... With this there is united the complex -sentiment which we term affection—a sentiment which, as it can exist -between those of the same sex, must be regarded as an independent -sentiment.... Then there is the sentiment of admiration, respect, or -reverence.... There comes next the feeling called love of approbation. -To be preferred above all the world, and that by one admired above -all others, is to have the love of approbation gratified in a degree -passing every previous experience.... Further, the allied emotion of -self-esteem comes into play. To have succeeded in gaining such attachment -from, and sway over, another is a proof of power which cannot fail -agreeably to excite the _amour propre_. Yet again, the proprietary -feeling has its share in the general activity: there is the pleasure -of possession—the two belong to each other. Once more, the relation -allows of an extended liberty of action. Towards other persons a -restrained behaviour is requisite. Round each there is a subtle boundary -that may not be crossed—an individuality on which none may trespass. -But in this case the barriers are thrown down; and thus the love of -unrestrained activity is gratified. Finally there is an exaltation of -the sympathies. Egoistic pleasures of all kinds are doubled by another’s -sympathetic participation; and the pleasures of another are added to -the egoistic pleasures. Thus, round the physical feeling, forming the -nucleus of the whole, are gathered the feelings produced by personal -beauty, that constituting simple attachment, those of reverence, of love -of approbation, of self-esteem, of property, of love of freedom, of -sympathy. These, all greatly exalted, and severally tending to reflect -their excitements on one another, unite to form the mental state we call -Love. - - HERBERT SPENCER (_Principles of Psychology_, 3rd Ed., Vol. I, 487). - - The heading is, of course, mine—not Spencer’s. - - * * * * * - -WHAT AM I? - -The aggregate of feelings and ideas, constituting the mental _I_, have -not in themselves the principle of cohesion holding them together as -a whole; but the _I_ which continuously survives as the subject of -these changing states is that portion of the Unknowable Power, which -is statically conditioned in (my particular one of those) special -nervous structures pervaded by a dynamically-conditioned portion of the -Unknowable Power called energy. - - HERBERT SPENCER (_Principles of Psychology_, 3rd Ed., Vol. II, 504). - - The heading and words in brackets are mine. As the reader may - at any time be asked “What are you?” it would be well to be - ready with a simple reply. - - * * * * * - -New truths, old truths! sirs, there is nothing new possible to be -revealed to us in the moral world; we know all we shall ever know: and -it is for simply reminding us, by their various respective expedients, -how we do know this and the other matter, that men get called prophets, -poets, and the like. A philosopher’s life is spent in discovering that, -of the half-dozen truths he knew when a child, such an one is a lie, as -the world states it in set terms; and then, after a weary lapse of years, -and plenty of hard-thinking, it becomes a truth again after all, as he -happens to newly consider it and view it in a different relation with the -others: and so he restates it, to the confusion of somebody else in good -time. As for adding to the original stock of truths,—impossible! - - R. BROWNING (_A Soul’s Tragedy_). - - * * * * * - - When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter, - And proved it, ’twas no matter what he said. - - BYRON (_Don Juan, Canto XI_). - - * * * * * - -The law of equal freedom which Herbert Spencer deduces is binding only -upon those who admit both that human happiness is the Divine Will and -that we should act in accordance with the Divine Will. Why should I -obey this law? Because without such obedience human happiness cannot be -complete. Why should I aim at human happiness? Because human happiness is -the Divine Will. The inexorable _why_ pursues us here—Why should I aim -at the fulfilment of the Divine Will? To this question there seems no -satisfactory reply but that it is for my own happiness to do so. - - RICHARD HODGSON (_Unpublished Essay_, 1879). - - * * * * * - -I have no ambition to wander into the inane and usurp the sceptre of the -dim Hegel, situated Nowhere, with pure Nothing behind him, and pure Being -before him, steadfastly and vainly endeavouring with his _Werden_ to stop -the sand-flowing of smiling Time. - - RICHARD HODGSON (_Early Unpublished Essay_). - - _Werden_ in Hegel is usually translated “Becoming.” To Hegel - the truth of the world is found in life or movement, not in - Being which is changeless, but tells and does nothing. - - * * * * * - -Edwin (afterwards Sir Edwin) Arnold was with Herbert Spencer on a Nile -steamer. Spencer was dyspeptic and irritable; Arnold was a nocturnal -bird, pacing the deck alone in a long gown and smoking a long pipe. -Suddenly appeared a white figure, Spencer in his night-shirt, who in the -bad light took Arnold for a sailor (and Arnold did not undeceive him). - -“Hi! there!” - -“Ay, ay, Sir.” - -“What are the men making that noise there forward for?” - -“Cleaning the engines, Sir.” - -“Just tell them not to make such a row, keeping good Christians from -their sleep at this time of night.” - -“Ay, ay, Sir.” - -(Disappearance of ghost; joke next morning,) - - (_Told by Arnold to Hodgson, June, 1884_). - - The great agnostic, usually most precise in his language, - describes himself as a “good Christian”! - - * * * * * - - The very law which moulds a tear - And bids it trickle from its source,— - That law preserves the earth a sphere, - And guides the planets in their course. - - SAMUEL ROGERS (_On a Tear_). - - * * * * * - -WILLIAM BLAKE. - - He came to the desert of London town - Grey miles long; - He wander’d up and he wander’d down, - Singing a quiet song, - - He came to the desert of London Town, - Mirk miles broad; - He wandered up and he wandered down, - Ever alone with God. - - There were thousands and thousands of human kind - In this desert of brick and stone: - But some were deaf and some were blind, - And he was there alone. - - At length the good hour came; he died - As he had lived, alone: - He was not miss’d from the desert wide,— - Perhaps he was found at the Throne. - - JAMES THOMSON (“B.V.”). - - _The desert of London town_—_Magna civitas, magna solitudo_: “a - great city is a great solitude.” - - It is strange to think that these verses (and especially the - last verse) were written by the pessimist who wrote in all - sincerity the terrible lines in Pt. VIII of “The City of - Dreadful Night.” - - * * * * * - - Farewell, green fields and happy grove, - Where flocks have ta’en delight; - Where lambs have nibbled, silent move - The feet of angels bright; - Unseen, they pour blessing - And joy without ceasing, - On each bud and blossom, - And each sleeping bosom. - - They look in every thoughtless nest, - Where birds are covered warm; - They visit caves of every beast, - To keep them all from harm: - If they see any weeping - That should have been sleeping, - They pour sleep on their head, - And sit down by their bed. - - When wolves and tigers howl for prey, - They pitying stand and weep; - Seeking to drive their thirst away, - And keep them from the sheep, - But if they rush dreadful, - The angels, most heedful, - Receive each mild spirit, - New worlds to inherit. - - WILLIAM BLAKE (_Night_). - - * * * * * - - Sic vos non vobis nidificatis, aves, - Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis, oves, - Sic vos non vobis mellificatis, apes, - Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra, boves. - - (So you, birds, build nests—not for yourselves, - So you, sheep, grow fleeces—not for yourselves, - So you, bees, make honey—not for yourselves, - So you, oxen, draw the plough—not for yourselves.) - - VIRGIL. - - According to Donatus, Virgil wrote a couplet in praise of - Cæsar and posted it anonymously on the portals of the palace - (31 B.C.). Bathyllus gave himself out as the author of this - couplet, and on that account received a present from Cæsar. - Next night _Sic vos non vobis_ (“So you not for you”) was found - written four times in the same place. The Romans were puzzled - as to what was meant by these words, until Virgil came forward - and completed the verse—adding a preliminary line, _Hos ego - versiculos feci, tulit alter honores_, “I wrote the lines, - another wears the bays.” - - Shelley in _Song to the Men of England_ wrote as a socialist: - - The seed ye sow, another reaps; - The wealth ye find, another keeps; - The robes ye weave, another wears; - The arms ye forge, another bears. - - In previous verses he refers to bees, and, of course, the above - quotation was in his mind. - - * * * * * - - I know, of late experience taught, that him - Who is my foe I must but hate as one - Whom I may yet call Friend: and him who loves me - Will I but serve and cherish as a man - Whose love is not abiding. Few be they - Who, reaching friendship’s port, have there found rest. - - SOPHOCLES (_Ajax_). - - This is from C. S. Calverley’s fine translation of the speech - of Ajax. - - * * * * * - - A maiden’s heart is as champagne, ever aspiring and struggling upwards, - And it needeth that its motions be checked by the silvered cork of - Propriety: - He that can afford the price, his be the precious treasure, - Let him drink deeply of its sweetness, nor grumble if it tasteth of the - cork. - - C. S. CALVERLEY. - - Imitating the now-forgotten Martin Tupper. - - * * * * * - -Whosoever is harmonically composed delights in harmony.... Even that -vulgar and Tavern Musick, which makes one man merry, another mad, -strikes in me a deep fit of devotion, and a profound contemplation of -the First Composer.... There is something in it of Divinity more than -the ear discovers: it is an Hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the -whole World, and creatures of God; such a melody to the ear as the whole -World, well understood, would afford the understanding. In brief, it is a -sensible fit of that harmony which intellectually sounds in the ears of -God. - - SIR THOMAS BROWNE (_Religio Medici_). - - * * * * * - -(Speaking of an Essay on Wordsworth he is about to write for some -Melbourne society) I purpose describing briefly the poetic tendencies, -or rather the unpoetic tendencies, of the 18th Century, and the new -school beginning to manifest itself in Cowper. I shall then refer -to W.’s principles—shall banish to a future time the working out of -the _psychological_ connection between forms of nature and the human -soul—shall banish also the feelings, the elementary feelings, of -humanity, which W. drew _powerful_ attention to, and confine myself to -pointing out those characteristics in external nature which he took -note of. These produce corresponding feelings in the “human,” and some -of them are _beauty_, _silence and calm_, _joyousness_, _generosity_, -_freedom_, _grandeur_, and _Spirituality_. These are found in Nature, -and W. saw them, and in the growing familiarity with them a man’s soul -becomes _beautiful_, _calm_, _joyous_, _generous_, _free_, _grand_, -and _spiritual_. The first ones, of course, all depend on and grow -from the last, and the Spirituality is God immanent. This last, as the -root of all the others, will merit special attention—it exhibits W.’s -poetico-philosophy so far as it regards the work of Nature upon man; and -includes too the Platonic Reminiscence business. (_Here follows personal -chit-chat._) I think we might add the “supreme loftiness of _labour_” to -the foregoing elements in Nature. In the _Gipsies_ (I give both readings) - - O better wrong and strife, - Better vain deeds or evil than such life! - The silent heavens have goings-on; - The stars have tasks—but these have none! - - Oh, better wrong and strife - (By nature transient) than this torpid life: - Life which the very stars reprove - As on their silent tasks they move. - - R. HODGSON (_Letter_, 1877, when aged 21). - - In 1877 Blake was little appreciated. (I remember only that in - our children’s books we had “Tiger, Tiger burning bright”—and - it was a strange thing to include in such books a poem which - raises the problems of the existence of evil and the nature of - God). Hence it will be evident why so keen a student of poetry - as Hodgson did not couple Blake with Cowper as a precursor of - the Romantic Revival. As a matter of fact Blake had more of the - “Romantic” spirit than Cowper, and really preceded him, for - the poor verse that Cowper published the year before Blake’s - _Poetical Sketches_ need not be considered. While still in his - teens Blake wrote (“To the Muses”): - - ... Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry, - How have you left the ancient love - That bards of old enjoyed in you! - The languid strings do scarcely move, - The sound is forced, the notes are few. - - Curiously enough Gray also had in him an element of the - Romantic _which he suppressed_. It is very remarkable that in - his Elegy (published 1751) he cut out the following verse: - - There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, - By hands unseen are showers of violets found; - The redbreast loves to build and warble there, - And little footsteps lightly print the ground. - - * * * * * - - Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; - His daily teachers had been woods and rills, - The silence that is in the starry sky, - The sleep that is among the lonely hills. - - WORDSWORTH (_Song at the Feast of Brougham - Castle_). - - * * * * * - - Ambition tempts to rise, - Then whirls the wretch from high - To bitter Scorn a sacrifice - And grinning Infamy. - - THOMAS GRAY (_On a Distant Prospect of Eton - College_). - - Slightly altered verbally to admit of quotation. - - * * * * * - -MEDITATIONS OF A HINDU PRINCE - - All the world over, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod, - Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and steps of a God? - Westward across the ocean, and Northward across the snow, - Do they all stand gazing, as ever, and what do the wisest know? - - Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm - Like the wild bees heard in the tree-tops, or the gusts of a gathering - storm; - In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen, - Yet we all say, “Whence is the message, and what may the wonders mean?” - - A million shrines stand open, and ever the censer swings, - As they bow to a mystic symbol, or the figures of ancient kings; - And the incense rises ever, and rises the endless cry - Of those who are heavy-laden, and of cowards loth to die. - - For the Destiny drives us together, like deer in a pass of the hills, - Above is the sky, and around us the sound of the shot that kills; - Pushed by a Power we see not, and struck by a hand unknown, - We pray to the trees for shelter, and press our lips to a stone. - - The trees wave a shadowy answer, and the rock frowns hollow and grim, - And the form and the nod of the demon are caught in the twilight dim; - And we look to the sunlight falling afar on the mountain crest, - Is there never a path runs upward to a refuge there and a rest? - - The path, ah! who has shown it, and which is the faithful guide? - The haven, ah! who has known it? for steep is the mountain side. - Forever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath - Of the praying multitude rises, whose answer is only death. - - Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the fruit of an ancient name, - Chiefs who were slain on the war-field, and women who died in flame; - They are gods, these kings of the foretime, they are spirits who guard - our race, - Ever I watch and worship—they sit with a marble face. - - And the myriad idols around me, and the legion of muttering priests, - The revels and rites unholy, the dark, unspeakable feasts! - What have they wrung from the Silence? Hath even a whisper come - Of the secret, Whence and Whither? Alas! for the gods are dumb. - - Shall I list to the word of the English, who come from the uttermost sea? - “The Secret, hath it been told you, and what is your message to me?” - It is nought but the wide-world story how the earth and the heavens - began, - How the gods are glad and angry, and a Deity once was man. - - I had thought, “Perchance in the cities where the rulers of India dwell, - Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with a spell, - They have fathomed the depths we float on, or measured the unknown main—” - Sadly they turn from the venture, and say that the quest is vain. - - Is life, then, a dream and delusion, and where shall the dreamer awake? - Is the world seen like shadows on water, and what if the mirror break? - Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered and - gone - From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are level and - lone? - - Is there nought in the heaven above, whence the hail and the levin are - hurled, - But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling world? - The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and sleep - With the dirge, and the sounds of lamenting, and the voices of women who - weep. - - SIR ALFRED LYALL. - - * * * * * - -MEDITATION OF A HINDU PRINCE AND SCEPTIC - - I think till I weary with thinking, said the sad-eyed Hindu King, - But I see but shadows around me, illusion in everything. - - How knowest thou aught of God, of his favour or his wrath? - Can the little fish tell what the lion thinks, or map out the eagle’s - path? - - Can the finite the infinite search,—did the blind discover the stars? - Is the thought that I think a thought, or a throb of the brain in its - bars? - - For aught that my eye can discern, your god is what you think good, - Yourself flashed back from the glass when the light pours on it in flood! - - You preach to me of his justice, and this is his realm, you say, - Where the good are dying of hunger, and the bad gorge every day. - - You tell me he loveth mercy, but the famine is not yet gone,— - That he hateth the shedder of blood, yet he slayeth us, everyone. - - You tell me the soul must live, that spirit can never die, - If he was content when I was not, why not when I’ve passed by? - - You say that I must have a meaning! So has dung,—and its meaning is - flowers: - What if our lives are but nurture for souls that are higher than ours? - - When the fish swims out of the water, when the bird soars out of the - blue, - Man’s thought shall transcend man’s knowledge, and your God be no reflex - of you! - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - The preceding poem by Lyall had the same title as these - verses, “Meditation of a Hindu Prince _and Sceptic_” when - first published in the _Cornhill_, September, 1877. I was - fully convinced, for reasons that would take too long to set - out here, that these verses were by Hodgson. But Mrs. Piper, - the well-known trance-medium, says that Hodgson gave her a - copy signed with other initials than his, and that she is sure - he was not the author. She has mislaid the copy she refers - to. In view of this statement I must not attribute the verses - to Hodgson, although I cannot but doubt whether Mrs. Piper’s - recollection is correct. - - * * * * * - - One summer hour abides, what time I perched, - Dappled with noon-day, under simmering leaves, - And pulled the pulpy oxhearts, while aloof - An oriole clattered and the robins shrilled, - Denouncing me an alien and a thief. - - J. R. LOWELL (_The Cathedral_). - - * * * * * - -The present writer ... was seated in a railway-carriage, five minutes -or so before starting, and had time to contemplate certain waggons or -trucks filled with cattle, drawn up on a parallel line, and quite close -to the window at which he sat. The cattle wore a much-enduring aspect; -and, as he looked into their large, patient, melancholy eyes,—for, as -before mentioned, there was no space to speak of intervening,—a feeling -of puzzlement arose in his mind.... The much-enduring animals in the -trucks opposite had unquestionably some rude twilight of a notion of a -world; of objects they had some unknown cognizance; but he could not get -behind the melancholy eye within a yard of him and look through it. How, -from that window, the world shaped itself, he could not discover, could -not even fancy; and yet, staring on the animals, he was conscious of a -certain fascination in which there lurked an element of terror. These -wild, unkempt brutes, with slavering muzzles, penned together, lived, -could choose between this thing and the other, could be frightened, -could be enraged, could even love and hate; and gazing into a placid, -heavy countenance, and the depths of a patient eye, not a yard away, he -was conscious of an obscure and shuddering recognition of a life akin -so far with his own. But to enter into that life imaginatively, and to -conceive it, he found impossible. Eye looked upon eye, but the one could -not flash recognition on the other; and, thinking of this, he remembers, -with what a sense of ludicrous horror, the idea came,—what, if looking -on one another thus, some spark of recognition could be elicited; if -some rudiment of thought could be detected; if there were indeed a point -at which man and ox could meet and compare notes? Suppose some gleam or -scintillation of humour had lighted up the unwinking, amber eye? Heavens, -the bellow of the weaning calf would be pathetic, shoe-leather would be -forsworn, the eating of roast meat, hot or cold, would be cannibalism, -the terrified world would make a sudden dash into vegetarianism! - - ALEXANDER SMITH (_On the Importance of Man to Himself_). - - Does not this give the reason why we do not eat dogs and - horses? We, more than other nations, recognize in the horse, as - well as in the dog, a life and intelligence akin to our own. - We also believe that both animals reciprocate the affection - we feel towards them. (Coleridge in _Table Talk_ says: “The - dog alone, of all brute animals, has a στοργή or affection - _upwards_ to man.”) - - * * * * * - -When I am playing with my Cat, who knowes whether she have more sport -in dallying with me, than I have in gaming with her? We entertaine one -another with mutual apish trickes: If I have my houre to begin or to -refuse, so hath she hers. - - MONTAIGNE (_Bk. II, ch. 12_). - - * * * * * - - O what are these Spirits that o’er us creep, - And touch our eyelids and drink our breath? - The first, with a flower in his hand, is Sleep; - The next, with a star on his brow, is Death. - - R. BUCHANAN (_Balder the Beautiful_). - - * * * * * - - Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep— - He hath awakened from the dream of life— - ’Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep - With phantoms an unprofitable life. - - SHELLEY (_Adonaïs_ XXXIX). - - * * * * * - - Have you found your life distasteful? - My life did—and does—smack sweet. - Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? - Mine I saved and hold complete. - Do your joys with age diminish? - When mine fails me, I’ll complain. - Must in death your daylight finish? - My sun sets to rise again. - - R. BROWNING (_At the Mermaid_). - - “My life did—and does—smack sweet”—see note p. 236. - - * * * * * - -THE LAMB - - Little lamb, who made thee? - Dost thou know who made thee, - Gave thee life, and bade thee feed - By the stream and o’er the mead; - Gave thee clothing of delight, - Softest clothing, woolly, bright; - Gave thee such a tender voice, - Making all the vales rejoice? - Little lamb, who made thee? - Dost thou know who made thee? - - Little lamb, I’ll tell thee; - Little lamb, I’ll tell thee; - He is called by thy name. - For He calls Himself a Lamb. - He is meek, and He is mild, - He became a little child. - I a child, and thou a lamb, - We are called by His name. - Little lamb, God bless thee! - Little lamb, God bless thee! - - W. BLAKE (1757-1827). - - * * * * * - -Who can wrestle against Sleep? Yet is that giant very gentleness. - - MARTIN TUPPER (_Of Beauty_). - - * * * * * - -ON A FINE MORNING - - I. - - Whence comes Solace?—Not from seeing - What is doing, suffering, being, - Not from noting Life’s conditions, - Nor from heeding Time’s monitions; - But in cleaving to the Dream, - And in gazing at the Gleam - Whereby gray things golden seem. - - II. - - Thus do I this heyday, holding - Shadows but as lights unfolding, - As no specious show this moment - With its iridized embowment; - But as nothing other than - Part of a benignant plan; - Proof that earth was made for man. - - THOMAS HARDY. - - This is not in the _Selected Poems_. It is interesting as - showing Mr. Hardy in an optimistic mood. - - * * * * * - - Without the smile from partial beauty won, - Oh, what were man? a world without a sun! - - THOMAS CAMPBELL (_Pleasures of Hope, Pt. II_). - - * * * * * - -Of two opposite methods of action, do you desire to know which should -have the preference? Calculate their effects in pleasures and pains, and -prefer that which promises the greater sum of pleasures. - - * * * * * - -Think not that a man will so much as lift up his little finger on your -behalf, unless he sees his advantage in it. - - JEREMY BENTHAM (1748-1832). - - These cold-blooded and repulsive aphorisms are typical of - Bentham’s Utilitarian philosophy, from which all sense of duty - and moral aspiration were excluded. It is strange that these - views should be held by a great thinker who was himself of - benevolent character. Such a doctrine could not have survived - to my time, had it not been supplemented by John Stuart Mill - (1806-1873), who gave a different place to the humanist - element. While still adhering to Bentham’s doctrine that there - is no good but pleasure and no evil but pain, he introduced as - the higher forms of pleasure those derived from the wish for - self-culture and the desire to satisfy our mental and moral - aims. He gave priority to all the sympathetic and altruistic - motives that govern our actions. Whereas Bentham held that all - pleasures were equal and could be counted in one column, Mill - said that they differed in quality, that they could no more be - added up in one column than pounds, shillings and pence; that, - in fact, there is no equivalent for a higher pleasure in any - quantity of a lower one. This was typical of Mill’s sincerity: - but he did not see that his additions were fatal to Bentham’s - doctrine and to hedonism generally. How, for instance, is a - higher pleasure to be known for a higher? In what respect is - an intellectual pleasure or the satisfaction of doing one’s - duty of higher quality than the gratification of the senses? To - ascertain this it is necessary to pass from the pleasure itself - to the thing that gives the pleasure or, in other words, to the - character that finds the pleasure. Many illustrations of this - might be given. In one of Sir Alfred Lyall’s poems, which is - founded on fact, an Englishman who has been captured by Arabs - has no religious belief; his loved ones are waiting his return; - he can save his life if he will only repeat the Mahomedan - formula; if he dies no one will know of his self-sacrifice: yet - he decides to die for the honour of England. However, Bentham’s - careful calculus of equal pleasures and pains, “push-pin” being - “worth as much as poetry,”[18] came to an end through Mill, and - Mill at once made way for Spencer on the one hand, and T. H. - Green on the other; both of these rejected the calculation of - pleasures or happiness as the standard of right either for the - individual or the greatest number. In all directions the low - moral stage of philosophic thought represented by Benthamism - has been passed through and forgotten. We no longer hold the - belief that the only sphere of Government is to protect our - persons and property, but follow loftier ideals; and in art and - poetry we look for higher aims than mere luxury and sensuous - pleasure. - - * * * * * - -LIFE - - We are born; we laugh; we weep; - We love; we droop; we die! - Ah! wherefore do we laugh, or weep? - Why do we live, or die? - Who knows that secret deep? - Alas, not I! - - Why doth the violet spring - Unseen by human eye? - Why do the radiant seasons bring - Sweet thoughts that quickly fly? - Why do our fond hearts cling - To things that die? - - We toil,—through pain and wrong; - We fight,—and fly; - We love; we lose; and then, ere long, - Stone dead we lie. - Life! is _all_ thy song - Endure and—die? - - B. W. PROCTER (_Barry Cornwall_). - - * * * * * - - Stop and consider! Life is but a day; - A fragile dewdrop on its perilous way - From a tree’s summit; a poor Indian’s sleep - While his boat hastens to the monstrous steep - Of Montmorenci,—Why so sad a moan? - Life is the rose’s hope while yet unblown; - The reading of an ever-changing tale; - The light uplifting of a maiden’s veil; - A pigeon tumbling in clear summer air; - A laughing school boy, without grief or care, - Riding the springy branches of an elm. - - KEATS (_Sleep and Poetry_). - - Life is compared to the brief fall of a dewdrop, the Indian’s - unconscious sleep while his boat hastens to destruction; but - life also is Hope, Intellect, Beauty, and Physical Enjoyment. - - * * * * * - - When I consider life, ’tis all a cheat; - Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit - Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay— - To-morrow’s falser than the former day; - Lies worse and, while it says we shall be blessed - With some new joys, cuts off what we possesst. - Strange cozenage! none would live past years again, - Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; - And, from the dregs of life, think to receive - What the first sprightly running would not give, - I’m tired with waiting for this chymic gold, - Which fools us young, and beggars us when old. - - JOHN DRYDEN (_Aureng-zebe_). - - * * * * * - - That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, - Lest you should think he never could recapture - The first fine careless rapture! - - R. BROWNING (_Home-Thoughts from Abroad_). - - * * * * * - -PEU DE CHOSE ET PRESQUE TROP. - - La vie est vaine: - Un peu d’amour, - Un peu de haine ... - Et puis—bonjour! - - La vie est brève: - Un peu d’espoir, - Un peu de rêve ... - Et puis—bonsoir! - - (Life is vain: A little love, A little hate, ... And then—good-day!) - (Life is short: A little hope, A little dream, ... And then—good night!) - - LEON MONTENAEKEN. - - This haunting little lyric is a literary curiosity from one - point of view. In spite of expostulations from the author (a - Belgian poet), and repeated public statements by others from - time to time, the poem is constantly being wrongly attributed - to one or another of the French poets. It appeared in _Le - Parnasse de la Jeune Belgique_, 1887, but had probably been - written and published some years before that date. In the - _Nineteenth Century_, September, 1893, William Sharp pointed - out that the poem was always being attributed to the wrong - author—even Andrew Lang being one of the culprits. The author - himself wrote to _The Literary World_ of June 3, 1904, to - the same effect. The subject was again spoken of in _Notes - and Queries_, January 5, 1907, when the author’s letter was - republished. London _Truth_ also brought the matter up at one - time, and probably the same fact has been publicly pointed - out elsewhere a hundred times—but the poem continues to be - attributed to the wrong author! In the _Dictionary of Foreign - Phrases and Classical Quotations_, by H. P. Jones, published so - recently as 1913, the verses are ascribed to Alfred de Musset. - - There is a third verse, which reads like an answer or retort to - the other two: - - La vie est telle, - Que Dieu la fit; - Et telle, quelle, - Elle suffit! - - (Life is such As God made it, And, just as it is, ... It - suffices!) - - One of the writers to _Notes and Queries_ quotes the following - lines: - - On entre, on crie, - Et c’est la vie! - On baîlle, on sort, - Et c’est la mort! - - (_Ausone de Chancel_, 1836) - - (You enter, you cry, and that is life: you yawn, you go out, - and that is death.) - - * * * * * - -A very strange, fantastic world—where each one pursues his own golden -bubble, and laughs at his neighbour for doing the same. I have been -thinking how a moral Linnæus would classify our race. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - -TWO LOVERS - - Two lovers by a moss-grown spring: - They leaned soft cheeks together there, - Mingled the dark and sunny hair. - And heard the wooing thrushes sing, - O budding time! - O love’s blest prime! - - Two wedded from the portal stept: - The bells made happy carollings, - The air was soft as fanning wings, - White petals on the pathway slept. - O pure-eyed bride! - O tender pride! - - Two faces o’er a cradle bent: - Two hands above the head were locked; - These pressed each other while they rocked. - Those watched a life that love had sent. - O solemn hour! - O hidden power! - - Two parents by the evening fire: - The red light fell about their knees - On heads that rose by slow degrees - Like buds upon the lily spire. - O patient life! - O tender strife - - The two still sat together there, - The red light shone about their knees: - But all the heads by slow degrees - Had gone and left that lonely pair. - O voyage fast! - O vanished past! - - The red light shone upon the floor - And made the space between them wide; - They drew their chairs up side by side, - Their pale cheeks joined, and said, “Once more!” - O memories! - O past that is! - - GEORGE ELIOT. - - * * * * * - - Some of your griefs you have cured, - And the sharpest you still have survived; - But what torments of pain you endured - From evils that never arrived! - - R. W. EMERSON (_From the French_). - - This sentiment has been expressed by many different authors. - Some friends of mine have as their favourite motto, “I have had - many troubles in my life, and most of them never happened.” - - * * * * * - - With him ther was his son, a yong Squyer,[19] Squire - A lovyere and a lusty bachelor, lover - With lokkès crulle, as they were leyd in presse. curly locks - Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse.... - Singinge he was, or floytinge, al the day; playing the flute - He was as fresh as is the month of May. - Short was his goune, with slevès long and wide, - Well coude he sitte on hors and fairè ride. - - CHAUCER (_Canterbury Tales—Prologue_). - - * * * * * - - With a waist and with a side - White as Hebe’s, when her zone - Slipt its golden clasp, and down - Fell her kirtle to her feet, - While she held her goblet sweet, - And Jove grew languid. - - KEATS (_Fancy_). - - * * * * * - - Like Angels stopped upon the wing by sound - Of harmony from heaven’s remotest spheres. - - WORDSWORTH (_The Prelude, Bk. XIV._) - - * * * * * - - Stepping down the hill with her fair companions, - Arm in arm, all against the raying West, - Boldly she sings, to the merry tune she marches, - Brave is her shape, and sweeter unpossess’d. - - G. MEREDITH (_Love in the Valley_). - - * * * * * - - The blessed Damozel leaned out - From the gold bar of Heaven; - Her eyes were deeper than the depth - Of waters stilled at even; - She had three lilies in her hand, - And the stars in her hair were seven. - - Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, - No wrought flowers did adorn, - But a white rose of Mary’s gift, - For service meetly worn; - Her hair that lay along her back - Was yellow like ripe corn. - - D. G. ROSSETTI (_The Blessed Damozel_). - - * * * * * - - When as in silk my Julia goes, - Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows - The liquefaction of her clothes! - - ROBERT HERRICK (_Upon Julia’s Clothes_), - - The six quotations above are from a series of word-pictures - (see p. 85). - - * * * * * - -Whatever else may or may not work on through eternity, we are bound to -believe that the love, which moved the Father to redeem the world at such -infinite cost, must work on, while there is one pang in the universe, -born of sin, which can touch the Divine pity, or one wretched prodigal in -rags and hunger far from the home and the heart of God. - - REV. BALDWIN BROWN. - -Canon Farrar is not happy in his rejoinder to the argument that to cast a -doubt on the endlessness of punishment is to invalidate the argument for -the endlessness of bliss, since both rest on exactly the same Biblical -sanction. There are three replies, cumulatively exhaustive, which he has -failed to adduce.... (Firstly, evil and temptation are banished from -heaven; Second, the two arguments do _not_ rest on the same Biblical -sanction) ... Thirdly, the difference of the two eternities, heaven and -hell, consists in the presence or absence of God. Let us put α for each -of those eternities or aeons, and θ to denote Him. The assertion of the -equality of the two, then, is that α + θ = α - θ, which can stand only if -θ = 0, the postulate of atheism. - - REV. R. F. LITTLEDALE, D.C.L. - - Both these passages come from an Article in the _Contemporary_ - for April, 1878. - - As this book is partly intended to revive the memories of - forty years ago, I include these out of the passages in my - commonplace book which refer to the intense struggle that then - raged over the question of Eternal Punishment. Surely no other - word, since the world began, raised so tremendous an issue, - created such conflict and caused so much heart-burning as the - one word αἰώνιος. - - (Liddell and Scott, 1901, gives the following meanings for - αἰώνιος: _lasting for an age_, _perpetual_, _everlasting_, - _eternal_.) - - * * * * * - -I thank God, and with joy I mention it, I was never afraid of Hell, nor -never grew pale at the description of that place. I have so fixed my -contemplations on Heaven, that I have almost forgot the Idea of Hell, and -am afraid rather to lose the joys of the one, than endure the misery of -the other: to be deprived of them is a perfect Hell, and needs, methinks, -no addition to compleat our afflictions. That terrible term hath never -detained me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof. -I fear GOD, yet am not afraid of Him: His Mercies make me ashamed of my -sins, before His Judgments afraid thereof. - - SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682) (_Religio Medici_). - - * * * * * - -Ne nous imaginons pas que l’enfer consiste dans ces étangs de feu et de -soufre, dans ces flammes éternellement dévorantes, dans cette rage, dans -ce désespoir, dans cet horrible grincement de dents. L’enfer, si nous -l’entendons, c’est péché même: l’enfer, c’est d’être éloigné de Dieu. - - BOSSUET (1627-1704). - - (Let us not imagine that hell consists in those lakes of fire - and brimstone, in those eternally-devouring flames, in that - rage, in that despair, in that horrible gnashing of teeth. - Hell, if we understand it aright, is sin itself: hell consists - in being banished from God.) - - * * * * * - -... Sir Henry Wotton’s celebrated answer to a priest in Italy, who asked -him, “Where was your religion to be found before Luther?” “My religion -was to be found there—where yours is not to be found now—in the written -word of God.” In Selden’s _Table Talk_ we have the following more witty -reply made to the same question: “Where was America an hundred or six -score years ago?” - - BOSWELL’S _Life of Johnson_, VIII, 176. - - I do not wish to introduce sectarian questions, but these - answers are interesting and clever. The next quotation is - pro-Catholic. - - * * * * * - -During the horrible time of the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI, a French -priest and a Jew became very intimate friends. The priest, very anxious -for the future welfare of his friend, urged him to be received into the -church: and the Jew promised to earnestly consider this advice. The -priest, however, gave up all hope on learning that the Jew was called by -his business to Rome, where he would see the unutterably monstrous life -of the Pope and clergy. To his surprise the Jew on his return announced -that he wished to be baptized, saying that a religion, which could still -exist in spite of such abominations, must be the true religion. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - I noted this from an old French book, but the real story must - be the earlier one of Boccaccio (1315-1375). Alexander Borgia - was Pope, 1492-1503. - - * * * * * - -I verily believe that, if the knife were put into my hand, I should not -have strength and energy enough to stick it into a Dissenter. - - SYDNEY SMITH. - - Shortly before his death in 1844 he gave this as a singular - proof of his declining strength! (See _Memoir_ by his daughter, - Lady Holland). - - * * * * * - - A hundred times when, roving high and low, - I have been harassed with the toil of verse, - Much pains and little progress, and at once - Some lovely Image in the song rose up - Full-formed like Venus rising from the sea. - - W. WORDSWORTH (_Prelude, Bk. IV_). - - The “Prelude” is extremely interesting as a poet’s - autobiography. - - * * * * * - -LONG EXPECTED - - O many and many a day before we met, - I knew some spirit walked the world alone, - Awaiting the Belovèd from afar; - And I was the anointed chosen one - Of all the world to crown her queenly brows - With the imperial crown of human love. - I knew my sunshine somewhere warmed the world, - And I should reach it, in His own good time - Who sendeth sun, and dew, and love for all.... - - Earth, with her thousand voices, talked of thee— - Sweet winds, and whispering leaves, and piping birds, - The hum of happiness in summer woods, - And the light dropping of the silver rain; - And standing as in God’s own presence-chamber. - When silence lay like sleep upon the world, - And it seemed rich to die, alone with Night, - Like Moses ’neath the kisses of God’s lips, - The stars have trembled thro’ the holy hush, - And smiled down tenderly, and read to me - The love hid for me in a budding breast, - Like incense folded in a young flower’s heart. - - GERALD MASSEY - - “Rich to die” is reminiscent of Keats’ _Ode to a Nightingale_: - - Now more than ever seems it rich to die, - To cease upon the midnight with no pain. - - * * * * * - - “Come back, come back”; behold with straining mast - And swelling sail, behold her steaming fast; - With one new sun to see her voyage o’er, - With morning light to touch her native shore, - “Come back, come back.” - - “Come back, come back”; across the flying foam, - We hear faint far-off voices call us home, - “Come back,” ye seem to say; “Ye seek in vain; - We went, we sought, and homeward turned again. - Come back, come back.” - - “Come back, come back”; and whither back or why? - To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try; - Walk the old fields; pace the familiar street; - Dream with the idlers, with the bards compete. - “Come back, come back.” - - “Come back, come back”; and whither and for what? - To finger idly some old Gordian knot, - Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave, - And with much toil attain to half-believe. - “Come back, come back.” - - “Come back, come back”; yea back, indeed, do go - Sighs panting thick, and tears that want to flow; - Fond fluttering hopes upraise their useless wings, - And wishes idly struggle in the strings; - “Come back, come back.”... - - “Come back, come back!” - Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back; - The long smoke wavers on the homeward track, - Back fly with winds things which the winds obey— - The strong ship follows its appointed way. - - A. H. CLOUGH (_Songs in Absence_). - - I have ventured to put quotation marks in the above to make - the meaning clear at first view. Also—but that italics seldom - look well in a poem—I would have written the last two lines as - follows: - - _Back_ fly with winds _things which the winds obey_— - The _strong_ ship follows its appointed way. - - * * * * * - - When thou must home to shades of underground, - And there arrived, a new admirèd guest, - The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round, - White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest, - To hear the stories of thy finished love - From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move - - Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights, - Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make, - Of tourneys and great challenges of knights, - And all these triumphs for thy beauty’s sake: - When thou hast told these honours done to thee, - Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me. - - THOMAS CAMPION. - - * * * * * - -A QUESTION - -To Fausta. - - Joy comes and goes, hope ebbs and flows - Like the wave; - Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men - Love lends life a little grace, - A few sad smiles; and then, - Both are laid in one cold place, - In the grave. - - Dreams dawn and fly, friends smile and die - Like spring flowers; - Our vaunted life is one long funeral. - Men dig graves with bitter tears - For their dead hopes; and all, - Mazed with doubts and sick with fears, - Count the hours. - - We count the hours! These dreams of ours, - False and hollow, - Do we go hence and find they are not dead? - Joys we dimly apprehend, - Faces that smiled and fled, - Hopes born here, and born to end, - Shall we follow? - - MATTHEW ARNOLD. - - * * * * * - - Dead! that is the word - That rings through my brain till it crazes! - Dead, while the mayflowers bud and blow, - While the green creeps over the white of the snow, - While the wild woods ring with the song of the bird, - And the fields are a-bloom with daisies. - - See! even the clod - Thrills, with life’s glad passion shaken! - The vagabond weeds, with their vagrant train, - Laugh in the sun, and weep in the rain, - The blue sky smiles like the eye of God, - Only my dead do not waken. - - Dead! There is the word - That I sit in the darkness and ponder! - Why should the river, the sky and the sea - Babble of summer and joy to me, - While a strong, true heart, with its pulse unstirred, - Lies hushed in the silence yonder? - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - - Our voices one by one - Fail in the hymn begun; - Our last sad song of Life is done, - Our first sweet song of Death. - - EDMUND GOSSE (_Encomium Mortis_). - - This poem appeared in early editions of _On viol and Flute_, - but is now omitted from Mr. Gosse’s poems. - - * * * * * - - There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals, - Whose form is not like unto man’s, and as unlike his nature; - But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten, - With human sensations and voice and corporeal members; - So, if oxen or lions had hands and could work in man’s fashion, - And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead, - Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, - Each kind the divine with its own form and nature endowing. - - XENOPHANES OF COLOPHON (About 570 B.C.). - - I do not know whose paraphrase this is; it was prefixed by - Tyndall to his Belfast Address, 1874. He probably imagined that - these lines contained an argument in favour of materialism; but - on the contrary the Greek philosopher affirms the existence of - a supreme God. All that he says is that the conception of him - as resembling a mortal in his physical attributes is wrong. - - At the back of Tyndall’s mind was no doubt the prevalent idea - that any “anthropomorphic” conception of the _nature_ of the - Deity is necessarily absurd. But there is nothing unreasonable - in believing that His nature, though immeasurably superior, - is nevertheless _akin_ to our own. The argument is that the - source or power of the world must be greater than the highest - thing it has produced, the mind of man; and that it must more - nearly resemble the higher than the lower of its products. In - particular it is impossible for us to believe that our moral - ideas of truth, justice, right and wrong, etc., can differ at - all in _kind_, however much in _degree_, from those of God. - So also our _reason_ must be akin to His _insight_. Such a - belief should be regarded, not as “anthropomorphic,” but as - (in a sense different from that of Clifford and Harrison) a - “deification of man”—the recognition of the Divine that is in - him. - - * * * * * - - Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, - And the winter winds are wearily sighing: - Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, - And tread softly and speak low, - For the old year lies a-dying.... - - Close up his eyes: tie up his chin: - Step from the corpse, and let him in - That standeth there alone, - And waiteth at the door. - There’s a new foot on the floor, my friend - And a new face at the door, my friend, - A new face at the door. - - TENNYSON (_The Death of the Old Year_). - - * * * * * - -To see the soul as she really is, not as we now behold her, marred by -communion with the body and other miseries, you must contemplate her -with the eye of reason, in her original purity—and then her beauty -will be revealed.... We must remember that we have seen her only in a -condition which may be compared to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose -original image can hardly be discerned because his natural members are -broken off and crushed and damaged by the waves in all sorts of ways, and -incrustations have grown over them of seaweed and shells and stones, so -that he is more like some monster than his own natural form. And the soul -which we behold is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand -ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we look. - -Where then! - -At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and what society -and converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal -and eternal and divine; also how different she would become if wholly -following this superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of -the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells -and things of earth and rock which in wild variety spring up around her -because she feeds upon earth, and is overgrown by the good things of this -life as they are termed: then you would see her as she is, and know ... -what her nature is. - - PLATO (_Republic_, Bk. 10, Jowett’s translation). - - Apart from the intrinsic interest of such a passage, the - picture of the old sea-god, with long hair and long beard, his - body ending in a scaly tail, battered about by the waves, and - overgrown with seaweed and shells, is very curious. Without - discussing how far the great philosopher himself or some other - advanced thinkers believed in such divinities, it must be - remembered that to the Greeks generally the gods were very real - personages. - - * * * * * - - Youth’s quick and warm, old age is slow and tame, - And only Heaven can fairly halve their blame. - To-day the passionate roses breathe and blow - And ask no counsel from to-morrow’s snow, - Whose fretwork sparkles to the winter moon - White, as if roses never flushed in June. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - -Ah, gracious powers! I wish you would send me an old aunt—a maiden -aunt—an aunt with a lozenge on her carriage and a front of light, -coffee-coloured hair—how my children should work work-bags for her, -and my Julia and I would make her comfortable! Sweet—sweet vision! -Foolish—foolish dream! - - THACKERAY (_Vanity Fair_). - - * * * * * - -IDENTITY. - - Somewhere—in desolate wind-swept space— - In Twilight-land—in No-Man’s land— - Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, - And bade each other stand. - - “And who are you?” cried one a-gape, - Shuddering in the gloaming light. - “I know not,” said the second Shape, - “I only died last night!” - - THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. - - * * * * * - - Veil not thy mirror, sweet Amine, - Till night shall also veil each star! - Thou seeest a twofold marvel there: - The only face so fair as thine, - The only eyes that, near or far, - Can gaze on thine without despair. - - J. C. MANGAN. - - * * * * * - -Has anyone ever pinched into its pillulous smallness the cobweb of -pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship? - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Middlemarch_). - - * * * * * - -TO R.K. - - As long I dwell on some stupendous - And tremendous (Heaven defend us!) - Monstr’-inform’-ingens-horrendous - Demoniaco-seraphic - Penman’s latest piece of graphic. - - BROWNING. - - Will there never come a season - Which shall rid us from the curse - Of a prose which knows no reason - And an unmelodious verse: - When the world shall cease to wonder - At the genius of an Ass, - And a boy’s eccentric blunder - Shall not bring success to pass: - - When mankind shall be delivered, - From the clash of magazines, - And the inkstand shall be shivered - Into countless smithereens: - When there stands a muzzled stripling, - Mute, beside a muzzled bore: - When the Rudyards cease from Kipling - And the Haggards Ride no more. - - JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN. - - “R.K.” is Rudyard Kipling, but what was the “boy’s eccentric - blunder” that brought him success I do not know. Stephen in - this instance showed a want of judgment. The books Kipling had - then produced, _Plain Tales from the Hills_, _Departmental - Ditties_, and the six little books, _Soldiers Three_, etc., - all written before the age of twenty-four, should have been - sufficient to show that the author was certainly not a - stripling to be “muzzled.” Stephen’s misjudgment was, however, - trivial when we remember how many important writers have failed - to understand and appreciate the most beautiful poems. Jeffrey - (1773-1850) thought to the end of his days that of the poets of - his time Keats and Shelley would die and Campbell and Rogers - alone survive. Shelley was _very_ unfortunate in his critics. - Matthew Arnold and Carlyle also disparaged him, Theodore Hook - said “Prometheus Unbound” was properly named as no one would - think of binding it; and worst of all was Emerson. He said - Shelley was not a poet, had no imagination and his muse was - uniformly imitative (“Thoughts on Modern Literature”); his - poetry was ‘rhymed English’ which ‘had no charm’ (“Poetry - and Imagination”). Just as amazing was the article in _The - Edinburgh Review_, 1816, on Coleridge’s volume containing - “Christabel,” “Kubla Khan,” etc. This article, usually - attributed to Hazlitt, and certainly having Jeffrey’s sanction, - said: “We look upon this publication as one of the most notable - pieces of impertinence of which the press has lately been - guilty; and one of the boldest experiments that have as yet - been made upon the patience or understanding of the public.” De - Quincey said the style of Keats “belonged essentially to the - vilest collections of waxwork filigree or gilt gingerbread.” - Other instances are Swinburne’s abuse of George Eliot and - Walt Whitman, Carlyle’s brutality towards Lamb, Jeffrey’s - savage attack on Wordsworth (the famous “This will never do” - article—although it was not so very inexcusable), Edward - Fitzgerald’s letter that Mrs. Browning’s death was a relief - to him (“No more Aurora Leighs, thank God!”), Samuel Rogers’ - statement that he “could not relish Shakespeare’s sonnets,” and - Steevens’ far worse condemnation of them, and indeed the list - could be extended indefinitely. On the other hand, unmerited - praise was given by whole generations of writers to poems - which are now properly forgotten. In face of such facts it is - somewhat of a mystery why the best things _do_ survive. See - next quotation. - - * * * * * - -If it be true, and it can scarcely be disputed, that nothing has been for -centuries consecrated by public admiration, without possessing in a high -degree some kind of sterling excellence, it is not because the average -intellect and feeling of the majority of the public are competent in any -way to distinguish what is really excellent, but because all erroneous -opinion is inconsistent, and all ungrounded opinion transitory; so that -while the fancies and feelings which deny deserved honour, and award -what is undue, have neither root nor strength sufficient to maintain -consistent testimony for a length of time, the opinions formed on -right grounds by those few who are in reality competent judges, being -necessarily stable, communicate themselves gradually from mind to mind, -descending lower as they extend wider, until they leaven the whole lump, -and rule by absolute authority, even where the grounds and reasons for -them cannot be understood. On this gradual victory of what is consistent -over what is vacillating, depends the reputation of all that is highest -in art and literature. - - JOHN RUSKIN (_Modern Painters_, I, 1). - - This is an excellent suggestion in explanation of the question - raised in the preceding note. It is also interesting because - of the youth of this great writer at the time. Ruskin was born - in 1819, and the volume was _published_ in 1843, when he was - twenty-four. Because of his youth, it was thought inadvisable - to give his name as author, and, therefore, the book was - published as “by an Oxford Graduate.” - - * * * * * - -The ages have exulted in the manners of a youth, who owed nothing to -fortune, and who was hanged at the Tyburn of his nation, who, by the pure -quality of his nature, shed an epic splendour around the facts of his -death, which has transfigured every particular into an universal symbol -for the eyes of mankind. This great defeat is hitherto our highest fact. - - EMERSON (_Essay on Character_). - - * * * * * - - The best of men - That e’er wore earth about him was a sufferer; - A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit; - The first true gentleman that ever breathed. - - THOMAS DEKKER (1570-1641). - - * * * * * - - Thou with strong prayer and very much entreating - Willest be asked, and Thou shalt answer then, - Show the hid heart beneath creation beating, - Smile with kind eyes, and be a man with men. - - Were it not thus, O King of my salvation, - Many would curse to Thee, and I for one, - Fling Thee thy bliss and snatch at thy damnation, - Scorn and abhor the shining of the sun. - - Ring with a reckless shivering of laughter - Wroth at the woe which Thou hast seen so long; - Question if any recompense hereafter - Waits to atone the intolerable wrong. - - F. W. H. MYERS (1843-1901.) (_Saint Paul_). - - _Willest be asked_, “requirest to be asked,” as in “God willeth - Samuel to yield unto the importunity of the people” (1 Sam. - viii., in margin). - - _Saint Paul_ was written for the Seatonian prize for religious - English verse, Cambridge, about 1866, but failed to secure the - prize! - - * * * * * - -(Speaking of future state) “Those who are neither good nor bad, or are -too insignificant for notice, will be dropt entirely. This is my opinion. -It is consistent with my idea of God’s justice, and with the reason that -God has given me, and I gratefully know that He has given me a large -share of that Divine gift”(!) - - THOMAS PAINE (_Age of Reason_). - - * * * * * - -SIXTEEN CHARACTERISTICS OF LOVE (ΑΓΑΠΗ). - - 1. It is long-suffering. - 2. is kind. - 3. envieth not. - 4. vaunteth not itself. - 5. is not puffed up. - 6. doth not behave itself unseemly. - 7. seeketh not its own. - 8. is not easily provoked. - 9. thinketh no evil. - 10. rejoiceth not in iniquity. - 11. rejoiceth in the truth. - 12. beareth all things. - 13. believeth all things. - 14. hopeth all things. - 15. endureth all things. - 16. never faileth. - - ST. PAUL (_1 Cor._ xiii.) - - Ἀγάπη, brotherly love, “_Though I have all knowledge and all - faith, though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and - though I give my body to be burned, and have not ἀγάπη, it - profiteth me nothing._” (1 Cor. xiii, 2). - - * * * * * - -In the Eighth Century B.C., in the heart of a world of idolatrous -polytheists, the Hebrew prophets put forth a conception of religion -which appears to be as wonderful an inspiration of genius as the art of -Pheidias or the science of Aristotle. “And what doth the Lord require of -thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy -God?”[20] - - T. H. HUXLEY (_Essays_, IV, 161). - - * * * * * - - The best of all we do and are, - Just God, forgive. - - WORDSWORTH (_Thoughts near the Residence of - Burns_). - - * * * * * - -LOST DAYS. - - The lost days of my life until to-day, - What were they, could I see them on the street - Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat - Sown once for food but trodden into clay? - Or golden coins squandered and still to pay? - Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet? - Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat - The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway? - - I do not see them there; but after death - God knows I know the faces I shall see, - Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. - “I am thyself,—what hast thou done to me?” - “And I—and I—thyself,” (lo! each one saith,) - “And thou thyself to all eternity!” - - D. G. ROSSETTI. - - * * * * * - - Count that day lost, whose low descending sun - Views from thy hand no worthy action done. - - ANON. - - * * * * * - -BIRTHDAYS. - - “Time is the stuff of life”—then spend not thy days while they last - In dreams of an idle future, regrets for a vanished past; - The tombstones lie thickly behind thee, but the stream still hurries - thee on, - New worlds of thought to be traversed, new fields to be fought and won. - Let work be thy measure of life—then only the end is well— - The birthdays we hail so blithely are strokes of the passing bell. - - W. E. H. LECKY. - - “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that - is the stuff life is made of.” (Franklin, _Poor Richard’s - Almanack_, 1757.) - - * * * * * - - Nothing is of greater value than a single day. - - GOETHE (_Spruche im Prosa_). - - * * * * * - - Tears for the passionate hearts I might have won, - Tears for the age with which I might have striven, - Tears for a hundred years of work undone, - Crying like blood to Heaven. - - WM. ALEXANDER. - - * * * * * - - My life, my beautiful life, all wasted; - The gold days, the blue days, to darkness sunk; - The bread was here, and I have not tasted: - The wine was here, and I have not drunk. - - RICHARD MIDDLETON. - - I do not find these lines in Middleton’s collected works, but I - think they are his. - - * * * * * - - And the nightingale thought, “I have sung many songs, - But never a one so gay, - For he sings of what the world will be - When the years have died away.” - - TENNYSON (_The Poet’s Song_). - - This often-quoted verse does not give the highest view of - poetry, as Tennyson’s own poems show. The poet sings of a - Universe, - - Which moves with light and life informed, - Actual, divine and true. - - He sings of Nature, Man, God, Immortality. (This note is from - an early letter of Hodgson’s. His quotation is from _The - Prelude_, Bk. XIV.) - - * * * * * - - Why are Time’s feet so swift and ours so slow! - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - -Who is the most diligent bishop and prelate in all England, that passeth -all the rest in doing his office? It is the Devil. He is the most -diligent preacher of all other, he is never out of his diocese, ye shall -never find him unoccupied, ye shall never find him out of the way, call -for him when you will; he is ever at home, the diligentest preacher in -all the Realm; ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you.... He is no -lordly loiterer, but a busy ploughman, so that among all the pack of them -the Devil shall go for my money! Therefore, ye prelates, learn of the -Devil to be diligent in doing of your office. If you will not learn of -God nor good men: for shame learn of the Devil. - - BISHOP LATIMER (_Sermon on the Ploughers_, 1549). - - * * * * * - -APPRECIATION. - - To the sea-shell’s spiral round - ’Tis your heart that brings the sound: - The soft sea-murmurs, that you hear - Within, are captured from your ear. - - You do poets and their song - A grievous wrong, - If your own soul does not bring - To their high imagining - As much beauty as they sing. - - THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. - -In the present day it is not easy to find a well-meaning man among our -more earnest thinkers, who will not take upon himself to dispute the -whole system of redemption, because he cannot unravel the mystery of -the punishment of sin. But can he unravel the mystery of the punishment -of NO sin? Can he entirely account for all that happens to a cab-horse? -Has he ever looked fairly at the fate of one of those beasts as it is -dying—measured the work it has done, and the reward it has got—put his -hand upon the bloody wounds through which its bones are piercing, and -so looked up to Heaven with an entire understanding of Heaven’s ways -about the horse? Yet the horse is a fact—no dream—no revelation among -the myrtle trees by night; and the dust it dies upon, and the dogs -that eat it, are facts; and yonder happy person, whose the horse was, -till its knees were broken over the hurdles; who had an immortal soul -to begin with, and wealth and peace to help forward his immortality; -who has also devoted the powers of his soul, and body, and wealth, and -peace, to the spoiling of houses, the corruption of the innocent, and the -oppression of the poor; and has, at this actual moment of his prosperous -life, as many curses waiting round about him in calm shadow, with their -death-eyes fixed upon him, biding their time, as ever the poor cab-horse -had launched at him in meaningless blasphemies, when his failing feet -stumbled at the stones,—this happy person shall have no stripes,—shall -have only the horse’s fate of annihilation! Or, if other things are -indeed reserved for him, Heaven’s kindness or omnipotence is to be -doubted therefore! - -We cannot reason of these things. But this I know—and this may by all men -be known—that no good or lovely thing exists in this world without its -correspondent darkness; and that the universe presents itself continually -to mankind under the stern aspect of warning, or of choice, the good and -the evil set on the right hand and the left. - - John Ruskin (_Modern Painters_, V, 19). - - It is one of the arguments in Plato’s _Phaedo_ that the soul - must survive, since otherwise terribly wicked and cruel men - would escape retribution; annihilation would be a good thing - for them. - - * * * * * - - All creatures and all objects, in degree, - Are friends and patrons of humanity. - There are to whom the garden, grove and field - Perpetual lessons of forbearance yield; - Who would not lightly violate the grace - The lowliest flower possesses in its place, - Nor shorten the sweet life, too fugitive, - Which nothing less than Infinite Power could give. - - WORDSWORTH (_Humanity_). - - * * * * * - -Every man is not a proper Champion for Truth, nor fit to take up the -Gauntlet in the cause of Verity: many, from the ignorance of these -Maximes, and an inconsiderate Zeal unto Truth, have too rashly charged -the troops of Error, and remain as Trophies unto the enemies of Truth. A -man may be in as just possession of Truth as of a City and yet be forced -to surrender; ’tis therefore far better to enjoy her with peace than to -hazzard her on a battle. - - SIR THOMAS BROWNE (_Religio Medici_). - - * * * * * - -“Very well,” cried I, “that’s a good girl; I find you are perfectly -qualified for making converts, and so go help your mother to make a -gooseberry pye.” - - GOLDSMITH (_The Vicar of Wakefield_). - - * * * * * - - White-handed Hope, - Thou hovering Angel girt with golden wings. - - MILTON (_Comus_). - - * * * * * - -Hope, folding her wings, looked backward and became Regret. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Silas Marner_, ch. 15). - - * * * * * - -By desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don’t quite know what it -is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against -evil—widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness -narrower. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Middlemarch_, ch. 39). - - * * * * * - - Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin! - Here is custom come your way; - Take my brute, and lead him in, - Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay.... - - I am old, but let me drink; - Bring me spices, bring me wine; - I remember, when I think, - That my youth was half divine.... - - Fill the cup, and fill the can: - Have a rouse before the morn: - Every moment dies a man, - Every moment one is born.... - - Chant me now some wicked stave, - Till thy drooping courage rise, - And the glow-worm of the grave - Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes.... - - Change, reverting to the years, - When thy nerves could understand - What there is in loving tears, - And the warmth of hand in hand.... - - Fill the can, and fill the cup: - All the windy days of men - Are but dust that rises up, - And is lightly laid again. - - TENNYSON (_The Vision of Sin_). - - _Change_—i.e., change the subject. Many verses are omitted for - the sake of brevity. - - * * * * * - -A world without a contingency or an agony could have no hero and no -saint, and enable no Son of Man to discover that he was a Son of God. But -for the suspended plot, that is folded in every life, history is a dead -chronicle of what was known before as well as after; art sinks into the -photograph of a moment, that hints at nothing else; and poetry breaks the -cords and throws the lyre away. There is no Epic of the certainties; and -no lyric without the surprise of sorrow and the sigh of fear. Whatever -touches and ennobles us in the lives and in the voices of the past is a -divine birth from human doubt and pain. Let then the shadows lie, and -the perspective of the light still deepen beyond our view; else, while -we walk together, our hearts will never burn within us as we go, and the -darkness as it falls, will deliver us into no hand that is Divine. - - JAS. MARTINEAU (_Hours of Thought_, 1, 328). - - The subject of the sermon is the _uncertainties_ of life, the - perils and catastrophies that cannot be foreseen or provided - for, death, disease, and other ills which may fall upon us at - any moment, the crises that arise in the history of men and - nations. It is by reason of these that _character_ is formed. - If everything happened by known rule, and could be predicted - as surely as the movements of the stars, we should have no - affections or emotions and would be mere creatures of habit. - - From a recent book of poems, _The Lily of Malud_, by J. C. - Squire, I take the following musical verse. (“The Stronghold” - is where pain, hate, and all unpleasant things are excluded and - peace only reigns.) - - But O, if you find that castle, - Draw back your foot from the gateway, - Let not its peace invite you, - Let not its offerings tempt you, - For faded and decayed like a garment, - Love to a dust will have fallen, - And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow, - And hope will have gone with pain; - And of all the throbbing heart’s high courage - Nothing will remain. - - Martineau not only did important work in philosophy, but he - was also eminent as a moral teacher. Taking together his - originality, sublimity of soul, and beauty of expression, - the sermons in _Hours of Thought_ and other similar writings - are the finest product of modern religious thought. They - indeed stand among the best productions of our _literature_, - and should be read even by those (if there are any such - persons) who love literature and thought but are indifferent - to religion. To illustrate this, I choose—almost at random—a - passage where the thought itself has no interest outside - religion (_Hours of Thought_, II. 334):— - - Worship is the free offering of ourselves to God; ever renewed, - because ever imperfect. It expresses the consciousness that - we are His by right, yet have not duly passed into His hand; - that the soul has no true rest but in Him, yet has wandered in - strange flights until her wing is tired. It is her effort to - return home, the surrender again of her narrow self-will, her - prayer to be merged in a life diviner than her own. It is at - once the lowliest and loftiest attitude of her nature: we never - hide ourselves in ravine so deep; yet overhead we never see the - stars so clear and high. The sense of saddest estrangement, yet - the sense also of eternal affinity between us and God meet and - mingle in the act; breaking into the strains, now penitential - and now jubilant, that, to the critic’s reason, may sound at - variance but melt into harmony in the ear of a higher love. - This twofold aspect devotion must ever have, pale with weeping, - flushed with joy; deploring the past, trusting for the future; - ashamed of what is, kindled by what is meant to be; shadow - behind, and light before. Were we haunted by no presence of sin - and want, we should only browse on the pasture of nature; were - we stirred by no instinct of a holier kindred, we should not be - drawn towards the life of God. - - * * * * * - -GROWN UP. - - My son is straight and strong, - Ready of lip and limb; - ’Twas the dream of my whole life long - To bear a son like him. - - He has griefs I cannot guess, - He has joys I cannot know: - I love him none the less— - With a man it should be so. - - But where, where, where - Is the child so dear to me, - With the silken-golden hair - Who sobbed upon my knee? - - ELIZABETH WATERHOUSE. - - * * * * * - - For her alone the sea-breeze seemed to blow, - For her in music did the white surf fall, - For her alone the wheeling birds did call - Over the shallows, and the sky for her - Was set with white clouds far away and clear, - E’en as her love, this strong and lovely one, - Who held her hand, was but for her alone. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED (_Perseus and Andromeda_). - - * * * * * - - He cometh not a king to reign; - The world’s long hope is dim; - The weary centuries watch in vain - The clouds of heaven for Him. - - And not for sign in heaven above - Or earth below they look, - Who know with John His smile of love, - With Peter His rebuke. - - In joy of inward peace, or sense - Of sorrow over sin, - He is His own best evidence - His witness is within. - - The healing of His seamless dress, - Is by our beds of pain; - We touch Him in life’s throng and press, - And we are whole again. - - O Lord and Master of us all! - Whate’er our name or sign, - We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call, - We test our lives by Thine.... - - Our Friend, our Brother, and our Lord, - What may Thy service be?