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diff --git a/77244-0.txt b/77244-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..655e019 --- /dev/null +++ b/77244-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15930 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77244 *** + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + Transcriber’s Note: + +This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. +Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. + +Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are +referenced. + +This text includes both the ten essays in the ‘First Series’ and the +nine essays of the ‘Second Series’. The Table of Contents numbers them +consectively from I. to XIX. However the essay headings for the second +series retain their original numbering from I. to IX. There is no +distinguishing separation between the two series, save by that. The +headings have been retained as printed. + +Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please +see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding +the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation. + +[Illustration: MATTHEW ARNOLD.] + + + + + ESSAYS IN CRITICISM + +======================================================================== + + By MATTHEW ARNOLD + +------------------------------------------------------------------------- + + Author of “MEROPE: A TRAGEDY,” “THE POPULAR + EDUCATION OF FRANCE,” “CULTURE AND ANARCHY,” + “POEMS,” etc., etc. [leaf] [leaf] + [leaf] [leaf] + + + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + + + _FIRST AND SECOND SERIES COMPLETE_ + +======================================================================== + + A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER, 52-58 DUANE + STREET, NEW YORK [leaf] [leaf] [leaf] [leaf] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + PREFACE. + + (1865,) + + +Several of the Essays which are here collected and reprinted had the +good or the bad fortune to be much criticized at the time of their first +appearance. I am not now going to inflict upon the reader a reply to +those criticisms; for one or two explanations which are desirable, I +shall elsewhere, perhaps, be able some day to find an opportunity; but, +indeed, it is not in my nature,—some of my critics would rather say, not +in my power,—to dispute on behalf of any opinion, even my own, very +obstinately. To try and approach truth on one side after another, not to +strive or cry, nor to persist in pressing forward, on any one side, with +violence and self-will,—it is only thus, it seems to me, that mortals +may hope to gain any vision of the mysterious Goddess, whom we shall +never see except in outline, but only thus even in outline. He who will +do nothing but fight impetuously towards her on his own, one, favorite, +particular line, is inevitably destined to run his head into the folds +of the black robe in which she is wrapped. + +So it is not to reply to my critics that I write this preface, but to +prevent a misunderstanding, of which certain phrases that some of them +use make me apprehensive. Mr. Wright, one of the many translators of +Homer, has published a letter to the Dean of Canterbury, complaining of +some remarks of mine, uttered now a long while ago, on his version of +the _Iliad_. One cannot be always studying one’s own works, and I was +really under the impression, till I saw Mr. Wright’s complaint, that I +had spoken of him with all respect. The reader may judge of my +astonishment, therefore, at finding, from Mr. Wright’s pamphlet, that I +had “declared with much solemnity that there is not any proper reason +for his existing.” That I never said; but, on looking back at my +Lectures on translating Homer, I find that I did say, not that Mr. +Wright, but that Mr. Wright’s version of the _Iliad_, repeating in the +main the merits and defects of Cowper’s version, as Mr. Sotheby’s +repeated those of Pope’s version, had, if I might be pardoned for saying +so, no proper reason for existing. Elsewhere I expressly spoke of the +merit of his version; but I confess that the phrase, qualified as I have +shown, about its want of a proper reason for existing, I used. Well, the +phrase had, perhaps, too much vivacity; we have all of us a right to +exist, we and our works; an unpopular author should be the last person +to call in question this right. So I gladly withdraw the offending +phrase, and I am sorry for having used it; Mr. Wright, however, would +perhaps be more indulgent to my vivacity, if he considered that we are +none of us likely to be lively much longer. My vivacity is but the last +sparkle of flame before we are all in the dark, the last glimpse of +color before we all go into drab,—the drab of the earnest, prosaic, +practical, austerely literal future. Yes, the world will soon be the +Philistines’! and then, with every voice, not of thunder, silenced, and +the whole earth filled and ennobled every morning by the magnificent +roaring of the young lions of the _Daily Telegraph_, we shall all yawn +in one another’s faces with the dismallest, the most unimpeachable +gravity. + +But I return to my design in writing this Preface. That design was, +after apologizing to Mr. Wright for my vivacity of five years ago, to +beg him and others to let me bear my own burdens, without saddling the +great and famous University to which I have the honor to belong with any +portion of them. What I mean to deprecate is such phrases as, “his +professorial assault,” “his assertions issued _ex cathedrâ_,” “the +sanction of his name as the representative of poetry,” and so on. Proud +as I am of my connection with the University of Oxford,[1] I can truly +say, that knowing how unpopular a task one is undertaking when one tries +to pull out a few more stops in that powerful but at present somewhat +narrow-toned organ, the modern Englishman, I have always sought to stand +by myself, and to compromise others as little as possible. Besides this, +my native modesty is such, that I have always been shy of assuming the +honorable style of Professor, because this is a title I share with so +many distinguished men,—Professor Pepper, Professor Anderson, Professor +Frickel, and others,—who adorn it, I feel, much more than I do. + +Footnote 1: + + When the above was written the author had still the Chair of Poetry at + Oxford, which he has since vacated. + +However, it is not merely out of modesty that I prefer to stand alone, +and to concentrate on myself, as a plain citizen of the republic of +letters, and not as an office-bearer in a hierarchy, the whole +responsibility for all I write; it is much more out of genuine devotion +to the University of Oxford, for which I feel, and always must feel, the +fondest, the most reverential attachment. In an epoch of dissolution and +transformation, such as that on which we are now entered, habits, ties, +and associations are inevitably broken up, the action of individuals +becomes more distinct, the shortcomings, errors, heats, disputes, which +necessarily attend individual action, are brought into greater +prominence. Who would not gladly keep clear, from all these passing +clouds, an august institution which was there before they arose, and +which will be there when they have blown over? + +It is true, the _Saturday Review_ maintains that our epoch of +transformation is finished; that we have found our philosophy; that the +British nation has searched all anchorages for the spirit, and has +finally anchored itself, in the fulness of perfected knowledge, on +Benthamism. This idea at first made a great impression on me; not only +because it is so consoling in itself, but also because it explained a +phenomenon which in the summer of last year had, I confess, a good deal +troubled me. At that time my avocations led me travel almost daily on +one of the Great Eastern Lines,—the Woodford Branch. Every one knows +that the murderer, Müller, perpetrated his detestable act on the North +London Railway, close by. The English middle class, of which I am myself +a feeble unit, travel on the Woodford Branch in large numbers. Well, the +demoralization of our class,—the class which (the newspapers are +constantly saying it, so I may repeat it without vanity) has done all +the great things which have ever been done in England,—the +demoralization, I say, of our class, caused by the Bow tragedy, was +something bewildering. Myself a transcendentalist (as the _Saturday +Review_ knows), I escaped the infection; and, day after day, I used to +ply my agitated fellow-travelers with all the consolations which my +transcendentalism would naturally suggest to me. I reminded them how +Cæsar refused to take precautions against assassination, because life +was not worth having at the price of an ignoble solicitude for it. I +reminded them what insignificant atoms we all are in the life of the +world. “Suppose the worst to happen,” I said, addressing a portly +jeweler from Cheapside; “suppose even yourself to be the victim; _il n’y +a pas d’homme nécessaire_. We should miss you for a day or two upon the +Woodford Branch; but the great mundane movement would still go on, the +gravel walks of your villa would still be rolled, dividends would still +be paid at the Bank, omnibuses would still run, there would still be the +old crush at the corner of Fenchurch Street.” All was of no avail. +Nothing could moderate, in the bosom of the great English middle-class, +their passionate, absorbing, almost bloodthirsty clinging to life. At +the moment I thought this over-concern a little unworthy; but the +_Saturday Review_ suggests a touching explanation of it. What I took for +the ignoble clinging to life of a comfortable worldling, was, perhaps, +only the ardent longing of a faithful Benthamite, traversing an age +still dimmed by the last mists of transcendentalism, to be spared long +enough to see his religion in the full and final blaze of its triumph. +This respectable man, whom I imagined to be going up to London to serve +his shop, or to buy shares, or to attend an Exeter Hall meeting, or to +assist at the deliberations of the Marylebone Vestry, was even, perhaps, +in real truth, on a pious pilgrimage, to obtain from Mr. Bentham’s +executors a secret bone of his great, dissected master. + +And yet, after all, I cannot but think that the _Saturday Review_ has +here, for once, fallen a victim to an idea,—a beautiful but a deluding +idea,—and that the British nation has not yet, so entirely as the +reviewer seems to imagine, found the last word of its philosophy. No, we +are all seekers still! seekers often make mistakes, and I wish mine to +redound to my own discredit only, and not to touch Oxford. Beautiful +city! so venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual +life of our century, so serene! + + “There are our young barbarians, all at play!” + +And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the +moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the +Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps +ever calling us nearer to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to +perfection,—to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another +side?—nearer, perhaps, than all the science of Tübingen. Adorable +dreamer, whose heart has been so romantic! who hast given thyself so +prodigally, given thyself to sides and to heroes not mine, only never to +the Philistines! home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and +unpopular names, and impossible loyalties! what example could ever so +inspire us to keep down the Philistine in ourselves, what teacher could +ever so save us from that bondage to which we are all prone, that +bondage which Goethe, in his incomparable lines on the death of +Schiller, makes it his friend’s highest praise (and nobly did Schiller +deserve the praise) to have left miles out of sight behind him;—the +bondage of “=was uns alle bändigt, DAS GEMEINE!=” She will forgive me, +even if I have unwittingly drawn upon her a shot or two aimed at her +unworthy son; for she is generous, and the cause in which I fight is, +after all, hers. Apparitions of a day, what is our puny warfare against +the Philistines, compared with the warfare which this queen of romance +has been waging against them for centuries, and will wage after we are +gone? + + + + + CONTENTS. + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT TIME 1 + + II. THE LITERARY INFLUENCE OF ACADEMIES 31 + + III. MAURICE DE GUERIN 59 + + IV. EUGENIE DE GUERIN 89 + + V. HEINRICH HEINE 115 + + VI. PAGAN AND MEDIÆVAL RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 143 + + VII. A PERSIAN PASSION PLAY 164 + + VIII. JOUBERT 195 + + IX. SPINOZA AND THE BIBLE 226 + + X. MARCUS AURELIUS 253 + + XI. THE STUDY OF POETRY 279 + + XII. MILTON 308 + + XIII. THOMAS GRAY 315 + + XIV. JOHN KEATS 331 + + XV. WORDSWORTH 343 + + XVI. BYRON 364 + + XVII. SHELLEY 385 + + XVIII. COUNT LEO TOLSTOI 409 + + XIX. AMIEL 432 + + + + + ESSAYS IN CRITICISM. + + + -------------- + + + I. + THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT + TIME. + + +Many objections have been made to a proposition which, in some remarks +of mine on translating Homer, I ventured to put forth; a proposition +about criticism, and its importance at the present day. I said: “Of the +literature of France and Germany, as of the intellect of Europe in +general, the main effort, for now many years, has been a critical +effort; the endeavor, in all branches of knowledge, theology, +philosophy, history, art, science, to see the object as in itself it +really is.” I added, that owing to the operation in English literature +of certain causes, “almost the last thing for which one would come to +English literature is just that very thing which now Europe most +desires,—criticism;” and that the power and value of English literature +was thereby impaired. More than one rejoinder declared that the +importance I here assigned to criticism was excessive, and asserted the +inherent superiority of the creative effort of the human spirit over its +critical effort. And the other day, having been led by a Mr. Shairp’s +excellent notice of Wordsworth[2] to turn again to his biography, I +found, in the words of this great man, whom I, for one, must always +listen to with the profoundest respect, a sentence passed on the +critic’s business, which seems to justify every possible disparagement +of it. Wordsworth says in one of his letters:— + +“The writers in these publications” (the Reviews), “while they prosecute +their inglorious employment, cannot be supposed to be in a state of mind +very favorable for being affected by the finer influences of a thing so +pure as genuine poetry.” + +And a trustworthy reporter of his conversation quotes a more elaborate +judgment to the same effect:— + +“Wordsworth holds the critical power very low, infinitely lower than the +inventive; and he said to-day that if the quantity of time consumed in +writing critiques on the works of others were given to original +composition, of whatever kind it might be, it would be much better +employed; it would make a man find out sooner his own level, and it +would do infinitely less mischief. A false or malicious criticism may do +much injury to the minds of others, a stupid invention, either in prose +or verse, is quite harmless.” + +Footnote 2: + + I cannot help thinking that a practice, common in England during the + last century, and still followed in France, of printing a notice of + this kind,—a notice by a competent critic,—to serve as an introduction + to an eminent author’s works, might be revived among us with + advantage. To introduce all succeeding editions of Wordsworth, Mr. + Shairp’s notice might, it seems to me, excellently serve; it is + written from the point of view of an admirer, nay, of a disciple, and + that is right; but then the disciple must be also, as in this case he + is, a critic, a man of letters, not, as too often happens, some + relation or friend with no qualification for his task except affection + for his author. + +It is almost too much to expect of poor human nature, that a man capable +of producing some effect in one line of literature, should, for the +greater good of society, voluntarily doom himself to impotence and +obscurity in another. Still less is this to be expected from men +addicted to the composition of the “false or malicious criticism” of +which Wordsworth speaks. However, everybody would admit that a false or +malicious criticism had better never have been written. Everybody, too, +would be willing to admit, as a general proposition, that the critical +faculty is lower than the inventive. But is it true that criticism is +really, in itself, a baneful and injurious employment; is it true that +all time given to writing critiques on the works of others would be much +better employed if it were given to original composition, of whatever +kind this may be? Is it true that Johnson had better have gone on +producing more _Irenes_ instead of writing his _Lives of the Poets_; +nay, is it certain that Wordsworth himself was better employed in making +his Ecclesiastical Sonnets than when he made his celebrated Preface, so +full of criticism, and criticism of the works of others? Wordsworth was +himself a great critic, and it is to be sincerely regretted that he has +not left us more criticism; Goethe was one of the greatest of critics, +and we may sincerely congratulate ourselves that he has left us so much +criticism. Without wasting time over the exaggeration which Wordsworth’s +judgment on criticism clearly contains, or over an attempt to trace the +causes,—not difficult, I think, to be traced,—which may have led +Wordsworth to this exaggeration, a critic may with advantage seize an +occasion for trying his own conscience, and for asking himself of what +real service at any given moment the practice of criticism either is or +may be made to his own mind and spirit, and to the minds and spirits of +others. + +The critical power is of lower rank than the creative. True; but in +assenting to this proposition, one or two things are to be kept in mind. +It is undeniable that the exercise of a creative power, that a free +creative activity, is the highest function of man; it is proved to be so +by man’s finding in it his true happiness. But it is undeniable, also, +that men may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity in +other ways than in producing great works of literature or art; if it +were not so, all but a very few men would be shut out from the true +happiness of all men. They may have it in well-doing, they may have it +in learning, they may have it even in criticizing. This is one thing to +be kept in mind. Another is, that the exercise of the creative power in +the production of great works of literature or art, however high this +exercise of it may rank, is not at all epochs and under all conditions +possible; and that therefore labor may be vainly spent in attempting it, +which might with more fruit be used in preparing for it, in rendering it +possible. This creative power works with elements, with materials; what +if it has not those materials, those elements, ready for its use? In +that case it must surely wait till they are ready. Now, in literature,—I +will limit myself to literature, for it is about literature that the +question arises,—the elements with which the creative power works are +ideas; the best ideas on every matter which literature touches, current +at the time. At any rate we may lay it down as certain that in modern +literature no manifestation of the creative power not working with these +can be very important or fruitful. And I say _current_ at the time, not +merely accessible at the time; for creative literary genius does not +principally show itself in discovering new ideas, that is rather the +business of the philosopher. The grand work of literary genius is a work +of synthesis and exposition, not of analysis and discovery; its gift +lies in the faculty of being happily inspired by a certain intellectual +and spiritual atmosphere, by a certain order of ideas, when it finds +itself in them; of dealing divinely with these ideas, presenting them in +the most effective and attractive combinations,—making beautiful works +with them, in short. But it must have the atmosphere, it must find +itself amidst the order of ideas, in order to work freely; and these it +is not so easy to command. This is why great creative epochs in +literature are so rare, this is why there is so much that is +unsatisfactory in the productions of many men of real genius; because, +for the creation of a master-work of literature two powers must concur, +the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not +enough without the moment; the creative power has, for its happy +exercise, appointed elements, and those elements are not in its own +control. + +Nay, they are more within the control of the critical power. It is the +business of the critical power, as I said in the words already quoted, +“in all branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, +science, to see the object as in itself it really is.” Thus it tends, at +last, to make an intellectual situation of which the creative power can +profitably avail itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not +absolutely true, yet true by comparison with that which it displaces; to +make the best ideas prevail. Presently these new ideas reach society, +the touch of truth is the touch of life, and there is a stir and growth +everywhere; out of this stir and growth come the creative epochs of +literature. + +Or, to narrow our range, and quit these considerations of the general +march of genius and of society,—considerations which are apt to become +too abstract and impalpable,—every one can see that a poet, for +instance, ought to know life and the world before dealing with them in +poetry; and life and the world being in modern times very complex +things, the creation of a modern poet, to be worth much, implies a great +critical effort behind it; else it must be a comparatively poor, barren, +and short-lived affair. This is why Byron’s poetry had so little +endurance in it, and Goethe’s so much; both Byron and Goethe had a great +productive power, but Goethe’s was nourished by a great critical effort +providing the true materials for it, and Byron’s was not; Goethe knew +life and the world, the poet’s necessary subjects, much more +comprehensively and thoroughly than Byron. He knew a great deal more of +them, and he knew them much more as they really are. + +It has long seemed to me that the burst of creative activity in our +literature, through the first quarter of this century, had about it in +fact something premature; and that from this cause its productions are +doomed, most of them, in spite of the sanguine hopes which accompanied +and do still accompany them to prove hardly more lasting than the +productions of far less splendid epochs. And this prematureness comes +from its having proceeded without having its proper data, without +sufficient materials to work with. In other words, the English poetry of +the first quarter of this century, with plenty of energy, plenty of +creative force, did not know enough. This makes Byron so empty of +matter, Shelley so incoherent, Wordsworth even, profound as he is, yet +so wanting in completeness and variety. Wordsworth cared little for +books, and disparaged Goethe. I admire Wordsworth, as he is, so much +that I cannot wish him different; and it is vain, no doubt, to imagine +such a man different from what he is, to suppose that he _could_ have +been different. But surely the one thing wanting to make Wordsworth an +even greater poet than he is,—his thought richer, and his influence of +wider application,—was that he should have read more books, among them, +no doubt, those of that Goethe whom he disparaged without reading him. + +But to speak of books and reading may easily lead to a misunderstanding +here. It was not really books and reading that lacked to our poetry at +this epoch; Shelley had plenty of reading, Coleridge had immense +reading. Pindar and Sophocles—as we all say so glibly, and often with so +little discernment of the real import of what we are saying—had not many +books; Shakespeare was no deep reader. True; but in the Greece of Pindar +and Sophocles, in the England of Shakespeare, the poet lived in a +current of ideas in the highest degree animating and nourishing to the +creative power; society was, in the fullest measure, permeated by fresh +thought, intelligent and alive. And this state of things is the true +basis for the creative power’s exercise, in this it finds its data, its +materials, truly ready for its hand; all the books and reading in the +world are only valuable as they are helps to this. Even when this does +not actually exist, books and reading may enable a man to construct a +kind of semblance of it in his own mind, a world of knowledge and +intelligence in which he may live and work. This is by no means an +equivalent to the artist for the nationally diffused life and thought of +the epochs of Sophocles or Shakespeare; but, besides that it may be a +means of preparation for such epochs, it does really constitute, if many +share in it, a quickening and sustaining atmosphere of great value. Such +an atmosphere the many-sided learning and the long and widely-combined +critical effort of Germany formed for Goethe, when he lived and worked. +There was no national glow of life and thought there as in the Athens of +Pericles or the England of Elizabeth. That was the poet’s weakness. But +there was a sort of equivalent for it in the complete culture and +unfettered thinking of a large body of Germans. That was his strength. +In the England of the first quarter of this century there was neither a +national glow of life and thought, such as we had in the age of +Elizabeth, nor yet a culture and a force of learning and criticism such +as were to be found in Germany. Therefore the creative power of poetry +wanted, for success in the highest sense, materials and a basis; a +thorough interpretation of the world was necessarily denied to it. + +At first sight it seems strange that out of the immense stir of the +French Revolution and its age should not have come a crop of works of +genius equal to that which came out of the stir of the great productive +time of Greece, or out of that of the Renascence, with its powerful +episode the Reformation. But the truth is that the stir of the French +Revolution took a character which essentially distinguished it from such +movements as these. These were, in the main, disinterestedly +intellectual and spiritual movements; movements in which the human +spirit looked for its satisfaction in itself and in the increased play +of its own activity. The French Revolution took a political, practical +character. The movement, which went on in France under the old _régime_ +from 1700 to 1789, was far more really akin than that of the Revolution +itself to the movement of the Renascence; the France of Voltaire and +Rousseau told far more powerfully upon the mind of Europe than the +France of the Revolution. Goethe reproached this last expressly with +having “thrown quiet culture back.” Nay, and the true key to how much in +our Byron, even in our Wordsworth, is this!—that they had their source +in a great movement of feeling, not in a great movement of mind. The +French Revolution, however,—that object of so much blind love and so +much blind hatred,—found undoubtedly its motive-power in the +intelligence of men, and not in their practical sense; this is what +distinguishes it from the English Revolution of Charles the First’s +time. This is what makes it a more spiritual event than our Revolution, +an event of much more powerful and world-wide interest, though +practically less successful; it appeals to an order of ideas which are +universal, certain, permanent. 1789 asked of a thing, Is it rational? +1642 asked of a thing, Is it legal? or, when it went furthest, Is it +according to conscience? This is the English fashion, a fashion to be +treated, within its own sphere, with the highest respect; for its +success, within its own sphere, has been prodigious. But what is law in +one place is not law in another; what is law here to-day is not law even +here to-morrow; and as for conscience, what is binding on one man’s +conscience is not binding on another’s. The old woman who threw her +stool at the head of the surpliced minister in St. Giles’s Church at +Edinburgh obeyed an impulse to which millions of the human race may be +permitted to remain strangers. But the prescriptions of reason are +absolute, unchanging, of universal validity; _to count by tens is the +easiest way of counting_—that is a proposition of which every one, from +here to the Antipodes, feels the force; at least I should say so if we +did not live in a country where it is not impossible that any morning we +may find a letter in the _Times_ declaring that a decimal coinage is an +absurdity. That a whole nation should have been penetrated with an +enthusiasm for pure reason, and with an ardent zeal for making its +prescriptions triumph, is a very remarkable thing, when we consider how +little of mind, or anything so worthy and quickening as mind, comes into +the motives which alone, in general, impel great masses of men. In spite +of the extravagant direction given to this enthusiasm, in spite of the +crimes and follies in which it lost itself, the French Revolution +derives from the force, truth, and universality of the ideas which it +took for its law, and from the passion with which it could inspire a +multitude for these ideas, a unique and still living power; it is—it +will probably long remain—the greatest, the most animating event in +history. And as no sincere passion for the things of the mind, even +though it turn out in many respects an unfortunate passion, is ever +quite thrown away and quite barren of good, France has reaped from tiers +one fruit—the natural and legitimate fruit though not precisely the +grand fruit she expected: she is the country in Europe where _the +people_ is most alive. + +But the mania for giving an immediate political and practical +application to all these fine ideas of the reason was fatal. Here an +Englishman is in his element: on this theme we can all go on for hours. +And all we are in the habit of saying on it has undoubtedly a great deal +of truth. Ideas cannot be too much prized in and for themselves cannot +be too much lived with; but to transport them abruptly into the world of +politics, and practice, violently to revolutionize this world to their +bidding,—that is quite another thing. There is the world of ideas and +there is the world of practice; the French are often for suppressing the +one and the English the other; but neither is to be suppressed. A member +of the House of Commons said to me the other day: “That a thing is an +anomaly, I consider to be no objection to it whatever.” I venture to +think he was wrong; that a thing is an anomaly _is_ an objection to it, +but absolutely and in the sphere of ideas: it is not necessarily, under +such and such circumstances, or at such and such a moment, an objection +to it in the sphere of politics and practice. Joubert has said +beautifully: “C’est la force et le droit qui règlent toutes choses dans +le monde; la force en attendant le droit.” (Force and right are the +governors of this world; force till right is ready.) _Force till right +is ready_; and till right is ready, force, the existing order of things, +is justified, is the legitimate ruler. But right is something moral, and +implies inward recognition, free assent of the will; we are not ready +for right,—_right_, so far as we are concerned, _is not ready_,—until we +have attained this sense of seeing it and willing it. The way in which +for us it may change and transform force, the existing order of things, +and become, in its turn, the legitimate ruler of the world, should +depend on the way in which, when our time comes, we see it and will it. +Therefore for other people enamored of their own newly discerned right, +to attempt to impose it upon us as ours, and violently to substitute +their right for our force, is an act of tyranny, and to be resisted. It +sets at naught the second great half of our maxim, _force till right is +ready_. This was the grand error of the French Revolution; and its +movement of ideas, by quitting the intellectual sphere and rushing +furiously into the political sphere, ran, indeed, a prodigious and +memorable course, but produced no such intellectual fruit as the +movement of ideas of the Renascence, and created, in opposition to +itself, what I may call an _epoch of concentration_. The great force of +that epoch of concentration was England; and the great voice of that +epoch of concentration was Burke. It is the fashion to treat Burke’s +writings on the French Revolution as superannuated and conquered by the +event; as the eloquent but unphilosophical tirades of bigotry and +prejudice. I will not deny that they are often disfigured by the +violence and passion of the moment, and that in some directions Burke’s +view was bounded, and his observation therefore at fault. But on the +whole, and for those who can make the needful corrections, what +distinguishes these writings is their profound, permanent, fruitful, +philosophical truth. They contain the true philosophy of an epoch of +concentration, dissipate the heavy atmosphere which its own nature is +apt to engender round it, and make its resistance rational instead of +mechanical. + +But Burke is so great because, almost alone in England, he brings +thought to bear upon politics, he saturates politics with thought. It is +his accident that his ideas were at the service of an epoch of +concentration, not of an epoch of expansion; it is his characteristic +that he so lived by ideas, and had such a source of them welling up +within him, that he could float even an epoch of concentration and +English Tory politics with them. It does not hurt him that Dr. Price and +the Liberals were enraged with him; it does not even hurt him that +George the Third and the Tories were enchanted with him. His greatness +is that he lived in a world which neither English Liberalism nor English +Toryism is apt to enter;—the world of ideas, not the world of catchwords +and party habits. So far is it from being really true of him that he “to +party gave up what was meant for mankind,” that at the very end of his +fierce struggle with the French Revolution, after all his invectives +against its false pretensions, hollowness, and madness, with his sincere +conviction of its mischievousness, he can close a memorandum on the best +means of combating it, some of the last pages he ever wrote,—the +_Thoughts on French Affairs_, in December 1791,—with these striking +words:— + +“The evil is stated, in my opinion, as it exists. The remedy must be +where power, wisdom, and information, I hope, are more united with good +intentions than they can be with me. I have done with this subject, I +believe, forever. It has given me many anxious moments for the last two +years. _If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of +men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw +that way. Every fear, every hope will forward it; and then they who +persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear +rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs +of men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and +obstinate._” + +That return of Burke upon himself has always seemed to me one of the +finest things in English literature, or indeed in any literature. That +is what I call living by ideas: when one side of a question has long had +your earnest support, when all your feelings are engaged, when you hear +all around you no language but one, when your party talks this language +like a steam-engine and can imagine no other,—still to be able to think, +still to be irresistibly carried, if so it be, by the current of thought +to the opposite side of the question, and, like Balaam, to be unable to +speak anything _but what the Lord has put in your mouth_. I know nothing +more striking, and I must add that I know nothing more un-English. + +For the Englishman in general is like my friend the Member of +Parliament, and believes, point-blank, that for a thing to be an anomaly +is absolutely no objection to it whatever. He is like the Lord Auckland +of Burke’s day, who, in a memorandum on the French Revolution, talks of +“certain miscreants, assuming the name of philosophers, who have +presumed themselves capable of establishing a new system of society.” +The Englishman has been called a political animal, and he values what is +political and practical so much that ideas easily become objects of +dislike in his eyes, and thinkers “miscreants,” because ideas and +thinkers have rashly meddled with politics and practice. This would be +all very well if the dislike and neglect confined themselves to ideas +transported out of their own sphere, and meddling rashly with practice; +but they are inevitably extended to ideas as such, and to the whole life +of intelligence; practice is everything, a free play of the mind is +nothing. The notion of the free play of the mind upon all subjects being +a pleasure in itself, being an object of desire, being an essential +provider of elements without which a nation’s spirit, whatever +compensations it may have for them, must, in the long run, die of +inanition, hardly enters into an Englishman’s thoughts. It is noticeable +that the word _curiosity_, which in other languages is used in a good +sense, to mean, as a high and fine quality of man’s nature, just this +disinterested love of a free play of the mind on all subjects, for its +own sake,—it is noticeable, I say, that this word has in our language no +sense of the kind, no sense but a rather bad and disparaging one. But +criticism, real criticism is essentially the exercise of this very +quality. It obeys an instinct prompting it to try to know the best that +is known and thought in the world, irrespectively of practice, politics, +and everything of the kind; and to value knowledge and thought as they +approach this best, without the intrusion of any other considerations +whatever. This is an instinct for which there is, I think, little +original sympathy in the practical English nature, and what there was of +it has undergone a long benumbing period of blight and suppression in +the epoch of concentration which followed the French Revolution. + +But epochs of concentration cannot well endure forever; epochs of +expansion, in the due course of things, follow them. Such an epoch of +expansion seems to be opening in this country. In the first place all +danger of a hostile forcible pressure of foreign ideas upon our practice +has long disappeared; like the traveler in the fable, therefore, we +begin to wear our cloak a little more loosely. Then, with a long peace, +the ideas of Europe steal gradually and amicably in, and mingle, though +in infinitesimally small quantities at a time, with our own notions. +Then, too, in spite of all that is said about the absorbing and +brutalizing influence of our passionate material progress, it seems to +me indisputable that this progress is likely, though not certain, to +lead in the end to an apparition of intellectual life; and that man, +after he has made himself perfectly comfortable and has now to determine +what to do with himself next, may begin to remember that he has a mind, +and that the mind may be made the source of great pleasure. I grant it +is mainly the privilege of faith, at present, to discern this end to our +railways, our business, and our fortune-making; but we shall see if, +here as elsewhere, faith is not in the end the true prophet. Our ease, +our traveling, and our unbounded liberty to hold just as hard and +securely as we please to the practice to which our notions have given +birth, all tend to beget an inclination to deal a little more freely +with these notions themselves, to canvass them a little, to penetrate a +little into their real nature. Flutterings of curiosity, in the foreign +sense of the word, appear amongst us, and it is in these that criticism +must look to find its account. Criticism first; a time of true creative +activity, perhaps,—which, as I have said, must inevitably be preceded +amongst us by a time of criticism,—hereafter, when criticism has done +its work. + +It is of the last importance that English criticism should clearly +discern what rule for its course, in order to avail itself of the field +now opening to it, and to produce fruit for the future, it ought to +take. The rule may be summed up in one word,—_disinterestedness_. And +how is criticism to show disinterestedness? By keeping aloof from what +is called “the practical view of things;” by resolutely following the +law of its own nature, which is to be a free play of the mind on all +subjects which it touches. By steadily refusing to lend itself to any of +those ulterior, political, practical considerations about ideas, which +plenty of people will be sure to attach to them, which perhaps ought +often to be attached to them, which in this country at any rate are +certain to be attached to them quite sufficiently, but which criticism +has really nothing to do with. Its business is, as I have said, simply +to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its +turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas. Its +business is to do this with inflexible honesty, with due ability; but +its business is to do no more, and to leave alone all questions of +practical consequences and applications, questions which will never fail +to have due prominence given to them. Else criticism, besides being +really false to its own nature, merely continues in the old rut which it +has hitherto followed in this country, and will certainly miss the +chance now given to it. For what is at present the bane of criticism in +this country? It is that practical considerations cling to it and stifle +it. It subserves interests not its own. Our organs of criticism are +organs of men and parties having practical ends to serve, and with them +those practical ends are the first thing and the play of mind the +second; so much play of mind as is compatible with the prosecution of +those practical ends is all that is wanted. An organ like the _Révue des +Deux Mondes_, having for its main function to understand and utter the +best that is known and thought in the world, existing, it may be said, +as just an organ for a free play of the mind, we have not. But we have +the _Edinburgh Review_, existing as an organ of the old Whigs, and for +as much play of the mind as may suit its being that; we have the +_Quarterly Review_, existing as an organ of the Tories, and for as much +play of mind as may suit its being that; we have the _British Quarterly +Review_, existing as an organ of the political Dissenters, and for as +much play of mind as may suit its being that; we have the _Times_, +existing as an organ of the common, satisfied, well-to-do Englishman, +and for as much play of mind as may suit its being that. And so on +through all the various fractions, political and religious, of our +society; every fraction has, as such, its organ of criticism, but the +notion of combining all fractions in the common pleasure of a free +disinterested play of mind meets with no favor. Directly this play of +mind wants to have more scope, and to forget the pressure of practical +considerations a little, it is checked, it is made to feel the chain. We +saw this the other day in the extinction, so much to be regretted, of +the _Home and Foreign Review_. Perhaps in no organ of criticism in this +country was there so much knowledge, so much play of mind; but these +could not save it. The _Dublin Review_ subordinates play of mind to the +practical business of English and Irish Catholicism, and lives. It must +needs be that men should act in sects and parties, that each of these +sects and parties should have its organ, and should make this organ +subserve the interests of its action; but it would be well, too, that +there should be a criticism, not the minister of these interests, not +their enemy, but absolutely and entirely independent of them. No other +criticism will ever attain any real authority or make any real way +towards its end,—the creating a current of true and fresh ideas. + +It is because criticism has so little kept in the pure intellectual +sphere, has so little detached itself from practice, has been so +directly polemical and controversial, that it has so ill accomplished, +in this country, its best spiritual work; which is to keep man from a +self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarizing, to lead him +towards perfection, by making his mind dwell upon what is excellent in +itself, and the absolute beauty and fitness of things. A polemical +practical criticism makes men blind even to the ideal imperfection of +their practice, makes them willingly assert its ideal perfection, in +order the better to secure it against attack: and clearly this is +narrowing and baneful for them. If they were reassured on the practical +side, speculative considerations of ideal perfection they might be +brought to entertain, and their spiritual horizon would thus gradually +widen. Sir Charles Adderly says to the Warwickshire farmers: + +“Talk of the improvement of breed! Why, the race we ourselves represent, +the men and women, the old Anglo-Saxon race, are the best breed in the +whole world.... The absence of a too enervating climate, too unclouded +skies, and a too luxurious nature, has produced so vigorous a race of +people and has rendered us so superior to all the world.” + +Mr. Roebuck says to the Sheffield cutlers: + +“I look around me and ask what is the state of England? Is not property +safe? Is not every man able to say what he likes? Can you not walk from +one end of England to the other in perfect security? I ask you whether, +the world over or in past history, there is anything like it? Nothing. I +pray that our unrivaled happiness may last.” + +Now obviously there is a peril for poor human nature in words and +thoughts of such exuberant self-satisfaction, until we find ourselves +safe in the streets of the Celestial City. + + “Das wenige verschwindet leicht dem Blicke + Der vorwärts sieht, wie viel noch übrig bleibt—” + +says Goethe; “the little that is done seems nothing when we look forward +and see how much we have yet to do.” Clearly this is a better line of +reflection for weak humanity, so long as it remains on this earthly +field of labor and trial. + +But neither Sir Charles Adderley nor Mr. Roebuck is by nature +inaccessible to considerations of this sort. They only lose sight of +them owing to the controversial life we all lead, and the practical form +which all speculation takes with us. They have in view opponents whose +aim is not ideal, but practical; and in their zeal to uphold their own +practice against these innovators, they go so far as even to attribute +to this practice an ideal perfection. Somebody has been wanting to +introduce a six-pound franchise, or to abolish church-rates, or to +collect agricultural statistics by force, or to diminish local +self-government. How natural, in reply to such proposals, very likely +improper or ill-timed, to go a little beyond the mark and to say +stoutly, “Such a race of people as we stand, so superior to all the +world! The old Anglo-Saxon race, the best breed in the whole world! I +pray that our unrivaled happiness may last! I ask you whether, the world +over or in past history, there is anything like it?” And so long as +criticism answers this dithyramb by insisting that the old Anglo-Saxon +race would be still more superior to all others if it had no +church-rates, or that our unrivaled happiness would last yet longer with +a six-pound franchise, so long will the strain, “The best breed in the +whole world!” swell louder and louder, everything ideal and refining +will be lost out of sight, and both the assailed and their critics will +remain in a sphere, to say the truth, perfectly unvital, a sphere in +which spiritual progression is impossible. But let criticism leave +church-rates and the franchise alone, and in the most candid spirit, +without a single lurking thought of practical innovation, confront with +our dithyramb this paragraph on which I stumbled in a newspaper +immediately after reading Mr. Roebuck:— + +“A shocking child murder has just been committed at Nottingham. A girl +named Wragg left the workhouse there on Saturday morning with her young +illegitimate child. The child was soon afterwards found dead on Mapperly +Hills, having been strangled. Wragg is in custody.” + +Nothing but that; but, in juxtaposition with the absolute eulogies of +Sir Charles Adderley and Mr. Roebuck, how eloquent, how suggestive are +those few lines! “Our old Anglo-Saxon breed, the best in the whole +world!”—how much that is harsh and ill-favored there is in this best! +_Wragg!_ If we are to talk of ideal perfection, of “the best in the +whole world,” has any one reflected what a touch of grossness in our +race, what an original shortcoming in the more delicate spiritual +perceptions, is shown by the natural growth amongst us of such hideous +names,—Higginbottom, Stiggins, Bugg! In Ionia and Attica they were +luckier in this respect than “the best race in the world;” by the +Ilissus there was no Wragg, poor thing! And “our unrivaled +happiness;”—what an element of grimness, bareness, and hideousness mixes +with it and blurs it; the workhouse, the dismal Mapperly Hills,—how +dismal those who have seen them will remember;—the gloom, the smoke, the +cold, the strangled illegimate child! “I ask you whether, the world over +or in past history, there is anything like it?” Perhaps not, one is +inclined to answer; but at any rate, in that case, the world is very +much to be pitied. And the final touch,—short, bleak and inhuman: _Wragg +is in custody_. The sex lost in the confusion of our unrivaled +happiness; or (shall I say?) the superfluous Christian name lopped off +by the straightforward vigor of our old Anglo-Saxon breed! There is +profit for the spirit in such contrasts as this; criticism serves the +cause of perfection by establishing them. By eluding sterile conflict, +by refusing to remain in the sphere where alone narrow and relative +conceptions have any worth and validity, criticism may diminish its +momentary importance, but only in this way has it a chance of gaining +admittance for those wider and more perfect conceptions to which all its +duty is really owed. Mr. Roebuck will have a poor opinion of an +adversary who replies to his defiant songs of triumph only by murmuring +under his breath, _Wragg is in custody_; but in no other way will these +songs of triumph be induced gradually to moderate themselves, to get rid +of what in them is excessive and offensive, and to fall into a softer +and truer key. + +It will be said that it is a very subtle and indirect action which I am +thus prescribing for criticism, and that, by embracing in this manner +the Indian virtue of detachment and abandoning the sphere of practical +life, it condemns itself to a slow and obscure work. Slow and obscure it +may be, but it is the only proper work of criticism. The mass of mankind +will never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as they are; very +inadequate ideas will always satisfy them. On these inadequate ideas +reposes, and must repose, the general practice of the world. That is as +much as saying that whoever sets himself to see things as they are will +find himself one of a very small circle; but it is only by this small +circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever get +current at all. The rush and roar of practical life will always have a +dizzying and attracting effect upon the most collected spectator, and +tend to draw him into its vortex; most of all will this be the case +where that life is so powerful as it is in England. But it is only by +remaining collected, and refusing to lend himself to the point of view +of the practical man, that the critic can do the practical man any +service; and it is only by the greatest sincerity in pursuing his own +course, and by at last convincing even the practical man of his +sincerity, that he can escape misunderstandings which perpetually +threaten him. + +For the practical man is not apt for fine distinctions, and yet in these +distinctions truth and the highest culture greatly find their account. +But it is not easy to lead a practical man,—unless you reassure him as +to your practical intentions, you have no chance of leading him,—to see +that a thing which he has always been used to look at from one side +only, which he greatly values, and which, looked at from that side, +quite deserves, perhaps, all the prizing and admiring which he bestows +upon it,—that this thing, looked at from another side, may appear much +less beneficent and beautiful, and yet retain all its claims to our +practical allegiance. Where shall we find language innocent enough, how +shall we make the spotless purity of our intentions evident enough, to +enable us to say to the political Englishman that the British +Constitution itself, which, seen from the practical side, looks such a +magnificent organ of progress and virtue, seen from the speculative +side,—with its compromises, its love of facts, its horror of theory, its +studied avoidance of clear thoughts,—that, seen from this side, our +august Constitution sometimes looks,—forgive me, shade of Lord Somers!—a +colossal machine for the manufacture of Philistines? How is Cobbett to +say this and not be misunderstood, blackened as he is with the smoke of +a lifelong conflict in the field of political practice? how is Mr. +Carlyle to say it and not be misunderstood, after his furious raid into +this field with his _Latter-day Pamphlets_? how is Mr. Ruskin, after his +pugnacious political economy? I say, the critic must keep out of the +region of immediate practice in the political, social, humanitarian +sphere, if he wants to make a beginning for that more free speculative +treatment of things, which may perhaps one day make its benefits felt +even in this sphere, but in a natural and thence irresistible manner. + +Do what he will, however, the critic will still remain exposed to +frequent misunderstandings, and nowhere so much as in this country. For +here people are particularly indisposed even to comprehend that without +this free disinterested treatment of things, truth and the highest +culture are out of the question. So immersed are they in practical life, +so accustomed to take all their notions from this life and its +processes, that they are apt to think that truth and culture themselves +can be reached by the processes of this life, and that it is an +impertinent singularity to think of reaching them in any other. “We are +all _terræ filii_,” cries their eloquent advocate; “all Philistines +together. Away with the notion of proceeding by any other course than +the course dear to the Philistines; let us have a social movement, let +us organize and combine a party to pursue truth and new thought, let us +call it _the liberal party_, and let us all stick to each other, and +back each other up. Let us have no nonsense about independent criticism, +and intellectual delicacy, and the few and the many. Don’t let us +trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shall invent the whole thing +for ourselves as we go along. If one of us speaks well, applaud him; if +one of us speaks ill, applaud him too; we are all in the same movement, +we are all liberals, we are all in pursuit of truth.” In this way the +pursuit of truth becomes really a social, practical, pleasurable affair, +almost requiring a chairman, a secretary, and advertisements; with the +excitement of an occasional scandal, with a little resistance to give +the happy sense of difficulty overcome; but, in general, plenty of +bustle and very little thought. To act is so easy, as Goethe says; to +think is so hard! It is true that the critic has many temptations to go +with the stream, to make one of the party movement, one of these _terræ +filii_; it seems ungracious to refuse to be a _terræ filius_, when so +many excellent people are; but the critic’s duty is to refuse, or, if +resistance is vain, at least to cry with Obermann: _Périssons en +résistant_. + +How serious a matter it is to try and resist, I had ample opportunity of +experiencing when I ventured some time ago to criticize the celebrated +first volume of Bishop Colenso.[3] The echoes of the storm which was +then raised I still, from time to time, hear grumbling around me. That +storm arose out of a misunderstanding almost inevitable. It is a result +of no little culture to attain to a clear perception that science and +religion are two wholly different things. The multitude will for ever +confuse them; but happily that is of no great real importance, for while +the multitude imagines itself to live by its false science, it does +really live by its true religion. Dr. Colenso, however, in his first +volume did all he could to strengthen the confusion,[4] and to make it +dangerous. He did this with the best intentions, I freely admit, and +with the most candid ignorance that this was the natural effect of what +he was doing; but, says Joubert, “Ignorance, which in matters of morals +extenuates the crime, is itself, in intellectual matters, a crime of the +first order.” I criticized Bishop Colenso’s speculative confusion. +Immediately there was a cry raised: “What is this? here is a liberal +attacking a liberal. Do not you belong to the movement? are not you a +friend of truth? Is not Bishop Colenso in pursuit of truth? then speak +with proper respect of his book. Dr. Stanley is another friend of truth, +and you speak with proper respect of his book; why make these invidious +differences? both books are excellent, admirable, liberal; Bishop +Colenso’s perhaps the most so, because it is the boldest, and will have +the best practical consequences for the liberal cause. Do you want to +encourage to the attack of a brother liberal his, and your, and our +implacable enemies, the _Church and State Review_ or the _Record_,—the +High Church rhinoceros and the Evangelical hyena? Be silent, therefore; +or rather speak, speak as loud as ever you can! and go into ecstasies +over the eighty and odd pigeons.” + +----- + +Footnote 3: + + So sincere is my dislike to all personal attack and controversy, that + I abstain from reprinting, at this distance of time from the occasion + which called them forth, the essays in which I criticized Dr. + Colenso’s book; I feel bound, however, after all that has passed, to + make here a final declaration of my sincere impenitence for having + published them. Nay, I cannot forbear repeating yet once more, for his + benefit and that of his readers, this sentence from my original + remarks upon him; _There is truth of science and truth of religion; + truth of science does not become truth of religion till it is made + religious_. And I will add: Let us have all the science there is from + the men of science; from the men of religion let us have religion. + +Footnote 4: + + It has been said I make it “a crime against literary criticism and the + higher culture to attempt to inform the ignorant.” Need I point out + that the ignorant are not informed by being confirmed in a confusion? + +----- + +But criticism cannot follow this coarse and indiscriminate method. It is +unfortunately possible for a man in pursuit of truth to write a book +which reposes upon a false conception. Even the practical consequences +of a book are to genuine criticism no recommendation of it, if the book +is, in the highest sense, blundering. I see that a lady who herself, +too, is in pursuit of truth, and who writes with great ability, but a +little too much, perhaps, under the influence of the practical spirit of +the English liberal movement, classes Bishop Colenso’s book and M. +Renan’s together, in her survey of the religious state of Europe, as +facts of the same order, works, both of them, of “great importance;” +“great ability, power, and skill;” Bishop Colenso’s, perhaps, the most +powerful; at least, Miss Cobbe gives special expression to her gratitude +that to Bishop Colenso “has been given the strength to grasp, and the +courage to teach, truths of such deep import.” In the same way, more +than one popular writer has compared him to Luther. Now it is just this +kind of false estimate which the critical spirit is, it seems to me, +bound to resist. It is really the strongest possible proof of the low +ebb at which, in England, the critical spirit is, that while the +critical hit in the religious literature of Germany is Dr. Strauss’s +book, in that of France M. Renan’s book, the book of Bishop Colenso is +the critical hit in the religious literature of England. Bishop +Colenso’s book reposes on a total misconception of the essential +elements of the religious problem, as that problem is now presented for +solution. To criticism, therefore, which seeks to have the best that is +known and thought on this problem, it is, however well meant, of no +importance whatever. M. Renan’s book attempts a new synthesis of the +elements furnished to us by the Four Gospels. It attempts, in my +opinion, a synthesis, perhaps premature, perhaps impossible, certainly +not successful. Up to the present time, at any rate, we must acquiesce +in Fleury’s sentence on such recastings of the Gospel-story: _Quiconque +s’imagine la pouvoir mieux écrire, ne l’entend pas_. M. Renan had +himself passed by anticipation a like sentence on his own work, when he +said: “If a new presentation of the character of Jesus were offered to +me, I would not have it; its very clearness would be, in my opinion, the +best proof of its insufficiency.” His friends may with perfect justice +rejoin that at the sight of the Holy Land, and of the actual scene of +the Gospel-story, all the current of M. Renan’s thoughts may have +naturally changed, and a new casting of that story irresistibly +suggested itself to him; and that this is just a case for applying +Cicero’s maxim: Change of mind is not inconsistency—_nemo doctus unquam +mutationem consilii inconstantiam dixit esse_. Nevertheless, for +criticism, M. Renan’s first thought must still be the truer one, as long +as his new casting so fails more fully to commend itself, more fully (to +use Coleridge’s happy phrase about the Bible) to _find_ us. Still M. +Renan’s attempt is, for criticism, of the most real interest and +importance, since, with all its difficulty, a fresh synthesis of the New +Testament _data_,—not a making war on them, in Voltaire’s fashion, not a +leaving them out of mind, in the world’s fashion, but the putting a new +construction upon them, the taking them from under the old, traditional, +conventional point of view and placing them under a new one,—is the very +essence of the religious problem, as now presented; and only by efforts +in this direction can it receive a solution. + +Again, in the same spirit in which she judges Bishop Colenso, Miss +Cobbe, like so many earnest liberals of our practical race, both here +and in America, herself sets vigorously about a positive reconstruction +of religion, about making a religion of the future out of hand, or at +least setting about making it. We must not rest, she and they are always +thinking and saying, in negative criticism, we must be creative and +constructive; hence we have such works as her recent _Religious Duty_, +and works still more considerable, perhaps, by others, which will be in +every one’s mind. These works often have much ability; they often spring +out of sincere convictions, and a sincere wish to do good; and they +sometimes, perhaps, do good. Their fault is (if I may be permitted to +say so) one which they have in common with the British College of +Health, in the New Road. Every one knows the British College of Health; +it is that building with the lion and the statue of the Goddess Hygeia +before it; at least I am sure about the lion, though I am not absolutely +certain about the Goddess Hygeia. This building does credit, perhaps, to +the resources of Dr. Morrison and his disciples; but it falls a good +deal short of one’s idea of what a British College of Health ought to +be. In England, where we hate public interference and love individual +enterprise, we have a whole crop of places like the British College of +Health; the grand name without the grand thing. Unluckily, creditable to +individual enterprise as they are, they tend to impair our taste by +making us forget what more grandiose, noble, or beautiful character +properly belongs to a public institution. The same may be said of the +religions of the future of Miss Cobbe and others. Creditable, like the +British College of Health, to the resources of their authors, they yet +tend to make us forget what more grandiose, noble, or beautiful +character properly belongs to religious constructions. The historic +religions, with all their faults, have had this; it certainly belongs to +the religious sentiment, when it truly flowers, to have this; and we +impoverish our spirit if we allow a religion of the future without it. +What then is the duty of criticism here? To take the practical point of +view, to applaud the liberal movement and all its works,—its New Road +religions of the future into the bargain,—for their general utility’s +sake? By no means; but to be perpetually dissatisfied with these works, +while they perpetually fall short of a high and perfect ideal. + +For criticism, these are elementary laws; but they never can be popular, +and in this country they have been very little followed, and one meets +with immense obstacles in following them. That is a reason for asserting +them again and again. Criticism must maintain its independence of the +practical spirit and its aims. Even with well-meant efforts of the +practical spirit it must express dissatisfaction, if in the sphere of +the ideal they seem impoverishing and limiting. It must not hurry on to +the goal because of its practical importance. It must be patient, and +know how to wait; and flexible, and know how to attach itself to things +and how to withdraw from them. It must be apt to study and praise +elements that for the fulness of spiritual perfection are wanted, even +though they belong to a power which in the practical sphere may be +maleficent. It must be apt to discern the spiritual shortcomings or +illusions of powers that in the practical sphere may be beneficent. And +this without any notion of favoring or injuring, in the practical +sphere, one power or the other; without any notion of playing off, in +this sphere, one power against the other. When one looks, for instance, +at the English Divorce Court—an institution which perhaps has its +practical conveniences, but which in the ideal sphere is so hideous; an +institution which neither makes divorce impossible nor makes it decent, +which allows a man to get rid of his wife, or a wife of her husband, but +makes them drag one another first, for the public edification, through a +mire of unutterable infamy,—when one looks at this charming institution, +I say, with its crowded trials, its newspaper reports, and its money +compensations, this institution in which the gross unregenerate British +Philistine has indeed stamped an image of himself,—one may be permitted +to find the marriage theory of Catholicism refreshing and elevating. Or +when Protestantism, in virtue of its supposed rational and intellectual +origin, gives the law to criticism too magisterially, criticism may and +must remind it that its pretensions, in this respect, are illusive and +do it harm; that the Reformation was a moral rather than an intellectual +event; that Luther’s theory of grace no more exactly reflects the mind +of the spirit than Bossuet’s philosophy of history reflects it; and that +there is no more antecedent probability of the Bishop of Durham’s stock +of ideas being agreeable to perfect reason than of Pope Pius the +Ninth’s. But criticism will not on that account forget the achievements +of Protestantism in the practical and moral sphere; nor that, even in +the intellectual sphere, Protestantism, though in a blind and stumbling +manner, carried forward the Renascence, while Catholicism threw itself +violently across its path. + +I lately heard a man of thought and energy contrasting the want of ardor +and movement which he now found amongst young men in this country with +what he remembered in his own youth, twenty years ago. “What reformers +we were then!” he exclaimed; “What a zeal we had! how we canvassed every +institution in Church and State, and were prepared to remodel them all +on first principles!” He was inclined to regret, as a spiritual +flagging, the lull which he saw. I am disposed rather to regard it as a +pause in which the turn to a new mode of spiritual progress is being +accomplished. Everything was long seen, by the young and ardent amongst +us, in inseparable connection with politics and practical life. We have +pretty well exhausted the benefits of seeing things in this connection, +we have got all that can be got by so seeing them. Let us try a more +disinterested mode of seeing them; let us betake ourselves more to the +serener life of the mind and spirit. This life, too, may have its +excesses and dangers; but they are not for us at present. Let us think +of quietly enlarging our stock of true and fresh ideas, and not, as soon +as we get an idea or half an idea, be running out with it into the +street, and trying to make it rule there. Our ideas will, in the end, +shape the world all the better for maturing a little. Perhaps in fifty +years’ time it will in the English House of Commons be an objection to +an institution that it is an anomaly, and my friend the Member of +Parliament will shudder in his grave. But let us in the meanwhile rather +endeavor that in twenty years’ time it may, in English literature, be an +objection to a proposition that it is absurd. That will be a change so +vast, that the imagination almost fails to grasp it. _Ab integro +sæclorum nascitur ordo._ + +If I have insisted so much on the course which criticism must take where +politics and religion are concerned, it is because, where these burning +matters are in question, it is most likely to go astray. I have wished, +above all, to insist on the attitude which criticism should adopt +towards things in general; on its right tone and temper of mind. But +then comes another question as to the subject-matter which literary +criticism should most seek. Here, in general, its course is determined +for it by the idea which is the law of its being; the idea of a +disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and +thought in the world, and thus to establish a current of fresh and true +ideas. By the very nature of things, as England is not all the world, +much of the best that is known and thought in the world cannot be of +English growth, must be foreign; by the nature of things, again, it is +just this that we are least likely to know, while English thought is +streaming in upon us from all sides, and takes excellent care that we +shall not be ignorant of its existence. The English critic of +literature, therefore, must dwell much on foreign thought, and with +particular heed on any part of it, which, while significant and fruitful +in itself, is for any reason specially likely to escape him. Again, +judging is often spoken of as the critic’s one business, and so in some +sense it is; but the judgment which almost insensibly forms itself in a +fair and clear mind, along with fresh knowledge, is the valuable one; +and thus knowledge, and ever fresh knowledge, must be the critic’s great +concern for himself. And it is by communicating fresh knowledge, and +letting his own judgment pass along with it,—but insensibly, and in the +second place, not the first, as a sort of companion and clue, not as an +abstract lawgiver,—that the critic will generally do most good to his +readers. Sometimes, no doubt, for the sake of establishing an author’s +place in literature, and his relation to a central standard (and if this +is not done, how are we to get at our _best in the world_?) criticism +may have to deal with a subject-matter so familiar that fresh knowledge +is out of the question, and then it must be all judgment; an enunciation +and detailed application of principles. Here the great safeguard is +never to let oneself become abstract, always to retain an intimate and +lively consciousness of the truth of what one is saying, and, the moment +this fails us, to be sure that something is wrong. Still, under all +circumstances, this mere judgment and application of principles is, in +itself, not the most satisfactory work to the critic; like mathematics, +it is tautological, and cannot well give us, like fresh learning, the +sense of creative activity. + +But stop, some one will say; all this talk is of no practical use to us +whatever; this criticism of yours is not what we have in our minds when +we speak of criticism; when we speak of critics and criticism, we mean +critics and criticism of the current English literature of the day; when +you offer to tell criticism its function, it is to this criticism that +we expect you to address yourself. I am sorry for it, for I am afraid I +must disappoint these expectations. I am bound by my own definition of +criticism: _a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best +that is known and thought in the world_. How much of current English +literature comes into this “best that is known and thought in the +world?” Not very much I fear; certainly less, at this moment, than of +the current literature of France or Germany. Well, then, am I to alter +my definition of criticism, in order to meet the requirements of a +number of practising English critics, who, after all, are free in their +choice of a business? That would be making criticism lend itself just to +one of those alien practical considerations, which, I have said, are so +fatal to it. One may say, indeed, to those who have to deal with the +mass—so much better disregarded—of current English literature, that they +may at all events endeavor, in dealing with this, to try it, so far as +they can, by the standard of the best that is known and thought in the +world; one may say, that to get anywhere near this standard, every +critic should try and possess one great literature, at least, besides +his own; and the more unlike his own, the better. But, after all, the +criticism I am really concerned with,—the criticism which alone can much +help us for the future, the criticism which, throughout Europe, is at +the present day meant, when so much stress is laid on the importance of +criticism and the critical spirit,—is a criticism which regards Europe +as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great +confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result; +and whose members have, for their proper outfit, a knowledge of Greek, +Roman, and Eastern antiquity, and of one another. Special, local, and +temporary advantages being put out of account, that modern nation will +in the intellectual and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most +thoroughly carries out this program. And what is that but saying that we +too, all of us, as individuals, the more thoroughly we carry it out, +shall make the more progress? + +There is so much inviting us!—what are we to take? what will nourish us +in growth towards perfection? That is the question which, with the +immense field of life and of literature lying before him, the critic has +to answer; for himself first, and afterwards for others. In this idea of +the critic’s business the essays brought together in the following pages +have had their origin; in this idea, widely different as are their +subjects, they have, perhaps, their unity. + +I conclude with what I said at the beginning: to have the sense of +creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being +alive, and it is not denied to criticism to have it; but then criticism +must be sincere, simple, flexible, ardent, ever widening its knowledge. +Then it may have, in no contemptible measure, a joyful sense of creative +activity; a sense which a man of insight and conscience will prefer to +what he might derive from a poor, starved, fragmentary, inadequate +creation. And at some epochs no other creation is possible. + +Still, in full measure, the sense of creative activity belongs only to +genuine creation; in literature we must never forget that. But what true +man of letters ever can forget it? It is no such common matter for a +gifted nature to come into possession of a current of true and living +ideas, and to produce amidst the inspiration of them, that we are likely +to underrate it. The epochs of Æschylus and Shakespeare make us feel +their pre-eminence. In an epoch like those is, no doubt, the true life +of literature; there is the promised land, towards which criticism can +only beckon. That promised land it will not be ours to enter, and we +shall die in the wilderness: but to have desired to enter it, to have +saluted it from afar, is already, perhaps, the best distinction among +contemporaries; it will certainly be the best title to esteem with +posterity. + +II. + +THE LITERARY INFLUENCE OF ACADEMIES. + +It is impossible to put down a book like the history of the French +Academy, by Pellisson and D’Olivet, which M. Charles Livet has lately +re-edited, without being led to reflect upon the absence, in our own +country, of any institution like the French Academy, upon the probable +causes of this absence, and upon its results. A thousand voices will be +ready to tell us that this absence is a signal mark of our national +superiority; that it is in great part owing to this absence that the +exhilarating words of Lord Macaulay, lately given to the world by his +very clever nephew, Mr. Trevelyan, are so profoundly true: “It may +safely be said that the literature now extant in the English language is +of far greater value than all the literature which three hundred years +ago was extant in all the languages of the world together.” I dare say +this is so; only, remembering Spinoza’s maxim that the two great banes +of humanity are self-conceit and the laziness coming from self-conceit, +I think it may do us good, instead of resting in our pre-eminence with +perfect security, to look a little more closely why this is so, and +whether it is so without any limitations. + +But first of all I must give a very few words to the outward history of +the French Academy. About the year 1629, seven or eight persons in +Paris, fond of literature, formed themselves into a sort of little club +to meet at one another’s houses and discuss literary matters. Their +meetings got talked of, and Cardinal Richelieu, then minister and +all-powerful, heard of them. He himself had a noble passion for letters, +and for all fine culture; he was interested by what he heard of the +nascent society. Himself a man in the grand style, if ever man was, he +had the insight to perceive what a potent instrument of the grand style +was here to his hand. It was the beginning of a great century for +France, the seventeenth; men’s minds were working, the French language +was forming. Richelieu sent to ask the members of the new society +whether they would be willing to become a body with a public character, +holding regular meetings. Not without a little hesitation,—for +apparently they found themselves very well as they were, and these seven +or eight gentlemen of a social and literary turn were not perfectly at +their ease as to what the great and terrible minister could want with +them,—they consented. The favors of a man like Richelieu are not easily +refused, whether they are honestly meant or no; but this favor of +Richelieu’s was meant quite honestly. The Parliament, however, had its +doubts of this. The Parliament had none of Richelieu’s enthusiasm about +letters and culture; it was jealous of the apparition of a new public +body in the State; above all, of a body called into existence by +Richelieu. The King’s letters-patent, establishing and authorizing the +new society, were granted early in 1635; but, by the old constitution of +France, these letters-patent required the verification of the +Parliament. It was two years and a half—towards the autumn of +1637—before the Parliament would give it; and it then gave it only after +pressing solicitations, and earnest assurances of the innocent +intentions of the young Academy. Jocose people said that this society, +with its mission to purify and embellish the language, filled with +terror a body of lawyers like the French Parliament, the stronghold of +barbarous jargon and of chicane. + +This improvement of the language was in truth the declared grand aim for +the operations of the Academy. Its statutes of foundation, approved by +Richelieu before the royal edict establishing it was issued, say +expressly: “The Academy’s principal function shall be to work with all +the care and all the diligence possible at giving sure rules to our +language, and rendering it pure, eloquent, and capable of treating the +arts and sciences.” This zeal for making a nation’s great instrument of +thought,—its language,—correct and worthy, is undoubtedly a sign full of +promise,—a weighty earnest of future power. It is said that Richelieu +had it in his mind that French should succeed Latin in its general +ascendency, as Latin had succeeded Greek; if it was so, even this wish +has to some extent been fulfilled. But, at any rate, the _ethical_ +influences of style in language,—its close relations, so often pointed +out, with character,—are most important. Richelieu, a man of high +culture, and, at the same time, of great character felt them profoundly; +and that he should have sought to regularize, strengthen, and perpetuate +them by an institution for perfecting language, is alone a striking +proof of his governing spirit and of his genius. + +This was not all he had in his mind, however. The new Academy, now +enlarged to a body of forty members, and meant to contain all the chief +literary men of France, was to be a _literary tribunal_. The works of +its members were to be brought before it previous to publication, were +to be criticized by it, and finally, if it saw fit, to be published with +its declared approbation. The works of other writers, not members of the +Academy, might also, at the request of these writers themselves, be +passed under the Academy’s review. Besides this, in essays and +discussions the Academy examined and judged works already published, +whether by living or dead authors, and literary matters in general. The +celebrated opinion on Corneille’s _Cid_, delivered in 1637 by the +Academy at Richelieu’s urgent request, when this poem, which strongly +occupied public attention, had been attacked by M. de Scudéry, shows how +fully Richelieu designed his new creation to do duty as a supreme court +of literature, and how early it in fact began to exercise this function. +One[5] who had known Richelieu declared, after the Cardinal’s death, +that he had projected a yet greater institution than the Academy, a sort +of grand European college of art, science, and literature, a Prytaneum, +where the chief authors of all Europe should be gathered together in one +central home, there to live in security, leisure and honor;—that was a +dream which will not bear to be pulled about too roughly. But the +project of forming a high court of letters for France was no dream; +Richelieu in great measure fulfilled it. This is what the Academy, by +its idea, really is; this is what it has always tended to become; this +is what it has, from time to time, really been; by being, or tending to +be this, far more than even by what it has done for the language, it is +of such importance in France. To give the law, the tone to literature, +and that tone a high one, is its business. “Richelieu meant it,” says M. +Sainte-Beuve, “to be a _haut jury_,”—a jury the most choice and +authoritative that could be found on all important literary matters in +question before the public; to be, as it in fact became in the latter +half of the eighteenth century, “a sovereign organ of opinion.” “The +duty of the Academy is,” says M. Renan, “_maintenir la délicatesse de +l’esprit français_”—to keep the fine quality of the French spirit +unimpaired; it represents a kind of “_maîtrise en fait de bon ton_”—the +authority of a recognized master in matters of tone and taste. “All +ages,” says M. Renan again, “have had their inferior literature; but the +great danger of our time is that this inferior literature tends more and +more to get the upper place. No one has the same advantage as the +Academy for fighting against this mischief;” the Academy, which, as he +says elsewhere, has even special facilities, for “creating a form of +intellectual culture _which shall impose itself on all around_.” M. +Sainte-Beuve and M. Renan are, both of them, very keen-sighted critics; +and they show it signally by seizing and putting so prominently forward +this character of the French Academy. + +----- + +Footnote 5: + + La Mesnardière. + +----- + +Such an effort to set up a recognized authority, imposing on us a high +standard in matters of intellect and taste, has many enemies in human +nature. We all of us like to go our own way, and not to be forced out of +the atmosphere of commonplace habitual to most of us;—“_was uns alle +bändigt_,” says Goethe, “_das Gemeine_.” We like to be suffered to lie +comfortably in the old straw of our habits, especially of our +intellectual habits, even though this straw may not be very clean and +fine. But if the effort to limit this freedom of our lower nature finds, +as it does and must find, enemies in human nature, it finds also +auxiliaries in it. Out of the four great parts, says Cicero, of the +_honestum_, or good, which forms the matter on which _officium_, or +human duty, finds employment, one is the fixing of a _modus_ and an +_ordo_, a measure and an order, to fashion and wholesomely constrain our +action, in order to lift it above the level it keeps if left to itself, +and to bring it nearer to perfection. Man alone of living creatures, he +says, goes feeling after “_quid sit_ ordo, _quid sid quod_ deceat, _in +factis dictisque qui_ modus—the discovery of an _order_, a law of _good +taste_, a _measure_ for his words and actions.” Other creatures +submissively follow the law of their nature; man alone has an impulse +leading him to set up some other law to control the bent of his nature. + +This holds good, of course, as to moral matters, as well as intellectual +matters: and it is of moral matters that we are generally thinking when +we affirm it. But it holds good as to intellectual matters too. Now, +probably, M. Sainte-Beuve had not these words of Cicero in his mind when +he made, about the French nation, the assertion I am going to quote; +but, for all that, the assertion leans for support, one may say, upon +the truth conveyed in those words of Cicero, and wonderfully illustrates +and confirms them. “In France,” says M. Sainte-Beuve, “the first +consideration for us is not whether we are amused and pleased by a work +of art or mind, nor is it whether we are touched by it. What we seek +above all to learn is, whether _we were right_ in being amused with it, +and in applauding it, and in being moved by it.” Those are very +remarkable words, and they are, I believe, in the main quite true. A +Frenchman has, to a considerable degree, what one may call a conscience +in intellectual matters; he has an active belief that there is a right +and a wrong in them, that he is bound to honor and obey the right, that +he is disgraced by cleaving to the wrong. All the world has, or +professes to have, this conscience in moral matters. The word +_conscience_ has become almost confined, in popular use, to the moral +sphere, because this lively susceptibility of feeling is, in the moral +sphere, so far more common than in the intellectual sphere; the +livelier, in the moral sphere, this susceptibility is, the greater +becomes a man’s readiness to admit a high standard of action, an ideal +authoritatively correcting his everyday moral habits; here, such willing +admission of authority is due to sensitiveness of conscience. And a like +deference to a standard higher than one’s own habitual standard in +intellectual matters, a like respectful recognition of a superior ideal, +is caused, in the intellectual sphere, by sensitiveness of intelligence. +Those whose intelligence is quickest, openest, most sensitive, are +readiest with this deference; those whose intelligence is less delicate +and sensitive are less disposed to it. Well, now we are on the road to +see why the French have their Academy and we have nothing of the kind. + +What are the essential characteristics of the spirit of our nation? Not, +certainly, an open and clear mind, not a quick and flexible +intelligence. Our greatest admirers would not claim for us that we have +these in a preeminent degree; they might say that we had more of them +than our detractors gave us credit for; but they would not assert them +to be our essential characteristics. They would rather allege, as our +chief spiritual characteristics, energy and honesty; and, if we are +judged favorably and positively, not invidiously and negatively, our +chief characteristics are, no doubt, these:—energy and honesty, not an +open and clear mind, not a quick and flexible intelligence. Openness of +mind and flexibility of intelligence were very signal characteristics of +the Athenian people in ancient times; everybody will feel that. Openness +of mind and flexibility of intelligence are remarkable characteristics +of the French people in modern times; at any rate, they strikingly +characterize them as compared with us; I think everybody, or almost +everybody, will feel that. I will not now ask what more the Athenian or +the French spirit has than this, nor what shortcomings either of them +may have as a set-off against this; all I want now to point out is that +they have this, and that we have it in a much lesser degree. + +Let me remark, however, that not only in the moral sphere, but also in +the intellectual and spiritual sphere, energy and honesty are most +important and fruitful qualities; that, for instance, of what we call +genius energy is the most essential part. So, by assigning to a nation +energy and honesty as its chief spiritual characteristics,—by refusing +to it, as at all eminent characteristics, openness of mind and +flexibility of intelligence,—we do not by any means, as some people +might at first suppose, relegate its importance and its power of +manifesting itself with effect from the intellectual to the moral +sphere. We only indicate its probable special line of successful +activity in the intellectual sphere, and, it is true, certain +imperfections and failings to which, in this sphere, it will always be +subject. Genius is mainly an affair of energy, and poetry is mainly an +affair of genius; therefore, a nation whose spirit is characterized by +energy may well be eminent in poetry;—and we have Shakespeare. Again, +the highest reach of science is, one may say, an inventive power, a +faculty of divination, akin to the highest power exercised in poetry; +therefore, a nation whose spirit is characterized by energy may well be +eminent in science;—and we have Newton. Shakespeare and Newton: in the +intellectual sphere there can be no higher names. And what that energy, +which is the life of genius, above everything demands and insists upon, +is freedom; entire independence of all authority, prescription, and +routine,—the fullest room to expand as it will. Therefore, a nation +whose chief spiritual characteristic is energy, will not be very apt to +set up, in intellectual matters, a fixed standard, an authority, like an +academy. By this it certainly escapes certain real inconveniences and +dangers, and it can, at the same time, as we have seen, reach undeniably +splendid heights in poetry and science. On the other hand, some of the +requisites of intellectual work are specially the affair of quickness of +mind and flexibility of intelligence. The form, the method of evolution, +the precision, the proportions, the relations of the parts to the whole, +in an intellectual work, depend mainly upon them. And these are the +elements of an intellectual work which are really most communicable from +it, which can most be learned and adopted from it, which have, +therefore, the greatest effect upon the intellectual performance of +others. Even in poetry, these requisites are very important; and the +poetry of a nation, not eminent for the gifts on which they depend, +will, more or less, suffer by this shortcoming. In poetry, however, they +are, after all, secondary, and energy is the first thing; but in prose +they are of first-rate importance. In its prose literature, therefore, +and in the routine of intellectual work generally, a nation with no +particular gifts for these will not be so successful. These are what, as +I have said, can to a certain degree be learned and appropriated, while +the free activity of genius cannot. Academies consecrate and maintain +them, and, therefore, a nation with an eminent turn for them naturally +establishes academies. So far as routine and authority tend to embarrass +energy and inventive genius, academies may be said to be obstructive to +energy and inventive genius, and, to this extent, to the human spirit’s +general advance. But then this evil is so much compensated by the +propagation, on a large scale, of the mental aptitudes and demands which +an open mind and a flexible intelligence naturally engender, genius +itself, in the long run, so greatly finds its account in this +propagation, and bodies like the French Academy have such power for +promoting it, that the general advance of the human spirit is perhaps, +on the whole, rather furthered than impeded by their existence. + +How much greater is our nation in poetry than prose! how much better, in +general, do the productions of its spirit show in the qualities of +genius than in the qualities of intelligence! One may constantly remark +this in the work of individuals; how much more striking, in general, +does any Englishman,—of some vigor of mind, but by no means a poet,—seem +in his verse than in his prose! His verse partly suffers from his not +being really a poet, partly, no doubt, from the very same defects which +impair his prose, and he cannot express himself with thorough success in +it. But how much more powerful a personage does he appear in it, by dint +of feeling, and of originality and movement of ideas, than when he is +writing prose! With a Frenchman of like stamp, it is just the reverse: +set him to write poetry, he is limited, artificial, and impotent; set +him to write prose, he is free, natural, and effective. The power of +French literature is in its prose-writers, the power of English +literature is in its poets. Nay, many of the celebrated French poets +depend wholly for their fame upon the qualities of intelligence which +they exhibit,—qualities which are the distinctive support of prose; many +of the celebrated English prose-writers depend wholly for their fame +upon the qualities of genius and imagination which they +exhibit,—qualities which are the distinctive support of poetry. But, as +I have said, the qualities of genius are less transferable than the +qualities of intelligence; less can be immediately learned and +appropriated from their product; they are less direct and stringent +intellectual agencies, though they may be more beautiful and divine. +Shakspeare and our great Elizabethan group were certainly more gifted +writers than Corneille and his group; but what was the sequel to this +great literature, this literature of genius, as we may call it, +stretching from Marlow to Milton? What did it lead up to in English +literature? To our provincial and second-rate literature of the +eighteenth century. What on the other hand, was the sequel to the +literature of the French “great century,” to this literature of +intelligence, as by comparison with our Elizabethan literature, we may +call it; what did it lead up to? To the French literature of the +eighteenth century, one of the most powerful and pervasive intellectual +agencies that have ever existed,—the greatest European force of the +eighteenth century. In science, again, we had Newton, a genius of the +very highest order, a type of genius in science, if ever there was one. +On the continent, as a sort of counterpart to Newton, there was +Leibnitz; a man, it seems to me (though on these matters I speak under +correction), of much less creative energy of genius, much less power of +divination than Newton, but rather a man of admirable intelligence, a +type of intelligence in science, if ever there was one. Well, and what +did they each directly lead up to in science? What was the intellectual +generation that sprang from each of them? I only repeat what the men of +science have themselves pointed out. The man of genius was continued by +the English analysts of the eighteenth century, comparatively powerless +and obscure followers of the renowned master. The man of intelligence +was continued by successors like Bernouilli, Euler, Lagrange, and +Laplace, the greatest names in modern mathematics. + +What I want the reader to see is, that the question as to the utility of +academies to the intellectual life of a nation is not settled when we +say, for instance: “Oh, we have never had an academy and yet we have, +confessedly, a very great literature.” It still remains to be asked: +“What sort of a great literature? a literature great in the special +qualities of genius, or great in the special qualities of intelligence?” +If in the former, it is by no means sure that either our literature, or +the general intellectual life of our nation, has got already, without +academics, all that academics can give. Both the one and the other may +very well be somewhat wanting in those qualities of intelligence out of +a lively sense for which a body like the French Academy, as I have said, +springs, and which such a body does a great deal to spread and confirm. +Our literature, in spite of the genius manifested in it, may fall short +in form, method, precision, proportions, arrangement,—all of them, I +have said, things where intelligence proper comes in. It may be +comparatively weak in prose, that branch of literature where +intelligence proper is, so to speak, all in all. In this branch it may +show many grave faults to which the want of a quick, flexible +intelligence, and of the strict standard which such an intelligence +tends to impose, makes it liable; it may be full of haphazard, +crudeness, provincialism, eccentricity, violence, blundering. It may be +a less stringent and effective intellectual agency, both upon our own +nation and upon the world at large, than other literatures which show +less genius, perhaps, but more intelligence. + +The right conclusion certainly is that we should try, so far as we can, +to make up our shortcomings; and that to this end, instead of always +fixing our thoughts upon the points in which our literature, and our +intellectual life generally, are strong, we should from time to time, +fix them upon those in which they are weak, and so learn to perceive +clearly what we have to amend. What is our second great spiritual +characteristic,—our honesty,—good for, if it is not good for this? But +it will,—I am sure it will,—more and more, as time goes on, be found +good for this. + +Well, then, an institution like the French Academy,—an institution owing +its existence to a national bent towards the things of the mind, towards +culture, towards clearness, correctness, and propriety in thinking and +speaking, and, in its turn, promoting this bent,—sets standards in a +number of directions, and creates, in all these directions, a force of +educated opinion, checking and rebuking those who fall below these +standards, or who set them at nought. Educated opinion exists here as in +France; but in France the Academy serves as a sort of center and +rallying-point to it, and gives it a force which it has not got here. +Why is all the _journeyman-work_ of literature, as I may call it, so +much worse done here than it is in France? I do not wish to hurt any +one’s feelings; but surely this is so. Think of the difference between +our books of reference and those of the French, between our biographical +dictionaries (to take a striking instance) and theirs; think of the +difference between the translations of the classics turned out for Mr. +Bohn’s library and those turned out for M. Nisard’s collection! As a +general rule, hardly any one amongst us, who knows French and German +well, would use an English book of reference when he could get a French +or German one; or would look at an English prose translation of an +ancient author when he could get a French or German one. It is not that +there do not exist in England, as in France, a number of people +perfectly well able to discern what is good, in these things, from what +is bad, and preferring what is good; but they are isolated, they form no +powerful body of opinion, they are not strong enough to set a standard, +up to which even the journeyman-work of literature must be brought, if +it is to be vendible. Ignorance and charlatanism in work of this kind +are always trying to pass off their wares as excellent, and to cry down +criticism as the voice of an insignificant, over-fastidious minority; +they easily persuade the multitude that this is so when the minority is +scattered about as it is here; not so easily when it is banded together +as in the French Academy. So, again, with freaks in dealing with +language; certainly all such freaks tend to impair the power and beauty +of language; and how far more common they are with us than with the +French! To take a very familiar instance. Every one has noticed the way +in which the _Times_ chooses to spell the word “diocese;” it always +spells it diocess,[6] deriving it, I suppose, from _Zeus_ and _census_. +The _Journal des Débats_ might just as well write “diocess” instead of +“diocèse,” but imagine the _Journal des Débats_ doing so! Imagine an +educated Frenchman indulging himself in an orthographical antic of this +sort, in face of the grave respect with which the Academy and its +dictionary invest the French language! Some people will say these are +little things; they are not; they are of bad example. They tend to +spread the baneful notion that there is no such thing as a high, correct +standard in intellectual matters; that every one may as well take his +own way; they are at variance with the severe discipline necessary for +all real culture; they confirm us in habits of wilfulness and +eccentricity, which hurt our minds, and damage our credit with serious +people. The late Mr. Donaldson was certainly a man of great ability, and +I, who am not an Orientalist, do not pretend to judge his _Jashar_: but +let the reader observe the form which a foreign Orientalist’s judgment +of it naturally takes. M. Renan calls it a _tentative malheureuse_, a +failure, in short; this it may be, or it may not be; I am no judge. But +he goes on: “It is astonishing that a recent article” (in a French +periodical, he means) “should have brought forward as the last word of +German exegesis a work like this, composed by a doctor of the University +of Cambridge, and universally condemned by German critics.” You see what +he means to imply: an extravagance of this sort could never have come +from Germany, where there is a great force of critical opinion +controlling a learned man’s vagaries, and keeping him straight; it comes +from the native home of intellectual eccentricity of all kinds,[7]—from +England, from a doctor of the University of Cambridge:—and I dare say he +would not expect much better things from a doctor of the University of +Oxford. Again, after speaking of what Germany and France have done for +the history of Mahomet: “America and England,” M. Renan goes on, “have +also occupied themselves with Mahomet.” He mentions Washington Irving’s +_Life of Mahomet_, which does not, he says, evince much of an historical +sense, a _sentiment historique fort élevé_; “but,” he proceeds, “this +book shows a real progress, when one thinks that in 1829 Mr. Charles +Forster published two thick volumes, which enchanted the English +_révérends_, to make out that Mahomet was the little horn of the he-goat +that figures in the eighth chapter of Daniel, and that the Pope was the +great horn. Mr. Forster founded on this ingenious parallel a whole +philosophy of history, according to which the Pope represented the +Western corruption of Christianity, and Mahomet the Eastern; thence the +striking resemblances between Mahometanism and Popery.” And in a note M. +Renan adds: “This is the same Mr. Charles Forster who is the author of a +mystification about the Sinaitic inscriptions, in which he declares he +finds the primitive language.” As much as to say: “It is an Englishman, +be surprised at no extravagance.” If these innuendoes had no ground, and +were made in hatred and malice, they would not be worth a moment’s +attention; but they come from a grave Orientalist, on his own subject, +and they point to a real fact;—the absence, in this country, of any +force of educated literary and scientific opinion, making aberrations +like those of the author of _The One Primeval Language_ out of the +question. Not only the author of such aberrations, often a very clever +man, suffers by the want of check, by the not being kept straight, and +spends force in vain on a false road, which, under better discipline, he +might have used with profit on a true one; but all his adherents, both +“reverends” and others, suffer too, and the general rate of information +and judgment is in this way kept low. + +----- + +Footnote 6: + + The _Times_ has now (1868) abandoned this spelling and adopted the + ordinary one. + +Footnote 7: + + A critic declares I am wrong in saying that M. Renan’s language + implies this. I still think that there is a shade, a _nuance_ of + expression, in M. Renan’s language, which does imply this; but, I + confess, the only person who can really settle such a question is M. + Renan himself. + +----- + +In a production which we have all been reading lately, a production +stamped throughout with a literary quality very rare in this country, +and of which I shall have a word to say presently—_urbanity_; in this +production, the work of a man never to be named by any son of Oxford +without sympathy, a man who alone in Oxford of his generation, alone of +many generations, conveyed to us in his genius that same charm, that +same ineffable sentiment which this exquisite place itself conveys,—I +mean Dr. Newman,—an expression is frequently used which is more common +in theological than in literary language, but which seems to me fitted +to be of general service; the _note_ of so and so, the note of +catholicity, the note of antiquity, the note of sanctity, and so on. +Adopting this expressive word, I say that in the bulk of the +intellectual work of a nation which has no center, no intellectual +metropolis like an academy, like M. Sainte-Beuve’s “sovereign organ of +opinion,” like M. Renan’s “recognized authority in matters of tone and +taste,”—there is observable a _note of provinciality_. Now to get rid of +provinciality is a certain stage of culture; a stage the positive result +of which we must not make of too much importance, but which is, +nevertheless, indispensable, for it brings us on to the platform where +alone the best and highest intellectual work can be said fairly to +begin. Work done after men have reached this platform is _classical_; +and that is the only work which, in the long run, can stand. All the +_scoriæ_ in the work of men of great genius who have not lived on this +platform are due to their not having lived on it. Genius raises them to +it by moments, and the portions of their work which are immortal are +done at these moments; but more of it would have been immortal if they +had not reached this platform at moments only, if they had had the +culture which makes men live there. + +The less a literature has felt the influence of a supposed center of +correct information, correct judgment, correct taste, the more we shall +find in it this note of provinciality. I have shown the note of +provinciality as caused by remoteness from a center of correct +information. Of course the note of provinciality from the want of a +center of correct taste is still more visible, and it is also still more +common. For here great—even the greatest—powers of mind most fail a man. +Great powers of mind will make him inform himself thoroughly, great +powers of mind will make him think profoundly, even with ignorance and +platitude all round him; but not even great powers of mind will keep his +taste and style perfectly sound and sure, if he is left too much to +himself, with no “sovereign organ of opinion” in these matters near him. +Even men like Jeremy Taylor and Burke suffer here. Take this passage +from Taylor’s funeral sermon on Lady Carbery:— + +“So have I seen a river, deep and smooth, passing with a still foot and +a sober face, and paying to the _fiscus_, the great exchequer of the +sea, a tribute large and full; and hard by it a little brook, skipping +and making a noise upon its unequal and neighbor bottom; and after all +its talking and bragged motion, it paid to its common audit no more than +the revenues of a little cloud or a contemptible vessel: so have I +sometimes compared the issues of her religion to the solemnities and +famed outsides of another’s piety.” + +That passage has been much admired, and, indeed, the genius in it is +undeniable. I should say, for my part, that genius, the ruling divinity +of poetry, had been too busy in it, and intelligence, the ruling +divinity of prose, not busy enough. But can any one, with the best +models of style in his head, help feeling the note of provinciality +there, the want of simplicity, the want of measure, the want of just the +qualities that make prose classical? If he does not feel what I mean, +let him place beside the passage of Taylor this passage from the +Panegyric of St. Paul, by Taylor’s contemporary, Bossuet:— + +“Il ira, cet ignorant dans l’art de bien dire, avec cette locution rude, +avec cette phrase qui sent l’étranger il ira en cette Grèce polie, la +mère des philosophes et des orateurs; et malgré la résistance du monde, +il y établira plus d’Eglises que Platon n’y a gagné de disciples par +cette éloquence qu’on a crue divine.” + +There we have prose without the note of provinciality—classical prose, +prose of the center. + +Or take Burke, our greatest English prose-writer, as I think; take +expressions like this:— + +“Blindfold themselves, like bulls that shut their eyes when they push, +they drive, by the point of their bayonets, their slaves, blindfolded, +indeed, no worse than their lords, to take their fictions for +currencies, and to swallow down paper pills by thirty-four millions +sterling at a dose.” + +Or this:— + +“They used it” (the royal name) “as a sort of navel-string, to nourish +their unnatural offspring from the bowels of royalty itself. Now that +the monster can purvey for its own subsistence, it will only carry the +mark about it, as a token of its having torn the womb it came from.” + +Or this:— + +“Without one natural pang, he” (Rousseau) “casts away, as a sort of +offal and excrement, the spawn of his disgustful amours, and sends his +children to the hospital of foundlings.” + +Or this:— + +“I confess I never liked this continual talk of resistance and +revolution, or the practice of making the extreme medicine of the +constitution its daily bread. It renders the habit of society +dangerously valetudinary; it is taking periodical doses of mercury +sublimate, and swallowing down repeated provocatives of cantharides to +our love of liberty.” + +I say that is extravagant prose; prose too much suffered to indulge its +caprices; prose at too great a distance from the center of good taste; +prose, in short, with the note of provinciality. People may reply, it is +rich and imaginative; yes, that is just it, it is _Asiatic_ prose, as +the ancient critics would have said; prose somewhat barbarously rich and +overloaded. But the true prose is Attic prose. + +Well, but Addison’s prose is Attic prose. Where, then, it may be asked, +is the note of provinciality in Addison? I answer, in the commonplace of +his ideas.