— - Nor name, nor form, nor ritual word, - But simply following Thee. - - We faintly hear, we dimly see, - In differing phrase we pray; - But, dim or clear, we own in Thee, - The Light, the Truth, the Way! - - JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (_Our Master_). - - Many verses are omitted from this poem for want of space, and - the last two are transposed in order. - - * * * * * - - ’Tis weary watching wave by wave, - And yet the Tide heaves onward, - We climb, like Corals, grave by grave, - That pave a pathway sunward; - - We are driven back, for our next fray - A newer strength to borrow, - And, where the Vanguard camps To-day, - The Rear shall rest To-morrow. - - GERALD MASSEY (_To-day and To-morrow_). - - * * * * * - -Where gods are not, spectres rule. - - * * * * * - -Where children are is a golden age. - - * * * * * - -A people, like a child, is a separate educational problem. - - NOVALIS. - - * * * * * - -Once in an age, God sends to some of us a friend who loves in us, _not_ a -false imagining, an unreal character—but, looking through all the rubbish -of our imperfections, loves in us the divine ideal of our nature—loves, -not the man that we are, but the angel that we may be. Such friends seem -inspired by a divine gift of prophecy—like the mother of St. Augustine, -who, in the midst of the wayward, reckless youth of her son, beheld him -in a vision, standing, clothed in white, a ministering priest at the -right hand of God—as he has stood for long ages since. Could a mysterious -foresight unveil to us this resurrection form of the friends with whom we -daily walk, compassed about with mortal infirmity, we should follow them -with faith and reverence through all the disguises of human faults and -weaknesses, “waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.” - - HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (_The Minister’s Wooing_). - - * * * * * - - Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace - To look through and behind this mask of me, - (Against which years have beat thus blanchingly - With their rains) and behold my soul’s true face, - The dim and weary witness of life’s race,— - Because thou hast the faith and love to see, - Through that same soul’s distracting lethargy, - The patient angel waiting for a place - In the new Heavens,—because nor sin nor woe, - Nor God’s infliction, nor death’s neighbourhood, - Nor all which others viewing, turn to go, - Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,— - Nothing repels thee, ... Dearest, teach me so - To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good! - - E. B. BROWNING (_Sonnets from the Portuguese_). - - Here two fine thoughts of Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Browning are - inspired by the vision of Monica, the saintly mother of the - great St. Augustine (354-430). - - This is a good illustration of the need of notes. Without a - reference to St. Monica’s vision, I think that readers would be - repelled, rather than attracted, by Mrs. Browning’s sonnet. It - does not accord with one’s sense of modesty that a lady should - say to her lover, “My unattractive person and incurable illness - turned other men away, but you saw that, behind all this, I was - ‘a patient _angel_ waiting for a place in the new Heavens.’” I - myself could not understand how Mrs. Browning could write and - her husband could publish this poem, until Hodgson, in one of - his letters to me, referred to “the use made by Mrs. Browning - of St. Monica’s vision in one of her sonnets.” - - The sonnet is not quoted as one of the finest of the series. - - I have placed Mrs. Stowe’s quotation first for an obvious - reason; but _The Minister’s Wooing_ was published in 1859, - while the sonnet appeared in 1847. - - * * * * * - - Death is the ocean of immortal rest; ... - Where shines ’mid laughing waves a far-off isle for me - - Why fear? The light wind whitens all the brine, - And throws fresh foam upon the marble shores; - Or it may be that strong and strenuous oars - Must force the shallop o’er the hyaline; - But, welcome utter calm or bitter blast,— - The voyage will be done, the island reached at last. - - ... - - Will it be thus when the strange sleep of Death - Lifts from the brow, and lost eyes live again? - Will morning dawn on the bewildered brain, - To cool and heal? And shall I feel the breath - Of freshening winds that travel from the sea, - And meet thy loving, laughing eyes, Earine? - - ... - - O virgin world! O marvellous far days! - No more with dreams of grief doth love grow bitter - Nor trouble dim the lustre wont to glitter - In happy eyes. Decay alone decays; - A moment—death’s dull sleep is o’er and we - Drink the immortal morning air, Earine. - - MORTIMER COLLINS. - - * * * * * - -We live in a world, where one fool makes many fools, but one wise man -only a few wise men. - - LICHTENBERG. - - * * * * * - - O Lady! We receive but what we give, - And in our life alone does Nature live: - Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud! - And would we aught behold, of higher worth, - Than that inanimate cold world allowed - To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd, - Ah, from the soul itself must issue forth - A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud - Enveloping the Earth— - And from the soul itself must there be sent - A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, - Of all sweet sounds the life and element! - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_Dejection_). - - See note to next quotation. - - * * * * * - -TELLING STORIES. - - A little child He took for sign - To them that sought the way Divine. - - And once a flower sufficed to show - The whole of that we need to know. - - Now here we lie, the child and I, - And watch the clouds go floating by, - - Just telling stories turn by turn.... - Lord, which is teacher, which doth learn? - - H. D. LOWRY. - - As Coleridge says in the last quotation, “We receive but what - we give.” We bring with us the mind that sees, and the feelings - and emotions with which we contemplate the universe; and, so - far as use, habit, and other causes still the activity and - lessen the receptivity of the mind and spirit, the world around - us becomes less instinct with life and beauty. - - Putting aside the question whether, as Wordsworth says in his - great Ode, - - Trailing clouds of glory do we come - From God, who is our home, - - it will be familiar to anyone who has a sympathetic, - appreciative sense that the _child’s_ outlook on the world - around him is very different from our own. It has in him a more - intense emotional reaction. He sees it with a freshness and - wonder unfelt by us, because our sensibility is blunted and - less vivid. And for the same reason that we trust our faculties - in their prime rather than in their degeneration, so the fresh - and clear emotional response of a child’s nature represents - more _truthful_ appreciation than our own. Our sensibility is - blunted, not only by use and habit, but also by the hardening - and coarsening experiences of our lives; and also again by the - development of intellect, which grows largely at the expense - of the emotions. We lose the transparent soul of the child, - his simple faith and trusting nature. To anyone who cannot - _feel_ the difference between the child’s outlook and his own, - this will convey no meaning—and words cannot assist him. It - is as if one tried to describe love to a person who has never - loved, or a religious experience to one who has never had such - an experience, indeed, in both love and religious experience, - there is the same child-like attitude of pure emotion; and - hence Christ’s comparison of His true followers to “little - children.” Poetry, music, love of nature, and the highest art - produce in us at times the same indefinable feeling and give - us back for evanescent periods the fresh, clear, emotional - sensibility of a child. - - In Edward Fitzgerald’s _Euphranor_, at the point where - Wordsworth’s ode is being discussed, the following passage is - interesting:— - - “I have heard tell of another poet’s saying that he knew of - no human outlook so solemn as that from an infant’s eyes; - and how it was from those of his own he learned that those - of the Divine Child in Raffaelle’s Sistine Madonna were not - overcharged with expression, as he had previously thought they - might be.” - - “Yes,” said I, “that was on the occasion, I think, of his - having watched his child one morning _worshipping the sunbeam - on the bedpost_—I suppose the worship of wonder.... If but - the philosopher or poet could live in the child’s brain for a - while!” - - (The poet referred to was Tennyson, see Memoir by his son, the - baby in question, Vol. I., 357). - - * * * * * - -THE REVELATION - - An idle poet, here and there, - Looks round him; but, for all the rest, - The world, unfathomably fair, - Is duller than a witling’s jest. - - Love wakes men, once a life-time each; - They lift their heavy heads and look; - And, lo, what one sweet page can teach - They read with joy, then shut the book. - - And some give thanks, and some blaspheme, - And most forget: but, either way, - That, and the Child’s unheeded dream, - Is all the light of all their day. - - COVENTRY PATMORE (1823-1896). - - * * * * * - -The normal process of life contains moments as bad as any of those which -insane melancholy is filled with. The lunatic’s visions of horror are -all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded -on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely -spasm of helpless agony. If you protest, my friend, wait till you arrive -there yourself![21] To believe in the carnivorous reptiles of geologic -times is hard for our imagination—they seem too much like mere museum -specimens. Yet there is no tooth in any one of those museum-skulls that -did not daily, through long years of the foretime, hold fast to the -body struggling in despair of some fated living victim. Forms of horror -just as dreadful to their victims, if on a smaller spatial scale, fill -the world about us to-day. Here on our very hearths and in our gardens -the infernal cat plays with the panting mouse, or holds the hot bird -fluttering in her jaws. Crocodiles and rattlesnakes and pythons are at -this moment vessels of life as real as we are; their loathsome existence -fills every minute of every day that drags its length along, and whenever -they or other wild beasts clutch their living prey, the deadly horror -which an agitated melancholiac feels is the literally right reaction on -the situation. - - WILLIAM JAMES (_The Varieties of Religious Experience_). - - * * * * * - -Et in Arcadia ego. - -(I too have been in Arcady.) - - ANON. - - Arcadia was a mountainous district in Greece which was taken - to be the deal of pastoral simplicity and rural happiness—as - in Sir Philip Sidney’s _Arcadia_ and other literature. It was - famous for its musicians and a favourite haunt of Pan. - - The saying is best known from the fine landscape in the Louvre - by N. Poussin (1594-1665). In part of the landscape is a tomb - on which these words are written, and some young people are - seen reading them. I learn, however, from _King’s Classical and - Foreign Quotations_ that the words had been previously written - on a picture by Bart. Schidone (1570-1615), where two young - shepherds are looking at a skull. - - The meaning intended was that _death_ came even to the joyous - shepherds of Arcady. But the quotation is now used in a more - general sense. “I too had my golden days of youth and love and - happiness.” - - * * * * * - -It often happens that those are the best people, whose characters have -been most injured by slanderers; as we usually find that to be the -sweetest fruit which the birds have been pecking at. - - ALEXANDER POPE. - - * * * * * - -There are many flowers of heavenly origin in this world; they do -not flourish in this climate but are properly heralds, clear-voiced -messengers of a better existence: Religion is one; Love is another. - - NOVALIS. - - * * * * * - -ON DYING - - I always made an awkward bow. - - KEATS. - - * * * * * - -On n’a pas d’antécédent pour cela. Il faut improviser—c’est donc si -difficile. (Death admits of no rehearsal.) - - AMIEL. - - * * * * * - -C’est le maître jour; c’est le jour juge de tous les autres. (It is the -master-day; the day that judges all the others.) - - MONTAIGNE. - - * * * * * - - Will she return, my lady? Nay: - Love’s feet, that once have learned to stray, - Turn never to the olden way. - - Ah, heart of mine, where lingers she? - By what live stream or saddened sea? - What wild-flowered swath of sungilt lea - - Do her feet press, and are her days - Sweet with new stress of love and praise, - Or sad with echoes of old lays? - - JOHN PAYNE (_Light o’ Love_). - - * * * * * - - I search but cannot see - What purpose serves the soul that strives, or world it tries - Conclusions with, unless the fruit of victories - Stay, one and all, stored up and guaranteed its own - For ever, by some mode whereby shall be made known - The gain of every life. - ... - I say, I cannot think that gains—which will not be - Except a special soul had gained them—that such gain - Can ever be estranged, do aught but appertain - Immortally, by right firm, indefeasible, - To who performed the feat, through God’s grace and man’s will. - - R. BROWNING (_Fifine at the Fair_). - - * * * * * - - Nature, they say, doth dote - And cannot make a man - Save on some worn-out plan - Repeating us by rote. - - J. R. LOWELL (_Ode at Harvard Commemoration_). - - * * * * * - -Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I -always plucked a thistle and planted a flower, where I thought a flower -would grow. - - ABRAHAM LINCOLN. - - * * * * * - -Why describe our life-history as a state of waking rather than of sleep? -Why assume that sleep is the acquired, vigilance the normal condition? -It would not be hard to defend the opposite thesis. The newborn infant -might urge with cogency that his habitual state of slumber was primary, -as regards the individual, ancestral as regards the race; resembling -at least, far more closely than does our adult life, a primitive or -protozoic habit. “Mine,” he might say, “is a centrally stable state. It -would need only some change in external conditions (as the permanent -immersion in a nutritive fluid) to be safely and indefinitely maintained. -Your waking state, on the other hand, is centrally unstable. While you -talk and bustle around me you are living on your physiological capital, -and the mere prolongation of vigilance is torture and death.” - -A paradox such as this forms no part of my argument; but it may remind us -that physiology at any rate hardly warrants us in speaking of our waking -state as if that alone represented our true selves, and every deviation -from it must be at best a mere interruption. Vigilance in reality is but -one of two co-ordinate phases of our personality, which we have acquired -or differentiated from each other during the stages of our long evolution. - - F. W. H. MYERS (_Multiplex Personality_). - - This is from an article in _The Nineteenth Century_ for - November, 1886, in which Myers urged the study of the - trance-personalities that exhibit themselves under hypnotism. - In his _Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death_ - his views on sleep may be very briefly summarized as follows: - In the low forms of animal life there is an undifferentiated - state, neither sleep nor waking, and this is also seen in our - prenatal and earliest infantile life. In life generally the - waking time can exist only for brief periods continuously. - We cannot continue life without resort to the fuller - vitality which sleep brings to us. Again, from the original - undifferentiated state, our waking life has been developed - by practical needs; the faculties required for our earthly - life then become intensified, but by natural selection other - faculties and sensations (including those which connect us with - the spiritual world) are dropped out of our consciousness. - The state of sleep cannot be regarded as the mere _absence of - waking faculties_. In this state we have some faint glimmer of - the other faculties and sensations in various forms—dreams, - somnambulism, etc. Myers then develops the theory that the - relations of hysteria and _genius_ to ordinary life correspond - to those of somnambulism and hypnotic trance to sleep; and - he arrives at the question of self-suggestion and hypnotism - generally. - - Thus in sleep there are, _first_, certain physiological changes - (including a greater control of the physical organism, as - seen in the muscular powers of somnambulists); no length of - time spent lying down awake in darkness and silence will give - the recuperative effect that even a few moments of sleep will - give. But also, _secondly_, we find existing in sleep the other - faculties withdrawn from use in ordinary waking life. Thus - during sleep we find memory revived, problems unexpectedly - solved, poems like “Kubla Khan” composed, and many intense - sensations and emotions experienced. Beyond these powers again - Myers finds in sleep still higher powers which seem to connect - us with the spiritual world. Hence the advisability of studying - the phenomena of sleep and investigating it _experimentally_ by - employing hypnotism. - - William James adopted much the same view as Myers (see, for - example, _The Varieties of Religious Experience_). But much - has been written of late about sub-consciousness and about - dreams; and the tendency is rather to follow Martineau’s view - of mental development—that the lower nervous centres are - unconscious “habits” deposited from the old intelligence (see - p. 304). Thus, for instance, memories of the past would be - recorded in the sub-conscious, but there is nothing to be found - there _of a higher character_ than in the conscious self. In - sleep, the waking control being removed, our dreams reveal - impulses and desires that have been inhibited or kept under - in waking life, but do not reveal anything of the _higher_ - indicated by Myers. However, although it is too large a subject - to discuss here, there is a vast deal yet to be explained, - as, for example, inspiration, and what we used to call - “unconscious cerebration,” and the amazing results of hypnotism - and suggestion. Also who or what is it that _composes_ the - dream-story, or who or what _makes us_ act or dream the story? - - * * * * * - -Without good nature man is but a better kind of vermin. - - * * * * * - -Extreme self-lovers will set a man’s house on fire, though it were but to -roast their eggs. - - BACON. - - * * * * * - - Where lies the land to which the ship would go? - Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. - And where the land she travels from? Away, - Far, far behind, is all that they can say. - - On sunny noons upon the deck’s smooth face, - Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace, - Or, o’er the stern reclining, watch below - The foaming wake far widening as we go. - - On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave, - How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave! - The dripping sailor on the reeling mast - Exults to hear, and scorns to wish it past. - - Where lies the land to which the ship would go? - Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. - And where the land she travels from? Away, - Far, far behind, is all that they can say. - - A. H. CLOUGH (_Songs in Absence_) - - The Ship is the ship of life. The first line is taken from - Wordsworth’s sonnet, “Where lies the land to which yon Ship - must go.” - - * * * * * - - The brooding East with awe beheld - Her impious younger world. - The Roman tempest swell’d and swell’d, - And on her head was hurled. - - The East bowed low before the blast - In patient, deep disdain; - She let the legions thunder past, - And plunged in thought again. - - M. ARNOLD (_Obermann Once More_) - - * * * * * - - Learn to win a lady’s faith - Nobly as the thing is high, - Bravely as for life and death, - With a loyal gravity. - - E. B. BROWNING (_The Lady’s Yes_). - - * * * * * - -THE CORAL REEF - - In my dreams I dreamt - Of a coral reef— - Far away, far, far away, - Where seas were lulled and calm, - A place of silver sand. - Truly a lovely land, - Truly a lovely dream, - Truly a peaceful scene— - When, like a flash, through all the sea - There shone a gleam. - Rising like Venus from her wat’ry bed - Rose a young mermaid with her hair unkempt, - Beautiful hair! light as a golden leaf, - Shining like Phoebus at the break of day. - And she tossed and shook her lovely head, - Shook off drops more precious, far, than pearls. - To a coral rock she slowly went, - Slowly floated like a graceful swan; - Combed her hair that hung in yellow curls - Till the evening shadows ’gan to fall; - Then she gave one look round, that was all, - Rose—and then, her figure curved, arms bent - Above her head—a flash! and she was gone; - And ripples in wide circles rise and fall, - Spreading and spreading still, where she has been. - - BETTY BRAY, January 1918. Aged 11. - - See Note on page 155. - - * * * * * - -BENEATH MY WINDOW - - Beneath my window, roses red and white - Nod like a host of flitting butterflies; - But, faded by the day, one ev’ry night - Shakes its soft petals to the ground, and dies. - And that is why I see, when night doth pass, - Tears in her sisters’ eyes, and on the grass. - - BETTY BRAY, 1920. Aged 13. - - * * * * * - -MUSIC - - Three wondrous things there are upon the earth, - Three gentle spirits, that I love full well, - Three glorious voices, which by far excel - Even the silver-throated Philomel. - - For not in sound alone lies music’s worth, - But rather in the feeling that it brings, - Whether of joy, or peace, or dreaminess. - - And when I hear the rain soft, softly beat, - Singing with low, sweet voice, and musical, - I think of all the tears that ever fell - In perfect happiness, or deep distress, - And so it brings a pang, half sad, half sweet, - Into my heart. - - Then, when the sparkling rill - Dances between the sunny banks, and sings - For very joy, all dimpling with delight, - O all the happy laughter ’neath the sky - Rings sweet and clear, and makes the world more bright. - - And, when the sun has sunk beneath the sea - And vanished from the glory of the west, - Leaving the peaceful eve to melt to night,— - O then it is the loveliest voice of all, - The gentle night-wind softly sings to me, - Tender and low, as sweetest lullaby - As ever hushed a weary head to rest: - On, on it sings, until from drowsiness - My tired eyes softly close, and all is still. - - BETTY BRAY, 1920 Aged 13. - - See Note on page 155. - - * * * * * - -THE MARTYR - - When night fell softly on the silent city, - A little white moth thro’ my window came - Out of the darkness and the shadows dim, - Seeking the brightness of my candle’s flame. - Around and round the lighted wick he flew, - Winging his wonderful and curious flight; - And near, and still more near, the circles grew.... - And then—the flame no more was bright for him. - Then all my heart went out in sudden pity - To that small martyr, who had sought for light, - And found—his death. O he was fair to die. - I rose and snuffed the candle with a sigh. - - BETTY BRAY, September 26, 1920. Aged 14 years. - - These fresh, clear, spontaneous verses have a special value. - They bring us a promise of Spring—the message that we may still - hope for a revival of English Poetry. - - Therefore, I have included them (in this third edition) - although they are outside the general scope of my book. - - Miss Betty Bray has been writing since she was seven years of - age. She writes with great facility and has already filled two - manuscript books. Her verses are entirely her own, no defects - being pointed out or other assistance or guidance given her. - - She was born on June 11th, 1906. She is the daughter of Mr. - Denys de Saumarez Bray, C.S.I., and the grand-niece of my late - partner the Hon. Sir John Bray, K.C.M.G., who was Premier of - South Australia. Her grandfather was born in Adelaide. - - * * * * * - - Thus with the year - Seasons return; but not to me returns - Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, - Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose, - Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; - But cloud instead, and ever-during dark - Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men - Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair - Presented with a universal blank - Of nature’s works to me expung’d and ras’d, - And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. - - MILTON (_Paradise Lost_). - - Milton refers to his blindness in this and other passages—as in - the well known sonnet. - - * * * * * - -THE ATTAINMENT - - You love? That’s high as you shall go; - For ’tis as true as Gospel text, - Not noble then is never so, - Either in this world or the next. - - COVENTRY PATMORE (_The Angel in the House_). - - * * * * * - - For one fair Vision ever fled - Down the waste waters day and night, - And still we follow where she led, - In hope to gain upon her flight. - Her face was evermore unseen, - And fixt upon the far sea-line; - But each man murmured, “O my Queen, - I follow till I make thee mine!” - - And now we lost her, now she gleamed - Like Fancy made of golden air. - Now nearer to the prow she seemed - Like Virtue firm, like Knowledge fair, - Now high on waves that idly burst - Like Heavenly Hope she crowned the sea, - And now, the bloodless point reversed, - She bore the blade of Liberty. - - TENNYSON (_The Voyage_). - - * * * * * - - King Stephen was a worthy peere, - His breeches cost him but a crowne; - He held them sixpence all too deare - Therefore he called the taylor lowne, rascal - He was a wight of high renowne - And thouse but of a low degree, thou art - It’s pride that putts the countrye downe, - Man, take thine old cloake about thee. - - PERCY’S _Reliques_. - - The poor man wants a new cloak, but his wife objects. - - The verse is sung by Iago (_Othello_, Act II., Sc. 3), the - words being a little different. - - * * * * * - -LOVE’S LAST MESSAGES - - Merry, merry little stream, - Tell me, hast thou seen my dear? - I left him with an azure dream, - Calmly sleeping on his bier— - But he has fled! - - “I passed him in his churchyard bed— - A yew is sighing o’er his head, - And grass-roots mingle with his hair.” - - What doth he there? - O cruel, can he lie alone? - Or in the arms of one more dear? - Or hides he in that bower of stone, - To cause, and kiss away my fear? - - “He doth not speak, he doth not moan— - Blind, motionless, he lies alone; - But, ere the grave-snake fleshed his sting, - This one warm tear he bade me bring - And lay it at thy feet - Among the daisies sweet.” - - Moonlight whisperer, summer air, - Songster of the groves above, - Tell the maiden rose I wear - Whether thou hast seen my love. - - “This night in heaven I saw him lie, - Discontented with his bliss; - And on my lips he left this kiss, - For thee to taste and then to die.” - - T. L. BEDDOES (1803-1849). - - Beddoes intended to destroy this poem, but it was published - without his knowledge. This is one of the cases where artists - have shown themselves incapable critics of their own work. - - * * * * * - - O Earth so full of dreary noises! - O men with wailing in your voices! - O delvèd gold, the wailers heap! - O strife, O curse that o’er it fall! - God strikes a silence through you all - And giveth His beloved sleep. - - E. B. BROWNING (_The Sleep_). - - * * * * * - - Give all to love; - Obey thy heart; - Friends, kindred, days, - Estate, good-fame, - Plans, credit, and the Muse,— - Nothing refuse - ... - Cling with life to the maid; - But when the surprise, - First vague shadow of surmise - Flits across her bosom young - Of a joy apart from thee, - Free be she, fancy-free; - Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem - Nor the palest rose she flung - From her summer diadem. - - Though thou loved her as thyself, - As a self of purer clay, - Though her parting dims the day, - Stealing grace from all alive; - Heartily know, - When half-gods go - The gods arrive. - - R. W. EMERSON (_Give all to Love_). - - * * * * * - -On Dreamthorp centuries have fallen, and have left no more trace than -have last winter’s snowflakes. This commonplace sequence and flowing -on of life is immeasurably affecting. That winter morning when Charles -lost his head in front of the banqueting-hall of his own palace, the -icicles hung from the eaves of the houses here, and the clown kicked the -snowballs from his clouted shoon, and thought but of his supper when, -at three o’clock, the red sun set in the purple mist.... Battles have -been fought, kings have died, history has transacted itself; but, all -unheeding and untouched, Dreamthorp has watched apples-trees redden, -and wheat ripen, and smoked its pipe, and quaffed its mug of beer, and -rejoiced over its newborn children, and with proper solemnity carried its -dead to the churchyard. - - ALEXANDER SMITH (_Dreamthorp_). - - * * * * * - - O moon, tell me, - Is constant love deemed there but want of wit? - Are beauties there as proud as here they be? - Do they above love to be loved, and yet - Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess? - Do they call virtue there ungratefulness? - - SIR P. SIDNEY. - - “Do they call ungratefulness a virtue?” - - * * * * * - -Quixotism, or Utopianism: that is another of the devil’s pet words. I -believe the quiet admission which we are all of us so ready to make, -that, because things have long been wrong, it is impossible they should -ever be right, is one of the most fatal sources of misery and crime from -which this world suffers. Whenever you hear a man dissuading you from -attempting to do well, on the ground that perfection is “Utopian,” beware -of that man. Cast the word out of your dictionary altogether. - - JOHN RUSKIN (_Lectures on Architecture and Painting_). - - * * * * * - - Two angels guide - The path of man, both aged and yet young, - As angels are, ripening through endless years. - On one he leans: some call her Memory, - And some Tradition; and her voice is sweet, - With deep mysterious accord: the other, - Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams - A light divine and searching on the earth, - Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields, - Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew - Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp - Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked - But for Tradition; we walk evermore - To higher paths, by brightening Reason’s lamp. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Spanish Gypsy_). - - * * * * * - -Coleridge, I have not one truly elevated character among my acquaintance: -not one Christian: not one but undervalues Christianity—singly, what am I -to do? Wesley (have you read his life?) was he not an elevated character? -Wesley has said “Religion is not a solitary thing.” Alas! it necessarily -is so with me, or next to solitary. - - CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834) (_Letter to S. T. Coleridge, Jan. 10, 1797_). - - Poor lovable Charles Lamb! When he wrote this he was only - twenty-one years of age, he had already been himself confined - in an asylum, and now his sister in a moment of madness had - killed her mother. When afterwards he was allowed to take care - of Mary, he had still to take her back to the asylum from time - to time, as a fresh attack of mania began to manifest itself. - The picture of the weeping brother and sister on their way to - the asylum is dreadfully sad. The passage seems interesting - because of Lamb’s reference to Wesley. - - * * * * * - - Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain: - Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain: - As though a rose should shut and be a bud again. - - KEATS (_The Eve of St. Agnes_). - - Madeline is lying asleep in bed—but the last line could be used - in quite another sense as prettily expressing _rejuvenation_. - - * * * * * - - Beneath the moonlight and the snow - Lies dead my latest year; - The winter winds are wailing low - Its dirges in my ear. - - I grieve not with the moaning wind - As if a loss befell; - Before me, even as behind, - God is, and all is well! - - J. G. WHITTIER (_My Birthday_). - - * * * * * - - If on my theme I rightly think, - There are five reasons why men drink:— - Good wine; a friend; or being dry; - Or lest we should be by and by; - Or—any other reason why. - - HENRY ALDRICH (1647-1710). - - _Autres temps, autres moeurs!_ Aldrich was Dean of Christ - Church, Oxford, when he wrote these lines. - - * * * * * - -INSCRIPTION FOR A BUST OF CUPID - - Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître; - Il l’est, le fut, ou le doit être. - - (Whatso’er thou art, thy master see! - He was, or is, or is to be.) - - VOLTAIRE. - - * * * * * - -UP-HILL - - Does the road wind up-hill all the way? - Yes, to the very end. - Will the day’s journey take the whole long day? - From morn to night, my friend. - - But is there for the night a resting-place? - A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. - May not the darkness hide it from my face? - You cannot miss that inn. - - Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? - Those who have gone before. - Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? - They will not keep you standing at that door. - - Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? - Of labour you shall find the sum[22] - Will there be beds for me and all who seek? - Yea, beds for all who come. - - CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. - - * * * * * - - A pebble in the streamlet scant - Has turned the course of many a river, - A dewdrop in the baby plant - Has warped the giant oak for ever. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - - But now he walks the streets, - And he looks at all he meets - Sad and wan, - And he shakes’ his feeble head, - That it seems as if he said, - “They are gone.” - - The mossy marbles rest - On the lips that he has prest - In their bloom, - And the names he loved to hear - Have been carved for many a year - On the tomb. - - My grandmamma has said— - Poor old lady, she is dead - Long ago,— - That he had a Roman nose, - And his cheek was like a rose - In the snow. - - But now his nose is thin. - And it rests upon his chin - Like a staff. - And a crook is in his back, - And a melancholy crack - In his laugh.... - - O. W. HOLMES (_The Last Leaf_). - - * * * * * - - “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all - Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know! - - JOHN KEATS (_Ode on a Grecian Urn_). - - Matthew Arnold says of this: “No, it is not all; but it is - true, deeply true, and we have deep need to know it.... To see - things in their beauty is to see things in their truth, and - Keats knew it. ‘What the Imagination seizes on as Beauty must - be Truth,’ he says in prose.” - - * * * * * - - Were it not sadder, in the years to come, - To feel the hand-clasp slacken for long use, - The untuned heart-strings for long stress refuse - To yield old harmonies, the songs grow dumb - For weariness, and all the old spells lose - The first enchantment? Yet this they must be: - Love is but mortal, save in memory. - - JOHN PAYNE (_A Farewell_). - - * * * * * - -Aux coeurs blessés—l’ombre et le silence. - -(For the wounded heart—shade and silence.) - - BALZAC (_Le Médecin de Campagne_). - - * * * * * - -The huge mass of black crags that towered at the head of the gloomy -defile was exactly what one would picture as the enchanted castle of the -evil magician, within sight of which all vegetation withered, looking -from over the desolate valley of ruins to the barren shore strewed with -its sad wreckage, and the wild ocean beyond.... - -The land-crabs certainly looked their part of goblin guardians of the -approaches to the wicked magician’s fastness. They were fearful as the -firelight fell on their yellow cynical faces, fixed as that of the -sphinx, but fixed in a horrid grin. Those who have observed this foulest -species of crab will know my meaning. Smelling the fish we were cooking -they came down the mountains in thousands upon us. We threw them lumps of -fish, which they devoured with crab-like slowness, yet perseverance. - -It is a ghastly sight, a land-crab at his dinner. A huge beast was -standing a yard from me; I gave him a portion of fish, and watched him. -He looked at me straight in the face with his outstarting eyes, and -proceeded with his two front claws to tear up his food, bringing bits -of it to his mouth with one claw, as with a fork. But all this while he -never looked at what he was doing; his face was fixed in one position, -staring at me. And when I looked around, lo! there were half a dozen -others all steadily feeding, but with immovable heads turned to me with -that fixed basilisk stare. It was indeed horrible, and the effect was -nightmarish in the extreme. While we slept that night they attacked us, -and would certainly have devoured us, had we not awoke; and did eat holes -in our clothes. One of us had to keep watch, so as to drive them from the -other two, otherwise we should have had no sleep. - -Imagine a sailor cast alone on this coast, weary, yet unable to sleep a -moment on account of these ferocious creatures. After a few days of an -existence full of horror he would die raving mad, and then be consumed in -an hour by his foes. In all Dante’s Inferno there is no more horrible a -suggestion of punishment than this. - - E. F. KNIGHT (_The Cruise of the “Falcon”_). - - The scene is in the Island of Trinidad, off the coast of Brazil. - - * * * * * - - ... Nor the end of love is sure, - (Alas! how much less sure than anything!) - Whether the little love-light shall endure - In the clear eyes of her we loved in Spring. - - Or if the faint flowers of remembering - Shall blow, we know not: only this we know,— - Afar Death comes with silent steps and slow. - - JOHN PAYNE (_Salvestra_). - - * * * * * - - The stars of midnight shall be dear - To her; and she shall lean her ear - In many a secret place - Where rivulets dance their wayward round, - And beauty born of murmuring sound - Shall pass into her face. - - W. WORDSWORTH (_Three Years She Grew_). - - * * * * * - -As the art of life is learned, it will be found at last that all lovely -things are also necessary: the wild flower by the wayside, as well as the -tended corn; and the wild birds and creatures of the forest, as well as -the tended cattle: because man doth not live by bread alone, but also by -the desert manna; by every wondrous word and unknowable work of God. - - JOHN RUSKIN. - - * * * * * - - Alas! the long gray years have vanquished me, - The shadow of the inexorable days! - I am grown sad and silent: for the sea - Of Time has swallowed all my pleasant ways. - I am grown weary of the years that flee - And bring no light to set my bound hope free, - No sun to fill the promise of old Mays. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - -LOVE - -Cet égoisme à deux. - - DE STAËL. - - * * * * * - -It is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of -three. - - WASHINGTON IRVING. - - * * * * * - -I confess that I do not see why the very existence of an invisible -world may not in part depend on the personal response which any one of -us may make to the religious appeal. God himself, in short, may draw -vital strength and increase of very being from our fidelity. For my -own part, I do not know what the sweat and blood and tragedy of this -life mean, if they mean anything short of this. If this life be not a -real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe -by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from -which one may withdraw at will. But it _feels_ like a real fight,—as if -there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our -idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem; and first of all -to redeem our own hearts from atheisms and fears. For such a half-wild, -half-saved universe our nature is adapted. The deepest thing in our -nature is this dumb region of the heart in which we dwell alone with our -willingnesses and unwillingnesses, our faiths and fears.... In these -depths of personality the sources of all our outer deeds and decisions -take their rise. Here is our deepest organ of communication with the -nature of things; and compared with these concrete movements of our soul -all abstract statements and scientific arguments—the veto, for example, -which the strict positivist pronounces upon our faith—sound to us like -mere chatterings of the teeth. - - WILLIAM JAMES (_Is Life Worth Living?_). - - (Mr. T. R. Glover in _The Jesus of History_ points out that - when Christ said “Ye are they that have continued with me in my - temptations” (Luke xxii, 26), He meant that the disciples had - _helped Him_ by their fidelity.) - - The following is from Professor Hobhouse’s _Questions of - War and Peace_, repeating what he had set out at length in - his _Development and Purpose_ (I take the quotation from - _The Spectator_ review, as the book is not yet procurable in - Australia): - - “I think, therefore, that we must go back into ourselves for - faith, and away from ourselves into the world for reason. - The deeper we go into ourselves the more we throw off forms - and find the assurance not only that the great things exist, - but that they are the heart of our lives, and, since after - all we are of one stock, they must be at the heart of your - lives as well as mine. You say there are bad men and wars and - cruelties and wrong, I say all these are the collision of - undeveloped forms. What is the German suffering from but a - great illusion that the State is something more than man, and - that power is more than justice! Strip him of this and he is - a man like yourself, pouring out his blood for the cause that - he loves, and that you and I detest. Probe inwards, then, and - you find the same spring of life everywhere and it is good. - Look outwards, and you find, as you yourself admit the slow - movement towards a harmony which just means that these impulses - of primeval energy come, so to say, to understand one another. - Every form they take as they grow will provoke conflict, - perish, and be cast aside until the whole unites, and there - you have the secret of your successive efforts and failures - which yet leave something behind them. God is not the creator - who made the world in six days, rested on the seventh and saw - that it was good. He is growing in the actual evolution of the - world.” - - * * * * * - - And since (man) cannot spend and use aright - The little time here given him in trust. - But wasteth it in weary undelight - Of foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust. - He naturally claimeth to inherit - The everlasting Future, that his merit - May have full scope; as surely is most just. - - JAMES THOMSON (_The City of Dreadful Night_). - - * * * * * - - The moving waters at their priest-like task - Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores. - - JOHN KEATS (_His Last Sonnet_, 1820). - - * * * * * - - With sweet May dews my wings were wet, - And Phoebus fired my vocal rage; - Love caught me in his silken net, - And shut me in his golden cage. - - He loves to sit and hear me sing. - Then, laughing, sports and plays with me; - Then stretches out my golden wing, - And mocks my loss of liberty. - - W. BLAKE (_Song_). - - This poem was written before Blake was _fourteen_ years of age. - - * * * * * - - When the fight was done, - When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, - Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, - Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed, - Fresh as a bridegroom.... - He was perfumèd like a milliner; - And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held - A pouncet-box. And still he smiled and talked; - And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, - He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly, - To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse - Betwixt the wind and his nobility. - - SHAKESPEARE (_1 Henry IV._, i. 3). - - * * * * * - - ... High-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw them, - Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, above them - Matching their lily-white legs with the clothes that they trod in the - wash-tub! - ... - ... In a blue cotton print tucked up over striped linsey-woolsey, - Barefoot, barelegged he beheld her, with arms bare up to the elbows, - Bending with fork in her hand in a garden uprooting potatoes! - - A. H. CLOUGH (_The Bothie of Tober-na Vuolich_). - - * * * * * - - As I came through the desert thus it was, - As I came through the desert: Eyes of fire - Glared at me throbbing with a starved desire; - The hoarse and heavy and carnivorous breath - Was hot upon me from deep jaws of death; - Sharp claws, swift talons, fleshless fingers cold - Plucked at me from the bushes, tried to hold: - But I strode on austere; - No hope could have no fear. - - JAMES THOMSON (_The City of Dreadful Night_). - - The five quotations above are from a series of word-pictures - (see p. 85). - - * * * * * - -SHE COMES AS COMES THE SUMMER NIGHT - - She comes as comes the summer night, - Violet, perfumed, clad with stars, - To heal the eyes hurt by the light - Flung by Day’s brandish’d scimitars. - The parted crimson of her lips - Like sunset clouds that slowly die - When twilight with cool finger-tips - Unbraids her tresses in the sky. - - The melody of waterfalls - Is in the music of her tongue, - Low chanted in dim forest halls - Ere Dawn’s loud bugle-call has rung. - And as a bird with hovering wings - Halts o’er her young one in the nest, - Then droops to still his flutterings, - She takes me to her fragrant breast. - - O star and bird at once thou art, - And Night, with purple-petall’d charm, - Shining and singing to my heart, - And soothing with a dewy calm. - Let Death assume this lovely guise, - So darkly beautiful and sweet, - And, gazing with those starry eyes, - Lead far away my weary feet. - - And that strange sense of valleys fair - With birds and rivers making song - To lull the blossoms gleaming there, - Be with me as I pass along. - Ah! lovely sisters, Night and Death, - And lovelier Woman—wondrous three, - “Givers of Life,” my spirit saith, - Unfolders of the mystery. - - Ah! only Love could teach me this, - In memoried springtime long since flown; - Red lips that trembled to my kiss, - That sighed farewell, and left me lone. - O Joy and Sorrow intertwined,— - A kiss, a sigh, and blinding tears,— - Yet ever after in the wind, - The bird-like music of the spheres! - - FRANK S. WILLIAMSON. - - This is from the author’s “Purple and Gold,” a book of poems - published in Melbourne (Thomas C. Lothian, publisher). - - * * * * * - -No indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as -respectable selfishness. - - G. MACDONALD (_Robert Falconer_). - - * * * * * - -WHEN LOVE MEETS LOVE - - When love meets love, breast urged to breast, - God interposes, - An unacknowledged guest, - And leaves a little child among our roses. - - O, gentle hap! - O, sacred lap! - O, brooding dove! - But when he grows - Himself to be a rose, - God takes him—Where is then our love? - O, where is all our love? - - * * * * * - -BETWEEN OUR FOLDING LIPS - - Between our folding lips - God slips - An embryon life, and goes; - And this becomes your rose. - We love, God makes: in our sweet mirth - God spies occasion for a birth. - _Then is it His, or is it ours?_ - I know not—He is fond of flowers. - - T. E. BROWN. - - Compare the well-known lines by George MacDonald: - - Where did you come from, baby dear? - Out of the everywhere into here.... - - How did they all[23] just come to be you? - God thought about me, and so I grew. - - The suggestion that we are the result of God’s thought appears - elsewhere in MacDonald, as in _Robert Falconer_: - - If God were _thinking_ me—ah! But if He be only _dreaming_ me, - I shall go mad. - - And in _The Marquis of Lossie_: - - I want to help you to grow as beautiful as God meant you to be - when He thought of you first. - - * * * * * - - Some things are of that Nature as to make - One’s fancy checkle, while his Heart doth ake. - - JOHN BUNYAN. - - Checkle = chuckle. - - * * * * * - - My days are in the yellow leaf; - The flowers and fruits of love are gone; - The worm, the canker, and the grief - Are mine alone! - - LORD BYRON (_On my Thirty-sixth Year_). - - * * * * * - - ’Tis a very good world to live in, - To spend, and to lend, and to give in; - But to beg, or to borrow, or ask for our own - ’Tis the very worst world that ever was known. - - J. BROMFIELD. - - Often ascribed to the Earl of Rochester. See _Notes and - Queries_ July 18, 1896. - - * * * * * - - Dead years have yet the fire of life - In Memory’s holy urn; - Her altars, heaped with frankincense - Of bygone summers, burn; - And, when in everlasting night - We see yon sun decline, - Deep in the soul his purple flames - Eternally will shine. - - ALBERT JOSEPH EDMUNDS (b. 1857) (_The Living - Past_). - - Mr. Edmunds, when this was written in 1880, was a young English - poet and spiritualist, but has since settled in Philadelphia. - He has written a number of works, the principal being _Buddhist - and Christian Gospels now First Compared from the Originals_. - - In 1883 he was cataloguing a library at Sunderland, and came - across books on the Alps, etc., by a Rev. Leslie Stephen. - He wrote to the publishers to find out if they were by the - same writer as the Leslie Stephen who had written on Ethics. - Sir (then Mr.) Leslie Stephen had just been appointed Clark - Lecturer at Cambridge. He replied to Edmunds, “I am one - person,” adding that he had given up holy orders. Edmunds - replied: - - To Mr. Leslie Stephen, Sir, - Confound your personality; - I did, and now must here, aver - Belief was not reality. - - I hope my slip may be excused, - And doom this time decided not, - For, though the _persons_ I confused, - Your _substance_ I divided not. - - Now thanks to you, my mind’s relieved - From mystified plurality, - For, in your courteous note received, - You’ve unified _duality_. - - Your Alpine thoughts will elevate - Old Cantab’s flat vicinity, - And give her church another _state_ - By unifying _Trinity_! - - You’ve left, you say, the fold of strife, - Where desperate _charges_ never end; - Not handsome _living_, handsome _life_ - Henceforth will make you _reverend_. - - I’m Edmunds, Millfield, Sutherland, - Where souls in sulphur barter, sir; - But, please excuse an ending grand— - My name to rhyme’s a Tartar, sir. - - * * * * * - -SPIRITUALISM - - Only a rising billow, - Only a deep sigh drawn - By the great sea of chaos - Before Creation’s dawn. - - Only a little princess - Spelling the words of kings; - Only the Godhead’s prattle - In Sinai mutterings! - - The crowd mistakes and fears it, - And Aaron has ignored, - But Moses, far above them, - Is talking with the Lord! - - ALBERT JOSEPH EDMUNDS. - - See note to previous quotation. This poem was written in 1883. - - Although I preserved these verses, I may add that I had no - interest whatever in spiritualism, permeated as it was with - childishness and fraud. But, nevertheless, it (together with - the so-called “Theosophy”) led to the happy result that the - Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882. Although - spiritualism did good in this way, its unhappy associations - do harm to the Society and hamper it in the important work it - has carried on during the last thirty-eight years. Popular - prejudice continues to associate it with the old spiritualism, - and in consequence no proper attention is paid to its - _intensely interesting_ and most valuable investigations. - For example, there are, apart from Public Libraries and - Universities, only six members or associates in the whole of - Australia! And yet, besides important work in other directions, - it must be admitted by any open-minded person that the evidence - collected by the Society that the dead (by telepathy or - otherwise) communicate with the living is unanswerable. - - * * * * * - -He had catched a great cold, had he had no other clothes to wear than the -skin of a bear not yet killed. - - THOMAS FULLER. - - This refers to the French proverb, “_Il ne faut pas vendre la - peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué_,” or, as we say, “Do not - count your chickens before they are hatched.” - - * * * * * - -Habit dulls the senses and puts the critical faculty to sleep. The -fierceness and hardness of ancient manners is apparent to us, but the -ancients themselves were not shocked by sights which were familiar -to them. To us it is sickening to think of the gladiatorial show, of -the massacres common in Roman warfare, of the infanticide practised -by grave and respectable citizens, who did not merely condemn their -children to death, but often in practice, as they well knew, to what -was still worse—a life of prostitution and beggary. The Roman regarded -a gladiatorial show as we regard a hunt; the news of the slaughter of -two hundred thousand Helvetians by Cæsar or half a million Jews by Titus -excited in his mind a thrill of triumph; infanticide committed by a -friend appeared to him a prudent measure of household economy. - - SIR J. R. SEELEY (_Ecce Homo_). - - It is still more important to realize that the exposure of - children was a recognized practice also among the Greeks, and - that no one, not even Plato, their noblest philosopher, saw - anything wrong in it. It is only by letting the mind dwell - on such facts as these, until their significance is fully - appreciated, that we can realize the width and depth of the - great gulf that separates the Pagan and the Christian, the - ancient and the modern world. Take this one fact only: imagine - the Greek father looking at his helpless babe and coldly - deciding that to rear it will be inconvenient,[24] or that - there are already enough children to divide the inheritance, - or that the child is sickly or deformed, or that its person - offends his idea of beauty—and then consigning his own - offspring to slavery, prostitution, or death! (The child would - either die or be picked up to be reared for some such purpose.) - Even in the very imperfect state of our own civilization, we at - least have children’s hospitals and crèches, and are inflamed - with righteous rage when even an _unknown_ baby is ill-treated. - (We, indeed, go further, and have laws and societies for - prevention of cruelty to _animals_.) - - The consideration of such a fact leads us also to inquire as - to the relations of husband and wife, seeing that the woman - would have at least the affection for her offspring that is - common among the lower animals. We then find that the modern - chivalrous idea of womanhood was unknown to the Greeks; the - wife was not educated, and was considered an inferior being; - she was married mainly in order to provide sons to carry out - certain ritual observances necessary for the father’s welfare - after death; she was kept in an almost Eastern seclusion (and - therefore had to improve her pallid complexion by paint); she - would associate mainly with the children and slaves. We also - find that fidelity of the husband to the wife was neither - required nor _esteemed_; and that there was little marital love - or family life. (Plato in his model Republic would abolish both - the latter, for there was to be promiscuity of women, and all - children were to be brought up by the State.) - - Considering further this practice of exposing children, we - realize that it indicates _the want of pity for the helpless - and suffering_, which is seen among the lower animals (but - with exceptions even among them). From this we may reasonably - infer that the Greeks would show little humanity in treating - other helpless or suffering people, the sick or distressed, - dependents or slaves, conquered enemies or others in their - power. (In this respect, however, they, as an intellectual - people, would subject themselves to and be controlled by - necessary _social_ laws and _practical_ considerations; and - also, as a fact, they at times showed generosity to a valiant - foe.) Again we can infer that, where even the spirit of mercy - was so wanting, the gospel of _love_ could not possibly exist, - and that the Greeks lived on a far lower _moral_ plane than - ours. These questions are far too large to discuss in this - book, and I must leave them to be dealt with elsewhere. - - But, even from this very small portion of the available - evidence, we can arrive at three resulting facts: _First_, - that when in translations from the Greek we find such words as - “kindness,” “love,” “morality,” “purity,” “virtue,” “religion,” - etc., they have for us a far larger and higher content than the - Greek words in the original; _secondly_, that therefore, the - reader must get incorrect impressions of Greek literature and - thought; and, _thirdly_, that truly marvellous as the Greeks - were in art and literature, the current conception of them as a - noble-minded and refined people is erroneous. - - In referring to the Greeks, one needs to limit the people and - period, and I am referring to the great age of the Attic or - Athenian Greeks, say the Fifth Century, B.C. There would, of - course, be gradations of character among them, and, no doubt, - some would be kind-hearted, others would have affection for - their wives, and so on. But this can only be assumption, for - there is little in their literature to support it. This will - be seen if the evidence adduced by Mr. Livingstone (“The Greek - Genius,” pp. 117-122) is carefully and critically examined. - (His references to Homer, who lived in a far distant age must - be omitted.) Also the fact that Herodotus, in the course of his - narrative, tells us that some men of another state had a moment - of compassion for a baby whom they were about to slay, does not - prove in the slightest degree that he was himself humane. The - wording of Mr. Livingstone’s translation, p. 118, “It happened - _by a divine chance_ that the baby smiled, etc.,” would appear - to confirm this view of his; but the Greek words simply mean - that a god by chance intervened. Knowing what we do of the - Greek gods, that intervention would certainly not be actuated - by any kindly feeling towards the infant—the object presumably - was that the child should live to fulfil the destiny prophesied - by the Delphic Oracle. (Herodotus was a typical Greek to whom - the world was peopled with gods, and he sees them constantly - interposing in human affairs.) As regards the exposure of - children, the point is that _it was a recognized and common - practice, duly sanctioned by law, and never condemned by any - writer_. Indeed Plato and Aristotle definitely approve of it, - and in Plato’s Ideal Republic the weakly and deformed children - were to be killed by the State. - - As regards the current conception of the Greeks, Shelley in his - “Preface to Hellas” describes them as “those glorious beings - whom the imagination almost refuses to figure to itself as - belonging to our kind.” Similar statements could be gathered - from innumerable English and European writers. - - * * * * * - -THE PACE THAT KILLS - - The gallop of life was once exciting, - Madly we dashed over pleasant plains, - And the joy, like the joy of a brave man fighting, - Poured in a flood through our eager veins, - Hot youth is the time for the splendid ardour, - That stamps and startles, that throbs and thrills - And ever we pressed our horses harder, - Galloping on at the pace that kills! - - So rapid the pace, so keen the pleasure, - Scarcely we paused to glance aside, - As we mocked the dullards, who watched at leisure - The frantic race that we chose to ride. - Yes, youth is the time when a master-passion, - Or love or ambition, our nature fills; - And each of us rode in a different fashion— - All of us rode at the pace that kills! - - And vainly, O friends, ye strive to bind us; - Flippantly, gaily, we answer you:— - “Should _atra cura_[25] jump up behind us, - Strong are our steeds and can carry two!” - But we find the road, so smooth at morning, - Rugged at night ’mid the lonely hills; - And all too late we recall the warning - Weary at last of the pace that kills.... - - The gallop of life was just beginning; - Strength we wasted in efforts vain; - And now, when the prizes are worth the winning, - We’ve scarcely the spirit to ride again! - The spirit, forsooth! ’Tis our strength has failed us, - And sadly we ask, as we count our ills, - “What pitiful, pestilent folly ailed us? - _Why_ did we ride at the pace that kills?” - - W. J. PROWSE. - - * * * * * - -Cato said ‘he had rather people should inquire why he had not a statue -erected to his memory, than why he had.’ - - PLUTARCH (_Political Precepts_). - - * * * * * - -CHAMOUNI AND RYDAL. - - I stood one shining morning, where - The last pines stand on Montanvert, - Gazing on giant spires that grow - From the great frozen gulfs below. - - How sheer they soared, how piercing rose - Above the mists, beyond the snows! - No thinnest veil of vapour hid - Each sharp and airy pyramid. - - No breeze moaned there, nor cooing bird, - Deep down the torrent raved, unheard, - Only the cow-bells’ clang, subdued, - Shook in the fields below the wood. - - The vision vast, the lone large sky, - The kingly charm of mountains high, - The boundless silence, woke in me - Abstraction, reverence, reverie. - - Days dawned that felt as wide away - As the far peaks of silvery grey, - Life’s lost ideal, love’s last pain - In those full moments throbbed again. - - And a much differing scene was born - In my mind’s eye on that blue morn; - No splintered snowy summits there - Shot arrowy heights in crystal air: - - But a calm sunset slanted still - O’er hoary crag and heath-flushed hill, - And at their foot, by birchen brake - Dimpled and smiled an English lake. - - I roamed where I had roamed before - With heart elate in years of yore, - Through the green glens by Rotha side, - Which Arnold loved, where Wordsworth died. - - That flower of heaven, eve’s tender star, - Trembled with light above Nab Scar; - And from his towering throne aloft - Fairfield poured purple shadows soft. - - The tapers twinkled through the trees - From Rydal’s bower-bound cottages, - And gentle was the river’s flow, - Like love’s own quivering whisper low. - - One held my arm will walk no more - On Loughrigg steeps by Rydall shore, - And a sweet voice was speaking clear— - Earth had no other sound so dear. - - Her words were, as we passed along, - Of noble sons of truth and song— - Of Arnold brave, and Wordsworth pure. - And how their influences endure. - - “They have not left us—are not dead” - (The earnest voice beside me said,) - “For teacher strong and poet sage - Are deeply working in the age. - - “For aught we know they now may brood - O’er this enchanted solitude, - With thought and feeling more intense - Than we in the blind life of sense.”... - - Those tones are hushed, that light is cold, - And we (but not the world) grow old; - The joy, “the bloom of young desire,” - The zest, the force, the strenuous fire, - - Enthusiasms bright, sublime, - That heaven-like made that early time:— - These all are gone: must faith go too? - Is truth too lovely to be true? - - In nature dwells no kindling soul? - Moves no vast life throughout the whole? - Are not thought, knowledge, love’s sweet might, - Shadows of substance infinite? - - Shall rippling river, bow of rain, - Blue mountains, and the bluer main. - Red dawn, gold sundown, pearly star - Be fair, _nor something fairer far_? - - That awful hope, so deep, that swells - At the keen clash of Easter bells - Is _it_ a waning moon, that dies - As morn-like lights of science rise? - - By all that yearns in art and song, - By the vague dreams that make men strong, - By memory’s penance, by the glow - Of lifted mood poetic,—No! - - No! by the stately forms that stand - Like angels in yon snowy land; - No! by the stars that, pure and pale, - Look down each night on Rydal-vale. - - J. TRUMAN. - - Wordsworth lived at Rydal Mount. These verses were published in - _Macmillan’s_, 1879. - - “_Nor something fairer far._” In Sir F. Younghusband’s - _Kashmir_ (1911) there is another suggestion, supplementary to - this: “There came upon me this thought, which doubtless has - occurred to many another besides myself—why the scene should so - influence me and yet make no impression on the men about me. - Here were men with far keener eyesight than my own, and around - me were animals with eyesight keener still.... Clearly it is - not the eye, but the soul that sees. But then comes the still - further reflection: what may there not be staring _me_ straight - in the face which I am as blind to as the Kashmir stags are to - the beauties amidst which they spend their entire lives? The - whole panorama may be vibrating with beauties man has not yet - the soul to see. Some already living, no doubt, see beauties - that we ordinary men cannot appreciate. It is only a century - ago that mountains were looked upon as hideous. And in the - long centuries to come may we not develop a soul for beauties - unthought of now? Undoubtedly we must. And often in reverie - on the mountains I have tried to imagine what still further - loveliness they may yet possess for men.” - - * * * * * - -He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot -blood, who for the time scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind, -fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth best avert the dolours of -death. - - BACON. - - * * * * * - - Underneath this stone doth lie - As much beauty as could die; - Which in life did harbour give - To more virtue than doth live. - - BEN JONSON (_Epigram_ CXXIV). - - As Dr. Johnson said; “In lapidary inscriptions a man is not - upon oath.” - - * * * * * - -“En Angleterre,” said a cynical Dutch diplomatist, “numéro deux va chez -numéro un, pour s’en glorifier auprès de numéro trois.” - -(In England, Number Two goes to Number One’s house in order to boast -about it to Number Three.) - - LAURENCE OLIPHANT (_Piccadilly_). - - * * * * * - - Lord Jesus Christ, I know not how— - With this blue air, blue sea, - This yellow sand, that grassy brow, - All isolating me— - - Thy thoughts to mine themselves impart, - My thoughts to thine draw near; - But thou canst fill who mad’st my heart, - Who gay’st me words must hear. - - Thou mad’st the hand with which I write, - The eye that watches slow - Through rosy gates that rosy light - Across thy threshold go, - - Those waves that bend in golden spray, - As if thy foot they bore: - I think I know thee, Lord, to-day, - Shall know thee evermore. - - I know thy father, thine and mine: - Thou the great fact hast bared: - Master, the mighty words are thine— - Such I had never dared! - - Lord, thou hast much to make me yet— - Thy father’s infant still: - Thy mind, Son, in my bosom set, - That I may grow thy will. - - My soul with truth clothe all about, - And I shall question free: - The man that feareth, Lord, to doubt, - In that fear doubteth thee. - - G. MACDONALD (_The Disciple_). - - * * * * * - -Our ideas, like the children of our youth, often die before us, and our -minds represent to us those tombs to which we are fast approaching—where, -though the brass and marble may remain, the inscriptions are effaced by -time and the imagery moulders away. - - JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704). - - What makes such a passage attractive is its use of poetic - imagery; and yet Locke had no regard for poetry. See next - quotation. - - * * * * * - -If these may be any reasons against children’s making Latin themes at -school, I have much more to say, and of more weight, against their making -verses—verses of any sort. For if he has no genius to Poetry, ’tis the -most unreasonable thing in the world to torment a child and waste his -time about that which can never succeed; and if he have a poetic vein, -’tis to me the strangest thing in the world that the father should desire -or suffer it to be cherished or improved. Methinks the parents should -labour to have it stifled and suppressed as much as may be; and I know -not what reason a father can have to wish his son a poet, who does not -desire to have him bid defiance to all other callings and business.... -For it is very seldom seen that any one discovers mines of gold or silver -in Parnassus.... Poetry and Gaming usually go together.... If, therefore, -you would not have your son the fiddle to every jovial company, without -whom the Sparks could not relish their wine, nor know how to pass an -afternoon idly; if you would not have him to waste his time and estate to -divert others, and contemn the dirty acres left him by his ancestors, I -do not think you will very much care he should be a Poet. - - JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704) (_Some Thoughts Concerning Education_, 1693). - - Locke was writing during the dreary Dryden period, when poetry - had so greatly degenerated since the brilliant Elizabethan - epoch. He himself evidently had no interest in poetry. We - know that he did not appreciate Milton (whose _Paradise Lost_ - appeared in 1667, when Locke was in his prime). - - Compare with the above quotation p. 357. - - * * * * * - - Weeping, we hold Him fast, who wept - For us, we hold Him fast, - And will not let Him go, except - He bless us first or last. - - CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. - - * * * * * - -INDWELLING. - - If thou couldst empty all thyself of self, - Like to a shell dishabited, - Then might He find thee on the Ocean shelf, - And say, “This is not dead,” - And fill thee with Himself instead: - - But thou art all replete with very _thou_. - And hast such shrewd activity, - That, when He comes, He says, “This is enow - Unto itself—’Twere better let it be: - It is so small and full, there is no room for Me.” - - T. E. BROWN (1830-1897). - - * * * * * - - Oh! ever thus from childhood’s hour, - I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay; - I never loved a tree or flower, - But ’twas the first to fade away. - I never nursed a dear gazelle - To glad me with its soft black eye, - But when it came to know me well, - And love me, it was sure to die! - - THOMAS MOORE (_Lalla Rookh_). - - As in other cases mentioned in the Preface, I find that these - lines, so familiar in my day, appear to be unknown to younger - men. - - * * * * * - -ON BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES. - -In taking leave of our Author (Sir William Blackstone) I finish gladly -with this pleasing peroration: a scrutinizing judgment, perhaps, would -not be altogether satisfied with it; but the ear is soothed by it, and -the heart is warmed. - - JEREMY BENTHAM (1748-1832) (_A Fragment of Government_). - - I think it worth while quoting from my notes this amusing piece - of sarcasm aimed by a young man of twenty-eight at the most - renowned legal writer of the time. _A Fragment of Government_ - (1776), the first of Bentham’s works, not only showed the utter - folly of Blackstone’s praise of the English constitution, but - also laid the foundation of political science. (The passage, - which the quotation refers to, is in Sec. 2 of the Introduction - to the _Commentaries_, “Thus far as to the right of the supreme - power to make law ... public tranquillity.”) - - Not only was the English constitution a subject of eulogy in - Bentham’s day, but also English law, then in a most barbarous - state, was alleged to be the perfection of human reason! - Through the efforts of this great and original thinker - many dreadful abuses were removed, but it is a remarkable - illustration of the blind strength of English conservatism that - his wise counsel has not yet been followed in many exceedingly - important directions. - - In the seventy-eighty period, with which this book mainly deals - there was a strong agitation for law reform, which had some - results. - - * * * * * - -It was the boast of Augustus, that he found Rome of brick and left it -of marble. But how much nobler will be our Sovereign’s boast when he -shall have it to say that he found law dear, and left it cheap; found -it a sealed book—left it a living letter; found it the patrimony of the -rich—left it the inheritance of the poor; found it the two-edged sword -of craft and oppression—left it the staff of honesty and the shield of -innocence! - - LORD BROUGHAM (1778-1868) (_Speech in Parliament_, 1828). - - It would indeed be a proud boast—but not one of these objects - has yet been achieved. - - * * * * * - -When Lord Ellenborough was trying one of the Government charges against -Horne Tooke, he found occasion to praise the impartial manner in which -justice is administered. “In England, Mr. Tooke, the law is open to all -men, rich or poor.” “Yes, my lord,” answered the prisoner, “and so is the -London Tavern.” - - HENRY S. LEIGH (_Jeux d’Esprit_). - - The same story is told in Rogers’ _Table Talk_, but a - different judge is named. (Probably both are wrong, but it - is immaterial.) The London Tavern was where Horne Tooke’s - Constitutional Society met, and must have been often referred - to during the trial; but of course the meaning simply is that - the throne of justice cannot be approached with an empty purse. - - * * * * * - -Revenons à nos moutons. - -(Let us return to our sheep.) - - (_La Farce de Maistre Pierre Patelin_, Anon. 15 Cent.). - - In the farce, a cloth merchant, who is suing his shepherd for - stolen sheep, discovers also that the attorney on the other - side is a man who had robbed him of some cloth. Dropping the - charge against the shepherd, he begins accusing the lawyer - of his offence; and, to recall him to the point, the judge - impatiently interrupts him with _Sus revenons à nos moutons_, - “Come, let us get back to our sheep.” - - Compare Martial VI, 19: “My suit has nothing to do with - assault, or battery, or poisoning, but is about three goats, - which, I complain, have been stolen by my neighbour. This the - judge desires to have proved to him; but you, with swelling - words and extravagant gestures, dilate on the Battle of Cannae, - the Mithridatic war, and the perjuries of the insensate - Carthaginians, the Syllae, the Marii, and the Mucii. It is - time, Postumus, to say something about my three goats.” - - The reference to the French play I owe to _King’s Classical and - Foreign Quotations_. - - * * * * * - -(The wife of a poor man deserted him for another man, and he married -again. On being convicted for bigamy Mr. Justice Maule sentenced him as -follows:) Prisoner at the bar: You have been convicted of the offence -of bigamy, that is to say, of marrying a woman while you had a wife -still alive, though it is true she has deserted you and is living in -adultery with another man. You have, therefore, committed a crime against -the laws of your country, and you have also acted under a very serious -misapprehension of the course which you ought to have pursued. You -should have gone to the ecclesiastical court and there obtained against -your wife a decree _a mensa et thoro_. You should then have brought an -action in the courts of common law and recovered, as no doubt you would -have recovered, damages against your wife’s paramour. Armed with these -decrees, you should have approached the legislature and obtained an Act -of Parliament which would have rendered you free and legally competent to -marry the person whom you have taken on yourself to marry with no such -sanction. It is quite true that these proceedings would have cost you -many hundreds of pounds, whereas you probably have not as many pence. -_But the law knows no distinction between rich and poor._ The sentence -of the court upon you, therefore, is that you be imprisoned for one day, -which period has already been exceeded, as you have been in custody since -the commencement of the assizes. - - SIR W. H. MAULE (1788-1858). - - This fine piece of irony, well known to lawyers, materially - helped to end the old bad state of the law of divorce. We need - more men of the same stamp to draw attention to other abuses. - - * * * * * - -Is this pleading causes, Cinna? Is this speaking eloquently to say nine -words in ten hours? Just now you asked with a loud voice for four more -clepsydrae.