[8] This is a matter worth remarking. Addison claims to take +leading rank as a moralist. To do that, you must have ideas of the first +order on your subject—the best ideas, at any rate, attainable in your +time—as well as to be able to express them in a perfectly sound and sure +style. Else you show your distance from the center of ideas by your +matter; you are provincial by your matter, though you may not be +provincial by your style. It is comparatively a small matter to express +oneself well, if one will be content with not expressing much, with +expressing only trite ideas; the problem is to express new and profound +ideas in a perfectly sound and classical style. He is the true classic, +in every age, who does that. Now Addison has not, on his subject of +morals, the force of ideas of the moralists of the first class—the +classical moralists; he has not the best ideas attainable in or about +his time, and which were, so to speak, in the air then, to be seized by +the finest spirits; he is not to be compared for power, searchingness, +or delicacy of thought to Pascal or La Bruyère or Vauvenargues; he is +rather on a level, in this respect, with a man like Marmontel. +Therefore, I say, he has the note of provinciality as a moralist; he is +provincial by his matter, though not by his style. + +----- + +Footnote 8: + + A critic says this is paradoxical, and urges that many second-rate + French academicians have uttered the most commonplace ideas possible. + I agree that many second-rate French academicians have uttered the + most commonplace ideas possible; but Addison is not a second-rate man. + He is a man of the order, I will not say of Pascal, but at any rate of + La Bruyère and Vauve-nargues; why does he not equal them? I say + because of the medium in which he finds himself, the atmosphere in + which he lives and works; an atmosphere which tells unfavorably, or + rather _tends_ to tell unfavorably (for that is the truer way of + putting it) either upon style or else upon ideas; tends to make even a + man of great ability either a Mr. Carlyle or else a Lord Macaulay. + + It is to be observed, however, that Lord Macaulay’s style has in its + turn suffered by his failure in ideas, and this cannot be said of + Addison’s. + +----- + +To illustrate what I mean by an example. Addison, writing as a moralist +on fixedness in religious faith, says:— + +“Those who delight in reading books of controversy do very seldom arrive +at a fixed and settled habit of faith. The doubt which was laid revives +again, and shows itself in new difficulties; and that generally for this +reason,—because the mind, which is perpetually tossed in controversies +and disputes, is apt to forget the reasons which had once set it at +rest, and to be disquieted with any former perplexity when it appears in +a new shape, or is started by a different hand.” + +It may be said, that is classical English, perfect in lucidity, measure, +and propriety. I make no objection; but, in my turn, I say that the idea +expressed is perfectly trite and barren, and that it is a note of +provinciality in Addison, in a man whom a nation puts forward as one of +its great moralists, to have no profounder and more striking idea to +produce on this great subject. Compare, on the same subject, these words +of a moralist really of the first order, really at the center by his +ideas,—Joubert:— + +“L’expérience de beaucoup d’opinions donne à l’esprit beaucoup de +flexibilité et l’affermit dans celles qu’il croit les meilleures.” + +With what a flash of light that touches the subject! how it sets us +thinking! What a genuine contribution to moral science it is! + +In short, where there is no center like an academy, if you have genius +and powerful ideas, you are apt not to have the best style going; if you +have precision of style and not genius, you are apt not to have the best +ideas going. + +The provincial spirit, again, exaggerates the value of its ideas for +want of a high standard at hand by which to try them. Or rather, for +want of such a standard, it gives one idea too much prominence at the +expense of others; it orders its ideas amiss; it is hurried away by +fancies; it likes and dislikes too passionately, too exclusively. Its +admiration weeps hysterical tears, and its disapprobation foams at the +mouth. So we get the _eruptive_ and the _aggressive_ manner in +literature; the former prevails most in our criticism, the latter in our +newspapers. For, not having the lucidity of a large and centrally placed +intelligence, the provincial spirit has not its graciousness; it does +not persuade, it makes war; it has not urbanity, the tone of the city, +of the center, the tone which always aims at a spiritual and +intellectual effect, and not excluding the use of banter, never disjoins +banter itself from politeness, from felicity. But the provincial tone is +more violent, and seems to aim rather at an effect upon the blood and +senses than upon the spirit and intellect; it loves hard-hitting rather +than persuading. The newspaper, with its party spirit, its +thorough-goingness, its resolute avoidance of shades and distinctions, +its short, highly-charged, heavy-shotted articles, its style so unlike +that style _lenis minimèque pertinax_—easy and not too violently +insisting,—which the ancients so much admired, is its true literature; +the provincial spirit likes in the newspaper just what makes the +newspaper such bad food for it,—just what made Goethe say, when he was +pressed hard about the immorality of Byron’s poems, that, after all, +they were not so immoral as the newspapers. The French talk of the +_brutalité des journaux anglais_. What strikes them comes from the +necessary inherent tendencies of newspaper-writing not being checked in +England by any center of intelligent and urbane spirit, but rather +stimulated by coming in contact with a provincial spirit. Even a +newspaper like the _Saturday Review_, that old friend of all of us, a +newspaper expressly aiming at an immunity from the common +newspaper-spirit, aiming at being a sort of organ of reason,—and, by +thus aiming, it merits great gratitude and has done great good,—even the +_Saturday Review_, replying to some foreign criticism on our precautions +against invasion, falls into a strain of this kind:— + +“To do this” (to take these precautions) “seems to us eminently worthy +of a great nation, and to talk of it as unworthy of a great nation, +seems to us eminently worthy of a great fool.” + +There is what the French mean when they talk of the _brutalité des +journaux anglais_; there is a style certainly as far removed from +urbanity as possible,—a style with what I call the note of +provinciality. And the same note may not unfrequently be observed even +in the ideas of this newspaper, full as it is of thought and cleverness: +certain ideas allowed to become fixed ideas, to prevail too absolutely. +I will not speak of the immediate present, but, to go a little while +back, it had the critic who so disliked the Emperor of the French; it +had the critic who so disliked the subject of my present +remarks—academies; it had the critic who was so fond of the German +element in our nation, and, indeed, everywhere; who ground his teeth if +one said _Charlemagne_ instead of _Charles the Great_, and, in short, +saw all things in Teutonism, as Malebranche saw all things in God. +Certainly any one may fairly find faults in the Emperor Napoleon or in +academies, and merit in the German element; but it is a note of the +provincial spirit not to hold ideas of this kind a little more easily, +to be so devoured by them, to suffer them to become crotchets. + +In England there needs a miracle of genius like Shakspeare’s to produce +balance of mind, and a miracle of intellectual delicacy like Dr. +Newman’s to produce urbanity of style. How prevalent all round us is the +want of balance of mind and urbanity of style! How much, doubtless, it +is to be found in ourselves,—in each of us! but, as human nature is +constituted, every one can see it clearest in his contemporaries. There, +above all, we should consider it, because they and we are exposed to the +same influences; and it is in the best of one’s contemporaries that it +is most worth considering, because one then most feels the harm it does, +when one sees what they would be without it. Think of the difference +between Mr. Ruskin exercising his genius, and Mr. Ruskin exercising his +intelligence; consider the truth and beauty of this:— + +“Go out, in the spring-time, among the meadows that slope from the +shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There, +mingled with the taller gentians and the white narcissus, the grass +grows deep and free; and as you follow the winding mountain paths, +beneath arching boughs all veiled and dim with blossom,—paths that +forever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds sweeping down in +scented undulation, steep to the blue water studded here and there with +new-mown heaps, filling all the air with fainter sweetness,—look up +towards the higher hills, where the waves of everlasting green roll +silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the pines....” + +There is what the genius, the feeling, the temperament in Mr. Ruskin, +the original and incommunicable part, has to do with; and how exquisite +it is! All the critic could possibly suggest, in the way of objection, +would be, perhaps, that Mr. Ruskin is there trying to make prose do more +than it can perfectly do; that what he is there attempting he will +never, except in poetry, be able to accomplish to his own entire +satisfaction: but he accomplishes so much that the critic may well +hesitate to suggest even this. Place beside this charming passage +another,—a passage about Shakspeare’s names, where the intelligence and +judgment of Mr. Ruskin, the acquired, trained, communicable part in him, +are brought into play,—and see the difference:— + +“Of Shakspeare’s names I will afterwards speak at more length; they are +curiously—often barbarously—mixed out of various traditions and +languages. Three of the clearest in meaning have been already noticed. +Desdemona—‘δυσδαιμονία,’ _miserable fortune_—is also plain enough. +Othello is, I believe, ‘the careful;’ all the calamity of the tragedy +arising from the single flaw and error in his magnificently collected +strength. Ophelia, ‘serviceableness,’ the true, lost wife of Hamlet, is +marked as having a Greek name by that of her brother, Laertes; and its +signification is once exquisitely alluded to in that brother’s last word +of her, where her gentle preciousness is opposed to the uselessness of +the churlish clergy:—‘A _ministering_ angel shall my sister be, when +thou liest howling.’ Hamlet is, I believe, connected in some way with +‘homely,’ the entire event of the tragedy turning on betrayal of home +duty. Hermione (ἕρμο), ‘pillar-like’ (ἥ εἶδος ἕχε χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης); +Titania (τιτήνη), ‘the queen;’ Benedick and Beatrice, ‘blessed and +blessing;’ Valentine and Proteus, ‘enduring or strong’ (_valens_), and +‘changeful.’ Iago and Iachimo have evidently the same root—probably the +Spanish Iago, Jacob, ‘the supplanter.’” + +Now, really, what a piece of extravagance all that is! I will not say +that the meaning of Shakspeare’s names (I put aside the question as to +the correctness of Mr. Ruskin’s etymologies) has no effect at all, may +be entirely lost sight of; but to give it that degree of prominence is +to throw the reins to one’s whim, to forget all moderation and +proportion, to lose the balance of one’s mind altogether. It is to show +in one’s criticism, to the highest excess, the note of provinciality. + +Again there is Mr. Palgrave, certainly endowed with a very fine critical +tact: his _Golden Treasury_ abundantly proves it. The plan of +arrangement which he devised for that work, the mode in which he +followed his plan out, nay, one might even say, merely the +juxtaposition, in pursuance of it, of two such pieces as those of +Wordsworth and Shelley which form the 285th and 286th in his collection, +show a delicacy of feeling in these matters which is quite indisputable +and very rare. And his notes are full of remarks which show it too. All +the more striking, conjoined with so much justness of perception, are +certain freaks and violences in Mr. Palgrave’s criticism, mainly +imputable, I think, to the critic’s isolated position in this country, +to his feeling himself too much left to take his own way, too much +without any central authority representing high culture and sound +judgment, by which he may be, on the one hand, confirmed as against the +ignorant, on the other, held in respect when he himself is inclined to +the liberties. I mean such things as this note on Milton’s line,— + + “The great Emathian conqueror bade spare”.... + +“When Thebes was destroyed, Alexander ordered the house of Pindar to be +spared. _He was as incapable of appreciating the poet as Louis XIV. of +appreciating Racine; but even the narrow and barbarian mind of Alexander +could understand the advantage of a showy act of homage to poetry._” A +note like that I call a freak or a violence; if this disparaging view of +Alexander and Louis XIV., so unlike the current view, is wrong,—if the +current view is, after all, the truer one of them,—the note is a freak. +But, even if its disparaging view is right, the note is a violence; for, +abandoning the true mode of intellectual action—persuasion, the +instilment of conviction,—it simply astounds and irritates the hearer by +contradicting without a word of proof or preparation, his fixed and +familiar notions; and this is mere violence. In either case, the +fitness, the measure, the centrality, which is the soul of all good +criticism, is lost, and the note of provinciality shows itself. + +Thus, in the famous _Handbook_, marks of a fine power of perception are +everywhere discernible, but so, too, are marks of the want of sure +balance, of the check and support afforded by knowing one speaks before +good and severe judges. When Mr. Palgrave dislikes a thing, he feels no +pressure constraining him either to try his dislike closely or to +express it moderately; he does not mince matters, he gives his dislike +all its own way; both his judgments and his style would gain if he were +under more restraint. “The style which has filled London with the dead +monotony of Gower or Harley Streets, or the pale commonplace of +Belgravia, Tyburnia, and Kensington; which has pierced Paris and Madrid +with the feeble frivolities of the Rue Rivoli and the Strada de Toledo.” +He dislikes the architecture of the Rue Rivoli, and he puts it on a +level with the architecture of Belgravia and Gower Street; he lumps them +all together in one condemnation, he loses sight of the shade, the +distinction, which is everything here; the distinction, namely, that the +architecture of the Rue Rivoli expresses show, splendor, +pleasure,—unworthy things, perhaps, to express alone and for their own +sakes, but it expresses them; whereas the architecture of Gower Street +and Belgravia merely expresses the impotence of the architect to express +anything. Then, as to style: “sculpture which stands in a contrast with +Woolner hardly more shameful than diverting.” ... “passing from Davy or +Faraday to the art of the mountebank or the science of the +spirit-rapper.” ... “it is the old, old story with Marochetti, the frog +trying to blow himself out to bull dimensions. He may puff and he +puffed, but he will never do it.” We all remember that shower of +amenities on poor M. Marochetti. Now, here Mr. Palgrave himself enables +us to form a contrast which lets us see just what the presence of an +academy does for style; for he quotes a criticism by M. Gustave Planche +on this very M. Marochetti. M. Gustave Planche was a critic of the very +first order, a man of strong opinions, which he expressed with severity; +he, too, condemns M. Marochetti’s work, and Mr. Palgrave calls him as a +witness to back what he has himself said; certainly Mr. Palgrave’s +translation will not exaggerate M. Planche’s urbanity in dealing with M. +Marochetti, but, even in this translation, see the difference in +sobriety, in measure, between the critic writing in Paris and the critic +writing in London:— + +“These conditions are so elementary, that I am at a perfect loss to +comprehend how M. Marochetti has neglected them. There are soldiers here +like the leaden playthings of the nursery: it is almost impossible to +guess whether there is a body beneath the dress. We have here no +question of style, not even of grammar; it is nothing beyond mere matter +of the alphabet of art. To break these conditions is the same as to be +ignorant of spelling.” + +That is really more formidable criticism than Mr. Palgrave’s, and yet in +how perfectly temperate a style! M. Planche’s advantage is, that he +feels himself to be speaking before competent judges, that there is a +force of cultivated opinion for him to appeal to. Therefore, he must not +be extravagant, and he need not storm; he must satisfy the reason and +taste,—that is his business. Mr. Palgrave, on the other hand, feels +himself to be speaking before a promiscuous multitude, with the few good +judges so scattered through it as to be powerless; therefore, he has no +calm confidence and no self-control; he relies on the strength of his +lungs; he knows that big words impose on the mob, and that, even if he +is outrageous, most of his audience are apt to be a great deal more +so.[9] + +Again, the first two volumes of Mr. Kinglake’s _Invasion of the Crimea_ +were certainly among the most successful and renowned English books of +our time. Their style was one of the most renowned things about them, +and yet how conspicuous a fault in Mr. Kinglake’s style is this +over-charge of which I have been speaking! Mr. James Gordon Bennett, of +the _New York Herald_, says, I believe, that the highest achievement of +the human intellect is what he calls “a good editorial.” This is not +quite so; but, if it were so, on what a height would these two volumes +by Mr. Kinglake stand! I have already spoken of the Attic and the +Asiatic styles; besides these, there is the Corinthian style. That is +the style for “a good editorial,” and Mr. Kinglake has really reached +perfection in it. It has not the warm glow, blithe movement, and soft +pliancy of life, as the Attic style has; it has not the over-heavy +richness and encumbered gait of the Asiatic style; it has glitter +without warmth, rapidity without ease, effectiveness without charm. Its +characteristic is, that it has no _soul_; all it exists for, is to get +its ends, to make its points, to damage its adversaries, to be admired, +to triumph. A style so bent on effect at the expense of soul, +simplicity, and delicacy; a style so little studious of the charm of the +great models; so far from classic truth and grace, must surely be said +to have the note of provinciality. Yet Mr. Kinglake’s talent is a really +eminent one, and so in harmony with our intellectual habits and +tendencies, that to the great bulk of English people, the faults of his +style seem its merits; all the more needful that criticism should not be +dazzled by them. + +----- + +Footnote 9: + + When I wrote this I had before me the first edition of Mr. Palgrave’s + _Handbook_. I am bound to say that in the second edition much strong + language has been expunged, and what remains, softened. + +----- + +We must not compare a man of Mr. Kinglake’s literary talent with French +writers like M. de Bazancourt. We must compare him with M. Thiers. And +what a superiority in style has M. Thiers from being formed in a good +school, with severe traditions, wholesome restraining influences! Even +in this age of Mr. James Gordon Bennett, his style has nothing +Corinthian about it, its lightness and brightness make it almost Attic. +It is not quite Attic, however; it has not the infallible sureness of +Attic taste. Sometimes his head gets a little hot with the fumes of +patriotism, and then he crosses the line, he loses perfect measure, he +declaims, he raises a momentary smile. France condemned ‘à être l’effroi +du monde _dont elle pourrait être l’amour_,’—Cæsar, whose exquisite +simplicity M. Thiers so much admires, would not have written like that. +There is, if I may be allowed to say so, the slightest possible touch of +fatuity in such language,—of that failure in good sense which comes from +too warm a self-satisfaction. But compare this language with Mr. +Kinglake’s Marshal St. Arnaud—“dismissed from the presence” of Lord +Raglan or Lord Stratford, “cowed and pressed down” under their “stern +reproofs,” or under “the majesty of the great Elchi’s Canning brow and +tight, merciless lips!” The failure in good sense and good taste there +reaches far beyond what the French mean by _fatuity_; they would call it +by another word, a word expressing blank defect of intelligence, a word +for which we have no exact equivalent in English,—_bête_. It is the +difference between a venial, momentary, good-tempered excess, in a man +of the world, of an amiable and social weakness,—vanity; and a serious, +settled, fierce, narrow, provincial misconception of the whole relative +value of one’s own things and the things of others. So baneful to the +style of even the cleverest man may be the total want of checks. + +In all I have said, I do not pretend that the examples given prove my +rule as to the influence of academies; they only illustrate it. Examples +in plenty might very likely be found to set against them; the truth of +the rule depends, no doubt, on whether the balance of all the examples +is in its favor or not; but actually to strike this balance is always +out of the question. Here, as everywhere else, the rule, the idea, if +true, commends itself to the judicious, and then the examples make it +clearer still to them. This is the real use of examples, and this alone +is the purpose which I have meant mine to serve. There is also another +side to the whole question,—as to the limiting and prejudicial operation +which academies may have; but this side of the question it rather +behoves the French, not us, to study. + +The reader will ask for some practical conclusion about the +establishment of an Academy in this country, and perhaps I shall hardly +give him the one he expects. But nations have their own modes of acting, +and these modes are not easily changed; they are even consecrated, when +great things have been done in them. When a literature has produced +Shakspeare and Milton, when it has even produced Barrow and Burke, it +cannot well abandon its traditions; it can hardly begin, at this late +time of day, with an institution like the French Academy. I think +academies with a limited, special, scientific scope, in the various +lines of intellectual work,—academies like that of Berlin, for +instance,—we with time may, and probably shall, establish. And no doubt +they will do good; no doubt the presence of such influential centers of +correct information will tend to raise the standard amongst us for what +I have called the _journeyman-work_ of literature, and to free us from +the scandal of such biographical dictionaries as Chalmers’s, or such +translations as a recent one of Spinoza, or perhaps, such philological +freaks as Mr. Forster’s about the one primeval language. But an academy +quite like the French Academy, a sovereign organ of the highest literary +opinion, a recognized authority in matters of intellectual tone and +taste, we shall hardly have, and perhaps we ought not to wish to have +it. But then every one amongst us with any turn for literature will do +well to remember to what shortcomings and excesses, which such an +academy tends to correct, we are liable; and the more liable, of course, +for not having it. He will do well constantly to try himself in respect +of these, steadily to widen his culture, severely to check in himself +the provincial spirit; and he will do this the better the more he keeps +in mind that all mere glorification by ourselves of ourselves or our +literature, in the strain of what, at the beginning of these remarks I +quoted from Lord Macaulay, is both vulgar, and, besides being vulgar +retarding. + + III. + + MAURICE DE GUÉRIN. + + +I will not presume to say that I now know the French language well; but +at a time when I knew it even less well than at present,—some fifteen +years ago,—I remember pestering those about me with this sentence, the +rhythm of which had lodged itself in my head, and which, with the +strangest pronunciation possible, I kept perpetually declaiming: “_Les +dieux jaloux ont enfoui quelque part les témoignages de la descendance +des choses; mais au bord de quel Océan ont-ils roulé la pierre qui les +couvre, ô Macarée!_” + +These words came from a short composition called the _Centaur_, of which +the author, Georges-Maurice de Guérin, died in the year 1839, at the age +of twenty-eight, without having published anything. In 1840, Madame Sand +brought out the _Centaur_ in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, with a short +notice of its author, and a few extracts from his letters. A year or two +afterwards she reprinted these at the end of a volume of her novels; and +there it was that I fell in with them. I was so much struck with the +_Centaur_ that I waited anxiously to hear something more of its author, +and of what he had left; but it was not till the other day—twenty years +after the first publication of the _Centaur_ in the _Revue des Deux +Mondes_, that my anxiety was satisfied. At the end of 1860 appeared two +volumes with the title _Maurice de Guérin_, _Reliquiæ_, containing the +_Centaur_, several poems of Guérin, his journals, and a number of his +letters, collected and edited by a devoted friend, M. Trebutien, and +preceded by a notice of Guérin by the first of living critics, M. +Sainte-Beuve. + +The grand power of poetry is its interpretative power; by which I mean, +not a power of drawing out in black and white an explanation of the +mystery of the universe, but the power of so dealing with things as to +awaken in us a wonderfully full, new, and intimate sense of them, and of +our relations with them. When this sense is awakened in us, as to +objects without us, we feel ourselves to be in contact with the +essential nature of those objects, to be no longer bewildered and +oppressed by them, but to have their secret, and to be in harmony with +them; and this feeling calms and satisfies us as no other can. Poetry, +indeed, interprets in another way besides this; but one of its two ways +of interpreting, of exercising its highest power, is by awakening this +sense in us. I will not now inquire whether this sense is illusive, +whether it can be proved not to be illusive, whether it does absolutely +make us possess the real nature of things; all I say is, that poetry can +awaken it in us, and that to awaken it is one of the highest powers of +poetry. The interpretations of science do not give us this intimate +sense of objects as the interpretations of poetry give it; they appeal +to a limited faculty, and not to the whole man. It is not Linnæus or +Cavendish or Cuvier who gives us the true sense of animals, or water, or +plants, who seizes their secret for us, who makes us participate in +their life; it is Shakspeare, with his + + “daffodils + That come before the swallow dares, and take + The winds of March with beauty;” + +it is Wordsworth, with his + + “voice ... heard + In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird + Breaking the silence of the seas + Among the farthest Hebrides;” + +it is Keats, with his + + “moving waters at their priestlike task + Of cold ablution round Earth’s human shores;” + +it is Chateaubriand, with his, “_cîme indéterminée des forêts_;” it is +Senancour, with his mountain birch-tree: “_Cette écorce blanche, lisse +et crevassée; cette tige agreste; ces branches qui s’inclinent vers la +terre; la mobilité des feuilles, et tout cet abandon, simplicité de la +nature, attitude des déserts._” + +Eminent manifestations of this magical power of poetry are very rare and +very precious; the compositions of Guérin manifest it, I think, in +singular eminence. Not his poems, strictly so called,—his verse,—so much +as his prose; his poems in general take for their vehicle that favorite +meter of French poetry, the Alexandrine; and, in my judgment, I confess +they have thus, as compared with his prose, a great disadvantage to +start with. In prose, the character of the vehicle for the composer’s +thoughts is not determined beforehand; every composer has to make his +own vehicle; and who has ever done this more admirably than the great +prose-writers of France,—Pascal, Bossuet, Fénelon, Voltaire? But in +verse the composer has (with comparatively narrow liberty of +modification) to accept his vehicle ready-made; it is therefore of vital +importance to him that he should find at his disposal a vehicle adequate +to convey the highest matters of poetry. We may even get a decisive test +of the poetical power of a language and nation by ascertaining how far +the principal poetical vehicle which they have employed, how far (in +plainer words) the established national meter for high poetry, is +adequate or inadequate. It seems to me that the established meter of +this kind in France,—the Alexandrine,—is inadequate; that as a vehicle +for high poetry it is greatly inferior to the hexameter or to the +iambics of Greece (for example), or to the blank verse of England. +Therefore the man of genius who uses it is at a disadvantage as compared +with the man of genius who has for conveying his thoughts a more +adequate vehicle, metrical or not. Racine is at a disadvantage as +compared with Sophocles or Shakspeare, and he is likewise at a +disadvantage as compared with Bossuet. + +The same may be said of our own poets of the eighteenth century, a +century which gave them as the main vehicle for their high poetry +a meter inadequate (as much as the French Alexandrine, and nearly +in the same way) for this poetry,—the ten-syllable couplet. It is +worth remarking, that the English poet of the eighteenth century +whose compositions wear best and give one the most entire +satisfaction,—Gray,—hardly uses that couplet at all: this +abstinence, however, limits Gray’s productions to a few short +compositions, and (exquisite as these are) he is a poetical nature +repressed and without free issue. For English poetical production +on a great scale, for an English poet deploying all the forces of +his genius, the ten-syllable couplet was, in the eighteenth +century, the established, one may almost say the inevitable, +channel. Now this couplet, admirable (as Chaucer uses it) for +story-telling not of the epic pitch, and often admirable for a few +lines even in poetry of a very high pitch, is for continuous use +in poetry of this latter kind inadequate. Pope, in his _Essay on +Man_, is thus at a disadvantage compared with Lucretius in his +poem on Nature: Lucretius has an adequate vehicle, Pope has not. +Nay, though Pope’s genius for didactic poetry was not less than +that of Horace, while his satirical power was certainly greater, +still one’s taste receives, I cannot but think, a certain +satisfaction when one reads the Epistles and Satires of Horace, +which it fails to receive when one reads the Satires and Epistles +of Pope. Of such avail is the superior adequacy of the vehicle +used to compensate even an inferiority of genius in the user! In +the same way Pope is at a disadvantage as compared with Addison. +The best of Addison’s composition (the “Coverley Papers” in the +_Spectator_, for instance) wears better than the best of Pope’s, +because Addison has in his prose an intrinsically better vehicle +for his genius than Pope in his couplet. But Bacon has no such +advantage over Shakspeare; nor has Milton, writing prose (for no +contemporary English prose-writer must be matched with Milton +except Milton himself), any such advantage over Milton writing +verse: indeed, the advantage here is all the other way. + +It is in the prose remains of Guérin,—his journals, his letters, and the +striking composition which I have already mentioned, the _Centaur_,—that +his extraordinary gift manifests itself. He has a truly interpretative +faculty; the most profound and delicate sense of the life of Nature, and +the most exquisite felicity in finding expressions to render that sense. +To all who love poetry, Guérin deserves to be something more than a +name; and I shall try, in spite of the impossibility of doing justice to +such a master of expression by translations, to make English readers see +for themselves how gifted an organization his was, and how few artists +have received from Nature a more magical faculty of interpreting her. + + +In the winter of the year 1832 there was collected in Brittany, around +the well-known Abbé Lamennais, a singular gathering. At a lonely place, +La Chênaie, he had founded a religious retreat, to which disciples, +attracted by his powers or by his reputation, repaired. Some came with +the intention of preparing themselves for the ecclesiastical profession; +others merely to profit by the society and discourse of so distinguished +a master. Among the inmates were men whose names have since become known +to all Europe,—Lacordaire and M. de Montalembert; there were others, who +have acquired a reputation, not European, indeed, but considerable,—the +Abbé Gerbet, the Abbé Rohrbacher; others, who have never quitted the +shade of private life. The winter of 1832 was a period of crisis in the +religious world of France: Lamennais’s rupture with Rome, the +condemnation of his opinions by the Pope, and his revolt against that +condemnation, were imminent. Some of his followers, like Lacordaire, had +already resolved not to cross the Rubicon with their leader, not to go +into rebellion against Rome; they were preparing to separate from him. +The society of La Chênaie was soon to dissolve; but, such as it is shown +to us for a moment, with its voluntary character, its simple and severe +life in common, its mixture of lay and clerical members, the genius of +its chiefs, the sincerity of its disciples,—above all, its paramount +fervent interest in matters of spiritual and religious concernment,—it +offers a most instructive spectacle. It is not the spectacle we most of +us think to find in France, the France we have imagined from common +English notions, from the streets of Paris, from novels; it shows us +how, wherever there is greatness like that of France, there are, as its +foundation, treasures of fervor, pure-mindedness, and spirituality +somewhere, whether we know of them or not;—a store of that which Goethe +calls _Halt_;—since greatness can never be founded upon frivolity and +corruption. + +On the evening of the 18th of December in this year 1832, M. de +Lamennais was talking to those assembled in the sitting-room of La +Chênaie of his recent journey to Italy. He talked with all his usual +animation; “but,” writes one of his hearers, a Breton gentleman, M. de +Marzan, “I soon became inattentive and absent, being struck with the +reserved attitude of a young stranger some twenty-two years old, pale in +face, his black hair already thin over his temples, with a southern eye, +in which brightness and melancholy were mingled. He kept himself +somewhat aloof, seeming to avoid notice rather than to court it. All the +old faces of friends which I found about me at this my re-entry into the +circle of La Chênaie failed to occupy me so much as the sight of this +stranger, looking on, listening, observing, and saying nothing.” + +The unknown was Maurice de Guérin. Of a noble but poor family, having +lost his mother at six years old, he had been brought up by his father, +a man saddened by his wife’s death, and austerely religious, at the +château of Le Cayla, in Languedoc. His childhood was not gay; he had not +the society of other boys; and solitude, the sight of his father’s +gloom, and the habit of accompanying the curé of the parish on his +rounds among the sick and dying, made him prematurely grave and familiar +with sorrow. He went to school first at Toulouse, then at the Collège +Stanislas at Paris, with a temperament almost as unfit as Shelley’s for +common school life. His youth was ardent, sensitive, agitated, and +unhappy. In 1832 he procured admission to La Chênaie to brace his spirit +by the teaching of Lamennais, and to decide whether his religious +feelings would determine themselves into a distinct religious vocation. +Strong and deep religious feelings he had, implanted in him by nature, +developed in him by the circumstances of his childhood; but he had also +(and here is the key to his character) that temperament which opposes +itself to the fixedness of a religious vocation, or of any vocation of +which fixedness is an essential attribute; a temperament mobile, +inconstant, eager, thirsting for new impressions, abhorring rules, +aspiring to a “renovation without end;” a temperament common enough +among artists, but with which few artists, who have it to the same +degree as Guérin, unite a seriousness and a sad intensity like his. +After leaving school, and before going to La Chênaie, he had been at +home at Le Cayla with his sister Eugénie (a wonderfully gifted person, +whose genius so competent a judge as M. Sainte-Beuve is inclined to +pronounce even superior to her brother’s) and his sister Eugénie’s +friends. With one of these friends he had fallen in love,—a slight and +transient fancy, but which had already called his poetical powers into +exercise; and his poems and fragments, in a certain green note-book (_le +Cahier Vert_) which he long continued to make the depository of his +thoughts, and which became famous among his friends, he brought with him +to La Chênaie. There he found among the younger members of the Society +several who, like himself, had a secret passion for poetry and +literature; with these he became intimate, and in his letters and +journal we find him occupied, now with a literary commerce established +with these friends, now with the fortunes, fast coming to a crisis, of +the Society, and now with that for the sake of which he came to La +Chênaie,—his religious progress and the state of his soul. + +On Christmas-day, 1832, having been then three weeks at La Chênaie, he +writes thus of it to a friend of his family, M. de Bayne:— + +“La Chênaie is a sort of oasis in the midst of the steppes of Brittany. +In front of the château stretches a very large garden cut in two by a +terrace with a lime avenue, at the end of which is a tiny chapel. I am +extremely fond of this little oratory, where one breathes a twofold +peace,—the peace of solitude and the peace of the Lord. When spring +comes we shall walk to prayers between two borders of flowers. On the +east side, and only a few yards from the château, sleeps a small mere +between two woods, where the birds in warm weather sing all day long; +and then,—right, left, on all sides,—woods, woods, everywhere woods. It +looks desolate just now that all is bare and the woods are rust-color, +and under this Brittany sky, which is always clouded and so low that it +seems as if it were going to fall on your head; but as soon as spring +comes the sky raises itself up, the woods come to life again, and +everything will be full of charm.” + +Of what La Chênaie will be when spring comes he has a foretaste on the +3d of March. + +“To-day” (he writes in his journal) “has enchanted me. For the first +time for a long while the sun has shown himself in all his beauty. He +has made the buds of the leaves and flowers swell, and he has waked up +in me a thousand happy thoughts. The clouds assume more and more their +light and graceful shapes, and are sketching, over the blue sky, the +most charming fancies. The woods have not yet got their leaves, but they +are taking an indescribable air of life and gaiety, which gives them +quite a new physiognomy. Everything is getting ready for the great +festival of Nature.” + +Storm and snow adjourn this festival a little longer. On the 11th of +March he writes:— + +“It has snowed all night. I have been to look at our primroses; each of +them has its small load of snow, and was bowing its head under its +burden. These pretty flowers, with their rich yellow color, had a +charming effect under their white hoods. I saw whole tufts of them +roofed over by a single block of snow; all these laughing flowers thus +shrouded and leaning one upon another, made one think of a group of +young girls surprised by a shower, and sheltering under a white apron.” + +The burst of spring comes at last, though late. On the 5th of April we +find Guérin “sitting in the sun to penetrate himself to the very marrow +with the divine spring.” On the 3d of May, “one can actually _see_ the +progress of the green; it has made a start from the garden to the +shrubberies, it is getting the upper hand all along the mere; it leaps, +one may say, from tree to tree, from thicket to thicket, in the fields +and on the hillsides; and I can see it already arrived at the forest +edge and beginning to spread itself over the broad back of the forest. +Soon it will have overrun everything as far as the eye can reach, and +all those wide spaces between here and the horizon will be moving and +sounding like one vast sea, a sea of emerald.” + +Finally, on the 16th of May, he writes to M. de Bayne that “the gloomy +and bad days,—bad because they bring temptation by their gloom,—are, +thanks to God and the spring, over; and I see approaching a long file of +shining and happy days, to do me all the good in the world. This +Brittany of ours,” he continues, “gives one the idea of the grayest and +most wrinkled old woman possible suddenly changed back by the touch of a +fairy’s wand into a girl of twenty, and one of the loveliest in the +world; the fine weather has so decked and beautified the dear old +country.” He felt, however, the cloudiness and cold of the “dear old +country” with all the sensitiveness of a child of the South. “What a +difference,” he cries, “between the sky of Brittany, even on the finest +day, and the sky of our South! Here the summer has, even on its highdays +and holidays, something mournful, overcast, and stinted about it. It is +like a miser who is making a show; there is a niggardliness in his +magnificence. Give me our Languedoc sky, so bountiful of light, so blue, +so largely vaulted!” And somewhat later, complaining of the short and +dim sunlight of a February day in Paris, “What a sunshine,” he exclaims, +“to gladden eyes accustomed to all the wealth of light of the +South!—_aux larges et libérales effusions de lumière du ciel du Midi_.” + +In the long winter of La Chênaie his great resource was literature. One +has often heard that an educated Frenchman’s reading seldom goes much +beyond French and Latin, and that he makes the authors in these two +languages his sole literary standard. This may or may not be true of +Frenchmen in general, but there can be no question as to the width of +the reading of Guérin and his friends, and as to the range of their +literary sympathies. One of the circle, Hippolyte la Morvonnais,—a poet +who published a volume of verse, and died in the prime of life,—had a +passionate admiration for Wordsworth, and had even, it is said, made a +pilgrimage to Rydal Mount to visit him; and in Guérin’s own reading I +find, besides the French names of Bernardin de St. Pierre, +Chateaubriand, Lamartine, and Victor Hugo, the names of Homer, Dante, +Shakspeare, Milton, and Goethe; and he quotes both from Greek and from +English authors in the original. His literary tact is beautifully fine +and true. “Every poet,” he writes to his sister, “has his own art of +poetry written on the ground of his own soul; there is no other. Be +constantly observing Nature in her smallest details, and then write as +the current of your thoughts guides you;—that is all.” But with all this +freedom from the bondage of forms and rules, Guérin marks with perfect +precision the faults of the _free_ French literature of his time,—the +_littérature facile_,—and judges the romantic school and its prospects +like a master: “that youthful literature which has put forth all its +blossom prematurely, and has left itself a helpless prey to the +returning frost, stimulated as it has been by the burning sun of our +century, by this atmosphere charged with a perilous heat, which has +overhastened every sort of development, and will most likely reduce to a +handful of grains the harvest of our age.” And the popular +authors,—those “whose name appears once and disappears forever, whose +books, unwelcome to all serious people, welcome to the rest of the +world, to novelty-hunters and novel-readers, fill with vanity these vain +souls, and then, falling from hands heavy with the languor of satiety, +drop forever into the gulf of oblivion;” and those, more noteworthy, +“the writers of books celebrated, and, as works of art, deserving +celebrity, but which have in them not one grain of that hidden manna, +not one of those sweet and wholesome thoughts which nourish the human +soul and refresh it when it is weary,”—these he treats with such +severity that he may in some sense be described, as he describes +himself, as “invoking with his whole heart a classical restoration.” He +is best described, however, not as a partisan of any school, but as an +ardent seeker for that mode of expression which is the most natural, +happy, and true. He writes to his sister Eugénie:— + +“I want you to reform your system of composition; it is too loose, too +vague, too Lamartinian. Your verse is too sing-song; it does not _talk_ +enough. Form for yourself a style of your own, which shall be your real +expression. Study the French language by attentive reading, making it +your care to remark constructions, turns of expression, delicacies of +style, but without ever adopting the manner of any master. In the works +of these masters we must learn our language, but we must use it each in +our own fashion.”[10] + +----- + +Footnote 10: + + Part of these extracts date from a time a little after Guérin’s + residence at La Chênaie; but already, amidst the readings and + conversations of La Chênaie, his literary judgment was perfectly + formed. + +----- + +It was not, however, to perfect his literary judgment that Guérin came +to La Chênaie. The religious feeling, which was as much a part of his +essence as the passion for Nature and the literary instinct, shows +itself at moments jealous of these its rivals, and alarmed at their +predominance. Like all powerful feelings, it wants to exclude every +other feeling and to be absolute. One Friday in April, after he has been +delighting himself with the shapes of the clouds and the progress of the +spring, he suddenly bethinks himself that the day is Good Friday, and +exclaims in his diary:— + +“My God, what is my soul about that it can thus go running after such +fugitive delights on Good Friday, on this day all filled with thy death +and our redemption? There is in me I know not what damnable spirit, that +awakens in me strong discontents, and is forever prompting me to rebel +against the holy exercises and the devout collectedness of soul which +are the meet preparation for these great solemnities of our faith. Oh +how well can I trace here the old leaven, from which I have not yet +perfectly cleared my soul!” + +And again, in a letter to M. de Marzan: “Of what, my God, are we made,” +he cries, “that a little verdure and a few trees should be enough to rob +us of our tranquillity and to distract us from thy love?” And writing, +three days after Easter Sunday, in his journal he records the reception +at La Chênaie of a fervent neophyte, in words which seem to convey a +covert blame of his own want of fervency:— + +“Three days have passed over our heads since the great festival. One +anniversary the less for us yet to spend of the death and resurrection +of our Saviour! Every year thus bears away with it its solemn festivals; +when will the everlasting festival be here? I have been witness of a +most touching sight; François has brought us one of his friends whom he +has gained to the faith. This neophyte joined us in our exercises during +the Holy week, and on Easter day he received the communion with us. +François was in raptures. It is a truly good work which he has thus +done. François is quite young, hardly twenty years old; M. de la M. is +thirty, and is married. There is something most touching and beautifully +simple in M. de la M. letting himself thus be brought to God by quite a +young man; and to see friendship, on François’s side, thus doing the +work of an Apostle, is not less beautiful and touching.” + +Admiration for Lamennais worked in the same direction with this feeling. +Lamennais never appreciated Guérin; his combative, rigid, despotic +nature, of which the characteristic was energy, had no affinity with +Guérin’s elusive, undulating, impalpable nature, of which the +characteristic was delicacy. He set little store by his new disciple, +and could hardly bring himself to understand what others found so +remarkable in him, his own genuine feeling towards him being one of +indulgent compassion. But the intuition of Guérin, more discerning than +the logic of his master, instinctively felt what there was commanding +and tragic in Lamennais’s character, different as this was from his own; +and some of his notes are among the most interesting records of +Lamennais which remain. + +“‘Do you know what it is,’ M. Féli[11] said to us on the evening of the +day before yesterday, ‘which makes man the most suffering of all +creatures? It is that he has one foot in the finite and the other in the +infinite, and that he is torn asunder, not by four horses, as in the +horrible old times, but between two worlds.’ Again he said to us as we +heard the clock strike: ‘If that clock knew that it was to be destroyed +the next instant, it would still keep striking its hour until that +instant arrived. My children, be as the clock; whatever may be going to +happen to you, strike always your hour.’” + +----- + +Footnote 11: + + The familiar name given to M. de Lamennais by his followers at La + Chênaie. + +----- + +Another time Guérin writes: + +“To-day M. Féli startled us. He was sitting behind the chapel, under the +two Scotch firs; he took his stick and marked out a grave on the turf, +and said to Elie, ‘It is there I wish to be buried, but no tombstone! +only a simple hillock of grass. Oh, how well I shall be there!’ Elie +thought he had a presentiment that his end was near. This is not the +first time he has been visited by such a presentiment; when he was +setting out for Rome, he said to those here: ‘I do not expect ever to +come back to you; you must do the good which I have failed to do.’ He is +impatient for death.” + +Overpowered by the ascendency of Lamennais, Guérin, in spite of his +hesitations, in spite of his confession to himself that, “after a three +weeks’ close scrutiny of his soul, in the hope of finding the pearl of a +religious vocation hidden in some corner of it,” he had failed to find +what he sought, took, at the end of August 1833, a decisive step. He +joined the religious order which Lamennais had founded. But at this very +moment the deepening displeasure of Rome with Lamennais determined the +Bishop of Rennes to break up, in so far as it was a religious +congregation, the Society of La Chênaie, to transfer the novices to +Ploërmel, and to place them under other superintendence. In September, +Lamennais, “who had not yet ceased,” writes M. de Marzan, a faithful +Catholic, “to be a Christian and a priest, took leave of his beloved +colony of La Chênaie, with the anguish of a general who disbands his +army down to the last recruit, and withdraws annihilated from the field +of battle.” Guérin went to Ploërmel. But here, in the seclusion of a +real religious house, he instantly perceived how alien to a spirit like +his,—a spirit which, as he himself says somewhere, “had need of the open +air, wanted to see the sun and the flowers,”—was the constraint and the +monotony of a monastic life, when Lamennais’s genius was no longer +present to enliven this life for him. On the 7th of October he renounced +the novitiate, believing himself a partisan of Lamennais in his quarrel +with Rome, reproaching the life he had left with demanding passive +obedience instead of trying “to put in practice the admirable alliance +of order with liberty, and of variety with unity,” and declaring that, +for his part, he preferred taking the chances of a life of adventure to +submitting himself to be “_garotté par un réglement_,—tied hand and foot +by a set of rules.” In real truth, a life of adventure, or rather a life +free to wander at its own will, was that to which his nature +irresistibly impelled him. + +For a career of adventure, the inevitable field was Paris. But before +this career began, there came a stage, the smoothest, perhaps, and the +most happy in the short life of Guérin. M. la Morvonnais, one of his La +Chênaie friends,—some years older than Guérin, and married to a wife of +singular sweetness and charm,—had a house by the seaside at the mouth of +one of the beautiful rivers of Brittany, the Arguenon. He asked Guérin, +when he left Ploërmel, to come and stay with him at this place, called +Le Val de l’Arguenon, and Guérin spent the winter of 1833-4 there. I +grudge every word about Le Val and its inmates which is not Guérin’s +own, so charming is the picture drawn of them, so truly does his talent +find itself in its best vein as he draws it. + +“How full of goodness” (he writes in his journal of the 7th of December) +“is Providence to me! For fear the sudden passage from the mild and +temperate air of a religious life to the torrid clime of the world +should be too trying to my soul, it has conducted me, after I have left +my sacred shelter, to a house planted on the frontier between the two +regions, where, without being in solitude, one is not yet in the world; +a house whose windows look on the one side towards the plain where the +tumult of men is rocking, on the other towards the wilderness where the +servants of God are chanting. I intend to write down the record of my +sojourn here, for the days here spent are full of happiness, and I know +that in the time to come I shall often turn back to the story of these +past felicities. A man, pious, and a poet; a woman, whose spirit is in +such perfect sympathy with his that you would say they had but one being +between them; a child, called Marie like her mother, and who sends, like +a star, the first rays of her love and thought through the white cloud +of infancy; a simple life in an old-fashioned house; the ocean, which +comes morning and evening to bring us its harmonies; and lastly, a +wanderer who descends from Carmel and is going to Babylon, and who has +laid down at this threshold his staff and his sandals, to take his seat +at the hospitable table;—here is matter to make a biblical poem of, if I +could only describe things as I can feel them!” + +Every line written by Guérin during this stay at Le Val is worth +quoting, but I have only room for one extract more: + +“Never” (he writes, a fortnight later, on the 20th of December), “never +have I tasted so inwardly and deeply the happiness of home-life. All the +little details of this life, which in their succession makes up the day, +are to me so many stages of a continuous charm carried from one end of +the day to the other. The morning greeting, which in some sort renews +the pleasure of the first arrival, for the words with which one meets +are almost the same, and the separation at night, through the hours of +darkness and uncertainty, does not ill represent longer separations; +then breakfast, during which you have the fresh enjoyment of having met +together again; the stroll afterwards, when we go out and bid Nature +good morning; the return and setting to work in an old paneled chamber +looking out on the sea, inaccessible to all the stir of the house, a +perfect sanctuary of labor; dinner, to which we are called, not by a +bell, which reminds one too much of school or a great house, but by a +pleasant voice; the gaiety, the merriment, the talk flitting from one +subject to another and never dropping so long as the meal lasts; the +crackling fire of dry branches to which we draw our chairs directly +afterwards, the kind words that are spoken round the warm flame which +sings while we talk; and then, if it is fine, the walk by the seaside, +when the sea has for its visitors a mother with her child in her arms, +this child’s father and a stranger, each of these two last with a stick +in his hand; the rosy lips of the little girl, which keep talking at the +same time with the waves,—now and then tears shed by her and cries of +childish fright at the edge of the sea; our thoughts, the father’s and +mine, as we stand and look at the mother and child smiling at one +another, or at the child in tears and the mother trying to comfort it by +her caresses and exhortations; the Ocean, going on all the while rolling +up his waves and noises; the dead boughs which we go and cut, here and +there, out of the copse-wood, to make a quick and bright fire when we +get home,—this little taste of the woodman’s calling which brings us +closer to Nature and makes us think of M. Féli’s eager fondness for the +same work; the hours of study and poetical flow which carry us to +supper-time; this meal, which summons us by the same gentle voice as its +predecessor, and which is passed amid the same joys, only less loud, +because evening sobers everything, tones everything down; then our +evening, ushered in by the blaze of a cheerful fire, and which with its +alternations of reading and talking brings us at last to bed-time:—to +all the charms of a day so spent add the dreams which follow it, and +your imagination will still fall far short of these home-joys in their +delightful reality.” + +I said the foregoing should be my last extract, but who could resist +this picture of a January evening on the coast of Brittany?— + +“All the sky is covered over with gray clouds just silvered at the +edges. The sun, who departed a few minutes ago, has left behind him +enough light to temper for awhile the black shadows, and to soften down, +as it were, the approach of night. The winds are hushed, and the +tranquil ocean sends up to me, when I go out on the doorstep to listen, +only a melodious murmur, which dies away in the soul like a beautiful +wave on the beach. The birds, the first to obey the nocturnal influence, +make their way towards the woods, and you hear the rustle of their wings +in the clouds. The copses which cover the whole hillside of Le Val, +which all the day-time are alive with the chirp of the wren, the +laughing whistle of the woodpecker,[12] and the different notes of a +multitude of birds, have no longer any sound in their paths and +thickets, unless it be the prolonged high call of the blackbirds at play +with one another and chasing one another, after all the other birds have +their heads safe under their wings. The noise of man, always the last to +be silent, dies gradually out over the face of the fields. The general +murmur fades away, and one hears hardly a sound except what comes from +the villages and hamlets, in which, up till far into the night, there +are cries of children and barking of dogs. Silence wraps me round; +everything seeks repose except this pen of mine, which perhaps disturbs +the rest of some living atom asleep in a crease of my note-book, for it +makes its light scratching as it puts down these idle thoughts. Let it +stop, then! for all I write, have written, or shall write, will never be +worth setting against the sleep of an atom.” + +----- + +Footnote 12: + + “The woodpecker _laughs_,” says White of Selborne; and here is Guérin, + in Brittany, confirming his testimony. + +----- + +On the 1st of February we find him in a lodging at Paris. “I enter the +world” (such are the last words written in his journal at Le Val) “with +a secret horror.” His outward history for the next five years is soon +told. He found himself in Paris, poor, fastidious, and with health which +already, no doubt, felt the obscure presence of the malady of which he +died—consumption. One of his Brittany acquaintances introduced him to +editors, tried to engage him in the periodical literature of Paris; and +so unmistakable was Guérin’s talent that even his first essays were +immediately accepted. But Guérin’s genius was of a kind which unfitted +him to get his bread in this manner. At first he was pleased with the +notion of living by his pen; “_je n’ai qu’à écrire_,” he says to his +sister,—“I have only got to write.” But to a nature like his, endued +with the passion for perfection, the necessity to produce, to produce +constantly, to produce whether in the vein or out of the vein, to +produce something good or bad or middling, as it may happen, but at all +events _something_,—is the most intolerable of tortures. To escape from +it he betook himself to that common but most perfidious refuge of men of +letters, that refuge to which Goldsmith and poor Hartley Coleridge had +betaken themselves before him,—the profession of teaching. In September, +1834, he procured an engagement at the Collège Stanislas, where he had +himself been educated. It was vacation-time, and all he had to do was to +teach a small class composed of boys who did not go home for the +holidays,—in his own words, “scholars left like sick sheep in the fold, +while the rest of the flock are frisking in the fields.” After the +vacation he was kept on at the college as a supernumerary. “The master +of the fifth class has asked for a month’s leave of absence; I am taking +his place, and by this work I get one hundred francs (£4). I have been +looking about for pupils to give private lessons to, and I have found +three or four. Schoolwork and private lessons together fill my day from +half-past seven in the morning till half-past nine at night. The college +dinner serves me for breakfast, and I go and dine in the evening at +twenty-four _sous_, as a young man beginning life should.” To better his +position in the hierarchy of public teachers it was necessary that he +should take the degree of _agrégé-èslettres_, corresponding to our +degree of Master of Arts; and to his heavy work in teaching, there was +thus added that of preparing for a severe examination. The drudgery of +this life was very irksome to him, although less insupportable than the +drudgery of the profession of letters; inasmuch as to a sensitive man +like Guérin, to silence his genius is more tolerable than to hackney it. +Still the yoke wore him deeply, and he had moments of bitter revolt; he +continued, however, to bear it with resolution, and on the whole with +patience, for four years. On the 15th of November, 1838, he married a +young Creole lady of some fortune, Mademoiselle Caroline de Gervain, +“whom,” to use his own words, “Destiny, who loves these surprises, has +wafted from the farthest Indies into my arms.” The marriage was happy, +and it insured to Guérin liberty and leisure; but now “the blind Fury +with the abhorred shears” was hard at hand. Consumption declared itself +in him: “I pass my life,” he writes, with his old playfulness and calm, +to his sister on the 8th of April, 1839, “within my bed-curtains, and +wait patiently enough, thanks to Caro’s[13] goodness, books, and dreams, +for the recovery which the sunshine is to bring with it.” In search of +this sunshine he was taken to his native country, Languedoc, but in +vain. He died at Le Cayla on the 19th of July, 1839. + +----- + +Footnote 13: + + His wife. + +----- + +The vicissitudes of his inward life during these five years were +more considerable. His opinions and tastes underwent great, or what +seem to be great, changes. He came to Paris the ardent partisan of +Lamennais: even in April, 1834, after Rome had finally condemned +Lamennais,—“To-night there will go forth from Paris,” he writes, +“with his face set to the west, a man whose every step I would fain +follow, and who returns to the desert for which I sigh. M. Féli +departs this evening for La Chênaie.” But in October, 1835,—“I +assure you,” he writes to his sister, “I am at last weaned from M. +de Lamennais; one does not remain a babe and suckling for ever; I am +perfectly freed from his influence.” There was a greater change than +this. In 1834 the main cause of Guérin’s aversion to the literature +of the French romantic school, was that this literature, having had +a religious origin, had ceased to be religious: “it has forgotten,” +he says, “the house and the admonitions of its Father.” But his +friend M. de Marzan tells us of a “deplorable revolution” which, by +1836, had taken place in him. Guérin had become intimate with the +chiefs of this very literature; he no longer went to church; “the +bond of a common faith, in which our friendship had its birth, +existed between us no longer.” Then, again, “this interregnum was +not destined to last.” Reconverted to his old faith by suffering and +by the pious efforts of his sister Eugénie, Guérin died a Catholic. +His feelings about society underwent a like change. After “entering +the world with a secret horror,” after congratulating himself when +he had been some months at Paris on being “disengaged from the +social tumult, out of the reach of those blows which, when I live in +the thick of the world, bruise me, irritate me, or utterly crush +me,” M. Sainte-Beuve tells us of him, two years afterwards, +appearing in society “a man of the world, elegant, even fashionable; +a talker who could hold his own against the most brilliant talkers +of Paris.” + +In few natures, however, is there really such essential consistency as +in Guérin’s. He says of himself, in the very beginning of his journal: +“I owe everything to poetry, for there is no other name to give to the +sum total of my thoughts; I owe to it whatever I now have pure, lofty +and solid in my soul; I owe to it all my consolations in the past; I +shall probably owe to it my future.” Poetry, the poetical instinct, was +indeed the basis of his nature; but to say so thus absolutely is not +quite enough. One aspect of poetry fascinated Guérin’s imagination and +held it prisoner. Poetry is the interpretress of the natural world, and +she is the interpretress of the moral world; it was as the interpretress +of the natural world that she had Guérin for her mouthpiece. To make +magically near and real the life of Nature, and man’s life only so far +as it is a part of that Nature, was his faculty; a faculty of +naturalistic, not of moral interpretation. This faculty always has for +its basis a peculiar temperament, an extraordinary delicacy of +organization and susceptibility to impressions; in exercising it the +poet is in a great degree passive (Wordsworth thus speaks of a _wise +passiveness_); he aspires to be a sort of human Æolian harp, catching +and rendering every rustle of Nature. To assist at the evolution of the +whole life of the world is his craving, and intimately to feel it all: + + ... “The glow, the thrill of life, + Where, where do these abound?” + +is what he asks: he resists being riveted and held stationary by any +single impression, but would be borne on forever down an enchanted +stream. He goes into religion and out of religion into society and out +of society, not from the motives which impel men in general, but to feel +what it is all like; he is thus hardly a moral agent, and, like the +passive and ineffectual Uranus of Keats’s poem, he may say: + + ... “I am but a voice; + My life is but the life of winds and tides; + No more than winds and tides can I avail.” + +He hovers over the tumult of life, but does not really put his hand to +it. + +No one has expressed the aspirations of this temperament better than +Guérin himself. In the last year of his life he writes:— + +“I return, as you see, to my old brooding over the world of Nature, that +line which my thoughts, irresistibly take; a sort of passion which gives +me enthusiasm, tears, bursts of joy, and an eternal food for musing; and +yet I am neither philosopher nor naturalist, nor anything learned +whatsoever. There is one word which is the God of my imagination, the +tyrant, I ought rather to say, that fascinates it, lures it onward, +gives it work to do without ceasing, and will finally carry it I know +not where; the word _life_.” + +And in one place in his journal he says:— + +“My imagination welcomes every dream, every impression, without +attaching itself to any, and goes on forever seeking something new.” + +And again in another:— + +“The longer I live, and the clearer I discern between true and false in +society, the more does the inclination to live, not as a savage or a +misanthrope, but as a solitary man on the frontiers of society, on the +outskirts of the world, gain strength and grow in me. The birds come and +go and make nests around our habitations, they are fellow-citizens of +our farms and hamlets with us; but they take their flight in a heaven +which is boundless, but the hand of God alone gives and measures to them +their daily food, but they build their nests in the heart of the thick +bushes, or hang them in the height of the trees. So would I, too, live, +hovering round society, and having always at my back a field of liberty +vast as the sky.” + +In the same spirit he longed for travel. “When one is a wanderer,” he +writes to his sister, “one feels that one fulfils the true condition of +humanity.” And the last entry in his journal is,—“The stream of travel +is full of delight. Oh, who will set me adrift on this Nile!” + +Assuredly it is not in this temperament that the active virtues have +their rise. On the contrary, this temperament, considered in itself +alone, indisposes for the discharge of them. Something morbid and +excessive, as manifested in Guérin, it undoubtedly has. In him, as in +Keats, and as in another youth of genius, whose name, but the other day +unheard of, Lord Houghton has so gracefully written in the history of +English poetry,—David Gray,—the temperament, the talent itself, is +deeply influenced by their mysterious malady; the temperament is +_devouring_; it uses vital power too hard and too fast, paying the +penalty in long hours of unutterable exhaustion and in premature death. +The intensity of Guérin’s depression is described to us by Guérin +himself with the same incomparable touch with which he describes happier +feelings; far oftener than any pleasurable sense of his gift he has “the +sense profound, near, immense, of my misery, of my inward poverty.” And +again: “My inward misery gains upon me; I no longer dare look within.” +And on another day of gloom he does look within, and here is the +terrible analysis:— + +“Craving, unquiet, seeing only by glimpses, my spirit is stricken by all +those ills which are the sure fruit of a youth doomed never to ripen +into manhood. I grow old and wear myself out in the most futile mental +strainings, and make no progress. My head seems dying, and when the wind +blows I fancy I feel it, as if I were a tree, blowing through a number +of withered branches in my top. Study is intolerable to me, or rather it +is quite out of my power. Mental work brings on, not drowsiness, but an +irritable and nervous disgust which drives me out, I know not where, +into the streets and public places. The Spring, whose delights used to +come every year stealthily and mysteriously to charm me in my retreat, +crushes me this year under a weight of sudden hotness. I should be glad +of any event which delivered me from the situation in which I am. If I +were free I would embark for some distant country where I could begin +life anew.” + +Such is this temperament in the frequent hours when the sense of its own +weakness and isolation crushes it to the ground. Certainly it was not +for Guérin’s happiness, or for Keats’s, as men count happiness, to be as +they were. Still the very excess and predominance of their temperament +has given to the fruits of their genius a unique brilliancy and flavor. +I have said that poetry interprets in two ways; it interprets by +expressing with magical felicity the physiognomy and movement of the +outward world, and it interprets by expressing, with inspired +conviction, the ideas and laws of the inward world of man’s moral and +spiritual nature. In other words, poetry is interpretative both by +having _natural magic_ in it, and by having _moral profundity_. In both +ways it illuminates man; it gives him a satisfying sense of reality; it +reconciles him with himself and the universe. Thus Æschylus’s “δράσαντι +παθεῖν” and his “ὰνήριθμον γέλασμα” are alike interpretative. Shakspeare +interprets both when he says, + + “Full many a glorious morning have I seen, + Flatter the mountain-tops with sovran eye;” + +and when he says, + + “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, + Rough-hew them as we will.” + +These great poets unite in themselves the faculty of both kinds of +interpretation, the naturalistic and the moral. But it is observable +that in the poets who unite both kinds, the latter (the moral) usually +ends by making itself the master. In Shakspeare the two kinds seem +wonderfully to balance one another; but even in him the balance leans; +his expression tends to become too little sensuous and simple, too much +intellectualized. The same thing may be yet more strongly affirmed of +Lucretius and of Wordsworth. In Shelley there is not a balance of the +two gifts, nor even a co-existence of them, but there is a passionate +straining after them both, and this is what makes Shelley, as a man, so +interesting: I will not now inquire how much Shelley achieves as a poet, +but whatever he achieves, he in general fails to achieve natural magic +in his expression; in Mr. Palgrave’s charming _Treasury_ may be seen a +gallery of his failures.[14] But in Keats and Guérin, in whom the +faculty of naturalistic interpretation is overpoweringly predominant, +the natural magic is perfect; when they speak of the world they speak +like Adam naming by divine inspiration the creatures; their expression +corresponds with the thing’s essential reality. Even between Keats and +Guérin, however, there is a distinction to be drawn. Keats has, above +all, a sense of what is pleasurable and open in the life of nature; for +him she is the _Alma Parens_: his expression has, therefore, more than +Guérin’s, something genial, outward, and sensuous. Guérin has, above +all, a sense of what there is adorable and secret in the life of Nature; +for him she is the _Magna Parens_; his expression has, therefore, more +than Keats’s, something mystic, inward, and profound. + +----- + +Footnote 14: + + Compare, for example, his “Lines Written in the Euganean Hills,” with + Keats’s “Ode to Autumn” (_Golden Treasury_, pp. 256, 284). The latter + piece _renders_ Nature; the former _tries to render_ her. I will not + deny, however, that Shelley has natural magic in his rhythm; what I + deny is, that he has it in his language. It always seems to me that + the right sphere for Shelley’s genius was the sphere of music, not of + poetry; the medium of sounds he can master, but to master the more + difficult medium of words he has neither intellectual force enough nor + sanity enough. + +----- + +So he lived like a man possessed; with his eye not on his own career, +not on the public, not on fame, but on the Isis whose veil he had +uplifted. He published nothing: “There is more power and beauty,” he +writes, “in the well-kept secret of one’s-self and one’s thoughts, than +in the display of a whole heaven that one may have inside one.” “My +spirit,” he answers the friends who urge him to write, “is of the +home-keeping order, and has no fancy for adventure; literary adventure +is above all distasteful to it; for this, indeed (let me say so without +the least self-sufficiency), it has a contempt. The literary career +seems to me unreal, both in its own essence and in the rewards which one +seeks from it, and therefore fatally marred by a secret absurdity.” His +acquaintances, and among them distinguished men of letters, full of +admiration for the originality and delicacy of his talent, laughed at +his self-depreciation, warmly assured him of his powers. He received +their assurances with a mournful incredulity, which contrasts curiously +with the self-assertion of poor David Gray, whom I just now mentioned. +“It seems to me intolerable,” he writes, “to appear to men other than +one appears to God. My worst torture at this moment is the over-estimate +which generous friends form of me. We are told that at the last judgment +the secret of all consciences will be laid bare to the universe; would +that mine were so this day, and that every passer-by could see me as I +am!” “High above my head,” he says at another time, “far, far away, I +seem to hear the murmur of that world of thought and feeling to which I +aspire so often, but where I can never attain. I think of those of my +own age who have wings strong enough to reach it, but I think of them +without jealousy, and as men on earth contemplate the elect and their +felicity.” And, criticising his own composition, “When I begin a +subject, my self-conceit” (says this exquisite artist) “imagines I am +doing wonders; and when I have finished, I see nothing but a wretched +made-up imitation, composed of odds and ends of color stolen from other +people’s palettes, and tastelessly mixed together on mine.” Such was his +_passion for perfection_, his disdain for all poetical work not +perfectly adequate and felicitous. The magic of expression, to which by +the force of this passion he won his way, will make the name of Maurice +de Guérin remembered in literature. + +I have already mentioned the _Centaur_, a sort of prose poem by Guérin, +which Madame Sand published after his death. The idea of this +composition came to him, M. Sainte-Beuve says, in the course of some +visits which he made with his friend, M. Trebutien, a learned +antiquarian, to the Museum of Antiquities in the Louvre. The free and +wild life which the Greeks expressed by such creations as the Centaur +had, as we might well expect, a strong charm for him; under the same +inspiration he composed a _Bacchante_, which was meant by him to form +part of a prose poem on the adventures of Bacchus in India. Real as was +the affinity which Guérin’s nature had for these subjects, I doubt +whether, in treating them, he would have found the full and final +employment of his talent. But the beauty of his _Centaur_ is +extraordinary; in its whole conception and expression this piece has in +a wonderful degree that natural magic of which I have said so much, and +the rhythm has a charm which bewitches even a foreigner. An old Centaur +on his mountain is supposed to relate to Melampus, a human questioner, +the life of his youth. Untranslatable as the piece is, I shall conclude +with some extracts from it:— + + “THE CENTAUR. + +“I had my birth in the caves of these mountains. Like the stream of this +valley, whose first drops trickle from some weeping rock in a deep +cavern, the first moment of my life fell in the darkness of a remote +abode, and without breaking the silence. When our mothers draw near to +the time of their delivery, they withdraw to the caverns, and in the +depth of the loneliest of them, in the thickest of its gloom, bring +forth, without uttering a plaint, a fruit silent as themselves. Their +puissant milk makes us surmount, without weakness or dubious struggle, +the first difficulties of life; and yet we leave our caverns later than +you your cradles. The reason is that we have a doctrine that the early +days of existence should be kept apart and enshrouded, as days filled +with the presence of the gods. Nearly the whole term of my growth was +passed in the darkness where I was born. The recesses of my dwelling ran +so far under the mountain that I should not have known on which side was +the exit, had not the winds, when they sometimes made their way through +the opening, sent fresh airs in, and a sudden trouble. Sometimes, too, +my mother came back to me, having about her the odors of the valleys, or +streaming from the waters which were her haunt. Her returning thus, +without a word said of the valleys or the rivers, but with the +emanations from them hanging about her, troubled my spirit, and I moved +up and down restlessly in my darkness. ‘What is it,’ I cried, ‘this +outside world whither my mother is borne, and what reigns there in it so +potent as to attract her so often?’ At these moments my own force began +to make me unquiet. I felt in it a power which could not remain idle; +and betaking myself either to toss my arms or to gallop backwards and +forwards in the spacious darkness of the cavern, I tried to make out +from the blows which I dealt in the empty space, or from the transport +of my course through it, in what direction my arms were meant to reach, +or my feet to bear me. Since that day, I have wound my arms round the +bust of Centaurs, and round the body of heroes, and round the trunk of +oaks; my hands have assayed the rocks, the waters, plants without +number, and the subtlest impressions of the air,—for I uplift them in +the dark and still nights to catch the breaths of wind, and to draw +signs whereby I may augur my road; my feet,—look, O Melampus, how worn +they are! And yet, all benumbed as I am in this extremity of age, there +are days when, in broad sunlight, on the mountain-tops, I renew these +gallopings of my youth in the cavern, and with the same object, +brandishing my arms and employing all the fleetness which yet is left to +me. + + . . . . . . . . + +“O Melampus, thou who wouldst know the life of the Centaurs, wherefore +have the gods willed that thy steps should lead thee to me, the oldest +and most forlorn of them all? It is long since I have ceased to practise +any part of their life. I quit no more this mountain summit to which age +has confined me. The point of my arrows now serves me only to uproot +some tough-fibred plant; the tranquil lakes know me still, but the +rivers have forgotten me. I will tell thee a little of my youth; but +these recollections, issuing from a worn memory, come like the drops of +a niggardly libation poured from a damaged urn. + +“The course of my youth was rapid and full of agitation. Movement was my +life, and my steps knew no bound. One day when I was following the +course of a valley seldom entered by the Centaurs, I discovered a man +making his way up the stream-side on the opposite bank. He was the first +whom my eyes had lighted on: I despised him. ‘Behold,’ I cried, ‘at the +utmost but the half of what I am! How short are his steps! and his +movement how full of labor! Doubtless he is a Centaur overthrown by the +gods, and reduced by them to drag himself along thus.’ + + . . . . . . . . + +“Wandering along at my own will like the rivers, feeling wherever I went +the presence of Cybele, whether in the bed of the valleys, or on the +height of the mountains, I bounded whither I would, like a blind and +chainless life. But when Night, filled with the charm of the gods, +overtook me on the slopes of the mountain, she guided me to the mouth of +the caverns, and there tranquillized me as she tranquillizes the billows +of the sea. Stretched across the threshold of my retreat, my flanks +hidden within the cave, and my head under the open sky, I watched the +spectacle of the dark. The sea-gods, it is said, quit during the hours +of darkness their palaces under the deep; they seat themselves on the +promontories, and their eyes wander over the expanse of the waves. Even +so I kept watch, having at my feet an expanse of life like the hushed +sea. My regards had free range, and traveled to the most distant points. +Like sea beaches which never lose their wetness, the line of mountains +to the west retained the imprint of gleams not perfectly wiped out by +the shadows. In that quarter still survived, in pale clearness, +mountain-summits naked and pure. There I beheld at one time the god Pan +descend, ever solitary; at another, the choir of the mystic divinities; +or I saw pass some mountain nymph charm-struck by the night. Sometimes +the eagles of Mount Olympus traversed the upper sky, and were lost to +view among the far-off constellations, or in the shade of the dreaming +forests. + +“Thou pursuest after wisdom, O Melampus, which is the science of the +will of the gods; and thou roamest from people to people like a mortal +driven by the destinies. In the times when I kept my night-watches +before the caverns, I have sometimes believed that I was about to +surprise the thought of the sleeping Cybele, and that the mother of the +gods, betrayed by her dreams, would let fall some of her secrets; but I +have never made out more than sounds which faded away in the murmur of +night, or words inarticulate as the bubbling of the rivers. + +“‘O Macareus,’ one day said the great Chiron to me, whose old age I +tended; ‘we are, both of us, Centaurs of the mountain; but how different +are our lives! Of my days all the study is (thou seest it) the search +for plants; thou, thou art like those mortals who have picked up on the +waters or in the woods, and carried to their lips, some pieces of the +reed-pipe thrown away by the god Pan. From that hour these mortals, +having caught from their relics of the god a passion for wild life, or +perhaps smitten with some secret madness, enter into the wilderness, +plunge among the forests, follow the course of the streams, bury +themselves in the heart of the mountains, restless, and haunted by an +unknown purpose. The mares beloved of the winds in the farthest Scythia +are not wilder than thou, nor more cast down at nightfall, when the +North Wind has departed. Seekest thou to know the gods. O Macareus, and +from what source men, animals, and the elements of the universal fire +have their origin? But the aged Ocean, the father of all things, keeps +locked within his own breast these secrets; and the nymphs, who stand +around, sing as they weave their eternal dance before him, to cover any +sound which might escape from his lips half-opened by slumber. The +mortals, dear to the gods for their virtue, have received from their +hands lyres to give delight to man, or the seeds of new plants to make +him rich; but from their inexorable lips, nothing!’ + + . . . . . . . . + +“Such were the lessons which the old Chiron gave me. Waned to the very +extremity of life, the Centaur yet nourished in his spirit the most +lofty discourse. + + . . . . . . . . + +“For me, O Melampus, I decline into my last days, calm as the setting of +the constellations. I still retain enterprise enough to climb to the top +of the rocks, and there I linger late, either gazing on the wild and +restless clouds, or to see come up from the horizon the rainy Hyades, +the Pleiades, or the great Orion; but I feel myself perishing and +passing quickly away, like a snow-wreath floating on the stream; and +soon shall I be mingled with the waters which flow in the vast bosom of +Earth.” + + + + + IV. + + EUGÉNIE DE GUÉRIN. + + +Who that had spoken of Maurice de Guérin could refrain from speaking of +his sister Eugénie, the most devoted of sisters, one of the rarest and +most beautiful of souls? “There is nothing fixed, no duration, no +vitality in the sentiments of women towards one another; their +attachments are mere pretty knots of ribbon, and no more. In all the +friendships of women I observe this slightness of the tie. I know no +instance to the contrary, even in history. Orestes and Pylades have no +sisters.” So she herself speaks of the friendships of her own sex. But +Electra can attach herself to Orestes, if not to Chrysothemis. And to +her brother Maurice, Eugénie de Guérin was Pylades and Electra in one. + +The name of Maurice de Guérin,—that young man so gifted, so attractive, +so careless of fame, and so early snatched away; who died at +twenty-nine; who, says his sister, “let what he did be lost with a +carelessness so unjust to himself, set no value on any of his own +productions, and departed hence without reaping the rich harvest which +seemed his due;” who, in spite of his immaturity, in spite of his +fragility, exercised such a charm, “furnished to others so much of that +which all live by,” that some years after his death his sister found in +a country-house where he used to stay, in the journal of a young girl +who had not known him, but who heard her family speak of him, his name, +the date of his death, and these words, “_it était leur vie_” (he was +their life); whose talent, exquisite as that of Keats, with much less of +sunlight, abundance, inventiveness, and facility in it than that of +Keats, but with more of distinction and power, had “that winning, +delicate, and beautifully happy turn of expression” which is the stamp +of the master,—is beginning to be well known to all lovers of +literature. This establishment of Maurice’s name was an object for which +his sister Eugénie passionately labored. While he was alive, she placed +her whole joy in the flowering of this gifted nature; when he was dead, +she had no other thought than to make the world know him as she knew +him. She outlived him nine years, and her cherished task for those years +was to rescue the fragments of her brother’s composition, to collect +them, to get them published. In pursuing this task she had at first +cheering hopes of success; she had at last baffling and bitter +disappointment. Her earthly business was at an end; she died. Ten years +afterwards, it was permitted to the love of a friend, M. Trebutien, to +effect for Maurice’s memory what the love of a sister had failed to +accomplish. But those who read, with delight and admiration, the journal +and letters of Maurice de Guérin, could not but be attracted and touched +by this sister Eugénie, who met them at every page. She seemed hardly +less gifted, hardly less interesting, than Maurice himself. And +presently Mr. Trebutien did for the sister what he had done for the +brother. He published the journal of Mdlle. Eugénie de Guérin, and a few +(too few, alas!) of her letters.[15] The book has made a profound +impression in France; and the fame which she sought only for her brother +now crowns the sister also. + +----- + +Footnote 15: + + A volume of these, also, has just been brought out by M. Trebutien. + One good book, at least, in the literature of the year 1865! + +----- + +Parts of Mdlle. de Guérin’s journal were several years ago printed for +private circulation, and a writer in the _National Review_ had the good +fortune to fall in with them. The bees of our English criticism do not +often roam so far afield for their honey, and this critic deserves +thanks for having flitted upon in his quest of blossom to foreign parts, +and for having settled upon a beautiful flower found there. He had the +discernment to see that Mdlle. de Guérin was well worth speaking of, and +he spoke of her with feeling and appreciation. But that, as I have said, +was several years ago; even a true and feeling homage needs to be from +time to time renewed, if the memory of its object is to endure; and +criticism must not lose the occasion offered by Mdlle. de Guérin’s +journal being for the first time published to the world, of directing +notice once more to this religious and beautiful character. + +Eugénie de Guérin was born in 1805, at the château of Le Cayla, in +Languedoc. Her family, though reduced in circumstances, was noble; and +even when one is a saint one cannot quite forget that one comes of the +stock of the Guarini of Italy, or that one counts among one’s ancestors +a Bishop of Senlis, who had the marshaling of the French order of battle +on the day of Bouvines. Le Cayla was a solitary place, with its terrace +looking down upon a stream-bed and valley; “one may pass days there +without seeing any living thing but the sheep, without hearing any +living thing but the birds.” M. de Guérin, Eugénie’s father, lost his +wife when Eugénie was thirteen years old, and Maurice seven; he was left +with four children,—Eugénie, Marie, Erembert, and Maurice,—of whom +Eugénie was the eldest, and Maurice was the youngest. This youngest +child, whose beauty and delicacy had made him the object of his mother’s +most anxious fondness, was commended by her in dying to the care of his +sister Eugénie. Maurice at eleven years old went to school at Toulouse; +then he went to the Collège Stanislas at Paris; then he became a member +of the religious society which M. de Lamennais had formed at La Chênaie +in Brittany; afterwards he lived chiefly at Paris, returning to Le +Cayla, at the age of twenty-nine, to die. Distance, in those days, was a +great obstacle to frequent meetings of the separated members of a French +family of narrow means. Maurice de Guérin was seldom at Le Cayla after +he had once quitted it, though his few visits to his home were long +ones; but he passed five years,—the period of his sojourn in Brittany, +and of his first settlement in Paris,—without coming home at all. In +spite of the check from these absences, in spite of the more serious +check from a temporary alteration in Maurice’s religious feelings, the +union between the brother and sister was wonderfully close and firm. For +they were knit together, not only by the tie of blood and early +attachment, but also by the tie of a common genius. “We were,” says +Eugénie, “two eyes looking out of one head.” She, on her part, brought +to her love for her brother the devotedness of a woman, the intensity of +a recluse, almost the solicitude of a mother. Her home duties prevented +her from following the wish, which often arose in her, to join a +religious sisterhood. There is a trace,—just a trace,—of an early +attachment to a cousin; but he died when she was twenty-four. After +that, she lived for Maurice. It was for Maurice that, in addition to her +constant correspondence with him by letter, she began in 1834 her +journal, which was sent to him by portions as it was finished. After his +death she tried to continue it, addressing it to “Maurice in heaven.” +But the effort was beyond her strength; gradually the entries become +rarer and rarer; and on the last day of December 1840 the pen dropped +from her hand: the journal ends. + +Other sisters have loved their brothers, and it is not her affection for +Maurice, admirable as this was, which alone could have made Eugénie de +Guérin celebrated. I have said that both brother and sister had genius: +M. Sainte-Beuve goes so far as to say that the sister’s genius was +equal, if not superior, to her brother’s. No one has a more profound +respect for M. Sainte-Beuve’s critical judgments than I have, but it +seems to me that this particular judgment needs to be a little explained +and guarded. In Maurice’s special talent, which was a talent for +interpreting nature, for finding words which incomparably render the +subtlest impressions which nature makes upon us, which bring the +intimate life of nature wonderfully near to us, it seems to me that his +sister was by no means his equal. She never, indeed, expresses herself +without grace and intelligence; but her words, when she speaks of the +life and appearances of nature, are in general but intellectual signs; +they are not like her brother’s—symbols equivalent with the thing +symbolized. They bring the notion of the thing described to the mind, +they do not bring the feeling of it to the imagination. Writing from the +Nivernais, that region of vast woodlands in the center of France: “It +does one good,” says Eugénie, “to be going about in the midst of this +enchanting nature, with flowers, birds, and verdure all round one, under +this large and blue sky of the Nivernais. How I love the gracious form +of it, and those little white clouds here and there, like cushions of +cotton, hung aloft to rest the eye in this immensity!” It is pretty and +graceful, but how different from the grave and pregnant strokes of +Maurice’s pencil! “I have been along the Loire, and seen on its banks +the plains where nature is puissant and gay; I have seen royal and +antique dwellings, all marked by memories which have their place in the +mournful legend of humanity,—Chambord, Blois, Amboise, Chenonceaux; then +the towns on the two banks of the river,—Orleans, Tours, Saumur, Nantes; +and at the end of it all, the Ocean rumbling. From these I passed back +into the interior of the country, as far as Bourges and Nevers, a region +of vast woodlands, in which murmurs of an immense range and fulness” +(_ce beau torrent de rumeurs_, as, with an expression worthy of +Wordsworth, he elsewhere calls them) “prevail and never cease.” Words +whose charm is like that of the sounds of the murmuring forest itself, +and whose reverberations, like theirs, die away in the infinite distance +of the soul. + +Maurice’s life was in the life of nature, and the passion for it +consumed him; it would have been strange if his accent had not caught +more of the soul of nature than Eugénie’s accent, whose life was +elsewhere. “You will find in him,” Maurice says to his sister of a +friend whom he was recommending to her, “you will find in him that which +you love, and which suits you better than anything else,—_l’onction, +l’effusion, la mysticité_.” Unction, the pouring out of the soul, the +rapture of the mystic, were dear to Maurice also; but in him the bent of +his genius gave even to those a special direction of its own. In Eugénie +they took the direction most native and familiar to them; their object +was the religious life. + +And yet, if one analyzes this beautiful and most interesting character +quite to the bottom, it is not exactly as a saint that Eugénie de Guérin +is remarkable. The ideal saint is a nature like Saint François de Sales +or Fénelon; a nature of ineffable sweetness and serenity, a nature in +which struggle and revolt is over, and the whole man (so far as is +possible to human infirmity) swallowed up in love. Saint Theresa (it is +Mdlle. de Guérin herself who reminds us of it) endured twenty years of +unacceptance and of repulse in her prayers; yes, but the Saint Theresa +whom Christendom knows is Saint Theresa repulsed no longer! it is Saint +Theresa accepted, rejoicing in love, radiant with ecstasy. Mdlle. de +Guérin is not one of these saints arrived at perfect sweetness and calm, +steeped in ecstasy; there is something primitive, indomitable in her, +which she governs, indeed, but which chafes, which revolts. Somewhere in +the depths of that strong nature there is a struggle, an impatience, an +inquietude, an ennui, which endures to the end, and which leaves one, +when one finally closes her journal, with an impression of profound +melancholy. “There are days,” she writes to her brother, “when one’s +nature rolls itself up, and becomes a hedgehog. If I had you here at +this moment, here close by me, how I should prick you! how sharp and +hard!” “Poor soul, poor soul,” she cries out to herself another day, +“what is the matter, what would you have? Where is that which will do +you good? Everything is green, everything is in bloom, all the air has a +breath of flowers. How beautiful it is! well, I will go out. No, I +should be alone, and all this beauty, when one is alone, is worth +nothing. What shall I do then? Read, write, pray, take a basket of sand +on my head like that hermit-saint, and walk with it? Yes, work, work! +keep busy the body which does mischief to the soul! I have been too +little occupied to-day, and that is bad for one, and it gives a certain +ennui which I have in me time to ferment.” + +_A certain ennui which I have in me_: her wound is there. In vain she +follows the counsel of Fénelon: “If God tires you, _tell him that he +tires you_.” No doubt she obtained great and frequent solace and +restoration from prayer: “This morning I was suffering; well, at present +I am calm, and this I owe to faith simply to faith, to an act of faith. +I can think of death and eternity without trouble, without alarm. Over a +deep of sorrow there floats a divine calm, a suavity which is the work +of God only. In vain have I tried other things at a time like this: +nothing human comforts the soul, nothing human upholds it:— + + ‘A l’enfant il faut sa mère, + A mon âme il faut mon Dieu.’” + +Still the ennui reappears, bringing with it hours of unutterable +forlornness, and making her cling to her one great earthly +happiness,—her affection for her brother,—with an intenseness, an +anxiety, a desperation in which there is something morbid, and by which +she is occasionally carried into an irritability, a jealousy which she +herself is the first, indeed, to censure, which she severely represses, +but which nevertheless leaves a sense of pain. + +Mdlle. de Guérin’s admirers have compared her to Pascal, and in some +respects the comparison is just. But she cannot exactly be classed with +Pascal, any more than with Saint Francois de Sales. Pascal is a man, and +the inexhaustible power and activity of his mind leave him no leisure +for ennui. He has not the sweetness and serenity of the perfect saint; +he is, perhaps, “der strenge, kranke Pascal—_the severe, morbid +Pascal_,”—as Goethe (and, strange to say, Goethe at twenty-three, an age +which usually feels Pascal’s charm most profoundly) calls him. But the +stress and movement of the lifelong conflict waged in him between his +soul and his reason keep him full of fire, full of agitation, and keep +his reader, who witnesses this conflict, animated and excited; the sense +of forlornness and dejected weariness which clings to Eugénie de Guérin +does not belong to Pascal. Eugénie de Guérin is a woman, and longs for a +state of firm happiness, for an affection in which she may repose. The +inward bliss of Saint Theresa or Fénelon would have satisfied her; +denied this, she cannot rest satisfied with the triumphs of +self-abasement, with the somber joy of trampling the pride of life and +of reason underfoot, of reducing all human hope and joy to +insignificance; she repeats the magnificent words of Bossuet, words +which both Catholicism and Protestantism have uttered with indefatigable +iteration: “On trouve au fond de tout le vide et le néant—_at the bottom +of everything one finds emptiness and nothingness_,” but she feels, as +every one but the true mystic must ever feel, their incurable sterility. + +She resembles Pascal, however, by the clearness and firmness of her +intelligence, going straight and instinctively to the bottom of any +matter she is dealing with, and expressing herself about it with +incomparable precision; never fumbling with what she has to say, never +imperfectly seizing or imperfectly presenting her thought. And to this +admirable precision she joins a lightness of touch, a feminine ease and +grace, a flowing facility which are her own. “I do not say,” writes her +brother Maurice, an excellent judge, “that I find in myself a dearth of +expression; but I have not this abundance of yours, this productiveness +of soul which streams forth, which courses along without ever failing, +and always with an infinite charm.” And writing to her of some +composition of hers, produced after her religious scruples had for a +long time kept her from the exercise of her talent: “You see, my dear +Tortoise,” he writes, “that your talent is no illusion, since after a +period, I know not how long, of poetical inaction,—a trial to which any +half-talent would have succumbed,—it rears its head again more vigorous +than ever. It is really heart-breaking to see you repress and bind down, +with I know not what scruples, your spirit, which tends with all the +force of its nature to develop itself in this direction. Others have +made it a case of conscience for you to resist this impulse, and I make +it one for you to follow it.” And she says of herself, on one of her +freer days: “It is the instinct of my life to write, as it is the +instinct of the fountain to flow.” The charm of her expression is not a +sensuous and imaginative charm like that of Maurice, but rather an +intellectual charm; it comes from the texture of the style rather than +from its elements; it is not so much in the words as in the turn of the +phrase, in the happy cast and flow of the sentence. Recluse as she was, +she had a great correspondence: every one wished to have letters from +her; and no wonder. + +To this strength of intelligence and talent of expression she joined a +great force of character. Religion had early possessed itself of this +force of character, and reinforced it: in the shadow of the Cevennes, in +the sharp and tonic nature of this region of Southern France, which has +seen the Albigensians, which has seen the Camisards, Catholicism too is +fervent and intense. Eugénie de Guérin was brought up amidst strong +religious influences, and they found in her a nature on which they could +lay firm hold. I have said that she was not a saint of the order of +Saint François de Sales or Fénelon; perhaps she had too keen an +intelligence to suffer her to be this, too forcible and impetuous a +character. But I did not mean to imply the least doubt of the reality, +the profoundness, of her religious life. She was penetrated by the power +of religion; religion was the master-influence of her life; she derived +immense consolations from religion, she earnestly strove to conform her +whole nature to it; if there was an element in her which religion could +not perfectly reach, perfectly transmute, she groaned over this element +in her, she chid it, she made it bow. Almost every thought in her was +brought into harmony with religion; and what few thoughts were not thus +brought into harmony were brought into subjection. + +Then she had her affection for her brother; and this, too, though +perhaps there might be in it something a little over-eager, a little too +absolute, a little too susceptible, was a pure, a devoted affection. It +was not only passionate, it was tender. It was tender, pliant, and +self-sacrificing to a degree that not in one nature out of a +thousand,—of natures with a mind and will like hers,—is found +attainable. She thus united extraordinary power of intelligence, +extraordinary force of character, and extraordinary strength of +affection; and all these under the control of a deep religious feeling. + +This is what makes her so remarkable, so interesting. I shall try and +make her speak for herself, that she may show us the characteristic +sides of her rare nature with her own inimitable touch. + +It must be remembered that her journal is written for Maurice only; in +her lifetime no eye but his ever saw it. “_Ceci n’est pas pour le +public_,” she writes; “_c’est de l’intime, c’est de l’âme, c’est pour +un_.” “This is not for the public; it contains my inmost thoughts, my +very soul; it is for _one_.” And Maurice, this _one_, was a kind of +second self to her. “We see things with the same eyes; what you find +beautiful, I find beautiful; God has made our souls of one piece.” And +this genuine confidence in her brother’s sympathy gives to the entries +in her journal a naturalness and simple freedom rare in such +compositions. She felt that he would understand her, and be interested +in all that she wrote. + +One of the first pages of her journal relates an incident of the +home-life of Le Cayla, the smallest detail of which Maurice liked to +hear; and in relating it she brings this simple life before us. She is +writing in November, 1834:— + +“I am furious with the gray cat. The mischievous beast has made away +with a little half-frozen pigeon, which I was trying to thaw by the side +of the fire. The poor little thing was just beginning to come round; I +meant to tame him; he would have grown fond of me; and there is my whole +scheme eaten up by a cat! This event, and all the rest of to-day’s +history, has passed in the kitchen. Here I take up my abode all the +morning and a part of the evening, ever since I am without Mimi.[16] I +have to superintend the cook; sometimes papa comes down, and I read to +him by the oven, or by the fireside, some bits out of the _Antiquities +of the Anglo-Saxon Church_. This book struck Pierril[17] with +astonishment. _Que de mouts aqui dédins!_ What a lot of words there are +inside it!’ This boy is a real original. One evening he asked me if the +soul was immortal; then afterwards, what a philosopher was? We had got +upon great questions, as you see. When I told him that a philosopher was +a person who was wise and learned: ‘Then, mademoiselle, you are a +philosopher.’ This was said with an air of simplicity and sincerity +which might have made even Socrates take it as a compliment; but it made +me laugh so much that my gravity as catechist was gone for that evening. +A day or two ago Pierril left us, to his great sorrow: his time with us +was up on Saint Brice’s day. Now he goes about with his little dog, +truffle-hunting. If he comes this way I shall go and ask him if he still +thinks I look like a philosopher.” + +----- + +Footnote 16: + + The familiar name of her sister Marie. + +Footnote 17: + + A servant-boy at Le Cayla. + +----- + +Her good sense and spirit made her discharge with alacrity her household +tasks in this patriarchal life of Le Cayla, and treat them as the most +natural thing in the world. She sometimes complains, to be sure, of +burning her fingers at the kitchen-fire. But when a literary friend of +her brother expresses enthusiasm about her and her poetical nature: “The +poetess,” she says, “whom this gentleman believes me to be, is an ideal +being, infinitely removed from the life which is actually mine—a life of +occupations, a life of household-business, which takes up all my time. +How could I make it otherwise? I am sure I do not know; and, besides, my +duty is in this sort of life, and I have no wish to escape from it.” + +Among these occupations of the patriarchal life of the châtelaine of Le +Cayla intercourse with the poor fills a prominent place:— + +“To-day,” she writes on the 9th of December, 1834, “I have been warming +myself at every fireside in the village. It is a round which Mimi and I +often make, and in which I take pleasure. To-day we have been seeing +sick people, and holding forth on doses and sick-room drinks. ‘Take +this, do that;’ and they attend to us just as if we were the doctor. We +prescribed shoes for a little thing who was amiss from having gone +barefoot; to the brother, who, with a bad headache, was lying quite +flat, we prescribed a pillow; the pillow did him good, but I am afraid +it will hardly cure him. He is at the beginning of a bad feverish cold: +and these poor people live in the filth of their hovels like animals in +their stable; the bad air poisons them. When I come home to Le Cayla I +seem to be in a palace.” + +She had books, too; not in abundance, not for the fancying them; the +list of her library is small, and it is enlarged slowly and with +difficulty. The _Letters of Saint Theresa_, which she had long wished to +get, she sees in the hands of a poor servant girl, before she can +procure them for herself. “What then?” is her comment: “very likely she +makes a better use of them than I could.” But she has the _Imitation_, +the _Spiritual Works_ of Bossuet and Fénelon, the _Lives of the Saints_, +Corneille, Racine, André Chénier, and Lamartine; Madame de Staël’s book +on Germany, and French translations of Shakspeare’s plays, Ossian, the +_Vicar of Wakefield_, Scott’s _Old Mortality_ and _Redgauntlet_, and the +_Promessi Sposi_ of Manzoni. Above all, she has her own mind; her +meditations in the lonely fields, on the oak-grown hill-side of “The +Seven Springs;” her meditations and writing in her own room, her +_chambrette_, her _délicieux chez moi_, where every night, before she +goes to bed, she opens the window to look out upon the sky,—the balmy +moonlit sky of Languedoc. This life of reading, thinking, and writing +was the life she liked best, the life that most truly suited her. “I +find writing has become almost a necessity to me. Whence does it arise, +this impulse to give utterance to the voice of one’s spirit, to pour out +my thoughts before God and one human being? I say one human being, +because I always imagine that you are present, that you see what I +write. In the stillness of a life like this my spirit is happy, and, as +it were, dead to all that goes on up-stairs or down-stairs, in the house +or out of the house. But this does not last long. ‘Come, my poor +spirit,’ I then say to myself, ‘we must go back to the things of this +world.’ And I take my spinning, or a book, or a saucepan, or I play with +Wolf or Trilby. Such a life as this I call heaven upon earth.” + +Tastes like these, joined with a talent like Mdlle. de Guérin’s, +naturally inspire thoughts of literary composition. Such thoughts she +had, and perhaps she would have been happier if she had followed them; +but she never could satisfy herself that to follow them was quite +consistent with the religious life, and her projects of composition were +gradually relinquished:— + +“Would to God that my thoughts, my spirit, had never taken their flight +beyond the narrow round in which it is my lot to live! In spite of all +that people say to the contrary, I feel that I cannot go beyond my +needlework and my spinning without going too far: I feel it, I believe +it: well, then I will keep in my proper sphere; however much I am +tempted, my spirit shall not be allowed to occupy itself with great +matters until it occupies itself with them in Heaven.” + +And again:— + +“My journal has been untouched for a long while. Do you want to know +why? It is because the time seems to me misspent which I spend in +writing it. We owe God an account of every minute; and is it not a wrong +use of our minutes to employ them in writing a history of our transitory +days?” + +She overcomes her scruples, and goes on writing the journal; but again +and again they return to her. Her brother tells her of the pleasure and +comfort something she has written gives to a friend of his in +affliction. She answers:— + +“It is from the Cross that those thoughts come, which your friend finds +so soothing, so unspeakably tender. None of them come from me. I feel my +own aridity; but I feel, too, that God, when he will, can make an ocean +flow upon this bed of sand. It is the same with so many simple souls, +from which proceed the most admirable things; because they are in direct +relation with God, without false science and without pride. And thus I +am gradually losing my taste for books; I say to myself: ‘What can they +teach me which I shall not one day know in Heaven? let God be my master +and my study here!’ I try to make him so, and I find myself the better +for it. I read little; I go out little; I plunge myself in the inward +life. How infinite are the sayings, doings, feelings, events of that +life! Oh, if you could but see them! But what avails it to make them +known? God alone should be admitted to the sanctuary of the soul.” + +Beautifully as she says all this, one cannot, I think, read it without a +sense of disquietude, without a presentiment that this ardent spirit is +forcing itself from its natural bent, that the beatitude of the true +mystic will never be its earthly portion. And yet how simple and +charming is her picture of the life of religion which she chose as her +ark of refuge, and in which she desired to place all her happiness:— + +“Cloaks, clogs, umbrellas, all the apparatus of winter, went with us +this morning to Andillac, where we have passed the whole day; some of it +at the curé’s house, the rest in church. How I like this life of a +country Sunday, with its activity, its journeys to church, its +liveliness! You find all your neighbors on the road; you have a curtsey +from every woman you meet, and then, as you go along, such a talk about +the poultry, the sheep and cows, the good man and the children! My great +delight is to give a kiss to these children, and see them run away and +hide their blushing faces in their mother’s gown. They are alarmed at +_las doumaϊsèlos_,[18] as at a being of another world. One of these +little things said the other day to its grandmother, who was talking of +coming to see us: ‘_Minino_, you mustn’t go to that castle; there is a +black hole there.’ What is the reason that in all ages the noble’s +château has been an object of terror? Is it because of the horrors that +were committed there in old times? I suppose so.” + +----- + +Footnote 18: + + The young lady. + +----- + +This vague horror of the château, still lingering in the mind of the +French peasant fifty years after he has stormed it, is indeed curious, +and is one of the thousand indications how unlike aristocracy on the +Continent has been to aristocracy in England. But this is one of the +great matters with which Mdlle. de Guérin would not have us occupied; +let us pass to the subject of Christmas in Languedoc:— + +“Christmas is come; the beautiful festival, the one I love most, and +which gives me the same joy as it gave the shepherds of Bethlehem. In +real truth, one’s whole soul sings with joy at this beautiful coming of +God upon earth,—a coming which here is announced on all sides of us by +music and by our charming _nadalet_.[19] Nothing at Paris can give you a +notion of what Christmas is with us. You have not even the +midnight-mass. We all of us went to it, papa at our head, on the most +perfect night possible. Never was there a finer sky than ours was that +midnight; so fine that papa kept perpetually throwing back the hood of +his cloak, that he might look up at the sky. The ground was white with +hoar-frost, but we were not cold; besides, the air, as we met it, was +warmed by the bundles of blazing torchwood which our servants carried in +front of us to light us on our way. It was delightful, I do assure you; +and I should like you to have seen us there on our road to church, in +those lanes with the bushes along their banks as white as if they were +in flower. The hoar-frost makes the most lovely flowers. We saw a long +spray so beautiful that we wanted to take it with us as a garland for +the communion-table, but it melted in our hands: all flowers fade so +soon! I was very sorry about my garland; it was mournful to see it drip +away, and get smaller and smaller every minute!” + +----- + +Footnote 19: + + A peculiar peal rung at Christmas-time by the church bells of + Languedoc. + +----- + +The religious life is at bottom everywhere alike; but it is curious to +note the variousness of its setting and outward circumstance. +Catholicism has these so different from Protestantism! and in +Catholicism these accessories have, it cannot be denied, a nobleness and +amplitude which in Protestantism is often wanting to them. In +Catholicism they have, from the antiquity of this form of religion, from +its pretensions to universality, from its really widespread prevalence, +from its sensuousness, something European, august, and imaginative: in +Protestantism they often have, from its inferiority in all these +respects, something provincial, mean, and prosaic. In revenge, +Protestantism has a future before it, a prospect of growth in alliance +with the vital movement of modern society; while Catholicism appears to +be bent on widening the breach between itself and the modern spirit, to +be fatally losing itself in the multiplication of dogmas, Mariolatry, +and miracle-mongering. But the style and circumstance of actual +Catholicism is grander than its present tendency, and the style and +circumstance of Protestantism is meaner than its tendency. While I was +reading the journal of Mdle. de Guérin there came into my hands the +memoir and poems of a young Englishwoman, Miss Emma Tatham; and one +could not but be struck with the singular contrast which the two +lives,—in their setting rather than in their inherent quality,—present. +Miss Tatham had not, certainly, Mdlle. de Guérin’s talent, but she had a +sincere vein of poetic feeling, a genuine aptitude for composition. Both +were fervent Christians, and, so far, the two lives have a real +resemblance; but, in the setting of them, what a difference! The +Frenchwoman is a Catholic in Languedoc; the Englishwoman is a Protestant +at Margate; Margate, that brick-and-mortar image of English +Protestantism, representing it in all its prose, all its +uncomeliness,—let me add, all its salubrity. Between the external form +and fashion of these two lives, between the Catholic Mdle. de Guérin’s +_nadalet_ at the Languedoc Christmas, her chapel of moss at Easter-time, +her daily reading of the life of a saint, carrying her to the most +diverse times, places, and peoples,—her quoting, when she wants to fix +her mind upon the staunchness which the religious aspirant needs, the +words of Saint Macedonius to a hunter whom he met in the mountains, “I +pursue after God, as you pursue after game,”—her quoting, when she wants +to break a village girl of disobedience to her mother, the story of the +ten disobedient children whom at Hippo Saint Augustine saw +palsied;—between all this and the bare, blank, narrowly English setting +of Miss Tatham’s Protestantism, her “union in church-fellowship with the +worshipers at Hawley Square Chapel, Margate;” her “singing with soft, +sweet voice, the animating lines— + + ‘My Jesus to know, and feel His blood flow, + ’Tis life everlasting, ’tis heaven below;’” + +her “young female teachers belonging to the Sunday-school,” and her “Mr. +Thomas Rowe, a venerable class-leader,”—what a dissimilarity! In the +ground of the two lives, a likeness; in all their circumstance, what +unlikeness! An unlikeness, it will be said, in that which is +non-essential and indifferent. Non-essential,—yes; indifferent,—no. The +signal want of grace and charm in English Protestantism’s setting of its +religious life is not an indifferent matter; it is a real weakness. +_This ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone._ + +I have said that the present tendency of Catholicism,—the Catholicism of +the main body of the Catholic clergy and laity,—seems likely to +exaggerate rather than to remove all that in this form of religion is +most repugnant to reason; but this Catholicism was not that of Mdlle. de +Guérin. The insufficiency of her Catholicism comes from a doctrine which +Protestantism, too, has adopted, although Protestantism, from its +inherent element of freedom, may find it easier to escape from it; a +doctrine with a certain attraction for all noble natures, but, in the +modern world at any rate, incurably sterile,—the doctrine of the +emptiness and nothingness of human life, of the superiority of +renouncement to activity, of quietism to energy; the doctrine which +makes effort for things on this side of the grave a folly, and joy in +things on this side of the grave a sin. But her Catholicism is +remarkably free from the faults which Protestants commonly think +inseparable from Catholicism; the relation to the priest, the practice +of confession, assume, when she speaks of them, an aspect which is not +that under which Exeter Hall knows them, but which,—unless one is of the +number of those who prefer regarding that by which men and nations die +to regarding that by which they live,—one is glad to study. “_La +confession_,” she says twice in her journal, “_n’est qu’une expansion du +repentir dans l’amour_;” and her weekly journey to the confessional in +the little church of Cahuzac is her “_cher pélerinage_;” the little +church is the place where she has “_laissé tant de misères_.” + +“This morning,” she writes on 28th of November, “I was up before +daylight, dressed quickly, said my prayers, and started with Marie for +Cahuzac. When we got there, the chapel was occupied, which I was not +sorry for. I like not to be hurried, and to have time, before I go in, +to lay bare my soul before God. This often takes me a long time, because +my thoughts are apt to be flying about like these autumn leaves. At ten +o’clock I was on my knees, listening to words the most salutary that +were ever spoken; and I went away, feeling myself a better being. Every +burden thrown off leaves us with a sense of brightness; and when the +soul has lain down the load of its sins at God’s feet, it feels as if it +had wings. What an admirable thing is confession! What comfort, what +light, what strength is given me every time after I have said, _I have +sinned_.” + +This blessing of confession is the greater, she says, “the more the +heart of the priest to whom we confide our repentance is like that +divine heart which ‘has so loved us.’ This is what attaches me to M. +Bories.” M. Bories was the curé of her parish, a man no longer young, +and of whose loss, when he was about to leave them, she thus speaks:— + +“What a grief for me! how much I lose in losing this faithful guide of +my conscience, heart, and mind, of my whole self, which God has +appointed to be in his charge, and which let itself be in his charge so +gladly! He knew the resolves which God had put in my heart, and I had +need of his help to follow them. Our new curé cannot supply his place: +he is so young! and then he seems so inexperienced, so undecided! It +needs firmness to pluck a soul out of the midst of the world, and to +uphold it against the assaults of flesh and blood. It is Saturday, my +day for going to Cahuzac; I am just going there, perhaps I shall come +back more tranquil. God has always given me some good thing there, in +that chapel where I have left behind me so many miseries.” + +Such is confession for her when the priest is worthy; and, when he is +not worthy, she knows how to separate the man from the office:— + +“To-day I am going to do something which I dislike; but I will do it, +with God’s help. Do not think I am on my way to the stake; it is only +that I am going to confess to a priest in whom I have not confidence, +but who is the only one here. In this act of religion the man must +always be separated from the priest, and sometimes the man must be +annihilated.” + +The same clear sense, the same freedom from superstition, shows itself +in all her religious life. She tells us, to be sure, how once, when she +was a little girl, she stained a new frock, and on praying, in her +alarm, to an image of the Virgin which hung in her room, saw the stains +vanish: even the austerest Protestant will not judge such Mariolatry as +this very harshly. But, in general, the Virgin Mary fills in the +religious parts of her journal no prominent place; it is Jesus, not +Mary. “Oh, how well has Jesus said: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and +are heavy laden.’ It is only there, only in the bosom of God, that we +can rightly weep, rightly rid ourselves of our burden.” And again: “The +mystery of suffering makes one grasp the belief of something to be +expiated, something to be won. I see it in Jesus Christ, the Man of +Sorrow. _It was necessary that the Son of Man should suffer._ That is +all we know in the troubles and calamities of life.” + +And who has ever spoken of justification more impressively and piously +than Mdlle. de Guérin speaks of it, when, after reckoning the number of +minutes she has lived, she exclaims:— + +“My God, what have we done with all these minutes of ours, which thou, +too, wilt one day reckon? Will there be any of them to count for eternal +life? will there be many of them? will there be one of them? ‘If thou, O +Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide +it!’ This close scrutiny of our time may well make us tremble, all of us +who have advanced more than a few steps in life; for God will judge us +otherwise than as he judges the lilies of the field. I have never been +able to understand the security of those who placed their whole +reliance, in presenting themselves before God, upon a good conduct in +the ordinary relations of human life. As if all our duties were confined +within the narrow sphere of this world! To be a good parent, a good +child, a good citizen, a good brother or sister, is not enough to +procure entrance into the kingdom of heaven. God demands other things +besides these kindly social virtues of him whom he means to crown with +an eternity of glory.” + +And, with this zeal for the spirit and power of religion, what prudence +in her counsels of religious practice; what discernment, what measure! +She has been speaking of the charm of the _Lives of the Saints_, and she +goes on:— + +“Notwithstanding this, the _Lives of the Saints_ seem to me, for a great +many people, dangerous reading. I would not recommend them to a young +girl, or even to some women who are no longer young. What one reads has +such power over one’s feelings; and these, even in seeking God, +sometimes go astray. Alas, we have seen it in poor C.’s case. What care +one ought to take with a young person; with what she reads, what she +writes, her society, her prayers,—all of them matters which demand a +mother’s tender watchfulness! I remember many things I did at fourteen, +which my mother, had she lived, would not have let me do. I would have +done anything for God’s sake; I would have cast myself into an oven, and +assuredly things like that are not God’s will; He is not pleased by the +hurt one does to one’s health through that ardent but ill-regulated +piety which, while it impairs the body, often leaves many a fault +flourishing. And, therefore, Saint François de Sales used to say to the +nuns who asked his leave to go bare-foot: ‘Change your brains and keep +your shoes.’” + +Meanwhile Maurice, in a five years’ absence, and amid the distractions +of Paris, lost, or seemed to his sister to lose, something of his +fondness for his home and its inmates: he certainly lost his early +religious habits and feelings. It is on this latter loss that Mdlle. de +Guérin’s journal oftenest touches,—with infinite delicacy, but with +infinite anguish:— + +“Oh, the agony of being in fear for a soul’s salvation, who can describe +it! That which caused our Saviour the keenest suffering, in the agony of +his Passion, was not so much the thought of the torments he was to +endure, as the thought that these torments would be of no avail for a +multitude of sinners; for all those who set themselves against their +redemption, or who do not care for it. The mere anticipation of this +obstinacy and this heedlessness has power to make sorrowful, even unto +death, the divine Son of Man. And this feeling all Christian souls, +according to the measure of faith and love granted them, more or less +share.” + +Maurice returned to Le Cayla in the summer of 1837, and passed six +months there. This meeting entirely restored the union between him and +his family. “These six months with us,” writes his sister, “he ill, and +finding himself so loved by us all, had entirely reattached him to us. +Five years without seeing us, had perhaps made him a little lose sight +of our affection for him; having found it again, he met it with all the +strength of his own. He had so firmly renewed, before he left us, all +family-ties, that nothing but death could have broken them.” The +separation in religious matters between the brother and sister gradually +diminished, and before Maurice died it had ceased. I have elsewhere +spoken of Maurice’s religious feeling and his character. It is probable +that his divergence from his sister in this sphere of religion was never +so wide as she feared, and that his reunion with her was never so +complete as she hoped. “His errors were passed,” she says, “his +illusions were cleared away; by the call of his nature, by original +disposition, he had come back to sentiments of order. I knew all, I +followed each of his steps; out of the fiery sphere of the passions +(which held him but a little moment) I saw him pass into the sphere of +the Christian life. It was a beautiful soul, the soul of Maurice.” But +the illness which had caused his return to Le Cayla reappeared after he +got back to Paris in the winter of 1837-8. Again he seemed to recover; +and his marriage with a young Creole lady, Mdlle. Caroline de Gervain, +took place in the autumn of 1838. At the end of September in that year +Mdlle. de Guérin had joined her brother in Paris; she was present at his +marriage, and stayed with him and his wife for some months afterwards. +Her journal recommences in April 1839. Zealously as she promoted her +brother’s marriage, cordial as were her relations with her +sister-in-law, it is evident that a sense of loss, of loneliness, +invades her, and sometimes weighs her down. She writes in her journal on +the 4th of May:— + +“God knows when we shall see one another again! My own Maurice, must it +be our lot to live apart, to find that this marriage which I had so much +share in bringing about, which I hoped would keep us so much together, +leaves us more asunder than ever? For the present and for the future, +this troubles me more than I can say. My sympathies, my inclinations, +carry me more towards you than towards any other member of our family. I +have the misfortune to be fonder of you than of anything else in the +world, and my heart had from of old built in you its happiness. Youth +gone and life declining, I looked forward to quitting the scene with +Maurice. At any time of life a great affection is a great happiness; the +spirit comes to take refuge in it entirely. O delight and joy which will +never be your sister’s portion! Only in the direction of God shall I +find an issue for my heart to love as it has the notion of loving, as it +has the power of loving.” + +For such complainings, in which there is undoubtedly something +morbid,—complainings which she herself blamed, to which she seldom gave +way, but which, in presenting her character, it is not just to put +wholly out of sight,—she was called by the news of an alarming return of +her brother’s illness. For some days the entries in the journal show her +agony of apprehension. “He coughs, he coughs still! Those words keep +echoing forever in my ears, and pursue me wherever I go; I cannot look +at the leaves on the trees without thinking that the winter will come, +and then the consumptive die.” She went to him, and brought him back by +slow stages to Le Cayla, dying. He died on the 19th of July 1839. + +Thenceforward the energy of life ebbed in her; but the main chords of +her being, the chord of affection, the chord of religious longing, the +chord of intelligence, the chord of sorrow, gave, so long as they +answered to the touch at all, a deeper and finer sound than ever. Always +she saw before her, “that beloved pale face;” “that beautiful head, with +all its different expressions, smiling, suffering, dying,” regarded her +always:— + +“I have seen his coffin in the same room, in the same spot where I +remember seeing, when I was a very little girl, his cradle, when I was +brought home from Gaillac, where I was then staying, for his +christening. This christening was a grand one, full of rejoicing, more +than that of any of the rest of us; specially marked. I enjoyed myself +greatly, and went back to Gaillac next day, charmed with my new little +brother. Two years afterwards I came home, and brought with me a frock +for him of my own making. I dressed him in the frock, and took him out +with me along by the warren at the north of the house, and there he +walked a few steps alone,—his first walking alone,—and I ran with +delight to tell my mother the news: ‘Maurice, Maurice has begun to walk +by himself!’—Recollections which, coming back to-day, break one’s +heart.” + +The shortness and suffering of her brother’s life filled her with an +agony of pity. “Poor beloved soul, you have had hardly any happiness +here below; your life has been so short, your repose so rare. O God, +uphold me, establish my heart in thy faith! Alas, I have too little of +this supporting me! How we have gazed at him and loved him, and kissed +him,—his wife, and we, his sisters; he lying lifeless in his bed, his +head on the pillow as if he were asleep! Then we followed him to the +churchyard, to the grave, to his last resting-place, and prayed over +him, and wept over him; and we are here again, and I am writing to him +again, as if he were staying away from home, as if he were in Paris. My +beloved one, can it be, shall we never see one another again on earth?” + +But in heaven?—and here, though love and hope finally prevailed, the +very passion of the sister’s longing sometimes inspired torturing +inquietudes:— + +“I am broken down with misery. I want to see him. Every moment I pray to +God to grant me this grace. Heaven, the world of spirits, is it so far +from us? O depth, O mystery of the other life which separates us! I, who +was so eagerly anxious about him, who wanted so to know all that +happened to him,—wherever he may be now, it is over! I follow him unto +the three abodes; I stop wistfully before the place of bliss, I pass on +to the place of suffering,—to the gulf of fire. My God, my God, no! Not +there let my brother be! not there! And he is not: his soul, the soul of +Maurice, among the lost ... horrible fear, no! But in purgatory, where +the soul is cleansed by suffering, where the failings of the heart are +expiated, the doubtings of the spirit, the half-yieldings to evil? +Perhaps my brother is there and suffers, and calls to us amidst his +anguish of repentance, as he used to call to us amidst his bodily +suffering: ‘Help me, you who love me.’ Yes, beloved one, by prayer. I +will go and pray; prayer has been such a power to me, and I will pray to +the end. Prayer! Oh! and prayer for the dead; it is the dew of +purgatory.” + +Often, alas, the gracious dew would not fall; the air of her soul was +parched; the arid wind, which was somewhere in the depths of her being, +blew. She marks in her journal the 1st of May, “this return of the +loveliest month in the year,” only to keep up the old habit; even the +mouth of May can no longer give her any pleasure: “_Tout est changé_—all +is changed.” She is crushed by “the misery which has nothing good in it, +the tearless, dry misery, which bruises the heart like a hammer.” + +“I am dying to everything. I am dying of a slow moral agony, a condition +of unutterable suffering. Lie there, my poor journal! be forgotten with +all this world which is fading away from me. I will write here no more +until I come to life again, until God re-awakens me out of this tomb in +which my soul lies buried. Maurice, my beloved! it was not thus with me +when I had _you_! The thought of Maurice could revive me from the most +profound depression: to have him in the world was enough for me. With +Maurice, to be buried alive would have not seemed dull to me.” + +And, as a burden to this funeral strain, the old _vide et néant_ of +Bossuet, profound, solemn, sterile:— + +“So beautiful in the morning, and in the evening, _that!_ how the +thought disenchants one, and turns one from the world! I can understand +that Spanish grandee who, after lifting up the winding-sheet of a +beautiful queen, threw himself into the cloister and became a great +saint. I would have all my friends at La Trappe, in the interest of +their eternal welfare. Not that in the world one cannot be saved, not +that there are not in the world duties to be discharged as sacred and as +beautiful as there are in the cloister, but....” + +And there she stops, and a day or two afterwards her journal comes to an +end. A few fragments, a few letters carry us on a little later, but +after the 22d of August 1845 there is nothing. To make known her +brother’s genius to the world was the one task she set herself after his +death; in 1840 came Madame Sand’s noble tribute to him in the _Révue des +Deux Mondes_; then followed projects of raising a yet more enduring +monument to his fame, by collecting and publishing his scattered +compositions; these projects I have already said, were baffled;—Mdlle. +de Guérin’s letter of the 22d of August 1845 relates to this +disappointment. In silence, during nearly three years more, she faded +away at Le Cayla. She died on the 31st of May 1848. + +M. Trebutien has accomplished the pious task in which Mdlle. de Guérin +was baffled, and has established Maurice’s fame; by publishing this +journal he has established Eugénie’s also. She was very different from +her brother; but she too, like him, had that in her which preserves a +reputation. Her soul had the same characteristic quality as his +talent,—_distinction_. Of this quality the world is impatient; it chafes +against it, rails at it, insults it, hates it;—it ends by receiving its +influence, and by undergoing its law. This quality at last inexorably +corrects the world’s blunders, and fixes the world’s ideals. It procures +that the popular poet shall not finally pass for a Pindar, nor the +popular historian for a Tacitus, nor the popular preacher for a Bossuet. +To the circle of spirits marked by this rare quality, Maurice and +Eugénie de Guérin belong; they will take their place in the sky which +these inhabit, and shine close to one another, _lucida sidera_. + + + + + V. + + HEINRICH HEINE. + + +“I know not if I deserve that a laurel-wreath should one day be laid on +my coffin. Poetry, dearly as I have loved it, has always been to me but +a divine plaything. I have never attached any great value to poetical +fame; and I trouble myself very little whether people praise my verses +or blame them. But lay on my coffin a _sword_; for I was a brave soldier +in the Liberation War of humanity.” + +Heine had his full share of love of fame, and cared quite as much as his +brethren of the _genus irritabile_ whether people praised his verses or +blamed them. And he was very little of a hero. Posterity will certainly +decorate his tomb with the emblem of the laurel rather than with the +emblem of the sword. Still, for his contemporaries, for us, for the +Europe of the present century, he is significant chiefly for the reason +which he himself in the words just quoted assigns. He is significant +because he was, if not pre-eminently a brave, yet a brilliant, a most +effective soldier in the Liberation War of humanity. + +To ascertain the master-current in the literature of an epoch, and to +distinguish this from all minor currents, is one of the critic’s highest +functions; in discharging it he shows how far he possesses the most +indispensable quality of his office,—justness of spirit. The living +writer who has done most to make England acquainted with German authors, +a man of genius, but to whom precisely this one quality of justness of +spirit is perhaps wanting,—I mean Mr. Carlyle,—seems to me in the result +of his labors on German literature to afford a proof how very necessary +to the critic this quality is. Mr. Carlyle has spoken admirably of +Goethe; but then Goethe stands before all men’s eyes, the manifest +center of German literature; and from this central source many rivers +flow. Which of these rivers is the main stream? which of the courses of +spirit which we see active in Goethe is the course which will most +influence the future, and attract and be continued by the most powerful +of Goethe’s successors?—that is the question. Mr. Carlyle attaches, it +seems to me, far too much importance to the romantic school of +Germany,—Tieck, Novalis, Jean Paul Richter,—and gives to these writers, +really gifted as two, at any rate, of them are, an undue prominence. +These writers, and others with aims and a general tendency the same as +theirs, are not the real inheritors and continuators of Goethe’s power; +the current of their activity is not the main current of German +literature after Goethe. Far more in Heine’s works flows this main +current, Heine, far more than Tieck or Jean Paul Richter, is the +continuator of that which, in Goethe’s varied activity, is the most +powerful and vital; on Heine, of all German authors who survived Goethe, +incomparably the largest portion of Goethe’s mantle fell. I do not +forget that when Mr. Carlyle was dealing with German literature, Heine, +though he was clearly risen above the horizon, had not shone forth with +all his strength; I do not forget, too, that after ten or twenty years +many things may come out plain before the critic which before were hard +to be discerned by him; and assuredly no one would dream of imputing it +as a fault to Mr. Carlyle that twenty years ago he mistook the central +current in German literature, overlooked the rising Heine, and attached +undue importance to that romantic school which Heine was to destroy; one +may rather note it as a misfortune, sent perhaps as a delicate +chastisement to a critic, who,—man of genius as he is, and no one +recognizes his genius more admirably than I do,—has, for the functions +of the critic, a little too much of the self-will and eccentricity of a +genuine son of Great Britain. + +Heine is noteworthy, because he is the most important German successor +and continuator of Goethe in Goethe’s most important line of activity. +And which of Goethe’s lines of activity is this?—His line of activity as +“a soldier in the war of liberation of humanity.” + +Heine himself would hardly have admitted this affiliation, though he was +far too powerful-minded a man to decry, with some of the vulgar German +liberals, Goethe’s genius. “The wind of the Paris Revolution,” he writes +after the three days of 1830, “blew about the candles a little in the +dark night of Germany, so that the red curtains of a German throne or +two caught fire; but the old watchmen, who do the police of the German +kingdoms, are already bringing out the fire engines, and will keep the +candles closer snuffed for the future. Poor, fast-bound German people, +lose not all heart in thy bonds! The fashionable coating of ice melts +off from my heart, my soul quivers and my eyes burn, and that is a +disadvantageous state of things for a writer, who should control his +subject-matter and keep himself beautifully objective, as the artistic +school would have us, and as Goethe has done; he has come to be eighty +years old doing this, and minister, and in good condition:—poor German +people! that is thy greatest man!” + +But hear Goethe himself: “If I were to say what I had really been to the +Germans in general, and to the young German poets in particular, I +should say I had been their _liberator_.” + +Modern times find themselves with an immense system of institutions, +established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, rules, which have come to +them from times not modern. In this system their life has to be carried +forward; yet they have a sense that this system is not of their own +creation, that it by no means corresponds exactly with the wants of +their actual life, that, for them, it is customary, not rational. The +awakening of this sense is the awakening of the modern spirit. The +modern spirit is now awake almost everywhere; the sense of want of +correspondence between the forms of modern Europe and its spirit, +between the new wine of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the +old bottles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, or even of the +sixteenth and seventeenth, almost every one now perceives; it is no +longer dangerous to affirm that this want of correspondence exists; +people are even beginning to be shy of denying it. To remove this want +of correspondence is beginning to be the settled endeavor of most +persons of good sense. Dissolvents of the old European system of +dominant ideas and facts we must all be, all of us who have any power of +working; what we have to study is that we may not be acrid dissolvents +of it. + +And how did Goethe, that grand dissolvent in an age when there were +fewer of them than at present, proceed in his task of dissolution, of +liberation of the modern European from the old routine? He shall tell us +himself. “Through me the German poets have become aware that, as man +must live from within outwards, so the artist must work from within +outwards, seeing that, make what contortions he will, he can only bring +to light his own individuality. I can clearly mark where this influence +of mine has made itself felt; there arises out of it a kind of poetry of +nature, and only in this way is it possible to be original.” + +My voice shall never be joined to those which decry Goethe, and if it is +said that the foregoing is a lame and impotent conclusion to Goethe’s +declaration that he had been the liberator of the Germans in general, +and of the young German poets in particular, I say it is not. Goethe’s +profound, imperturbable naturalism is absolutely fatal to all routine +thinking, he puts the standard, once for all, inside every man instead +of outside him; when he is told, such a thing must be so, there is +immense authority and custom in favor of its being so, it has been held +to be so for a thousand years, he answers with Olympian politeness, “But +_is_ it so? is it so to _me_?” Nothing could be more really subversive +of the foundations on which the old European order rested; and it may be +remarked that no persons are so radically detached from this order, no +persons so thoroughly modern, as those who have felt Goethe’s influence +most deeply. If it is said that Goethe professes to have in this way +deeply influenced but a few persons, and those persons poets, one may +answer that he could have taken no better way to secure, in the end, the +ear of the world; for poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, +and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance. +Nevertheless the process of liberation, as Goethe worked it, though +sure, is undoubtedly slow; he came, as Heine says, to be eighty years +old in thus working it, and at the end of that time the old Middle-Age +machine was still creaking on, the thirty German courts and their +chamberlains subsisted in all their glory; Goethe himself was a +minister, and the visible triumph of the modern spirit over prescription +and routine seemed as far off as ever. It was the year 1830; the German +sovereigns had passed the preceding fifteen years in breaking the +promises of freedom they had made to their subjects when they wanted +their help in the final struggle with Napoleon. Great events were +happening in France; the revolution, defeated in 1815, had arisen from +its defeat, and was wresting from its adversaries the power. Heinrich +Heine, a young man of genius, born at Hamburg,[20] and with all the +culture of Germany, but by race a Jew; with warm sympathies for France, +whose revolution had given to his race the rights of citizenship, and +whose rule had been, as is well known, popular in the Rhine provinces, +where he passed his youth; with a passionate admiration for the great +French Emperor, with a passionate contempt for the sovereigns who had +overthrown him, for their agents, and for their policy,—Heinrich Heine +was in 1830 in no humor for any such gradual process of liberation from +the old order of things as that which Goethe had followed. His counsel +was for open war. Taking that terrible modern weapon, the pen, in his +hand, he passed the remainder of his life in one fierce battle. What was +that battle? the reader will ask. It was a life and death battle with +Philistinism. + +----- + +Footnote 20: + + Heine’s birthplace was not Hamburg, but Düsseldorf.—ED. + +----- + +_Philistinism!_—we have not the expression in English. Perhaps we have +not the word because we have so much of the thing. At Soli, I imagine, +they did not talk of solecisms; and here, at the very headquarters of +Goliath, nobody talks of Philistinism. The French have adopted the term +_épicier_ (grocer), to designate the sort of being whom the Germans +designate by the Philistine; but the French term,—besides that it casts +a slur upon a respectable class, composed of living and susceptible +members, while the original Philistines are dead and buried long ago,—is +really, I think, in itself much less apt and expressive than the German +term. Efforts have been made to obtain in English some term equivalent +to _Philister_ or _épicier_; Mr. Carlyle has made several such efforts: +“respectability with its thousand gigs,” he says;—well, the occupant of +every one of these gigs is, Mr. Carlyle means, a Philistine. However, +the word _respectable_ is far too valuable a word to be thus perverted +from its proper meaning; if the English are ever to have a word for the +thing we are speaking of,—and so prodigious are the changes which the +modern spirit is introducing, that even we English shall perhaps one day +come to want such a word,—I think we had much better take the term +_Philistine_ itself. + +_Philistine_ must have originally meant, in the mind of those who +invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the +chosen people, of the children of the light. The party of change, the +would-be remodelers of the old traditional European order, the invokers +of reason against custom, the representatives of the modern spirit in +every sphere where it is applicable, regarded themselves, with the +robust self-confidence natural to reformers as a chosen people, as +children of the light. They regarded their adversaries as humdrum +people, slaves to routine, enemies to light; stupid and oppressive, but +at the same time very strong. This explains the love which Heine, that +Paladin of the modern spirit, has for France; it explains the preference +which he gives to France over Germany: “the French,” he says, “are the +chosen people of the new religion, its first gospels and dogmas have +been drawn up in their language; Paris is the new Jerusalem, and the +Rhine is the Jordan which divides the consecrated land of freedom from +the land of the Philistines.” He means that the French, as a people, +have shown more accessibility to ideas than any other people; that +prescription and routine have had less hold upon them than upon any +other people; that they have shown most readiness to move and to alter +at the bidding (real or supposed) of reason. This explains, too, the +detestation which Heine had for the English: “I might settle in +England,” he says, in his exile, “if it were not that I should find +there two things, coal-smoke and Englishmen; I cannot abide either.” +What he hated in English was the “ächtbrittische Beschränktheit,” as he +calls it,—the _genuine British narrowness_. In truth, the English, +profoundly as they have modified the old Middle-Age order, great as is +the liberty which they have secured for themselves, have in all their +changes proceeded, to use a familiar expression, by the rule of thumb; +what was intolerably inconvenient to them they have suppressed, and as +they have suppressed it, not because it was irrational, but because it +was practically inconvenient, they have seldom in suppressing it +appealed to reason, but always, if possible, to some precedent, or form, +or letter, which served as a convenient instrument for their purpose, +and which saved them from the necessity of recurring to general +principles. They have thus become, in a certain sense, of all people the +most inaccessible to ideas and the most impatient of them; inaccessible +to them, because of their want of familiarity with them; and impatient +of them because they have got on so well without them, that they despise +those who, not having got on as well as themselves, still make a fuss +for what they themselves have done so well without. But there has +certainly followed from hence, in this country, somewhat of a general +depression of pure intelligence: Philistia has come to be thought by us +the true Land of Promise, and it is anything but that; the born lover of +ideas, the born hater of commonplaces, must feel in this country, that +the sky over his head is of brass and iron. The enthusiast for the idea, +for reason, values reason, the idea, in and for themselves; he values +them, irrespectively of the practical conveniences which their triumph +may obtain for him; and the man who regards the possession of these +practical conveniences as something sufficient in itself, something +which compensates for the absence or surrender of the idea, of reason, +is, in his eyes, a Philistine. This is why Heine so often and so +mercilessly attacks the liberals; much as he hates conservatism he hates +Philistinism even more, and whoever attacks conservatism itself ignobly, +not as a child of light, not in the name of the idea, is a Philistine. +Our Cobbett is thus for him, much as he disliked our clergy and +aristocracy whom Cobbett attacked, a Philistine with six fingers on +every hand and on every foot six toes, four-and-twenty in number: a +Philistine, the staff of whose spear is like a weaver’s beam. Thus he +speaks of him:— + +“While I translate Cobbett’s words, the man himself comes bodily before +my mind’s eye, as I saw him at that uproarious dinner at the Crown and +Anchor Tavern, with his scolding red face and his radical laugh, in +which venomous hate mingles with a mocking exultation at his enemies’ +surely approaching downfall. He is a chained cur, who falls with equal +fury on every one whom he does not know, often bites the best friend of +the house in his calves, barks incessantly, and just because of this +incessantness of his barking cannot get listened to, even when he barks +at a real thief. Therefore the distinguished thieves who plunder England +do not think it necessary to throw the growling Cobbett a bone to stop +his mouth. This makes the dog furiously savage, and he shows all his +hungry teeth. Poor old Cobbett! England’s dog! I have no love for thee, +for every vulgar nature my soul abhors; but thou touchest me to the +inmost soul with pity, as I see how thou strainest in vain to break +loose and to get at those thieves, who make off with their booty before +thy very eyes, and mock at thy fruitless springs and thine impotent +howling.” + +There is balm in Philistia as well as in Gilead. A chosen circle of +children of the modern spirit, perfectly emancipated from prejudice and +commonplace, regarding the ideal side of things in all its efforts for +change, passionately despising half-measures and condescension to human +folly and obstinacy,—with a bewildered, timid, torpid multitude +behind,—conducts a country to the government of Herr von Bismarck. A +nation regarding the practical side of things in its efforts for change, +attacking not what is irrational, but what is pressingly inconvenient, +and attacking this as one body, “moving altogether if it move at all,” +and treating children of light like the very harshest of stepmothers, +comes to the prosperity and liberty of modern England. For all that, +however, Philistia (let me say it again) is not the true promised land, +as we English commonly imagine it to be; and our excessive neglect of +the idea, and consequent inaptitude for it, threatens us, at a moment +when the idea is beginning to exercise a real power in human society, +with serious future inconvenience, and, in the meanwhile, cuts us off +from the sympathy of other nations, which feel its power more than we +do. + +But, in 1830, Heine very soon found that the fire-engines of the German +governments were too much for his direct efforts at incendiarism. “What +demon drove me,” he cries, “to write my _Reisebilder_, to edit a +newspaper, to plague myself with our time and its interests, to try and +shake the poor German Hodge out of his thousand years’ sleep in his +hole? What good did I get by it? Hodge opened his eyes, only to shut +them again immediately; he yawned, only to begin snoring again the next +minute louder than ever; he stretched his stiff ungainly limbs, only to +sink down again directly afterwards, and lie like a dead man in the old +bed of his accustomed habits. I must have rest; but where am I to find a +resting-place? In Germany I can no longer stay.” + +This is Heine’s jesting account of his own efforts to rouse Germany: now +for his pathetic account of them; it is because he unites so much wit +with so much pathos that he is so effective a writer:— + +“The Emperor Charles the Fifth sate in sore straits, in the Tyrol, +encompassed by his enemies. All his knights and courtiers had forsaken +him; not one came to his help. I know not if he had at that time the +cheese face with which Holbein has painted him for us. But I am sure +that under lip of his, with its contempt for mankind, stuck out even +more than it does in his portraits. How could he but contemn the tribe +which in the sunshine of his prosperity had fawned on him so devotedly, +and now, in his dark distress, left him all alone? Then suddenly his +door opened, and there came in a man in disguise, and, as he threw back +his cloak, the Kaiser recognized in him his faithful Conrad von der +Rosen, the court jester. This man brought him comfort and counsel, and +he was the court jester! + +“O German fatherland! dear German people! I am thy Conrad von der Rosen. +The man whose proper business was to amuse thee, and who in good times +should have catered only for thy mirth, makes his way into thy prison in +time of need; here, under my cloak, I bring thee thy scepter and crown; +dost thou not recognize me, my Kaiser? If I cannot free thee, I will at +least comfort thee, and thou shalt at least have one with thee who will +prattle with thee about thy sorest affliction, and whisper courage to +thee, and love thee, and whose best joke and best blood shall be at thy +service. For thou, my people, art the true Kaiser, the true lord of the +land; thy will is sovereign, and more legitimate far than that purple +_Tel est notre plaisir_, which invokes a divine right with no better +warrant than the anointings of shaven and shorn jugglers; thy will, my +people, is the sole rightful source of power. Though now thou liest down +in thy bonds, yet in the end will thy rightful cause prevail; the day of +deliverance is at hand, a new time is beginning. My Kaiser, the night is +over, and out there glows the ruddy dawn. + +“‘Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou art mistaken; perhaps thou takest +a headsman’s gleaming axe for the sun, and the red of dawn is only +blood.’ + +“‘No, my Kaiser, it is the sun, though it is rising in the west; these +six thousand years it has always risen in the east; it is high time +there should come a change.’ + +“‘Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou hast lost the bells out of thy red +cap, and it has now such an odd look, that red cap of thine!’ + +“‘Ah, my Kaiser, thy distress has made me shake my head so hard and +fierce, that the fool’s bells have dropped off my cap; the cap is none +the worse for that.’ + +“‘Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, what is that noise of breaking and +cracking outside there?’ + +“‘Hush! that is the saw and the carpenter’s axe, and soon the doors of +thy prison will be burst open, and thou wilt be free, my Kaiser!’ + +“‘Am I then really Kaiser? Ah, I forgot, it is the fool who tells me +so!’ + +“‘Oh, sigh not, my dear master, the air of thy prison makes thee so +desponding! when once thou hast got thy rights again, thou wilt feel +once more the bold imperial blood in thy veins, and thou wilt be proud +like a Kaiser, and violent, and gracious, and unjust, and smiling, and +ungrateful, as princes are.’ + +“‘Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, when I am free, what wilt thou do +then?’ + +“‘I will then sew new bells on to my cap.’ + +“‘And how shall I recompense thy fidelity?’ + +“‘Ah, dear master, by not leaving me to die in a ditch!’” + +I wish to mark Heine’s place in modern European literature, the scope of +his activity, and his value. I cannot attempt to give here a detailed +account of his life, or a description of his separate works. In May 1831 +he went over his Jordan, the Rhine, and fixed himself in his new +Jerusalem, Paris. There, henceforward, he lived, going in general to +some French watering-place in the summer, but making only one or two +short visits to Germany during the rest of his life. His works, in verse +and prose, succeeded each other without stopping; a collected edition of +them, filling seven closely-printed octavo volumes, has been published +in America;[21] in the collected editions of few people’s works is there +so little to skip. Those who wish for a single good specimen of him +should read his first important work, the work which made his +reputation, the _Reisebilder_, or “Traveling Sketches:” prose and verse, +wit and seriousness, are mingled in it, and the mingling of these is +characteristic of Heine, and is nowhere to be seen practised more +naturally and happily than in his _Reisebilder_. In 1847 his health, +which till then had always been perfectly good, gave way. He had a kind +of paralytic stroke. His malady proved to be a softening of the spinal +marrow: it was incurable; it made rapid progress. In May 1848, not a +year after his first attack, he went out of doors for the last time; but +his disease took more than eight years to kill him. For nearly eight +years he lay helpless on a couch, with the use of his limbs gone, wasted +almost to the proportions of a child, wasted so that a woman could carry +him about; the sight of one eye lost, that of the other greatly dimmed, +and requiring, that it might be exercised, to have the palsied eyelid +lifted and held up by the finger; all this, and, besides this, suffering +at short intervals paroxysms of nervous agony. I have said he was not +pre-eminently brave; but in the astonishing force of spirit with which +he retained his activity of mind, even his gayety, amid all his +suffering, and went on composing with undiminished fire to the last, he +was truly brave. Nothing could clog that aërial lightness. “Pouvez-vous +siffler?” his doctor asked him one day, when he was almost at his last +gasp;—“siffler,” as every one knows, has the double meaning of _to +whistle_ and _to hiss_:—“Hélas! non,” was his whispered answer; “pas +même une comédie de M. Scribe!” Μ. Scribe is, or was, the favorite +dramatist of the French Philistine. “My nerves,” he said to some one who +asked him about them in 1855, the year of the great Exhibition in Paris, +“my nerves are of that quite singularly remarkable miserableness of +nature, that I am convinced they would get at the Exhibition the grand +medal for pain and misery.” He read all the medical books which treated +of his complaint. “But,” said he to some one who found him thus engaged, +“what good this reading is to do me I don’t know, except that it will +qualify me to give lectures in heaven on the ignorance of doctors on +earth about diseases of the spinal marrow.” What a matter of grim +seriousness are our own ailments to most of us! yet with this gayety +Heine treated his to the end. That end, so long in coming, came at last. +Heine died on the 17th of February, 1856, at the age of fifty-eight. By +his will he forbade that his remains should be transported to Germany. +He lies buried in the cemetery of Montmartre, at Paris. + +----- + +Footnote 21: + + A complete edition has at last appeared in Germany. + +----- + +His direct political action was null, and this is neither to be wondered +at nor regretted; direct political action is not the true function of +literature, and Heine was a born man of letters. Even in his favorite +France the turn taken by public affairs was not at all what he wished, +though he read French politics by no means as we in England, most of us, +read them. He thought things were tending there to the triumph of +communism; and to a champion of the idea like Heine, what there is gross +and narrow in communism was very repulsive, “It is all of no use,” he +cried on his death-bed, “the future belongs to our enemies, the +Communists, and Louis Napoleon is their John the Baptist.” “And yet,”—he +added with all his old love for that remarkable entity, so full of +attraction for him, so profoundly unknown in England, the French +people,—“do not believe that God lets all this go forward merely as a +grand comedy. Even though the Communists deny him to-day, he knows +better than they do, that a time will come when they will learn to +believe in him.” After 1831, his hopes of soon upsetting the German +Governments had died away, and his propagandism took another, a more +truly literary, character. It took the character of an intrepid +application of the modern spirit to literature. To the ideas with which +the burning questions of modern life filled him, he made all his +subject-matter minister. He touched all the great points in the career +of the human race, and here he but followed the tendency of the wide +culture of Germany; but he touched them with a wand which brought them +all under a light where the modern eye cares most to see them, and here +he gave a lesson to the culture of Germany,—so wide, so impartial, that +it is apt to become slack and powerless, and to lose itself in its +materials for want of a strong central idea round which to group all its +other ideas. So the mystic and romantic school of Germany lost itself in +the Middle Ages, was overpowered by their influence, came to ruin by its +vain dreams of renewing them. Heine, with a far profounder sense of the +mystic and romantic charm of the Middle Age than Gœrres, or Brentano, or +Arnim, Heine the chief romantic poet of Germany, is yet also much more +than a romantic poet; he is a great modern poet, he is not conquered by +the Middle Age, he has a talisman by which he can feel,—along with but +above the power of the fascinating Middle Age itself,—the power of +modern ideas. + +A French critic of Heine thinks he has said enough in saying that Heine +proclaimed in German countries, with beat of drum, the ideas of 1789, +and that at the cheerful noise of his drum the ghosts of the Middle Age +took to flight. But this is rather too French an account of the matter. +Germany, that vast mine of ideas, had no need to import ideas, as such, +from any foreign country; and if Heine had carried ideas, as such, from +France into Germany, he would but have been carrying coals to Newcastle. +But that for which France, far less meditative than Germany, is eminent, +is the prompt, ardent, and practical application of an idea, when she +seizes it, in all departments of human activity which admit it. And that +in which Germany most fails, and by failing in which she appears so +helpless and impotent, is just the practical application of her +innumerable ideas. “When Candide,” says Heine himself, “came to +Eldorado, he saw in the streets a number of boys who were playing with +gold-nuggets instead of marbles. This degree of luxury made him imagine +that they must be the king’s children, and he was not a little +astonished when he found that in Eldorado gold-nuggets are of no more +value than marbles are with us, and that the schoolboys play with them. +A similar thing happened to a friend of mine, a foreigner, when he came +to Germany and first read German books. He was perfectly astounded at +the wealth of ideas which he found in them; but he soon remarked that +ideas in Germany are as plentiful as gold-nuggets in Eldorado, and that +those writers whom he had taken for intellectual princes, were in +reality only common schoolboys.” Heine was, as he called himself, a +“Child of the French Revolution,” an “Initiator,” because he vigorously +assured the Germans that ideas were not counters or marbles, to be +played with for their own sake; because he exhibited in literature +modern ideas applied with the utmost freedom, clearness, and +originality. And therefore he declared that the great task of his life +had been the endeavor to establish a cordial relation between France and +Germany. It is because he thus operates a junction between the French +spirit, and German ideas and German culture, that he founds something +new, opens a fresh period, and deserves the attention of criticism far +more than the German poets his contemporaries, who merely continue an +old period till it expires. It may be predicted that in the literature +of other countries, too, the French spirit is destined to make its +influence felt,—as an element, in alliance with the native spirit, of +novelty and movement,—as it has made its influence felt in German +literature; fifty years hence a critic will be demonstrating to our +grandchildren how this phenomenon has come to pass. + +We in England, in our great burst of literature during the first thirty +years of the present century, had no manifestation of the modern spirit, +as this spirit manifests itself in Goethe’s works or Heine’s. And the +reason is not far to seek. We had neither the German wealth of ideas, +nor the French enthusiasm for applying ideas. There reigned in the mass +of the nation that inveterate inaccessibility to ideas, that +Philistinism,—to use the German nickname,—which reacts even on the +individual genius that is exempt from it. In our greatest literary +epoch, that of the Elizabethan age, English society at large was +accessible to ideas, was permeated by them, was vivified by them, to a +degree which has never been reached in England since. Hence the unique +greatness in English literature of Shakspeare and his contemporaries. +They were powerfully upheld by the intellectual life of their nation; +they applied freely in literature the then modern ideas,—the ideas of +the Renascence and the Reformation. A few years afterwards the great +English middle class, the kernel of the nation, the class whose +intelligent sympathy had upheld a Shakspeare, entered the prison of +Puritanism, and had the key turned on its spirit there for two hundred +years. _He enlargeth a nation_, says Job, _and straiteneth it again_. + +In the literary movement of the beginning of the nineteenth century the +signal attempt to apply freely the modern spirit was made in England by +two members of the aristocratic class, Byron and Shelley. Aristocracies +are, as such, naturally impenetrable by ideas; but their individual +members have a high courage and a turn for breaking bounds; and a man of +genius, who is the born child of the idea, happening to be born in the +aristocratic ranks, chafes against the obstacles which prevent him from +freely developing it. But Byron and Shelley did not succeed in their +attempt freely to apply the modern spirit in English literature; they +could not succeed in it; the resistance to baffle them, the want of +intelligent sympathy to guide and uphold them, were too great. Their +literary creation, compared with the literary creation of Shakspeare and +Spenser, compared with the literary creation of Goethe and Heine, is a +failure. The best literary creation of that time in England proceeded +from men who did not make the same bold attempt as Byron and Shelley. +What, in fact, was the career of the chief English men of letters, their +contemporaries? The gravest of them, Wordsworth, retired (in Middle-Age +phrase) into a monastery. I mean, he plunged himself in the inward life, +he voluntarily cut himself off from the modern spirit. Coleridge took to +opium. Scott became the historiographer-royal of feudalism. Keats +passionately gave himself up to a sensuous genius, to his faculty for +interpreting nature; and he died of consumption at twenty-five. +Wordsworth, Scott, and Keats have left admirable works; far more solid +and complete works than those which Byron and Shelley have left. But +their works have this defect,—they do not belong to that which is the +main current of the literature of modern epochs, they do not apply +modern ideas to life; they constitute, therefore, _minor currents_, and +all other literary work of our day, however popular, which has the same +defect, also constitutes but a minor current. Byron and Shelley will +long be remembered, long after the inadequacy of their actual work is +clearly recognized for their passionate, their Titanic effort to flow in +the main stream of modern literature; their names will be greater than +their writings; _stat magni nominis umbra_. + +Heine’s literary good fortune was superior to that of Byron and Shelley. +His theater of operations was Germany, whose Philistinism does not +consist in her want of ideas, or in her inaccessibility to ideas, for +she teems with them and loves them, but, as I have said, in her feeble +and hesitating application of modern ideas to life. Heine’s intense +modernism, his absolute freedom, his utter rejection of stock classicism +and stock romanticism, his bringing all things under the point of view +of the nineteenth century, were understood and laid to heart by Germany, +through virtue of her immense, tolerant intellectualism, much as there +was in all Heine said to affront and wound Germany. The wit and ardent +modern spirit of France Heine joined to the culture, the sentiment, the +thought of Germany. This is what makes him so remarkable; his wonderful +clearness, lightness, and freedom, united with such power of feeling, +and width of range. Is there anywhere keener wit than in his story of +the French abbé who was his tutor, and who wanted to get from him that +_la religion_ is French for _der Glaube_: “Six times did he ask me the +question: ‘Henry, what is _der Glaube_ in French?’ and six times, and +each time with a greater burst of tears, did I answer him—‘It is _le +crédit_.’ And at the seventh time, his face purple with rage, the +infuriated questioner screamed out: ‘It is _la religion_;’ and a rain of +cuffs descended upon me, and all the other boys burst out laughing. +Since that day I have never been able to hear _la religion_ mentioned, +without feeling a tremor run through my back, and my cheeks grow red +with shame.” Or in that comment on the fate of Professor Saalfeld, who +had been addicted to writing furious pamphlets against Napoleon, and who +was a professor at Göttingen, a great seat, according to Heine, of +pedantry and Philistinism: “It is curious,” says Heine, “the three +greatest adversaries of Napoleon have all of them ended miserably. +Castlereagh cut his own throat; Louis the Eighteenth rotted upon his +throne; and Professor Saalfeld is still a professor at Göttingen.” It is +impossible to go beyond that. + +What wit, again, in that saying which every one has heard: “The +Englishman loves liberty like his lawful wife, the Frenchman loves her +like his mistress, the German loves her like his old grandmother.” But +the turn Heine gives to this incomparable saying is not so well known; +and it is by that turn he shows himself the born poet he is,—full of +delicacy and tenderness, of inexhaustible resource, infinitely new and +striking:— + +“And yet, after all, no one can ever tell how things may turn out. The +grumpy Englishman, in an ill-temper with his wife, is capable of some +day putting a rope round her neck, and taking her to be sold at +Smithfield. The inconstant Frenchman may become unfaithful to his adored +mistress, and be seen fluttering about the Palais Royal after another. +_But the German will never quite abandon his old grandmother_; he will +always keep for her a nook by the chimney-corner, where she can tell her +fairy stories to the listening children.” + +Is it possible to touch more delicately and happily both the weakness +and the strength of Germany;—pedantic, simple, enslaved, free, +ridiculous, admirable Germany? + +And Heine’s verse,—his _Lieder_? Oh, the comfort, after dealing with +French people of genius, irresistibly impelled to try and express +themselves in verse, launching out into a deed which destiny has sown +with so many rocks for them,—the comfort of coming to a man of genius, +who finds in verse his freest and most perfect expression, whose voyage +over the deep of poetry destiny makes smooth! After the rhythm, to us, +at any rate, with the German paste in our composition, so deeply +unsatisfying, of— + + “Ah! que me dites-vous, et que vous dit mon âme? + Que dit le ciel à l’aube et la flamme à la flamme?” + +what a blessing to arrive at rhythms like— + + “Take, oh, take those lips away, + That so sweetly were forsworn—” + +or— + + “Siehst sehr sterbeblässlich aus, + Doch getrost! du bist zu Haus—” + +in which one’s soul can take pleasure! The magic of Heine’s poetical +form is incomparable; he chiefly uses a form of old German popular +poetry, a ballad-form which has more rapidity and grace than any +ballad-form of ours; he employs this form with the most exquisite +lightness and ease, and yet it has at the same time the inborn fulness, +pathos, and old-world charm of all true forms of popular poetry. Thus in +Heine’s poetry, too, one perpetually blends the impression of French +modernism and clearness, with that of German sentiment and fulness; and +to give this blended impression is, as I have said, Heine’s great +characteristic. To feel it, one must read him; he gives it in his form +as well as in his contents, and by translation I can only reproduce it +so far as his contents give it. But even the contents of many of his +poems are capable of giving a certain sense of it. Here, for instance, +is a poem in which he makes his profession of faith to an innocent +beautiful soul, a sort of Gretchen, the child of some simple mining +people having their hut among the pines at the foot of the Hartz +Mountains, who reproaches him with not holding the old articles of the +Christian creed:— + +“Ah, my child, while I was yet a little boy, while I yet sate upon my +mother’s knee, I believed in God the Father, who rules up there in +Heaven, good and great; + +“Who created the beautiful earth, and the beautiful men and women +thereon; who ordained for sun, moon, and stars their courses. + +“When I got bigger, my child, I comprehended yet a great deal more than +this, and comprehended, and grew intelligent; and I believe on the Son +also; + +“On the beloved Son, who loved us, and revealed love to us; and, for his +reward, as always happens, was crucified by the people. + +“Now, when I am grown up, have read much, have traveled much, my heart +swells within me, and with my whole heart I believe on the Holy Ghost. + +“The greatest miracles were of his working, and still greater miracles +doth he even now work; he burst in sunder the oppressor’s stronghold, +and he burst in sunder the bondsman’s yoke. + +“He heals old death-wounds, and renews the old right; all mankind are +one race of noble equals before him. + +“He chases away the evil clouds and the dark cobwebs of the brain, which +have spoilt love and joy for us, which day and night have loured on us. + +“A thousand knights, well harnessed, has the Holy Ghost chosen out to +fulfil his will, and he has put courage into their souls. + +“Their good swords flash, their bright banners wave; what, thou wouldst +give much, my child, to look upon such gallant knights? + +“Well, on me, my child, look! kiss me, and look boldly upon me! one of +those knights of the Holy Ghost am I.” + +One has only to turn over the pages of his _Romancero_,—a collection of +poems written in the first years of his illness, with his whole power +and charm still in them, and not, like his latest poems of all, +painfully touched by the air of his _Matrazzen-gruft_, his +“mattress-grave,”—to see Heine’s width of range; the most varied figures +succeed one another,—Rhampsinitus, Edith with the Swan Neck, Charles the +First, Marie Antoinette, King David, a heroine of _Mabille_, Melisanda +of Tripoli, Richard Cœur de Lion, Pedro the Cruel, Firdusi, Cortes, Dr. +Döllinger;—but never does Heine attempt to be _hübsch objectiv_, +“beautifully objective,” to become in spirit an old Egyptian, or an old +Hebrew, or a Middle-Age knight, or a Spanish adventurer, or an English +royalist; he always remains Heinrich Heine, a son of the nineteenth +century. To give a notion of his tone, I will quote a few stanzas at the +end of the _Spanish Atridæ_, in which he describes, in the character of +a visitor at the court of Henry of Transtamare at Segovia, Henry’s +treatment of the children of his brother, Pedro the Cruel. Don Diego +Albuquerque, his neighbor, strolls after dinner through the castle with +him: + +“In the cloister-passage, which leads to the kennels where are kept the +king’s hounds, that with their growling and yelping let you know a long +way off where they are. + +“There I saw, built into the wall, and with a strong iron grating for +its outer face, a cell like a cage. + +“Two human figures sate therein, two young boys; chained by the leg, +they crouched in the dirty straw. + +“Hardly twelve years old seemed the one, the other not much older; their +faces fair and noble, but pale and wan with sickness. + +“They were all in rags, almost naked; and their lean bodies showed +wounds, the marks of ill-usage; both of them shivered with fever. + +“They looked up at me out of the depth of their misery; ‘who,’ I cried +in horror to Don Diego, ‘are these pictures of wretchedness?’ + +“Don Diego seemed embarrassed; he looked round to see that no one was +listening; then he gave a deep sigh; and at last, putting on the easy +tone of a man of the world, he said: + +“‘These are a pair of king’s sons, who were early left orphans; the name +of their father was King Pedro, the name of their mother, Maria de +Padilla. + +“‘After the great battle of Navarette, when Henry of Transtamare had +relieved his brother, King Pedro, of the troublesome burden of the +crown. + +“‘And likewise of that still more troublesome burden, which is called +life, then Don Henry’s victorious magnanimity had to deal with his +brother’s children. + +“‘He has adopted them, as an uncle should; and he has given them free +quarters in his own castle. + +“‘The room which he has assigned to them is certainly rather small, but +then it is cool in summer, and not intolerably cold in winter. + +“‘Their fare is rye-bread, which tastes as sweet as if the goddess Ceres +had baked it express for her beloved Proserpine. + +“‘Not unfrequently, too, he sends a scullion to them with garbanzos, and +then the young gentlemen know that it is Sunday in Spain. + +“‘But it is not Sunday every day, and garbanzos do not come every day; +and the master of the hounds gives them the treat of his whip. + +“‘For the master of the hounds, who has under his superintendence the +kennels and the pack, and the nephews’ cage also. + +“‘Is the unfortunate husband of that lemon-faced woman with the white +ruff, whom we remarked to-day at dinner. + +“‘And she scolds so sharp, that often her husband snatches his whip, and +rushes down here, and gives it to the dogs and to the poor little boys. + +“‘But his majesty has expressed his disapproval of such proceedings, and +has given orders that for the future his nephews are to be treated +differently from the dogs. + +“‘He has determined no longer to entrust the disciplining of his nephews +to a mercenary stranger, but to carry it out with his own hands.’ + +“Don Diego stopped abruptly; for the seneschal of the castle joined us, +and politely expressed his hope that we had dined to our satisfaction.” + +Observe how the irony of the whole of that, finishing with the grim +innuendo of the last stanza but one, is at once truly masterly and truly +modern. + +No account of Heine is complete which does not notice the Jewish element +in him. His race he treated with the same freedom with which he treated +everything else, but he derived a great force from it, and no one knew +this better than he himself. He has excellently pointed out how in the +sixteenth century there was a double renascence,—a Hellenic renascence +and a Hebrew renascence,—and how both have been great powers ever since. +He himself had in him both the spirit of Greece and the spirit of Judæa; +both these spirits reach the infinite, which is the true goal of all +poetry and all art,—the Greek spirit by beauty, the Hebrew spirit by +sublimity. By his perfection of literary form, by his love of clearness, +by his love of beauty, Heine is Greek; by his intensity, by his +untamableness, by his “longing which cannot be uttered,” he is Hebrew. +Yet what Hebrew ever treated the things of the Hebrews like this?— + +“There lives at Hamburg, in a one-roomed lodging in the Baker’s Broad +Walk, a man whose name is Moses Lump; all the week he goes about in wind +and rain, with his pack on his back, to earn his few shillings; but when +on Friday evening he comes home, he finds the candlestick with seven +candles lighted, and the table covered with a fair white cloth, and he +puts away from him his pack and his cares, and he sits down to table +with his squinting wife and yet more squinting daughter, and eats fish +with them, fish which has been dressed in beautiful white garlic sauce, +sings therewith the grandest psalms of King David, rejoices with his +whole heart over the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt, +rejoices, too, that all the wicked ones who have done the children of +Israel hurt, have ended by taking themselves off; that King Pharaoh, +Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, Antiochus, Titus, and all such people, are well +dead, while he, Moses Lump, is yet alive, and eating fish with wife and +daughter; and I can tell you, Doctor, the fish is delicate and the man +is happy, he has no call to torment himself about culture, he sits +contented in his religion and in his green bedgown, like Diogenes in his +tub, he contemplates with satisfaction his candles, which he on no +account will snuff for himself; and I can tell you, if the candles burn +a little dim, and the snuffers-woman, whose business it is to snuff +them, is not at hand, and Rothschild the Great were at that moment to +come in, with all his brokers, bill discounters, agents, and chief +clerks, with whom he conquers the world, and Rothschild were to say: +‘Moses Lump, ask of me what favor you will, and it shall be granted +you;’—Doctor, I am convinced, Moses Lump would quietly answer: ‘Snuff me +those candles!’ and Rothschild the Great would exclaim with admiration: +‘If I were not Rothschild, I would be Moses Lump.’” + +There Heine shows us his own people by its comic side; in the poem of +the _Princess Sabbath_ he shows it to us by a more serious side. The +Princess Sabbath, “the _tranquil Princess_, pearl and flower of all +beauty, fair as the Queen of Sheba, Solomon’s bosom friend, that blue +stocking from Ethiopia, who wanted to shine by her _esprit_, and with +her wise riddles made herself in the long run a bore” (with Heine the +sarcastic turn is never far off), this princess has for her betrothed a +prince whom sorcery has transformed into an animal of lower race, the +Prince Israel. + +“A dog with the desires of a dog, he wallows all the week long in the +filth and refuse of life, amidst the jeers of the boys in the street. + +“But every Friday evening, at the twilight hour, suddenly the magic +passes off, and the dog becomes once more a human being. + +“A man with the feelings of a man, with head and heart raised aloft, in +festal garb, in almost clean garb, he enters the halls of his Father. + +“Hail, beloved halls of my royal Father! Ye tents of Jacob, I kiss with +my lips your holy door-posts!” + +Still more he shows us this serious side in his beautiful poem on Jehuda +ben Halevy, a poet belonging to “the great golden age of the Arabian, +Old-Spanish, Jewish school of poets,” a contemporary of the +troubadours:— + +“He, too,—the hero whom we sing,—Jehuda ben Halevy, too, had his +lady-love; but she was of a special sort. + +“She was no Laura, whose eyes, mortal stars, in the cathedral on Good +Friday kindled that world-renowned flame. + +“She was no châtelaine, who in the blooming glory of her youth presided +at tourneys, and awarded the victor’s crown. + +“No casuistess in the Gay Science was she, no lady _doctrinaire_, who +delivered her oracles in the judgment-chamber of a Court of Love. + +“She, whom the Rabbi loved, was a woe-begone poor darling, a mourning +picture of desolation ... and her name was Jerusalem.” + +Jehuda ben Halevy, like the Crusaders, makes his pilgrimage to +Jerusalem; and there, amid the ruins, sings a song of Sion which has +become famous among his people:— + +“That lay of pearled tears is the wide-famed Lament, which is sung in +all the scattered tents of Jacob throughout the world. + +“On the ninth day of the month which is called Ab, on the anniversary of +Jerusalem’s destruction by Titus Vespasianus. + +“Yes, that is the song of Sion, which Jehuda ben Halevy sang with his +dying breath amid the holy ruins of Jerusalem. + +“Barefoot, and in penitential weeds, he sate there upon the fragment of +a fallen column; down to his breast fell, + +“Like a gray forest, his hair; and cast a weird shadow on the face which +looked out through it,—his troubled pale face, with the spiritual eyes. + +“So he sate and sang, like unto a seer out of the foretime to look upon; +Jeremiah, the Ancient, seemed to have risen out of his grave. + +“But a bold Saracen came riding that way, aloft on his barb, lolling in +his saddle, and brandishing a naked javelin; + +“Into the breast of the poor singer he plunged his deadly shaft, and +shot away like a winged shadow. + +“Quietly flowed the Rabbi’s life-blood, quietly he sang his song to an +end; and his last dying sigh was Jerusalem!” + +But, most of all, Heine shows us this side in a strange poem describing +a public dispute, before King Pedro and his Court, between a Jewish and +a Christian champion, on the merits of their respective faiths. In the +strain of the Jew all the fierceness of the old Hebrew genius, all its +rigid defiant Monotheism, appear:— + +“Our God has not died like a poor innocent lamb for mankind; he is no +gushing philanthropist, no declaimer. + +“Our God is not love, caressing is not his line; but he is a God of +thunder, and he is a God of revenge. + +“The lightnings of his wrath strike inexorably every sinner, and the +sins of the fathers are often visited upon their remote posterity. + +“Our God, he is alive, and in his hall of heaven he goes on existing +away, throughout all the eternities. + +“Our God, too is a God in robust health, no myth, pale and thin as +sacrificial wafers, or as shadows by Cocytus. + +“Our God is strong. In his hand he upholds sun, moon, and stars; thrones +break, nations reel to and fro, when he knits his forehead. + +“Our God loves music, the voice of the harp and the song of feasting; +but the sound of church-bells he hates, as he hates the grunting of +pigs.” + +Nor must Heine’s sweetest note be unheard,—his plaintive note, his note +of melancholy. Here is a strain which came from him as he lay, in the +winter night, on his “mattress-grave” at Paris, and let his thoughts +wander home to Germany, “the great child, entertaining herself with her +Christmas-tree.” “Thou tookest,”—he cries to the German exile,— + +“Thou tookest thy flight towards sunshine and happiness; naked and poor +returnest thou back. German truth, German shirts,—one gets them worn to +tatters in foreign parts. + +“Deadly pale are thy looks, but take comfort, thou art at home! one lies +warm in German earth, warm as by the old pleasant fireside. + +“Many a one, alas, became crippled, and could get home no more! +longingly he stretches out his arms; God have mercy upon him!” + +God have mercy upon him! for what remain of the days of the years of his +life are few and evil. “Can it be that I still actually exist? My body +is so shrunk that there is hardly anything of me left but my voice, and +my bed makes me think of the melodious grave of the enchanter Merlin, +which is in the forest of Broceliand in Brittany, under high oaks whose +tops shine like green flames to heaven. Ah, I envy thee those trees, +brother Merlin, and their fresh waving! for over my mattress-grave here +in Paris no green leaves rustle; and early and late I hear nothing but +the rattle of carriages, hammering, scolding, and the jingle of the +piano. A grave without rest, death without the privileges of the +departed, who have no longer any need to spend money, or to write +letters, or to compose books. What a melancholy situation!” + +He died, and has left a blemished name; with his crying faults,—his +intemperate susceptibility, his unscrupulousness in passion, his +inconceivable attacks on his enemies, his still more inconceivable +attacks on his friends, his want of generosity, his sensuality, his +incessant mocking,—how could it be otherwise? Not only was he not one of +Mr. Carlyle’s “respectable” people, he was profoundly _dis_respectable; +and not even the merit of not being a Philistine can make up for a man’s +being that. To his intellectual deliverance there was an addition of +something else wanting, and that something else was something immense; +the old-fashioned, laborious, eternally needful moral deliverance. +Goethe says that he was deficient in _love_; to me his weakness seems to +be not so much a deficiency in love as a deficiency in self-respect, in +true dignity of character. But on this negative side of one’s criticism +of a man of great genius, I for my part, when I have once clearly marked +that this negative side is and must be there, have no pleasure in +dwelling. I prefer to say of Heine something positive. He is not an +adequate interpreter of the modern world. He is only a brilliant soldier +in the Liberation War of humanity. But, such as he is, he is (and +posterity too, I am quite sure, will say this), in the European poetry +of that quarter of a century which follows the death of Goethe, +incomparably the most important figure. + +What a spendthrift, one is tempted to cry, is Nature! With what +prodigality, in the march of generations, she employs human power, +content to gather almost always little result from it, sometimes none! +Look at Byron, that Byron whom the present generation of Englishmen are +forgetting; Byron, the greatest natural force, the greatest elementary +power, I cannot but think which has appeared in our literature since +Shakspeare. And what became of this wonderful production of nature? He +shattered himself, he inevitably shattered himself to pieces against the +huge, black, cloud-topped, interminable precipice of British +Philistinism. But Byron, it may be said, was eminent only by his genius, +only by his inborn force and fire; he had not the intellectual equipment +of a supreme modern poet; except for his genius he was an ordinary +nineteenth-century English gentleman, with little culture and with no +ideas. Well, then, look at Heine. Heine had all the culture of Germany; +in his head fermented all the ideas of modern Europe. And what have we +got from Heine? A half-result, for want of moral balance, and of +nobleness of soul and character. That is what I say; there is so much +power, so many seem able to run well, so many give promise of running +well;—so few reach the goal, so few are chosen. _Many are called, few +chosen._ + + + + + VI. + + PAGAN AND MEDIÆVAL RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. + + +I read the other day in the _Dublin Review_:—“We Catholic are apt to be +cowed and scared by the lordly oppression of public opinion, and not to +bear ourselves as men in the face of the anti-Catholic society of +England. It is good to have an habitual consciousness that the public +opinion of Catholic Europe looks upon Protestant England with a mixture +of impatience and compassion, which more than balances the arrogance of +the English people towards the Catholic Church in these countries.” + +The Holy Catholic Church, Apostolic and Roman, can take very good care +of herself, and I am not going to defend her against the scorn of Exeter +Hall. Catholicism is not a great visible force in this country, and the +mass of mankind will always treat lightly even things the most +venerable, if they do not present themselves as visible forces before +its eyes. In Catholic countries, as the _Dublin Review_ itself says with +triumph, they make very little account of the greatness of Exeter Hall. +The majority has eyes only for the things of the majority, and in +England the immense majority is Protestant. And yet, in spite of all the +shocks which the feeling of a good Catholic, like the writer in the +_Dublin Review_, has in this Protestant country inevitably to undergo, +in spite of the contemptuous insensibility to the grandeur of Rome which +he finds so general and so hard to bear, how much has he to console him, +how many acts of homage to the greatness of his religion may he see if +he has his eyes open! I will tell him of one of them. Let him go in +London to that delightful spot, that Happy Island in Bloomsbury, the +reading-room of the British Museum. Let him visit its sacred quarter, +the region where its theological books are placed. I am almost afraid to +say what he will find there, for fear Mr. Spurgeon, like a second Caliph +Omar, should give the library to the flames. He will find an immense +Catholic work, the collection of the Abbé Migne, lording it over that +whole region, reducing to insignificance the feeble Protestant forces +which hang upon its skirts. Protestantism is duly represented, indeed: +the librarian knows his business too well to suffer it to be otherwise; +all the varieties of Protestantism are there; there is the Library of +Anglo-Catholic Theology, learned, decorous, exemplary, but a little +uninteresting; there are the works of Calvin, rigid, militant, menacing; +there are the works of Dr. Chalmers, the Scotch thistle valiantly doing +duty as the rose of Sharon, but keeping something very Scotch about it +all the time; there are the works of Dr. Channing, the last word of +religious philosophy in a land where every one has some culture, and +where superiorities are discountenanced,—the flower of moral and +intelligent mediocrity. But how are all these divided against one +another, and how, though they were all united, are they dwarfed by the +Catholic Leviathan, their neighbor! Majestic in its blue and gold unity, +this fills shelf after shelf and compartment after compartment, its +right mounting up into heaven among the white folios of the _Acta +Sanctorum_, its left plunging down into hell among the yellow octavos of +the _Law Digest_. Everything is there, in that immense _Patrologiæ +Cursus Completus_, in that _Encyclopédie Théologique_, that _Nouvelle +Encyclopédie Théologique_, that _Troisième Encyclopédie Théologique_; +religion, philosophy, history, biography, arts, sciences, bibliography, +gossip. The work embraces the whole range of human interests; like one +of the great Middle-Age Cathedrals, it is in itself a study for a life. +Like the net in Scripture, it drags everything to land, bad and good, +lay and ecclesiastical, sacred and profane, so that it be but matter of +human concern. Wide-embracing as the power whose product it is! a power, +for history at any rate, eminently _the Church_; not, perhaps, the +Church of the future, but indisputably the Church of the past and, in +the past, the Church of the multitude. + +This is why the man of imagination—nay, and the philosopher too, in +spite of her propensity to burn him—will always have a weakness for the +Catholic Church; because of the rich treasures of human life which have +been stored within her pale. The mention of other religious bodies, or +of their leaders, at once calls up in our mind the thought of men of a +definite type as their adherents; the mention of Catholicism suggests no +such special following. Anglicanism suggests the English episcopate; +Calvin’s name suggests Dr. Candlish; Chalmers’s, the Duke of Argyll; +Channing’s, Boston society; but Catholicism suggests,—what shall I +say?—all the pell-mell of the men and women of Shakspeare’s plays. This +abundance the Abbé Migne’s collection faithfully reflects. People talk +of this or that work which they would choose, if they were to pass their +life with only one; for my part I think I would choose the Abbé Migne’s +collection. _Quicquid agunt homines_,—everything, as I have said, is +there. Do not seek in it splendor of form, perfection of editing; its +paper is common, its type ugly, its editing indifferent, its printing +careless. The greatest and most baffling crowd of misprints I ever met +in my life occurs in a very important page of the introduction to the +_Dictionnaire des Apocryphes_. But this is just what you have in the +world,—quantity rather than quality. Do not seek in it impartiality, the +critical spirit; in reading it you must do the criticism for yourself; +it loves criticism as little as the world loves it. Like the world, it +chooses to have things all its own way, to abuse its adversary, to back +its own notion through thick and thin, to put forward all the _pros_ for +its own notion, to suppress all the _contras_; it does just all that the +world does, and all that the critical shrinks from. Open the +_Dictionnaire des Erreurs Sociales_: “The religious persecutions of +Henry the Eighth’s and Edward the Sixth’s time abated a little in the +reign of Mary, to break out again with new fury in the reign of +Elizabeth.” There is a summary of the history of religious persecution +under the Tudors! But how unreasonable to reproach the Abbé Migne’s work +with wanting a criticism, which, by the very nature of things, it cannot +have, and not rather to be grateful to it for its abundance, its +variety, its infinite suggestiveness, its happy adoption, in many a +delicate circumstance, of the urbane tone and temper of the man of the +world, instead of the acrid tone and temper of the fanatic! + +Still, in spite of their fascinations, the contents of this collection +sometimes rouse the critical spirit within one. It happened that lately, +after I had been thinking much of Marcus Aurelius and his times, I took +down the _Dictionnaire des Origines du Christianisme_, to see what it +had to say about paganism and pagans. I found much what I expected. I +read the article, _Révélation Évangélique, sa Nécessité_. There I found +what a sink of iniquity was the whole pagan world; how one Roman fed his +oysters on his slaves, how another put a slave to death that a curious +friend might see what dying was like; how Galen’s mother tore and bit +her waiting-women when she was in a passion with them. I found this +account of the religion of paganism: “Paganism invented a mob of +divinities with the most hateful character, and attributed to them the +most monstrous and abominable crimes. It personified in them +drunkenness, incest, kidnapping, adultery, sensuality, knavery, cruelty, +and rage.” And I found that from this religion there followed such +practice as was to be expected: “What must naturally have been the state +of morals under the influence of such a religion, which penetrated with +its own spirit the public life, the family life, and the individual life +of antiquity?” + +The colors in this picture are laid on very thick, and I for my part +cannot believe that any human societies, with a religion and practice +such as those just described, could ever have endured as the societies +of Greece and Rome endured, still less have done what the societies of +Greece and Rome did. We are not brought far by descriptions of the vices +of great cities, or even of individuals driven mad by unbounded means of +self-indulgence. Feudal and aristocratic life in Christendom has +produced horrors of selfishness and cruelty not surpassed by the grandee +of pagan Rome; and then, again, in antiquity there is Marcus Aurelius’s +mother to set against Galen’s. Eminent examples of vice and virtue in +individuals prove little as to the state of societies. What, under the +first emperors, was the condition of the Roman poor upon the Aventine +compared with that of our poor in Spitalfields and Bethnal Green? What, +in comfort, morals, and happiness, were the rural population of the +Sabine country under Augustus’s rule, compared with the rural population +of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire under the rule of Queen Victoria? + +But these great questions are not now for me. Without trying to answer +them, I ask myself, when I read such declamation as the foregoing, if I +can find anything that will give me a near, distinct sense of the real +difference in spirit and sentiment between paganism and Christianity, +and of the natural effect of this difference upon people in general. I +take a representative religious poem of paganism,—of the paganism which +all the world has in its mind when it speaks of paganism. To be a +representative poem, it must be one for popular use, one that the +multitude listens to. Such a religious poem may be at the end of one of +the best and happiest of Theocritus’s idylls, the fifteenth. In order +that the reader may the better go along with me in the line of thought I +am following, I will translate it; and, that he may see the medium in +which religious poetry of this sort is found existing, the society out +of which it grows, the people who form it and are formed by it, I will +translate the whole, or nearly the whole, of the idyll (it is not long) +in which the poem occurs. + +The idyll is dramatic. Somewhere about two hundred and eighty years +before the Christian era, a couple of Syracusan women, staying at +Alexandria, agreed on the occasion of a great religious solemnity,—the +feast of Adonis,—to go together to the palace of King Ptolemy +Philadelphus, to see the image of Adonis, which the queen Arsinoe, +Ptolemy’s wife, had had decorated with peculiar magnificence. A hymn, by +a celebrated performer, was to be recited over the image. The names of +the two women are Gorgo and Praxinoe; their maids, who are mentioned in +the poem, are called Eunoe and Eutychis. Gorgo comes by appointment to +Praxinoe’s house to fetch her, and there the dialogue begins:— + +_Gorgo._—Is Praxinoe at home? + +_Praxinoe._—My dear Gorgo, at last! Yes, here I am. Eunoe, find a +chair,—get a cushion for it. + +_Gorgo._—It will do beautifully as it is. + +_Praxinoe._—Do sit down. + +_Gorgo._—Oh, this gad-about spirit! I could hardly get to you, Praxinoe, +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. + +_Praxinoe._—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 neighbors. 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. Never mind, Zopyrio, my +pet, she is not talking about papa. + +_Praxinoe._—Good heavens! the child does really understand. + +_Gorgo._—Pretty papa! + +_Praxinoe._—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. + +_Praxinoe._—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 here! + +_Gorgo._—Come, we ought to be going. + +_Praxinoe._—Every day is holiday to people who have nothing to do. +Eunoe, pick up your work; and take care, 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._—Praxinoe, 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. + +_Praxinoe._—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. + +_Praxinoe._—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 bogy 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! Eunoe, 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, Praxinoe, we are safe behind them; and they have +gone on to where they are stationed. + +_Praxinoe._—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 +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 herself of an oracle and +departed. + +_Praxinoe._—Women can tell you everything about everything, Jupiter’s +marriage with Juno not excepted. + +_Gorgo._—Look, Praxinoe, what a squeeze at the palace gates! + +_Praxinoe._—Tremendous! Take hold of me, Gorgo; and you, Eunoe, take +hold of Eutychis!—tight hold, or you’ll be lost. Here we go in all +together. Hold tight to us, Eunoe! 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. + +_Praxinoe._—What heaps of people! They push like a drove of pigs. + +_Stranger._—Don’t be frightened, ma’am, we are all right. + +_Praxinoe._—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 Eunoe 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._—Praxinoe, come this way. Do but look at that work, how delicate +it is!—how exquisite! Why, they might wear it in heaven. + +_Praxinoe._—Heavenly patroness of needlewomen, 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 forever. They are enough to kill one with their +broad lingo—nothing but _a, a, a_. + +_Gorgo._—Lord, where does the man come from? What is it to you if we +_are_ chatterboxes? Order about your own servants! Do you give orders to +Syracusan women? If you want to know, we came originally from Corinth, +as Bellerophon did; we speak Peloponnesian. I suppose Dorian women may +be allowed to have a Dorian accent. + +_Praxinoe._—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, Praxinoe! 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.— + +So far the dialogue; and, as it stands in the original, it can hardly be +praised too highly. It is a page torn fresh out of the book of human +life. What freedom! What animation! What gaiety! What naturalness! It is +said that Theocritus, in composing this poem, borrowed from a work of +Sophron, a poet of an earlier and better time; but, even if this is so, +the form is still Theocritus’s own, and how excellent is that form, how +masterly! And this in a Greek poem of the decadence!—for Theocritus’s +poetry, after all, is poetry of the decadence. When such is Greek poetry +of the decadence, what must be Greek poetry of the prime? + +Then the singer begins her hymn:— + +“Mistress, who loveth the haunts of Golgi, and Idalium, and high-peaked +Eryx, Aphrodite that playest with gold! how have the delicate-footed +Hours, after twelve months, brought thy Adonis back to thee from the +ever-flowing Acheron! Tardiest of the immortals are the boon Hours, but +all mankind wait their approach with longing, for they ever bring +something with them. O Cypris, Dione’s child! thou didst change—so is +the story among men—Berenice from mortal to immortal, by dropping +ambrosia into her fair bosom; and in gratitude to thee for this, O thou +of many names and many temples! Berenice’s daughter, Arsinoe, lovely +Helen’s living counterpart, makes much of Adonis with all manner of +braveries. + +“All fruits that the tree bears are laid before him, all treasures of +the garden in silver baskets, and alabaster boxes, gold-inlaid, of +Syrian ointment; and all confectionery that cunning women make on their +kneading-tray, kneading up every sort of flowers with white meal, and +all that they make of sweet honey and delicate oil, and all winged and +creeping things are here set before him. And there are built for him +green bowers with wealth of tender anise, and little boy-loves flutter +about over them, like young nightingales trying their new wings on the +tree, from bough to bough. Oh, the ebony, the gold, the eagle of white +ivory that bears aloft his cup-bearer to Cronos-born Zeus! And up there, +see! a second couch strewn for lovely Adonis, scarlet coverlets softer +than sleep itself (so Miletus and the Samian wool-grower will say); +Cypris has hers, and the rosy-armed Adonis has his, that eighteen or +nineteen-year-old bridegroom. His kisses will not wound, the hair on his +lip is yet light. + +“Now, Cypris, good-night, we leave thee with thy bridegroom; but +to-morrow morning, with the earliest dew, we will one and all bear him +forth to where the waves splash upon the sea-strand, and letting loose +our locks, and letting fall our robes, with bosoms bare, we will set up +this, our melodious strain: + +“‘Beloved Adonis, alone of the demigods (so men say) thou art permitted +to visit both us and Acheron! This lot had neither Agamemnon, nor the +mighty moon-struck hero Ajax, nor Hector the first-born of Hecuba’s +twenty children, nor Patroclus, nor Pyrrhus who came home from Troy, nor +those yet earlier Lapithæ and the sons of Deucalion, nor the Pelasgians, +the root of Argos and of Pelop’s isle. Be gracious to us now, loved +Adonis, and be favorable to us for the year to come! Dear to us hast +thou been at this coming, dear to us shalt thou be when thou comest +again.’” + +The poem concludes with a characteristic speech from Gorgo:— + +“Praxinoe, certainly women are wonderful things. That lucky woman to +know all that! and luckier still to have such a splendid voice! And now +we must see about getting home. My husband has not had his dinner. That +man is all vinegar, and nothing else; and if you keep him waiting for +his dinner, he’s dangerous to go near. Adieu, precious Adonis, and may +you find us all well when you come next year!” + +So, with the hymn still in her ears, says the incorrigible Gorgo. + +But what a hymn that is! Of religious emotion, in our acceptation of the +words, and of the comfort springing from religious emotion, not a +particle. And yet many elements of religious emotion are contained in +the beautiful story of Adonis. Symbolically treated, as the thoughtful +man might treat it, as the Greek mysteries undoubtedly treated it, this +story was capable of a noble and touching application, and could lead +the soul to elevating and consoling thoughts. Adonis was the sun in his +summer and in his winter course, in his time of triumph and his time of +defeat; but in his time of triumph still moving towards his defeat, in +his time of defeat still returning towards his triumph. Thus he became +an emblem of the power of life and the bloom of beauty, the power of +human life and the bloom of human beauty, hastening inevitably to +diminution and decay, yet in that very decay finding + + “Hope, and a renovation without end.” + +But nothing of this appears in the story as prepared for popular +religious use, as presented to the multitude in a popular religious +ceremony. Its treatment is not devoid of a certain grace and beauty, but +it has nothing whatever that is elevating, nothing that is consoling, +nothing that is in our sense of the word religious. The religious +ceremonies of Christendom, even on occasion of the most joyful and +mundane matters, present the multitude with strains of profoundly +religious character, such as the _Kyrie eleison_ and the _Te Deum_. But +this Greek hymn to Adonis adapts itself exactly to the tone and temper +of a gay and pleasure-loving multitude,—of light-hearted people, like +Gorgo and Praxinoe, whose moral nature is much of the same caliber as +that of Phillina in Goethe’s _Wilhelm Meister_, people who seem never +made to be serious, never made to be sick or sorry. And, if they happen +to be sick or sorry, what will they do then? But that we have no right +to ask. Phillina, within the enchanted bounds of Goethe’s novel, Gorgo +and Praxinoe, within the enchanted bounds of Theocritus’s poem, never +will be sick and sorry, never can be sick and sorry. The ideal, +cheerful, sensuous, pagan life is not sick or sorry. No; yet its natural +end is in the sort of life which Pompeii and Herculaneum bring so +vividly before us,—a life which by no means in itself suggests the +thought of horror and misery, which even, in many ways, gratifies the +senses and the understanding; but by the very intensity and +unremittingness of its appeal to the senses and the understanding, by +its stimulating a single side of us too absolutely, ends by fatiguing +and revolting us; ends by leaving us with a sense of confinement, of +oppression,—with a desire for an utter change, for clouds, storms, +effusion, and relief. + +In the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the clouds and storms +had come, when the gay sensuous pagan life was gone, when men were not +living by the senses and understanding, when they were looking for the +speedy coming of Antichrist, there appeared in Italy, to the north of +Rome, in the beautiful Umbrian country at the foot of the Apennines, a +figure of the most magical power and charm, St. Francis. His century is, +I think, the most interesting in the history of Christianity after its +primitive age, more interesting than even the century of the +Reformation; and one of the chief figures, perhaps the very chief, to +which this interest attaches itself, is St. Francis. And why? Because of +the profound popular instinct which enabled him, more than any man since +the primitive age, to fit religion for popular use. He brought religion +to the people. He founded the most popular body of ministers of religion +that has ever existed in the Church. He transformed monachism by +uprooting the stationary monk, delivering him from the bondage of +property, and sending him, as a mendicant friar, to be a stranger and +sojourner, not in the wilderness, but in the most crowded haunts of men, +to console them and to do them good. This popular instinct of his is at +the bottom of his famous marriage with poverty. Poverty and suffering +are the condition of the people, the multitude, the immense majority of +mankind; and it was towards this _people_ that his soul yearned. “He +listens,” it was said of him, “to those to whom God himself will not +listen.” + +So in return, as no other man he was listened to. When an Umbrian town +or village heard of his approach, the whole population went out in +joyful procession to meet him, with green boughs, flags, music, and +songs of gladness. The master, who began with two disciples, could in +his own lifetime (and he died at forty-four) collect to keep Whitsuntide +with him, in presence of an immense multitude, five thousand of his +Minorites. And thus he found fulfilment to his prophetic cry: “I hear in +my ears the sound of the tongues of all the nations who shall come unto +us; Frenchmen, Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen. The Lord will make of us +a great people, even unto the ends of the earth.” + +Prose could not satisfy this ardent soul, and he made poetry. Latin was +too learned for this simple, popular nature, and he composed in his +mother tongue, in Italian. The beginnings of the mundane poetry of the +Italians are in Sicily, at the court of kings; the beginnings of their +religious poetry are in Umbria, with St. Francis. His are the humble +upper waters of a mighty stream; at the beginning of the thirteenth +century it is St. Francis, at the end, Dante. Now it happens that St. +Francis, too, like the Alexandrian songstress, has his hymn for the sun, +for Adonis. _Canticle of the Sun_, _Canticle of the Creatures_,—the poem +goes by both names. Like the Alexandrian hymn, it is designed for +popular use, but not for use by King Ptolemy’s people; artless in +language, irregular in rhythm, it matches with the childlike genius that +produced it, and the simple natures that loved and repeated it:— + +“O most high, almighty, good Lord God, to thee belong praise, glory, +honor, and all blessing! + +“Praised be my Lord God with all his creatures; and specially our +brother the sun, who brings us the day, and who brings us the light; +fair is he, and shining with a very great splendor: O Lord, he signifies +to us thee! + +“Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for the stars, the +which he has set clear and lovely in heaven. + +“Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for air and cloud, +calms and all weather, by the which thou upholdest in life all +creatures. + +“Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very serviceable unto +us, and humble, and precious, and clean. + +“Praised be my Lord for our brother fire, through whom thou givest us +light in the darkness; and he is bright, and pleasant, and very mighty, +and strong. + +“Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, the which doth sustain us +and keep us, and bringeth forth divers fruits, and flowers of many +colors, and grass. + +“Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for his love’s +sake, and who endure weakness and tribulation; blessed are they who +peaceably shall endure, for thou, O most Highest, shalt give them a +crown! + +“Praised be my Lord for our sister, the death of the body, from whom no +man escapeth. Woe to him who dieth in mortal sin! Blessed are they who +are found walking by thy most holy will, for the second death shall have +no power to do them harm. + +“Praise ye, and bless ye the Lord, and give thanks unto him, and serve +him with great humility.” + +It is natural that man should take pleasure in his senses. But it is +natural, also, that he should take refuge in his heart and imagination +from his misery. And when one thinks what human life is for the vast +majority of mankind, how little of a feast for their senses it can +possibly be, one understands the charm for them of a refuge offered in +the heart and imagination. Above all, when one thinks what human life +was in the Middle Ages, one understands the charm of such a refuge. + +Now, the poetry of Theocritus’s hymn is poetry treating the world +according to the demand of the senses; the poetry of St. Francis’s hymn +is poetry treating the world according to the demand of the heart and +imagination. The first takes the world by its outward, sensible side; +the second by its inward, symbolical side. The first admits as much of +the world as is pleasure-giving; the second admits the whole world, +rough and smooth, painful and pleasure-giving, all alike, but all +transfigured by the power of a spiritual emotion, all brought under a +law of super-sensual love, having its seat in the soul. It can thus even +say: “Praised be my Lord for _our sister, the death of the body_.” + +But these very words are, perhaps, an indication that we are touching +upon an extreme. When we see Pompeii, we can put our finger upon the +pagan sentiment in its extreme. And when we read of Monte Alverno and +the _stigmata_; when we read of the repulsive, because self-caused, +sufferings of the end of St. Francis’s life; when we find him even +saying, “I have sinned against my brother the ass,” meaning by these +words that he had been too hard upon his own body; when we find him +assailed, even himself, by the doubt “whether he who had destroyed +himself by the severity of his penances could find mercy in eternity,” +we can put our finger on the mediæval Christian sentiment in its +extreme. Human nature is neither all senses and understanding, nor all +heart and imagination. Pompeii was a sign that for humanity at large the +measure of sensualism had been overpassed; St. Francis’s doubt was a +sign that for humanity at large the measure of spiritualism had been +overpassed. Humanity, in its violent rebound from one extreme, had swung +from Pompeii to Monte Alverno; but it was sure not to stay there. + +The Renascence is, in part, a return towards the pagan spirit, in the +special sense in which I have been using the word pagan; a return +towards the life of the senses and the understanding. The Reformation, +on the other hand, is the very opposite to this; in Luther there is +nothing Greek or pagan; vehemently as he attacked the adoration of St. +Francis, Luther had himself something of St. Francis in him; he was a +thousand times more akin to St. Francis than to Theocritus or to +Voltaire. The Reformation—I do not mean the inferior piece given under +that name, by Henry the Eighth and a second-rate company, in this +island, but the real Reformation, the German Reformation, Luther’s +Reformation—was a reaction of the moral and spiritual sense against the +carnal and pagan sense; it was a religious revival like St. Francis’s, +but this time against the Church of Rome, not within her; for the carnal +and pagan sense had now, in the government of the Church of Rome +herself, its prime representative. But the grand reaction against the +rule of the heart and imagination, the strong return towards the rule of +the senses and understanding, is in the eighteenth century. And this +reaction has had no more brilliant champion than a man of the +nineteenth, of whom I have already spoken; a man who could feel not only +the pleasurableness but the poetry of the life of the senses (and the +life of the senses has its deep poetry); a man who, in his very last +poem, divided the whole world into “barbarians and Greeks,”—Heinrich +Heine. No man has reproached the Monte Alverno extreme in sentiment, the +Christian extreme, the heart and imagination subjugating the senses and +understanding, more bitterly than Heine; no man has extolled the Pompeii +extreme, the pagan extreme, more rapturously. + +“All through the Middle Age these sufferings, this fever, this +over-tension lasted; and we moderns still feel in all our limbs the pain +and weakness from them. Even those of us who are cured have still to +live with a hospital atmosphere all around us, and find ourselves as +wretched in it as a strong man among the sick. Some day or other, when +humanity shall have got quite well again, when the body and soul shall +have made their peace together, the fictitious quarrel which +Christianity has cooked up between them will appear something hardly +comprehensible. The fairer and happier generations, offspring of +unfettered unions, that will rise up and bloom in the atmosphere of a +religion of pleasure, will smile sadly when they think of their poor +ancestors, whose life was passed in melancholy abstinence from the joys +of this beautiful earth, and who faded away into specters, from the +mortal compression which they put upon the warm and glowing emotions of +sense. Yes, with assurance, I say it, our descendants will be fairer and +happier than we are; for I am a believer in progress, and I hold God to +be a kind being who has intended man to be happy.” + +That is Heine’s sentiment, in the prime of life, in the glow of +activity, amid the brilliant whirl of Paris. I will no more blame it +than I blamed the sentiment of the Greek hymn to Adonis. I wish to +decide nothing as of my own authority; the great art of criticism is to +get oneself out of the way and to let humanity decide. Well, the +sentiment of the “religion of pleasure” has much that is natural in it; +humanity will gladly accept it if it can live by it; to live by it one +must never be sick or sorry, and the old, ideal, limited, pagan world +never, I have said, _was_ sick or sorry, never at least shows itself to +us sick or sorry:— + + “What pipes and timbrels! What wild ecstasy!” + +For our imagination, Gorgo and Praxinoe cross the human stage chattering +in their blithe Doric,—_like turtles_, as the cross stranger said,—and +keep gaily chattering on till they disappear. But in the new, real, +immense, post-pagan world,—in the barbarian world,—the shock of accident +is unceasing, the serenity of existence is perpetually troubled, not +even a Greek like Heine can get across the mortal stage without bitter +calamity. How does the sentiment of the “religion of pleasure” serve +then? does it help, does it console? Can a man live by it? Heine again +shall answer; Heine just twenty years older, stricken with incurable +disease, waiting for death:— + +“The great pot stands smoking before me, but I have no spoon to help +myself. What does it profit me that my health is drunk at banquets out +of gold cups and in most exquisite wines, if I myself, while these +ovations are going on, lonely and cut off from the pleasures of the +world, can only just wet my lips with barley-water? What good does it do +me that all the roses of Shiraz open their leaves and burn for me with +passionate tenderness? Alas! Shiraz is some two thousand leagues from +the Rue d’Amsterdam, where in the solitude of my sick chamber all the +perfume I smell is that of hot towels. Alas! the mockery of God is heavy +upon me! The great author of the universe, the Aristophanes of Heaven, +has determined to make the petty earthly author, the so-called +Aristophanes of Germany, feel to his heart’s core what pitiful +needle-pricks his cleverest sarcasms have been, compared with the +thunderbolts which his divine humor can launch against feeble +mortals!... + +“In the year 1340, says the Chronicle of Limburg, all over Germany +everybody was strumming and humming certain songs more lovely and +delightful than any which had ever yet been known in German countries; +and all people, old and young, the women particularly, were perfectly +mad about them, so that from morning till night you heard nothing else. +Only the Chronicle adds, the author of these songs happened to be a +young clerk, afflicted with leprosy, and living apart from all the world +in a desolate place. The excellent reader does not require to be told +how horrible a complaint was leprosy in the Middle Ages, and how the +poor wretches who had this incurable plague were banished from society, +and had to keep at a distance from every human being. Like living +corpses, in a gray gown reaching down to the feet, and with the hood +brought over their face, they went about, carrying in their hands an +enormous rattle, called Saint Lazarus’s rattle. With this rattle they +gave notice of their approach, that every one might have time to get out +of their way. This poor clerk, then, whose poetical gift the Limburg +Chronicle extols, was a leper, and he sate moping in the dismal deserts +of his misery, whilst all Germany, gay and tuneful, was praising his +songs. + +“Sometimes, in my somber visions of the night, I imagine that I see +before me the poor leprosy-stricken clerk of the Limburg Chronicle, and +then from under his gray hood his distressed eyes look out upon me in a +fixed and strange fashion; but the next instant he disappears, and I +hear dying away in the distance, like the echo of a dream, the dull +creak of Saint Lazarus’s rattle.” + +We have come a long way from Theocritus there? the expression of that +has nothing of the clear, positive, happy, pagan character; it has much +more the character of one of the indeterminate grotesques of the +suffering Middle Age. Profoundness and power it has, though at the same +time it is not truly poetical; it is not natural enough for that, there +is too much waywardness in it, too much bravado. But as a condition of +sentiment to be popular,—to be a comfort for the mass of mankind, under +the pressure of calamity, to live by,—what a manifest failure is this +last word of the religion of pleasure! One man in many millions, a +Heine, may console himself, and keep himself erect in suffering, by a +colossal irony of this sort, by covering himself and the universe with +the red fire of this sinister mockery; but the many millions +cannot,—cannot if they would. That is where the sentiment of a religion +of sorrow has such a vast advantage over the sentiment of a religion of +pleasure; in its power to be a general, popular, religious sentiment, a +stay for the mass of mankind, whose lives are full of hardship. It +really succeeds in conveying far more joy, far more of what the mass of +mankind are so much without, than its rival. I do not mean joy in +prospect only, but joy in possession, actual enjoyment of the world. +Mediæval Christianity is reproached with its gloom and austerities; it +assigns the material world, says Heine, to the devil. But yet what a +fulness of delight does St. Francis manage to draw from this material +world itself, and from its commonest and most universally enjoyed +elements,—sun, air, earth, water, plants! His hymn expresses a far more +cordial sense of happiness, even in the material world, than the hymn of +Theocritus. It is this which made the fortune of Christianity,—its +gladness, not its sorrow; not its assigning the spiritual world to +Christ, and the material world to the devil, but its drawing from the +spiritual world a source of joy so abundant that it ran over upon the +material world and transfigured it. + +I have said a great deal of harm of paganism; and, taking paganism to +mean a state of things which it is commonly taken to mean, and which did +really exist, no more harm than it well deserved. Yet I must not end +without reminding the reader, that before this state of things appeared, +there was an epoch in Greek life,—in pagan life,—of the highest possible +beauty and value. That epoch by itself goes far towards making Greece +the Greece we mean when we speak of Greece,—a country hardly less +important to mankind than Judæa. The poetry of later paganism lived by +the senses and understanding; the poetry of mediæval Christianity lived +by the heart and imagination. But the main element of the modern +spirit’s life is neither the senses and understanding, nor the heart and +imagination; it is the imaginative reason. And there is a century in +Greek life,—the century preceding the Peloponnesian war, from about the +year 530 to the year 430 B. C.,—in which poetry made, it seems to me, +the noblest, the most successful effort she has ever made as the +priestess of the imaginative reason, of the element by which the modern +spirit, if it would live right, has chiefly to live. Of this effort, of +which the four great names are Simonides, Pindar, Æschylus, Sophocles, I +must not now attempt more than the bare mention; but it is right, it is +necessary, after all I have said, to indicate it. No doubt that effort +was imperfect. Perhaps everything, take it at what point in its +existence you will, carries within itself the fatal law of its own +ulterior development. Perhaps, even of the life of Pindar’s time, +Pompeii was the inevitable bourne. Perhaps the life of their beautiful +Greece could not afford to its poets all that fulness of varied +experience, all that power of emotion, which + + ‘... the heavy and the weary weight + Of all this unintelligible world + +affords the poet of after-times. Perhaps in Sophocles the thinking-power +a little overbalances the religious sense, as in Dante the religious +sense overbalances the thinking-power. The present has to make its own +poetry, and not even Sophocles and his compeers, any more than Dante and +Shakspeare, are enough for it. That I will not dispute; nor will I set +up the Greek poets, from Pindar to Sophocles, as objects of blind +worship. But no other poets so well show to the poetry of the present +the way it must take; no other poets have lived so much by the +imaginative reason; no other poets have made their work so well +balanced; no other poets, who have so well satisfied the thinking-power, +have so well satisfied, the religious sense:— + +“Oh! that my lot may lead me in the path of holy innocence of word and +deed, the path which august laws ordain, laws that in the highest +empyrean had their birth, of which Heaven is the father alone, neither +did the race of mortal men beget them, nor shall oblivion ever put them +to sleep. The power of God is mighty in them, and groweth not old.” + +Let St. Francis,—nay, or Luther either,—beat that! + +VII. + +A PERSIAN PASSION PLAY. + +Everybody has this last autumn[22] been either seeing the Ammergau +Passion Play or hearing about it; and to find any one who has seen it +and not been deeply interested and moved by it, is very rare. The +peasants of the neighboring country, the great and fashionable world, +the ordinary tourist, were all at Ammergau, and were all delighted; but +what is said to have been especially remarkable was the affluence there +of ministers of religion of all kinds. That Catholic peasants, whose +religion has accustomed them to show and spectacle, should be attracted +by an admirable scenic representation of the great moments in the +history of their religion, was natural; that tourists and the +fashionable world should be attracted by what was at once the fashion +and a new sensation of a powerful sort, was natural; that many of the +ecclesiastics present should be attracted there, was natural too. Roman +Catholic priests mustered strong, of course. The Protestantism of a +great number of the Anglican clergy is supposed to be but languid, and +Anglican ministers at Ammergau were sympathizers to be expected. But +Protestant ministers of the most unimpeachable sort, Protestant +Dissenting ministers, were there, too, and showing favor and sympathy; +and this, to any one who remembers the almost universal feeling of +Protestant Dissenters in this country, not many years ago, towards Rome +and her religion,—the sheer abhorrence of Papists and all their +practices,—could not but be striking. It agrees with what is seen also +in literature, in the writings of Dissenters of the younger and more +progressive sort, who show a disposition for regarding the Church of +Rome historically rather than polemically, a wish to do justice to the +undoubted grandeur of certain institutions and men produced by that +Church, quite novel, and quite alien to the simple belief of earlier +times, that between Protestants and Rome there was a measureless gulf +fixed. Something of this may, no doubt, be due to that keen eye for +Nonconformist business in which our great bodies of Protestant +Dissenters, to do them justice, are never wanting; to a perception that +the case against the Church of England may be yet further improved by +contrasting her with the genuine article in her own ecclesiastical line, +by pointing out that she is neither one thing nor the other to much +purpose, by dilating on the magnitude, reach, and impressiveness, on the +great place in history, of her rival, as compared with anything she can +herself pretend to. Something of this there is, no doubt, in some of the +modern Protestant sympathy for things Catholic. But in general that +sympathy springs, in Churchmen and Dissenters alike, from another and a +better cause,—from the spread of larger conceptions of religion, of man, +and of history, than were current formerly. We have seen lately in the +newspapers, that a clergyman, who in a popular lecture gave an account +of the Passion Play at Ammergau, and enlarged on its impressiveness, was +admonished by certain remonstrants, who told him it was his business, +instead of occupying himself with these sensuous shows, to learn to walk +by faith, not by sight, and to teach his fellow-men to do the same. But +this severity seems to have excited wonder rather than praise; so far +had those wider notions about religion and about the range of our +interest in religion, of which I have just spoken, conducted us. To this +interest I propose to appeal in what I am going to relate. The Passion +Play at Ammergau, with its immense audiences, the seriousness of its +actors, the passionate emotion of its spectators, brought to my mind +something of which I had read an account lately; something produced, not +in Bavaria nor in Christendom at all, but far away in that wonderful +East, from which, whatever airs of superiority Europe may justly give +itself, all our religion has come and where religion, of some sort or +other, has still an empire over men’s feelings such as it has nowhere +else. This product of the remote East I wish to exhibit while the +remembrance of what has been seen at Ammergau is still fresh; and we +will see whether that bringing together of strangers and enemies who +once seemed to be as far as the poles asunder, which Ammergau in such a +remarkable way effected, does not hold good and find a parallel even in +Persia. + +----- + +Footnote 22: + + 1871. + +----- + +Count Gobineau, formerly Minister of France at Teheran and at Athens, +published, a few years ago, an interesting book on the present state of +religion and philosophy in Central Asia. He is favorably known also by +his studies in ethnology. His accomplishments and intelligence deserve +all respect, and in his book on religion and philosophy in Central Asia +he has the great advantage of writing about things which he has followed +with his own observation and inquiry in the countries where they +happened. The chief purpose of his book is to give a history of the +career of Mirza Ali Mahommed, a Persian religious reformer, the original +_Bâb_, and the founder of _Bâbism_, of which most people in England have +at least heard the name. Bab means _gate_, the door or gate of life; and +in the ferment which now works in the Mahometan East, Mirza Ali +Mahommed,—who seems to have been made acquainted by Protestant +missionaries with our Scriptures and by the Jews of Shiraz with Jewish +traditions, to have studied, besides, the religion of the Ghebers, the +old national religion of Persia, and to have made a sort of amalgam of +the whole with Mahometanism,—presented himself, about five-and-twenty +twenty years ago, as _the door_, _the gate_ of life; found disciples, +sent forth writings, and finally became the cause of disturbances which +led to his being executed on the 19th of July, 1849, in the citadel of +Tabriz. The Bâb and his doctrines are a theme on which much might be +said; but I pass them by, except for one incident in the Bâb’s life, +which I will notice. Like all religious Mahometans, he made the +pilgrimage to Mecca; and his meditations at that center of his religion +first suggested his mission to him. But soon after his return to Bagdad +he made another pilgrimage; and it was in this pilgrimage that his +mission became clear to him, and that his life was fixed. “He desired”—I +will give an abridgment of Count Gobineau’s own words—“to complete his +impressions by going to Kufa, that he might visit the ruined mosque +where Ali was assassinated, and where the place of his murder is still +shown. He passed several days there in meditation. The place appears to +have made a great impression on him; he was entering on a course which +might and must lead to some such catastrophe as had happened on the very +spot where he stood, and where his mind’s eye showed him the Imam Ali +lying at his feet, with his body pierced and bleeding. His followers say +that he then passed through a sort of moral agony which put an end to +all the hesitations of the natural man within him. It is certain that +when he arrived at Shiraz, on his return, he was a changed man. No +doubts troubled him any more: he was penetrated and persuaded; his part +was taken.” + +This Ali also, at whose tomb the Bâb went through the spiritual crisis +here recorded, is a familiar name to most of us. In general our +knowledge of the East goes but a very little way; yet almost every one +has at least heard the name of Ali, the Lion of God, Mahomet’s young +cousin, the first person, after his wife, who believed in him, and who +was declared by Mahomet in his gratitude his brother, delegate, and +vicar. Ali was one of Mahomet’s best and most successful captains. He +married Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet; his sons, Hassan and +Hussein, were, as children, favorites with Mahomet, who had no son of +his own to succeed him, and was expected to name Ali as his successor. +He named no successor. At his death (the year 632 of our era) Ali was +passed over, and the first caliph, or _vicar_ and _lieutenant_ of +Mahomet in the government of the state, was Abu-Bekr; only the spiritual +inheritance of Mahomet, the dignity of Imam, or _Primate_, devolved by +right on Ali and his children. Ali, lion of God as in war he was, held +aloof from politics and political intrigue, loved retirement and prayer, +was the most pious and disinterested of men. At Abu-Bekr’s death he was +again passed over in favor of Omar. Omar was succeeded by Othman, and +still Ali remained tranquil. Othman was assassinated, and then Ali, +chiefly to prevent disturbance and bloodshed, accepted (A. D. 655) the +caliphate. Meanwhile, the Mahometan armies had conquered Persia, Syria, +and Egypt; the Governor of Syria, Moawiyah, an able and ambitious man, +set himself up as caliph, his title was recognized by Amrou, the +Governor of Egypt, and a bloody and indecisive battle was fought in +Mesopotamia between Ali’s army and Moawiyah’s. Gibbon shall tell the +rest:—“In the temple of Mecca three Charegites or enthusiasts discoursed +of the disorders of the church and state; they soon agreed that the +deaths of Ali, of Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the Viceroy of +Egypt, would restore the peace and unity of religion. Each of the +assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dagger, devoted his life, and +secretly repaired to the scene of action. Their resolution was equally +desperate; but the first mistook the person of Amrou, and stabbed the +deputy who occupied his seat; the prince of Damascus was dangerously +hurt by the second; Ali, the lawful caliph, in the mosque of Kufa, +received a mortal wound from the hand of the third.” + +The events through which we have thus rapidly run ought to be kept in +mind, for they are the elements of Mahometan history: any right +understanding of the state of the Mahometan world is impossible without +them. For that world is divided into the two great sects of Shiahs and +Sunis. The Shiahs are those who reject the first three caliphs as +usurpers, and begin with Ali as the first lawful successor of Mahomet; +the Sunis recognize Abu-Bekr, Omar, and Othman, as well as Ali, and +regard the Shiahs as impious heretics. The Persians are Shiahs, and the +Arabs and Turks are Sunis. Hussein, one of Ali’s two sons, married a +Persian princess, the daughter of Yezdejerd the last of the Sassanian +kings, the king whom the Mahometan conquest of Persia expelled; and +Persia, through this marriage, became specially connected with the house +of Ali. “In the fourth age of the Hegira,” says Gibbon, “a tomb, a +temple, a city, arose near the ruins of Kufa. Many thousands of the +Shiahs repose in holy ground at the feet of the vicar of God; and the +desert is vivified by the numerous and annual visits of the Persians, +who esteem their devotion not less meritorious than the pilgrimage of +Mecca.” + +But to comprehend what I am going to relate from Count Gobineau, we must +push our researches into Mahometan history a little further than the +assassination of Ali. Moawiyah died in the year 680 of our era, nearly +fifty years after the death of Mahomet. His son Yezid succeeded him on +the throne of the caliphs at Damascus. During the reign of Moawiyah +Ali’s two sons, the Imams, Hassan and Hussein, lived with their families +in religious retirement at Medina, where their grandfather Mahomet was +buried. In them the character of abstention and renouncement, which we +have noticed in Ali himself, was marked yet more strongly; but, when +Moawiyah died, the people of Kufa, the city on the lower Euphrates where +Ali had been assassinated, sent offers to make Hussein caliph if he +would come among them, and to support him against the Syrian troops of +Yezid. Hussein seems to have thought himself bound to accept the +proposal. He left Medina, and, with his family and relations, to the +number of about eighty persons, set out on his way to Kufa. Then ensued +the tragedy so familiar to every Mahometan, and to us so little known, +the tragedy of Kerbela. “O death,” cries the bandit-minstrel of Persia, +Kurroglou, in his last song before his execution, “O death, whom didst +thou spare? Were even Hassan and Hussein, those footstools of the throne +of God on the seventh heaven, spared by thee. _No! thou madest them +martyrs at Kerbela._” + +We cannot do better than again have recourse to Gibbon’s history for an +account of this famous tragedy. “Hussein traversed the desert of Arabia +with a timorous retinue of women and children; but, as he approached the +confines of Irak, he was alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the +country, and suspected either the defection or the ruin of his party. +His fears were just; Obeidallah, the governor of Kufa, had extinguished +the first sparks of an insurrection; and Hussein, in the plain of +Kerbela, was encompassed by a body of 5000 horse, who intercepted his +communication with the city and the river. In a conference with the +chief of the enemy he proposed the option of three conditions:—that he +should be allowed to return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier +garrison against the Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of +Yezid. But the commands of the caliph or his lieutenant were stern and +absolute, and Hussein was informed that he must either submit as a +captive and a criminal to the Commander of the Faithful, or expect the +consequences of his rebellion. “Do you think,” replied he, “to terrify +me with death?” And during the short respite of a night he prepared, +with calm and solemn resignation, to encounter his fate. He checked the +lamentations of his sister Fatima, who deplored the impending ruin of +his house. “Our trust,” said Hussein, “is in God alone. All things, both +in heaven and earth, must perish and return to their Creator. My +brother, my father, my mother, were better than I, and every Mussulman +has an example in the Prophet.” He pressed his friends to consult their +safety by a timely flight; they unanimously refused to desert or survive +their beloved master, and their courage was fortified by a fervent +prayer and the assurance of paradise. On the morning of the fatal day he +mounted on horseback, with his sword in one hand and the Koran in the +other; the flanks and rear of his party were secured by the tent-ropes +and by a deep trench, which they had filled with lighted fagots, +according to the practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with +reluctance; and one of their chiefs deserted, with thirty followers, to +claim the partnership of inevitable death. In every close onset or +single combat the despair of the Fatimites was invincible; but the +surrounding multitudes galled them from a distance with a cloud of +arrows, and the horses and men were successively slain. A truce was +allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer; and the battle at length +expired by the death of the last of the companions of Hussein.” + +The details of Hussein’s own death will come better presently; suffice +it at this moment to say he was slain, and that the women and children +of his family were taken in chains to the Caliph Yezid at Damascus. +Gibbon concludes the story thus: “In a distant age and climate, the +tragic scene of the death of Hussein will awaken the sympathy of the +coldest reader. On the annual festival of his martyrdom, in the devout +pilgrimage to his sepulcher, his Persian votaries abandon their souls to +the religious phrenzy of sorrow and indignation.” + +Thus the tombs of Ali and of his son, the Meshed Ali and the Meshed +Hussein, standing some thirty miles apart from one another in the plain +of the Euphrates, had, when Gibbon wrote, their yearly pilgrims and +their tribute of enthusiastic mourning. But Count Gobineau relates, in +his book of which I have spoken, a development of these solemnities +which was unknown to Gibbon. Within the present century there has +arisen, on the basis of this story of the martyrs of Kerbela, a drama, a +Persian national drama, which Count Gobineau, who has seen and heard it, +is bold enough to rank with the Greek drama as a great and serious +affair, engaging the heart and life of the people who have given birth +to it; while the Latin, English, French, and German drama is, he says, +in comparison a mere pastime or amusement, more or less intellectual and +elegant. To me it seems that the Persian _tazyas_—for so these pieces +are called—find a better parallel in the Ammergau Passion Play than in +the Greek drama. They turn entirely on one subject—the sufferings of the +_Family of the Tent_, as the Imam Hussein and the company of persons +gathered around him at Kerbela are called. The subject is sometimes +introduced by a prologue, which may perhaps one day, as the need of +variety is more felt, become a piece by itself; but at present the +prologue leads invariably to the martyrs. For instance: the Emperor +Tamerlane, in his conquering progress through the world, arrives at +Damascus. The keys of the city are brought to him by the governor; but +the governor is a descendant of one of the murderers of the Imam +Hussein; Tamerlane is informed of it, loads him with reproaches, and +drives him from his presence. The emperor presently sees the governor’s +daughter splendidly dressed, thinks of the sufferings of the holy women +of the Family of the Tent, and upbraids and drives her away as he did +her father. But after this he is haunted by the great tragedy which has +been thus brought to his mind, and he cannot sleep and cannot be +comforted. He calls his vizier, and his vizier tells him that the only +way to soothe his troubled spirit is to see a _tazya_. And so the +_tazya_ commences. Or, again (and this will show how strangely, in the +religious world which is now occupying us, what is most familiar to us +is blended with that of which we know nothing): Joseph and his brethren +appear on the stage, and the old Bible story is transacted. Joseph is +thrown into the pit and sold to the merchants, and his blood-stained +coat is carried by his brothers to Jacob; Jacob is then left alone, +weeping and bewailing himself; the angel Gabriel enters, and reproves +him for his want of faith and constancy, telling him that what he +suffers is not a hundredth part of what Ali, Hussein, and the children +of Hussein will one day suffer. Jacob seems to doubt it; Gabriel, to +convince him, orders the angels to perform a _tazya_ of what will one +day happen at Kerbela. And so the _tazya_ commences. + +These pieces are given in the first ten days of the month of Moharrem, +the anniversary of the martyrdom at Kerbela. They are so popular that +they now invade other seasons of the year also; but this is the season +when the world is given up to them. King and people, every one is in +mourning; and at night and while the _tazyas_ are not going on, +processions keep passing, the air resounds with the beating of breasts +and with litanies of “O Hassan! Hussein!” while the Seyids,—a kind of +popular friars claiming to be descendants of Mahomet, and in whose +incessant popularizing and amplifying of the legend of Kerbela in their +homilies during pilgrimages and at the tombs of the martyrs, the +_tazyas_, no doubt, had their origin,—keep up by their sermons and hymns +the enthusiasm which the drama of the day has excited. It seems as if no +one went to bed; and certainly no one who went to bed could sleep. +Confraternities go in procession with a black flag and torches, every +man with his shirt torn open, and beating himself with the right hand on +the left shoulder in a kind of measured cadence to accompany a canticle +in honor of the martyrs. These processions come and take post in the +theaters where the Seyids are preaching. Still more noisy are the +companies of dancers, striking a kind of wooden castanets together, at +one time in front of their breasts, at an other time behind their heads, +and marking time with music and dance to a dirge set up by the +bystanders, in which the names of the Imams perpetually recur as a +burden. Noisiest of all are the Berbers, men of a darker skin and +another race, their feet and the upper part of their body naked, who +carry, some of them tambourines and cymbals, others iron chains and long +needles. One of their race is said to have formerly derided the Imams in +their affliction, and the Berbers now appear in expiation of that crime. +At first their music and their march proceed slowly together, but +presently the music quickens, the chain and needle-bearing Berbers move +violently round, and begin to beat themselves with their chains and to +prick their arms and cheeks with the needles—first gently, then with +more vehemence; till suddenly the music ceases, and all stops. So we are +carried back, on this old Asiatic soil, where beliefs and usages are +heaped layer upon layer and ruin upon ruin, far past the martyred Imams, +past Mahometanism, past Christianity, to the priests of Baal gashing +themselves with knives and to the worship of Adonis. + +The _tekyas_, or theaters for the drama which calls forth these +celebrations, are constantly multiplying. The king, the great +functionaries, the towns, wealthy citizens like the king’s goldsmith, or +any private person who has the means and the desire, provide them. Every +one sends contributions; it is a religious act to furnish a box or to +give decorations for a _tekya_; and as religious offerings, all gifts +down to the smallest are accepted. There are tekyas for not more than +three or four hundred spectators, and there are tekyas for three or four +thousand. At Ispahan there are representations which bring together more +than twenty thousand people. At Teheran, the Persian capital, each +quarter of the town has its tekyas, every square and open place is +turned to account for establishing them, and spaces have been expressly +cleared, besides, for fresh tekyas. Count Gobineau describes +particularly one of these theaters,—a tekya of the best class, to hold +an audience of about four thousand,—at Teheran. The arrangements are +very simple. The tekya is a walled parallelogram, with a brick platform, +_sakou_, in the center of it; this sakou is surrounded with black poles +at some distance from each other, the poles are joined at the top by +horizontal rods of the same color, and from these rods hang colored +lamps, which are lighted for the praying and preaching at night when the +representation is over. The _sakou_, or central platform, makes the +stage; in connection with it, at one of the opposite extremities of the +parallelogram lengthwise, is a reserved box, _tâgnumâ_, higher than the +_sakou_. This box is splendidly decorated, and is used for peculiarly +interesting and magnificent tableaux,—the court of the Caliph, for +example—which occur in the course of the piece. A passage of a few feet +wide is left free between the stage and this box; all the rest of the +space is for the spectators, of whom the foremost rows are sitting on +their heels close up to this passage, so that they help the actors to +mount and descend the high steps of the _tâgnumâ_ when they have to pass +between that and the _sakou_. On each side of the _tâgnumâ_ are boxes, +and along one wall of the enclosure are other boxes with fronts of +elaborate woodwork, which are left to stand as a permanent part of the +construction; facing these, with the floor and stage between, rise tiers +of seats as in an amphitheater. All places are free; the great people +have generally provided and furnished the boxes, and take care to fill +them; but if a box is not occupied when the performance begins, any +ragged street-urchin or beggar may walk in and seat himself there. A row +of gigantic masts runs across the middle of the space, one or two of +them being fixed in the _sakou_ itself; and from these masts is +stretched an immense awning which protects the whole audience. Up to a +certain height these masts are hung with tiger and panther skins, to +indicate the violent character of the scenes to be represented. Shields +of steel and of hippopotamus skin, flags, and naked swords, are also +attached to these masts. A sea of color and splendor meets the eye all +round. Woodwork and brickwork disappear under cushions, rich carpets, +silk hangings, India muslin embroidered with silver and gold, shawls +from Kerman and from Cashmere. There are lamps, lusters of colored +crystal, mirrors, Bohemian and Venetian glass, porcelain vases of all +degrees of magnitude from China and from Europe, paintings and +engravings, displayed in profusion everywhere. The taste may not always +be soberly correct, but the whole spectacle has just the effect of +prodigality, color, and sumptuousness which we are accustomed to +associate with the splendors of the Arabian Nights. + +In marked contrast with this display is the poverty of scenic +contrivance and stage illusion. The subject is far too interesting and +too solemn to need them. The actors are visible on all sides, and the +exits, entrances, and stage-play of our theaters are impossible; the +imagination of the spectator fills up all gaps and meets all +requirements. On the Ammergau arrangements one feels that the +archæologists and artists of Munich have laid their correct finger; at +Teheran there has been no schooling of this sort. A copper basin of +water represents the Euphrates; a heap of chopped straw in a corner is +the sand of the desert of Kerbela, and the actor goes and takes up a +handful of it, when his part requires him to throw, in Oriental fashion, +dust upon his head. There is no attempt at proper costume; all that is +sought is to do honor to the personages of chief interest by dresses and +jewels which would pass for rich and handsome things to wear in modern +Persian life. The power of the actors is in their genuine sense of the +seriousness of the business they are engaged in. They are, like the +public around them, penetrated with this, and so the actor throws his +whole soul into what he is about, the public meets the actor halfway, +and effects of extraordinary impressiveness are the result. “The actor +is under a charm,” says Count Gobineau; “he is under it so strongly and +completely that almost always one sees Yezid himself (the usurping +caliph), the wretched Ibn-Said (Yezid’s general), the infamous Shemer +(Ibn-Said’s lieutenant), at the moment they vent the cruellest insults +against the Imams whom they are going to massacre, or against the women +of the Imam’s family whom they are ill-using, burst into tears and +repeat their part with sobs. The public is neither surprised nor +displeased at this; on the contrary, it beats its breast at the sight, +throws up its arms towards heaven with invocations of God, and redoubles +its groans. So it often happens that the actor identifies himself with +the personage he represents to such a degree that, when the situation +carries him away, he cannot be said to act, he _is_ with such truth, +such complete enthusiasm, such utter self-forgetfulness, what he +represents, that he reaches a reality at one time sublime, at another +terrible, and produces impressions on his audience which it would be +simply absurd to look for from our more artificial performances. There +is nothing stilted, nothing false, nothing conventional; nature, and the +facts represented, themselves speak.” + +The actors are men and boys, the parts of angels and women being filled +by boys. The children who appear in the piece are often the children of +the principal families of Teheran; their appearance in this religious +solemnity (for such it is thought) being supposed to bring a blessing +upon them and their parents. “Nothing is more touching,” says Count +Gobineau, “than to see these little things of three or four years old, +dressed in black gauze frocks with large sleeves, and having on their +heads small round black caps embroidered with silver and gold, kneeling +beside the body of the actor who represents the martyr of the day, +embracing him, and with their little hands covering themselves with +chopped straw for sand in sign of grief. These children evidently,” he +continues, “do not consider themselves to be acting; they are full of +the feeling that what they are about is something of deep seriousness +and importance; and though they are too young to comprehend fully the +story, they know, in general, that it is a matter sad and solemn. They +are not distracted by the audience, and they are not shy, but go through +their prescribed part with the utmost attention and seriousness, always +crossing their arms respectfully to receive the blessing of the Imam +Hussein; the public beholds them with emotions of the liveliest +satisfaction and sympathy.” + +The dramatic pieces themselves are without any author’s name. They are +in popular language, such as the commonest and most ignorant of the +Persian people can understand, free from learned Arabic words,—free, +comparatively speaking, from Oriental fantasticality and hyperbole. The +Seyids, or popular friars, already spoken of, have probably had a hand +in the composition of many of them. The Moollahs, or regular +ecclesiastical authorities, condemn the whole thing. It is an innovation +which they disapprove and think dangerous; it is addressed to the eye, +and their religion forbids to represent religious things to the eye; it +departs from the limits of what is revealed and appointed to be taught +as the truth, and brings in novelties and heresies;—for these dramas +keep growing under the pressure of the actor’s imagination and emotion, +and of the imagination and emotion of the public, and receive new +developments every day. The learned, again, say that these pieces are a +heap of lies, the production of ignorant people, and have no words +strong enough to express their contempt for them. Still, so irresistible +is the vogue of these sacred dramas that, from the king on the throne to +the beggar in the street, every one, except perhaps the Moollahs, +attends them, and is carried away by them. The Imams and their families +speak always in a kind of lyrical chant, said to have rhythmical +effects, often of great pathos and beauty; their persecutors, the +villains of the piece, speak always in prose. + +The stage is under the direction of a choragus, called _oostad_, or +“master,” who is a sacred personage by reason of the functions which he +performs. Sometimes he addresses to the audience a commentary on what is +passing before them, and asks their compassion and tears for the +martyrs; sometimes in default of a Seyid, he prays and preaches. He is +always listened to with veneration, for it is he who arranges the whole +sacred spectacle which so deeply moves everybody. With no attempt at +concealment, with the book of the piece in his hand, he remains +constantly on the stage, gives the actors their cue, puts the children +and any inexperienced actor in their right places, dresses the martyr in +his winding-sheet when he is going to his death, holds the stirrup for +him to mount his horse, and inserts a supply of chopped straw into the +hands of those who are about to want it. Let us now see him at work. + +The theater is filled, and the heat is great; young men of rank, the +king’s pages, officers of the army, smart functionaries of State, move +through the crowd with water-skins slung on their backs, dealing out +water all round, in memory of the thirst which on these solemn days the +Imams suffered in the sands of Kerbela. Wild chants and litanies, such +as we have already described, are from time to time set up, by a +dervish, a soldier, a workman in the crowd. These chants are taken up, +more or less, by the audience: sometimes they flag and die away for want +of support, sometimes they are continued till they reach a paroxysm, and +then abruptly stop. Presently a strange, insignificant figure in a green +cotton garment, looking like a petty tradesman of one of the Teheran +bazaars, mounts upon the _sakou_. He beckons with his hand to the +audience, who are silent directly, and addresses them in a tone of +lecture and expostulation, thus:— + +“Well, you seem happy enough, Mussulmans, sitting there at your ease +under the awning; and you imagine Paradise already wide open to you. Do +you know what Paradise is? It is a garden, doubtless, but such a garden +as you have no idea of. You will say to me: ‘Friend, tell us what it is +like.’ I have never been there, certainly; but plenty of prophets have +described it, and angels have brought news of it. However, all I will +tell you is, that there is room for all good people there, for it is +330,000 cubits long. If you do not believe, inquire. As for getting to +be one of the good people, let me tell you it is not enough to read the +Koran of the Prophet (the salvation and blessing of God be upon him!); +it is not enough to do everything which this divine book enjoins; it is +not enough to come and weep at the _tazyas_, as you do every day, you +sons of dogs you, who know nothing which is of any use; it behoves, +besides, that your good works (if you ever do any, which I greatly +doubt) should be done in the name and for the love of Hussein. It is +Hussein, Mussulmans, who is the door to Paradise; it is Hussein, +Mussulmans, who upholds the world; it is Hussein, Mussulmans, by whom +comes salvation! Cry, Hassan, Hussein!” + +And all the multitude cry: “O Hassan! O Hussein!” + +“That is well; and now cry again.” And again all cry: “O Hassan! O +Hussein!” “And now,” the strange speaker goes on, “pray to God to keep +you continually in the love of Hussein. Come, make your cry to God.” +Then the multitude, as one man, throw up their arms into the air, and +with a deep and long-drawn cry exclaim: “_Ya Allah!_ O God!” + +Fifes, drums, and trumpets break out; the _kernas_, great copper +trumpets five or six feet long, give notice that the actors are ready +and that the _tazya_ is to commence. The preacher descends from the +_sakou_, and the actors occupy it. + +To give a clear notion of the cycle which these dramas fill, we should +begin, as on the first day of the Moharrem the actors begin, with some +piece relating to the childhood of the Imams, such as, for instance, the +piece called _The Children Digging_. Ali and Fatima are living at Medina +with their little sons Hassan and Hussein. The simple home and +occupations of the pious family are exhibited; it is morning, Fatima is +seated with the little Hussein on her lap, dressing him. She combs his +hair, talking caressingly to him all the while. A hair comes out with +the comb; the child starts. Fatima is in distress at having given the +child even this momentary uneasiness, and stops to gaze upon him +tenderly. She falls into an anxious reverie, thinking of her fondness +for the child, and of the unknown future in store for him. While she +muses, the angel Gabriel stands before her. He reproves her weakness: “A +hair falls from the child’s head,” he says, “and you weep; what would +you do if you knew the destiny that awaits him, the countless wounds +with which that body shall one day be pierced, the agony that shall rend +your own soul!” Fatima, in despair, is comforted by her husband Ali, and +they go together into the town to hear Mahomet preach. The boys and some +of their little friends begin to play; every one makes a great deal of +Hussein; he is at once the most spirited and the most amiable child of +them all. The party amuse themselves with digging, with making holes in +the ground and building mounds. Ali returns from the sermon and asks +what they are about; and Hussein is made to reply in ambiguous and +prophetic answers, which convey that by these holes and mounds in the +earth are prefigured interments and tombs. Ali departs again; there rush +in a number of big and fierce boys, and begin to pelt the little Imams +with stones. A companion shields Hussein with his own body, but he is +struck down with a stone, and with another stone Hussein, too, is +stretched on the ground senseless. Who are those boy-tyrants and +persecutors? They are Ibn-Said, and Shemer, and others, the future +murderers at Kerbela. The audience perceive it with a shudder; the +hateful assailants go off in triumph; Ali re-enters, picks up the +stunned and wounded children, brings them round, and takes Hussein back +to his mother Fatima. + +But let us now come at once to the days of martyrdom and to Kerbela. One +of the most famous pieces of the cycle is a piece called the _Marriage +of Kassem_, which brings us into the very middle of these crowning days. +Count Gobineau has given a translation of it, and from this translation +we will take a few extracts. Kassem is the son of Hussein’s elder +brother, the Imam Hassan, who had been poisoned by Yezid’s instigation +at Medina. Kassem and his mother are with the Imam Hussein at Kerbela; +there, too, are the women and children of the holy family, Omm-Leyla, +Hussein’s wife, the Persian princess, the last child of Yezdejerd the +last of the Sassanides; Zeyneb, Hussein’s sister, the offspring, like +himself, of Ali and Fatima, and the granddaughter of Mahomet; his nephew +Abdallah, still a little child; finally, his beautiful daughter Zobeyda. +When the piece begins, the Imam’s camp in the desert has already been +cut off from the Euphrates and besieged several days by the Syrian +troops under Ibn-Said and Shemer, and by the treacherous men of Kufa. +The Family of the Tent were suffering torments of thirst. One of the +children had brought an empty water-bottle, and thrown it, a silent +token of distress, before the feet of Abbas, the uncle of Hussein; Abbas +had sallied out to cut his way to the river, and had been slain. +Afterwards Ali-Akber, Hussein’s eldest son, had made the same attempt +and met with the same fate. Two younger brothers of Ali-Akber followed +his example, and were likewise slain. The Imam Hussein had rushed amidst +the enemy, beaten them from the body of Ali-Akber, and brought the body +back to his tent; but the river was still inaccessible. At this point +the action of the _Marriage of Kassem_ begins. Kassem, a youth of +sixteen, is burning to go out and avenge his cousin. At one end of the +_sakou_ is the Imam Hussein seated on his throne; in the middle are +grouped all the members of his family; at the other end lies the body of +Ali-Akber, with his mother Omm-Leyla, clothed and veiled in black, +bending over it. The _kernas_ sound, and Kassem, after a solemn appeal +from Hussein and his sister Zeyneb to God and to the founders of their +house to look upon their great distress, rises and speaks to himself: + +_Kassem._—“Separate thyself from the women of the harem, Kassem. +Consider within thyself for a little; here thou sittest, and presently +thou wilt see the body of Hussein, that body like a flower, torn by +arrows and lances like thorns, Kassem. + +“Thou sawest Ali-Akber’s head severed from his body on the field of +battle, and yet thou livedst! + +“Arise, obey that which is written of thee by thy father; to be slain, +that is thy lot, Kassem! + +“Go, get leave from the son of Fatima, most honorable among women, and +submit thyself to thy fate, Kassem.” + +Hussein sees him approach. “Alas,” he says, “it is the orphan +nightingale of the garden of Hassan, my brother!” Then Kassem speaks: + +_Kassem._—“O God, what shall I do beneath this load of affliction? My +eyes are wet with tears, my lips are dried up with thirst. To live is +worse than to die. What shall I do, seeing what hath befallen Ali-Akber? +If Hussein suffereth me not to go forth, oh misery! For then what shall +I do, O God, in the day of the resurrection, when I see my father +Hassan? When I see my mother in the day of the resurrection, what shall +I do, O God, in my sorrow and shame before her? All my kinsmen are gone +to appear before the Prophet: shall not I also one day stand before the +Prophet; and what shall I do, O God, in that day?” + +Then he addresses the Imam:— + +“Hail, threshold of the honor and majesty on high, threshold of heaven, +threshold of God! In the roll of martyrs thou art the chief; in the book +of creation thy story will live for ever. An orphan, a fatherless child, +downcast and weeping, comes to prefer a request to thee.” + +Hussein bids him tell it, and he answers:— + +“O light of the eyes of Mahomet the mighty, O lieutenant of Ali the +lion! Abbas has perished, Ali-Akber has suffered martyrdom. O my uncle, +thou hast no warriors left, and no standard-bearer! The roses are gone +and gone are their buds; the jessamine is gone, the poppies are gone. I +alone, I am still left in the garden of the Faith, a thorn, and +miserable. If thou hast any kindness for the orphan, suffer me to go +forth and fight.” + +Hussein refuses. “My child,” he says, “thou wast the light of the eyes +of the Imam Hassan, thou art my beloved remembrance of him; ask me not +this; urge me not, entreat me not; to have lost Ali-Akber is enough.” + +Kassem answers:—“That Kassem should live and Ali-Akber be +marytred—sooner let the earth cover me! O king, be generous to the +beggar at thy gate. See how my eyes run over with tears and my lips are +dried up with thirst. Cast thine eyes toward the waters of the heavenly +Euphrates! I die of thirst; grant me, O thou marked of God, a full +pitcher of the water of life! it flows in the Paradise which awaits me.” + +Hussein still refuses; Kassem breaks forth in complaints and +lamentations, his mother comes to him and learns the reason. She then +says:— + +“Complain not against the Imam, light of my eyes; only by his order can +the commission of martyrdom be given. In that commission are sealed +two-and-seventy witnesses, all righteous, and among the two-and-seventy +is thy name. Know that thy destiny of death is commanded in the writing +which thou wearest on thine arm.” + +This writing is the testament of his father Hassan. He bears it in +triumph to the Imam Hussein, who finds written there that he should, on +the death-plain of Kerbela, suffer Kassem to have his will, but that he +should marry him first to his daughter Zobeyda. Kassem consents, though +in astonishment. “Consider,” he says, “there lies Ali-Akber, mangled by +the enemies’ hands! Under this sky of ebon blackness, how can joy show +her face? Nevertheless if thou commandest it, what have I to do but +obey? Thy commandment is that of the Prophet, and his voice is that of +God.” But Hussein has also to overcome the reluctance of the intended +bride and of all the women of his family. + +“Heir of the vicar of God,” says Kassem’s mother to the Imam, “bid me +die, but speak not to me of a bridal. If Zobeyda is to be a bride and +Kassem a bridegroom, where is the henna to tinge their hands, where is +the bridal chamber?” “Mother of Kassem,” answers the Imam solemnly, “yet +a few moments, and in this field of anguish the tomb shall be for +marriage-bed, and the winding-sheet for bridal garment!” All give way to +the will of their sacred Head. The women and children surround Kassem, +sprinkle him with rose-water, hang bracelets and necklaces on him, and +scatter bon-bons around; and then the marriage procession is formed. +Suddenly drums and trumpets are heard, and the Syrian troops appear. +Ibn-Said and Shemer are at their head. “The Prince of the Faith +celebrates a marriage in the desert,” they exclaim tauntingly; “we will +soon change his festivity into mourning.” They pass by, and Kassem takes +leave of his bride. “God keep thee, my bride,” he says, embracing her, +“for I must forsake thee!” “One moment,” she says, “remain in thy place +one moment! thy countenance is as the lamp which giveth us light; suffer +me to turn around thee as the butterfly turneth, gently, gently!” And +making a turn around him, she performs the ancient Eastern rites of +respect from a new-married wife to her husband. Troubled, he rises to +go: “The reins of my will are slipping away from me!” he murmurs. She +lays hold of his robe: “Take off thy hand,” he cries, “we belong not to +ourselves!” + +Then he asks the Imam to array him in his winding-sheet. “O nightingale +of the divine orchard of martyrdom,” says Hussein, as he complies with +his wish, “I clothe thee with thy winding-sheet, I kiss thy face; there +is no fear, and no hope, but of God!” Kassem commits his little brother +Abdallah to the Imam’s care. Omm-Leyla looks up from her son’s corpse, +and says to Kassem: “When thou enterest the garden of Paradise, kiss for +me the head of Ali-Akber!” + +The Syrian troops again appear. Kassem rushes upon them and they all go +off fighting. The Family of the Tent, at Hussein’s command, put the +Koran on their heads and pray, covering themselves with sand. Kassem +reappears victorious. He has slain Azrek, a chief captain of the +Syrians, but his thirst is intolerable. “Uncle,” he says to the Imam, +who asks him what reward he wishes for his valor, “my tongue cleaves to +the roof of my mouth; the reward I wish is _water_.” “Thou coverest me +with shame, Kassem,” his uncle answers; “what can I do? Thou askest +water; there is no water!” + +_Kassem._—“If I might but wet my mouth, I could presently make an end of +the men of Kufa.” + +_Hussein._—“As I live, I have not one drop of water!” + +_Kassem._—“Were it but lawful, I would wet my mouth with my own blood.” + +_Hussein._—“Beloved child, what the Prophet forbids, that cannot I make +lawful.” + +_Kassem._—“I beseech thee, let my lips be but once moistened, and I will +vanquish thine enemies!” + +Hussein presses his own lips to those of Kassem, who, refreshed, again +rushes forth, and returns bleeding and stuck with darts, to die at the +Imam’s feet in the tent. So ends the marriage of Kassem. + +But the great day is the tenth day of the Moharrem, when comes the death +of the Imam himself. The narrative of Gibbon well sums up the events of +this great tenth day. “The battle at length expired by the death of the +last of the companions of Hussein. Alone, weary, and wounded, he seated +himself at the door of his tent. He was pierced in the mouth with a +dart. He lifted his hands to heaven—they were full of blood—and he +uttered a funeral prayer for the living and the dead. In a transport of +despair, his sister issued from the tent, and adjured the general of the +Kufians that he would not suffer Hussein to be murdered before his eyes. +A tear trickled down the soldier’s venerable beard; and the boldest of +his men fell back on every side as the dying Imam threw himself among +them. The remorseless Shemer—a name detested by the faithful—reproached +their cowardice; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain with three and +thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they had trampled on his +body, they carried his head to the castle of Kufa, and the inhuman +Obeidallah (the governor) struck him on the mouth with a cane. ‘Alas!’ +exclaimed an aged Mussulman, ‘on those lips have I seen the lips of the +Apostle of God!’” + +For this catastrophe no one _tazya_ suffices; all the companies of +actors unite in a vast open space; booths and tents are pitched round +the outside circle for the spectators; in the center is the Imam’s camp, +and the day ends with its conflagration. + +Nor are there wanting pieces which carry on the story beyond the death +of Hussein. One which produces an extraordinary effect is _The Christian +Damsel_. The carnage is over, the enemy are gone. To the awe-struck +beholders, the scene shows the silent plain of Kerbela and the tombs of +the martyrs. Their bodies, full of wounds, and with weapons sticking in +them still, are exposed to view; but around them all are crowns of +burning candles, circles of light, to show that they have entered into +glory. At one end of the _sakou_ is a high tomb by itself; it is the +tomb of the Imam Hussein, and his pierced body is seen stretched out +upon it. A brilliant caravan enters, with camels, soldiers, servants, +and a young lady on horseback, in European costume, or what passes in +Persia for European costume. She halts near the tombs and proposes to +encamp. Her servants try to pitch a tent; but wherever they drive a pole +into the ground, blood springs up, and a groan of horror bursts from the +audience. Then the fair traveler, instead of encamping, mounts into the +_tâgnumâ_, lies down to rest there, and falls asleep. Jesus Christ +appears to her, and makes known that this is Kerbela, and what has +happened here. Meanwhile, an Arab of the desert, a Bedouin who had +formerly received Hussein’s bounty, comes stealthily, intent on plunder, +upon the _sakou_. He finds nothing, and in a paroxysm of brutal fury he +begins to ill-treat the corpses. Blood flows. The feeling of Asiatics +about their dead is well known, and the horror of the audience rises to +its height. Presently the ruffian assails and wounds the corpse of the +Imam himself, over whom white doves are hovering; the voice of Hussein, +deep and mournful, calls from his tomb: “_There is no God but God!_” The +robber flies in terror; the angels, the prophets, Mahomet, Jesus Christ, +Moses, the Imams, the holy women, all come upon the _sakou_, press round +Hussein, load him with honors. The Christian damsel wakes, and embraces +Islam, the Islam of the sect of the Shiahs. + +Another piece closes the whole story, by bringing the captive women and +children of the Iman’s family to Damascus, to the presence of the Caliph +Yezid. It is in this piece that there comes the magnificent tableau, +already mentioned, of the court of the caliph. The crown jewels are lent +for it, and the dresses of the ladies of Yezid’s court, represented by +boys chosen for their good looks, are said to be worth thousands and +thousands of pounds; but the audience see them without favor, for this +brilliant court of Yezid is cruel to the captives of Kerbela. The +captives are thrust into a wretched dungeon under the palace walls; but +the Caliph’s wife had formerly been a slave of Mahomet’s daughter +Fatima, the mother of Hussein and Zeyneb. She goes to see Zeyneb in +prison, her heart is touched, she passes into an agony of repentance, +returns to her husband, upbraids him with his crimes, and intercedes for +the women of the holy family, and for the children, who keep calling for +the Imam Hussein. Yezid orders his wife to be put to death, and sends +the head of Hussein to the children. Sekyna, the Imam’s youngest +daughter, a child of four years old, takes the beloved head in her arms, +kisses it, and lies down beside it. Then Hussein appears to her as in +life: “Oh! my father,” she cries, “where wast thou? I was hungry, I was +cold, I was beaten—where wast thou?” But now she sees him again, and is +happy. In the vision of her happiness she passes away out of this +troublesome life, she enters into rest, and the piece ends with her +mother and her aunts burying her. + +These are the martyrs of Kerbela; and these are the sufferings which +awaken in an Asiatic audience sympathy so deep and serious, transports +so genuine of pity, love, and gratitude, that to match them at all one +must take the feelings raised at Ammergau. And now, where are we to +look, in the subject-matter of the Persian passion-play, for the source +of all this emotion? + +Count Gobineau suggests that it is to be found in the feeling of +patriotism; and that our Indo-European kinsmen, the Persians, conquered +by the Semitic Arabians, find in the sufferings of Hussein a portrait of +their own martyrdom. “Hussein,” says Count Gobineau, “is not only the +son of Ali, he is the husband of a princess of the blood of the Persian +kings; he, his father Ali, the whole body of Imams taken together, +represent the nation, represent Persia, invaded, ill-treated, despoiled, +stripped of its inhabitants, by the Arabians. The right which is +insulted and violated in Hussein, is identified with the right of +Persia. The Arabians, the Turks, the Afghans,—Persia’s implacable and +hereditary enemies,—recognize Yezid as legitimate caliph; Persia finds +therein an excuse for hating them the more, and identifies herself the +more with the usurper’s victims. It is _patriotism_ therefore, which has +taken the form, here, of the drama to express itself.” No doubt there is +much truth in what Count Gobineau thus says; and it is certain that the +division of Shiahs and Sunis has its true cause in a division of races, +rather than in a difference of religious belief. + +But I confess that if the interest of the Persian passion-plays had +seemed to me to lie solely in the curious evidence they afford of the +workings of patriotic feeling in a conquered people, I should hardly +have occupied myself with them at all this length. I believe that they +point to something much more interesting. What this is, I cannot do more +than simply indicate; but indicate it I will, in conclusion, and then +leave the student of human nature to follow it out for himself. + +When Mahomet’s cousin Jaffer, and others of his first converts, +persecuted by the idolaters of Mecca, fled in the year of our era 615, +seven years before the Hegira, into Abyssinia, and took refuge with the +King of that country, the people of Mecca sent after the fugitives to +demand that they should be given up to them. Abyssinia was then already +Christian. The king asked Jaffer and his companions what was this new +religion for which they had left their country. Jaffer answered: “We +were plunged in the darkness of ignorance, we were worshipers of idols. +Given over to all our passions, we knew no law but that of the +strongest, when God raised up among us a man of our own race, of noble +descent, and long held in esteem by us for his virtues. This apostle +called us to believe in one God, to worship God only, to reject the +superstitions of our fathers, to despise divinities of wood and stone. +He commanded us to eschew wickedness, to be truthful in speech, faithful +to our engagements, kind and helpful to our relations and neighbors. He +bade us respect the chastity of women, and not to rob the orphan. He +exhorted us to prayer, alms-giving, and fasting. We believed in his +mission, and we accepted the doctrines and the rule of life which he +brought to us from God. For this our countrymen have persecuted us; and +now they want to make us return to their idolatry.” The king of +Abyssinia refused to surrender the fugitives, and then, turning again to +Jaffer, after a few more explanations, he picked up a straw from the +ground, and said to him: “Between your religion and ours there is not +the thickness of this straw difference.” + +That is not quite so; yet thus much we may affirm, that Jaffer’s account +of the religion of Mahomet is a great deal truer than the accounts of it +which are commonly current amongst us. Indeed, for the credit of +humanity, as more than a hundred millions of men are said to profess the +Mahometan religion, one is glad to think so. To popular opinion +everywhere, religion is proved by miracles. All religions but a man’s +own are utterly false and vain; the authors of them are mere impostors; +and the miracles which are said to attest them, fictitious. We forget +that this is a game which two can play at; although the believer of each +religion always imagines the prodigies which attest his own religion to +be fenced by a guard granted to them alone. Yet how much more safe is +it, as well as more fruitful, to look for the main confirmation of a +religion in its intrinsic correspondence with urgent wants of human +nature, in its profound necessity! Differing religions will then be +found to have much in common, but this will be an additional proof of +the value of that religion which does most for that which is thus +commonly recognized as salutary and necessary. In Christendom one need +not go about to establish that the religion of the Hebrews is a better +religion than the religion of the Arabs, or that the Bible is a greater +book than the Koran. The Bible _grew_, the Koran _was made_; there lies +the immense difference in depth and truth between them! This very +inferiority may make the Koran, for certain purposes and for people at a +low stage of mental growth, a more powerful instrument than the Bible. +From the circumstances of its origin, the Koran has the intensely +dogmatic character, it has the perpetual insistence on the motive of +future rewards and punishments, the palpable exhibition of paradise and +hell, which the Bible has not. Among the little known and little +advanced races of the great African continent, the Mahometan +missionaries, by reason of the sort of power which this character of the +Koran gives, are said to be more successful than ours. Nevertheless even +in Africa it will assuredly one day be manifest, that whereas the +Bible-people trace themselves to Abraham through Isaac, and the +Koran-people trace themselves to Abraham through Ishmael, the difference +between the religion of the Bible and the religion of the Koran is +almost as the difference between Isaac and Ishmael. I mean that the +seriousness about righteousness, which is what the hatred of idolatry +really means, and the profound and inexhaustible doctrines that the +righteous Eternal loveth righteousness, that there is no peace for the +wicked, that the righteous is an everlasting foundation, are exhibited +and inculcated in the Old Testament with an authority, majesty, and +truth which leave the Koran immeasurably behind, and which, the more +mankind grows and gains light, the more will be felt to have no fellows. +Mahomet was no doubt acquainted with the Jews and their documents, and +gained something from this source for his religion. But his religion is +not a mere plagiarism from Judea, any more than it is a mere mass of +falsehood. No; in the seriousness, elevation, and moral energy of +himself and of that Semitic race from which he sprang and to which he +spoke, Mahomet mainly found that scorn and hatred of idolatry, that +sense of the worth and truth of righteousness, judgment, and justice, +which make the real greatness of him and his Koran, and which are thus +rather an independent testimony to the essential doctrines of the Old +Testament, than a plagiarism from them. The world needs righteousness, +and the Bible is the grand teacher of it, but for certain times and +certain men Mahomet too, in his way, was a teacher of righteousness. + +But we know how the Old Testament conception of righteousness ceased +with time to have the freshness and force of an intuition, became +something petrified, narrow, and formal, needed renewing. We know how +Christianity renewed it, carrying into these hard waters of Judaism a +sort of warm gulf-stream of tender emotion, due chiefly to qualities +which may be summed up as those of inwardness, mildness, and +self-renouncement. Mahometanism had no such renewing. It began with a +conception of righteousness, lofty indeed, but narrow, and which we may +call old Jewish; and there it remained. It is not a _feeling_ religion. +No one would say that the virtues of gentleness, mildness, and +self-sacrifice were its virtues; and the more it went on, the more the +faults of its original narrow basis became visible, more and more it +became fierce and militant, less and less was it amiable. Now, what are +Ali, and Hassan, and Hussein and the Imams, but an insurrection of noble +and pious natures against this hardness and aridity of the religion +round them? an insurrection making its authors seem weak, helpless, and +unsuccessful to the world and amidst the struggles of the world, but +enabling them to know the joy and peace for which the world thirsts in +vain, and inspiring in the heart of mankind an irresistible sympathy. +“The twelve Imams,” says Gibbon, “Ali, Hassan, Hussein, and the lineal +descendants of Hussein, to the ninth generation, without arms, or +treasures, or subjects, successively enjoyed the veneration of the +people. Their names were often the pretense of sedition and civil war; +but these royal saints despised the pomp of the world, submitted to the +will of God and the injustice of man, and devoted their innocent lives +to the study and practice of religion.” + +Abnegation and mildness, based on the depth of the inner life, and +visited by unmerited misfortune, made the power of the first and famous +Imams, Ali, Hassan, and Hussein, over the popular imagination. “O +brother,” said Hassan, as he was dying of poison, to Hussein who sought +to find out and punish his murderer, “O brother, let him alone till he +and I meet together before God!” So his father Ali had stood back from +his rights instead of snatching at them. So of Hussein himself it was +said by his successful rival, the usurping Caliph Yezid: “God loved +Hussein, _but he would not suffer him to attain to anything_.” They +might attain to nothing, they were too pure, these great ones of the +world as by birth they were; but the people, which itself also can +attain to so little, loved them all the better on that account, loved +them for their abnegation and mildness, felt that they were dear to God, +that God loved them, and that they and their lives filled a void in the +severe religion of Mahomet. These saintly self-deniers, these resigned +sufferers, who would not strive nor cry, supplied a tender and pathetic +side in Islam. The conquered Persians, a more mobile, more +impressionable, and gentler race than their concentrated, narrow, and +austere Semitic conquerors, felt the need of it most, and gave most +prominence to the ideals which satisfied the need; but in Arabs and +Turks also, and in all the Mahometan world, Ali and his sons excite +enthusiasm and affection. Round the central sufferer, Hussein, has come +to group itself everything which is most tender and touching. His person +brings to the Mussulman’s mind the most human side of Mahomet himself, +his fondness for children,—for Mahomet had loved to nurse the little +Hussein on his knee, and to show him from the pulpit to his people. The +Family of the Tent is full of women and children, and their devotion and +sufferings,—blameless and saintly women, lovely and innocent children. +There, too, are lovers with their story, the beauty and the love of +youth; and all follow the attraction of the pure and resigned Imam, all +die for him. The tender pathos from all these flows into the pathos from +him and enhances it, until finally there arises for the popular +imagination an immense ideal of mildness and self-sacrifice, melting and +overpowering the soul. + +Even for us, to whom almost all the names are strange, whose interest in +the places and persons is faint, who have them before us for a moment +to-day, to see them again, probably, no more forever,—even for us, +unless I err greatly, the power and pathos of this ideal are +recognizable. What must they be for those to whom every name is +familiar, and calls up the most solemn and cherished associations; who +have had their adoring gaze fixed all their lives upon this exemplar of +self-denial and gentleness, and who have no other? If it was superfluous +to say to English people that the religion of the Koran has not the +value of the religion of the Old Testament, still more is it superfluous +to say that the religion of the Imams has not the value of Christianity. +The character and discourse of Jesus Christ possess, I have elsewhere +often said, two signal powers: mildness and sweet reasonableness. The +latter, the power which so puts before our view duty of every kind as to +give it the force of an intuition, as to make it seem,—to make the total +sacrifice of our ordinary self seem,—the most simple, natural, winning, +necessary thing in the world, has been hitherto applied with but a very +limited range, it is destined to an infinitely wider application, and +has a fruitfulness which will yet transform the world. Of this the Imams +have nothing, except so far as all mildness and self-sacrifice have in +them something of sweet reasonableness and are its indispensable +preliminary. This they have, _mildness and self-sacrifice_; and we have +seen what an attraction it exercises. Could we ask for a stronger +testimony to Christianity? Could we wish for any sign more convincing, +that Jesus Christ was indeed, what Christians call him, _the desire of +all nations_? So salutary, so necessary is what Christianity contains, +that a religion,—a great, powerful, successful religion,—arises without +it, and the missing virtue forces its way in! Christianity may say to +these Persian Mahometans, with their gaze fondly turned towards the +martyred Imams, what in our Bible God says by Isaiah to Cyrus, their +great ancestor:—“_I girded thee, though thou hast not known me._” It is +a long way from Kerbela to Calvary; but the sufferers of Kerbela hold +aloft to the eyes of millions of our race the lesson so loved by the +sufferer of Calvary. For he said: “Learn of me, that I am _mild_, and +_lowly of heart_; and ye shall find _rest unto your souls_.” + + + + + VIII. + + JOUBERT. + + +Why should we ever treat of any dead authors but the famous ones? Mainly +for this reason: because, from these famous personages, home or foreign, +whom we all know so well, and of whom so much has been said, the amount +of stimulus which they contain for us has been in a great measure +disengaged; people have formed their opinion about them, and do not +readily change it. One may write of them afresh, combat received +opinions about them, even interest one’s readers in so doing; but the +interest one’s readers receive has to do, in general, rather with the +treatment than with the subject; they are susceptible of a lively +impression rather of the course of the discussion itself,—its turns, +vivacity, and novelty,—than of the genius of the author who is the +occasion of it. And yet what is really precious and inspiring, in all +that we get from literature, except this sense of an immediate contact +with genius itself, and the stimulus towards what is true and excellent +which we derive from it? Now in literature, besides the eminent men of +genius who have had their deserts in the way of fame, besides the +eminent men of ability who have often had far more than their deserts in +the way of fame, there are a certain number of personages who have been +real men of genius,—by which I mean, that they have had a genuine gift +for what is true and excellent, and are therefore capable of emitting a +life-giving stimulus,—but who, for some reason or other, in most cases +for very valid reasons, have remained obscure, nay, beyond a narrow +circle in their own country, unknown. It is salutary from time to time +to come across a genius of this kind, and to extract his honey. Often he +has more of it for us, as I have already said, than greater men; for, +though it is by no means true that from what is new to us there is most +to be learnt, it is yet indisputably true that from what is new to us we +in general learn most. + +Of a genius of this kind, Joseph Joubert, I am now going to speak. His +name is, I believe, almost unknown in England; and even in France, his +native country, it is not famous. M. Sainte-Beuve has given of him one +of his incomparable portraits; but,—besides that even M. Sainte-Beuve’s +writings are far less known amongst us than they deserve to be,—every +country has its own point of view from which a remarkable author may +most profitably be seen and studied. + +Joseph Joubert was born (and his date should be remarked) in 1754, at +Montignac, a little town in Périgord. His father was a doctor with small +means and a large family; and Joseph, the eldest, had his own way to +make in the world. He was for eight years, as pupil first, and +afterwards as an assistant-master, in the public school of Toulouse, +then managed by the Jesuits, who seem to have left in him a most +favorable opinion, not only of their tact and address, but of their +really good qualities as teachers and directors. Compelled by the +weakness of his health to give up, at twenty-two, the profession of +teaching, he passed two important years of his life in hard study, at +home at Montignac; and came in 1778 to try his fortune in the literary +world of Paris, then perhaps the most tempting field which has ever yet +presented itself to a young man of letters. He knew Diderot, D’Alembert, +Marmontel, Laharpe; he became intimate with one of the celebrities of +the next literary generation, then, like himself, a young +man,—Chateaubriand’s friend, the future Grand Master of the University, +Fontanes. But, even then, it began to be remarked of him, that M. +Joubert “_s’inquiétait de perfection bien plus que de gloire_—cared far +more about perfecting himself than about making himself a reputation.” +His severity of morals may perhaps have been rendered easier to him by +the delicacy of his health; but the delicacy of his health will not by +itself account for his changeless preference of being to seeming, +knowing to showing, studying to publishing; for what terrible public +performers have some invalids been! This preference he retained all +through his life, and it is by this that he is characterized. “He has +chosen,” Chateaubriand (adopting Epicurus’s famous words) said of him, +“_to hide his life_.” Of a life which its owner was bent on hiding there +can be but little to tell. Yet the only two public incidents of +Joubert’s life, slight as they are, do all concerned in them so much +credit that they deserve mention. In 1790 the Constituent Assembly made +the office of justice of the peace elective throughout France. The +people of Montignac retained such an impression of the character of +their young townsman,—one of Plutarch’s men of virtue, as he had lived +amongst them, simple, studious, severe,—that, though he had left them +for years, they elected him in his absence without his knowing anything +about it. The appointment little suited Joubert’s wishes or tastes; but +at such a moment he thought it wrong to decline it. He held it for two +years, the legal term, discharging its duties with a firmness and +integrity which were long remembered; and then, when he went out of +office, his fellow-townsmen reelected him. But Joubert thought that he +had now accomplished his duty towards them, and he went back to the +retirement which he loved. That seems to me a little episode of the +great French Revolution worth remembering. The sage who was asked by the +king, why sages were seen at the doors of kings, but not kings at the +doors of sages, replied, that it was because sages knew what was good +for them, and kings did not. But at Montignac the king—for in 1790 the +people in France was king with a vengeance—knew what was good for him, +and came to the door of the sage. + +The other incident was this. When Napoleon, in 1809, reorganized the +public instruction of France, founded the University, and made M. de +Fontanes its Grand Master, Fontanes had to submit to the Emperor a list +of persons to form the council or governing body of the new University. +Third on his list, after two distinguished names, Fontanes placed the +unknown name of Joubert. “This name,” he said in his accompanying +memorandum to the Emperor, “is not known as the two first are; and yet +this is the nomination to which I attach most importance. I have known +M. Joubert all my life. His character and intelligence are of the very +highest order. I shall rejoice if your Majesty will accept my guarantee +for him.” Napoleon trusted his Grand Master, and Joubert became a +councilor of the University. It is something that a man, elevated to the +highest posts of State, should not forget his obscure friends; or that, +if he remembers and places them, he should regard in placing them their +merit rather than their obscurity. It is more, in the eyes of those whom +the necessities, real or supposed, of a political system have long +familiarized with such cynical disregard of fitness in the distribution +of office, to see a minister and his master alike zealous, in giving +away places, to give them to the best men to be found. + +Between 1792 and 1809 Joubert had married. His life was passed between +Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, where his wife’s family lived,—a pretty little +Burgundian town, by which the Lyons railroad now passes,—and Paris. +Here, in a house in the Rue St.-Honoré, in a room very high up, and +admitting plenty of the light which he so loved,—a room from which he +saw, in his own words, “a great deal of sky and very little +earth,”—among the treasures of a library collected with infinite pains, +taste, and skill, from which every book he thought ill of was rigidly +excluded,—he never would possess either a complete Voltaire or a +complete Rousseau,—the happiest hours of his life were passed. In the +circle of one of those women who leave a sort of perfume in literary +history, and who have the gift of inspiring successive generations of +readers with an indescribable regret not to have known them,—Pauline de +Montmorin, Madame de Beaumont,—he had become intimate with nearly all +which at that time, in the Paris world of letters or of society, was +most attractive and promising. Amongst his acquaintances one only misses +the names of Madame de Staël and Benjamin Constant. Neither of them was +to his taste, and with Madame de Staël he always refused to become +acquainted; he thought she had more vehemence than truth, and more heat +than light. + +Years went on, and his friends became conspicuous authors or statesmen; +but Joubert remained in the shade. His constitution was of such +fragility that how he lived so long, or accomplished so much as he did, +is a wonder: his soul had, for its basis of operations, hardly any body +at all: both from his stomach and from his chest he seems to have had +constant suffering, though he lived by rule, and was as abstemious as a +Hindoo. Often, after overwork in thinking, reading, or talking, he +remained for days together in a state of utter prostration,—condemned to +absolute silence and inaction; too happy if the agitation of his mind +would become quiet also, and let him have the repose of which he stood +in so much need. With this weakness of health, these repeated +suspensions of energy, he was incapable of the prolonged contention of +spirit necessary for the creation of great works. But he read and +thought immensely; he was an unwearied note-taker, a charming +letter-writer; above all, an excellent and delightful talker. The gaiety +and amenity of his natural disposition were inexhaustible; and his +spirit, too, was of astonishing elasticity; he seemed to hold on to life +by a single thread only, but that single thread was very tenacious. More +and more, as his soul and knowledge ripened more and more, his friends +pressed to his room in the Rue St.-Honoré; often he received them in +bed, for he seldom rose before three o’clock in the afternoon; and at +his bedroom-door, on his bad days, Madame Joubert stood sentry, trying, +not always with success, to keep back the thirsty comers from the +fountain which was forbidden to flow. Fontanes did nothing in the +University without consulting him, and Joubert’s ideas and pen were +always at his friend’s service. + +When he was in the country, at Villeneuve, the young priests of his +neighborhood used to resort to him, in order to profit by his library +and by his conversation. He, like our Coleridge, was particularly +qualified to attract men of this kind and to benefit them: retaining +perfect independence of mind, he was a religious philosopher. As age +came on, his infirmities became more and more overwhelming; some of his +friends, too, died; others became so immersed in politics, that Joubert, +who hated politics, saw them seldomer than of old; but the moroseness of +age and infirmity never touched him, and he never quarreled with a +friend or lost one. From these miseries he was preserved by that quality +in him of which I have already spoken; a quality which is best expressed +by a word, not of common use in English,—alas, we have too little in our +national character of the quality which this word expresses,—his inborn, +his constant amenity. He lived till the year 1824. On the 4th of May in +that year he died, at the age of seventy. A day or two after his death +M. de Chateaubriand inserted in the _Journal des Débats_ a short notice +of him, perfect for its feeling, grace, and propriety. _On ne vit dans +la mémoire du monde_, he says and says truly, _que par des travaux pour +le monde_,—“a man can live in the world’s memory only by what he has +done for the world.” But Chateaubriand used the privilege which his +great name gave him to assert, delicately but firmly, Joubert’s real and +rare merits, and to tell the world what manner of man had just left it. + +Joubert’s papers were accumulated in boxes and drawers. He had not meant +them for publication; it was very difficult to sort them and to prepare +them for it. Madame Joubert, his widow, had a scruple about giving them +a publicity which her husband, she felt, would never have permitted. +But, as her own end approached, the natural desire to leave of so +remarkable a spirit some enduring memorial, some memorial to outlast the +admiring recollection of the living who were so fast passing away, made +her yield to the entreaties of his friends, and allow the printing, but +for private circulation only, of a volume of his fragments. +Chateaubriand edited it; it appeared in 1838, fourteen years after +Joubert’s death. The volume attracted the attention of those who were +best fitted to appreciate it, and profoundly impressed them. M. +Sainte-Beuve gave of it, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, the admirable +notice of which I have already spoken; and so much curiosity was excited +about Joubert, that the collection of his fragments, enlarged by many +additions, was at last published for the benefit of the world in +general. It has since been twice reprinted. The first or preliminary +chapter has some fancifulness and affectation in it; the reader should +begin with the second. + +I have likened Joubert to Coleridge; and indeed the points of +resemblance between the two men are numerous. Both of them great and +celebrated talkers, Joubert attracting pilgrims to his upper chamber in +the Rue St.-Honoré, as Coleridge attracted pilgrims to Mr. Gilman’s at +Highgate; both of them desultory and incomplete writers,—here they had +an outward likeness with one another. Both of them passionately devoted +to reading in a class of books, and to thinking on a class of subjects, +out of the beaten line of the reading and thought of their day; both of +them ardent students and critics of old literature, poetry, and the +metaphysics of religion; both of them curious explorers of words, and of +the latent significance hidden under the popular use of them; both of +them, in a certain sense, conservative in religion and politics, by +antipathy to the narrow and shallow foolishness of vulgar modern +liberalism;—here they had their inward and real likeness. But that in +which the essence of their likeness consisted is this,—that they both +had from nature an ardent impulse for seeking the genuine truth on all +matters they thought about, and a gift for finding it and recognizing it +when it was found. To have the impulse for seeking this truth is much +rarer than most people think; to have the gift for finding it is, I need +not say, very rare indeed. By this they have a spiritual relationship of +the closest kind with one another, and they become, each of them, a +source of stimulus and progress for all of us. + +Coleridge had less delicacy and penetration than Joubert, but more +richness and power; his production, though far inferior to what his +nature at first seemed to promise, was abundant and varied. Yet in all +his production how much is there to dissatisfy us! How many reserves +must be made in praising either his poetry, or his criticism, or his +philosophy! How little either of his poetry, or of his criticism, or of +his philosophy, can we expect permanently to stand! But that which will +stand of Coleridge is this: the stimulus of his continual effort,—not a +moral effort, for he had no morals,—but of his continual instinctive +effort, crowned often with rich success, to get at and to lay bare the +real truth of his matter in hand, whether that matter were literary, or +philosophical, or political, or religious; and this in a country where +at that moment such an effort was almost unknown; where the most +powerful minds threw themselves upon poetry, which conveys truth, +indeed, but conveys it indirectly; and where ordinary minds were so +habituated to do without thinking altogether, to regard considerations +of established routine and practical convenience as paramount, that any +attempt to introduce within the domain of these the disturbing element +of thought, they were prompt to resent as an outrage. Coleridge’s great +usefulness lay in his supplying in England, for many years and under +critical circumstances, by the spectacle of this effort of his, a +stimulus to all minds capable of profiting by it; in the generation +which grew up around him. His action will still be felt as long as the +need for it continues. When, with the cessation of the need, the action +too has ceased, Coleridge’s memory, in spite of the disesteem—nay, +repugnance—which his character may and must inspire, will yet forever +remain invested with that interest and gratitude which invests the +memory of founders. + +M. de Rémusat, indeed, reproaches Coleridge with his _jugements +saugrenus_; the criticism of a gifted truth-finder ought not to be +_saugrenu_, so on this reproach we must pause for a moment. _Saugrenu_ +is a rather vulgar French word, but, like many other vulgar words, very +expressive; used as an epithet for a judgment, it means something like +_impudently absurd_. The literary judgments of one nation about another +are very apt to be _saugrenus_. It is certainly true, as M. Sainte-Beuve +remarks in answer to Goethe’s complaint against the French that they +have undervalued Du Bartas, that as to the estimate of its own authors +every nation is the best judge; the _positive_ estimate of them, be it +understood, not, of course, the estimate of them in comparison with the +authors of other nations. Therefore a foreigner’s judgments about the +intrinsic merit of a nation’s authors will generally, when at complete +variance with that nation’s own be wrong; but there is a permissible +wrongness in these matters, and to that permissible wrongness there is a +limit. When that limit is exceeded, the wrong judgment becomes more than +wrong, it becomes _saugrenu_, or impudently absurd. For instance, the +high estimate which the French have of Racine is probably in great +measure deserved; or, to take a yet stronger case, even the high +estimate which Joubert had of the Abbé Delille is probably in great +measure deserved; but the common disparaging judgment passed on Racine +by English readers is not _saugrenu_, still less is that passed by them +on the Abbé Delille _saugrenu_, because the beauty of Racine, and of +Delille too, so far as Delille’s beauty goes, is eminently in their +language, and this is a beauty which a foreigner cannot perfectly +seize;—this beauty of diction, _apicibus verborum ligata_, as M. +Sainte-Beuve, quoting Quintilian, says of Chateaubriand’s. As to +Chateaubriand himself, again, the common English judgment, which stamps +him as a mere shallow rhetorician, all froth and vanity, is certainly +wrong, one may even wonder that we English should judge Chateaubriand so +wrongly, for his power goes far beyond beauty of diction; it is a power, +as well, of passion and sentiment, and this sort of power the English +can perfectly well appreciate. One production of Chateaubriand’s, +_René_, is akin to the most popular productions of Byron,—to the _Childe +Harold_ or _Manfred_,—in spirit, equal to them in power, superior to +them in form. But this work, I hardly know why, is almost unread in +England. And only consider this criticism of Chateaubriand’s on the true +pathetic! “It is a dangerous mistake, sanctioned, like so many other +dangerous mistakes, by Voltaire, to suppose that the best works of +imagination are those which draw most tears. One could name this or that +melodrama, which no one would like to own having written, and which yet +harrows the feelings far more than the _Æneid_. The true tears are those +which are called forth by the _beauty_ of poetry; there must be as much +admiration in them as sorrow. They are the tears which come to our eyes +when Priam says to Achilles, ἔτλην δ’, oἷ’ οὔπω ...—‘And I have +endured,—the like whereof no soul upon the earth hath yet endured,—to +carry to my lips the hand of him who slew my child;’ or when Joseph +cries out: ‘I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.’” Who +does not feel that the man who wrote that was no shallow rhetorician, +but a born man of genius, with the true instinct of genius for what is +really admirable? Nay, take these words of Chateaubriand, an old man of +eighty, dying, amidst the noise and bustle of the ignoble revolution of +February 1848: “Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, quand donc, quand donc serai-je +délivré de tout ce monde, ce bruit; quand donc, quand donc cela +finira-t-il?” Who, with any ear, does not feel that those are not the +accents of a trumpery rhetorician, but of a rich and puissant +nature,—the cry of the dying lion? I repeat it, Chateaubriand is most +ignorantly underrated in England; and we English are capable of rating +him far more correctly if we knew him better. Still Chateaubriand has +such real and great faults, he falls so decidedly beneath the rank of +the truly greatest authors, that the depreciatory judgment passed on him +in England, though ignorant and wrong, can hardly be said to transgress +the limits of permissible ignorance; it is not a _jugement saugrenu_. +But when a critic denies genius to a literature which has produced +Bossuet and Molière, he passes the bounds; and Coleridge’s judgments on +French literature and the French genius are undoubtedly, as M. de +Rémusat calls them, _saugrenus_. + +And yet, such is the impetuosity of our poor human nature, such its +proneness to rush to a decision with imperfect knowledge, that his +having delivered a _saugrenu_ judgment or two in his life by no means +proves a man not to have had, in comparison with his fellow-men in +general, a remarkable gift for truth, or disqualifies him for being, by +virtue of that gift, a source of vital stimulus for us. Joubert had far +less smoke and turbid vehemence in him than Coleridge; he had also a far +keener sense of what was absurd. But Joubert can write to M. Molé (the +M. Molé who was afterwards Louis Philippe’s well-known minister): “As to +your Milton, whom the merit of the Abbé Delille” (the Abbé Delille +translated _Paradise Lost_) “makes me admire, and with whom I have +nevertheless still plenty of fault to find, why, I should like to know, +are you scandalized that I have not enabled myself to read him? I don’t +understand the language in which he writes, and I don’t much care to. If +he is a poet one cannot put up with, even in the prose of the younger +Racine, am I to blame for that? If by force you mean beauty manifesting +itself with power, I maintain that the Abbé Delille has more force than +Milton.” That, to be sure, is a petulant outburst in a private letter; +it is not, like Coleridge’s, a deliberate proposition in a printed +philosophical essay. But is it possible to imagine a more perfect +specimen of a _saugrenu_ judgment? It is even worse than Coleridge’s, +because it is _saugrenu_ with reasons. That, however, does not prevent +Joubert from having been really a man of extraordinary ardor in the +search for truth, and of extraordinary fineness in the perception of it; +and so was Coleridge. + +Joubert had around him in France an atmosphere of literary, +philosophical, and religious opinion as alien to him as that in England +was to Coleridge. This is what makes Joubert, too, so remarkable, and it +is on this account that I begged the reader to remark his date. He was +born in 1754; he died in 1824. He was thus in the fulness of his powers +at the beginning of the present century, at the epoch of Napoleon’s +consulate. The French criticism of that day—the criticism of Laharpe’s +successors, of Geoffroy and his colleagues in the _Journal des +Débats_—had a dryness very unlike the telling vivacity of the early +Edinburgh reviewers, their contemporaries, but a fundamental narrowness, +a want of genuine insight, much on a par with theirs. Joubert, like +Coleridge, has no respect for the dominant oracle; he treats his +Geoffroy with about as little deference as Coleridge treats his Jeffrey. +“Geoffroy,” he says in an article in the _Journal des Débats_ +criticising Chateaubriand’s _Génie du Christianisme_—“Geoffroy in this +article begins by holding out his paw prettily enough; but he ends by a +volley of kicks, which lets the whole world see but too clearly the four +iron shoes of the four-footed animal.” There is, however, in France a +sympathy with intellectual activity for its own sake, and for the sake +of its inherent pleasurableness and beauty, keener than any which exists +in England; and Joubert had more effect in Paris,—though his +conversation was his only weapon, and Coleridge wielded besides his +conversation his pen,—than Coleridge had or could have in London. I +mean, a more immediate, appreciable effect; an effect not only upon the +young and enthusiastic, to whom the future belongs, but upon formed and +important personages to whom the present belongs, and who are actually +moving society. He owed this partly to his real advantages over +Coleridge. If he had, as I have already said, less power and richness +than his English parallel, he had more tact and penetration. He was more +_possible_ than Coleridge; his doctrine was more intelligible than +Coleridge’s, more receivable. And yet with Joubert, the striving after a +consummate and attractive clearness of expression came from no mere +frivolous dislike of labor and inability for going deep, but was a part +of his native love of truth and perfection. The delight of his life he +found in truth, and in the satisfaction which the enjoying of truth +gives to the spirit; and he thought the truth was never really and +worthily said, so long as the least cloud, clumsiness, and repulsiveness +hung about the expression of it. + +Some of his best passages are those in which he upholds this doctrine. +Even metaphysics he would not allow to remain difficult and abstract: so +long as they spoke a professional jargon, the language of the schools, +he maintained,—and who shall gainsay him?—that metaphysics were +imperfect; or, at any rate, had not yet reached their ideal perfection. + +“The true science of metaphysics,” he says, “consists not in rendering +abstract that which is sensible, but in rendering sensible that which is +abstract; apparent that which is hidden; imaginable, if so it may be, +that which is only intelligible; and intelligible, finally, that which +an ordinary attention fails to seize.” + +And therefore:— + +“Distrust, in books on metaphysics, words which have not been able to +get currency in the world, and are only calculated to form a special +language.” + +Nor would he suffer common words to be employed in a special sense by +the schools:— + +“Which is the best, if one wants to be useful and to be really +understood, to get one’s words in the world, or to get them in the +schools. I maintain that the good plan is to employ words in their +popular sense rather than in their philosophical sense; and the better +plan still, to employ them in their natural sense rather than in their +popular sense. By their natural sense, I mean the popular and universal +acceptation of them brought to that which in this is essential and +invariable. To prove a thing by definition proves nothing, if the +definition is purely philosophical; for such definitions only bind him +who makes them. To prove a thing by definition, when the definition +expresses the necessary, inevitable, and clear idea which the world at +large attaches to the object, is, on the contrary, all in all; because +then what one does is simply to show people what they do really think, +in spite of themselves and without knowing it. The rule that one is free +to give to words what sense one will, and that the only thing needful is +to be agreed upon the sense one gives them, is very well for the mere +purposes of argumentation, and may be allowed in the schools where this +sort of fencing is to be practised; but in the sphere of the true-born +and noble science of metaphysics, and in the genuine world of +literature, it is good for nothing. One must never quit sight of +realities, and one must employ one’s expressions simply as media,—as +glasses, through which one’s thoughts can be best made evident. I know, +by my own experience, how hard this rule is to follow; but I judge of +its importance by the failure of every system of metaphysics. Not one of +them has succeeded; for the simple reason, that in every one ciphers +have been constantly used instead of values, artificial ideas instead of +native ideas, jargon instead of idiom.” + +I do not know whether the metaphysician will ever adopt Joubert’s rules; +but I am sure that the man of letters, whenever he has to speak of +metaphysics, will do well to adopt them. He, at any rate, must +remember:— + +“It is by means of familiar words that style takes hold of the reader +and gets possession of him. It is by means of these that great thoughts +get currency and pass for true metal, like gold and silver which have +had a recognized stamp put upon them. They beget confidence in the man +who, in order to make his thoughts more clearly perceived, uses them; +for people feel that such an employment of the language of common human +life betokens a man who knows that life and its concerns, and who keeps +himself in contact with them. Besides, these words make a style frank +and easy. They show that an author has long made the thought or the +feeling expressed his mental food; that he has so assimilated them and +familiarized them, that the most common expressions suffice him in order +to express ideas which have become every-day ideas to him by the length +of time they have been in his mind. And lastly, what one says in such +words looks more true; for, of all the words in use, none are so clear +as those which we call common words; and clearness is so eminently one +of the characteristics of truth, that often it even passes for truth +itself.” + +These are not, in Joubert, mere counsels of rhetoric; they come from his +accurate sense of perfection, from his having clearly seized the fine +and just idea that beauty and light are properties of truth, and that +truth is incompletely exhibited if it is exhibited without beauty and +light:— + +“Be profound with clear terms and not with obscure terms. What is +difficult will at last become easy; but as one goes deep into things, +one must still keep a charm, and one must carry into these dark depths +of thought, into which speculation has only recently penetrated, the +pure and antique clearness of centuries less learned than ours, but with +more light in them.” + +And elsewhere he speaks of those “spirits, lovers of light, who, when +they have an idea to put forth, brood long over it first, and wait +patiently till it _shines_, as Buffon enjoined, when he defined genius +to be the aptitude for patience; spirits who know by experience that the +driest matter and the dullest words hide within them the germ and spark +of some brightness, like those fairy nuts in which were found diamonds +if one broke the shell and was the right person; spirits who maintain +that, to see and exhibit things in beauty, is to see and show things as +in their essence they really are, and not as they exist for the eye of +the careless, who do not look beyond the outside; spirits hard to +satisfy, because of a keen-sightedness in them, which makes them discern +but too clearly both the models to be followed and those to be shunned; +spirits active though meditative, who cannot rest except in solid +truths, and whom only beauty can make happy; spirits far less concerned +for glory than for perfection, who, because their art is long and life +is short, often die without leaving a monument, having had their own +inward sense of life and fruitfulness for their best reward.” + +No doubt there is something a little too ethereal in all this, something +which reminds one of Joubert’s physical want of body and substance; no +doubt, if a man wishes to be a great author, it is to consider too +curiously, to consider as Joubert did; it is a mistake to spend so much +of one’s time in setting up one’s ideal standard of perfection, and in +contemplating it. Joubert himself knew this very well: “I cannot build a +house for my ideas,” said he; “I have tried to do without words, and +words take their revenge on me by their difficulty.” “If there is a man +upon earth tormented by the cursed desire to get a whole book into a +page, a whole page into a phrase, and this phrase into one word,—that +man is myself.” “I can sow, but I cannot build.” Joubert, however, makes +no claim to be a great author; by renouncing all ambition to be this, by +not trying to fit his ideas into a house, by making no compromise with +words in spite of their difficulty, by being quite single-minded in his +pursuit of perfection, perhaps he is enabled to get closer to the truth +of the objects of his study, and to be of more service to us by setting +before us ideals, than if he had composed a celebrated work. I doubt +whether, in an elaborate work on the philosophy of religion, he would +have got his ideas about religion to _shine_, to use his own expression, +as they shine when he utters them in perfect freedom. Penetration in +these matters is valueless without soul, and soul is valueless without +penetration; both of these are delicate qualities, and, even in those +who have them, easily lost; the charm of Joubert is, that he has and +keeps both. Let us try and show that he does. + +“One should be fearful of being wrong in poetry when one thinks +differently from the poets, and in religion when one thinks differently +from the saints. + +“There is a great difference between taking for idols Mahomet and +Luther, and bowing down before Rousseau and Voltaire. People at any rate +imagined they were obeying God when they followed Mahomet, and the +Scriptures when they hearkened to Luther. And perhaps one ought not too +much to disparage that inclination which leads mankind to put into the +hands of those whom it thinks the friends of God the direction and +government of its heart and mind. It is the subjection to irreligious +spirits which alone is fatal, and, in the fullest sense of the word, +depraving. + +“May I say it? It is not hard to know God, provided one will not force +oneself to define him. + +“Do not bring into the domain of reasoning that which belongs to our +innermost feeling. State truths of sentiment, and do not try to prove +them. There is a danger in such proofs; for in arguing it is necessary +to treat that which is in question as something problematic: now that +which we accustom ourselves to treat as problematic ends by appearing to +us as really doubtful. In things that are visible and palpable, never +prove what is believed already; in things that are certain and +mysterious,—mysterious by their greatness and by their nature,—make +people believe them, and do not prove them; in things that are matters +of practice and duty, command, and do not explain. ‘Fear God,’ has made +many men pious; the proofs of the existence of God have made many men +atheists. From the defense springs the attack; the advocate begets in +his hearer a wish to pick holes; and men are almost always led on, from +the desire to contradict the doctor, to the desire to contradict the +doctrine. Make truth lovely, and do not try to arm her; mankind will +then be far less inclined to contend with her. + +“Why is even a bad preacher almost always heard by the pious with +pleasure? _Because he talks to them about what they love._ But you who +have to expound religion to children of this world, you who have to +speak to them of that which they once loved perhaps, or which they would +be glad to love,—remember that they do not love it yet, and to make them +love it take heed to speak with power. + +“You may do what you like, mankind will believe no one but God; and he +only can persuade mankind who believes that God has spoken to him. No +one can give faith unless he has faith; the persuaded persuade, as the +indulgent disarm. + +“The only happy people in the world are the good man, the sage, and the +saint; but the saint is happier than either of the others, so much is +man by his nature formed for sanctity.” + +The same delicacy and penetration which he here shows in speaking of the +inward essence of religion. Joubert shows also in speaking of its +outward form, and of its manifestation in the world:— + +“Piety is not a religion, though it is the soul of all religions. A man +has not a religion simply by having pious inclinations, any more than he +has a country simply by having philanthropy. A man has not a country +until he is a citizen in a state, until he undertakes to follow and +uphold certain laws, to obey certain magistrates, and to adopt certain +ways of living and acting. + +“Religion is neither a theology nor a theosophy; it is more than all +this; it is a discipline, a law, a yoke, an indissoluble engagement.” + +Who, again, has ever shown with more truth and beauty the good and +imposing side of the wealth and splendor of the Catholic Church, than +Joubert in the following passage?— + +“The pomps and magnificence with which the Church is reproached are in +truth the result and the proof of her incomparable excellence. From +whence, let me ask, have come this power of hers and these excessive +riches, except from the enchantment into which she threw all the world? +Ravished with her beauty, millions of men from age to age kept loading +her with gifts, bequests, cessions. She had the talent of making herself +loved, and the talent of making men happy. It is that which wrought +prodigies for her; it is from thence that she drew her power.” + +“She had the talent of making herself _feared_,”—one should add that +too, in order to be perfectly just; but Joubert, because he is a true +child of light, can see that the wonderful success of the Catholic +Church must have been due really to her good rather than to her bad +qualities; to her making herself loved rather than to her making herself +feared. + +How striking and suggestive, again, is this remark on the Old and New +Testaments:— + +“The Old Testament teaches the knowledge of good and evil; the Gospel, +on the other hand, seems written for the predestinated; it is the book +of innocence. The one is made for earth, the other seems made for +heaven. According as the one or the other of these books takes hold of a +nation, what may be called the _religious humors_ of nations differ.” + +So the British and North American Puritans are the children of the Old +Testament, as Joachim of Flora and St. Francis are the children of the +New. And does not the following maxim exactly fit the Church of England, +of which Joubert certainly never thought when he was writing it?—“The +austere sects excite the most enthusiasm at first; but the temperate +sects have always been the most durable.” + +And these remarks on the Jansenists and Jesuits, interesting in +themselves, are still more interesting because they touch matters we +cannot well know at first-hand, and which Joubert, an impartial +observer, had had the means of studying closely. We are apt to think of +the Jansenists as having failed by reason of their merits; Joubert shows +us how far their failure was due to their defects:— + +“We ought to lay stress upon what is clear in Scripture, and to pass +quickly over what is obscure; to light up what in Scripture is troubled, +by what is serene in it; what puzzles and checks the reason, by what +satisfies the reason. The Jansenists have done just the reverse. They +lay stress upon what is uncertain, obscure, afflicting, and they pass +lightly over all the rest; they eclipse the luminous and consoling +truths of Scripture, by putting between us and them its opaque and +dismal truths. For example, ‘Many are called;’ there is a clear truth: +‘Few are chosen;’ there is an obscure truth. ‘We are children of wrath;’ +there is a somber, cloudy, terrifying truth: ‘We are all the children of +God;’ ‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance;’ +there are truths which are full of clearness, mildness, serenity, light. +The Jansenists trouble our cheerfulness, and shed no cheering ray on our +trouble. They are not, however, to be condemned for what they say, +because what they say is true; but they are to be condemned for what +they fail to say, for that is true too,—truer, even, than the other; +that is, its truth is easier for us to seize, fuller, rounder, and more +complete. Theology, as the Jansenists exhibit her, has but the half of +her disk.” + +Again:— + +“The Jansenists erect ‘grace’ into a kind of fourth person of the +Trinity. They are, without thinking or intending it, Quaternitarians. +St. Paul and St. Augustine, too exclusively studied, have done all the +mischief. Instead of ‘grace,’ say help, succor, a divine influence, a +dew of heaven; then one can come to a right understanding. The word +‘grace’ is a sort of talisman, all the baneful spell of which can be +broken by translating it. The trick of personifying words is a fatal +source of mischief in theology.” + +Once more:— + +“The Jansenists tell men to love God; the Jesuits make men love him. The +doctrine of these last is full of loosenesses, or, if you will, of +errors; still,—singular as it may seem, it is undeniable,—they are the +better directors of souls. + +“The Jansenists have carried into religion more thought than the +Jesuits, and they go deeper; they are faster bound with its sacred +bonds. They have in their way of thinking an austerity which incessantly +constrains the will to keep the path of duty; all the habits of their +understanding, in short, are more Christian. But they seem to love God +without affection, and solely from reason, from duty, from justice. The +Jesuits, on the other hand, seem to love him from pure inclination; out +of admiration, gratitude, tenderness; for the pleasure of loving him, in +short. In their books of devotion you find joy, because with the Jesuits +nature and religion go hand in hand. In the books of the Jansenists +there is a sadness and a moral constraint, because with the Jansenists +religion is forever trying to put nature in bonds.” + +The Jesuits have suffered, and deservedly suffered, plenty of discredit +from what Joubert gently calls their “loosenesses;” let them have the +merit of their amiability. + +The most characteristic thoughts one can quote from any writer are +always his thoughts on matters like these; but the maxims of Joubert are +purely literary subjects also, have the same purged and subtle delicacy; +they show the same sedulousness in him to preserve perfectly true the +balance of his soul. Let me begin with this, which contains a truth too +many people fail to perceive:— + +“Ignorance, which in matters of morals extenuates the crime, is itself, +in matters of literature, a crime of the first order.” + +And here is another sentence, worthy of Goethe, to clear the air at +one’s entrance into the region of literature:— + +“With the fever of the senses, the delirium of the passions, the +weakness of the spirit; with the storms of the passing time and with the +great scourges of human life,—hunger, thirst, dishonor, diseases, and +death,—authors may as long as they like go on making novels which shall +harrow our hearts; but the soul says all the while, ‘You hurt me.’” + +And again:— + +“Fiction has no business to exist unless it is more beautiful than +reality. Certainly the monstrosities of fiction may be found in the +booksellers’ shops; you buy them there for a certain number of francs, +and you talk of them for a certain number of days; but they have no +place in literature, because in literature the one aim of art is the +beautiful. Once lose sight of that, and you have the mere frightful +reality.” + +That is just the right criticism to pass on these “monstrosities:” _they +have no place in literature_, and those who produce them are not really +men of letters. One would think that this was enough to deter from such +production any man of genuine ambition. But most of us, alas! are what +we must be, not what we ought to be,—not even what we know we ought to +be. + +The following, of which the first part reminds one of Wordsworth’s +sonnet, “If thou indeed derive thy light from heaven,” excellently +defines the true salutary function of literature, and the limits of this +function:— + +“Whether one is an eagle or an ant, in the intellectual world, seems to +me not to matter much; the essential thing is to have one’s place marked +there, one’s station assigned, and to belong decidedly to a regular and +wholesome order. A small talent, if it keeps within its limits and +rightfully fulfils its task, may reach the goal just as well as a +greater one. To accustom mankind to pleasures which depend neither upon +the bodily appetites nor upon money, by giving them a taste for the +things of the mind, seems to me, in fact, the one proper fruit which +nature has meant our literary productions to have. When they have other +fruits, it is by accident, and, in general, not for good. Books which +absorb our attention to such a degree that they rob us of all fancy for +other books, are absolutely pernicious. In this way they only bring +fresh crotchets and sects into the world; they multiply the great +variety of weights, rules, and measures already existing; they are +morally and politically a nuisance.” + +Who can read these words and not think of the limiting effect exercised +by certain works in certain spheres and for certain periods; exercised +even by the works of men of genius or virtue,—by the works of Rousseau, +the works of Wesley, the works of Swedenborg? And what is it which makes +the Bible so admirable a book, to be the one book of those who can have +only one, but the miscellaneous character of the contents of the Bible? + +Joubert was all his life a passionate lover of Plato; I hope other +lovers of Plato will forgive me for saying that their adored object has +never been more truly described than he is here:— + +“Plato shows us nothing, but he brings brightness with him; he puts +light into our eyes, and fills us with a clearness by which all objects +afterwards become illuminated. He teaches us nothing; but he prepares +us, fashions us, and makes us ready to know all. Somehow or other, the +habit of reading him augments in us the capacity for discerning and +entertaining whatever fine truths may afterwards present themselves. +Like mountain-air, it sharpens our organs, and gives us an appetite for +wholesome food.” + +“Plato loses himself in the void” (he says again); “but one sees the +play of his wings, one hears their rustle.” And the conclusion is: “It +is good to breathe his air, but not to live upon him.” + +As a pendant to the criticism on Plato, this on the French moralist +Nicole is excellent:— + +“Nicole is a Pascal without style. It is not what he says which is +sublime, but what he thinks; he rises, not by the natural elevation of +his own spirit, but by that of his doctrines. One must not look to the +form in him, but to the matter, which is exquisite. He ought to be read +with a direct view of practice.” + +English people have hardly ears to hear the praises of Bossuet, and the +Bossuet of Joubert is Bossuet at his very best; but this is a far truer +Bossuet than the “declaimer” Bossuet of Lord Macaulay, himself a born +rhetorician, if ever there was one:— + +“Bossuet employs all our idioms, as Homer employed all the dialects. The +language of kings, of statesmen, and of warriors; the language of the +people and of the student, of the country and of the schools, of the +sanctuary and of the courts of law; the old and the new, the trivial and +the stately, the quiet and the resounding,—he turns all to his use; and +out of all this he makes a style, simple, grave, majestic. His ideas +are, like his words, varied,—common and sublime together. Times and +doctrines in all their multitude were ever before his spirit, as things +and words in all their multitude were ever before it. He is not so much +a man as a human nature, with the temperance of a saint, the justice of +a bishop, the prudence of a doctor, and the might of a great spirit.” + +After this on Bossuet, I must quote a criticism on Racine, to show that +Joubert did not indiscriminately worship all the French gods of the +grand century:— + +“Those who find Racine enough for them are poor souls and poor wits; +they are souls and wits which have never got beyond the callow and +boarding-school stage. Admirable, as no doubt he is, for his skill in +having made poetical the most humdrum sentiments and the most middling +sort of passions, he can yet stand us in stead of nobody but himself. He +is a superior writer; and, in literature, that at once puts a man on a +pinnacle. But he is not an inimitable writer.” + +And again: “The talent of Racine is in his works, but Racine himself is +not there. That is why he himself became disgusted with them.” “Of +Racine, as of his ancients, the genius lay in taste. His elegance is +perfect, but it is not supreme, like that of Virgil.” And, indeed, there +is something _supreme_ in an elegance which exercises such a fascination +as Virgil’s does; which makes one return to his poems again and again, +long after one thinks one has done with them; which makes them one of +those books that, to use Joubert’s words, “lure the reader back to them, +as the proverb says good wine lures back the wine-bibber.” And the +highest praise Joubert can at last find for Racine is this, that he is +the Virgil of the ignorant;—“_Racine est le Virgile des ignorants._” + +Of Boileau, too, Joubert says: “Boileau is a powerful poet, but only in +the world of half poetry.” How true is that of Pope also! And he adds: +“Neither Boileau’s poetry nor Racine’s flows from the fountain-head.” No +Englishman, controverting the exaggerated French estimate of these +poets, could desire to use fitter words. + +I will end with some remarks on Voltaire and Rousseau, remarks in which +Joubert eminently shows his prime merit as a critic,—the soundness and +completeness of his judgments. I mean that he has the faculty of judging +with all the powers of his mind and soul at work together in due +combination; and how rare is this faculty! how seldom is it exercised +towards writers who so powerfully as Voltaire and Rousseau stimulate and +call into activity a single side in us! + +“Voltaire’s wits came to their maturity twenty years sooner than the +wits of other men, and remained in full vigor thirty years longer. The +charm which our style in general gets from our ideas, his ideas get from +his style. Voltaire is sometimes afflicted, sometimes strongly moved; +but serious he never is. His very graces have an effrontery about them. +He had correctness of judgment, liveliness of imagination, nimble wits, +quick taste, and a moral sense in ruins. He is the most debauched of +spirits, and the worst of him is that one gets debauched along with him. +If he had been a wise man, and had had the self-discipline of wisdom, +beyond a doubt half his wit would have been gone; it needed an +atmosphere of _licence_ in order to play freely. Those people who read +him every day, create for themselves, by an invincible law, the +necessity of liking him. But those people who, having given up reading +him, gaze steadily down upon the influences which his spirit has shed +abroad, find themselves in simple justice and duty compelled to detest +him. It is impossible to be satisfied with him, and impossible not to be +fascinated by him.” + +The literary sense in us is apt to rebel against so severe a judgment on +such a charmer of the literary sense as Voltaire, and perhaps we English +are not very liable to catch Voltaire’s vices, while of some of his +merits we have signal need; still, as the real definitive judgment on +Voltaire, Joubert’s is undoubtedly the true one. It is nearly identical +with that of Goethe. Joubert’s sentence on Rousseau is in some respects +more favorable:— + +“That weight in the speaker (_auctoritas_) which the ancients talk of, +is to be found in Bossuet more than in any other French author; Pascal, +too, has it, and La Bruyère; even Rousseau has something of it, but +Voltaire not a particle. I can understand how a Rousseau—I mean a +Rousseau cured of his faults—might at the present day do much good, and +may even come to be greatly wanted; but under no circumstances can a +Voltaire be of any use.” + +The peculiar power of Rousseau’s style has never been better hit off +than in the following passage:— + +“Rousseau imparted, if I may so speak, _bowels of feeling_ to the words +he used (_donna des entrailles à tous les mots_), and poured into them +such a charm, sweetness so penetrating, energy so puissant, that his +writings have an effect upon the soul something like that of those +illicit pleasures which steal away our taste and intoxicate our reason.” + +The final judgment, however, is severe, and justly severe:— + +“Life without actions; life entirely resolved into affections and +half-sensual thoughts; do-nothingness setting up for a virtue; +cowardliness with voluptuousness; fierce pride with nullity underneath +it; the strutting phrase of the most sensual of vagabonds, who has made +his system of philosophy and can give it eloquently forth: there is +Rousseau! A piety in which there is no religion; a severity which brings +corruption with it; a dogmatism which serves to ruin all authority: +there is Rousseau’s philosophy! To all tender, ardent, and elevated +natures, I say: Only Rousseau can detach you from religion, and only +true religion can cure you of Rousseau.” + +I must yet find room, before I end, for one at least of Joubert’s +sayings on political matters; here, too, the whole man shows himself; +and here, too, the affinity with Coleridge is very remarkable. How true, +how true in France especially, is this remark on the contrasting +direction taken by the aspirations of the community in ancient and in +modern states:— + +“The ancients were attached to their country by three things,—their +temples, their tombs, and their forefathers. The two great bonds which +united them to their government were the bonds of habit and antiquity. +With the moderns, hope and the love of novelty have produced a total +change. The ancients said _our forefathers_, we say _posterity_: we do +not, like them, love our _patria_, that is to say, the country and the +laws of our fathers, rather we love the laws and the country of our +children; the charm we are most sensible to is the charm of the future, +and not the charm of the past.” + +And how keen and true is this criticism on the changed sense of the word +“liberty”:— + +“A great many words have changed their meaning. The word _liberty_, for +example, had at bottom among the ancients the same meaning as the word +_dominion_. _I would be free_ meant, in the mouth of the ancient, _I +would take part in governing or administering the State_; in the mouth +of a modern it means, _I would be independent_. The word _liberty_ has +with us a moral sense; with them its sense was purely political.” + +Joubert had lived through the French Revolution, and to the modern cry +for liberty he was prone to answer:— + +“Let your cry be for free souls rather even than for free men. Moral +liberty is the one vitally important liberty, the one liberty which is +indispensable; the other liberty is good and salutary only so far as it +favors this. Subordination is in itself a better thing than +independence. The one implies order and arrangement; the other implies +only self-sufficiency with isolation. The one means harmony, the other a +single tone; the one is the whole, the other is but the part.” + +“Liberty! liberty!” he cries again; “in all things let us have +_justice_, and then we shall have enough liberty.” + +Let us have justice, and then we shall have enough liberty! The wise man +will never refuse to echo those words; but then, such is the +imperfection of human governments, that almost always, in order to get +justice, one has first to secure liberty. + +I do not hold up Joubert as a very astonishing and powerful genius, but +rather as a delightful and edifying genius. I have not cared to exhibit +him as a sayer of brilliant epigrammatic things, such things as “Notre +vie est du vent tissu . . . les dettes abrègent la vie . . . celui qui a +de l’imagination sans érudition a des ailes et n’a pas de pieds (_Our +life is woven wind_ . . . _debts take from life_ . . . _the man of +imagination without learning has wings and no feet_),” though for such +sayings he is famous. In the first place, the French language is in +itself so favorable a vehicle for such sayings, that the making them in +it has the less merit; at least half the merit ought to go, not to the +maker of the saying, but to the French language. In the second place, +the peculiar beauty of Joubert is not there; it is not in what is +exclusively intellectual,—it is in the union of _soul_ with intellect, +and in the delightful, satisfying result which this union produces. +“Vivre, c’est penser et sentir son âme . . . le bonheur est de sentir +son âme bonne ... toute vérité nue et crue n’a pas assez passé par l’âme +... les hommes ne sont justes qu’envers ceux qu’ils aiment (_The essence +of life lies in thinking and being conscious of one’s soul ... happiness +is the sense of one’s soul being good ... if a truth is nude and crude, +that is a proof it has not been steeped long enough in the soul, ... man +cannot even be just to his neighbor, unless he loves him_);” it is much +rather in sayings like these that Joubert’s best and innermost nature +manifests itself. He is the most prepossessing and convincing of +witnesses to the good of loving light. Because he sincerely loved light, +and did not prefer to it any little private darkness of his own, he +found light; his eye was single, and therefore his whole body was full +of light. And because he was full of light, he was also full of +happiness. In spite of his infirmities, in spite of his sufferings, in +spite of his obscurity, he was the happiest man alive; his life was as +charming as his thoughts. For certainly it is natural that the love of +light, which is already, in some measure, the possession of light, +should irradiate and beatify the whole life of him who has it. There is +something unnatural and shocking where, as in the case of Coleridge, it +does not. Joubert pains us by no such contradiction; “the same +penetration of spirit which made him such delightful company to his +friends, served also to make him perfect in his own personal life, by +enabling him always to perceive and do what was right;” he loved and +sought light till he became so habituated to it, so accustomed to the +joyful testimony of a good conscience, that, to use his own words, “he +could no longer exist without this, and was obliged to live without +reproach if he would live without misery.” + +Joubert was not famous while he lived, and he will not be famous now +that he is dead. But, before we pity him for this, let us be sure what +we mean, in literature, by _famous_. There are the famous men of +genius in literature,—the Homers, Dantes, Shakspeares: of them we need +not speak; their praise is forever and ever. Then there are the famous +men of ability in literature: their praise is in their own generation. +And what makes this difference? The work of the two orders of men is +at the bottom the same,—_a criticism of life_. The end and aim of all +literature, if one considers it attentively, is, in truth, nothing but +that. But the criticism which the men of genius pass upon human life +is permanently acceptable to mankind; the criticism which the men of +ability pass upon human life is transitorily acceptable. Between +Shakspeare’s criticism of human life and Scribe’s the difference is +there;—the one is permanently acceptable, the other transitorily. +Whence then, I repeat, this difference? It is that the acceptableness +of Shakspeare’s criticism depends upon its inherent truth: the +acceptableness of Scribe’s upon its suiting itself, by its +subject-matter, ideas, mode of treatment, to the taste of the +generation that hears it. But the taste and ideas of one generation +are not those of the next. This next generation in its turn +arrives;—first its sharpshooters, its quick-witted, audacious light +troops; then the elephantine main body. The imposing array of its +predecessor it confidently assails, riddles it with bullets, passes +over its body. It goes hard then with many once popular reputations, +with many authorities once oracular. Only two kinds of authors are +safe in the general havoc. The first kind are the great abounding +fountains of truth, whose criticism of life is a source of +illumination and joy to the whole human race forever,—the Homers, the +Shakspeares. These are the sacred personages, whom all civilized +warfare respects. The second are those whom the out-skirmishers of the +new generation, its forerunners,—quick-witted soldiers, as I have +said, the select of the army,—recognize, though the bulk of their +comrades behind might not, as of the same family and character with +the sacred personages, exercising like them an immortal function, and +like them inspiring a permanent interest. They snatch them up, and set +them in a place of shelter, where the on-coming multitude may not +overwhelm them. These are the Jouberts. They will never, like the +Shakspeares, command the homage of the multitude; but they are safe; +the multitude will not trample them down. Except these two kinds, no +author is safe. Let us consider, for example, Joubert’s famous +contemporary, Lord Jeffrey. All his vivacity and accomplishment avail +him nothing; of the true critic he had in an eminent degree no +quality, except one,—curiosity. Curiosity he had, but he had no gift +for truth; he cannot illuminate and rejoice us; no intelligent +out-skirmisher of the new generation cares about him, cares to put him +in safety; at this moment we are all passing over his body. Let us +consider a greater than Jeffrey, a critic whose reputation still +stands firm,—will stand, many people think, forever,—the great apostle +of the Philistines, Lord Macaulay. Lord Macaulay was, as I have +already said, a born rhetorician; a splendid rhetorician doubtless, +and, beyond that, an _English_ rhetorician also, an _honest_ +rhetorician; still, beyond the apparent rhetorical truth of things he +never could penetrate; for their vital truth, for what the French call +the _vraie vérité_, he had absolutely no organ; therefore his +reputation, brilliant as it is, is not secure. Rhetoric so good as his +excites and gives pleasure; but by pleasure alone you cannot +permanently bind men’s spirits to you. Truth illuminates and gives +joy, and it is by the bond of joy, not of pleasure, that men’s spirits +are indissolubly held. As Lord Macaulay’s own generation dies out, as +a new generation arrives, without those ideas and tendencies of its +predecessor which Lord Macaulay so deeply shared and so happily +satisfied, will he give the same pleasure? and, if he ceases to give +this, has he enough of light in him to make him last? Pleasure the new +generation will get from its own novel ideas and tendencies; but light +is another and a rarer thing, and must be treasured where-ever it can +be found. Will Macaulay be saved, in the sweep and pressure of time, +for his light’s sake, as Johnson has already been saved by two +generations, Joubert by one? I think it very doubtful. But for a +spirit of any delicacy and dignity, what a fate, if he could foresee +it! to be an oracle for one generation, and then of little or no +account forever. How far better, to pass with scant notice through +one’s own generation, but to be singled out and preserved by the very +iconoclasts of the next, then in their turn by those of the next, and +so, like the lamp of life itself, to be handed on from one generation +to another in safety! This is Joubert’s lot, and it is a very enviable +one. The new men of the new generations, while they let the dust +deepen on a thousand Laharpes, will say of him: “He lived in the +Philistine’s day, in a place and time when almost every idea current +in literature had the mark of Dagon upon it, and not the mark of the +children of light. Nay, the children of light were as yet hardly so +much as heard of: the Canaanite was then in the land. Still, there +were even then a few, who, nourished on some secret tradition, or +illumined, perhaps, by a divine inspiration, kept aloof from the +reigning superstitions, never bowed the knee to the gods of Canaan; +and one of these few was called _Joubert_.” + + + + + IX. + + SPINOZA AND THE BIBLE. + + +“By the sentence of the angels, by the decree of the saints, we +anathematize, cut off, curse, and execrate Baruch Spinoza, in the +presence of these sacred books with the six hundred and thirteen +precepts which are written therein, with the anathema wherewith Joshua +anathematized Jericho; with the cursing wherewith Elisha cursed the +children; and with all the cursings which are written in the Book of the +Law: cursed be he by day, and cursed by night; cursed when he lieth +down, and cursed when he riseth up; cursed when he goeth out, and cursed +when he cometh in; the Lord pardon him never; the wrath and fury of the +Lord burn upon this man, and bring upon him all the curses which are +written in the Book of the Law. The Lord blot out his name under heaven. +The Lord set him apart for destruction from all the tribes of Israel, +with all the curses of the firmament which are written in the Book of +this Law.... There shall be no man speak to him, no man write to him, no +man show him any kindness, no man stay under the same roof with him, no +man come nigh him.” + +With these amenities, the current compliments of theological parting, +the Jews of the Portuguese synagogue at Amsterdam took in 1656 (and not +in 1660, as has till now been commonly supposed) their leave of their +erring brother, Baruch or Benedict Spinoza. They remained children of +Israel, and he became a child of modern Europe. + +That was in 1656, and Spinoza died in 1677, at the early age of +forty-four. Glory had not found him out. His short life—a life of +unbroken diligence, kindliness, and purity—was passed in seclusion. But +in spite of that seclusion, in spite of the shortness of his career, in +spite of the hostility of the dispensers of renown in the 18th +century,—of Voltaire’s disparagement and Bayle’s detraction,—in spite of +the repellent form which he has given to his principal work, in spite of +the exterior semblance of a rigid dogmatism alien to the most essential +tendencies of modern philosophy, in spite, finally, of the immense +weight of disfavor cast upon him by the long-repeated charge of atheism, +Spinoza’s name has silently risen in importance, the man and his work +have attracted a steadily increasing notice, and bid fair to become soon +what they deserve to become,—in the history of modern philosophy the +central point of interest. An avowed translation of one of his +works,—his _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_,—has at last made its +appearance in English. It is the principal work which Spinoza published +in his lifetime; his book on ethics, the work on which his fame rests, +is posthumous. + +The English translator has not done his task well. Of the character of +his version there can, I am afraid, be no doubt; one such passage as the +following is decisive:— + +“I confess that, _while with them_ (the theologians) _I have never been +able sufficiently to admire the unfathomed mysteries of Scripture, I +have still found them giving utterance to nothing but Aristotelian and +Platonic speculations_, artfully dressed up and cunningly accommodated +to Holy Writ, lest the speakers should show themselves too plainly to +belong to the sect of the Grecian heathens. _Nor was it enough for these +men to discourse with the Greeks; they have further taken to raving with +the Hebrew prophets._” + +This professes to be a translation of these words of Spinoza: “Fateor, +eos nunquam satis mirari potuisse Scripturæ profundissima mysteria; +attamen præter Aristotelicorum vel Platonicorum speculationes nihil +docuisse video, atque his, ne gentiles sectari viderentur, Scripturam +accommodaverunt. Non satis his fuit cum Graecis insanire, sed prophetas +cum iisdem deliravisse voluerunt.” After one such specimen of a +translator’s force, the experienced reader has a sort of instinct that +he may as well close the book at once, with a smile or a sigh, according +as he happens to be a follower of the weeping or of the laughing +philosopher. If, in spite of this instinct, he persists in going on with +the English version of the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_, he will +find many more such specimens. It is not, however, my intention to fill +my space with these, or with strictures upon their author. I prefer to +remark, that he renders a service to literary history by pointing out, +in his preface, how “to Bayle may be traced the disfavor in which the +name of Spinoza was so long held;” that, in his observations on the +system of the Church of England, he shows a laudable freedom from the +prejudices of ordinary English Liberals of that advanced school to which +he clearly belongs; and lastly, that, though he manifests little +familiarity with Latin, he seems to have considerable familiarity with +philosophy, and to be well able to follow and comprehend speculative +reasoning. Let me advise him to unite his forces with those of some one +who has that accurate knowledge of Latin which he himself has not, and +then, perhaps, of that union a really good translation of Spinoza will +be the result. And, having given him this advice, let me again turn, for +a little, to the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_ itself. + +This work, as I have already said, is a work on the interpretation of +Scripture,—it treats of the Bible. What was it exactly which Spinoza +thought about the Bible and its inspiration? That will be, at the +present moment, the central point of interest for the English readers of +his Treatise. Now, it is to be observed, that just on this very point +the Treatise, interesting and remarkable as it is, will fail to satisfy +the reader. It is important to seize this notion quite firmly, and not +to quit hold of it while one is reading Spinoza’s work. The scope of +that work is this. Spinoza sees that the life and practice of Christian +nations professing the religion of the Bible, are not the due fruits of +the religion of the Bible; he sees only hatred, bitterness, and strife, +where he might have expected to see love, joy, and peace in believing; +and he asks himself the reason of this. The reason is, he says, that +these people misunderstand their Bible. Well, then, is his conclusion, I +will write a _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_. I will show these people, +that, taking the Bible for granted, taking it to be all which it asserts +itself to be, taking it to have all the authority which it claims, it is +not what they imagine it to be, it does not say what they imagine it to +say. I will show them what it really does say, and I will show them that +they will do well to accept this real teaching of the Bible, instead of +the phantom with which they have so long been cheated. I will show their +governments that they will do well to remodel the national churches, to +make of them institutions informed with the spirit of the true Bible, +instead of institutions informed with the spirit of this false phantom. + +The comments of men, Spinoza said, had been foisted into the Christian +religion; the pure teaching of God had been lost sight of. He +determined, therefore, to go again to the Bible, to read it over and +over with a perfectly unprejudiced mind, and to accept nothing as its +teaching which it did not clearly teach. He began by constructing a +method, or set of conditions indispensable for the adequate +interpretation of Scripture. These conditions are such, he points out, +that a perfectly adequate interpretation of Scripture is now impossible. +For example, to understand any prophet thoroughly, we ought to know the +life, character, and pursuits of that prophet, under what circumstances +his book was composed, and in what state and through what hands it has +come down to us; and, in general, most of this we cannot now know. +Still, the main sense of the Books of Scripture may be clearly seized by +us. Himself a Jew with all the learning of his nation, and a man of the +highest natural powers, Spinoza had in the difficult task of seizing +this sense every aid which special knowledge or pre-eminent faculties +could supply. + +In what then, he asks, does Scripture, interpreted by its own aid, and +not by the aid of Rabbinical traditions or Greek philosophy, allege its +own divinity to consist? In a revelation given by God to the prophets. +Now all knowledge is a divine revelation; but prophecy, as represented +in Scripture, is one of which the laws of human nature, considered in +themselves alone, cannot be the cause. Therefore nothing must be +asserted about it, except what is clearly declared by the prophets +themselves; for they are our only source of knowledge on a matter which +does not fall within the scope of our ordinary knowing faculties. But +ignorant people, not knowing the Hebrew genius and phraseology, and not +attending to the circumstances of the speaker, often imagine the +prophets, to assert things which they do not. + +The prophets clearly declare themselves to have received the revelation +of God through the means of words and images;—not, as Christ, through +immediate communication of the mind with the mind of God. Therefore the +prophets excelled other men by the power and vividness of their +representing and imagining faculty, not by the perfection of their mind. +This is why they perceived almost everything through figures, and +express themselves so variously, and so improperly, concerning the +nature of God. Moses imagined that God could be seen, and attributed to +him the passions of anger and jealousy; Micaiah imagined him sitting on +a throne, with the host of heaven on his right and left hand; Daniel as +an old man, with a white garment and white hair; Ezekiel as a fire; the +disciples of Christ thought they saw the Spirit of God in the form of a +dove; the apostles in the form of fiery tongues. + +Whence, then, could the prophets be certain of the truth of a revelation +which they received through the imagination, and not by a mental +process?