[26] What a long time you take to say nothing, Cinna! - - MARTIAL VIII, 7. - - In Racine’s comedy, _Les Plaideurs_, Act III, Sc. III, a prolix - advocate begins his speech by referring to the Creation of the - world. “_Avocat, passons au déluge_” (Let us get along to the - Deluge), says the judge. See also _The Merchant of Venice_, Act - I, Sc. I:— - - Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing; more than any man - in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in - two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them; - and, when you have them, they are not worth the search. - - * * * * * - -“There’s nae place like hame,” quoth the de’il, when he found himself in -the Court o’ Session. - - SCOTTISH PROVERB. - - I understand that the original wording was “‘Hame’s hamely,’ - quoth the de’il, etc.” Perhaps the only English Institution - which the Hindu appreciates is that of English Law—_but not - as a system of Justice_. To his acute mind it is a remarkably - clever and most ingenious _gambling game_. It is said that two - Hindus will even fabricate mutual complaints, the one against - the other, to bring before the Courts—and that it is almost - equivalent to a patent of nobility to have had a case taken to - the Privy Council. The following incident actually happened to - a friend of mine who was Resident in a Native State. Sitting - in his judicial capacity he reproved a Hindu gentleman for - his excessive litigiousness. The latter retorted that it was - a case of the pot calling the kettle black; that he had seen - the Resident put his rupees on the totalisator the day before; - and the British race-course wasn’t a bit more of a gamble than - the British Law Courts. For his part he preferred to have his - flutter on the latter. - - * * * * * - -BALDER’S RETURN TO EARTH[27] - - He sat down in a lonely land - Of mountain, moor, and mere, - And watch’d, with chin upon his hand, - Dark maids that milk’d the deer. - - And while the sun set in the skies, - And stars shone in the blue, - They sang sweet songs, till Balder’s eyes - Were sad with kindred dew. - - He passed along the hamlets dim - With twilight’s breath of balm, - And whatsoe’er was touch’d by him - Grew beautiful and calm.... - - He came unto a hut forlorn - As evening shadows fell, - And saw the man among the corn, - The woman at the well. - - And entering the darken’d place, - He found the cradled child; - Stooping he lookt into its face, - Until it woke and smiled! - - Then Balder passed into the night - With soft and shining tread, - The cataract called upon the height, - The stars gleam’d overhead. - - He raised his eyes to those cold skies - Which he had left behind,— - And saw the banners of the gods - Blown back upon the wind. - - He watched them as they came and fled, - Then his divine eyes fell. - “I love the green Earth best,” he said, - “And I on Earth will dwell!” ... - - Then Balder said, “The Earth is fair, and fair - Yea fairer than the stormy lives of gods, - The lives of gentle dwellers on the Earth; - For shapen are they in the likenesses - Of goddesses and gods, and on their limbs - Sunlight and moonlight mingle, and they lie - Happy and calm in one another’s arms - O’er-canopied with greenness; and their hands - Have fashioned fire that springeth beautiful - Straight as a silvern lily from the ground, - Wondrously blowing; and they measure out - Glad seasons by the pulses of the stars.”... - - And Balder bends above them, glory-crown’d. - Marking them as they creep upon the ground. - Busy as ants that toil without a sound, - With only gods to mark. - - But list! O list! what is that cry of pain, - Faint as the far-off murmur of the main? - Stoop low and hearken, Balder! List again! - “Lo! Death makes all things dark!” - - Ay me, it is the earthborn souls that sigh, - Coming and going underneath the sky; - They move, they gather, clearer grows their cry— - O Balder, bend, and hark!... - - (Oh, listen! listen!) “Blessed is the light, - We love the golden day, the silvern night, ... - - “And yet though life is glad and love divine, - This Shape we fear is here i’ the summer shine,— - He blights the fruit we pluck, the wreath we twine, - And soon he leaves us stark. - - “He haunts us fleetly on the snowy steep, - He finds us as we sow and as we reap, - He creepeth in to slay us as we sleep,— - Ah, Death makes all things dark.” - - Bright Balder cried, “Curst be this thing - Which will not let man rest, - Slaying with swift and cruel sting - The very babe at breast! - - “On man and beast, on flower and bird, - He creepeth evermore; - Unseen he haunts the Earth; unheard - He crawls from door to door. - - “I will not pause in any land, - Nor sleep beneath the skies, - Till I have held him by the hand - And gazed into his eyes!”... - - He sought him on the mountains bleak and bare - And on the windy moors; - He found his secret footprints everywhere, - Yea, ev’n by human doors. - - All round the deerfold on the shrouded height - The starlight glimmer’d clear; - Therein sat Death, wrapt round with vapours white - Touching the dove-eyed deer. - - And thither Balder silent-footed flew, - But found the Phantom not; - The rain-wash’d moon had risen cold and blue - Above that lonely spot. - - Then as he stood and listen’d, gazing round - In the pale silvern glow, - He heard a wailing and a weeping sound - From the wild huts below. - - He marked the sudden flashing of the lights - He heard cry answering cry— - And lo! he saw upon the silent heights - A shadowy form pass by. - - Wan was the face, the eyeballs pale and wild, - The robes like rain wind-blown, - And as it fled it clasp’d a naked child - Unto its cold breast-bone. - - And Balder clutch’d its robe with fingers weak - To stay it as it flew— - A breath of ice blew chill upon his cheek, - Blinding his eyes of blue. - - ’Twas Death! ’twas gone!—All night the shepherds sped, - Searching the hills in fear; - At dawn they found their lost one lying dead - Up by the lone black mere. - - ... - - R. BUCHANAN (_Balder the Beautiful_). - - I retain this extract from Buchanan’s poem for the reason set - out in the preface. - - * * * * * - - How many an acorn falls to die - For one that makes a tree! - How many a heart must pass me by - For one that cleaves to me! - - How many a suppliant wave of sound - Must still unheeded roll, - For one low utterance that found - An echo in my soul. - - JOHN BANISTER TABB (b. 1845) - - I have “Compensation” as the title of these verses, but it must - surely be incorrect. If a man passes through life unrecognised - by kindred souls, it is the reverse of ‘compensation’ to him if - he also fails to recognise other sympathetic natures. - - The author is, or was, an American Catholic priest. - - * * * * * - - What we gave, we have; - What we spent, we had; - What we left, we lost. - - (_Epitaph on Earl of Devonshire_, about - 1200 A.D.) - - * * * * * - -ALL SUNG - - What shall I sing when all is sung - And every tale is told, - And in the world is nothing young - That was not long since old? - - Why should I fret unwilling ears - With old things sung anew - While voices from the old dead year - Still go on singing too? - - A dead man singing of his maid - Makes all my rhymes in vain, - Yet his poor lips must fade and fade, - And mine shall sing again. - - Why should I strive thro’ weary moons - To make my music true? - Only the dead men know the tunes - The live world dances to. - - R. LE GALLIENNE. - - Mr. le Gallienne was not the first to complain that poetic - subjects were exhausted. A recent _Spectator_ quotes the - following from Choerilus, a Samian poet of the Fifth Century, - B.C. (2,000 years before Shakespeare): “Happy was the follower - of the muses in that time, when the field was still virgin - soil. But now when all has been divided up and the arts have - reached their limits, we are left behind in the race, and, look - where’er we may, there is no room anywhere for a new-yoked - chariot to make its way to the front.” (St. John Thackeray, - _Anthologia Graeca_). - - * * * * * - -Go out into the woods and valleys, when your heart is rather harassed -than bruised, and when you suffer from vexation more than grief. Then -the trees all hold out their arms to you to relieve you of the burthen -of your heavy thoughts; and the streams under the trees glance at you -as they run by, and will carry away your trouble along with the fallen -leaves; and the sweet-breathing air will draw it off together with the -silver multitudes of the dew. But let it be with anguish or remorse in -your heart that you go forth into Nature, and instead of your speaking -her language, you make her speak yours. Your distress is then infused -through all things and clothes all things, and Nature only echoes and -seems to authenticate your self-loathing or your hopelessness. Then you -find the device of your sorrow on the argent shield of the moon, and see -all the trees of the field weeping and wringing their hands with you, -while the hills, seated at your side in sackcloth, look down upon you -prostrate, and reprove you like the comforters of Job. - - ROBERT ALFRED VAUGHAN (1823-1857) (_Hours with the Mystics_). - - If this fine writer had lived, much might have been expected of - him. He is one of the many instances of “the fatal thirty-fours - and thirty-sevens.” - - * * * * * - - First man appeared in the class of inorganic things, - Next he passed therefrom into that of plants, - For years he lived as one of the plants, - Remembering nought of his inorganic state so different; - And, when he passed from the vegetive to the animal state, - He had no remembrance of his state as a plant, - Except the inclination he felt to the world of plants, - Especially at the time of spring and sweet flowers; - Like the inclination of infants towards their mothers, - Which know not the cause of their inclination to the breast. - Again, the great Creator, as you know, - Drew man out of the animal into the human state. - Thus man passed from one order of nature to another, - Till he became wise and knowing and strong as he is now. - Of his first souls he has now no remembrance, - And he will be again changed from his present soul.[28] - - MASNAIR (Bk. IV) of Jalal ad Din (13th century). - - * * * * * - -The gases gather to the solid firmament; the chemic lump arrives at the -plant and grows; arrives at the quadruped and walks; arrives at the man -and thinks. - - EMERSON (_Uses of Great Men_). - - * * * * * - -HIAWATHA’S PHOTOGRAPHING - - From his shoulder Hiawatha - Took the camera of rosewood, - Made of sliding, folding rosewood; - This he perched upon a tripod— - Crouched beneath its dusky cover— - Stretched his hand, enforcing silence— - Said, “Be motionless, I beg you!” - Mystic, awful was the process. - All the family in order - Sat before him for their pictures: - Each in turn, as he was taken, - Volunteered his own suggestions, - His ingenious suggestions. - First the Governor, the Father: - He suggested velvet curtains - Looped about a massy pillar; - And the corner of a table, - Of a rosewood dining-table. - He would hold a scroll of something, - Hold it firmly in his left-hand; - He would keep his right-hand buried - (Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat; - He would contemplate the distance - With a look of pensive meaning, - As of ducks that die in tempests. - Grand, heroic was the notion: - Yet the picture failed entirely: - Failed, because he moved a little, - Moved, because he couldn’t help it, - Next, his better half took courage; - _She_ would have her picture taken, - She came dressed beyond description, - Dressed in jewels and in satin - Far too gorgeous for an empress. - Gracefully she sat down sideways, - With a simper scarcely human, - Holding in her hand a bouquet - Rather larger than a cabbage. - All the while that she was sitting, - Still the lady chattered, chattered, - Like a monkey in the forest, - “Am I sitting still?” she asked him - “Is my face enough in profile? - Shall I hold the bouquet higher? - Will it come into the picture?” - And the picture failed completely. - Next the Son, the Stunning-Cantab - He suggested curves of beauty, - Curves pervading all his figure, - Which the eye might follow onward, - Till they centered in the breast-pin, - Centered in the golden breast-pin. - He had learnt it all from Ruskin - And perhaps he had not fully - Understood his author’s meaning; - But, whatever was the reason, - All was fruitless, as the picture - Ended in an utter failure. - Next to him the eldest daughter: - She suggested very little, - Only asked if he would take her - With her look of “passive beauty.” - Her idea of passive beauty - Was a squinting of the left-eye, - Was a drooping of the right-eye, - Was a smile that went up sideways - To the corner of the nostrils. - Hiawatha, when she asked him, - Took no notice of the question, - Looked as if he hadn’t heard it; - But, when pointedly appealed to, - Smiled in his peculiar manner, - Coughed and said it “didn’t matter,” - Bit his lip and changed the subject. - Nor in this was he mistaken, - As the picture failed completely. - So in turn the other sisters. - Last, the youngest son was taken: - Very rough and thick his hair was, - Very round and red his face was, - Very dusty was his jacket, - Very fidgety his manner. - And his overbearing sisters - Called him names he disapproved of: - Called him Johnny, “Daddy’s Darling,” - Called him Jacky, “Scrubby School-boy.” - And, so awful was the picture, - In comparison the others - Seemed, to his bewildered fancy, - To have partially succeeded. - Finally my Hiawatha - Tumbled all the tribe together, - (“Grouped” is not the right expression). - And, as happy chance would have it, - Did at last obtain a picture - Where the faces all succeeded: - Each came out a perfect likeness. - Then they joined and all abused it, - Unrestrainedly abused it, - As “the worst and ugliest picture - They could possibly have dreamed of. - Giving one such strange expressions— - Sullen, stupid, pert expressions. - Really any one would take us - (Any one that did not know us) - For the most unpleasant people!” - (Hiawatha seemed to think so, - Seemed to think it not unlikely). - All together rang their voices, - Angry, loud, discordant voices, - As of dogs that howl in concert, - As of cats that wail in chorus. - But my Hiawatha’s patience, - His politeness and his patience, - Unaccountably had vanished, - And he left that happy party. - Neither did he leave them slowly, - With the calm deliberation, - The intense deliberation - Of a photographic artist: - But he left them in a hurry, - Left them in a mighty hurry, - Stating that he would not stand it, - Stating in emphatic language - What he’d be before he’d stand it. - Thus departed Hiawatha. - - LEWIS CARROLL (C. L. Dodgson) 1832-1898. - - * * * * * - -It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought of a man’s death -hallows him anew to us; as if life were not sacred too,—as if it were -comparatively a light thing to fail in love and reverence to the brother -who has to climb the whole toilsome steep with us, and all our tears and -tenderness were due to the one who is spared that hard journey. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Janet’s Repentance_). - - * * * * * - -It has been said by Schiller, in his letters on aesthetic culture, that -the sense of beauty never farthered the performance of a single duty. - -Although this gross and inconceivable falsity will hardly be accepted -by any one in so many terms, seeing that there are few so utterly lost -but that they receive, and know that they receive, at certain moments, -strength of some kind, or rebuke from the appealings of outward things; -and that it is not possible for a Christian man to walk across so much -as a rood of the natural earth, with mind unagitated and rightly poised, -without receiving strength and hope from stone, flower, leaf or sound, -nor without a sense of a dew falling upon him out of the sky; though I -say this falsity is not wholly and in terms admitted, yet it seems to -be partly and practically so in much of the doing and teaching even of -holy men, who in the recommending of the love of God to us, refer but -seldom to those things in which it is most abundantly and immediately -shown; though they insist much on his giving of bread, and raiment, and -health (which he gives to all inferior creatures), they require us not -to thank him for that glory of his works which he has permitted us alone -to perceive: they tell us often to meditate in the closet, but they send -us not, like Isaac, into the fields at even; they dwell on the duty of -self-denial, but they exhibit not the _duty of delight_.[29] - - JOHN RUSKIN (_Modern Painters_, III, I, XV). - - * * * * * - - Not on the vulgar mass - Called “work” must sentence pass, - Things done, that took the eye and had the price; - O’er which, from level stand, - The low world laid its hand, - Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice: - - But all, the world’s coarse thumb - And finger failed to plumb, - So passed in making up the main account; - All instincts immature, - All purposes unsure, - That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s amount: - - Thoughts hardly to be packed - Into a narrow act, - Fancies that broke through language and escaped; - All, I could never be, - All, men ignored in me, - This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped, - - So, take and use thy work: - Amend what flaws may lurk, - What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim! - My times be in Thy hand! - Perfect the cup as planned! - Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same. - - ROBERT BROWNING (_Rabbi ben Ezra_). - - “All (that) I could never be, All (that) man ignored in me.” - All that the world could not know, a man’s thoughts, desires, - and intentions, all that he wished or tried to be or do, - although unknown to his fellows, have their value in God’s - eyes. Man is the Cup, whose shape (i.e., character) has been - formed by the wheel of the great Potter, God. See further as to - this Eastern metaphor. - - The late Mrs. A. W. Verrall, widow of Doctor Verrall and - herself a brilliant scholar, pointed out in the _Proceedings_ - of the Society for Psychical Research, June, 1911, a probable - connection between “Rabbi ben Ezra,” and “Omar Khayyam,” and - I do not think that her interesting views have been published - elsewhere. - - Both poems centre round the idea of man as a Cup, but treat the - metaphor from very different standpoints. Omar’s cup (quoting - from the first edition) is to be filled with “Life’s Liquor” - (ii), with “Wine! _Red_ Wine!” (vi), with what “clears To-Day - of past regrets” (xx); the object is to drown the memory of the - fact that “without asking” we are “hurried hither” and “hurried - hence” (xxx); the “Ruby Vintage” is to be drunk “with old - Khayyam,” and “when the Angel with his darker Draught draws up” - to us we are to take that draught without shrinking (xlviii). - On the other hand Rabbi ben Ezra’s Cup is to be used by the - great Potter. We are told to look “not down but up! to uses of - a cup” (30). The Rabbi asks “God who mouldest men ... to take - and use His work” (32) and the ultimate purpose of the Cup, - when it has been made “perfect as planned,” is to slake the - thirst of the Master. - - The comparison of man to the Clay of the Potter in both poems - is not sufficient in itself to show any connection between - them. Such a comparison is found, as Fitzgerald reminds us, “in - the Literature of the World from the Hebrew Prophets to the - present time”[30]; and it is as appropriately employed by the - Hebrew as by the Persian thinker. But Mrs. Verrall has other - grounds: - - The little pamphlet in its brown wrapper containing the - _Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_ was first published by Edward - Fitzgerald in 1859, and, as is well known, attracted so little - attention that, although there were only 250 copies, it found - its way into the two-penny boxes of the book-sellers, (It now - sells for about £50!) But, nevertheless, the poem was eagerly - read and enthusiastically praised by a small group, among whom - were Swinburne and Rossetti. In 1861 Robert Browning came to - live in London, and often saw Rossetti, who was his friend. - It is, therefore, very improbable that he did not learn of the - poem, which had so impressed Rossetti. In 1864 “Rabbi ben Ezra” - was published in the volume called _Dramatis Personae_. - - Again, there is intrinsic evidence that Browning intended a - direct refutation of Omar’s theory of life. Compare verses 26 - and 27 of “Rabbi ben Ezra” with verses xxxvi and xxxvii of - “Omar Khayyam” (first edition). - - Omar says that he “watched the Potter thumping his wet clay,” - and, thereupon advises: - - Ah, fill the Cup;—what boots it to repeat - How Time is slipping underneath our Feet: - Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday, - Why fret about them if To-day be sweet! - - Rabbi ben Ezra says: - - ... Note that Potter’s wheel. - That metaphor! - - and proceeds: - - Thou, to whom fools propound, - When the wine makes its round, - “Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize To-day!” - - Fool! all that is, at all, - Lasts ever, past recall; - Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure. - - Although the “carpe diem” (“seize to-day”) theory of life is no - doubt common to all literatures, the cumulative effect of Mrs. - Verrall’s argument is strong, although not conclusive. - - As regards the above verses, compare the next quotation. - - * * * * * - - From Thy will stream the worlds, life and nature, Thy dread Sabaoth: - _I_ will?—the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loth - To look that, even that, in the face too? Why is it I dare - Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair? - This:—’tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do! - - R. BROWNING (_Saul_). - - _Sabaoth_, armies, hosts. “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of - Sabaoth.” - - * * * * * - - Let the thick curtain fall; - I better know than all - How little I have gained. - How vast the unattained. - - Not by the page word-painted - Let life be banned or sainted; - Deeper than written scroll - The colours of the soul. - - Sweeter than any sung - My songs that found no tongue; - Nobler than any fact - My wish that failed of act. - - J. G. WHITTIER (_My Triumph_). - - * * * * * - -Between the great things that we _cannot_ do, and the small things we -_will_ not do, the danger is that we shall do nothing. - - ADOLPH MONOD (1802-1856). - - * * * * * - -Reputation is what men and women think of us; Character is what God and -the angels know of us. - - THOMAS PAINE. - - * * * * * - -Love is the Amen of the Universe. - - NOVALIS. - - * * * * * - -He (Dr. Johnson) would not allow Scotland to derive any credit from Lord -Mansfield, for he was educated in England. “Much,” said he, “may be made -of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.” - - BOSWELL (_Life of Johnson_). - - * * * * * - -(A Mr. Strahan, a Scotchman, asked Dr. Johnson what he thought of -Scotland) “That it is a very vile country to be sure, Sir,” returned for -answer Dr. Johnson. “Well, Sir!” replied the other, somewhat mortified, -“God made it.” “Certainly he did,” answered Mr. Johnson again, “but we -must always remember that _he made it for Scotchmen_.” - - MRS. PIOZZI (_Johnsoniana_). - - These are the two best of Johnson’s chaffing jibes against - Scotchmen. The neatness of the latter is, to my mind, spoilt by - the words at the end, which I have omitted: “and—comparisons - are odious, Mr. Strahan,—but God made hell.” The following - may also be quoted as showing both Johnson and that clever - charlatan, Wilkes, quizzing Boswell (year 1781): - - _Wilkes_: “Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year by an - advocate at the Scotch bar?” - - _Boswell_: “I believe two thousand pounds.” - - _Wilkes_: “How can it be possible to spend that money in - Scotland?” - - _Johnson_: “Why, Sir, the money may be spent in _England_; - but there is a harder question. If one man in Scotland gets - possession of two thousand pounds, what remains for all the - rest of the nation?” - - Many Scotchmen undoubtedly enjoy chaff against themselves and - their country, and I think this was so with Boswell. It is a - phase of social psychology that needs explaining. - - In these jokes Johnson was, consciously or not, influenced by - the fine Royalist poet, John Cleveland (1613-1658); but the - latter was very much in earnest. He detested the Scotch for - fighting against Charles I. His references to Scotland in _The - Rebel Scot_ are wonderfully clever:— - - A land that brings in question and suspense - God’s omnipresence. - - And again:— - - Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom; - Not forced him wander, but confined him home! - - * * * * * - -God is present by His essence; which, because it is infinite, cannot -be contained within the limits of any place; and because He is of an -essential purity and spiritual nature, He cannot be undervalued by being -supposed present in the places of unnatural uncleanness: because, as the -sun, reflecting upon the mud of strands and shores, is unpolluted in its -beams, so is God not dishonoured when we suppose Him in every one of His -creatures, and in every part of every one of them. - - JEREMY TAYLOR (_Holy Living_, Ch. 1, Sec. 3). - - There is an old Scottish proverb, “The sun is no waur for - shining on the midden.” - - * * * * * - -I dare say Alexander the Great was somewhat staggered in his plans of -conquest by Parmenio’s way of putting things. “After you have conquered -Persia what will you do?” “Then I shall conquer India.” “After you have -conquered India, what will you do?” “Conquer Scythia.” “And after you -have conquered Scythia, what will you do?” “Sit down and rest.” “Well,” -said Parmenio to the conqueror, “why not sit down and rest now?” - - A. K. H. BOYD (_The Recreations of a Country Parson_). - - I include this because it is a good short paraphrase - of the actual story of Pyrrhus and Cineas (_Plutarch’s - Lives_—“_Pyrrhus_”) and because of the curious absurdity of - attributing such philosophic advice to the warrior, Parmenio. - This general was the only one of Alexander’s old advisers who - urged him to invade Asia! (_Plutarch’s Lives_—“_Alexander_”). - - * * * * * - -Sorrow and care and anxiety may quite well live in Elizabethan cottages, -grown over with honeysuckle and jasmine; and very sad eyes may look forth -from windows around which roses twine. - - A. K. H. BOYD (_The Recreations of a Country Parson_). - - This book had a great vogue, but not sufficient merit to - preserve it from oblivion. - - * * * * * - -CANADIAN BOAT-SONG - -_From the Gaelic._ - - Listen to me, as when ye heard our father - Sing long ago the song of other shores— - Listen to me, and then in chorus gather - All your deep voices, as ye pull your oars: - - CHORUS. - - _Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;_ - _But we are exiles from our father’s land._ - - From the lone sheiling of the misty island - Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas— - Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland, - And we in dreams behold the Hebrides: - _Fair these broad meads, etc._ - - We ne’er shall tread the fancy-haunted valley, - Where ’tween the dark hills creeps the small clear stream, - In arms around the patriarch banner rally, - Nor see the moon on royal tombstones gleam: - _Fair these broad meads, etc._ - - When the bold kindred, in the time long vanish’d, - Conquered the soil and fortified the keep,— - No seer foretold the children would be banish’d, - That a degenerate Lord might boast his sheep; - _Fair these broad meads, etc._ - - Come foreign rage—let Discord burst in slaughter! - O then for clansmen true, and stern claymore— - The hearts that would have given their blood like water, - Beat heavily beyond the Atlantic roar. - _Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;_ - _But we are exiles from our fathers’ land._ - - The authorship of these verses is uncertain, but it probably - lies between John Galt, author of _Annals of the Parish_, and - Lockhart, son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott. The verses were - quoted by Professor Wilson (Christopher North) in his _Noctes - Ambrosianae_ in _Blackwood_, Sept., 1829, but, because Wilson - was not the author, they are not reproduced in his collected - works (_Blackwood_, 1855). - - _A degenerate Lord_, &c. This refers to the eviction of the - Highland crofters and cottars. In 1829 the Duke of Hamilton had - just cleared the population out of the Isle of Arran. - - _Sheiling_ or _Shealing_, a hut used by shepherds, fishermen, - or others for shelter when at work at a distance from home. - - * * * * * - - Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; - Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight. - - TENNYSON (_Locksley Hall_). - - * * * * * - - If thou wouldst have high God thy soul assure - That she herself shall as herself endure, - Shall in no alien semblance, thine and wise, - Fulfil her and be young in Paradise, - One way I know; forget, forswear, disdain - Thine own best hopes, thine utmost loss and gain, - Till when at last thou scarce rememberest now - If on the earth be such a man as thou, - Nor hast one thought of self-surrender,—no, - For self is none remaining to forego,— - If ever, then shall strong persuasion fall - That in thy giving thou hast gained thine all, - Given the poor present, gained the boundless scope, - And kept thee virgin for the further hope.... - When all base thoughts like frighted harpies flown - In her own beauty leave the soul alone; - When Love,—not rosy-flushed as he began, - But Love, still Love, the prisoned God in man,— - Shows his face glorious, shakes his banner free, - Cries like a captain for Eternity:— - O halcyon air across the storms of youth, - O trust him, he is true, he is one with Truth! - Nay, is he Christ? I know not; no man knows - The right name of the heavenly Anterôs,— - But here is God, whatever God may be, - And whomsoe’er we worship, this is He. - - F. W. MYERS (_The Implicit Promise of - Immortality_). - - Anterôs is the god of mutual love, who punishes those who do - not return the love of others, as otherwise his brother Erôs, - god of love, will be unhappy. - - The fine poem from which this is quoted represents one of the - phases of Myers’ experience. It was published in 1882, but - written about ten years before. He had then lost his faith in - Christianity, but believed in a future life on grounds based - partly upon philosophy and partly on “vision.” He had those - moments of exaltation when, as he says: - - The open secret flashes on the brain, - As if one almost guessed it, almost knew - Whence we have sailed and voyage whereunto. - - For entrance into the future life, Love and complete - Self-surrender are the best equipment for the soul. - - * * * * * - - But all through life I see a Cross, - Where sons of God yield up their breath: - There is no gain except by loss, - There is no life except by death, - There is no vision but by Faith. - Nor glory but by bearing shame, - Nor Justice but by taking blame; - And that Eternal Passion saith, - “Be emptied of glory and right and name.” - - W. C. SMITH (_Olrig Grange_). - - * * * * * - -Life is short, and we have not too much time for gladdening the lives of -those who are travelling the dark road with us. Oh, be swift to love, -make haste to be kind. - - AMIEL’S _Journal_. - - * * * * * - -SELF-SACRIFICE - - What though thine arm hath conquered in the fight,— - What though the vanquished yield unto thy sway, - Or riches garnered pave thy golden way,— - Not therefore hast thou gained the sovran height - Of man’s nobility! No halo’s light - From these shall round thee shed its sacred ray; - If these be all thy joy,—then dark thy day, - And darker still thy swift approaching night! - - But if in thee more truly than in others - Hath dwelt Love’s charity;—if by thine aid - Others have passed above thee, and if thou, - Though victor, yieldest victory to thy brothers, - Though conquering conquered, and a vassal made— - Then take thy crown, well mayst thou wear it now. - - SAMUEL WADDINGTON. - - * * * * * - -We bury decay in the earth; we plant in it the perishing; we feed it with -offensive refuse: but nothing grows out of it that is not clean; it gives -us back life and beauty. - - CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER (_My Summer in a Garden_). - - * * * * * - -SOUL’S BEAUTY - - Under the arch of Life, where love and death, - Terror and mystery guard her shrine, I saw - Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe, - I drew it in as simply as my breath. - Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath, - The sky and sea bend on thee,—which can draw, - By sea or sky or woman, to one law, - The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath. - This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise - Thy voice and hand shake still,—long known to thee - By flying hair and fluttering hem,—the beat - Following her daily of thy heart and feet, - How passionately and irretrievably, - In what fond flight, how many ways and days! - - D. G. ROSSETTI. - - Although Rossetti was not a classical student, he seems here - to have arrived at the Platonic idea of an abstract Beauty, of - whose essence are all beautiful things, “sea or sky or woman.” - Love and death, terror and mystery guard her, as a goddess on - her throne, and all lovers of the beautiful are worshippers at - her shrine. - - * * * * * - -Thinking is only a dream of feeling; a dead feeling; a pale-grey, feeble -life. - - NOVALIS. - - * * * * * - -A whetstone cannot cut, but it makes iron sharp, and gives it a keen edge. - - ISOCRATES (436-338 B.C.). - - This is quoted in Plutarch’s _Lives_. Isocrates was asked why - he taught rhetoric so much and yet spoke so rarely; and this - was his reply. Horace (_Ars Poetica_ 304) playfully says that - he is no longer able to write verses but he will teach others - to write, adding “a whetstone is not used for cutting, but is - used for sharpening steel nevertheless.” - - The career of Isocrates, “that old man eloquent,”[31] is - extremely interesting. He preserved his energy and his - influence to the end of his long life of 98 years. - - * * * * * - - From too much love of living, - From hope and fear set free, - We thank with brief thanksgiving - Whatever gods there be - That no life lives for ever; - That dead men rise up never; - That even the weariest river - Winds somewhere safe to sea. - - SWINBURNE (_The Garden of Proserpine_). - - A very musical expression of a very ugly thought. - - * * * * * - -Women never betray themselves to men as they do to each other. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Middlemarch_). - - * * * * * - -THE RETREAT - - Happy those early days, when I - Shined in my Angel-infancy! - Before I understood this place - Appointed for my second race, - Or taught my soul to fancy aught - But a white celestial thought: - When yet I had not walk’d above - A mile or two from my first Love, - And looking back, at that short space, - Could see a glimpse of His bright face: - When on some gilded cloud or flower - My gazing soul would dwell an hour, - And in those weaker glories spy - Some shadows of eternity: - Before I taught my tongue to wound - My Conscience with a sinful sound, - Or had the black art to dispense - A several sin to ev’ry sense, - But felt through all this fleshly dress - Bright shoots of everlastingness. - - O how I long to travel back, - And tread again that ancient track! - That I might once more reach that plain - Where first I left my glorious train; - From whence th’ enlighten’d spirit sees - That shady City of Palm-trees! - But ah! my soul with too much stay - Is drunk, and staggers in the way! - Some men a forward motion love, - But I by backward steps would move; - And when this dust falls to the urn, - In that state I came, return. - - HENRY VAUGHAN (1621-1695). - - I include this poem, although it is in the anthologies, because - from my own experience a young reader will not see its beauty - without some words of explanation. It is the precursor of the - greatest ode ever written, Wordsworth’s _Ode on Intimations - of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood_. - Wordsworth, Vaughan, and many others believe that we had a - separate existence before we came into this world (and there is - much in the experience of each of us to warrant that belief). - Wordsworth says: - - Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; - The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, - Hath had elsewhere its setting, - And cometh from afar. - - But in order to appreciate either Wordsworth’s or Vaughan’s - poem it is not necessary to have this belief in a past separate - existence—it is enough to realize that - - Trailing clouds of glory do we come - From God, who is our home. - - * * * * * - -One may see the small value God has for riches by the people He gives -them to. - - ALEXANDER POPE. - - * * * * * - - There’s a fancy some lean to and others hate— - That, when this life is ended, begins - New work for the soul in another state, - Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins: - Where the strong and the weak, this world’s congeries, - Repeat in large what they practised in small, - Through life after life in unlimited series; - Only the scale’s to be changed, that’s all. - - Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen - By the means of Evil that Good is best, - And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven’s serene,— - When our faith in the same has stood the test— - Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, - The uses of labour are surely done; - There remaineth a rest for the people of God: - And I have had troubles enough, for one. - - R. BROWNING (_Old Pictures in Florence_). - - Browning in his last poem, the well-known “Epilogue,” speaks - with another voice. He wishes his friends to think of him after - death as he was when alive:— - - One who never turned his back but marched breast-forward. - Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, - Sleep to wake. - - No, at noonday in the bustle of man’s work-time - Greet the unseen with a cheer! - Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, - “Strive and thrive!” cry, “Speed,—fight on, fare ever, - There as here!” - - F. W. H. Myers wrote:— - - We need a summons to no houri-haunted paradise, no passionless - contemplation, no monotony of prayer and praise; but to endless - advance by endless effort, and, if need be, by endless pain. Be - it mine, then, to plunge among the unknown Destinies—to dare - and still to dare! - - Emerson’s heaven also was - - Built of furtherance and pursuing, - Not of spent deeds, but of doing. - - (“Threnody.”) - - * * * * * - -In life, Love comes first. Indeed, _we_ only come because Love calls for -us. We find it waiting with outstretched arms on arrival. Love is the -beginning of everything. - - F. W. BOREHAM (_Faces in the Fire_). - - * * * * * - - Our daies are full of dolor and disease, - Our life afflicted with incessant paine, - That nought on earth may lessen or appease. - Why then should I desire here to remaine? - Or why should he that loves me, sorie bee - For my deliverence, or at all complaine - My good to hear, and tóward joyes to see? - - EDMUND SPENSER (_Daphnaïda_). - - _Tóward_, “approaching.” - - * * * * * - -My closing remark is as to avoiding debates that are in their very nature -interminable.... There is a certain intensity of emotion, interest, bias -or prejudice if you will, that can neither reason nor be reasoned with. -On the purely intellectual side, the disqualifying circumstances are -complexity and vagueness. If a topic necessarily hauls in numerous other -topics of difficulty, the essay may do something for it, but not the -debate. Worst of all is the presence of several large, ill-defined, and -unsettled terms. A not unfrequent case is a combination of the several -defects, each, perhaps, in a small degree. A tinge of predilection or -party, a double or triple complication of doctrines, and one or two hazy -terms will make a debate that is pretty sure to end as it began. Thus -it is that a question, plausible to appearance, may contain within it -capacities of misunderstanding, cross-purposes, and pointless issues, -sufficient to occupy the long night of Pandemonium, or beguile the -journey to the nearest fixed star. - - ALEXANDER BAIN (_Contemporary Review, April, 1877_). - - From an address to the Edinburgh University Philosophical - Society. - - * * * * * - -Diogenes, seeing Neptune’s temple with votive pictures of those saved -from wreck, says, “Yea, but where are they painted, that have been -drowned?” - - BACON. - - * * * * * - -THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM - - I saw her at the County Ball: - There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle - Gave signal sweet in that old hall - Of hands across and down the middle, - Hers was the subtlest spell by far - Of all that set young hearts romancing; - She was our queen, our rose, our star; - And then she danced—O Heaven, her dancing! - - Through sunny May, through sultry June, - I loved her with a love eternal; - I spoke her praises to the moon, - I wrote them to the Sunday Journal: - My mother laugh’d: I soon found out - That ancient ladies have no feeling; - My father frown’d: but how should gout - See any happiness in kneeling?... - - She smiled on many, just for fun,— - I knew that there was nothing in it; - I was the first—the only one - Her heart had thought of for a minute.— - I knew it, for she told me so, - In phrase which was divinely moulded; - She wrote a charming hand,—and oh! - How sweetly all her notes were folded! - ... - We parted; months and years roll’d by - We met again four summers after: - Our parting was all sob and sigh; - Our meeting was all mirth and laughter: - For in my heart’s most secret cell - There had been many other lodgers; - And she was not the ball-room’s Belle, - But only—Mrs. Something Rogers! - - W. M. PRAED. - - * * * * * - -A canon of my own in judging verses is that no man has a right to put -into metre what he can as well say out of metre. To which I may add, as -a corollary, that _a fortiore_ he has no right to put into metre what he -can better say out of metre. - - W. S. LILLY (_Essay on George Eliot_). - - * * * * * - -Aujourd’hui, ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d’être dit, on le chante. - -(Now-a-days when a thing is not worth saying they sing it—_i.e._ put it -in a song.) - - BEAUMARCHAIS (_Le Barbier de Séville_, Act I. Sc. I.) - - * * * * * - -I do not know whether I gave you at any time the details of my work here, -or the principles upon which I have been proceeding.... Some of the work -set down includes Ancient Ethics—which is almost entirely grossly wrong -and great rubbish also. This part I have persistently refused to get -up, not because I disliked it, but because it is decidedly injurious -to warp and twist the brain by impressing it with wrong thoughts and -systems—just as it would be insane in the polisher of a mirror to think -it would reflect the external world more truly, if he gave it a dint -here, a scratch there, a bulge in another place, and so forth. It would -take me too long to describe the details. Suffice it to say that one of -the examiners in Mental Philosophy and in Moral and Political Philosophy -is an old, _blind_ (literally) man of the old school, who gave a very -abnormally large amount of questions relating to Ancient Ethics, and an -abnormally large amount to the _early_ part of English Ethics—leaving -hardly any marks to be scored by thorough understanding and ability to -use the principles of the subjects. - -The consequence was that those, who had crammed up the earlier text-books -and could reproduce them, had an enormous advantage. This old fogey -moreover is strongly anti-Spencerian. Indeed I heard that he had objected -to my answers because “there was too much of Spencer and myself!” So -that instead of _criticism and originality_, he avowedly preferred _mere -reproduction_, a good example of the slavishness of that method of -examination predominant mostly, which, as Spencer wrote to me some time -ago, is devised for testing a man’s “power of acquisition instead of -using that which has been acquired.” - - RICHARD HODGSON (1855-1905) (_Letter, Dec., 1881_). - - This letter was written to me from Cambridge, when Hodgson - (see Preface) had found his immediate prospects blasted by - the results of the Moral Science Tripos. No one was placed in - the First Class and he (although at the head of the Tripos) - only in the Second Class. This meant that he had no hope of - a Fellowship, which would have enabled him to go on with - original work in philosophy, and he would have to employ his - time in earning a livelihood. Added to this was the cruel - disappointment to his family and friends. - - Hodgson was one of the most gifted men that Australia has - produced. He had completed his M.A. and LL.D. courses in - Melbourne by 1877, when he was twenty-two years of age, and - then, discarding the profession of the law, left for Cambridge - to read Mental and Moral Science. While still an undergraduate - there he had written an article in reply to T. H. Green, and - submitted it to Herbert Spencer, who highly approved of it, - and sent it to the _Contemporary_. However, as stated above, - Hodgson’s immediate future depended on the result of the - examination. (He was at the time preparing one of the articles - he contributed to _Mind_, and had in view further original - work.) - - When the result of the Tripos appeared, Henry Sidgwick and Venn - who were then Lecturers and by far the best Moral Science men - in Cambridge, came to sympathize with Hodgson, on the unfair - result. They urged him to go to Germany so that he might - acquire that perfect command of the German language which was - necessary for his philosophic work. On learning that he was not - in a position to do this, Sidgwick insisted—as he said, “in - the interests of philosophy”—on defraying _the whole of the - expenses_ of Hodgson’s residence in Germany. As he insisted - strongly, Hodgson accepted the offer, and went to Jena, armed - with a very flattering letter of introduction from Herbert - Spencer to Haeckel. - - Almost immediately after his return from Germany the Society - for Psychical Research was founded, and Hodgson joined it. He - came to the conclusion that the work of this Society was more - important than any other study, while probably it would also - be of fundamental assistance to philosophy. He went out to - India in 1884, and thoroughly exposed Madame Blavatsky and her - “Theosophy,” and, from about 1886, devoted the rest of his life - to Psychical Research. Although maintaining his reading and - his intimacy with Henry Sidgwick, William James, and others, - his services practically became lost to philosophy. This, - however, does not affect the important fact illustrated by the - Tripos incident. We learn what ineptitude can exist in a great - university, and what grave results must necessarily follow - therefrom. - - Although Hodgson was writing under stress of a grievous - calamity (yet with a dauntless heart—see verse on Dedication - page), his remarks on Ancient Ethics are not, in my opinion, - exaggerated. - - Herbert Spencer’s remark to Hodgson about examinations may also - be noted. - - * * * * * - - _Prometheus._ And thou, O Mother Earth! - _Earth._ I hear, I feel - Thy lips are on me, and their touch runs down - Even to the adamantine central gloom - Along these marble nerves; ’tis life, ’tis joy, - And, through my withered, old, and icy frame - The warmth of an immortal youth shoots down - Circling. Henceforth the many children fair - Folded in my sustaining arms; all plants, - And creeping forms, and insects rainbow-winged, - And birds, and beasts, and fish, and human shapes, - Which drew disease and pain from my wan bosom - Draining the poison of despair, shall take - And interchange sweet nutriment. - - SHELLEY (_Prometheus Unbound_, III, 3). - - In Shelley’s great poem, Prometheus is not merely the Titan - who, having stolen fire from heaven to benefit man, was chained - to a pillar while an eagle tore at his vitals, he is the - spirit of humanity. Man has (through superstition) given the - god, Zeus, great powers which he uses to enslave and oppress - man’s own mind and body. Ultimately the god is overthrown, - Prometheus, the spirit of man, is released, and the world - enters upon its progress towards perfection. - - This and the following quotations are from a collection of - references to Mother-Earth. - - * * * * * - - Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great mother and goddess, - Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was ungirdled, - Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed thee and won thee!... - Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty embracement. - Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thousand-fold instincts. - Filled, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang on their channels; - Laughed on their shores the wide seas; the yearning ocean swelled upward; - Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing - mountains, - Wandered bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming branches. - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_Hymn to the Earth_). - - An imitation of Stolberg’s _Hymne an die Erde_. - - * * * * * - - From my wings are shaken the dews that waken - The sweet buds every one, - When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast, - As she dances about the sun. - - SHELLEY (_The Cloud_). - - * * * * * - - For Nature ever faithful is - To such as trust her faithfulness. - When the forest shall mislead me, - When the night and morning lie, - When sea and land refuse to feed me, - ’Twill be time enough to die. - Then will yet my mother yield - A pillow in her greenest field - Nor the June flowers scorn to cover - The clay of their departed lover. - - EMERSON (_Woodnotes_). - - * * * * * - - Long have I loved what I behold, - The night that calms, the day that cheers; - The common growth of mother-earth - Suffices me—her tears, her mirth, - Her humblest mirth and tears. - - WORDSWORTH (_Peter Bell_). - - * * * * * - - So mayst thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop - Into thy mother’s lap. - - MILTON (_Paradise Lost_, XI, 535). - - * * * * * - -SONG OF PROSERPINE. - - Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth - Thou from whose immortal bosom - Gods, and men, and beasts have birth, - Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom, - Breathe thine influence most divine - On thine own child, Proserpine. - - If with mists of evening dew - Thou dost nourish these young flowers - Till they grow, in scent and hue, - Fairest children of the Hours, - Breathe thine influence most divine - On thine own child, Proserpine. - - SHELLEY. - - Proserpine, daughter of Ceres, whilst gathering flowers with - her playmates at Enna in Sicily, was carried off by Pluto, also - called Dis, god of the dead. (For two-thirds, or, according to - later writers, one-half of each year, she returns to the earth, - bringing spring and summer.) - - That fair field - Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers, - Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis - Was gathered; which cost Ceres all that pain - To seek her through the world. - - (_Paradise Lost_, IV, 269). - - * * * * * - - And ... the rich winds blow, - And ... the waters go, - And the birds for joy, and the trees for prayer, - Bowing their heads in the sunny air.... - All make a music, gentle and strong, - Bound by the heart into one sweet song; - And amidst them all, the mother Earth - Sits with the children of her birth.... - Go forth to her from the dark and the dust - And weep beside her, if weep thou must; - If she may not hold thee to her breast, - Like a weary infant, that cries for rest; - At least she will press thee to her knee - And tell a low, sweet tale to thee, - Till the hue to thy cheek, and the light to thine eye - Strength to thy limbs, and courage high - To thy fainting heart return amain. - - G. MACDONALD (_Phantastes_). - - _Hold thee to her breast_, give rest in death. - - * * * * * - - Ne deeth, allas; ne wol nat han my life; will not take - Thus walke I, lyk a restèlees caityf, restless wretch - And on the ground, which is my modres gate, mother’s - I knokke with my staf, both erly and late, - And seyè, “levè moder, leet me in! say, “Dear mother - Lo, how I vanish, flesh, and blood, and skin! waste away” - Allas! whan shul my bonès be at reste?” - - CHAUCER (1340-1400) (_The Pardoner’s Tale_). - - * * * * * - - Like a shadow thrown - Softly and lightly from a passing cloud, - Death fell upon him, while reclined he lay - For noontide solace on the summer grass, - The warm lap of his mother earth. - - WORDSWORTH (_Excursion_ VII, 286). - - * * * * * - - And O green bounteous Earth! - Bacchante Mother! stern to those - Who live not in thy heart of mirth; - Death shall I shrink from, loving thee? - Into the breast that gives the rose - Shall I with shuddering fall? - - G. MEREDITH (_Ode to the Spirit of Earth in - Autumn_). - - * * * * * - -THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT - - He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, - From the deep cool bed of the river: - The limpid water turbidly ran, - And the broken lilies a-dying lay, - And the dragon-fly had fled away, - Ere he brought it out of the river. - - High on the shore sat the great god Pan, - While turbidly flowed the river; - And hacked and hewed as a great god can, - With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed, - Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed - To prove it fresh from the river.... - - “This is the way,” laughed the great god Pan, - (Laughed while he sat by the river,) - “The only way, since gods began - To make sweet music, they could succeed.” - Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, - He blew in power by the river. - - Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! - Piercing sweet by the river! - Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! - The sun on the hill forgot to die, - And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly - Came back to dream on the river. - - Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, - To laugh as he sits by the river, - Making a poet out of a man: - The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,— - For the reed which grows nevermore again - As a reed with the reeds in the river. - - E. B. BROWNING - - * * * * * - -There is little merit in inventing a happy idea, or attractive situation, -so long as it is only the author’s voice which we hear. As a being whom -we have called into life by magic arts, as soon as it has received -existence, acts independently of the master’s impulse, so the poet -creates his persons, and then watches and relates what they do and -say. Such creation is poetry in the literal sense of the term, and its -possibility is an unfathomable enigma. The gushing fullness of speech -belongs to the poet, and it flows from the lips of each of his magic -beings in the thoughts and words peculiar to its nature. - - NIEBUHR (_Letters_, &c., Vol. III, 196). - - * * * * * - -Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the -determination of the will. A man cannot say, “I will compose poetry.” -The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a -fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, -awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within, like the -colour of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the -conscious portions of our nature are unprophetic either of its approach -or its departure. Could this influence be durable in its original purity -and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the results; -but, when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline, and -the most glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the world is -probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet. - - SHELLEY (_A Defence of Poetry_). - - * * * * * - - Who would loose, - Though full of pain, this intellectual being, - Those thoughts that wander through eternity, - To perish rather, swallowed up and lost - In the wide womb of uncreated night? - - MILTON (_Paradise Lost_ ii., 146) - - “Loose”—by committing suicide. - - * * * * * - -When the white block of marble shines so solid and so costly, who -remembers that it was once made up of decaying shell and rotting bones -and millions of dying insect-lives, pressed to ashes ere the rare stone -was? - - (_Chandos_). - - * * * * * - -The madness that starves and is silent for an idea is an insanity, -scouted by the world and the gods. For it is an insanity -unfruitful—except to the future. And for the future, who cares—save those -madmen themselves? - - * * * * * - -... The gods that most of all have pity on man, the gods of the Night and -of the Grave. - - * * * * * - -Our eyes are set to the light, but our feet are fixed in the mire. - - (_Folle-Farine_). - - * * * * * - -“If the cucumber be bitter, throw it away,” says Antoninus: do the same -with a thought.... There is no cucumber so heavy that one cannot throw it -over some wall. - - OUIDA (_Tricotrin_). - - Antoninus, 120-180 A.D., the Roman emperor and Stoic - philosopher, usually known by his first two names Marcus - Aurelius, is the author of the well-known _Meditations_. The - quotation is from Bk. VIII., “The gourd is bitter; drop it, - then! There are brambles in the path; then turn aside! It is - enough. Do not go on to argue, Why pray have these things a - place in the world?” etc. - - These quotations from Ouida may serve to illustrate the saying - of Pliny the Elder, “No book is so bad but some good may be - got out of it” (Pliny’s Letters, III., 10)—a saying which was - no doubt true until printing let loose on the world such a - multitude of worthless writers. - - * * * * * - -WHEN WE ALL ARE ASLEEP - - When He returns, and finds the World so drear— - All sleeping,—young and old, unfair and fair, - Will He stoop down and whisper in each ear, - “Awaken!” or for pity’s sake forbear,— - Saying, “How shall I meet their frozen stare - Of wonder, and their eyes so full of fear? - How shall I comfort them in their despair, - If they cry out, ‘Too late! let us sleep here’?” - Perchance He will not wake us up, but when - He sees us look so happy in our rest, - Will murmur, “Poor dead women and dead men! - Dire was their doom, and weary was their quest. - Wherefore awake them into life again? - Let them sleep on untroubled—it is best.” - - R. BUCHANAN. - - * * * * * - -CHORUS - - Before the beginning of years - There came to the making of man - Time, with a gift of tears; - Grief, with a glass that ran; - Pleasure, with pain for leaven; - Summer, with flowers that fell; - Remembrance fallen from heaven, - And madness risen from hell; - Strength without hands to smite; - Love that endures for a breath; - Night, the shadow of light, - And life, the shadow of death. - - And the high gods took in hand - Fire, and the falling of tears, - And a measure of sliding sand - From under the feet of the years; - And froth and drift of the sea; - And dust of the labouring earth; - And bodies of things to be - In the houses of death and of birth; - And wrought with weeping and laughter, - And fashioned with loathing and love, - With life before and after - And death beneath and above, - For a day and a night and a morrow, - That his strength might endure for a span - With travail and heavy sorrow, - The holy spirit of man. - From the winds of the north and the south - They gathered as unto strife; - They breathed upon his mouth, - They filled his body with life; - Eyesight and speech they wrought - For the veils of the soul therein, - A time for labour and thought, - A time to serve and to sin; - They gave him light in his ways, - And love, and a space for delight, - And beauty and length of days, - And night, and sleep in the night. - His speech is a burning fire; - With his lips he travaileth; - In his heart is a blind desire, - In his eyes foreknowledge of death; - He weaves, and is clothed with derision; - Sows, and he shall not reap; - His life is a watch or a vision - Between a sleep and a sleep. - - SWINBURNE (_Atalanta in Calydon_). - - * * * * * - -She (the ship of Odysseus) came to the limits of the world, to the deep -flowing Oceanus. There is the land and the city of the Cimmerians, -shrouded in mist and cloud, and never does the shining sun look down on -them with his rays, neither when he climbs up the starry heavens, nor -when again he turns earthward from the firmament, but deadly night is -outspread over miserable mortals. Thither we came and ran the ship ashore -and took out the sheep; but for our part we held on our way along the -stream of Oceanus, till we came to the place which Circe had declared to -us. - -There Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims, but I drew my sharp -sword from my thigh, and dug a pit, as it were a cubit in length and -breadth, and about it poured a drink-offering to all the dead, first with -mead and thereafter with sweet wine and for the third time with water.... -When I had besought the tribes of the dead with vows and prayers, I took -the sheep and cut their throats over the trench, and the dark blood -flowed forth, and lo, the spirits of the dead that be departed gathered -them from out of Erebus. Brides and youths unwed, and old men of many -and evil days, and tender maidens with griefs yet fresh at heart; and -many there were, wounded with bronze-shod spears, men slain in fight with -their bloody mail about them. And these many ghosts flocked together from -every side about the trench with a wondrous cry, and pale fear gat hold -on me.... I drew the sharp sword from my thigh and sat there, suffering -not the strengthless heads of the dead to draw nigh to the blood, ere I -had word of Teiresias.... - -Anon came up the soul of my mother dead, Anticleia, the daughter of -Autolycus, the great-hearted, whom I left alive when I departed for -sacred Ilios. At the sight of her I wept, and was moved with compassion, -yet even so, for all my sore grief, I suffered her not to draw nigh to -the blood, ere I had word of Teiresias. - -Anon came the soul of Theban Teiresias, with a golden sceptre in his -hand, and he knew me and spake unto me: “Son of Laertes of the seed -of Zeus, Odysseus of many devices, what seekest thou _now_, wretched -man—wherefore hast thou left the sunlight and come hither to behold the -dead and a land desolate of joy? Nay, hold off from the ditch and draw -back thy sharp sword, that I may drink of the blood and tell thee sooth.” -So spake he, and I put up my silver-studded sword into the sheath, and -when he had drunk the dark blood, even then did the noble seer speak unto -me.... - - ODYSSEY, Bk. XI. (_Butcher & Lang’s translation_). - - In this weird scene Odysseus is summoning the shade of - Teiresias from the under-world. He has with his sword to keep - off the host of spirits, including that of his own mother, whom - the spilt blood has attracted—and the hero is himself terrified - at the awful spectacle. - - What adds to the interest of such a passage is that to the - ancient Greeks this was no imaginary picture but a statement of - actual facts. It will be observed that the dead live in a dark - land, “desolate of joy.” - - To the little-travelled Greeks the ocean was a _river_. - - * * * * * - - For—see your cellarage! - There are forty barrels with Shakespeare’s brand - Some five or six are abroach: the rest - Stand spigoted, fauceted. Try and test - What yourselves call best of the very best! - How comes it that still untouched they stand? - Why don’t you try tap, advance a stage - With the rest in cellarage? - For—see your cellarage! - There are four big butts of Milton’s brew, - How comes it you make old drips and drops - Do duty, and there devotion stops? - Leave such an abyss of malt and hops - Embellied in butts which bungs still glue? - You hate your bard! A fig for your rage! - Free him from cellarage! - - R. BROWNING (_Epilogue to Pacchiarotto and - other Poems_). - - * * * * * - - Though the seasons of man full of losses - Make empty the years full of youth, - If but one thing be constant in crosses, - Change lays not her hand upon truth; - Hopes die, and their tombs are for token - That the grief as the joy of them ends - Ere time that breaks all men has broken - The faith between friends. - - Though the many lights dwindle to one light, - There is help if the heaven has one; - Though the skies be discrowned of the sunlight - And the earth dispossessed of the sun, - They have moonlight and sleep for repayment, - When, refreshed as a bride and set free, - With stars and sea-winds in her raiment, - Night sinks on the sea. - - SWINBURNE (_Dedication, 1865_). - - It is hardly possible for a younger generation to realize the - almost intoxicating effect produced upon us by Swinburne’s new - melodies. Although the _Poems and Ballads_ were largely erotic, - the curious fact is that we were too much carried away by the - beauty and swing of his verse to trouble about the sensual - element in it. That element was in itself an _artificial_ - production and not a reflection of the poet’s own emotions, for - he was free from sensuality. It was with us more a question of - _music_. Swinburne himself preferred a musical word or line - to one that would more aptly express his meaning; and in the - “Dedication,” from which the above verses are quoted, several - lines will not bear analysis. However, this was one of our - favourites among his poems. - - O daughters of dreams and of stories - That life is not wearied of yet, - Faustine, Fragoletta, Dolores, - Félise and Yolande and Juliette, - Shall I find you not still, shall I miss you, - When sleep, that is true or that seems, - Comes back to me hopeless to kiss you, - O daughters of dreams? - - They are past as a slumber that passes, - As the dew of a dawn of old time; - More frail than the shadows on glasses, - More fleet than a wave or a rhyme. - As the waves after ebb drawing seaward, - When their hollows are full of the night, - So the birds that flew singing to me-ward - Recede out of sight. - - He asks that his wild “storm-birds of passion” may find a home - in our calmer world:— - - In their wings though the sea-wind yet quivers, - Will you spare not a space for them there - Made green with the running of rivers - And gracious with temperate air; - In the fields and the turreted cities, - That cover from sunshine and rain - Fair passions and bountiful pities - And loves without stain? - - In a land of clear colours and stories, - In a region of shadowless hours, - Where earth has a garment of glories - And a murmur of musical flowers; - In woods where the spring half uncovers - The flush of her amorous face, - By the waters that listen for lovers - For these is there place? - - Though the world of your hands be more gracious - And lovelier in lordship of things - Clothed round by sweet art with the spacious - Warm heaven of her imminent wings, - Let them enter, unfledged and nigh fainting, - For the love of old loves and lost times; - And receive in your palace of painting - This revel of rhymes. - - Then come the final verses quoted above. These are somewhat - detached in meaning from the rest, and form a sort of _Envoi_: - “Whatever changes or passes, there is always some beautiful - thing that survives.” - - As might be expected Swinburne was much parodied (and indeed - in the _Heptalogia_ and in the poems lately published he - parodied himself). The above poem has been cleverly parodied - by a lawyer, Sir Frederick Pollock. (Although parodies go as - far back as the Fifth Century B.C. I know of no other lawyer - who, _qua_ lawyer, has successfully taken a hand in the game.) - In his parody Pollock’s subject was the great changes effected - by the Judicature Act, when the old Courts of Common Law, - Chancery, and others were consolidated into one Supreme Court, - and the various classes of business assigned to different - “Divisions.” Also owing to changes in procedure, much of the - old technical learning became obsolete. His last verse is as - follows (compare with the second verse quoted above): - - Though the Courts that were manifold dwindle - To divers Divisions of one, - And no fire from your face may rekindle - The light of old learning undone, - We have suitors and briefs for our payment, - While, so long as a Court shall hold pleas, - We talk moonshine with wigs for our raiment, - Not sinking the fees. - - * * * * * - -Wulf died, as he had lived, a heathen. Placidia, who loved him well, as -she loved all righteous and noble souls, had succeeded once in persuading -him to accept baptism. Adolf himself acted as one of his sponsors; and -the old warrior was in the act of stepping into the font, when he turned -suddenly to the bishop and asked, ‘Where were the souls of his heathen -ancestors?’ “In hell,” replied the worthy prelate. Wulf drew back from -the font, and threw his bearskin cloak around him—“He would prefer, -if Adolf had no objection, to go to his own people.” And so he died -unbaptized, and went to his own place. - - CHARLES KINGSLEY (_Hypatia_). - - This story appears in several old chronicles (_Notes and - Queries, 7th Ser. X, 33_), but the name should be Radbod. He - was Duke or Chief of the Frisians, and the episode probably - occurred in Heligoland, from which island he ruled his people. - - * * * * * - -I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends -who expects everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything -is less than the best; and I found that I begin at the other extreme, -expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate goods.... -In the morning I awake, and find the old world, wife, babes and mother, -Concord and Boston, the dear old spiritual world, and even the dear old -devil not far off. If we will take the good we find, asking no questions, -we shall have heaping measures. The great gifts are not got by analysis. -Everything good is on the highway. - - R. W. EMERSON (Essay on _Experience_). - - * * * * * - - The bee draws forth from fruit and flower - Sweet dews, that swell his golden dower; - But never injures by his kiss - Those who have made him rich in bliss. - - The moth, though tortured by the flame, - Still hovers round and loves the same: - Nor is his fond attachment less: - “Alas!” he whispers, “can it be, - Spite of my ceaseless tenderness, - That I am doomed to death by thee?” - - AZY EDDIN ELMOGADESSI (_L. S. Costello’s - translation_). - - * * * * * - - A pine-tree stands all lonely - On a northern hill-top bare, - And, wrapped in its snowy mantle, - It slumbers peacefully there. - - Its dreams are of a palm-tree, - Far-off in the morning land, - Which in lone silence sorrows - On a burning, rocky strand. - - HEINRICH HEINE (1797-1856) - - * * * * * - - Many a time - At evening, when the earliest stars began - To move along the edges of the hills, - Rising or setting, would he stand alone - Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake. - ... Then in that silence, while he hung - Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise - Has carried far into his heart the voice - Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene - Would enter unawares into his mind, - With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, - Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received - Into the bosom of the steady lake. - - WORDSWORTH (_The Prelude_, Bk. V). - - * * * * * - -THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE GRINDER - - FRIEND OF HUMANITY. - - “Needy Knife-grinder! whither are you going? - Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order; - Bleak blows the blast—your hat has got a hole in’t, - So have your breeches! - - “Weary Knife-grinder! little think the proud ones, - Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-road, - what hard work ’tis crying all day ‘Knives and - Scissors to grind O!’” - - “Tell me, Knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives? - Did some rich man tyrannically use you? - Was it the squire? or parson of the parish? - Or the attorney? - - “Was it the squire, for killing of his game? or - Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining? - Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little - All in a lawsuit? - - (“Have you not read the ‘Rights of Man,’ by Tom Paine?) - Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, - Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your - Pitiful story.” - - KNIFE-GRINDER. - - “Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir, - Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers, - This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were - Torn in a scuffle. - - “Constables came up, for to take me into - Custody; they took me before the justice; - Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish- - -stocks for a vagrant. - - “I should be glad to drink your Honour’s health in - A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence; - But for my part, I never love to meddle - With politics, sir.” - - FRIEND OF HUMANITY. - - “_I_ give thee sixpence! I will see thee damn’d first— - Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance— - Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, - Spiritless outcast!” - - (_Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport - of Republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy._) - - GEORGE CANNING (_The Anti-Jacobin_). - - Written in Sapphics and said to be a parody of a poem of - Southey’s, which was afterwards suppressed. - - * * * * * - - I loved him, but my reason bade prefer - Duty to love, reject the tempter’s bribe - Of rose and lily when each path diverged, - And either I must pace to life’s far end - As love should lead me, or, as duty urged, - Plod the worn causeway arm-in-arm with friend.... - But deep within my heart of hearts there hid - Ever the confidence, amends for all, - That heaven repairs what wrong earth’s journey did, - When love from life-long exile comes at call. - - R. BROWNING (_Bifurcation_, 1876) - - The lady prefers Duty to Love, but she will remain constant - to her lover, and reunion with him in heaven will make amends - for all. (In the remainder of the poem Browning puts the case - of the lover who, although deserted, is expected to remain - constant through life—and who falls. The lady had disobeyed - Love, because of the hardship and trouble that would follow, - and Browning, whose own married life had been a most happy one, - says this was no excuse.) - - * * * * * - - We are scratched, or we are bitten - By the pets to whom we cling; - Oh, my Love she is a kitten, - And my heart’s a ball of string. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - - Some man of quality - Who—breathing musk from lace-work and brocade, - His solitaire amid the flow of frill, - Powdered peruke on nose, and bag at back, - And cane dependent from the ruffled wrist.