—for only an idea can carry the sense of its own certainty along +with it, not an imagination. To make them certain of the truth of what +was revealed to them, a reasoning process came in; they had to rely on +the testimony of a sign; and (above all) on the testimony of their own +conscience, that they were good men, and spoke for God’s sake. Either +testimony was incomplete without the other. Even the good prophet needed +for his message the confirmation of a sign; but the bad prophet, the +utterer of an immoral doctrine, had no certainty for his doctrine, no +truth in it, even though he confirmed it by a sign. The testimony of a +good conscience was, therefore, the prophet’s grand source of certitude. +Even this, however, was only a moral certitude, not a mathematical; for +no man can be perfectly sure of his own goodness. + +The power of imagining, the power of feeling what goodness is, and the +habit of practising goodness, were therefore the sole essential +qualifications of a true prophet. But for the purpose of the message, +the revelation, which God designed him to convey, these qualifications +were enough. The sum and substance of this revelation was simply: +_Believe in God, and lead a good life_. To be the organ of this +revelation, did not make a man more learned; it left his scientific +knowledge as it found it. This explains the contradictory and +speculatively false opinions about God, and the laws of nature, which +the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles entertained. Abraham and the +patriarchs knew God only as _El Sadai_, the power which gives to every +man that which suffices him; Moses knew him as _Jehovah_, a +self-existent being, but imagined him with the passions of a man. Samuel +imagined that God could not repent of his sentences; Jeremiah, that he +could. Joshua, on a day of great victory, the ground being white with +hail, seeing the daylight last longer than usual, and imaginatively +seizing this as a special sign of the help divinely promised to him, +declared that the sun was standing still. To be obeyers of God +themselves, and inspired leaders of others to obedience and good life, +did not make Abraham and Moses metaphysicians, or Joshua a natural +philosopher. His revelation no more changed the speculative opinions of +each prophet, than it changed his temperament or style. The wrathful +Elisha required the natural sedative of music, before he could be the +messenger of good fortune to Jehoram. The high-bred Isaiah and Nahum +have the style proper to their condition, and the rustic Ezekiel and +Amos the style proper to theirs. We are not therefore bound to pay heed +to the speculative opinions of this or that prophet, for in uttering +these he spoke as a mere man: only in exhorting his hearers to obey God +and lead a good life was he the organ of a divine revelation. + +To know and love God is the highest blessedness of man, and of all men +alike; to this all mankind are called, and not any one nation in +particular. The divine law, properly named, is the method of life for +attaining this height of human blessedness: this law is universal, +written in the heart, and one for all mankind. Human law is the method +of life for attaining and preserving temporal security and prosperity: +this law is dictated by a lawgiver, and every nation has its own. In the +case of the Jews, this law was dictated, by revelation, through the +prophets; its fundamental precept was to obey God and to keep his +commandments, and it is therefore, in a secondary sense, called divine; +but it was, nevertheless, framed in respect of temporal things only. +Even the truly moral and divine precept of this law, to practise for +God’s sake justice and mercy towards one’s neighbor, meant for the +Hebrew of the Old Testament this Hebrew neighbor only, and had respect +to the concord and stability of the Hebrew commonwealth. The Jews were +to obey God and to keep his commandments, that they might continue long +in the land given to them, and that it might be well with them there. +Their election was a temporal one, and lasted only so long as their +State. It is now over; and the only election the Jews now have is that +of the _pious_, the _remnant_ which takes place, and has always taken +place, in every other nation also. Scripture itself teaches that there +is a universal divine law, that this is common to all nations alike, and +is the law which truly confers eternal blessedness. Solomon, the wisest +of the Jews, knew this law, as the few wisest men in all nations have +ever known it; but for the mass of the Jews, as for the mass of mankind +everywhere, this law was hidden, and they had no notion of its moral +action, its _vera vita_ which conducts to eternal blessedness, except so +far as this action was enjoined upon them by the prescriptions of their +temporal law. When the ruin of their State brought with it the ruin of +their temporal law, they would have lost altogether their only clue to +eternal blessedness. + +Christ came when that fabric of the Jewish State, for the sake of +which the Jewish law existed, was about to fall; and he proclaimed the +universal divine law. A certain moral action is prescribed by this +law, as a certain moral action was prescribed by the Jewish law: but +he who truly conceives the universal divine law conceives God’s +decrees adequately as eternal truths, and for him moral action has +liberty and self-knowledge; while the prophets of the Jewish law +inadequately conceived God’s decrees as mere rules and commands, and +for them moral action had no liberty and no self-knowledge. Christ, +who beheld the decrees of God as God himself beholds them,—as eternal +truths,—proclaimed the love of God and the love of our neighbor as +_commands_, only because of the ignorance of the multitude: to those +to whom it was “given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God,” he +announced them, as he himself perceived them, as eternal truths. And +the apostles, like Christ, spoke to many of their hearers “as unto +carnal not spiritual;” presented to them, that is, the love of God and +their neighbor as a divine command authenticated by the life and death +of Christ, not as an eternal idea of reason carrying its own warrant +along with it. The presentation of it as this latter their hearers +“were not able to bear.” The apostles, moreover, though they preached +and confirmed their doctrine by signs as prophets, wrote their +Epistles, not as prophets, but as doctors and reasoners. The +essentials of their doctrine, indeed, they took not from reason, but, +like the prophets, from fact and revelation; they preached belief in +God and goodness of life as a catholic religion existing by virtue of +the passion of Christ, as the prophets had preached belief in God and +goodness of life as a national religion existing by virtue of the +Mosaic covenant: but while the prophets announced their message in a +form purely dogmatical the apostles developed theirs with the forms of +reasoning and argumentation, according to each apostle’s ability and +way of thinking, and as they might best commend their message to their +hearers; and for their reasonings they themselves claim no divine +authority, submitting them to the judgment of their hearers. Thus each +apostle built essential religion on a non-essential foundation of his +own, and, as St. Paul says, avoided building on the foundations of +another apostle, which might be quite different from his own. Hence +the discrepancies between the doctrine of one apostle and +another,—between that of St. Paul, for example, and that of St. James; +but these discrepancies are in the non-essentials not given to them by +revelation, and not in essentials. Human churches, seizing these +discrepant non-essentials as essentials, one maintaining one of them, +another another, have filled the world with unprofitable disputes, +have “turned the Church into an academy, and religion into a science, +or rather a wrangling,” and have fallen into endless schism. + +What, then, are the essentials of religion according both to the Old and +to the New Testament? Very few and very simple. The precept to love God +and our neighbor. The precepts of the first chapter of Isaiah: “Wash +you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine +eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the +oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for the widow.” The precepts of +the Sermon on the Mount, which add to the foregoing the injunction that +we should cease to do evil and learn to do well, not to our brethren and +fellow-citizens only, but to all mankind. It is by following these +precepts that belief in God is to be shown: if we believe in him, we +shall keep his commandment; and this is his commandment, that we love +one another. It is because it contains these precepts that the Bible is +properly called the Word of God, in spite of its containing much that is +mere history, and, like all history, sometimes true, sometimes false; in +spite of its containing much that is mere reasoning, and, like all +reasoning, sometimes sound, sometimes hollow. These precepts are also +the precepts of the universal divine law written in our hearts; and it +is only by this that the divinity of Scripture is established;—by its +containing, namely, precepts identical with those of this inly-written +and self-proving law. This law was in the world, as St. John says, +before the doctrine of Moses or the doctrine of Christ. And what need +was there, then, for these doctrines? Because the world at large “knew +not” this original divine law, in which precepts are ideas, and the +belief in God the knowledge and contemplation of him. Reason gives us +this law, reason tells us that it leads to eternal blessedness, and that +those who follow it have no need of any other. But reason could not have +told us that the moral action of the universal divine law,—followed not +from a sense of its intrinsic goodness, truth, and necessity, but simply +in proof of obedience (for both the Old and New Testament are but one +long discipline of obedience), simply because it is so commanded by +Moses in virtue of the covenant, simply because it is so commanded by +Christ in virtue of his life and passion,—can lead to eternal +blessedness, which means, for reason, eternal knowledge. Reason could +not have told us this, and this is what the Bible tells us. This is that +“thing which had been kept secret since the foundation of the world.” It +is thus that by means of the foolishness of the world God confounds the +wise, and with things that are not brings to nought things that are. Of +the truth of the promise thus made to obedience without knowledge, we +can have no mathematical certainty; for we can have a mathematical +certainty only of things deduced by reason from elements which she in +herself possesses. But we can have a moral certainty of it; a certainty +such as the prophets had themselves, arising out of the goodness and +pureness of those to whom this revelation has been made, and rendered +possible for us by its contradicting no principles of reason. It is a +great comfort to believe it; because “as it is only the very small +minority who can pursue a virtuous life by the sole guidance of reason, +we should, unless we had this testimony of Scripture, be in doubt +respecting the salvation of nearly the whole human race.” + +It follows from this that philosophy has her own independent sphere, and +theology hers, and that neither has the right to invade and try to +subdue the other. Theology demands perfect obedience, philosophy perfect +knowledge; the obedience demanded by theology and the knowledge demanded +by philosophy are alike saving. As speculative opinions about God, +theology requires only such as are indispensable to the reality of this +obedience; the belief that God is, that he is a rewarder of them that +seek him, and that the proof of seeking him is a good life. These are +the fundamentals of faith, and they are so clear and simple that none of +the inaccuracies provable in the Bible narrative the least affect them, +and they have indubitably come to us uncorrupted. He who holds them may +make, as the patriarchs and prophets did, other speculations about God +most erroneous, and yet their faith is complete and saving. Nay, beyond +these fundamentals, speculative opinions are pious or impious, not as +they are true or false, but as they confirm or shake the believer in the +practice of obedience. The truest speculative opinion about the nature +of God is impious if it makes its holder rebellious; the falsest +speculative opinion is pious if it makes him obedient. Governments +should never render themselves the tools of ecclesiastical ambition by +promulgating as fundamentals of the national Church’s faith more than +these, and should concede the fullest liberty of speculation. + +But the multitude, which respects only what astonishes, terrifies, and +overwhelms it, by no means takes this simple view of its own religion. +To the multitude, religion seems imposing only when it is subversive of +reason, confirmed by miracles, conveyed in documents materially sacred +and infallible, and dooming to damnation all without its pale. But this +religion of the multitude is not the religion which a true +interpretation of Scripture finds in Scripture. Reason tells us that a +miracle,—understanding by a miracle a breach of the laws of nature,—is +impossible, and that to think it possible is to dishonor God; for the +laws of nature are the laws of God, and to say that God violates the +laws of nature is to say that he violates his own nature. Reason sees, +too, that miracles can never attain their professed object,—that of +bringing us to a higher knowledge of God; since our knowledge of God is +raised only by perfecting and clearing our conceptions, and the alleged +design of miracles is to baffle them. But neither does Scripture +anywhere assert, as a general truth, that miracles are possible. Indeed, +it asserts the contrary; for Jeremiah declares that Nature follows an +invariable order. Scripture, however, like Nature herself, does not lay +down speculative propositions (_Scriptura definitiones non tradit, ut +nec etiam natura_). It relates matters in such an order and with such +phraseology as a speaker (often not perfectly instructed himself) who +wanted to impress his hearers with a lively sense of God’s greatness and +goodness would naturally employ; as Moses, for instance, relates to the +Israelites the passage of the Red Sea without any mention of the east +wind which attended it, and which is brought accidentally to our +knowledge in another place. So that to know exactly what Scripture means +in the relation of each seeming miracle, we ought to know (besides the +tropes and phrases of the Hebrew language) the circumstances, and +also,—since every one is swayed in his manner of presenting facts by his +own preconceived opinions, and we have seen what those of the prophets +were,—the preconceived opinions of each speaker. But this mode of +interpreting Scripture is fatal to the vulgar notion of its verbal +inspiration, of a sanctity and absolute truth in all the words and +sentences of which it is composed. This vulgar notion is, indeed, a +palpable error. It is demonstrable from the internal testimony of the +Scriptures themselves, that the books from the first of the Pentateuch +to the last of Kings were put together, after the first destruction of +Jerusalem, by a compiler (probably Ezra) who designed to relate the +history of the Jewish people from its origin to that destruction; it is +demonstrable, moreover, that the compiler did not put his last hand to +the work, but left it with its extracts from various and conflicting +sources sometimes unreconciled, left it with errors of text and +unsettled readings. The prophetic books are mere fragments of the +prophets, collected by the Rabbins where they could find them, and +inserted in the Canon according to their discretion. They, at first, +proposed to admit neither the Book of Proverbs nor the Book of +Ecclesiastes into the Canon, and only admitted them because there were +found in them passages which commended the law of Moses. Ezekiel also +they had determined to exclude; but one of their number remodeled him, +so as to procure his admission. The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and +Daniel are the work of a single author, and were not written till after +Judas Maccabeus had restored the worship of the Temple. The Book of +Psalms was collected and arranged at the same time. Before this time, +there was no Canon of the sacred writings, and the great synagogue, by +which the Canon was fixed, was first convened after the Macedonian +conquest of Asia. Of that synagogue none of the prophets were members; +the learned men who composed it were guided by their own fallible +judgment. In like manner the uninspired judgment of human counsels +determined the Canon of the New Testament. + + +Such, reduced to the briefest and plainest terms possible, stripped of +the developments and proofs with which he delivers it, and divested of +the metaphysical language in which much of it is clothed by him, is the +doctrine of Spinoza’s treatise on the interpretation of Scripture. By +the whole scope and drift of its argument, by the spirit in which the +subject is throughout treated, his work undeniably is most interesting +and stimulating to the general culture of Europe. There are errors and +contradictions in Scripture; and the question which the general culture +of Europe, well aware of this, asks with real interest is: What then? +What follows from all this? What change is it, if true, to produce in +the relations of mankind to the Christian religion? If the old theory of +Scripture inspiration is to be abandoned, what place is the Bible +henceforth to hold among books? What is the new Christianity to be like? +How are governments to deal with National Churches founded to maintain a +very different conception of Christianity? Spinoza addresses himself to +these questions. All secondary points of criticism he touches with the +utmost possible brevity. He points out that Moses could never have +written: “And the Canaanite was then in the land,” because the Canaanite +was in the land still at the death of Moses. He points out that Moses +could never have written: “There arose not a prophet since in Israel +like unto Moses.” He points out how such a passage as, “These are the +kings that reigned in Edom _before there reigned any king over the +children of Israel_,” clearly indicates an author writing not before the +times of the Kings. He points out how the account of Og’s iron bedstead: +“Only Og the king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, +his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the +children of Ammon?”—probably indicates an author writing after David had +taken Rabbath, and found there “abundance of spoil,” amongst it this +iron bedstead, the gigantic relic of another age. He points out how the +language of this passage, and of such a passage as that in the Book of +Samuel: “Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, thus +he spake: Come and let us go to the seer; for he that is now called +prophet was aforetime called seer”—is certainly the language of a writer +describing the events of a long-past age, and not the language of a +contemporary. But he devotes to all this no more space than is +absolutely necessary. He apologizes for delaying over such matters so +long: _non est cur circa hæc diu detinear—nolo tædiosâ lectione lectorem +detinere_. For him the interesting question is, not whether the +fanatical devotee of the letter is to continue, for a longer or for a +shorter time, to believe that Moses sate in the land of Moab writing the +description of his own death, but what he is to believe when he does not +believe this. Is he to take for the guidance of his life a great gloss +put upon the Bible by theologians, who, “not content with going mad +themselves with Plato and Aristotle, want to make Christ and the +prophets go mad with them too,”—or the Bible itself? Is he to be +presented by his national church with metaphysical formularies for his +creed, or with the real fundamentals of Christianity? If with the +former, religion will never produce its due fruits. A few elect will +still be saved; but the vast majority of mankind will remain without +grace and without good works, hateful and hating one another. Therefore +he calls urgently upon governments to make the national church what it +should be. This is the conclusion of the whole matter for him; a fervent +appeal to the State, to save us from the untoward generation of +metaphysical Article-makers. And therefore, anticipating Mr. Gladstone, +he called his book _The Church in its Relations with the State_. + +Such is really the scope of Spinoza’s work. He pursues a great object, +and pursues it with signal ability. But it is important to observe that +he nowhere distinctly gives his own opinion about the Bible’s +fundamental character. He takes the Bible as it stands, as he might take +the phenomena of nature, and he discusses it as he finds it. Revelation +differs from natural knowledge, he says, not by being more divine or +more certain than natural knowledge, but by being conveyed in a +different way; it differs from it because it is a knowledge “of which +the laws of human nature considered in themselves alone cannot be the +cause.” What is really its cause, he says, we need not here inquire +(_verum nec nobis jam opus est propheticæ cognitionis causam scire_), +for we take Scripture, which contains this revelation, as it stands, and +do not ask how it arose (_documentorum causas nihil curamus_). + +Proceeding on this principle, Spinoza leaves the attentive reader +somewhat baffled and disappointed, clear, as is his way of treating his +subject, and remarkable as are the conclusions with which he presents +us. He starts we feel, from what is to him a hypothesis, and we want to +know what he really thinks about this hypothesis. His greatest novelties +are all within limits fixed for him by this hypothesis. He says that the +voice which called Samuel was an imaginary voice; he says that the +waters of the Red Sea retreated before a strong wind; he says that the +Shunammite’s son was revived by the natural heat of Elisha’s body; he +says that the rainbow which was made a sign to Noah appeared in the +ordinary course of nature. Scripture itself, rightly interpreted, says, +he affirms, all this. But he asserts that the divine voice which uttered +the commandments on Mount Sinai was a real voice _vera vox_. He says, +indeed, that this voice could not really give to the Israelites that +proof which they imagined it gave to them of the existence of God, and +that God on Sinai was dealing with the Israelites only according to +their imperfect knowledge. Still he asserts the divine voice to have +been a real one; and for this reason, that we do violence to Scripture +if we do not admit it to have been a real one (_nisi Scripturæ vim +inferre velimus, omnino concedendum est, Israëlitas veram vocem +audivisse_). The attentive reader wants to know what Spinoza himself +thought about this _vera vox_ and its possibility; he is much more +interested in knowing this than in knowing what Spinoza considered +Scripture to affirm about the matter. + +The feeling of perplexity thus caused is not diminished by the language +of the chapter on miracles. In this chapter Spinoza broadly affirms a +miracle to be an impossibility. But he himself contrasts the method of +demonstration _à priori_, by which he claims to have established this +proposition, with the method which he has pursued in treating of +prophetic revelation. “This revelation,” he says, “is a matter out of +human reach, and therefore I was bound to take it as I found it.” +_Monere volo, me aliâ prorsus methodo circa miracula processisse, quam +circa prophetiam ... quod etiam consulto feci, quia de prophetiâ, +quandoquidem ipsa captum humanum superat et quæstio mere theologica est, +nihil affirmare, neque etiam scire poteram in quo ipsa potissimum +constiterit, nisi ex fundamentis revelatis._ The reader feels that +Spinoza, proceeding on a hypothesis, has presented him with the +assertion of a miracle, and afterwards, proceeding _à priori_, has +presented him with the assertion that a miracle is impossible. He feels +that Spinoza does not adequately reconcile these two assertions by +declaring that any event really miraculous, if found recorded in +Scripture, must be “a spurious addition made to Scripture by +sacrilegious men.” Is, then, he asks the _vera vox_ of Mount Sinai in +Spinoza’s opinion a spurious addition made to Scripture by sacrilegious +men; or, if not, how is it not miraculous? + +Spinoza, in his own mind, regarded the Bible as a vast collection of +miscellaneous documents, many of them quite disparate and not at all to +be harmonized with others; documents of unequal value and of varying +applicability, some of them conveying ideas salutary for one time, +others for another. But in the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_ he by no +means always deals in this free spirit with the Bible. Sometimes he +chooses to deal with it in the spirit of the veriest worshiper of the +letter; sometimes he chooses to treat the Bible as if all its parts were +(so to speak) equipollent; to snatch an isolated text which suits his +purpose, without caring whether it is annulled by the context, by the +general drift of Scripture, or by other passages of more weight and +authority. The great critic thus becomes voluntarily as uncritical as +Exeter Hall. The Epicurean Solomon, whose _Ecclesiastes_ the Hebrew +doctors, even after they had received it into the canon, forbade the +young and weak-minded among their community to read, Spinoza quotes as +of the same authority with the severe Moses; he uses promiscuously, as +documents of identical force, without discriminating between their +essentially different character, the softened cosmopolitan teaching of +the prophets of the captivity and the rigid national teaching of the +instructors of Israel’s youth. He is capable of extracting, from a +chance expression of Jeremiah, the assertion of a speculative idea which +Jeremiah certainly never entertained, and from which he would have +recoiled in dismay,—the idea, namely, that miracles are impossible; just +as the ordinary Englishman can extract from God’s words to Noah, _Be +fruitful and multiply_, an exhortation to himself to have a large +family. Spinoza, I repeat, knew perfectly well what this verbal mode of +dealing with the Bible was worth: but he sometimes uses it because of +the hypothesis from which he set out; because of his having agreed “to +take Scripture as it stands, and not to ask how it arose.” + +No doubt the sagacity of Spinoza’s rules for Biblical interpretation, +the power of his analysis of the contents of the Bible, the interest of +his reflections on Jewish history, are, in spite of this, very great, +and have an absolute worth of their own, independent of the silence or +ambiguity of their author upon a point of cardinal importance. Few +candid people will read his rules of interpretation without exclaiming +that they are the very dictates of good sense, that they have always +believed in them; and without adding, after a moment’s reflection, that +they have passed their lives in violating them. And what can be more +interesting, than to find that perhaps the main cause of the decay of +the Jewish polity was one of which from our English Bible, which +entirely mistranslates the 26th verse of the 20th chapter of Ezekiel, we +hear nothing,—the perpetual reproach of impurity and rejection cast upon +the priesthood of the tribe of Levi? What can be more suggestive, after +Mr. Mill and Dr. Stanley have been telling us how great an element of +strength to the Hebrew nation was the institution of prophets, than to +hear from the ablest of Hebrews how this institution seems to him to +have been to his nation one of her main elements of weakness? No +intelligent man can read the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_ without +being profoundly instructed by it; but neither can he read it without +feeling that, as a speculative work, it is, to use a French military +expression, _in the air_; that, in a certain sense, it is in want of a +base and in want of supports; that this base and these supports are, at +any rate, not to be found in the work itself, and, if they exist, must +be sought for in other works of the author. + +The genuine speculative opinions of Spinoza, which the _Tractatus +Theologico-Politicus_ but imperfectly reveals, may in his Ethics and in +his Letters be found set forth clearly. It is, however, the business of +criticism to deal with every independent work as with an independent +whole, and, instead of establishing between the _Tractatus +Theologico-Politicus_ and the Ethics of Spinoza a relation which Spinoza +himself has not established,—to seize, in dealing with the _Tractatus +Theologico-Politicus_, the important fact that this work has its source, +not in the axioms and definition of the Ethics, but in a hypothesis. The +Ethics are not yet translated into English, and I have not here to speak +of them. Then will be the right time for criticism to try and seize the +special character and tendencies of that remarkable work, when it is +dealing with it directly. The criticism of the Ethics is far too serious +a task to be undertaken incidentally, and merely as a supplement to the +criticism of the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_. Nevertheless, on +certain governing ideas of Spinoza, which receive their systematic +expression, indeed, in the Ethics, and on which the _Tractatus +Theologico-Politicus_ is not formally based, but which are yet never +absent from Spinoza’s mind in the composition of any work, which breathe +through all his works, and fill them with a peculiar effect and power, I +have a word or two to say. + +A philosopher’s real power over mankind resides not in his metaphysical +formulas, but in the spirit and tendencies which have led him to adopt +those formulas. Spinoza’s critic, therefore, has rather to bring to +light that spirit and those tendencies of his author, than to exhibit +his metaphysical formulas. Propositions about substance pass by mankind +at large like the idle wind, which mankind at large regards not; it will +not even listen to a word about these propositions, unless it first +learns what their author was driving at with them, and finds that this +object of his is one with which it sympathizes, one, at any rate, which +commands its attention. And mankind is so far right that this object of +the author is really, as has been said, that which is most important, +that which sets all his work in motion, that which is the secret of his +attraction for other minds, which, by different ways, pursue the same +object. + +Mr. Maurice, seeking for the cause of Goethe’s great admiration for +Spinoza, thinks that he finds it in Spinoza’s Hebrew genius. “He spoke +of God,” says Mr. Maurice, “as an actual being, to those who had fancied +him a name in a book. The child of the circumcision had a message for +Lessing and Goethe which the pagan schools of philosophy could not +bring.” This seems to me, I confess, fanciful. An intensity and +impressiveness, which came to him from his Hebrew nature, Spinoza no +doubt has; but the two things which are most remarkable about him, and +by which, as I think, he chiefly impressed Goethe, seem to me not to +come to him from his Hebrew nature at all,—I mean his denial of final +causes, and his stoicism, a stoicism not passive, but active. For a mind +like Goethe’s,—a mind profoundly impartial and passionately aspiring +after the science, not of men only, but of universal nature,—the popular +philosophy which explains all things by reference to man, and regards +universal nature as existing for the sake of man, and even of certain +classes of men, was utterly repulsive. Unchecked, this philosophy would +gladly maintain that the donkey exists in order that the invalid +Christian may have donkey’s milk before breakfast; and such views of +nature as this were exactly what Goethe’s whole soul abhorred. Creation, +he thought, should be made of sterner stuff; he desired to rest the +donkey’s existence on larger grounds. More than any philosopher who has +ever lived, Spinoza satisfied him here. The full exposition of the +counter-doctrine to the popular doctrine of final causes is to be found +in the Ethics; but this denial of final causes was so essential an +element of all Spinoza’s thinking that we shall, as has been said +already, find it in the work with which we are here concerned, the +_Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_, and, indeed, permeating that work and +all his works. From the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_ one may take as +good a general statement of this denial as any which is to be found in +the Ethics:— + +“Deus naturam dirigit, prout ejus leges universales, non autem prout +humanæ naturæ particulares leges exigunt, adeoque Deus non solius humani +generis, sed totius naturæ rationem habet. (_God directs nature, +according as the universal laws of nature, but not according as the +particular laws of human nature require; and so God has regard, not of +the human race only, but of entire nature._)” + +And, as a pendant to this denial by Spinoza of final causes, comes his +stoicism:— + +“Non studemus, ut natura nobis, sed contra ut nos naturæ pareamus. (_Our +desire is not that nature may obey us, but, on the contrary, that we may +obey nature._)” + +Here is the second source of his attractiveness for Goethe; and Goethe +is but the eminent representative of a whole order of minds whose +admiration has made Spinoza’s fame. Spinoza first impresses Goethe and +any man like Goethe, and then he composes him; first he fills and +satisfies his imagination by the width and grandeur of his view of +nature, and then he fortifies and stills his mobile, straining, +passionate poetic temperament by the moral lesson he draws from his view +of nature. And a moral lesson not of mere resigned acquiescence, not of +melancholy quietism, but of joyful activity within the limits of man’s +true sphere:— + +“Ipsa hominis essentia est conatus quo unusquisque suum esse conservare +conatur.... Virtus hominis est ipsa hominis essentia, quatenus a solo +conatu suum esse conservandi definitur.... Felicitas in eo consistit +quod homo suum esse conservare potest.... Lætitia est hominis transitio +ad majorem perfectionem.... Tristitia est hominis transitio ad minorem +perfectionem. (_Man’s very essence is the effort wherewith each man +strives to maintain his own being.... Man’s virtue is this very essence, +so far as it is defined by this single effort to maintain his own +being.... Happiness consists in a man’s being able to maintain his own +being.... Joy is man’s passage to a greater perfection.... Sorrow is +man’s passage to a lesser perfection._)” + +It seems to me that by neither of these, his grand characteristic +doctrines, is Spinoza truly Hebrew or truly Christian. His denial of +final causes is essentially alien to the spirit of the Old Testament, +and his cheerful and self-sufficing stoicism is essentially alien to the +spirit of the New. The doctrine that “God directs nature, not according +as the particular laws of human nature, but according as the universal +laws of nature require,” is at utter variance with that Hebrew mode of +representing God’s dealings, which makes the locusts visit Egypt to +punish Pharaoh’s hardness of heart, and the falling dew avert itself +from the fleece of Gideon. The doctrine that “all sorrow is a passage to +a lesser perfection” is at utter variance with the Christian recognition +of the blessedness of sorrow, working “repentance to salvation not to be +repented of;” of sorrow, which, in Dante’s words, “re-marries us to +God.” + +Spinoza’s repeated and earnest assertions that the love of God is man’s +_summum bonum_ do not remove the fundamental diversity between his +doctrine and the Hebrew and Christian doctrines. By the love of God he +does not mean the same thing which the Hebrew and Christian religions +mean by the love of God. He makes the love of God to consist in the +knowledge of God; and, as we know God only through his manifestation of +himself in the laws of all nature, it is by knowing these laws that we +love God, and the more we know them the more we love him. This may be +true, but this is not what the Christian means by the love of God. +Spinoza’s ideal is the intellectual life; the Christian’s ideal is the +religious life. Between the two conditions there is all the difference +which there is between the being in love, and the following, with +delighted comprehension, a reasoning of Plato. For Spinoza, undoubtedly, +the crown of the intellectual life is a transport, as for the saint the +crown of the religious life is a transport; but the two transports are +not the same. + +This is true; yet it is true, also, that by thus crowning the +intellectual life with a sacred transport, by thus retaining in +philosophy, amid the discontented murmurs of all the army of atheism, +the name of God, Spinoza maintains a profound affinity with that which +is truest in religion, and inspires an indestructible interest. One of +his admirers, M. Van Vloten, has recently published at Amsterdam a +supplementary volume to Spinoza’s works, containing the interesting +document of Spinoza’s sentence of excommunication, from which I have +already quoted, and containing, besides, several lately found works +alleged to be Spinoza’s, which seem to me to be of doubtful +authenticity, and, even if authentic, of no great importance. M. Van +Vloten (who, let me be permitted to say in passing, writes a Latin which +would make one think that the art of writing Latin must be now a lost +art in the country of Lipsius) is very anxious that Spinoza’s +unscientific retention of the name of God should not afflict his readers +with any doubts as to his perfect scientific orthodoxy:— + +“It is a great mistake,” he cries, “to disparage Spinoza as merely one +of the dogmatists before Kant. By keeping the name of God, while he did +away with his person and character, he has done himself an injustice. +Those who look to the bottom of things will see, that, long ago as he +lived, he had even then reached the point to which the post-Hegelian +philosophy and the study of natural science has only just brought our +own times. Leibnitz expressed his apprehension lest those who did away +with final causes should do away with God at the same time. But it is in +his having done away with final causes, _and with God along with them_, +that Spinoza’s true merit consists.” + +Now it must be remarked that to use Spinoza’s denial of final causes in +order to identify him with the Coryphæi of atheism, is to make a false +use of Spinoza’s denial of final causes, just as to use his assertion of +the all-importance of loving God to identify him with the saints would +be to make a false use of his assertion of the all-importance of loving +God. He is no more to be identified with the post-Hegelian philosophers +than he is to be identified with St. Augustine. Unction, indeed, +Spinoza’s writings have not; that name does not precisely fit any +quality which they exhibit. And yet, so all-important in the sphere of +religious thought is the power of edification, that in this sphere a +great fame like Spinoza’s can never be founded without it. A court of +literature can never be very severe to Voltaire: with that inimitable +wit and clear sense of his, he cannot write a page in which the fullest +head may not find something suggestive: still, because, handling +religious ideas, he yet, with all his wit and clear sense, handles them +wholly without the power of edification, his fame as a great man is +equivocal. Strauss has treated the question of Scripture miracles with +an acuteness and fulness which even to the most informed minds is +instructive; but because he treats it almost wholly without the power of +edification, his fame as a serious thinker is equivocal. But in Spinoza +there is not a trace either of Voltaire’s passion for mockery or of +Strauss’s passion for demolition. His whole soul was filled with desire +of the love and knowledge of God, and of that only. Philosophy always +proclaims herself on the way to the _summum bonum_; but too often on the +road she seems to forget her destination, and suffers her hearers to +forget it also. Spinoza never forgets his destination: “The love of God +is man’s highest happiness and blessedness, and the final end and aim of +all human actions;”—“The supreme reward for keeping God’s Word is that +Word itself—namely, to know him and with free will and pure and constant +heart love him:” these sentences are the keynote to all he produced, and +were the inspiration of all his labors. This is why he turns so sternly +upon the worshipers of the letter,—the editors of the _Masora_, the +editor of the _Record_,—because their doctrine imperils our love and +knowledge of God. “What!” he cries, “our knowledge of God to depend upon +these perishable things, which Moses can dash to the ground and break to +pieces like the first tables of stone, or of which the originals can be +lost like the original book of the Covenant, like the original book of +the Law of God, like the book of the Wars of God!... which can come to +us confused, imperfect, mis-written by copyists, tampered with by +doctors! And you accuse others of impiety! It is you who are impious, to +believe that God would commit the treasure of the true record of himself +to any substance less enduring than the heart!” + +And Spinoza’s life was not unworthy of this elevated strain. A +philosopher who professed that knowledge was its own reward, a devotee +who professed that the love of God was its own reward, this philosopher +and this devotee believed in what he said. Spinoza led a life the most +spotless, perhaps, to be found among the lives of philosophers; he lived +simple, studious, even-tempered, kind; declining honors, declining +riches, declining notoriety. He was poor, and his admirer Simon de Vries +sent him two thousand florins:—he refused them. The same friend left him +his fortune;—he returned it to the heir. He was asked to dedicate one of +his works to the magnificent patron of letters in his century, Louis the +Fourteenth;—he declined. His great work, his Ethics, published after his +death, he gave injunctions to his friends to publish anonymously, for +fear he should give his name to a school. Truth, he thought, should bear +no man’s name. And finally,—“Unless,” he said, “I had known that my +writings would in the end advance the cause of true religion, I would +have suppressed them,—_tacuissem_.” It was in this spirit that he lived; +and this spirit gives to all he writes not exactly unction,—I have +already said so,—but a kind of sacred solemnity. Not of the same order +as the saints, he yet follows the same service: _Doubtless thou art our +Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us +not_. + +Therefore he has been, in a certain sphere, edifying, and has inspired +in many powerful minds an interest and an admiration such as no other +philosopher has inspired since Plato. The lonely precursor of German +philosophy, he still shines when the light of his successors is fading +away; they had celebrity, Spinoza has fame. Not because his peculiar +system of philosophy has had more adherents than theirs; on the +contrary, it has had fewer. But schools of philosophy arise and fall; +their bands of adherents inevitably dwindle; no master can long persuade +a large body of disciples that they give to themselves just the same +account of the world as he does; it is only the very young and the very +enthusiastic who can think themselves sure that they possess the whole +mind of Plato, or Spinoza, or Hegel, at all. The very mature and the +very sober can even hardly believe that these philosophers possessed it +themselves enough to put it all into their works, and to let us know +entirely how the world seemed to them. What a remarkable philosopher +really does for human thought, is to throw into circulation a certain +number of new and striking ideas and expressions, and to stimulate with +them the thought and imagination of his century or of after-times. So +Spinoza has made his distinction between adequate and inadequate ideas a +current notion for educated Europe. So Hegel seized a single pregnant +sentence of Heracleitus, and cast it, with a thousand striking +applications, into the world of modern thought. But to do this is only +enough to make a philosopher noteworthy; it is not enough to make him +great. To be great, he must have something in him which can influence +character, which is edifying; he must, in short, have a noble and lofty +character himself, a character,—to recur to that much-criticised +expression of mine,—_in the grand style_. This is what Spinoza had; and +because he had it, he stands out from the multitude of philosophers, and +has been able to inspire in powerful minds a feeling which the most +remarkable philosophers, without this grandiose character, could not +inspire. “There is no possible view of life but Spinoza’s,” said +Lessing. Goethe has told us how he was calmed and edified by him in his +youth, and how he again went to him for support in his maturity. Heine, +the man (in spite of his faults) of truest genius that Germany has +produced since Goethe,—a man with faults, as I have said, immense +faults, the greatest of them being that he could reverence so +little,—reverenced Spinoza. Hegel’s influence ran off him like water: “I +have seen Hegel,” he cries, “seated with his doleful air of a hatching +hen upon his unhappy eggs, and I have heard his dismal clucking. How +easily one can cheat oneself into thinking that one understands +everything, when one has learned only how to construct dialectical +formulas!” But of Spinoza, Heine said: “His life was a copy of the life +of his divine kinsman, Jesus Christ.” + +And therefore, when M. Van Vloten violently presses the parallel with +the post-Hegelians, one feels that the parallel with St. Augustine is +the far truer one. Compared with the soldier of irreligion M. Van Vloten +would have him to be, Spinoza is religious. “It is true,” one may say to +the wise and devout Christian, “Spinoza’s conception of beatitude is not +yours, and cannot satisfy you, but whose conception of beatitude would +you accept as satisfying? Not even that of the devoutest of your +fellow-Christians. Fra Angelico, the sweetest and most inspired of +devout souls, has given us, in his great picture of the Last Judgment, +his conception of beatitude. The elect are going round in a ring on long +grass under laden fruit-trees; two of them, more restless than the +others, are flying up a battlemented street,—a street blank with all the +ennui of the Middle Ages. Across a gulf is visible, for the delectation +of the saints, a blazing caldron in which Beelzebub is sousing the +damned. This is hardly more your conception of beatitude than Spinoza’s +is. But ‘in my Father’s house are many mansions;’ only, to reach any one +of these mansions, there are needed the wings of a genuine sacred +transport, of an ‘immortal longing.’” These wings Spinoza had; and, +because he had them, his own language about himself, about his +aspirations and his course, are true: his foot is in the _vera vita_, +his eye on the beatific vision. + + + + + X. + + MARCUS AURELIUS. + + +Mr. Mill says, in his book on Liberty, that “Christian morality is in +great part merely a protest against paganism; its ideal is negative +rather than positive, passive rather than active.” He says, that, in +certain most important respects, “it falls far below the best morality +of the ancients.” Now, the object of systems of morality is to take +possession of human life, to save it from being abandoned to passion or +allowed to drift at hazard, to give it happiness by establishing it in +the practice of virtue; and this object they seek to attain by +prescribing to human life fixed principles of action, fixed rules of +conduct. In its uninspired as well as in its inspired moments, in its +days of languor and gloom as well as in its days of sunshine and energy, +human life has thus always a clue to follow, and may always be making +way towards its goal. Christian morality has not failed to supply to +human life aids of this sort. It has supplied them far more abundantly +than many of its critics imagine. The most exquisite document after +those of the New Testament, of all the documents the Christian spirit +has ever inspired,—the _Imitation_,—by no means contains the whole of +Christian morality; nay, the disparagers of this morality would think +themselves sure of triumphing if one agreed to look for it in the +_Imitation_ only. But even the _Imitation_ is full of passages like +these: “Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est;”—“Omni die renovare +debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: nunc hodiè perfectè incipiamus, +quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus;”—“Secundum propositum nostrum est +cursus profectûs nostri;”—“Raro etiam unum vitium perfectè vincimus, et +ad _quotidianum_ profectum non accendimur;” “Semper aliquid certi +proponendum est;” “Tibi ipsi violentiam frequenter fac;” (_A life +without a purpose is a languid, drifting thing;—Every day we ought to +renew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a sound +beginning, for what we have hitherto done is nought;—Our improvement is +in proportion to our purpose;—We hardly ever manage to get completely +rid even of one fault, and do not set our hearts on daily +improvement;—Always place a definite purpose before thee;—Get the habit +of mastering thine inclination._) These are moral precepts, and moral +precepts of the best kind. As rules to hold possession of our conduct, +and to keep us in the right course through outward troubles and inward +perplexity, they are equal to the best ever furnished by the great +masters of morals—Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius. + +But moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and then rigorously +followed as laws, are, and must be, for the sage only. The mass of +mankind have neither force of intellect enough to apprehend them clearly +as ideas, nor force of character enough to follow them strictly as laws. +The mass of mankind can be carried along a course full of hardship for +the natural man, can be borne over the thousand impediments of the +narrow way, only by the tide of a joyful and bounding emotion. It is +impossible to rise from reading Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius without a +sense of constraint and melancholy, without feeling that the burden laid +upon man is well-nigh greater than he can bear. Honor to the sages who +have felt this, and yet have borne it! Yet, even for the sage, this +sense of labor and sorrow in his march towards the goal constitutes a +relative inferiority; the noblest souls of whatever creed, the pagan +Empedocles as well as the Christian Paul, have insisted on the necessity +of an inspiration, a joyful emotion, to make moral action perfect; an +obscure indication of this necessity is the one drop of truth in the +ocean of verbiage with which the controversy on justification by faith +has flooded the world. But, for the ordinary man, this sense of labor +and sorrow constitutes an absolute disqualification; it paralyzes him; +under the weight of it, he cannot make way towards the goal at all. The +paramount virtue of religion is, that it has _lighted up_ morality; that +it has supplied the emotion and inspiration needful for carrying the +sage along the narrow way perfectly, for carrying the ordinary man along +it at all. Even the religious with most dross in them have had something +of this virtue; but the Christian religion manifests it with unexampled +splendor. “Lead me, Zeus and Destiny!” says the prayer of Epictetus, +“whithersoever I am appointed to go; I will follow without wavering; +even though I turn coward and shrink, I shall have to follow all the +same.” The fortitude of that is for the strong, for the few; even for +them the spiritual atmosphere with which it surrounds them is bleak and +gray, But, “Let thy loving spirit lead me forth into the land of +righteousness;”—“The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and +thy God thy glory;”—“Unto you that fear my name shall the sun of +righteousness arise with healing in his wings,” says the Old Testament; +“Born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of +man, but of God;”—“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom +of God;”—“Whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world,” says the +New. The ray of sunshine is there, the glow of a divine warmth;—the +austerity of the sage melts away under it, the paralysis of the weak is +healed; he who is vivified by it renews his strength; “all things are +possible to him;” “he is a new creature.” + +Epictetus says: “Every matter has two handles, one of which will bear +taking hold of, the other not. If thy brother sin against thee, lay not +hold of the matter by this, that he sins against thee; for by this +handle the matter will not bear taking hold of. But rather lay hold of +it by this, that he is thy brother, thy born mate; and thou wilt take +hold of it by what will bear handling.” Jesus, being asked whether a man +is bound to forgive his brother as often as seven times, answers: “I say +not unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven.” +Epictetus here suggests to the reason grounds for forgiveness of +injuries which Jesus does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is +on that account a better moralist than Jesus, if the warmth, the +emotion, of Jesus’s answer fires his hearer to the practice of +forgiveness of injuries, while the thought in Epictetus’s leaves him +cold. So with Christian morality in general: its distinction is not that +it propounds the maxim, “Thou shalt love God and thy neighbor,” with +more development, closer reasoning, truer sincerity, than other moral +systems; it is that it propounds this maxim with an inspiration which +wonderfully catches the hearer and makes him act upon it. It is because +Mr. Mill has attained to the perception of truths of this nature, that +he is,—instead of being, like the school from which he proceeds, doomed +to sterility,—a writer of distinguished mark and influence, a writer +deserving all attention and respect; it is (I must be pardoned for +saying) because he is not sufficiently leavened with them, that he falls +just short of being a great writer. + +That which gives to the moral writings of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius +their peculiar character and charm, is their being suffused and softened +by something of this very sentiment whence Christian morality draws its +best power. Mr. Long has recently published in a convenient form a +translation of these writings, and has thus enabled English readers to +judge Marcus Aurelius for themselves; he has rendered his countrymen a +real service by so doing. Mr. Long’s reputation as a scholar is a +sufficient guarantee of the general fidelity and accuracy of his +translation; on these matters, besides, I am hardly entitled to speak, +and my praise is of no value. But that for which I and the rest of the +unlearned may venture to praise Mr. Long is this; that he treats Marcus +Aurelius’s writings, as he treats all the other remains of Greek and +Roman antiquity which he touches, not as a dead and dry matter of +learning, but as documents with a side of modern applicability and +living interest, and valuable mainly so far as this side in them can be +made clear; that as in his notes on Plutarch’s Roman Lives he deals with +the modern epoch of Cæsar and Cicero, not as food for schoolboys, but as +food for men, and men engaged in the current of contemporary life and +action, so in his remarks and essays on Marcus Aurelius he treats this +truly modern striver and thinker not as a Classical Dictionary hero, but +as a present source from which to draw “example of life, and instruction +of manners.” Why may not a son of Dr. Arnold say, what might naturally +here be said by any other critic, that in this lively and fruitful way +of considering the men and affairs of ancient Greece and Rome, Mr. Long +resembles Dr. Arnold? + +One or two little complaints, however, I have against Mr. Long, and I +will get them off my mind at once. In the first place, why could he not +have found gentler and juster terms to describe the translation of his +predecessor, Jeremy Collier,—the redoubtable enemy of stage plays,—than +these: “a most coarse and vulgar copy of the original?” As a matter of +taste, a translator should deal leniently with his predecessor; but +putting that out of the question, Mr. Long’s language is a great deal +too hard. Most English people who knew Marcus Aurelius before Mr. Long +appeared as his introducer, knew him through Jeremy Collier. And the +acquaintance of a man like Marcus Aurelius is such an imperishable +benefit, that one can never lose a peculiar sense of obligation towards +the man who confers it. Apart from this claim upon one’s tenderness, +however, Jeremy Collier’s version deserves respect for its genuine +spirit and vigor, the spirit and vigor of the age of Dryden. Jeremy +Collier too, like Mr. Long, regarded in Marcus Aurelius the living +moralist, and not the dead classic; and his warmth of feeling gave to +his style an impetuosity and rhythm which from Mr Long’s style (I do not +blame it on that account) are absent. Let us place the two side by side. +The impressive opening of Marcus Aurelius’s fifth book, Mr. Long +translates thus:— + +“In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be +present: I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I +dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for +which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie +in the bed clothes and keep myself warm?—But this is more pleasant.—Dost +thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action or +exertion?” + +Jeremy Collier has:— + +“When you find an unwillingness to rise early in the morning, make this +short speech to yourself: ‘I am getting up now to do the business of a +man; and am I out of humor for going about that which I was made for, +and for the sake of which I was sent into the world? Was I then designed +for nothing but to doze and batten beneath the counterpane? I thought +action had been the end of your being.’” + +In another striking passage, again, Mr. Long has:— + +“No longer wonder at hazard; for neither wilt thou read thy own memoirs, +nor the acts of the ancient Romans and Hellenes, and the selections from +books which thou wast reserving for thy old age. Hasten then to the end +which thou hast before thee, and, throwing away idle hopes, come to +thine own aid, if thou carest at all for thyself, while it is in thy +power.” + +Here his despised predecessor has:— + +“Don’t go too far in your books and overgrasp yourself. Alas, you have +no time left to peruse your diary, to read over the Greek and Roman +history: come, don’t flatter and deceive yourself; look to the main +chance, to the end and design of reading, and mind life more than +notion: I say, if you have a kindness for your person, drive at the +practice and help yourself, for that is in your own power.” + +It seems to me that here for style and force Jeremy Collier can (to say +the least) perfectly stand comparison with Mr. Long. Jeremy Collier’s +real defect as a translator is not his coarseness and vulgarity, but his +imperfect acquaintance with Greek; this is a serious defect, a fatal +one; it rendered a translation like Mr. Long’s necessary. Jeremy +Collier’s work will now be forgotten, and Mr. Long stands master of the +field; but he may be content, at any rate, to leave his predecessor’s +grave unharmed, even if he will not throw upon it, in passing, a handful +of kindly earth. + +Another complaint I have against Mr. Long is, that he is not quite +idiomatic and simple enough. It is a little formal, at least, if not +pedantic, to say _Ethic_ and _Dialectic_, instead of _Ethics_ and +_Dialectics_, and to say “_Hellenes_ and Romans” instead of “_Greeks_ +and Romans.” And why, too,—the name of Antoninus being preoccupied by +Antoninus Pius,—will Mr. Long call his author Marcus, _Antoninus_ +instead of Marcus _Aurelius_? Small as these matters appear, they are +important when one has to deal with the general public, and not with a +small circle of scholars; and it is the general public that the +translator of a short masterpiece on morals, such as is the book of +Marcus Aurelius, should have in view; his aim should be to make Marcus +Aurelius’s work as popular as the _Imitation_, and Marcus Aurelius’s +name as familiar as Socrates’s. In rendering or naming him, therefore, +punctilious accuracy of phrase is not so much to be sought as +accessibility and currency; everything which may best enable the Emperor +and his precepts _vilotare per ora virum_. It is essential to render him +in language perfectly plain and unprofessional, and to call him by the +name by which he is best and most distinctly known. The translators of +the Bible talk of _pence_ and not _denarii_, and the admirers of +Voltaire do not celebrate him under the name of Arouet. + +But, after these trifling complaints are made, one must end, as one +began, in unfeigned gratitude to Mr. Long for his excellent and +substantial reproduction in English of an invaluable work. In general +the substantiality, soundness, and precision of Mr. Long’s rendering are +(I will venture, after all, to give my opinion about them) as +conspicuous as the living spirit with which he treats antiquity; and +these qualities are particularly desirable in the translator of a work +like that of Marcus Aurelius, of which the language is often corrupt, +almost always hard and obscure. Any one who wants to appreciate Mr. +Long’s merits as a translator may read, in the original and in Mr. +Long’s translation, the seventh chapter of the tenth book; he will see +how, through all the dubiousness and involved manner of the Greek, Mr. +Long has firmly seized upon the clear thought which is certainly at the +bottom of that troubled wording, and, in distinctly rendering this +thought, has at the same time thrown round its expression a +characteristic shade of painfulness and difficulty which just suits it. +And Marcus Aurelius’s book is one which, when it is rendered so +accurately as Mr. Long renders it, even those who know Greek tolerably +well may choose to read rather in the translation than in the original. +For not only are the contents here incomparably more valuable than the +external form, but this form, the Greek of a Roman, is not exactly one +of those styles which have a physiognomy, which are an essential part of +their author, which stamp an indelible impression of him on the reader’s +mind. An old Lyons commentator finds, indeed, in Marcus Aurelius’s +Greek, something characteristic, something specially firm and imperial; +but I think an ordinary mortal will hardly find this: he will find +crabbed Greek, without any great charm of distinct physiognomy. The +Greek of Thucydides and Plato has this charm, and he who reads them in a +translation, however accurate, loses it, and loses much in losing it; +but the Greek of Marcus Aurelius, like the Greek of the New Testament, +and even more than the Greek of the New Testament, is wanting in it. If +one could be assured that the English Testament were made perfectly +accurate, one might be almost content never to open a Greek Testament +again; and, Mr. Long’s version of Marcus Aurelius being what it is, an +Englishman who reads to live, and does not live to read, may henceforth +let the Greek original repose upon its shelf. + +The man whose thoughts Mr. Long has thus faithfully reproduced, is +perhaps the most beautiful figure in history. He is one of those +consoling and hope-inspiring marks, which stand forever to remind our +weak and easily discouraged race how high human goodness and +perseverance have once been carried, and may be carried again. The +interest of mankind is peculiarly attracted by examples of signal +goodness in high places; for that testimony to the worth of goodness is +the most striking which is borne by those to whom all the means of +pleasure and self-indulgence lay open, by those who had at their command +the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Marcus Aurelius was the +ruler of the grandest of empires; and he was one of the best of men. +Besides him, history presents one or two sovereigns eminent for their +goodness, such as Saint Louis or Alfred. But Marcus Aurelius has, for us +moderns, this great superiority in interest over Saint Louis or Alfred, +that he lived and acted in a state of society modern by its essential +characteristics, in an epoch akin to our own, in a brilliant center of +civilization. Trajan talks of “our enlightened age” just as glibly as +the _Times_ talks of it. Marcus Aurelius thus becomes for us a man like +ourselves, a man in all things tempted as we are. Saint Louis inhabits +an atmosphere of mediæval Catholicism, which the man of the nineteenth +century may admire, indeed, may even passionately wish to inhabit, but +which, strive as he will, he cannot really inhabit. Alfred belongs to a +state of society (I say it with all deference to the _Saturday Review_ +critic who keeps such jealous watch over the honor of our Saxon +ancestors) half barbarous. Neither Alfred nor Saint Louis can be morally +and intellectually as near to us as Marcus Aurelius. + +The record of the outward life of this admirable man has in it little of +striking incident. He was born at Rome on the 26th of April, in the year +121 of the Christian era. He was nephew and son-in-law to his +predecessor on the throne, Antoninus Pius. When Antoninus died, he was +forty years old, but from the time of his earliest manhood he had +assisted in administering public affairs. Then, after his uncle’s death +in 161, for nineteen years he reigned as emperor. The barbarians were +pressing on the Roman frontier, and a great part of Marcus Aurelius’s +nineteen years of reign was passed in campaigning. His absences from +Rome were numerous and long. We hear of him in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, +Greece; but, above all, in the countries on the Danube, where the war +with the barbarians was going on,—in Austria, Moravia, Hungary. In these +countries much of his Journal seems to have been written; parts of it +are dated from them; and there, a few weeks before his fifty-ninth +birthday, he fell sick and died.[23] The record of him on which his fame +chiefly rests is the record of his inward life,—his _Journal_, or +_Commentaries_, or _Meditations_, or _Thoughts_, for by all these names +has the work been called. Perhaps the most interesting of the records of +his outward life is that which the first book of this work supplies, +where he gives an account of his education, recites the names of those +to whom he is indebted for it, and enumerates his obligations to each of +them. It is a refreshing and consoling picture, a priceless treasure for +those, who, sick of the “wild and dreamlike trade of blood and guile,” +which seems to be nearly the whole of what history has to offer to our +view, seek eagerly for that substratum of right thinking and well-doing +which in all ages must surely have somewhere existed, for without it the +continued life of humanity would have been impossible. “From my mother I +learnt piety and beneficence, and abstinence not only from evil deeds +but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my way of +living, far removed from the habits of the rich.” Let us remember that, +the next time we are reading the sixth satire of Juvenal. “From my tutor +I learnt” (hear it, ye tutors of princes!) “endurance of labor, and to +want little and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with other +people’s affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander.” The vices +and foibles of the Greek sophist or rhetorician—the _Græculus +esuriens_—are in everybody’s mind; but he who reads Marcus Aurelius’s +account of his Greek teachers and masters, will understand how it is +that, in spite of the vices and foibles of individual _Græculi_, the +education of the human race owes to Greece a debt which can never be +overrated. The vague and colorless praise of history leaves on the mind +hardly any impression of Antoninus Pius: it is only from the private +memoranda of his nephew that we learn what a disciplined, hard-working, +gentle, wise, virtuous man he was; a man who, perhaps, interests mankind +less than his immortal nephew only because he has left in writing no +record of his inner life,—_caret quia vate sacro_. + +----- + +Footnote 23: + + He died on the 17th of March, A. D. 180. + +----- + +Of the outward life and circumstances of Marcus Aurelius, beyond these +notices which he has himself supplied, there are few of much interest +and importance. There is the fine anecdote of his speech when he heard +of the assassination of the revolted Avidius Cassius, against whom he +was marching; _he was sorry_, he said, _to be deprived of the pleasure +of pardoning him_. And there are one or two more anecdotes of him which +show the same spirit. But the great record for the outward life of a man +who has left such a record of his lofty inward aspirations as that which +Marcus Aurelius has left, is the clear consenting voice of all his +contemporaries,—high and low, friend and enemy, pagan and Christian,—in +praise of his sincerity, justice, and goodness. The world’s charity does +not err on the side of excess, and here was a man occupying the most +conspicuous station in the world, and professing the highest possible +standard of conduct;—yet the world was obliged to declare that he walked +worthily of his profession. Long after his death, his bust was to be +seen in the houses of private men through the wide Roman empire. It may +be the vulgar part of human nature which busies itself with the +semblance and doings of living sovereigns, it is its nobler part which +busies itself with those of the dead; these busts of Marcus Aurelius, in +the homes of Gaul, Britain, and Italy, bear witness, not to the inmates’ +frivolous curiosity about princes and palaces, but to their reverential +memory of the passage of a great man upon the earth. + +Two things, however, before one turns from the outward to the inward +life of Marcus Aurelius, force themselves upon one’s notice, and demand +a word of comment; he persecuted the Christians, and he had for his son +the vicious and brutal Commodus. The persecution at Lyons, in which +Attalus and Pothinus suffered, the persecution at Smyrna, in which +Polycarp suffered, took place in his reign. Of his humanity, of his +tolerance, of his horror of cruelty and violence, of his wish to refrain +from severe measures against the Christians, of his anxiety to temper +the severity of these measures when they appeared to him indispensable, +there is no doubt: but, on the one hand, it is certain that the letter, +attributed to him, directing that no Christian should be punished for +being a Christian, is spurious; it is almost certain that his alleged +answer to the authorities of Lyons, in which he directs that Christians +persisting in their profession shall be dealt with according to law, is +genuine. Mr. Long seems inclined to try and throw doubt over the +persecution at Lyons, by pointing out that the letter of the Lyons +Christians relating it, alleges it to have been attended by miraculous +and incredible incidents. “A man,” he says, “can only act consistently +by accepting all this letter or rejecting it all, and we cannot blame +him for either.” But it is contrary to all experience to say that +because a fact is related with incorrect additions, and embellishments, +therefore it probably never happened at all; or that it is not, in +general, easy for an impartial mind to distinguish between the fact and +the embellishments. I cannot doubt that the Lyons persecution took +place, and that the punishment of Christians for being Christians was +sanctioned by Marcus Aurelius. But then I must add that nine modern +readers out of ten, when they read this, will, I believe, have a +perfectly false notion of what the moral action of Marcus Aurelius, in +sanctioning that punishment, really was. They imagine Trajan, or +Antoninus Pius, or Marcus Aurelius, fresh from the perusal of the +Gospel, fully aware of the spirit and holiness of the Christian saints +ordering their extermination because he loved darkness rather than +light. Far from this, the Christianity which these emperors aimed at +repressing was, in their conception of it, something philosophically +contemptible, politically subversive, and morally abominable. As men, +they sincerely regarded it much as well-conditioned people, with us, +regard Mormonism; as rulers, they regarded it much as Liberal statesmen, +with us, regard the Jesuits. A kind of Mormonism, constituted as a vast +secret society, with obscure aims of political and social subversion, +was what Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius believed themselves to be +repressing when they punished Christians. The early Christian apologists +again and again declare to us under what odious imputations the +Christians lay, how general was the belief that these imputations were +well-grounded, how sincere was the horror which the belief inspired. The +multitude, convinced that the Christians were atheists who ate human +flesh and thought incest no crime, displayed against them a fury so +passionate as to embarrass and alarm their rulers. The severe +expressions of Tacitus, _exitiabilis superstitio—odio humani generis +convicti_, show how deeply the prejudices of the multitude imbued the +educated class also. One asks oneself with astonishment how a doctrine +so benign as that of Jesus Christ can have incurred misrepresentation so +monstrous. The inner and moving cause of the misrepresentation lay, no +doubt, in this,—that Christianity was a new spirit in the Roman world, +destined to act in that world as its dissolvent; and it was inevitable +that Christianity in the Roman world, like democracy in the modern +world, like every new spirit with a similar mission assigned to it, +should at its first appearance occasion an instinctive shrinking and +repugnance in the world which it was to dissolve. The outer and palpable +causes of the misrepresentation were, for the Roman public at large, the +confounding of the Christians with the Jews, that isolated, fierce, and +stubborn race, whose stubbornness, fierceness, and isolation, real as +they were, the fancy of a civilized Roman yet further exaggerated; the +atmosphere of mystery and novelty which surrounded the Christian rites; +the very simplicity of Christian theism. For the Roman statesman, the +cause of mistake lay in that character of secret assemblages which the +meetings of the Christian community wore, under a State-system as +jealous of unauthorized associations as in the State-system of modern +France. + +A Roman of Marcus Aurelius’s time and position could not well see the +Christians except through the mist of these prejudices. Seen through +such a mist, the Christians appeared with a thousand faults not their +own; but it has not been sufficiently remarked that faults really their +own many of them assuredly appeared with besides, faults especially +likely to strike such an observer as Marcus Aurelius, and to confirm him +in the prejudices of his race, station, and rearing. We look back upon +Christianity after it has proved what a future it bore within it, and +for us the sole representatives of its early struggles are the pure and +devoted spirits through whom it proved this; Marcus Aurelius saw it with +its future yet unshown, and with the tares among its professed progeny +not less conspicuous than the wheat. Who can doubt that among the +professing Christians of the second century, as among the professing +Christians of the nineteenth, there was plenty of folly, plenty of rabid +nonsense, plenty of gross fanaticism? who will even venture to affirm +that, separated in great measure from the intellect and civilization of +the world for one or two centuries, Christianity, wonderful as have been +its fruits, had the development perfectly worthy of its inestimable +germ? Who will venture to affirm that, by the alliance of Christianity +with the virtue and intelligence of men like the Antonines,—of the best +product of Greek and Roman civilization, while Greek and Roman +civilization had yet life and power,—Christianity and the world, as well +as the Antonines themselves, would not have been gainers? That alliance +was not to be. The Antonines lived and died with an utter misconception +of Christianity; Christianity grew up in the Catacombs, not on the +Palatine. And Marcus Aurelius incurs no moral reproach by having +authorized the punishment of the Christians; he does not thereby become +in the least what we mean by a _persecutor_. One may concede that it was +impossible for him to see Christianity as it really was;—as impossible +as for even the moderate and sensible Fleury to see the Antonines as +they really were;—one may concede that the point of view from which +Christianity appeared something anti-civil and anti-social, which the +State had the faculty to judge and the duty to suppress, was inevitably +his. Still, however, it remains true that this sage, who made perfection +his aim and reason his law, did Christianity an immense injustice and +rested in an idea of State-attributes which was illusive. And this is, +in truth, characteristic of Marcus Aurelius, that he is blameless, yet, +in a certain sense, unfortunate; in his character, beautiful as it is, +there is something melancholy, circumscribed, and ineffectual. + +For of his having such a son as Commodus, too, one must say that he is +not to be blamed on that account, but that he is unfortunate. +Disposition and temperament are inexplicable things; there are natures +on which the best education and example are thrown away; excellent +fathers may have, without any fault of theirs, incurably vicious sons. +It is to be remembered, also, that Commodus was left, at the perilous +age of nineteen, master of the world; while his father, at that age, was +but beginning a twenty years’ apprenticeship to wisdom, labor, and +self-command, under the sheltering teachership of his uncle Antoninus. +Commodus was a prince apt to be led by favorites; and if the story is +true which says that he left, all through his reign, the Christians +untroubled, and ascribes this lenity to the influence of his mistress +Marcia, it shows that he could be led to good as well as to evil. But +for such a nature to be left at a critical age with absolute power, and +wholly without good counsel and direction, was the more fatal. Still one +cannot help wishing that the example of Marcus Aurelius could have +availed more with his own only son. One cannot but think that with such +virtue as his there should go, too, the ardor which removes mountains, +and that the ardor which removes mountains might have even won Commodus. +The word _ineffectual_ again rises to one’s mind; Marcus Aurelius saved +his own soul by his righteousness, and he could do no more. Happy they +who can do this! but still happier, who can do more! + +Yet, when one passes from his outward to his inward life, when one turns +over the pages of his _Meditations_,—entries jotted down from day to +day, amid the business of the city or the fatigues of the camp, for his +own guidance and support, meant for no eye but his own, without the +slightest attempt at style, with no care, even, for correct writing, not +to be surpassed for naturalness and sincerity,—all disposition to carp +and cavil dies away, and one is overpowered by the charm of a character +of such purity, delicacy, and virtue. He fails neither in small things +nor in great; he keeps watch over himself both that the great springs of +action may be right in him, and that the minute details of action may be +right also. How admirable in a hard-tasked ruler, and a ruler too, with +a passion for thinking and reading, is such a memorandum as the +following:— + +“Not frequently nor without necessity to say to any one, or to write in +a letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect +of duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, by +alleging urgent occupation.” + +And, when that ruler is a Roman emperor, what an “idea” is this to be +written down and meditated by him:— + +“The idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity +administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, +and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the +freedom of the governed.” + +And, for all men who “drive at practice,” what practical rules may not +one accumulate out of these _Meditations_:—- + +“The greatest part of what we say or do being unnecessary, if a man +takes this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. +Accordingly, on every occasion a man should ask himself: ‘Is this one of +the unnecessary things?’ Now a man should take away not only unnecessary +acts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not +follow after.” + +And again:— + +“We ought to check in the series of our thoughts everything that is +without a purpose and useless, but most of all the over curious feeling +and the malignant; and a man should use himself to think of those things +only about which if one should suddenly ask, ‘What hast thou now in thy +thoughts?’ with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, ‘This +or That;’ so that from thy words it should be plain that everything in +thee is simple and benevolent, and such as befits a social animal, and +one that cares not for thoughts about sensual enjoyments, or any rivalry +or envy and suspicion, or anything else for which thou wouldst blush if +thou shouldst say thou hadst it in thy mind.” + +So, with a stringent practicalness worthy of Franklin, he discourses on +his favorite text, _Let nothing be done without a purpose_. But it is +when he enters the region where Franklin cannot follow him, when he +utters his thoughts on the ground-motives of human action, that he is +most interesting; that he becomes the unique, the incomparable Marcus +Aurelius. Christianity uses language very liable to be misunderstood +when it seems to tell men to do good, not, certainly, from the vulgar +motives of worldly interest, or vanity, or love of human praise, but +“that their Father which seeth in secret may reward them openly.” The +motives of reward and punishment have come, from the misconception of +language of this kind, to to be strangely overpressed by many Christian +moralists, to the deterioration and disfigurement of Christianity. +Marcus Aurelius says, truly and nobly:— + +“One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down +to his account as a favor conferred. Another is not ready to do this, +but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he +knows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what he +has done, _but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks +for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit_. As a +horse when he has run, a dog when he has caught the game, a bee when it +has made its honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call +out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine +goes on to produce again the grapes in season. Must a man, then, be one +of these, who in a manner acts thus without observing it? Yes.” + +And again:— + +“What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service? Art thou +not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and +dost thou seek to be paid for it, _just as if the eye demanded a +recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking_?” + +Christianity, in order to match morality of this strain, has to correct +its apparent offers of external reward, and to say: _The kingdom of God +is within you_. + +I have said that it is by its accent of emotion that the morality of +Marcus Aurelius acquires a special character, and reminds one of +Christian morality. The sentences of Seneca are stimulating to the +intellect; the sentences of Epictetus are fortifying to the character; +the sentences of Marcus Aurelius find their way to the soul. I have said +that religious emotion has the power to _light up_ morality: the emotion +of Marcus Aurelius does not quite light up his morality, but it suffuses +it; it has not power to melt the clouds of effort and austerity quite +away, but it shines through them and glorifies them; it is a spirit, not +so much of gladness and elation, as of gentleness and sweetness; a +delicate and tender sentiment, which is less than joy and more than +resignation. He says that in his youth he learned from Maximus, one of +his teachers, “cheerfulness in all circumstances as well as in illness; +_and a just admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity_:” +and it is this very admixture of sweetness with his dignity which makes +him so beautiful a moralist. It enables him to carry even into his +observation of nature, a delicate penetration, a sympathetic tenderness, +worthy of Wordsworth; the spirit of such a remark as the following has +hardly a parallel, so far as my knowledge goes, in the whole range of +Greek and Roman literature:— + +“Figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the +very circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar +beauty to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion’s +eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and +many other things,—though they are far from being beautiful, in a +certain sense,—still, because they come in the course of nature, have a +beauty in them, and they please the mind; so that if a man should have a +feeling and a deeper insight with respect to the things which are +produced in the universe, there is hardly anything which comes in the +course of nature which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed +so as to give pleasure.” + +But it is when his strain passes to directly moral subjects that his +delicacy and sweetness lend to it the greatest charm. Let those who can +feel the beauty of spiritual refinement read this, the reflection of an +emperor who prized mental superiority highly:— + +“Thou sayest, ‘Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits,’ Be it so; +but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, ‘I am not +formed for them by nature.’ Show those qualities, then, which are +altogether in thy power,—sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, +aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, +benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, +magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art at once able +to exhibit, as to which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and +unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or +art thou compelled, through being defectively furnished by nature, to +murmur, and to be mean, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor +body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so +restless in thy mind? No, indeed; but thou mightest have been delivered +from these things long ago. Only, if in truth thou canst be charged with +being rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert thyself +about this also, not neglecting nor yet taking pleasure in thy dulness.” + +The same sweetness enables him to fix his mind, when he sees the +isolation and moral death caused by sin, not on the cheerless thought of +the misery of this condition, but on the inspiriting thought that man is +blest with the power to escape from it:— + +“Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,—for +thou wast made by nature a part, but now thou hast cut thyself off,—yet +here is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite +thyself. God has allowed this to no other part,—after it has been +separated and cut asunder, to come together again. But consider the +goodness with which he has privileged man; for he has put it in his +power, when he has been separated, to return and to be united and to +resume his place.” + +It enables him to control even the passion for retreat and solitude, so +strong in a soul like his, to which the world could offer no abiding +city:— + +“Men seek retreat for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and +mountains; and thou, too, art wont to desire such things very much. But +this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in +thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For no +where either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man +retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such +thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect +tranquillity. Constantly, then, give to thyself this retreat, and renew +thyself; and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which as soon +as thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul +completely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with the +things to which thou returnest.” + +Against this feeling of discontent and weariness, so natural to the +great for whom there seems nothing left to desire or to strive after, +but so enfeebling to them, so deteriorating, Marcus Aurelius never +ceased to struggle. With resolute thankfulness he kept in remembrance +the blessings of his lot; the true blessings of it, not the false:— + +“I have to thank Heaven that I was subjected to a ruler and a father +(Antoninus Pius) who was able to take away all pride from me, and to +bring me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a +palace without either guards, or embroidered dresses, or any show of +this kind; but that it is in such a man’s power to bring himself very +near to the fashion of a private person, without being for this reason +either meaner in thought or more remiss in action with respect to the +things which must be done for public interest.... I have to be thankful +that my children have not been stupid nor deformed in body; that I did +not make more proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies, by +which I should perhaps have been completely engrossed, if I had seen +that I was making great progress in them; ... that I knew Apollonius, +Rusticus, Maximus; ... that I received clear and frequent impressions +about living according to nature, and what kind of a life that is, so +that, so far as depended on Heaven, and its gifts, help, and +inspiration, nothing hindered me from forthwith living according to +nature, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, and +through not observing the admonitions of Heaven, and, I may almost say, +its direct instructions; that my body has held out so long in such a +kind of life as mine; that though it was my mother’s lot to die young, +she spent the last years of her life with me; that whenever I wished to +help any man in his need, I was never told that I had not the means of +doing it; that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, I did not fall +into the hands of a sophist.” + +And, as he dwelt with gratitude on these helps and blessings vouchsafed +to him, his mind (so, at least, it seems to me) would sometimes revert +with awe to the perils and temptations of the lonely height where he +stood, to the lives of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, in their +hideous blackness and ruin; and then he wrote down for himself such a +warning entry as this, significant and terrible in its abruptness:— + +“A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, +childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, +tyrannical!” + +Or this:— + +“About what am I now employing my soul? On every occasion I must ask +myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of me +which they call the ruling principle, and whose soul have I now?—that of +a child, or of a young man, or of a weak woman, or of a tyrant, or of +one of the lower animals in the service of man, or of a wild beast?” + +The character he wished to attain he knew well, and beautifully he has +marked it, and marked, too his sense of shortcoming:— + +“When thou hast assumed these names,—good, modest, true, rational, +equal-minded, magnanimous,—take care that thou dost not change these +names; and, if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them. If thou +maintainest thyself in possession of these names without desiring that +others should call thee by them, thou wilt be another being, and wilt +enter on another life. For to continue to be such as thou hast hitherto +been, and to be torn in pieces and defiled in such a life, is the +character of a very stupid man, and one overfond of his life, and like +those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, who though covered with +wounds and gore still entreat to be kept to the following day, though +they will be exposed in the same state to the same claws and bites. +Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these few names: and if thou +art able to abide in them, abide as if thou wast removed to the Happy +Islands.” + +For all his sweetness and serenity, however, man’s point of life +“between two infinities” (of that expression Marcus Aurelius is the real +owner) was to him anything but a Happy Island, and the performances on +it he saw through no veils of illusion. Nothing is in general more +gloomy and monotonous than declamations on the hollowness and +transitoriness of human life and grandeur: but here, too, the great +charm of Marcus Aurelius, his emotion, comes in to relieve the monotony +and to break through the gloom; and even on this eternally used topic he +is imaginative, fresh, and striking:— + +“Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these +things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, +feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately +arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for somebody to die, grumbling +about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring to be consuls +or kings. Well then that life of these people no longer exists at all. +Again, go to the times of Trajan. All is again the same. Their life too +is gone. But chiefly thou shouldst think of those whom thou hast thyself +known distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to do what +was in accordance with their proper constitution, and to hold firmly to +this and to be content with it.” + +Again:— + +“The things which are much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and +trifling; and people are like little dogs, biting one another, and +little children quarreling, crying, and then straightway laughing. But +fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and truth, are fled + + ‘Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.’ + +What then is there which still detains thee here?” + +And once more:— + +“Look down from above on the countless herds of men, and their countless +solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, +and the differences among those who are born, who live together, and +die. And consider too the life lived by others in olden time, and the +life now lived among barbarous nations, and how many know not even thy +name, and how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are +praising thee will very soon blame thee, and that neither a posthumous +name is of any value, nor reputation, nor anything else.” + +He recognized, indeed, that (to use his own words) “the prime principle +in man’s constitution is the social;” and he labored sincerely to make +not only his acts towards his fellow-men, but his thoughts also, +suitable to this conviction:— + +“When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those who +live with thee; for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of +another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a +fourth.” + +Still, it is hard for a pure and thoughtful man to live in a state of +rapture at the spectacle afforded to him by his fellow-creatures; above +all it is hard, when such a man is placed as Marcus Aurelius was placed, +and has had the meanness and perversity of his fellow-creatures thrust, +in no common measure, upon his notice,—has had, time after time, to +experience how “within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom +thou art now a beast and an ape.” His true strain of thought as to his +relations with his fellow-men is rather the following. He has been +enumerating the higher consolations which may support a man at the +approach of death, and he goes on:— + +“But if thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort which shall reach +thy heart, thou wilt be made best reconciled to death by observing the +objects from which thou art going to be removed, and the morals of those +with whom thy soul will no longer be mingled. For it is no way right to +be offended with men, but it is thy duty to care for them and to bear +with them gently; and yet to remember that thy departure will not be +from men who have the same principles as thyself. For this is the only +thing, if there be any, which could draw us the contrary way and attach +us to life, to be permitted to live with those who have the same +principles as ourselves. But now thou seest how great is the distress +caused by the difference of those who live together, so that thou mayest +say: ‘Come quick, O death, lest perchance I too should forget myself.’” + +_O faithless and perverse generation! how long shall I be with you? how +long shall I suffer you?_ Sometimes this strain rises even to passion:— + +“Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on a +mountain. Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was +meant to live. If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is +better than to live as men do.” + +It is remarkable how little of a merely local and temporary character, +how little of those _scoriæ_ which a reader has to clear away before he +gets to the precious ore, how little that even admits of doubt or +question, the morality of Marcus Aurelius exhibits. Perhaps as to one +point we must make an exception. Marcus Aurelius is fond of urging as a +motive for man’s cheerful acquiescence in whatever befalls him, that +“whatever happens to every man _is for the interest of the universal_;” +that the whole contains nothing _which is not for its advantage_; that +everything which happens to a man is to be accepted, “even if it seems +disagreeable, _because it leads to the health of the universe_.” And the +whole course of the universe, he adds, has a providential reference to +man’s welfare: “_all other things have been made for the sake of +rational beings_.” Religion has in all ages freely used this language, +and it is not religion which will object to Marcus Aurelius’s use of it; +but science can hardly accept as severely accurate this employment of +the terms _interest_ and _advantage_. To a sound nature and a clear +reason the proposition that things happen “for the interest of the +universal,” as men conceive of interest, may seem to have no meaning at +all, and the proposition that “all things have been made for the sake of +rational beings” may seem to be false. Yet even to this language, not +irresistibly cogent when it is thus absolutely used, Marcus Aurelius +gives a turn which makes it true and useful, when he says: “The ruling +part of man can make a material for itself out of that which opposes it, +as fire lays hold of what falls into it, and rises higher by means of +this very material;”—when he says: “What else are all things except +exercises for the reason? Persevere then until thou shalt have made all +things thine own, as the stomach which is strengthened makes all things +its own, as the blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of +everything that is thrown into it;”—when he says: “Thou wilt not cease +to be miserable till thy mind is in such a condition, that, what luxury +is to those who enjoy pfleasure, such shall be to thee, in every matter +which presents itself, the doing of the things which are conformable to +man’s constitution; for a man ought to consider as an enjoyment +everything which it is in his power to do according to his own +nature,—and it is in his power everywhere.” In this sense it is, indeed, +most true that “all things have been made for the sake of rational +beings;” that “all things work together for good.” + +In general, however, the action Marcus Aurelius prescribes is action +which every sound nature must recognize as right, and the motives he +assigns are motives which every clear reason must recognize as valid. +And so he remains the especial friend and comforter of all clear-headed +and scrupulous, yet pure-hearted and upward striving men, in those ages +most especially that walk by sight, not by faith, but yet have no open +vision. He cannot give such souls, perhaps, all they yearn for, but he +gives them much; and what he gives them, they can receive. + +Yet no, it is not for what he thus gives them that such souls love him +most! it is rather because of the emotion which lends to his voice so +touching an accent, it is because he too yearns as they do for something +unattained by him. What an affinity for Christianity had this persecutor +of the Christians! The effusion of Christianity, its relieving tears, +its happy self-sacrifice, were the very element, one feels, for which +his soul longed; they were near him, they brushed him, he touched them, +he passed them by. One feels, too, that the Marcus Aurelius one reads +must still have remained, even had Christianity been fully known to him, +in a great measure himself; he would have been no Justin;—but how would +Christianity have affected him? in what measure would it have changed +him? Granted that he might have found, like the _Alogi_ of modern times, +in the most beautiful of the Gospels, the Gospel which has leavened +Christendom most powerfully, the Gospel of St. John, too much Greek +metaphysics, too much _gnosis_; granted that this Gospel might have +looked too like what he knew already to be a total surprise to him: +what, then, would he have said to the Sermon on the Mount, to the +twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew? What would have become of his +notions of the _exitiabilis superstitio_, of the “obstinacy of the +Christians”? Vain question! yet the greatest charm of Marcus Aurelius is +that he makes us ask it. We see him wise, just, self-governed, tender, +thankful, blameless; yet, with all this, agitated, stretching out his +arms for something beyond,—_tendentemque manus ripæ uterioris amore_. + + + + + I. + + THE STUDY OF POETRY.[24] + +----- + +Footnote 24: + + Published in 1880 as the General Introduction to _The English Poets_, + edited by T. H. Ward. + +----- + +“The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy +of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever +surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an +accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received +tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has +materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached +its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it. But for poetry +the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine +illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea _is_ the +fact. The strongest part of our religion to-day is its unconscious +poetry.” + +Let me be permitted to quote these words of my own, as uttering the +thought which should, in my opinion, go with us and govern us in all our +study of poetry. In the present work it is the course of one great +contributory stream to the world-river of poetry that we are invited to +follow. We are here invited to trace the stream of English poetry. But +whether we set ourselves, as here, to follow only one of the several +streams that make the mighty river of poetry, or whether we seek to know +them all, our governing thought should be the same. We should conceive +of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom to +conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, and +called to higher destinies, than those which in general men have +assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will discover that we +have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to +sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most +of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced +by poetry. Science, I say, will appear incomplete without it. For finely +and truly does Wordsworth call poetry “the impassioned expression which +is in the countenance of all science”; and what is a countenance without +its expression? Again, Wordsworth finely and truly calls poetry “the +breath and finer spirit of all knowledge”: our religion, parading +evidences such as those on which the popular mind relies now; our +philosophy, pluming itself on its reasonings about causation and finite +and infinite being; what are they but the shadows and dreams and false +shows of knowledge? The day will come when we shall wonder at ourselves +for having trusted to them, for having taken them seriously; and the +more we perceive their hollowness, the more we shall prize “the breath +and finer spirit of knowledge” offered to us by poetry. + +But if we conceive thus highly of the destinies of poetry, we must also +set our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of +fulfilling such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order of +excellence. We must accustom ourselves to a high standard and to a +strict judgment. Sainte-Beuve relates that Napoleon one day said, when +somebody was spoken of in his presence as a charlatan: “Charlatan as +much as you please; but where is there _not_ charlatanism?”—“Yes,” +answers Sainte-Beuve, “in politics, in the art of governing mankind, +that is perhaps true. But in the order of thought, in art, the glory, +the eternal honor is that charlatanism shall find no entrance; herein +lies the inviolableness of that noble portion of man’s being.” It is +admirably said, and let us hold fast to it. In poetry, which is thought +and art in one, it is the glory, the eternal honor, that charlatanism +shall find no entrance; that this noble sphere be kept inviolate and +inviolable. Charlatanism is for confusing or obliterating the +distinctions between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only +half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true. It is charlatanism, +conscious or unconscious, whenever we confuse or obliterate these. And +in poetry, more than anywhere else, it is unpermissible to confuse or +obliterate them. For in poetry the distinction between excellent and +inferior, sound and unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or only +half-true, is of paramount importance. It is of paramount importance +because of the high destinies of poetry. In poetry, as a criticism of +life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of +poetic truth and poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find, we +have said, as time goes on and as other helps fail, its consolation and +stay. But the consolation and stay will be of power in proportion to the +power of the criticism of life. And the criticism of life will be of +power in proportion as the poetry conveying it is excellent rather than +inferior, sound rather than unsound or half-sound, true rather than +untrue or half-true. + +The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found to have a +power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can. A +clearer, deeper sense of the best in poetry, and of the strength and joy +to be drawn from it, is the most precious benefit which we can gather +from a poetical collection such as the present. And yet in the very +nature and conduct of such a collection there is inevitably something +which tends to obscure in us the consciousness of what our benefit +should be, and to distract us from the pursuit of it. We should +therefore steadily set it before our minds at the outset, and should +compel ourselves to revert constantly to the thought of it as we +proceed. + +Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the really +excellent, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, should be +present in our minds and should govern our estimate of what we read. But +this real estimate, the only true one, is liable to be superseded, if we +are not watchful, by two other kinds of estimate, the historic estimate +and the personal estimate, both of which are fallacious. A poet or a +poem may count to us historically, they may count to us on grounds +personal to ourselves, and they may count to us really. They may count +to us historically. The course of development of a nation’s language, +thought, and poetry, is profoundly interesting; and by regarding a +poet’s work as a stage in this course of development we may easily bring +ourselves to make it of more importance as poetry than in itself it +really is, we may come to use a language of quite exaggerated praise in +criticising it; in short, to over-rate it. So arises in our poetic +judgments the fallacy caused by the estimate which we may call historic. +Then, again, a poet or a poem may count to us on grounds personal to +ourselves. Our personal affinities, likings, and circumstances, have +great power to sway our estimate of this or that poet’s work, and to +make us attach more importance to it as poetry than in itself it really +possesses, because to us it is, or has been, of high importance. Here +also we over-rate the object of our interest, and apply to it a language +of praise which is quite exaggerated. And thus we get the source of a +second fallacy in our poetic judgments—the fallacy caused by an estimate +which we may call personal. + +Both fallacies are natural. It is evident how naturally the study of the +history and development of a poetry may incline a man to pause over +reputations and works once conspicuous but now obscure, and to quarrel +with a careless public for skipping, in obedience to mere tradition and +habit, from one famous name or work in its national poetry to another, +ignorant of what it misses, and of the reason for keeping what it keeps, +and of the whole process of growth in its poetry. The French have become +diligent students of their own early poetry, which they long neglected; +the study makes many of them dissatisfied with their so-called classical +poetry, the court-tragedy of the seventeenth century, a poetry which +Pellisson long ago reproached with its want of the true poetic stamp, +with its _politesse stérile et rampante_, but which nevertheless has +reigned in France as absolutely as if it had been the perfection of +classical poetry indeed. The dissatisfaction is natural; yet a lively +and accomplished critic, M. Charles d’Héricault, the editor of Clément +Marot, goes too far when he says that “the cloud of glory playing round +a classic is a mist as dangerous to the future of a literature as it is +intolerable for the purposes of history.” “It hinders,” he goes on, “it +hinders us from seeing more than one single point, the culminating and +exceptional point; the summary, fictitious and arbitrary, of a thought +and of a work. It substitutes a halo for a physiognomy, it puts a statue +where there was once a man, and hiding from us all trace of the labor, +the attempts, the weaknesses, the failures, it claims not study but +veneration; it does not show us how the thing is done, it imposes upon +us a model. Above all, for the historian this creation of classic +personages is inadmissible; for it withdraws the poet from his time, +from his proper life, it breaks historical relationships, it blinds +criticism by conventional admiration, and renders the investigation of +literary origins unacceptable. It gives us a human personage no longer, +but a God seated immovable amidst His perfect work, like Jupiter on +Olympus; and hardly will it be possible for the young student, to whom +such work is exhibited at such a distance from him, to believe that it +did not issue ready made from that divine head.” + +All this is brilliantly and tellingly said, but we must plead for a +distinction. Everything depends on the reality of a poet’s classic +character. If he is a dubious classic, let us sift him; if he is a false +classic, let us explode him. But if he is a real classic, if his work +belongs to the class of the very best (for this is the true and right +meaning of the word _classic_, _classical_), then the great thing for us +is to feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we can, and to +appreciate the wide difference between it and all work which has not the +same high character. This is what is salutary, this is what is +formative; this is the great benefit to be got from the study of poetry. +Everything which interferes with it, which hinders it, is injurious. +True, we must read our classic with open eyes, and not with eyes blinded +with superstition; we must perceive when his work comes short, when it +drops out of the class of the very best, and we must rate it, in such +cases, at its proper value. But the use of this negative criticism is +not in itself, it is entirely in its enabling us to have a clearer sense +and a deeper enjoyment of what is truly excellent. To trace the labor, +the attempts, the weaknesses, the failures of a genuine classic, to +acquaint oneself with his time and his life and his historical +relationships, is mere literary dilettantism, unless it has that clear +sense and deeper enjoyment for its end. It may be said that the more we +know about a classic the better we shall enjoy him; and, if we lived as +long as Methuselah and had all of us heads of perfect clearness and +wills of perfect steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it is +plausible in theory. But the case here is much the same as the case with +the Greek and Latin studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate +philological groundwork which we require them to lay is in theory an +admirable preparation for appreciating the Greek and Latin authors +worthily. The more thoroughly we lay the groundwork, the better we shall +be able, it may be said, to enjoy the authors. True, if time were not so +short, and schoolboys’ wits not so soon tired and their power of +attention exhausted; only, as it is, the elaborate philological +preparation goes on, but the authors are little known and less enjoyed. +So with the investigator of “historic origins” in poetry. He ought to +enjoy the true classic all the better for his investigations; he often +is distracted from the enjoyment of the best, and with the less good he +overbusies himself, and is prone to over-rate it in proportion to the +trouble which it has cost him. + +The idea of tracing historic origins and historical relationships cannot +be absent from a compilation, like the present. And naturally the poets +to be exhibited in it will be assigned to those persons for exhibition +who are known to prize them highly, rather than to those who have no +special inclination towards them. Moreover the very occupation with an +author, and the business of exhibiting him, disposes us to affirm and +amplify his importance. In the present work, therefore, we are sure of +frequent temptation to adopt the historic estimate, or the personal +estimate, and to forget the real estimate; which latter, nevertheless, +we must employ if we are to make poetry yield us its full benefit. So +high is that benefit, the benefit of clearly feeling and of deeply +enjoying the really excellent, the truly classic in poetry, that we do +well, I say, to set it fixedly before our minds as our object in +studying poets and poetry, and to make the desire of attaining it the +one principle to which, as the _Imitation_ says, whatever we may read or +come to know, we always return. _Cum multa legeris et cognoveris, ad +unum semper oportet redire principium._ + +The historic estimate is likely in especial to affect our judgment and +our language when we are dealing with ancient poets; the personal +estimate when we are dealing with poets our contemporaries, or at any +rate modern. The exaggerations due to the historic estimate are not in +themselves, perhaps, of very much gravity. Their report hardly enters +the general ear; probably they do not always impose even on the literary +men who adopt them. But they lead to a dangerous abuse of language. So +we hear Cædmon, amongst our own poets, compared to Milton. I have +already noticed the enthusiasm of one accomplished French critic for +“historic origins.” Another eminent French critic, M. Vitet, comments +upon that famous document of the early poetry of his nation, the +_Chanson de Roland_. It is indeed a most interesting document. The +_joculator_ or _jongleur_ Taillefer, who was with William the +Conqueror’s army at Hastings, marched before the Norman troops, so said +the tradition, singing “of Charlemagne and of Roland and of Oliver, and +of the vassals who died at Roncevaux;” and it is suggested that in the +_Chanson de Roland_ by one Turoldus or Théroulde, a poem preserved in a +manuscript of the twelfth century in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, we +have certainly the matter, perhaps even some of the words, of the chant +which Taillefer sang. The poem has vigor and freshness; it is not +without pathos. But M. Vitet is not satisfied with seeing in it a +document of some poetic value, and of very high historic and linguistic +value; he sees in it a grand and beautiful work, a monument of epic +genius. In its general design he finds the grandiose conception, in its +details he finds the constant union of simplicity with greatness, which +are the marks, he truly says, of the genuine epic, and distinguish it +from the artificial epic of literary ages. One thinks of Homer; this is +the sort of praise which is given to Homer, and justly given. Higher +praise there cannot well be, and it is the praise due to epic poetry of +the highest order only, and to no other. Let us try, then, the _Chanson +de Roland_ at its best. Roland, mortally wounded, lays himself down +under a pine-tree, with his face turned towards Spain and the enemy— + + “De plusurs choses à remembrer li prist, + De tantes teres cume li bers cunquist, + De dulce France, des humes de sun lign, + De Carlemagne sun seignor ki l’nurrit.”[25] + +That is primitive work, I repeat, with an undeniable poetic quality of +its own. It deserves such praise, and such praise is sufficient for it. +But now turn to Homer— + + Ὣς φάτο· τοὺς δ ἤδη κατέχεν φυσίζοος αἶα + ἐ Λακεδαίμονι αὖθι, φίλῃ ἐν πατρίδι λαίῃ[26] + +----- + +Footnote 25: + + “Then began he to call many things to remembrance,—all the lands which + his valour conquered, and pleasant France, and the men of his lineage, + and Charlemagne his liege lord who nourished him.”—_Chanson de + Roland_, iii. 939-942. + +Footnote 26: + + “So said she; they long since in Earth’s soft arms were reposing, + There, in their own dear land, their fatherland, Lacedæmon.” + _Iliad_, iii. 243, 244 (translated by Dr. Hawtry). + +----- + +We are here in another world, another order of poetry altogether; here +is rightly due such supreme praise as that which M. Vitet gives to the +_Chanson de Roland_. If our words are to have any meaning, if our +judgments are to have any solidity, we must not heap that supreme praise +upon poetry of an order immeasurably inferior. + +Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry +belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us +most good, than to have always in one’s mind lines and expressions of +the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of +course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it may +be very dissimilar. But if we have any tact we shall find them, when we +have lodged them well in our minds, an infallible touchstone for +detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also the +degree of this quality, in all other poetry which we may place beside +them. Short passages, even single lines, will serve our turn quite +sufficiently. Take the two lines which I have just quoted from Homer, +the poet’s comment on Helen’s mention of her brothers;—or take his + + Ἆ δειλώ, τί σφῶϊ δόμεν Πηλῆϊ ἄνακτι + θνητᾷ; ὑμεῖς δ’ ἐστὸν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε. + ἦ ἵνα δυστήνοισι μετ’ ἀνδράσιν ἄλγε’ ἔχητον;[27] + +the address of Zeus to the horses of Peleus;—or take finally his + + Καὶ σέ, γέρον, τὸ πρίν μὲν ἀκούομεν ὂλβιον εἶναι·[28] + +the words of Achilles to Priam, a suppliant before him. Take that +incomparable line and a half of Dante, Ugolino’s tremendous words— + + “Io no piangeva; sì dentro impietrai. + Piangevan elli....”[29] + +take the lovely words of Beatrice to Virgil— + + “Io son fatta da Dio, sua mercè, tale, + Che la vostra miseria non mi tange, + Nè flamma d’esto incendio non m’assale....”[30] + +take the simple, but perfect, single line— + + “In la sua vòlontade è nostra pace.”[31] + +Take of Shakespeare a line or two of Henry the Fourth’s expostulation +with sleep— + + “Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast + Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains + In cradle of the rude imperious surge....” + +and take, as well, Hamlet’s dying request to Horatio— + + “If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, + Absent thee from felicity awhile, + And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain + To tell my story....” + +Take of Milton that Miltonic passage— + + “Darken’d so, yet shone + Above them all the archangel; but his face + Deep scars of thunder had intrench’d, and care + Sat on his faded cheek..” + +add two such lines as— + + “And courage never to submit or yield + And what is else not to be overcome....” + +and finish with the exquisite close to the loss of Proserpine, the loss + + “... which cost Ceres all that pain + To seek her through the world.” + +These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even of +themselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to save +us from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate. + +----- + +Footnote 27: + + “Ah, unhappy pair, why gave we you to King Peleus, to a mortal? but ye + are without old age, and immortal. Was it that with men born to misery + ye might have sorrow?”—_Iliad_, xvii. 443-445. + +Footnote 28: + + “Nay, and thou too, old man, in former days wast, as we hear, + happy.”—_Iliad_, xxiv. 543. + +Footnote 29: + + “I wailed not, so of stone grew I within;—_they_ wailed.”—_Inferno_, + xxxiii. 39, 40. + +Footnote 30: + + “Of such sort hath God, thanked be His mercy, made me, that your + misery toucheth me not, neither doth the flame of this fire strike + me.”—_Inferno_, ii. 91-93. + +Footnote 31: + + “In His will is our peace.”—_Paradiso_, iii. 85. + +----- + +The specimens I have quoted differ widely from one another, but they +have in common this: the possession of the very highest poetical +quality. If we are thoroughly penetrated by their power, we shall find +that we have acquired a sense enabling us, whatever poetry may be laid +before us, to feel the degree in which a high poetical quality is +present or wanting there. Critics give themselves great labor to draw +out what in the abstract constitutes the characters of a high quality of +poetry. It is much better simply to have recourse to concrete +examples;—to take specimens of poetry of the high, the very highest +quality, and to say: The characters of a high quality of poetry are what +is expressed _there_. They are far better recognized by being felt in +the verse of the master, than by being perused in the prose of the +critic. Nevertheless if we are urgently pressed to give some critical +account of them, we may safely, perhaps, venture on laying down, not +indeed how and why the characters arise, but where and in what they +arise. They are in the matter and substance of the poetry, and they are +in its manner and style. Both of these, the substance and matter on the +one hand, the style and manner on the other, have a mark, an accent, of +high beauty, worth, and power. But if we are asked to define this mark +and accent in the abstract, our answer must be: No, for we should +thereby be darkening the question, not clearing it. The mark and accent +are as given by the substance and matter of that poetry, by the style +and manner of that poetry, and of all other poetry which is akin to it +in quality. + +Only one thing we may add as to the substance and matter of poetry, +guiding ourselves by Aristotle’s profound observation that the +superiority of poetry over history consists in its possessing a higher +truth and a higher seriousness (φιλοσοφώτερον χαὶ σπουδαιότερον). Let us +add, therefore, to what we have said, this: that the substance and +matter of the best poetry acquire their special character from +possessing, in an eminent degree, truth and seriousness. We may add yet +further, what is in itself evident, that to the style and manner of the +best poetry their special character, their accent, is given by their +diction, and, even yet more, by their movement. And though we +distinguish between the two characters, the two accents, of superiority, +yet they are nevertheless vitally connected one with the other. The +superior character of truth and seriousness, in the matter and substance +of the best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority of diction and +movement marking its style and manner. The two superiorities are closely +related, and are in steadfast proportion one to the other. So far as +high poetic truth and seriousness are wanting to a poet’s matter and +substance, so far also, we may be sure, will a high poetic stamp of +diction and movement be wanting to his style and manner. In proportion +as this high stamp of diction and movement, again, is absent from a +poet’s style and manner, we shall find, also, that high poetic truth and +seriousness are absent from his substance and matter. + +So stated, these are but dry generalities; their whole force lies in +their application. And I could wish every student of poetry to make the +application of them for himself. Made by himself, the application would +impress itself upon his mind far more deeply than made by me. Neither +will my limits allow me to make any full application of the generalities +above propounded; but in the hope of bringing out, at any rate, some +significance in them, and of establishing an important principle more +firmly by their means, I will, in the space which remains to me, follow +rapidly from the commencement the course of our English poetry with them +in my view. + +Once more I return to the early poetry of France, with which our own +poetry, in its origins, is indissolubly connected. In the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries, that seed-time of all modern language and +literature, the poetry of France had a clear predominance in Europe. Of +the two divisions of that poetry, its productions in the _langue d’oil_ +and its productions in the _langue d’oc_, the poetry of the _langue +d’oc_, of southern France, of the troubadours, is of importance because +of its effect on Italian literature;—the first literature of modern +Europe to strike the true and grand note, and to bring forth, as in +Dante and Petrarch it brought forth, classics. But the predominance of +French poetry in Europe, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, is +due to its poetry of the _langue d’oil_, the poetry of northern France +and of the tongue which is now the French language. In the twelfth +century the bloom of this romance-poetry was earlier and stronger in +England, at the court of our Anglo-Norman kings, than in France itself. +But it was a bloom of French poetry; and as our native poetry formed +itself, it formed itself out of this. The romance-poems which took +possession of the heart and imagination of Europe in the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries are French; “they are,” as Southey justly says, +“the pride of French literature, nor have we anything which can be +placed in competition with them.” Themes were supplied from all +quarters; but the romance-setting which was common to them all, and +which gained the ear of Europe, was French. This constituted for the +French poetry, literature, and language, at the height of the Middle +Age, an unchallenged predominance. The Italian Brunetto Latini, the +master of Dante, wrote his _Treasure_ in French because, he says, “la +parleure en est plus délitable et plus commune à toutes gens.” In the +same century, the thirteenth, the French romance-writer, Christian of +Troyes, formulates the claims, in chivalry and letters, of France, his +native country, as follows:— + + “Or vous ert par ce livre apris, + Que Gresse ot de chevalerie + Le premier los et de clergie; + Puis vint chevalerie à Rome, + Et de la clergie la some, + Qui ore est en France venue. + Diex doinst qu’ele i soit retenu + Et que li lius li abelisse + Tant que de France n’isse + L’onor qui s’i est arestée!” + +“Now by this book you will learn that first Greece had the renown for +chivalry and letters: then chivalry and the primacy in letters passed to +Rome, and now it is come to France. God grant it may be kept there; and +that the place may please it so well, that the honor which has come to +make stay in France may never depart thence!” + +Yet it is now all gone, this French romance poetry, of which the weight +of substance and the power of style are not unfairly represented by this +extract from Christian of Troyes. Only by means of the historic estimate +can we persuade ourselves now to think that any of it is of poetical +importance. + +But in the fourteenth century there comes an Englishman nourished on +this poetry; taught his trade by this poetry, getting words, rhyme, +meter from this poetry; for even of that stanza which the Italians used, +and which Chaucer derived immediately from the Italians, the basis and +suggestion was probably given in France. Chaucer (I have already named +him) fascinated his contemporaries, but so too did Christian of Troyes +the Wolfram of Eschenbach. Chaucer’s power of fascination, however, is +enduring; his poetical importance does not need the assistance of the +historic estimate; it is real. He is a genuine source of joy and +strength, which is flowing still for us and will flow always. He will be +read, as time goes on, far more generally than he is read now. His +language is a cause of difficulty for us; but so also, and I think in +quite as great a degree, is the language of Burns. In Chaucer’s case, as +in that of Burns, it is a difficulty to be unhesitatingly accepted and +overcome. + +If we ask ourselves wherein consists the immense superiority of +Chaucer’s poetry over the romance-poetry—why it is that in passing from +this to Chaucer we suddenly feel ourselves to be in another world, we +shall find that his superiority is both in the substance of his poetry +and in the style of his poetry. His superiority in substance is given by +his large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human life,—so unlike +the total want, in the romance-poets, of all intelligent command of it. +Chaucer has not their helplessness; he has gained the power to survey +the world from a central, a truly human point of view. We have only to +call to mind the Prologue to _The Canterbury Tales_. The right comment +upon it is Dryden’s: “It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, +that _here is God’s plenty_.” And again: “He is a perpetual fountain of +good sense.” It is by a large, free, sound representation of things, +that poetry, this high criticism of life, has truth of substance; and +Chaucer’s poetry has truth of substance. + +Of his style and manner, if we think first of the romance-poetry and +then of Chaucer’s divine liquidness of diction, his divine fluidity of +movement, it is difficult to speak temperately. They are irresistible, +and justify all the rapture with which his successors speak of his “gold +dew-drops of speech.” Johnson misses the point entirely when he finds +fault with Dryden for ascribing to Chaucer the first refinement of our +numbers, and says that Gower also can show smooth numbers and easy +rhymes. The refinement of our numbers means something far more than +this. A nation may have versifiers with smooth numbers and easy rhymes, +and yet may have no real poetry at all. Chaucer is the father of our +splendid English poetry; he is our “well of English undefiled,” because +by the lovely charm of his diction, the lovely charm of his movement, he +makes an epoch and founds a tradition. In Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, +Keats, we can follow the tradition of the liquid diction, the fluid +movement, of Chaucer; at one time it is his liquid diction of which in +these poets we feel the virtue, and at another time it is his fluid +movement. And the virtue is irresistible. + +Bounded as in space, I must yet find room for an example of Chaucer’s +virtue, as I have given examples to show the virtue of the great +classics. I feel disposed to say that a single line is enough to show +the charm of Chaucer’s verse; that merely one line like this— + + “O martyr souded[32] in virginitee!” + +has a virtue of manner and movement such as we shall not find in all the +verse of romance-poetry;—but this is saying nothing. The virtue is such +as we shall not find, perhaps, in all English poetry, outside the poets +whom I have named as the special inheritors of Chaucer’s tradition. A +single line, however, is too little if we have not the strain of +Chaucer’s verse well in our memory; let us take a stanza. It is from +_The Prioress’s Tale_, the story of the Christian child murdered in a +Jewry— + + “My throte is cut unto my nekke-bone + Said_è_ this child, and as by way of kinde + I should have dyed, yea, longè time agone + But Jesu Christ, as ye in book_è_s finde, + Will that his glory last and be in minde, + And for the worship of his mother dere + Yet may I sing _O Alma_ loud and clere.” + +Wordsworth has modernized this Tale, and to feel how delicate and +evanescent is the charm of verse, we have only to read Wordsworth’s +first three lines of this stanza after Chaucer’s— + + “My throat is cut unto the bone, I trow, + Said this young child, and by the law of kind + I should have died, yea, many hours ago.” + +The charm is departed. It is often said that the power of liquidness and +fluidity in Chaucer’s verse was dependent upon a free, a licentious +dealing with language, such as is now impossible; upon a liberty, such +as Burns too enjoyed, of making words like _neck_, _bird_, into a +dissyllable by adding to them, and words like _cause_, _rhyme_, into a +dissyllable by sounding the _e_ mute. It is true that Chaucer’s fluidity +is conjoined with this liberty, and is admirably served by it; but we +ought not to say that it was dependent upon it. It was dependent upon +his talent. Other poets with a like liberty do not attain to the +fluidity of Chaucer; Burns himself does not attain to it. Poets, again, +who have a talent akin to Chaucer’s, such as Shakespeare or Keats, have +known how to attain to his fluidity without the like liberty. + +----- + +Footnote 32: + + The French _soudé_; soldered, fixed fast. + +----- + +And yet Chaucer is not one of the great classics. His poetry transcends +and effaces, easily and without effort, all the romance-poetry of +Catholic Christendom; it transcends and effaces all the English poetry +contemporary with it, it transcends and effaces all the English poetry +subsequent to it down to the age of Elizabeth. Of such avail is poetic +truth of substance, in its natural and necessary union with poetic truth +of style. And yet, I say, Chaucer is not one of the great classics. He +has not their accent. What is wanting to him is suggested by the mere +mention of the name of the first great classic of Christendom, the +immortal poet who died eighty years before Chaucer,—Dante. The accent of +such verse as + + “In la sua voluntade è nostra pace....” + +is altogether beyond Chaucer’s reach; we praise him, but we feel that +this accent is out of the question for him. It may be said that it was +necessarily out of the reach of any poet in the England of that stage of +growth. Possibly; but we are to adopt a real, not a historic, estimate +of poetry. However we may account for its absence, something is wanting, +then, to the poetry of Chaucer, which poetry must have before it can be +placed in the glorious class of the best. And there is no doubt what +that something is. It is the οπουδαιότης, the high and excellent +seriousness, which Aristotle assigns as one of the grand virtues of +poetry. The substance of Chaucer’s poetry, his view of things and his +criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, benignity; but it +has not this high seriousness. Homer’s criticism of life has it, Dante’s +has it, Shakespeare’s has it. It is this chiefly which gives to our +spirits what they can rest upon; and with the increasing demands of our +modern ages upon poetry, this virtue of giving us what we can rest upon +will be more and more highly esteemed. A voice from the slums of Paris, +fifty or sixty years after Chaucer, the voice of poor Villon out of his +life of riot and crime, has at its happy moments (as, for instance, in +the last stanza of _La Belle Heaulmière_[33]) more of this important +poetic virtue of seriousness than all the productions of Chaucer. But +its apparition in Villon, and in men like Villon, is fitful; the +greatness of the great poets, the power of their criticism of life, is +that their virtue is sustained. + +----- + +Footnote 33: + + The name _Heaulmière_ is said to be derived from a headdress (helm) + worn as a mark by courtesans. In Villon’s ballad, a poor old creature + of this class laments her days of youth and beauty. The last stanza of + the ballad runs thus— + + “Ainsi le bon temps regretons + Entre nous, pauvres vieilles sott + Assises bas, à croppetons, + Tout en ung tas comme pelottes; + A petit feu de chenevottes + Tost allumées, tost estainctes, + Et jadis fusmes si mignottes! + Ainsi en prend à maintz et maintes.” + + “Thus amongst ourselves we regret the good time, poor silly old + things, low-seated on our heels, all in a heap like so many balls: by + a little fire of hemp-stalks, soon lighted, soon spent. And once we + were such darlings! So fares it with many and many a one.” + +----- + +To our praise, therefore, of Chaucer as a poet there must be this +limitation; he lacks the high seriousness of the great classics, and +therewith an important part of their virtue. Still, the main fact for us +to bear in mind about Chaucer is his sterling value according to that +real estimate which we firmly adopt for all poets. He has poetic truth +of substance, though he has not high poetic seriousness, and +corresponding to his truth of substance he has an exquisite value of +style and manner. With him is born our real poetry. + +For my present purpose I need not dwell on our Elizabethan poetry, or on +the continuation and close of this poetry in Milton. We all of us +profess to be agreed in the estimate of this poetry; we all of us +recognize it as great poetry, our greatest, and Shakespeare and Milton +as our poetical classics. The real estimate, here, has universal +currency. With the next age of our poetry divergency and difficulty +began. An historic estimate of that poetry has established itself; and +the question is, whether it will be found to coincide with the real +estimate. + +The age of Dryden, together with our whole eighteenth century which +followed it, sincerely believed itself to have produced poetical +classics of its own, and even to have made advance, in poetry, beyond +all its predecessors. Dryden regards as not seriously disputable the +opinion “that the sweetness of English verse was never understood or +practised by our fathers.” Cowley could see nothing at all in Chaucer’s +poetry. Dryden heartily admired it, and, as we have seen, praised its +matter admirably; but of its exquisite manner and movement all he can +find to say is that “there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, +which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect.” Addison, wishing to +praise Chaucer’s numbers, compares them with Dryden’s own. And all +through the eighteenth century, and down even into our own times, the +stereotyped phrase of approbation for good verse found in our early +poetry has been, that it even approached the verse of Dryden, Addison, +Pope, and Johnson. + +Are Dryden and Pope poetical classics? Is the historic estimate, which +represents them as such, and which has been so long established that it +cannot easily give way, the real estimate? Wordsworth and Coleridge, as +is well known, denied it; but the authority of Wordsworth and Coleridge +does not weigh much with the young generation, and there are many signs +to show that the eighteenth century and its judgments are coming into +favor again. Are the favorite poets of the eighteenth century classics? + +It is impossible within my present limits to discuss the question fully. +And what man of letters would not shrink from seeming to dispose +dictatorially of the claims of two men who are, at any rate, such +masters in letters as Dryden and Pope; two men of such admirable talent, +both of them, and one of them, Dryden, a man, on all sides, of such +energetic and genial power? And yet, if we are to gain the full benefit +from poetry, we must have the real estimate of it. I cast about for some +mode of arriving, in the present case, at such an estimate without +offence. And perhaps the best way is to begin, as it is easy to begin, +with cordial praise. + +When we find Chapman, the Elizabethan translator of Homer, expressing +himself in his preface thus: “Though truth in her very nakedness sits in +so deep a pit, that from Gades to Aurora and Ganges few eyes can sound +her, I hope yet those few here will so discover and confirm that, the +date being out of her darkness in this morning of our poet, he shall now +gird his temples with the sun,”—we pronounce that such a prose is +intolerable. When we find Milton writing: “And long it was not after, +when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not be +frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought +himself to be a true poem,”—we pronounce that such a prose has its own +grandeur, but that it is obsolete and inconvenient. But when we find +Dryden telling us: “What Virgil wrote in the vigor of his age, in plenty +and at ease, I have undertaken to translate in my declining years; +struggling with wants, oppressed with sickness, curbed in my genius, +liable to be misconstrued in all I write,”—then we exclaim that here at +last we have the true English prose, a prose such as we would all gladly +use if we only knew how. Yet Dryden was Milton’s contemporary. + +But after the Restoration the time had come when our nation felt the +imperious need of a fit prose. So, too, the time had likewise come when +our nation felt the imperious need of freeing itself from the absorbing +preoccupation which religion in the Puritan age had exercised. It was +impossible that this freedom should be brought about without some +negative excess, without some neglect and impairment of the religious +life of the soul; and the spiritual history of the eighteenth century +shows us that the freedom was not achieved without them. Still, the +freedom was achieved; the preoccupation, an undoubtedly baneful and +retarding one if it had continued, was got rid of. And as with religion +amongst us at that period, so it was also with letters. A fit prose was +a necessity; but it was impossible that a fit prose should establish +itself amongst us without some touch of frost to the imaginative life of +the soul. The needful qualities for a fit prose are regularity, +uniformity, precision, balance. The men of letters, whose destiny it may +be to bring their nation to the attainment of a fit prose, must of +necessity, whether they work in prose or in verse, give a predominating, +an almost exclusive attention to the qualities of regularity, +uniformity, precision, balance. But an almost exclusive attention to +these qualities involves some repression and silencing of poetry. + +We are to regard Dryden as the puissant and glorious founder, Pope as +the splendid high priest, of our age of prose and reason, of our +excellent and indispensable eighteenth century. For the purposes of +their mission and destiny their poetry, like their prose, is admirable. +Do you ask me whether Dryden’s verse, take it almost where you will, is +not good? + + “A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged, + Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged.” + +I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the inaugurator of an age of +prose and reason. Do you ask me whether Pope’s verse, take it almost +where you will, is not good? + + “To Hounslow Heath I point, and Banstead Down; + Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own.” + +I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the high priest of an age of +prose and reason. But do you ask me whether such verse proceeds from men +with an adequate poetic criticism of life, from men whose criticism of +life has a high seriousness, or even, without that high seriousness, has +poetic largeness, freedom, insight, benignity? Do you ask me whether the +application of ideas to life in the verse of these men, often a powerful +application, no doubt, is a powerful _poetic_ application? Do you ask me +whether the poetry of these men has either the matter or the inseparable +manner of such an adequate poetic criticism; whether it has the accent +of + + “Absent thee from felicity awhile....” + +or of + + “And what is else not to be overcome....” + +or of + + “O martyr souded in virginitee!” + +I answer: It has not and cannot have them; it is the poetry of the +builders of an age of prose and reason. Though they may write in verse, +though they may in a certain sense be masters of the art of +versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics of our poetry, they are +classics of our prose. + +Gray is our poetical classic of that literature and age; the position of +Gray is singular, and demands a word of notice here. He has not the +volume or the power of poets who, coming in times more favorable, have +attained to an independent criticism of life. But he lived with the +great poets, he lived, above all, with the Greeks, through perpetually +studying and enjoying them; and he caught their poetic point of view for +regarding life, caught their poetic manner. The point of view and the +manner are not self-sprung in him, he caught them of others; and he had +not the free and abundant use of them. But whereas Addison and Pope +never had the use of them, Gray had the use of them at times. He is the +scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a classic. + +And now, after Gray, we are met, as we draw towards the end of the +eighteenth century, we are met by the great name of Burns. We enter now +on times where the personal estimate of poets begins to be rife, and +where the real estimate of them is not reached without difficulty. But +in spite of the disturbing pressures of personal partiality, of national +partiality, let us try to reach a real estimate of the poetry of Burns. + +By his English poetry Burns in general belongs to the eighteenth +century, and has little importance for us. + + “Mark ruffian Violence, distain’d with crimes, + Rousing elate in these degenerate times; + View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, + As guileful Fraud points out the erring way; + While subtle Litigation’s pliant tongue + The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong!” + +Evidently this is not the real Burns, or his name and fame would have +disappeared long ago. Nor is Clarinda’s love-poet, Sylvander, the real +Burns either. But he tells us himself: “These English songs gravel me to +death. I have not the command of the language that I have of my native +tongue. In fact, I think that my ideas are more barren in English than +in Scotch. I have been at _Duncan Gray_ to dress it in English, but all +I can do is desperately stupid.” We English turn naturally, in Burns, to +the poems in our own language, because we can read them easily; but in +those poems we have not the real Burns. + +The real Burns is of course in his Scotch poems. Let us boldly say that +of much of this poetry, a poetry dealing perpetually with Scotch drink, +Scotch religion, and Scotch manners, a Scotchman’s estimate is apt to be +personal. A Scotchman is used to this world of Scotch drink, Scotch +religion, and Scotch manners; he has a tenderness for it; he meets its +poet half way. In this tender mood he reads pieces like the _Holy Fair_ +or _Halloween_. But this world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and +Scotch manners is against a poet, not for him, when it is not a partial +countryman who reads him; for in itself it is not a beautiful world, and +no one can deny that it is of advantage to a poet to deal with a +beautiful world. Burns’s world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and +Scotch manners, is often a harsh, a sordid, a repulsive world; even the +world of his _Cotter’s Saturday Night_ is not a beautiful world. No +doubt a poet’s criticism of life may have such truth and power that it +triumphs over its world and delights us. Burns may triumph over his +world, often he does triumph over his world, but let us observe how and +where. Burns is the first case we have had where the bias of the +personal estimate tends to mislead; let us look at him closely, he can +bear it. + +Many of his admirers will tell us that we have Burns, convivial, +genuine, delightful, here— + + Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair + Than either school or college; + It kindles wit, it waukens lair, + It pangs us fou o’ knowledge. + Be’t whisky gill or penny wheep + Or ony stronger portion, + It never fails, on drinking deep, + To kittle up our notion + By night or day.” + +There is a great deal of that sort of thing in Burns, and it is +unsatisfactory, not because it is bacchanalian poetry, but because it +has not that accent of sincerity which bacchanalian poetry, to do it +justice, very often has. There is something in it of bravado, something +which makes us feel that we have not the man speaking to us with his +real voice; something, therefore, poetically unsound. + +With still more confidence will his admirers tell us that we have the +genuine Burns, the great poet, when his strain asserts the independence, +equality, dignity, of men, as in the famous song _For a’ that and a’ +that_ + + “A prince can mak’ a belted knight, + A marquis, duke, and a’ that; + But an honest man’s aboon his might, + Guid faith he mauna fa’ that! + For a’ that, and a’ that, + Their dignities, and a’ that, + The pith o’ sense, and pride o’ worth, + Are higher rank than a’ that.” + +Here they find his grand, genuine touches; and still more, when this +puissant genius, who so often set morality at defiance, falls +moralizing— + + “The sacred lowe o’ weel-placed love + Luxuriantly indulge it; + But never tempt th’ illicit rove, + Tho’ naething should divulge it. + I waive the quantum o’ the sin, + The hazard o’ concealing, + But och! it hardens a’ within, + And pertrifies the feeling.” + +Or in a higher strain— + + Who made the heart, ’tis He alone + Decidedly can try us + He knows each chord, its various tone; + Each spring its various bias. + Then at the balance let’s be mute, + We never can adjust it; + What’s _done_ we partly may compute, + But know not what’s resisted.” + +Or in a better strain yet, a strain, his admirers will say, +unsurpassable— + + “To make a happy fire-side clime + To weans and wife, + That’s the true pathos and sublime + Of human life.” + +There is criticism of life for you, the admirers of Burns will say to +us; there is the application of ideas to life! There is, undoubtedly. +The doctrine of the last-quoted lines coincides almost exactly with what +was the aim and end, Xenophon tells us, of all the teaching of Socrates. +And the application is a powerful one; made by a man of vigorous +understanding, and (need I say?) a master of language. + +But for the supreme poetical success more is required than the powerful +application of ideas to life; it must be an application under the +conditions fixed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Those +laws fix as an essential condition, in the poet’s treatment of such +matters as are here in question, high seriousness;—the high seriousness +which comes from absolute sincerity. The accent of high seriousness, +born of absolute sincerity, is what gives to such verse as + + “In la sua volontade è nostra pace ...” + +to such criticism of life as Dante’s, its power. Is this accent felt in +the passages which I have been quoting from Burns? Surely not; surely, +if our sense is quick, we must perceive that we have not in those +passages a voice from the very inmost soul of the genuine Burns; he is +not speaking to us from these depths, he is more or less preaching. And +the compensation for admiring such passages less, from missing the +perfect poetic accent in them, will be that we shall admire more the +poetry where that accent is found. + +No; Burns, like Chaucer, comes short of the high seriousness of the +great classics, and the virtue of matter and manner which goes with that +high seriousness is wanting to his work. At moments he touched it in a +profound and passionate melancholy, as in those four immortal lines +taken by Byron as a motto for _The Bride of Abydos_, but which have in +them a depth of poetic quality such as resides in no verse of Byron’s +own— + + “Had we never loved sae kindly, + Had we never loved sae blindly, + Never met, or never parted, + We had ne’er been broken-hearted.” + +But a whole poem of that quality Burns cannot make; the rest, in the +_Farewell to Nancy_, is verbiage. + +We arrive best at the real estimate of Burns, I think, by conceiving his +work as having truth of matter and truth of manner, but not the accent +or the poetic virtue of the highest masters. His genuine criticism of +life, when the sheer poet in him speaks, is ironic; it is not— + + “Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme + These woes of mine fulfil, + Here firm I rest, they must be best + Because they are Thy will!” + +It is far rather: _Whistle owre the lave o’t!_ Yet we may say of him as +of Chaucer, that of life and the world, as they come before him, his +view is large, free, shrewd, benignant,—truly poetic, therefore; and his +manner of rendering what he sees is to match. But we must note, at the +same time, his great difference from Chaucer. The freedom of Chaucer is +heightened, in Burns, by a fiery, reckless energy; the benignity of +Chaucer deepens, in Burns, into an overwhelming sense of the pathos of +things;—of the pathos of human nature, the pathos, also, of non-human +nature. Instead of the fluidity of Chaucer’s manner, the manner of Burns +has spring, bounding swiftness. Burns is by far the greater force, +though he has perhaps less charm. The world of Chaucer is fairer, +richer, more significant than that of Burns; but when the largeness and +freedom of Burns get full sweep, as in _Tam o’ Shanter_, or still more +in that puissant and splendid production, _The Jolly Beggars_, his world +may be what it will, his poetic genius triumphs over it. In the world of +_The Jolly Beggars_ there is more than hideousness and squalor, there is +bestiality; yet the piece is a superb poetic success. It has a breadth, +truth, and power which make the famous scene in Auerbach’s Cellar, of +Goethe’s _Faust_, seem artificial and tame beside it, and which are only +matched by Shakespeare and Aristophanes. + +Here, where his largeness and freedom serve him so admirably, and also +in those poems and songs where to shrewdness he adds infinite archness +and wit, and to benignity infinite pathos, where his manner is flawless, +and a perfect poetic whole is the result,—in things like the address to +the mouse whose home he had ruined, in things like _Duncan Gray_, _Tam +Glen_, _Whistle and I’ll come to you my Lad_, _Auld Lang Syne_ (this +list might be made much longer),—here we have the genuine Burns, of whom +the real estimate must be high indeed. Not a classic, nor with the +excellent οπουδαιότης of the great classics, nor with a verse rising to +a criticism of life and a virtue like theirs; but a poet with thorough +truth of substance and an answering truth of style, giving us a poetry +sound to the core. We all of us have a leaning towards the pathetic, and +may be inclined perhaps to prize Burns most for his touches of piercing, +sometimes almost intolerable, pathos; for verse like— + + “We twa hae paidl’t i’ the burn + From mornin’ sun till dine; + But seas between us braid hae roar’d + Sin auld lang syne....” + +where he is as lovely as he is sound. But perhaps it is by the +perfection of soundness of his lighter and archer masterpieces that he +is poetically most wholesome for us. For the votary misled by a personal +estimate of Shelley, as so many of us have been, are, and will be,—of +that beautiful spirit building his many-colored haze of words and +images. + + “Pinnacled dim in the intense inane”— + +no contact can be wholesomer than the contact with Burns at his archest +and soundest. Side by side with the + + “On the brink of the night and the morning + My coursers are wont to respire, + But the Earth has just whispered a warning + That their flight must be swifter than fire ...” + +of _Prometheus Unbound_, how salutary, how very salutary, to place this +from _Tam Glen_— + + ‘My minnie does constantly deave me + And bids me beware o’ young men; + They flatter, she says, to deceive me; + But wha can think sae o’ Tam Glen?” + +But we enter on burning ground as we approach the poetry of times so +near to us—poetry like that of Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth—of which +the estimates are so often not only personal, but personal with passion. +For my purpose, it is enough to have taken the single case of Burns, the +first poet we come to of whose work the estimate formed is evidently apt +to be personal, and to have suggested how we may proceed, using the +poetry of the great classics as a sort of touchstone, to correct this +estimate, as we had previously corrected by the same means the historic +estimate where we met with it. A collection like the present, with its +succession of celebrated names and celebrated poems, offers a good +opportunity to us for resolutely endeavoring to make our estimates of +poetry real. I have sought to point out a method which will help us in +making them so, and to exhibit it in use so far as to put any one who +likes in a way of applying it for himself. + +At any rate the end to which the method and the estimate are designed to +lead, and from leading to which, if they do lead to it, they get their +whole value,—the benefit of being able clearly to feel and deeply to +enjoy the best, the truly classic, in poetry,—is an end, let me say it +once more at parting, of supreme importance. We are often told that an +era is opening in which we are to see multitudes of a common sort of +readers, and masses of a common sort of literature; that such readers do +not want and could not relish anything better than such literature, and +that to provide it is becoming a vast and profitable industry. Even if +good literature entirely lost currency with the world, it would still be +abundantly worth while to continue to enjoy it by oneself. But it never +will lose currency with the world, in spite of momentary appearances; it +never will lose supremacy. Currency and supremacy are insured to it, not +indeed by the world’s deliberate and conscious choice, but by something +far deeper,—by the instinct of self-preservation in humanity. + + + + + XII. + + MILTON[34] + +----- + +Footnote 34: + + An address delivered in St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, on the + 13th of February 1888, at the unveiling of a Memorial Window presented + by Mr. George W. Childs of Philadelphia. + +----- + + +The most eloquent voice of our century uttered, shortly before leaving +the world, a warning cry against “the Anglo-Saxon contagion.” The +tendencies and aims, the view of life and the social economy of the +ever-multiplying and spreading Anglo-Saxon race, would be found +congenial, this prophet feared, by all the prose, all the vulgarity +amongst mankind, and would invade and overpower all nations. The true +ideal would be lost, a general sterility of mind and heart would set in. + +The prophet had in view, no doubt, in the warning thus given, us and our +colonies, but the United States still more. There the Anglo-Saxon race +is already most numerous, there it increases fastest; there material +interests are most absorbing and pursued with most energy; there the +ideal, the saving ideal, of a high and rare excellence, seems perhaps to +suffer most danger of being obscured and lost. Whatever one may think of +the general danger to the world from the Anglo-Saxon contagion, it +appears to me difficult to deny that the growing greatness and influence +of the United States does bring with it some danger to the ideal of a +high and rare excellence. The _average man_ is too much a religion +there; his performance is unduly magnified, his shortcomings are not +duly seen and admitted. A lady in the State of Ohio sent to me only the +other day a volume on American authors; the praise given throughout was +of such high pitch that in thanking her I could not forbear saying that +for only one or two of the authors named was such a strain of praise +admissible, and that we lost all real standard of excellence by praising +so uniformly and immoderately. She answered me with charming good +temper, that very likely I was quite right, but it was pleasant to her +to think that excellence was common and abundant. But excellence is not +common and abundant; on the contrary, as the Greek poet long ago said, +excellence dwells among rocks hardly accessible, and a man must almost +wear his heart out before he can reach her. Whoever talks of excellence +as common and abundant, is on the way to lose all right standard of +excellence. And when the right standard of excellence is lost, it is not +likely that much which is excellent will be produced. + +To habituate ourselves, therefore, to approve, as the Bible says, things +that are really excellent, is of the highest importance. And some +apprehension may justly be caused by a tendency in Americans to take, +or, at any rate, attempt to take, profess to take, the average man and +his performances too seriously, to over-rate and over-praise what is not +really superior. + +But we have met here to-day to witness the unveiling of a gift in +Milton’s honor, and a gift bestowed by an American, Mr. Childs of +Philadelphia; whose cordial hospitality so many Englishmen, I myself +among the number, have experienced in America. It was only last autumn +that Stratford-upon-Avon celebrated the reception of a gift from the +same generous donor in honor of Shakespeare. Shakespeare and Milton—he +who wishes to keep his standard of excellence high, cannot choose two +better objects of regard and honor. And it is an American who has chosen +them, and whose beautiful gift in honor of one of them, Milton, with Mr. +Whittier’s simple and true lines inscribed upon it, is unveiled to-day. +Perhaps this gift in honor of Milton, of which I am asked to speak, is, +even more than the gift in honor of Shakespeare, one to suggest edifying +reflections to us. + +Like Mr. Whittier, I treat the gift of Mr. Childs as a gift in honor of +Milton, although the window given is in memory of his second wife, +Catherine Woodcock, the “late espoused saint” of the famous sonnet, who +died in child-bed at the end of the first year of her marriage with +Milton, and who lies buried here with her infant. Milton is buried in +Cripplegate, but he lived for a good while in this parish of St. +Margaret’s, Westminster, and here he composed part of _Paradise Lost_, +and the whole of _Paradise Regained_ and _Samson Agonistes_. When death +deprived him of the Catherine whom the new window commemorates, Milton +had still some eighteen years to live, and Cromwell, his “chief of men,” +was yet ruling England. But the Restoration, with its “Sons of Belial,” +was not far off; and in the meantime Milton’s heavy affliction had laid +fast hold upon him, his eyesight had failed totally, he was blind. In +what remained to him of life he had the consolation of producing the +_Paradise Lost_ and the _Samson Agonistes_, and such a consolation we +may indeed count as no slight one. But the daily life of happiness in +common things and in domestic affections—a life of which, to Milton as +to Dante, too small a share was given—he seems to have known most, if +not only, in his one married year with the wife who is here buried. Her +form “vested all in white,” as in his sonnet he relates that after her +death she appeared to him, her face veiled, but with “love, sweetness, +and goodness” shining in her person,—this fair and gentle daughter of +the rigid sectarist of Hackney, this lovable companion with whom Milton +had rest and happiness one year, is a part of Milton indeed, and in +calling up her memory, we call up his. + +And in calling up Milton’s memory we call up, let me say, a memory upon +which, in prospect of the Anglo-Saxon contagion and of its dangers +supposed and real, it may be well to lay stress even more than upon +Shakespeare’s. If to our English race an inadequate sense for perfection +of work is a real danger, if the discipline of respect for a high and +flawless excellence is peculiarly needed by us, Milton is of all our +gifted men the best lesson, the most salutary influence. In the sure and +flawless perfection of his rhythm and diction he is as admirable as +Virgil or Dante, and in this respect he is unique amongst us. No one +else in English literature and art possesses the like distinction. + +Thomson, Cowper, Wordsworth, all of them good poets who have studied +Milton, followed Milton, adopted his form, fail in their diction and +rhythm if we try them by that high standard of excellence maintained by +Milton constantly. From style really high and pure Milton never departs; +their departures from it are frequent. + +Shakespeare is divinely strong, rich, and attractive. But sureness of +perfect style Shakespeare himself does not possess. I have heard a +politician express wonder at the treasures of political wisdom in a +certain celebrated scene of _Troilus and Cressida_; for my part I am at +least equally moved to wonder at the fantastic and false diction in +which Shakespeare has in that scene clothed them. Milton, from one end +of _Paradise Lost_ to the other, is in his diction and rhythm constantly +a great artist in the great style. Whatever may be said as to the +subject of his poem, as to the conditions under which he received his +subject and treated it, that praise, at any rate, is assured to him. + +For the rest, justice is not at present done, in my opinion, to Milton’s +management of the inevitable matter of a Puritan epic, a matter full of +difficulties, for a poet. Justice is not done to the _architectonics_, +as Goethe would have called them, of _Paradise Lost_; in these, too, the +power of Milton’s art is remarkable. But this may be a proposition which +requires discussion and development for establishing it, and they are +impossible on an occasion like the present. + +That Milton, of all our English race, is by his diction and rhythm the +one artist of the highest rank in the great style whom we have; this I +take as requiring no discussion, this I take as certain. + +The mighty power of poetry and art is generally admitted. But where the +soul of this power, of this power at its best, chiefly resides, very +many of us fail to see. It resides chiefly in the refining and elevation +wrought in us by the high and rare excellence of the great style. We may +feel the effect without being able to give ourselves clear account of +its cause, but the thing is so. Now, no race needs the influences +mentioned, the influences of refining and elevation, more than ours; and +in poetry and art our grand source for them is Milton. + +To what does he owe this supreme distinction? To nature first and +foremost, to that bent of nature for inequality which to the worshippers +of the average man is so unacceptable; to a gift, a divine favor. “The +older one grows,” says Goethe, “the more one prizes natural gifts, +because by no possibility can they be procured and stuck on.” Nature +formed Milton to be a great poet. But what other poet has shown so +sincere a sense of the grandeur of his vocation, and a moral effort so +constant and sublime to make and keep himself worthy of it? The Milton +of religious and political controversy, and perhaps of domestic life +also, is not seldom disfigured by want of amenity, by acerbity. The +Milton of poetry, on the other hand, is one of those great men “who are +modest”—to quote a fine remark of Leopardi, that gifted and stricken +young Italian, who in his sense for poetic style is worthy to be named +with Dante and Milton—“who are modest, because they continually compare +themselves, not with other men, but with that idea of the perfect which +they have before their mind.” The Milton of poetry is the man, in his +own magnificent phrase, of “devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit that +can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim +with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of +whom he pleases.” And finally, the Milton of poetry is, in his own words +again, the man of “industrious and select reading.” Continually he lived +in companionship with high and rare excellence, with the great Hebrew +poets and prophets, with the great poets of Greece and Rome. The Hebrew +compositions were not in verse, and can be not inadequately represented +by the grand, measured prose of our English Bible. The verse of the +poets of Greece and Rome no translation can adequately reproduce. Prose +cannot have the power of verse; verse-translation may give whatever of +charm is in the soul and talent of the translator himself, but never the +specific charm of the verse and poet translated. In our race are +thousands of readers, presently there will be millions, who know not a +word of Greek and Latin, and will never learn those languages. If this +host of readers are ever to gain any sense of the power and charm of the +great poets of antiquity, their way to gain it is not through +translations of the ancients, but through the original poetry of Milton, +who has the like power and charm, because he has the like great style. + +Through Milton they may gain it, for, in conclusion, Milton is English; +this master in the great style of the ancients is English. Virgil, whom +Milton loved and honored, has at the end of the _Æneid_ a noble passage, +where Juno, seeing the defeat of Turnus and the Italians imminent, the +victory of the Trojan invaders assured, entreats Jupiter that Italy may +nevertheless survive and be herself still, may retain her own mind, +manners, and language, and not adopt those of the conqueror. + + “Sit Latium, sint Albani per secula reges!” + +Jupiter grants the prayer; he promises perpetuity and the future to +Italy—Italy reinforced by whatever virtue the Trojan race has, but +Italy, not Troy. This we may take as a sort of parable suiting +ourselves. All the Anglo-Saxon contagion, all the flood of Anglo-Saxon +commonness, beats vainly against the great style but cannot shake it, +and has to accept its triumph. But it triumphs in Milton, in one of our +own race, tongue, faith, and morals. Milton has made the great style no +longer an exotic here; he has made it an inmate amongst us, a leaven, +and a power. Nevertheless he, and his hearers on both sides of the +Atlantic, are English, and will remain English— + + “Sermonem Ausonii patrium moresque tenebunt.” + +The English race overspreads the world, and at the same time the ideal +of an excellence the most high and the most rare abides a possession +with it forever. + + + + + III. + + THOMAS GRAY. + + +James Brown, Master of Pembroke Hall at Cambridge, Gray’s friend and +executor, in a letter written a fortnight after Gray’s death to another +of his friends, Dr. Wharton of Old Park, Durham, has the following +passage:—[35] + +“Everything is now dark and melancholy in Mr. Gray’s room, not a trace +of him remains there; it looks as if it had been for some time +uninhabited, and the room bespoke for another inhabitant. The thoughts I +have of him will last, and will be useful to me the few years I can +expect to live. He never spoke out, but I believe from some little +expressions I now remember to have dropped from him, that for some time +past he thought himself nearer his end than those about him +apprehended.” + +----- + +Footnote 35: + + Prefixed to the Selection from Gray in Ward’s _English Poets_, vol. + iv. 1880. + +----- + +_He never spoke out._ In these four words is contained the whole history +of Gray, both as a man and as a poet. The words fell naturally, and as +it were by chance, from their writer’s pen; but let us dwell upon them, +and press into their meaning, for in following it we shall come to +understand Gray. + +He was in his fifty-fifth year when he died, and he lived in ease and +leisure, yet a few pages hold all his poetry; _he never spoke out_ in +poetry. Still, the reputation which he had achieved by his few pages is +extremely high. True, Johnson speaks of him with coldness and +disparagement. Gray disliked Johnson, and refused to make his +acquaintance; one might fancy that Johnson wrote with some irritation +from this cause. But Johnson was not by nature fitted to do justice to +Gray and to his poetry; this by itself is a sufficient explanation of +the deficiencies of his criticism of Gray. We may add a further +explanation of them which is supplied by Mr. Cole’s papers. “When +Johnson was publishing his Life of Gray,” says Mr. Cole, “I gave him +several anecdotes, _but he was very anxious as soon as possible to get +to the end of his labors_.” Johnson was not naturally in sympathy with +Gray, whose life he had to write, and when he wrote it he was in a hurry +besides. He did Gray injustice, but even Johnson’s authority failed to +make injustice, in this case, prevail. Lord Macaulay calls the Life of +Gray the worst of Johnson’s Lives, and it had found many censurers +before Macaulay. Gray’s poetical reputation grew and flourished in spite +of it. The poet Mason, his first biographer, in his epitaph equaled him +with Pindar. Britain has known, says Mason, + + “... a Homer’s fire in Milton’s strains, + A Pindar’s rapture in the lyre of Gray.” + +The immense vogue of Pope and of his style of versification had at first +prevented the frank reception of Gray by the readers of poetry. The +_Elegy_ pleased; it could not but please: but Gray’s poetry, on the +whole, astonished his contemporaries at first more than it pleased them; +it was so unfamiliar, so unlike the sort of poetry in vogue. It made its +way, however, after his death, with the public as well as with the few; +and Gray’s second biographer, Mitford, remarks that “the works which +were either neglected or ridiculed by their contemporaries have now +raised Gray and Collins to the rank of our two greatest lyric poets.” +Their reputation was established, at any rate, and stood extremely high, +even if they were not popularly read. Johnson’s disparagement of Gray +was called “petulant,” and severely blamed. Beattie, at the end of the +eighteenth century, writing to Sir William Forbes, says: “Of all the +English poets of this age Mr. Gray is most admired, and I think with +justice.” Cowper writes: “I have been reading Gray’s works, and think +him the only poet since Shakespeare entitled to the character of +sublime. Perhaps you will remember that I once had a different opinion +of him. I was prejudiced.” Adam Smith says: “Gray joins to the sublimity +of Milton the elegance and harmony of Pope; and nothing is wanting to +render him, perhaps, the first poet in the English language, but to have +written a little more.” And, to come nearer to our own times, Sir James +Mackintosh speaks of Gray thus: “Of all English poets he was the most +finished artist. He attained the highest degree of splendor of which +poetical style seemed to be capable.” + +In a poet of such magnitude, how shall we explain his scantiness of +production? Shall we explain it by saying that to make of Gray a poet of +this magnitude is absurd; that his genius and resources were small, and +that his production, therefore, was small also, but that the popularity +of a single piece, the _Elegy_,—a popularity due in great measure to the +subject,—created for Gray a reputation to which he has really no right? +He himself was not deceived by the favor shown to the _Elegy_. “Gray +told me with a good deal of acrimony,” writes Dr. Gregory, “that the +_Elegy_ owed its popularity entirely to the subject, and that the public +would have received it as well if it had been written in prose.” This is +too much to say; the _Elegy_ is a beautiful poem, and in admiring it the +public showed a true feeling for poetry. But it is true that the _Elegy_ +owed much of its success to its subject, and that it has received a too +unmeasured and unbounded praise. + +Gray himself, however, maintained that the _Elegy_ was not his best work +in poetry, and he was right. High as is the praise due to the _Elegy_, +it is yet true that in other productions of Gray he exhibits poetical +qualities even higher than those exhibited in the _Elegy_. He deserves, +therefore, his extremely high reputation as a poet, although his critics +and the public may not always have praised him with perfect judgment. We +are brought back, then, to the question: How, in a poet so really +considerable, are we to explain his scantiness of production? + +Scanty Gray’s production, indeed, is; so scanty that to supplement our +knowledge of it by a knowledge of the man is in this case of peculiar +interest and service. Gray’s letters and the records of him by his +friends have happily made it possible for us thus to know him, and to +appreciate his high qualities of mind and soul. Let us see these in the +man first, and then observe how they appear in his poetry; and why they +cannot enter into it more freely and inspire it with more strength, +render it more abundant. + +We will begin with his acquirements. “Mr. Gray was,” writes his friend +Temple, “perhaps the most learned man in Europe. He knew every branch of +history both natural and civil; had read all the original historians of +England, France, and Italy; and was a great antiquarian. Criticism, +metaphysics, morals, politics, made a principal part of his study. +Voyages and travels of all sorts were his favorite amusements; and he +had a fine taste in painting, prints, architecture, and gardening.” The +notes in his interleaved copy of Linnæus remained to show the extent and +accuracy of his knowledge in the natural sciences, particularly in +botany, zoology, and entomology. Entomologists testified that his +account of English insects was more perfect than any that had then +appeared. His notes and papers, of which some have been published, +others remain still in manuscript, give evidence, besides, of his +knowledge of literature ancient and modern, geography and topography, +painting, architecture and antiquities, and of his curious researches in +heraldry. He was an excellent musician. Sir James Mackintosh reminds us, +moreover, that to all the other accomplishments and merits of Gray we +are to add this: “That he was the first discoverer of the beauties of +nature in England, and has marked out the course of every picturesque +journey that can be made in it.” + +Acquirements take all their value and character from the power of the +individual storing them. Let us take, from amongst Gray’s observations +on what he read, enough to show us his power. Here are criticisms on +three very different authors, criticisms without any study or +pretension, but just thrown out in chance letters to his friends. First, +on Aristotle:— + + ‘In the first place he is the hardest author by far I ever meddled + with. Then he has a dry conciseness that makes one imagine one is + perusing a table of contents rather than a book; it tastes for all the + world like chopped hay, or rather like chopped logic; for he has a + violent affection to that art, being in some sort his own invention; + so that he often loses himself in little trifling distinctions and + verbal niceties, and what is worse, leaves you to extricate yourself + as you can. Thirdly, he has suffered vastly by his transcribers, as + all authors of great brevity necessarily must. Fourthly and lastly, he + has abundance of fine, uncommon things, which make him well worth the + pains he gives one. You see what you have to expect.” + +Next, on Isocrates:— + + “It would be strange if I should find fault with you for reading + Isocrates; I did so myself twenty years ago, and in an edition at + least as bad as yours. The Panegyric, the De Pace, Areopagitic, and + Advice to Philip, are by far the noblest remains we have of this + writer, and equal to most things extant in the Greek tongue; but it + depends on your judgment to distinguish between his real and + occasional opinion of things, as he directly contradicts in one place + what he has advanced in another; for example, in the Panathenaic and + the De Pace, on the naval power of Athens; the latter of the two is + undoubtedly his own undisguised sentiment.” + +After hearing Gray on Isocrates and Aristotle, let us hear him on +Froissart:— + + “I rejoice you have met with Froissart, he is the Herodotus of a + barbarous age; had he but had the luck of writing in as good a + language, he might have been immortal. His locomotive disposition (for + then there was no other way of learning things), his simple curiosity, + his religious credulity, were much like those of the old Grecian. When + you have _tant chevauché_ as to get to the end of him, there is + Monstrelet waits to take you up, and will set you down at Philip de + Commines; but previous to all these, you should have read + Villehardouin and Joinville.” + +Those judgments, with their true and clear ring, evince the high quality +of Gray’s mind, his power to command and use his learning. But Gray was +a poet; let us hear him on a poet, on Shakespeare. We must place +ourselves in the full midst of the eighteenth century and of its +criticism: Gray’s friend, West, had praised Racine for using it in his +dramas “the language of the times and that of the purest sort”; and he +had added: “I will not decide what style is fit for our English stage, +but I should rather choose one that bordered upon Cato, than upon +Shakespeare.” Gray replies:— + + “As to matter of style, I have this to say: The language of the age is + never the language of poetry; except among the French, whose verse, + where the thought does not support it, differs in nothing from prose. + Our poetry, on the contrary, has a language peculiar to itself, to + which almost every one that has written has added something. In truth, + Shakespeare’s language is one of his principal beauties; and he has no + less advantage over your Addisons and Rowes in this, than in those + other great excellences you mention. Every word in him is a picture. + Pray put me the following lines into the tongue of our modern + dramatics— + + ‘But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, + Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass’— + + and what follows? To me they appear untranslatable; and if this be the + case, our language is greatly degenerated.” + +It is impossible for a poet to lay down the rules of his own art with +more insight, soundness, and certainty. Yet at that moment in England +there was perhaps not one other man, besides Gray, capable of writing +the passage just quoted. + +Gray’s quality of mind, then, we see; his quality of soul will no less +bear inspection. His reserve, his delicacy, his distaste for many of the +persons and things surrounding him in the Cambridge of that day,—“this +silly, dirty place,” as he calls it,—have produced an impression of Gray +as being a man falsely fastidious, finical, effeminate. But we have +already had that grave testimony to him from the Master of Pembroke +Hall: “The thoughts I have of him will last, and will be useful to me +the few years I can expect to live.” And here is another to the same +effect from a younger man, from Gray’s friend Nicholls:— + + “You know,” he writes to his mother, from abroad, when he heard of + Gray’s death, “that I considered Mr. Gray as a second parent, that I + thought only of him, built all my happiness on him, talked of him + forever, wished him with me whenever I partook of any pleasure, and + flew to him for revenge whenever I felt any uneasiness. To whom now + shall I talk of all I have seen here? Who will teach me to read, to + think, to feel? I protest to you, that whatever I did or thought had a + reference to him. If I met with any chagrins, I comforted myself that + I had a treasure at home; if all the world had despised and hated me, + I should have thought myself perfectly recompensed in his friendship. + There remains only one loss more; if I lose you, I am left alone in + the world. At present I feel that I have lost half of myself.” + +Testimonies such as these are not called forth by a fastidious +effeminate weakling; they are not called forth, even, by mere qualities +of mind; they are called forth by qualities of soul. And of Gray’s high +qualities of soul, of his σπουδαιότης, his excellent seriousness, we may +gather abundant proof from his letters. Writing to Mason who had just +lost his father, he says:— + + “I have seen the scene you describe, and know how dreadful it is; I + know too I am the better for it. We are all idle and thoughtless + things, and have no sense, no use in the world any longer than that + sad impression lasts; the deeper it is engraved the better.” + +And again, on a like occasion to another friend:— + + “He who best knows our nature (for he made us what we are) by such + afflictions recalls us from our wandering thoughts and idle merriment, + from the insolence of youth and prosperity, to serious reflection, to + our duty, and to himself; nor need we hasten to get rid of these + impressions. Time (by appointment of the same Power) will cure the + smart and in some hearts soon blot out all the traces of sorrow; but + such as preserve them longest (for it is partly left in our own power) + do perhaps best acquiesce in the will of the chastiser.” + +And once more to Mason, in the very hour of his wife’s death; Gray was +not sure whether or not his letter would reach Mason before the end:— + + “If the worst be not yet past, you will neglect and pardon me; but if + the last struggle be over, if the poor object of your long anxieties + be no longer sensible to your kindness or to her own sufferings, allow + me, at least an idea (for what could I do, were I present, more than + this?) to sit by you in silence and pity from my heart not her, who is + at rest, but you, who lose her. May he, who made us, the Master of our + pleasures and of our pains, support you! Adieu.” + +Seriousness, character, was the foundation of things with him; where +this was lacking he was always severe, whatever might be offered to him +in its stead. Voltaire’s literary genius charmed him, but the faults of +Voltaire’s nature he felt so strongly that when his young friend +Nicholls was going abroad in 1771, just before Gray’s death, he said to +him: “I have one thing to beg of you which you must not refuse.” +Nicholls answered: “You know you have only to command; what is it?”—“Do +not go to see Voltaire,” said Gray; and then added: “No one knows the +mischief that man will do.” Nicholls promised compliance with Gray’s +injunction; “But what,” he asked, “could a visit from me +signify?”—“Every tribute to such a man signifies,” Gray answered. He +admired Dryden, admired him, even, too much; had too much felt his +influence as a poet. He told Beattie “that if there was any excellence +in his own numbers he had learned it wholly from that great poet;” and +writing to Beattie afterwards he recurs to Dryden, whom Beattie, he +thought, did not honor as a poet: “Remember Dryden,” he writes, “and be +blind to all his faults.” Yes, his faults as a poet; but on the man +Dryden, nevertheless, his sentence is stern. Speaking of the +Poet-Laureateship, “Dryden,” he writes to Mason, “was as disgraceful to +the office from his character, as the poorest scribbler could have been +from his verses.” Even where crying blemishes were absent, the want of +weight and depth of character in a man deprived him, in Gray’s judgment, +of serious significance. He says of Hume: “Is not that _naïveté_ and +good-humor, which his admirers celebrate in him, owing to this, that he +has continued all his days an infant, but one that has unhappily been +taught to read and write?” + +And with all this strenuous seriousness, a pathetic sentiment, and an +element, likewise, of sportive and charming humor. At Keswick, by the +lakeside on an autumn evening, he has the accent of the _Rêveries_, or +of Obermann, or Wordsworth:— + + “In the evening walked down alone to the lake by the side of Crow Park + after sunset and saw the solemn coloring of light draw on, the last + gleam of sunshine fading away on the hill-tops, the deep serene of the + waters, and the long shadows of the mountains thrown across them, till + they nearly touched the hithermost shore. At a distance heard the + murmur of many waterfalls, not audible in the daytime. Wished for the + Moon, but she was _dark to me and silent hid in her vacant interlunar + cave_.” + +Of his humor and sportiveness his delightful letters are full; his humor +appears in his poetry too, and is by no means to be passed over there. +Horace Walpole said that “Gray never wrote anything easily but things of +humor; humor was his natural and original turn.” + +Knowledge, penetration, seriousness, sentiment, humor, Gray had them +all; he had the equipment and endowment for the office of poet. But very +soon in his life appear traces of something obstructing, something +disabling; of spirits failing, and health not sound; and the evil +increases with years. He writes to West in 1737:— + + “Low spirits are my true and faithful companions; they get up with me, + go to bed with me, make journeys and returns as I do; nay, pay visits + and will even affect to be jocose and force a feeble laugh with me; + but most commonly we sit alone together, and are the prettiest insipid + company in the world.” + +The tone is playful, Gray was not yet twenty-one. “Mine,” he tells West +four or five years later, “mine, you are to know, is a white Melancholy, +or rather _Leucocholy_, for the most part; which, though it seldom +laughs or dances, nor ever amounts to what one calls joy or pleasure, +yet is a good easy sort of a state.” But, he adds in the same letter:— + + “But there is another sort, black indeed, which I have now and then + felt, that has something in it like Tertullian’s rule of faith, _Credo + quia impossibile est_; for it believes, nay, is sure of everything + that is unlikely, so it be but frightful; and on the other hand + excludes and shuts its eyes to the most possible hopes, and everything + that is pleasurable; from this the Lord deliver us! for none but he + and sunshiny weather can do it.” + +Six or seven years pass, and we find him writing to Wharton from +Cambridge thus:— + + “The spirit of laziness (the spirit of this place) begins to possess + even me, that have so long declaimed against it. Yet has it not so + prevailed, but that I feel that discontent with myself, that _ennui_, + that ever accompanies it in its beginnings. Time will settle my + conscience, time will reconcile my languid companion to me; we shall + smoke, we shall tipple, we shall doze together, we shall have our + little jokes, like other people, and our long stories. Brandy will + finish what port began; and, a month after the time, you will see in + some corner of a London Evening Post, ‘Yesterday died the Rev. Mr. + John Gray, Senior-Fellow of Clare Hall, a facetious companion, and + well-respected by all who knew him.’” + +The humorous advertisement ends, in the original letter, with a +Hogarthian touch which I must not quote. Is it Leucocholy or is it +Melancholy which predominates here? at any rate, this entry in his +diary, six years later, is black enough:— + + “_Insomnia crebra, atque expergiscenti surdus quidam doloris sensus; + frequens etiam in regione sterni oppressio, et cardialgia gravis, fere + sempiterna._” + +And in 1757 he writes to Hurd:— + + “To be employed is to be happy. This principle of mine (and I am + convinced of its truth) has, as usual, no influence on my practice. I + am alone, and _ennuyé_ to the last degree, yet do nothing. Indeed I + have no excuse; my health (which you have so kindly inquired after) is + not extraordinary. It is no great malady, but several little ones, + that seem brewing no good to me.” + +From thence to the end his languor and depression, though still often +relieved by occupation and travel, keep fatally gaining on him. At last +the depression became constant, became mechanical. “Travel I must,” he +writes to Dr. Wharton, “or cease to exist. Till this year I hardly knew +what _mechanical_ low spirits were; but now I even tremble at an east +wind.” Two months afterwards he died. + +What wonder, that with this troublous cloud, throughout the whole term +of his manhood, brooding over him and weighing him down, Gray, finely +endowed though he was, richly stored with knowledge though he was, yet +produced so little, found no full and sufficient utterance, “_never_,” +as the Master of Pembroke Hall said, “_spoke out_.” He knew well enough, +himself, how it was with him. + +“My _verve_ is at best, you know” (he writes to Mason), “of so delicate +a constitution, and has such weak nerves, as not to stir out of its +chamber above three days in a year.” And to Horace Walpole he says: “As +to what you say to me civilly, that I ought to write more, I will be +candid, and avow to you, that till fourscore and upward, whenever the +humor takes me, I will write; because I like it, and because I like +myself better when I do so. If I do not write much, it is because I +cannot.” How simply said, and how truly also! Fain would a man like Gray +speak out if he could, he “likes himself better” when he speaks out; if +he does not speak out, “it is because I cannot.” + +Bonstetten, that mercurial Swiss who died in 1832 at the age of +eighty-seven, having been younger and livelier from his sixtieth year to +his eightieth than at any other time in his life, paid a visit in his +early days to Cambridge, and saw much of Gray, to whom he attached +himself with devotion. Gray, on his part, was charmed with his young +friend; “I never saw such a boy,” he writes; “our breed is not made on +this model.” Long afterwards Bonstetten published his reminiscences of +Gray. “I used to tell Gray,” he says, “about my life and my native +country, but _his_ life was a sealed book to me; he never would talk of +himself, never would allow me to speak to him of his poetry. If I quoted +lines of his to him, he kept silence like an obstinate child. I said to +him sometimes: ‘Will you have the goodness to give me an answer?’ But +not a word issued from his lips.” _He never spoke out._ Bonstetten +thinks that Gray’s life was poisoned by an unsatisfied sensibility, was +withered by his having never loved; by his days being passed in the +dismal cloisters of Cambridge, in the company of a set of monastic +bookworms, “whose existence no honest woman ever came to cheer.” +Sainte-Beuve, who was much attracted and interested by Gray, doubts +whether Bonstetten’s explanation of him is admissible; the secret of +Gray’s melancholy he finds rather in the sterility of his poetic talent, +“so distinguished, so rare, but so stinted;” in the poet’s despair at +his own unproductiveness. + +But to explain Gray, we must do more than allege his sterility, as we +must look further than to his reclusion at Cambridge. What caused his +sterility? Was it his ill-health, his hereditary gout? Certainly we will +pay all respect to the powers of hereditary gout for afflicting us poor +mortals. But Goethe, after pointing out that Schiller, who was so +productive, was “almost constantly ill,” adds the true remark that it is +incredible how much the spirit can do, in these cases, to keep up the +body. Pope’s animation and activity through all the course of what he +pathetically calls “that long disease, my life,” is an example +presenting itself signally, in Gray’s own country and time, to confirm +what Goethe here says. What gave the power to Gray’s reclusion and +ill-health to induce his sterility? + +The reason, the indubitable reason as I cannot but think it, I have +already given elsewhere. Gray, a born poet, fell upon an age of prose. +He fell upon an age whose task was such as to call forth in general +men’s powers of understanding, wit and cleverness, rather than their +deepest powers of mind and soul. As regards literary production, the +task of the eighteenth century in England was not the poetic +interpretation of the world, its task was to create a plain, clear, +straightforward, efficient prose. Poetry obeyed the bent of mind +requisite for the due fulfilment of this task of the century. It was +intellectual, argumentative, ingenious; not seeing things in their truth +and beauty, not interpretative. Gray, with the qualities of mind and +soul of a genuine poet, was isolated in his century. Maintaining and +fortifying them by lofty studies, he yet could not fully educe and enjoy +them; the want of a genial atmosphere, the failure of sympathy in his +contemporaries, were too great. Born in the same year with Milton, Gray +would have been another man; born in the same year with Burns, he would +have been another man. A man born in 1608 could profit by the larger and +more poetic scope of the English spirit in the Elizabethan age; a man +born in 1759 could profit by that European renewing of men’s minds of +which the great historical manifestation is the French Revolution. +Gray’s alert and brilliant young friend, Bonstetten, who would explain +the void in the life of Gray by his having never loved, Bonstetten +himself loved, married, and had children. Yet at the age of fifty he was +bidding fair to grow old, dismal and torpid like the rest of us, when he +was roused and made young again for some thirty years, says M. +Sainte-Beuve, by the events of 1789. If Gray, like Burns, had been just +thirty years old when the French Revolution broke out, he would have +shown, probably, productiveness and animation in plenty. Coming when he +did, and endowed as he was, he was a man born out of date, a man whose +full spiritual flowering was impossible. The same thing is to be said of +his great contemporary, Butler, the author of the _Analogy_. In the +sphere of religion, which touches that of poetry, Butler was impelled by +the endowment of his nature to strive for a profound and adequate +conception of religious things, which was not pursued by his +contemporaries, and which at that time, and in that atmosphere of mind, +was not fully attainable. Hence, in Butler too, a dissatisfaction, a +weariness, as in Gray; “great labor and weariness, great disappointment, +pain and even vexation of mind.” A sort of spiritual east wind was at +that time blowing; neither Butler nor Gray could flower. They _never +spoke out_. + +Gray’s poetry was not only stinted in quantity by reason of the age +wherein he lived, it suffered somewhat in quality also. We have seen +under what obligation to Dryden Gray professed himself to be—“if there +was any excellence in his numbers, he had learned it wholly from that +great poet.” It was not for nothing that he came when Dryden had lately +“embellished,” as Johnson says, English poetry; had “found it brick and +left it marble.” It was not for nothing that he came just when “the +English ear,” to quote Johnson again, “had been accustomed to the +mellifluence of Pope’s numbers, and the diction of poetry had grown more +splendid.” Of the intellectualities, ingenuities, personifications, of +the movement and diction of Dryden and Pope, Gray caught something, +caught too much. We have little of Gray’s poetry, and that little is not +free from the faults of his age. Therefore it was important to go for +aid, as we did, to Gray’s life and letters, to see his mind and soul +there, and to corroborate from thence that high estimate of his quality +which his poetry indeed calls forth, but does not establish so amply and +irresistibly as one could desire. + +For a just criticism it does, however, clearly establish it. The +difference between genuine poetry and the poetry of Dryden, Pope, and +all their school, is briefly this: their poetry is conceived and +composed in their wits, genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the +soul. The difference between the two kinds of poetry is immense. They +differ profoundly in their modes of language, they differ profoundly in +their modes of evolution. The poetic language of our eighteenth century +in general is the language of men composing _without their eye on the +object_, as Wordsworth excellently said of Dryden; language merely +recalling the object, as the common language of prose does, and then +dressing it out with a certain smartness and brilliancy for the fancy +and understanding. This is called “splendid diction.” The evolution of +the poetry of our eighteenth century is likewise intellectual; it +proceeds by ratiocination, antithesis, ingenious turns and conceits. +This poetry is often eloquent, and always, in the hands of such masters +as Dryden and Pope, clever; but it does not take us much below the +surface of things, it does not give us the emotion of seeing things in +their truth and beauty. The language of genuine poetry, on the other +hand, is the language of one composing with his eye on the object; its +evolution is that of a thing which has been plunged in the poet’s soul +until it comes forth naturally and necessarily. This sort of evolution +is infinitely simpler than the other, and infinitely more satisfying; +the same thing is true of the genuine poetic language likewise. But they +are both of them also infinitely harder of attainment; they come only +from those who, as Emerson says, “live from a great depth of being.” + +Goldsmith disparaged Gray who had praised his _Traveller_, and indeed in +the poem on the _Alliance of Education and Government_ had given him +hints which he used for it. In retaliation let us take from Goldsmith +himself a specimen of the poetic language of the eighteenth century. + + “No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale”— + +there is exactly the poetic diction of our prose century! rhetorical, +ornate,—and, poetically, quite false. Place beside it a line of genuine +poetry, such as the + + “In cradle of the rude, imperious surge + +of Shakespeare; and all its falseness instantly becomes apparent. + +Dryden’s poem on the death of Mrs. Killigrew is, says Johnson, +“undoubtedly the noblest ode that our language ever has produced.” In +this vigorous performance Dryden has to say, what is interesting enough, +that not only in poetry did Mrs. Killigrew excel, but she excelled in +painting also. And thus he says it— + + “To the next realm she stretch’d her sway, + For Painture near adjoining lay— + A plenteous province and alluring prey. + A Chamber of Dependencies was framed + (As conquerors will never want pretence + When arm’d, to justify the offence), + And the whole fief, in right of Poetry, she claim’d.” + + The intellectual, ingenious, superficial evolution of poetry of this + school could not be better illustrated. Place beside it Pindar’s + + αἰὼν ὰσφαλὴς + οὐχ ἔγεντ’ οὔτ’ Αἰακίδᾳ παρὰ Πηλεῖ + οὔτε παρ’ ἀντιθέῳ Κάδμῳ ... + + “A secure time fell to the lot neither of Peleus the son of Æacus, nor + of the godlike Cadmus; howbeit these are said to have had, of all + mortals, the supreme of happiness, who heard the golden-snooded Muses + sing,—on the mountain the one heard them, the other in seven-gated + Thebes.” + +There is the evolution of genuine poetry, and such poetry kills Dryden’s +the moment it is put near it. + +Gray’s production was scanty, and scanty, as we have seen, it could not +but be. Even what he produced is not always pure in diction, true in +evolution. Still, with whatever drawbacks, he is alone, or almost alone +(for Collins has something of the like merit) in his age. Gray said +himself that “the style he aimed at was extreme conciseness of +expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical.” Compared, not with the +work of the great masters of the golden ages of poetry, but with the +poetry of his own contemporaries in general, Gray’s may be said to have +reached, in style, the excellence at which he aimed; while the evolution +also of such a piece as his _Progress of Poesy_ must be accounted not +less noble and sound than its style. + + + + + IV. + + JOHN KEATS.[36] + +----- + +Footnote 36: + + Prefixed to the Selection from Keats in Ward’s _English Poets_, vol. + iv. 1880. + +----- + + +Poetry, according to Milton’s famous saying, should be “simple, +sensuous, impassioned.” No one can question the eminency, in Keat’s +poetry, of the quality of sensuousness. Keats as a poet is abundantly +and enchantingly sensuous; the question with some people will be, +whether he is anything else. Many things may be brought forward which +seem to show him as under the fascination and sole dominion of sense, +and desiring nothing better. There is the exclamation in one of his +letters: “O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts!” There is +the thesis, in another, “that with a great Poet the sense of Beauty +overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all +consideration.” There is Haydon’s story of him, how “he once covered his +tongue and throat as far as he could reach with Cayenne pepper, in order +to appreciate the delicious coldness of claret in all its glory—his own +expression.” One is not much surprised when Haydon further tells us, of +the hero of such a story, that once for six weeks together he was hardly +ever sober. “He had no decision of character,” Haydon adds; “no object +upon which to direct his great powers.” + +Character and self-control, the _virtus verusque labor_ so necessary for +every kind of greatness, and for the great artist, too, indispensable, +appear to be wanting, certainly, to this Keats of Haydon’s portraiture. +They are wanting also to the Keats of the _Letters to Fanny Brawne_. +These letters make as unpleasing an impression as Haydon’s anecdotes. +The editor of Haydon’s journals could not well omit what Haydon said of +his friend, but for the publication of the _Letters to Fanny Brawne_ I +can see no good reason whatever. Their publication appears to me, I +confess, inexcusable; they ought never to have been published. But +published they are, and we have to take notice of them. Letters written +when Keats was near his end, under the throttling and unmanning grasp of +mortal disease, we will not judge. But here is a letter written some +months before he was taken ill. It is printed just as Keats wrote it. + + “You have absorb’d me. I have a sensation at the present moment as + though I was dissolving—I should be exquisitely miserable without the + hope of soon seeing you. I should be afraid to separate myself far + from you. My sweet Fanny, will your heart never change? My love, will + it? I have no limit now to my love.... Your note came in just here. I + cannot be happier away from you. ’Tis richer than an Argosy of + Pearles. Do not threat me even in jest. I have been astonished that + Men could die Martyrs for religion—I have shuddered at it. I shudder + no more—I could be martyred for my Religion—Love is my religion—I + could die for that. I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are + its only tenet. You have ravished me away by a Power I cannot resist; + and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you + I have endeavoured often ‘to reason against the reasons of my Love.’ I + can do that no more—the pain would be too great. My love is selfish. I + cannot breathe without you.” + +A man who writes love-letters in this strain is probably predestined, +one may observe, to misfortune in his love-affairs; but that is nothing. +The complete enervation of the writer is the real point for remark. We +have the tone, or rather the entire want of tone, the abandonment of all +reticence and all dignity, of the merely sensuous man, of the man who +“is passion’s slave.” Nay, we have them in such wise that one is tempted +to speak even as _Blackwood_ or the _Quarterly_ were in the old days +wont to speak; one is tempted to say that Keats’s love-letter is the +love-letter of a surgeon’s apprentice. It has in its relaxed +self-abandonment something underbred and ignoble, as of a youth ill +brought up, without the training which teaches us that we must put some +constraint upon our feelings and upon the expression of them. It is the +sort of love-letter of a surgeon’s apprentice which one might hear read +out in a breach of promise case, or in the Divorce Court. The sensuous +man speaks in it, and the sensuous man of a badly bred and badly trained +sort. That many who are themselves also badly bred and badly trained +should enjoy it, and should even think it a beautiful and characteristic +production of him whom they call their “lovely and beloved Keats,” does +not make it better. These are the admirers whose pawing and fondness +does not good but harm to the fame of Keats; who concentrate attention +upon what in him is least wholesome and most questionable; who worship +him, and would have the world worship him too, as the poet of + + ‘Light feet, dark violet eyes, and parted hair, + Soft dimpled hands, white neck, and creamy breast.’ + +This sensuous strain Keats had, and a man of his poetic powers could +not, whatever his strain, but show his talent in it. But he has +something more, and something better. We who believe Keats to have been +by his promise, at any rate, if not fully by his performance, one of the +very greatest of English poets, and who believe also that a merely +sensuous man cannot either by promise or by performance be a very great +poet, because poetry interprets life, and so large and noble a part of +life is outside of such a man’s ken,—we cannot but look for signs in him +of something more than sensuousness, for signs of character and virtue. +And indeed the elements of high character Keats undoubtedly has, and the +effort to develop them; the effort is frustrated and cut short by +misfortune, and disease, and time, but for the due understanding of +Keats’s worth the recognition of this effort, and of the elements on +which it worked, is necessary. + +Lord Houghton, who praises very discriminatingly the poetry of Keats, +has on his character also a remark full of discrimination. He says: “The +faults of Keats’s disposition were precisely the contrary of those +attributed to him by common opinion.” And he gives a letter written +after the death of Keats by his brother George, in which the writer, +speaking of the fantastic _Johnny Keats_ invented for common opinion by +Lord Byron and by the reviewers, declares indignantly: “John was the +very soul of manliness and courage, and as much like the Holy Ghost as +_Johnny Keats_.” It is important to note this testimony, and to look +well for whatever illustrates and confirms it. + +Great weight is laid by Lord Houghton on such a direct profession of +faith as the following: “That sort of probity and disinterestedness,” +Keats writes to his brothers, “which such men as Bailey possess, does +hold and grasp the tip-top of any spiritual honors that can be paid to +anything in this world.” Lord Houghton says that “never have words more +effectively expressed the conviction of the superiority of virtue above +beauty than those.” But merely to make a profession of faith of the kind +here made by Keats is not difficult; what we should rather look for is +some evidence of the instinct for character, for virtue, passing into +man’s life, passing into his work. + +Signs of virtue, in the true and large sense of the word, the instinct +for virtue passing into the life of Keats and strengthening it, I find +in the admirable wisdom and temper of what he says to his friend Bailey +on the occasion of a quarrel between Reynolds and Haydon:— + + “Things have happened lately of great perplexity; you must have heard + of them; Reynolds and Haydon retorting and recriminating, and parting + forever. The same thing has happened between Haydon and Hunt. It is + unfortunate; men should bear with each other; there lives not the man + who may not be cut up, aye, lashed to pieces, on his weakest side. The + best of men have but a portion of good in them.... The sure way, + Bailey, is first to know a man’s faults, and then be passive. If, + after that, he insensibly draws you towards him, then you have no + power to break the link. Before I felt interested in either Reynolds + or Haydon, I was well read in their faults; yet, knowing them, I have + been cementing gradually with both. I have an affection for them both, + for reasons almost opposite; and to both must I of necessity cling, + supported always by the hope that when a little time, a few years, + shall have tried me more fully in their esteem, I may be able to bring + them together.” + +Butler has well said that “endeavoring to enforce upon our own minds a +practical sense of virtue, or to beget in others that practical sense of +it which a man really has himself, is a virtuous _act_.” And such an +“endeavoring” is that of Keats in those words written to Bailey. It is +more than mere words; so justly thought and so discreetly urged as it +is, it rises to the height of a virtuous _act_. It is proof of +character. + +The same thing may be said of some words written to his friend Charles +Brown, whose kindness, willingly exerted whenever Keats chose to avail +himself of it, seemed to free him from any pressing necessity of earning +his own living. Keats felt that he must not allow this state of things +to continue. He determined to set himself to “fag on as others do” at +periodical literature, rather than to endanger his independence and his +self-respect; and he writes to Brown:— + + “I had got into a habit of mind of looking towards you as a help in + all difficulties. This very habit would be the parent of idleness and + difficulties. You will see it is a duty I owe to myself to break the + neck of it. I do nothing for my subsistence—make no exertion. At the + end of another year you shall applaud me, not for verses, but for + conduct.” + +He had not, alas, another year of health before him when he announced +that wholesome resolve; it then wanted but six months of the day of his +fatal attack. But in the brief time allowed to him he did what he could +to keep his word. + +What character, again, what strength and clearness of judgment, in his +criticism of his own productions, of the public, and of the “literary +circles!” His words after the severe reviews of _Endymion_ have often +been quoted; they cannot be quoted too often:— + + “Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of + beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works. My + own criticism has given me pain without comparison beyond what + _Blackwood_ or the _Quarterly_ could possibly inflict; and also, when + I feel I am right, no external praise can give me such a glow as my + own solitary reperception and ratification of what is fine. J. S. is + perfectly right in regard to the “slip-shod Endymion.” That it is so + is no fault of mine. No! though it may sound a little paradoxical, it + is as good as I had power to make it by myself.” + +And again, as if he had foreseen certain of his admirers gushing over +him, and was resolved to disengage his responsibility:— + + “I have done nothing, except for the amusement of a few people who + refine upon their feelings till anything in the un-understandable way + will go down with them. I have no cause to complain, because I am + certain anything really fine will in these days be felt. I have no + doubt that if I had written _Othello_ I should have been cheered. I + shall go on with patience.” + +Young poets almost inevitably overrate what they call “the might of +poesy,” and its power over the world which now is. Keats is not a dupe +on this matter any more than he is a dupe about the merit of his own +performances:— + + “I have no trust whatever in poetry. I don’t wonder at it; the marvel + is to me how people read so much of it.” + +His attitude towards the public is that of a strong man, not of a +weakling avid of praise, and made to “be snuff’d out by an article”:— + + “I shall ever consider the public as debtors to me for verses, not + myself to them for admiration, which can I do without.” + +And again, in a passage where one may perhaps find fault with the +capital letters, but surely with nothing else:— + + “I have not the slightest feel of humility towards the public or to + anything in existence but the Eternal Being, the Principle of Beauty, + and the Memory of great Men.... I would be subdued before my friends, + and thank them for subduing me; but among multitudes of men I have no + feel of stooping; I hate the idea of humility to them. I never wrote + one single line of poetry with the least shadow of thought about their + opinion. Forgive me for vexing you, but it eases me to tell you; I + could not live without the love of my friends: I would jump down Etna + for any great public good—but I hate a mawkish popularity. I cannot be + subdued before them. My glory would be to daunt and dazzle the + thousand jabberers about pictures and books.” + +Against these artistic and literary “jabberers,” amongst whom Byron +fancied Keats, probably, to be always living, flattering them and +flattered by them, he has yet another outburst:— + + “Just so much as I am humbled by the genius above my grasp, am I + exalted and look with hate and contempt upon the literary world. Who + could wish to be among the commonplace crowd of the little famous, who + are each individually lost in a throng made up of themselves?” + +And he loves Fanny Brawne the more, he tells her, because he believes +that she has liked him for his own sake and for nothing else. “I have +met with women who I really think would like to be married to a Poem and +to be given away by a Novel.” + +There is a tone of too much bitterness and defiance in all this, a tone +which he with great propriety subdued and corrected when he wrote his +beautiful preface to _Endymion_. But the thing to be seized is, that +Keats had flint and iron in him, that he had character; that he was, as +his brother George says, “as much like the Holy Ghost as _Johnny +Keats_,”—as that imagined sensuous weakling, the delight of the literary +circles of Hampstead. + +It is a pity that Byron, who so misconceived Keats, should never have +known how shrewdly Keats, on the other hand, had characterized _him_, as +“a fine thing” in the sphere of “the worldly, theatrical, and +pantomimical.” But indeed nothing is more remarkable in Keats than his +clear-sightedness, his lucidity; and lucidity is in itself akin to +character and to high and severe work. In spite, therefore, of his +overpowering feeling for beauty, in spite of his sensuousness, in spite +of his facility, in spite of his gift of expression, Keats could say +resolutely:— + + “I know nothing, I have read nothing; and I mean to follow Solomon’s + directions: ‘Get learning, get understanding.’ There is but one way + for me. The road lies through application, study, and thought. I will + pursue it.” + +And of Milton, instead of resting in Milton’s incomparable phrases, +Keats could say, although indeed all the while “looking upon fine +phrases,” as he himself tells us, “like a lover”— + + “Milton had an exquisite passion for what is properly, in the sense of + ease and pleasure, poetical luxury; and with that, it appears to me, + he would fain have been content, if he could, so doing, preserve his + self-respect and feeling of duty performed; but there was working in + him, as it were, that same sort of thing which operates in the great + world to the end of a prophecy’s being accomplished. Therefore he + devoted himself rather to the ardors than the pleasures of song, + solacing himself at intervals with cups of old wine.” + +In his own poetry, too, Keats felt that place must be found for “the +ardors rather than the pleasures of song,” although he was aware that he +was not yet ripe for it— + + “But, my flag is not unfurl’d + On the Admiral-staff, and to philosophize + I dare not yet.” + +Even in his pursuit of “the pleasures of song,” however, there is that +stamp of high work which is akin to character, which is character +passing into intellectual production. “_The best sort of poetry_—that,” +he truly says, “is all I care for, all I live for.” It is curious to +observe how this severe addiction of his to the best sort of poetry +affects him with a certain coldness, as if the addiction had been to +mathematics, towards those prime objects of a sensuous and passionate +poet’s regard, love and women. He speaks of “the opinion I have formed +of the generality of women, who appear to me as children to whom I would +rather give a sugar-plum than my time.” He confesses “a tendency to +class women in my books with roses and sweetmeats—they never see +themselves dominant;” and he can understand how the unpopularity of his +poems may be in part due to “the offense which the ladies,” not +unnaturally “take at him” from this cause. Even to Fanny Brawne he can +write “a flint-worded letter,” when his “mind is heaped to the full” +with poetry:— + + “I know the generality of women would hate me for this; that I should + have so unsoftened, so hard a mind as to forget them; forget the + brightest realities for the dull imaginations of my own brain.... My + heart seems now made of iron—I could not write a proper answer to an + invitation to Idalia.” + +The truth is that “the yearning passion for the Beautiful,” which was +with Keats, as he himself truly says, the master-passion, is not a +passion, of the sensuous or sentimental man, is not a passion of the +sensuous or sentimental poet. It is an intellectual and spiritual +passion. It is “connected and made one,” as Keats declares that in his +case it was, “with the ambition of the intellect.” It is, as he again +says, “the mighty _abstract idea_ of Beauty in all things.” And in his +last days Keats wrote: “If I should die, I have left no immortal work +behind me—nothing to make my friends proud of my memory; _but I have +loved the principle of beauty in all things_, and if I had had time I +would have made myself remembered.” He _has_ made himself remembered, +and remembered as no merely sensuous poet could be; and he has done it +by having “loved the principle of beauty in all things.” + +For to see things in their beauty is to see things in their truth, and +Keats knew it. “What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be Truth,” he +says in prose; and in immortal verse he has said the same thing— + + “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all + Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” + +No, it is not all; but it is true, deeply true, and we have deep need to +know it. And with beauty goes not only truth, joy goes with her also; +and this too Keats saw and said, as in the famous first line of his +_Endymion_ it stands written— + + “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.” + +It is no small thing to have so loved the principle of beauty as to +perceive the necessary relation of beauty with truth, and of both with +joy. Keats was a great spirit, and counts for far more than many even of +his admirers suppose, because this just and high perception made itself +clear to him. Therefore a dignity and a glory shed gleams over his life, +and happiness, too, was not a stranger to it. “Nothing startles me +beyond the moment,” he says; “the setting sun will always set me to +rights, or if a sparrow come before my window I take part in its +existence and pick about the gravel.” But he had terrible +bafflers,—consuming disease and early death. “I think,” he writes to +Reynolds, “If I had a free and healthy and lasting organization of +heart, and lungs as strong as an ox’s, so as to be able to bear unhurt +the shock of extreme thought and sensation without weariness, I could +pass my life very nearly alone, though it should last eighty years. But +I feel my body too weak to support me to the height; I am obliged +continually to check myself, and be nothing.” He had against him even +more than this; he had against him the blind power which we call +Fortune. “O that something fortunate,” he cries in the closing months of +his life, “had ever happened to me or my brothers!—then I might +hope,—but despair is forced upon me as a habit.” So baffled and so +sorely tried,—while laden, at the same time, with a mighty formative +thought requiring health, and many days, and favoring circumstances, for +its adequate manifestation,—what wonder if the achievement of Keats be +partial and incomplete? + +Nevertheless, let and hindered as he was, and with a short term and +imperfect experience,—“young,” as he says of himself, “and writing at +random, straining after particles of light in the midst of a great +darkness, without knowing the bearing of any one assertion, of any one +opinion,”—notwithstanding all this, by virtue of his feeling for beauty +and of his perception of the vital connection of beauty with truth, +Keats accomplished so much in poetry, that in one of the two great modes +by which poetry interprets, in the faculty of naturalistic +interpretation, in what we call natural magic, he ranks with +Shakespeare. “The tongue of Kean,” he says in an admirable criticism of +that great actor and of his enchanting elocution, “the tongue of Kean +must seem to have robbed the Hybla bees and left them honeyless. There +is an indescribable _gusto_ in his voice; in _Richard_, ‘Be stirring +with the lark tomorrow, gentle Norfolk!’ comes from him as through the +morning atmosphere towards which he yearns.” This magic, this +“indescribable _gusto_ in the voice,” Keats himself, too, exhibits in +his poetic expression. No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, +has in expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his +perfection of loveliness. “I think,” he said humbly, “I shall be among +the English poets after my death.” He is; he is with Shakespeare. + +For the second great half of poetic interpretation, for that faculty of +moral interpretation which is in Shakespeare, and is informed by him +with the same power of beauty as his naturalistic interpretation, Keats +was not ripe. For the architectonics of poetry, the faculty which +presides at the evolution of works like the _Agamemnon_ or _Lear_, he +was not ripe. His _Endymion_, as he himself well saw, is a failure, and +his _Hyperion_, fine things as it contains, is not a success. But in +shorter things, where the matured power of moral interpretation, and the +high architectonics which go with complete poetic development, are not +required, he is perfect. The poems which follow prove it,—prove it far +better by themselves than anything which can be said about them will +prove it. Therefore I have chiefly spoken here of the man, and of the +elements in him which explain the production of such work. Shakespearian +work it is; not imitative, indeed, of Shakespeare, but Shakespearian, +because its expression has that rounded perfection and felicity of +loveliness of which Shakespeare is the great master. To show such work +is to praise it. Let us now end by delighting ourselves with a fragment +of it, too broken to find a place among the pieces which follow, but far +too beautiful to be lost. It is a fragment of an ode for May-day. O +might I, he cries to May, O might I + + “... thy smiles + Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles, + By bards who died content on pleasant sward, + Leaving great verse unto a little clan! + O, give me their old vigor, and unheard + Save of the quiet primrose, and the span + Of heaven, and few years, + Rounded by thee, my song should die away, + Content as theirs, + Rich in the simple worship of a day!” + + + + + V. + + WORDSWORTH.[37] + +----- + +Footnote 37: + + The preface to _The Poems of Wordsworth_, chosen and edited by Matthew + Arnold, 1879. + +----- + + +I remember hearing Lord Macaulay say, after Wordsworth’s death, when +subscriptions were being collected to found a memorial of him, that ten +years earlier more money could have been raised in Cambridge alone, to +do honor to Wordsworth, than was now raised all through the country. +Lord Macaulay had, as we know, his own heightened and telling way of +putting things, and we must always make allowance for it. But probably +it is true that Wordsworth has never, either before or since, been so +accepted and popular, so established in possession of the minds of all +who profess to care for poetry, as he was between the years 1830 and +1840, and at Cambridge. From the very first, no doubt, he had his +believers and witnesses. But I have myself heard him declare that, for +he knew not how many years, his poetry had never brought him in enough +to buy his shoe-strings. The poetry-reading public was very slow to +recognize him, and was very easily drawn away from him. Scott effaced +him with this public, Byron effaced him. + +The death of Byron, seemed, however, to make an opening for Wordsworth. +Scott, who had for some time ceased to produce poetry himself, and stood +before the public as a great novelist; Scott, too genuine himself not to +feel the profound genuineness of Wordsworth, and with an instinctive +recognition of his firm hold on nature and of his local truth, always +admired him sincerely, and praised him generously. The influence of +Coleridge upon young men of ability was then powerful, and was still +gathering strength; this influence told entirely in favor of +Wordsworth’s poetry. Cambridge was a place where Coleridge’s influence +had great action, and where Wordsworth’s poetry, therefore, flourished +especially. But even amongst the general public its sale grew large, the +eminence of its author was widely recognized, and Rydal Mount became an +object of pilgrimage. I remember Wordsworth relating how one of the +pilgrims, a clergyman, asked him if he had ever written anything besides +the _Guide to the Lakes_. Yes, he answered modestly, he had written +verses. Not every pilgrim was a reader, but the vogue was established +and the stream of pilgrims came. + +Mr. Tennyson’s decisive appearance dates from 1842. One cannot say that +he effaced Wordsworth as Scott and Byron had effaced him. The poetry of +Wordsworth had been so long before the public, the suffrage of good +judges was so steady and so strong in its favor, that by 1842 the +verdict of posterity, one may almost say, had been already pronounced, +and Wordsworth’s English fame was secure. But the vogue, the ear and +applause of the great body of poetry-readers, never quite thoroughly +perhaps his, he gradually lost more and more, and Mr. Tennyson gained +them. Mr. Tennyson drew to himself, and away from Wordsworth, the +poetry-reading public, and the new generations. Even in 1850, when +Wordsworth died, this diminution of popularity was visible, and +occasioned the remark of Lord Macaulay which I quoted at starting. + +The diminution has continued. The influence of Coleridge has waned, and +Wordsworth’s poetry can no longer draw succor from this ally. The poetry +has not, however, wanted eulogists; and it may be said to have brought +its eulogists luck, for almost every one who has praised Wordsworth’s +poetry has praised it well. But the public has remained cold, or, at +least, undetermined. Even the abundance of Mr. Palgrave’s fine and +skilfully chosen specimens of Wordsworths, in the _Golden Treasury_, +surprised many readers, and gave offense to not a few. To tenth-rate +critics and compilers, for whom any violent shock to the public taste +would be a temerity not to be risked, it is still quite permissible to +speak of Wordsworth’s poetry, not only with ignorance, but with +impertinence. On the Continent he is almost unknown. + +I cannot think, then, that Wordsworth has, up to this time, at all +obtained his deserts. “Glory,” said M. Renan the other day, “glory after +all is the thing which has the best chance of not being altogether +vanity.” Wordsworth was a homely man, and himself would certainly never +have thought of talking of glory as that which, after all, has the best +chance of not being altogether vanity. Yet we may well allow that few +things are less vain than _real_ glory. Let us conceive of the whole +group of civilized nations as being, for intellectual and spiritual +purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working +towards a common result; a confederation whose members have a due +knowledge both of the past, out of which they all proceed, and of one +another. This was the ideal of Goethe, and it is an ideal which will +impose itself upon the thoughts of our modern societies more and more. +Then to be recognized by the verdict of such a confederation as a +master, or even as a seriously and eminently worthy workman, in one’s +own line of intellectual or spiritual activity, is indeed glory; a glory +which it would be difficult to rate too highly. For what could be more +beneficent, more salutary? The world is forwarded by having its +attention fixed on the best things; and here is a tribunal, free from +all suspicion of national and provincial partiality, putting a stamp on +the best things, and recommending them for general honor and acceptance. +A nation, again, is furthered by recognition of its real gifts and +successes; it is encouraged to develop them further. And here is an +honest verdict, telling us which of our supposed successes are really, +in the judgment of the great impartial world, and not only in our own +private judgment only, successes, and which are not. + +It is so easy to feel pride and satisfaction in one’s own things, so +hard to make sure that one is right in feeling it! We have a great +empire. But so had Nebuchadnezzar. We extol the “unrivaled happiness” of +our national civilization. But then comes a candid friend, and remarks +that our upper class is materialized, our middle class vulgarized, and +our lower class brutalized. We are proud of our painting, our music. But +we find that in the judgment of other people our painting is +questionable, and our music non-existent. We are proud of our men of +science. And here it turns out that the world is with us; we find that +in the judgment of other people, too, Newton among the dead, and Mr. +Darwin among the living, hold as high a place as they hold in our +national opinion. + +Finally, we are proud of our poets and poetry. Now poetry is nothing +less than the most perfect speech of man, that in which he comes nearest +to being able to utter the truth. It is no small thing, therefore, to +succeed eminently in poetry. And so much is required for duly estimating +success here, that about poetry it is perhaps hardest to arrive at a +sure general verdict, and takes longest. Meanwhile, our own conviction +of the superiority of our national poets is not decisive, is almost +certain to be mingled, as we see constantly in English eulogy of +Shakespeare, with much of provincial infatuation. And we know what was +the opinion current amongst our neighbors the French—people of taste, +acuteness, and quick literary tact—not a hundred years ago, about our +great poets. The old _Biographie Universelle_ notices the pretension of +the English to a place for their poets among the chief poets of the +world, and says that this is a pretension which to no one but an +Englishman can ever seem admissible. And the scornful, disparaging +things said by foreigners about Shakespeare and Milton, and about our +national over-estimate of them, have been often quoted, and will be in +every one’s remembrance. + +A great change has taken place, and Shakespeare is now generally +recognized, even in France, as one of the greatest of poets. Yes, some +anti-Gallican cynic will say, the French rank him with Corneille and +with Victor Hugo! But let me have the pleasure of quoting a sentence +about Shakespeare, which I met with by accident not long ago in the +_Correspondant_, a French review which not a dozen English people, I +suppose, look at. The writer is praising Shakespeare’s prose. With +Shakespeare, he says, “prose comes in whenever the subject, being more +familiar, is unsuited to the majestic English iambic.” And he goes on: +“Shakespeare is the king of poetic rhythm and style, as well as the king +of the realm of thought; along with his dazzling prose, Shakespeare has +succeeded in giving us the most varied, the most harmonious verse which +has ever sounded upon the human ear since the verse of the Greeks.” M. +Henry Cochin, the writer of this sentence, deserves our gratitude for +it; it would not be easy to praise Shakespeare, in a single sentence, +more justly. And when a foreigner and a Frenchman writes thus of +Shakespeare, and when Goethe says of Milton, in whom there was so much +to repel Goethe rather than to attract him, that “nothing has been ever +done so entirely in the sense of the Greeks as _Samson Agonistes_,” and +that “Milton is in very truth a poet whom we must treat with all +reverence,” then we understand what constitutes a European recognition +of poets and poetry as contradistinguished from a merely national +recognition, and that in favor both of Milton and of Shakespeare the +judgment of the high court of appeal has finally gone. + +I come back to M. Renan’s praise of glory, from which I started. Yes, +real glory is a most serious thing, glory authenticated by the +Amphiotyonic Court of final appeal, definite glory. And even for poets +and poetry, long and difficult as may be the process of arriving at the +right award, the right award comes at last, the definite glory rests +where it is deserved. Every establishment of such a real glory is good +and wholesome for mankind at large, good and wholesome for the nation +which produced the poet crowned with it. To the poet himself it can +seldom do harm; for he, poor man, is in his grave, probably, long before +his glory crowns him. + +Wordsworth has been in his grave for some thirty years, and certainly +his lovers and admirers cannot flatter themselves that this great and +steady light of glory as yet shines over him. He is not fully recognized +at home; he is not recognized at all abroad. Yet I firmly believe that +the poetical performance of Wordsworth is, after that of Shakespeare and +Milton, of which all the world now recognizes the worth, undoubtedly the +most considerable in our language from the Elizabethan age to the +present time. Chaucer is anterior; and on other grounds, too, he cannot +well be brought into the comparison. But taking the roll of our chief +poetical names, besides Shakespeare and Milton, from the age of +Elizabeth downwards, and going through it,—Spenser, Dryden, Pope, Gray, +Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, Coleridge, Scott, Campbell, Moore, Byron, +Shelley, Keats (I mention those only who are dead),—I think it certain +that Wordsworth’s name deserves to stand, and will finally stand, above +them all. Several of the poets named have gifts and excellences which +Wordsworth has not. But taking the performance of each as a whole, I say +that Wordsworth seems to me to have left a body of poetical work +superior in power, in interest, in the qualities which give enduring +freshness, to that which any one of the others has left. + +But this is not enough to say. I think it certain, further, that if we +take the chief poetical names of the Continent since the death of +Molière, and, omitting Goethe, confront the remaining names with that of +Wordsworth, the result is the same. Let us take Klopstock, Lessing, +Schiller, Uhland, Rückert, and Heine for Germany; Filicaia, Alfieri, +Manzoni, and Leopardi for Italy; Racine, Boileau, Voltaire, André +Chenier, Béranger, Lamartine, Musset, M. Victor Hugo (he has been so +long celebrated that although he still lives I may be permitted to name +him) for France. Several of these, again, have evidently gifts and +excellences to which Wordsworth can make no pretension. But in real +poetical achievement it seems to me indubitable that to Wordsworth, here +again, belongs the palm. It seems to me that Wordsworth has left behind +him a body of poetical work which wears, and will wear, better on the +whole than the performance of any one of these personages, so far more +brilliant and celebrated, most of them, than the homely poet of Rydal. +Wordsworth’s performance in poetry is on the whole, in power, in +interest, in the qualities which give enduring freshness, superior to +theirs. + +This is a high claim to make for Wordsworth. But if it is a just claim, +if Wordsworth’s place among the poets who have appeared in the last two +or three centuries is after Shakespeare, Molière, Milton, Goethe, +indeed, but before all the rest, then in time Wordsworth will have his +due. We shall recognize him in his place, as we recognize Shakespeare +and Milton; and not only we ourselves shall recognize him, but he will +be recognized by Europe also. Meanwhile, those who recognize him already +may do well, perhaps, to ask themselves whether there are not in the +case of Wordsworth certain special obstacles which hinder or delay his +due recognition by others, and whether these obstacles are not in some +measure removable. + +The _Excursion_ and the _Prelude_, his poems of greatest bulk, are by no +means Wordsworth’s best work. His best work is in his shorter pieces, +and many indeed are there of these which are of first-rate excellence. +But in his seven volumes the pieces of high merit are mingled with a +mass of pieces very inferior to them; so inferior to them that it seems +wonderful how the same poet should have produced both. Shakespeare +frequently has lines and passages in a strain quite false, and which are +entirely unworthy of him. But one can imagine him smiling if one could +meet him in the Elysian Fields and tell him so; smiling and replying +that he knew it perfectly well himself, and what did it matter? But with +Wordsworth the case is different. Work altogether inferior, work quite +uninspired, flat and dull, is produced by him with evident +unconsciousness of its defects, and he presents it to us with the same +faith and seriousness as his best work. Now a drama or an epic fill the +mind, and one does not look beyond them; but in a collection of short +pieces the impression made by one piece requires to be continued and +sustained by the piece following. In reading Wordsworth the impression +made by one of his fine pieces is too often dulled and spoiled by a very +inferior piece coming after it. + +Wordsworth composed verses during a space of some sixty years; and it is +no exaggeration to say that within one single decade of those years, +between 1798 and 1808, almost all his really first-rate work was +produced. A mass of inferior work remains, work done before and after +this golden prime, imbedding the first-rate work and clogging it, +obstructing our approach to it, chilling, not unfrequently, the +high-wrought mood with which we leave it. To be recognized far and wide +as a great poet, to be possible and receivable as a classic, Wordsworth +needs to be relieved of a great deal of the poetical baggage which now +encumbers him. To administer this relief is indispensable, unless he is +to continue to be a poet for the few only,—a poet valued far below his +real worth by the world. + +There is another thing. Wordsworth classified his poems not according to +any commonly received plan of arrangement, but according to a scheme of +mental physiology. He has poems of the fancy, poems of the imagination, +poems of sentiment and reflection, and so on. His categories are +ingenious but far-fetched, and the result of his employment of them is +unsatisfactory. Poems are separated one from another which possess a +kinship of subject or of treatment far more vital and deep than the +supposed unity of mental origin, which was Wordsworth’s reason for +joining them with others. + +The tact of the Greeks in matters of this kind was infallible. We may +rely upon it that we shall not improve upon the classification adopted +by the Greeks for kinds of poetry; that their categories of epic, +dramatic, lyric, and so forth, have a natural propriety, and should be +adhered to. It may sometimes seem doubtful to which of two categories a +poem belongs; whether this or that poem is to be called, for instance, +narrative or lyric, lyric or elegiac. But there is to be found in every +good poem a strain, a predominant note, which determines the poem as +belonging to one of these kinds rather than the other; and here is the +best proof of the value of the classification, and of the advantage of +adhering to it. Wordsworth’s poems will never produce their due effect +until they are freed from their present artificial arrangement, and +grouped more naturally. + +Disengaged from the quantity of inferior work which now obscures them, +the best poems of Wordsworth, I hear many people say, would indeed stand +out in great beauty, but they would prove to be very few in number, +scarcely more than a half a dozen. I maintain, on the other hand, that +what strikes me with admiration, what establishes in my opinion +Wordsworth’s superiority, is the great and ample body of powerful work +which remains to him, even after all his inferior work has been cleared +away. He gives us so much to rest upon, so much which communicates his +spirit and engages ours! + +This is of very great importance. If it were a comparison of single +pieces, or of three or four pieces, by each poet, I do not say that +Wordsworth would stand decisively above Gray, or Burns, or Coleridge, or +Keats, or Manzoni, or Heine. It is in his ampler body of powerful work +that I find his superiority. His good work itself, his work which +counts, is not all of it, of course, of equal value. Some kinds of +poetry are in themselves lower kinds than others. The ballad kind is a +lower kind; the didactic kind, still more, is a lower kind. Poetry of +this latter sort counts, too, sometimes, by its biographical interest +partly, not by its poetical interest pure and simple; but then this can +only be when the poet producing it has the power and importance of +Wordsworth, a power and importance which he assuredly did not establish +by such didactic poetry alone. Altogether, it is, I say, by the great +body of powerful and significant work which remains to him, after every +reduction and deduction has been made, that Wordsworth’s superiority is +proved. + +To exhibit this body of Wordsworth’s best work, to clear away +obstructions from around it, and to let it speak for itself, is what +every lover of Wordsworth should desire. Until this has been done, +Wordsworth, whom we, to whom he is dear, all of us know and feel to be +so great a poet, has not had a fair chance before the world. When once +it has been done, he will make his way best, not by our advocacy of him, +but by his own worth and power. We may safely leave him to make his way +thus, we who believe that a superior worth and power in poetry finds in +mankind a sense responsive to it and disposed at last to recognize it. +Yet at the outset, before he has been duly known and recognized, we may +do Wordsworth a service, perhaps, by indicating in what his superior +power and worth will be found to consist, and in what it will not. + +Long ago, in speaking of Homer, I said that the noble and profound +application of ideas to life is the most essential part of poetic +greatness. I said that a great poet receives his distinctive character +of superiority from his application, under the conditions immutably +fixed by the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth, from his +application, I say, to his subject, whatever it may be, of the ideas. + + “On man, on nature, and on human life,” + +which he has acquired for himself. The line quoted is Wordsworth’s own; +and his superiority arises from his powerful use, in his best pieces, +his powerful application to his subject, of ideas “on man, on nature, +and on human life.” + +Voltaire, with his signal acuteness, most truly remarked that “no nation +has treated in poetry moral ideas with more energy and depth than the +English nation.” And he adds: “There, it seems to me, is the great merit +of the English poets.” Voltaire does not mean, by “treating in poetry +moral ideas,” the composing moral and didactic poems;—that brings us but +a very little way in poetry. He means just the same thing as was meant +when I spoke above “of the noble and profound application of ideas to +life”; and he means the application of these ideas under the conditions +fixed for us by the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth. If it is +said that to call these ideas _moral_ ideas is to introduce a strong and +injurious limitation, I answer that it is to do nothing of the kind, +because moral ideas are really so main a part of human life. The +question, _how to live_, is itself a moral idea; and it is the question +which most interests every man, and with which, in some way or other, he +is perpetually occupied. A large sense is of course to be given to the +term _moral_. Whatever bears upon the question, “how to live,” comes +under it. + + “Nor love thy life, nor hate; but, what thou liv’st, + Live well; how long or short, permit to heaven.” + +In those fine lines Milton utters, as every one at once perceives, a +moral idea. Yes, but so too, when Keats consoles the forward-bending +lover on the Grecian Urn, the lover arrested and presented in immortal +relief by the sculptor’s hand before he can kiss, with the line, + + “Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair—” + +he utters a moral idea. When Shakespeare says, that + + “We are such stuff + As dreams are made of, and our little life + Is rounded with a sleep,” + +he utters a moral idea. + +Voltaire was right in thinking that the energetic and profound treatment +of moral ideas, in this large sense, is what distinguishes the English +poetry. He sincerely meant praise, not dispraise or hint of limitation; +and they err who suppose that poetic limitation is a necessary +consequence of the fact, the fact being granted as Voltaire states it. +If what distinguishes the greatest poets is their powerful and profound +application of ideas to life, which surely no good critic will deny, +then to prefix to the term ideas here the term moral makes hardly any +difference, because human life itself is in so preponderating a degree +moral. + +It is important, therefore, to hold fast to this: that poetry is at +bottom a criticism of life; that the greatness of a poet lies in his +powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life,—to the question: +How to live. Morals are often treated in a narrow and false fashion; +they are bound up with systems of thought and belief which have had +their day; they are fallen into the hands of pedants and professional +dealers; they grow tiresome to some of us. We find attraction, at times, +even in a poetry of revolt against them; in a poetry which might take +for its motto Omar Kheyam’s words: “Let us make up in the tavern for the +time which we have wasted in the mosque.” Or we find attractions in a +poetry indifferent to them; in a poetry where the contents may be what +they will, but where the form is studied and exquisite. We delude +ourselves in either case; and the best cure for our delusion is to let +our minds rest upon that great and inexhaustible word _life_, until we +learn to enter into its meaning. A poetry of revolt against moral ideas +is a poetry of revolt against _life_; a poetry of indifference towards +moral ideas is a poetry of indifference towards _life_. + +Epictetus had a happy figure for things like the play of the senses, or +literary form and finish, or argumentative ingenuity, in comparison with +“the best and master thing” for us, as he called it, the concern, how to +live. Some people were afraid of them, he said, or they disliked and +undervalued them. Such people were wrong; they were unthankful or +cowardly. But the things might also be over-prized, and treated as final +when they are not. They bear to life the relation which inns bear to +home. “As if a man, journeying home, and finding a nice inn on the road, +and liking it, were to stay forever at the inn! Man, thou hast forgotten +thine object; thy journey was not _to_ this, but _through_ this. ‘But +this inn is taking.’ And how many other inns, too, are taking, and how +many fields and meadows! but as places of passage merely. You have an +object, which is this: to get home, to do your duty to your family, +friends, and fellow-countrymen, to attain inward freedom, serenity, +happiness, contentment. Style takes your fancy, arguing takes your +fancy, and you forget your home and want to make your abode with them +and to stay with them, on the plea that they are taking. Who denies that +they are taking? but as places, of passage, as inns. And when I say +this, you suppose me to be attacking the care for style, the care for +argument. I am not; I attack the resting in them, the not looking to the +end which is beyond them.” + +Now, when we come across a poet like Théophile Gautier, we have a poet +who has taken up his abode at an inn, and never got farther. There may +be inducements to this or that one of us, at this or that moment, to +find delight in him, to cleave to him; but after all, we do not change +the truth about him,—we only stay ourselves in his inn along with him. +And when we come across a poet like Wordsworth, who sings + + “Of truth, of grandeur, beauty, love and hope. + And melancholy fear subdued by faith, + Of blessed consolations in distress, + Of moral strength and intellectual power, + Of joy in widest commonalty spread”— + +then we have a poet intent on “the best and master thing,” and who +prosecutes his journey home. We say, for brevity’s sake, that he deals +with _life_, because he deals with that in which life really consists. +This is what Voltaire means to praise in the English poets,—this dealing +with what is really life. But always it is the mark of the greatest +poets that they deal with it; and to say that the English poets are +remarkable for dealing with it, is only another way of saying, what is +true, that in poetry the English genius has especially shown its power. + +Wordsworth deals with it, and his greatness lies in his dealing with it +so powerfully. I have named a number of celebrated poets above all of +whom he, in my opinion, deserves to be placed. He is to be placed above +poets like Voltaire, Dryden, Pope, Lessing, Schiller, because these +famous personages, with a thousand gifts and merits, never, or scarcely +ever, attain the distinctive accent and utterance of the high and +genuine poets— + + “Quique pii vates et Phœbo digna locuti,” + +at all. Burns, Keats, Heine, not to speak of others in our list, have +this accent;—who can doubt it? And at the same time they have treasures +of humor, felicity, passion, for which in Wordsworth we shall look in +vain. Where, then, is Wordsworth’s superiority? It is here; he deals +with more of _life_ than they do; he deals with _life_, as a whole, more +powerfully. + +No Wordsworthian will doubt this. Nay, the fervent Wordsworthian will +add, as Mr. Leslie Stephen does, that Wordsworth’s poetry is precious +because his philosophy is sound; that his “ethical system is as +distinctive and capable of exposition as Bishop Butler’s;” that his +poetry is informed by ideas which “fall spontaneously into a scientific +system of thought.” But we must be on our guard against the +Wordsworthians, if we want to secure for Wordsworth his due rank as a +poet. The Wordsworthians are apt to praise him for the wrong things, and +to lay far too much stress upon what they call his philosophy. His +poetry is the reality, his philosophy,—so far, at least, as it may put +on the form and habit of “a scientific system of thought,” and the more +that it puts them on,—is the illusion. Perhaps we shall one day learn to +make this proposition general, and to say: Poetry is the reality, +philosophy the illusion. But in Wordsworth’s case, at any rate, we +cannot do him justice until we dismiss his formal philosophy. + +The _Excursion_ abounds with philosophy, and therefore the _Excursion_ +is to the Wordsworthian what it never can be to the disinterested lover +of poetry,—a satisfactory work. “Duty exists,” says Wordsworth, in the +_Excursion_; and then he proceeds thus— + + “... Immutably survive, + For our support, the measures and the forms, + Which an abstract Intelligence supplies, + Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not.” + +And the Wordsworthian is delighted, and thinks that here is a sweet +union of philosophy and poetry. But the disinterested lover of poetry +will feel that the lines carry us really not a step farther than the +proposition which they would interpret; that they are a tissue of +elevated but abstract verbiage, alien to the very nature of poetry. + +Or let us come direct to the center of Wordsworth’s philosophy, as “an +ethical system, as distinctive and capable of systematical exposition as +Bishop Butler’s”— + + “... One adequate support + For the calamities of mortal life + Exists, one only;—an assured belief + That the procession of our fate, howe’er + Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being + Of infinite benevolence and power; + Whose everlasting purposes embrace + All accidents, converting them to good.” + +That is doctrine such as we hear in church too, religious and +philosophic doctrine; and the attached Wordsworthian loves passages of +such doctrine, and brings them forward in proof of his poet’s +excellence. But however true the doctrine may be, it has, as here +presented, none of the characters of _poetic_ truth, the kind of truth +which we require from a poet, and in which Wordsworth is really strong. + +Even the “intimation” of the famous Ode, those cornerstones of the +supposed philosophic system of Wordsworth,—the idea of the high +instincts and affections coming out in childhood, testifying of a divine +home recently left, and fading away as our life proceeds,—this idea, of +undeniable beauty as a play of fancy, has itself not the character of +poetic truth of the best kind; it has no real solidity. The instinct of +delight in Nature and her beauty had no doubt extraordinary strength in +Wordsworth himself as a child. But to say that universally this instinct +is mighty in childhood, and tends to die away afterwards, is to say what +is extremely doubtful. In many people, perhaps with the majority of +educated persons, the love of nature is nearly imperceptible at ten +years old, but strong and operative at thirty. In general we may say of +these high instincts of early childhood, the base of the alleged +systematic philosophy of Wordsworth, what Thucydides says of the early +achievements of the Greek race: “It is impossible to speak with +certainty of what is so remote; but from all that we can really +investigate, I should say that they were no very great things.” + +Finally, the “scientific system of thought” in Wordsworth gives us at +least such poetry as this, which the devout Wordsworthian accepts— + + “O for the coming of that glorious time + When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth + And best protection, this Imperial Realm, + While she exacts allegiance, shall admit + An obligation, on her part, to _teach_ + Them who are born to serve her and obey; + Binding herself by statute to secure, + For all the children whom her soil maintains, + The rudiments of letters, and inform + The mind with moral and religious truth.” + +Wordsworth calls Voltaire dull, and surely the production of these +un-Voltairian lines must have been imposed on him as a judgment! One can +hear them being quoted at a Social Science Congress; one can call up the +whole scene. A great room in one of our dismal provincial towns; dusty +air and jaded afternoon daylight; benches full of men with bald heads +and women in spectacles; an orator lifting up his face from a manuscript +written within and without to declaim these lines of Wordsworth; and in +the soul of any poor child of nature who may have wandered in thither, +an unutterable sense of lamentation, and mourning, and woe! + +“But turn we,” as Wordsworth says, “from these bold, bad men,” the +haunters of Social Science Congresses. And let us be on our guard, too, +against the exhibitors and extollers of a “scientific system of thought” +in Wordsworth’s poetry. The poetry will never be seen aright while they +thus exhibit it. The cause of its greatness is simple, and may be told +quite simply. Wordsworth’s poetry is great because of the extraordinary +power with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in nature, the +joy offered to us in the simple primary affections and duties; and +because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after case, he +shows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us share it. + +The source of joy from which he thus draws is the truest and most +unfailing source of joy accessible to man. It is also accessible +universally. Wordsworth brings us word, therefore, according to his own +strong and characteristic line, he brings us word + + “Of joy in widest commonalty spread.” + +Here is an immense advantage for a poet. Wordsworth tells of what all +seek, and tells of it at its truest and best source, and yet a source +where all may go and draw for it. + +Nevertheless, we are not to suppose that everything is precious which +Wordsworth, standing even at this perennial and beautiful source, may +give us. Wordsworthians are apt to talk as if it must be. They will +speak with the same reverence of _The Sailor’s Mother_, for example, as +of _Lucy Gray_. They do their master harm by such lack of +discrimination. _Lucy Gray_ is a beautiful success; _The Sailor’s +Mother_ is a failure. To give aright what he wishes to give, to +interpret and render successfully, is not always within Wordsworth’s own +command. It is within no poet’s command; here is the part of the Muse, +the inspiration, the God, the “not ourselves.” In Wordsworth’s case, the +accident, for so it may almost be called, of inspiration, is of peculiar +importance. No poet, perhaps, is so evidently filled with a new and +sacred energy when the inspiration is upon him; no poet, when it fails +him, is so left “weak as is a breaking wave.” I remember hearing him say +that “Goethe’s poetry was not inevitable enough.” The remark is striking +and true; no line in Goethe, as Goethe said himself, but its maker knew +well how it came there. Wordsworth is right, Goethe’s poetry is not +inevitable; not inevitable enough. But Wordsworth’s poetry, when he is +at his best, is inevitable, as inevitable as Nature herself. It might +seem that Nature not only gave him the matter for his poem, but wrote +his poem for him. He has no style. He was too conversant with Milton not +to catch at times his master’s manner, and he has fine Miltonic lines; +but he has no assured poetic style of his own, like Milton. When he +seeks to have a style he falls into ponderosity and pomposity. In the +_Excursion_ we have his style, as an artistic product of his own +creation; and although Jeffrey completely failed to recognize +Wordsworth’s real greatness, he was yet not wrong in saying of the +_Excursion_, as a work of poetic style: “This will never do.” And yet +magical as is that power, which Wordsworth has not, of assured and +possessed poetic style, he has something which is an equivalent for it. + +Every one who has any sense for these things feels the subtle turn, the +heightening, which is given to a poet’s verse by his genius for style. +We can feel it in the + + “After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well”— + +of Shakespeare; in the + + “... though fall’n on evil days, + On evil days though fall’n, and evil tongues”— + +of Milton. It is the incomparable charm of Milton’s power of poetic +style which gives such worth to _Paradise Regained_, and makes a great +poem of a work in which Milton’s imagination does not soar high. +Wordsworth has in constant possession, and at command, no style of this +kind; but he had too poetic a nature, and had read the great poets too +well, not to catch, as I have already remarked, something of it +occasionally. We find it not only in his Miltonic lines; we find it in +such a phrase as this, where the manner is his own, not Milton’s— + + “the fierce confederate storm + Of sorrow barricadoed evermore + Within the walls of cities;” + +although even here, perhaps, the power of style which is undeniable, is +more properly that of eloquent prose than the subtle heightening and +change wrought by genuine poetic style. It is style, again, and the +elevation given by style, which chiefly makes the effectiveness of +_Laodameia_. Still the right sort of verse to choose from Wordsworth, if +we are to seize his true and most characteristic form of expression, is +a line like this from _Michael_— + + “And never lifted up a single stone.” + +There is nothing subtle in it, no heightening, no study of poetic style, +strictly so called, at all; yet it is expression of the highest and most +truly expressive kind. + +Wordsworth owed much to Burns, and a style of perfect plainness, relying +for effect solely on the weight and force of that which with entire +fidelity it utters, Burns could show him. + + “The poor inhabitant below + Was quick to learn and wise to know, + And keenly felt the friendly glow + And softer flame; + But thoughtless follies laid him low + And stain’d his name.” + +Every one will be conscious of a likeness here to Wordsworth; and if +Wordsworth did great things with this nobly plain manner, we must +remember, what indeed he himself would always have been forward to +acknowledge, that Burns used it before him. + +Still Wordsworth’s use of it has something unique and unmatchable. +Nature herself seems, I say, to take the pen out of his hand, and to +write for him with her own bare, sheer, penetrating power. This arises +from two causes; from the profound sincereness with which Wordsworth +feels his subject, and also from the profoundly sincere and natural +character of his subject itself. He can and will treat such a subject +with nothing but the most plain, first-hand, almost austere naturalness. +His expression may often be called bald, as, for instance, in the poem +of _Resolution and Independence_; but it is bald as the bare mountain +tops are bald, with a baldness which is full of grandeur. + +Wherever we meet with the successful balance, in Wordsworth, of profound +truth of subject with profound truth of execution, he is unique. His +best poems are those which most perfectly exhibit this balance. I have a +warm admiration for _Laodameia_ and for the great _Ode_; but if I am to +tell the very truth, I find _Laodameia_ not wholly free from something +artificial, and the great _Ode_ not wholly free from something +declamatory. If I had to pick out poems of a kind most perfectly to show +Wordsworth’s unique power, I should rather choose poems such as +_Michael_, _The Fountain_, _The Highland Reaper_. And poems with the +peculiar and unique beauty which distinguishes these, Wordsworth +produced in considerable number; besides very many other poems of which +the worth, although not so rare as the worth of these, is still +exceedingly high. + +On the whole, then, as I said at the beginning, not only is Wordsworth +eminent by reason of the goodness of his best work, but he is eminent +also by reason of the great body of good work which he has left to us. +With the ancients I will not compare him. In many respects the ancients +are far above us, and yet there is something that we demand which they +can never give. Leaving the ancients, let us come to the poets and +poetry of Christendom. Dante, Shakespeare, Molière, Milton, Goethe, are +altogether larger and more splendid luminaries in the poetical heaven +than Wordsworth. But I know not where else, among the moderns, we are to +find his superiors. + +To disengage the poems which show his power, and to present them to the +English-speaking public and to the world, is the object of this volume. +I by no means say that it contains all which in Wordsworth’s poems is +interesting. Except in the case of _Margaret_, a story composed +separately from the rest of the _Excursion_, and which belongs to a +different part of England, I have not ventured on detaching portions of +poems, or on giving any piece otherwise than as Wordsworth himself gave +it. But under the conditions imposed by this reserve, the volume +contains, I think, everything, or nearly everything, which may best +serve him with the majority of lovers of poetry, nothing which may +disserve him. + +I have spoken lightly of Wordsworthians; and if we are to get Wordsworth +recognized by the public and by the world, we must recommend him not in +the spirit of a clique, but in the spirit of disinterested lovers of +poetry. But I am a Wordsworthian myself. I can read with pleasure and +edification _Peter Bell_, and the whole series of _Ecclesiastical +Sonnets_, and the address to Mr. Wilkinson’s spade, and even the +_Thanksgiving Ode_;—everything of Wordsworth, I think, except +_Vaudracour and Julia_. It is not for nothing that one has been brought +up in the veneration of a man so truly worthy of homage; that one has +seen him and heard him, lived in his neighborhood, and been familiar +with his country. No Wordsworthian has a tenderer affection for this +pure and sage master than I, or is less really offended by his defects. +But Wordsworth is something more than the pure and sage master of a +small band of devoted followers, and we ought not to rest satisfied +until he is seen to be what he is. He is one of the very chief glories +of English Poetry; and by nothing is England so glorious as by her +poetry. Let us lay aside every weight which hinders our getting him +recognized as this, and let our one study be to bring to pass, as widely +as possible and as truly as possible, his own word concerning his poems: +‘They will co-operate with the benign tendencies in human nature and +society, and will, in their degree, be efficacious in making men wiser, +better, and happier.’ + + + + + VI. + + BYRON.[38] + +----- + +Footnote 38: + + Preface to _Poetry of Byron_, chosen and arranged by Matthew Arnold, + 1881. + +----- + + +When at last I held in my hand the volume of poems which I had chosen +from Wordsworth, and began to turn over its pages, there arose in me +almost immediately the desire to see beside it, as a companion volume, a +like collection of the best poetry of Byron. Alone amongst our poets of +the earlier part of this century, Byron and Wordsworth not only furnish +material enough for a volume of this kind, but also, as it seems to me, +they both of them gain considerably by being thus exhibited. There are +poems of Coleridge and of Keats equal, if not superior, to anything of +Byron or Wordsworth; but a dozen pages or two will contain them, and the +remaining poetry is of a quality much inferior. Scott never, I think, +rises as a poet to the level of Byron and Wordsworth at all. On the +other hand, he never falls below his own usual level very far; and by a +volume of selections from him, therefore, his effectiveness is not +increased. As to Shelley there will be more question; and indeed Mr. +Stopford Brooke, whose accomplishments, eloquence, and love of poetry we +must all recognize and admire, has actually given us Shelley in such a +volume. But for my own part I cannot think that Shelley’s poetry, except +by snatches and fragments, has the value of the good work of Wordsworth +and Byron; or that it is possible for even Mr. Stopford Brooke to make +up a volume of selections from him which, for real substance, power, and +worth, can at all take rank with a like volume from Byron or Wordsworth. + +Shelley knew quite well the difference between the achievement of such a +poet as Byron and his own. He praises Byron too unreservedly, but he +sincerely felt, and he was right in feeling, that Byron was a greater +poetical power than himself. As a man, Shelley is at a number of points +immeasurably Byron’s superior; he is a beautiful and enchanting spirit, +whose vision, when we call it up, has far more loveliness, more charm +for our soul, than the vision of Byron. But all the personal charm of +Shelley cannot hinder us from at last discovering in his poetry the +incurable want, in general, of a sound subject-matter, and the incurable +fault, in consequence, of unsubstantiality. Those who extol him as the +poet of clouds, the poet of sunsets, are only saying that he did not, in +fact, lay hold upon the poet’s right subject-matter; and in honest +truth, with all his charm of soul and spirit, and with all his gift of +musical diction and movement, he never, or hardly ever, did. Except, as +I have said, for a few short things and single stanzas, his original +poetry is less satisfactory than his translations, for in these the +subject-matter was found for him. Nay, I doubt whether his delightful +Essays and Letters, which deserve to be far more read than they are now, +will not resist the wear and tear of time better, and finally come to +stand higher, than his poetry. + +There remain to be considered Byron and Wordsworth. That Wordsworth +affords good material for a volume of selections, and that he gains by +having his poetry thus presented, is an old belief of mine which led me +lately to make up a volume of poems chosen out of Wordsworth, and to +bring it before the public. By its kind reception of the volume, the +public seems to show itself a partaker in my belief. Now Byron also +supplies plenty of material for a like volume, and he too gains, I +think, by being so presented. Mr. Swinburne urges, indeed, that “Byron, +who rarely wrote anything either worthless or faultless, can only be +judged or appreciated in the mass; the greatest of his works was his +whole work taken together.” It is quite true that Byron rarely wrote +anything either worthless or faultless; it is quite true also that in +the appreciation of Byron’s power a sense of the amount and variety of +his work, defective though much of his work is, enters justly into our +estimate. But although there may be little in Byron’s poetry which can +be pronounced either worthless or faultless, there are portions of it +which are far higher in worth and far more free from fault than others. +And although, again, the abundance and variety of his production is +undoubtedly a proof of his power, yet I question whether by reading +everything which he gives us we are so likely to acquire an admiring +sense even of his variety and abundance, as by reading what he gives us +at his happier moments. Varied and abundant he amply proves himself even +by this taken alone. Receive him absolutely without omission or +compression, follow his whole out-pouring stanza by stanza and line by +line from the very commencement to the very end, and he is capable of +being tiresome. + +Byron has told us himself that the _Giaour_ “is but a string of +passages.” He has made full confession of his own negligence. “No one,” +says he, “has done more through negligence to corrupt the language.” +This accusation brought by himself against his poems is not just; but +when he goes on to say of them, that “their faults, whatever they may +be, are those of negligence and not of labor,” he says what is perfectly +true. “_Lara_,” he declares, “I wrote while undressing after coming home +from balls and masquerades, in the year of revelry, 1814. The _Bride_ +was written in four, the _Corsair_ in ten days.” He calls this “a +humiliating confession, as it proves my own want of judgment in +publishing, and the public’s in reading, things which cannot have +stamina for permanence.” Again he does his poems injustice; the producer +of such poems could not but publish them, the public could not but read +them. Nor could Byron have produced his work in any other fashion; his +poetic work could not have first grown and matured in his own mind, and +then come forth as an organic whole; Byron had not enough of the artist +in him for this, nor enough of self-command. He wrote, as he truly tells +us, to relieve himself, and he went on writing because he found the +relief become indispensable. But it was inevitable that works so +produced should be, in general, “a string of passages,” poured out, as +he describes them, with rapidity and excitement, and with new passages +constantly suggesting themselves, and added while his work was going +through the press. It is evident that we have here neither deliberate +scientific construction, nor yet the instinctive artistic creation of +poetic wholes; and that to take passages from work produced as Byron’s +was is a very different thing from taking passages out of the _Œdipus_ +or the _Tempest_, and deprives the poetry far less of its advantage. + +Nay, it gives advantage to the poetry, instead of depriving it of any. +Byron, I said, has not a great artist’s profound and patient skill in +combining an action or in developing a character,—a skill which we must +watch and follow if we are to do justice to it. But he has a wonderful +power of vividly conceiving a single incident, a single situation; of +throwing himself upon it, grasping it as if it were real and he saw and +felt it, and of making us see and feel it too. The _Giaour_ is, as he +truly called it, “a string of passages,” not a work moving by a deep +internal law of development to a necessary end; and our total impression +from it cannot but receive from this, its inherent defect, a certain +dimness and indistinctness. But the incidents of the journey and death +of Hassan, in that poem, are conceived and presented with a vividness +not to be surpassed; and our impression from them is correspondingly +clear and powerful. In _Lara_, again, there is no adequate development +either of the character of the chief personage or of the action of the +poem; our total impression from the work is a confused one. Yet such an +incident as the disposal of the slain Ezzelin’s body passes before our +eyes as if we actually saw it. And in the same way as these bursts of +incident, bursts of sentiment also, living and vigorous, often occur in +the midst of poems which must be admitted to be but weakly-conceived and +loosely-combined wholes. Byron cannot but be a gainer by having +attention concentrated upon what is vivid, powerful, effective in his +work, and withdrawn from what is not so. + +Byron, I say, cannot but be a gainer by this, just as Wordsworth is a +gainer by a like proceeding. I esteem Wordsworth’s poetry so highly, and +the world, in my opinion, has done it such scant justice, that I could +not rest satisfied until I had fulfilled, on Wordsworth’s behalf, a +long-cherished desire;—had disengaged, to the best of my power, his good +work from the inferior work joined with it, and had placed before the +public the body of his good work by itself. To the poetry of Byron the +world has ardently paid homage; full justice from his contemporaries, +perhaps even more than justice, his torrent of poetry received. His +poetry was admired, adored, “with all its imperfections on its head,”—in +spite of negligence, in spite of diffuseness, in spite of repetitions, +in spite of whatever faults it possessed. His name is still great and +brilliant. Nevertheless the hour of irresistible vogue has passed away +for him; even for Byron it could not but pass away. The time has come +for him, as it comes for all poets, when he must take his real and +permanent place, no longer depending upon the vogue of his own day and +upon the enthusiasm of his contemporaries. Whatever we may think of him, +we shall not be subjugated by him as they were; for, as he cannot be for +us what he was for them, we cannot admire him so hotly and +indiscriminately as they. His faults of negligence, of diffuseness, of +repetition, his faults of whatever kind, we shall abundantly feel and +unsparingly criticise; the mere interval of time between us and him +makes disillusion of this kind inevitable. But how then will Byron +stand, if we relieve him too, so far as we can, of the encumbrance of +his inferior and weakest work, and if we bring before us his best and +strongest work in one body together? That is the question which I, who +can even remember the latter years of Byron’s vogue, and have myself +felt the expiring wave of that mighty influence, but who certainly also +regard him, and have long regarded him, without illusion, cannot but ask +myself, cannot but seek to answer. The present volume is an attempt to +provide adequate data for answering it. + +Byron has been over-praised, no doubt. “Byron is one of our French +superstitions,” says M. Edmond Scherer; but where has Byron not been a +superstition? He pays now the penalty of this exaggerated worship. +“Alone among the English poets his contemporaries, Byron,” said M. +Taine, “_atteint à la cîme_,—gets to the top of the poetic mountain.” +But the idol that M. Taine had thus adored M. Scherer is almost for +burning. “In Byron,” he declares, “there is a remarkable inability ever +to lift himself into the region of real poetic art,—art impersonal and +disinterested,—at all. He has fecundity, eloquence, wit, but even these +qualities themselves are confined within somewhat narrow limits. He has +treated hardly any subject but one,—himself; now the man, in Byron, is +of a nature even less sincere than the poet. This beautiful and blighted +being is at bottom a coxcomb. He posed all his life long.” + +Our poet could not well meet with more severe and unsympathetic +criticism. However, the praise often given to Byron has been so +exaggerated as to provoke, perhaps, a reaction in which he is unduly +disparaged. “As various in composition as Shakespeare himself, Lord +Byron has embraced,” says Sir Walter Scott, “every topic of human life, +and sounded every string on the divine harp, from its slightest to its +most powerful and heart-astounding tones.” It is not surprising that +some one with a cool head should retaliate, on such provocation as this, +by saying: “He has treated hardly any subject but one, _himself_.” “In +the very grand and tremendous drama of _Cain_,” says Scott, “Lord Byron +has certainly matched Milton on his own ground.” And Lord Byron has done +all this, Scott adds “while managing his pen with the careless and +negligent ease of a man of quality.” Alas, “managing his pen with the +careless and negligent ease of a man of quality,” Byron wrote in his +_Cain_— + + “Souls that dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in + His everlasting face, and tell him that + His evil is not good;” + +or he wrote— + + “... And _thou_ would’st go on aspiring + To the great double Mysteries! the _two Principles_!”[39] + +One has only to repeat to oneself a line from _Paradise Lost_ in order +to feel the difference. + +----- + +Footnote 39: + + The italics are in the original. + +----- + +Sainte-Beuve, speaking of that exquisite master of language, the Italian +poet Leopardi, remarks how often we see the alliance, singular though it +may at first sight appear, of the poetical genius with the genius for +scholarship and philology. Dante and Milton are instances which will +occur to every one’s mind. Byron is so negligent in his poetical style, +he is often, to say the truth, so slovenly, slipshod, and infelicitous, +he is so little haunted by the true artist’s fine passion for the +correct use and consummate management of words, that he may be described +as having for this artistic gift the insensibility of the +barbarian;—which is perhaps only another and a less flattering way of +saying, with Scott, that he “manages his pen with the careless and +negligent ease of a man of quality.” Just of a piece with the rhythm of + + “Dare you await the event of a few minutes’ + Deliberation?” + +or of + + “All shall be void— + Destroy’d!” + +is the diction of + + ‘Which now is painful to these eyes, + Which had not seen the sun to rise; + +or of + + “... there let him lay!” + +or of the famous passage beginning + + “He who hath bent him o’er the dead;” + +with those trailing relatives, that crying grammatical solecism, that +inextricable anacolouthon! To class the work of the author of such +things with the work of the authors of such verse as + + “In the dark backward and abysm of time”— + +or as + + “Presenting Thebes, or Pelops’ line, + Or the tale of Troy divine”— + +is ridiculous. Shakespeare and Milton, with their secret of consummate +felicity in diction and movement, are of another and an altogether +higher order from Byron, nay, for that matter, from Wordsworth also; +from the author of such verse as + + “Sol hath dropt into his harbour”— + +or (if Mr. Ruskin pleases) as + + “Parching summer hath no warrant” + +as from the author of + + “All shall be void— + Destroy’d!” + +With a poetical gift and a poetical performance of the very highest +order, the slovenliness and tunelessness of much of Byron’s production, +the pompousness and ponderousness of much of Wordsworth’s are +incompatible. Let us admit this to the full. + +Moreover, while we are hearkening to M. Scherer, and going along with +him in his faultfinding, let us admit, too, that the man in Byron is in +many respects as unsatisfactory as the poet. And, putting aside all +direct moral criticism of him,—with which we need not concern ourselves +here,—we shall find that he is unsatisfactory in the same way. Some of +Byron’s most crying faults as a man,—his vulgarity, his affectation,—are +really akin to the faults of commonness, of want of art, in his +workmanship as a poet. The ideal nature for the poet and artist is that +of the finely touched and finely gifted man, the εὐφυής of the Greeks; +now, Byron’s nature was in substance not that of the εὐφυής at all, but +rather, as I have said, of the barbarian. The want of fine perception +which made it possible for him to formulate either the comparison +between himself and Rousseau, or his reason for getting Lord Delawarr +excused from a “licking” at Harrow, is exactly what made possible for +him also his terrible dealings in, _An ye wool_; _I have redde thee_; +_Sunburn me_; _Oons, and it is excellent well_. It is exactly, again, +what made possible for him his precious dictum that Pope is a Greek +temple, and a string of other criticisms of the like force; it is +exactly, in fine, what deteriorated the quality of his poetic +production. If we think of a good representative of that finely touched +and exquisitely gifted nature which is the ideal nature for the poet and +artist,—if we think of Raphael, for instance, who truly is εὐφυής just +as Byron is not,—we shall bring into clearer light the connection in +Byron between the faults of the man and the faults of the poet. With +Raphael’s character Byron’s sins of vulgarity and false criticism would +have been impossible, just as with Raphael’s art Byron’s sins of common +and bad workmanship. + +Yes, all this is true, but it is not the whole truth about Byron +nevertheless; very far from it. The severe criticism of M. Scherer by no +means gives us the whole truth about Byron, and we have not yet got it +in what has been added to that criticism here. The negative part of the +true criticism of him we perhaps have; the positive part, by far the +more important, we have not. Byron’s admirers appeal eagerly to foreign +testimonies in his favor. Some of these testimonies do not much move me; +but one testimony there is among them which will always carry, with me +at any rate, very great weight,—the testimony of Goethe. Goethe’s +sayings about Byron were uttered, it must however be remembered, at the +height of Byron’s vogue, when that puissant and splendid personality was +exercising its full power of attraction. In Goethe’s own household there +was an atmosphere of glowing Byron-worship; his daughter-in-law was a +passionate admirer of Byron, nay, she enjoyed and prized his poetry, as +did Tieck and so many others in Germany at that time, much above the +poetry of Goethe himself. Instead of being irritated and rendered +jealous by this, a nature like Goethe’s was inevitably led by it to +heighten, not lower, the note of his praise. The Time-Spirit, or +_Zeit-Geist_, he would himself have said, was working just then for +Byron. This working of the _Zeit-Geist_ in his favor was an advantage +added to Byron’s other advantages, an advantage of which he had a right +to get the benefit. This is what Goethe would have thought and said to +himself; and so he would have been led even to heighten somewhat his +estimate of Byron, and to accentuate the emphasis of praise. Goethe +speaking of Byron at that moment was not and could not be quite the same +cool critic as Goethe speaking of Dante, or Molière, or Milton. This, I +say, we ought to remember in reading Goethe’s judgments on Byron and his +poetry. Still, if we are careful to bear this in mind, and if we quote +Goethe’s praise correctly,—which is not always done by those who in this +country quote it,—and if we add to it that great and due qualification +added to it by Goethe himself,—which so far as I have seen has never yet +been done by his quoters in this country at all,—then we shall have a +judgment on Byron, which comes, I think, very near to the truth, and +which may well command our adherence. + +In his judicious and interesting Life of Byron, Professor Nichol quotes +Goethe as saying that Byron “is undoubtedly to be regarded as the +greatest genius of our century.” What Goethe did really say was “the +greatest _talent_,” not “the greatest _genius_.” The difference is +important, because, while talent gives the notion of power in a man’s +performance, genius gives rather the notion of felicity and perfection +in it; and this divine gift of consummate felicity by no means, as we +have seen, belongs to Byron and to his poetry. Goethe said that Byron +“must unquestionably be regarded as the greatest talent of the +century.”[40] He said of him moreover: “The English may think of Byron +what they please, but it is certain that they can point to no poet who +is his like. He is different from all the rest, and in the main +greater.” Here, again, Professor Nichol translates: “They can show no +(living) poet who is to be compared to him;”—inserting the word +_living_, I suppose, to prevent its being thought that Goethe would have +ranked Byron, as a poet, above Shakespeare and Milton. But Goethe did +not use, or, I think, mean to imply, any limitation such as is added by +Professor Nichol. Goethe said simply, and he meant to say, “_no_ poet.” +Only the words which follow[41] ought not, I think, to be rendered, “who +is to be compared to him,” that is to say, “_who is his equal as a +poet_.” They mean rather, “who may properly be compared with him,” “_who +is his parallel_.” And when Goethe said that Byron was “in the main +greater” than all the rest of the English poets, he was not so much +thinking of the strict rank, as poetry, of Byron’s production; he was +thinking of that wonderful personality of Byron which so enters into his +poetry, and which Goethe called “a personality such, for its eminence, +as has never been yet, and such as is not likely to come again.” He was +thinking of that “daring, dash, and grandiosity,”[42] of Byron, which +are indeed so splendid; and which were, so Goethe maintained, of a +character to do good, because “everything great is formative,” and what +is thus formative does us good. + +----- + +Footnote 40: + + “Der ohne Frage als das grösste Talent des Jahrhunderts anzusehen + ist.” + +Footnote 41: + + “Der ihm zu vergleichen wäre.” + +Footnote 42: + + “Byron’s Kühnheit, Keckheit und Grandiosität, ist das nicht alles + bildend?—Alles Grosse bildet, sobald wir es gewahr werden.” + +----- + +The faults which went with this greatness, and which impaired Byron’s +poetical work, Goethe saw very well. He saw the constant state of +warfare and combat, the “negative and polemical working,” which makes +Byron’s poetry a poetry in which we can so little find rest; he saw the +_Hang zum Unbegrenzten_, the straining after the unlimited, which made +it impossible for Byron to produce poetic wholes such as the _Tempest_ +or _Lear_; he saw the _zu viel Empirie_, the promiscuous adoption of all +the matter offered to the poet by life, just as it was offered, without +thought or patience for the mysterious transmutation to be operated on +this matter by poetic form. But in a sentence which I cannot, as I say, +remember to have yet seen quoted in any English criticism of Byron, +Goethe lays his finger on the cause of all these defects in Byron, and +on his real source of weakness both as a man and as a poet. “The moment +he reflects, he is a child,” says Goethe;—“_sobald er reflectirt ist er +ein Kind_.” + +Now if we take the two parts of Goethe’s criticism of Byron, the +favorable and the unfavorable, and put them together, we shall have, I +think, the truth. On the one hand, a splendid and puissant personality—a +personality “in eminence such as has never been yet, and is not likely +to come again”; of which the like, therefore, is not to be found among +the poets of our nation, by which Byron “is different from all the rest, +and in the main greater.” Byron is, moreover, “the greatest talent of +our century.” On the other hand, this splendid personality and unmatched +talent, this unique Byron, “is quite too much in the dark about +himself;”[43] nay, “the moment he begins to reflect, he is a child.” +There we have, I think, Byron complete; and in estimating him and +ranking him we have to strike a balance between the gain which accrues +to his poetry, as compared with the productions of other poets, from his +superiority, and the loss which accrues to it from his defects. + +----- + +Footnote 43: + + “Gar zu dunkel über sich selbst.” + +----- + +A balance of this kind has to be struck in the case of all poets except +the few supreme masters in whom a profound criticism of life exhibits +itself in indissoluble connection with the laws of poetic truth and +beauty. I have seen it said that I allege poetry to have for its +characteristic this: that it is a criticism of life; and that I make it +to be thereby distinguished from prose, which is something else. So far +from it, that when I first used this expression, _a criticism of life_, +now many years ago, it was to literature in general that I applied it, +and not to poetry in especial. “The end and aim of all literature,” I +said, “is, if one considers it attentively, nothing but that: _a +criticism of life_.” And so it surely is; the main end and aim of all +our utterance, whether in prose or in verse, is surely a criticism of +life. We are not brought much on our way, I admit, towards an adequate +definition of poetry as distinguished from prose by that truth; still a +truth it is, and poetry can never prosper if it is forgotten. In poetry, +however, the criticism of life has to be made conformably to the laws of +poetic truth and poetic beauty. Truth and seriousness of substance and +matter, felicity and perfection of diction and manner, as these are +exhibited in the best poets, are what constitute a criticism of life +made in conformity with the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty; and +it is by knowing and feeling the work of those poets, that we learn to +recognize the fulfilment and non-fulfilment of such conditions. + +The moment, however, that we leave the small band of the very best +poets, the true classics, and deal with poets of the next rank, we shall +find that perfect truth and seriousness of matter, in close alliance +with perfect truth and felicity of manner, is the rule no longer. We +have now to take what we can get, to forego something here, to admit +compensation for it there; to strike a balance, and to see how our poets +stand in respect to one another when that balance has been struck. Let +us observe how this is so. + +We will take three poets, among the most considerable of our century: +Leopardi, Byron, Wordsworth. Giacomo Leopardi was ten years younger than +Byron, and he died thirteen years after him; both of them, therefore, +died young—Byron at the age of thirty-six, Leopardi at the age of +thirty-nine. Both of them were of noble birth, both of them suffered +from physical defect, both of them were in revolt against the +established facts and beliefs of their age; but here the likeness +between them ends. The stricken poet of Recanati had no country, for an +Italy in his day did not exist; he had no audience, no celebrity. The +volume of his poems, published in the very year of Byron’s death, hardly +sold, I suppose, its tens, while the volumes of Byron’s poetry were +selling their tens of thousands. And yet Leopardi has the very qualities +which we have found wanting to Byron; he has the sense for form and +style, the passion for just expression, the sure and firm touch of the +true artist. Nay, more, he has a grave fulness of knowledge, an insight +into the real bearings of the questions which as a sceptical poet he +raises, a power of seizing the real point, a lucidity, with which the +author of _Cain_ has nothing to compare. I can hardly imagine Leopardi +reading the + + “... And _thou_ would’st go on aspiring + To the great double Mysteries! the _two Principles_!” + +or following Byron in his theological controversy with Dr. Kennedy, +without having his features overspread by a calm and fine smile, and +remarking of his brilliant contemporary, as Goethe did, that “the moment +he begins to reflect, he is a child.” But indeed whoever wishes to feel +the full superiority of Leopardi over Byron in philosophic thought, and +in the expression of it, has only to read one paragraph of one poem, the +paragraph of _La Ginestra_, beginning + + “Sovente in queste piagge,” + +and ending + + “Non so se il riso o la pietà prevale.” + +In like manner, Leopardi is at many points the poetic superior of +Wordsworth too. He has a far wider culture than Wordsworth, more mental +lucidity, more freedom from illusions as to the real character of the +established fact and of reigning conventions; above all, this Italian, +with his pure and sure touch, with his fineness of perception, is far +more of the artist. Such a piece of pompous dulness as + + “O for the coming of that glorious time,” + +and all the rest of it, or such lumbering verse as Mr. Ruskin’s enemy, + + “Parching summer hath no warrant”— + +would have been as impossible to Leopardi as to Dante. Where, then, is +Wordsworth’s superiority? for the worth of what he has given us in +poetry I hold to be greater, on the whole, than the worth of what +Leopardi has given us. It is in Wordsworth’s sound and profound sense + + “Of joy in widest commonalty spread;” + +whereas Leopardi remains with his thoughts ever fixed upon the _essenza +insanabile_, upon the _acerbo, indegno mistero delle cose_. It is in the +power with which Wordsworth feels the resources of joy offered to us in +nature, offered to us in the primary human affections and duties, and in +the power with which, in his moments of inspiration, he renders this +joy, and makes us, too, feel it; a force greater than himself seeming to +lift him and to prompt his tongue, so that he speaks in a style far +above any style of which he has the constant command, and with a truth +far beyond any philosophic truth of which he has the conscious and +assured possession. Neither Leopardi nor Wordsworth are of the same +order with the great poets who made such verse as + + Τλητὸν γὰρ Moῖραι θυμὸν θέσαν ὰνθρώποισιν· + +or as + + “In la sua volontade e nostra pace;” + +or as + + “... Men must endure + Their going hence, even as their coming hither; + Ripeness is all.” + +But as compared with Leopardi, Wordsworth, though at many points less +lucid, though far less a master of style, far less of an artist, gains +so much by his criticism of life being, in certain matters of profound +importance, healthful and true, whereas Leopardi’s pessimism is not, +that the value of Wordsworth’s poetry, on the whole, stands higher for +us than that of Leopardi’s, as it stands higher for us, I think, than +that of any modern poetry except Goethe’s. + +Byron’s poetic value is also greater, on the whole, than Leopardi’s; and +his superiority turns in the same way upon the surpassing worth of +something which he had and was, after all deduction has been made for +his shortcomings. We talk of Byron’s _personality_, “a personality in +eminence such as has never been yet, and is not likely to come again;” +and we say that by this personality Byron is “different from all the +rest of English poets, and in the main greater.” But can we not be a +little more circumstantial, and name that in which the wonderful power +of this personality consisted? We can; with the instinct of a poet Mr. +Swinburne has seized upon it and named it for us. The power of Byron’s +personality lies in “the splendid and imperishable excellence which +covers all his offences and outweighs all his defects: _the excellence +of sincerity and strength_.” + +Byron found our nation, after its long and victorious struggle with +revolutionary France, fixed in a system of established facts and +dominant ideas which revolted him. The mental bondage of the most +powerful part of our nation, of its strong middle-class, to a narrow and +false system of this kind, is what we call British Philistinism. That +bondage is unbroken to this hour, but in Byron’s time it was even far +more deep and dark than it is now. Byron was an aristocrat, and it is +not difficult for an aristocrat to look on the prejudices and habits of +the British Philistine with scepticism and disdain. Plenty of young men +of his own class Byron met at Almack’s or at Lady Jersey’s, who regarded +the established facts and reigning beliefs of the England of that day +with as little reverence as he did. But these men, disbelievers in +British Philistinism in private, entered English public life, the most +conventional in the world, and at once they saluted with respect the +habits and ideas of British Philistinism as if they were a part of the +order of creation, and as if in public no sane man would think of +warring against them. With Byron it was different. What he called the +_cant_ of the great middle part of the English nation, what we call its +Philistinism, revolted him; but the cant of his own class, deferring to +this Philistinism and profiting by it, while they disbelieved in it, +revolted him even more. “Come what may,” are his own words, “I will +never flatter the million’s canting in any shape.” His class in general, +on the other hand, shrugged their shoulders at this cant, laughed at it, +pandered to it, and ruled by it. The falsehood, cynicism, insolence, +misgovernment, oppression, with their consequent unfailing crop of human +misery, which were produced by this state of things, roused Byron to +irreconcilable revolt and battle. They made him indignant, they +infuriated him; they were so strong, so defiant, so maleficent,—and yet +he felt that they were doomed. “You have seen every trampler down in +turn,” he comforts himself with saying, “from Buonaparte to the simplest +individuals.” The old order, as after 1815 it stood victorious, with its +ignorance and misery below, its cant, selfishness, and cynicism above, +was at home and abroad equally hateful to him. “I have simplified my +politics,” he writes, “into an utter detestation of all existing +governments.” And again: “Give me a republic. The king-times are fast +finishing; there will be blood shed like water and tears like mist, but +the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I +foresee it.” + +Byron himself gave the preference, he tells us, to politicians and +doers, far above writers and singers. But the politics of his own day +and of his own class,—even of the Liberals of his own class,—were +impossible for him. Nature had not formed him for a Liberal peer, proper +to move the Address in the House of Lords, to pay compliments to the +energy and self-reliance of British middle-class Liberalism, and to +adapt his politics to suit it. Unfitted for such politics, he threw +himself upon poetry as his organ; and in poetry his topics were not +Queen Mab, and the Witch of Atlas, and the Sensitive Plant—they were the +upholders of the old order. George the Third and Lord Castlereagh and +the Duke of Wellington and Southey, and they were the canters and +tramplers of the great world, and they were his enemies and himself. + +Such was Byron’s personality, by which “he is different from all the +rest of English poets, and in the main greater.” But he posed all his +life, says M. Scherer. Let us distinguish. There is the Byron who posed, +there is the Byron with his affectations and silliness, the Byron whose +weakness Lady Blessington, with a woman’s acuteness, so admirably +seized; “his great defect is flippancy and a total want of +self-possession.” But when this theatrical and easily criticized +personage betook himself to poetry, and when he had fairly warmed to his +work, then he became another man; then the theatrical personage passed +away; then a higher power took possession of him and filled him; then at +last came forth into light that true and puissant personality, with its +direct strokes, its ever-welling force, its satire, its energy, and its +agony. This is the real Byron; whoever stops at the theatrical +preludings does not know him. And this real Byron may well be superior +to the stricken Leopardi, he may well be declared “different from all +the rest of English poets, and in the main greater,” in so far as it is +true of him, as M. Taine well says, that “all other souls, in comparison +with his, seem inert”; in so far as it is true of him that with superb, +exhaustless energy, he maintained, as Professor Nichol well says, “the +struggle that keeps alive, if it does not save, the soul;” in so far, +finally, as he deserves (and he does deserve) the noble praise of him +which I have already quoted from Mr. Swinburne; the praise for “the +splendid and imperishable excellence which covers all his offences and +outweighs all his defects: _the excellence of sincerity and strength_.” + +True, as a man, Byron could not manage himself, could not guide his ways +aright, but was all astray. True, he has no light, cannot lead us from +the past to the future; “the moment he reflects, he is a child.” The way +out of the false state of things which enraged him he did not see,—the +slow and laborious way upward; he had not the patience, knowledge, +self-discipline, virtue, requisite for seeing it. True, also, as a poet, +he has no fine and exact sense for word and structure and rhythm; he has +not the artist’s nature and gifts. Yet a personality of Byron’s force +counts for so much in life, and a rhetorician of Byron’s force counts +for so much in literature! But it would be most unjust to label Byron, +as M. Scherer is disposed to label him, as a rhetorician only. Along +with his astounding power and passion he had a strong and deep sense for +what is beautiful in nature, and for what is beautiful in human action +and suffering. When he warms to his work, when he is inspired, Nature +herself seems to take the pen from him as she took it from Wordsworth, +and to write for him as she wrote for Wordsworth, though in a different +fashion, with her own penetrating simplicity. Goethe has well observed +of Byron, that when he is at his happiest his representation of things +is as easy and real as if he were improvising. It is so; and his verse +then exhibits quite another and a higher quality from the rhetorical +quality,—admirable as this also in its own kind of merit is,—of such +verse as + + “Minions of splendor shrinking from distress,” + +and of so much more verse of Byron’s of that stamp. Nature, I say, takes +the pen for him; and then, assured master of a true poetic style though +he is not, any more than Wordsworth, yet as from Wordsworth at his best +there will come such verse as + + “Will no one tell me what she sings?” + +so from Byron, too, at his best, there will come such verse as + + “He heard it, but he heeded not; his eyes + Were with his heart, and that was far away.” + +Of verse of this high quality, Byron has much; of verse of a quality +lower than this, of a quality rather rhetorical than truly poetic, yet +still of extraordinary power and merit, he has still more. To separate, +from the mass of poetry which Byron poured forth, all this higher +portion, so superior to the mass, and still so considerable in quantity, +and to present it in one body by itself, is to do a service, I believe, +to Byron’s reputation, and to the poetic glory of our country. + +Such a service I have in the present volume attempted to perform. To +Byron, after all the tributes which have been paid to him, here is yet +one tribute more— + + “Among thy mightier offerings here are mine!” + +not a tribute of boundless homage certainly, but sincere; a tribute +which consists not in covering the poet with eloquent eulogy of our own, +but in letting him, at his best and greatest, speak for himself. Surely +the critic who does most for his author is the critic who gains readers +for his author himself, not for any lucubrations on his author:—gains +more readers for him, and enables those readers to read him with more +admiration. + +And in spite of his prodigious vogue, Byron has never yet, perhaps, had +the serious admiration which he deserves. Society read him and talked +about him, as it reads and talks about _Endymion_ to-day; and with the +same sort of result. It looked in Byron’s glass as it looks in Lord +Beaconsfield’s, and sees, or fancies that it sees, its own face there; +and then it goes its way, and straightway forgets what manner of man it +saw. Even of his passionate admirers, how many never got beyond the +theatrical Byron, from whom they caught the fashion of deranging their +hair, or of knotting their neck-handkerchief, or of leaving their +shirt-collar unbuttoned; how few profoundly felt his vital influence, +the influence of his splendid and imperishable excellence of sincerity +and strength! + +His own aristocratic class, whose cynical make-believe drove him to +fury; the great middle-class, on whose impregnable Philistinism he +shattered himself to pieces,—how little have either of these felt +Byron’s vital influence! As the inevitable break-up of the old order +comes, as the English middle-class slowly awakens from its intellectual +sleep of two centuries, as our actual present world, to which this sleep +has condemned us, shows itself more clearly,—our world of an aristocracy +materialized and null, a middle-class purblind and hideous, a lower +class crude and brutal,—we shall turn our eyes again, and to more +purpose, upon this passionate and dauntless soldier of a forlorn hope, +who, ignorant of the future and unconsoled by its promises, nevertheless +waged against the conversation of the old impossible world so fiery +battle; waged it till he fell,—waged it with such splendid and +imperishable excellence of sincerity and strength. + +Wordsworth’s value is of another kind. Wordsworth has an insight into +permanent sources of joy and consolation for mankind which Byron has +not; his poetry gives us more which we may rest upon than Byron’s,—more +which we can rest upon now, and which men may rest upon always. I place +Wordsworth’s poetry, therefore, above Byron’s on the whole, although in +some points he was greatly Byron’s inferior, and although Byron’s poetry +will always, probably, find more readers than Wordsworth, and will give +pleasure more easily. But these two, Wordsworth and Byron, stand, it +seems to me, first and preeminent in actual performance, a glorious +pair, among the English poets of this century. Keats had probably, +indeed, a more consummate poetic gift than either of them: but he died +having produced too little and being as yet too immature to rival them. +I for my part can never even think of equalling with them any other of +their contemporaries;—either Coleridge, poet and philosopher wrecked in +a mist of opium; or Shelley, beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in +the void his luminous wings in vain. Wordsworth and Byron stand out by +themselves. When the year 1900 is turned, and our nation comes to +recount her poetic glories in the century which has then just ended, the +first names with her will be these. + + + + + VII. + + SHELLEY[44] + +----- + +Footnote 44: + + Published in _The Nineteenth Century_, January, 1888. + +----- + + +Nowadays all things appear in print sooner or later; but I have heard +from a lady who knew Mrs. Shelley a story of her which, so far as I +know, has not appeared in print hitherto. Mrs. Shelley was choosing a +school for her son, and asked the advice of this lady, who gave for +advice—to use her own words to me—“Just the sort of banality, you know, +one does come out with: Oh, send him somewhere where they will teach him +to think for himself!” I have had far too long a training as a school +inspector to presume to call an utterance of this kind a _banality_; +however, it is not on this advice that I now wish to lay stress, but +upon Mrs. Shelley’s reply to it. Mrs. Shelley answered: “Teach him to +think for himself? Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other +people!” + +To the lips of many and many a reader of Professor Dowden’s volumes a +cry of this sort will surely rise, called forth by Shelley’s life as +there delineated. I have read those volumes with the deepest interest, +but I regret their publication, and am surprised, I confess, that +Shelley’s family should have desired or assisted it. For my own part, at +any rate, I would gladly have been left with the impression, the +ineffaceable impression, made upon me by Mrs. Shelley’s first edition of +her husband’s collected poems. Medwin and Hogg and Trelawny had done +little to change the impression made by those four delightful volumes of +the original edition of 1839. The text of the poems has in some places +been mended since; but Shelley is not a classic, whose various readings +are to be noted with earnest attention. The charm of the poems flowed in +upon us from that edition and the charm of the character. Mrs. Shelley +had done her work admirably; her introductions to the poems of each +year, with Shelley’s prefaces and passages from his letters, supplied +the very picture of Shelley to be desired. Somewhat idealized by tender +regret and exalted memory Mrs. Shelley’s representation no doubt was. +But without sharing her conviction that Shelley’s character, impartially +judged, “would stand in fairer and brighter light than that of any +contemporary,” we learned from her to know the soul of affection, of +“gentle and cordial goodness,” of eagerness and ardor for human +happiness, which was in this rare spirit,—so mere a monster unto many. +Mrs. Shelley in her general preface to her husband’s poems: “I abstain +from any remark on the occurrences of his private life, except inasmuch +as the passions which they engendered inspired his poetry; this is not +the time to relate the truth.” I for my part could wish, I repeat, that +that time had never come. + +But come it has, and Professor Dowden has given us the Life of Percy +Bysshe Shelley in two very thick volumes. If the work was to be done, +Professor Dowden has indeed done it thoroughly. One or two things in his +biography of Shelley I could wish different, even waiving the question +whether it was desirable to relate in full the occurrences of Shelley’s +private life. Professor Dowden holds a brief for Shelley; he pleads for +Shelley as an advocate pleads for his client, and this strain of +pleading, united with an attitude of adoration which in Mrs. Shelley had +its charm, but which Professor Dowden was not bound to adopt from her, +is unserviceable to Shelley, nay, injurious to him, because it +inevitably begets, in many readers of the story which Professor Dowden +has to tell, impatience and revolt. Further, let me remark that the +biography before us is of prodigious length, although its hero died +before he was thirty years old, and that it might have been considerably +shortened if it had been more plainly and simply written. I see that one +of Professor Dowden’s critics, while praising his style for “a certain +poetic quality of fervor and picturesqueness,” laments that in some +important passages Professor Dowden “fritters away great opportunities +for sustained and impassioned narrative.” I am inclined much rather to +lament that Professor Dowden has not steadily kept his poetic quality of +fervor and picturesqueness more under control. Is it that the Home +Rulers have so loaded the language that even an Irishman who is not one +of them catches something of their full habit of style? No, it is +rather, I believe, that Professor Dowden, of poetic nature himself, and +dealing with a poetic nature like Shelley, is so steeped in sentiment by +his subject that in almost every page of the biography the sentiment +runs over. A curious note of his style, suffused with sentiment, is that +it seems incapable of using the common word _child_. A great many births +are mentioned in the biography, but always it is a poetic _babe_ that is +born, not a prosaic _child_. And so, again, André Chénier is not +guillotined, but “too foully done to death.” Again, Shelley after his +runaway marriage with Harriet Westbrook was in Edinburgh without money +and full of anxieties for the future, and complained of his hard lot in +being unable to get away, in being “chained to the filth and commerce of +Edinburgh.” Natural enough; but why should Professor Dowden improve the +occasion as follows? “The most romantic of northern cities could lay no +spell upon his spirit. His eye was not fascinated by the presences of +mountains and the sea, by the fantastic outlines of aërial piles seen +amid the wreathing smoke of Auld Reekie, by the gloom of the Canongate +illuminated with shafts of sunlight streaming from its interesting wynds +and alleys; nor was his imagination kindled by storied house or palace, +and the voices of old, forgotten, far-off things, which haunt their +walls.” If Professor Dowden, writing a book in prose, could have brought +himself to eschew poetic excursions of this kind and to tell his story +in a plain way, lovers of simplicity, of whom there are some still left +in the world, would have been gratified, and at the same time his book +would have been the shorter by scores of pages. + +These reserves being made, I have little except praise for the manner in +which Professor Dowden has performed his task; whether it was a task +which ought to be performed at all, probably did not lie with him to +decide. His ample materials are used with order and judgment; the +history of Shelley’s life develops itself clearly before our eyes; the +documents of importance for it are given with sufficient fulness, +nothing essential seems to have been kept back, although I would gladly, +I confess, have seen more of Miss Clairmont’s journal, whatever +arrangement she may in her later life have chosen to exercise upon it. +In general all documents are so fairly and fully cited, that Professor +Dowden’s pleadings for Shelley, though they may sometimes indispose and +irritate the reader, produce no obscuring of the truth; the documents +manifest it of themselves. Last but not least of Professor Dowden’s +merits, he has provided his book with an excellent index. + +Undoubtedly this biography, with its full account of the occurrences of +Shelley’s private life, compels one to review one’s former impression of +him. Undoubtedly the brilliant and attaching rebel who in thinking for +himself had of old our sympathy so passionately with him, when we come +to read his full biography makes us often and often inclined to cry out: +“My God! he had far better have thought like other people.” There is a +passage in Hogg’s capitally written and most interesting account of +Shelley which I wrote down when I first read it and have borne in mind +ever since; so beautifully it seemed to render the true Shelley. Hogg +has been speaking of the intellectual expression of Shelley’s features, +and he goes on: “Nor was the moral expression less beautiful than the +intellect; for there was a softness, a delicacy, a gentleness, and +especially (though this will surprise many) that air of profound +religious veneration that characterizes the best work and chiefly the +frescoes (and into these they infused their whole souls) of the great +masters of Florence and of Rome.” What we have of Shelley in poetry and +prose suited with this charming picture of him; Mrs. Shelley’s account +suited with it; it was a possession which one would gladly have kept +unimpaired. It still subsists, I must now add; it subsists even after +one has read the present biography; it consists, but so as by fire. It +subsists with many a scar and stain; never again will it have the same +pureness and beauty which it had formerly. I regret this, as I have +said, and I confess I do not see what has been gained. Our ideal Shelley +was the true Shelley after all; what has been gained by making us at +moments doubt it? What has been gained by forcing upon as much in him +which is ridiculous and odious, by compelling any fair mind, if it is to +retain with a good conscience its ideal Shelley, to do that which I +propose to do now? I propose to mark firmly what is ridiculous and +odious in the Shelley brought to our knowledge by the new materials, and +then to show that our former beautiful and lovable Shelley nevertheless +survives. + +Almost everybody knows the main outline of the events of Shelley’s life. +It will be necessary for me, however, up to the date of his second +marriage, to go through them here. Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at +Field Place, near Horsham, in Sussex, on the 4th of August 1792. He was +of an old family of country gentlemen, and the heir to a baronetcy. He +had one brother and five sisters, but the brother so much younger than +himself as to be no companion for him in his boyhood at home, and after +he was separated from home and England he never saw him. Shelley was +brought up at Field Place with his sisters. At ten years old he was sent +to a private school at Isleworth, where he read Mrs. Radcliffe’s +romances and was fascinated by a popular scientific lecturer. After two +years of private school he went in 1804 to Eton. Here he took no part in +cricket or football, refused to fag, was known as “mad Shelley” and much +tormented; when tormented beyond endurance he could be dangerous. +Certainly he was not happy at Eton; but he had friends, he boated, he +rambled about the country. His school lessons were easy to him, and his +reading extended far beyond them; he read books on chemistry, he read +Pliny’s _Natural History_, Godwin’s _Political Justice_, Lucretius, +Franklin, Condorcet. It is said he was called “atheist Shelley” at Eton, +but this is not so well established as his having been called “mad +Shelley.” He was full, at any rate, of new and revolutionary ideas, and +he declared at a later time that he was twice expelled from the school +but recalled through the interference of his father. + +In the spring of 1810 Shelley, now in his eighteenth year, entered +University College, Oxford, as an exhibitioner. He had already written +novels and poems; a poem on the Wandering Jew, in seven or eight cantos, +he sent to Campbell, and was told by Campbell, that there were but two +good lines in it. He had solicited the correspondence of Mrs. Hemans, +then Felicia Browne and unmarried; he had fallen in love with a charming +cousin, Harriet Grove. In the autumn of 1810 he found a publisher for +his verse; he also found a friend in a very clever and free-minded +commoner of his college, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, who has admirably +described the Shelley of those Oxford days, with his chemistry, his +eccentric habits, his charm of look and character, his conversation, his +shrill discordant voice. Shelley read incessantly. Hume’s _Essays_ +produced a powerful impression on him; his free speculation led him to +what his father, and worse still his cousin Harriet, thought “detestable +principles”; his cousin and family became estranged from him. He, on his +part, became more and more incensed against the “bigotry” and +“intolerance” which produced such estrangement. “Here I swear, and as I +break my oaths, may Infinity, Eternity, blast me—here I swear that never +will I forgive intolerance.” At the beginning of 1811 he prepared and +published what he called a “leaflet for letters,” having for its title +_The Necessity of Atheism_. He sent copies to all the bishops, to the +Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, and to the heads of houses. On Lady Day he +was summoned before the authorities of his College, refused to answer +the question whether he had written _The Necessity of Atheism_, told the +Master and Fellows that “their proceedings would become a court of +inquisitors but not free men in a free country,” and was expelled for +contumacy. Hogg wrote a letter of remonstrance to the authorities was in +his turn summoned before them and questioned as to his share in the +“leaflet,” and, refusing to answer, he also was expelled. + +Shelley settled with Hogg in lodgings in London. His father, excusably +indignant, was not a wise man and managed his son ill. His plan of +recommending Shelley to read Paley’s _Natural Theology_, and of _reading +it with him himself_, makes us smile. Shelley, who about this time wrote +of his younger sister, then at school at Clapham, “There are some hopes +of this dear little girl, she would be a divine little scion of +infidelity if I could get hold of her,” was not to have been cured by +Paley’s _Natural Theology_ administered through Mr. Timothy Shelley. But +by the middle of May Shelley’s father had agreed to allow him two +hundred pounds a year. Meanwhile in visiting his sisters at their school +in Clapham, Shelley made the acquaintance of a schoolfellow of theirs, +Harriet Westbrook. She was a beautiful and lively girl, with a father +who had kept a tavern in Mount Street, but had now retired from +business, and one sister much older than herself, who encouraged in +every possible way the acquaintance of her sister of sixteen with the +heir to a baronetcy and a great estate. Soon Shelley heard that Harriet +met with cold looks at her school for associating with an atheist; his +generosity and his ready indignation against “intolerance” were roused. +In the summer Harriet wrote to him that she was persecuted not at school +only but at home also, that she was lonely and miserable, and would +gladly put an end to her life. Shelley went to see her; she owned her +love for him, and he engaged himself to her. He told his cousin Charles +Grove that his happiness had been blighted when the other Harriet, +Charles’s sister, cast him off; that now the only thing worth living for +was self-sacrifice. Harriet’s persecutors became yet more troublesome, +and Shelley, at the end of August, went off with her to Edinburgh and +they were married. The entry in the register is this:— + + “_August 28, 1811._—Percy Bysshe Shelley, farmer, Sussex, and Miss + Harriet Westbrook, St. Andrew Church Parish, daughter of Mr. John + Westbrook, London.” + +After five weeks in Edinburgh the young farmer and his wife came +southwards and took lodgings at York, under the shadow of what Shelley +calls that “gigantic pile of superstition,” the Minster. But his friend +Hogg was in a lawyer’s office in York, and Hogg’s society made the +Minster endurable. Mr. Timothy Shelley’s happiness in his son was +naturally not increased by the runaway marriage; he stopped his +allowance, and Shelley determined to visit “this thoughtless man,” as he +calls his parent, and to “try the force of truth” upon him. Nothing +could be effected; Shelley’s mother, too, was now against him. He +returned to York to find that in his absence his friend Hogg had been +making love to Harriet, who had indignantly repulsed him. Shelley was +shocked, but after a “terrible day” of explanation from Hogg, he “fully, +freely pardoned him,” promised to retain him still as “his friend, his +bosom friend,” and “hoped soon to convince him how lovely virtue was.” +But for the present it seemed better to separate. In November he and +Harriet, with her sister Eliza, took a cottage at Keswick. Shelley was +now in great straits for money; the great Sussex neighbor of the +Shelleys, the Duke of Norfolk, interposed in his favor, and his father +and grandfather seem to have offered him at this time an income of £2000 +a year, if he would consent to entail the family estate. Shelley +indignantly refused to “forswear his principles,” by accepting “a +proposal so insultingly hateful.” But in December his father agreed, +though with an ill grace, to grant him his allowance of £200 a year +again, and Mr. Westbrook promised to allow a like sum to his daughter. +So after four months of marriage the Shelleys began 1812 with an income +of £400 a year. + +Early in February they left Keswick and proceeded to Dublin, where +Shelley, who had prepared an address to the Catholics, meant to “devote +himself towards forwarding the great ends of virtue and happiness in +Ireland.” Before leaving Keswick he wrote to William Godwin, “the +regulator and former of his mind,” making profession of his mental +obligations to him, of his respect and veneration, and soliciting +Godwin’s friendship. A correspondence followed; Godwin pronounced his +young disciple’s plans for “disseminating the doctrines of philanthropy +and freedom” in Ireland to be unwise; Shelley bowed to his mentor’s +decision and gave up his Irish campaign, quitting Dublin on the 4th of +April 1812. He and Harriet wandered first to Nant-Gwillt in South Wales, +near the upper Wye, and from thence after a month or two to Lynmouth in +North Devon, where he busied himself with his poem of _Queen Mab_, and +with sending to sea boxes and bottles containing a _Declaration of +Rights_ by him, in the hope that the winds and waves might carry his +doctrines where they would do good. But his Irish servant, bearing the +prophetic name of Healy, posted the _Declaration_ on the walls of +Barnstaple and was taken up; Shelley found himself watched and no longer +able to enjoy Lynmouth in peace. He moved in September, 1812, to +Tremadoc, in North Wales, where he threw himself ardently into an +enterprise for recovering a great stretch of drowned land from the sea. +But at the beginning of October he and Harriet visited London, and +Shelley grasped Godwin by the hand at last. At once an intimacy arose, +but the future Mary Shelley—Godwin’s daughter by his first wife, Mary +Wollstonecraft—was absent on a visit in Scotland when the Shelleys +arrived in London. They became acquainted, however, with the second Mrs. +Godwin, on whom we have Charles Lamb’s friendly comment: “A very +disgusting woman, and wears green spectacles!”; with the amiable Fanny, +Mary Wollstonecraft’s daughter by Imlay, before her marriage with +Godwin; and probably also with Jane Clairmont, the second Mrs. Godwin’s +daughter by a first marriage, and herself, afterwards the mother of +Byron’s Allegra. Complicated relationships, as in the Theban story! and +there will be not wanting, presently, something of the Theban horrors. +During this visit of six weeks to London Shelley renewed his intimacy +with Hogg; in the middle of November he returned to Tremadoc. There he +remained until the end of February 1813, perfectly happy with Harriet, +reading widely, and working at his _Queen Mab_ and at the notes to that +poem. On the 26th of February an attempt was made, or so he fancied, to +assassinate him, and in high nervous excitement he hurriedly left +Tremadoc and repaired with Harriet to Dublin again. On this visit to +Ireland he saw Killarney, but early in April he and Harriet were back +again in London. + +There in June 1813 their daughter Ianthe was born; at the end of July +they moved to Bracknell, in Berkshire. They had for neighbors there a +Mrs. Boinville and her married daughter, whom Shelley found to be +fascinating women, with a culture which to his wife was altogether +wanting. Cornelia Turner, Mrs. Boinville’s daughter, was melancholy, +required consolation, and found it, Hogg tells us, in Petrarch’s poetry; +“Bysshe entered at once fully into her views and caught the soft +infection, breathing the tenderest and sweetest melancholy as every true +poet ought.” Peacock, a man of keen and cultivated mind, joined the +circle at Bracknell. He and Harriet, not yet eighteen, used sometimes to +laugh at the gushing sentiment and enthusiasm of the Bracknell circle; +Harriet had also given offense to Shelley by getting a wet-nurse for her +child; in Professor Dowden’s words, “the beauty of Harriet’s motherly +relation to her babe was marred in Shelley’s eyes by the introduction +into his home of a hireling nurse to whom was delegated the mother’s +tenderest office.” But in September Shelley wrote a sonnet to his child +which expresses his deep love for the mother also, to whom in March, +1814, he was remarried in London, lest the Scotch marriage should prove +to have been in any point irregular. Harriet’s sister Eliza, however, +whom Shelley had at first treated with excessive deference, had now +become hateful to him. And in the very month of the London marriage we +find him writing to Hogg that he is staying with the Boinvilles, having +“escaped, in the society of all that philosophy and friendship combine, +from the dismaying solitude of myself.” Cornelia Turner, he adds, whom +he once thought cold and reserved, “is the reverse of this, as she is +the reverse of everything bad; she inherits all the divinity of her +mother.” Then comes a stanza, beginning + + “Thy dewy looks sink in my breast, + Thy gentle words stir poison there.” + +It has no meaning, he says; it is only written in thought. “It is +evident from this pathetic letter,” says Professor Dowden, “that +Shelley’s happiness in his home had been fatally stricken.” This is a +curious way of putting the matter. To me what is evident is rather that +Shelley had, to use Professor Dowden’s words again—for in these things +of high sentiment I gladly let him speak for me—“a too vivid sense that +here (in the society of the Boinville family) were peace and joy and +gentleness and love.” In April come some more verses to the Boinvilles, +which contain the first good stanza that Shelley wrote. In May comes a +poem to Harriet, of which Professor Dowden’s prose analysis is as poetic +as the poem itself. “If she has something to endure (from the Boinville +attachment), it is not much, and all her husband’s weal hangs upon her +loving endurance, for see how pale and wildered anguish has made him!” +Harriet, unconvinced, seems to have gone off to Bath in resentment, from +whence, however, she kept up a constant correspondence with Shelley, who +was now of age, and busy in London raising money on post-obit bonds for +his own wants and those of the friend and former of his mind, Godwin. + +And now, indeed, it was to become true that if from the inflammable +Shelley’s devotion to the Boinville family poor Harriet had had +“something to endure,” yet this was “not much” compared with what was to +follow. At Godwin’s house Shelley met Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, his +future wife, then in her seventeenth year. She was a gifted person, but, +as Professor Dowden says, she “had breathed during her entire life an +atmosphere of free thought.” On the 8th of June Hogg called at Godwin’s +with Shelley; Godwin was out, but “a door was partially and softly +opened, a thrilling voice called ‘Shelley!’ a thrilling voice answered +‘Mary!’” Shelley’s summoner was “a very young female, fair and +fair-haired, pale indeed, and with a piercing look, wearing a frock of +tartan.” Already they were “Shelley” and “Mary” to one another; “before +the close of June they knew and felt,” says Professor Dowden, “that each +was to the other inexpressibly dear.” The churchyard of St. Pancras, +where her mother was buried, became “a place now doubly sacred to Mary, +since on one eventful day Bysshe here poured forth his griefs, his +hopes, his love, and she, in sign of everlasting union, placed her hand +in his.” In July Shelley gave her a copy of _Queen Mab_, printed but not +published, and under the tender dedication to Harriet he wrote: “Count +Slobendorf was about to marry a woman who, attracted solely by his +fortune, proved her selfishness by deserting him in prison.” Mary added +an inscription on her part: “I love the author beyond all powers of +expression ... by that love we have promised to each other, although I +may not be yours I can never be another’s,”—and a good deal more to the +same effect. + +Amid these excitements Shelley was for some days without writing to +Harriet, who applied to Hookham the publisher to know what had happened. +She was expecting her confinement; “I always fancy something dreadful +has happened,” she wrote, “if I do not hear from him ... I cannot endure +this dreadful state of suspense.” Shelley then wrote to her, begging her +to come to London; and when she arrived there, he told her the state of +his feelings, and proposed separation. The shock made Harriet ill; and +Shelley, says Peacock, “between his old feelings towards Harriet, and +his new passion for Mary, showed in his looks, in his gestures, in his +speech, the state of a mind ‘suffering, like a little kingdom, the +nature of an insurrection.’” Godwin grew uneasy about his daughter, and +after a serious talk with her, wrote to Shelley. Under such +circumstances, Professor Dowden tells us, “to youth, swift and decisive +measures seem the best.” In the early morning of the 28th of July 1814 +“Mary Godwin stepped across her father’s threshold into the summer air,” +she and Shelley went off together in a post-chaise to Dover, and from +thence crossed to the Continent. + +On the 14th of August the fugitives were at Troyes on their way to +Switzerland. From Troyes Shelley addressed a letter to Harriet, of which +the best description I can give is that it is precisely the letter which +a man in the writer’s circumstances should not have written. + + “MY DEAREST HARRIET (he begins). I write to you from this detestable + town; I write to show that I do not forget you; I write to urge you to + come to Switzerland, where you will at last find one firm and constant + friend to whom your interests will be always dear—by whom your + feelings will never wilfully be injured. From none can you expect this + but me—all else are either unfeeling or selfish, or have beloved + friends of their own.” + +Then follows a description of his journey with Mary from Paris, “through +a fertile country, neither interesting from the character of its +inhabitants nor the beauty of the scenery, with a mule to carry our +baggage, as Mary, who has not been sufficiently well to walk, fears the +fatigue of walking.” Like St. Paul to Timothy, he ends with +commissions:— + + “I wish you to bring with you the two deeds which Tahourdin has to + prepare for you, as also a copy of the settlement. Do not part with + any of your money. But what shall be done about the books? You can + consult on the spot. With love to my sweet little Ianthe, ever most + affectionately yours, S. + + “I write in great haste; we depart directly.” + +Professor Dowden’s flow of sentiment is here so agitating, that I +relieve myself by resorting to a drier world. Certainly my comment on +this letter shall not be his, that it “assures Harriet that her +interests were still dear to Shelley, though now their lives had moved +apart.” But neither will I call the letter an odious letter, a hideous +letter. I prefer to call it, applying an untranslated French word, a +_bête_ letter. And it is _bête_ from what is the signal, the disastrous +want and weakness of Shelley, with all his fine intellectual gifts—his +utter deficiency in humour. + +Harriet did not accept Shelley’s invitation to join him and Mary in +Switzerland. Money difficulties drove the travellers back to England in +September. Godwin would not see Shelley, but he sorely needed, +continually demanded and eagerly accepted, pecuniary help from his +erring “spiritual son.” Between Godwin’s wants and his own, Shelley was +hard pressed. He got from Harriet, who still believed that he would +return to her, twenty pounds which remained in her hands. In November +she was confined; a son and heir was born to Shelley. He went to see +Harriet, but “the interview left husband and wife each embittered +against the other.” Friends were severe; “when Mrs. Boinville wrote, her +letter seemed cold and even sarcastic,” says Professor Dowden. +“Solitude,” he continues, “unharassed by debts and duns, with Mary’s +companionship, the society of a few friends, and the delights of study +and authorship, would have made these winter months to Shelley months of +unusual happiness and calm.” But, alas! creditors were pestering, and +even Harriet gave trouble. In January, 1815, Mary had to write in her +journal this entry: “Harriet sends her creditors here; nasty woman. Now +we must change our lodgings.” + +One day about this time Shelley asked Peacock, “Do you think Wordsworth +could have written such poetry if he ever had dealings with +money-lenders?” Not only had Shelley dealings with money-lenders, he now +had dealings with bailiffs also. But still he continued to read largely. +In January, 1815, his grandfather, Sir Bysshe Shelley, died. Shelley +went down into Sussex; his father would not suffer him to enter the +house, but he sat outside the door and read _Comus_, while the reading +of his grandfather’s will went on inside. In February was born Mary’s +first child, a girl, who lived but a few days. All the spring Shelley +was ill and harassed, but by June it was settled that he should have an +allowance from his father of £1000 a year, and that his debts (including +£1200 promised by him to Godwin) should be paid. He on his part paid +Harriet’s debts and allowed her £200 a year. In August he took a house +on the borders of Windsor Park, and made a boating excursion up the +Thames as far as Lechlade, an excursion which produced his first entire +poem of value, the beautiful _Stanza in Lechlade Churchyard_. They were +followed, later in the autumn, by _Alastor_. Henceforth, from this +winter of 1815 until he was drowned between Leghorn and Spezzia in July, +1822, Shelley’s literary history is sufficiently given in the delightful +introductions prefixed by Mrs. Shelley to the poems of each year. Much +of the history of his life is there given also; but with some of those +“occurrences of his private life” on which Mrs. Shelley forbore to +touch, and which are now made known to us in Professor Dowden’s book, we +have still to deal. + +Mary’s first son, William, was born in January, 1816, and in February we +find Shelley declaring himself “strongly urged, by the perpetual +experience of neglect or enmity from almost every one but those who are +supported by my resources, to desert my native country, hiding myself +and Mary from the contempt which we so unjustly endure.” Early in May he +left England with Mary and Miss Clairmont; they met Lord Byron at Geneva +and passed the summer by the Lake of Geneva in his company. Miss +Clairmont had already in London, without the knowledge of the Shelleys, +made Byron’s acquaintance and become his mistress. Shelley determined, +in the course of the summer, to go back to England, and, after all, “to +make that most excellent of nations my perpetual resting-place.” In +September he and his ladies returned; Miss Clairmont was then expecting +her confinement. Of her being Byron’s mistress the Shelleys were now +aware; but “the moral indignation,” says Professor Dowden, “which +Byron’s act might justly arouse, seems to have been felt by neither +Shelley nor Mary.” If Byron and Claire Clairmont, as she was now called, +loved and were happy, all was well. + +The eldest daughter of the Godwin household, the amiable Fanny, was +unhappy at home and in deep dejection of spirits. Godwin was, as usual, +in terrible straits for money. The Shelleys and Miss Clairmont settled +themselves at Bath; early in October Fanny Godwin passed through Bath +without their knowing it, travelled on to Swansea, took a bedroom at the +hotel there, and was found in the morning dead, with a bottle of +laudanum on the table beside her and these words in her handwriting:— + + “I have long determined that the best thing I could do was to put an + end to the existence of a being whose birth was unfortunate,[45] and + whose life has only been a series of pain to those persons who have + hurt their health in endeavoring to promote her welfare. Perhaps to + hear of my death will give you pain, but you will soon have the + blessing of forgetting that such a creature ever existed as ...” + +There is no signature. + +----- + +Footnote 45: + + She was Mary Wollstonecraft’s natural daughter by Imlay. + +----- + +A sterner tragedy followed. On the 9th of November 1816 Harriet Shelley +left the house in Brompton where she was then living, and did not +return. On the 10th of December her body was found in the Serpentine; +she had drowned herself. In one respect Professor Dowden resembles +Providence: his ways are inscrutable. His comment on Harriet’s death is: +“There is no doubt she wandered from the ways of upright living.” But he +adds: “That no act of Shelley’s, during the two years which immediately +preceded her death, tended to cause the rash act which brought her life +to its close, seems certain.” Shelley had been living with Mary all the +time; only that! + +On the 30th of December, 1816, Mary Godwin and Shelley were married. I +shall pursue “the occurrences of Shelley’s private life” no further. For +the five years and a half which remain, Professor Dowden’s book adds to +our knowledge of Shelley’s life much that is interesting; but what was +chiefly important we knew already. The new and grave matter which we did +not know, or knew in the vaguest way only, but which Shelley’s family +and Professor Dowden have now thought it well to give us in full, ends +with Shelley’s second marriage. + +I regret, I say once more, that it has been given. It is a sore trial +for our love of Shelley. What a set! what a world! is the exclamation +that breaks from us as we come to an end of this history of “the +occurrences of Shelley’s private life.” I used the French word _bête_ +for a letter of Shelley’s; for the world in which we find him I can only +use another French word, _sale_. Godwin’s house of sordid horror, and +Godwin’s preaching and holding the hat, and the green-spectacled Mrs. +Godwin, and Hogg the faithful friend, and Hunt the Horace of this +precious world, and, to go up higher, Sir Timothy Shelley, a great +country gentleman, feeling himself safe while “the exalted mind of +Norfolk [the drinking Duke] protects me with the world,” and Lord Byron +with his deep grain of coarseness and commonness, his affectation, his +brutal selfishness—what a set! The history carries us to Oxford, and I +think of the clerical and respectable Oxford of those old times, the +Oxford of Copleston and the Kebles and Hawkins, and a hundred more, with +the relief Keble declares himself to experience from Izaak Walton, + + “When, wearied with the tale thy times disclose, + The eye first finds thee out in thy secure repose.” + +I am not only thinking of morals and the house of Godwin, I am thinking +also of tone, bearing, dignity. I appeal to Cardinal Newman, if +perchance he does me the honor to read these words, is it possible to +imagine Copleston or Hawkins declaring himself safe “while the exalted +mind of the Duke of Norfolk protects me with the world”? + +Mrs. Shelley, after her marriage and during Shelley’s closing years, +becomes attractive; up to her marriage her letters and journal do not +please. Her ability is manifest, but she is not attractive. In the world +discovered to us by Professor Dowden as surrounding Shelley up to 1817, +the most pleasing figure is Poor Fanny Godwin; after Fanny Godwin, the +most pleasing figure is Harriet Shelley herself. + +Professor Dowden’s treatment of Harriet is not worthy—so much he must +allow me in all kindness, but also in all seriousness, to say—of either +his taste or his judgment. His pleading for Shelley is constant, and he +does more harm than good to Shelley by it. But here his championship of +Shelley makes him very unjust to a cruelly used and unhappy girl. For +several pages he balances the question whether or not Harriet was +unfaithful to Shelley before he left her for Mary, and he leaves the +question unsettled. As usual Professor Dowden (and it is his signal +merit) supplies the evidence decisive against himself. Thornton Hunt, +not well disposed to Harriet, Hogg, Peacock, Trelawny, Hookham, and a +member of Godwin’s own family, are all clear in their evidence that up +to her parting from Shelley Harriet was perfectly innocent. But that +precious witness, Godwin, wrote in 1817 that “she had proved herself +unfaithful to her husband before their separation.... Peace be to her +shade!” Why, Godwin was the father of Harriet’s successor. But Mary +believed the same thing. She was Harriet’s successor. But Shelley +believed it too. He had it from Godwin. But he was convinced of it +earlier. The evidence for this is, that, in writing to Southey in 1820, +Shelley declares that “the single passage of a life, otherwise not only +spotless but spent in an impassioned pursuit of virtue, which looks like +a blot,” bears that appearance “merely because I regulated my domestic +arrangements without deferring to the notions of the vulgar, although I +might have done so quite as conveniently had I descended to their base +thoughts.” From this Professor Dowden concludes that Shelley believed he +could have got a divorce from Harriet had he so wished. The conclusion +is not clear. But even were the evidence perfectly clear that Shelley +believed Harriet unfaithful when he parted from her, we should have to +take into account Mrs. Shelley’s most true sentence in her introduction +to _Alastor_: “In all Shelley did, he, at the time of doing it, believed +himself justified to his own conscience.” + +Shelley’s asserting a thing vehemently does not prove more than that he +chose to believe it and did believe it. His extreme and violent changes +of opinion about people show this sufficiently. Eliza Westbrook is at +one time “a diamond not so large” as her sister Harriet but “more highly +polished;” and then: “I certainly hate her with all my heart and soul. I +sometimes feel faint with the fatigue of checking the overflowings of my +unbounded abhorrence for this miserable wretch.” The antipathy, Hogg +tells us, was as unreasonable as the former excess of deference. To his +friend Miss Hitchener he says: “Never shall that intercourse cease, +which has been the day-dawn of my existence, the sun which has shed +warmth on the cold drear length of the anticipated prospect of life.” A +little later, and she has become “the Brown Demon, a woman of desperate +views and dreadful passions, but of cool and undeviating revenge!” Even +Professor Dowden admits that this is absurd; that the real Miss +Hitchener was not seen by Shelley, either when he adored or when he +detested. + +Shelley’s power of persuading himself was equal to any occasion; but +would not his conscientiousness and high feeling have prevented his +exerting this power at poor Harriet’s expense? To abandon her as he did, +must he not have known her to be false! Professor Dowden insists always +on Shelley’s “conscientiousness.” Shelley himself speaks of his +“impassioned pursuit of virtue.” Leigh Hunt compared his life to that of +“Plato himself, or, still more, a Pythagorean,” and added that he “never +met a being who came nearer, perhaps so near, to the height of +humanity,” to being an “angel of charity.” In many respects Shelley +really resembled both a Pythagorean and an angel of charity. He loved +high thoughts, he cared nothing for sumptuous lodging, fare, and +raiment, he was poignantly afflicted at the sight of misery, he would +have given away his last farthing, would have suffered in his own +person, to relieve it. But in one important point he was like neither a +Pythagorean nor an angel: he was extremely inflammable. Professor Dowden +leaves no doubt on the matter. After reading his book, one feels +sickened for ever of the subject of irregular relations; God forbid that +I should go into the scandals about Shelley’s “Neapolitan charge,” about +Shelley and Emilia Viviani, about Shelley and Miss Clairmont, and the +rest of it! I will say only that it is visible enough that when the +passion of love was aroused in Shelley (and it was aroused easily) one +could not be sure of him, his friends could not trust him. We have seen +him with the Boinville family. With Emilia Viviani he is the same. If he +is left much alone with Miss Clairmont, he evidently makes Mary uneasy; +nay, he makes Professor Dowden himself uneasy. And I conclude that an +entirely human inflammability, joined to an inhuman want of humor and a +superhuman power of self-deception, are the causes which chiefly explain +Shelley’s abandonment of Harriet in the first place, and then his +behavior to her and his defense of himself afterwards. + +His misconduct to Harriet, his want of humor his self-deception, are +fully brought before us for the first time by Professor Dowden’s book. +Good morals and good criticism alike forbid that when all this is laid +bare to us we should deny, or hide, or extenuate it. Nevertheless I go +back after all to what I said at the beginning; still our ideal Shelley, +the angelic Shelley, subsists. Unhappily the data for this Shelley we +had and knew long ago, while the data for the unattractive Shelley are +fresh; and what is fresh is likely to fix our attention more than what +is familiar. But Professor Dowden’s volumes, which give so much, which +give too much, also afford data for picturing anew the Shelley who +delights, as well as for picturing for the first time a Shelley who, to +speak plainly, disgusts; and with what may renew and restore our +impression of the delightful Shelley I shall end. + +The winter at Marlow, and the ophthalmia caught among the cottages of +the poor, we knew, but we have from Professor Dowden more details of +this winter and of Shelley’s work among the poor; we have above all, for +the first time I believe, a line of verse of Shelley’s own which sums up +truly and perfectly this most attractive side of him— + + “I am the friend of the unfriended poor.” + +But that in Shelley on which I would especially dwell is that in him +which contrasts most with the ignobleness of the world in which we have +seen him living, and with the pernicious nonsense which we have found +him talking. The Shelley of “marvelous gentleness,” of feminine +refinement with gracious and considerate manners, “a perfect gentleman, +entirely without arrogance or aggressive egotism,” completely devoid of +the proverbial and ferocious vanity of authors and poets, always +disposed to make little of his own work and to prefer that of others, of +reverent enthusiasm for the great and wise, of high and tender +seriousness, of heroic generosity, and of a delicacy in rendering +services which was equal to his generosity—the Shelley who was all this +is the Shelley with whom I wish to end. He may talk nonsense about +tyrants and priests, but what a high and noble ring in such a sentence +as the following, written by a young man who is refusing £2000 a year +rather than consent to entail a great property! + + “That I should entail £120,000 of command over labour, of power to + remit this, to employ it for benevolent purposes, on one whom I know + not—who might, instead of being the benefactor of mankind, be its + bane, or use this for the worst purposes, which the real delegates of + my chance-given property might convert into a most useful instrument + of benevolence! No! this you will not suspect me of.” + +And again:— + + “I desire money because I think I know the use of it. It commands + labor, it give leisure; and to give leisure to those who will employ + it in the forwarding of truth is the noblest present an individual can + make to the whole.” + +If there is extravagance here, it is extravagance of a beautiful and +rare sort, like Shelley’s “underhand ways” also, which differed +singularly, the cynic Hogg tells us, from the underhand ways of other +people; “the latter were concealed because they were mean, selfish, +sordid; Shelley’s secrets, on the contrary (kindnesses done by stealth), +were hidden through modesty, delicacy, generosity, refinement of soul.” + +His forbearance to Godwin, to Godwin lecturing and renouncing him and at +the same time holding out, as I have said, his hat to him for alms, is +wonderful; but the dignity with which he at last, in a letter perfect +for propriety of tone, reads a lesson to his ignoble father-in-law, is +in the best possible style:— + + “Perhaps it is well that you should be informed that I consider your + last letter to be written in a style of haughtiness and encroachment + which neither awes nor imposes on me; but I have no desire to + transgress the limits which you place to our intercourse, nor in any + future instance will I make any remarks but such as arise from the + strict question in discussion.” + +And again— + + “My astonishment, and, I will confess, when I have been treated with + most harshness and cruelty by you, my indignation, has been extreme, + that, knowing as you do my nature, any considerations should have + prevailed on you to have been thus harsh and cruel. I lamented also + over my ruined hopes of all that your genius once taught me to expect + from your virtue, when I found that for yourself, your family, and + your creditors, you would submit to that communication with me which + you once rejected and abhorred, and which no pity for my poverty or + suffering, assumed willingly for you, could avail to extort.” + +Moreover, though Shelley has no humor, he can show as quick and sharp a +tact as the most practised man of the world. He has been with Byron and +the Countess Guiccioli, and he writes of the latter— + + “La Guiccioli is a very pretty, sentimental, innocent Italian, who has + sacrificed an immense future for the sake of Lord Byron, and who, if I + know anything of my friend, of her, and of human nature, will + hereafter have plenty of opportunity to repent her rashness,” + +Tact also, and something better than tact, he shows in his dealings, in +order to befriend Leigh Hunt, with Lord Byron. He writes to Hunt:— + + “Particular circumstances, or rather, I should say, particular + dispositions in Lord Byron’s character, render the close and exclusive + intimacy with him, in which I find myself, intolerable to me; thus + much, my best friend, I will confess and confide to you. No feelings + of my own shall injure or interfere with what is now nearest to + them—your interest; and I will take care to preserve the little + influence I may have over this Proteus, in whom such strange extremes + are reconciled, until we meet.” + +And so we have comeback again, at last, to our original Shelley—to the +Shelley of the lovely and well-known picture, to the Shelley with +“flushed, feminine, artless face,” the Shelley “blushing like a girl,” +of Trelawny. Professor Dowden gives us some further attempts at +portraiture. One by a Miss Rose, of Shelley at Marlow:— + + “He was the most interesting figure I ever saw; his eyes like a + deer’s, bright but rather wild; his white throat unfettered; his + slender but to me almost faultless shape; his brown long coat with + curling lambs’ wool collar and cuffs—in fact, his whole appearance—are + as fresh in my recollection as an occurrence of yesterday.” + +Feminine enthusiasm may be deemed suspicious, but a Captain Kennedy must +surely be able to keep his head. Captain Kennedy was quartered at +Horsham in 1813, and saw Shelley when he was on a stolen visit, in his +father’s absence, at Field Place:— + + “He received me with frankness and kindliness, as if he had known me + from childhood, and at once won my heart. I fancy I see him now as he + sate by the window, and hear his voice, the tones of which impressed + me with his sincerity and simplicity. His resemblance to his sister + Elizabeth was as striking as if they had been twins. His eyes were + most expressive; his complexion beautifully fair, his features + exquisitely fine; his hair was dark, and no peculiar attention to its + arrangement was manifest. In person he was slender and gentlemanlike, + but inclined to stoop; his gait was decidedly not military. The + general appearance indicated great delicacy of constitution. One would + at once pronounce of him that he was different from other men. There + was an earnestness in his manner and such perfect gentleness of + breeding and freedom from everything artificial as charmed every one. + I never met a man who so immediately won upon me.” + +Mrs. Gisborne’s son, who knew Shelley well at Leghorn, declared Captain +Kennedy’s description of him to be “the best and most truthful I have +ever seen.” + +To all this we have to add the charm of the man’s writings—of Shelley’s +poetry. It is his poetry, above everything else, which for many people +establishes that he is an angel. Of his poetry I have not space now to +speak. But let no one suppose that a want of humor and a self-delusion +such as Shelley’s have no effect upon a man’s poetry. The man Shelley, +in very truth, is not entirely sane, and Shelley’s poetry is not +entirely sane either. The Shelley of actual life is a vision of beauty +and radiance, indeed, but availing nothing, effecting nothing. And in +poetry, no less than in life, he is “a beautiful _and ineffectual_ +angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain.” + + + + + VIII. + + COUNT LEO TOLSTOI.[46] + +----- + +Footnote 46: + + Published in the _Fortnightly Review_, December, 1887. + +----- + + +In reviewing at the time of its first publication, thirty years ago, +Flaubert’s remarkable novel of _Madame Bovary_, Sainte-Beuve observed +that in Flaubert we come to another manner, another kind of inspiration, +from those which had prevailed hitherto; we find ourselves dealing, he +said, with a man of a new and different generation from novelists like +George Sand. The ideal has ceased, the lyric vein is dried up; the new +men are cured of lyricism and the ideal; “a severe and pitiless truth +has made its entry, as the last word of experience, even into art +itself.” The characters of the new literature of fiction are “science, a +spirit of observation, maturity, force, a touch of hardness.” _L’idéal a +cessé, le lyrique a tari._ + +The spirit of observation and the touch of hardness (let us retain these +mild and inoffensive terms) have since been carried in the French novel +very far. So far have they been carried, indeed, that in spite of the +advantage which the French language, familiar to the cultivated classes +everywhere, confers on the French novel, this novel has lost much of its +attraction for those classes; it no longer commands their attention as +it did formerly. The famous English novelists have passed away, and have +left no successors of like fame. It is not the English novel, therefore, +which has inherited the vogue lost by the French novel. It is a novel of +a country new to literature, or at any rate unregarded, till lately, by +the general public of readers: it is the novel of Russia. The Russian +novel has now the vogue, and deserves to have it. If fresh literary +productions maintain this vogue and enhance it, we shall all be learning +Russian. + +The Slav nature, or at any rate the Russian nature, the Russian nature +as it shows itself in the Russian novels, seems marked by an extreme +sensitiveness, a consciousness most quick and acute both for what the +man’s self is experiencing, and also for what others in contact with him +are thinking and feeling. In a nation full of life, but young, and newly +in contact with an old and powerful civilization, this sensitiveness and +self-consciousness are prompt to appear. In the Americans, as well as in +the Russians, we see them active in a high degree. They are somewhat +agitating and disquieting agents to their possessor, but they have, if +they get fair play, great powers for evoking and enriching a literature. +But the Americans, as we know, are apt to set them at rest in the manner +of my friend Colonel Higginson of Boston. “As I take it, Nature said, +some years since: “Thus far the English is my best race; but we have had +Englishmen enough; we need something with a little more buoyancy than +the Englishman; let us lighten the structure, even at some peril in the +process. Put in one drop more of the nervous fluid, and make the +American.” With that drop, a new range of promise opened on the human +race, and a lighter, finer, more highly organized type of mankind was +born.” People who by this sort of thing give rest to their sensitive and +busy self-consciousness may very well, perhaps, be on their way to great +material prosperity, to great political power; but they are scarcely on +the right way to a great literature, a serious art. + +The Russian does not assuage his sensitiveness in this fashion. The +Russian man of letters does not make Nature say: “The Russian is my best +race.” He finds relief to his sensitiveness in letting his perceptions +have perfectly free play, and in recording their reports with perfect +fidelity. The sincereness with which the reports are given has even +something childlike and touching. In the novel of which I am going to +speak there is not a line, not a trait, brought in for the glorification +of Russia, or to feel vanity; things and characters go as nature takes +them, and the author is absorbed in seeing how nature takes them and in +relating it. But we have here a condition of things which is highly +favorable to the production of good literature, of good art. We have +great sensitiveness, subtlety, and finesse, addressing themselves with +entire disinterestedness and simplicity to the representation of human +life. The Russian novelist is thus master of a spell to which the +secrets of human nature—both what is external and what is internal, +gesture and manner no less than thought and feeling—willingly make +themselves known. The crown of literature is poetry, and the Russians +have not yet had a great poet. But in that form of imaginative +literature which in our day is the most popular and the most possible, +the Russians at the present moment seem to me to hold, as Mr. Gladstone +would say, the field. They have great novelists, and one of their great +novelists I wish now to speak. + +Count Leo Tolstoi is about sixty years old, and tells us that he shall +write novels no more. He is now occupied with religion and with the +Christian life. His writings concerning these great matters are not +allowed, I believe, to obtain publication in Russia, but instalments of +them in French and English reach us from time to time. I find them very +interesting, but I find his novel of _Anna Karénine_ more interesting +still. I believe that many readers prefer to _Anna Karénine_ Count +Tolstoi’s other great novel, _La Guerre et la Paix_. But in the novel +one prefers, I think, to have the novelist dealing with the life which +he knows from having lived it, rather than with the life which he knows +from books or hearsay. If one has to choose a representative work of +Thackeray, it is _Vanity Fair_ which one could take rather than _The +Virginians_. In like manner I take _Anna Karénine_ as the novel best +representing Count Tolstoi. I use the French translation; in general, as +I long ago said, work of this kind is better done in France than in +England, and _Anna Karénine_ is perhaps also a novel which goes better +into French than into English, just as Frederika Bremer’s _Home_ goes +into English better than into French. After I have done with _Anna +Karénine_ I must say something of Count Tolstoi’s religious writings. Of +these too I use the French translation, so far as it is available. The +English translation, however, which came into my hands late, seems to be +in general clear and good. Let me say in passing that it has neither the +same arrangement, nor the same titles, nor altogether the same contents, +with the French translation. + +There are many characters in _Anna Karénine_—too many if we look in it +for a work of art in which the action shall be vigorously one, and to +that one action everything shall converge. There are even two main +actions extending throughout the book, and we keep passing from one of +them to the other—from the affairs of Anna and Wronsky to the affairs of +Kitty and Levine. People appear in connection with these two main +actions whose appearance and proceedings do not in the least contribute +to develop them; incidents are multiplied which we expect are to lead to +something important, but which do not. What, for instance, does the +episode of Kitty’s friend Warinka and Levine’s brother Serge Ivanitch, +their inclination for one another and its failure to come to anything, +contribute to the development of either the character or the fortunes of +Kitty and Levine? What does the incident of Levine’s long delay in +getting to church to be married, a delay which as we read of it seems to +have significance, really import? It turns out to import absolutely +nothing, and to be introduced solely to give the author the pleasure of +telling us that all Levine’s shirts had been packed up. + +But the truth is we are not to take _Anna Karénine_ as a work of art; we +are to take it as a piece of life. A piece of life it is. The author has +not invented and combined it, he has seen it; it has all happened before +his inward eye, and it was in this wise that it happened. Levine’s +shirts were packed up, and he was late for his wedding in consequence; +Warinka and Serge Ivanitch met at Levine’s country-house and went out +walking together; Serge was very near proposing, but did not. The author +saw it all happening so—saw it, and therefore relates it; and what his +novel in this way loses in art it gains in reality. + +For this is the result which, by his extraordinary fineness of +perception, and by his sincere fidelity to it, the author achieves; he +works in us a sense of the absolute reality of his personages and their +doings. Anna’s shoulders, and masses of hair, and half-shut eyes; Alexis +Karénine’s up-drawn eyebrows, and tired smile, and cracking +finger-joints; Stiva’s eyes suffused with facile moisture—these are as +real to us as any of those outward peculiarities which in our own circle +of acquaintance we are noticing daily, while the inner man of our own +circle of acquaintance, happily or unhappily, lies a great deal less +clearly revealed to us than that of Count Tolstoi’s creations. + +I must speak of only a few of these creations, the chief personages and +no more. The book opens with “Stiva,” and who that has once made Stiva’s +acquaintance will ever forget him? We are living, in Count Tolstoi’s +novel, among the great people of Moscow and St. Petersburg, the nobles +and the high functionaries, the governing class of Russia. Stépane +Arcadiévitch—“Stiva”—is Prince Oblonsky, and descended from Rurik, +although to think of him as anything except “Stiva” is difficult. His +_air souriant_, his good looks, his satisfaction; his “ray,” which made +the Tartar waiter at the club joyful in contemplating it; his pleasure +in oysters and champagne, his pleasure in making people happy and in +rendering services; his need of money, his attachment to the French +governess, his distress at his wife’s distress, his affection for her +and the children; his emotion and suffused eyes, while he quite +dismisses the care of providing funds for household expenses and +education; and the French attachment, contritely given up to-day only to +be succeeded by some other attachment to-morrow—no never, certainly, +shall we come to forget Stiva. Anna, the heroine, is Stiva’s sister. His +wife Dolly (these English diminutives are common among Count Tolstoi’s +ladies) is daughter of the Prince and Princess Cherbatzky, grandees who +show us Russian high life by its most respectable side; the Prince, in +particular, is excellent—simple, sensible, right-feeling; a man of +dignity and honor. His daughters, Dolly and Kitty, are charming. Dolly, +Stiva’s wife, is sorely tried by her husband, full of anxieties for the +children, with no money to spend on them or herself, poorly dressed, +worn and aged before her time. She has moments of despairing doubt +whether the gay people may not be after all in the right, whether virtue +and principle answer; whether happiness does not dwell with +adventuresses and profligates, brilliant and perfectly dressed +adventuresses and profligates, in a land flowing with roubles and +champagne. But in a quarter of an hour she comes right again and is +herself—a nature straight, honest, faithful, loving, sound to the core; +such she is and such she remains; she can be no other. Her sister Kitty +is at bottom of the same temper, but she has her experience to get, +while Dolly, when the book begins, has already acquired hers. Kitty is +adored by Levine, in whom we are told that many traits are to be found +of the character and history of Count Tolstoi himself. Levine belongs to +the world of great people by his birth and property, but he is not at +all a man of the world. He has been a reader and thinker, he has a +conscience, he has public spirit and would ameliorate the condition of +the people, he lives on his estate in the country, and occupies himself +zealously with local business, schools and agriculture. But he is shy, +apt to suspect and to take offence, somewhat impracticable, out of his +element in the gay world of Moscow. Kitty likes him, but her fancy has +been taken by a brilliant guardsman, Count Wronsky, who has paid her +attentions. Wronsky is described to us by Stiva; he is “one of the +finest specimens of the _jeunesse dorée_ of St. Petersburg; immensely +rich, handsome, aide-de-camp to the emperor, great interest at his back, +and a good fellow notwithstanding; more than a good fellow, intelligent +besides and well read—a man who has a splendid career before him.” Let +us complete the picture by adding that Wronsky is a powerful man, over +thirty, bald at the top of his head, with irreproachable manners, cool +and calm, but a little haughty. A hero, one murmurs to oneself, too much +of the Guy Livingstone type, though without the bravado and +exaggeration. And such is, justly enough perhaps, the first impression, +an impression which continues all through the first volume; but Wronsky, +as we shall see, improves towards the end. + +Kitty discourages Levine, who retires in misery and confusion. But +Wronsky is attracted by Anna Karénine, and ceases his attentions to +Kitty. The impression made on her heart by Wronsky was not deep; but she +is so keenly mortified with herself, so ashamed, and so upset, that she +falls ill, and is sent with her family to winter abroad. There she +regains health and mental composure, and discovers at the same time that +her liking for Levine was deeper than she knew, that it was a genuine +feeling, a strong and lasting one. On her return they meet, their hearts +come together, they are married; and in spite of Levine’s waywardness, +irritability, and unsettlement of mind, of which I shall have more to +say presently, they are profoundly happy. Well, and who could help being +happy with Kitty? So I find myself adding impatiently. Count Tolstoi’s +heroines are really so living and charming that one takes them, fiction +though they are, too seriously. + +But the interest of the book centers in Anna Karénine. She is Stiva’s +sister, married to a high official at St. Petersburg, Alexis Karénine. +She has been married to him nine years, and has one child, a boy named +Serge. The marriage had not brought happiness to her, she had found in +it no satisfaction to her heart and soul, she had a sense of want and +isolation; but she is devoted to her boy, occupied, calm. The charm of +her personality is felt even before she appears, from the moment when we +hear of her being sent for as the good angel to reconcile Dolly with +Stiva. Then she arrives at the Moscow station from St. Petersburg, and +we see the gray eyes with their long eyelashes, the graceful carriage, +the gentle and caressing smile on the fresh lips, the vivacity +restrained but waiting to break through, the fulness of life, the +softness and strength joined, the harmony, the bloom, the charm. She +goes to Dolly, and achieves, with infinite tact and tenderness, the task +of reconciliation. At a ball a few days later, we add to our first +impression of Anna’s beauty, dark hair, a quantity of little curls over +her temples and at the back of her neck, sculptural shoulders, firm +throat, and beautiful arms. She is in a plain dress of black velvet with +a pearl necklace, a bunch of forget-me-nots in the front of her dress, +another in her hair. This is Anna Karénine. + +She had traveled from St. Petersburg with Wronsky’s mother; had seen him +at the Moscow station, where he came to meet his mother, had been struck +with his looks and manner, and touched by his behavior in an accident +which happened while they were in the station to a poor workman crushed +by a train. At the ball she meets him again; she is fascinated by him +and he by her. She had been told of Kitty’s fancy, and had gone to the +ball meaning to help Kitty; but Kitty is forgotten, or any rate +neglected; the spell which draws Wronsky and Anna is irresistible. Kitty +finds herself opposite to them in a quadrille together:— + + “She seemed to remark in Anna the symptoms of an over-excitement which + she herself knew from experience—that of success. Anna appeared to her + as if intoxicated with it. Kitty knew to what to attribute that + brilliant and animated look, that happy and triumphant smile, those + half-parted lips, those movements full of grace and harmony.” + +Anna returns to St. Petersburg, and Wronsky returns there at the same +time; they meet on the journey, they keep meeting in society, and Anna +begins to find her husband, who before had not been sympathetic, +intolerable. Alexis Karénine is much older than herself, a bureaucrat, a +formalist, a poor creature; he has conscience, there is a root of +goodness in him, but on the surface and until deeply stirred he is +tiresome, pedantic, vain, exasperating. The change in Anna is not in the +slightest degree comprehended by him; he sees nothing which an +intelligent man might in such a case see, and does nothing which an +intelligent man would do. Anna abandons herself to her passion for +Wronsky. + +I remember M. Nisard saying to me many years ago at the École Normale in +Paris, that he respected the English because they are _une nation qui +sait se gêner_—people who can put constraint on themselves and go +through what is disagreeable. Perhaps in the Slav nature this valuable +faculty is somewhat wanting; a very strong impulse is too much regarded +as irresistible, too little as what can be resisted and ought to be +resisted however difficult and disagreeable the resistance may be. In +our high society with its pleasure and dissipation, laxer notions may to +some extent prevail; but in general an English mind will be startled by +Anna’s suffering herself to be so overwhelmed and irretrievably carried +away by her passion, by her almost at once regarding it, apparently, as +something which it was hopeless to fight against. And this I say +irrespectively of the worth of her lover. Wronsky’s gifts and graces +hardly qualify him, one might think, to be the object of so +instantaneous and mighty a passion on the part of a woman like Anna. But +that is not the question. Let us allow that these passions are +incalculable; let us allow that one of the male sex scarcely does +justice, perhaps, to the powerful and handsome guardsman and his +attractions. But if Wronsky had been even such a lover as Alcibiades or +the Master of Ravenswood, still that Anna, being what she is and her +circumstances being what they are, should show not a hope, hardly a +thought, of conquering her passion, of escaping from its fatal power, is +to our notions strange and a little bewildering. + +I state the objection; let me add that it is the triumph of Anna’s charm +that it remains paramount for us nevertheless; that throughout her +course, with its failures, errors, and miseries, still the impression of +her large, fresh, rich, generous, delightful nature, never leaves +us—keeps our sympathy, keeps even, I had almost said, our respect. + +To return to the story. Soon enough poor Anna begins to experience the +truth of what the Wise Man told us long ago, that “the way of +transgressors is hard.” Her agitation at a steeple-chase where Wronsky +is in danger attracts her husband’s notice and provokes his +remonstrance. He is bitter and contemptuous. In a transport of passion +Anna declares to him that she is his wife no longer; that she loves +Wronsky, belongs to Wronsky. Hard at first, formal, cruel, thinking only +of himself, Karénine, who, as I have said, has a conscience, is touched +by grace at the moment when Anna’s troubles reach their height. He +returns to her to find her with a child just born to her and Wronsky, +the lover in the house and Anna apparently dying. Karénine has words of +kindness and forgiveness only. The noble and victorious effort +transfigures him, and all that her husband gains in the eyes of Anna, +her lover Wronsky loses. Wronsky comes to Anna’s bedside, and standing +there by Karénine, buries his face in his hands. Anna says to him, in +the hurried voice of fever:— + + “‘Uncover your face; look at that man; he is a saint. Yes, uncover + your face; uncover it,’ she repeated with an angry air. ‘Alexis, + uncover his face; I want to see him.’ + + “Alexis took the hands of Wronsky and uncovered his face, disfigured + by suffering and humiliation. + + “‘Give him your hand; pardon him.’ + + “Alexis stretched out his hand without even seeking to restrain his + tears. + + “‘Thank God, thank God!’ she said; ‘all is ready now. How ugly those + flowers are.’ she went on, pointing to the wallpaper; ‘they are not a + bit like violets. My God, my God! when will all this end? Give me + morphine, doctor—I want morphine. Oh, my God, my God!’” + +She seems dying, and Wronsky rushes out and shoots himself. And so, in a +common novel, the story would end. Anna would die, Wronsky would commit +suicide, Karénine would survive, in possession of our admiration and +sympathy. But the story does not always end so in life; neither does it +end so in Count Tolstoi’s novel. Anna recovers from her fever, Wronsky +from his wound. Anna’s passion for Wronsky reawakens, her estrangement +from Karénine returns. Nor does Karénine remain at the height at which +in the forgiveness scene we saw him. He is formal, pedantic, irritating. +Alas! even if he were not all these, perhaps even his _pince-nez_, and +his rising eyebrows, and his cracking finger-joints, would have been +provocation enough. Anna and Wronsky depart together. They stay for a +time in Italy, then return to Russia. But her position is false, her +disquietude incessant, and happiness is impossible for her. She takes +opium every night, only to find that “not poppy nor mandragora shall +ever medicine her to that sweet sleep which she owed yesterday.” +Jealousy and irritability grow upon her; she tortures Wronsky, she +tortures herself. Under these trials Wronsky, it must be said, comes out +well, and rises in our esteem. His love for Anna endures; he behaves, as +our English phrase is, “like a gentleman”; his patience is in general +exemplary. But then Anna, let us remember, is to the last, through all +the fret and misery, still Anna; always with something which charms; +nay, with something in her nature, which consoles and does good. Her +life, however, was becoming impossible under its existing conditions. A +trifling misunderstanding brought the inevitable end. After a quarrel +with Anna, Wronsky had gone one morning into the country to see his +mother; Anna summons him by telegraph to return at once, and receives an +answer from him that he cannot return before ten at night. She follows +him to his mother’s place in the country, and at the station hears what +leads her to believe that he is not coming back. Maddened with jealousy +and misery, she descends the platform and throws herself under the +wheels of a goods train passing through the station. It is over—the +graceful head is untouched, but all the rest is a crushed, formless +heap. Poor Anna! + + +We have been in a world which misconducts itself nearly as much as the +world of a French novel all palpitating with “modernity.” But there are +two things in which the Russian novel—Count Tolstoi’s novel at any +rate—is very advantageously distinguished from the type of novel now so +much in request in France. In the first place, there is no fine +sentiment, at once tiresome and false. We are not told to believe, for +example, that Anna is wonderfully exalted and ennobled by her passion +for Wronsky. The English reader is thus saved from many a groan of +impatience. The other thing is yet more important. Our Russian novelist +deals abundantly with criminal passion and with adultery, but he does +not seem to feel himself owing any service to the goddess Lubricity, or +bound to put in touches at this goddess’s dictation. Much in _Anna +Karénine_ is painful, much is unpleasant, but nothing is of a nature to +trouble the senses, or to please those who wish their senses troubled. +This taint is wholly absent. In the French novels where it is so +abundantly present its baneful effects do not end with itself. Burns +long ago remarked with deep truth that it _petrifies feeling._ Let us +revert for a moment to the powerful novel of which I spoke at the +outset, _Madame Bovary_. Undoubtedly the taint in question is present in +_Madame Bovary_, although to a much less degree than in more recent +French novels, which will be in every one’s mind. But _Madame Bovary_, +with this taint, is a work of _petrified feeling_; over it hangs an +atmosphere of bitterness, irony, impotence; not a personage in the book +to rejoice or console us; the springs of freshness and feeling are not +there to create such personages. Emma Bovary follows a course in some +respects like that of Anna, but where, in Emma Bovary, is Anna’s charm? +The treasures of compassion, tenderness, insight, which alone, amid such +guilt and misery, can enable charm to subsist and to emerge, are wanting +to Flaubert. He is cruel with the cruelty of petrified feeling, to his +poor heroine; he pursues her without pity or pause, as with malignity; +he is harder upon her himself than any reader even, I think, will be +inclined to be. + +But where the springs of feeling have carried Count Tolstoi, since he +created Anna ten or twelve years ago, we have now to see. + +We must return to Constantine Dmitrich Levine. Levine, as I have already +said, thinks. Between the age of twenty and that of thirty-five he had +lost, he tells us, the Christian belief in which he had been brought up, +a loss of which examples nowadays abound certainly everywhere, but which +in Russia, as in France, is among all young men of the upper and +cultivated class more a matter of course, perhaps, more universal, more +avowed, than it is with us. Levine had adopted the scientific notions +current all round him; talked of cells, organisms, the indestructibility +of matter, the conservation of force, and was of opinion, with his +comrades of the university, that religion no longer existed. But he was +of a serious nature, and the question what his life meant, whence it +came, whither it tended, presented themselves to him in moments of +crisis and affliction with irresistible importunity, and getting no +answer, haunted him, tortured him, made him think of suicide. + +Two things, meanwhile, he noticed. One was, that he and his university +friends had been mistaken in supposing that Christian belief no longer +existed; they had lost it, but they were not all the world. Levine +observed that the persons to whom he was most attached, his own wife +Kitty amongst the number, retained it and drew comfort from it; that the +women generally, and almost the whole of the Russian common people, +retained it and drew comfort from it. The other was, that his scientific +friends, though not troubled like himself by questionings about the +meaning of human life, were untroubled by such questionings, not because +they had got an answer to them, but because, entertaining themselves +intellectually with the consideration of the cell theory, and evolution, +and the indestructibility of matter, and the conservation of force, and +the like, they were satisfied with this entertainment, and did not +perplex themselves with investigating the meaning and object of their +own life at all. + +But Levine noticed further that he himself did not actually proceed to +commit suicide; on the contrary, he lived on his lands as his father had +done before him, busied himself with all the duties of his station, +married Kitty, was delighted when a son was born to him. Nevertheless he +was indubitably not happy at bottom, restless and disquieted, his +disquietude sometimes amounting to agony. + +Now on one of his bad days he was in the field with his peasants, and +one of them happened to say to him, in answer to a question from Levine +why one farmer should in a certain case act more humanly than another: +“Men are not all alike: one man lives for his belly, like Mitiovuck, +another for his soul, for God, like old Plato.”[47]—“What do you call,” +cried Levine, “living for his soul, for God?” The peasant answered: +“It’s quite simple—living by the rule of God, of the truth. All men are +not the same, that’s certain. You yourself, for instance, Constantine +Dmitrich, you wouldn’t do wrong by a poor man.” Levine gave no answer, +but turned away with the phrase, _living by the rule of God, of the +truth_, sounding in his ears. + +----- + +Footnote 47: + + A common name among Russian peasants. + +----- + +Then he reflected that he had been born of parents professing this rule, +as their parents again had professed it before them; that he had sucked +it in with his mother’s milk; that some sense of it, some strength and +nourishment from it, had been ever with him although he knew it not; +that if he had tried to do the duties of his station it was by help of +the secret support ministered by this rule; that if in his moments of +despairing restlessness and agony, when he was driven to think of +suicide, he had yet not committed suicide, it was because this rule had +silently enabled him to do his duty in some degree, and had given him +some hold upon life and happiness in consequence. + +The words came to him as a clue of which he could never again lose +sight, and which with full consciousness and strenuous endeavor he must +henceforth follow. He sees his nephews and nieces throwing their milk at +one another and scolded by Dolly for it. He says to himself that these +children are wasting their subsistence because they have not to earn it +for themselves and do not know its value, and he exclaims inwardly: “I, +a Christian, brought up in the faith, my life filled with the benefits +of Christianity, living on these benefits without being conscious of it, +I, like these children, I have been trying to destroy what makes and +builds up my life.” But now the feeling has been borne in upon him, +clear and precious, that what he has to do is _be good_; he has “cried +to _Him_.” What will come of it? + + “I shall probably continue to get out of temper with my coachman, to + get into useless arguments, to air my ideas unseasonably; I shall + always feel a barrier between the sanctuary of my soul and the soul of + other people, even that of my wife; I shall always be holding her + responsible for my annoyances and feeling sorry for it directly + afterwards. I shall continue to pray without being able to explain to + myself why I pray; but my inner life has won its liberty; it will no + longer be at the mercy of events, and every minute of my existence + will have a meaning sure and profound which it will be in my power to + impress on every single one of my actions, that of _being good_.” + +With these words the novel of _Anna Karénine_ ends. But in Levine’s +religious experiences Count Tolstoi was relating his own, and the +history is continued in three autobiographical works translated from +him, which have within the last two or three years been published in +Paris: _Ma Confession_, _Ma Religion_, and _Que Faire_. Our author +announces further, “two great works,” on which he has spent six years: +one a criticism of dogmatic theology, the other a new translation of the +four Gospels, with a concordance of his own arranging. The results which +he claims to have established in these two works, are, however, +indicated sufficiently in the three published volumes which I have named +above. + +These autobiographical volumes show the same extraordinary penetration, +the same perfect sincerity, which are exhibited in the author’s novel. +As autobiography they are of profound interest, and they are full, +moreover, of acute and fruitful remarks. I have spoken of the advantages +which the Russian genius possesses for imaginative literature. Perhaps +for Biblical exegesis, for the criticism of religion and its documents, +the advantage lies more with the older nations of the West. They will +have more of the experience, width of knowledge, patience, sobriety, +requisite for these studies; they may probably be less impulsive, less +heady. + +Count Tolstoi regards the change accomplished in himself during the last +half-dozen years, he regards his recent studies and the ideas which he +has acquired through them, as epoch-making in his life and of capital +importance:— + + “Five years ago faith came to me; I believed in the doctrine of Jesus, + and all my life suddenly changed. I ceased to desire that which + previously I desired, and, on the other hand, I took to desiring what + I had never desired before. That which formerly used to appear good in + my eyes appeared evil, that which used to appear evil appeared good.” + +The novel of _Anna Karénine_ belongs to that past which Count Tolstoi +has left behind him; his new studies and the works founded on them are +what is important; light and salvation are there. Yet I will venture to +express my doubt whether these works contain, as their contribution to +the cause of religion and to the establishment of the true mind and +message of Jesus, much that had not already been given or indicated by +Count Tolstoi in relating, in _Anna Karénine_, Levine’s mental history. +Points raised in that history are developed and enforced; there is an +abundant and admirable exhibition of knowledge of human nature, +penetrating insight, fearless sincerity, wit, sarcasm, eloquence, style. +And we have too the direct autobiography of a man not only interesting +to us from his soul and talent, but highly interesting also from his +nationality, position, and course of proceeding. But to light and +salvation in the Christian religion we are not, I think, brought very +much nearer than in Levine’s history. I ought to add that what was +already present in that history seems to me of high importance and +value. Let us see what it amounts to. + +I must be general and I must be brief; neither my limits nor my purpose +permit the introduction of what is abstract. But in Count Tolstoi’s +religious philosophy there is very little which is abstract, arid. The +idea of _life_ is his master idea in studying and establishing religion. +He speaks impatiently of St. Paul as a source, in common with the +Fathers and the Reformers, of that ecclesiastical theology which misses +the essential and fails to present Christ’s Gospel aright. Yet Paul’s +“law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus freeing me from the law of +sin and death” is the pith and ground of all Count Tolstoi’s theology. +Moral life is the gift of God, is God, and this true life, this union +with God to which we aspire, we reach through Jesus. We reach it through +union with Jesus and by adopting his life. This doctrine is proved true +for us by the life in God, to be acquired through Jesus, being what our +nature feels after and moves to, by the warning of misery if we are +served from it, the sanction of happiness if we find it. Of the access +for _us_, at any rate, to the spirit of life, us who are born in +Christendom, are in touch, conscious or unconscious, with Christianity, +this is the true account. Questions over which the churches spend so +much labor and time—questions about the Trinity, about the godhead of +Christ, about the procession of the Holy Ghost, are not vital; what is +vital is the doctrine of access to the spirit of life through Jesus. + +Sound and saving doctrine, in my opinion, this is. It may be gathered in +a great degree from what Count Tolstoi had already given us in the novel +of _Anna Karénine_. But of course it is greatly developed, in the +special works which have followed. Many of these developments are, I +will repeat, of striking force, interest, and value. In _Anna Karénine_ +we had been told of the scepticism of the upper and educated classes in +Russia. But what reality is added by such an anecdote as the following +from _Ma Confession_:— + + “I remember that when I was about eleven years old we had a visit one + Sunday from a boy, since dead, who announced to my brother and me, as + great news, a discovery just made at his public school. This discovery + was to the effect that God had no existence, and that everything which + we were taught about Him was pure invention.” + +Count Tolstoi touched, in _Anna Karénine_, on the failure of science to +tell a man what his life means. Many a sharp stroke does he add in his +latter writings:— + + “Development is going on, and there are laws which guide it. You + yourself are a part of the whole. Having come to understand the whole + so far as is possible, and having comprehended the law of development, + you will comprehend also your place in that whole, you will understand + yourself. + + “In spite of all the shame the confession costs me, there was a time, + I declare, when I tried to look as if I was satisfied with this sort + of thing!” + +But the men of science may take comfort from hearing that Count Tolstoi +treats the men of letters no better than them, although he is a man of +letters himself:— + + “The judgment which my literary companions passed on life was to the + effect that life in general is in a state of progress, and that in + this development we, the men of letters, take the principal part. The + vocation of us artists and poets is to instruct the world; and to + prevent my coming out with the natural question, ‘What am I, and what + am I to teach?’ it was explained to me that it was useless to know + that, and that the artist and the poet taught without perceiving how. + I passed for a superb artist, a great poet, and consequently it was + but natural I should appropriate this theory. I, the artist, the + poet—I wrote, I taught, without myself knowing what. I was paid for + what I did. I had everything: splendid fare and lodging, women, + society; I had _la gloire_. Consequently, what I taught was very good. + This faith in the importance of poetry and of the development of life + was a religion, and I was one of its priests—a very agreeable and + advantageous office. + + “And I lived ever so long in this belief, never doubting but that it + was true!” + +The adepts of this literary and scientific religion are not numerous, to +be sure, in comparison with the mass of the people, and the mass of the +people, as Levine had remarked, find comfort still in the old religion +of Christendom; but of the mass of the people our literary and +scientific instructors make no account. Like Solomon and Schopenhauer, +these gentlemen, and “society” along with them, are, moreover, apt to +say that life is, after all, vanity: but then they all know of no life +except their own. + + “It used to appear to me that the small number of cultivated, rich, + and idle men, of whom I was one, composed the whole of humanity, and + that the millions and millions of other men who had lived and are + still living were not in reality men at all. Incomprehensible as it + now seems to me, that I should have gone on considering life without + seeing the life which was surrounding me on all sides, the life of + humanity; strange as it is to think that I should have been so + mistaken, and have fancied my life, the life of the Solomons and the + Schopenhauers, to be the veritable and normal life, while the life of + the masses was but a matter of no importance—strangely odd as this + seems to me now,—so it was, notwithstanding.” + +And this pretentious minority, who call themselves “society,” “the +world,” and to whom their own life, the life of “the world,” seems the +only life worth naming, are all the while miserable! Our author found it +so in his own experience:— + + “In my life, an exceptionally happy one from a worldly point of view, + I can number such a quantity of sufferings endured for the sake of + “the world,” that they would be enough to furnish a martyr for Jesus. + All the most painful passages in my life, beginning with the orgies + and duels of my student days, the wars I have been in, the illnesses, + and the abnormal and unbearable conditions in which I am living + now—all this is but one martyrdom endured in the name of the doctrine + of the world. Yes, and I speak of my own life, exceptionally happy + from the world’s point of view. + + “Let any sincere man pass his life in review, and he will perceive + that never, not once, has he suffered through practising the doctrine + of Jesus; the chief part of the miseries of his life have proceeded + solely from his following, contrary to his inclination, the spell of + the doctrine of the world.” + +On the other hand, the simple, the multitudes, outside of this spell, +are comparatively contented:— + + “In opposition to what I saw in our circle, where life without faith + is possible, and where I doubt whether one in a thousand would confess + himself a believer, I conceive that among the people (in Russia) there + is not one sceptic to many thousands of believers. Just contrary to + what I saw in our circle, where life passes in idleness, amusements, + and discontent with life, I saw that of these men of the people the + whole life was passed in severe labor, and yet they were contented + with life. Instead of complaining like the persons in our world of the + hardship of their lot, these poor people received sickness and + disappointments without any revolt, without opposition, but with a + firm and tranquil confidence that so it was to be, that it could not + be otherwise, and that it was all right.” + +All this is but development, sometimes rather surprising, but always +powerful and interesting, of what we have already had in the pages of +_Anna Karénine_. And like Levine in that novel, Count Tolstoi was driven +by his inward struggle and misery very near to suicide. What is new in +the recent books is the solution and cure announced. Levine had accepted +a provisional solution of the difficulties oppressing him; he had lived +right on, so to speak, obeying his conscience, but not asking how far +all his actions hung together and were consistent:— + + “He advanced money to a peasant to get him out of the clutches of a + money-lender, but did not give up the arrears due to himself; he + punished thefts of wood strictly, but would have scrupled to impound a + peasant’s cattle trespassing on his fields; he did not pay the wages + of a laborer whose father’s death caused him to leave work in the + middle of harvest, but he pensioned and maintained his old servants; + he let his peasants wait while he went to give his wife a kiss after + he came home, but would not have made them wait while he went to visit + his bees.” + +Count Tolstoi has since advanced to a far more definite and stringent +rule of life—the positive doctrine, he thinks, of Jesus. It is the +determination and promulgation of this rule which is the novelty in our +author’s recent works. He extracts this essential doctrine, or rule of +Jesus, from the Sermon on the Mount, and presents it in a body of +commandments—Christ’s commandments; the pith, he says, of the New +Testament, as the Decalogue is the pith of the Old. These all-important +commandments of Christ are “commandments of peace,” and five in number. +The first commandment is: “Live in peace with all men; treat no one as +contemptible and beneath you. Not only allow yourself no anger, but do +not rest until you have dissipated even unreasonable anger in others +against yourself.” The second is: “No libertinage and no divorce; let +every man have one wife and every woman one husband.” The third: “Never +on any pretext take an oath of service of any kind; all such oaths are +imposed for a bad purpose.” The fourth: “Never employ force against the +evil-doer; bear whatever wrong is done to you without opposing the +wrong-doer or seeking to have him punished.” The fifth and last: +“Renounce all distinction of nationality; do not admit that men of +another nation may ever be treated by you as enemies; love all men alike +as alike near to you; do good to all alike.” + +If these five commandments were generally observed, says Count Tolstoi, +all men would become brothers. Certainly the actual society in which we +live would be changed and dissolved. Armies and wars would be renounced; +courts of justice, police, property, would be renounced also. And +whatever the rest of us may do, Count Tolstoi at least will do his duty +and follow Christ’s commandments sincerely. He has given up rank, +office, and property, and earns his bread by the labor of his own hands. +“I believe in Christ’s commandments,” he says, “and this faith changes +my whole former estimate of what is good and great, bad and low, in +human life.” At present— + + “Everything which I used to think bad and low—the rusticity of the + peasant, the plainness of lodging, food, clothing, manners—all this + has become good and great in my eyes. At present I can no longer + contribute to anything which raises me externally above others, which + separates me from them. I cannot, as formerly, recognize either in my + own case or in that of others any title, rank, or quality beyond the + title and quality of man. I cannot seek fame and praise; I cannot seek + a culture which separates me from men. I cannot refrain from seeking + in my whole existence—in my lodging, my food, my clothing, and my ways + of going on with people—whatever, far from separating me from the mass + of mankind, draws me nearer to them.” + +Whatever else we have or have not in Count Tolstoi, we have at least a +great soul and a great writer. In his Biblical exegesis, in the +criticism by which he extracts and constructs his Five Commandments of +Christ which are to be the rule of our lives, I find much which is +questionable along with much which is ingenious and powerful. But I have +neither space, nor, indeed, inclination, to criticise his exegesis here. +The right moment, besides, for criticising this will come when the “two +great works,” which are in preparation, shall have appeared. + +For the present I limit myself to a single criticism only—a general one. +Christianity cannot be packed into any set of commandments. As I have +somewhere or other said, “Christianity is a _source_; no one supply of +water and refreshment that comes from it can be called the sum of +Christianity. It is a mistake, and may lead to much error, to exhibit +any series of maxims, even those of the Sermon on the Mount, as the +ultimate sum and formula into which Christianity may be run up.” + +And the reason mainly lies in the character of the Founder of +Christianity and in the nature of his utterances. Not less important +than the teachings given by Jesus in the _temper_ of their giver, his +temper of sweetness and reasonableness, of _epieikeia_. Goethe calls him +a _Schäwrmer_, a fanatic; he may much more rightly be called an +opportunist. But he is an opportunist of an opposite kind from those who +in politics, that “wild and dreamlike trade” of insincerity, give +themselves this name. They push or slacken, press their points hard or +let them be, as may best suit the interests of their self-aggrandizement +and of their party. Jesus has in view simply “the rule of God, of the +truth.” But this is served by waiting as well as by hasting forward, and +sometimes served better. + +Count Tolstoi sees rightly that whatever the propertied and satisfied +classes may think, the world, ever since Jesus Christ came, is judged; +“a new earth” is in prospect. It was ever in prospect with Jesus, and +should be ever in prospect with his followers. And the ideal in prospect +has to be realized. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do +them.” But they are to be done through a great and widespread and +long-continued change, and a change of the inner man to begin with. The +most important and fruitful utterances of Jesus, therefore, are not +things which can be drawn up as a table of stiff and stark external +commands, but the things which have most soul in them; because these can +best sink down into our soul, work there, set up an influence, form +habits of conduct, and prepare the future. The Beatitudes are on this +account more helpful than the utterances from which Count Tolstoi builds +up his Five Commandments. The very _secret_ of Jesus, “He that loveth +his life shall lose it, he that will lose his life shall save it,” does +not give us a command to be taken and followed in the letter, but an +idea to work in our mind and soul, and of inexhaustible value there. + +Jesus paid tribute to the government and dined with the publicans, +although neither the empire of Rome nor the high finance of Judea were +compatible with his ideal and with the “new earth” which that ideal must +in the end create. Perhaps Levine’s provisional solution, in a society +like ours, was nearer to “the rule of God, of the truth,” than the more +trenchant solution which Count Tolstoi has adopted for himself since. It +seems calculated to be of more use. I do not know how it is in Russia, +but in an English village the determination of “our circle” to earn +their bread by the work of their hands would produce only dismay, not +fraternal joy, amongst that “majority” who are so earning it already. +“There are plenty of us to compete as things stand,” the gardeners, +carpenters, and smiths would say; “pray stick to your articles, your +poetry, and nonsense; in manual labor you will interfere with us, and be +taking the bread out of our mouths.” + +So I arrive at the conclusion that Count Tolstoi has perhaps not done +well in abandoning the work of the poet and artist, and that he might +with advantage return to it. But whatever he may do in the future, the +work which he has already done, and his work in religion as well as his +work in imaginative literature, is more than sufficient to signalize him +as one of the most marking, interesting, and sympathy-inspiring men of +our time—an honor, I must add, to Russia, although he forbids us to heed +nationality. + + + + + IX. + + AMIEL.[48] + +----- + +Footnote 48: + + Published in _Macmillan’s Magazine_, September 1887. + +----- + + +It is somewhat late to speak of Amiel, but I was late in reading him. +Goethe says that in seasons of cholera one should read no books but such +as are tonic, and certainly in the season of old age this precaution is +as salutary as in seasons of cholera. From what I heard I could clearly +make out that Amiel’s Journal was not a tonic book: the extracts from it +which here and there I fell in with did not much please me; and for a +good while I left the book unread. + +But what M. Edmond Scherer writes I do not easily resist reading, and I +found that M. Scherer had prefixed to Amiel’s Journal a long and +important introduction. This I read; and was not less charmed by the +_mitis sapientia_, the understanding, kindness and tenderness, with +which the character of Amiel himself, whom M. Scherer had known in +youth, was handled, than interested by the criticism on the Journal. +Then I read Mrs. Humphry Ward’s interesting notice, and then—for all +biography is attractive, and of Amiel’s life and circumstances I had by +this time become desirous of knowing more—the _Etude Biographique_ of +Mademoiselle Berthe Vadier. + +Of Amiel’s cultivation, refinement, and high feeling, of his singular +graces of spirit and character, there could be no doubt. But the +specimens of his work given by his critics left me hesitating. A poetess +herself, Mademoiselle Berthe Vadier is much occupied with Amiel’s +poetry, and quotes it abundantly. Even Victor Hugo’s poetry leaves me +cold, I am so unhappy as not to be able to admire _Olympio_; what am I +to say, then, to Amiel’s + + “Journée + Illuminée, + Riant soleil d’avril, + En quel songe + Se plonge + Mon cœur, et que veut-il”? + +But M. Scherer and other critics, who do not require us to admire +Amiel’s poetry, maintain that in his Journal he has left “a book which +will not die,” a book describing a malady of which “the secret is +sublime and the expression wonderful”; a marvel of “speculative +intuition,” a “psychological experience of the utmost value.” M. Scherer +and Mrs. Humphry Ward give Amiel’s Journal very decidedly the preference +over the letters of an old friend of mine, Obermann. The quotations made +from Amiel’s Journal by his critics failed, I say, to enable me quite to +understand this high praise. But I remember the time when a new +publication by George Sand or by Sainte-Beuve was an event bringing to +me a shock of pleasure, and a French book capable of renewing that +sensation is seldom produced now. If Amiel’s Journal was of the high +quality alleged, what a pleasure to make acquaintance with it, what a +loss to miss it! In spite, therefore, of the unfitness of old age to +bear atonic influences, I at last read Amiel’s Journal,—read it +carefully through. Tonic it is not; but it is to be read with profit, +and shows, moreover, powers of great force and value, though not quite, +I am inclined to think, in the exact line which his critics with one +consent indicate. + +In speaking of Amiel at present, after so much has been written about +him, I may assume that the main outlines of his life are known to my +readers: that they know him to have been born in 1821 and to have died +in 1881, to have passed the three or four best years of his youth at the +University of Berlin, and the remainder of his life mostly at Geneva, as +a professor, first of æsthetics, afterwards of philosophy. They know +that his publications and lectures, during his lifetime, disappointed +his friends, who expected much from his acquirements, talents, and +vivacity; and that his fame rests upon two volumes of extracts from many +thousand pages of a private journal, _Journal Intime_, extending over +more than thirty years, from 1848 to 1881, which he left behind him at +his death. This Journal explains his sterility; and displays in +explaining it, say his critics, such sincerity, with such gifts of +expression and eloquence, of profound analysis and speculative +intuition, as to make it most surely “one of those books which will not +die.” + +The sincerity is unquestionable. As to the gifts of eloquence and +expression, what are we to say? M. Scherer speaks of an “ever new +eloquence” pouring itself in the pages of the Journal: M. Paul Bourget, +of “marvelous pages” where the feeling for nature finds an expression +worthy of Shelley or Wordsworth: Mrs. Humphry Ward, of “magic of style,” +of “glow and splendor of expression,” of the “poet and artist” who +fascinates us in Amiel’s prose. I cannot quite agree. Obermann has been +mentioned: it seems to me that we have only to place a passage from +Sénancour beside a passage from Amiel, to perceive the difference +between a feeling for nature which gives magic to style and one which +does not. Here and throughout I am to use as far as possible Mrs. +Humphry Ward’s translation, at once spirited and faithful, of Amiel’s +Journal. I will take a passage where Amiel has evidently some +reminiscence of Sénancour (whose work he knew well), is inspired by +Sénancour—a passage which has been extolled by M. Paul Bourget:— + + “Shall I ever enjoy again those marvelous reveries of past days,—as, + for instance, once, when I was still quite a youth in the early dawn + sitting amongst the ruins of the castle of Faucigny; another time in + the mountains above Lancy, under the mid-day sun, lying under a tree + and visited by three butterflies; and again another night on the sandy + shore of the North Sea, stretched full length upon the beach, my eyes + wandering over the Milky Way? Will they ever return to me, those + grandiose, immortal, cosmogonic dreams in which one seems to carry the + world in one’s breast, to touch the stars, to possess the infinite? + Divine moments, hours of ecstasy, when thought flies from world to + world, penetrates the great enigma, breathes with a respiration large, + tranquil, and profound like that of the ocean, and hovers serene and + boundless like the blue heaven! Visits from the Muse Urania, who + traces around the foreheads of those she loves the phosphorescent + nimbus of contemplative power, and who pours into their hearts the + tranquil intoxication, if not the authority of genius,—moments of + irresistible intuition in which a man feels himself great as the + universe and calm like God!... What hours, what memories!” + +And now for Obermann’s turn, Obermann by the Lake of Bienne:— + + “My path lay beside the green waters of the Thiele. Feeling inclined + to muse, and finding the night so warm that there was no hardship in + being all night out of doors, I took the road to Saint Blaise. I + descended a steep bank, and got upon the shore of the lake where its + ripple came up and expired. The air was calm; every one was at rest; I + remained there for hours. Towards morning the moon shed over the earth + and waters the ineffable melancholy of her last gleams. Nature seems + unspeakably grand, when, plunged in a long reverie, one hears the + rippling of the waters upon a solitary strand, in the calm of a night + still enkindled and luminous with the setting moon. + + “Sensibility beyond utterance, charm and torment of our vain years; + vast consciousness of a nature everywhere greater than we are, and + everywhere impenetrable; all-embracing passion, ripened wisdom, + delicious self-abandonment—everything that a mortal heart can contain + of life-weariness and yearning, I felt it all, I experienced it all, + in this memorable night. I have made a grave step towards the age of + decline, I have swallowed up ten years of life at once. Happy the + simple, whose heart is always young!” + +No translation can render adequately the cadence of diction, the “dying +fall” of reveries like those of Sénancour or Rousseau. But even in a +translation we must surely perceive that the magic of style is with +Sénancour’s feeling for nature, not Amiel’s; and in the original this is +far more manifest still. + +Magic of style is creative: its possessor himself creates, and he +inspires and enables his reader in some sort to create after him. And +creation gives the sense of life and joy; hence its extraordinary value. +But eloquence may exist without magic of style, and this eloquence, +accompanying thoughts of rare worth and depth, may heighten their effect +greatly. And M. Scherer says that Amiel’s speculative philosophy is “on +a far other scale of vastness” than Sénancour’s, and therefore he gives +the preference to the eloquence of Amiel, which clothes and conveys this +vaster philosophy. Amiel was no doubt greatly Sénancour’s superior in +culture and instruction generally; in philosophical reading and what is +called philosophical thought he was immensely his superior. My sense for +philosophy, I know, is as far from satisfying Mr. Frederic Harrison as +my sense for Hugo’s poetry is from satisfying Mr. Swinburne. But I am +too old to change and too hardened to hide what I think; and when I am +presented with philosophical speculations and told that they are “on a +high scale of vastness,” I persist in looking closely at them and in +honestly asking myself what I find to be their positive value. And we +get from Amiel’s powers of “speculative intuition” things like this— + + “Created spirits in the accomplishment of their destinies tend, so to + speak, to form constellations and milky ways within the empyrean of + the divinity; in becoming gods, they surround the throne of the + sovereign with a sparkling court.” + +Or this— + + “Is not mind the universal virtuality, the universe latent? If so, its + zero would be the germ of the infinite, which is expressed + mathematically by the double zero (00).” + +Or, to let our philosopher develop himself at more length, let us take +this return to the zero, which Mrs. Humphry Ward prefers here to render +by _nothingness_:— + + “This psychological reinvolution is an anticipation of death; it + represents the life beyond the grave, the return to Scheol, the soul + fading into the world of ghosts or descending into the region of _Die + Mütter_; it implies the simplification of the individual who, allowing + all the accidents of personality to evaporate, exists henceforward + only in the invisible state, the state of point, of potentiality, of + pregnant nothingness. Is not this the true definition of mind? is not + mind, dissociated from space and time, just this? Its development, + past or future, is contained in it just as a curve is contained in its + algebraical formula. This nothing is an all. This _punctum_ without + dimensions is a _punctum saliens_.” + +French critics throw up their hands in dismay at the violence which the +Germanized Amiel, propounding his speculative philosophy, often does to +the French language. My objection is rather that such speculative +philosophy, as that of which I have been quoting specimens has no value, +is perfectly futile. And Amiel’s Journal contains far too much of it. + +What is futile we may throw aside; but when Amiel tells us of his +“protean nature essentially metamorphosable, polarizable, and virtual,” +when he tells us of his longing for “totality,” we must listen, although +these phrases may in France, as M. Paul Bourget says, “raise a shudder +in a humanist trained on Livy and Pascal.” But these phrases stood for +ideas which did practically rule, in a great degree, Amiel’s life, which +he often develops not only with great subtlety, but also with force, +clearness, and eloquence, making it both easy and interesting to us to +follow him. But still, when we have the ideas present before us, I shall +ask, what is their value, what does Amiel obtain in them for the service +of either himself or other people? + +Let us take first what, adopting his own phrase, we may call his +“bedazzlement with the infinitê,” his thirst for “totality.” _Omnis +determinatio est negatio._ Amiel has the gift and the bent for making +his soul “the capacity for all form, not _a_ soul but _the_ soul.” He +finds it easier and more natural “to be _man_ than _a_ man.” His +permanent instinct is to be “a subtle and fugitive spirit which no base +can absorb or fix entirely.” It costs him an effort to affirm his own +personality: “the infinite draws me to it, the _Henosis_ of Plotinus +intoxicates me like a philter.” + +It intoxicates him until the thought of absorption and extinction, the +_Nirvâna_ of Buddhism, becomes his thought of refuge:— + + “The individual life is a nothing ignorant of itself, and as soon as + this nothing knows itself, individual life is abolished in principle. + For as soon as the illusion vanishes, Nothingness resumes its eternal + sway, the suffering of life is over, error has disappeared, time and + form have for this enfranchised individuality ceased to be; the + colored air-bubble has burst in the infinite space, and the misery of + thought has sunk to rest in the changeless repose of all—embracing + Nothing.” + +With this bedazement with the infinite and this drift towards Buddhism +comes the impatience with all production, with even poetry and art +themselves, because of their necessary limits and imperfection:— + + “Composition demands a concentration, decision, and pliancy which I no + longer possess. I cannot fuse together materials and ideas. If we are + to give anything a form we must, so to speak, be the tyrants of it. We + must treat our subject brutally and not be always trembling lest we + should be doing it a wrong. We must be able to transmute and absorb it + into our own substance. This sort of confident effrontery is beyond + me; my whole nature tends to that impersonality which respects and + subordinates itself to the object; it is love of truth which holds me + back from concluding and deciding.” + +The desire for the all, the impatience with what is partial and limited, +the fascination of the infinite, are the topics of page after page in +the Journal. It is a prosaic mind which has never been in contact with +ideas of this sort, never felt their charm. They lend themselves well to +poetry, but what are we to say of their value as ideas to be lived with, +dilated on, made the governing ideas of life? Except for use in passing, +and with the power to dismiss them again, they are unprofitable. +Shelley’s + + “Life like a dome of many-colored glass + Stains the white radiance of eternity + Until death tramples it to fragments” + +has value as a splendid image nobly introduced in a beautiful and +impassioned poem. But Amiel’s “colored air-bubble,” as a positive piece +of “speculative intuition,” has no value whatever. Nay, the thoughts +which have positive truth and value, the thoughts to be lived with and +dwelt upon, the thoughts which are a real acquisition for our minds, are +precisely thoughts which counteract the “vague aspiration and +indeterminate desire” possessing Amiel and filling his Journal: they are +thoughts insisting on the need of limit, the feasibility of performance. +Goethe says admirably— + + “Wer grosses will muss sich zusammenraffen: + In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister.” + +“He who will do great things must pull himself together: it is in +working within limits that the master comes out.” Buffon says not less +admirably— + + “Tout sujet est un; et quelque vaste qu’il soit, il peut être renfermé + dans un seul discours.” + +“Every subject is one; and however vast it may be is capable of being +contained in a single discourse.” The ideas to live with, the ideas of +sterling value to us, are, I repeat, ideas of this kind: ideas staunchly +counteracting and reducing the power of the infinite and indeterminate, +not paralyzing us with it. + +And indeed we have not to go beyond Amiel himself for proof of this. +Amiel was paralyzed by living in these ideas of “vague aspiration and +indeterminate desire,” of “confounding his personal life in the general +life,” by feeding on these ideas, treating them as august and precious, +and filling hundreds of pages of Journal with them. He was paralyzed by +it, he became impotent and miserable. And he knew it, and tells us of it +himself with a power of analysis and with a sad eloquence which to me +are much more interesting and valuable than his philosophy of Maïa and +the Great Wheel. “By your natural tendency,” he says to himself, “you +arrive at disgust with life, despair, pessimism.” And again: “Melancholy +outlook on all sides. Disgust with myself.” And again: “I cannot deceive +myself as to the fate in store for me: increasing isolation, inward +disappointment, enduring regrets, a melancholy neither to be consoled +nor confessed, a mournful old age, a slow agony, a death in the desert.” +And all this misery by his own fault, his own mistakes. “To live is to +conquer incessantly; one must have the courage to be happy. I turn in a +vicious circle; I have never had clear sight of my true vocation.” + +I cannot, therefore, fall in with that particular line of admiration +which critics, praising Amiel’s Journal, have commonly followed. I +cannot join in celebrating his prodigies of speculative intuition, the +glow and splendor of his beatific vision of absolute knowledge, the +marvelous pages in which his deep and vast philosophic thought is laid +bare, the secret of his sublime malady is expressed. I hesitate to admit +that all this part of the Journal has even a very profound pyschological +interest: its interest is rather pathological. In reading it we are not +so much pursuing a study of psychology as a study of mental pathology. + +But the Journal reveals a side in Amiel which his critics, so far as I +have seen, have hardly noticed, a side of real power, originality, and +value. He says himself that he never had clear sight of his true +vocation: well, his true vocation, it seems to me, was that of a +literary critic. Here he is admirable: M. Scherer was a true friend when +he offered to introduce him to an editor, and suggested an article on +Uhland. There is hardly a literary criticism in these two volumes which +is not masterly, and which does not make one desire more of the same +kind. And not Amiel’s literary criticism only, but his criticism of +society, politics, national character, religion, is in general well +informed, just, and penetrating in an eminent degree. Any one single +page of this criticism is worth, in my opinion, a hundred of Amiel’s +pages about the Infinite Illusion and the Great Wheel. It is to this +side in Amiel that I desire now to draw attention. I would have +abstained from writing about him if I had only to disparage and to find +fault, only to say that he had been overpraised, and that his dealings +with Maïa seemed to me profitable neither for himself nor for others. + +Let me first take Amiel as a critic of literature, and of the literature +which he naturally knew best, French literature. Hear him as a critic on +the best of critics, Sainte-Beuve, of whose death (1869) he had just +heard:— + + “The fact is, Sainte-Beuve leaves a greater void behind him than + either Béranger or Lamartine; their greatness was already distant, + historical; he was still helping us to think. The true critic supplies + all the world with a basis. He represents the public judgment, that is + to say, the public reason, the touchstone, the scales, the crucible, + which tests the value of each man and the merit of each work. + Infallibility of judgment is perhaps rarer than anything else, so fine + a balance of qualities does it demand—qualities both natural and + acquired, qualities of both mind and heart. What years of labor, what + study and comparison, are needed to bring the critical judgment to + maturity! Like Plato’s sage, it is only at fifty that the critic is + risen to the true height of his literary priesthood, or, to put it + less pompously, of his social function. Not till then has he compassed + all modes of being, and made every shade of appreciation his own. And + Saint-Beuve joined to this infinitely refined culture a prodigious + memory and an incredible multitude of facts and anecdotes stored up + for the service of his thought.” + +The criticism is so sound, so admirably put, and so charming, that one +wishes Sainte-Beuve could have read it himself. + +Try Amiel next on the touchstone afforded by that “half genius, half +charlatan,” Victor Hugo:— + + “I have been again looking through Victor Hugo’s _Paris_ (1867). For + ten years event after event has given the lie to the prophet, but the + confidence of the prophet in his own imaginings is not therefore a + whit diminished. Humility and common sense are only fit for + Lilliputians. Victor Hugo superbly ignores everything which he has not + foreseen. He does not know that pride limits the mind, and that a + limitless pride is a littleness of soul. If he could but learn to rank + himself with other men and France with other nations, he would see + things more truly, and would not fall into his insane exaggerations, + his extravagant oracles. But proportion and justness his chords will + never know. He is vowed to the Titanic; his gold is always mixed with + lead, his insight with childishness, his reason with madness. He + cannot be simple; like the blaze of a house on fire, his light is + blinding. In short, he astonishes but provokes, he stirs but annoys. + His note is always half or two-thirds false, and that is why he + perpetually makes us feel uncomfortable. The great poet in him cannot + get clear of the charlatan. A few pricks of Voltaire’s irony would + have made the inflation of this genius collapse, and rendered him + stronger by rendering him saner. It is a public misfortune that the + most powerful poet of France should not have better understood his + _rôle_, and that, unlike the Hebrew prophets who chastised because + they loved, he flatters his fellow-citizens from system and from + pride. France is the world, Paris is France, Hugo is Paris. Bow down + and worship, ye nations!” + +Finally, we will hear Amiel on a consummate and supreme French classic, +as perfect as Hugo is flawed, La Fontaine:— + + “Went through my La Fontaine yesterday, and remarked his omissions.... + He has not an echo of chivalry haunting him. His French history dates + from Louis XIV. His geography extends in reality but a few square + miles, and reaches neither the Rhine nor the Loire, neither the + mountains nor the sea. He never invents his subjects, but indolently + takes them ready-made from elsewhere. But with all this, what an + adorable writer, what a painter, what an observer, what a master of + the comic and the satirical, what a teller of a story! I am never + tired of him, though I know half his fables by heart. In the matter of + vocabulary, turns of expression, tones, idioms, his language is + perhaps the richest of the great period, for it combines skilfully the + archaic with the classical, the Gaulish element with what is French. + Variety, finesse, sly fun, sensibility, rapidity, conciseness, + suavity, grace, gaiety—when necessary nobleness, seriousness, + grandeur—you find everything in our fabulist. And the happy epithets, + and the telling proverbs, and the sketches dashed off and the + unexpected audacities, and the point driven well home! One cannot say + what he has not, so many diverse aptitudes he has. + + “Compare his _Woodcutter and Death_ with Boileau’s, and you can + measure the prodigious difference between the artist and the critic + who wanted to teach him better. La Fontaine brings visibly before you + the poor peasant under the monarchy, Boileau but exhibits a drudge + sweating under his load. The first is a historic witness, the second a + school-versifier. La Fontaine enables you to reconstruct the whole + society of his age; the pleasant old soul from Champagne, with his + animals, turns out to be the one and only Homer of France. + + “His weak side is his epicureanism, with its tinge of grossness. This, + no doubt, was what made Lamartine dislike him. The religious string is + wanting to his lyre, he has nothing which shows him to have known + either Christianity or the high tragedies of the soul. Kind Nature is + his goddess, Horace his prophet, and Montaigne his gospel. In other + words, his horizon is that of the Renascence. This islet of paganism + in the midst of a Catholic society is very curious; the paganism is + perfectly simple and frank.” + +These are but notes, jottings in his Journal and Amiel passed from them +to broodings over the infinite, and personality, and totality. Probably +the literary criticism which he did so well, and for which he shows a +true vocation, gave him nevertheless but little pleasure because he did +it thus fragmentarily, and by fits and starts. To do it thoroughly, to +make his fragments into wholes, to fit them for coming before the +public, composition with its toils and limits was necessary. Toils and +limits composition indeed has; yet all composition is a kind of +creation, creation gives, as I have already said, pleasure, and when +successful and sustained, more than pleasure joy. Amiel, had he tried +the experiment with literary criticism, where lay his true vocation, +would have found it so. Sainte-Beuve, whom he so much admires, would +have been the most miserable of men if his production had been but a +volume or two of middling poems and a journal. But Sainte-Beuve’s motto, +as Amiel himself notices, was that of the Emperor Severus: _Laboremus_. +“Work,” Sainte-Beuve confesses to a friend, “is my sore burden, but it +is also my great resource. I eat my heart out when I am not up to the +neck in work; there you have the secret of the life I lead.” If M. +Scherer’s introduction to the _Revue Germanique_ could but have been +used, if Amiel could but have written the article on Uhland, and +followed it up by plenty of articles more! + +I have quoted largely from Amiel’s literary criticism, because this side +of him has, so far as I have observed, received so little attention and +yet deserves attention so eminently. But his more general criticism, +too, shows, as I have said, the same high qualities as his criticism of +authors and books. I must quote one or two of his aphorisms; _L’esprit +sert bien à tout, mais ne suffit à rien_: “Wits are of use for +everything, sufficient for nothing.” _Une société vit de sa foi et se +développe par la science_: “A society lives on its faith and develops +itself by science.” _L’État liberal est irréalisable avec une religion +antilibérale, et presque irréalisable avec l’absence de religion_: +“Liberal communities are impossible with an anti-liberal religion, and +almost impossible with the absence of religion.” But epigrammatic +sentences of this sort are perhaps not so very difficult to produce, in +French at any rate. Let us take Amiel when he has room and verge enough +to show what he can really say which is important about society, +religion, national life and character. We have seen what an influence +his years passed in Germany had upon him: we have seen how severely he +judges Victor Hugo’s faults; the faults of the French nation at large he +judges with a like severity. But what a fine and just perception does +the following passage show of the deficiencies of Germany, the advantage +which the western nations have in their more finished civilization:— + + “It is in the novel that the average vulgarity of German society, and + its inferiority to the societies of France and England are most + clearly visible. The notion of a thing’s _jarring on the taste_ is + wanting to German æsthetics. Their elegance knows nothing of grace; + they have no sense of the enormous distance between distinction + (gentlemanly, ladylike) and their stiff _Vornehmlichkeit_. Their + imagination lacks style, training, education and knowledge of the + world; it is stamped with an ill-bred air even in its Sunday clothes. + The race is practical and intelligent, but common and ill-mannered. + Ease, amiability, manners, wit, animation, dignity, charm, are + qualities which belong to others. + + “Will that inner freedom of soul, that profound harmony of all the + faculties, which I have so often observed among the best Germans, ever + come to the surface? Will the conquerors of to-day ever civilize their + forms of life? It is by their future novels that we shall be able to + judge. As soon as the German novel can give us quite good society, the + Germans will be in the raw stage no longer.” + +And this pupil of Berlin, this devourer of German books, this victim, +say the French critics, to the contagion of German style, after three +hours, one day, of a _Geschichte der Æsthetik in Deutschland_, breaks +out:— + + “Learning and even thought are not everything. A little _esprit_, + point, vivacity, imagination, grace, would do no harm. Do these + pedantic books leave a single image or sentence, a single striking or + new fact, in the memory when one lays them down! No, nothing but + fatigue and confusion. Oh, for clearness, terseness, brevity! Diderot, + Voltaire, or even Galiani! A short article by Sainte-Beuve, Scherer, + Renan, Victor Cherbuliez, gives one more pleasure, and makes one + ponder and reflect more than a thousand of these German pages crammed + to the margin and showing the work itself rather than its result. The + Germans heap the faggots for the pile, the French bring the fire. + Spare me your lucubrations, give me facts or ideas. Keep your vats, + your must, your dregs, to yourselves; I want wine fully made, wine + which will sparkle in the glass, and kindle my spirits instead of + oppressing them.” + +Amiel may have been led away _deteriora sequi_: he may have Germanized +until he has become capable of the verb _dépersonnaliser_ and the noun +_réimplication_; but after all, his heart is in the right place: _videt +meliora probatque_. He remains at bottom the man who said: _Le livre +serait mon ambition._ He adds, to be sure, that it would be _son +ambition_, “if ambition were not vanity, and vanity of vanities.” + +Yet this disenchanted brooder, “full of a tranquil disgust at the +futility of our ambitions, the void of our existence,” bedazzled with +the infinite, can observe the world and society with consummate keenness +and shrewdness, and at the same time with a delicacy which to the man of +the world is in general wanting. Is it possible to analyze _le grand +monde_, high society, as the Old World knows it and America knows it +not, more acutely than Amiel does in what follows?— + + “In society people are expected to behave as if they lived on ambrosia + and concerned themselves with no interests but such as are noble. + Care, need, passion, do not exist. All realism is suppressed as + brutal. In a word, what is called _le grand monde_ gives itself for + the moment the flattering illusion that it is moving in an ethereal + atmosphere and breathing the air of the gods. For this reason all + vehemence, any cry of nature, all real suffering, all heedless + familiarity, any genuine sign of passion, are startling and + distasteful in this delicate _milieu_, and at once destroy the + collective work, the cloud-palace, the imposing architectural creation + raised by common consent. It is like the shrill cock-crow which breaks + the spell of all enchantments, and puts the fairies to flight. These + select gatherings produce without intending it a sort of concert for + eye and ear, an improvised work of art. By the instinctive + collaboration of everybody concerned, wit and taste hold festival, and + the associations of reality are exchanged for the associations of + imagination. So understood, society is a form of poetry; the + cultivated classes deliberately recompose the idyll of the past, and + the buried world of Astræa. Paradox or not, I believe that these + fugitive attempts to reconstruct a dream, whose only end is beauty, + represent confused reminiscences of an age of gold haunting the human + heart; or rather, aspirations towards a harmony of things which + every-day reality denies to us, and of which art alone gives us a + glimpse.” + +I remember reading in an American newspaper a solemn letter by an +excellent republican, asking what were a shopman’s or a laborer’s +feelings when he walked through Eaton or Chatsworth. Amiel will tell +him: they are “reminiscences of an age of gold haunting the human heart, +aspirations towards a harmony of things which every-day reality denies +to us.” I appeal to my friend the author of _Triumphant Democracy_ +himself, to say whether these are to be had in walking through +Pittsburg. + +Indeed it is by contrast with American life that _Nirvâna_ appears to +Amiel so desirable:— + + “For the Americans, life means devouring, incessant activity. They + must win gold, predominance, power; they must crush rivals, subdue + nature. They have their heart set on the means, and never for an + instant think of the end. They confound being with individual being, + and the expansion of self with happiness. This means that they do not + live by the soul, that they ignore the immutable and eternal, bustle + at the circumference of their existence because they cannot penetrate + to its center. They are restless, eager, positive, because they are + superficial. To what end all this stir, noise, greed, struggle? It is + all a mere being stunned and deafened!” + +Space is failing me, but I must yet find room for a less indirect +criticism of democracy than the foregoing remarks on American life:— + + “_Each function to the most worthy_: this maxim is the professed rule + of all constitutions, and serves to test them. Democracy is not + forbidden to apply it; but Democracy rarely does apply it, because she + holds, for example, that the most worthy man is the man who pleases + her, whereas he who pleases her is not always the most worthy; and + because she supposes that reason guides the masses, whereas in reality + they are most commonly led by passion. And in the end every falsehood + has to be expiated, for truth always takes its revenge.” + +What publicists and politicians have to learn is, that “the ultimate +ground upon which every civilization rests is the average morality of +the masses and a sufficient amount of practical righteousness.” But +where does duty find its inspiration and sanctions? In religion. And +what does Amiel think of the traditional religion of Christendom, the +Christianity of the Churches? He tells us repeatedly; but a month or two +before his death, with death in full view, he tells us with peculiar +impressiveness:— + + “The whole Semitic dramaturgy has come to seem to me a work of the + imagination. The apostolic documents have changed in value and meaning + to my eyes. The distinction between belief and truth has grown clearer + and clearer to me. Religious psychology has become a simple + phenomenon, and has lost its fixed and absolute value. The apologetics + of Pascal, Leibnitz, Secrétan, appear to me no more convincing than + those of the Middle Age, for they assume that which is in question—a + revealed doctrine, a definite and unchangeable Christianity.” + +Is it possible, he asks, to receive at this day the common doctrine of a +Divine Providence directing all the circumstances of our life, and +consequently inflicting upon us our miseries as means of education? + + “Is this heroic faith compatible with our actual knowledge of the laws + of nature? Hardly. But what this faith makes objective we may take + subjectively. The moral being may moralize his suffering in turning + the natural fact to account for the education of his inner man. What + he cannot change he calls the will of God, and to will what God wills + brings him peace.” + +But can a religion, Amiel asks again, without miracles, without +unverifiable mystery, be efficacious, have influence with the many? And +again he answers:— + + “Pious fiction is still fiction. Truth has superior rights. The world + must adapt itself to truth, not truth to the world. Copernicus upset + the astronomy of the Middle Age; so much the worse for the astronomy. + The Everlasting Gospel is revolutionizing the Churches; what does it + matter?” + +This is water to our mill, as the Germans say, indeed. But I have come +even thus late in the day to speak of Amiel, not because I found him +supplying water for any particular mill, either mine or any other, but +because it seemed to me that by a whole important side he was eminently +worth knowing, and that to this side of him the public, here in England +at any rate, had not had its attention sufficiently drawn. If in the +seventeen thousand pages of the Journal there are many pages still +unpublished in which Amiel exercises his true vocation of critic, of +literary critic more especially, let his friends give them to us, let M. +Scherer introduce them to us, let Mrs. Humphry Ward translate them for +us. But _sat patriæ Priamoque datum_: Maïa has had her full share of +space already: I will not ask for a word more about the infinite +illusion, or the double zero, or the Great Wheel. + + THE END. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + Transcriber’s Note + +The Roman number of the sixth essay of Series One at p. 143 (_Pagan and +Mediæval Religious Sentiment_) was missing, and has been added here. + +Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, +and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the +original. + + x.4 what is our puny war[e]fare against the Removed. + Philistines + 8.19 But the prescriptions of[ of[ reason Repeated. + 41.16 perceive [e/c]learly what we have to amend Replaced. + 52.30 what a pi[e]ce of extravagance Inserted. + 57.36 behoves the Fren[e/c]h Replaced. + 75.21 the laughing whistle of the woodpecker[./,] Replaced. + 79.22 Uranus of Keats’s p[e/o]em Replaced. + 85.3 with some ex[rt/tr]acts from it Transposed. + 85.33 to attract her so often?[”/’] Replaced. + 87.31 In the times whe[u/n] I kept my night-watches Inverted. + 87.32 I have sometimes believed tha[s/t] I was Replaced. + 94.11 whom Christendom knows i[n/s] Saint Theresa Replaced. + repulsed + 97.8 s[n/h]e joined a great force Replaced. + 97.9 this force of charac[s/t]er, Replaced. + 97.19 of her re[i/l]igious life. Replaced. + 99.28 to escape from it.[”] Added. + 103.28 but it melted in our[ our] hands Repeated. + 108.36 [‘]Change your brains Added. + 108.39 lose, or seemed to his sister to [c]lose Removed. + 112.10 the world of sp[i]rits Inserted. + 112.25 prayer has[ has] been such a power to me Repeated. + 119.34 It was a life and death battle with Replaced. + Philistinism[,/.] + 125.22 ‘And how shall I recompense thy fidelity?[”/’] Replaced. + 137.25 his pack and] and] his cares Repeated. + 149.39 _Praxinoe[.]_ Added. + 162.2 It really suc[e/c]eeds Replaced. + 163.14 Of all this uni[n]telligible world Inserted. + 178.32 to the audi[a/e]nce Replaced. + 179.1 tell us what it is like.[”/’] Replaced. + 179.23 th[r]ow up their arms Inserted. + 203.23 passed by them on th[ǝ/e] Abbé Delille Turned. + 212.4 is the soul of all re[ /l]igions. Restored. + 214.35 to put nature in bonds.[”] Added. + 229.13 show their governments that[ that] they will Redundant. + do well + 234.31 was[ was] known as “mad Shelley” Repeated. + 237.7 that mira[a]cles are possible. Removed. + 240.20 the phe[e]nomena of nature Removed. + 259.24 publication of[ of] the _Centaur_ Repeated. + 269.22 to[ to] be strangely overpressed Repeated. + 299.13 their mission and destiny their[ their] poetry Redundant. + 299.17 in the forest ranged.[’/”] Replaced. + 308.23 some d[o/a]nger to the ideal Replaced. + 313.4 have the power of[ of] verse Removed. + 316.5 “When Johnson was publishing his Life of Replaced. + Gray[./,]” + 322.36 could have been from his verses.[”] Added. + 325.6 I e[ʌ/v]en tremble at an east wind. Inverted. + 329.24 quite false[.] Added. + 330.9 Αἰακίδᾳ παρὰ Πηλ[εῖ] Added. + 330.23 “[t]he style he aimed at Added. + 332.13 I ha[y/v]e a sensation Replaced. + 333.20 and creamy breast.[’] Added. + 334.32 between Haydon [u/a]nd Hunt. Replaced. + 337.19 she has li[n]ked him for his own sake Removed. + 338.35 ob[ej/je]cts of a sensuous Transposed. + 341.31 he [h]is perfect. Removed. + 351.6 the best poems of Word[s]worth Inserted. + 358.7 [“]O for the coming of that glorious time Added. + 367.11 out of the [_Æ/Œ_]_dipus_ Replaced. + 370.14 correct use and consumma[ma]te management of + words, + 374.3 Here, again, Profess[e/o]r Nichol translates: Replaced. + 374.38 Kühnheit, Keckheit und Grandiosit[a/ä]t Replaced. + 375.33 when I first used this express[s/i]on Replaced. + 378.23 “In la sua volontade e nostra pace;[”] Added. + 382.33 which B[ry/yr]on poured forth Transposed. + 387.39 in which Professor Dowd[o/e]n has performed Replaced. + 388.19 one’s former impress[s]ion of him Removed. + 390.37 that [“]their proceedings would become Added. + 393.18 where [b/h]e threw himself Replaced. + 393.28 and wears green spectacles!”[;] Added. + 402.10 was perfectl[y] innocent. + 418.36 our admiration and sympathy[,/.] Replaced. + 418.28 How ugly those flowers are.[”/’] Replaced. + 420.15 that it _petrifies feeling_[,/.] Replaced. + 422.9 [e/c]ried Levine, Replaced. + 426.19 what am I to teach?[”/’] Added. + 431.33 in abandoning the work [a/o]f the poet Replaced. + 436.39 in its algebraical fo[r]mula. Inserted. + 437.1 French critics throw [n/u]p their hands Inverted. + 442.5 L[a] Fontaine Restored. + 445.3 Victor Cherbuli[o/e]z Replaced. + 447.20 Religious p[ys/sy]chology Transposed. + 447.21 The apologetics of Pascal[,] Added. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77244 *** |