— - Harangues in silvery and selectest phrase, - ’Neath waxlight in a glorified saloon - Where mirrors multiply the girandole. - - R. BROWNING (_The Ring and the Book, I_). - - This and the next five quotations are word-pictures (see p. 85). - - * * * * * - - “Oh, what are you waiting for here, young man? - What are you looking for over the bridge?” - A little straw hat with streaming blue ribbons; - —And here it comes dancing over the bridge! - - JAMES THOMSON (B.V.) (_Sunday up the River_). - - * * * * * - - Down in yonder greenè field - There lies a knight slain under his shield; - His hounds they lie down at his feet, - So well do they their master keep. - - ANON. (_The Three Ravens_). - - * * * * * - - When we cam’ in by Glasgow toun, - We were a comely sight to see; - My Love was clad in the black velvet, - And I mysel’ in cramasie. crimson - - ANON. (_O waly, waly, up the bank_). - - * * * * * - - They see the Heroes - Sitting in the dark ship - On the foamless, long-heaving, - Violet sea, - At sunset nearing - The Happy Islands. - - M. ARNOLD (_The Strayed Reveller_). - - * * * * * - - Like one, that on a lonesome road - Doth walk in fear and dread, - And having once turned round, walks on - And turns no more his head; - Because he knows a frightful fiend - Doth close behind him tread. - - COLERIDGE (_The Ancient Mariner_). - - The above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 85.) - - * * * * * - -We take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom; and certainly there is -a great difference between a cunning man and a wise man—not only in point -of honesty, but in point of ability. - - BACON. - - * * * * * - -Cunning, being the ape of wisdom, is the most distant from it that can -be. And as an ape for the likeness it has to a man—wanting what really -should make him so—is by so much the uglier, cunning is only the want of -understanding, which, because it cannot compass its ends by direct ways, -would do it by a trick and circumvention. - - JOHN LOCKE (_Some Thoughts Concerning Education_, 1693). - - * * * * * - -A rogue is a roundabout fool; a fool _in circumbendibus_. - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - * * * * * - -It is only by a wide comparison of facts that the wisest full-grown men -can distinguish well-rolled barrels from more supernal thunder. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Mill on the Floss_). - - * * * * * - -Let its teaching (the teaching of scientific and other books of -information, the “literature of knowledge”) be even partially revised, -let it be expanded, nay, even let its teaching be but placed in a better -order, and instantly it is superseded. Whereas the feeblest works in the -literature of power (poetry and what is generally known as _literature_), -surviving at all, survive as finished and unalterable amongst men.... The -Iliad, the Prometheus of Æschylus—the Othello or King Lear—the Hamlet -or Macbeth—and the Paradise Lost, are triumphant for ever, as long as -the languages exist in which they speak or can be taught to speak. They -never _can_ transmigrate into new incarnations. To reproduce _these_ in -new forms, or variations, even if in some things they should be improved, -would be to plagiarize. A good steam engine is properly superseded by a -better. But one lovely pastoral valley is not superseded by another, nor -a statue of Praxiteles by a statue of Michael Angelo. - - DE QUINCEY (_Alexander Pope_). - - De Quincey’s division of literature into “literature of - power” and “literature of knowledge” still remains a useful - classification. - - * * * * * - -A man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is in him. - - SYDNEY SMITH. - - * * * * * - - How brew the brave drink, Life? - Take of the herb hight morning joy, - Take of the herb hight evening rest, - Pour in pain, lest bliss should cloy, - Shake in sin to give it zest— - Then down with the brave drink, Life! - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - I had this attributed to Robert Burton, but cannot find it in - the _Anatomy of Melancholy_. It may possibly be from Richard - Brathwaite, whose works I think were at one time attributed to - Burton; but I have no opportunity of consulting them. - - * * * * * - -I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good work, therefore, I -can do or show to any fellow creature, let me do it now! Let me not defer -or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. - - WILLIAM PENN. - - I find that there has been much discussion in _Notes and - Queries_ and elsewhere as to the origin of this quotation, and - it is now usually attributed to the French-American Quaker, - Stephen Grellet. As, however, Bartlett’s _Familiar Quotations_ - gives “I shall not pass this way again” as a favourite saying - of William Penn’s, it seems more reasonable to consider him the - author of the above. - - * * * * * - -Youth is a blunder, Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret. - - DISRAELI (_Coningsby_). - - * * * * * - -She went into the garden to cut a cabbage to make an apple pie. Just -then, a great she-bear coming down the street poked its nose into the -shop-window. “What! no soap?” So he died, and she (very imprudently) -married the barber. And there were present at the wedding the Joblillies, -and the Piccannies, and the Gobelites, and the great Panjandrum -himself, with the little button on top. So they all set to playing -Catch-who-catch-can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their -boots. - - SAMUEL FOOTE, 1720-1777. - - Charles Macklin (1699-1797), actor and playwright, said in a - lecture on oratory that by practice he had brought his memory - to such perfection that he could learn anything by rote on - once hearing or reading it. Foote (a more important dramatist - and actor) wrote out the above and handed it up to Macklin to - read and then repeat from memory! The passage was very familiar - to us from Miss Edgeworth’s _Harry and Lucy_; and also from - _Verdant Green_, by Cuthbert Bede (Edward Bradley) where it was - set in the bogus examination paper “To be turned into Latin - after the manner of the Animals of Tacitus.” - - * * * * * - - You feel o’er you stealing - The old familiar, warm, champagny, brandy-punchy, feeling. - - J. R. LOWELL (_Old College Rooms_). - - * * * * * - - The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat - One’s self. - - P. J. BAILEY (_Festus_, “_Anywhere_”). - - * * * * * - -Truly it is to be noted, that children’s plays are not sports, and should -be regarded as their most serious actions. - - MONTAIGNE. - - * * * * * - -Boys and their pastimes are swayed by periodic forces inscrutable to man; -so that tops and marbles reappear in their due season, regular like the -sun and moon; and the harmless art of knucklebones has seen the fall of -the Roman Empire and the rise of the United States. - - R. L. STEVENSON (_The Lantern-Bearers_). - - * * * * * - - Says Chloe, “Though tears it may cost, - It is time we should part, my dear Sue; - For _your_ character’s totally lost, - And _I’ve_ not sufficient for two!” - - ANON. - - This was taken from a poor collection of epigrams by C. S. - Carey (1872), no author being given. Andrew Lang quoted it in - his Presidential address to the Society for Psychical Research, - and it was duly inscribed in the Proceedings. I, with some - diffidence, follow an illustrious example. - - * * * * * - - I cannot say, in Eastern style, - Where’er she treads the pansy blows; - Nor call her eyes twin-stars, her smile - A sunbeam, and her mouth a rose. - Nor can I, as your bridegrooms do, - Talk of my raptures. Oh, how sore - The fond romance of twenty-two - Is parodied ere thirty-four! - - To-night I shake hands with the past,— - Familiar years, adieu, adieu! - An unknown door is open cast, - An empty future wide and new - Stands waiting. O ye naked rooms, - Void, desolate, without a charm, - Will Love’s smile chase your lonely glooms, - And drape your walls, and make them warm? - - ALEXANDER SMITH (1830-1867) (_The Night before - the Wedding_). - - In my notes, this strange poem is stated to have been actually - written by Smith on the night before his wedding; but it is - difficult to believe this. In the poem, the poet sits until - dawn on his wedding-eve thinking of the “long-lost passions of - his youth,” and comparing them with his calm and unimpassioned - love, “pale blossom of the snow,” for the bride of the morrow. - He even fears that his wife’s tenderness will keep alive the - memories of his youthful loves: - - It may be that your loving wiles - Will call a sigh from far-off years; - It may be that your happiest smiles - Will brim my eyes with hopeless tears; - It may be that my sleeping breath - Will shake with painful visions wrung; - And, in the awful trance of death, - A stranger’s name be on my tongue. - - This is sufficiently gruesome. However he finally comes to - the conclusion (although it seems dragged in to save a very - difficult situation) that his love for his future bride may - become more satisfactory to him: - - For, as the dawning sweet and fast - Through all the heaven spreads and flows, - Within life’s discord rude and vast - Love’s subtle music grows and grows. - - My love, pale blossom of the snow, - Has pierced earth, wet with wintry showers— - O may it drink the sun, and blow, - And be followed by all the year of flowers! - - Smith, with P. J. Bailey, Sydney Dobell and others, belonged to - what was called the “Spasmodic” school which the _Britannica_ - says is “now fallen into oblivion.” I do not know what this - means. Smith, Bailey, and Dobell no doubt wrote extravagantly, - but they have all written good verses. Take for example the - following from Smith’s first poem, “_A Life Drama_,” written at - twenty-two years of age: - - All things have something more than barren use; - There is a scent upon the brier, - A tremulous splendour in the autumn dews, - Cold morns are fringed with fire; - - The clodded earth goes up in sweet-breath’d flowers, - In music dies poor human speech, - And into beauty blow those hearts of ours, - When Love is born in each. - - Smith was also a charming essayist. See quotations elsewhere. - - * * * * * - - And so on to the end (and the end draws nearer) - When our souls may be freer, our senses clearer, - (’Tis an old-world creed which is nigh forgot), - When the eyes of the sleepers may waken in wonder, - And hearts may be joined that were riven asunder, - And Time and Love shall be merged—in what? - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - -Soft music came to mine ear. It was like the rising breeze, that whirls, -at first, the thistle’s beard; then flies, dark-shadowy, over the grass. -It was the maid of Füarfed wild: she raised the nightly song; for she -knew that my soul was a stream, that flowed at pleasant sounds. - - JAMES MACPHERSON (1736-1796). - - Macpherson alleged that he had discovered poems by the Gaelic - bard, Ossian, who lived in the Third Century, and he published - translations of them. Actually the poems were his own, but they - were beautiful and had a considerable effect upon literature. - - * * * * * - - I dare not guess: but in this life - Of error, ignorance, and strife, - Where nothing is, but all things seem, - And we the shadows of the dream. - - It is a modest creed, and yet - Pleasant if one considers it, - To own that death itself must be, - Like all the rest, a mockery. - - SHELLEY (_The Sensitive Plant_). - - * * * * * - -I should like to make every man, woman, and child discontented with -themselves, even as I am discontented with myself. I should like to waken -in them, about their physical, their intellectual, their moral condition, -that divine discontent which is the parent, first of upward aspiration -and then of self-control, thought, effort to fulfil that aspiration even -in part. For to be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be -ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ and first upgrowth of all -virtue. - - CHARLES KINGSLEY (_The Science of Health_, 1872). - - The origin of the expression “divine discontent.” - - * * * * * - - He first deceas’d; she for a little tried - To live without him: liked it not, and died. - - SIR HENRY WOTTON (_Reliquiae Wottonianae_, - 1685). - - * * * * * - - Is the yellow bird dead? - Lay your dear little head - Close, close to my heart, and weep, precious one, there, - While your beautiful hair - On my bosom lies light, like a sun-lighted cloud; - No, you need not keep still, - You may sob as you will; - There is some little comfort in crying aloud. - - But the days they must come, - When your grief will be dumb; - Grown women like me must take care how they cry. - You will learn by and by - ’Tis a womanly art to hide pain out of sight, - To look round with a smile, - Though your heart aches the while - And to keep back your tears till you’ve blown out the light. - - MARIAN DOUGLAS (_Picture Poems for Young - Folks_). - - * * * * * - -My Lord St. Albans said that wise nature did never put her precious -jewels into a garret four stories high; and, therefore, that exceeding -tall men had ever empty heads. - - BACON (_Apothegms_). - - * * * * * - - That low man seeks a little thing to do, - Sees it and does it: - This high man, with a great thing to pursue, - Dies ere he knows it. - That low man goes on adding one to one, - His hundred’s soon hit: - This high man, aiming at a million. - Misses a unit. - That, has the world here—should he need the next, - Let the world mind him! - This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed - Seeking shall find Him. - - R. BROWNING (_A Grammarian’s Funeral_). - - See _The Inn Album_ (IV) where Browning makes his heroine say: - - Better have failed in the high aim, as I, - Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed - As, God be thanked, I do not! - - * * * * * - -There is a secret belief among some men that God is displeased with man’s -happiness; and in consequence they slink about creation, ashamed and -afraid to enjoy anything. - - SIR A. HELPS (_Companions of my Solitude_). - - * * * * * - -O eloquent, just, and mightie Death! whom none could advise, thou hast -persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world -hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou -hast drawne together all the farre stretched greatnesse, all the pride, -crueltie, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two -narrow words, _Hic jacet!_ - - SIR WALTER RALEIGH (_Historie of the World_). - - * * * * * - -A REQUIEM - - Thou hast lived in pain and woe, - Thou hast lived in grief and fear; - Now thine heart can dread no blow, - Now thine eyes can shed no tear: - Storms round us shall beat and rave; - Thou art sheltered in the grave. - - Thou for long, long years hast borne, - Bleeding through Life’s wilderness, - Heavy loss and wounding scorn; - Now thine heart is burdenless: - Vainly rest for ours we crave; - Thine is quiet in the grave. - - JAMES THOMSON (“B.V.”). - - * * * * * - -AMPHIBIAN - - The fancy I had to-day, - Fancy which turned a fear! - I swam far out in the bay, - Since waves laughed warm and clear. - - I lay and looked at the sun, - The noon-sun looked at me: - Between us two, no one - Live creature, that I could see. - - Yes! There came floating by - Me, who lay floating too, - Such a strange butterfly! - Creature as dear as new: - - Because the membraned wings - So wonderful, so wide, - So sun-suffused, were things - Like soul and nought beside.... - - What if a certain soul - Which early slipped its sheath, - And has for its home the whole - Of heaven, thus look beneath. - - Thus watch one who, in the world, - But lives and likes life’s way, - Nor wishes the wings unfurled - That sleep in the worm, they say? - - But sometimes when the weather - Is blue, and warm waves tempt - To free oneself of tether, - And try a life exempt - - From worldly noise and dust, - In the sphere which overbrims - With passion and thought,—why, just - Unable to fly, one swims!... - - Emancipate through passion - And thought, with sea for sky, - We substitute, in a fashion, - For heaven—poetry: - - Which sea, to all intent, - Gives flesh such noon-disport - As a finer element - Affords the spirit sort. - - Whatever they are, we seem: - Imagine the thing they know; - All deeds they do, we dream; - Can heaven be else but so? - - And meantime, yonder streak - Meets the horizon’s verge; - That is the land, to seek - If we tire or dread the surge: - - Land the solid and safe— - To welcome again (confess!) - When, high and dry, we chafe - The body, and don the dress. - - Does she look, pity, wonder - At one who mimics flight, - Swims—heaven above, sea under, - Yet always earth in sight? - - R. BROWNING (Prologue to _Fifine at the Fair_). - - This is not one of Browning’s best poems, but it is - interesting. The butterfly in the air over the poet swimming is - compared to a ‘certain soul,’ Mrs. Browning, looking down upon - him from heaven. The ‘flying,’ free and entirely released from - the earth, is the life of the soul, to which the poet cannot - attain; but during periods of inspiration he lives a life free - of ‘worldly noise and dust,’ which approaches that of the soul. - Such periods of inspiration are likened to ‘swimming’ with the - land always in sight, as compared with the ‘flying’ of the soul - in the far-removed celestial regions. “We substitute, in a - fashion, For heaven—poetry.” - - _Whatever they are we seem_: during inspiration the poet’s life - is a reflex of or approach to the heavenly life. - - _Amphibian_, because the poet is of earth and yet can “swim” - in the sea of imagination. Charles Lamb speaks of his charming - Child Angel, half-angel, half-human, as Amphibium. Browning’s - poem may have been an unconscious development of a passage from - Sir Thomas Browne’s _Religio Medici_:—“Thus is Man that great - and true _Amphibium_, whose nature is disposed to live, not - only like other creatures in divers elements, but in divided - and distinguished worlds: for though there be but one to sense, - there are two to reason, the one visible, the other invisible.” - - The sixth and last verses are interesting. Browning, while in - the world “Both lives and likes life’s way,” nor is anxious - that his “wings” should be “unfurled”; and he wonders how his - angel-wife regards him, content with his “mimic flight.”—See p. - 114. - - * * * * * - - We work so hard, we age so soon, - We live so swiftly, one and all, - That ere our day be fairly noon, - The shadows eastward seem to fall. - Some tender light may gild them yet, - As yet, ’tis not so _very_ cold, - And, on the whole, I _won’t_ regret - My slender chance of growing old. - - W. J. PROWSE (1836-1870) (_My Lost Old Age_). - - Prowse wrote excellent verses before he was 20 and he died at - 34. - - * * * * * - - Calm Soul of all things! make it mine - To feel, amid the city’s jar, - That there abides a peace of thine - Man did not make, and cannot mar. - - MATTHEW ARNOLD (_Lines written in Kensington - Gardens_). - - * * * * * - -A woman needs to be wooed long after she is won, and the husband who -ceases to court his wife is courting disaster. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - -TO A GIPSY CHILD BY THE SEASHORE - - Who taught this pleading to unpractised eyes? - Who hid such import in an infant’s gloom? - Who lent thee, child, this meditative guise? - Who mass’d, round that slight brow, these clouds of doom?... - - Glooms that go deep as thine I have not known: - Moods of fantastic sadness, nothing worth. - Thy sorrow and thy calmness are thine own: - Glooms that enhance and glorify this earth. - - What mood wears like complexion to thy woe? - His, who in mountain glens, at noon of day, - Sits rapt, and hears the battle break below? - —Ah! thine was not the shelter, but the fray. - - Some exile’s, mindful how the past was glad? - Some angel’s, in an alien planet born? - —No exile’s dream was ever half so sad, - Nor any angel’s sorrow so forlorn. - - Is the calm thine of stoic souls, who weigh - Life well, and find it wanting, nor deplore; - But in disdainful silence turn away, - Stand mute, self-centred, stern, and dream no more? - - Down the pale cheek long lines of shadow slope, - Which years, and curious thought, and suffering give - —Thou hast foreknown the vanity of hope, - Forseen thy harvest, yet proceed’st to live.... - - Ere the long night, whose stillness brooks no star, - Match that funereal aspect with her pall, - I think, thou wilt have fathom’d life too far, - Have known too much—or else forgotten all. - - The Guide of our dark steps a triple veil - Betwixt our senses and our sorrow keeps; - Hath sown with cloudless passages the tale - Of grief, and eased us with a thousand sleeps. - - Ah! not the nectarous poppy lovers use, - Not daily labour’s dull, Lethaean spring, - Oblivion in lost angels can infuse - Of the soil’d glory, and the trailing wing; - - And though thou glean, what strenuous gleaners may. - In the throng’d fields where winning comes by strife; - And though the just sun gild, as mortals pray, - Some reaches of thy storm-vext stream of life; ... - - Once, ere thy day go down, thou shalt discern, - Oh once, ere night, in thy success, thy chain! - Ere the long evening close, thou shalt return, - And wear this majesty of grief again. - - MATTHEW ARNOLD. - - * * * * * - - Animula, vagula, blandula. - Hospes, comesque corporis, - Quae nunc abibis in loca, - Pallidula, frigida, nudula; - Nec, ut soles, dabis joca! - - SPARTIANUS (_Life of Hadrian_). - - These lines, put into the mouth of the dying Emperor, have been - translated by Vaughan, Prior, Byron and others. Mr. Clodd (_The - Question—If a Man Die_) gives this version, without naming the - translator:— - - Soul of mine, thou fleeting, clinging thing, - Long my body’s mate and guest, - Ah! now whither wilt thou wing, - Pallid, naked, shivering, - Never more to speak and jest. - - In all these versions _pallidula_, etc., are applied to - _animula_, but, as Mr. Alfred S. West points out to me, they - appear to be epithets of _loca_ thus:—“Fleeting, winsome soul, - my body’s guest and comrade, that art now about to set out for - regions wan, cold and bare, no more to jest according to thy - wont.” - - * * * * * - - This wretched Inn, where we scarce stay to bait, - We call our Dwelling-place: - But angels in their full enlightened state, - Angels, who Live, and know what ’tis to Be, - Who all the nonsense of our language see, - Who speak _things_, and our _words_—their ill-drawn pictures—scorn, - When we, by a foolish figure, say, - “Behold an old man dead!” then they - Speak properly, and cry, “Behold a man-child born!” - - ABRAHAM COWLEY, 1618-1667 (_Life_). - - * * * * * - - Here now I am: the house is fast; - I am shut in from all but Thee; - Great witness of my privacy, - Dare I unshamed my soul undress, - And, like a child, seek Thy caress, - Thou Ruler of a realm so vast? - - T. T. LYNCH. - - * * * * * - -The dog walked off to play with a black beetle. The beetle was hard at -work trying to roll home a great ball of dung it had been collecting all -the morning; but Doss broke the ball, and ate the beetle’s hind legs, and -then bit off its head. And it was all play, and no one could tell what it -had lived and worked for. A striving, and a striving, and an ending in -nothing. - - OLIVE SCHREINER (_The Story of an African Farm_). - - The author is depicting the sadness of life. - - * * * * * - -GRACE FOR A CHILD - - Here a little child I stand, - Heaving up my either hand; - Cold as Paddocks though they be, frogs - Here I lift them up to Thee, - For a benison to fall blessing - On our meat, and on us all. _Amen._ - - ROBERT HERRICK (1591-1674). - - * * * * * - - As the moon’s soft splendour - O’er the faint cold starlight of Heaven - Is thrown, - So your voice most tender - To the strings without soul had then given - Its own.... - - Though the sound overpowers, - Sing again, with your dear voice revealing - A tone - Of some world far from ours, - Where music and moonlight and feeling - Are one. - - SHELLEY (_To Jane_). - - * * * * * - - While I listen to thy voice, - Chloris! I feel my life decay: - That pow’rful noise - Calls my fleeting soul away. - Oh! suppress that magic sound, - Which destroys without a wound. - - Peace, Chloris, peace! or singing die; - That, together, you and I - To heaven may go: - For all we know - Of what the Blessèd do above - Is, that they sing, and that they love. - - EDMUND WALLER (1606-1687). - - * * * * * - -To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than -to be forty years old. - - O. W. HOLMES. - - From letter to Julia Ward Howe in 1889 on her seventieth - birthday. Mrs. Howe wrote the fine “Battle Hymn of the American - Republic,” beginning:— - - Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: - He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored: - He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: - His truth is marching on. - - * * * * * - -INSOMNIA - - A house of sleepers, I alone unblest - Am still awake and empty vigil keep: - When those who share Life’s day with me find rest, - Oh, let me not be last to fall, asleep. - - ANNA REEVE ALDRICH. - - She did “fall asleep” at the early age of twenty-six in June, - 1892. - - * * * * * - -The world is full of willing people: some willing to work, and the rest -willing to let them. - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - -“THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY” - - What we, when face to face we see - The Father of our souls, shall be, - John tells us, doth not yet appear; - Ah! did he tell what we are here! - - A mind for thoughts to pass into, - A heart for loves to travel through, - Five senses to detect things near, - Is this the whole that we are here? - - Ah yet, when all is thought and said - The heart still overrules the head; - Still what we hope we must believe, - And what is given us receive; - - Must still believe, for still we hope - That in a world of larger scope, - What here is faithfully begun - Will be completed, not undone. - - My child, we still must think, when we - That ampler life together see, - Some true result will yet appear - Of what we are, together, here. - - A. H. CLOUGH. - - * * * * * - -Plus je vois les hommes, plus j’admire les chiens. - -(The more I see of men, the more I admire dogs.) - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - -He who doth not smoke hath either known no great griefs, or refuseth -himself the softest consolation next to that which cometh from heaven. -“What, softer than woman?” whispers the young reader. Young reader, woman -teases as well as consoles. Woman makes half the sorrows which she boasts -the privilege of soothing. On the whole, then, woman in this scale, the -weed in that—Jupiter! hang out thy balance and weigh them both; and, if -thou give the preference to woman, all I can say is, the next time Juno -ruffles thee, O Jupiter, _try the weed_! - - BULWER LYTTON (_What will He do with It?_) - - Compare Kipling in “The Betrothed”:— - - A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke. - - * * * * * - -Il y a toujours l’un qui baise, et l’autre qui tend la joue. - -(There is always one who kisses and the other who offers the cheek.) - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - - Ah, wasteful woman, she who may - On her sweet self set her own price, - Knowing he cannot choose but pay, - How has she cheapen’d paradise; - How given for nought her priceless gift, - How spoiled the bread and spilled the wine, - Which, spent with due respective thrift, - Had made brutes men, and men divine! - - C. PATMORE (_The Angel in the House_). - - * * * * * - - Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think— - More than I merit, yes, by many times. - But had you—oh, with the same perfect brow, - And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, - And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird - The fowler’s pipe and follows to the snare— - Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind! - Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged - “God and the glory! never care for gain.” - I might have done it for you. - - R. BROWNING (_Andrea del Sarto_). - - The painter says that his wife, instead of urging him to work - for immediate gain, might have incited him to nobler efforts. - - * * * * * - -CHILDHOOD AND HIS VISITORS - - Once on a time, when sunny May - Was kissing up the April showers, - I saw fair Childhood hard at play - Upon a bank of blushing flowers; - Happy—he knew not whence or how— - And smiling,—who could choose but love him? - For not more glad than Childhood’s brow, - Was the blue heaven that beamed above him. - - Old Time, in most appalling wrath, - That valley’s green repose invaded; - The brooks grew dry upon his path, - The birds were mute, the lilies faded. - But Time so swiftly winged his flight, - In haste a Grecian tomb to batter, - That Childhood watched his paper kite, - And knew just nothing of the matter.... - - Then stepped a gloomy phantom up, - Pale, cypress-crowned, Night’s awful daughter, - And proffered him a fearful cup - Full to the brim of bitter water: - Poor Childhood bade her tell her name; - And when the beldame muttered, “Sorrow,” - He said, “Don’t interrupt my game; - I’ll taste it, if I must, to-morrow.” ... - - Then Wisdom stole his bat and ball, - And taught him with most sage endeavour, - Why bubbles rise and acorns fall, - And why no toy may last for ever. - She talked of all the wondrous laws - Which Nature’s open book discloses, - And Childhood, ere she made a pause - Was fast asleep among the roses. - - Sleep on, sleep on! Oh! Manhood’s dreams - Are all of earthly pain or pleasure, - Of Glory’s toils, Ambition’s schemes, - Of cherished love, or hoarded treasure: - But to the couch where Childhood lies - A more delicious trance is given, - Lit up by rays from seraph eyes, - And glimpses of remembered Heaven! - - W. M. PRAED. - - * * * * * - - Alas, how easily things go wrong! - A sigh too much, or a kiss too long, - And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, - And life is never the same again. - - G. MACDONALD (_Phantastes_). - - * * * * * - -L’ENVOI - - There’s a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield - And the ricks stand grey to the sun, - Singing:—“Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover - And your English summer’s done.” - You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind - And the thresh of the deep-sea rain; - You have heard the song—how long! how long! - Pull out on the trail again! - - Ha’ done with the Tents of Shem, dear lass, - We’ve seen the seasons through, - And it’s time to turn on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, - Pull out, pull out, on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new. - - It’s North you may run to the rime-ringed sun - Or South to the blind Horn’s hate; - Or East all the way into Mississippi Bay, - Or West to the Golden Gate; - Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass, - And the wildest tales are true, - And the men bulk big on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, - And life runs large on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new. - - The days are sick and cold, and the skies are grey and old, - And the twice-breathed airs blow damp; - And I’d sell my tired soul for the bucking beam-sea roll - Of a black Bilboa tramp; - With her load-line over her hatch, dear lass, - And a drunken Dago crew, - And her nose held down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail - From Cadiz Bar on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new. - - There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, - Or the way of a man with a maid; - But the sweetest way to me is a ship’s upon the sea - In the heel of the North-East trade, - Can you hear the crash on her bows, dear lass, - And the drum of the racing screw, - As she ships it green on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, - As she lifts and ’scends on the Long Trail—the trail that is always - new. - - See the shaking funnels roar, with the Peter at the fore, - And the fenders grind and heave, - And the derricks clack and grate, as the tackle hooks the crate, - And the fall-rope whines through the sheave; - It’s “Gang-plank up and in,” dear lass, - It’s “Hawsers warp her through!” - And it’s “All clear aft” on the old trail, our own trail, the out - trail, - We’re backing down on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new.... - - O the mutter overside, when the port-fog holds us tied, - And the sirens hoot their dread! - When foot by foot we creep o’er the hueless viewless deep - To the sob of the questing lead! - It’s down by the Lower Hope, dear lass, - With the Gunfleet Sands in view, - Till the Mouse swings green on the old trail, our own trail, the out - trail, - And the Gull Light lifts on the Long Trail—the trail that is always - new. - - O the blazing tropic night, when the wake’s a welt of light - That holds the hot sky tame, - And the steady fore-foot snores through the planet-powder’d floors - Where the scared whale flukes in flame! - Her plates are scarr’d by the sun, dear lass, - And her ropes are taut with the dew, - For we’re booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out - trail, - We’re sagging south on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new. - - Then home, get her home, when the drunken rollers comb, - And the shouting seas drive by, - And the engines stamp and ring, and the wet bows reel and swing, - And the Southern Cross rides high! - Yes, the old lost stars wheel back, dear lass, - That blaze in the velvet blue, - They’re all old friends on the old trail, our own trail, the out - trail, - They’re God’s own guides on the Long Trail—the trail that is always - new. - - Fly forward, O my heart, from the Foreland to the Start— - We’re steaming all too slow, - And it’s twenty thousand mile to our little lazy isle - Where the trumpet-orchids blow! - You have heard the call of the off-shore wind - And the voice of the deep-sea rain: - You have heard the song—how long! how long! - Pull out on the trail again! - - The Lord knows what we may find, dear lass, - And the deuce knows what we may do— - But we’re back once more on the old trail, our own trail, the out - trail, - We’re down, hull down on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new. - - RUDYARD KIPLING. - - A great sea-song; we are on board passing through scene after - scene and feeling the very movement of the ship and its gear. - - * * * * * - - Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! - Thou soul that art the eternity of thought - That givest to forms and images a breath - And everlasting motion, not in vain - By day or star-light thus from my first dawn - Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me - The passions that build up our human soul; - Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, - But with high objects, with enduring things— - With life and nature—purifying thus - The elements of feeling and of thought, - And sanctifying, by such discipline, - Both pain and fear, until we recognize - A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. - - WORDSWORTH (_The Prelude_, Bk. I). - - * * * * * - -The Quakers have contracted themselves too much by leaving the works of -God out of their system. Though I reverence their philanthropy, I can not -help smiling at the conceit, that, if the taste of a Quaker could have -been consulted at the creation, what a silent and drab-coloured creation -it would have been! Not a flower would have blossomed its gaieties, nor a -bird been permitted to sing. - - THOMAS PAINE (_The Age of Reason_). - - This quotation reminds me of an interesting passage in - Professor Bateson’s Presidential Address to the British - Association at Melbourne in 1914. Although it has not a very - close connection with the quotation the reader will not object - to my giving it a place here:— - - “Everyone must have a preliminary sympathy with the aims - of eugenists both abroad and at home. Their efforts at the - least are doing something to discover and spread truth as to - the physiological structure of society. The spread of such - organizations, however, almost of necessity suffers from a bias - towards the accepted and the ordinary, and if they had power it - would go hard with many ingredients of society that could be - ill-spared. I notice an ominous passage in which even Galton, - the founder of eugenics, feeling perhaps some twinge of his - Quaker ancestry, remarks that ‘as the Bohemianism in the nature - of our race is destined to perish, the sooner it goes, the - happier for mankind.’ It is not the eugenists who will give us - what Plato has called ‘divine releases from the common ways.’ - If some fancier with the catholicity of Shakespeare would take - us in hand, well and good; but I would not trust Shakespeares, - _meeting as a committee_. Let us remember that Beethoven’s - father was an habitual drunkard and that his mother died of - consumption. From the genealogy of the patriarchs also we - learn—what may very well be the truth—that the fathers of such - as dwell in tents, and of all such as handle the harp or organ, - and the instructor of every artificer in brass or iron—the - founders, that is to say, of the arts and the sciences—came - in direct descent from Cain, and not in the posterity of the - irreproachable Seth, who is to us, as he probably was also in - the narrow circle of his own contemporaries, what naturalists - call a _nomen nudum_.” - - _Nomen nudum_ is a bare name without further particulars, - but Donne, no doubt on the authority of Josephus (I. 2.3), - attributes Astronomy to Seth (“The Progresse of the Soule”):— - - Wonder with mee - Why plowing, building, ruling and the rest, - Or most of those Arts whence our lives are blest, - By cursed Cain’s race invented be, - And blest Seth vext us with Astronomie. - - Donne (1573-1631) is “vext” with Astronomy, presumably because - at that time Kepler (1571-1630) and Galileo (1564-1642) were - affirming the Copernican system and making other discoveries - supposed to be dangerous to religion. - - * * * * * - - Some prize his blindfold sight; and there be they - Who kissed his wings which brought him yesterday - And thank his wings to-day that he is flown. - - D. G. ROSSETTI (_Love’s Lovers_). - - * * * * * - -A SONNET - - Two voices are there: one is of the deep; - It learns the storm-cloud’s thunderous melody, - Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea, - Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep: - And one is of an old half-witted sheep - Which bleats articulate monotony, - And indicates that two and one are three, - That grass is green, lakes damp and mountains steep: - And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times - Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes, - The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst: - At other times—good Lord! I’d rather be - Quite unacquainted with the A.B.C. - Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst. - - JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN (1859-1893). - - “Two Voices are there; one is of the sea,” is Wordsworth’s fine - sonnet on the subjugation of Switzerland. - - It is certainly extraordinary how the great poet at times - dropped into the most prosaic language and commonplace verse. - This, however, was only in his earlier poems and only in a - few of those poems. His theory at that time was that poetic - language should be natural, such as used by ordinary men, and - not essentially different from prose. Actually, however, at the - root of the matter was his want of any sense of humour. Only - so can we account for his beginning a poem “Spade! with which - Wilkinson hath tilled his lands,” or writing absurdly babyish - verses. The one instance on record in which he did apparently - exhibit a grotesque kind of humour was in a verse of _Peter - Bell_:— - - Is it a party in a parlour? - Cramm’d just as they on earth were cramm’d— - Some sipping punch, some sipping tea, - But, as you by their faces see, - All silent and all damn’d. - - But this he no doubt wrote quite seriously and without any idea - that the verse was humorous. Shelley placed this verse at the - head of his parody of _Peter Bell_, and Wordsworth omitted it - from the poem after 1819. - - * * * * * - - And, were I not, as a man may say, cautious - How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous, - I could favour you with sundry touches - Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess - Heightened the mellowness of her cheek’s yellowness - (To get on faster) until at last her - Cheek grew to be one master-plaster - Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse; - In short, she grew from scalp to udder - Just the object to make you shudder. - - R. BROWNING (_The Flight of the Duchess_). - - * * * * * - - Day is dying! Float, O Song, - Down the westward river, - Requiem chanting to the Day— - Day, the mighty Giver. - - Pierced by shafts of Time he bleeds, - Melted rubies sending - Through the river and the sky, - Earth and heaven blending; - - All the long-drawn earthy banks - Up to cloud-land lifting: - Slow between them drifts the swan, - ’Twixt two heavens drifting. - - Wings half open, like a flow’r - Inly deeper flushing, - Neck and breast as virgin’s pure— - Virgin proudly blushing. - - Day is dying! Float, O swan, - Down the ruby river; - Follow, song, in requiem - To the mighty Giver. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_The Spanish Gypsy_). - - * * * * * - - Nature, and nature’s laws, lay hid in night: - God said, “Let Newton be!” and all was light. - - POPE - - * * * * * - - Whatever crazy sorrow saith, - No life that breathes with human breath - Has ever truly longed for death. - - ’Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, - Oh, life, not death, for which we pant; - More life, and fuller, that we want. - - TENNYSON (_The Two Voices_). - - It is, perhaps, true that no one at any time longs for death; - and that our desire is for “more life _and fuller_.” But men - have for various reasons longed _to die_, though they may - not have longed for _death_. There are those to whom the - remainder of life will be one torment of pain to themselves - and a continuous mental distress to their friends; and there - have been men of firm religious belief who desired to pass - into a nobler _life_ beyond the grave. Again, Richard Hodgson - definitely assured me in 1897 that he _wished to die_. He was - absolutely satisfied with the evidence of survival after death, - which he had had in connection with the Society for Psychical - Research; and his desire was to “pass over” and be with the - friends with whom for years he had been in communication. - Hodgson was incapable of saying anything insincere. - - * * * * * - -Remember what Simonides said—that he never repented that he had held his -tongue, but often that he had spoken. - - PLUTARCH (_Morals_). - - * * * * * - -Not the truth of which a man is or believes himself to be possessed, but -the earnest efforts which he has made to attain truth, make the worth of -the man. For it is not through the possession of, but through the search -for truth, that he develops those powers in which alone consists his -ever-growing perfection. Possession makes the mind stagnant, indolent, -proud. - -If God held in His right hand all truth, and in His left the ever-living -desire for truth—although with the condition that I should remain in -error for ever—and if He said to me “Choose,” I should humbly bow before -His left hand, and say “Father, give; pure truth is for Thee alone.” - - LESSING (1729-1781) _Wolfenbüttel Fragments_ - - When Lessing wrote this famous passage he was contending that - criticism should be absolutely free in regard to religious, - as to all other, subjects. “The argument on which he chiefly - relies is that the Bible cannot be considered necessary to a - belief in Christianity, since Christianity was a living and - conquering power before the New Testament in its present form - was recognised by the church. The true evidence for what is - essential in Christianity, he contends, is its adaptation - to the wants of human nature; hence the religious spirit is - undisturbed by the speculations of the boldest thinkers.” - (_Encyclopaedia Britannica_). - - * * * * * - -The light of every soul burns upward. Let us allow for atmospheric -disturbance. - - G. MEREDITH (_Diana of the Crossways_). - - * * * * * - -Human life may be painted according to two methods. There is the stage -method. According to that, each character is duly marshalled at first, -and ticketed; we know with an immutable certainty that, at the right -crises, each one will reappear and act his part, and, when the curtain -falls, all will stand before it bowing. There is a sense of satisfaction -in this—and of completeness. But there is another method—the method of -the life we all lead. Here nothing can be prophesied. There is a strange -coming and going of feet. Men appear, act and re-act upon each other, -and pass away. When the crisis comes, the man who would fit it does not -return. When the curtain falls, no one is ready. When the footlights are -brightest they are blown out; and what the name of the play is no one -knows. If there sits a spectator who knows, he sits so high that the -players in the gaslight cannot hear his breathing. - - OLIVE SCHREINER (_The Story of an African Farm_). - - This is from the preface to the second edition. This book must - be unique, for surely no other girl in her teens has written a - book so brilliant in itself and indicating such originality and - genius. It is a great loss to literature that the writer became - entirely absorbed in South African politics and controversy. - - * * * * * - -I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another’s misfortunes -perfectly like a Christian. - - ALEXANDER POPE. - - * * * * * - -NIGHT AND DEATH - - Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew - Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, - Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, - This glorious canopy of light and blue? - Yet ’neath a curtain of translucent dew, - Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, - Hesperus with the host of heaven came, - And lo! creation widened in man’s view. - Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed - Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find, - Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, - That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind! - Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife? - If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life? - - J. BLANCO WHITE (1775-1841). - - (See preface.) This sonnet, apart from its great excellence, - is a remarkable literary curiosity. By this one poem alone - Blanco White achieved a lasting reputation as a poet. The point - is that this is _his only poem_. He certainly had previously - written a sonnet of little merit on survival after death, but - “_Night and Death_” was apparently an inspired transfiguration - of his earlier effort. It is a startling instance of - inspiration coming to a man once only in his life—and then - coming in its very highest form. There are other poets, whose - work is generally of poor quality, but who have each produced - one surprisingly good poem which alone keeps their memory - alive. An instance of this is Christopher Smart (1722-1771), - who wrote several volumes of verse but only one fine poem, the - “Song of David.” Charles Wolfe (1791-1823) is also known only - by his “Burial of Sir John Moore,” but his other poems, though - forgotten, are said to have had some merit. - - The sonnet is also interesting for another reason. White’s - family had settled in Spain for two generations, his - grandfather having changed his name to Blanco. His mother - was Spanish, he was educated in Spain, and became a Spanish - priest, and he did not leave for England until 1810, when - thirty-five years of age. Yet White’s beautiful thought could - hardly be expressed in finer language. There is, however, one - defect in the words “fly and leaf and insect.” (William Sharp - courageously altered “fly” into “flower.”) - - Coleridge thought this “the finest and most grandly conceived - sonnet in our language.” Leigh Hunt said that in point of - thought it “stands supreme, perhaps, above all in any language: - nor can we ponder it too deeply, or with too hopeful a - reverence.” - - * * * * * - -I sleep, I eat and drink, I read and meditate, I walk in my neighbour’s -pleasant fields and see the varieties of natural beauties, and delight -in all that in which God delights—that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the -whole creation, and in God Himself. And he, that hath so many causes of -joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, -who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little -handful of thorns. - - JEREMY TAYLOR. - - * * * * * - - In my Progress travelling Northward, - Taking farewell of the Southward, - To Banbury came I, O prophane-One! - Where I saw a Puritane-One - Hanging of his Cat on Monday, - For killing of a Mouse on Sunday. - - R. BRATHWAITE (1638) (_Drunken Barnaby_). - - * * * * * - - O the Spring will come, - And once again the wind be in the West, - Breathing the odour of the sea; and life, - Life that was ugly, and work that grew a curse, - Be God’s best gifts again, and in your heart - You’ll find once more the dreams you thought were dead. - - H. D. LOWRY (_In Covent Garden_). - - * * * * * - - Of such as he was, there be few on Earth; - Of such as he is, there are many in Heaven; - And Life is all the sweeter that he lived, - And all he loved more sacred for his sake: - And Death is all the brighter that he died, - And Heaven is all the happier that he’s there. - - GERALD MASSEY (_In Memoriam_). - - * * * * * - -ONLY SEVEN - -(_A Pastoral Story, after Wordsworth._) - - I marvelled why a simple child - That lightly draws its breath - Should utter groans so very wild, - And look as pale as Death. - - Adopting a parental tone, - I asked her why she cried; - The damsel answered, with a groan, - “I’ve got a pain inside. - - “I thought it would have sent me mad - Last night about eleven.” - Said I, “What is it makes you bad? - How many apples have you had?” - She answered, “Only seven!” - - “And are you sure you took no more, - My little maid?” quoth I. - “Oh! please sir, mother gave me four, - But _they_ were in a pie!” - - “If that’s the case,” I stammered out, - “Of course you’ve had eleven.” - The maiden answered, with a pout, - “I ain’t had more nor seven!” - - I wondered hugely what she meant, - And said, “I’m bad at riddles, - But I know where little girls are sent - For telling tarrididdles. - - “Now, if you don’t reform,” said I, - “You’ll never go to heaven.” - But all in vain; each time I try, - That little idiot makes reply, - “I ain’t had more nor seven”! - - POSTSCRIPT. - - To borrow Wordsworth’s name was wrong, - Or slightly misapplied; - And so I’d better call my song, - “Lines after _Ache-inside_.” - - HENRY SAMBROOKE LEIGH. - - It seems wicked to travesty Wordsworth’s tender little poem, - but Leigh’s verses amused us greatly when they appeared. Mark - Akenside (1721-1770) is a poet now almost forgotten. - - * * * * * - - The hour, which might have been, yet might not be, - Which man’s and woman’s heart conceived and bore - Yet whereof life was barren,—on what shore - Bides it the breaking of Time’s weary sea? - - D. G. ROSSETTI (_Stillborn Love_). - - * * * * * - -Our delight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass to-day might be -no more than the faint perception of wearied souls, if it were not for -the sunshine and the grass in those far-off days which live in us, and -transform our perception into love. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Mill on the Floss_). - - The firmaments of daisies since to me - Have had those mornings in their opening eyes; - The bunched cowslip’s pale transparency - Carries that sunshine of sweet memories, - And wild-rose branches take their finest scent - From those blest hours of infantine content. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Brother and Sister_). - - It will be observed that the thought is the same in both - passages. - - * * * * * - - Get thee behind the man I am now, - You man that I used to be. - - R. BROWNING (_Martin Relph_). - - * * * * * - -For my own part, I could not look but with wonder and respect on the -Chinese. Their forefathers watched the stars before mine had begun to -keep pigs. Gunpowder and printing, which the other day we imitated, -and a school of manners which we never had the delicacy so much as to -desire to imitate, were theirs in a long-past antiquity. They walk the -earth with us, but it seems they must be of different clay. They hear -the clock strike the same hour, yet surely of a different epoch. They -travel by steam conveyance, yet with such baggage of old Asiatic thoughts -and superstitions as might check the locomotive in its course. Whatever -is thought within the circuit of the Great Wall; what the wry-eyed, -spectacled schoolmaster teaches in the hamlets round Pekin; religions -so old that our language looks a halfling boy alongside; philosophy so -wise that our best philosophers find things therein to wonder at; all -this travelled alongside of me for thousands of miles over plain and -mountain. Heaven knows if we had one common thought or fancy all that -way, or whether our eyes, which yet were formed upon the same design, -beheld the same world out of the railway windows. And when either of us -turned his thoughts to home and childhood, what a strange dissimilarity -must there not have been in these pictures of the mind—when I beheld that -old, gray, castled city, high throned above the firth, with the flag of -Britain flying, and the red-coat sentry pacing over all; and the man in -the next car to me would conjure up some junks and a pagoda and a fort of -porcelain, and call it, with the same affection, home. - - R. L. STEVENSON (_Across the Plains_). - - * * * * * - - I always wanted to make a clean breast of it; - And now it is made—why, my heart’s blood, that went trickle, - Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets, - Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle, - And genially floats me about the giblets. - - R. BROWNING (_The Flight of the Duchess_). - - * * * * * - -A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which -is but saying that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday. - - ALEXANDER POPE. - - * * * * * - -We have all of us considerable regard for our past self, and are not fond -of casting reflections on that respected individual by a total negation -of his opinions. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Scenes from Clerical Life_). - - * * * * * - -SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH - - Say not, the struggle nought availeth, - The labour and the wounds are vain, - The enemy faints not, nor faileth, - And as things have been they remain. - - If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; - It may be, in yon smoke concealed, - Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers, - And, but for you, possess the field. - - For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, - Seem here no painful inch to gain, - Far back, through creeks and inlets making, - Comes silent, flooding in, the main; - - And not by eastern windows only, - When daylight comes; comes in the light; - In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly! - But westward, look, the land is bright! - - A. H. CLOUGH. - - * * * * * - - The gravest fish is an oyster, - The gravest bird is an owl, - The gravest beast is a donkey, - And the gravest man is a fool. - - SCOTCH PROVERB. - - * * * * * - - ... Fear - No petty customs nor appearances; - But think what others only dreamed about; - And say what others did but think; and do - What others did but say; and glory in - What others dared but do. - - PHILIP J. BAILEY (_My Lady_). - - * * * * * - -The Cynic in society becomes the Pessimist in religion. The large embrace -of sympathy, which fails him as interpreter of human life, will no less -be wanting when he reads the meaning of the universe. The harmony of -the great whole escapes him in his hunt for little discords here and -there. He is blind to the august balance of nature, in his preoccupation -with some creaking show of defect. He misses the comprehensive march of -advancing purpose, because while he himself is in it, he has found some -halting member that seems to lag behind. He picks holes in the universal -order; he winds through its tracks as a detective, and makes scandals -of all that is not to his mind; trusts nothing that he cannot see: and -he sees chiefly the exceptional, the dubious, the harsh. The glory of -the midnight heavens affects him not, for thinking of a shattered planet -or the uninhabitable moon. He makes more of the flood which sweeps the -crop away, than of the perpetual river that feeds it year by year. For -him the purple bloom upon the hills, peering through the young green -woods, does but dress up a stony desert with deceitful beauty; and in the -new birth of summer, he cannot yield himself to the exuberance of glad -existence for wonder why insects tease and nettles sting. Nothing is so -fair, nothing so imposing, as to beguile him into faith and hope.... In -selfish minds the same temper resorts to the pettiest reasons for the -most desolating thoughts: “If God were good, why should I be born with a -club-foot? If the world were justly governed how could my merits be so -long overlooked?” - - J. MARTINEAU (_Hours of Thought_, I, 97). - - Reverting to this subject later, Martineau says (_Hours of - Thought II._, 354) “Wherever he moves, he empties the space - around him of its purest elements; with his low thought he - roofs it over from the heavenly light and the sweet air; and - then complains of the world as a close-breathed and stifling - place.” - - * * * * * - -Cynicism is intellectual dandyism without the coxcomb’s feathers; and it -seems to me that cynics are only happy in making the world as barren to -others as they have made it for themselves. - - GEORGE MEREDITH (_The Egoist_). - - * * * * * - - And there’s none of them, but would as soon - Criticize the Almighty as not, - And see that the angels kept tune - And watch that the sun and the moon - Did not squander the light they have got. - - W. C. SMITH (_Borland Hall_). - - * * * * * - - Love, that is first and last of all things made, - The light that has the living world for shade, - The spirit that for temporal veil has on - The souls of all men woven in unison, - One fiery raiment with all lives inwrought - And lights of sunny and starry deed and thought ... - Love, that keeps all the choir of lives in chime; - Love, that is blood within the veins of time.... - Love, that sounds loud or light in all men’s ears, - Whence all men’s eyes take fire from sparks of tears, - That binds on all men’s feet or chains or wings; - Love, that is root and fruit of terrene things; - Love, that the whole world’s waters shall not drown, - The whole world’s fiery forces not burn down; - Love, that what time his own hands guard his head - The whole world’s wrath and strength shall not strike dead; - Love, that if once his own hands make his grave - The whole world’s pity and sorrow shall not save ... - Love that is fire within thee and light above, - And lives by grace of nothing but of love. - - SWINBURNE (_Tristram of Lyonesse_). - - * * * * * - - My tantalized spirit - Here blandly reposes, - Forgetting, or never - Regretting, its roses. - - E. A. POE (_For Annie_). - - * * * * * - - Now, for myself, when once the wick is crushed, - I ask not where the light is, which is not, - Nor where the music, when the harp is hushed, - Nor where the memory, which is clean forgot. - - W. C. SMITH (_Borland Hall_). - - * * * * * - -Goethe says somewhere there is something in every man for which, if we -only knew it, we would hate him. I would prefer to say that there is -something in every man for which, if we only knew it, we would _love_ him. - - R. HODGSON (_Letter_). - - * * * * * - - For us no shadow on life’s solemn dial - Goes back to give us peace; - There is no resting-place in the stern trial - Until the heart-throbs cease; - We cannot hold Time fast, and bid him bless us, - And not for us the sun, - When shades fall fast, and doubts and woes oppress us, - Stands still in Gibeon. - - E. H. SEARS. - - * * * * * - - Here’s my case. Of old I used to love him - This same unseen friend, before I knew: - Dream there was none like him, none above him,— - Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.... - - All my days, I’ll go the softlier, sadlier, - For that dream’s sake! How forget the thrill - Through and through me as I thought “The gladlier - Lives my friend because I love him still!” - - R. BROWNING (_Fears and Scruples_). - - The “Friend” is God. The lines “All my days, I’ll go the - softlier, sadlier, For that dream’s sake,” seem to me very - beautiful. In so few words Browning, with dramatic insight, - expresses the feeling of a Renan or George Eliot after they had - lost their faith in Christianity. - - * * * * * - -The world is his, who can see through its pretension. What deafness, what -stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold, is there only by -sufferance—by your sufferance. See it to be a lie, and you have already -dealt it its mortal blow.... - -In proportion as a man has anything in him divine, the firmament flows -before him and takes his signet and form. Not he is great who can alter -matter, but he who can alter my state of mind. They are the kings of the -world who give the colour of their present thought to all nature and all -art.... The great man makes the great thing.... Linnæus makes botany the -most alluring of studies, and wins it from the farmer and the herb-woman; -Davy, chemistry; and Cuvier, fossils. The day is always his, who works -in it with serenity and great aims. The unstable estimates of men crowd -to him whose mind is filled with a truth, as the heaped waves of the -Atlantic follow the moon. - - EMERSON (_The American Scholar_). - - * * * * * - -Cantat Deo, qui vivit Deo. - -(He sings to God, who lives to God.) - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - Jenny Lind used to say, “I sing to God.” - - * * * * * - -A CONSERVATIVE - - The garden beds I wandered by - One bright and cheerful morn, - When I found a new-fledged butterfly, - A-sitting on a thorn, - A black and crimson butterfly, - All doleful and forlorn. - - I thought that life could have no sting - To infant butterflies, - So I gazed on this unhappy thing - With wonder and surprise, - While sadly with his waving wing - He wiped his weeping eyes. - - Said I, “What can the matter be? - Why weepest thou so sore, - With garden fair and sunlight free - And flowers in goodly store?”— - But he only turned away from me - And burst into a roar. - - Cried he, “My legs are thin and few - Where once I had a swarm! - Soft fuzzy fur—a joy to view— - Once kept my body warm, - Before these flapping wing-things grew, - To hamper and deform!” - - At that outrageous bug I shot - The fury of mine eye; - Said I, in scorn all burning hot, - In rage and anger high, - “You ignominious idiot! - Those wings are made to fly!” - - “I do not want to fly,” said he, - “I only want to squirm!” - And he dropped his wings dejectedly, - But still his voice was firm: - “I do not want to be a fly! - I want to be a worm!” - - O yesterday of unknown lack! - To-day of unknown bliss! - I left my fool in red and black, - The last I saw was this,— - The creature madly climbing back - Into his chrysalis. - - CHARLOTTE PERKINS STETSON. - - * * * * * - - The very fiends weave ropes of sand - Rather than taste pure hell in idleness. - - R. BROWNING (_A Forgiveness_). - - * * * * * - -He had formed several ingenious plans by which he meant to circumvent -people of large fortune and small capacity; but then he never met with -exactly the right people under exactly the right circumstances.... It is -possible to pass a great many bad half-pennies and bad half-crowns, but -I believe there has no instance been known of passing a half-penny or a -half-crown for a sovereign. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Brother Jacob_). - - * * * * * - - In the old times Death was a feverish sleep, - In which men walked. The other world was cold - And thinly-peopled, so life’s emigrants - Came back to mingle with the crowds of earth: - But now great cities are transplanted thither, - Memphis, and Babylon, and either Thebes, - And Priam’s towery town with its one beech. - The dead are most and merriest: so be sure - There will be no more haunting, till their towns - Are full to the garret; then they’ll shut their gates, - To keep the living out, and perhaps leave - A dead or two between both kingdoms. - - T. L. BEDDOES (_Death’s Jest-Book_, III, 3). - - This is one of the queer fancies in a curious poem. - - * * * * * - -Every ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in. Embark and the -romance quits our vessel, and hangs on every other sail in the horizon. - - EMERSON (_Essay on Experience_). - - * * * * * - -De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcamus. - -(We make for ourselves a ladder of our vices, when we tread under foot -the vices themselves.) - - ST. AUGUSTINE (_De Ascensione_). - - * * * * * - - I held it truth, with him who sings - To one clear harp in divers tones, - That men may rise on stepping-stones - Of their dead selves to higher things. - - TENNYSON (_In Memoriam_). - - * * * * * - - Saint Augustine! well hast thou said, - That of our vices we can frame - A ladder, if we will but tread - Beneath our feet each deed of shame! - - LONGFELLOW (_The Ladder of St. Augustine_). - - * * * * * - - The trials that beset you, - The sorrows ye endure, - The manifold temptations - That death alone can cure, - - What are they but His jewels - Of right celestial worth? - What are they but the ladder - Set up to Heav’n on earth? - - J. M. NEALE (_O Happy Band of Pilgrims_). - - * * * * * - -I can bear it no longer—this diabolical invention of gentility, which -kills natural kindliness and honest friendship. Proper pride, indeed! -Rank and precedence, forsooth! The table of ranks and degrees is a lie, -and should be flung into the fire. Organize rank and precedence! That -was well for the masters of ceremonies of former ages. Come forward, some -great marshal, and organize Equality in society. - - THACKERAY (_Book of Snobs_). - - * * * * * - - Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us; - The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, - The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, - We bargain for the graves we lie in; - At the devil’s booth are all things sold, - Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold; - For a cap and bells our lives we pay, - Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking: - ’Tis heaven alone that is given away, - ’Tis only God may be had for the asking. - - J. R. LOWELL (_The Vision of Sir Launfal_). - - * * * * * - -... The too susceptible Tupman, who, to the wisdom and experience of -maturer years, superadded the enthusiasm and ardour of a boy, in the most -interesting and pardonable of human weaknesses, love. Time and feeding -had expanded that once romantic form; the black silk waistcoat had become -more and more developed; inch by inch had the gold watch-chain beneath it -disappeared from within the range of Tupman’s vision; and gradually had -the capacious chin encroached upon the borders of the white cravat; but -the soul of Tupman had known no change. - - CHARLES DICKENS (_Pickwick Papers_). - - * * * * * - -The globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has; you may -survey a kingdom and note the result in maps, but all the _savants_ -in the world could not produce a reliable map of the poorest human -personality. And the worst of all this is, that love and friendship -may be the outcome of a certain condition of knowledge; increase the -knowledge, and love and friendship beat their wings and go. Every man’s -road in life is marked by the graves of his personal likings. Intimacy is -frequently the road to indifference; and marriage a parricide. - - ALEXANDER SMITH (_The Importance of a Man to Himself_). - - * * * * * - -I think sometimes how good it were had I some one by me to listen when -I am tempted to read a passage aloud. Yes, but is there any mortal in -the whole world upon whom I could invariably depend for sympathetic -understanding—nay, who would even generally be at one with me in my -appreciation? Such harmony of intelligences is the rarest thing. All -through life we long for it ... and, after all, we learn that the vision -is illusory. To every man is it decreed: Thou shalt live alone. - - GEORGE GISSING (_The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft_). - - * * * * * - -ISOLATION - - Yes! in the sea of life enisled, - With echoing straits between us thrown, - Dotting the shoreless watery wild, - We mortal millions live _alone_. - The islands feel the enclasping flow, - And then their endless bounds they know. - - But when the moon their hollows lights, - And they are swept by balms of spring, - And in their glens, on starry nights, - The nightingales divinely sing; - And lovely notes, from shore to shore, - Across the sounds and channels pour— - - Oh! then a longing like despair - Is to their farthest caverns sent; - For surely once, they feel, we were - Parts of a single continent! - Now round us spreads the watery plain— - Oh might our marges meet again! - - Who ordered, that their longing’s fire - Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled? - Who renders vain their deep desire? - A God, a God their severance ruled! - And bade betwixt their shores to be - The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea. - - MATTHEW ARNOLD. - - This fine poem is one of a series called “Switzerland,” which - was written as the result of Arnold’s meeting and falling in - love with a lady at Berne. The poem immediately preceding it in - the series is entitled “Isolation: To Marguerite,” while this - is called “To Marguerite, Continued” but as it is now quoted - separately, it is better entitled “Isolation.” - - In the preceding poems the lady has lost her affection while - her lover is still devoted; and this leads to the subject of - our isolation from each other in our inner lives. In the second - verse the poet describes the moments when we most crave for - love, sympathy, and mutual spiritual understanding and union. - - For an interesting fact connected with this poem, see next - quotation and note. - - * * * * * - -(Thackeray has been describing how husband, wife, mother, son—each of the -inmates of a household—is interested in his or her own separate world and -looking at the same things from a different point of view.) How lonely -we are in the world! You and your wife have pressed the same pillow for -forty years and fancy yourselves united: pshaw! does she cry out when -you have the gout, or do you lie awake when she has the tooth-ache?... -As for your wife—O philosophic reader, answer and say, Do you tell _her_ -all? Ah, sir, a distinct universe walks about under your hat and under -mine—all things in nature are different to each—the woman we look at has -not the same features, the dish we eat from has not the same taste to the -one and the other—you and I are but a pair of infinite isolations, with -some fellow-islands a little more or less near to us. - - THACKERAY (_Pendennis_, ch. XVI). - - The similarity between this passage and the preceding poem, - written at about the same time, is very curious. Arnold’s - poem appeared in 1852 but was composed ten years earlier, - while _Pendennis_ was published in monthly parts in 1849-50. - Therefore, neither author would consciously know at the time - what the other had written. - - The incident is probably an illustration of the mysterious way - in which minds influence one another and create the spirit of - the particular age. There is, I believe, a Chinese proverb to - the effect that we are more the product of our age than of our - parents. This permeating quality of thought and feeling is, - no doubt, the explanation why the highest art and literature, - though often unappreciated at the time, become ultimately - recognized. It appears not to be sufficiently taken into - account in other directions. For instance, it is repeatedly - stated that Blake, because of the limited circulation of his - poems, exercised _no_ influence on the Romantic Revival—see for - example _The Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vol. XI, - 201. Yet we know that his work was known to and appreciated by - Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Southey, and Hayley. (Although - little regarded now, Hayley’s fame was then so great that he - was offered and refused the poet-laureateship. He appears to - be the one man who was an intimate friend of both Blake and - Cowper.) While a very long period went by before Blake’s poems - became generally known, their influence may well have been - very great, permeating unconsciously through other minds. See - reference on p. 194 to the similar case of Fitzgerald’s “Omar - Khayyam.” - - Even if a poem were read by _only one person_, it might - conceivably influence a generation of authors. Suppose, if that - had been possible, a page of Swinburne’s “Tristram of Lyonesse” - or F. W. H. Myers’ “Implicit Promise” (both quoted elsewhere) - had been read by Pope or Dryden; how the monotonous heroic - couplet of their time might have been transformed! - - * * * * * - - A child was playing on a summer strand - That fringed the wavelets of a sunny sea; - The mother looked in love. “Now build,” said she, - “Your splendid golden castles where you stand; - But when the wave has beaten all to sand, - You must go home.” “Ah, not so soon,” said he. - - And now the night has darkened out his glee, - And sad-eyed Grief has grasped him by the hand. - No more the years shall find him free and wild - And madly merry as a bright brave bird: - For earth has nothing like the home he craves - And pauseless Time is beating bitter waves - On all his palaces. He waits the word - Away beyond the blue, “Come home, my child.” - - R. HODGSON, 1879. - - An impromptu written when the mother and child incident - happened and not revised. - - * * * * * - -Humanity is neither a love for the whole human race, nor a love for each -individual of it, but a love for the race, or for the ideal of man, in -each individual. In other and less pedantic words, he who is truly humane -considers every human being _as such_ interesting and important, and -without waiting to criticize each individual specimen, pays in advance -to all alike the tribute of good wishes and sympathy.... If some human -beings are abject and contemptible, if it be incredible to us that they -can have any high dignity or destiny, do we regard them from so great a -height as Christ? Are we likely to be more pained by their faults and -deficiencies than he was? Is our standard higher than his? And yet he -associated by preference with these meanest of the race; no contempt -for them did he ever express, no suspicion that they might be less dear -than the best and wisest to the common Father, no doubt that they were -naturally capable of rising to a moral elevation like his own. There -is nothing of which a man may be prouder than of this; it is the most -hopeful and redeeming fact in history; it is precisely what was wanting -to raise the love of man as man to enthusiasm. An eternal glory has been -shed upon the human race by the love Christ bore to it. - - SIR J. R. SEELEY (_Ecce Homo_). - - * * * * * - - On parent knees, a naked, new-born child, - Weeping thou sat’st while all around thee smiled: - So live, that sinking to thy life’s last sleep - Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep. - - SIR WILLIAM JONES (1746-1794) (_From the - Persian_). - - * * * * * - - Can the earth where the harrow is driven - The sheaf of the furrow foresee? - Or thou guess the harvest for heaven - When iron has entered in thee? - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - This was quoted by Lord Lytton in an essay on _The Influence of - Love upon Literature and Real Life_. - - * * * * * - - These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, - Each softly lucent as a rounded moon; - The diver, Omar, plucked them from their bed, - Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread. - - J. R. LOWELL (_On Omar Khayyam_). - - * * * * * - -It is hard for us to live up to our own eloquence, and keep pace with our -winged words, while we are treading the solid earth and are liable to -heavy dining. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Daniel Deronda_). - - * * * * * - -So, then, as darkness had no beginning, neither will it ever have an end. -So, then, is it eternal. The negation of aught else, is its affirmation. -Where the light cannot come, there abideth the darkness. The light doth -but hollow a mine out of the infinite extension of the darkness. And -ever upon the steps of the light treadeth the darkness; yea, springeth -in fountains and wells amidst it, from the secret channels of its mighty -sea. Truly, man is but a passing flame, moving unquietly amid the -surrounding rest of night; without which he yet could not be, and whereof -he is in part compounded. - - G. MACDONALD (_Phantastes_). - - In the story an ogre is reading this passage from a book. - _Phantastes_ is MacDonald’s finest work. - - * * * * * - - There, on the fields around, - All men shall till the ground, - Corn shall wave yellow, and bright rivers stream; - Daily, at set of sun, - All, when their work is done, - Shall watch the heavens yearn down and the strange starlight gleam. - - R. BUCHANAN (_The City of Man_). - - This is the poet’s vision of the city of the future, and will - be interesting to the allotment-holders in English cities - to-day. - - * * * * * - - Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what’s become of all the gold - Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old. - - R. BROWNING (_A Toccata of Galuppi’s_). - - * * * * * - - Quand on n’a pas ce que l’on aime, - Il faut aimer ce que l’on a. - - (When you have not what you love - You must love what you have.) - - THOMAS CORNEILLE (_L’Inconnu_). - - * * * * * - - At last methought that I had wandered far - In an old wood: fresh-washed in coolest dew - The maiden splendours of the morning star - Shook in the steadfast blue.... - - At length I saw a lady within call, - Stiller than chiselled marble, standing there; - A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, - And most divinely fair. - - ... - - I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise, - One sitting on a crimson scarf unrolled; - A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes, - Brow-bound with burning gold.... - - “I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found - Me lying dead, my crown about my brows, - A name for ever!—lying robed and crowned, - Worthy a Roman spouse.” - - TENNYSON (_A Dream of Fair Women_). - - Helen of Troy and Cleopatra—but, as Peacock mentioned in _Gryll - Grange_, Cleopatra was of pure Greek descent and could not have - been a “swarthy” lady. - - * * * * * - - One pond of water gleams; - ... the trees bend - O’er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl. - - R. BROWNING (_Pauline_). - - * * * * * - - I met a lady in the meads, - Full beautiful, a faery’s child; - Her hair was long, her foot was light, - And her eyes were wild. - - I set her on my pacing steed, - And nothing else saw all day long; - For sideways would she lean, and sing - A faery’s song. - - KEATS (_La Belle Dame sans Merci_). - - * * * * * - - He put the hawthorn twigs apart, - And yet saw no more wondrous thing - Than seven white swans, who on wide wing - Went circling round, till one by one - They dropped the dewy grass upon. - - W. MORRIS (_The Earthly Paradise, the Land - East of the Sun_). - - * * * * * - - Quoth Christabel.—So let it be! - And, as the lady bade, did she. - Her gentle limbs did she undress - And lay down in her loveliness. - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_Christabel_) - - The six quotations above are word-pictures (see note p. 85). - - * * * * * - -It is a mistake into which spiritually-minded men have fallen, that God -is apprehended and known by a special faculty. The fact is that every -faculty is serviceable in this noble work. We reach the Divine through -our aesthetic faculties when our soul is stirred by a grand burst of -music, or by the contemplation of a magnificent landscape. We reach -the Divine through our purely intellectual faculties, when, by true -reasoning, founded on sound observation, we master any great law by which -God governs the world. We reach the Divine through our emotional nature -when pure grief or pure love, holy longing, unselfish hope, righteous -indignation, elevate us above the prosaic level of customary equanimity, -and help us to realize the incomparable beauty of holiness. - -Just as the weeping Magdalene[32] stood bewailing the loss of what even -to her was only sacred clay, all unconscious that her Saviour had been -given back to her without seeing corruption, in a glorified and eternal -form, not dead, but alive for evermore, whom she could love with ever -increasing ardour of devotion: so, we say, there are not a few in our -time whose lot it is to wring their hands over the grave of lost ideas, -which they loved and their fathers loved, but for which God himself is -substituting ideas nobler and better far, which earlier ages failed to -grasp only because they were not in circumstances to feel their higher -worth. - -One cannot demonstrate on any physical or visible basis whatever, -that it is a nobler thing to suffer injustice than to commit it, that -truth-speaking is honourable, forgiveness of injuries magnanimous, and -loving self-sacrifice for others sublime. Honour, purity, humility, -reverence, tenderness, courtesy, patience, these things cannot be weighed -on physical scales, cannot be handled or touched, or melted or frozen in -any mechanical or chemical laboratory. They belong to a different order -of realities from acids and vapours: they are denizens of what, for want -of any more definite or accurate expression, we are accustomed to call -the spiritual world. - -One can see how religion should, to a young person, be associated with -repressive and prohibitive laws. Youth is the time for the luxuriating of -newborn, and, therefore, delicious vital forces. But its very luxuriance -is disorderly, and religion cannot coexist with disorder. Therefore, -that which is so continually warning the young against impulse, and -passion, and irregularity, ought not to be too greatly displeased if it -should, by and by, come to be regarded by the young as a synonym for -mere repressive force, and, therefore, as an unpleasant and unpopular -thing. I believe, too, that there is no exception to the uniformity of -the experience, that all young countries adopt freer systems of religion, -and divest religious bodies more completely of all political and properly -coercive power than older countries. It is all an illustration of the -same thing. Young life, which most needs regulation, most dislikes it.[33] - -As the genius of the bard is in the poem, as the wisdom of the legislator -is in the law, as the skill of the mechanician is in the engine, as -the soul of the musician is in the harmony and melody, as the words of -a man’s lips issue from the inner world of his mental and spiritual -character—so every work of God, and conspicuously man, as the noblest of -God’s works, may truly be said to shadow forth a portion of the mind of -God. - -We talk of creation as a past thing. But the truth is, creation is -eternal. Creation never ceases. Every time the clouds drop in rain, every -time the waters freeze into new ice, every time the juices of nature -gather into another violet, every time a new wail of life is heard upon -a mother’s breast, every time you breathe another sigh, or shed another -tear, there is God as truly present in His miraculous creative capacity -as on the day when He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. - - P. S. MENZIES (_Sermons_). - - Apart from their intrinsic value, the above extracts are - given because this book of sermons is of special interest to - Australians and because it has passed into oblivion. There are - very few copies in existence. - - Menzies came from Glasgow to Scots Church, Melbourne, in 1868 - and died at the early age of thirty-four in 1874. At the - Glasgow University he had been largely influenced mentally and - spiritually by Principal Caird. - - The sermons published in this book were selected by his widow - after his death. Although not revised by their gifted young - author, the fine thoughts expressed in chaste and beautiful - language remind one of James Martineau. - - * * * * * - -Our sweet illusions are half of them conscious illusions—like effects of -colour that we know to be made up of tinsel, broken glass, and rags. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_The Lifted Veil_). - - * * * * * - - My _Galligaskins_ that have long withstood - The Winter’s Fury, and incroaching Frosts, - By Time subdued, (what will not Time subdue!) - An horrid Chasm disclose, with Orifice - Wide, discontinuous. - - JOHN PHILLIPS (1676-1709) (_The Splendid - Shilling_). - - _Galligaskins_, trunk-hose. “The Splendid Shilling” is a famous - parody on Milton. - - * * * * * - - We would not pray that sorrow ne’er may shed - Her dews along the pathway they must tread; - The sweetest flowers would never bloom at all, - If no least rain of tears did ever fall. - - GERALD MASSEY (_Via Crucis, Via Lucis_). - - * * * * * - - But his wings will not rest and his feet will not stay for us; - Morning is here in the joy of its might; - With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us; - Now let him pass and the myrtles make way for us; - Love can but last in us here at his height - For a day and a night. - - SWINBURNE (_At Parting_). - - * * * * * - -That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not -yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our -frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling -of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and -the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on -the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well -wadded with stupidity. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Middlemarch_). - - In the story Dorothea has found her husband to be a man of - narrow mind and unsympathetic nature. Such a disillusionment - after marriage frequently happens, and we are not deeply - moved by what is not unusual, although it may mean a real - life-tragedy. Ruskin says “God gives the disposition to every - healthy human mind in some degree to pass over or even harden - itself against evil things, else the suffering would be too - great to be borne” (_Modern Painters_ v., xix., 32). Only thus - could we have lived through the horrors of the present war. - - George Eliot’s analogy between intensity of the emotions and - acuteness of the senses reminds one of Pope’s lines (“Essay on - Man,” Ep. I.) where he says life would be insupportable, if we - had the acute hearing, smell and other senses of insects and - other animals; we should - - Die of a rose in aromatic pain. - - * * * * * - - Man that passes by - So like to God, so like the beasts that die. - - W. MORRIS (_The Earthly Paradise_). - - * * * * * - - There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; - The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; - What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; - On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round. - - All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; - Not in semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power, - Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist - When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. - The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, - The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, - Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; - Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by and bye. - - R. BROWNING (_Abt Vogler_). - - Abt—or Abbé—Georg Joseph Vogler, 1749-1814, a German organist - and composer, is probably chosen by Browning because, although - an important musician, his compositions have perished. In this - fine poem Vogler has been extemporizing, and his inspired music - has lifted him in ecstasy to heaven. The sounds are his slaves - who have built palaces of music, as in the Arab legends angels - and demons built magic structures for Solomon. He grieves that - this wonderful music should apparently have vanished for ever; - but is comforted by the thought that no good thing, no fine - aspiration, no great effort or noble impulse can really die, - but must exist for ever in the mind of God. - - If Browning had known the evidence now afforded scientifically - by hypnotism and otherwise, he might have come to the - conclusion that all our thoughts and feelings, _both good - and bad_, are recorded deep down in our own consciousness. - Moreover, the existence of thought-transference leads to the - somewhat dreadful suggestion that this record of all our - inmost thoughts and feelings may possibly become open to the - inspection of every one. - - The quotation reminds one of Wordsworth’s sonnet on the “Inside - of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.” - - Where music dwells - Lingering—and wandering on as loth to die; - Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof - That they were born for immortality. - - * * * * * - - ... Had I painted the whole, - Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth; - Had I written the same, made verse—still, effect proceeds from cause, - Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told; - It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, - Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled:— - - But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, - Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are! - And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, - That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star. - Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is nought; - It is everywhere in the world—loud, soft, and all is said: - Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought: - And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head! - - ROBERT BROWNING (_Abt Vogler_). - - See the preceding note. The poet says that Painting and Poetry - are “art in obedience to laws,” but the musician exerts a - higher _creative_ will akin to that of God. The painter has - before him the pictures he reproduces, the poet borrows - his imagery from visible things and has apt words in which - to express his thoughts: the musician has nothing visible, - nothing outside his own soul, to assist him, and can use only - the meaningless sounds which we hear everywhere around us. By - combining, however, three of those empty sounds (in a chord) - he evolves a fourth sound, which so transcends all that other - arts can do in expressing emotion that Browning compares it to - a “star.” - - But this expresses only part of the poet’s meaning. In using - this tremendous comparison to a _star_, as also in enthroning - music supreme above art and poetry, he means that it transcends - their loftiest flights and rises _above our world_ to the - heavens above. In the earlier part of the poem the “pinnacled - glory” built by the slaves of sound at the bidding of the - musician’s soul is based “broad on the roots of things” and - ascends until it “attains to heaven.” - - F. W. H. Myers, in “The Renewal of Youth,” has a passage on - music. His theme is that while music (as in Mozart’s operas) - may express human passion, it also (as in Beethoven) rises - to greater heights and appears to voice the emotions of a - world beyond our senses. In the lines I have italicized in - the following passage he no doubt refers to Browning’s line, - “That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a - star!”—the “star” meaning that music ascends to a higher world - than our own:— - - ... Music is a creature bound, - A voice not ours, the imprisoned soul of sound,— - Who fain would bend down hither and find her part - In the strong passion of a hero’s heart, - Or one great hour constrains herself to sing - Pastoral peace and waters wandering;— - _Then hark how on a chord she is rapt and flown_ - _To that true world thou seest not nor hast known_, - Nor speech of thine can her strange thought unfold, - The bars’ wild beat, and ripple of running gold. - - Not only does Browning unselfishly assert that the sister-art - is superior to his own, but he goes further, and doubts if - music is not the greatest of all man’s gifts. I do not discuss - either contention—leaving musicians to rejoice in the tribute - of a great poet. - - * * * * * - - Although a gem be cast away, - And lie obscured in heaps of clay, - Its precious worth is still the same; - Although vile dust be whirled to heaven, - To it no dignity is given, - Still base as when from earth it came. - - SADI (_L. S. Costello’s translation_). - - * * * * * - - Death closes all: but something ere the end, - Some work of noble note, may yet be done.... - Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ - We are not now that strength which in old days - Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; - One equal temper of heroic hearts, - Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will - To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. - - TENNYSON (_Ulysses_). - - * * * * * - - Jenny kissed me when we met, - Jumping from the chair she sat in; - Time, you thief, who love to get - Sweets into your list, put that in! - Say I’m weary, say I’m sad. - Say that health and wealth have missed me, - Say I’m growing old, but add - Jenny kissed me. - - LEIGH HUNT. - - “Jenny” was Mrs. Carlyle. - - * * * * * - - A gracious spirit o’er this earth presides - And o’er the heart of man: invisibly - It comes, to works of unreproved delight - And tendency benign, directing those - Who care not, know not, think not what they do. - The tales that charm away the wakeful night - In Araby; romances; legends penned - For solace by dim light of monkish lamps; - Fictions, for ladies of their love, devised - By youthful squires; adventures endless, spun - By the dismantled warrior in old age, - Out of the bowels of those very schemes - In which his youth did first extravagate; - These spread like day, and something in the shape - Of these will live till man shall be no more. - Dumb yearnings, hidden appetites, are ours, - And _they must_ have their food. Our childhood sits, - Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne - That hath more power than all the elements. - - WORDSWORTH (_The Prelude_, Bk. V.) - - * * * * * - -The world is so inconveniently constituted, that the vague consciousness -of being a fine fellow is no guarantee of success in any line of business. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Brother Jacob_). - - * * * * * - - Wasted, weary,—wherefore stay - Wrestling thus with earth and clay! - From the body pass away!— - Hark! the mass is singing. - - From thee doff thy mortal weed, - Mary Mother be thy speed, - Saints to help thee at thy need! - Hark! the knell is ringing. - - Fear not snow-drift driving past, - Sleet, or hail, or levin blast; - Soon the shroud shall lap thee fast, - And the sleep be on thee cast - That shall know no waking. - - Haste thee, haste thee to be gone, - Earth flits past, and time draws on,— - Gasp thy gasp, and groan thy groan, - Day is near the breaking. - - SIR WALTER SCOTT. - - From _Guy Mannering_. Scott says it is a prayer or spell, which - was used in Scotland or Northern England to speed the passage - of a parting spirit, like the tolling of a bell in Catholic - days. - - * * * * * - - The world is full of Woodmen who expel - Love’s gentle Dryads from the haunts of life, - And vex the nightingales in every dell. - - SHELLEY (_The Woodman and the Nightingale_). - - * * * * * - -Evil of every kind, being familiar to us as an _object_ of apprehension, -appears to be external to ourselves. And yet it is invested with the -greater part of its severity by the mind: it acts upon us by the ideas -it awakens, the affections it wounds, the aspirations it disappoints. If -its outward pressure were all, and it dealt with us as beings of sense -alone, it would lose most of its poignancy and would dwindle down into a -few animal pangs.... It is our higher nature that creates immeasurably -the greater part of the ills we endure: they are ideal, not sensible: -and it is the privilege of reason to have tears instead of groans; of -love to know grief instead of pain; of conscience to replace uneasiness -with remorse.... Penury, disgrace, bereavement, guilt, are evils which we -must be human in order to feel; and it is the penalty of our nobleness, -not only to be weighed down by their occasional burthen, but to be -perpetually haunted by the phantom of their approach. - - JAMES MARTINEAU (_Hours of Thought_, II, 150). - - * * * * * - -Two or three of them got round me, and begged me for the twentieth time -to tell them the name of my country. Then, as they could not pronounce -it satisfactorily, they insisted that I was deceiving them, and that it -was a name of my own invention. One funny old man, who bore a ludicrous -resemblance to a friend of mine at home, was almost indignant. “Unglung!” -said he, “who ever heard of such a name?—anglang, angerlang—_that_ can’t -be the name of your country; you are playing with us.” Then he tried to -give a convincing illustration. “My country is Wanumbai—anybody can say -Wanumbai. I’m an orang-Wanumbai; but N-glung! who ever heard of such a -name? Do tell us the real name of your country, and when you are gone -we shall know how to talk about you.” To this luminous argument and -remonstrance I could oppose nothing but assertion, and the whole party -remained firmly convinced that I was for some reason or other deceiving -them. - - A. R. WALLACE (_The Malay Archipelago_). - - * * * * * - - Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, - Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; - So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, - Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence. - - LONGFELLOW (_Tales of a Wayside Inn_). - - This was written in 1863, but ten years earlier Alexander - Smith, in “A Life Drama,” had written: - - We twain have met like the ships upon the sea, - Who hold an hour’s converse, so short, so sweet; - One little hour! and then away they speed - On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam, - To meet no more. - - Other writers have also used the same simile. See next poem. - - * * * * * - -QUA CURSUM VENTUS - - As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay - With canvas drooping, side by side, - Two towers of sail at dawn of day - Are scarce long leagues apart descried; - - When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, - And all the darkling hours they plied, - Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas - By each was cleaving, side by side: - - E’en so—but why the tale reveal - Of those, whom year by year unchanged, - Brief absence joined anew to feel - Astounded, soul from soul estranged? - - At dead of night their sails were filled, - And onward each rejoicing steered— - Ah, neither blame, for neither willed, - Or wist, what first with dawn appeared! - - To veer, how vain! On, onward strain, - Brave barks! In light, in darkness too, - Through winds and tides one compass guides— - To that, and your own selves, be true. - - But O blithe breeze! and O great seas, - Though ne’er, that earliest parting past, - On your wide plain they join again, - Together lead them home at last. - - One port, methought, alike they sought, - One purpose hold where’er they fare,— - O bounding breeze, O rushing seas! - At last, at last, unite them there! - - A. H. CLOUGH. - - Two friends, who through absence have become “soul from soul - estranged,” are compared to two ships, which unconsciously draw - apart during the night and must continue a diverging course; - but, being both bound for the same port, will at the end of - their life-voyage be re-united. - - * * * * * - - Speak to Him thou, for He hears—and Spirit with Spirit can meet— - Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. - - TENNYSON (_The Higher Pantheism_). - - Tennyson, here and elsewhere (see, for example, the king’s - beautiful speech in “The Passing of Arthur”) urges us to - _prayer_, and adds his belief in a personal intercourse with - an ever-present and loving God. Innumerable men of the highest - character during nineteen centuries have testified to the same - direct communion with the Almighty. - - * * * * * - - A third in sugar with unscriptural hand - Traffics and builds a lasting house on sand. - - ALFRED AUSTIN (_The Golden Age_). - - * * * * * - - Thou canst not in life’s city - Rule thy course as in a cell: - There are others, all thy brothers, - Who have work to do as well. - - Some events that mar thy purpose - May light _them_ upon their way; - Our sun-shining in declining - Gives earth’s other side the day. - - R. A. VAUGHAN (_Hours with the Mystics_). - - * * * * * - - My little craft sails not alone; - A thousand fleets from every zone - Are out upon a thousand seas; - And what for me were favouring breeze - Might dash another, with the shock - Of doom, upon some hidden rock. - And so I do not dare to pray - For winds to waft me on my way. - - CATHERINE ATHERTON MASON. - - * * * * * - -A man’s body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both I speak it, -are exactly like a jerkin and a jerkin’s lining: rumple the one, you -rumple the other. - - STERNE (_Tristram Shandy_). - - * * * * * - -Il (Boucher) trouvait la nature trop verte et mal éclairée. Et son ami, -Lancret, le peintre des salons à la mode, lui répondait: “Je suis de -votre sentiment, la nature manque d’harmonie et de séduction.” - -(He, Boucher, found nature too green and badly lit. And his friend, -Lancret, the fashionable painter of the day, replied to him, “I am of -your opinion, nature is wanting in harmony and seductiveness.”) - - CHARLES BLANC. - - See following quotation. - - * * * * * - -If you examine the literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, you -will find that nearly all its expressions, having reference to the -country, show ... either a foolish sentimentality, or a morbid fear, -both of course coupled with the most curious ignorance. Nothing is more -remarkable than the general conception of the country merely as a series -of green fields, and the combined ignorance and dread of more sublime -scenery. The love of fresh air and green grass forced itself upon the -animal natures of men; but that of the sublimer features of scenery had -no place in minds whose chief powers had been repressed by the formalisms -of the age. And although in the second-rate writers continually, and in -the first-rate ones occasionally, you find an affectation of interest -in mountains, clouds, and forests, yet whenever they write from their -heart, you will find an utter absence of feeling respecting anything -beyond gardens and grass. Examine, for instance, the novels of Smollett, -Fielding, and Sterne, the comedies of Molière, and the writings of -Johnson and Addison, and I do not think you will find a single expression -of true delight in sublime nature in any one of them. Perhaps Sterne’s -_Sentimental Journey_, in its total absence of sentiment on any subject -but humanity, and its entire want of notice of anything at Geneva which -might not as well have been seen at Coxwold, is the most striking -instance I could give you; and if you compare with this negation of -feeling on one side, the interludes of Molière, in which shepherds -and shepherdesses are introduced in court dress, you will have a very -accurate conception of the general spirit of the age. - - JOHN RUSKIN (_Architecture and Painting_). - - * * * * * - -“My other piece of advice, Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, “you know. -Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, -result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty -pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf -is withered, the God of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and—and in -short, you are for ever floored. As I am!” - - CHARLES DICKENS (_David Copperfield_). - - * * * * * - - And yet, as Angels in some brighter dreams - Call to the soul, when man doth sleep, - So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, - And into glory peep. - - HENRY VAUGHAN (_Friends Departed_). - - This is Vision. - - * * * * * - - ... The trial-test - Appointed to all flesh at some one stage - Of soul’s achievement—when the strong man doubts - His strength, the good man whether goodness be, - The artist in the dark seeks, fails to find - Vocation, and the saint forswears his shrine. - - R. BROWNING (_The Inn Album_). - - * * * * * - - I sits with my toes in a brook; - If anyone asks me for why, - I hits him a rap with my crook— - ’Tis sentiment kills me, says I. - - HORACE WALPOLE. - - This was written in a game of _bouts rimés_ (rhymed ends). Four - lines had to be composed ending with “brook,” “why,” “crook,” - “I.” - - * * * * * - - Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west. - And I said in underbreath,—all our life is mixed with death, - And who knoweth which is best? - - Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, - And I smiled to think God’s greatness flowed around our incompleteness— - Round our restlessness, His rest. - - E. B. BROWNING (_Rhyme of the Duchess May_). - - * * * * * - - I go to prove my soul! - I see my way as birds their trackless way. - I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first, - I ask not: but unless God send his hail - Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow, - In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: - He guides me and the bird. In his good time! - - R. BROWNING (_Paracelsus_). - - Referring to Bryant’s poem, “To a Waterfowl”:— - - He who from zone to zone - Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, - In the long way that I must tread alone, - Will lead my steps aright. - - * * * * * - - Souvent femme varie, - Bien fol est qui s’y fie! - - (Woman is very fickle, - Great fool he who trusts in her!) - - VICTOR HUGO (_Le Roi s’amuse_). - - In the play Francis I (1494-1547) enters singing these lines. - (Francis wrote on the walls of the royal apartments at Chambord - _Toute femme varie_, “Every woman is fickle.”) One finds this - never-ending theme of poets and cynics in Virgil’s _Varium et - mutabile semper Femina_, “Woman is a fickle and changeable - thing” (_Aeneid_ iv, 569), _La donna è mobile_ (_Rigoletto_), - and countless other passages. - - * * * * * - - Crowned with flowers I saw fair Amaryllis - By Thyrsis sit, hard by a fount of Chrystal, - And with her hand more white than snow or lilies, - On sand she wrote “My faith shall be immortal”: - And suddenly a storm of wind and weather - Blew all her faith and sand away together. - - ANON. - - * * * * * - - For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, - Our fancies are more giddy and infirm, - More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, - Than women’s are. - - _Twelfth Night_, II, 4. - - * * * * * - - If Thou be’st born to strange sights, - Things invisible to see, - Ride ten thousand days and nights - Till Age snow white hairs on thee; - Thou, when thou return’st, will tell me - All strange wonders that befell thee, - And swear - No where - Lives a woman true, and fair. - - If thou find’st one, let me know: - Such a pilgrimage were sweet. - Yet do not; I would not go, - Though at next door we might meet. - Though she were true when you met her, - And last till you write your letter, - Yet she - Will be - False, ere I come, to two or three. - - JOHN DONNE (_Song_). - - * * * * * - -In his broken fashion Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his land, -owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king, chiefs -and great people generally were in the custom of fattening some of the -lower orders for ottomans; and to furnish a house comfortably in that -respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay them -round in the piers and alcoves. Besides it was very convenient on an -excursion—much better than those garden-chairs which are convertible -into walking-sticks. Upon occasion a chief would call his attendant, and -desire him to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree—perhaps in -some damp marshy place. - - HERMAN MELVILLE (_Moby Dick_). - - * * * * * - - Here lie I, Martin Elginbrodde: - Hae mercy o’ my soul, Lord God; - As I wad do, were I Lord God, - And ye were Martin Elginbrodde. - - G. MACDONALD (_David Elginbrod_). - - * * * * * - -Dieu me pardonnera; c’est son métier. - -(God will pardon me; that is His business.) - - HEINE. - - * * * * * - - O Lord, it broke my heart to see his pain! - I thought—I dared to think—if _I_ were God, - Poor Caird should never gang so dark a road; - I thought—ay, dared to think, the Lord forgie!— - The Lord was crueller than I could be; - Forgetting God is just and knoweth best - What folk should burn in fire, what folk be blest. - - R. BUCHANAN (_A Scottish Eclogue_). - - * * * * * - -THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SEA. - - Thoughts and tears as I turn away, - Tears for a long ago: - She looks out on a summer day, - I on a night of snow. - But I see some ferns and a rushing rill - And my love that promised me, - And a day we spent on God’s great hill - On the other side of the sea, - My heart, - On the other side of the sea. - - Ay! the hill was green and the sky was blue, - And the path was dappled fair, - But a light from loving eyes shone through - Beyond the sunlight there. - And I gave my life—and who’s to blame?— - As over the hill went we: - But the sky and the hill and the way we came - Are the other side of the sea, - Sad heart, - Are the other side of the sea.... - - ’Mid trees and grass and a tangled wall - We wandered merrily down, - Through the homeless boughs and the forest fall - Of the dead leaves thick and brown. - But faith is broken and life is pain - And oh! it can never be - That I gather those golden hours again - On the other side of the sea, - Poor heart, - On the other side of the sea. - - Though the sea is wild and the sea is dark, - It will sink and slip away - At the bounding scorn of my speeding bark - To the land of that dear day; - But never the Love of my soul be seen, - The light of that day to me, - For I know there is lying our hearts between - A wilder and darker sea, - O God! - The depth of a bitterer sea. - - RICHARD HODGSON. - - This was written in March, 1879, after Hodgson had left - Australia for England. The love-episode is imaginary. - - * * * * * - - They eat, and drink, and scheme, and plod, - And go to church on Sunday; - And many are afraid of God— - And more of Mrs. Grundy. - - F. LOCKER-LAMPSON (_The Jester’s Plea_). - - * * * * * - - Greece and her foundations are - Built below the tide of war, - Based on the crystalline sea - Of thought and its eternity. - - SHELLEY (_Hellas_). - - It is very true that the amazing intellectual power of the - Greeks in a primitive age ensures them an immortality of fame; - and this is finely expressed _in the last two lines_. But those - two splendid lines are utterly spoilt by the two that precede - them. One asks, Why “Greece _and_ her foundations”? One does - not say “a house _and_ its foundations” are built somewhere - or other. This by itself would be trivial, but next comes the - question, What is the meaning of the second line? We know what - Shelley intended—that the memory and influence of Greece will - withstand its destruction by war—but why in that case should - she not be built _above_, instead of submerged _below_ the - tide of war? Later on, in lines 836-7, the Emperor Palæologus, - at the siege of Constantinople, is said to have cast himself - “_beneath_ the stream of war”; that is to say, he was - overwhelmed and killed. The words, in fact, do not express the - poet’s meaning. The third and fatal defect of the lines is the - juxtaposition of “tide” and “sea” —the city is _built below a - tide_, and also _based on a sea_. Not only is this combination - absurd in itself, but it also destroys the beauty of the last - two magnificent lines. The moving unstable water is scarcely - a foundation to build upon, yet this meaning is forcibly - impressed upon the word “sea” by the previous mention of a - “tide.” What Shelley meant was an immense broad, deep, expanse - of _solid crystal_—the “sea of glass like unto crystal” of - Revelations (iv, 6) and the _Mer de Glace_ (“sea of ice”), the - great Alpine glacier.[34] Therefore, anyone who had exactness - of thought or perception of poetry would omit the first two - lines and give only the last two as a quotation. - - Mrs. Shelley in her note on “Hellas” specially refers to - this verse as a beautiful example of Shelley’s style, and - she quotes _all four_ lines. We may assume, therefore, that - Shelley himself thought highly of the verse, and we thus have - an illustration of the curious fact that a great poet is often - a poor judge of his own poetry. (Almost certainly Shakespeare - himself did not realize how god-like he stood above all other - poets.) However, it is not only for this reason that I have - included the above quotation, but because with it I propose to - make a flank attack upon Mr. R. W. Livingstone, the author of - _The Greek Genius and its Meaning to us_. I do this, of course, - with a special object in view. - - Mr. Livingstone’s book is important, valuable, and highly - interesting—and is especially admirable because the author - does not envelope his subject in the usual glamour, born of - enthusiasm. He is, indeed, most exceptional in this respect, - that he endeavours to look at the Greeks from an ordinary - commonsense point of view. But he makes the mistake, not - unusual with classical men, of supposing that he is a qualified - critic of poetry; and he, therefore, gives us a special - dissertation upon the comparative values of English and Greek - poetry. - - Apart from this dissertation, he quotes three or four passages - from English poets in the course of the book. Of these the - most prominent is the above verse of Shelley’s, and he quotes - _all four_ lines without comment. Thus we see an able man, in - whom classical study should have induced exactness of thought, - failing to analyse and understand what he is quoting. But, - more than this, the question is one of poetic perception. The - imagery in the last _two_ lines is sublime—in the _four_ lines - it is ludicrous. Therefore, we begin with the fact that our - literary critic was unable to see palpable and grave defects in - one of the few verses he himself quotes. (I might give other - illustrations, as where he admires poor verse of Dryden’s, but - I must be brief.) - - Mr. Livingstone’s point is that the “direct” and “truthful” - character of Greek poetry is superior to the “imaginative” - quality of English verse. He goes so far as to say that “Sappho - and Simonides _with four words_ make him see a nightingale and - give him a greater and far saner pleasure” than Shelley’s poem - “To a Skylark.” I take his quotation from Simonides, as it - involves less discussion than that from Sappho.[35] It is (Fr, - 73) ἀὴδονες πολυκώτιλοι χλωραύχενες εἰαριναί, “The warbling - nightingales with olive necks, the birds of spring.” - - As Mr. Livingstone is not discussing beauty of expression we - can leave this out of consideration.[36] He is discussing - the _substance_ of poetry, comparing the “directness” and - “truthfulness” of Simonides (in this case) with the imaginative - element in Shelley’s poem. He would apparently discard the - latter element altogether, and prefers a simple description of - the nightingale—that it sings, has an olive neck, and appears - in spring. The first suggestion that occurs to one is that - if, say, an auctioneer’s catalogue of farm stock—without any - addition whatever to its contents—could be worded prettily and - made metrical, it would afford huge enjoyment to our literary - critic. - - The whole question is as to the value of the imaginative - element which to our minds makes Shelley’s poem one of the - most beautiful lyrics—possibly the most beautiful—in all - literature. In sweeping away this element, Mr. Livingstone - tells us how much of English poetry must be cast aside. But he - does not realize that much else has also to be flung on the - scrap-heap. Imagination, in its true sense, includes all those - aesthetic, moral, and spiritual faculties which are higher than - the intellect—all, in fact, that raises man above his material - existence. (See pp. 39, 40, 358.) With the immense deal of - English poetry which Mr. Livingstone proposes to “scrap” must - go all our most beautiful music, all that is great in painting - (which is never “direct” and “truthful” in this sense, or - it would not be great), _all Greek statuary_, and all that - expresses high moral and spiritual truths in our literature. I - do not think that Mr. Livingstone will find many adherents to - his new creed. - - This critic also discusses _style_, and we find that he speaks - of Pope as a “great poet,” and apparently revels in his - monotonous verse! When pointing out that English verse, unlike - what we have left of Greek poetry, includes much unequal and - ill-finished work, he says, “Of all our great poets, perhaps - only Milton and Pope can boast unfailing excellence of style.” - - As regards this inequality in the work of English poets the - answer is very simple. Mr. Livingstone forgets the fact—a - very important fact in any speculation upon the scheme of the - universe—that only the good things ultimately survive. How - very little we have left of many Greek poets! Of Sophocles - only seven plays remain out of one hundred and twenty-seven, - _and the Fragments collected are said to be very poor_ (many, - of course, are only grammatical illustrations)—and more than - half of Homer must have been dropped. We probably still have - everything that is _best_ in Greek literature. Again, it is - not in fact _desirable_ to restrict publication to work of the - highest importance, and the facilities afforded by printing - have made it _unnecessary_ thus to restrict it—so that even _My - Commonplace Book_ is now, at least temporarily, part of English - literature! - - Greatly as I admire Mr. Livingstone’s book, I feel bound to - call attention to a view of poetry that must do great harm to - University students and others. I am also bound to mention - him as an illustration of the fact that classical men usually - imagine that their study of the Greek and Latin languages and - literature qualifies them to become literary critics.[37] This - fact has impressed itself upon me from youth upwards. One of my - teachers, a man of some weight in the classical world, was in - the habit of saying that only through study of Latin and Greek - could a man learn to write good English![38] His own English - was simply execrable. - - I will now give another instance where the classical - enthusiast, as in Mr. Livingstone’s case, tends to exaggerate - the value of his favourite literature—truly wonderful as it is. - Gissing’s _Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft_ is an interesting - book of wide circulation, in which the author displays great - admiration for and familiarity with the classics. Speaking - of Xenophon’s _Anabasis_, he says “Were it the sole book - existing in Greek, it would be abundantly worth while to - learn the language in order to read it.” That is to say, - it would be worth while expending, out of our short lives, - some years of study for the sole purpose of reading in the - original an extremely _simple_, _prose_ historical narrative, - which has been excellently translated! (If Gissing had said - _Homer_ instead of Xenophon, no one would have quarrelled with - him.) Again, he says, “Many a single line presents a picture - which deeply stirs the emotions”; and he gives us what he - calls “a good instance of such a line.” A guide, who has led - the Greeks through hostile country, has to return through - the same perilous district, and the wonderful line is Ἐπεὶ - ἑσπέρα ἐγένετο, ᾤχετο τῆς νυκτὸς ἀπιών. This line Gissing - translates, “When evening came he took leave of us and went - away by night”—a sentence which only by inadvertence could have - appeared in, say, a _Times_ leader, seeing that the words “by - night” are redundant. As a matter of fact, the translation is - incorrect; there is nothing about “taking leave of us,” and the - meaning is, “As soon as evening came, he had slipped away into - the darkness.” - - (Professor Naylor points out to me that the word ᾤχετο in this - line is interesting. It conveys the idea of a swift or abrupt - departure or disappearance. It is used in connection with that - most interesting man Alcibiades (Xen, _Hell._, 2. I. 26) and - gives a fine impression of his quick insolent temper. The Greek - admirals had put themselves in a position of extreme danger - and he came to warn them of their peril. Their reply was the - usual expression of ineptitude, “We are the admirals, not you”; - and immediately follows the one word ᾤχετο, “he turned on his - heels and left”—and with this word Alcibiades disappears from - contemporary history.) - - * * * * * - - In referring to Mr. Livingstone’s remarks above I could not - use the Sappho quotation, because there are certain initial - questions that need to be first settled. (In briefly discussing - these I must speak as though I were expressing _definite - opinions_, since otherwise the note could not be compressed - sufficiently, but I mean the following rather as _suggestions_ - which may possibly be found useful.) - - Sappho’s line is (Fr, 39) Ἦρος ἄγγελος ἱμερόφωνος ἀήδων, - which Mr. Livingstone translates “The messenger of spring, - the lovely-voiced nightingale.” Now ἱμερος (_himeros_) means - animal passion, so that ἱμερόφωνος (_himerophonos_) is a strong - word meaning singing of, or with, passion—in this case the - passion of the pairing-time. Why then does Mr. Livingstone, - following Liddell and Scott, give the totally different meaning - “lovely-voiced”? Apparently it is because Theocritus (XXVIII, - 7) applies the expression “himerophonos” to the Charites, and, - according to the current conception, those deities were pure - unimpassionate beings.[39] - - In questions of this character, seeing that the Greek gods were - guilty of every form of immorality and the Greeks themselves - were one of the most sensual nations that ever existed, the - presumption is in favour of impurity: the onus of proof is - on those who allege purity. I have not undertaken the heavy - work of looking up the innumerable references to the Charites - in Greek literature, but I know of nothing that supports - the prevalent conception of those deities. Apart from the - fact that Theocritus uses the word _himerophonos_, Meleager - (Anth. Pal, V, 195) speaks of _himeros_ as conferred by the - Charites. There is nothing in the meaning of _charis_, or the - verb _charizesthai_ to support the current idea (both being - even used in an immodest sense); Homer identifies Charis with - Aphrodite, with whom Hesiod also identifies Aglaia, since each - is made the wife of Hephaestus; the Charites are constantly - associated with Aphrodite and Erôs (and consequently with - Himeros, the personification of passion) so that the maxim - _Noscitur a sociis_ applies; Sappho repeatedly claims them as - her patrons; as regards the representation of the Charites in - art, girl friendship would be a subject quite alien to the - Greek mind. - - If the view suggested is correct our authorities with their - preconceived ideas _presume to correct Theocritus and Sappho_! - They not only give a wrong view of the Charites, but also hide - the coarseness of the compliment paid by Theocritus to his lady - friend—in each case _distorting the truth_. - - Mr. Livingstone may have another reason for altering the - meaning of “himerophonos.” He appears to hold the opinion that - a Greek writer would not ascribe intelligence or emotion to a - bird, as Mrs. Browning does in “To a Seamew.” (I quite agree - with him as to the false, feminine sentiment in this poem. - It is mainly the “Sonnets from the Portuguese” that raise - Mrs. Browning above the minor poets.) Mr. Livingstone, for - example, translates ἡμερόφων’ ἀλέκτωρ, “O cock that criest - _at_ dawn.” This should surely mean “that announceth the - dawn;” the attitude and the very _crow_ of the bird would - suggest this to the Greeks; and the fowl did, as a matter - of fact, serve in place of an alarm-clock to them (see, for - instance, Aristophanes’ _Birds_, 488). Does not Mr. Livingstone - forget that the Greeks attributed not only intelligence - but also miraculous powers to animals (see p. 370)? If so, - this illustrates another fact noticeable among classical - authorities. They often fail to consider _all the premises_ - before arriving at a conclusion. Taking another illustration - from Mr. Livingstone, he says that the Greeks had little of - the feeling of wonder, did not “muse on the strangeness of the - world,” and would not have experienced the emotion Pascal felt - when viewing the starry heavens, “The eternal silence of those - infinite spaces terrifies me.” The premise he appears to omit - here is the fact of the intense ignorance of the Greeks. Their - world was a very limited one, with its flat earth and solid - lid, certain bright objects conceived as gods or otherwise - moving in the intermediate space. To illustrate this, Herodotus - (II, 24) believes that the sun-god is forced by the cold winds - in winter to move to the warm sky above Libya; and in 434 B.C. - (about the same time) the great advanced thinker, Anaxagoras, - is arrested for blasphemy and exiled because he taught that - the sun must be a mass of blazing metal larger than the - Peloponnesus! Everything in nature had its god, whose action - explained whatever happened. If the Greeks had once realized - the awful infinity of the universe their whole outlook on - nature would have changed, and I cannot think that so highly - intellectual a people would not have been moved by wonder. - I cannot see any element in “the Greek genius” that would - indicate this. (Observe Ptolemy’s epigram on p. 10.) - - Returning to the Sappho quotation, Mr. Livingstone translates - ἦρος ἄγγελος literally as “the messenger of spring.” Does he - mean the messenger “sent by spring” or “announcing spring”? - Presumably he does not mean the latter, as it would impute - intelligence or emotion to the bird. But, if we accept the - former interpretation, it leads to the curious result that - the poet, not content with a Goddess of Spring and the Hours - who represent the seasons, intends still further to personify - spring. Is not the true meaning of Sappho’s words “the - nightingale with its passionate song sent (by Proserpine) to - let men know that spring is approaching”? This is not mere - captious criticism. To Sappho the goddess Proserpine was a - concrete being with some sort of corporeal form, who brings - a _thing_ called spring, and who actually _does_ send the - nightingale ahead to sing of the passion of the pairing-time, - and thus let men know that spring is coming. There is no poetic - imagery, no imaginative picture in the poet’s mind, but the - statement of an _actual fact_. See also the reference to the - halcyon, p. 370. It seems to me that, in this as in other - cases, our classical authorities _fail to place themselves in - the position of the Greeks_. Here they interpret as imagination - what was meant as reality. (However, as I have said before, - the above are merely suggestions which I myself hope to - consider further; but, until we knew exactly what Sappho’s - verse meant, it could not be brought into the discussion of Mr. - Livingstone’s views.) - - * * * * * - - Ah! the weariness and weight of tears, - The crying out to God, the wish for slumber, - They lay so deep, so deep! God heard them all; - He set them unto music of his own. - - R. BUCHANAN, 1866 (_Bexhill_). - - Buchanan is speaking of the sad lives in the poor quarters of - London. - - * * * * * - - Cold as a mountain in its star-pitched tent - Stood high Philosophy, less friend than foe: - Whom self-caged Passion, from its prison-bars, - Is always watching with a wondering hate. - Not till the fire is dying in the grate - Look we for any kinship with the stars. - - G. MEREDITH (_Modern Love IV._) - - A fine expression of a familiar fact. Under the influence - of love, anger, or other strong passion, a man becomes an - unreasoning animal, and actually _hates_ to be told the truth. - Wild passion glares through the bars of its self-constituted - cage at philosophy standing calm, lofty, and serene. Only “when - the fire is dying in the grate” do we again become akin to - cold, dispassionate, star-like Philosophy. - - * * * * * - -The triumph of machinery is when man wonders at his own works; thus, says -Derwent Coleridge, all science begins in wonder and ends in wonder, but -the first is the wonder of ignorance, the last that of adoration. - - CAROLINE FOX’S JOURNALS. - - Evidently a comment on S. T. Coleridge’s Aphorism IV. on - “Spiritual Religion” (_Aids to Reflection_). - - * * * * * - -No one of himself can rise out of the depths, but must clasp some -outstretched hand. - - SENECA (? 3 B.C.-65 A.D.) (_Epistle 52_). - - * * * * * - -THE RIME OF REDEMPTION - - The ways are white in the moon’s light, - Under the leafless trees: - Strange shadows go across the snow - Before the tossing breeze. - - The burg stands grim upon the rim - Of the low wooded hill: - Sir Loibich sits beside the hearth, - Fill’d with a thought of ill. - - The knight sits bent with eyes intent - Upon the dying fire; - Sad dreams and strange in sooth do range - Before the troubled sire. - - He sees the maid the past years laid - Upon his breast to sleep, - Long dead in sin, laid low within - The grave unblest and deep. - - He hears her wail, with lips that fail, - To him to save her soul: - He sees her laid, unhouselèd,[40] - Under the crossless knoll. - - “Ah! would, dear Christ, my tears sufficed - To ransom her!” he cries: - “Sweet Heaven, to win her back from sin, - I would renounce the skies. - - “Could I but bring her suffering - To pardon and to peace, - I for my own sin would atone, - Where never pain doth cease! - - “I for my part would gnaw my heart, - Chain’d in the flames of hell; - I would abide, unterrified, - More than a man shall tell.” - - The moon is pale, the night winds wail, - Weird whispers fill the night: - “Dear heart, what word was that I heard - Ring out in the moonlight?” - - ’Twas but the blast that hurried past, - Shrieking among the pines: - The souls that wail upon the gale, - When the dim starlight shines. - - Great God! the name! once more it came - Ringing across the dark! - “Loibich!” it cried. The night is wide, - The dim pines stand and hark. - - “Loibich! Loibich! my soul is sick - With hungering for thee! - The night fades fast, the hours fly past; - Stay not, come forth to me!” - - The cloudwrack grey did break away, - Out shone the ghostly moon; - Down slid the haze from off the ways - Before her silver shoon. - - Pale silver-ray’d, out shone the glade, - Before the castle wall, - And on the lea the knight could see - A maid both fair and tall. - - Gold was her hair, her face was fair, - As fair as fair can be; - But through the night the blue corpse-light - About her could he see. - - She raised her face towards the place - Where Loibich stood adread; - There was a sheen in her two een, - As one that long is dead. - - She look’d at him in the light dim, - And beckon’d with her hand: - “Dear Knight,” she said, “thy prayer hath sped - Unto the heavenly land. - - “Come forth with me: the night is free - For us to work the thing - That is to do, before we two - Shall hear the dawn-bird sing. - - “Saddle thy steed, Sir Knight, with speed, - Thy faithfullest,” quoth she, - “For many a tide we twain must ride - Before the end shall be.” - - The steed is girt, black Dagobert, - Swift-footed as the wind; - The knight leapt up upon his croup, - The maid sprang up behind. - - The wind screams past; they ride so fast,— - Like troops of souls in pain - The snowdrifts spin, but none may win - To rest upon the twain. - - So fast they ride, the blasts divide - To let them hurry on; - The wandering ghosts troop past in hosts - Across the moonlight wan. - - A singing light did cleave the night, - High up a hill rode they; - The veils of Heaven for them were riven, - And all the skies pour’d day. - - The golden gate did stand await, - The golden town did lie - Before their sight, the realms of light - God builded in the sky. - - The steed did wait before the gate, - Sheer up the street looked they. - They saw the bliss in Heaven that is, - They saw the saints’ array. - - They saw the hosts upon the coasts - Of the clear crystal sea; - They saw the blest, that in the rest - Of Christ for ever be. - - The choirs of God pulsed full and broad - Upon the ravish’d twain; - The angels’ feet upon the street - Rang out like golden rain. - - Then said the maid, “Be not afraid, - God giveth heaven to thee; - Light down and rest with Christ His blest, - And think no more of me!” - - Sir Loibich gazed, as one sore dazed, - Awhile upon the place: - Then, with a sigh, he turned his eye - Upon the maiden’s face. - - “By Christ His troth!” he swore an oath, - “No heaven for me shall be, - Unless God give that thou shalt live - In heaven for aye with me.” - - “Ah, curst am I!” the maid did cry; - “My place thou knowest well; - I must begone before the dawn, - To harbour me in hell.” - - “By Christ His rest!” he beat his breast, - “Then be it even so; - With thee in hell I choose to dwell - And share with thee thy woe! - - “Thy sin was mine,—By Christ His wine, - Mine too shall be thy doom; - What part have I within the sky, - And thou in Hell’s red gloom?” - - The vision broke, as thus he spoke, - The city waned away: - O’er hill and brake, o’er wood and lake - Once more the darkness lay. - - O’er hill and plain they ride again, - Under the night’s black spell, - Until there rise against the skies - The lurid lights of hell. - - The dreadful cries they rend the skies, - The plain is ceil’d with fire: - The flames burst out, around, about, - The heats of hell draw nigher. - - Unfear’d they ride; against the side - Of the red flameful sky - Grim forms are thrown, strange shapes upgrown - From out Hell’s treasury. - - Fast rode the twain across the plain, - With hearts all undismay’d, - Until they came where all a-flame - Hell’s gates were open laid. - - The awful stead gaped wide and red, - To gulph them in its womb: - There could they see the fiery sea - And all the souls in doom. - - There came a breath, like living death, - Out of the gated way: - It scorched his face with its embrace, - It turn’d his hair to grey. - - Then said the maid, “Art not dismay’d? - Here is our course fulfill’d: - Wilt thou not turn, nor rest to burn - With me, as God hath will’d?” - - “By Christ His troth!” he swore an oath, - “Thy doom with thee dree I! - Here will we dwell, hand-link’d in hell, - Unseverèd for aye!” - - He spurr’d his steed; the gates of dread - Gaped open for his course; - Sudden outrang a trumpet’s clang, - And backwards fell the horse. - - The ghostly maid did wane and fade, - The lights of hell did flee; - Alone in night the mazèd wight - Stood on the frozen lea. - - Out shone the moon; the mists were blown - Away before his sight - And through the dark he saw a spark, - A welcoming of light. - - Thither he fared, with falchion bared, - Toward the friendly shine; - Eftsoon he came to where a flame - Did burn within a shrine. - - Down on his knee low louted he - Before the cross of wood, - And for her spright he saw that night - Long pray’d he to the Rood.[41] - - And as he pray’d, with heart down-weigh’d, - A wondrous thing befell: - He saw a light, and through the night - There rang a silver bell. - - The earth-mists drew from off his view, - He saw God’s golden town; - He saw the street, he saw the seat - From whence God looketh down. - - He saw the gate transfigurate,— - He saw the street of pearl, - And in the throng, the saints among, - He saw a gold-hair’d girl. - - He saw a girl as white as pearl, - With hair as red as gold: - He saw her stand among the band - Of angels manifold. - - He heard her smite the harp’s delight, - Singing most joyfully, - And knew his love prevail’d above - Judgment and destiny. - - ... - - Gone is the night, the morn breaks white - Across the eastward hill; - The knightly sire by the dead fire - Sits in the dawning chill. - - By the hearth white, there sits the knight, - Dead as the sunken fire; - But on his face is writ the grace - Of his fulfill’d desire. - - JOHN PAYNE (b. 1841). - - This poem is cut down one-half and thereby loses much of its - effect. Two adventures, in which the Knight refuses temptation - and adheres to his oath, are entirely omitted. - - * * * * * - - Alas! they had been friends in youth; - But whispering tongues can poison truth; - And constancy lives in realms above; - And life is thorny; and youth is vain; - And to be wroth with one we love - Doth work like madness in the brain. - They parted—ne’er to meet again! - But never either found another - To free the hollow heart from paining— - They stood aloof, the scars remaining, - Like cliffs which had been reft asunder; - A dreary sea now flows between, - But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, - Shall wholly do away, I ween, - The marks of that which once hath been. - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_Christabel_). - - * * * * * - - Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, - So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone, - Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night, - And would have told him half his Troy was burnt. - - SHAKESPEARE (_2 Henry IV._) - - This and the next five quotations are word-pictures (see p. 85). - - * * * * * - - That strange song I heard Apollo sing, - While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.[42] - - TENNYSON (_Tithonus_). - - * * * * * - - Cool was the woodside; cool as her white dairy - Keeping sweet the cream-pan; and there the boys from school, - Cricketing below, rush’d brown and red with sunshine; - O the dark translucence of the deep-eyed cool! - Spying from the farm, herself she fetched a pitcher - Full of milk, and tilted for each in turn the beak. - Then a little fellow, mouth up and on tiptoe, - Said, “I will kiss you:” she laughed and lean’d her cheek. - - G. MEREDITH (_Love in the Valley_). - - * * * * * - - One there is, the loveliest of them all, - Some sweet lass of the valley, looking out - For gains, and who that sees her would not buy? - Fruits of her father’s orchard are her wares, - And with the ruddy produce she walks round - Among the crowd, half pleased with, half ashamed - Of her new office, blushing restlessly. - - WORDSWORTH (_The Prelude, Bk. VIII._) - - * * * * * - - Out came the children running— - All the little boys and girls, - With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls - And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls - Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after - The wonderful music with shouting and laughter. - - R. BROWNING (_The Pied Piper of Hamelin_). - - * * * * * - - Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, - And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast, - As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon: - Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, - And on her silver cross soft amethyst, - And on her hair a glory, like a saint. - - KEATS (_The Eve of St. Agnes_). - - The above are from a series of word-pictures (see pp. 86, 122). - - * * * * * - -If the collective energies of the universe are identified with Divine -Will, and the system is thus animate with an eternal consciousness as -its moulding life, the conception we frame of its history will conform -itself to our experience of intellectual volition. It is in origination, -in disposing of new conditions, in setting up order by differentiation, -that the mind exercises its highest function. When the product has been -obtained, and a definite method of procedure established, the strain -upon us is relaxed, habit relieves the constant demand for creation, -and at length the rules of a practised art almost execute themselves. -As the intensely voluntary thus works itself off into the automatic, -thought, liberated from this reclaimed and settled province breaks into -new regions, and ascends to ever higher problems: its supreme life being -beyond the conquered and legislated realm, while a lower consciousness, -if any at all, suffices for the maintenance of its ordered mechanism. Yet -all the while it is one and the same mind that, under different modes of -activity, thinks the fresh thoughts and carries on the old usages. Does -anything forbid us to conceive similarly of the cosmical development; -that it started from the freedom of indefinite possibilities and the -ubiquity of universal consciousness; that, as intellectual exclusions -narrowed the field, and traced the definite lines of admitted movement, -the tension of purpose, less needed on these, left them as the habits of -the universe, and operated rather for higher and ever higher ends not -yet provided for; that the more mechanical, therefore, a natural law -may be, the further is it from its source; and that the inorganic and -unconscious portion of the world, instead of being the potentiality of -the organic and conscious, is rather its residual precipitate, formed -as the Indwelling Mind of all concentrates an intenser aim on the upper -margin of the ordered whole, and especially on the inner life of natures -that can resemble him? - - JAMES MARTINEAU (1805-1900) (_Modern Materialism_). - - The remarkably fine and suggestive essay in which this passage - occurs was written in 1876, in the course of a discussion - raised by Tyndall’s Belfast Address. It is not easy to - appreciate the speculation that Martineau offers in direct - opposition to the theory of Darwinism without reading his - preceding argument. - - It may be well to begin with a quotation from his sermon, - “Perfection, Divine and Human”: “However vast and majestic the - uniformities of nature, they are nevertheless finite: science - counts them one by one; a completed science would count them - all. God, however, is not finite; He lives out beyond the - legislation He has made; and His thought, which defines the - rules of matter, does not transmigrate into them and cease - else-how to be; _but merely flings out the law as an emanating - act, and Himself abides behind as Thinking Power_.” - - In the present essay Martineau first develops the argument that - there is only one Power that exercises all the forces in the - universe, whether mechanical, chemical, or vital. That power is - God, the Indwelling Mind of the world. He is of like nature to - (although infinitely higher than) His highest product, which - is conscious, thinking, and willing man. Seeing that God and - man are alike in their natures, Martineau proceeds to draw an - analogy between the history of the world and the history of - man’s own development. The Divine Mind at first _consciously_ - exercises the forces that we know as gravitation, cohesion, - chemical attraction, etc.; just as, to take a simple example, - a baby has at first consciously to use its muscles and balance - its body in the process of walking. Later the baby, having - formed the _habit_, does all this _unconsciously_ and, while - walking, can pay attention to other matters. So the Indwelling - Mind of the world forms its _habits_ which we know as the laws - of gravitation, etc., and is free to attend to higher and - higher objects. In this progress there is no evolution of the - organic from the inorganic, or of the higher from the lower - forms of life. Inorganic matter, having become subject to fixed - laws, is precipitated and dropped out of further conscious - effort; also each lower form of life is similarly laid aside - as the Indwelling Mind proceeds to the higher forms, until - finally man is reached. The highest result thus arrived at is - the production of conscious _Mind_. All this involves what is - usually known as Special Creation, and the idea of “God at His - working-bench” creating one species after another is regarded - as absurd. But it is not absurd on Martineau’s argument, - because the Indwelling Mind is constantly doing the whole work - of the world (and also because a fact to be accounted for - by any theory is that a higher form of existence _appears_ - whenever the environment is suitable). In the present state - of our knowledge Martineau’s speculation cannot be proved or - disproved, but it may contain the germ of a true scheme of the - universe—which scheme is yet far to seek. In any case, he makes - the important point that the nature of _power_ in the world - must be judged from the best thing it has done—namely, the - _minds_ it has produced. The idea of a blind, unconscious force - is incompatible with the fact that _that force has produced - conscious mind_. It is the same argument as the Psalmist uses, - “He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that formed the - eye, shall He not see? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall - not He know?” (Ps. xciv, 9, 10.) The following (by whom written - I do not know) has the same idea: “Every thing is a thought, - and bears a relation to the thought that placed it there, and - the thought that finds it there.” It is interesting to consider - Martineau’s suggestion with that of William James on p. 165. - - * * * * * - - There’s lifeless matter; add the power of shaping, - And you’ve the crystal: add again the organs, - Wherewith to subdue sustenance to the form - And manner of one’s self, and you’ve the plant: - Add power of motion, senses, and so forth, - And you’ve all kind of beasts; suppose a pig: - To pig add reason, foresight, and such stuff, - Then you have man. What shall we add to man, - To bring him higher? - - T. L. BEDDOES (1803-1849) (_Death’s Jest-Book_, - V. 2). - - _Death’s Jest-Book_ was published in 1850, after Beddoes’ - death; _The Origin of Species_ appeared in 1859: the passage - is, therefore, curious. In suggesting, however, development by - the addition of faculties, it affords no explanation how those - faculties came to be added. - - * * * * * - -“OUTLANDISH PROVERBS” - - Love rules his kingdom without a sword. - He plays well that wins. - The offender never pardons. - Nothing dries sooner than a tear. - Three women can hold their peace—if two are away. - A woman conceals what she knows not. - Saint Luke was a Saint and a Physician, yet is dead.[43] - Were there no hearers, there would be no backbiters. - He will burn his house to warm his hands. - The buyer needs a hundred eyes, the seller not one. - Ill ware is never cheap. - Punishment is lame—but it comes. - Gluttony kills more than the sword.[44] - The filth under the white snow the sun discovers. - You cannot know wine by the barrel. - At length the fox is brought to the furrier. - Love your neighbour, yet pull not down your hedge. - None is a fool always, every one sometimes.[45] - In a great river great fish are found, but take heed lest you be drowned. - I wept when I was born, and every day shows why. - The honey is sweet, but the bee stings. - Gossips are frogs, they drink and talk. - He is a fool that thinks not that another thinks. - He that sows, trusts in God. - He that hath one hog makes him fat, and he that hath one son makes him - a fool. - - Where your will is ready, your feet are light. - A fair death honours the whole life. - To a good spender God is the treasurer. - The choleric man never wants woe. - Love makes a good eye squint. - He that would have what he hath not should do what he doth not. - A wise man cares not for what he cannot have. - The fat man knoweth not what the lean thinketh. - In every country dogs bite. - None says his garner is full. - To a close-shorn sheep, God gives wind by measure.[46] - Silks and satins put out the fire in the chimney. - Lawyers’ houses are built on the heads of fools. - It is better to have wings than horns. - We have more to do when we die than we have done. - - GEORGE HERBERT’S _Jacula Prudentum_. - - The reader may not know of the “saintly Herbert’s” collection - of “Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, etc.” from which the few - examples above are taken. - - * * * * * - -AVALON. - - We seek a land beneath the early beams - Of stars that rise beyond the sunset gate, - Where all the year the twilight lingers late, - Athwart whose coast the last-born sunray gleams. - Fair are the fields and full of pleasant streams, - Far sound the hedge-rows with the burgher bees, - Soft are the winds and taste of southern seas, - Night brings no longing there, and sleep no dreams. - O tillerman, steer true, while we, who bow - Above the oar-shafts, sing the land we seek, - Land of the past, its rapture and its ruth; - Future we ask none, we are memories now, - We bear the years whose lips no longer speak, - And round our galley’s prow the name is Youth. - - ROBERT CAMERON ROGERS (b. 1862). - - An American author who wrote the well-known song, “The Rosary.” - - * * * * * - -IF I COULD HOLD YOUR HANDS - - If I could hold your hands to-night, - Just for a little while, and know - That only I, of all the world, - Possessed them so: - - A slender shape in that old chair, - If I could see you here to-night, - Between me and the twilight pale— - So light and frail, - - Your cool white dress, its folding lost - In one broad sweep of shadow grey; - Your weary head just drooped aside, - That sweet old way, - - Bowed like a flower-cup dashed with rain, - The darkness crossing half your face, - And just the glimmer of a smile - For one to trace: - - If I could see your eyes that reach - Far out into the farthest sky, - Where past the trail of dying suns - The old years lie: - - Or touch your silent lips to-night, - And steal the sadness from their smile, - And find the last kiss they have kept - This weary while: - - If it could be—Oh, all in vain - The restless trouble of my soul - Sets, as the great tides of the moon, - Toward your control! - - In vain the longings of the lips, - The eye’s desire and the pain; - The hunger of the heart—O love, - _Is_ it in vain? - - ANON. - - * * * * * - - A Cibo biscocto, - A medico indocto, - Ab inimico reconciliato, - A mala muliere - Libera nos, Domine. - -(From twice-cooked food, from an ignorant doctor, from a reconciled -enemy, from a wicked woman, Lord, deliver us.) - - _Old Monkish Litany._ - - * * * * * - -CONSTANCY REWARDED - - I vowed unvarying faith, and she, - To whom in full I pay that vow, - Rewards me with variety - Which men who change can never know. - - COVENTRY PATMORE (_The Angel in the House_). - - * * * * * - -The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human -spirit is to rouse, to startle it into sharp and eager observation. Every -moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills -or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or -intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive for us—for -that moment only. Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is -the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, -dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen in them by -the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, -and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital -forces unite in their purest energy? - -To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, -is success in life. In a sense it might even be said that our failure is -to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, -and meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes any two -persons, things, situations, seem alike. While all melts under our feet, -we may catch at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge -that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or -any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange colours, and curious -odours, or work of the artist’s hands, or the face of one’s friend. Not -to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about -us, and in the brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces -on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before -evening.... - -We are all under sentence of death but with a sort of indefinite -reprieve: we have an interval, and then our place knows us no more. Some -spend this interval in listlessness, some in high passions, the wisest, -at least among “the children of this world,” in art and song. For our one -chance lies in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations -as possible into the given time. Great passions may give us this -quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of -enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise which come naturally to -many of us. Only be sure it is passion—that it does yield you this fruit -of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of this wisdom, the poetic -passion, the desire of beauty, the love for art’s sake, has most; for art -comes to you professing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality -to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake. - - WALTER PATER (1839-1894) (_The Renaissance_). - - In the Adelaide edition of this book this famous “pulsation” - passage appeared as originally written; it is now given as - Pater afterwards altered it. - - Pater was a Hellenist and preached the new paganism of last - century. The Greek ideal life was supposed to be one of purely - aesthetic enjoyment, divorced from religious problems or from - any sense of the _higher_ in our nature. Pater, however, - altered his views, _Marius, the Epicurean_, being intended as a - recantation, and he became in effect an Anglo-Catholic. (See p. - 343 note.) - - Pater was “Rose” in Mallock’s _New Republic_. - - * * * * * - -A CHILD - -Is a man in a small Letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted -of the Apple.... He is nature’s fresh picture, newly drawn in oil, -which time and much handling dims and defaces. His soul is yet a white -paper, unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith at length -it becomes a blurred note-book. He is purely happy, because he knows no -evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with misery. He kisses -and loves all, and when the smart of the rod is past, smiles on his -beater.... His hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loth to use -so deceitful an organ.... We laugh at his foolish sports, but his game -is our earnest: and his drums, rattles and hobby-horses but the emblems -and mocking of man’s business. His father hath writ him as his own little -story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot remember; -and sighs to see what innocence he has outlived. The older he grows, he -is a stair lower from God; and, like his first father, much worse in his -breeches.... Could he put off his body with his little Coat, he had got -eternity without a burthen, and exchanged but one Heaven for another. - - JOHN EARLE (_Micro-Cosmographie_, 1628). - - * * * * * - - As when a Gryphon through the wilderness - With wingèd course, o’er hill and moory dale, - Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth - Had from his wakeful custody purloined - The guarded gold. - - MILTON (_Paradise Lost_). - - The Griffin, with head and wings of a bird and body of a - lion, is pursuing, “half on foot, half flying,” the one-eyed - Arimaspian, who is fleeing on horseback with the purloined - gold. The Griffins guarded mines of gold and hidden treasure. - (_Herodotus_, iv, 27.) - - * * * * * - -A WOMAN’S THOUGHT - - I am a woman—therefore I may not - Call to him, cry to him, - Fly to him, - Bid him delay not! - - Then when he comes to me, I must sit quiet; - Still as a stone— - All silent and cold. - If my heart riot— - Crush and defy it! - Should I grow bold, - Say one dear thing to him, - All my life fling to him, - Cling to him— - What to atone - Is enough for my sinning? - This were the cost to me, - This were my winning— - That he were lost to me. - Not as a lover - At last if he part from me, - Tearing my heart from me, - Hurt beyond cure— - Calm and demure - Then must I hold me, - In myself fold me, - Lest he discover; - Showing no sign to him - By look of mine to him - What he has been to me— - How my heart turns to him, - Follows him, yearns to him, - Prays him to love me. - - Pity me, lean to me, - Thou God above me! - - RICHARD WATSON GILDER (1844-1909). - - * * * * * - -Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of -his Christian name a synonym for the Devil. - - MACAULAY (_On Niccolo Machiavelli_). - - A wonderful record, if it were correct, but “Old Nick” is said - to be derived from Scandinavian mythology. - - * * * * * - -I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare -a little the more as I grow older. - - MONTAIGNE (Essay, _Of Repentance_). - - * * * * * - -Coleridge was holding forth on the effects produced by his preaching, -and appealed to Lamb: “You have heard me preach, I think?” “I have never -heard you do anything else,” was the urbane reply. - -(John Sterling said) Coleridge is best described in his own words: - - His flashing eyes, his floating hair! - Weave a circle round him thrice, - And close your eyes with holy dread. - For he on honey-dew hath fed, - And drunk the milk of Paradise.[47] - -Madame de Staël was by no means pleased with her intercourse with him, -saying spitefully and feelingly, “M. Coleridge a un grand talent pour le -monologue” (“Mr. Coleridge has a great talent for monologue”). - - CAROLINE FOX’S JOURNALS. - - Here we have different views of Coleridge’s monologues. Mme. de - Staël objected to his monopolizing the conversation, but his - friends loved to hear him. Lamb, of course, had to have his - joke. - - * * * * * - - Where is the use of the lip’s red charm, - The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow, - And the blood that blues the inside arm— - Unless we turn, as the soul knows how, - The earthly gift to an end divine? - A lady of clay is as good, I trow. - - R. BROWNING. - - * * * * * - - What things have we seen - Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been - So nimble and so full of subtle flame, - As if that every one from whence they came - Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, - And had resolved to live a fool the rest - Of his dull life. - - FRANCIS BEAUMONT (_Epistle to Ben Jonson_). - - What would one not give to have been present at the Mermaid - Tavern with the wonderful Elizabethans who met there? Among - them were Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Sir Walter Raleigh, - Beaumont, Fletcher, Donne, Carew, and John Selden. One is - reminded of the _Symposium_ of Plato. - - The poem of Keats is well known: - - Souls of Poets dead and gone, - What Elysium have ye known, - Happy field or mossy cavern, - Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? - - * * * * * - - On a day like this, when the sun is hid, - And you and your heart are housed together, - If memories come to you all unbid, - And something suddenly wets your lid, - Like a gust of the out-door weather, - Why, who is in fault but the dim old day, - Too dark for labour, too dull for play? - - AUTHOR NOT TRACED. - - * * * * * - -A man can never do anything at variance with his own nature. He carries -with him the germ of his most exceptional actions; and, if we wise people -make fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the -legitimate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of -wisdom. - - GEORGE ELIOT. - - * * * * * - -I understand those women who say they don’t want the ballot. They purpose -to hold the real power, while we go through the mockery of making laws. -They want the power without the responsibility. - - CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER (_My Summer in a Garden_). - - * * * * * - -If we cannot find God in your house or in mine; upon the roadside or the -margin of the sea; in the bursting seed or opening flower; in the day -duty or the night musing; in the general laugh and the secret grief; in -the procession of life, ever entering afresh, and solemnly passing by -and dropping off; I do not think we should discern Him any more on the -grass of Eden, or beneath the moonlight of Gethsemane. Depend upon it, -it is not the want of greater miracles, but of the soul to perceive such -as are allowed us still, that makes us push all the sanctities into the -far spaces we cannot reach. The devout feel that wherever God’s hand is, -_there_ is miracle; and it is simply undevoutness which imagines that -only where miracle is, can there be the real hand of God. The customs of -Heaven ought to be more sacred in our eyes than its anomalies; the dear -old ways, of which the Most High is never tired, than the strange things -which He does not love well enough ever to repeat. And he who will but -discern beneath the sun, as he rises any morning, the supporting finger -of the Almighty, may recover the sweet and reverent surprise with which -Adam gazed on the first dawn in Paradise. - - JAMES MARTINEAU (_Endeavours after the Christian Life_). - - * * * * * - -Advice, like snow, the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon and the -deeper it sinks into the mind. - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - * * * * * - - My burden bows me to the knee; - O Lord, ’tis more than I can bear. - Didst Thou not come our load to share? - My burden bows me to the knee: - Dear Jesus, let me lean on Thee!... - - Far off, so far, the Heavens be, - With their wide arms! and I would prove - The close, warm-beating heart of Love. - But so far-off the Heavens be: - Dear Jesus, let me lean on Thee! - - GERALD MASSEY (_Out of the Depths_). - - This poem is omitted from _My Lyrical Life_, Massey’s collected - poems. - - * * * * * - - Night dreams of day, and winter seems - In sleep to breathe the balm of May, - Their dreams are true anon; but they, - The dreamers, then, alas, are dreams. - - Thus, while our days the dreams renew - Of some forgotten sleeper, we, - The dreamers of futurity, - Shall vanish when our own are true. - - J. B. TABB. - - * * * * * - -THE MOTHER WHO DIED TOO - - She was so little—little in her grave, - The wide earth all around so hard and cold— - She was so little! therefore did I crave - My arms might still her tender form enfold. - She was so little, and her cry so weak - When she among the heavenly children came— - She was so little—I alone might speak - For her who knew no word nor her own name. - - EDITH MATILDA THOMAS. - - * * * * * - - The economy of Heaven is dark; - And wisest clerks have miss’d the mark, - Why human buds, like this, should fall, - More brief than fly ephemeral - That has his day; while shrivell’d crones - Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; - And crabbed use the conscience sears - In sinners of an hundred years. - - CHARLES LAMB (_On an infant dying as soon as - born_). - - * * * * * - - Oh dreadful thought, if all our sires and we - Are but foundations of a race to be,— - Stones which one thrusts in earth, and builds thereon - A write delight, a Parian Parthenon, - And thither, long thereafter, youth and maid - Seek with glad brows the alabaster shade. - - And in processions’ pomp together bent - Still interchange their sweet words innocent,— - Not caring that those mighty columns rest - Each on the ruin of a human breast,— - That to the shrine the victor’s chariot rolls - Across the anguish of ten thousand souls! - - “Well was it that our fathers suffered thus,” - I hear them say, “that all might end in us; - Well was it here and there a bard should feel - Pains premature and hurt that none could heal; - These were their preludes, thus the race began; - So hard a matter was the birth of Man.” - - And yet these too shall pass and fade and flee, - And in their death shall be as vile as we, - Nor much shall profit with their perfect powers - To have lived a so much sweeter life than ours, - When at the last, with all their bliss gone by, - Like us those glorious creatures come to die, - With far worse woe, far more rebellious strife - Those mighty spirits drink the dregs of life. - - F. W. H. MYERS (_The Implicit Promise of - Immortality_). - - It will be observed that Myers, like Swinburne, handled the - old heroic couplet in a masterly manner, undreamt of by Pope, - Dryden, and their generation. - - * * * * * - - God’s works—paint any one, and count it crime - To let a truth slip. Don’t object, “His works - Are here already; nature is complete: - Suppose you reproduce her (which you can’t) - There’s no advantage! You must beat her then.” - For, don’t you mark? we’re made so that we love - First when we see them painted, things we have passed - Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; - And so they are better, _painted_—better to us - Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; - God uses us to help each other so, - Lending our minds out. - - R. BROWNING (_Fra Lippo Lippi_). - - * * * * * - - For the folk through the fretful hours are hurled - On the ruthless rush of the wondrous world, - And none has leisure to lie and cull - The blossoms, that made life beautiful - In that old season when men could sing - For dear delight in the risen Spring - And Summer ripening fruit and flower. - Now carefulness cankers every hour; - We are too weary and sad to sing; - Our pastime’s poisoned with thought-taking. - - JOHN PAYNE (_Tournesol_). - - * * * * * - -I am much engaged, an old man and out of health, and I cannot spare -time to answer your questions fully,—nor indeed can they be answered. -Science has nothing to do with Christ, except in so far as the habit -of scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. For -myself, I do not believe that there ever has been any Revelation. As for -a future life every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague -probabilities. Wishing you happiness, I remain, &c. - - CHARLES DARWIN (_Letter to von Müller, June 5, 1879_). - - This letter is reproduced in the _Life and Letters_, but - evidently Francis Darwin did not know that the “German youth” - to whom he says it was written was Baron Ferdinand von Müller, - K.C.M.G. (1825-1896), then fifty-three years of age! Von Müller - was director of the Melbourne Botanical Gardens from 1857 to - 1873, and died in Melbourne in 1896. He did important work in - Australian botany. - - As regards Darwin’s letter, it seems to me that a sufficient - reason why a great and lovable man, who was at first a - convinced believer in the immortality of the soul, became an - agnostic is given in the next quotation. The higher aesthetic - part of his brain had become atrophied. - - Darwin himself thought that he had not given sufficient - consideration to religious questions and was exceedingly - anxious that his own agnostic views should not influence others, - - * * * * * - -I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last -twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry -of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, -Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great pleasure, and even as a school-boy -I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical -plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and -music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read -a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare and found it so -intolerably dull that it nauseates me. I have also almost lost my taste -for pictures or music.... My mind seems to have become a kind of machine -for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this -should have caused the atrophy of that (aesthetic) part of the brain -alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive.... The loss -of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to -the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling -the emotional part of our nature. - - CHARLES DARWIN. - - This is from autobiographical notes made by Darwin for his - children, and not intended for publication. - - * * * * * - - God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures - Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, - One to show a woman when he loves her! - - R. BROWNING (_One Word More_). - - * * * * * - -CHILDREN’S HYMN ON THE COAST OF BRITTANY. - - At length has come the twilight dim. - The sun has set, the day has died; - And now we sing Thy holy hymn, - O Mary maid, at eventide. - - To Jewry, to that far-off land, - Erstwhile there came a little Child; - You led Him softly by the hand, - He was so very small and mild. - - Like us, He could not find his way, - Although He was Our Lord, the King; - And so we beg we may not stray, - Nor do a sad or foolish thing. - - Teach us the prayer that Jesus said, - The words you sang and murmured low, - When He was in His tiny bed, - And all the earth was dark and slow. - - Hushed are the trees, and the small wise bees, - Our fathers are on the deep,— - Little Mother, be good to us, please! - It is time to go asleep. - - VINCENT O’SULLIVAN. - - * * * * * - -WESLEY’S MEDICAL PRESCRIPTIONS - -For an Ague:—Make six middling pills of cobwebs. Take one a little before -the cold fit; two a little before the next fit (suppose the next day); -the other three, if need be, a little before the third fit. This seldom -fails. - -A Cut:—Bind on toasted cheese. This will cure a deep cut. - -A Fistula:—Grind an ounce of sublimate mercury as fine as possible.... -(Two quarts of water to be added, then half a spoonful with two spoonfuls -of water to be taken fasting every other day), ... In forty days this -will also cure any cancer, any old sore or King’s evil. - -_The Iliac Passion_:—Hold a live puppy constantly on the belly. - - JOHN WESLEY (_Primitive Physic._ Ed. 1780). - - The iliac passion, now known as _ileus_, is a severe colic due - to intestinal obstruction. - - It seems strange that so eminent a man should have believed - in these absurd prescriptions, but as a matter of fact the - book generally is much more sane and sound than one would - expect from the habits and state of knowledge of the time. For - example, in his rules of health Wesley strongly advises the - practice of _cold bathing_, cleanliness, open-air exercise, - moderation of food, etc. Also these prescriptions are chosen - for their absurdity—in each case other more sensible remedies - are offered. But Wesley in his preface says that he has - omitted altogether from his book Cinchona bark, because it - is “extremely dangerous.” This means that in regard to ague - he omitted the only efficient remedy—which was much more - unfortunate than his prescribing cobweb pills. - - This book went to _thirty-six_ editions between 1747 and 1840. - - * * * * * - - “When shall our prayers end?” - I tell thee, priest, when shoemakers make shoes, - That are well sewed, with never a stitch amiss, - And use no craft in uttering of the same; - When tinkers make no more holes than they found, - When thatchers think their wages worth their work, - When Davie Diker digs and dallies not, - When horsecorsers beguile no friends with jades, - When printers pass no errors in their books, - When pewterers infect no tin with lead, - When silver sticks not on the Teller’s fingers, - When sycophants can find no place in Court, ... - When Laïs lives not like a lady’s peer - Nor useth art in dyeing of her hair.... - - GEORGE GASCOIGNE (1525?-1577) (_The Steele - Glas_). - - * * * * * - -All our life is a meeting of cross-roads, where the choice of directions -is perilous. - - VICTOR HUGO. - - * * * * * - - Rose-cheeked Laura, come; - Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty’s - Silent music, either other - Sweetly gracing. - Lovely forms do flow - From concent divinely framed; - Heaven is music, and thy beauty’s - Birth is heavenly. - These dull notes we sing - Discords need for helps to grace them, - Only beauty purely loving - Knows no discord, - But still moves delight, - Like clear springs renewed by flowing, - Ever perfect, ever in them- - Selves eternal. - - THOMAS CAMPION (died 1619). - - Richard Lovelace (1618-1655) subsequently wrote (_Orpheus to - Beasts_): - - O, could you view the melodie - Of ev’ry grace, - And musick of her face, - You’d drop a teare, - Seeing more harmonie - In her bright eye, - Then now you heare. - - Then = _than_. See next quotation. - - * * * * * - -I think the deep love he had for that sweet, rounded blossom-like -dark-eyed Hetty, of whose inward self he was really very ignorant, came -out of the very strength of his nature, and not out of any inconsistent -weakness. Is it any weakness, pray, to be wrought on by exquisite -music?—to feel its wondrous harmonies searching the subtlest windings of -your soul, the delicate fibres of life where no memory can penetrate, and -binding together your whole being past and present in one unspeakable -vibration; melting you in one moment with all the tenderness, all the -love that has been scattered through the toilsome years; concentrating in -one emotion of heroic courage or resignation all the hard-learnt lessons -of self-renouncing sympathy; blending your present joy with past sorrow, -and your present sorrow with all your past joy? If not, then neither is -it a weakness to be so wrought upon by the exquisite curves of a woman’s -cheek and neck and arms, by the liquid depths of her beseeching eyes, or -the sweet childish pout of her lips. For the beauty of a lovely woman is -like music: what can one say more? Beauty has an expression beyond and -far above the one woman’s soul that it clothes, as the words of genius -have a wider meaning than the thought that prompted them; it is more than -a woman’s love that moves us in a woman’s eyes—it seems to be a far-off -mighty love that has come near to us, and made speech for itself there; -the rounded neck, the dimpled arm, move us by something more than their -prettiness—by their close kinship with all we have known of tenderness -and peace. The noblest nature sees the most of this _impersonal_ -expression in beauty, and for this reason, the noblest nature is often -the most blinded to the character of the woman’s soul that the beauty -clothes. Whence, I fear, the tragedy of human life is likely to continue -for a long time to come in spite of mental philosophers who are ready -with the best receipts for avoiding all mistakes of the kind. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Adam Bede_). - - George Eliot would not know the preceding poem by Campion, - whose lyrics had been forgotten until A. H. Bullen revived them - in 1889; and most probably also she did not know Lovelace’s - poem, as it is not one of the two or three lyrics by which - alone he is remembered. - - * * * * * - - Alas, how soon the hours are over - Counted us out to play the lover! - And how much narrower is the stage - Allotted us to play the sage! - But when we play the fool, how wide - The theatre expands! beside, - How long the audience sits before us! - How many prompters! What a chorus! - - W. S. LANDOR. - - * * * * * - -The degree of vision that dwells in a man is a correct measure of the -man. If called to define Shakespeare’s faculty, I should say superiority -of Intellect, and think I had included all under that. What indeed -are faculties? We talk of faculties as if they were distinct, things -separable; as if a man had intellect, imagination, fancy, &c., as he has -hands, feet, and arms. That is a capital error. Then again, we hear of -a man’s “intellectual nature,” and of his “moral nature,” as if these -again were divisible and existed apart.... We ought to know, and to -keep forever in mind, that these divisions are at bottom but _names_; -that man’s spiritual nature, the vital Force which dwells in him, is -essentially one and indivisible; that what we call imagination, fancy, -understanding, and so forth, are but different figures of the same Power -of Insight, all indissolubly connected with each other, physiognomically -related; that if we knew one of them, we might know all of them. Morality -itself, what we call the moral quality of a man, what is this but another -_side_ of the one vital Force whereby he is and works?.... Without hands -a man might have feet, and could still walk: but, consider it,—without -morality, intellect were impossible for him; a thoroughly _immoral_ -man could not know anything at all! To know a thing, what we can call -knowing, a man must first _love_ the thing, sympathize with it; that is, -be _virtuously_ related to it.... Nature, with her truth, remains to the -bad, to the selfish and the pusillanimous forever a sealed book: what -such can know of Nature is mean, superficial, small. - - CARLYLE (_Heroes and Hero Worship, III_). - - * * * * * - - A little I will speak. I love thee then - Not only for thy body packed with sweet - Of all this world.... - Not for this only do I love thee, but - Because Infinity upon thee broods; - And thou art full of whispers and of shadows. - Thou meanest what the sea has striven to say - So long, and yearnèd up the cliffs to tell; - Thou art what all the winds have uttered not, - What the still night suggesteth to the heart. - Thy voice is like to music heard ere birth, - Some spirit lute touched on a spirit sea; - Thy face remembered is from other worlds, - It has been died for, though I know not when, - It has been sung of, though I know not where. - - STEPHEN PHILLIPS (_Marpessa_). - - * * * * * - - Sometimes thou seem’st not as thyself alone, - But as the meaning of all things that are. - - D. G. ROSSETTI (_Heart’s Compass_) - - * * * * * - -“IMBUTA” - - The new wine, the new wine, - It tasteth like the old, - The heart is all athirst again, - The drops are all of gold; - We thought the cup was broken, - And we thought the tale was told, - But the new wine, the new wine, - It tasteth like the old! - - The flower of life had faded, - The leaf was in its fall, - The winter seemed so early - To have reached us, once for all; - But now the buds are breaking, - There is grass above the mould, - And the new wine, the new wine. - It tasteth like the old! - - The earth had grown so dreary, - The sky so dull and grey; - One was weeping in the darkness, - One was sorrowing through the day: - But a light from heaven gleams again, - On water, wood, and wold, - And the new wine, the new wine, - It tasteth like the old! - - For the loving lips are laughing, - And the loving face is fair, - Though a phantom hand is on the board, - And phantom eyes are there; - The phantom eyes are soft and sad, - The phantom hand is cold, - But the new wine, the new wine, - It tasteth like the old! - - We dare not look, we turn away, - The precious draught to drain, - ’Twere worse than madness, surely now, - To lose it all again; - To quivering lip, with clinging grasp, - The fatal cup we hold, - For the new wine, the new wine, - It tasteth like the old! - And life is short, and love is life, - And so the tale is told, - Though the new wine, the new wine, - It tasteth like the old. - - G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE. - - The title evidently refers to _Horace_ Ep. 1, 2, 69, 70, Quo - semel est _Imbuta_ recens servabit odorem testa diu. “The scent - which once has flavoured the fresh jar will be preserved in it - for many a day.” Moore no doubt had the same passage in his - mind when, speaking of the memories of past joys, he wrote: - - You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will, - But the scent of the roses will hang round it still. - - So Whyte-Melville says that when love is poured again into the - heart of a man who has lost his first love, “The new wine, the - new wine, It tasteth like the old.” - - * * * * * - - I strove with none, for none was worth my strife, - Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: - I warm’d both hands before the fire of Life; - It sinks, and I am ready to depart. - - W. S. LANDOR. - - * * * * * - -The Toucan has an enormous bill, makes a noise like a puppy dog, and lays -his eggs in hollow trees. How astonishing are the freaks and fancies of -nature! To what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the woods of Cayenne -with a bill a yard long, making a noise like a puppy dog, and laying eggs -in hollow trees? The Toucans, to be sure, might retort, to what purpose -were gentlemen in Bond Street created? To what purpose were certain -foolish prating Members of Parliament created?—pestering the House of -Commons with their ignorance and folly, and impeding the business of the -country? There is no end of such questions. So we will not enter into the -metaphysics of the Toucan. - - SYDNEY SMITH (_Review of “Waterton’s Travels in South America”_). - - * * * * * - -Above green-flashing plunges of a weir, and shaken by the thunder below, -lilies, golden and white, were swaying at anchor among the reeds. -Meadow-sweet hung from the banks thick with weed and trailing bramble, -and there also hung a daughter of earth. Her face was shaded by a broad -straw hat with a flexible brim that left her lips and chin in the sun, -and, sometimes nodding, sent forth a light of promising eyes. Across -her shoulders, and behind, flowed large loose curls, brown in shadow, -almost golden where the ray touched them. She was simply dressed, -befitting decency and the season. On a closer inspection you might see -that her lips were stained. This blooming young person was regaling on -dewberries. They grew between the bank and the water. Apparently she -found the fruit abundant, for her hand was making pretty progress to her -mouth. Fastidious youth, which revolts at woman plumping her exquisite -proportions on bread-and-butter, and would (we must suppose) joyfully -have her scraggy to have her poetical, can hardly object to dewberries. -Indeed the act of eating them is dainty and induces musing. The dewberry -is a sister to the lotus, and an innocent sister. You eat: mouth, eye, -and hand are occupied, and the undrugged mind free to roam. And so it was -with the damsel who knelt there. The little skylark went up above her, -all song, to the smooth southern cloud lying along the blue: from a dewy -copse dark over her nodding hat the blackbird fluted, calling to her with -thrice mellow note: the kingfisher flashed emerald out of green osiers: -a bow-winged heron travelled aloft, seeking solitude: a boat slipped -toward her, containing a dreamy youth; and still she plucked the fruit, -and ate, and mused, as if no fairy prince were invading her territories, -and as if she wished not for one, or knew not her wishes. Surrounded -by the green shaven meadows, the pastoral summer buzz, the weirfall’s -thundering white, amid the breath and beauty of wild flowers, she was a -bit of lovely human life in a fair setting; a terrible attraction. The -Magnetic Youth leaned round to note his proximity to the weir-piles, -and beheld the sweet vision. Stiller and stiller grew nature, as at the -meeting of two electric clouds. Her posture was so graceful, that though -he was making straight for the weir, he dared not dip a scull. Just then -one enticing dewberry caught her eyes. He was floating by unheeded, and -saw that her hand stretched low, and could not gather what it sought. -A stroke from his right brought him beside her. The damsel glanced up -dismayed, and her whole shape trembled over the brink. Richard sprang -from his boat into the water. Pressing a hand beneath her foot, which she -had thrust against the crumbling wet sides of the bank to save herself, -he enabled her to recover her balance, and gain safe earth, whither he -followed her.... - -To-morrow this place will have a memory—the river and the meadow, and -the white falling weir: his heart will build a temple here; and the -skylark will be its high-priest, and the old blackbird its glossy-gowned -chorister, and there will be a sacred repast of dewberries. - - GEORGE MEREDITH (_The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_). - - * * * * * - -LETTY’S GLOBE - - When Letty had scarce passed her third glad year, - And her young artless words began to flow, - One day we gave the child a coloured sphere - Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know, - By tint and outline, all its sea and land. - She patted all the world; old empires peeped - Between her baby fingers; her soft hand - Was welcome at all frontiers. How she leaped - And laughed and prattled in her world-wide bliss; - But when we turned her sweet unlearnèd eye - On our own isle, she raised a joyous cry— - “Oh! yes, I see it, Letty’s home is there!” - And, while she hid all England with a kiss, - Bright over Europe fell her golden hair. - - CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. - - Charles Tennyson, a brother of Lord Tennyson and author with - him of _Poems by Two Brothers_, took the name of Turner. - - * * * * * - - O may I join the choir invisible - Of those immortal dead who live again - In minds made better by their presence: live - In pulses stirred to generosity, - In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn - For miserable aims that end with self, - In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, - And with their mild persistence urge man’s search - To vaster issues. - So to live is heaven: - To make undying music in the world.... - This is life to come, - Which martyr’d men have made more glorious - For us who strive to follow. May I reach - That purest heaven, be to other souls - The cup of strength in some great agony, - Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love, - Beget the smiles that have no cruelty— - Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, - And in diffusion ever more intense, - So shall I join the choir invisible - Whose music is the gladness of the world. - - GEORGE ELIOT. - - There is an infinite pathos in these lines. Having lost her - faith in a future life, George Eliot tries to find consolation - in the thought that, when she has passed into nothingness—when - she “joins the choir invisible”—she will have done something to - ennoble the minds of those who come after her. But why should - generation after generation of insect-lives waste themselves in - raising and purifying the minds of the generations that follow, - if all in turn pass into nothingness? The higher and purer men - became, the more they would love their fellow-beings and the - more they would shudder at the insensate pain and cruelty in - the world—the physical torture they themselves endure, and the - mental torture both of losing for ever those they love and of - seeing the sufferings of others. One should act in conformity - with one’s belief. Instead of thus adding greater pain and - sorrow to each succeeding generation, the effort should be to - coarsen and brutalize our natures, so that love, duty, and - moral aspiration shall disappear, and we shall cease to be - saddened by the appalling cruelty of our existence. Our lives - should, in fact, correspond with the brutal, ugly and stupid - scheme of the universe. - - This is the direct answer to George Eliot, allowing her very - important assumption _that we have a duty towards others_, - including those who come after us. But this assumption is - logically unwarranted, if at the end of our brief years we - pass into nothingness and have no further concern with any - living being. This brings us to a familiar train of argument. - Why should we be irresistibly impelled to sacrifice ourselves - for the good of others? And, apart from altruism, why should - we develop _our own_ higher attributes—why seek to ennoble - our own selves, since those selves disappear? Why fill with - jewels the hollow log that is to be thrown on the fire? Why - are we swayed by a sense of honour, a desire for justice, a - love of purity and truth and beauty, a craving for affection, - a thirst for knowledge, which persist up to the very gates of - death? To take an illustration of Edward Caird’s, is not the - path of life which is so traversed like the path of a star - to the astronomer, which enables him to prophesy its future - course—beyond the end which hides it from our eyes? Otherwise, - to use another simile, it is as though Pheidias spent his life - sculpturing in snow. - - (This does not mean, as the sceptic usually sneers, that the - virtuous man merely desires a reward for his virtuous conduct. - It is an inquiry why he _is_ virtuous—what is a sane view of - the scheme of the universe.) - - In forming the conclusion that there was no possible future for - man, George Eliot and an immense number of other thinkers of - her time made also the vast assumption that there was nothing - left to discover. Blanco White’s sonnet alone might have taught - them the folly of such premature judgments. Or we may take an - illustration, used by F. W. H. Myers, namely, the discovery - that, far beyond the red and the violet of the spectrum or the - rainbow, extend rays that have been (and will for ever be) - invisible to our eyes. Since George Eliot’s time the Society - for Psychical Research has during the last thirty-five years - accumulated unanswerable evidence of survival after death. - - * * * * * - - Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness, - And utterly consumed with sharp distress, - While all things else have rest from weariness? - All things have rest: why should we toil alone, - We only toil, who are the first of things, - And make perpetual moan, - Still from one sorrow to another thrown: - Nor ever fold our wings, - And cease from wanderings, - Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm; - Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, - “There is no joy but calm!” - Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?... - - Hateful is the dark-blue sky, - Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea. - Death is the end of life; ah, why - Should life all labour be? - Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, - And in a little while our lips are dumb. - Let us alone. What is it that will last? - All things are taken from us, and become - Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. - Let us alone. What pleasure can we have - To war with evil? Is there any peace - In ever climbing up the climbing wave? - All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave - In silence; ripen, fall and cease: - Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. - - TENNYSON (_The Lotos-Eaters_). - - See preceding quotation. - - * * * * * - -We may well begin to doubt whether the known and the natural can suffice -for human life. No sooner do we try to think so than pessimism raises -its head. The more our thoughts widen and deepen, as the universe grows -upon us and we become accustomed to boundless space and time, the -more petrifying is the contrast of our own insignificance, the more -contemptible become the pettiness, shortness, fragility of the individual -life. A moral paralysis creeps upon us. For awhile we comfort ourselves -with the notion of self-sacrifice; we say, what matter if I pass, let me -think of others! But the _other_ has become contemptible no less than the -self; all human griefs alike seem little worth assuaging, human happiness -too paltry at the best to be worth increasing. The whole moral world is -reduced to a point; good and evil, right and wrong become infinitesimal -ephemeral matters, while eternity and infinity remain attributes of -that only which is outside the sphere of morality. Life becomes more -intolerable the more we know and discover, so long as everything widens -and deepens except our own duration, and that remains as pitiful as ever. -The affections die away in a world where everything great and enduring is -cold; they die of their own conscious feebleness and bootlessness. - - SIR J. R. SEELEY (_Natural Religion_). - - See the two preceding quotations. - - * * * * * - - Death stands above me, whispering low - I know not what into my ear; - Of his strange language all I know - Is, there is not a word of fear. - - W. S. LANDOR - - * * * * * - -LOVE-SWEETNESS - - Sweet dimness of her loosened hair’s downfall - About thy face; her sweet hands round thy head - In gracious fostering union garlanded; - Her tremulous smiles; her glances’ sweet recall - Of love; her murmuring sighs memorial; - Her mouth’s culled sweetness by thy kisses shed - On cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so led - Back to her mouth which answers there for all:— - What sweeter than these things, except the thing - In lacking which all these would lose their sweet:— - The confident heart’s still fervour: the swift beat - And soft subsidence of the spirit’s wing, - Then when it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring, - The breath of kindred plumes against its feet? - - D. G. ROSSETTI. - - * * * * * - -Jesus saith, Wherever there are two, they are not without God; and -wherever there is one alone, I say, I am with him. _Raise the stone and -there thou shalt find me; cleave the wood and there am I._ - - (_Logia of Jesus_). - - This is one of the Logia or Sayings of Jesus written on papyrus - in the third century and discovered in Egypt by Grenfell and - Hunt in 1897. The italics, of course, are mine. - - * * * * * - -The first of all Gospels is this, that a Lie cannot endure for ever. - - * * * * * - -Meanwhile it is singular how long the rotten will hold together, provided -you do not handle it roughly. - - * * * * * - -There are quarrels in which even Satan, bringing help, were not -unwelcome; even Satan, fighting stiffly, might cover himself with -glory—of a temporary nature. - - * * * * * - -... Nothing but two clattering jaw-bones, and a head vacant, sonorous, of -the drum species. - - * * * * * - -Thou art bound hastily for the City of _Nowhere_; and wilt arrive! - - CARLYLE (_French Revolution_). - - It is interesting to learn from a correspondent of _The - Spectator_ (Feb. 17, 1917) that Carlyle wrote two verses which - he combined with Shakespeare’s “Fear no more the heat o’ the - sun” (Cymbeline iv, 2) to make a requiem, of which he was very - fond: - - Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, - Nor the furious winter’s rages; - Thou thy worldly task hast done, - Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages. - - Hurts thee now no harsh behest, - Toil, or shame, or sin, or danger; - Trouble’s storm has got to rest, - To his place the wayworn stranger. - - Want is done, and grief and pain, - Done is all thy bitter weeping: - Thou art safe from wind and rain - In the Mother’s bosom sleeping. - - Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, - Nor the furious winter’s rages: - Thou thy worldly task hast done, - Home art gone and ta’en thy wages. - - * * * * * - - It takes two for a kiss, - Only one for a sigh; - Twain by twain we marry, - One by one we die. - Joy has its partnerships, - Grief weeps alone; - Cana had many guests, - Gethsemane had none. - - FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES. - - Byron in “Don Juan” says: - - All who joy would win must share it, - Happiness was born a twin. - - * * * * * - -(Speaking of the rare and exalted nature of Dorothea, who has adopted the -normal, domestic married life) Her finely-touched spirit had still its -fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like -that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels -which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on -those around her was incalculably diffusive; for the growing good of the -world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so -ill with you and me, as they might have been, is half owing to the number -who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Middlemarch_). - - This passage, which finely expresses an important truth, is - at the end of _Middlemarch_. The reference is to a story of - Herodotus. He says that Cyrus, the Persian, was angry with - the river Gyndes (Diyalah), because it had drowned one of the - white horses, which, as being sacred to the sun, accompanied - the expedition. He, therefore, employed his army to divert the - river into 360 channels (representing the number of days in the - year). The story was probably told to Herodotus as explaining - the great irrigation system that existed in Mesopotamia. The - Diyalah flows into the Tigris not far from Baghdad. - - * * * * * - - Any sort of meaning looks intense - When all beside itself means and looks nought. - - R. BROWNING (_Fra Lippo Lippi_). - - * * * * * - - Hold, Time, a little while thy glass, - And, Youth, fold up those peacock wings! - More rapture fills the years that pass - Than any hope the future brings; - Some for to-morrow rashly pray, - And some desire to hold to-day. - But I am sick for yesterday.... - - Ah! who will give us back the past? - Ah! woe, that youth should love to be - Like this swift Thames that speeds so fast, - And is so fain to find the sea,— - That leaves this maze of shadow and sleep, - These creeks down which blown blossoms creep, - For breakers of the homeless deep. - - EDMUND GOSSE (_Desiderium_). - - * * * * * - - The night has a thousand eyes, - And the day but one; - Yet the light of the bright world dies - With the dying sun. - - The mind has a thousand eyes, - And the heart but one; - Yet the light of a whole life dies, - When love is done. - - F. W. BOURDILLON. - - See reference to this poem in Preface. - - * * * * * - -But to come again unto Apelles, this was his manner and custom besides, -which he perpetually observed, that no day went over his head, but what -businesse soever he had otherwise to call him away, he would make one -draught or other (and never misse) for to exercise his hand and keepe it -in use, inasmuch as from him grew the proverbe, _Nulla dies sine linea_, -_i.e._ Be alwaies doing somewhat, though you doe but draw a line. His -order was when he had finished a piece of work or painted table, and layd -it out of his hand, to set it forth in some open gallerie or thorowfare, -to be seen of folke that passed by, and himselfe would lie close behind -it to hearken what faults were found therewith; preferring the judgment -of the common people before his owne, and imagining they would spy more -narrowly, and censure his doings sooner than himselfe: and as the tale -is told, it fell out upon a time, that a shoomaker as he went by seemed -to controlle his workmanship about the shoo or pantofle that he had made -to a picture, and namely, that there was one latchet fewer than there -should be: Apelles acknowledging that the man said true indeed, mended -that fault by the next morning, and set forth his table as his manner -was. The same shoomaker comming again the morrow after, and finding -the want supplied which he noted the day before, took some pride unto -himselfe, that his former admonition had sped so well, and was so bold as -to cavil at somewhat about the leg. Apelles could not endure that, but -putting forth his head from behind the painted table, and scorning thus -to be checked and reproved, Sirrha (quoth hee) remember you are but a -shoomaker, and therefore meddle no higher I advise you, than with shoos. -Which words also of his came afterwards to be a common proverbe, _Ne -sutor ultra crepidam_. - - PLINY (_Natural History_). - - _Apelles_, the greatest painter of antiquity. The two proverbs - mean: “No day without a line,” “A cobbler should stick to his - last.” _Pantofle_, sandal; _latchet_, the thong fastening the - sandal; _painted table_, panel picture; _controlle_, find fault - with. - - * * * * * - - Have you seen but a bright lily grow, - Before rude hands have touched it? - Have you marked but the fall of the snow, - Before the soil hath smutched it? - Have you felt the wool of the beaver? - Or swan’s down ever? - Or have smelt o’ the bud of the briar, - Or the nard in the fire? - Or have tasted the bag of the bee? - O, so white! O, so soft! O, so sweet is she! - - BEN JONSON (_A Celebration of Charis_). - - * * * * * - -Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is -the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress -and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of -it is decaying, part nascent. The foxglove blossom—a third part bud; a -third part past, a third part in full bloom—is a type of the life of this -world. And in all things that live there are certain irregularities and -deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No -human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect -in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they -imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to -check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, -lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely -appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human -judgment, Mercy. - - JOHN RUSKIN (_Stones of Venice II_, vi, 25). - - * * * * * - -The best of us are but poor wretches just saved from shipwreck: can we -feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed -by the waves? - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Janet’s Repentance_). - - * * * * * - - The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, - Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold; - Purple the sails, and so perfumed that - The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, - Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke. She did lie - In her pavilion: on each side her - Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, - With divers-coloured fans.... - Her gentlewomen, like the Nereïdes, - So many mermaids tended her. At the helm - A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle - Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands. - - SHAKESPEARE (_Antony and Cleopatra_). - - This and the next three quotations are word-pictures (see p. - 85). - - * * * * * - - Little round Pepíta, blondest maid - In all Bedmar—Pepíta, fair yet flecked, - Saucy of lip and nose, of hair as red - As breasts of robins stepping on the snow— - Who stands in front with little tapping feet, - And baby-dimpled hands that hide enclosed - Those sleeping crickets, the dark castanets. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_The Spanish Gypsy_). - - * * * * * - - And how then was the Devil drest? - Oh! he was in his Sunday’s best: - His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, - And there was a hole where the tail came through. - - Over the hill and over the dale, - And he went over the plain, - And backward and forward he swished his long tail, - As a gentleman swishes his cane. - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_The Devil’s Thoughts_). - - The stanzas are reversed in order. - - * * * * * - - We walked abreast all up the street, - Into the market up the street; - Our hair with marigolds was wound, - Our bodices with love-knots laced, - Our merchandise with tansy[48] bound.... - - And when our chaffering all was done, - All was paid for, sold and done, - We drew a glove on ilka hand, - We sweetly curtsied, each to each, - And deftly danced a saraband. - - WILLIAM BELL SCOTT (_The Witch’s Ballad_). - - The above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 85). - - * * * * * - -ON THE NONPAREIL - -_Naught but himself can be his parallel._ - - With marble-coloured shoulders—and keen eyes - Protected by a forehead broad and white— - And hair cut close, lest it impede the sight, - And clenched hands, firm and of a punishing size, - Steadily held, or motioned wary-wise - To hit or stop—and kerchief, too, drawn tight - O’er the unyielding loins, to keep from flight - The inconstant wind, that all too often flies— - The Nonpareil stands! Fame, whose bright eyes run o’er - With joy to see a Chicken of her own, - Dips her rich pen in _claret_, and writes down - Under the letter R, first on the score, - “Randall—John—Irish Parents—age not known— - Good with both hands, and only ten stone four!” - - PETER CORCORAN (_The Fancy, 1820_). - - Randall was a pugilist of the time. - - “None but himself can be his parallel” is a line from _The - Double Falsehood_ of Louis Theobald (1691-1744), but it comes - originally from Seneca (_Hercules Furens_, Act I, Sc. I): - - Quaeris Alcidae parem? - Nemo est nisi ipse. - - (Do you seek the equal of Alcides? - No one is except himself.) - - I copied the above sonnet from _Gossip in a Library_ by Edmund - Gosse (1891), partly because Mr. Gosse said of it, “Anthologies - are not edited in a truly catholic spirit, or they would - contain this very remarkable sonnet.” I hardly think this, but - the lines seem sufficiently interesting to quote. - - * * * * * - - Le roi disait, en la voyant si belle, - A son neveu: - “Pour un baiser, pour un sourire d’elle, - Pour un cheveu, - Infant Don Ruy, je donnerais l’Espagne - Et le Pérou!” - _Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne_ - _Me rendra fou._ - -(The King, seeing her so beautiful, said to his nephew, “For one kiss, -for a smile, for one hair of her head, Infante Don Ruy, I would give -Spain and Peru.” _The wind that blows over the mountain will drive me -mad._) - - VICTOR HUGO (_Gastibelza_). - - This charmingly extravagant praise of a lady’s beauty recalls - the story of another poet. The Eastern conqueror, Timur (or - Tamerlane), sent for the Persian poet Hafiz and very angrily - asked him, “Art thou he who offered to give my two great - cities, Samarkand and Bokhara, for the black mole on thy - mistress’s cheek?” Hafiz, however, cleverly escaped trouble by - replying, “Yes, sire, I always give freely, and in consequence - am now reduced to poverty. May I crave your kind assistance?” - Timur was amused at the reply and made the poet a present. The - story, however, is considered doubtful, because Timur did not - conquer Persia until some years after 1388, which is supposed - to be the date of the poet’s death. - - * * * * * - -Mere verbal insults (to a Roman Emperor) were not considered treason; -for, said the Emperors Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius, in language -that is a standing rebuke to pusillanimous tyrants, if the words are -uttered in a spirit of frivolity, the attack merits contempt; if from -madness, they excite pity; if from malice, they are to be forgiven. - - WILLIAM A. HUNTER (1844-1898) (_Roman Law, Appendix_). - - This recalls to mind the numerous cases of _lèse-majesté_ - for words spoken against the Kaiser before the war. The - passage would make a pleasant retort to a rude opponent (a - “pusillanimous tyrant”) in a debate. - - * * * * * - -I have discovered that a feigned familiarity in great ones, is a note -of certain usurpation on the less. For great and popular men feign -themselves to be servants of others, to make these slaves to them. So the -fisher provides bait for the trout, roach, dace, etc., that they may be -food for him. - - BEN JONSON (_Mores Aulici_). - - * * * * * - - Ci-gît ma femme, ah! qu’elle est bien, - Pour son repos—et pour le mien. - - DU LORENS. - - Paraphrased as:— - - Here Abigail my wife doth lie; - She’s at peace and so am I. - - * * * * * - -GLADSTONE AND THE SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. - -Mr. Gladstone’s relation to Psychical Research affords one more -illustration of the width and force of his intellectual sympathies. Many -men, even of high ability, if convinced as Mr. Gladstone was of the -truth and sufficiency of the Christian revelation, permit themselves -to ignore these experimental approaches to spiritual knowledge, as at -best superfluous. They do not realize how profoundly the evidence, -the knowledge, which we seek and which in some measure we find, must -ultimately influence men’s views as to both the credibility and the -adequacy of all forms of faith. Mr. Gladstone’s broad intellectual -purview,—aided perhaps in this instance by something of the practical -foresight of the statesman,—placed him in a quite different attitude -towards our quest. “It is the most important work which is being done -in the world,” he said in a conversation in 1885. “By far the most -important,” he repeated, with a grave emphasis which suggested previous -trains of thought, to which he did not care to give expression. He -went on to apologize, in his courteous fashion, for his inability to -render active help; and ended by saying “If you will accept sympathy -without service, I shall be glad to join your ranks.” He became an -Honorary Member, and followed with attention,—I know not with how much -of study—the successive issues of our _Proceedings_. Towards the close -of his life he desired that the _Proceedings_ should be sent to St. -Deiniol’s Library, which he had founded at Hawarden; thus giving final -testimony to his sense of the salutary nature of our work. From a man so -immersed in other thought and labour that work could assuredly claim no -more; from men profoundly and primarily interested in the spiritual world -it ought, I think, to claim no less. - - F. W. H. MYERS (_S.P.R. Journal, June, 1898_). - - Apart from this interesting glimpse of Gladstone, it shows the - importance he attached to the work of the Society for Psychical - Research. To the severely orthodox, who think no evidence of - life after death should be sought outside “Revelation,” his - opinion should appeal. Every increase of knowledge is a further - “Revelation.” In the Bible we are told of one resurrection, - and there is certainly no reason why we should not seek the - evidence of others. We should not shut our eyes and close our - ears to new _Revelation_. - - The Society has been thirty-eight years in existence and is - still insufficiently appreciated. Hodgson said in _The Forum_, - 1896 “There are so many ways of looking at the world. It may - be a speck in space, or a huge cauldron with a graveyard for - its crust, a place in which to get a hunger and satisfy it, - the fighting ground for a while of dragon or ape, of Trojan or - Turk, an evolutionary drama that must end in ice or fire. Many - things it means to different men. One is busy with earthworms, - another with stars, another with the splendour of the day or - the strivings of the human soul. Numerous investigators are - hunting for further proofs that we came out of the mud, but - very few are seeking indications, in any scientific spirit, - of what may follow the toil and turmoil of our individual - existence here.” - - Myers says: “The question of the survival of man is a branch of - experimental psychology. Is there, or is there not, evidence in - the actual observed phenomena of automatism, apparitions and - the like, for a transcendental energy in living men, or for an - influence emanating from personalities which have overpassed - the tomb? This is the definite question, which we can at least - intelligibly discuss, and which either we or our descendants - may some day hope to answer.” - - * * * * * - - Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits, - Or waves that own no curbing hand, - How fast has brother followed brother, - From sunshine to the sunless land! - - WORDSWORTH (_On the Death of James Hogg_). - - * * * * * - - Car, voyez-vous, la femme est, comme on dit, mon maître, - Un certain animal difficile à connoitre, - Et de qui la nature est fort encline au mal. - -(A woman, look you, is a certain animal hard to understand and much -inclined to mischief.) - - MOLIÈRE (_Le Dépit Amoureux_). - - * * * * * - - Here, where sharp the sea-bird shrills his ditty, - Flickering flame-wise through the clear live calm, - Rose triumphal, crowning all a city, - Roofs exalted once with prayer and psalm, - Built of holy hands for holy pity, - Frank and fruitful as a sheltering palm. - - Church and hospice wrought in faultless fashion, - Hall and chancel bounteous and sublime, - Wide and sweet and glorious as compassion, - Filled and thrilled with force of choral chime, - Filled with spirit of prayer and thrilled with passion, - Hailed a God more merciful than Time. - - Ah, less mighty, less than Time prevailing, - Shrunk, expelled, made nothing at his nod, - Less than clouds across the sea-line sailing - Lies he, stricken by his master’s rod. - “Where is man?” the cloister murmurs wailing; - Back the mute shrine thunders—“Where is God?” - - Here is all the end of all his glory— - Dust, and grass, and barren silent stones. - Dead, like him, one hollow tower and hoary - Naked in the sea-wind stands and moans, - Filled and thrilled with its perpetual story; - Here, where earth is dense with dead men’s bones. - - Low and loud and long, a voice for ever, - Sounds the wind’s clear story like a song. - Tomb from tomb the waves devouring sever, - Dust from dust as years relapse along; - Graves where men made sure to rest and never - Lie dismantled by the seasons’ wrong. - - Now displaced, devoured and desecrated, - Now by Time’s hands darkly disinterred, - These poor dead that sleeping here awaited - Long the archangel’s re-creating word, - Closed about with roofs and walls high-gated - Till the blast of judgment should be heard, - - Naked, shamed, cast out of consecration, - Corpse and coffin, yea the very graves, - Scoffed at, scattered, shaken from their station, - Spurned and scourged of wind and sea like slaves, - Desolate beyond man’s desolation, - Shrink and sink into the waste of waves. - - Tombs, with bare white piteous bones protruded, - Shroudless, down the loose collapsing banks, - Crumble, from their constant place detruded, - That the sea devours and gives not thanks. - Graves where hope and prayer and sorrow brooded - Gape and slide and perish, ranks on ranks. - - Rows on rows and line by line they crumble, - They that thought for all time through to be. - Scarce a stone whereon a child might stumble - Breaks the grim field paced alone of me. - Earth, and man, and all their gods wax humble - Here, where Time brings pasture to the sea. - - ... - - But afar on the headland exalted, - But beyond in the curl of the bay, - From the depth of his dome deep-vaulted - Our father is lord of the day. - Our father and lord that we follow, - For deathless and ageless is he; - And his robe is the whole sky’s hollow, - His sandal the sea. - - Where the horn of the headland is sharper, - And her green floor glitters with fire, - The sea has the sun for a harper, - The sun has the sea for a lyre. - The waves are a pavement of amber, - By the feet of the sea-winds trod - To receive in a god’s presence-chamber - Our father, the God. - - Time, haggard and changeful and hoary, - Is master and god of the land: - But the air is fulfilled of the glory - That is shed from our lord’s right hand. - O father of all of us ever, - All glory be only to thee - From heaven, that is void of thee never, - And earth, and the sea.... - - SWINBURNE (_By the North Sea_). - - Swinburne introduced the new Hellenism or paganism, which was - followed by Pater and J. A. Symonds and ended with Oscar Wilde - (see p. 310 note.) Here Time is the supreme god who wrecks - Christian Churches, etc. - - Although Swinburne had no important message to deliver, yet - by his wonderful mastery of metre and language he was of - tremendous service in transforming English Poetry (see p. 219.) - But in spite of the magical effect of his new melodies, he was - wanting in the art (of which Milton is the supreme example) - of varying his rhythm and accents. His extreme regularity, - notwithstanding the fine language and the splendid swing of - his verses, produces in his longer poems a certain effect of - monotony. Swinburne spoke of the “spavined and spur-galled - Pegasus” of George Eliot, but although she lacked his wonderful - lyric melody, she was more artistic and effective than he in - varying the rhythm of her verse. However, the immense influence - of Swinburne on all subsequent poetry can never be forgotten. - Even the dreary Iambic couplet in his hands was transformed - into music. - - * * * * * - -There is the love of the good for the good’s sake, and the love of the -truth for the truth’s sake. I have known many, especially women, love -the good for the good’s sake; but very few, indeed—and scarcely one -woman—love the truth for the truth’s sake. Yet without the latter, the -former may become, as it has a thousand times been, the source of the -persecution of the truth—the pretext and motive of inquisitorial cruelty -and party zealotry. To see clearly that the love of the good and the true -is ultimately identical is given only to those who love both sincerely -and without any foreign ends. - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_Table Talk_). - - * * * * * - -The old creeds grew out of human nature as genuinely as weeds and flowers -out of the earth. It is well enough that the gardener, whose business it -is to pull them up, should despise them as pigweed, wormwood, chickweed, -shadblossom: so they are, out of their place; but the botanist picks -up the same and recognizes them as Ambrosia, Stellaria, Amelanchier, -Amaranth. _Natura nihil agit frustra._ Let us coax each to yield its last -bud. - - MONCURE D. CONWAY. - - I have not Conway’s book _An Earthward Pilgrimage_ to refer to. - The latter part of the above is apparently a quotation from - Thoreau, as I remember it is so quoted by Emerson. - - * * * * * - -God is my witness, what hours of wretchedness I have spent at times, -while reading the Bible devoutly from day to day, and reverencing -every word of it as the Word of God, when petty contradictions met me -which seemed to my reason to conflict with the notion of the absolute -historical veracity of every part of Scripture, and which, as I felt, -_in the study of any other book_ we should honestly treat as errors or -mis-statements, without in the least detracting from the real value of -the book! But in those days, I was taught that it was my duty to fling -the suggestion from me at once, “as if it were a loaded shell shot into -the fortress of my soul,” or to stamp out desperately, as with an iron -heel, each spark of honest doubt, which God’s own gift, the love of -truth, had kindled in my bosom.... I thank God that I was not able long -to throw dust in the eyes of my own mind, and do violence to the love of -truth in this way. - - BISHOP COLENSO (1814-1883) (_Pentateuch_). - - (See G. W. Cox’s _Life of Colenso_, I, 493.) Colenso’s - quotation, “as if it were a loaded shell,” etc., is from - Bishop Wilberforce. Cox mentions elsewhere that in one of - Wilberforce’s published sermons he speaks of a young man of - great promise dying in darkness and despair, because he had - indulged in doubt as to whether the sun and moon stood still - at Joshua’s bidding! Who, that went through the experiences of - those days, can ever forget them? We had been taught that we - “must believe” every word of the Bible to be divinely inspired - or else be eternally damned. And yet we realized that such - belief was absolutely impossible! - - The horror with which Bishop Colenso’s revelations were - received in orthodox circles would to-day be scarcely credible, - and not until after the eighties were the results of the Higher - Criticism generally accepted. - - * * * * * - -Let a man be once fully persuaded that there is no difference between -the two positions, “The Bible contains the religion revealed by God,” -and “Whatever is contained in the Bible is religion, and was revealed by -God”; and that whatever can be said of the Bible, collectively taken, may -and must be said of each and every sentence of the Bible, taken for and -by itself,—and I no longer wonder at these paradoxes. I only object to -the inconsistency of those who profess the same belief, and yet affect -to look down with a contemptuous or compassionate smile on John Wesley -for rejecting the Copernican system as incompatible therewith; or who -exclaim, “Wonderful!” when they hear that Sir Matthew Hale sent a crazy -old woman to the gallows in honour of the Witch of Endor.... I challenge -these divines and their adherents to establish the compatibility of a -belief in the modern astronomy and natural philosophy with their and -Wesley’s doctrine respecting the inspired Scriptures. - - S. T. COLERIDGE. - - * * * * * - - For the Parsons are dumb dogs, turning round, - And scratching their hole in the warmest ground, - And laying them down in the sun to wink, - Drowsing, and dreaming, and thinking they think. - As they mumble the marrowless bones of morals, - Like toothless children gnawing their corals, - Gnawing their corals to soothe their gums - With a kind of watery thought that comes. - - W. C. SMITH (_Borland Hall_). - - * * * * * - -Why do we respect some vegetables, and despise others? The bean is a -graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you never can put beans in -poetry, nor into the highest sort of prose. Corn—which, in my garden, -grows alongside the bean, and, so far as I can see, with no affectation -of superiority—is, however, the child of song. It “waves” in all -literature. - - CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER (_My Summer in a Garden_). - - Mr. Yeats has, however, rescued the bean from its invidious - position (_The Lake Isle of Innisfree_):— - - I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, - And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; - Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, - And live alone in the bee-loud glade. - - Lady Middleton, a friend of old days in Adelaide and now in - England, reminded me of these lines. - - * * * * * - - Yet in my hid soul must a voice reply - Which knows not which may seem the viler gain, - To sleep for ever or be born again. - The blank repose or drear eternity. - A solitary thing it were to die - So late begotten and so early slain, - With sweet life withered to a passing pain - Till nothing anywhere should still be I. - Yet if for evermore I must convey - These weary senses thro’ an endless day - And gaze on God with these exhausted eyes, - I fear that howsoe’er the seraphs play - My life shall not be theirs nor I as they, - But homeless in the heart of Paradise. - - F. W. H. MYERS (1843-1901) (_Immortality_). - - This is from Myers’ _Poems_, 1870, and is one of a pair of - sonnets. I do not quote the first in full because its meaning - seems obscure, but the last six lines on the shortness of life - as compared with eternity are as follow: - - Lo, all that age is as a speck of sand - Lost on the long beach where the tides are free, - And no man metes it in his hollow hand - Nor cares to ponder it, how small it be; - At ebb it lies forgotten on the land - And at full tide forgotten in the sea. - - In the second sonnet quoted above, Myers is not merely - referring to the Biblical account of the future life in heaven - as consisting in endless worship—which, if taken literally - instead of symbolically, would certainly mean a “drear - eternity.” The suggestion is that there must be some equivalent - to work, thought, activity, progress, and definite aims to make - eternal life preferable to annihilation. (I am reminded here of - a curious statement made by the great Adam Smith, “What can be - added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out - of debt, and has a clear conscience!”) Myers ultimately came - to the definite conclusion that the future life will be one of - continued progress. - - His name, Myers, is purely English, not Jewish. This gifted man - was not only a fine poet, but also an important essayist and a - remarkable classical scholar. He, Hodgson, and others formed - the small band of able men who threw everything else aside and - devoted their lives to Psychical Research. Myers’ best poems - appeared in _The Renewal of Youth and other Poems_, 1882, and - it was no doubt a loss to poetry that during the remaining - eighteen years of his life he added little, if anything, more. - However, he and Hodgson considered that the work to which they - had devoted themselves was of the very highest importance. - _Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death_, the - important work in which Myers embodied his conclusions, was - left incomplete at his death, but Hodgson, with Miss Alice - Johnson’s assistance, completed and edited it. - - Myers was quite satisfied before his death, in 1901, that the - evidence collected by the Society for Psychical Research had - already established in itself the fact of survival after death. - But the interesting fact is that during the nineteen years - since he “passed over to the other side” he has apparently - been the principal agent in adding greatly to that evidence. - There is every reason to believe that Myers has personally been - communicating and arranging and directing much of the evidence - that has since been given. - - * * * * * - -It is not the essayist’s duty to inform, to build pathways through -metaphysical morasses, to cancel abuses, any more than it is the duty -of the poet to do these things. Incidentally he may do something in -that way, just as the poet may, but it is not his duty, and should not -be expected of him. Skylarks are primarily created to sing, although a -whole choir of them may be baked in pies and brought to table; they were -born to make music, although they may incidentally stay the pangs of -vulgar hunger.... The essay should be pure literature as the poem is pure -literature. - - ALEXANDER SMITH (_On the Writing of Essays_). - - * * * * * - - Time takes them home that we loved, fair names and famous, - To the soft long sleep, to the broad sweet bosom of death; - But the flower of their souls he shall not take away to shame us, - Nor the lips lack song for ever that now lack breath; - For with us shall the music and perfume that die not dwell, - Though the dead to our dead bid welcome, and we farewell. - - SWINBURNE (_In Memory of Barry Cornwall_). - - * * * * * - -MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH - - You promise heavens free from strife, - Pure truth, and perfect change of will; - But sweet, sweet is this human life, - So sweet, I fain would breathe it still; - Your chilly stars I can forego, - This warm kind world is all I know. - - You say there is no substance here, - One great reality above: - Back from that void I shrink in fear, - And child-like hide myself in love: - Show me what angels feel. Till then, - I cling, a mere weak man, to men. - - You bid me lift my mean desires - From faltering lips and fitful veins - To sexless souls, ideal quires, - Unwearied voices, wordless strains: - My mind with fonder welcome owns - One dear dead friend’s remembered tones. - - Forsooth the present we must give - To that which cannot pass away; - All beauteous things for which we live - By laws of time and space decay. - But oh, the very reason why - I clasp them, is because they die. - - WILLIAM (JOHNSON) CORY (1823-1892). - - Mimnermus was a fine Greek elegiac poet—about 630-600 B.C. - - * * * * * - -MORS ET VITA - - We know not yet what life shall be, - What shore beyond earth’s shore be set; - What grief awaits us, or what glee, - We know not yet. - - Still, somewhere in sweet converse met, - Old friends, we say, beyond death’s sea - Shall meet and greet us, nor forget - - Those days of yore, those years when we - Were loved and true—but will death let - Our eyes the longed-for vision see? - We know not yet. - - SAMUEL WADDINGTON. - - The evidence collected by the Society for Psychical Research - indicates that friends do certainly meet. See the remarkably - convincing _Ear of Dionysius_, lately published, where Dr. - Verrall and Professor Butcher are clearly having a great time - together on the other side. - - * * * * * - - Art—which I may style the love of loving, rage - Of knowing, seeing, feeling the absolute truth of things - For truth’s sake, whole and sole,—nor any good, truth brings - The knower, seer, feeler beside. - - R. BROWNING (_Fifine at the Fair_). - - * * * * * - - De par le Roy dèfense à Dieu - De faire miracle en ce lieu. - - (By order of the King, God is forbidden - To work miracles in this place.) - - ANON. - - The teaching of Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638) led to an - important evangelical movement in the Roman Catholic Church. - When, however, the Jansenists became subjected to persecution, - the usual result followed that numbers of them became fanatics. - The more corrupt the French Court and Society became, the - more frenzied became this fanaticism. In 1727 the Jansenist - deacon, Pâris, a man of very holy life, was buried in the St. - Médard churchyard, and shortly afterwards miracles were said - to take place at his tomb. In consequence large crowds of - _convulsionnaires_ assembled there and very shocking scenes - were enacted, men and women in hysterical and epileptic fits - and ecstatic delirium, eating the earth of the grave and - inflicting frightful tortures on themselves and each other. - When in 1732 the Court interposed and closed the churchyard - some wit wrote the above couplet on the gate. - - Mr. King in his _Classical and Foreign Quotations_ has “De - faire _des miracles_,” but the above version seems correct (See - _Larousse_.) - - * * * * * - - And Christians love in the turf to lie, - Not in watery graves to be— - Nay, the very fishes would _sooner_ die - On the land than in the sea. - - THOMAS HOOD. - - * * * * * - -There are two things that fill my soul with a holy reverence and an -ever-growing wonder: the spectacle of the starry sky, that virtually -annihilates us as physical beings; and the moral law which raises us to -infinite dignity as intelligent agents. - - * * * * * - -The _ought_ expresses a kind of necessity, a kind of connection -of actions with their grounds or reasons, such as is to be found -nowhere else in the whole natural world. For of the natural world our -understanding can know nothing except what is, what has been, or what -will be. We cannot say that anything in it ought to be other than it -actually was, is, or will be. In fact, so long as we are considering the -course of nature, the _ought_ has no meaning whatever. We can as little -inquire what ought to happen in nature as we can inquire what properties -a circle ought to have. - - IMMANUEL KANT. - - The first quotation (from the _Kritik of Practical Reason_) - appears to be the same passage that is often rendered in such - words as these: “Two things fill my soul with awe—the starry - heavens in the still night, and the sense of duty in man.” - - * * * * * - - The whole earth - The beauty wore of promise—that which sets - The budding rose above the rose full-blown. - - W. WORDSWORTH (_The Prelude, Bk. XI_). - - * * * * * - -(——) is one of those men who go far to shake my faith in a future state -of existence; I mean, on account of the difficulty of knowing where to -place him. I could not bear to roast him; he is not so bad as that comes -to: but then, on the other hand, to have to sit down with such a fellow -in the very lowest pothouse of heaven is utterly inconsistent with the -belief of that place being a place of happiness for me. - - S. T. COLERIDGE (_Table Talk_). - - * * * * * - - It isn’t raining rain to me, - It’s raining daffodils. - In every dimpled drop I see - Wild flowers on the hills. - The clouds of grey engulf the day - And overwhelm the town: - It isn’t raining rain to me, - It’s raining roses down. - - ROBERT LOVEMAN. - - * * * * * - -Let us reflect that the highest path is pointed out by the pure Ideal of -those, who look up to us, and who, if we tread less loftily, may never -look so high again. - - N. HAWTHORNE (_Transformation_). - - * * * * * - -One summer evening sitting by my window I watched for the first star -to appear, knowing the position of the brightest in the southern sky. -The dusk came on, grew deeper, but the star did not shine. By and by, -other stars less bright appeared, so that it could not be the sunset -which obscured the expected one. Finally, I considered that I must have -mistaken its position, when suddenly a puff of air blew through the -branch of a pear tree which overhung the window, a leaf moved, and there -was the star behind the leaf. - -At present the endeavour to make discoveries is like gazing at the sky up -through the boughs of an oak. Here a beautiful star shines clearly; here -a constellation is hidden by a branch; a universe by a leaf. Some mental -instrument or organon is required to enable us to distinguish between the -leaf which may be removed and a real void; when to cease to look in one -direction, and to work in another.... There are infinities to be known, -but they are hidden by a leaf. - - RICHARD JEFFERIES (_The Story of My Heart_). - - * * * * * - - Over the winter glaciers - I see the summer glow, - And through the wild-piled snowdrift - The warm rosebuds below. - - R. W. EMERSON (_The World-Soul_). - - Emerson is always an optimist. - - * * * * * - - Place thyself, oh, lovely fair! - Where a thousand mirrors are; - Though a thousand faces shine, - ’Tis but one—and that is thine. - Then the Painter’s skill allow, - Who could frame so fair a brow. - What are lustrous eyes of flame, - What are cheeks, the rose that shame, - What are glances wild and free, - Speech, and shape, and voice—but He? - - MOASI (_L. S. Costello’s translation_). - - * * * * * - - And here the Singer for his Art - Not all in vain may plead - ‘The song that nerves a nation’s heart - Is in itself a deed.’ - - TENNYSON (_Charge of the Heavy Brigade_). - - * * * * * - -I knew a very wise man that believed that, if a man were permitted to -make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a -nation. - - FLETCHER of Saltoun (_Letter to Montrose and others_). - - What would the wise man have said of “It’s a long, long way to - Tipperary”? - - * * * * * - -FIRST LOVE - - O my earliest love, who, ere I number’d - Ten sweet summers, made my bosom thrill! - Will a swallow—or a swift, or some bird— - Fly to her and say, I love her still? - - Say my life’s a desert drear and arid, - To its one green spot I aye recur: - Never, never—although three times married— - Have I cared a jot for aught but her. - - No, mine-own! though early forced to leave you, - Still my heart was there where first we met; - In those “Lodgings with an ample sea-view,” - Which were, forty years ago, “To let.” - - There I saw her first, our landlord’s oldest - Little daughter. On a thing so fair - Thou, O Sun,—who (so they say) beholdest - Everything,—hast gazed, I tell thee, ne’er. - - There she sat—so near me, yet remoter - Than a star—a blue-eyed bashful imp: - On her lap she held a happy bloater, - ’Twixt her lips a yet more happy shrimp. - - And I loved her, and our troth we plighted - On the morrow by the shingly shore: - In a fortnight to be disunited - By a bitter fate for evermore. - - O my own, my beautiful, my blue-eyed! - To be young once more, and bite my thumb - At the world and all its cares with you, I’d - Give no inconsiderable sum. - - Hand in hand we tramp’d the golden seaweed, - Soon as o’er the gray cliff peep’d the dawn: - Side by side, when came the hour for tea, we’d - Crunch the mottled shrimp and hairy prawn:— - - Has she wedded some gigantic shrimper, - That sweet mite with whom I loved to play? - Is she girt with babes that whine and whimper, - That bright being who was always gay? - - Yes—she has at least a dozen wee things! - Yes—I see her darning corduroys, - Scouring floors, and setting out the tea-things - For a howling herd of hungry boys - - In a home that reeks of tar and sperm-oil! - But at intervals she thinks, I know, - Of those days which we, afar from turmoil, - Spent together forty years ago. - - O my earliest love, still unforgotten, - With your downcast eyes of dreamy blue! - Never, somehow, could I seem to cotton - To another as I did to you! - - C. S. CALVERLEY. - - * * * * * - -ON A FLY DRINKING OUT OF A CUP OF ALE - - Busy, curious, thirsty fly, - Drink with me, and drink as I; - Freely welcome to my cup, - Couldst thou sip and sip it up. - Make the most of life you may, - Life is short and wears away. - - Both alike, both thine and mine, - Hasten quick to their decline; - Thine’s a summer, mine’s no more, - Though repeated to three-score: - Three-score summers, when they’re gone, - Will appear as short as one. - - WILLIAM OLDYS (1696-1761). - - This was first published in 1732 as “The Fly—An Anachreontick” - and Mr. Gosse in the _Encyc. Britt._ gave the first six lines - as an example of an Anacreontic. He attributed the poem to - Oldys, but the authorship is doubtful. (See _Notes and Queries, - 3rd Ser., I, 21_). Vincent Bourne in a copy of his _Poematia_, - 1734, in my possession, has written out _and signed_ the two - verses, entitling them “A Song,” the last line of each verse - being repeated as a refrain. From this it might appear that he - claimed the authorship. In 1743 he published a Latin version of - the poem. Vincent Bourne, a beautiful Latinist, was much loved - by his pupils, Charles Lamb and Cowper, who each translated - into English some of his fine Latin verses. - - * * * * * - - The Earth goeth on the Earth, glistening like gold, - The Earth goeth to the Earth, sooner than it wold, - The Earth builds on the Earth castles and towers— - The Earth says to the Earth, all shall be ours. - - _Epitaph_, 17th Century. - - An inscription on a tomb in Melrose Abbey, but said to be a - version of lines by a Fourteenth Century poet, William Billing. - - * * * * * - - She never found fault with you, never implied - Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side - Grew nobler, girls purer.... - None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall; - They knelt more to God than they used—that was all. - - E. B. BROWNING (_My Kate_). - - * * * * * - -It takes very little water to make a perfect pool for a tiny fish, -where it will find its world and paradise all in one, and never have a -presentiment of the dry bank. The fretted summer shade, and stillness, -and the gentle breathing of some loved life near—it would be paradise to -us all, if eager thought, the strong angel with the implacable brow, had -not long since closed the gates. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Romola_). - - * * * * * - -All true Work is religion; and whatsoever religion is not Work may go and -dwell among the Brahmins, Antinomians, Spinning Dervishes, or where it -will; with me it shall have no harbour. - - CARLYLE (_Reward_). - - * * * * * - - Nature, the old nurse, took - The child upon her knee, - Saying: ‘Here is a story book - Thy Father has written for thee.’ - - ‘Come, wander with me,’ she said, - ‘Into regions yet untrod; - And read what is still unread - In the manuscripts of God.’ - - And he wandered away and away - With Nature, the dear old nurse, - Who sang to him night and day - The rhymes of the universe. - - And whenever the way seemed long, - Or his heart began to fail, - She would sing a more wonderful song, - Or tell a more marvellous tale. - - LONGFELLOW (_Agassiz_). - - * * * * * - - Deep, deep are loving eyes, - Flowed with naptha fiery sweet; - And the point is paradise - Where their glances meet. - - R. W. EMERSON (_The Daemonic and the Celestial - Love_). - - * * * * * - - ... As I lie here, hours of the dead night, - Dying in state and by such slow degrees, - I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, - And stretch my feet forth, straight as stone can point, - And let the bed-clothes, for a mortcloth, drop - Into great laps and folds of sculptor’s work. - - R. BROWNING (_The Bishop orders his Tomb_). - - * * * * * - - Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle, - Led the lorn traveller up the path, - Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle; - And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, - Upon the parlour steps collected, - Wagged all their tails, and seemed to say,— - “Our master knows you—you’re expected.” - - W. M. PRAED (_The Vicar_). - - * * * * * - - Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, - An abbot on an ambling pad, - Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad, - Or long-haired page in crimson clad, - Goes by to towered Camelot. - - TENNYSON (_The Lady of Shalott_). - - The above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 167). - - * * * * * - -(Phantasy or imagination may be true and clear or may be disordered and -unsound) ... The phantastical part of men (if it be not disordered) is a -representer of the best, most comely and bewtifull images or appearances -of thinges to the soule and according to their very truth.... Of this -sort of Phantasie are all good Poets, notable Captaines stratagematique, -all cunning artificers and Engineers, all Legislators, Politiciens and -Counsellours of estate, in whose exercises the inventive part is most -employed and is to the sound and true judgement of man most needful. - - GEORGE PUTTENHAM (_The Arte of English Poesie_, 1589). - - Just as a poet, besides imagination, must have intellect or - judgment as a basis, so the higher imaginative faculty comes to - the aid of intellect in other departments of life. As Maudsley - says, “it performs the initial and essential functions in - every branch of human development” (_Body and Will_). Ehrlich, - seeking a substance that would destroy germs without injuring - the human tissues, plods through endless tedious processes, - and on his 606th experiment, discovers salvarsan, a cure for - syphilis. Here the higher faculty has had little to do—but - when, on the fall of an apple, Newton’s mind saw in a flash how - the world was balanced, intellect soared aloft on the wings of - imagination. - - * * * * * - -As well Poets as Poesie are despised, and the name become, of honourable -infamous, subject to scorne and derision, and rather a reproach than -a prayse to any that useth it: for commonly whoso is studious in the -Arte or shewes himselfe excellent in it, they call him in disdayne a -_phantasticall_: and a light-headed or phantasticall man (by conversion) -they call a Poet.... Of such among the Nobilitie or gentrie as be very -well seene in many laudable sciences, and especially in Poesie, it is -so come to passe that they have no courage to write and if they have, -yet are they loath to be a-known of their skill. So as I know very -many notable Gentlemen in the Court that have written commendably and -suppressed it agayne, or else suffred it to be publisht without their -owne names to it: as if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seeme -learned, and to shew himselfe amorous of any good Arte. - - GEORGE PUTTENHAM (_The Arte of English Poesie_, 1589). - - We do not always remember in what disheartening conditions the - great Elizabethan literature was produced—the inferior position - of the writer, his wretched remuneration and his dependence on - patrons. It is strange to think that it was considered beneath - the dignity of a gentleman to write poetry or to acknowledge - its authorship—or apparently to show proficiency in other arts - or sciences. Such men as Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter - Raleigh were exceptions. The curious fact is that Puttenham - himself (assuming, as is probable, that he was the author) - issued this important book anonymously. He had, however, - acknowledged his _Partheniades_ ten years before. - - As Arber points out, the above passage, and another reference - by Puttenham to the same subject, indicate that, at least in - the earlier Elizabethan period, much talent must have been - lost and much literature never reached the printing press. The - same feeling that then existed is seen again in Locke’s time - (see p. 180), and, if we consider a moment, we shall find that - _it has persisted to some extent to the present day_. Think - how miserably inadequate is the attention paid to poetry in - our educational system, the methods employed being, indeed, - calculated to make the student _loathe_ the subject. (When I - was young (“Ah, woful When”[49]) we had as a school text-book - Palgrave’s Golden Treasury—a divine gift to us in those days. - As we had a sympathetic teacher, we read it _as poetry_, - and the consequence was that I and other boys knew the book - practically by heart from cover to cover.) - - It is surprising that Englishmen neglect the one great - talent which they possess. What distinguishes them above all - other nations is their superiority in the higher imaginative - faculties.[50] This is shown in such a national characteristic - as the love of travel and adventure, which has created the - British Empire, and is _proved_ concretely by the fact that - England has produced the greatest wealth of poetry which the - world has ever seen. This great treasure, which should be - employed for encouraging the highest of all faculties, is - allowed to lie idle. The fact seems to be overlooked that - the study of poetry is not only of enormous intrinsic value - in knowledge, and culture, but that it is the finest of all - mental training. By analysis and paraphrase it gives knowledge - of language, appreciation of style, practice in literary - expression, and, above all things, precision of thought. In my - opinion, poetry should form an essential part of education, - beginning in childhood and continuing throughout the Arts - course. It may be found that there are intelligent persons who - are incapable of appreciating poetry, and the subject may, - therefore, not be made a compulsory one. But my conviction is - that, where men imagine themselves to be thus deficient, it is - the result of a bad system of education. There is great truth - in Stevenson’s fine essay, “The Lantern-Bearers.” - - * * * * * - - Go, wing thy flight from star to star, - From world to luminous world, as far - As the universe spreads its flaming wall: - Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, - And multiply each through endless years, - One minute of Heaven is worth them all. - - THOMAS MOORE (_Lalla Rookh_). - - A Celtic flight of imagination. - - * * * * * - - And on we roll—the year goes by - As year by year must ever go, - And castles built of bits of sky - Must fall and lose their wondrous glow; - - But Hope with his wings is not yet old, - While every year like a summer day - Ends and begins with grey and gold, - Begins and ends with gold and grey. - - RICHARD HODGSON. - - * * * * * - - When none need broken meat, - How can our cake be sweet? - When none want flannel and coals, - How shall we save our souls? - Oh dear! oh dear! - The Christian virtues will disappear. - - CHARLOTTE STETSON. - - * * * * * - - Since we parted yester eve, - I do love thee, love, believe - Twelve times dearer, twelve hours longer, - One dream deeper, one night stronger, - One sun surer—thus much more - Than I loved thee, love, before. - - OWEN MEREDITH (EARL OF LYTTON) (_Love Fancies_). - - * * * * * - - The Dahlia you brought to our Isle - Your praises for ever shall speak - ’Mid gardens as sweet as your smile - And colours as bright as your cheek. - - LORD HOLLAND. - - A pretty compliment to his wife who in 1814 had introduced the - dahlia into England from Spain. Previous attempts had failed - (Liechtenstein’s _Holland House_). - - * * * * * - -C’est imiter quelqu’un que de planter des choux. - - A. DE MUSSET. - - Quoted by Austin Dobson:— - - ... And you, whom we all so admire, - Dear Critics, whose verdicts are always so new! - One word in your ear: There were Critics before. - And _the man who plants cabbages imitates, too_! - - * * * * * - -... The great book of actual life, sad, diffuse, contradictory, yet -always full of depth and significance. - - GEORGE SAND (_The Miller of Angibault_). - - * * * * * - - Life is mostly froth and bubble; - Two things stand like stone:— - Kindness in another’s trouble, - Courage in your own. - - ADAM LINDSAY GORDON (1833-1870) (_Ye Weary - Wayfarer_). - - * * * * * - -A NOISELESS, PATIENT SPIDER - - A noiseless, patient spider, - I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; - Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, - It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself; - Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them. - - And you, O my Soul, where you stand, - Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space, - Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect - them; - Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold; - Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul. - - WALT WHITMAN (_Leaves of Grass_). - - * * * * * - - The Future, that bright land which swims - In western glory, isles and streams and bays, - Where hidden pleasures float in golden haze. - - GEORGE ELIOT (_Jubal_). - - * * * * * - -Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit. - -(The modest Nymph saw her God and blushed.) - -The conscious water saw its God and blushed. - - RICHARD CRASHAW (1616-1650). - - Referring to the miracle of Cana. Both Latin and English - epigrams are by Crashaw. In the former the water is personified - by its Nymph. - - * * * * * - -Called on the W. Molesworths. He is threatened with total blindness, -and his excellent wife is learning to work in the dark in preparation -for a darkened chamber. What things wives are! What a spirit of joyous -suffering, confidence, and love was incarnated in Eve! ’Tis a pity they -should eat apples. - - CAROLINE FOX’S JOURNALS. - - * * * * * - - ... Earth and ocean, - Space, and the isles of life or light that gem - The sapphire floods of interstellar air, - This firmament pavilioned upon chaos, - With all its cressets of immortal fire. - - SHELLEY (_Hellas_). - - * * * * * - -Vox, et praeterea nihil. - -[Words (_literally voice_) and nothing more.] - - PROVERB. - - Plutarch, in his Apophthegm, Lacon. Incert. XIII, says that - a man after plucking a nightingale and finding little flesh - on it, said φωνὰ τύ τις ἐσσὶ, καὶ οὐδὲν ἄλλο, “Thou art voice - and nothing more” (_King’s Classical and Foreign Quotations_). - No doubt this was the origin of the saying. It was applied to - the nightingale, and to Echo—and then used in Hamlet’s sense, - “Words, words, words.” - - * * * * * - - Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, - Stains the white radiance of Eternity. - - SHELLEY (_Adonaïs_ LII). - - Two of the most marvellous lines in all literature. With them - as a text volumes might be written. - - * * * * * - -Campbell the poet, who had always a bad razor, I suppose, and was late of -rising, said he believed the man of civilization who lived to be sixty -had suffered more pain in littles in shaving every day than a woman with -a large family had from her lyings-in. - - JOHN BROWN (_Horae Subsecivae_ I, 457). - - * * * * * - -Beauty is worse than wine, it intoxicates both the holder and the -beholder. - - J. G. ZIMMERMANN. - - * * * * * - - The maid (and thereby hangs a tale) - For such a maid no Whitsun-ale - Could ever yet produce: - No grape, that’s kindly ripe, could be - So round, so plump, so soft as she, - Nor half so full of juice. - - Her feet beneath her petticoat - Like little mice stole in and out, - As if they fear’d the light: - But O, she dances such a way! - No sun upon an Easter-day - Is half so fine a sight. - - Her cheeks so rare a white was on, - No daisy makes comparison - (Who sees them is undone); - For streaks of red were mingled there, - Such as are on a Catherine pear, - The side that’s next the sun. - - Her lips were red, and one was thin - Compar’d to that was next her chin, - (Some bee had stung it newly), - But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face - I durst no more upon them gaze - Than on the sun in July. - - SIR JOHN SUCKLING (_Ballad upon a Wedding_). - - “Some bee had stung it.” _It_, of course, means the full - underlip, as against the less full upperlip. - - * * * * * - -Such is the ascendancy which the great works of the Greek imagination -have established over the mind of man that.... he is tempted to ignore -the real superiority of our own religion, morality, civilization, and to -re-shape in fancy an _adult_ world on an _adolescent_ ideal. - - F. W. H. MYERS (Essay on _Greek Oracles_). - - * * * * * - -That early burst of admiration for Virgil of which I have already spoken -was followed by a growing passion for one after another of the Greek -and Latin poets. From ten to sixteen I lived much in the inward recital -of Homer, Æschylus, Lucretius, Horace, and Ovid. The reading of Plato’s -Gorgias at fourteen was a great event; but the study of the Phaedo at -sixteen affected upon me a kind of conversion. At that time, too, I -returned to my worship of Virgil, whom Homer had for some years thrust -into the background. I gradually wrote out Bucolics, Georgics, Aeneid -from memory.... - -The discovery at seventeen, in an old school book, of the poems of -Sappho, whom till then I had only known by name, brought an access of -intoxicating joy. Later on, the solitary decipherment of Pindar made -another epoch of the same kind. From the age of sixteen to twenty-three -there was no influence in my life comparable to _Hellenism_ in the -fullest sense of the word. That tone of thought came to me naturally; the -classics were but intensifications of my own being. They drew from me and -fostered evil as well as good; they might aid imaginative impulse and -detachment from sordid interests, but they had no check for pride. - -When pushed thus far, the “Passion of the Past” must needs wear away -sooner or later into an unsatisfied pain. In 1864 I travelled in -Greece. I was mainly alone; nor were the traveller’s facts and feelings -mapped out for him then as now. Ignorant as I was, according to modern -standards, yet my emotions were all my own: and few men can have drunk -that departed loveliness into a more passionate heart. It was the life of -about the sixth century before Christ, on the isles of the Aegean, which -drew me most;—that intensest and most unconscious bloom of the Hellenic -spirit. Here alone in the Greek story do women play their due part with -men. What might the Greeks have made of the female sex had they continued -to care for it! Then it was that Mimnermus sang:— - - τίς δε βιός, τί δε τερπνὸν ἄνευ χρυσέης Ἀφροδίτης; - τεθναίην, ὅτε μοι μηκέτι ταῦτα μέλοι.[51] - -Then it was that Praxilla’s cry rang out across the narrow seas, that -call to fellowship, reckless and lovely with stirring joy. “Drink with -me!” she cried, “be young along with me! Love with me! wear with me the -garland crown! Mad be thou with my madness; be wise when I am wise!” - -I looked through my open porthole close upon the Lesbian shore. There -rose the heathery promontories, and waves lapped upon the rocks in -dawning day:—lapped upon those rocks where Sappho’s feet had trodden; -broke beneath the heather on which had sat that girl unknown, _nearness -to whom made a man the equal of the gods_. I sat in Mytilene, to me a -sacred city, between the hill-crest and the sunny bay.... - -Gazing thence on Delos on the Cyclades, and on those straits and channels -of purple sea, I felt that nowise could I come closer still; never more -intimately than thus could embrace that vanished beauty. Alas for an -ideal which roots itself in the past! That longing cannot be allayed. - - F. W. H. MYERS (_Fragments of Prose and Poetry_). - - The wonderful record of Myers in classical study will first be - observed. If we did not know him to be absolutely trustworthy, - we would find it practically impossible to believe his - statement. Imagine, for instance, a boy of sixteen learning - by heart _the whole of Virgil_ for his own pleasure! However, - anything vouched for by Myers must be accepted as literally - true. - - Extraordinary as this is, the above quotations introduce us to - a subject quite as extraordinary and far more interesting and - important, namely, the distortion of truth caused by extreme - classical enthusiasm.[52] It is perfectly easy to see how - such enthusiasm arises. Greek art and literature are not only - intrinsically wonderful and valuable but, seeing that they were - produced by a comparatively small population in a barbaric age, - they constitute the greatest (secular) marvel in the history - of the world. Everything tends to excite enthusiasm for this - remote, alien, primitive, but most remarkable people. I need - not speak of the art in which they stand unrivalled throughout - the ages. As regards their literature, apart from its - intrinsic excellence and the beauty of the language in which - it is written, it has an additional fascination and charm, - because it is the speech and song of the infancy of the world. - Through it we see into the mind and realize the life of the - most interesting race that ever lived. Possessing astounding - intellect and intense originality, they were nevertheless the - children of nature. Their earth was peopled with fauns and - nymphs, their gods lived and moved and had their being in - every natural object—and they had very little of our ideas of - right and wrong. They had nothing of our wide knowledge and - experience, yet they constructed a world of life and thought - for themselves. It is absorbingly interesting to read their - beautiful poetry, fine literature, and philosophic thought, - bearing in mind that it was produced in the ignorant childhood - and paganism of the human race, over two thousand years ago. - And one of the most astonishing things about them is that - essential product of civilization, a keen sense of humour. So - curiously “modern” is their literature that the writers speak - to us across the ages with as vivid a voice as if they were - still alive. No other primitive race has been able to leave us - any such adequate conception of its life and thought. Moreover, - we can never forget how the Greek arose out of the tomb, where - he had slept for many centuries, to preside at the re-birth of - our own modern world—that emergence of Europe from medieval - darkness which we call the Renaissance. It was largely Greek - art and literature that stimulated the mental activity of the - world and made us what we are to-day. - - Very great enthusiasm is, therefore, warranted in the Greek - student—but there comes a point where enthusiasm may become - pure _fanaticism_, and lead to that most deadly of all things, - the perversion of the truth. - - In the above quotations two Greek poems are quoted, and another - is referred to in the lines I have italicized. The first - two[53] refer to vice, which to us is revolting and criminal, - but to the whole Greek nation was natural, and recognised by - law. The third expresses even more revolting passion. It will - be seen, therefore, that Myers, in order to illustrate the - “departed loveliness” of Greek life made a strange choice of - quotations (which also, standing alone, would give a very false - notion of classic Greek poetry). - - Seeing that Myers was one of the purest-minded of men, what is - the explanation of this very remarkable fact? The explanation - is simply that Myers was a _classical enthusiast_. He had - forgotten the warning he himself gave in the first quotation. - It is absolutely amazing how such an enthusiast, however - brilliant a scholar and capable a man in other respects, can - blind himself to the most obvious facts where anything Greek - is concerned. It is very certain that Myers read into each - poem a perfectly innocent meaning—and he would not be alone in - that respect. Take, for instance, the third quotation which is - from Sappho. In my youth the _great majority_ of classical men - appeared to have convinced themselves that a poem of terribly - fierce passion was an expression of mere friendship! Even our - leading reference-book, Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman - Biography_, gave the same absurd view until about 1877.[54] - However, we must get away from this ugly subject and seek - further illustrations elsewhere. - - This perverted enthusiasm seems to permeate all books of the - last fifty or sixty years dealing with Greek life, art and - literature that I have met with. This is a very large statement - to make, and, of course, I do not mean that such flagrant - instances as those above referred to are the rule. But to me - there seems always to be _some_ bias which tends to exaggerate - or falsify the facts to _some_ extent. We can trace this - tendency back more than eighteen hundred years to Plutarch. - (_On the Malice of Herodotus_). He, as Mr. Livingstone[55] - says, “took the view that the Greeks of the great age - could do no wrong, and rates the historian for ‘needlessly - describing evil actions.’” And it is largely in this way that - the enthusiast works—by _omitting facts_. I should think few - readers unfamiliar with the classics will have known all the - facts already put before them in these notes—because such - facts, although known to all classical scholars, are kept in - the background as much as possible. Again the tendency is to - judge the Greeks by their greatest men—to imagine every Greek - to have been a Plato! - - I might add greatly to what I have already said about the - Greeks, but I must confine myself to a few matters, repeating - nothing that has been said in previous notes. The Greeks had - very little regard for truthfulness. An _oath_ was a matter of - religion and was supposed to be binding upon them, but it was - excusable to twist out of it. They also saw nothing immoral in - theft. Hermes was the god of thieves, and “the wily Odysseus” - was a favourite hero of the Greeks. Autolycus, the grandfather - of Odysseus, was taught by Hermes himself to surpass all - men in stealing and perjury. (_Od._ XIX, 395.) Hence it was - thought quite a proper thing to make war for the purpose of - robbing neighbours of territory or property. I need quote only - the truly “German” opinions of _Socrates_ and _Aristotle_ - placed by Mr. Zimmern at the head of his chapter on Warfare - in _The Greek Commonwealth_. “But, Socrates, it is possible - to procure wealth for the State from our foreign enemies.” - “Yes, certainly you may, if you are the stronger power” (Xen. - _Mem._, III, 6, 7). “War is strictly a means of acquisition, - to be employed against wild animals and against inferior races - of men who, though intended by nature to be in subjection to - us, are unwilling to submit[!], for war of such a kind is just - by nature” (Aristotle, _Politics_, 1256). On considering that - such sentiments are expressed by their greatest philosophers, - we are not surprised to find that _the history of the Greeks is - one of lies, perfidy, and cruelty_.[56] It further illustrates - their unsympathetic pagan character when we find the Greek - mother mourning for her dead son because he will not “feed - her old age,” and Socrates valuing friendship because friends - were useful.[57] When the enthusiast is confronted with the - debased Greek religion he tells us, or leads us to think, that - the people did not believe in their dissolute gods. As regards - this I cannot do better than quote the terse statement of Mr. - Livingstone. After pointing out that there were some advanced - thinkers among the Greeks who were more or less sceptics - (and that there were also some small sects who are said to - have had higher _moral_ beliefs than their countrymen[58]) - he says, “We are concerned with the state religion, which - Athenians learnt to reverence as children, which permeated - the national literature, which crowned the high places of the - city with its temples, which consecrated peace and war and - everything solemn and ceremonial in civil life, which by its - intimate connection with these things acquired that support - of instinctive sentiment which is stronger than any moral or - intellectual sanction.”[59] Something may be added to this. - Why was the Greek so greatly concerned about his tomb and his - burial rites? The main reason why he burdened himself with a - wife and household was that a son should be left to see to - those rites and look after his tomb. He did not see his wife - before marriage, and, however beautiful he found her to be, - the uneducated girl would be no companion for him; and her - beauty would soon fade in the unwholesome confined life she - led. Her office was fulfilled when she had borne him sons—and - he looked for his pleasures elsewhere. Surely this one fact - alone proves that the Greeks had a very real belief in their - religion. Again why do we find that only Socrates and a few - other thinkers appear to have been charged with impiety? Mr. - Livingstone, curiously enough, argues from this that there was - greater freedom of thought among the Greeks. Surely the simple - and natural explanation is far preferable, namely, that there - were _no other pronounced sceptics_ than those few advanced - thinkers. Imagine the danger of declaring anything against the - gods which would throw in doubt the divinity of the patron - goddess Athena![60] It is often argued that the intelligent - Greeks could no more have believed the monstrous stories - of their gods, than we believe some of the Old Testament - stories of Jehovah. But the position is entirely different. We - disbelieve stories that offend our moral sense: the gods of - the Greeks had a character similar to their own, and acted as - they themselves would have acted if they had been gods. Also - they had no ethnology, no knowledge of purer religions to teach - them the falsity and depravity of their own—nor, indeed, would - the proud Greeks have condescended to learn from barbarians - (especially as they believed themselves descended from heroes - who were sprung from the gods). Finally one has only to read - the accounts of travellers in Greece to learn that the religion - _even lingers on to-day_—see, for instance, S. C. Kaines - Smith’s _Greek Art and National Life_ (pp. 153, 172), where the - woodcutters, when a tree is falling, throw themselves on the - ground and hide their faces in deadly fear of the Dryads,[61] - and an _eminent Greek gentleman_ crosses himself at the name of - the Nereïds. (See also W. H. D. Rouse’s _Tales from the Isles - of Greece_. I learn from the _Spectator_ review of a book just - published, _Balkan Home Life_, by Lucy M. J. Garnett, that the - religion has a very strong hold on the people.) - - My statement has been very one-sided so far, as I have said - very little of the virtues of the Greeks. These virtues were - those of intelligent primitive people, love of freedom, - justice, and equality (_but confined to their own nation and - not including their own women and slaves_), personal courage, - great patriotism, fidelity to kinsfolk and guests; they - showed at times generosity to a valiant enemy and recognized - some such duties as burying the dead. While I do not think - we can carry the national virtues much further than this, - there would be gradations of character among the Greeks, and - probably many would be more or less kindly, others have a - true affection for their wives, others show private virtues - in various directions—we can only conjecture as to something - of which there is very little evidence in their literature. - On the one hand, we know that Socrates suffered martyrdom - for the truth,[62] and we may surmise that there were other - fine characters; on the other hand, we know that this highly - intellectual _nation_ put the philosopher to death as a - blasphemer against their profligate gods. - - But while we can give the Greeks credit for little of the - morality of modern civilization, on the other hand we would be - thinking very absurdly if we regarded their vices as though the - people were on the same moral plane as ourselves. (This is the - fact to be recognised. The ridiculous tendency of the modern - enthusiast is to depict the Greeks as a highly moral nation - striving for righteousness!) Strictly speaking, the Greek - practices and habits should not be called vices, because the - Greeks had no reason to believe that they were doing anything - wrong. Their virtues and their vices were those of ordinary - primitive life.[63] The moral principle, that highest product - of creation, had not yet developed itself among the people to - any appreciable extent, but we see it gradually emerging in - the growing disbelief in the national religion among thinking - men, and reaching an advanced stage in Plato, the greatest - philosopher of antiquity. But to the average Greek, apart from - religion (including respect for parents), the patriotism which - they had learnt from Homer, their one great book, covered much - of what they meant by “virtue”.[64] Whatever was good for the - State was a virtue, whatever bad for the State a vice. We can - hardly realize what Athens stood for in the Greek mind. For - instance, Æschylus tells us that the patron goddess Athena - came to Athens to preside over the balloting of the jurors and - conduct the trial of Orestes, and also that the Furies lived - among the citizens in a sacred grotto. The Greeks saw that they - were immensely superior to the surrounding “barbarians,” and - they regarded their State practically as an object of _worship_ - (as Rome was also regarded by the Romans). - - It would have been interesting to discuss here the ethical - views of the philosophers, but the subject is far too intricate - for this note—and in any case they and their followers formed - only a few exceptions among the Greeks. It will be seen later - that the use of such words as “virtue,” “holiness,” etc., - causes a vast deal of meaning to be read into Plato which never - entered that philosopher’s mind. - - The great outstanding fact about the Greeks is their - astonishing intellect, combined with sound commonsense - (σωφροσύνη) and a quite modern gift of humour. Their powerful - intellect, however, had very poor material to work upon. In a - previous note I have mentioned their remarkably limited idea of - the world—but, while knowing this to be a fact, we still cannot - realize the _mental attitude_ of men who had even _one_ false - conception of such magnitude as regards their general outlook - and thought. Let us take an instance of a different kind from - the great philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), who came after - Plato—bearing in mind that the average Greeks would be vastly - more ignorant and superstitious than their greatest thinkers. - In his _Mechanica_ Aristotle explains the power of a lever to - make a small weight lift a larger one. His explanation is that - a _circle has a certain magical character_. A very wonderful - thing is a circle, because it is both _convex_ and _concave_; - it is made by a _fixed_ point and a _moving_ line, which are - contradictory to each other; and whatever has a circular - movement moves _in opposite directions_. Also, Aristotle says, - movement in a circle is the most _natural_ movement! Hence we - get the result: the long arm of the lever moves in the _larger - circle_ and has the greater amount of this magical _natural - motion_, and so requires the lesser force! Again, let us take - a story which was as firmly believed by Aristotle as the most - ignorant of his countrymen. Our word halcyon is the Greek - word _Alkuon_, meaning a bird, probably of the Kingfisher - species. The Greeks supposed the word to be formed of two - words, _hals kuon_, meaning “conceived in the sea”—therefore - they believed the bird _was_ so conceived and that it was bred - in a nest floating on the sea—and, as the sea must then be - smooth, they further believed that a period of fourteen days’ - calm necessarily occurred about Christmas—finding there was - no such period of calm around their own coasts they either - thought that it must occur (and the birds breed) elsewhere, - or, like Theocritus, that the bird could _charm_ the sea into - tranquillity.[65] - - The Greeks believed queer things about animals. I take - the following instances of birds alone from Mr. Rogers’ - Introduction to his _Birds of Aristophanes_, so that I need not - give references. By looking at a plover, who returns the look, - a man is cured of jaundice. Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, - was said to have been so named because, having been cast into - the sea, she was rescued by widgeons (Greek, _penelops_). The - song of the dying swan was a belief of the Greeks. The raven - was the bird of augury and had mysterious knowledge. The cranes - fought the pygmies and swallowed stones for ballast. The - young storks fed their aged parents. The sisken foresees the - winter and snowstorms. Mr. Rogers has no need to discuss the - yet more extravagant stories of the phœnix, sirens, harpies, - etc. Plutarch (_De Is. and Os._ LXXI) tells us how the Greeks - regarded birds and other animals in relation to the gods; he - says that while they did not, like the Egyptians, _worship_ - animals, “they said and believed rightly that the dove was - the sacred animal of Aphrodite, the raven of Apollo, the dog - of Artemis, and so on.” (Possibly Aristophanes’ comedy did - not win the prize, because the audience saw little humour in - exaggerating the powers which they really believed the birds - to have. To the Greeks the birds were _greater_ and the gods - _smaller_ than we ourselves picture them. Ruskin’s translation - of Od. V. 67,[66] the seabirds which “have care of the works - of the sea,” seems much more likely to be correct than the - accepted version that the birds live by diving and fishing. - Consider how the Greeks would regard the birds that flew round - and over their ships or fishing-nets and over the waves and - rocks, where the sea-gods lay beneath—and compare _Il._ II, - 614.)[67] - - All that has been said about the Greeks in this and previous - notes is intended, not so much to exhibit the character of that - nation—a matter which does not greatly concern me—but for other - reasons. In one instance the intention was to indicate how - vast a gulf exists between Christianity and the ancient world. - Many classical enthusiasts do not seem to realize this, and a - definitely _pagan_ tendency is very apparent in their habits of - thought. - - But the main object of pointing out the inferior state of - civilization among the Greeks, their non-moral character - in certain respects, their ignorance and superstition, and - their low standard of morality generally, has to do with - the important question of interpreting Greek literature and - philosophy. It would matter very little that the enthusiast - should picture the Greeks as a race of saints and demigods, if - there were no beautiful and valuable literature to be coloured - and falsified by reason of such views. It is only by realizing - the actual life and thought of this primitive race that _we - can understand their language_, that is to say, we can learn - what meanings should be attached to the words they use. Only - thus can we _interpret their literature_. We have already had - two simple illustrations of this. In one case what appears - to be a poetic fancy in Theocritus, when the voyager hopes - the halcyons will calm the sea for him, is seen to be a wish - that the birds _will actually exercise the power that they - possess_. The other instance appears on page 294. But much more - important is it that, in reading words of knowledge such as - references to the starry heavens or the constitution of matter, - or mental or moral phenomena, we should not attribute to the - Greek writer conceptions far larger and higher than he had in - his mind. To amplify what I have said in a previous note, let - us take the words in Plato, Aristotle or, say, Euripides which - are translated by such English words as “morality,” “purity,” - “virtue,” “honour,” “religion,” etc. It is clear that the - original Greek expressions cannot signify, for instance, either - purity as we know it, or even abstention from unnatural vice or - from infanticide.[68] We are, therefore, mistranslating when we - use such English words (because they are the nearest equivalent - to the Greek expressions), and this fact needs to be steadily - borne in mind. Again when interpreting, say, a Greek play, it - is necessary to bear in mind, not only the _supposed_ character - of the _dramatist_, but also the _actual_, _known_ character of - the _audience_ to whom the play was addressed. I now propose to - give an illustration which will bring me on dangerous ground. - - Is it reasonable to ask if the Athenians, some few of whose - characteristics have been outlined in these notes, would have - flocked to hear, and have greatly enjoyed, a play replete with - high moral teaching, and containing hymns that might have come - out of a Church Hymnal? Now the _Bacchae_ of Euripides, one - of the most popular of Greek plays, and the _Hippolytus_ of - the same dramatist, have been translated by one great Greek - scholar, Professor Gilbert Murray, in a manner that (at any - rate, as regards the _Bacchae_) received the “hearty admiration - and approval” of another great Greek scholar, Dr. Verrall. - In this version, one after another of the debased Greek gods - is called “God.” We also find such expressions as (note the - capitals) “God’s grace,” “Virgin of God,” “Babe of God,” “God’s - son,” and even “God’s true son” (who is Dionysus or Bacchus), - “Spirit of God,” “Child of the Highest,” “Heaven,” “Purity,” - “Saints” (who are the Maenads!), “righteous,” “divine,” “holy,” - and so on. - - Professor Murray is put in a difficulty when two or more gods - are referred to. In some cases he becomes illogical (and - reminds us of the Kaiser), as when Dionysus has to say “God and - me.” In others he has to use the Greek name for one god, and - then the words sound blasphemous, as when he speaks of Dionysus - who was “born from the thigh of Zeus and now is God.” These - instances are taken quite at random and there must be many - others. - - Take the following two lines as a short illustration of - Professor Murray’s version: - - Where a voice of living waters never ceaseth - In God’s quiet garden by the sea. - - The original reads: “Where the ambrosial fountains stream forth - by the couches of the palaces of Zeus,” or, to give them a more - musical turn, Mr. A. S. Way’s version is: - - Where the fountains ambrosial sunward are leaping - By the couches where Zeus in his halls lieth sleeping. - - In Professor Murray’s two lines Zeus becomes “God,” “living - waters” is taken from the Song of Solomon, and “God’s quiet - garden” from Isaiah and Ezekiel. Such expressions, with their - tender and beautiful associations, do not in the least convey - the sense of the original. Used to describe the palace of a - vicious, barbaric deity, they are a _mistranslation_. Also - every one of the expressions referred to above is, wherever - used, another mistranslation (although some may be necessitated - by the limitation of language). Again there are other more - pronounced mistranslations, some of which are pointed out by - Verrall (_Bacchants of Euripides_). Thus where the very old - man Cadmus, setting out on an unusual journey, merely says to - his ancient comrade, “We have pleasantly forgotten that we are - old” (_Bacchae_ 184-9). Professor Murray interpolates a stage - direction, “_A mysterious strength and exaltation_” (from the - god Dionysus) “_enters into him_”—and he alters the words of - Cadmus to conform with the miracle: - - Sweetly and forgetfully - The dim years fall from off me! - - Here, therefore, we find _an important episode_ deliberately - introduced into the play. - - Take another instance which Verrall does not mention. In the - very enthusiastic “Introductory Essay,” Professor Murray - tells us that Euripides longed to escape from the bad, hard, - irreligious Athenians[69] of that day, and proceeds as follows: - - “What else is wisdom?” he asks, in a marvellous passage:— - - What else is wisdom? What of man’s endeavour - Or God’s high grace so lovely and so great? - To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait; - To hold a hand uplifted over Hate; - And shall not loveliness be loved for ever? - - There is nothing here, nor in the translation that follows, - to indicate that there has been any interference with the - text. It is only upon turning to the notes _at the end of the - translation_ (which the average reader would hardly study) - that we find the third line is “_practically interpolated._” - He gives reasons for this that are not easy to follow, and - says “If I am wrong, the refrain is probably a mere cry for - revenge;” I add that the latter is the generally accepted - meaning, and the only meaning I can see in the original Greek. - - Now Professor Murray’s object in all this is to convey in - words that appeal to our minds his conception of the devout, - religious and, therefore, _highly moral_ attitude of, not only - Euripides, _but also his Athenian audience_. The attitude of - mind must be that of the _audience_, as well as the dramatist, - because none but devout, religious people go to a “Service of - Song,” and, as stated above, the _Bacchae_ was a very popular - play among the Greeks. If, however, Professor Murray thought - that, by colouring, altering, and adding to the play, he gave - a more correct impression of it as it appeared to the Greeks, - he was perfectly at liberty with that object to mistranslate as - much as he pleased—_provided he told his readers and hearers - that they were not reading or hearing the words that Euripides - wrote_. - - Has he told them this? The book is entitled “Euripides - _translated_ into English rhyming verse.” In the Preface he - also begins by telling us definitely that it is a translation; - later on he says: “As to the method of this translation ... - my aim has been to build up something as like the original - as I possibly could, in form and what one calls ‘Spirit.’ To - do this, the first thing needed was a work of painstaking - scholarship, a work in which there should be _no neglect - of the letter_ in an attempt to snatch at the spirit.” He - then goes on to tell us that “The remaining task” was to - reproduce the poetry of the original and (here is the only - admission that he has varied from the text) he ‘has often - changed metaphors, altered the shapes of sentences, and the - like.... On one occasion he has even omitted a line and a half’ - (because unnecessary) and he says, he ‘has added, of course - by conjecture, a few stage directions.’ Let the non-classical - reader look back over what has been said above and ask himself - whether such words—however carefully studied—would have given - him the least impression of what this “_translation_” actually - amounts to. - - Without entering into any long discussion as to the so - called “purity choruses” of the _Bacchae_, let us simply ask - the question, Does this pious, fervently-religious version - represent the actual play that the cruel, lying, treacherous - and unspeakably sensual Greeks flocked to see and enjoy? - Further comes a much more important question, Would such a - “translation,” put before English readers, or staged before an - English audience, give them a _true_ or a _false_ idea of the - character of the Greeks? - - I might compare with this Ruskin’s view of the Greek character - (_The Crown of Wild Olive._). This is what he says the Greeks - won from their lives: “Free-heartedness, and graciousness, and - undisturbed trust, and _requited love_, and _the sight of the - peace of others, and the ministry to their pain_.” (Italics - mine.) This is truly amazing! I am tempted to go back again - to Professor Murray’s _Euripides_ (p. lxiii) and quote a like - passage: - - “Love thou the day and the night,” he (Euripides) says in - another place. “It is only so that Life can be made what it - really is, a Joy: _by loving not only your neighbour_—he is so - vivid an element in life that, unless you do love him, he will - spoil all the rest!—but the actual details and processes of - living, etc., etc.” - - The italics are again mine—but here it will be seen that - Euripides has, _as a matter of course_, anticipated the great - evangel of Christ! He has even gone a step further—but I - must leave Professor Murray to his love of the “details and - processes of living,” whatever that may mean. - - Finally, in this extraordinary essay, I come to something which - is absolutely _repulsive_. I must first briefly premise that - the Dionysiac mystery cult was not sectarian. It was orthodox, - believing in the plurality and the profligacy of the gods. Its - adherents had no more idea of morality or purity than other - Greeks. Its rites were indecent. The so-called “purification - rites,” including regulations regarding continence, were - simply _training rules_ preparatory to their hideous orgies. - The essential rite of the cult was practised by the Maenads - or Bacchantes. They tore to pieces live animals (and at one - time human beings) and devoured their raw, quivering flesh. - As stated above, these horrible women are Professor Murray’s - “Saints.” He now proceeds to _draw an analogy between their - loathsome god Dionysus and Jesus Christ_! Thus Dionysus is born - of God (Zeus) and a human mother. He is the “twice-born”—having - been hidden in Zeus’s thigh after birth! He “_comes to his - own_ people of Thebes, _and—his own receive him not_.” - Again “It seemed to Euripides in that favourite metaphor of - his, which was always a little more than a metaphor, that - a _God had been rejected by the world_ that he came from.” - Dionysus “_gives his Wine to all men_.... It is a mysticism - which includes democracy, as it includes _the love of your - neighbour_.” Dionysus “_has given man Wine, which is his Blood - and a religious symbol_.” In the translation Dionysus is called - “_God’s son_” and even “_God’s true son_.” Reading this and - such statements as Miss Jane Harrison’s (see p. 292, n.), one - stands amazed. Apparently this fanatical enthusiasm destroys - the critical faculties, so that the enthusiast becomes utterly - incapable of appreciating the beauty and value of Our Lord’s - ethical teaching and its exemplification in His life. - - For my last illustration of how enthusiasm affects our leading - classical authorities (and, therefore, leads to _perversion of - the truth_) I take Mr. A. E. Zimmern’s _Greek Commonwealth_. - This, like Mr. Livingstone’s work, is a very excellent book, - which should be in all libraries. - - Mr. Zimmern quotes and _definitely endorses_ the well-known - statement in Galton’s _Hereditary Genius_ (1869), which is as - follows:—“The average ability of the Athenian race is, _on - the lowest possible estimate_, very nearly two grades higher - than our own, that is, _about as much as our race is above - that of the African Negro_.” (The italics are mine.) Here I - have happened by chance[70] upon an excellent illustration of - classical enthusiasm, which is worth while dwelling upon at - some length. In the first place Galton’s statement is perhaps - the most absurd utterance ever made by an important thinker; in - the second place _it appears to have been accepted by English - and European authorities for nearly half a century_. - - Galton bases his argument on the number of great men produced - by a nation in proportion to its population. He states that - between 530 and 430 B.C. the Athenian Greeks produced fourteen - highly illustrious men:—Themistocles, Miltiades, Aristides, - Cimon, and Pericles (statesmen and commanders), Thucydides, - Socrates, Xenophon, and Plato (literary and scientific men), - Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes (poets), - and Pheidias (sculptor). I take the minor objections to his - statement first. - - He estimates the population of free-born Greeks in Attica at - 90,000. In this instance he was misled by the authorities of - his time and is not to blame; _but I take Mr. Zimmern’s own - figures, as he endorses Galton’s statement_. The 90,000 should - have been, according to Mr. Zimmern’s more correct figures, - 180,000 to 200,000. _This alone cuts down Galton’s estimate - of the “average ability” of the Greeks to at least one-half._ - Galton also excludes the resident aliens who, according to him, - numbered 40,000, but according to Mr. Zimmern 96,000. Yet both - these and the outside aliens must be considered, for there - were intermarriages. Themistocles and Cimon had alien mothers, - Thucydides also probably had an alien mother, or at any rate - was partly of Thracian descent, and there would be _some_ - ground for the charge of usurping citizenship repeatedly made - by Cleon against Aristophanes. Galton also takes no account of - the slaves, the number of whom he estimates at 400,000, but - Zimmern at about 112,000. These cannot be entirely omitted when - we consider the life of the Greek women and the habits of the - men. It should be remembered that the slaves were often Greeks - of other States and also by reason of the practice of exposing - children some would be Athenians and even of the best families - (Plato’s _Laws_, 930, deals with children of slaves and Greek - men and women). However, on these figures, it will be seen that - Galton’s estimate has to be enormously reduced. - - Next, the _greatest_ of all the names in his list, Plato, has - to be _struck out_. There can be no reasonable doubt that he - was not born until 428 or 427 B.C. (This appears to have been - well recognised in 1869 and it is unaccountable that Galton - and his reviewers should not have known it.) However, there is - _some_ evidence that he was born in 430, and let us assume that - this is so. But, if we are to include in the 100 (or rather - 101) years everyone who _is born_ or _died_ in that time, - we are actually taking a period of 200, not 100, years, and - _doubling_ the proper estimate! Besides Plato, I may mention - that Aristophanes and Xenophon could have been only about - fourteen years of age in 430, Thucydides had not then begun - to write, and of the eighteen plays extant of Euripides two - only were written before 430. Here again is another enormous - reduction of Galton’s estimate. - - Again let us take Galton’s opinion of the ability of these - fourteen men. It is amazingly high. It will be seen that there - are only _two grades_ between ourselves and the African negro. - Again, in Galton’s table, “eminent men” are _two grades_ above - “the mass of men who obtain the ordinary prizes of life.” _He - now places the whole of these fourteen Greeks two grades above - the eminent men!_ To what starry height he means to raise them, - it is impossible to say, for the whole statement is exceedingly - vague; but he tells us that two of the fourteen, Socrates and - Pheidias, _stand alone as the greatest men that ever lived_. - - It is clear then that the fourteen Greeks have to be placed at - a tremendous height in our estimation. It is impossible here to - take each man and discuss his ability, but let us inquire what - qualifications Galton had _as a critic_. We turn to his list - of great modern English and European literary men. Although - he goes back as far as the Fifteenth Century and his list - comprises _only fifty-two_ writers, he finds room among them - for such names as John Aikin and Maria Edgeworth! Again his - ten great English poets are Milton, Byron, Chaucer, _Milman_, - Cowper, _Dibdin_(!), Dryden, _Hook_, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. - (Some names would no doubt be omitted because they did not - throw light on questions of heredity, but these lists in any - case are highly absurd.) - - We need not greatly prolong this part of the discussion. We - might ask, however, what ground had Galton, for example, to - place such men as Miltiades, Aristides, or Cimon even _on an - equality with_, say, Cæsar, Alexander, or Marlborough. How can - he class Xenophon as even _equal_ to our great writers? It - is the interesting _facts_ he tells us of, not his literary - ability, that makes this somewhat monotonous writer so very - interesting. (The important point to remember is that Greek - literature has a very special interest and value for us, quite - apart from its great intrinsic _literary_ value. Taking De - Quincey’s classification, see p. 227, it is both “literature of - power” and “literature of knowledge.”) - - Now take another point which I might illustrate from Galton’s - own pages. He tells us (in another connection) that about sixty - years before the time he is writing (1869) there were Senior - Wranglers in Cambridge who also obtained first classes in the - Classical Tripos—and even at a later date men could take high - rank in both departments. Is it then to be argued that the - earlier men were the greater? Not so, but, as Galton says, - knowledge had become so far advanced that it was no longer - possible for a man to gain such a distinction in more than - one of the two subjects. Here we have the point—the world of - knowledge and activity is infinitely wider to-day than when it - formed the subject of Greek speculation. Their great men were - very original thinkers—but _in a very few subjects_. Moreover, - they had no books to read, no foreign languages to learn. Even - their social and political life was far less complicated and - involved than our own. - - Again, where we speak of “average ability,” it is not correct - to compare large populous countries, where great talents are - often submerged (see Gray’s “Elegy”) with smaller communities - that afford far ampler scope. Take my own State, South - Australia, with its huge territory and a population of under - half a million, less than that of one of the larger English - towns. We have our Premier, Government, Parliament, Town - Councils, Heads of Departments, University, schools, judges, - lawyers, journalists and literary men, financiers, merchants, - men who design and construct railways, irrigation and other - important works, mining men, heads of institutions and so - on—which means a large number of men of ability and resource - in all departments of life. If we compare ourselves with an - average half-million of Englishmen, how great our superiority - would apparently be! And yet, we know that we are not actually - more capable—our ability has been simply brought into play. - Mr. W. M. Hughes might himself have been a “flower to blush - unseen,” if he had not emigrated to Australia. - - We have so far dealt with minor matters, which have - nevertheless reduced Galton’s arithmetical estimate by, say, - 75 per cent. at the very least. Let us now take the one great - misrepresentation that must have immediately flashed upon the - minds of all reviewers of Galton’s book, if they had not been - blinded by classical enthusiasm. It is truly remarkable that - not a single one of them seems to have called attention to the - obvious fact that Galton takes the one great Athenian period, - _as though it were an average period in their history_! From - Homer’s time to the Fifth Century, B.C., would probably be - about as long as from the Norman Conquest to the present time, - or from King Alfred to Shakespeare—and there are again the many - centuries that followed. Is the “average ability” of the Greeks - during hundreds or thousands of years to be estimated on their - one most brilliant period? The question needs no discussion. - Galton might in the same way have taken our Elizabethan period - when London had a population of 150,000, and Great Britain of - about three millions—and proved _that our own ancestors_ were - as far above ourselves as we are above the negro.[71] - - Mr. C. T. Whiting, of the Adelaide Public Library, knowing - how my time was limited, very kindly volunteered to make - an extensive search for references to Galton’s statement - in such of the literature of the time as is available in - Adelaide. In addition to a number of books, he has searched - through _thirty-eight_ journals. He finds reviews of Galton’s - book in the following:—_Athenæum_, _British Quarterly_, - _Saturday Review_, _Edinburgh Review_, _Fortnightly Review_, - _Chambers’ Journal_, _Journal of Anthropology_, _Atlantic - Monthly_, _Frazer’s Magazine_, _Nature_, _Times_, _and - Westminster Review_. The first seven do not refer at all to - the statement—they apparently accept it as a matter of course. - Of the last five _Frazer’s_ mentions the statement, and says - vaguely that the chapter in which it is contained “offers - several vulnerable points to the critic;” the _Westminster_ - states the fact without taking any exception to it; the - _Atlantic Monthly_ raises the question whether Miltiades, - Aristides, Cimon, and Xenophon were so very illustrious, and - enters into an argument on Galton’s figures; the _Times_ - considers that we have had other men in different fields of - human effort, who could be named with Socrates and Pheidias, - and lays stress on the enormous increase of knowledge and - activity in modern life; in _Nature_ A. R. Wallace, misreading - Galton as referring only to the age of Pericles[72] admits the - truth of the statement as applied to the Athenians of that - time. None of them refer to the fact that Galton takes the most - brilliant period of Greek history as a normal period—and the - arguments, taken together, amount to very little. As regards - the twenty-six journals which appear to have taken no notice - of so startling a statement in an important book, the fact - seems to indicate that to the writers for those journals - the statement contained nothing of a remarkable or dubious - character! (Even _Punch_ missed the chance of an amusing - cartoon!) - - It may be objected that the reviewers of the book would not - be classical men. But _first_ it must be remembered that the - writers of 1869 would practically all have had a classical - education and _secondly_ it needed no special classical - knowledge to see the absurdity of the statement. Every one - without exception would know, for example, that the period - taken by Galton was the one great Greek period. The statement - must also have excited interest on all sides. I myself remember - how it was talked of when I was a boy in Melbourne, and I have - heard it repeated as an acknowledged fact up to the present - time—and, therefore, comment would have been expected _in - every direction_. But apparently the statement was generally - accepted. Mr. Whiting finds that in 1892, twenty-three years - after, Galton calmly repeated the statement word for word, - _without reference to any criticisms_. Again we find Mr. - Zimmern accepting it as a matter of course in his _second_ - edition in 1915. As it was in his first edition, which would be - reviewed in the classical journals, it must presumably have met - with no adverse comments. - - But we have to go even further than this. Galton’s was one - of those important books that are studied by _all Europe_. - Seeing that he makes no mention of adverse criticism in his - second edition, and Mr. Zimmern sees no reason to qualify the - statement, it is fair to assume that no serious objection has - been made in England or Europe during nearly half a century. - So amazingly does classical enthusiasm pervade the thought of - the world! I do not think I need say anything further on this - subject.[73] - - Mr. Zimmern heads one of his chapters “Happiness or _the - Rule of Love_,” the “Rule of Love” being his translation of - εὐδαιμονία! This chapter is occupied exclusively by the famous - Funeral Speech of Pericles. I invite the reader to look through - that terribly hard speech, and see how much _love_ it contains! - Again to another chapter the heading is “Gentleness or the Rule - of Religion,” followed by two quotations which are evidently - intended to be read as parallel passages: - - στέργοι δέ με σωφροσύνα - δώρημα κάλλιστον θεῶν.[74]—Eur. _Medea_, 638. - - Give unto us made lowly wise - The spirit of self-sacrifice.—Wordsworth. - - Apart from the question whether the proud Greek could ever - by any possibility have become “lowly wise,” the word - σωφροσύνη “temperance,” “moderation”—or perhaps better still, - “commonsense”—becomes not only a “Rule of _Religion_” but even - the highest conception of Christianity, self-sacrifice. It is - very extraordinary. Imagine the _Greeks_—as we know them, and - as Mr. Zimmern knows them—having the faintest conception of - what we mean by self-sacrifice! It reminds one very much of - Humpty Dumpty in _Through the Looking Glass_: “When _I_ use a - word” (εὐδαιμονία or σωφροσύνη) “it means just what I choose it - to mean—neither more nor less.” - - As this is my last note I am giving myself great latitude, but - I must not prolong it into a treatise. I shall, as briefly - as I can, refer to only one other matter, the Greek sense of - beauty. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that we are - given to believe that in this respect the Greeks are exalted - high as gods above the rest of mankind. What is the fact? - _They saw beauty in only one natural object, the human body._ - In a land of clear skies, wonderful sunsets, starry nights, - remarkable for its ranges of mountains and extent of sea-coast, - they were (with some tiny exceptions not worth mentioning) - absolutely blind to any beauty in inanimate nature. Nor did any - bird or beast or insect, tree or flower appeal to them to any - appreciable extent as a thing of beauty. They admired only what - was useful or added to their comfort—the laden fruit tree, the - shady grove, the clear spring, the soft water-meadows. - - Various explanations have been given for the Greek failure to - appreciate beauty in nature. Ruskin’s theory is most often - quoted, that the Greeks were _so familiar_ with beautiful - scenes that they could not appreciate them. In the first place - he forgot that it was not always the bright tourist-season in - Greece; they had their dark and wintry times. In the second - place, I have lived all my life in the southern part of - Australia, which has much the same climate as Greece, and I - do not think there are any greater lovers of nature than the - Australians. - - Is not the love of nature, as it came later,[75] also _higher_ - than love of the human form (omitting that facial expression - which is an index of the soul)? Our ideals of human beauty - appear to be purely _relative_ and depend on our surroundings, - while the same beauty in nature appeals to the most diverse - nations. Take for example the Japanese and Dutch artists who - both loved nature much as we do—yet they admired very different - types of the human figure. I understand that the Japanese, - originally at least, regarded with positive disgust our tall - English beauties. - - The beauty the Greeks saw in one object only, the human body, - they reproduced in statues which have never been equalled in - grace and charm, and are the admiration of the world. Their - pure white marble statues and temples seem to be always present - in our minds and to transfigure our conceptions of the - Greeks. We unconsciously picture them as a race of glorious - men and beautiful women moving in a city of marble.[76] We - find ourselves forgetting what we know of their character and - habits—and also forgetting the fact that both statues and - temples were _painted_. - - With the disappearance of colour through the effect of time, - the flesh effect has disappeared from their statues, and - the chaste white marble gives an idealized and spiritual - conception of the utmost purity. As stated before, this would - be a conception quite alien to the Greek mind, which saw no - beauty in physical purity. If, when we stand in admiring - awe before that calm, majestic and exceedingly graceful and - beautiful Venus of Milo, we imagine her as the Greeks saw - her, how different is the picture! To begin with, the Greeks - had little sense of colour, as is seen from their limited - colour-vocabulary. For example, one word _porphureos_ was - used for dark-purple, red, rose, sea-blue, violet, and other - shades even to a shimmery white. Their colours were harsh, - glaring, and put together in shockingly bad taste (from our - point of view). In temples and sculpture reds and blues were - the main colours used. In the Venus of Milo we must, therefore, - picture the hair painted red or red-brown, the lips a hard - red, eyebrows black, the eyes red or red-brown with black - pupils, the dress with borders and patterns of crude reds and - greens or reds and blues. As regards the flesh surfaces, we - know they were wax-polished, but there is no literary record - or actual trace of any tinting or colouring. The effect of the - white marble would have been so horrible to us against the - living eyes and face, that Mr. Kaines Smith (being one of our - enthusiasts) suggests that the artist “might quite well” have - used some colouring matter for the nude parts of the figure! - We must further picture the statue standing in a temple, which - must of course also have been painted. The structure would - have its borders generally of harsh reds and blues, and the - decorative sculpture of the pediments, metopes and friezes - would be painted in most inconceivable colours. Thus in the - metope relief of the slaying of the Hydra at Olympia, the hydra - is blue, the background red, and the hair, lips, and eyes of - Hercules are coloured. I might go on to the Elgin marbles, the - greatest sculptures that we possess in the world, and show - them gorgeous in bronze and colour. (Armour, horse-trappings, - etc., were attached to the marble in bronze or other metal.) - The two masterpieces of Pheidias, forty and sixty feet high - respectively, which have not survived to us, were much more - admired by the Greeks than the sculptures of the Parthenon. - These were in barbaric ivory and gold, with the same living - eyes, red lips, and so on. The fact is that the Greek, “builded - better than he knew.” He unintentionally produced objects - whose _spiritual_ beauty he was incapable of appreciating and, - therefore, he gave them a grosser form that appealed to his own - primitive sensual nature. - - (Apart from this the Greek sculptor was very limited by the - paucity of his subjects. How tiresome are the never-ending - Centaurs and Amazons!)[77] - - As regards Greek architecture, its ornament is a question of - sculpture, its structure is the result of intellect combined - with a certain amount of design due to their artistic sense of - proportion. The Greeks did great service to humanity in working - out the principles of building—but, thereafter, there was no - scope for originality. Apart from its sculptural ornament, - nothing more monotonous could well be imagined than a series of - Greek temples, all of the same type and subject to definite, - rigid rules of measurement.[78] - - Finally there are two matters I am bound to refer to in - connection with these rough notes. First, in merely enumerating - the salient features of a nation’s character, one gives no - picture whatever of the _life_ they led. The Greek _men_ led - a highly intellectual, artistic, and on the whole a very - gay life. If we look around us to-day, we shall find among - ourselves Greeks, intellectual men who are moral sceptics, - who simply do not understand that moral motives exist, who - do no act in their lives from a sense of principle, and who - live a purely material life (unless perhaps some great crisis, - the arrival of the angel of Death or some other overwhelming - event, awakens them to a sense of higher things). We can see - something like a parallel to the Greeks in the gay, immoral, - artistic French aristocracy who lived in the midst of a - starving peasantry before the Revolution—or in George Eliot’s - fascinating renaissance story in _Romola_ of the young Greek - Tito Melema. A man may be cruel, faithless and immoral, and yet - live a gay artistic and intellectual life—but it is not such a - life as would have appealed to Myers or to ourselves. Secondly, - a clear knowledge of the truth about the Greek character does - in no way detract from the miracle of their literature or of - their art. It _adds_ to the wonder of it all. (If one may with - the utmost reverence make another comparison, how can we fully - appreciate the wonder and beauty of Christ’s teaching, if we - forget the conditions of the time?) To find most beautiful - poetry, fine literature, deep philosophic thought, amazing - grace and charm in art emanating from this primitive race is - purely astounding in itself. And it needs to be borne in mind - that even the men who took part in Plato’s _Symposium_ lived in - a different atmosphere from our own, and had a very different - conception of the physical universe and the moral law. But this - should _add_ to our admiration, our _veneration_, for a Plato - who could rise to so great a sublimity of thought in spite of - such semi-barbarous conditions and surroundings. These men - also looked upon the world with younger and fresher eyes. We - are two thousand three hundred years older than they are. They - knew very little of the past history of the world and had only - an insignificant fraction of our scientific knowledge. If any - religious doubts had begun to arise in their minds, they still - could not possibly have rid themselves of the belief instilled - into them since childhood—and they lived among Nymphs and - Fauns, and saw a god in every star and under every wave. Never - had they heard or dreamt of any Love of God, or Love of Man. - It is only the enthusiast who, by picturing the Greeks as a - modern moral nation, detracts from our real interest in them - and robs their literature of its fascination. If knowledge of - the true Greek character were to destroy all our enjoyment in - their art and literature, even then truth must prevail “though - the heavens fall”; but the fact is far otherwise. The fuller - our knowledge the more we shall enjoy the greatness and beauty - of their art and poetry and the more absorbing will be our - interest in their literature. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] From Richard Hodgson’s Christmas Card, 1904, the Christmas before his -death. - -[2] To the readers of the Adelaide edition (which was issued only in -Australia) I should explain why the book is now so much enlarged. The -first issue was prepared hastily and without sufficient care. (The -proceeds were to go to the Australian Repatriation Fund, and the book -was hurriedly put together and printed to be ready for a Repatriation -Day which was announced but actually was never held.) It was my -first experience in publishing, and I did not realize the care and -consideration required in issuing a book even of this character. Hence -(1) part of my manuscript was entirely overlooked; (2) I failed to see -that many quotations would be improved by adding their context; (3) I -did not go properly through the great mass of Hodgson’s correspondence; -and (4) I, wrongly, as I now think, excluded many quotations because I -thought certain subjects were unsuitable for the book. Besides extending -the scope of the collection by including those subjects I now have no -longer restricted myself to the seventy-eighty period. The notes also add -materially to the size of this volume. - -[3] See Tennyson’s “Princess”:— - - Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail - That brings our friends up from the underworld - -[4] I occasionally thought I had hit on something new, but usually -discovered that I had been anticipated—and then deeply sympathized with -St. Jerome’s old tutor, Donatus. It will be remembered that Jerome, in -his commentary on “There is no new thing under the sun,” tells us that -Donatus used to say, Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt, “Confound the -fellows who anticipated us!” - -[5] The flippancy is at times amusing, as when he says: “The account of -the whale swallowing Jonah, though the whale may have been large enough -to do so, borders greatly on the marvellous; but it would have approached -nearer to the just idea of a miracle if Jonah had swallowed the whale.” - -[6] Altered from “That,” which may be a misprint. “Thou” gives the same -meaning and runs more smoothly. - -[7] Compare “I never nursed a dear gazelle” (p. 181). - -[8] See Milton’s imitation of a fugue. _Par. Lost XI._ - -[9] “I take the risk,” or “Mine the risk.” - -[10] The above is a concrete illustration of Browning’s meaning in -the preceding quotation, but a far wider illustration is seen in the -terrible cruelties inflicted on the one side by the Inquisition and on -the other by the Protestants. This was again due to the introduction of -_intellectualism_, which distorted the Religion of Love into a Religion -of Hate. - -[11] Cf. Coleridge, p. 313. - -[12] The girls are bathing. - -[13] The information in this note comes partly from _Notes and Queries_. - -[14] See p. 40. - -[15] It is unfortunate that this word is often used in the sense of -something unreal as mere idle fancy instead of an _active creative_ -faculty, see pp. 357, 358. - -[16] In 1843 Mrs. Browning’s fine appeal, “The Cry of the Children.” -appeared in “Blackwood,” but I presume had little effect. So also Hood’s -“Song of the Shirt,” “Bridge of Sighs,” and “Song of the Labourer,” were -written about the same time, but could have made little real impression. - -[17] The family name is now apparently pronounced as it is spelt (see -“An English Pronouncing Dictionary,” by Daniel Jones, and the “Century” -and “Webster”). Such a change must often happen. I have cousins named -Colclough, who in Australia became so tired of correcting people that -they finally resigned themselves to the loss of the old pronunciation -“Cokely” and accepted the less euphonious “Colclo.” - -[18] Was a phrase of Cowper’s in Bentham’s mind? The latter wrote -to Christopher Rowley, “We are strange creatures, my little friend; -everything that we do is in reality important, though half that we do -seems to be push-pin.” - -[19] “Squyer” is a dissyllable. The final _e_ at the end of a line is -always sounded like _a_ in “China.” “Lokkes,” “sleves” and “faire” -are also dissyllables, because _e_, _ed_, _en_, _es_ are sounded as -syllables, except before vowels and certain words beginning with _h_. - -[20] Micah vi. 8. - -[21] One certainly protests. There is a great mass of medical and other -evidence to the contrary. Sir William Osler made notes of about 500 -cases, and says, “To the great majority their death, like their birth, -was a sleep and a forgetting.” - -[22] The “Summit,” completion or end. - -[23] The eyes, smile, etc., referred to in the intermediate verses. - -[24] No doubt one reason would be that given by the Australian black -woman for leaving her baby in the bush, “him too much cry.” The Greeks -had numerous slaves, and were fond of comfort; and their houses were, of -course, small and cramped compared with our own. - -[25] Black care, Horace, Od. 3, 1, 40. - -[26] Water-clocks, used like an hour-glass. - -[27] When “Balder the Beautiful” was published in the _Contemporary_ -(March-May, 1877), Buchanan had the following note, which he has not -repeated in his collected works: “Balder (in this poem) is the divine -spirit of earthly beauty and joy, and the only one of the gods who loves -and pities men. Sick of the darkness of heaven, he returns to the earth -which fostered him, and of which he is beloved, and now for the first -time he becomes conscious of that Shadow of Death, which darkens the lot -of all mortal things.” - -[28] Quoted in E. Clodd’s _Story of Creation_. - -[29] Italics mine. - -[30] See, for instance, Kipling’s beautiful poem “A Dedication” - - The depth and dream of my desire, - The bitter paths wherein I stray, - Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire, - Thou knowest Who hast made the Clay. - -[31] Milton’s sonnet, “To the Lady Margaret Ley.” - -[32] “They say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, -Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have -laid Him” (John xx. 13). The sermon is on the subject of the growth of -religious ideas. - -[33] This standing by itself may give a somewhat wrong impression of -Menzies’ thought. As a matter of fact, the text of the sermon is: “I -am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more -abundantly” (John x. 10). - -[34] So we speak of a “sea of heads”, “sea of faces,” “sea of sand,” “sea -of clouds,” “sea of vegetation,” etc. - -[35] See sub-note at the end of this note. - -[36] We can, however, agree that the language of all three poets, -Shelley, Sappho, and Simonides, is exquisitely beautiful. Professor -Naylor points out that it is a characteristic of the early Greek poets -to compress a description into a series of epithets full of expression, -without connecting words—compare Tennyson (“The Passing of Arthur”). - - But it lies - Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard-lawns - And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea. - -[37] As Professor Darnley Naylor’s name appears at times in this book it -is necessary to mention that _he is so qualified_ and, therefore, is not -one of the gentlemen referred to. - -I may mention here that Mr. Livingstone deserves censure for not giving -us an index to his valuable book. This neglect, being greatly provocative -of profanity, is an _offence against morality_. Much loss of time and -irritation have been caused to me in looking up passages I remembered in -his book—and I have at times given up the search in despair. - -[38] See interesting remarks on Matthew Arnold and Addison in Herbert -Spencer’s “Study of Sociology,” Note 20 to Ch. 10. Professor Naylor -also in the preface to his _Latin and English Idiom_, points out that -_verbally accurate_ translation of the Classics tends to _ruin_ the -English of a student. - -[39] For example: Miss Jane Harrison (_Mythology of Ancient Athens_) -says “all sweetness and love” come to mortals from the “holy” Charites -who “were in the fullest sense ‘givers of all grace.’” (That is to say, -these deities have the attributes of _God_, who is, of course, the sole -giver of all grace! Compare with this Professor Gilbert Murray on the god -Dionysus, p. 374.) - -[40] Unshriven, without having received the sacrament. - -[41] Crucifix. - -[42] Homer tells us that Apollo and Poseidon “built” the walls of Troy; -the legend that Apollo moved stones into their places by music is of a -later date. See Ovid, _Heroid_, 16, 181; Propertius 3, 9, 39. See also -Tennyson’s “Oenone.” - -[43] “Physician, heal thyself,” Luke iv, 23. Also, although it is not -very apropos, see the following from Nicharchus in the Greek Anthology -(G. B. Grundy’s translation):— - - MEDICAL ATTENDANCE - - Yesterday the Zeus of stone from the doctor had a call: - Though he’s Zeus, and though he’s stone, yet to-day’s his funeral. - -[44] This probably came from Erasmus. Compare:— - - “Bacchus hath drowned more men than Neptune.” - -[45] Lincoln is alleged to have said, “You can fool some of the people -all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot -fool all of the people all of the time.” - -[46] Showing that Sterne’s “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb” -(_Sentimental Journey_) was his rendering of an older saying. - -[47] “Kubla Khan.” - -[48] An aromatic herb with yellow flowers. - -[49] See p. XVIII. - -[50] Curiously enough, they do not recognize this, but rather pride -themselves upon being shrewd, commonsense, practical business-men, “a -nation of shopkeepers”—although their entire history shows the contrary. -That history is epitomized in such an expression as “England the -Unready,” or, in the King’s appeal, “Wake up, England!” That they are -idealists and dreamers can be shown by numberless facts. For example, -what have they supported in the sacred name of Liberty? The laissez-faire -doctrine, that law is an infringement of freedom, and, therefore, that -cruelty, abuses, and absurdities must not be interfered with; the -theory that England should be the home of freedom, and, therefore, that -the scum of Europe shall infect the nation; the “Palladium of English -Liberty,” Trial by Jury, which means the appointment of inexperienced, -irresponsible, and easily-biassed judges; the economic policy, which, -because it is falsely labelled Free Trade, becomes a fetish against which -no practical objection must be urged and no lesson learned from the -experience of other countries. On the other hand, our experience in the -present war is a proof that the imaginative faculties are more powerful -than mere intellect: for, when the Englishman bends his energies to the -business of war, he soon surpasses the German for all his fifty years’ -preparation. See p. 39. - -[51] “What is life, what gladness without the golden Aphrodite? May death -be mine when these joys no longer please me!” - -[52] In the notes on the Greeks in this book it was necessary to keep -to one State and a particular period. Greece consisted of a number of -States of which Attica was one, with Athens as its centre. It comprised -only seven hundred square miles, and, allowing for its colonies, would -be about half the size of Lancashire. Its great and brilliant period -corresponded roughly with the middle half of the Fifth Century B.C. A -large proportion of the finest Greek art and literature was produced by -this tiny state in that short period. This is the miracle of antiquity. -It is to Attica during this period that my remarks mainly refer. - -The reader will not be able to follow this note properly, unless he has -read the other notes on the same subject (see Index of Subjects). - -[53] The second is not by Praxilla. It is to be found in Athenaeus (XV. -695), and is _written in the masculine_. Most curiously the same mistake -is made in the _Parnasse des Dames_, an 18th Century French book in which -Myers would not have been interested. - -[54] One at least of the Sappho enthusiasts still survives. See Professor -T. G. Tucker’s _Sappho_. - -[55] “_The Greek Genius and its meaning to us._” - -[56] It should be remembered, however, that this is largely the history -of Prussia also. - -[57] See Mr. Livingstone’s book. - -[58] But see p. 374 as to Dionysiac sect. - -[59] See an interesting passage in Plato’s Republic, I, 330. See also p. -173 as to Herodotus. - -[60] This should be taken into account in interpreting the plays of -Euripides, who was probably a sceptic. The case of Aristophanes was -different—he was known to be orthodox and almost any licence was -permitted on the Comic Stage. - -[61] Perhaps these woodcutters would not have entirely appreciated what -Mr. G. Lowes Dickinson (_The Greek View of Life_) says of the Greek -divinities. He tells us that the Greek originally felt “bewilderment -and terror in the presence of the powers of nature,” but his religion -developed “till at last from the womb of the dark enigma that haunted -him in the beginning _there emerged into the charmed light of a world of -ideal grace a pantheon of fair and concrete personalities_.” (The italics -are mine). The classical enthusiast always pictures the Greeks as _living -in fairyland_: actually the gods and lesser divinities were to them for -the most part objects of awe and dread. In this “world of ideal grace” -there would be, for example, the horrible Furies who dwelt in their -grotto in Athens! - -[62] I think it correct to say this, although there were political -reasons also for prosecuting Socrates and, if he had shown less contempt -for his judges, he might have been acquitted. - -[63] I do not know how far unnatural vice extended among other peoples; -but the statement in Plato’s “Symposium” that the Ionians and most of the -barbarians held it in evil repute is strongly condemnatory of the Greeks. - -[64] See how this idea pervades the whole of the famous Funeral Speech of -Pericles, and how he defines what is “the good life” of a citizen. - -[65] See Theoc. VII, 57, and what the Scholiast says. As to the subject -generally see the references given by Mr. Rogers in _The Birds of -Aristophanes_. - -[66] _Modern Painters_, IV, XIII, 17. - -[67] A few days after writing the above I was walking along the sea-beach -with friends, and we came to a man and boy who were drawing in a net. -It was a beautifully clear day, and no seagull or other bird could be -seen anywhere. I pointed this out to my friends, and said, “You’ll see -the patrol-bird arrive presently.” In a few minutes a gull appeared -from nowhere, flew round the net, and then, as though the business was -unimportant, flew away. The net when drawn in was empty! This is how the -bird probably appeared to the Greeks. When the net brought in a haul, and -the birds clamoured round it for their share, how very reasonable would -this again appear to the Greeks. - -[68] See also as to the so-called “purification rites” in the mysteries, -p. 374. - -[69] _The same pious Athenians who so enjoyed the Bacchae!_ - -[70] It is necessary to emphasize this, lest the reader should think that -these illustrations are exceptional and the result of prolonged research. -Actually I had no memoranda or other material when I began the many notes -to this book, and those notes were all completed in ten months. For this -note I simply took two books, Professor Murray’s and Mr. Zimmern’s, to -illustrate my thesis. I might have chosen far more “enthusiastic” works -than Mr. Zimmern’s excellent book. - -[71] The whole argument seems to have little foundation. Are we to -assume, for example, that the “average ability” of the Greeks before -and after their great period, or of the English before and after the -Elizabethan age, was enormously inferior because the proportion of very -illustrious men was so much less? Why should not the average be higher, -the ability (through intermarriage) being more equally distributed? - -[72] If Galton had referred only to the Athenians of the great period, -as Wallace imagined, the statement would have been even more absurd. It -would then mean that an African tribe of blacks might suddenly become -as intelligent as ourselves, continue so for two generations, and then -relapse at once into their old barbarism. Yet Dr. Verrall went some -distance in this direction, for he says the Athenians of the great period -“had plainly an immense superiority of mind in comparison with their -predecessors.” (_The Bacchants of Euripides_, _p. 168_). - -[73] I may add, however, one personal remark. I am quite well aware—and -my friends persistently and painfully impress the fact upon me—that this -book will be reviewed by gentlemen who have been imbued from youth with -even greater enthusiasm, seeing that the tendency has grown stronger and -stronger since that time. Those reviewers will probably feel shocked -that the naked facts should be set before the general public. I can -quite understand this feeling, but I do not sympathize with it. Truth -comes first, and I have no sympathy with the feminine view of truth -(see p. 343), which is the same as the Jesuitical view. I do, however, -sympathize with them in one respect, that the truth should be stated -at an unfortunate time, when the beautiful Greek language and its -glorious literature seem likely to be put on a back shelf with Hebrew -and Sanskrit. It will be a sad thing if this should happen (I would much -prefer to sacrifice the inferior Latin, in spite of the special reasons -for its study), but the first and last word always is—_Truth_. - -[74] “May moderation befriend me, the finest gift of the gods.” - -[75] It would be interesting to trace the earliest references to love of -Nature. They may, perhaps, be found in the Bible. In the Song of Solomon -(which, however, in its present form is now supposed to date back only to -the Fourth Century, B.C., and, therefore not to be by Solomon) we have -the spring-song of love, with flowers and budding trees and vines and the -singing of birds (II, 10-13). Professor Naylor also reminds me of our -Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, “Consider the lilies, etc.” - -I repeat here what I say in the Preface that Professor Naylor takes no -responsibility for any of the views I express in my notes on the Greeks. - -[76] Their actual life was of course indescribably squalid and filthy, as -could only be expected in a primitive race. - -[77] Even as regards the human form Greek art is limited, as is seen -in the Laocoon where the boys are simply miniature men. (The Laocoon, -although of very late date, is nevertheless Greek with all the traditions -of the art behind it.) I know very little on this subject, but it seems -to me that something of much importance yet remains to be discovered -about Greek sculpture. - -[78] An excessive importance is attached to the cold conventional -foliated designs. - - - - -INDEX OF SUBJECTS - - - Ability, Average. 374-78 - - Absurd Prescriptions. 320 - - Abt Vogler. 275 - - Acquaintanceship, Pre-matrimonial. 131 - - Acquiring and Using. 208 - - Action and Inaction. 25 - - Adelaide Edition. ix - - Adelaide Libraries. xii - - Adonis, Feast of. 86 - - Advance, the Age’s. 272 - - Adventure, Created Empire. 358 - - Advice, like Snow. 315 - - Advice, Micawber’s. 284 - - Aestheticism. 310 - - Age, Men Product of Their. 266 - - Age, Old. 96, 164, 240 - - Age, Old, over Cautious. 34 - - Age, Spirit of The. 266 - - Agnostic. 110-12 - - Agnosticism. xi - - Aims, Great. 260 - - Alcibiades. 292 - - Alexander and Parmenio. 197 - - Alice in Wonderland. 35 - - Allotment Holders. 269 - - Altruism. 116-7, 328 - - Ambition. 109, 197 - - America. 2, 240 - - Amphibium. 236 - - Anacreontic. 354 - - Ancestral Stain. 24 - - Ancient and Modern World. 95 - - Ancients, Cruelty of. 172 - - Ancients, Ethics of The. 207 - - Angels. 106, 159, 348 - - Animal Intelligence. 113 - - Animals, Greeks and. 370 - - Anthology, Greek, 8-11, 306 - - Anthropomorphism. 112, 128 - - Anticipated Thoughts. xii - - Anticipating Trouble. 121, 189, 305 - - Apelles. 334 - - Apelles, Proverbs of. 335 - - Apollo’s Song. 302 - - Apothegms. 12, 21, 39, 48, 49, 51, 59, 62, 63, 72, 73, 78, 80, 90, - 91, 94, 96, 97, 101, 107, 115, 116, 130, 131, 135, 139, 149, 150, - 151, 159, 160, 162, 165, 170, 172, 175, 178, 179, 182, 184, 192, - 196, 197, 198, 202-5, 215, 226, 228, 229, 233, 236, 240, 242, - 249-51, 256-7, 259, 262, 264, 268-9, 272-4, 279-80, 282-5, 287, - 295, 306-7, 312, 314-15, 319, 331-2, 335, 339, 341 - - Arcadia. 148 - - Arnold, Matthew. 19, 176, 265, 266, 291 - - Art. 317, 349 - - Ascendancy, Greek, Misleading. 363 - - Aspiration, Moral. 24, 139 - - Astrology. 31, 40 - - Athenian Ability. 374-5 - - Athenian Religion. 367 - - Athens. 365 - - Audience, the Poet’s. 137 - - Aunt, an Old Maiden. 130 - - Australia and England. 7 - - Australia and Literature. x - - “Avalon.” 307 - - - Babe Christabel. 22 - - Babies. 52, 169 - - Bacchus and Neptune. 306 - - Backbiters. 306 - - Bait. 339 - - Balder and Death. 184 - - Ballad upon a Wedding. 363 - - Ballads and Legislation. 352 - - Banbury Puritans. 253 - - Baptism. 15 - - “Barren Orthodoxy.” 16 - - Battle Hymn, America’s. 240 - - Beans, Corn and Poetry. 345 - - Beauties, Proud. 159 - - Beauty, Divinity of. 352 - - Beauty, Divine use of. 193, 313 - - Beauty, Invisible. 178 - - Beauty, Inward. 17 - - Beauty, Is Truth. 162 - - Beauty, Necessity of. 164 - - Beauty, Praise of. 338 - - Beauty, Sense of. 178, 379 - - Beauty, Worse than Wine. 362 - - Beauty’s Silent Music. 321-22 - - Bee, The. 222 - - Beef and Beer. 69 - - Belief. 83 - - Belief, Loss of. 260, 327-29 - - Belfast Address, The. 66 - - Bell, The Dinner. 69 - - Belle of the Ballroom. 206 - - Beloved Die. 181 - - Beneath My Window. 153 - - Benefactor, A. 150 - - Bentham, Jeremy. 116-7, 181-2 - - Bereavement. 29-30 - - Best, Imperfect. 135 - - Best People Slandered. 148 - - Bethlehem. 25 - - Bible, Literal Interpretation of. 344 - - Birth. 306 - - Birth, Death As. 238 - - Birthdays. 135, 160 - - Bishop, Most Diligent, The. 137 - - Blackstone. 181 - - Blake, William. 105, 109, 266-7 - - Blanco, White J. xi, 252 - - Blindness. 53-4, 155 - - Body and Mind. 283 - - Book of Snobs. 280 - - Bourdillon, F. W. x - - Bouts Rimés. 284 - - Boys’ Pastimes. 229 - - Brain, Atrophied. 319 - - British Dominions and “Home.” 8 - - British Empire Created by Adventure. 358 - - Browning, E. B. 293 - - Browning, R. xi, 19, 204 - - Browning, R., Heaven of. 204 - - Brownings’ Love Story, The. 45, 47 - - Browning Society, The. 19 - - Buchanan, R. x - - Bulwark, England A. 2 - - Burial. 349 - - Butcher, Professor. 348 - - Butterfly, The Doleful. 261 - - Buyer and Seller. 306 - - Byronic Gloom. 170 - - “By the North Sea.” 341-3 - - - Cabbages, Critics And. 360 - - Cain, Father of Art and Science. 247 - - Cambridge Examinations. 153-5, 208 - - Cana, Miracle of. 361 - - Canadian Boat Song. 198 - - Carlyle’s French Revolution. 332 - - Carlyle’s Requiem. 332 - - Carnivorous. 148 - - Carpe Diem. 195, 354 - - Cat, Sabbatarian’s. 253 - - Catholic and Protestant. 124 - - Cato and Public Honours. 175 - - Causality. xi - - Causes Small, Events Great. 161 - - Celtic Imagination. 358 - - Cerebration, Unconscious. 151 - - “Chamouni and Rydal.” 175 - - Champions, Incompetent. 138 - - Changeless. 90, 152, 158 - - Character. 141, 229, 260 - - Character and Reputation. 196 - - “Charge, A.” 82 - - Charites, The. 292 - - “Charitie, An Excelente Balade of.” 42 - - Chatterton. 45 - - Child, A. 310 - - Child, Eyes of a. 147 - - Child, Grace for a. 239 - - Child, Mother and. 267 - - Child Slaves. 48 - - “Childhood and his Visitors.” 243 - - Children. 143, 144, 146-7, 169-70 - - Children, Cruelty to. 48, 96 - - Children, Death of. 316 - - Children, Employment of. 48 - - Children, Games of. 229 - - Children, Sufferings of. 96 - - Children’s Hymn. 319 - - Child’s Outlook, The. 146-7 - - Chinese, The. 255 - - Chivalry. 96 - - Christ. 133, 142, 180, 318 - - Christ, Has He Failed? 95 - - Christ’s Love for Man. 268 - - Christianity, Evidence for. 251 - - Church of England. 15, 16 - - Cigar Preferred to Woman. 242 - - City Ideal, The. 269 - - Civilization and Shambles. 148 - - Classical Enthusiasm. 290, 292, 364, 366, 374 - - Classical Men as Critics. 291 - - Classics and English. 291 - - Cleopatra. 270 - - Cleon. 5 - - Clifford. xi - - Coleridge, S. T. 74, 312, 313 - - Colenso. xi, 344 - - Committee of Shakespeares. 247 - - Communication from the Dead. 36, 172 - - Compensation. 158, 278 - - Compliment, A Pretty. 359 - - Composition, Inspiration and. 142 - - Conceit. 258, 279 - - Confession a Relief. 256 - - Conservative, A. 261 - - Conservatism. 181 - - Consolation, Tobacco’s. 241-2 - - Constancy. 301, 309 - - Constitution, English, The. 181 - - Contemplation, Time for. 318 - - Content. 114 - - Contentedness. 221, 252, 270 - - Convulsionnaires. 349 - - Contingencies. 140-1 - - Coral Reef, The. 153 - - Cosmical Development. 303-4 - - Courage. 360 - - “Courtin’, The.” 98 - - Courting after Marriage. 236 - - Courts, Law, Satan’s Home. 184 - - Cowardice. 80 - - Cowper. 108 - - “Creation,” Story of, The. 189 - - Creation, Continuous. 273 - - Creeds, Beauty in Old. 343 - - “Crisis, The Present.” 2 - - Critics and Cabbages. 360 - - Critics’ Misjudgments. 132 - - Criticism, The Higher. 344 - - Crofter Exiles, The. 198 - - “Crossing the Bar.” xi - - Cruelty. 138, 172 - - Culture, Speculative. 309 - - Cunning. 226 - - Cupid, Bust of. 160 - - Cyclades, The. 364 - - Cynic, The. 257 - - Cyrus in Mesopotamia. 333 - - - Dahlia, The. 359 - - “Dark Companion, The.” 55 - - Darwin, Charles. xi, 318 - - Darwinism. 64, 65, 66, 68 - - Dauntlessness. vii, 257 - - Day. 95 - - Day is Dying. 249 - - Days Lost. 135 - - Dead, Communication from The. 36, 172 - - Dead, Most and Merriest. 262 - - Death, A Mockery. 232 - - Death and Fear. 330 - - Death as Birth. 238 - - Death as Sleep. 148 - - Death awakens. 114 - - Death, Painless. 148 - - Death, Shadow of. 184 - - Death, Survival after. 151, 250, 329, 346-48 - - “Death’s Jest Book.” 305-6 - - Debate. 59, 205, 340 - - Decisions in Life. 321 - - Deeds, Indestructible. 12 - - Deities. 31 - - Deification of Man. xi, 129 - - Democracy and Empire. 5 - - Democracy, Greeks and. 5, 368 - - Dependence, Man’s. 295 - - De Quincey. 227 - - Desert, London A. 105 - - Despair. 170 - - “De Tea Fabula.” 17 - - Devil, The. 41, 42, 137, 159 - - Dickinson, G. Lowes. 368 - - Die, Longing to. 250 - - Dining. 69-71 - - Disciple, The. 179 - - Divine Birth. 140 - - Divine Discontent. 232 - - Divine Love. 55 - - Divine, The. 271 - - Divine Will, The. 104, 303-5 - - Divinities, Pleasing. 31 - - Divinity. 351-2 - - Divinity and Harmony. 108 - - Divorce, Law of. 183 - - Dogs before Men. 241 - - Do it Now. 228 - - Doubt. 179 - - Downward Path, The. 34 - - Drama. 214 - - Dream, A Child’s. 147 - - “Dream of Fair Women, A.” 270 - - Dreams, Analysis of. 151 - - Dreams, Unrealised in his Life. 316 - - Dreamthorp. 158 - - Drift, Letting Ourselves. 39 - - Drink. 160, 306 - - “Drink to me only with thine Eyes.” 10 - - Drinking, Five Reasons for. 160 - - Duchess, Painted, The. 249 - - Duty. 1, 80-3, 349-50 - - Duty of Delight. 192-3 - - Dying Day. 249 - - Dying Emperor. 238 - - Dying, On. 148, 149 - - - Each for Each. 184 - - Each Man Three Personalities. 59 - - “Ear of Dionysius.” 172, 348 - - Earth Dear, Heaven Free. 264 - - Earth Goeth to Earth. 354 - - Earth made for Man. 116 - - Earth, Mother. 209-12 - - Earth, Presiding Spirit of the. 278 - - Earth, The Wholesome. 201 - - East, The Unchanging. 152 - - “Ecce Homo.” 16 - - Economy. 284 - - Education. 143, 180, 358 - - Effective Literature. 6, 48, 352 - - Effort. 250 - - Electricity and Plant Life. 72 - - Eliot, George. 327-8, 343 - - Elizabethan Authors. 357 - - Emerson’s Heaven. 205 - - Emotion and Intellect. 202 - - Emotions, The Blunting of. 274-5 - - Empire and Adventure. 358 - - Empire and Democracy. 5 - - Empty Heads. 233 - - Enduring Literature. 227 - - England. 1, 2, 178 - - English and Classics. 291 - - English as Dreamers and Idealists. 358 - - English Characteristics. 358 - - English Conservatism. 181 - - English Constitution. 181 - - English Delusions. 358 - - English Faults. 358 - - English Superiority. 358 - - English Visitors. 178 - - English Wealth of Poetry. 358 - - Enough. 204 - - Enthusiasm, Early. 24 - - Epigrams. 144, 226-28, 251 - - Epitaphs. 96, 178, 287, 339, 354 - - Epitaphs, Exaggeration In. 178 - - Equality. 280 - - Error dies. 132 - - Essays. 347 - - Estrangement. 280-1, 301 - - Eternal Life. 214 - - Eternal Love. 122 - - Eternal Punishment. 123 - - Eternity. 166 - - Ethics, Ancient. 207-9 - - Et in Arcadia Ego. 148 - - Eugenics. 247 - - Events Great, Cause Small. 161 - - “Everlasting Yea,” The. 83 - - Every Tale Told. 188 - - Evil chiefly Mental. 280 - - Evolution. 64-8, 189, 303-5, 306 - - Evolution, A Speculation Opposed to. xi, 303-5 - - Exaggeration. 178, 338 - - Examinations. 153-55, 207-8 - - Example to Others. 61, 351 - - Excuses for Drinking. 160 - - Exemplary Life. 268 - - Exiles, Highland. 198-9 - - Existence, Previous. 92, 203-4 - - Experience. 73, 149-50, 256, 280, 309 - - Eyes, Infants’, Solemnity of. 147 - - - Faculties. 323 - - Fair Spectacle, A. 25 - - Faith. 165 - - Falsities, Rooted. 96 - - Fame. 85, 175 - - Familiarity destroys Romance, 280 - - Faust. 41 - - Fear and Death. 330 - - Fearlessness. vii, 257 - - Fear of Mrs. Grundy. 289 - - Fellow Feeling. 335 - - “Feast of Adonis, The.” 86 - - Few Wise. 146 - - Fickleness. 285-6 - - Fidelity. 221, 232 - - Fight On. 205 - - First Love. 325, 352 - - Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam. 268 - - Flowers. 7, 149, 169 - - Folly, Proof of Our. 314 - - Fool, Gravest Man a. 257 - - Fools, One makes Many. 146 - - Fool, Playing The. 322 - - Fooling the People. 306 - - Fools, Majority Are. 146 - - Fools, We are. 22 - - Foresight. 351 - - Forestalled. xii - - Forethought. 172 - - Forgeries, Literary. 45, 231 - - Forget Me. 28 - - Forgiveness. 51, 135 - - Franchise, Women and The. 314 - - Fraud, The Worst. 229 - - Freaks of Nature. 325 - - Freedom. 1, 6, 80 - - “Free Trade” Fetish. 358 - - Friend and Foe. 107 - - “Friend of Humanity, The.” 223 - - Friends. 93 - - Friends, Breach Between. 301 - - Friends, Death of. 340 - - Friendship, Temporary. 107 - - Fugue. 13 - - Furnivall, Dr. 19 - - Future Life. 84, 127, 134, 204-5, 327-9, 346-8, 350 - - Future, The. 361 - - - Gains. 195 - - Galton, Sir F. 247, 374-8 - - Game of Chance Clergy Favour. 91 - - Gem, The. 277 - - Genealogy. 247 - - Genius and Thought. 78 - - Genius, Prerogative, of. 78 - - Genius, The Greek. 290, 366, 374 - - Gentleman, The First. 133 - - German Illusions. 166 - - German, Sword, The. 3 - - German Teaching. 2 - - Germans Surpassed. 358 - - Gethsemane, Solitude Of. 332 - - Giant, Sleep as a Gentle. 115 - - Gifts, Man’s. 63 - - “Gipsy Child,” To a. 237 - - Gissing’s “Henry Ryecroft.” 292 - - Giving and Having. 188 - - Giving is Receiving. 146 - - Gladstone, W. E. 339 - - Glaucus the Sea God. 129 - - “Globe, Letty’s.” 327 - - Gluttony. 306 - - God. 1, 2, 128, 160, 197, 233, 260, 271 - - God ever Present. 197, 285, 331 - - God, Evolution of. 166 - - God, Forgiveness Of. 287 - - God, Forgotten. 1 - - God, Guidance of. 285 - - God, Living To. 261 - - God, Man Like. 275 - - God, Man’s Reflex. 128 - - God Watching. 2 - - Gods and Spectres. 144 - - Gods are Brethren. 97 - - Gods are Dumb. 111 - - Gods, Greek. 293, 381 - - Gods, The on the side of the Strongest. 49 - - God’s Rest. 285 - - Gods that Pity. 215 - - Good, Doing. 150, 182, 201, 228 - - Good in every Man. 259 - - Good Nature. 151 - - Good never Lost. 275 - - Gorham Case, The. 15, 16 - - Grace for a Child. 239 - - Gravest Man a Fool. 257 - - Gray’s Elegy. 109, 376 - - Great Man, The. 260 - - Great Men. 51 - - Greece, Foundations of. 289 - - Greece, Influence of. 289 - - Greek Anthology, The. 8-11, 306 - - Greek Civilization. 371 - - “Greek Genius, The.” by R. W. Livingstone. 290, 366-7, 374 - - Greek Glamour. 363-6 - - Greek Gods. 293 - - Greek Infanticide. 172-3 - - Greek, Incorrect Translation from The. 173, 292-3, 372-3 - - Greek Intellect. 289, 369 - - Greek Life. 381 - - Greek Plays. 371 - - Greek Poetry. 290 - - Greek Religion. 217-18, 366-8, 370-2 - - Greek Sense of Beauty. 379 - - Greek Sense of Colour. 380 - - Greek Sense of Humour. 365, 369 - - Greek Statesmen. 5, 375 - - Greek Statues and Temples. 380-81 - - Greek Vice. 369 - - Greek Virtues. 368 - - Greek Want of Humanity. 173-4 - - Greek Women. 86-90, 173 - - Greeks, Falsehood, Theft, etc. 366-7 - - Greeks and Equality. 5 - - Greeks, Ignorance of The. 293, 369-71 - - Greeks or Germans? 5, 367 - - Greeks, Shelley on the. 173, 289 - - Grief, Nation’s. 3 - - Grief, Dry-eyed and Silent. 12 - - Grief, Solitary. 332 - - Griffin, The. 311 - - Grocer, The Fraudulent. 282 - - Grown Up. 142 - - Grundy, Mrs. 289 - - - Habit. 172 - - Haeckel. 65-8 - - Hafiz and Tamerlane. 338 - - Happiness. 83, 233 - - Harmony and Divinity. 108 - - Harrison, F. xi - - Harrison, Jane. 292 - - Harvard University Men. 2 - - Harvest of Pain. 213, 263, 268 - - Harvests, The Two. 233 - - Head, Heart Rules The. 241 - - Heart, A Wounded. 162 - - Heart’s Compass. 324 - - Heaven. 84, 123, 358 - - Heaven alone Free. 264 - - Heaven and Hell. 123 - - Heaven, Browning’s. 204 - - Heaven, Emerson’s. 205 - - Heaven, Myers’. 205 - - Heaven Remembered. 243 - - Hebrides. 198 - - Hebrew Prophets. 134 - - Hegel’s Philosophy. 105 - - Helen of Troy. 270 - - Hell. 123-4 - - Hellenism. 364 - - Herbert’s Collection of Proverbs. 306 - - Herodotus. 173 - - Hero Worship. 323 - - Hidden, What Can’t Be. 96 - - High Failure, Low Success. 233 - - Higher Criticism, The. 344 - - “Higher Mountain, The.” 236 - - Highland Evictions. 198-9 - - Hilton, A. C. 50 - - History’s Record. 2 - - Hodgson, Richard. vii, ix, x, 207-9, 346 - - Hogg, James. 340 - - Home is Homely. 184 - - Home, Satan At. 184 - - Home Thoughts. 345 - - Hope. 33, 42, 139, 359, 361 - - Homer. 292 - - Horrors. 148 - - Human Life. 251 - - Human Personality. 151, 346 - - Human Settees. 287 - - Humanity. 96, 138, 267 - - Humanity, The Spirit of. 209 - - Humour, Sense of. 248, 365 - - Huxley, T. H. 64-6 - - Hymn. 240, 319 - - “Hymn to God the Father, A.” 61 - - Hypnotism. 151 - - Hysteria. 151 - - - “I am Sick for Yesterday.” 333 - - Ideal City. 269 - - Ideal Ills. 280 - - Ideals. 156 - - Ideals dragged to Earth. 269 - - Ideas Outgrown. 179 - - Ideas Superseded. 272 - - Idleness. 108, 262 - - “Identity.” 130 - - Ills. 280 - - Illusions. 274 - - Imagination. 36-9, 146-7, 290, 357-8 - - Imagination aids Intellect. 357-8 - - Imagination, Characteristic of the English. 358 - - Imagination, Practical Utility of, The. 39, 356-8 - - “Imbuta.” 324 - - Immortality. 346 - - Immortality, Promise of. 317 - - Immortality, Song and. 11, 347 - - Imperfection, Essential to Life. 335 - - Impudence. 20 - - Inaction. 25 - - Independent Thinkers. 51, 54 - - Indexes, Want Of. 291 - - Industry, Satan’s. 137 - - Infant, Dead. 316 - - Infanticide. 172-74 - - Influence of undistinguished Lives. 333 - - Influence of Women. 242, 333, 354 - - Influence of Wordsworth. 176-8 - - Ingratitude, Public. 1 - - “In Memoriam.” 253 - - Innocence, Lost. 97 - - Insight. 323 - - Insomnia. 240 - - Inspiration. 10, 125, 214, 240 - - Insults, Emperors and. 338 - - Intellect and Morality. 323 - - Intention, Counts with God. 194 - - Interests, Conflicting. 282 - - Interests, Vested. 96 - - Intimacy and Indifference. 264 - - Inventors. 72 - - Invisible, Tidings of the. 90 - - Inquisition, The. 16 - - Irony. 183 - - Irrevocable. 97 - - Iscariot, Judas. 74 - - Isocrates. 202 - - Isolation. 265-66, 280-1, 301-2 - - I, What Am? 103 - - - Jansenists, The. 349 - - Jennie Kissed Me. 278 - - “Jest Book, Death’s.” 305-6 - - Jester’s Plea, The. 289 - - Jesus, Logia Of. 331 - - Johnson, Dr., and the Scots. 196-7 - - Jonah and the Whale. 7 - - Judas Iscariot. 74-7 - - Judges, Competent. 132 - - Justice and Empire. 5 - - Justice and Money. 182-3 - - Justice and Power. 166 - - Justice of God, The. 287 - - - Kaiser. 3, 338 - - Keats. 74 - - Kind, Make Haste to Be. 201 - - Kindred Souls, Failure to Recognise. 187 - - Kipling, Rudyard. 131-2 - - Know, What do the Wisest? 110 - - Knowledge. 101, 110-11 - - Knowledge, Obstacles To. 351 - - “Kritik of Practical Reason.” 350 - - - “La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” 271 - - Labour, Loftiness of. 108 - - Labour, Uses of. 204 - - Ladder, Sorrows The. 263 - - Ladder, Vices as a. 262-3 - - “Lady’s ‘Yes’, The.” 153 - - Lamb, Charles and Mary. 159-60 - - “Lamb, The.” 115 - - Land Crabs. 163 - - Land, Silent The. 95 - - Laissez-Faire. 358 - - Laocoon, The. 380 - - Late, Too. 58 - - Latin, Pronunciation of. 19 - - Law, Court of, Satan’s Home. 148 - - Law, English. 181 - - Law, Money and. 182-3 - - Law Reform. 181-4 - - Law Making, Ballad Making Before. 352 - - Lead, The. 257 - - Ledgers, Men change Swords for. 1 - - “L’Envoi.” 244-6 - - Lése-majesté. 338 - - Let it be There. 62 - - “Letty’s Globe.” 327 - - Life. 13, 100, 114, 117-21, 152, 214, 227-8, 238-9, 251, 267-9, 310, - 354, 360, 362 - - Life and Death. 250, 325 - - Life, Cruelty of. 148, 239 - - Life, is it Worth Living? 165 - - Life, Memories of a Previous. 91-2 - - Life, Perilous. 321 - - Life, Prized. 250 - - Life, Sadness of. 239 - - Life, Secret of. 117 - - Life, Short. 201 - - Life, Struggle. 260 - - Life, Sweet. 347 - - Life, Tragedies of. 274-5, 294 - - Life, Uncertain. 140 - - Light, a Point in the Darkness. 269 - - Light and Life. 252 - - Light, the Speech between the Stars. 12 - - Lincoln, President. 306 - - Litany, Old Monkish. 309 - - Literature, Classification of. 227 - - Literature, Effective. 6, 48, 352 - - Literature of the 16th and 17th Centuries. 283-4 - - Literature Superseded and Surviving. 227 - - Literature, why the best Survives. 132 - - Literary Circles, Australia and English. x - - Lives, Sad. 294 - - Living Past, The. 170 - - Living, Sympathy with the. 192 - - Locke, John, on Education. 180 - - Logia of Jesus. 331 - - London a Desert. 105-6 - - Long Expected. 125 - - Lost Days. 135 - - “Lotos Eaters, The.” 329 - - Love. 12, 13, 24, 27, 41, 49, 78, 142, 158, 164-5, 196, 205, 222, - 224, 244, 259, 306, 319, 355, 359 - - Love, Analysis of. 103 - - Love and a Cough. 96 - - Love and Duty. 224 - - Love and Life. 334 - - Love and Self. 199 - - Love, Brevity of. 13, 27, 30, 149, 162-3, 248, 274, 288 - - Love, Brotherly. 134 - - Love, Characteristics of. 134 - - Love Divine. 54, 315 - - Love Ennobles. 156 - - Love Episode, A. 326 - - Love, Eternal. 122 - - Love, First. 324-5, 352-3 - - “Love in the Valley.” 302 - - Love, Mortal. 162 - - Love, Quest of. 41 - - Love, Second. 324 - - Love, Herbert Spencer, on. 103 - - Love, Stillborn. 255 - - “Love Sweetness.” 330 - - Love, The meaning of the World. 323 - - Love, Wakes Men Once. 147 - - Love, What is? 103 - - Loved Things Die. 181 - - Love’s Cruelty. 126-7 - - Love’s Delay. 57-9 - - “Love’s Last Messages.” 157 - - Love’s Lovers. 248 - - Lover, Role of, Brief. 322 - - Lunacy. 35, 160, 215 - - - Machiavelli. 312 - - Maiden Aunt, A. 130 - - Maiden’s Heart, A. 107 - - Make Haste. 201 - - Making of Man, The. 216 - - Malays. 263 - - Mallock’s “New Republic.” 9, 310 - - Man. 81, 275 - - Man, Loveable. 259 - - Man, Stereotyped. 150 - - Man’s Dependence. 295 - - Man’s Gains Remain his Own. 149-50 - - Man’s Gifts. 63 - - Man’s Greatness. 97 - - Man’s Importance to Himself. 113 - - Man’s Life. 100 - - Man’s Perdition. 5 - - Man’s Price. 77 - - Man’s Vision. 323 - - Man’s Work can help God. 165 - - Many Fools. 146 - - Marcus Aurelius. 215 - - Marriage. 90-1, 236 - - Marriage, only Game of Chance Clergy Favour. 91 - - Marriage, Wife Requires to be Courted, after. 236 - - Martineau, James. xi - - Martyr, The. 155 - - Master of All. 160 - - Master, Our. 143 - - Marvel, A Two-fold. 131 - - Materialism. xi, 64-6, 102, 303-5, 316, 327, 330 - - Materialism, Modern. 303-4 - - Matter. 104 - - Matter, Mind and. 102 - - Medical Prescriptions, Wesley’s. 320 - - Meditations. 110-113 - - Melrose Abbey. 69 - - Memories. 161-2, 255, 314 - - Memories of This Life Hereafter. 170 - - Memories, Sweet. 255 - - Memory. 33, 159 - - Men and Beasts. 113 - - Men and Dogs. 241 - - Men before Angels. 348 - - Men, Great. 51-2 - - Men, Sameness of. 150 - - Men, Tall. 233 - - Men, Women made Foolish to Match. 80 - - Menzies, P. S. Sermons of. 271-3 - - Mercy. 287 - - Mercies, Small. 221, 222 - - Mermaid Tavern, The. 313-14 - - Micawber’s Advice. 284 - - “Milk of Paradise.” 313 - - Mill, James. 101 - - Mill, John Stuart. 116 - - Milton. 155, 343 - - Milton, Parody on. 274 - - Miltons, Mute. 357, 376 - - Mimnermus in Church. 347-8 - - Mind Affected by Age. 179 - - Mind and Body. 283 - - Mind and Matter. 102 - - Miracles. 315, 349 - - Miscellaneous. 48, 51, 60, 62-3, 182-4, 196-8, 268-70, 294-5, - 332-5, 360-3 - - Misfortunes of Others. 251 - - Mistakes. 244 - - Modern Religious Thought. 141 - - Molière. 32, 284 - - Money and Innocence. 97 - - Money and Law. 182 - - Money, God’s Estimate of. 204 - - Monica’s Vision. 144 - - Monkey, Man’s Descent from. 64 - - Moon, The. 20 - - Morality and Intellect. 323 - - Mors et Vita. 348 - - Moslem Rule. 25 - - Moth, The. 222 - - Mother Earth. 209-13 - - Mother who Died Too, The. 316 - - Müller, F. Von. 318 - - Multiplex Personality. 150-1 - - Murder. 34 - - Murray’s, Gilbert, Euripides. 371-3 - - Music. 154 - - Music. 13-14, 108, 275-77, 302, 321-2 - - Music, Beauty like. 321-22 - - “Music in their Heart.” 55 - - Muttons, Return to our. 182 - - “My Commonplace Book.” 291 - - Myers, F. W. H. 205, 277, 316-17, 346-7, 363-81 - - Mythology, Greek. 292 - - - Nakedness. 239 - - Nation’s Ballads and Legislation. 352 - - Nation’s Heart, Song that Nerves a. 352 - - “Natural Religion.” 330 - - Nature. 47, 90, 188, 240, 246, 252, 283-4 - - Nature, Contrary to. 47 - - Nature Echoes and Reflects. 189 - - Nature, Freaks of. 325 - - Nature, Good. 151 - - Nature, Intellectual and Moral Inseparable. 323 - - Nature, Love of. 109, 164, 175-8, 222-3, 283, 379 - - Nature, Love of, in 18th Century and Earlier. 178, 283, 379 - - Nature the Old Nurse. 355 - - Necessity of Lovely Things. 164 - - Neither Good nor Bad. 134 - - Nescience. 202 - - New and Old Systems. 2 - - New Gospel, The. 66-8 - - Newton, Sir Isaac. 249 - - Night and Death. 252 - - Night, Death and Woman. 168 - - Night has a Thousand Eyes. x, 334 - - Night, Mysterious. 252 - - Night, Ships that Pass in the. 280-1 - - Nightingale, The. 11, 136, 279, 290, 292, 362 - - Nobleness. 280 - - Noblesse Oblige. 351 - - Nonsense Lines. 152-3, 228-9 - - Nostalgia. 203-4 - - Not One Christian. 159 - - Notes, The need for Author’s. xii, 71 - - - Oblivion. 259 - - Object, A Common. 281 - - Objects, Good. 4 - - Obscurity, Browning’s. 19 - - Octopus, The. 49-51 - - Odysseus, Ship of. 217 - - Old Age. 96, 164, 240 - - Old College Rooms. 229 - - Old Creeds. 343 - - Old Monkish Litany. 309 - - Old World Creed, An. 231 - - Old Year, The. 129 - - Omar Khayyam. 194, 268 - - “O May I Join the Choir Invisible.” 327-8 - - On a Fine Morning. 115-6 - - One Loves, the Other Submits. 242 - - One Poem, Fame for. 252 - - One Port Alike they Sought. 281 - - Opinion. 83, 102 - - Opinion, Private, Income Necessary to. 54 - - Opinion, Change of. 256 - - Opportunities, Lost. 62 - - Opportunity. 262 - - Optimism. 350-1 - - “O, so White! O, so Soft! O, so Sweet is She!” 335 - - Ossian. 231 - - “Ordeal of Richard Feverel.” 326 - - Orthodoxy. xi, 16 - - Others’ Misfortunes. 251 - - “Ought.” 350 - - Ouida. 215 - - Ovid. 363 - - Owen, Professor. 64 - - Oxford. 19 - - - “Pace that Kills,” The. 174-5 - - Pagan and Christian. 173 - - Pain, The Harvest of. 213, 263, 268 - - Paine, Thomas. 6 - - Paradise, Milk of. 313 - - Paradise, Spirit of. 39, 40, 278 - - Paradise, Woman and. 63 - - Pardon, is God’s Business. 287 - - Pardons, Offender Never. 306 - - Parnassus and Poverty. 180 - - Parodies. 49, 220-1, 223-4, 248, 253, 274 - - Paronomasia. 61, 349 - - Parsons. 345 - - Passion and Philosophy. 294 - - Passions of Youth. 230 - - Past Self. 255-6 - - Past, The Living. 170 - - Pater’s Philosophy. 309-10 - - Path to Wisdom, Thorny. 21 - - Paul, St. 133 - - Peace and War. 4 - - Peacefulness. 259-60 - - Pearls of Thought. 268 - - Pegasus, George Eliot’s. 343 - - Penalty of Nobleness. 280 - - People, Plenty of Willing. 240 - - Perdition, Safety as. 5 - - Pericles. 5 - - Persian, From the. 268 - - Personalities, each Man has Three. 59-60 - - Personality, Human. 151, 346 - - Pessimist. 257-8 - - Pets. 225 - - Pheidias. 380 - - Philosophy, Various. 101-5, 116, 165, 294, 309 - - Photography. 190 - - Physician. 306 - - Pictures, Word. 85-6, 121-2, 166-7, 225-6, 270-1, 302-3, 336-7, 356 - - Pickwick Papers. 264 - - Plagiarism. 32, 360 - - Pleasure, Love Not. 83 - - Poem, Famous for One. 252 - - Poet alone Sees. 147 - - Poet and His Audience. 137 - - Poet, Autobiography of A. 125 - - Poet, Song of the. 136 - - Poet, The. 214, 236 - - Poetic Imagination. 39, 40, 357-8 - - Poetic Passion. 310 - - Poets Condemned. 180 - - Poets Known for One Production. 252 - - Poets, poor Critics of their Own Work. 57, 289-90 - - Poetry. 63, 207, 214 - - Poetry and Poverty. 180 - - Poetry Creates. 214 - - Poetry Despised. 357-8 - - Poetry, England’s Wealth of. 358 - - Poetry Immortal. 11, 347 - - Poetry, Important to Education. 358 - - Poetry, Insight into. 17, 137 - - Poetry, Legislation less Vital than. 352 - - Poetry, Neglect of. 218, 358 - - Poetry, Potent. 352 - - Poetry, Scope of. 136 - - Poetry, Subjects of, Alleged Exhaustion. 188 - - Poetry Survives the Poet. 11, 347 - - Poetry, Swinburne’s. 219, 343 - - Poetry, Treasure-houses of. 10, 358 - - Points of View. 17, 204-5, 251, 265-6, 280, 340, 350 - - “Political Precepts.” 175 - - Pollock, Sir F., Parodies by. 220-21 - - Pope Pius IX. xii - - Popularity, Deferred. 132 - - Popularity, Seeking. 339 - - Possession Stagnates. 250 - - Positivism. xi - - Posterity’s Verdict. 132 - - Post-nuptial Courting. 236 - - Potter’s Clay, The. 193-4 - - Poverty and Parnassus. 180 - - Power and Justice. 166 - - “Practical.” 101 - - Praise of Beauty. 338 - - Praise of Tobacco. 241 - - Prayer. 133, 282 - - Pre-matrimonial Acquaintanceship. 131 - - Prescriptions, Absurd Medical. 320 - - Presiding Spirit, Earth’s. 278 - - Pretence and Reality. 227, 262 - - Price, The. 200 - - Price, Man’s. 77 - - Price, Wisdom’s. 21 - - Pride. 156 - - Prize Fighter, The. 337 - - Progress or Lethargy. 125-6 - - Progress, Slow but Sure. 143, 257 - - Prometheus. 209 - - Promise. 350 - - Pronunciation. 19, 263-4 - - Prophets, The Hebrew. 134 - - Prosaic Person, The. 279 - - Proserpine. 211 - - Proverbs. 184, 197, 257, 306-7, 334-5 - - Prudent Scot, A. 197 - - Psychical Research, Society for. xi, 172, 329, 339, 340, 347, 348 - - Psychology. 102 - - Public Servants. 339 - - “Pulley,” The. 63 - - Pulsation Passage, Pater’s. 310 - - Punishment, Eternal. 123 - - Puns. 61, 349 - - Purification. 73 - - Puritan’s Cat that broke the Sabbath. 253 - - Pursuit more than Prize. 250 - - Puttenham, George. 356-7 - - Pyrrhus and Cineas. 197-8 - - - Quakers. 247 - - “Queen, My, Sequel to.” 57 - - Query. 215-16 - - Quest. 156 - - “Question, A.” 127 - - Questions. 325, 328-9, 341, 350 - - Quixotism, One of Satan’s Pet Words. 159 - - - Raleigh, Sir Walter. 357 - - Rank and Precedence. 280 - - Reapers, Sowers and. 107 - - Reason and Tradition. 159 - - Reasoning, The Art of. 34-6 - - Receptivity. 146 - - Record, History’s. 2 - - Reform. 255 - - Regret. 139 - - “Reinforcements,” Children as. 52-3 - - Rejuvenation. 160 - - “Religio Medici.” 108 - - Religion. 122-4, 134, 159, 227, 272-3 - - Religion and Love, Heralds of Heaven. 149 - - Religion and Reason. 159 - - Religion and Science, Conflict Between. xi, 64-8 - - Remember Me. 60 - - Remember or Forget. 27-30 - - Reminiscence of Past Existence. 203-4 - - Renaissance, The. 365 - - Repentance. 41 - - Reputation, and Character. 196 - - “Requiem, A.” 234 - - Requiem, Carlyle’s. 332 - - Research, Society for Psychical. xi, 172, 329, 339, 340, 347, 348 - - Rest. 63-4, 161, 285, 329 - - Reticence, Safety in. 250 - - Retribution. 137-8 - - Reunion after Death. 348 - - “Revelation, The.” 147 - - Reverence. 349 - - Rhymed Ends. 284 - - Riches. 188, 204 - - “Rights of Man, The.” 6 - - “Rime of Redemption, The.” 295 - - Rival, The. 34 - - Rogue, The, a Fool. 226 - - Roman Hardness. 172 - - Romance. 280 - - “Romance, To the True.” 36 - - Romantic Revival. 109 - - “Rose and the Wind, The.” 53 - - Rossetti, Christina. 28 - - Rothschild, Lord. 36 - - Rowley Forgeries, The. 45 - - Ruskin, John. 133 - - - Sabbatarian Puritan, The. 253 - - “Sacrifice.” 5 - - Sacrifice-Self. 199-201, 272 - - Sacrifice-Self, Woman’s. 62, 72 - - Sacrifice, Supreme. 2 - - Sad Old Age. 164 - - Sad Lines. 294 - - Safety as Perdition. 5 - - Sage, Narrow Stage for The. 322 - - Sand and Sugar. 282 - - Sand, Traced on. 286 - - St. Augustine’s Ladder. 263 - - St. Monica’s Vision. 144 - - St. Jerome’s Tutor. xii - - Sappho. 290, 292, 364, 366 - - Satan and Pardon. 41-2 - - Satan at Home. 184 - - Satan’s Diligence. 137 - - Satan’s Pet Words. 159 - - Sayce, A. H. 66-9 - - Saying Nothing. 183-4 - - Scaffold, Truth for Ever on the. 2 - - Scepticism. 64-8, 110-12, 206 - - Science and Wonder. 295 - - Science, Religion and. xi., 64-8 - - Scientist’s Analysis of Love. 103 - - Scot, The Prudent. 197 - - Scotland, Dr. Johnson and. 196-7 - - Scotsman, Potentiality of The. 196 - - Scott, Sir Walter. 33, 69-70 - - Scottish Crofters, Song of The. 198 - - Scottish Washerwomen. 167 - - Scribes, The. 16 - - Scriptures, Veracity of the. 344-5 - - Search Perfects. 250 - - Sea-song, A Great. 244-6 - - “Sea, The Other Side of the.” 288 - - Sea, The Purifying. 166 - - Secret, Life’s. 117 - - Security of Death. 73-4 - - Seeley’s “Ecce Homo.” xii - - Self-Deception. 229 - - Selfishness. 151, 169, 180-1 - - Self-Reliance. 274 - - Self-Sacrifice. 5, 62, 72, 83, 378-9 - - Self-Surrender. 180, 199, 200-1 - - “Sentiment Kills, ’Tis.” 284 - - Sermons, P.S. Menzie’s. 271-3 - - Seth and Astronomy. 247 - - Settees, Human. 286-7 - - Seventies and Eighties, The. xi - - Seventy Years Young. 240 - - Sex in Souls. 93-4 - - Sexes, Qualities of the. 93 - - Shade and Silence. 162 - - Shakespeare. 247, 290 - - Shambles, Civilization and the. 148 - - Shallow but Clear. 51 - - Shaving. 362 - - Shelley. 73-4, 289 - - Ship of Life. 152 - - Ships, all Romantic except our Own. 280 - - Ships Bound to same Port. 281 - - Ships that pass in the Night. 280-1 - - Sic vos non Vobis. 107 - - Sidgwick, Henry. 208 - - “Sigurd, the Volsung.” 4 - - Silence Safe. 250 - - Silence Terrifying. 11 - - Silent Land, The. 95 - - Sin, Original. 61 - - “Sin, Vision of, The.” 139-40 - - Singer’s Plea, The. 352 - - Singing. 240 - - Skylark, Shelley’s. 290 - - Slander. 148, 301, 306 - - Slaves. 48, 80, 375 - - Sleep. 115, 150-1, 157, 160 - - Sleep and Death. 114 - - Sleep, He Giveth His Beloved. 157 - - Sleep, Vigilance and. 150 - - Small Things, Neglect of. 196 - - Smile, Beauty’s. 116 - - Snobbery, Social. 178 - - “Soapy Sam.” 65 - - Society, the Browning. 19 - - Society for Psychical Research. xi, 172, 329, 339, 340, 347, 348 - - Solace. 115 - - Soldiers Slighted. 1 - - Solitude, a City’s. 106 - - Solitude of Grief. 332 - - Somnambulism. 151 - - Song that Nerves a Nation’s Heart, is a Deed. 352 - - Songs, A Nation’s. 352 - - Sonnet, which Coleridge thought the Finest. 252 - - “Sonnet, Scorn not the.” 45 - - “Sonnets from the Portuguese.” 45, 144, 293 - - Sorrow. 198, 213 - - Sorrow, The Worship of. 83 - - Sorrows, Light, Speak. 12 - - Soul, The. 15, 32, 51, 55, 129, 165-6, 178, 238, 251, 360 - - Soul’s Aspiration. 251 - - Soul’s Beauty. 201 - - Soul, Not the Eye, Sees. 178 - - Soul, The Crisis of the. 284 - - Soul, The Journey of the. 285 - - Sowing and Reaping. 107 - - Space, Terror of Infinite. 11 - - “Spasmodic School.” 231 - - Special Creation. 303-5 - - Spell, for the Dying, A. 279 - - Spencer, Herbert. 101, 103-4, 105 - - “Spider, Noiseless Patient, A.” 360 - - Spirit, Adventurous, Created Empire. 358 - - Spirit, A Parting. 279 - - Spirit of Paradise. 39, 40, 278 - - Spirit of the Age. 266 - - Spirit of the Universe. 246 - - Spiritualism. 171-2 - - “Spiritual Laws.” 25 - - Spiritual World. 272 - - Spiritual World’s Realities. 272 - - Spring. 253, 350 - - “Star, My.” 8-10, 131 - - Star to Star. 12 - - Stars and Duty, The. 350 - - Stars and Fates. 40 - - Stars, Silence of. 39 - - Stars, Speech of. 12 - - Stars, Tasks of the. 108 - - State and Man. 166 - - Stephen, Sir Leslie. 171 - - Sterne’s “Sentimental Journey.” 283 - - Strange Verses. 230 - - Struggle, The, Availeth. 257 - - Struggle, Life’s. 257, 260 - - Stupidity, as Protection. 274 - - Style. 291 - - Success, Wisdom and. 34 - - Sunshine to us is Darkness to others. 282 - - Superstition. 15 - - Supreme Power Produces Mind, The. 304-5 - - Surroundings, Familiar. 62 - - Survival after Death. 151, 250, 329, 346-8 - - Swinburne. xi., 49-51, 219-21, 259, 341-3, 347 - - Swiveller, Dick. 69 - - “Sword, Apotheosis of the.” 3 - - Swords and Ledgers. 1 - - Sydney, Sir Philip. 357 - - Sympathy with the Living, not the Dead. 192 - - Symposium, Plato’s. 381 - - Systems, Old and New. 2 - - - Talent, Lost. 357, 376 - - Tall Men. 233 - - Taking Thought. 318 - - Tasks. 108 - - Tastes Differ. 265 - - Tavern, The Mermaid. 313-4 - - Teachers. 109 - - Tear Dries Soon. 306 - - Tearless Grief. 12 - - Tears, Harvest of. 213, 263, 268 - - Tears, Women’s Secret. 232 - - Temptation. 71 - - Tennyson. xi - - Teuton, God of the. 4 - - “The Night has a Thousand Eyes.” x, 334 - - “The Other Side of the Sea.” 288 - - Theosophy. xi, 172, 209 - - “Thought, A Woman’s.” 311 - - Thought and Happiness. 354 - - Thought, Independence in. 51, 54 - - Thought, Modern Religious. 141 - - Thoughts Anticipated, Our. xii - - Thoughts, Revivifying Old. 78 - - Three Personalities, Each Man has. 59 - - Throne, Wrong for ever on the. 2 - - Through a Glass Darkly. 241 - - Thrush, The Wise. 345 - - Thy Beauty’s Silent Music. 321 - - Tidings of the Invisible. 90 - - Time, Allotted. 322 - - Time, All-powerful. 341-3 - - Time Swift and We Slow. 136 - - Time Wasted. 135-7, 166 - - Tobacco. 241-2 - - Tongue, Holding One’s, Never Repented. 250 - - Too Late. 58 - - Torpor. 108 - - Toucan, The. 325 - - “Trade, Free,” Fetish. 358 - - Tradition. 159 - - Training, Mental. 358 - - Travel and Empire. 358 - - Treason, Roman and German. 338 - - Trial by Jury. 358 - - Trial Test. 284 - - Trinidad, Island of. 163 - - Trivial Causes, and Great Events. 161 - - Trouble, Anticipating. 121 - - Troy, Helen of. 270 - - Troy, The Walls of. 302 - - Truth. 2, 104, 105 - - Truth, Champions of. 138-9 - - Truth, Daring to Speak the. 312 - - Truth for Truth’s Sake, Love of. 343, 349 - - Truth, Marching on. 240 - - Truth, Pursuit of. 250 - - Truths. 104 - - Tucker, T. C., on Sappho. 366 - - Tupman, The Susceptible. 264 - - “Twilight, In the.” 91 - - Twin, Happiness born a. 332 - - Two for a Kiss. 332 - - Two Lovers. 120 - - - “Ulysses.” 278 - - Unconscious Cerebration. 151 - - Under-world, The. x, 217 - - Universe, The Infinity of the. 11 - - Up-hill. 161 - - Utilitarianism. 116 - - Utility, Practical, of Imagination. 39, 291, 356-8 - - “Utopianism,” one of Satan’s Pet Words. 159 - - - Venus of Milo, The. 380 - - Veracity of the Scriptures, The. 344-5 - - Verrall, Dr. 348 - - Verses, Judging. 207 - - Verses, Strange Wedding Eve. 230 - - Vices as Ladders. 263 - - Vigilance and Sleep. 150 - - View, Points of. 17, 204-5, 251, 265-6, 280, 340, 350 - - Virtue and Slander. 148 - - Virtue, Varying standards of. 174 - - Virtues, Christian. 359 - - Vision. 200, 284, 323 - - Vision of Sin, The. 139-40 - - Vision, Man’s Degree of. 323 - - Visits made to Boast of. 178 - - Voice, Merely. 361-2 - - Voices, Two. 248 - - Von Müller, Baron F. 318 - - Vox et Praeterea Nihil. 361 - - - Waking, State Of. 150-1 - - Washerwomen, Scottish. 167 - - Washington and Thomas Paine. 6 - - War. 1, 2, 3, 6 - - Wars, Effect Of. 52 - - Wealth and Worth. 204 - - Wealth of Poetry, England’s. 358 - - “Wedding, The Night before The.” 230 - - Wesley’s Character. 159 - - Wesley’s Medical Prescriptions. 320 - - What am I? 103-4, 241 - - What do the Wisest Know? 110 - - “What of the Darkness?” 53 - - “When shall our Prayers End?” 321 - - When we are all Asleep. 215-16 - - Whence and Whither? 111, 152 - - Whetstone cannot cut but Sharpens, A. 202 - - White, J. Blanco. xi, 252 - - Why not now? 197 - - Wife must be Courted. 236 - - Wife, The Troublesome. 339 - - Wilberforce, Bishop. 64, 344 - - Will, Strong in. 278 - - Willing People. 240 - - “Wind and the Rose, The.” 53 - - Wisdom. 246, 310 - - Wisdom and Cunning. 226 - - Wisdom and Folly. 314 - - Wisdom and Success. 34 - - Wisdom, The Path Of. 21 - - Wise, Few. 146 - - Woman, 63, 72-3, 80, 94, 116, 203, 232, 242, 341, 343, 361 - - Woman and Tobacco. 241-2 - - Woman, Fickle. 34, 285-6 - - Woman, Paradise and. 63 - - Woman, Wasteful. 242 - - Woman’s Influence. 242, 333, 354 - - “Woman’s Thought, A.” 311 - - Women, Cunning of. 314 - - Women Foolish, made to match Men. 80 - - Women, Greek. 86-90, 173, 367, 375 - - Women, Jesuistical. 343 - - Women, Obstinate. 72 - - Women, Painted. 173, 249 - - Women, Paradise and. 63 - - Women Riddles. 94 - - Women’s Chatter not changed in Two Thousand Years. 90 - - Women’s Self Sacrifice. 62, 72, 361 - - Wooing and Winning. 236 - - Words, Mere. 361-2 - - Wordsworth. 29-30, 54, 108-9, 175-8, 203-4, 248 - - Wordsworth, Defects of. 248 - - Wordsworth, Influence of. 54, 108, 177-8 - - Wordsworth, Parodies on. 248, 253 - - Work. 83, 108, 204, 240, 262, 278 - - Work and Worship. 355 - - Work Neglected, Remorse for. 136 - - World, Ancient and Modern, The. 95 - - World Creed, An Old. 231 - - World is Young, The. 16 - - World, Realities of the Spiritual. 272 - - World, Seduction of. 22 - - World, The Unjust. 170 - - World, The Wanton. 22 - - Worlds, Visible and Invisible. 236 - - Worship. 141, 261 - - Worth, Intrinsic. 277 - - - Xenophon. 376 - - - Yea, The Everlasting. 83 - - Young Life. 273 - - Young Seventy Years. 240 - - Youth and Age. xvi, 130, 267 - - Youth and Prohibition. 272-3 - - Youth, Ardent. 174 - - Youth, Heroic. 1 - - - Zimmern, A. E. 374 - - - - -INDEX OF AUTHORS - - - Aldrich, A. R. 24, 240 - - Aldrich, H. 160 - - Aldrich, T. B. 130, 137 - - Alexander, W. 136 - - Amiel. 149, 201 - - Anonymous. 77, 135, 148, 182, 198, 225, 229, 286, 308, 349 - (See also Authors not traced). - - Aristotle. 367, 369, 370 - - Arnold, E., Sir 58, 105 - - Arnold, M. 15, 127, 152, 162, 226, 236, 237, 265 - - Aurelius, Marcus. 215 - - Augustine, St. 263 - - Austin, A. 282 - - Authors not traced. 27, 35, 73, 91, 112, 120, 124, 127, 130, 136, - 142, 161, 164, 225, 227, 231, 236, 240, 241, 242, 261, 268, 314 - (See also Anonymous). - - - Bacon. 151, 178, 206, 226, 233 - - Bailey, P. J. 12, 21, 48, 101, 229, 257 - - Bain, A. 102, 205 - - Balzac. 162 - - Bateson, W. 247 - - Beaumont, F. 313 - - Beddoes, T. L. 157, 262, 305 - - Bentham, Jeremy. 116, 181 - - Billing, W. 354 - - Blackstone. 181 - - Blake, W. 106, 109, 115, 166 - - Blanc, C. 283 - - Boreham, F. W. 52, 205 - - Bossuet. 123 - - Boswell. 124, 196, 197 - - Bourdillon, F. W. 334 - - Boyd, A. K. H. 197, 198 - - Brathwaite, R. 228, 253 - - Bray. 153-155 - - Bromfield, J. 170 - - Brougham. 182 - - Brown, John. 362 - - Brown, T. E. 169, 180 - - Brown, B. 122 - - Browne, Sir T. 72, 108, 123, 138, 236 - - Browning, E. B. 12, 24, 45, 144, 152, 157, 213, 285, 354 - - Browning, R. 13, 20, 24, 46, 71, 84, 104, 114, 118, 149, 193, 195, - 204, 218, 224, 225, 233, 234, 242, 249, 255, 256, 260, 262, 269, - 270, 275, 276, 284, 285, 303, 313, 317, 319, 333, 349, 356 - - Bryant, W. C. 285 - - Buchanan, R. 3, 20, 74, 84, 97, 114, 184, 215, 269, 287, 294 - - Burns, R. 41 - - Bunyan. 176 - - Byron. 71, 104, 170, 332 - - - Calverley, C. S. 69, 107, 352 - - Campbell, T. 116 - - Campion, T. 126, 321 - - Canning, G. 223 - - Carlyle, T. 7, 83, 323, 331, 332, 355 - - Carroll, Lewis. 35, 70, 190 - - Chatterton, T. 42 - - Chaucer. 121, 212 - - Choerilus. 188 - - Cholmondeley, Hester. 77 - - Cleveland, John. 197 - - Clough, A. H. 125, 152, 167, 241, 257, 281 - - Colenso, Bishop. 344 - - Coleridge, D. 295 - - Coleridge, S. T. xvi, 30, 51, 72, 74, 78, 85, 93, 114, 146, 210, 226, - 252, 271, 301, 312, 315, 336, 343, 344, 350 - - Collins, M. 145 - - Congreve. 97 - - Conway, M. D. 6, 54, 343 - - Corcoran, P. 337 - - Corneille, T. 270 - - Cory, W. 11, 347 - - Cowley, A. 238 - - Cowper, W. 117 - - Crashaw, Richard. 361 - - - Darwin, C. 318 - - Dekker, T. 133 - - De Musset, A. 360 - - De Quincey. 34, 132, 227 - - De Rabutin. 49 - - De Staël, Mme. 51, 164, 313 - - Dickens, Chas. 34, 90, 98, 264, 284 - - Dickinson, G. Lowes. 368 - - Disraeli. 228 - - Dobson, A. 360 - - Donatus. xii - - Donne, J. 61, 73, 247, 286 - - Douglas, M. 232 - - Dryden, J. 70, 118 - - Du Lorens. 339 - - - Earle, J. 310 - - Edmunds, A. J. 170, 171 - - Eliot, George. iii, 12, 21, 33, 39, 62, 80, 96, 97, 120, 131, 139, - 159, 170, 192, 203, 227, 249, 255, 256, 262, 269, 274, 279, 314, - 322, 327, 333, 335, 336, 355, 361 - - Elmogadessi, A. E. 222 - - Emerson, R. W. 1, 5, 25, 121, 133, 158, 189, 205, 210, 221, 260, - 280, 351, 355 - - Epitaphs. 96, 188, 232, 354 - - Euripides. 372, 374 - - - Fitzgerald, E. 132, 147, 194 - - Fletcher of Saltoun. 352 - - Foote, S. 228 - - Fox, Caroline. 295, 313, 361 - - Franklin. 135 - - Fuller, T. 172 - - - Galton, Sir F. 374 - - Gascoigne, G. 80, 321 - - Gibbon. 49 - - Gilder, R. W. 311 - - Gissing, G. 265, 292 - - Glover, T, R. 165 - - Goethe. 17, 136 - - Goldsmith, O. 139 - - Gordon, A. L. 360 - - Gosse, E. 128, 333, 338 - - Greek Anthology. 8, 9, 10, 11, 306 - - Gray, T. 109 - - - Hafiz. 63 - - Hardinge, W. M. 8 - - Hardy, T. 115 - - Harrison, Jane. 292 - - Hawthorne, N. 351 - - Heine, H. 222, 287 - - Helps, A. 54, 233 - - Herbert, G. 63, 306 - - Herodotus. 311, 333 - - Herrick, R. 73, 122, 239 - - Hilton, A. C. 49 - - Hobhouse, Professor. 165 - - Hodgson, R. 102, 104, 105, 108, 136, 207, 259, 267, 288, 340, 359 - - Holland, Lord. 359 - - Holmes, O. W. 59, 161, 240 - - Homer. 218 - - Hood, T. 30, 349 - - Horace. 19, 202, 325 - - Howe, Mrs. J. W. 240 - - Hugo, Victor. 59, 285, 321, 338 - - Hunt, Leigh. 252, 278 - - Hunter, W. A. 338 - - Huxley, T. H. 64, 134 - - - Irving, W. 165 - - Isocrates. 202 - - - James, W. 148, 165 - - Jefferies, R. 351 - - Jeffrey, Lord. 132 - - Jerome, St. xii - - Johnson, Dr. 178, 196 - - Jones, Sir W. 268 - - Jonson, Ben. 10, 178, 335, 339 - - - Kant, I. 349, 350 - - Keats, J. 118, 121, 125, 149, 160, 162, 166, 271, 303, 314 - - Keble, J. 55 - - Kinglake, A. W. 25 - - Kingsley, Chas. 47, 221, 232 - - Kipling, R. 7, 36, 194, 242, 244 - - Knight, E. F. 163 - - Knowles, F. L. 332 - - - Lamb, Chas. 36, 159, 312, 316 - - Landor, W. S. 59, 322, 325, 330 - - Lang, A. 90 - - Latimer, Bishop. 137 - - Lecky, W. E. H. 135 - - Le Gallienne, R. 53, 188 - - Leigh, H. S. 182, 253 - - Lessing. 250 - - Lichtenberg. 146 - - Lilly, W. S. 207 - - Lincoln, Abraham. 150, 306 - - Lind, Jenny. 261 - - Litany, Monkish. 309 - - Littledale, R. F. 123 - - Livingstone, R. W. 290 - - Locke, J. 179, 180, 226 - - Locker-Lampson, F. 289 - - Logia of Jesus. 331 - - Longfellow. 263, 280, 355 - - Lovelace, R. 321 - - Loveman, R. 350 - - Lowell, J. R. 2, 80, 91, 98, 113, 150, 229, 264, 268 - - Lowry, H. D. 29, 146, 253 - - Lyall, Sir A. 57, 110 - - Lynch, T. T. 52, 239 - - Lytton, Bulwer. 241 - - Lytton, Earl of. 70, 359 - - - Macaulay, Lord. 312 - - MacDonald, G. 40, 42, 63, 86, 169, 179, 212, 244, 269, 287 - - Macpherson, J. 231 - - Maine, Sir Henry. 101 - - Mangan, J. C. 131 - - Marlowe. 41 - - Marston, P. B. 53 - - Martial. 91, 183 - - Martineau, J. 15, 34, 51, 66, 83, 101, 140, 141, 257, 280, 303, 314 - - Masnair. 189 - - Mason, C. A. 282 - - Massey, G. 22, 125, 143, 253, 274, 315 - - Maule, W. H. 183 - - Melville, H. 286 - - Melville, G. S. Whyte-. 324 - - Menzies, P. S. 271 - - Meredith, George. 122, 213, 251, 258, 294, 302, 326 - - Meredith, Owen. 70, 359 - - Middleton, R. 136 - - Mill, J. S. 54 - - Milton. 139, 155, 211, 214, 311 - - Moasi. 351 - - Molière. 32, 341 - - Monod, A. 196 - - Montaigne. 114, 149, 229, 312 - - Montenaeken, L. 119 - - Moody, W. V. vii - - Moore, T. 181, 325, 358 - - Morris, Lewis. 16 - - Morris, W. 4, 30, 41, 60, 271, 275 - - Murray, Gilbert. 372, 374 - - Myers, F. W. H. 133, 150, 199, 205, 277, 316, 339, 340, 346, 363 - - - Naylor, H. D. 9, 10, 292 - - Neale, J. M. 263 - - Nicharchus. 306 - - Niebuhr. 214 - - Noel, Roden. 13 - - Novalis. 144, 149, 196, 202 - - - Oldys, W. 354 - - Oliphant, L. 178 - - Osler, W. 148 - - O’Sullivan, V. 319 - - Ouida. 214, 215 - - - Paine, Thomas. 6, 134, 196, 247 - - Pascal. 11, 293 - - Pater, W. 309 - - Patmore, Coventry. 147, 156, 242, 309 - - Paul, St. 134 - - Payne, J. 149, 162, 163, 295, 318 - - Percy. 156 - - Penn, William. 228 - - Phillips, J. 274 - - Phillips, S. 323 - - Piozzi, Mrs. 196 - - Plato. 129 - - Pliny. 215, 334 - - Plutarch. 175, 198, 250, 362, 370 - - Poe, E. A. 259 - - Pollock, Sir F. 221 - - Pope, A. 19, 91, 94, 148, 204, 249, 251, 256, 275 - - Praed, W. M. 206, 243, 356 - - Procter, B. W. (Barry Cornwall) 117 - - Proverbs. 39, 51, 184, 197, 257, 306, 361 - - Prowse, W. J. 174, 236 - - Puttenham, G. 356, 357 - - - Quarles, Francis. 1 - - Quiller-Couch, Sir A. 17 - - - Raleigh, Sir W. 233 - - Renan. 68 - - Richter, J. P. F. 72 - - Rogers, R. C. 307 - - Rogers, Samuel. 36, 105, 132 - - Rossetti, C. 27, 28, 58, 86, 161, 180 - - Rossetti, D. G. 12, 49, 79, 122, 135, 201, 248, 255, 324, 330 - - Ruskin, J. 132, 137, 159, 164, 192, 275, 283, 335, 370, 373 - - - Sadi. 277 - - Sand, George. 360 - - Sappho. 292 - - Sayce, A. H. 66 - - Schreiner, Olive. 96, 239, 251 - - Scott, Sir W. 69, 279 - - Scott, W. B. 337 - - Scotus Erigena. 42 - - Sears, E. H. 260 - - Seebohm, B. 96 - - Seeley, Sir J. R. 16, 95, 172, 267, 330 - - Selden. 90 - - Seneca. 12, 33, 295, 337 - - Shakespeare, W. viii, 27, 36, 72, 73, 102, 167, 184, 286, 302, 336 - - Shelley. 10, 73, 85, 107, 114, 173, 209, 210, 211, 214, 231, 239, - 279, 289, 361, 362 - - Shepherd, N. G. 34 - - Sidney, Sir Phillip. 159 - - Simonides. 290 - - Smith, Adam. 346 - - Smith, Alexander. 27, 78, 113, 158, 230, 264, 281, 347 - - Smith, S. C. Kaines. 368, 380 - - Smith, Sydney. 70, 78, 124, 227, 325 - - Smith, W. C. 96, 200, 258, 259, 345 - - Sophocles. 107 - - Spartianus. 238 - - Spenser, E. 25, 205 - - Spencer, Herbert. 101, 103, 291 - - Squire, J. C. 141 - - Sterling, John. 313 - - Sterne, L. 41, 100, 283, 307 - - Stephen, J. K. 131, 248 - - Stephens, J. B. 55 - - Stetson, C. P. 261, 359 - - Stevenson, R. L. 51, 81, 229, 255 - - Stowe, H. B. 144 - - Suckling, Sir John. 362 - - Swift, Jonathan. 72 - - Swinburne, A. C. 31, 42, 46, 78, 202, 216, 219, 220, 259, 274, - 341, 347 - - - Tabb, J. B. 85, 187, 316 - - Tacitus. 49 - - Tamerlane. 338 - - Taylor, Jeremy. 197, 252 - - Tennyson, A. x, 85, 129, 136, 139, 156, 199, 250, 263, 270, 278, - 282, 290, 302, 329, 352, 356 - - Thackeray. 62, 81, 130, 263, 266 - - Theobald, L. 337 - - Theocritus. 86 - - Thomas, E. M. 316 - - Thompson, Francis. 11, 93 - - Thomson, J. 95, 105, 166, 167, 225, 234 - - Thoreau, H. D. 344 - - Thucydides. 5 - - Trench, H. 82 - - Truman, J. 175 - - Turner, C. Tennyson. 327 - - Tupper, M. 115 - - Tyndall, J. 65 - - - Vaughan, H. 84, 203, 284 - - Vaughan, R. A. 188, 282 - - Verrall, A. W. 377 - - Verrall, Mrs. A. W. 194 - - Virgil. 107, 285 - - Voltaire. 32, 49, 160 - - - Waddington, S. 201, 348 - - Wallace, A. R. 280, 377 - - Waller, E. 72, 240 - - Walpole, H. 284 - - Warner, C. D. 201, 314, 345 - - Waterhouse, E. 142 - - Way, A, S. 372 - - Wesley, J. 320 - - Westbury, F. A. 28 - - Westwood, T. 62 - - White, J. Blanco. 252 - - Whitman, Walt. 360 - - Whittier, J. G. 3, 28, 142, 160, 195 - - Whyte-Melville, G. J. 324 - - Wilberforce, Bishop. 344 - - Williamson, F. S. 168 - - Wordsworth, W. 1, 29, 40, 45, 82, 90, 97, 109, 122, 125, 135, 138, - 146, 152, 164, 204, 211, 212, 223, 246, 248, 276, 278, 303, 340, - 350, 378 - - Wotton, Sir H. 232 - - - Xenophanes. 128 - - Xenophon. 292, 367 - - - Yeats, W. B. 345 - - Younghusband, Sir F. 178 - - - Zimmermann, J. G. 362 - - Zimmern, A. E. 374, 378 - -PRINTED BY BALDING AND MANSELL, LONDON AND WISBECH. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Commonplace Book, by Various - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY COMMONPLACE BOOK *** - -***** This file should be named 60637-0.txt or 60637-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/6/3/60637/ - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - |